I’ve seen Casablanca several times and have taught it in courses like Introduction to Film and Cinema History. But I’ve never viewed it on the big screen, in 35mm. Arriving about 30 minutes before the film began, the husband and I opted for front-row balcony seats. As I’ve written before, The Michigan Theater’s main floor consists of low-pitch seating, which is aesthetically appropriate for its age (1928) but not always the most conducive for unobstructed viewing. In the balcony, on the front row, we’d have few distractions, i.e., no six-foot-tall people to peek around. Unfortunately, this thinking doesn’t rule out the douchebags who sit behind you, whispering audibly — and incorrectly quoting the famous lines. Idiots.

Still, the experience of seeing Casablanca in a theatre, on a big screen, with an appreciative audience was fantastic. Just fantastic. So many elements of mise-en-scene jumped off the screen in ways I’ve never seen before. It’s almost as though I was watching the film for the first time. In fact, the sheer clarity of the picture is something I wish my students could experience when we watch Casablanca in a few weeks as well as later when we take on Citizen Kane, Rear Window, and Singin’ in the Rain. Although the quality of DVDs today are top notch, it is (as many of us know) nothing like this. Here are a few things I jotted down while I watched:

First, the map/globe featured in Casablanca‘s opening is meticulously defined on the big screen. Unlike the fuzzy shot above (which is how some normally see it), the model globe actually contains nooks and crannies, mountains and rivers. Moreover, the lettering is crisp and legible. In fact, it was this shot, which informed me I was embarking on a very different viewing experience, that prompted me to take notes.

Second, I had no idea Sam’s performance coat was shiny; I’ve always assumed it was white, lit from above by the club’s spotlight. But no, on the big screen, the material is obviously silky, satiny — an extension of Sam’s smooth voice and style.

Third, while I knew the shot was coming, I was taken aback when I first saw Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). Accentuated by the low-key lighting, the bags and circles under Rick’s eyes, which are not nearly as evident in a smaller venue, immediately and vividly suggest his weary attitude toward life, love, and the war. No mistaking it, here’s a guy whose “insides have [definitely] been kicked out.”

Fourth and conversely, the bags, circles, and low-key lighting mostly disappear during Rick’s Paris flashback; weariness evolves into happiness. Still, it’s still kinda weird — whether on a big or small screen — when Bogart smiles.

Fifth, the three-point lighting in such a high quality print just exudes glamor and classical Hollywood style. The other day, one of my students asked, “When will I know that three-point lighting is used? I mean, will it be obvious?” A portion of my response: “It’s usually rather evident in black-and-white pictures like Citizen Kane and Casablanca.” Ah, if only they’d been in Ann Arbor…

Sixth, in that famous scene in which Rick mopes, “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine,” the wine bottle glistens so brightly. An important prop here and one of the only well lit items in the room, the shiny bottle beckons Rick (and the viewer) to it. We understand his wanting or needing those drinks; on the big screen, we understand and see clearly why that wine bottle is placed in the foreground.

Seventh, I noticed how drastically the skin tones of Bogart/Rick and Bergman/Ilsa differ. This is most obvious in the couple’s final kiss in Paris when Ilsa demands, “Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.” On the big screen, Bogart’s tanned, ruddy face/hands against Bergman’s porcelain face/features implies visually what different worlds these two come from.

Eighth, I kid you not; the raindrops on Ilsa’s letter and on Rick’s fedora/trench-coat were so transparent, it seemed as though one could reach out and taste them. On a similar note, would it be too much to ask, Michigan Theater, that you feature Singin’ in the Rain next year?!

Finally, the evening ended with a rousing round of applause after Captain Renault (Claude Rains) delivered the line “Round up the usual suspects.” What fun! And a live organist played the patrons out of the theater with a hearty rendition of “La Marseillaise.”

Yes, Michigan Theater, I think this is indeed the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

From what I can tell, most of my film students — who are required to use Twitter this semester — are turning to the Web to tweet. Since this is where they began their tweeting experience (i.e., signing up, creating a class hashtag search), I suppose it’s only natural that they would return to the Web. However, as I’ve tried to explain to them in previous posts, there are so many easier, more user-friendly ways to check one’s Twitter account. One of those is Tweetdeck.

I’ve played around with most of the popular Twitter clients: Web-based ones like Hootsuite, Brizzly, and CoTweet; browser add-ons such as Echofon and Chromed Bird; and desktop programs like Seesmic, Twhirl, and Sobees. But it’s Tweetdeck to which I keep returning. Here’s why:

Simple and Fast!

According to its website, Tweetdeck is the “simplest and fastest way to experience Twitter.” I can’t disagree.

• Download Tweetdeck (along with Adobe Air) in 30 seconds.
• Open the program and key in your Twitter username and password.
• Three columns are created automatically: All Friends (your home feed), Mentions, and Direct Messages.

You’re ready to tweet. See, simple and fast.

See Lots o’ Searches

For the purpose of class tweeting, students need to follow a course hashtag, e.g., #introfilm, #introfilmDL, #critapp. As a result, they will need to add a fourth column to their Tweetdeck. To do so, they would click on the plus sign in the top left-hand corner, type their course hashtag in the search box, and click search. Done. (NOTE: Unused columns may be deleted easily by clicking on the Twitter icon at the top of the column.)

This multi-column function is of course beneficial for all sorts of other non class-related functions as well. For instance, I have a search set up just for Gene Kelly (yeah, that’s right) and another for the hashtag #smcedu, which represents an organization that meets online once/week to explore the effects of new media on education. Also, when I live-tweet events like the Golden Globes or the Oscars, I create a “list column” for those who live-tweet with me. The possibilities are endless, I’m tellin’ ya.

You Won’t Forgot That Hashtag!

Tweetdeck will automatically include hashtags in a reply. This is a helpful feature for beginning Tweeters who aren’t yet used to including hashtags in their tweets. To activate this feature: Settings > Twitter > Auto include hashtags when replying.

Reply All

Unlike the Web, Tweetdeck allows users to reply to multiple people at one time. For instance, if you’d like to respond to everyone mentioned in the tweet on the right — @JenHughes2009, @rbottogross, and @reliand — you would simply mouse over the avatar/picture, click the star icon > Tweet > Reply All. Again, you cannot do this if you’re tweeting from the Web. Useful feature!

New vs. Old Tweets

When I check tweets from the Web (and several other clients), I’m annoyed that I can’t tell the difference between tweets I’ve read and new ones. There’s no color coding, no darkened horizontal line, nothing that defines the new from the old. But with Tweetdeck, all I need to do is click the trash can (Clear All) icon at the bottom of the column; tweets that I’ve read are now cleared, and the column is ready for new posts. No more confusion!

Facebook Support

Yep, those on Facebook may receive and reply to all their Facebook updates within Tweetdeck; they don’t even have to visit facebook.com anymore if they don’t want to. To add a Facebook account: Settings (wrench at top right-hand corner) > Accounts > Add New Account. (You’ll see here that you can also add additional Twitter accounts.)

Tweetdeck features many other useful functions (e.g., opening videos/pictures within the deck, automatically shrinking URLs, uploading pictures, marking favorites), but it is the above which I think my students would find most helpful. What about you? Do you use a client other than Tweetdeck? Is there another one that you would advise students to try?

The Challenges

Resistance! When I introduced Twitter on the first day of class, I was met with a few eye-rolls and sneers. “Aggh, I hate Twitter!” some griped. “Why can’t we just have conversations on Blackboard’s discussion boards?” others asked. This resistance, I have since discovered, derives from two things: first, the students don’t quite understand the popular microblogging service and what it can do, and second, they are way too attached to Facebook, which they presume is the be-all and end-all of online communication/connections. But, I’m hopeful that this mindset will change over the next few weeks. (Actually, I’m already seeing a shift in attitude, which I’ll address in the next post…)

So How Do I…? Over the past two weeks, I have received copious emails (and tweets) from students asking me how to sign up for Twitter, how to create a hashtag, how to check their tweets, and how many times per week they should tweet. These queries would be fine and dandy had I not explained this information in class several times as well as via multiple emails and step-by-step directions, the latter of which are now housed collectively at Student Resources: Twitter on my website. So should you choose to embark upon this journey, be prepared for a slew of questions even if you’ve (felt that you’ve) explained things thoroughly. Advice: just keep directing the students to those directions and the like; they’ll get it. They will.

Where Am I?! Each one of my classes is assigned a specific hashtag (e.g., #introfilm, #introfilmDL, #critapp), which the students are required to insert somewhere in their tweet and then follow. But there has been a major problem with this function: at least 60% of my students’ tweets are not showing up in their course’s hashtag search. They can see their tweets within their own accounts, and I can see their tweets if the student is included in my student list. But their classmates who view the #critapp search, for example, cannot see them. And that’s no way to tweet.

After a conversation with a Twitter employee, I’ve learned that nothing can be done about this. Keep tweeting, he says; they’ll show up eventually. So that’s what I tell my students: keep on tweeting. In the meantime, however, we have found a workaround. If a student @replies to another AND includes the course hashtag, s/he will appear in the search. I have to say that this has been the most frustrating part of this process so far. But again, I’m hopeful that all will smooth out soon.

Well, those are the major issues we’ve encountered so far. Next time, the rewards of tweeting with 200+ students…

“So Why Did Everybody Love Raymond?“

While I’m grateful to anyone who reads and/or comments on the piece, I’ll be especially glad if my friends over at Cultural Learnings and Judgmental Observer, both of whom have engaged with me in spirited debates over the shows — e.g., Raymond is “a colossal pile of sh*t”; it’s “uninteresting…and not particularly funny” — now understand where I’m coming from. If not, we’re just going to have to change the subject. =)

Every film student — whether in my lecture-based class of 130 or in my Film Noir class of 13 — has the opportunity to earn at least 24 bonus points during the semester if they watch a designated feature-length film. For example, here’s the assignment for this semester’s Intro to Film students:

Extra Credit Opportunities

For anyone who wants to screen in their entirety the following films, extra-credit opportunities will be available at the end of each exam (up to 24 points total). Specifically, students will answer questions about a specific scene or scenes from the assigned film as well as 1-2 questions about the film’s significance to the course content.

NOTE: Students must answer ALL extra-credit questions appropriately to receive credit, which means that they MUST screen the ENTIRE movie; reading a summary of the film will NOT work here.

Exam 1: The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974): sound/sound design
Exam 2: Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944): genre
Exam 3: Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991): gender and film

Each of these films is on a two-hour reserve in the Multimedia section of the UT library (3^rd floor). Reserve info: http://www.utoledo.edu/library/find/reserves.html. Finally, all students have the opportunity to earn bonus points. Please do not approach the instructor at the end of the semester for additional extra-credit opportunities.

Finally, all students have the opportunity to earn bonus points. Please do not approach the instructor at the end of the semester for additional extra-credit opportunities.

Easy enough, right? Watch, take notes, answer questions, earn bonus points. Sadly, out of 120 students, about 10 usually participate. I mean really, who wouldn’t want to watch Thelma and Louise on their own time? What fodder for contemplating onscreen representations of gender! But I digress… Here’s a sample set of questions on Chaplin’s The Gold Rush from my Cinema History class.

You’ll notice that the first couple of questions ask students to discuss the setting, plot, and characters — just general information about the scene depicted. Sometimes students who have read only a summary of the film can halfway answer these questions (incidentally, their favorite go-to site is filmsite.org). The answers aren’t solid, but they’re hard to mark incorrectly.

However, when it comes time for students to respond to the final two questions — which require them to apply to the film what we have learned in class about the style of Chaplin (and Keaton), they often have trouble and cannot not answer. At this point, it is quite clear that the student has not screened the film in its entirety (and has probably not digested the in-class lecture/discussion on American silent comedy). And if they cannot answer all of the questions with some amount of detail and solid examples, they will not, as the directions indicate, receive full credit.

But again, the students know this going in, just as they know that these are the only bonus opportunities that they will get. As a result, at the end of the semester, my Inbox remains clear of emails whose subject lines plead “What Can I Do to Earn Extra Credit?” It is, however, still filled with several that ask “Hey, Grades Posted Yet?” Yeah, I’ve yet to discover a way to avoid those…

1. Pick as many pictures as you want, but make them screen-captures.
2. Pick a theme, any theme.
3. You MUST link to Stephen’s gallery and my post too.
4. Tag [at least] five blogs. \\ For my tags, I’ll go with Amanda at Judgmental Observer, Matt at Faded Requiem, Timothy at Inessentials, Noel and Nick at Monsters of Television, Matt at Submitted for Your Perusal, and Annie at Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style.
   

My contribution represents the thrill I get from watching dance numbers in classical film musicals. The actors/stars dance! They can really dance! And you know how we know this? Long shots (and long takes, for that matter). Consistent, numerous shots that frame the performer’s full body. We see his/her feet, legs, torso, arms, shoulders, neck, and head all working together to get that step just right, to entertain the viewer, to make it look so easy.

As I often explain to my film students, many numbers in contemporary film musicals like Moulin Rouge, Chicago, and Nine avoid long takes, opting instead for fast-cutting, snippets of “dancing” body parts, and rapid camera movements. But this is not dancing; this is cheating. Even a (feisty!) eighty-one-year-old Gene Kelly recognizes (and laments) this:

“MTV, with its quick-cut camera work geared to short attention spans is the modern-day spawn of old-time musical numbers. Film editors have become the choreographers today. Everything is bam!…a tight shot of a shoulder…a leg…half a pirouette…an ass. In my day, editors were simply called cutters. Now a whole musical can succeed or fail based on the editing.”

As Kelly points out, some people chalk up the look and style of current musicals numbers to the modern audiences’ attention span (i.e., they can’t take lengthy takes and boringly framed long shots; they’re used to movement, quick cuts, etc.). Of course, this is nonsense. The problem — well, a problem — is that very few of today’s Hollywood actors/stars know squat about singing and/or dancing; as a result, they cannot successfully execute a number onscreen, at least not in such a way that would merit a 3-minute take framed completely in long shot.

Oh well, at least we can reminisce for a moment about those who knew the craft. To the thrill of the long shot — and those with talent…

Let’s just say that I my excitement was short-lived; within the first 15 minutes, I was simultaneously amused, embarrassed, and bored. Mostly laughing while watching, I tweeted that Kelly’s character, an Italian seeking vengeance on the mobsters who murdered his father, spoke like not like an Italian but an Italian-Pittsburgian (Gene’s from Pittsburgh, PA). The accent’s not great, lemme tell ‘ya, which makes it rather difficult for me to believe that Kelly and his co-star were apparently “so convincing at playing men of Italian descent in this film that audiences were fooled over their true ancestry” (TCM). Oh, surely not. Long story short, I only made it through one hour before stopping it and then deleting it from the DVR for good. My apologies, Gene.

But as a little red-headed orphan sings in one of my favorite childhood musicals (Annie, 1982), “The sun’ll come out tomorrow.” And, boy, did it! Waiting for me on Twitter this morning was the following video, “a dance tribute to Gene Kelly” set to Robert Palmer’s song “Simply Irresistible.” Enjoy, all, and thank your lucky stars that Gene didn’t stay long in the film noir genre.

Btw, if you’re a fan of Gene, feel free to follow us on Twitter at Gene Kelly Fans.

• First, nearly 80% of Americans tell polsters they’re Christian – even though that word may be defined in completely different ways (Roman Catholic, liberal Protestant, Mormon, etc.).
• Second, 44% of Americans practice a religion different from the one they grew up with.
• Third, 65% of us believe that eternal salvation is attainable from many different spiritual paths.
• Fourth, right now, the most successful religions in the U.S. are those which teach that the Bible is the infallible word of God and require their members to adhere to a strict lifestyle.
• Fifth, 81% of Americans say they believe in heaven (2007 poll).

Unsurprisingly, Miller also points out that the U.S.’s outlook on religion has changed drastically “by the rise of virtual spiritual worlds, where people have easy access to religions other than their own.” In fact, many Americans, she concludes, “now feel perfectly comfortable embracing more than one religious tradition at once” (xii).

This last point is especially true, it seems, among the Millennial generation. For example, earlier this year, the Pew Research Center reported that millennials, those currently between the ages of 18 and 29, are less religiously active than any other living generation. Specifically, the study found that

• Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today.
• They are less likely to be affiliated than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations were when they were young.
• One-in-four members of the Millennial generation are unaffiliated with any particular faith.
• They are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X (those born between 1965-1980) were at a comparable point in their life cycle and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults.
• Millennials also attend religious services less often than older Americans today.
• And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.

A LifeWay survey reported similar results when it surveyed a group of Millennials:

• 65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.
• 65% rarely or never attend worship services.
• 67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts.
• 68% did not mention faith, religion or spirituality when asked what was “really important in life.”
• 50% do not attend church at least weekly.
• 36% rarely or never read the Bible.

As someone who is interested in generational studies, I wonder why this shift has taken place. Why don’t Millennials (and many others, of course) want or feel the need to attend church as have their parents and grandparents? A quick scouring of news sites, blogs, and social networks locates several theories.

Technology

As Miller points out in her introduction, unlike their predecessors who attended church for reasons of cultural norms or social conformity, millennials are exposed to a variety of faith perspectives online. They can “tailor-make their own religion,” one religious expert notes. Case in point: “I go to the Internet and when I’m stuck and I’m not sure, and the research is right there, the answers are right there,” one millennial student explains.

The Millennial Way of Thinking/Being

Other religious experts suggest that the “millennial way of thinking” gets in the way of their belief system: “They are absolutely appalled at the conflict and war that competing exclusivist religions can engender. According to millennial logic, they can’t all be right, so they must be all wrong. Political parties are viewed the same way.”

Additionally, some suggest that the millennial way of life (tattoos, tolerance, free[er]thinking) does not gel with most religions. For example, a leader for a Buddhist lay organization reports, “Many youth I speak with feel they are estranged from their church groups because of the way that they live, whether it’s the clothes that they wear, the way they present themselves, the fact that they have tattoos, or even if they are homosexual. Many churches and synagogues do not engage the interest of the youth.”

Another example, this time from a millennial herself: “I had a friend who was considered atheist but she was a very good person and I remember bringing it up to the [church members] and they were just talking about how she’s going to go to hell. It just made me feel it wasn’t right.”

Semantics

Still, one pastor claims that the word religion is the primary problem: “I think their generation is really turned off by the term religion. They see it as a set of rules or something that represents the past.”

Consumer Culture

Then again, others believe our consumer culture and the church’s embracing of said culture (e.g., mega-churches) has turned off millennials who, in general, seek to distance themselves from large institutions. For example, one religious leader explains, “Christianity has become a commodity in our society; one product in a wide range of possibilities for consumers seeking fulfillment in life.” Another points out that “churches are businesses like any other, fraught with hierarchy and prone to the same cliques, power struggles and petty despots” and that most Millennials, it seems, don’t want any part of that.

The Merging of Church and Politics

Finally, some are apparently turned off by the current merging of church and politics. A professor of theology writes that millennials are “sick of the association we commonly make, in our culture, between ‘being religious’ and having a conservative political agenda.”

There are certainly other reasons that millennials — and many people in general — have left, renounced, or redefined religion, Christianity in particular, e.g., the teachings/beliefs of the progressive Christian movement and the Jesus Seminar, the founding of Universal Unitarianism, sex scandals within the Catholic Church, the inexplicableness of September 11, 2001. And there are certainly more traditional reasons: it’s boring, hypocritical, out of touch, too big, judgmental, etc. Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see where the Millennial class will take us. Will they return to the fold like the Prodigal Son/Daughter, or will they maintain their millennial ways of thinking?

** The quotes and information above may be found in/on the following sites” Dallas Morning News: Religion Blog, In Their Shoes: Millennials Talk Religion, Youth Leaving Religion in Droves: ‘Millennials’ Play by Own Rules, and Millennials Increasingly Finding Their Religion Online.

While I don’t really care for The Simpsons, I’m a big fan of incorporating popular culture into the classroom. Ever since I was “forced” to teach rhetoric courses as a graduate student, I have inundated my syllabi with pop culture. For instance, my former writing students and I have covered the ins and outs of

• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• beauty pageants
• movie posters
• The Colbert Report
• Chappelle’s Show
• South Park
• Harry Potter
• Adbusters
• Psycho
• depression-era photography
• Barbie
• Bowling for Columbine
• a plethora of advertisements
• the local and national news
• To Kill a Mockingbird (the film)
• the American western
• the Men’s Movement
• Bringing Down the House, and
• film noir.

Exploring those shows, movies, topics, etc. with students, most of whom had never thought critically about popular culture in their entire lives, was loads of fun (eh, the essay grading, not so much). But I have to admit that one of the most joyful, entertaining, hilarious, and satisfying rhetoric classes I have ever created and taught was on Seinfeld.

So in the spirit of Du Vernay, who so graciously shared with the world her course on The Simpsons, I have posted my Seinfeld course for a similar purpose: so that “people who can’t envision how to effectively use objects of contemporary pop culture to teach the course requirement” will perhaps be inspired to do so. Imagine what fun you and your students would have!

Seinfeld: Sitcom, Game-Changer, A Show about Something

PS. I’d say that roughly 60% of my students had never seen an episode of Seinfeld prior to taking my course, and some of them had never even heard of the show (*gasp*). But that didn’t stop them from wanting to watch, wanting to learn, and ultimately creating phenomenal portfolio projects.

The good. I’ll admit that Six Feet Under garnered multiple nominations and awards for a reason. First, the characters are exceedingly complex. Second, the cinematography is lovingly shot, much “like an independent film” as one contributor to the DVD puts it. Third, the show’s setting and subject matter are indeed unique and often handled realistically.

The bad: OMG, the depression and ennui that ensues after watching 2-3 episodes in a row! Doing the same with Prison Break is fun, exhilarating even; but spending 2-3 hours a night with Nate (Peter Krause) and Brenda (Rachel Griffiths), David (Michael C. Hall) and Keith (Mathew St. Patrick), and Ruth (Frances Conroy) and Claire (Lauren Ambrose) can be torturous, debilitating, and traumatizing (oh, that damn hitchhiking episode!). As a result, I concur with one of my Twitter friends who aptly summarizes my viewing schedule: “Six Feet Under is one of the rare shows very much harmed by DVD viewing.”

In any event, I made it through. All five seasons. You’ll notice from portions of my Twitter stream below that it was touch and go there at times. At one point, I gave up. Mostly, I blame Brenda; but looking back, I’ll admit that Ruth and Nate share some responsibility as well. Nonetheless, after a couple of weeks of vacation from Fisher and Sons (and Diaz), I returned and lived to write this post.

Like most critics who have reviewed Six Feet Under, I agree that the series finale, particularly the last 10 minutes, is skillfully crafted. Moreover, it is especially appropriate when one considers the overall theme(s) of the show: death, mortality, and living life. However, that’s not what stands out to me about Six Feet Under, at least not right now, not while I’m this close to it. Rather, what I take away from the show are its messages about humanity, some reassuring and inspirational but most of them troubling and off-putting. So that’s what I want to consider here, the messages (some silly, some serious) from 5 years or 60 episodes of Six Feet Under. Please note: spoilers ahead…

Message 1. People who inhabit or are raised in a funeral home are damaged, egotistical, and/or repressed, and they are drawn to like people.

• Perpetually mousy, homely, and withdrawn from herself and her family, Ruth Fisher becomes romantically involved with Nikolai who’s involved with a Russian mob, Arthur who substitutes nose-nuzzling for sex, and George who sets up his home in a bomb shelter. Oh, George also undergoes shock therapy and has six ex-wives.
• Seemingly optimistic but ultimately self-absorbed and aimless, Nate Fisher commits himself to equally broken women: Brenda, a narcissistic nymphomaniac; Lisa, a tree-hugging, people-pleasing manipulator; and Maggie, a mourning mother of a dead child. Nate also hooks up randomly with women in bars, doggie daycare centers, and children’s play groups; and he once tried to seduce a (female) rabbi. Chill, Nate, chill.
• The viewer discovers the same with Claire whose ego and indifference about most of humanity nearly gets her killed, ostracized from her family, and out of work; she also engages in semi- long-term relationships with equally disturbed guys like Gabriel, Billy, Russell, and Jimmy.
• And where do I even begin with uber-repressed David and anger-infused Keith? Perhaps I’ll just save them for Message 2.

Message 2. All gay men are promiscuous and lack commitment.

Six Feet Under was nominated for and won several GLAAD awards, presumably for its frank gay and lesbian sex scenes, David’s reluctance to come out, and David and Keith’s struggle to adopt children. For those representations, the series should be commended and rewarded. But what does the show say about the sexual behavior and sense of commitment of gay men? Virtually every homosexual character on the show, even when in a committed relationship with another, fools around with other men (and some women — I’m talking to you, Keith and Celeste!). Furthermore, he almost always engages in impulsive, unsafe, and unrewarding sex (prostitute in Vegas, plumber who fixed the Fisher’s “blood overflow” problem, paintball guy). Unfortunately, I’m not sure that these images, which appear consistently over the series, are as praiseworthy as the ones for which GLAAD presumably awarded the show.

Message 3. Spirits of the dead linger in this life and speak to us in various ways.

Depending on the episode, this is presented both creepily (disfigured cadavers, Lisa dressed as a flower) and reassuringly (most of Nathaniel’s appearances, Gabe with his little brother in “heaven”).

Message 4. If you or your parents are psychologists, you’re probably destined for a life of confusion, drugs, unfulfilled romantic relationships, and potential incest.

Cases in point: Brenda, Billy, Margaret, and Bernard Chenowith.

Message 5. ALL college students smoke pot, do cocaine, and experiment with their (and others’) sexuality.

Every college (and high-school) student portrayed in Six Feet Under tried most of the above, e.g., Claire, Gabriel, Parker, Russell, Edie, Anita, Jimmy. Even some flashbacks include a young Nate and David doing the same with their friends. Is NO teenager or college student immune to drugs and alcohol, not to mention an immense amount of self-loathing?

Message 6. Patriarchs are unnecessary and replaceable.

As many scholars have pointed out, Disney has never had a problem killing off or omitting mothers (e.g., Bambi, Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty). However, in Six Feet Under, many fathers are rubbed out, e.g., Nathaniel, Nate, Bernard Chenowith, Hoyt (Lisa’s brother-in-law/lover). I’m honestly not sure why this is the case. Perhaps the writers are instilling underlying messages about the futility of patriarchy? Or that widows can fare better in this life than widowers? Then again, the women left behind aren’t all that stable themselves. If you have any thoughts here, please comment. =)

Message 7. Enlightened, earthy, liberal-minded, hippie-ish do-gooders fare no better than anyone else in this world.

See, for example, Lisa Kimmell Fisher (Lili Taylor) and Sarah, Ruth’s sister (Patricia Clarkson). Can I just say quickly here that I love Sarah’s friend, Bettina (Kathy Bates)? Fun fact: Kathy Bates directed five episodes.

Message 8. One’s religion may be essential for planning a funeral service, but it’s immaterial otherwise.

Most of the funeral services depicted in Six Feet Under are grounded in religion (priests, monks, rabbis, crosses, etc. are featured), but rarely are the tenets or rituals of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. portrayed as calming or positive. In fact, one of the most moving episodes of the series opts for a full-out staged opera in lieu of a traditional religious ceremony (“Nobody Sleeps“). Ultimately, although the Fisher family says grace before dinner and Nate attends a couple of Quaker services — the latter of which are depicted as weird and pointless primarily through Brenda’s perspective (above) — atheist and agnostic beliefs hold much more weight in Six Feet Under, especially outside the service room of Fisher and Sons.

Message 9. Death is immanent, unexpected, and often unexplained.

To me, this is Six Feet Under‘s greatest gift to the viewer. In an age as well as a medium that privileges life, youth, invincibility, and a complete disregard for death, the show’s constant emphasis on mortality is provocative and, dare I say, refreshing. Sociologists Avi Shoshana and Elly Teman have argued that Six Feet Under even goes so far as to evoke “the idea that the living can be more lifeless than the physically deceased and that the departed can be livelier than the living” (560). In other words, these life/death boundaries, usually so disparate in our society, become exceedingly blurred throughout the show’s five seasons. Even if one disagrees with this theory, it’s hard to refute Shoshana’s and Teman’s initial summary of the show: “It hurls death provocatively into the viewer’s face, each episode consciously serving as a ‘memento mori’ for its audience.” Yes, it does; and, as in life, Six Feet Under rarely offers an explanation for the many losses represented. Oddly enough, that is real and consoling.

Finally, before anyone makes comments like these about my interpretation of the show’s messages – But David and Keith stay together until one of them dies! But wait, Brenda remarries and lives happily with her children and spouse! Yeah, but Claire finally gets her head on straight and settles down! — I understand that the series finale reveals the main characters living long, loving, committed, and fulfilling lives. Still, I wonder if one flashforward in the last 10 minutes of one episode can completely negate the many other rather depressing messages put forth in the previous 3,600 minutes of 60 episodes? Perhaps it does once the viewer is farther removed from the series than I?

Here’s a taste of my latest thoughts, this time on Glee and why the first season feels so out of whack:

Before I explain why Fox’s musical comedy-drama Glee often feels uneven, I’d like to point out what the show gets right. Principally, Glee’s creator, Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck), has adopted the most suitable musical subgenre for his project: the show musical. Of the subgenres — fairy tale, folk, and show — the show musical, whose numbers typically perform a purpose (e.g., auditions, rehearsals, performances), best caters to Murphy’s objective that the cast doesn’t “suddenly burst into song.” When the characters sing, Murphy claims, they will do so only when they are on stage practicing or performing, in the rehearsal classroom, or in a fantasy state (i.e., a performance in their head). Limiting the numbers to these situations, he believes, will make Glee “more accessible to people.”

You may read the entire column on Flow TV. Thanks!

1. Teach according to your personality.
2. Hand out complete syllabi and course instructions the first day.
3. Don’t take attendance.
4. Give students lots of options for major assignments and exams.
5. Get out of the way.

While all of these suggestions are valuable and ones to which I generally subscribe, #3 in particular stuck with me: don’t take attendance.

Ever since I began teaching in 1998, I’ve taken roll. I did it when it was easy, in small classes of 15 students, and I did it when it was more difficult, in large lecture-based classes of 150 or more. I’ve called names, I’ve created seating charts, and I’ve passed around sign-in sheets, the latter of which, I’ll warn you, is almost always ineffectual since some students will inevitably sign in for their absent friends.

Then, after I took attendance, successfully or otherwise, I transferred all of those marks to the grade roster. Again, this is not a huge chore for small writing classes, but for larger ones, it can be. In any event, the entire process always seemed more laborious than necessary, but I never really thought not to take attendance. My mindset was always, “Professors are supposed to do this, aren’t they? This is how we get students to come to class, to participate, to submit their assignments on time, isn’t it?” No, it’s not. And looking back, those are terrible reasons to keep up with who’s there and who’s not.

Needless to say, when I saw the Chronicle contributor’s suggestion don’t take attendance and his valid, logical reasons behind it, I freed myself from this task almost immediately. I heeded his words the following semester and haven’t looked back. So far, I can report that all is well; most students attend and participate, but some don’t. Such is college, whether roll-taking is involved or not. Here are the professor’s thoughts on the matter, if you will:

I’ve always assumed that universities are not high schools and that college students are adults, attending class as their choice. In my course handout, I wrote: “If you choose to use the time of the class meeting to do something else, that is your decision… You are responsible, however, for understanding the material done in class during your absence, and I will grade your work in the course under the assumption that you have mastered that material. However, if you miss class because of illness, I will help you make up the work.”

An equally important reason for my policy was that otherwise I’d have to deal with many students who, having no desire to be in the room, would shuffle papers, pop gum, snore loudly, and engage in other distracting behaviors. They changed the ambiance of the classroom, and I decided that I much preferred to teach a smaller number of volunteers than a large army of conscripts.

In addition, not requiring attendance allowed students to vote with their feet on my teaching. If attendance dwindled, I realized that I needed to rethink the section of the course where students did not come – or, on several occasions, the whole course. But if they showed up in large numbers, I knew that I was doing a good job.

Your thoughts? How do you handle class attendance?

Last weekend I returned to the movie theatre for the first time since the summer blockbuster season began. The film that beckoned me back as well as stirred me from my Six Feet Under stupor — I’m foolishly watching the entire depressing series in 2 months — was Solitary Man (Koppelman and Levien, 2010). Starring Michael Douglas, who looks every bit his 66 years (I mean that in a good way), Solitary Man, I’ll warn you, is not a feel-good movie. Throughout the 90-minute film, Douglas’s character sulks about his failed marriage, failed career, failed parenting skills, failed infidelities, failed body, and failed friendships. And, yeah, it’s all his fault. See, not so uplifting. On the other hand, what Solitary Man achieves, like last year’s Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper) and A Single Man (Tom Ford), is a compact, well-paced story — a nice “slice-of-life plot,” to borrow from the Italian Neorealists. For that reason, I’ll take it over mindless summer flicks any day.

Before Solitary Man began, however, I had a couple of thoughts: (1) Wow, I’m the youngest patron here. As I looked around the theatre, every person looked to be in his/her 50s, 60s, or 70s. Guess I’m not the target audience… (2) It seems as though a lot of films have been released recently with the word MEN or MAN in the title. While sitting in the dark trying to avoid eye contact with the creepy Screenvision guy, I came up with several male-gendered titles in my mind: the aforementioned A Single Man, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, I Love You, Man, X-Men, Yes Man, and Children of Men.

When I returned home, I thought more about all of these MENs/MANs and did a little research on the matter. According to the Internet Movie Database, 376 English-speaking movies feature the words MEN in their titles; and a whopping 1,120 feature the word MAN. While we’re at it, only 30 film titles employ the word MALE, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) being the two the most well known. That means, since the inception of cinema (c. 1895), nearly 1,500 movies have included in their titles the words MEN or MAN. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose 1,500 isn’t that huge a statistic, but then I wondered how that compares with the number of movies that feature the words WOMEN or WOMAN.

According to IMDB, 433 English-speaking films feature the word WOMAN, and 258 feature the word WOMEN. Honestly, I thought this total, nearly 700 movies, would be much less. Still, what is somewhat surprising (or maybe it’s really not) is that many of these pictures, you’ll notice from the posters below, still center on male characters. See, for example, Dr. T and the Women, The Man Who Loved Women, When a Man Loves a Woman, Scent of a Woman, and His Kind of Woman. Moreover, as one can tell from the promotional shots for Chain Gang Women (possible girl-on-girl action!) and Jesse James’s Women (cat fight!), these movies are created specifically for heterosexual (white) males. Finally, all of the female-titled posters except two (yeah, I’m assuming Lily Tomlin’s ape is male) prominently feature men in them, and some don’t even include women at all. [NOTE: These statistics include "Adult" movies as well; I'm sorry to say that IMDB's advanced search engine (not so advanced, eh?) does not allow users to deselect certain genres.]

What may we conclude about the MEN/MAN posters, one might ask? First, many of the males pictured look directly at the viewer, suggesting their active status in the film. Contrast this with the women’s posters for a moment: only three depict a female character looking outward; in fact, most of the women look away from the camera or longingly at the men with whom they will likely be involved in the film’s narrative. Second, when women are featured in some of the MEN/MAN posters, they are positioned, as we might except, both passively and seductively (e.g., Grumpy Old Men, Of Mice and Men, Three Men on a Horse, The Thin Man). Third, several of these posters portray men wielding guns; again, this is no surprise since a man’s virility is often denoted onscreen via weapons, agility, and muscles. Finally, virtually of these movies — whether containing the words MAN/MEN or WOMAN/WOMEN — feature white, heterosexual characters/actors. Unfortunately, no surprise there either.

One more discovery before I wrap this up. A quick scan through my IMDB lists reveals that the 1980s and 1940s produced a large number of films with the words WOMAN/WOMEN in the title. When one considers cinema history and the cultural events of those decades, this seems about right. For example, as Joseph Sartelle argues in “Dreams and Nightmares in the Hollywood Blockbuster,” the 1980s brought about a strong “commitment to multicultural consciousness and political correctness” (519). This is a result of, Sartelle points out, the Reagan administration’s neglect of domestic problems, particularly those regarding urban African Americans. During this time, movies went from fetishizing the triumphant white male hero (e.g., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, The Empire Strikes Back) to portraying a more balanced representation of race to appeal to both white and minority audiences (e.g., the Lethal Weapon series, Beverly Hills Cop, The Color Purple). At the same time, the 1980s encouraged renewed levels of representation from women (e.g., Nine to Five, Flashdance, Sophie’s Choice, Desperately Seeking Susan, Beaches, Steel Magnolias). It’s no wonder, then, that 1980s also gave us films entitled They Call Me Macho Woman, High Finance Woman, And God Created Woman, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Woman in Red, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

The other decade that seemed to produce a large number of films with the words WOMEN or WOMAN in their titles is the 1940s. There’s a logical explanation for this as well.  The 1940s are what some historians call America’s “age of anxiety.” See, for example, our country’s entry into WWII and the end of isolationism, paranoia about communism and McCarthyism, the popularization of Freudianism and Existentialism, and perhaps most significant to this post, fears of male displacement. Regarding the latter, WWII changed the role of women. Wives and mothers were no longer confined to the home, cooking/cleaning and taking care of children. Because their husbands were fighting overseas, women joined the workforce, some gladly and some forcibly. As my film noir students know, this new economically and socially independent woman, which men apparently feared — or perhaps more appropriately, misunderstood — was embodied onscreen in the figure of the hypersexual, self-sufficient, and scheming femme fatale. This is one reason, then, that the 1940s produced such films as Women in the Night, Forbidden Women, The Trouble with Women, Women Aren’t Angels, A Woman’s Vengeance, The Spider Woman Strikes Back, The Tiger Woman, The Spider Woman, Weird Woman, Cobra Woman, Captive Wild Woman, and Two-Faced Woman.

Truthfully, I don’t know what I expected to gain from this little experiment sparked by Michael Douglas and his sulking character from Solitary Man. Having taught about and researched onscreen representations of gender for several years now, I expected there to be a drastic difference in the number of film titles that include the words MEN/MAN (approx. 1,500) and those citing WOMEN/WOMAN (approx. 700). After all, 80%-90% of Hollywood releases revolve around (white, heterosexual) male characters and are created for predominately (white, heterosexual) male audiences, e.g., see the “Top Ten Movies” charts at any given point in the year but particularly summer. Still, I must admit that I was surprised by a few of the posters, taglines, and film titles, for example

• Chain Gang Women and their “trashy, filthy, sweaty, primitive cravings”;
• Cobra Woman, the so-called “Temptress of Terror”;
• Jesse James’s Women who apparently fight one another in “the lusty West”; and
• Weird Woman whose extremities emit some sort of black magic (tagline: “Does voodoo death strike from her arms?”).

Voodoo death by a bicep?! Well, I’ve gotta admit: it sounds like more fun than Solitary Man.

• Many had cats; at least two had dogs.
• One spent most of her summers in Italy researching the letters of a sixteenth- (or maybe seventeenth-) century Italian woman.
• One smoked cigarettes, but only at home.
• One preached at my childhood church before his marriage went, ahem, awry.
• One adopted a child from another country.
• One loved Paris and the Moulin Rouge (the actual establishment; I’m not sure how he felt about the film musical).
• One male instructor, whom other students and I attempted to set up on dates (with women), was actually gay.  Oops.
• Few of my professors had children.
• One spent half of the year in Norway, the other half in Texas.
• One drove two hours one-way to get to school.
• One dove into a pool of students dressed only in his underwear. (No, I wasn’t there.)
• One frequently enjoyed his before-class dinner at La Madeleine.
• One voluntarily removed the television from her house because she was addicted to watching professional baseball games.
• One professor’s wife gave birth on the fly, in the couple’s own bed.
• One was a Quaker, two were Episcopalians, and two were Baha’i; most were apparently non-religious.

Based on this list, some might assume that I got to know my professors personally and that I saw them as “real people” rather than founts of knowledge raining down information from their pedestals (that is a student’s traditional vantage point, right?). But that was not the case, which is evident when one considers that the list above equates to 11 years of college and somewhere between 60 and 80 professors. Yep, those 15 bullet points are all I recall. So, no, I did not get to know most of my college instructors as “real people” — at least not while I was their pupil. [1] And what I mean by that is, I wasn’t allowed to (or maybe I didn’t make the effort to?) see them as anything other than teachers. They were “up there”; I was “down here.”

I’m not sure if this student-professor distancing is a bad thing or a good thing. I don’t know how it affects the teaching-learning process, or if it does at all. It’s just a fact that I’d like to explore further in light of how much my students, if they choose to, may currently know about me.

If my students follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook or read my blog posts, they know a great deal about my personal life, sometimes the exact time and place where it unfolds. For instance, they know that around 4:45 PM on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, I was visiting New York City and that I scored two tickets to a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

As well, if they follow me on social networking sites, my students know that I have two cocker spaniels named Baxter and Scout, that I frequently walk/run in the surrounding Toledo Metroparks, and that I rooted for Crystal Bowersox over (the always out-of-tune) Lee DeWyze on this year’s rather boring American Idol.

Moreover, my students must know that I have dreamed about Gene Kelly and Colin Firth, that I have a a thing for generational studies (Gen-X and the Millennials in particular), and that I sometimes have weird feelings when I hear Rick Springfield’s song “Jesse’s Girl.”

The first letter comes from an 81-year old man who wonders why the town of Pittsburgh, where Kelly was born and ran a dance studio with his mother and siblings, can’t find room in its heart to erect a statue honoring the song-and-dance legend. After all, the author cries, a town in Illinois, “recently unveiled a statue of Superman’s girlfriend, Lois Lane,” so surely, Kelly’s hometown can pay homage to him. (Read more on Pittsburgh’s possible Gene Kelly statue here.)

The second letter comes from a former dance student of Kelly who began taking ballet and tap lessons from him when she was about 4 years old; he was 19. According to the writer, Kelly was “caring, loving and demanding,” and he often encouraged his young (female?) students with the line, “If you do the step right, I’ll marry you.”

The two letters, which I thought were too cute and unassuming to keep to myself, are reprinted in full below.

Be super, Pittsburgh: Honor Gene Kelly

There’s a town in Illinois called Metropolis and it recently unveiled a statue of Superman’s girlfriend, Lois Lane. Her former home was in the brush of a cartoon artist. And in this day and age, explain why Pittsburgh can’t find any space for a statue of one of its most famous sons, the great Gene Kelly.

I am a retired New Yorker and will be 81 on Father’s Day. I have some blue and down days, like many of us octogenarians. My therapy? My DVD recorder. I just push the play button and go back to 1942 to be enchanted while watching two legends, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, singing and dancing to “The bells are ringing, for me and my gal.”

I truly doubt that looking at a statue of Clark Kent’s friend could ever do much for my spirits, but, then again, I’m not from Krypton.

JOHN K. COYLE
Bedford, Pa.

Teacher Kelly

After reading the June 20 letter from John K. Coyle of Bedford (“Be Super, Pittsburgh: Honor Gene Kelly”), I felt compelled to write about my many years as a student of Gene Kelly.

I started dancing lessons with Gene Kelly at the tender age of 4 at the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Squirrel Hill. Several years later, he opened his own studio on Munhall Road where I continued weekly lessons for another 10 years. Gene was 19 years old when he started teaching.

My memory of him was wonderful. He was caring, loving and demanding. His two sayings were “It’s no cigar” and “Hit the nail on the head.” He also often said, “If you do the step right, I’ll marry you.”

He taught tap, toe and ballet. I took all three. He was a master and we loved him dearly.

His parents took care of the business side and his brother Fred and sister Louise also did some teaching.

I ended my “career” when he left for New York to appear on Broadway in “Pal Joey” and then onto Hollywood. No one could replace him!

ROSALYN ROBIN
Squirrel Hill

Over the past three summers, I’ve read several Hollywood memoirs, virtually all of which adhere to the two goals above: to shatter the star image and then reclaim it. Most of the accounts I’ve read are, like Bacall’s, written by the stars (or writers and directors) themselves:

• June Allyson (1982), June Allyson
• The Making of The African Queen; or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind (1987), Katharine Hepburn
• Me: Stories of My Life (1991), Katharine Hepburn
• Ava: My Story (1990), Ava Gardner
• Beginning (1990), Kenneth Branagh
• Now (1994), Lauren Bacall
• Looking for Gatsby (1998), Faye Dunaway
• The Measure of a Man (2001), Sidney Poitier
• Forever Liesl: A Memoir of The Sound of Music (2001), Charmian Carr
• Motherhood and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine (2002), Patricia Heaton (of Everybody Loves Raymond)
• Lucky Man (2002), Michael J. Fox
• By Myself and Then Some (2005), Lauren Bacall
• You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom (2006), Phil Rosenthal (co-creator of Everybody Loves Raymond).

Some of the memoirs I’ve encountered are penned by family members of Hollywood legends:

• Bogart: In Search of My Father (1995), Stephen Bogart
• Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir (1998), Lorna Luft (daughter of Judy Garland)
• My Father’s Daughter: A Memoir (2000), Tina Sinatra
• The Memory of All That: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, and Paris (2003), Betsy Blair (first wife of Gene Kelly)
• In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles (2010), Christopher Welles Feder.

Finally, two memoirs on my list are written neither by the star nor her spouse or children, but by close friends:

• Kate Remembered (2003), A. Scott Berg
• At Home with Kate: Growing up in Katharine Hepburn’s Household (2007), Eileen Considine-Meara.

Looking through these lists, I notice that very few of the memoirs, particularly those penned by or about classical Hollywood stars, feature the dreadfully trite titles that currently deface the Autobiography shelves of Barnes and Noble or Borders. See, for instance, Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale (2009) or Roger Moore’s My Word Is My Bond (2008). Yes, yes, we get it. Gilbert’s book calls to mind the television show for which she is most recognized, Little House on the Prairie. Likewise, Moore’s autobiography references his most renowned role as the second (and some would argue, the best) James Bond. Here are a few more, some courtesy of Entertainment Weekly‘s “14 Awful Titles for Celeb Memoirs.”

We might add to this list the autobiography I read while on vacation last week — Leslie Caron’s Thank Heaven: A Memoir. (I’ll admit I was largely digging for information on Gene Kelly about whom I’ve written here and here and here). Like Prairie Tale and My Word Is My Bond, Thank Heaven inextricably links Caron to the Oscar-winning musical Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), which not only features the star-author, but also the song “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” sung by fellow Frenchman Maurice Chevalier.

Oh, Leslie, couldn’t you have followed in the footsteps of fellow dancer Ginger Rogers, whose autobiography (which I’m reading this week, by the way) is entitled simply Ginger: My Story (1991)? It’s not Ginger, Shall We Dance? or Swing Time with Ginger or even Ginger, Carefree and Sitting Pretty. Rather, like her classical Hollywood contemporaries — Gardner, Hepburn, Allyson, and Poitier — Rogers forgoes the silly labeling/titling that automatically reduces her individual self to its fabricated screen image.

So why do these recent memoirs boast such “awful” titles as Entertainment Weekly claims? Perhaps it’s a new marketing tool? Poor publishing or editorial decisions? Just a tacky trend? [1] I could probably come up with positive answers to each of these questions and a few reasons to support them; but I’d like to think there’s another, more substantial explanation that so many recent star autobiographies feature such silly “reductionist titles.” And here it is: they lack substance. Moreover, their authors, well most of them anyway, lack substance — at least when compared to Bacall, Hepburn, Dunaway, Gardner, Poitier, and, yes, Leslie Caron. For example, here’s the opening statement of David Hasselhoff’s atrociously titled memoir, Don’t Hassle the Hoff: “I had blind faith I was going to make it. I never doubted I’d be a star.” Nice. And here are some words of wisdom about turning 50 from The Brady Bunch‘s Maureen McCormack: “Wrinkles still appear, things sag, and you may need a few more trips to the colorist.” Profound. In brief, in order for many of these recent books to sell, they necessitate attention-grabbing titles that quickly link the author to that which has made him/her famous.

On the other hand, autobiographies by those who thrived in and survived the studio system, I would imagine (or hope?), do not require this type of marketing. The stars’ experiences in Hollywood and abroad, reflective anecdotes about their careers and personal lives, and places in cinema history rest solidly underneath such simple and unfussy titles as The Measure of a Man (Poitier), Ava: My Story (Gardner), and Me: Stories of My Life (Hepburn). It’s just a shame that Leslie Caron’s Thank Heaven — a fascinating look at the creative process of the classical film musical, the brilliance of filmmaker Jean Renoir, and the sheer craziness of a young Warren Beatty — should end up with such a trite little title. Caron as well as her readers deserves better than that.

FOR FUN: 8 Truthful Celebrity Autobiography Covers.

Similarly, during the first scene of Clint Eastwood’s revisionist western Unforgiven (1992), a cowboy slices open the cheeks of a prostitute (sexual!) because she laughs at the size of his penis (independent!). Almost immediately, like The Big Heat‘s mistress, the prostitute becomes valueless, this time literally; no man who enters the brothel wants to purchase “damaged goods.”

In these cases, scarring obviously ruins the woman’s beauty or her power. Furthermore, these films along with many others (e.g., Flesh and the Devil, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Birds, Psycho, Fatal Attraction, Thelma and Louise) suggest that strong-willed and/or promiscuous women are a danger not only to themselves, but also to the men who encounter them. Consequently, they must “learn their lesson,” usually via some form of punishment (Lehman and Luhr 269, 273).

We might contrast these scenes from The Big Heat and Unforgiven with a memorable one from Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) in which the three main (male) characters — considerably drunk and tired from bobbing on the water — compare scars, bumps, and false teeth. As each man tries to best the other, he reveals his scar and tells a story of how it came to pass. What we learn here is that, unlike the disfigured women above, these men are tougher for their experiences and wounds; they are not worthless and broken but strong, survivors. This notion of endurance is also represented via Charlton Heston’s character from True Lies (James Cameron, 1994) whose eye patch hints not at weakness but combat survival (273). See also Rocky, Rambo, Die-Hard, Braveheart, and/or most any Hollywood action-adventure film.

As I point out to my film students, there are times when male characters, like female, are negatively effected by scarring and wounding. See for example, Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane) in The Lady from Shanghai, L. B. Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) in Rear Window, Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese) in Forrest Gump, and Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) in Born of the Fourth of July. Each of these men spends the majority of the narrative tied to crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. His legs and usually genitals (i.e., his power) do not function properly. He is broken, inadequate, impotent; he cannot acquire or is not interested in women. The theory: because male characters are generally defined in active terms (muscles, agility, speed, virility), wounds to the legs result in and signify weakness, sexual and otherwise (273). In brief, women “get it” in the face, men in the legs.

This is how scarring and wounding are represented in narrative film with (mostly) fictional characters. But what about those actors who bear visible scars? Do they ever fall into the same categories as the male and female characters listed above? Is the viewer ever repulsed by the actor’s scar or does s/he even recognize it? Does the actor ever cover up or airbrush his/her disfigurement, or are his/her markings a part of his/her star persona?

Lately I’ve been writing and thinking about Gene Kelly, an actor/singer/dancer with a very visible scar on his left cheek. According to Clive Hirschorn’s biography of Kelly, the mark is the cause of a childhood bike accident:

“As a child he was singularly accident-prone, and at the age of six, while riding a tricycle without handlebars on Mellon Street [in Pittsburgh], he lurched forward on to an exposed piece of cast iron. The metal went through his cheek, causing a deep gash which bled profusely. Mrs. Kelly was out at the time, and a neighbour, hearing him cry, rushed him home, and as his wound continued to pour blood into the kitchen sink over which he was perched, she called the family doctor who stitched him up. To this day he still carries the evidence of the accident in the shape of a small, half-moon scar on the right [sic] side of his face.”

Kelly’s first wife, Betsy Blair, writes in her memoir that fans denied the bicycle story, opting instead to “invent more glamorous causes” for the hairline scar. Blair further reports that, unsurprisingly, “MGM’s publicity department didn’t discourage [the fans or their anecdotes]” (108). Kelly didn’t mind though; the scar was a part of who he was — and, according to lore, he did not want it airbrushed, touched-up, or covered heavily with makeup.

The scar was even mentioned when Kelly received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985. Host Shirley MacLaine began by calling the little mark, “the sexiest thing I ever saw.” On a more serious note, she claimed that Kelly’s refusal to cover it up told viewers a great deal about him as an actor, dancer, and person. By turning down offers to “fix” his face, Kelly implies that actors and dancers should not lie about their performances, the emotions they are attempting to convey, or the characters they are inhabiting. After all, MacLaine concludes, Gene Kelly is not only dancing for himself and the narrative, but for each of us in the audience who dreams that one day s/he’ll also be able to dance in that manner.

While somewhat corny, MacLaine’s theory resonates. I think of the 7-inch scar down the right arm of model/Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, the result of a horrendous car accident when she was a teen. Although initially distraught about the visible mark, Lakshmi now accepts it, embraces it, leaves it uncovered. Like Kelly’s (much smaller one), her scar is a part of who she is:

In my career as an actress, the scar is no longer an issue. I cover it when necessary, but I prefer not to, especially in my private life. I love my scar. It is so much a part of me. I’m not sure I would remove it even if a doctor could wave a magic wand and delete it from my arm. The scar has singled me out and made me who I am. [...] I’ve started seeing my body as a map of my life.” (from Vogue, April 2001)

Several stars (and singers) have visible scars: Tiny Fey, Sharon Stone, Seal, Ray Liotta, Sandra Bullock, Harrison Ford, Catherine Zeta Jones, Joaquin Phoenix, Elizabeth Taylor, Diane Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Parminder Nagra, Edward James Olmos, Adam Lambert. Their scars are the result of tracheotomies, childhood and adult ache, car accidents, adolescent tumbles, and frightening encounters with knives.

Some stars periodically airbrush their disfigurements (Stone, Zeta Jones). Some incorporate them into their film roles (Nagra, Ford, Bogart). Some prefer to be filmed from their more flawless sides (Fey). And some, like Gene Kelly, don’t seem to care at all. So are those who fall into the latter category really more transparent as people, as celebrities? Are they, as MacLaine suggests, seemingly less narcissistic and more “real” than those who rely on restorations and heavy make-up? Or conversely, are the scarred stars who insist on touch-ups the more authentic? After all, they know they are playing a part.

More on stars and their scars:

• Skinema: Movie Star Scars
• Guys Dig Scars
• Face to Face With the Stars / A dermatologist and film buff sizes up celebrities, warts and all,

As Bowersox stated on Idol‘s “homecoming episode,” the mid-size, blue-collar city — much like its neighbor Detroit — has been hit hard by the economic crisis. In other words, Toledo is definitely not, as Hot in Cleveland jokes, akin to the stylish, romantic, and bustling Paris, France. Conversely, much of its landscape features factories, car plants (Jeep/Chrysler has two), smokestacks, warehouses, run-down buildings, abandoned parking lots, and hundreds of for-sale signs in front yards. It’s a city, many of my students have admitted, they want to “get away from” after they graduate. Bowersox apparently felt the same when she wrote “Holy Toledo,” the song that played over her homecoming video montage on Idol and incidentally the only original piece the show has ever allowed on the air. The mellow tune, which I think is currently only airing on radio stations in Toledo, perfectly illustrates the somewhat gloomy environment that has been featured in the media:

HOLY TOLEDO

Livin life from day to day / And reading books from page to page / I know life is just my stage / And I wish I could have said I would / I know I should do something good / Then, my God, I fear I’m sheddin tears / Colors change from year to year around here / And I said how do I get to heaven from here / I wanna know how do I get to heaven from here

Holy Toledo, where does the time go / My dreads are locked, my watch is stopped, my glass is full, my gun is half cocked, / How do I redeem my sins / Well, I sure hope St. Peter’s gonna let me in / Holy Toledo

Now I’ve said too much, I’m losing touch, step on the gas and off the clutch / Oh, I’m gonna leave Toledo, have no fear and times go slow but I’m shiftin gears / I said how do I get to heaven from here / I wanna know how do I get to heaven from here

I say how do I get to heaven from here / I wanna know how in the hell am I gonna get to heaven from here

In an interview, Bowersox said that she wrote the song when she was 17, “at a point in [her] life where [she] loved [her] hometown, but always knew there was something bigger — hence the line how do I get to heaven from here.” But now, the dreadlocked singer/songwriter claims, “Holy Toledo” has “become an anthem for her city and what kind of hope is needed there.” Indeed, the song has taken on new meaning not only for the up-and-coming star but also for the citizens of Toledo who’ve genuinely supported and continue to support Bowersox’s rise to fame:

“[She's] given people here something to smile about” (Becky Zaborski, Petersburg, Mich [30m north of Toledo]).

Ryan Popp of Toledo said it’s surreal to watch Bowersox now and think back to all the years he saw her perform in front a few dozen people. “She’s set for life,” he said. “It might be better because now she can do the music she wants. She won’t be locked into being the American Idol.”

“She’s one of us,” said Diane Frick, who lives in Oregon, a Toledo suburb. “People are for the underdog today because everyone has been hit by the economic downturn.” [2]

Despite the way Toledo, OH appears in the media — dilapidated, unattractive, hard-hit, the butt of a sitcom joke — certain parts of the city and the surrounding NW Ohio area unquestionably counteract these rather disheartening images. Indeed, as I look back over the photos I’ve taken during my two-year tenure here, I realize how misrepresented the city sometimes is.

[2] Idol Runner-Up Still Hero in Hometown.

The Film That Changed My Life differs drastically from the one that changed Ratner’s. Rather than Raging Bull‘s stark realism and graphic violence, my film features lush scenery and match-making games; rather than black-and-white cinematography and low-key lighting, mine is bathed in vibrant colors and gobs of natural sunlight. But in the end, these differences don’t matter. What matters is that my film affected me in the same way Raging Bull affected Ratner; for after watching it, I too knew what I wanted to do with the remainder of my life.

I took my first class on William Shakespeare as a junior in college, an introductory course on the playwright’s comedies. One day early in the semester, our professor, who left town for a conference, was replaced by a large-screen television and video recorder (yeah, that’s right, kiddos; this is before built-in LCD projectors and DVDs). A departmental assistant strolled into the classroom, inserted a Blockbuster VHS tape, pressed the play button, and left. Her menial task was over; but at that moment, my future career was confirmed. The TV screen was soon filled with a sun-drenched Tuscan countryside, a multi-racial cast of characters in breezy, white cotton attire, and the poetry of Shakespeare.

The film was Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. The setting was late nineteenth-century Tuscany and the performers an odd combination of British theatre actors (Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson) and Hollywood screen stars (Denzel Washington and Michael Keaton). At the time, this film looked nothing like those from high school. You know the ones — e.g., Olivier’s Hamlet, Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet — which teachers screen hastily during those seemingly endless English periods before lunch. On the contrary, Branagh’s Much Ado seemed sexy, fun, and understandable.

Since my Shakespeare class only lasted fifty minutes, we were unable to watch Much Ado about Nothing in its entirety. But I had seen enough to know that I wanted to see more and, furthermore, that I needed to figure out how to integrate this film and others like it into my profession. Fifteen years and three college degrees later, I’m happy to report that one can indeed fashion a career around Shakespeare and film.

What about you? What’s The Film (or Television Show) That Changed Your Life?

Like most people, the husband and I generally tackle touristy stuff when we take trips. However, we also try to venture out onto the road less traveled. For example, during a 2008 trip to Oklahoma City, we meandered down the old Route 66 where we came across one of the country’s only round barns and a huge soda bottle statue, the latter of which “dances” at night for passers-by as its LED lights flicker on and off.

More recently, a quick trip to New York City led us to The Museum of Sex, where “The Sex Lives of Animals” and “Sex and the Moving Image” were the featured exhibits. Incidentally, the animal exhibit = fascinating (I’ve written more about it here). The image to the right depicts male-on-male dolphin blowhole sex and is one of many sculptures at the museum made from paper, tape, and magic marker.

As well, back in 2006, the husband and I visited the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C. In there, we saw some of the most bizarre museum memorabilia I’ve ever come across. For instance, here are some of the fragments of Abraham Lincoln’s skull removed during the autopsy after his assassination as well as a lock of hair taken from the site of the wound, the bullet that took the President’s life, the probe used to locate the bullet, and a cuff stained with Lincoln’s blood (from the shirt of a man who helped with the autopsy).

Around the corner from Abe Lincoln’s blood and skull are two examples of elephantiasis (yes, as featured in The Elephant Man). Here’s elephantiasis of the scrotum and the leg:

Finally, adjacent to the oversized body parts is a huge hairball, which was removed from the stomach of a 12-year-old girl who compulsively ate her hair for 6 years. The caption below tells museum patrons that the hair ultimately took the shape of the girl’s stomach.

This Memorial Day weekend, the husband and I took to the road once more, this time in search of oddities in Northwest Ohio (we currently live in Toledo). To guide our way, we relied on the book Weird Ohio, which devotes chapters to Ohio Ghosts, Roadside Oddities, Cemeteries, and Abandoned Places. (So far, I’ve come across Weird USA, Weird Kentucky, Weird Michigan, Weird Florida, and Weird Pennsylvania. Check Amazon.com; I bet your state is “weird” too!) Overall, the book did not disappoint; it directed us to some bizarre items. Without further ado, here’s a taste of what Wood, Hancock, and Allen Counties have to offer.

Fingers and Clark Gable’s Pheasant

Our first stop was the Wood County Historical Center in Bowling Green, OH (Wood County), about 30 miles south of Toledo. The authors of Weird Ohio told us to be on the lookout for three fingers in a jar. Found ‘em!

These three human fingers belong to Mary Bach, whose husband, Carl, took a corn knife to her in 1883, chopping her to bits. A few days later, Carl confessed to the murder and told police to search his barn where they would find Mary’s dismembered body. Her fingers were all that was necessary for evidence in Carl’s trial and ultimate death sentence.

We also learned that Carl Bach’s was the last public hanging in Wood County. The event took place on the last day of the Wood County Fair in 1883 in front of a large crowd of ticket holders. A spectator’s ticket along with a picture of good ol’ Carl, the noose, and famed corn knife may be seen below.

Here are some more weird — and random — pieces of pop culture found in the Wood County Historical Center; the building was once a poor house and “lunatic asylum,” by the way:

• a pheasant shot by Hollywood superstar Clark Gable (apparently, he hunted frequently in Bowling Green, OH);
• some Victorian hair-art, a common tradition of weaving human hair into a memorial piece of artwork;
• a permanent wave machine from 1927 (you’ve gotta really, really want some curls to hook yourself up to that); and
• original school charts from 1880.

Presidential Weirdness

Our next stop was Fremont, OH, about 25 miles east of Bowling Green, where Rutherford B. Hayes (19th president of these United States) resided after his time in the White House came to an end. While no photos were allowed in Hayes’s home, we were encouraged to take pictures in the adjacent Hayes museum/library. First, here’s what we learned during our tour:

• The Hayes library was the first presidential library.
• R. B. Hayes was the first president to take the oath of office in the White House.
• He was the first president to have a telephone and typewriter in the White House.
• He began the “Easter Egg Roll” for children on the White House Lawn (1878).
• Lucy Webb Hayes was the first wife of a president to graduate from college.
• She was also the first wife of a president to be called “First Lady.”

And now for the weird items: ice-skates belonging to Hayes’s 10-year-old brother who died while playing on an Ohio lake, a lock of George Washington’s hair, and the house slippers Abe Lincoln wore the night he died.

Later in Lima

Our final stop over Memorial Day weekend was Lima, OH. Yes, that’s right: home of the fictional “Lima losers” represented in Fox’s Glee. Here, the husband and I learned about and tasted a Kewpee burger.

Founded in 1923, Kewpee Hamburgers is the second-known chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants. There are only five stores left, three of which stand in Lima (about 80m south of Toledo). According to legend, Dave Thomas wanted to buy Kewpee Hamburgs, which boasts square patties and frosted malt drinks, but the owner wasn’t selling. At that point, Thomas reportedly created Wendy’s, which, as you know, also makes square patties and “the frosty.”

Kewpie dolls like this one above the cash register are supposedly based on comic strip-like illustrations that appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1909. The burger wrappers have (the creepy-looking) Kewpie dolls on them as well.

Finally, we ventured into the Allen County Museum in Lima where we came upon an exhibit called Objects Removed from Esophagus, Bronchial Trees (Lungs), and Larynx of Patients of Drs. Etsey Yingling and Walter Yingling. Buttons, nails, screws, wishbones, safety pins, dentures: you name it, it’s there. We also encountered here one of the country’s first life-support machines, the jail registry that indicates bank-robber John Dillinger was caught and imprisoned in Lima, and the world’s largest collection of (stuffed) albino animals.

The husband and I had also planned to see the bathtub of the U.S.S. Maine — of “Remember the Maine!” fame — in Findlay, OH’s Hancock Historical Museum. But when we arrived, the joint was closed for Memorial Day weekend (thanks for updating your website!). Oh well, we can add that to our list. Up next (maybe): the World’s Largest Basket, the World’s Oldest Traffic Light, the Shortest Street in America, and the World’s Largest Rubber Stamp. That’s right, folks; all of this may be found in Ohio! Pack a snack and drive on over.

Clip Question: Referencing any two of the eight “gender categories” that we covered in class, discuss in detail the representation of men/boys and/or women/girls in this wizard-chess scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Christopher Columbus, 2002).

Multiple Choice: In Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy, a policeman asks a heroin addict, “Are you going to tell us where you did the drugs, or are we going to have to tear the place apart bit by bit?” The next shot shows the addict’s house torn apart. What editing technique is used here?

A. a match-on action
B. elliptical editing (or ellipses)
C. shot/reverse shot
D. parallel editing
E. Both A and C

Short Answer: From Double Indemnity, Phyllis Dietrichson dresses elegantly, exudes sexuality, and endangers men. What noir character type is she?

Identification/Application: Why do we consider the ending of Citizen Kane omniscient (or unrestricted) narration? See image below.

Sometimes though, I add another type of question to the exams — one open to pure opinion, one that requires no right or wrong answer. Some instructors might consider this a throwaway question, but honestly, it’s the one that I most look forward to reading/grading. Here’s the version found on Exam 3:

Of the four sections covered on this exam — film movements, race, gender, and industry — which did you find most stimulating, and why?

I’m sorry to report that the answer film movements rarely makes the cut. Although many of the students seem to find lectures on German Expressionism, French Surrealism, The New Hollywood, etc. interesting, they’re apparently not the “most stimulating.” On occasion, race yields high marks as it did in this student’s response:

I have experienced that type of stereotyping in my life as a black male. Seeing how African Americans are depicted and were depicted in Hollywood opened my eyes to many things. Learning of Sidney Poitier breaking the color barrier that was raised and to see progression of the roles that many blacks have today is amazing.

But this spring, the answer race didn’t get as many votes as it normally does. Rather, the answers were split almost evenly between industry and gender. One law student, for instance, found the lecture on industry (production, distribution, exhibition, censorship) fascinating because of what Hollywood “gets away with”:

This section interested me the most because of the way the studios and MPAA have a large control over the industry as a whole. I don’t agree with this and therefore thought This Film is Not Yet Rated was very enlightening. It is amazing what a corporation can get away with when most people don’t know it and when the government tells them what is good for them. I think people should be able to make their own decisions about themselves and their own families.

Another student found industry studies stimulating because she “learned a lot about the strategies that are taken to make a movie successful” (seasons, timing, promotion) and didn’t realize “how much thought is actually placed into the release and advertisement of the films, often more than the production of the film itself.” Likewise, a third student thought this lecture “opened [his] eyes to how the film industry is still basically vertically integrated and still controls much of the production, exhibition, and distribution in the industry.” Moreover, from studying and screening This Film Is Not Yet Rated, he evidently realized “the unfair ways films are rated” and concluded “that some sort of reform with that process is very much needed.”

I appreciate these responses, and, like some of my film students, I too enjoy watching This Film Is Not Yet Rated and talking about block booking, high-concept films, and ancillary markets. But, it’s not this information that I most want my students to take away from the class; rather, it’s the discussions on gender and race. I want them to see how they — as men, women, members of ethnic groups, etc. — are represented onscreen. I want them to read these (often simple and stereotypical) representations of themselves and their society more critically than when they first entered the classroom. As a result, I’m always thankful to see that a large number of students find the section on gender “the most stimulating.”

Granted, there are some answers that are a bit wobbly, like this one from a female student:

While I don’t consider myself to be a feminist, I do consider myself to be a strong, independent woman. I think Hollywood’s portrayals of the different genders can be somewhat ridiculous. It was interesting for me to learn what the classic portrayals for women and men are/were. I enjoyed Bonnie and Clyde because it definitely challenged the average woman’s role, especially at that point in time. It also challenged the man’s role with the scenes about sexual impotence.

Still, despite the student’s misreading of the term feminist, she is able to interpret Hollywood’s often “ridiculous” representations of gender and has learned that there is a difference in the way men and women are filmed. Other reactions mostly echo the one above, but they generally begin with or include somewhere the phrase I never realized… or something of that ilk:

I never realized how different men and women are treated in movies. Growing up, that is just how it has always been. So I never thought anything of it. This really opened my eyes to how different sexes are treated.

I did not realize how the majority of the movies made are created for the male audience. […] I also realized that even though movies such as Tomb Raider, Catwoman, and Charlie’s Angels feature strong, independent women in the lead roles, the female characters are still represented as sex symbols by the ways they dress and look — and that in the end, they’re made for a male (not female) audience. Overall, this section was an eye-opener to me, and I must say that I am much more aware of the situation now when I watch new movies.

I never realized the gender stereotypes that occurred in movies until taking this course. Looking back on movies I’ve watched or even movies I’ve watched after learning of this issue (with the exception of American Gigolo), I can’t think of one movie that doesn’t step outside the boundary of a woman being a whore or a mother.

I liked that this chapter shined light on how the female body is looked at. It also made me see the different ways that women are objectified, some I’ve never thought of. Now when I watch movies I pay attention to this and often get offended.

I never really thought about the idea that most movies were made for the male demographic and that women were many times portrayed as being weaker characters, there for men’s sexual desire. I believe this idea of male dominance in unfair and that films should work toward balancing male and female representations on screen.

I liked learning about the gender stereotypes. It never occurred to me that these were portrayed in movies.

I have always been interested in the role of women in the media, but studying the different categories of representations opened my eyes to certain elements I had not considered or seen from that perspective. Fetishization, for example, was something I had not noticed directly before and had only sensed a difference between the way women and men are shot.

I had not noticed before the different gender roles played out in the movies. After reading the discussion board and doing the content I have become aware of how different male and females are displayed in film. […] Also I had not noticed that the males were usually the protagonist in films. Now that it has been brought to my attention, I will notice it when I go to the movies!

This is what I LOVE to see.

This is why I like teaching Introduction to Film.

This is why I spend so much time on the gender (and race) lectures.

And this is why I tell my students every single semester, “These two lectures are perhaps the most important of the entire term, for it is here that you learn what Hollywood thinks about you — and for the most part, it’s not very pretty.”

Indeed, it is exceedingly gratifying when the phrase I never realized… turns into Now I will notice it and Now I pay attention to… and finally, I am much more aware of the situation…

Before I attempting to answer that question, I should note that critics are praising this closing image — along with the entire 2.5-hour finale (“The End”) — with gusto, labeling it “the most emotionally affecting moment” of the episode, “bittersweet […], a rush of nostalgia coupled with the sense of loss” and “lyrical visual poetry.” As well, random fans of the show are gushing over these final moments, thanking Lost for reminding them that God is Dog spelled backwards, that “dogs are earthly angels,” and that our animals “don’t need purgatory (sideways universe) because all dogs *do* go to heaven.” Finally — and this is perhaps the strangest commentary I’ve come across — even some pet adoption organizations are capitalizing on the show’s final image, encouraging those people looking for pets to visit “our next adoption fair where maybe you’ll meet your very own Vincent.”

There are some viewers out there, however, who read the doggie’s presence a bit more hesitantly. One fan, for example, acknowledges that the reunion of Jack and Vincent worked, but that it was “cheap and sentimental.” Others curse the program “for using the dog as a narrative device” and for playing a “dirty trick” on them for “having the dog lay down next to Jack.” My thoughts about the closing scene align mainly with these mini-reviews.

Before you Lost-lovers bow out and call me a hater, let me state emphatically that I ENJOYED THE SERIES FINALE OVERALL. Like so many of you, I was bowled over by the explanation of the flash-sideways world, the moments of humor (sure, you’re a cop, Sawyer), Michael Giacchino’s soaring score, the lovingly framed shots of the lush island, the playful self-referentiality (“Really? His name is Christian Shephard?”), and the sheer ambitiousness of the program in general. Moreover, I want to point out, like Myles McNutt, that “The End” held me firmly in its palm the entire time, this despite the copious amount of commercials. Hardly ever did I waver in and out of the story as I have in episodes like the uber-boring “Across the Sea” during which I boiled rice, caught up on The Huffington Post, and fed dinner to my cocker spaniels. All in all, the finale was an apt and satisfying end to the series; I would even venture to say that it wildly exceeded my expectations.

With that said, there’s that image of Jack and Vincent that still irks me to no end. I think it boils down to the fact that I do not like written or visual texts using animals, especially dogs, unnecessarily to manipulate the viewer’s emotions. Of course, this is nothing new; filmmakers have featured dogs in their works since the beginning of cinema. How long has it been since you’ve seen Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, for instance? Yep, the Lumière brothers knew in 1895 that if they featured a dog in their little promotional moving picture, they and their place of business would be seen an honest, loyal, and happy. I mean, seriously, what’s a Labrador doing in a photographic chemical plant? It along with the guys on the bicycles is there to influence the viewer’s emotions. See for yourself:

Perhaps this is all fine and good in the 30-second Lumière picture. But in the case of Lost‘s series finale, we were already emotionally involved. Very. Emotionally. Involved. For example, we’d already witnessed the poignant reunions of Charlie and Claire, Jin and Sun, and Sawyer and Juliet. We’d already cheered for Not-Locke’s (or Smocke’s) death and Rose and Bernard’s mere existence. And we’d already jumped into the Hummer to win over more souls with Hurley and Sayid.

In addition, Jack had already earned his redemption (many fans/critics thought his character collapsed over the past couple of seasons but was redeemed in Season 6). In other words, by this point, we cared about him enough both to mourn and rejoice in his death/re-awakening without all of the sappy connotations the image of a panting Golden Retriever brings. So why the need to undervalue our involvement with such an overly sentimental image, especially on a show that generally renounces syrupy representations in lieu of more hard-hitting questions about science, faith, and humanity?

As Entertainment Weekly‘s Jeff Jenson admits, “playing the dog card is kinda shameless” here. Right, as much as I love dogs and all they represent in my life, and as much as I appreciate Lost and all of its originality and chutzpah, “The End” would have worked just as well without Vincent, maybe even better and perhaps even truer to the overall tone of the show.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve thought more about Scott’s conclusions, asking myself why pop culture’s Gen X males (and females, Scott implies) are apparently “stuck in an earlier phase of life, which wasn’t so great to begin with.” Sure, we download ’80s music to our iPods, and if Dirty Dancing or The Breakfast Club happens to air on TBS, then, yeah, we might watch it. But as I mentioned in my post, most of the Generation X class I know has moved on; its members think of high school/college as An Experience in their life, not The Defining Time of it. Ultimately, like Mr. Scott — a film reviewer for the freakin’ NY Times, I might add — they are successful, functioning members of society who balance their families and careers in ways that their Boomer parents sometimes failed to or were unable to do.

In brief, listening to music and occasionally watching movies from the ’70s and ’80s or reconnecting with old friends on Facebook and the like does not necessarily indicate that Generation X is living in the past. I mean, no one ever suggests that Baby Boomers are “stuck in an earlier phase of life” because they might listen to Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and The Beatles or think fondly about movies starring John Wayne, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe. So why is popular culture suggesting otherwise about my generation? To answer such a question, we might consider the people who are offering up these onscreen representations as well as those who are buying into it.

First, who is presenting these images of a generation that refuses to grow up? Simply put, they are current studio heads, producers, and screenwriters, most of whom fall around age forty.[1] Okay, so why are these fortysomething progenitors of popular culture living in the past and assuming that their contemporaries do so as well? Here’s how the 44-year-old president of Columbia Pictures responds:

“There’s a fondness for that culture for those of us who came of age with it, and now we want to share it.”

Are you sure it’s not because your company as well as most Hollywood studios lacks creativity and (perhaps necessarily) fears financial failure? Similarly, Harold Zwart, the director of the upcoming remake of The Karate Kid (2010), reacts:

“The Karate Kid is me telling the story of a young man who is bullied and who has to stand up for himself, rather than me simply retelling the original movie. It’s not a remake. It’s just capitalizing on the franchise.”

Well, isn’t that refreshing? And from the looks of the trailer, sorry but, yeah, it is virtually a remake (e.g., look at the above picture of Jackie Chan; Pat Morita posed similarly with chopsticks and fly in the original). Finally, author and/commentator Peter York suggests that the 1980s are alluring for Hollywood

“because they are like a more innocent version of now; […] it was the last time when the recognizable world was all in place.”

In other words, York insinuates, the 1980s were pre-9/11, pre-terrorism, pre-global warming; there was no destruction or true fear to contend with. Well, that’s slightly exaggerated; see, for example, AIDS, the LA riots, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the war on drugs, the drought of 1988, the Chernobyl disaster, and several assassination attempts. But I digress.

Now that we know why Hollywood wants to rehash the 1980s and continue to place Generation X in the past — to share, to capitalize, to return to a supposedly simpler time — we might ask how well this will work. Or perhaps we should ask how well this has worked so far. Here’s a sampling of the remakes, rehashings, reworkings, and recreations of the movies and television shows that Generation X grew up on:

• Land of the Lost (grossed $49,392,095 USA with a budget of $100m)
• Miami Vice (grossed $100,327,090 with a budget of $135m)
• The Dukes of Hazzard (grossed $110,594,793 with budget of $50m)
• The Hulk (grossed $245,284,946 with a budget of $137m)
• The Incredible Hulk (grossed $263,427,551 with a budget of $150m)
• Starsky & Hutch (grossed $75,000,000 with a budget of $60m)
• Fame (grossed $22,452,209 USA with a budget of $25m)
• Bad News Bears (grossed $32,865,161 USA with a budget of $30m)[2]

A quick look at these numbers suggests that The Dukes of Hazzard and The Incredible Hulk, for instance, fared relatively well at the box office with the former bringing in $60m and the latter roughly $113m. However, what’s not included in these figures is the amount of money Hollywood uses for marketing (ads, trailers, Happy Meal tie-ins, etc.) and distribution (creating prints, sending prints to foreign markets, printing DVDs, etc.). Today, that cost runs somewhere between $55 to $75m or, in some cases, about the same amount as it costs to the make the entire picture.

For example, it took approximately $100m to make Land of the Lost; that includes costs for shooting, special effects, and music as well as the salaries of the producers, screenwriter(s), composer, and actors/stars like Will Ferrell. However, what is not included in the budget or the “negative cost” (literally, how much it costs to make the movie’s print negative) is another $100m to promote and distribute the movie.[3] If we take that into account, Land of the Lost presumably lost roughly $150m.[4] With this in mind, you’ll notice that the other 1980s remakes listed above do not fare much better.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule; The Brady Bunch Movie, Charlie’s Angels, and Transformers all succeeded financially. But as the LA Times reminds, “For every Charlie’s Angels hit, there’s a Land of the Lost-size flop” with which studios must contend. To that end, I wonder how many audience members, Gen Xers in particular, will pay to see the next phase of ’80s remakes. Here’s a preview of what’s to come:

• The Karate Kid
• Tron
• Meatballs
• Oh, God
• Magnum PI
• Arthur
• Footloose
• The A-Team
• 21 Jump Street
• Laverne and Shirley
• Poltergeist
• The Smurfs
• Overboard
• Clue
• Romancing the Stone
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Masters of the Universe

You can see above how many Gen Xers attended theatrical releases in 2009. Needless to say, the percentage is not a small one. So where were we (along with everyone else) for The Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice, Starsky & Hutch, and Bad News Bears? Why didn’t we want to relive our childhood movies and after-school shows? Furthermore, where will we be when The Karate Kid comes out in a couple of weeks? Footloose? The A-Team? Will we be in the theatres watching Jackie Chan “replace” Pat Morita and Jennifer Garner and Jessica Biel embody the characters of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams? I’m not so sure. While some Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995) seem excited about the remakes, many others online — primarily Gen Xers — do not:

• Gag me with your ’80s movie remakes, Hollywood: “Hollywood, you figure there’s a built-in audience hungry for some nostalgia. But there’s also a built-in audience ready to riot if you mess with their fondest childhood memories.”
• Stop the remake madness!: “But enough is enough. I’m not sure what the final straw was; perhaps hearing about the remake of Short Circuit or maybe finding out that J. Lo was starring in the new Overboard, but I can stay silent no longer.”
• 5 Upcoming Remakes of 80s Movies (That Must be Stopped): “Nothing from the 80s belongs in today’s world.”
• 9 Remakes That Need to be Stopped: “It’s bad enough that they ruined A Nightmare on Elm Street and Pelham 123, but now they’re messing with some serious classics.”
• 80s Movies Remakes and Why I’m Sick to Death of Them: “Every time I see another announcement of an “in production” movie, it’s another movie that I really enjoyed from my childhood getting served up as the latest bastard child of this decade.”
• Facebook Pages to “Like”: “Stop making crappy remakes of classic films! Especially 70s and 80s horror!” and “They HAVE to stop remaking 80′s movies.”
• Stop the Remake Madness: “As a child of the 80s, I got to experience all the good stuff firsthand, when it was original and fresh: the fashion, the TV shows, the movies and the music. Now as an adult, I constantly see hipsters feebly trying to emulate the 80s decade.”
• It’s The 80’s Again: Romancing The Stone & Overboard Remakes: “I can’t say that I’m excited about any of this. As a child of the 1980’s, I have fond memories of both these films.”

Oh, there are more rants, plenty more; just perform a search on Google, and see where it gets you (I stopped after scrolling down page 3). These people, mostly Gen Xers, are fed up, pissed off at Hollywood for capitalizing on their childhood and making it seem as though they consistently want to relive their past. They blame the industry’s lack of creativity and obsession with money as well as younger viewers for buying into the remakes.

Even though Hollywood executives are reportedly (re)creating these pictures to appeal “to both nostalgic parents and their progeny,” it doesn’t seem as though a large portion of their target audience is buying it, which is rather scary (for the industry anyway) when we consider the above breakdown of moviegoers. In any event, it will be interesting to see how these remakes fare financially and which demographics pay to see them theatrically. I might very well be eating these words in a few months. Who knows? Jonah Hill’s 21 Jump Street might be a major hit with Generation X moviegoers. Oh, for the love of Johnny Depp, I hope not.

[2] Statistics found at IMDB.com. All figures are worldwide grosses unless otherwise noted.

[3] See “The Cost of Making a Hollywood Movie” for a straightforward breakdown of how much Hollywood spent on Spiderman 2.

[4] Of course, Hollywood also earns back its money through DVD sales, TV licensing fees, theatre concessions, etc.

1. Our motto is that “we did what we could.” This is nothing like the dominant slogans of the Greatest Generation (“make do or do without”) or the Baby Boomers (“change the world”) but one, Scott laments, of “the underachiever, the excuse maker, the loser.”
2. Generation X refuses to grow up. We’re “stuck in an earlier phase of life, which wasn’t so great to begin with,” Scott writes. We seek out old friends and rehash one-time dreams all while refusing to accept that we’re approaching middle age with our spouses/partners, families, and overall responsibilities.
3. As well, because we inherently reject adulthood, Gen X is a regretful bunch of people. We’ve “squandered our ambition, the professional road not taken.” In effect, our lives have been wasted, and we bemoan this fact.
4. Finally, Scott claims that these particular traits define us because we “grew up in the shadow of the Baby Boomers,” a generation that, despite its eventual toil on our Social Security system and economy, can still manage to garner a great deal of attention. For example, every time the Boomers cross another milestone, “it’s worth 10 magazine covers,” the critic claims.

Why the long face, fella? (Stiller in Greenberg, 2010)

While I have not read The Ask, I have seen Hot Tub Time Machine and Greenberg; in fact, I screened the latter the day after Scott published his column. And I concur with the critic: the lead characters are “losers” — remorseful, unpleasant, and tragically confined to their youth. They are also, however, ALL (mostly white) MALES. What about the representations of Gen-X females in popular culture, Mr. Scott? Do they subscribe to these same depressing generalizations?

One might consider, for example, the lawyers, teachers, book editors, artists, physical therapists, pet-shop owners, columnists, and art dealers portrayed in Bride Wars, My Life in Ruins, The Proposal, The Time-Traveler’s Wife (all released 2009), The Back-Up Plan, Just Wright, and Sex and the City 2 (released 2010). On one hand, these onscreen careers suggest that Gen-X women do not subscribe to the same mottos of their male counterparts; rather, they have clearly grown up and have refused to “squander their ambition.” On the other hand, there are undeniably many problems with the representations of women in these movies. First, over the course of the narrative, the (usually aloof) woman must learn that a heterosexual romantic relationship is the only thing that can complete her. Second, she is all too quickly willing to substitute her hard-earned vocation for a life of blissful motherhood and domesticity. Last, the character’s career or other non-familial/non-romantic achievements are hardly ever the focal point of her story.

If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it. (The Proposal, 2009)

Hmmm, so in popular culture, Generation X amounts to either loserdom or a return to traditional female roles? Yikes. Where are the images of most of the Gen-Xers I know? Those friends, family members, acquaintances, and colleagues with whom I interact face-to-face as well as virtually on Twitter and Facebook? Those people who completely defy these labels?

Unlike the adolescent-acting guys in Hot Tub Time Machine, the Gen Xers with whom I am familiar excel as professors, pharmacists, nurses, medical doctors, speech pathologists, dieticians, accountants, physical therapists, dentists, database programmers, student-affairs professionals, ophthalmologists, and lawyers as well as mothers and fathers. Moreover, these Gen X women and men successfully balance their careers alongside their friendships and families. In essence, they are far removed from a character like Stiller’s dour Greenberg, a 40-year old who, in his words, “wants to be doing nothing. I’m doing nothing deliberately.” Finally, I’d say that most of the Generation X class I know has moved on; its members think of high school/college as An Experience in their life, not The Defining Time of it. If only we had more characters and stories in popular culture to illustrate that…

Men literally living in the past. (Hot Tub Time Machine, 2010)

For other reactions to Scott’s Gen X column, see:

“Gen X’s Midlife Crisis Will Not Be Televised” (Jezebel): “At least you have a major motion picture that is ‘the story of your life.’”

“The Young and The Feckless: Reinventing the Identity Wheel” (Bitch Magazine): “Scott has actually swallowed the stereotypes attached to his peers (especially male peers) hook, line and sinker and has chosen to regurgitate them on the pages of the New York Times.”

“New York Times Forgets Gen X Women“:  “You’d think someone would notice when an eighteen-hundred word feature categorizing an entire generation was published without addressing women.”

“Whither the Female Midlife Crisis?” (Slate Magazine): “In Scott’s world, [women] don’t count. The midlife crisis, it seems, only happens to men.”

Unfortunately, the film wasn’t shown through the cinema’s projector but via DVD and an LCD projector, the latter of which was hooked up in the middle of the large but old theatre (built in 1946). Honestly, I was expecting a fantastic 35mm cut of The Greatest Musical Picture Ever Made as well as crystal clear surround sound that would immerse me in “You Are My Lucky Star” and “Good Morning” in a way that I’ve never been immersed in them before. Oh well, at least the price of admission was only $5.00 and the popcorn was free. Plus, I was going to spend the afternoon with Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, and Jean Hagen — and, oh yeah, the husband.

I have taught and have seen Singin’ in the Rain multiple times, and it is, as you can probably tell from the way this post is going, one of my favorite films. Accordingly, several scenes and lines come to mind when I hear the title mentioned.

• “Dignity, always dignity” — Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly).
• Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) trying his damnest to entertain the viewer with “Make ‘Em Laugh.”
• The out-of-this-world tap-dancing that fills the screen in O’Connor’s/Kelly’s “Moses Supposes.”
• Gene Kelly — with that Cheshire cat grin — “dancin’ and singin’ in the rain.”
• The colorful and uber-sexy spectacle that is the “Broadway Melody” number (Gene and Cyd!).
• Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) labeling herself “a shining, shimmering star in the cinema firmament.” (What great lines she gets. Quickly, here’s another: “If we can bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’. Bless you all.”)

I imagine most people who’ve seen Singin’ in the Rain conjure up at least one of these scenes or lines of dialogue when they hear the title. But there is one shot that I look forward to every single time I watch the film. It’s random. It’s not funny. It’s not part of a song-and-dance number. Honestly, it’s not all that remarkable. But I am smitten and elated every time I see it. It falls about 70 minutes into the film — after Kelly’s iconic “Singin’ in the Rain” number and after Lockwood, Cosmo, and studio producer R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) agree to adapt the ill-fated The Dueling Cavalier into the musical The Dancing Cavalier.

The shot begins with an extreme close-up of a microphone and dollies back to reveal Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds) dubbing the song “Would You?” for the shrill-sounding Lina Lamont (trivia: Reynolds was actually dubbed here by singer Betty Noyes).

Then, the camera pulls back further to reveal Cosmo conducting a full orchestra. After that, it slowly pans to the right, from Cosmo and Kathy to Kelly’s Lockwood who watches the performance.

Now, just a small dolly forward, and there you have it: the one shot of Singin’ in the Rain that gets me every time:

As Don Lockwood, Gene Kelly rests his upper body on that baby grand piano and stares adoringly at Reynolds’s Kathy Seldon. The glamorous three-point lighting, Kelly’s olive complexion, and the use of shallow focus separate the song-and-dance man from the orchestra playing in the background. At this point, I don’t think of Kelly’s toupee or that less-than-sexy jacket he’s sporting. It’s just me and Gene/Don, with the latter looking affectionately at ME in the manner he’s looking at Kathy. The shot continues for a few more seconds. It pans left as Lockwood walks in front of Seldon, and then it centers all three players in the frame, Lockwood still gazing tenderly at the girl who “was meant for him.”

I usually do not swoon over couples in romantic comedies. I rarely cry during movies or television shows. In short, I’m normally not the spectator that gets attached emotionally to her moving pictures, at least not in the lovey-dovey sense. But as I suggest above, there are a few onscreen men out there who can affect me that way e.g., Colin Firth in Love Actually (2003), Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice (1995), and…okay, Colin Firth in anything including A Single Man (2009) in which he plays a gay widower who’s on the path to suicide.

Evoking similar feelings in me is that piano shot of Gene Kelly from Singin’ in the Rain.[1] So why? Why this one look from Kelly (or Firth), but nothing from Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal (2009), John Corbett in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge (2001), Mel Gibson in What Women Want (2000), Hugh Grant in Notting Hill (1999), Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (1993), or Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (1989)? Or turning to classical Hollywood, why do I receive no little school-girl butterflies from Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964), Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday (1953), Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1941), or Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind (1939)?

A visceral reaction to this question is that I find Gene Kelly physically attractive. In brief, he’s hot. (Perhaps it’s also that the shot from Singin’ resembles one of my favorite promotional shots of his, at right.) Second, I have an interest in Kelly that I do not with, say, Ryan Reynolds, Mel Gibson, or Clark Gable. While each actor/star may be good-looking and may perform well onscreen, none fascinates me in the way that Kelly does, which leads me to my third response. Finally, I experience such pure delight when I see Gene Kelly (and nada from few other leading men) because I am attracted to his talents — his dancing ability and choreographic skills as well as his innovations in staging and cinematography. Although a perfectionist and evidently hard-nosed on (and off) the set, Kelly is gifted, ambitious, and brilliant — and it shows.[2]

But again, these three answers are, some would argue, the easy way out. After all, stars function as much more than mere objects of attraction and/or lust.

• They are ideological texts on which viewers project their desires.
• They reinforce dominate cultural ideas about sex, gender, race, religion, politics, etc.
• They embody types (e.g., John Wayne as “the Good Joe,” Katharine Hepburn as “the independent woman”).
• They compensate for qualities lacking in our lives and “act out aspects of life that are important to us.”[3]

Therefore, a more analytical response to why I am enchanted by and attracted to Gene Kelly — and that brief (sexy) image of him from Singin’ in the Rain — should take into account what he reinforces, what he embodies, what he mirrors in life that is important to me. If that is the case, then I likely feel this way about Kelly not only because I find him physically attractive, but also because he represents a complicated form of heterosexual masculinity that is largely absent in cinema today.

Specifically, Gene Kelly — in his heyday — fits traditional conventions of masculinity. He is athletic; his figure is muscular, solid, and agile.[4] Moreover, his characters (and Kelly himself) wear conventional mannish garb: sweaters, blazers, t-shirts, khakis, and loafers. Additionally, his screen characters (and he personally) always get the girl. As well, Kelly’s onscreen romantic dances with Cyd Charisse and Leslie Caron, for example, exude intense (hetero)sexuality.

At the same time, Gene Kelly and his star image challenge conventional representations of masculinity. For example, he frolics about the screen in sailor hats (On the Town and Anchors Aweigh). He wears “Daisy Dukes” and pole-dances (The Pirate). And many of Kelly’s dancing partners are not women but

• children (An American in Paris),
• inanimate objects (the newspaper/squeaky board in Summer Stock),
• (male) cartoons (Anchors Aweigh, Invitation to the Dance),
• male costars (Cosmo in Singin’),
• or Kelly himself (Cover Girl, It’s Always Fair Weather).

To many people including several of my film students, these images are often read exclusively as gay or feminine — and this is generally meant derogatorily. But to me, much more is going on here. First, these unconventional images point to both a particular place and a (highly successful) genre in cinema history. Second, they denote an element of creativity and sense of oneself that is sorely lacking from much of Hollywood’s current fare and which has been replaced by blue CGI people, bomb explosions, bromances, car chases, and tacky romantic comedies. Finally, these more “feminine” representations of Gene Kelly in conjunction with the relatively conventional “masculine” ones listed above signify, for me anyway, a layered and more accurate form of heterosexual masculinity than we currently see at the local Cineplex — one that is unabashedly virile and exposed, commanding and playful, sexy and inventive, physical and refined.[5]

[1]

[2] For examples of Kelly’s giftedness, ambitiousness, and brilliance, see the opening sequence of On the Town (“New York, New York”), the first film musical ever shot on-location; Anchors Aweigh in which he dances alongside Jerry the mouse (yes, we know that he dances with Family Guy‘s Stewie too); and/or the elaborate and costly (half a million dollars) ballet sequence in An American in Paris.

[3] Richard Dyer, Stars 32, 55, 60; Dyer, Heavenly Bodies 17.

[4] It’s no secret that Kelly was keen on (or obsessed with?) demonstrating to viewers the parallels between dance and athletics (see Kelly’s film Dancing: A Man’s Game for more here).

[5] Special thanks to Adrienne McLean for introducing me to Gene Kelly.

Deadline EXTENDED: Sept. 15, 2010

In American cinema, the buddy film, which tends to focus on male relationships, has been surging. Consider, for example, I Love You, Man (John Hamburg, 2009), Role Models (David Wain, 2008), Superbad (Greg Mottola, 2007), and Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin, 2005). These so-called “Bromances” are also featured on the small screen in sitcoms such as Scrubs (JD, Turk) and How I Met Your Mother (Ted, Marshall), as well as in hour-long shows like House, M.D. (Wilson, House) and Boston Legal (Alan, Denny).

What cultural circumstances or social forces—or fears—have caused this surge in the Bromance sub-genre? In what narrative or historical contexts do these male-male relationships thrive? Where and how do women fit in to the homosocial love between heterosexual men? How has masculinity been redefined by it? Are homosociality and homosexuality ever connected in these texts? What types of male characters are predominately featured in the Bromance (i.e., attractive, pudgy, nerdy)? These and all other topics regarding homosocial love in film and/or television will be considered.

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:

Kelli Marshall, Area Chair
The University of Toledo
Dept. of Theatre and Film, MS 611
2801 W. Bancroft
Toledo, OH 43606
EMAIL KELLI (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

As expected, several groups including LSU faculty and a national professors association are upset by this decision and are subsequently speaking out. Specifically,

The national American Association of University Professors group already is planning to investigate LSU for the termination last year of Ivor van Heerden, the former deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center.

The group announced the Homberger case may be added into that inquiry.

The LSU Faculty Senate also is expected to take up the issue.

Homberger, who hasn’t taught an introductory-level course in quite some time, concurs that most of her students failed their first exam, which was made up of objective multiple-choice questions. She reportedly used the poor grades, however, as a wake-up call, informing her students that they were slacking off and “need[ed] to do more.” Homberger claims that afterward, the students “became much more engaged and improved on the next test.”

Two days after this story was reported, other articles began to surface like this one from Inside Higher Ed, which begs the question Who Really Failed here? The professor? The students? The dean? (The piece was also featured in USA Today.) Whichever stance you take, there’s no doubt that this situation has definitely “set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor’s right to set standards in her own course.” For example, just see the 100 or so comments below the Inside Higher Ed article, which range from outrage against the administration (e.g., “I am shocked and appalled that administration would have the audacity to remove an instructor from a course mid-semester because they were ‘too hard’”) to contempt for the professor (e.g., “Prof. Homberger and her defenders are a bunch of whiny crybabies”).

Unfortunately, this entire grading fiasco hits a bit close to home. A few years ago, my dean called me into his/her office to question my grading. Apparently, too many students in my introductory-level film course were, like Homberger’s, failing or dropping. This percentage was evidently so high that the upper administration noticed and asked the dean to confront me. After a few questions about my assignments and student evaluations, the dean asked me,

“Could you be a little nicer, perhaps? Grade a little easier?”

Honestly, I didn’t see that one coming. I listened to the dean’s side of the story and then responded with my own, ultimately notifying him/her that by the end of the day I would provide him/her with several classroom statistics, e.g., how many students never showed, how many attended class regularly, how many dropped, what their grades were at the time they dropped, how many passed with flying colors, how many took advantage of bonus-point opportunities, etc. Alongside those numbers, I would also offer several student comments that indicate a positive view of my course and teaching. In brief, I would gather as much material as necessary to explain to the dean and the upper administration that those who had dropped or who had failed the course in question did so for reasons other than my grading. In particular, they

• rarely attended or never showed,
• fared poorly on the (easy) five-point participation exercises, and
• never took advantage of extra-credit opportunities (all students could earn up to 20 bonus points over the course of the semester).

Conversely, I would point out, those who succeeded

• attended regularly,
• excelled on the participation exercises, and
• profited from the bonus points.

Moreover, the latter had appreciative and thoughtful words about the course (and my instruction).

In my mind, collecting all of this information was necessary for two reasons. First, all the dean and higher-ups had in their hands were letter grades and a few negative student evaluations; and as all instructors know, a great deal more goes into acquiring a full picture of a class than that. Second, I felt a responsibility to defend my classroom, my teaching, and my assessments — all of which I work (and have always worked) extremely hard to make lively, appropriate, and fair. Sure, when I look back on some exams/assignments from my first few years of teaching, I notice questions that could have been phrased differently or more generally; but still, several students answered those questions correctly and then went on to make grades of 102, 95, 90, 85, 81, 76, and 70. In any event, as promised, by the end of the day, I put together my evidence and sent it to the dean who, by the way, very much encouraged my data-gathering after he heard my side of the story. Here’s a sampling of my findings:

• Of the students who made a D or an F, 84% missed class more than 2 times.
• Of the students who made a D or an F, 66% missed more than 4 times (which essentially equates to missing a month since the course only meets once a week).
• Of the students who dropped, 93% missed class more than 2 times.
• Of the students who  remained in the course, 82% passed.
• The final average for those who remained in the course was above average, a 78.5/C+.
• The drop rate for my course was 11%.

I also provided the dean with several comments from students in the course. Here are a few:

I just wanted to say thank you for this semester. This was without doubt my most enjoyable class and it was nice to learn things I can actually use every day. At the beginning I was afraid more knowledge of films would ruin them for me, but I’ve found it to be quite the opposite — knowing the production process and analyzing certain aspects of each film opens a new side to it and I love them even more.

I’m really glad to have taken this class, it has taught me a lot about film that i had no idea about. Also having a teacher that is so into what she is teaching helps me a lot to get and stay involved.

I’ve attempted this class before last semester, and tried hard to get into the class intellectually, but I couldn’t catch on to how our teacher was lecturing us. However this semester I feel more confident, such as on that last test, I may not have scored super high, but I feel like I did pretty well answering the questions and essays, whereas on the tests last semester I didn’t have a clue to what to do. I enjoy your style of teaching much better and I learn a whole lot more. You talk about the films more, the readings more, and still manage to show us present films to help cater to our taste of present day movies. You ultimately make coming to this class a joy rather than a burden.

I never learned what the dean did with my results. I don’t know if s/he forwarded them to the upper administration, if s/he put them in “my file” (if there is such a thing?!), or if s/he just deleted them from his/her email altogether. In fact, nothing else was ever mentioned. (I accepted a position at another school a couple of semesters later for completely unrelated reasons.)

On one hand, I sometimes wonder what happened after I submitted my findings. Did I do all of that work for nothing? Did the dean ultimately agree with me and/or back me up to those above him/her? On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is that this experience, although upsetting at the time, prepared me for my career in higher education and the potential questioning that could (will?) come with it. As well, it made me look at my classroom statistically, which I hadn’t done much prior to that situation. Finally, it reinforced what I already knew: a faceless list of final grades and a few negative student evaluations do not, nay, cannot tell the whole story.

At first, there were some confused looks and mostly silence. Then, some began to shake their heads side to side; no, they didn’t see it. Finally, one student spoke up, “But Body Heat is so smooth, and Double Indemnity is so rough.” I asked for clarification, “Smooth and rough, what do you mean?” My student referenced the slow, seductive storyline and the silky, sensuous curves that appear during Body Heat‘s opening credits. “Everything’s so smooth and flowing unlike Double Indemnity, which is so fast-paced, choppy, and clear-cut.” Now I understood what he meant, and I even agree with his assessment…to a point.

Indeed, Kasdan’s Body Heat is slow and drowsy. It reinforces this, our textbook points out, via its “slow, gliding tracking shots and lap dissolves” as well as its “low-lit, mutedly chiaroscuro interiors” (Spicer 151). These stylistic elements along with the slow jazz underscoring and all of that heat and fog — good lord, the fog! — nicely emphasize the narrative’s sleepy (or smooth) pace. Furthermore, William Hurt’s lethargic-sounding voice perfectly complements this mood. Conversely, Double Indemnity is active, urgent, snappy, bustling; it has bite from the start. Its first three shots, for goodness sake, feature insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) speeding recklessly down the street, running stop lights, and weaving frantically around other vehicles. And where is he headed? The Pacific All Risk insurance company. Right, Neff will risk it all, quickly, and we know this from the beginning.

So, yes, I agree with my student’s comment that Body Heat is “smooth” and Double Indemnity is “rough.” But does smooth = sexy in this case? Other students chimed in eventually, responding to my question with, “But the passion is so clear in Body Heat. I mean, Ned (Hurt) completely shattered Matty’s (Turner) window to get to her.” Yes, he did. Yes. He. Did. That scene as well as the other three or four sex scenes is memorable and, sure, sexy. But at what cost to the narrative, characters, and overall aim of the revivalist postmodern noir, or that which attempts to recreate the mood and atmosphere of classical noir? Where’s the feisty banter, the innuendo? Where’s the foreplay? Much of this, I would argue, is virtually absent from Body Heat, or at least it’s relegated to lewd jokes, bad puns, and too-straightforward dialogue. But, it’s all there in Double Indemnity. And, man, is it sexy.

Take for example, Ned and Matty’s initial encounter at the outdoor concert (depicted above). After Matty establishes for Ned and the audience that she’s “a married woman” but not necessarily a “happily married woman,” the flirting begins:

Matty: [to Ned] You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.
Ned: What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got ‘em all.
Matty: You don’t look lazy.

We get it: Ned looks horny (and perhaps smart). And Matty, with all of her hair-flipping, cigarette-smoking, and tight white clothing is horny too. It’s inevitable; they’ll get it on. The two continue, with Ned offering to buy Matty a drink:

Matty: I told you. I’ve got a husband.
Ned: I’ll buy him one too.
Matty: He’s out of town.
Ned: My favorite kind. We’ll drink to him.
Matty: Only comes up on weekends.
Ned: I’m liking him better all the time.

Of course you do, Ned, of course you do. Like so much of Body Heat (as well as postmodern noir in general), this conversation attempts to recreate the feel and tone of a classical noir. In this case, it’s Walter’s and Phyllis’s well-known conversation about “speeding” from Double Indemnity, which I’ll discuss below. The references to the threatening/absent husband and Ned’s/Neff’s arrogance are there, but they lack the panache of the original; everything’s so straightforward (e.g., “He’s out of town / I’m liking him better all the time”). Still, the two continue. Matty says Ned may buy her a cherry snow-cone, which she ultimately spills on herself (below):

Matty: Would you get me a paper towel or something? Dip it in some cold water.
Ned: Right away. I’ll even wipe if off for you.
Matty: You don’t want to lick it?

Wow, Matty, wow.

An author at Film Noir of the Week writes that one of the most captivating aspects of film noir is its sexual tension — a tension “that is achieved by very small means” like a look or a snippet of dialogue. I think, for example, of the first time the Swede (Burt Lancaster) meets Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) at the piano in The Killers (1946) or when “Slim” (Lauren Bacall) asks Steve (Humphrey Bogart) if he “knows how to whistle” in To Have and Have Not (1945). But this tension seems absent from most of today’s noirs and thrillers; there’s often “only sexuality, no tension,” the Noir of the Week author posits. I agree, and would point you to Blue Velvet (1986), Fatal Attraction (1989), Basic Instinct (1991), and Body Heat as examples, postmodern noirs that interpret sexual tension as dirty-talk, bad puns, (disturbed) sexuality, and gratuitous nudity. Here are a couple more Ned/Matty conversations before I move forward with Double Indemnity:

Matty: My temperature runs a couple of degrees high, around a hundred. I don’t mind. It’s the engine or something.
Ned: Maybe you need a tune up.
Matty: Don’t tell me. You have just the right tool.

And one more:

Ned: Maybe you shouldn’t dress like that.
Matty: This is a blouse and a skirt. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ned: You shouldn’t wear that body.

Maybe you need a tune up? You shouldn’t wear that body? Sheesh.

Double Indemnity, on the other hand, handles sexual tension classily but with spice. Much of this, of course, stems from The Hays Code, which mandated that sex/sexuality be inferred not displayed (e.g., “Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown; passion should so be treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element; indecent or undue exposure is forbidden”). But ironically, these stipulations, although trite by today’s standards, are precisely what produce this sexier form of tension.

Take, for example, Walter and Phyllis’s initial meeting in Double Indemnity, he peddling insurance and she returning from a sunbath, wearing only a towel. Walter gazes upward at Phyllis and is immediately smitten (even with Stanwyck’s hideous blond wig). Then the puns, the tension, the dance, the foreplay begin.

Walter [to the towel-wrapped Phyllis]: The insurance ran out on the 15th. I’d hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you’re not, uh, fully covered.

One pun, the blocking, and Walter’s giddy smile exude more sexual tension than any of Ned’s risqué lines to Matty in Body Heat, which come off again as, well, horny. First, Walter’s pun, fully covered, suggests that (a) he’s quick on his feet (making puns, I mean), (b) he notices Phyllis in a sexual way, and (c) he’s a bit of a cad. The blocking here — Phyllis above, Walter below — also informs us who’ll have the upper hand in this relationship. Moreover, unlike Ned’s and Matty’s initial meeting in Body Heat in which there is no barrier dividing the two (the shattered window comes later), Phyllis’s iron railing, which physically separates the characters, indicates tension exists and one of them will have to penetrate it.

But perhaps the sexiest scene in Double Indemnity comes a few minutes later, after Phyllis and Walter have discussed the insurance, Phyllis’s husband, and Phyllis’s anklet, the latter of which Walter can’t take his eyes off. Walter is about to leave the house, when Phyllis suggests he return the following day to talk to Mr. Dietrichson:

Honestly, there’s little reason for me to explain why this exchange is sexy, right? But for the sake of argument, I will. These reckless driving metaphors not only recall Double Indemnity‘s opening (i.e., Walter speeding erratically down the street), but they also illustrate that the couple is accelerating into a relationship based almost solely on lust, power, and potential sadomasochism.[i]

Specifically, Peter William Evans notes that this feisty banter comes to us in a “three round verbal contest with a knockout victory for Phyllis” (The Book of Film Noir 169). In other words, sexual tension grows here because the two vie for power through wit and hypersexual innunedo. As Evans points out, Walter tries to gain control via his dialogue (“How fast was I going, officer? / Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket”). Moreover, unlike earlier at the bottom of the staircase, Walter positions himself above Phyllis here, “his face squarely in medium shot in front of the viewer” so he appears to be in control (169). Yet Phyllis takes over (Round 2), responding violently, rather sadomasochistically as she threatens to “whack him over the knuckles.” Walter likes this and dives in for one more round, but Phyllis delivers the final punchline (“Suppose you try putting [your head] on my husband’s shoulders”), thereby securing her power in this affair. It is a line that also suggests she will play the part of a dominatrix and he a needy cry-baby (169).

I could say more about how Double Indemnity is sexier than Body Heat, but this post is already 500 words more than I thought it would be. My next point would have been about the film’s post-coital shot (featured below) with Walter smoking a cigarette, reclining on his couch, legs spread apart, and Phyllis reapplying her lipstick; but I’ll refrain. You get the point, right? Instead, I’ll conclude by saying that for all of my criticism of Body Heat‘s lewd dialogue and bad puns, I like the film overall. I like its hazy feel. I like Hurt’s portrayal of the duped noir victim. I like its ambiguous ending, with Matty in her sunglasses resting comfortably (or is she?) on the beach. And mostly, I like that Body Heat, as my students learned this week, initiated postmodern film noir (or neo-noir) — a genre/mood/cycle/style/movement (yeah, noir is a highly contested construction) that, like classical noir, continues to explore “the underside of the American dream” (Spicer 149).

The National Annenberg Election Survey of 2004 finds that the average age of viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is 35, their average income is $67,000, and they are 78% more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education. While perhaps shocking to Bill O’Reilly, whose audience was found to be much older and less educated than Stewart’s, this information should not be all that surprising. After all, Stewart’s show is a satire; and satire, both as a definition and a literary genre, is somewhat elitist. Accordingly, this paper argues that The Daily Show as well as its satirical progeny, The Colbert Report, attracts and maintains its educated audiences because its choice of commentary — satire — actually caters to the informed, or the educated elite, so to speak. In other words, in order for the spectator to get and thus receive pleasure from many of the in-jokes and allusions that the sarcastic hosts spit out, s/he must be a relatively learned person — and one, I argue, who is familiar with both high and low culture.

Perhaps the most basic convention of satire is that in order for it to succeed, the audience must know what the satirized object is (McKain 417). Indeed, to find the most pleasure in Jonathan Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal,” Mel Brooks’s film Blazing Saddles (1974), and Dave Chappelle’s sketch “The Racial Draft,” we must be aware of, respectively, poverty in early eighteenth-century Ireland, the conventions of the Hollywood western, and the way in which professional athletes are recruited in America. Likewise, in order for us to understand and indulge in the jokes offered by “fake” news shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, we must be literate both in the content and the conventions of national news programs like CNN Headline News, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, and The O’Reilly Factor. But the “fake” news shows also offer other jokes that depend on our knowledge of both popular and high culture.

Several of The Daily Show’s visual jokes and puns derive from popular culture. In fact, most of the titles that introduce the show’s headlines, “live reporting” segments, and correspondents’ reports are taken from popular television shows, films, and songs (see exs. at end of post). The Colbert Report likewise embeds pop culture references within its satire, most frequently in its segment “The Word.” But perhaps even more interesting — and probably more relevant to Nielson’s findings — is that the two shows also frequently incorporate high culture into their satire, again suggesting that their audiences are literate in something more than just the content and format of national news programs. Perhaps the best example is Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones’s ”report” on George W. Bush’s encounter with Camus’s The Stranger.

To appreciate their sketch on The Stranger (August 2006), Jon Stewart and Jason Jones assume that we are already informed of two matters: George W. Bush’s frequent vacations to his Texas ranch and the fundamentals of existentialism. The first of these — that Bush regularly leaves Washington D.C. to visit his Crawford ranch — is well documented in the media, so anyone who keeps current on the national news will understand the humor behind Stewart’s sarcastic line “This year, President Bush decided he’s only doing a 10-day vacation at his Crawford Ranch…which really, why even bother at that point?”

A person who watches the conventional news might also get Jason Jones’s joke “I love being in Crawford, TX; it’s got the best brush clearing in the world” since the viewer has probably also seen images of Bush clearing cedar from his ranch. But this reference is perhaps even more amusing to the regular Daily Show watcher because s/he knows that Stewart frequently airs and makes fun of this footage of the President as he simultaneously clears brush and talks to reporters. The show’s second assumption, however — that its audience is well-read in existential philosophy — is arguably reserved for viewers who are educated in high culture.

To be fair, Stewart does summarize Camus’s novel for the audience: “It is about a Westerner who kills an Arab for no good reason and dies with no remorse.” So if one had not read the book, one now at least knows its storyline. However, after this line — an obvious jab at Bush and his involvement in Iraq — Stewart and his correspondent do not discuss Camus’s narrative any further. Rather, the two bring up existentialism, a topic that neither Stewart nor Jones introduces or summarizes for the audience in any way. So from here on out, The Daily Show is clearly pandering to the educated elite, assuming that when Jones rattles off the names Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietchze, and Heidegger, we know who these people are and of their contributions to existential philosophy.

Similarly, when Stewart runs Tony Snow’s statement — that the President didn’t “want to go too deep into it, but [he and Snow] discussed the origins of existentialism” — we are expected to know that existentialism is a complex theory on the individual’s existence and essence, and that the theory is nothing if not “deep.” And even when Jones mentions that the room got “a little heavy” when Bush put down his pipe and his “snifter of brandy,” we are expected to connect these words to the stereotypical image of a pompous philosopher. After all, none of these references — the philosophers’ names, the fundamentals of existentialism, or even a snifter — is defined for us. Again, only the summary of Camus’s novel, which the show uses merely as a springboard for its philosophical humor, is presented.

But those who are literate in philosophy almost certainly find Stewart’s satire here quite amusing. The juxtaposition of Bush — someone repeatedly depicted by comedians and even by himself as unintelligent (e.g., see his pronunciation of the word nuclear) — alongside the weighty theory of existentialism is both ironic and funny. And of course, Stewart’s customary Buster Keaton-esque, “deer-in-the-headlights” reaction to this news and Jones’s Bush impersonation (“heh, heh, heh”) are equally amusing since they reinforce what the educated elite already recognize as a bizarre connection between an existential author and their current President.

The Colbert Report also integrates high culture into its headlines and sketches. And because it is a show that prides itself on toying with language and words, it perhaps does this even more often than The Daily Show. One example is Colbert’s take on William Shakespeare:

To appreciate this sketch in full, the audience should be familiar with four things: first, Colbert’s pseudo-rightwing persona; second, Bill O’Reilly’s “Talking Points”; third, the general thinking of right-leaning conservatives; and fourth, quite a bit about Shakespeare.

First, where Jon Stewart essentially plays himself to expose the absurdity and hypocrisy in American politics and the media, Colbert adopts a character to do the same — an often pretentious, always conservative Republican. Consequently, to see the satire in this sketch and, indeed, in the entire show, we are expected to identify Colbert’s fake persona. In the same way, we are also supposed to notice that the show’s segment “The Word” is modeled after The O’Reilly Factor’s segment “Talking Points” in which Bill O’Reilly’s verbal commentary is paraphrased visually on the screen as the host speaks. And finally, the writers of this sketch also assume that their audience is familiar with traditional conservative beliefs about raising children, which Colbert will ultimately spin and make appear absurd. We see this for instance in the host’s comments on discipline (“Our kids need tough love, not iambic pentameter”), on banning literature that might negatively sway young minds (“the plays are immoral”), and on detaining criminals (“put them in prisons because prisons work”). Consequently, like Jon Stewart’s comments on Bush’s vacation and brush-clearing, most people who pay attention to the national news and those who know of Colbert’s persona will get these jokes. But the show’s attention to Shakespeare here is explicitly directed toward the educated elite.

In the same way that Stewart summarizes the premise of Camus’s novel for his audience, Colbert explains why Shakespeare is a bad influence on America’s “at-risk youthssss,” as he enunciates it. For example, while Colbert claims that the playwright “was a debtor and a blackguard,” the word blackguard is defined for the audience on the side screen. But again, like Stewart’s existentialist humor, the rest of the sketch relies heavily on the viewers’ knowledge of high culture, specifically Shakespeare’s plays. Nothing else is described for us.

For instance, if the audience does not know the storylines of Twelfth Night, Othello, and Macbeth, the over-simplified but funny connections to lesbianism, homicide, and regicide are essentially lost on the crowd. And if one is not familiar with the complexities of and the death-count in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, Colbert’s jokes on fratricide, matricide, and suicide are again probably rather humorless. In the next section of this sketch, when Colbert begins to cite characters and lines from specific plays, the show caters to the educated elite even more. Specifically, the host claims that “the Montagues and the Capulets are nothing but Crips and Bloods in tights,” and then he reveals on the side screen the words “drive-by thumb-biting.” This joke is obviously written for those who have not only read Romeo and Juliet, but who know by heart act 1, scene 1 and the feisty exchange between Abram and Sampson that begins with “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” But to the spectator who is unfamiliar with these lines and their contemporary connotations (thumb-biting is analogous to giving someone the finger today), Colbert’s reference theoretically makes little sense.

I would imagine that when Colbert puts on the ruff (Shakespeare collar) and begins reciting Hamlet’s famous speech, all types of spectators get the joke, as virtually nearly everyone has seen drawings of Shakespeare and has heard the lines uttered “To be or not to be.” And at this point, perhaps even the pop culture references that the host integrates on the side screen like “Deal or no deal” and “Shakespeare had TiVo?” are readily accessible to most audiences as well. But after this, and after the jokes on Broadway musicals and sodomy in prison, Colbert returns once more to Shakespeare, citing that bizarre stage direction from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” As before, with his direct references to Shakespeare’s plays and characters, Colbert offers no explanation. The sketch ends, leaving those viewers who are inexperienced in classic Elizabethan literature somewhat clueless, and those who are educated in the same, rather satisfied and maybe even more confident in their own knowledge.

Some pop culture references…

To date, Pixar has created ten full-length computer-generated animated feature films. In addition to telling stories that successfully reach both children and adults, the young company is known for its lengthy production process (an average of four years per picture) and cutting-edge technical innovations. For instance, the animators of A Bug’s Life (1998) fashioned their style of lighting and shading to illustrate “the transparence and backlighting of an insect world” (Porter and Susman 25). Likewise, for Monsters, Inc. (2001), Pixar developed a process simply called hair technology, which enables the 2.3 million blue hairs on the body of lead character Sulley to move fluidly and naturally (right). [1] A third example of the company’s technical competence may be found in Cars (2006): as Pixar’s website explains it, a process called ray tracing allows the film’s characters like shiny red Lightning McQueen “to credibly reflect their environment.” Finally, Pixar animators created squashing and stretching, a technique that conveys the mass and flexibility of the superhero family of The Incredibles (2004) and the numerous furry rodents that scamper across the screen in Ratatouille (2007).

It is no secret, then, that Pixar’s narratives are almost entirely dependent upon computer-driven special effects. Moreover, the company’s conference papers, published essays, website, and DVD extras tend to emphasize its innovative prowess over the equally-significant creative minds of its designers and directors. For these reasons, one might think that Pixar’s onscreen representations of high-tech advancement might be positive, or in the very least, hopeful. This is, however, not the case. Paradoxically, the most technically-savvy animated filmmakers in the world depict technology and progress as agents of torture (Monsters, Inc.), tools for destruction (The Incredibles), and threats both to individuality (Cars) and the environment (WALL-E).

In Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles, the latest in technical innovation is associated almost exclusively with the films’ villains: the scheming lizard, Randall (voiced by Steve Buscemi), and the freckled-faced would-be superhero, Syndrome (voiced by Jason Lee). For example, in the world of Monsters, Inc. the creatures who enter children’s bedrooms to frighten them and bottle their screams for energy are being replaced with a newfangled machine. This more modern “scream extractor,” as it’s called, is fashioned to yank the screams right out of the children’s mouths. This is necessary, we learn, because contemporary pop culture has desensitized the kindergarteners so much that monsters can no longer be relied upon to scare them. Built underground by the film’s slimy villain Randall, the machine latches onto a child’s mouth and literally sucks the terror right out of her, simultaneously leaving her lips doubled in size and restoring her sense of fear (featured above). Undoubtedly, Monsters, Inc. represents technical innovation as well as those who create it in a torturous and frightening way.

Syndrome’s Omnidroid robot on a killing spree.

In The Incredibles, machines do not fare any better than they do in Monsters, Inc. Here, they serve as tools for destruction. For instance, as Syndrome, the film’s aptly named villain, puts it, massive octopus-shaped robots “emerge dramatically, do some damage, [and] throw some screaming people.” Moreover, because these technologically advanced robots are weapons that only he can defeat, the aspirant superhero will rise as the victor while obliterating authentic heroes like The Incredibles. The manmade robots are also touted in the film as uncontrollable, threatening, hard to track, and smarter than humans. As such, in the diegesis of The Incredibles manufactured machines only serve to initiate destruction. I might mention quickly here that the villain in Pixar’s latest film, Up (Pete Docter, 2009), functions similarly. Charles F. Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer) employs fancy technology on his pack of dogs. Muntz fits his animals with specially designed thought/voice-translators which allow him to communicate with his pups for the purpose of capturing and killing a rare South American bird.

While Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles negatively depict progressive machinery, Pixar’s film Cars negatively depicts progress though machines: specifically, in Cars, advancement in society is represented as a threat to one’s individuality. For example, the film’s lead character, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), ultimately encounters authentic friendships and learns his worth not in the fast-paced world of racing, commercialism, and celebrity but in a virtually abandoned town off the old Route 66. This young car’s countryside realization suggests that growth, construction, and modernism — or ultimately social and economic progress — damage our sense of community and values. Sally (voiced by Bonnie Hunt), one of the cars who lives in the dilapidated but friendly small town, reinforces this concept as she describes pre-Interstate driving to McQueen: “Well, the road didn’t cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.” In essence, an animation company that relies heavily on progress to depict its narratives prefers here, rather paradoxically, “to romanticize a past that resists innovation and change” (Snow, Cabanov, and Popovich). [2]

In WALL-E, technology causes obesity and environmental ignorance.

Like Cars, Pixar’s WALL-E, represents technology and evolution as threatening not only to individuality, but also to the environment. Before continuing though, I should acknowledge that the heroes of this film — the scruffy-looking WALL-E and the sleekly-formed EVE — are in fact robots, clear representatives of technical innovation. Incidentally, EVE is modeled after the iPod, one of the most recent and most popular forms of technology today (Debruge). Nonetheless, the two seemingly mismatched robots are the ones that save humans from obesity, conformity, consumerism, and an unhealthy dependence on machines. As such, the depiction of technology in WALL-E may be read positively. However, there are several quite disturbing images of progress in the film as well, especially as machinery influences humanity. For instance, in WALL-E the human race — which has boarded space capsules that resemble modern-day cruise ships — is now catatonic and overweight, completely helpless without anonymous computer-mediated voices, glaring fluorescent signs, and hover vehicles to get them through the day. Having abandoned earth for something new and more modern, the human characters in the film have virtually forgotten the natural beauty of earth; in fact, they can hardly recall what plants look like or how dirt feels. A warning message, then, from Pixar’s WALL-E is that human beings must be careful of their current obsessions with progress; if not, they as well as the environment will suffer dramatically, possibly even to extinction.

Technical advancements lead to unhealthy obsessions in The Conversation.

At the start of this project, I found it both odd and ironic that Pixar, the go-to company for technical innovation in animation, instills in its movies such negative images of progress. But ultimately, what I have discovered is that the company is simply following suit. In other words, Pixar is ultimately representing this subject matter the same way that Hollywood has done for years. I think, for instance, of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) in which surveillance technology ultimately drives Gene Hackman’s character into a state of paranoia. I think also of films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982), Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), and War Games (John Badham, 1983), each of which portrays humans who cannot control their technology and some of which appear to conclude with the obsolescence of humanity altogether (Wood and Smith 195). Finally, more recently The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984), Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993), The Net (Irwin Winkler, 1995), The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998), Cellular (David R. Ellis, 2004), Untraceable (Gregory Hoblit, 2008), and Eagle Eye (D.J. Caruso, 2008) suggest the same: that even with the best intentions, humanity seemingly cannot manage its technological creations.

It makes sense that contemporary filmmakers would incorporate modern technology in their narratives, but as one columnist ponders, “It doesn’t necessarily follow that technology should be so destructive in movies” (James, par. 8). After all, many of these tools have significantly enhanced our current lifestyles. Furthermore, in contrast to cinematic technology, which frequently explodes violently, most machines in reality just break down with little pyrotechnic fuss whatsoever (Kozlovic 367). And what’s more, those in control of such innovation and development are depicted onscreen as nerds, criminals, children, and hackers rather than the mostly mature, educated, law-abiding adults who generally maintain such equipment in the real world.

So why are there so many negative depictions of technology and progress in both animated and non-animated Hollywood? Many agree that these representations express an intense yet mostly irrational fear that technology will one day outsmart and/or replace us (James, par. 11; Kozlovic 343). Others suggest that Hollywood, as usual, relies on drama to sustain itself, and “self-survival fear is a great dramaturgical motivator” (Kozlovic 366). Either way, Pixar — again, one of the most forward-looking companies working in Hollywood — continues to render progress as torturous, destructive, and threatening. As implied earlier, WALL-E suggests that the animators and directors are perhaps moving in an encouraging direction; after all, two very likable manmade creatures do assist humanity when the latter has gone too far. But as scholar Anton Kozlovic claims in his essay on “computer films,” Hollywood still has a way to go. These negative pop-culture images, he says, need to be revised, “especially amongst the children of the Internet in this age of the moving image” (366). And with this proposition in mind, Pixar — the current leader in creating moving images for children (and many adults) — might be wise, as they already know how, to break new ground.

This paper was presented on Oct. 31, 2008 at the Film & History Conference (Chicago, IL).

Works Cited

Debruge, Peter. “Why Pixar Is the Apple of Hollywood.” Popular Mechanics 26 Jun. 2008. 1 Aug. 2008.

James, Caryn. “Why Hollywood Loves Killer-Computers.” Macworld 13.2 (Feb. 1996): 268.

Kozlovic, Anton Karl. “Technophobic Themes in Pre-1990 Computers Films.” Science as Culture 12.3 (Sept. 2003): 341-73.

Porter, Tom and Galyn Susman. “Creating Lifelike Characters in Pixar Movies.” Communications of the ACM 43.1 (Jan. 2000): 25-29.

Snow, Nick, Mila Cobanov, and Claire Popovich. “Cars and Its Attack on Progress.” Mises.org 4 Jul. 2006. 1 Aug. 2008.

Wood, Andrew F. and Matthew Smith. Online Communication: Linking Technology, Identity, and Culture. Routledge: New York, 2005.

Notes

[2] In Cars there are some references to technological devices and advancements like the GPS, organic fuel, and horsepower. For instance, the lead character, racecar Lightning McQueen, explains his mantra thusly: “I’m a precision instrument of speed and aerodynamics” […] Speed. I am speed. One winner, forty-two losers. I eat losers for breakfast…. Speed. Faster than fast, quicker than quick. I am Lightning.” But these innovations are eventually replaced with a sense of community and values.

During the evening, Hurt’s wooly beard turned into a Twitter hashtag (#williamhurtsbeard) and then a Twitter account itself: http://twitter.com/beardofhurt.

The 82^nd Annual Academy Awards aired live Sunday, March 7, and despite a few intrusions from my young nephews, I live-tweeted. This time though, I created a list — a recent addition to Twitter that allows users to follow a select group rather than their entire Twitter stream. Personalized lists like this one cut down on all the noise, so to speak. Ten minutes before the Oscars began, our group consisted of roughly eight, mostly the profs and doctoral candidates who live-tweeted the Golden Globes. But by the time the show concluded, 27 of us (plus @ebertchicago) were concurrently evaluating, praising, bashing, and mocking Hollywood’s biggest night. Looking back over our three-hour Twitter stream, several tweets stand out:

• @noelrk: “My sister had to ask me what ceremony this was.”
• @ericonmedia: “That screen of lamps makes it looks like a Pottery Barn exploded in the Kodak Theater.”
• @princesscowboy: “George Clooney’s finger nail clippings can feed all the children of Africa! Gaby Sidibe’s mammaries can stop global warming!”
• @fymaxwell: “Does Charlize Theron’s dress have boobs drawn on it?”
• @filmsnob: “Every time THE HURT LOCKER gets an Oscar over AVATAR, an angel gets its wings (via @baratunde).”
• @ebertchicago: “No Farrah Fawcett in the memorial tribute? Major fail.”
• @chutry: “The only horror aspect of INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE was Tom Cruise’s performance.”
• @sononick: “Oh, apparently, this is a tribute to a really loose definition of the horror genre.”
• @aperren: “I get it Oscars…you think a woman is going to win best director, so you have a woman present director. You’re funny.”
• @annehelen: “Love that Bigelow refused to turn around and acknowledge Cameron trying to hug her.”
• @crsbecker: “‘I Am Woman’? Seriously? What did they have cued up if Lee Daniels won?” (via poniewozik)

Witty, perceptive, honest, and pointed: these statements represent much of the conversation between the 27 of us. Sure, we talked about the fashion and the Kodak Theater’s mise-en-scene. Sure, we made snarky remarks about James Cameron, the guy who was “Kanye’d,” and the tedious Oscar script/hosts. But we also produced insightful analysis about the ceremony, the nominees, and the film industry in general, e.g., the omission of Fawcett from the In Memoriam tribute, the (ridiculous) choice of song for Bigelow’s win, and the wide scope of movies included in the horror film montage (regarding the latter, some serious debate ensued). Also mentioned repeatedly were observations like these:

• Because it was filmed primarily with green screens and CGI, Avatar did not deserve an award for cinematography.
• Kathryn Bigelow was indeed The Best Director — not The Best Female Director and not The Best Woman Director, just The Best Director.
• Of all the categories to omit clips, cinematography should not have been one of them.
• Sandra Bullock may have given the best speech of the evening, but her role in The Blind Side is still troubling on many levels.
• Lauren Bacall should have received her award at the Oscars (not in an earlier ceremony); moreover, of all the recipients, she should have been allowed to say a few words.

The Academy rolls out its most feminist star and the most offensive music they can think of for Bigelow, the first female to win Best Director.

Because our Twitter list was comprised of like people with like interests — academics, critics, media lovers, movie fans — probably 70% of what was discussed was oft repeated; this is somewhat unintentional of course, a result of Twitter’s “refresh” delay. However, such reiteration is noteworthy, I think, because it suggests:

We understand both the ridiculousness and significance of the Oscars (as well as the movie industry). Take for instance, @princesscowboy’s declaration that “Gaby Sidibe’s mammaries can stop global warming!” Tweeted while presenters like Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker lavished praise on the Best Actress nominees as though each had miraculously raised the dead, this statement amusingly summarizes what the industry in general thinks of itself, i.e., Revolutionary! Transformative! Original! Freethinking! The Greatest! Or as comedian @billmaher tweeted only moments before @princesscowboy: “Actors are just the bestest people in the world! We are so lucky to be sharing the earth with them!! Fuck!!!” Those of us who live-tweeted the Oscars are keenly aware that we spent three hours of our weekend watching and commenting on this spectacle and, thus, in a way reinforced the movie industry’s pompous view of itself. However, we are also quite mindful that a key objective of visual art (and popular culture) is, Shakespeare so eloquently reminds, “to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature” (Hamlet 3.2). It is an exploration of this relationship, this bizarre mirroring of our/a “reality,” which drives us to the television set and subsequently to Twitter. [2]

Oprah Winfrey lauds Gaby Sidibe’s performance in Precious as well as her singular ability to change the world.

We are selective and specific with which films we consider award-worthy. Our vitriolic tweets about movies like The Blind Side, Avatar, and Twilight — that’s right, movies not films – confirm that when it comes to judging motion pictures, our group differs significantly from the masses. As virtually everyone knows, these three movies succeeded wildly at the box office; their special effects, characters, and narratives (no matter how stereotypical, bland, or anti-feminist) have moved a large number of moviegoers. But they did not speak to most of us. According to our tweets, we evidently cannot excuse the way in which The Blind Side contributes to Hollywood’s fetishism of whiteness and stereotypical representations of African American males. Likewise, our group apparently cannot or will not root for Avatar because of its simplistic and potentially racist story, grossly excessive budget, superfluous special effects, and the director’s bloated ego (e.g., in an interview, Cameron suggested that the Oscar go to Bigelow because “I already have one”). Rather, we deem award-worthy more complex and more intimate films like An Education, The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, and Up in the Air. Considering our background and career choices, this is not a complete surprise. Still, it’s nice to see one’s ideology validated.

“Honest Movie Titles: from http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1802286

We have formed a valuable community. Finally, this showering of shared ideas demonstrates that we have created a productive, purposeful community on Twitter. Without doubt, live-tweeting the Oscars and the Golden Globes is entertaining; and as suggested here, it can further validate one’s academic interests and ideology about art and popular culture. But our everyday Twitter conversations achieve the same. Specifically, we share theories, links, images, videos, news, websites, etc., many of which strengthen both our research and our teaching. We also ask for and receive pedagogical advice from people who are sincerely interested in our fields of study. As well, we meet at conferences, contribute to each other’s academic blogs, and discuss contemporary issues in higher education, professional development, and popular culture. We have created a valuable virtual community indeed.

Follow us on Twitter: @annehelen, @aperren, @billiehara, @bitchphd, @chutry, @crsbecker, @devan_, @doctork100, @ebertchicago, @eetempleton, @emarsh, @ericonmedia, @filmfan1971, @filmsnob, @fymaxwell, @greeney28, @heatherdotnet, @lhgarrison, @kellimarshall, @m_abel, @memles, @noelrk, @princesscowboy, @proctor, @sononick, @stevejamesmedia, @williambgoss, @wrightallison.

[2] We are certainly not alone in our live-tweeting experiment. For example, some blogs now instruct twitter users how to live-tweet events like the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, and the Grammys. Moreover, some people are now live-tweeting from space, election sites, music events, and academic conferences. Much more controversial is a woman who recently live-tweeted her abortion.

Last night, for the second time in the history of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart embodied Fox News’s Glenn Beck (Stewart’s first (shorter) parody may be found here). For a full 15 minutes, Stewart takes on Beck or Beck’s persona, nailing his

• bullish mannerisms,
• lowered glasses,
• forced crying spells,
• nondiegetic addresses to the camera/audience,
• chalkboard fetish,
• jumping and twirling fits,
• and of course, his complete irrationality about all things political.

While a couple of my Twitter followers seemed puzzled by Stewart’s lengthy rant (e.g,. “Is he going to do the whole show as Glenn Beck?”), most news sources, bloggers, etc. are wildly praising the piece this morning, calling it “one of Stewart’s more elaborate and successful bits,” “the Best. Daily Show. Ever?” and a “take-down [that] was beyond complete.” For further rave reviews, you might scan the comments on Media Matters‘s “Stewart Parodies Beck’s Paranoid Conspiracy Charts, Nazi Rhetoric.”

Without further ado, here’s yet another reason the first entry on my 25 Things about Me list is “I think that Jon Stewart might be the smartest person currently on television.”

Introduction

Full Segment

The Best Lines, IMHO

• “I’m glad you tuned in to today’s show. It’s an important one. One that you and your family can’t afford to miss. Oh, you could miss it, but if you miss it…you’ll die.”
• “If you subscribe to an idea, you also subscribe to that idea’s ideology and to every possible negative consequence that that ideology even remotely implies when you carry it to absurd extremes.”
• “Why am I the only one that’s saying this? Am I crazy, or… Okay.”
• “I’m sorry, but I promised myself I would cry.” (Stewart bites down hard on his hand.)

Brokaw’s Boomer$ begins at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, about 40 minutes north of where I currently live (and a stone’s throw from the nostalgic Michigan Theatre, about which I have also written on this blog). To start, Brokaw singles out a handful of boomers who have returned to U Michigan for homecoming weekend. Well-dressed, articulate, and looking a bit younger than her/his actual age, each subject appears to be living the same life: happy, prosperous, and one seemingly better than his/her parents’ — or those whom Brokaw has christened The Greatest Generation.

Brokaw interviews a University of Michigan alum.

After introducing these five Michigan alums and their families, Brokaw reveals several old photos that depict the now 60-year olds in their youth; unsurprisingly, the images feature flowers, bell-bottoms, polyester, and long hair. Then crosscutting back to the present, Brokaw invites us into the boomers’ current homes, which are large, plush, vibrantly colored, and filled with lots o’ furniture and pictures of family. It fitting that Brokaw begins here — with these representations, with these middle- and upper-middle-class boomers — because a discussion on money is where he’s headed. (I suppose the dollar sign in the title of the report and the documentary’s presence on CNBC should clue us into this as well.)

Like every generation, the Baby Boomers are a mixed bag. For instance, observe the good they’ve accomplished, all of which Brokaw’s Boomer$ considers in detail:

• Civil Rights
• Women’s Rights
• peaceful demonstrations
• the space race
• the creation of computers, video games, mobile phones, etc.
• the New Hollywood
• the music (yes, we all sincerely thank you for the music)

However, Brokaw also points out that Baby Boomers have contributed greatly to the downfall of our current economy. Unlike their parents, who survived The Great Depression by pinching pennies, boomers are consumers. They have, Brokaw says, “an insatiable appetite for real estate,” trading the traditional 1500-square-foot home for a modern mansion. Huge master bedrooms and kitchens are a must.

This excessive living combined with the current economy has also put many boomers in a bind, we learn. For example, some who once earned six figure salaries are now unemployed, unable to make house payments, and incapable of paying for their children’s education. In the same vein, Boomer$ suggests that the sheer size of this aging generation — 78 million, the largest ever — will likely burden our (already failing) healthcare system. Finally, at the end of the documentary, the tables are turned and a boomer interviews Brokaw, asking, “What do you think of our generation?” The reporter retorts rather swiftly and simply, “Unrealized.” And he leaves it at that.

Brokaw with boomer Tom Hanks.

I’d say that about 75% of Boomer$ features the generation’s accomplishments, and the remaining 25% considers Brokaw’s (valid) concerns about its spending habits and potential drain on healthcare. So overall, the Baby Boomers don’t come across too shabbily. Viewers like Gayle Fine, Todd Macke, and Matt Binder agree and further encourage their Twitter followers to DVR Brokaw’s documentary when they get a chance. Interestingly, one viewer even admits that Brokaw actually “cut [the boomers] a break.” S/he continues, for a “generation of narcissists who treated our own spouses like disposable cameras, our own children like personal accessories and spent the last 30 years gazing at ourselves in the mirror and buying stuff,” we are depicted rather well (ddrhh274). However, a quick search on blogs and Twitter reveals that several people — mostly boomers themselves, it appears — see Brokaw’s report with different eyes. Here is a sampling:

• Brokaw’s comment that he would sum up the boomers generation as “unrealized,” is insulting. His vaunted “greatest generation” never allowed a black man or a woman to run for president. Who does he think pioneered the invention and development of the plethora of technological advances in use today? Who does he think developed the medical technology now available to AIDS is no longer a death sentence? (Robert Kelly)
• To Brokaw: The Greatest Generation left us plenty to do. Boomers took on civil, gay and women’s rights. And you’re disappointed in US? (@CarolOrsborn)
• Sorry, but Brokaw has hated Boomers for years, and makes no bones about showing it. It’s a mistake to buy his book. (@marciamclean)
• Tom Brokaw the point of your “BOOMERS” is a ‘generation’ of Clintons of acting globally even without thinking first? (@jphoganorg)
• If they ever release a version of Boomers with Brokaw completely edited out, I’ll watch. He is a black hole of pompous boredom. (@Rocky1542)
• Brokaw calls boomers ”unrealized,” saying we were too cocky about our own authority & ability, set the bar too high and didn’t reach it. (@boomerconsumer)
• Brokaw on CNBC “Boomers!”: Waste of time. Surprised CNBC bothered to air it. Obviously no adult supervision during production. Gag. (@BruceDetterich)
• Watched Brokaw’s “Boomers’ for 14 min. He gets just about everything wrong & he can’t speak clearly. Now I know why it’s on CNBC. (@pauzul)
• [Brokaw] uses that old widely-discredited 1946-1964 Boomer definition at a time when most actual experts now divide that demographic boom in births into two distinct generations: the real Boomer Generation and Generation Jones. (commonsense)

I am a part of Generation X, the child of two baby boomers. I am also a film professor who has taught/studied cinema history and all of the internal and external events occurring between 1945-1960′s that changed Hollywood forever (e.g., the Paramount Decision, television, the end of WWII, McCarthyism, the move to suburbia, the disintegration of the Hays Code, the introduction of the ratings system, etc.). As a result, there is much in Tom Brokaw’s Boomer$ — good and bad — with which I agree, much about the generation that appears logical, convincing.

At the same time, I am also aware that documentaries, no matter who’s behind them — even the former Most Trusted Name in Nightly News — depict a mediated reality; in other words, they are in some ways slanted, representing “a reality” that is manipulated formally and stylistically. As a result, I suppose I also understand why some viewers see Boomer$ as “insulting” and “a waste of time.” Still, I wonder whether these opinions are mainly the result of hurt feelings, defensive behavior because the Baby Boom generation is portrayed with warts and all, in a less glorified light than The Greatest Generation? Then, I wonder just how I’ll subjective I’ll be if/when Brokaw produces a special on Gen-X…