MediAcademia

Sidney Poitier on “That Slap”

2013-05-15T02:09:37Z

“If he slaps me, I’m going to slap him back. You will put onto paper that the studio agrees the film will be shown nowhere in the world with me standing there taking the slap. [...] I knew I would have been insulting every black person in the world [if I didn't do that].” — Sidney Poitier discussing his “return-slap” in In the Heat of the Night (1967). CBS Sunday Morning, May 12, 2013.

My Students Skyped with Seinfeld’s “The Maestro” (All Because of Twitter)

2013-05-03T18:20:37Z

Earlier this week, actor Mark Metcalf spoke with my Seinfeld students. Metcalf has appeared in numerous television shows and films, but he’s perhaps best known for three roles:

ROTC officer Doug Niedermeyer in the film Animal House (1978),
a vampire identified as The Master in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2002), and
a middling conductor who demands to be called The Maestro (aka. Bob Cobb) in Seinfeld (1989-98).

It is, of course, Metcalf’s turn as The Maestro that brought him into to our classroom.

Thus, for about 30 minutes via the wonders of Skype, the seasoned actor talked with my students about his experience filming Seinfeld‘s “The Maestro” (7.3) and “The Doll” (7.17), and he also shared more general information about acting, auditioning, and the process of sitcom-making.

The Maestro with Elaine.

Q&A with The Maestro

The week before Metcalf was to join us, I invited my students to come up with one question they’d like to ask him. It could be about anything: his character, the cast, Larry David, television comedy in general.

Out of roughly 30 questions, I picked seven and then emailed them to Metcalf a few days before he was to speak. In response, he approved them as “good questions” and thankfully NOT containing words like semiotics and hermeneutics. HA.

The first three of my students’ questions are about Seinfeld in general, and the last four, about Metcalf’s character and the process:

Alexis: How long did it take to shoot a single episode, and were the scenes shot in chronological order?
Anthony: What is your most memorable experience being on Seinfeld?
Taylor: What is your favorite episode of Seinfeld?
Jennifer: What was it like to addition for the character The Maestro, and was the Seinfeld cast in the room when you auditioned?
Charlotte: Was the idea of “The Maestro” and your character based off anyone the writers, Larry David, or Jerry Seinfeld knew, or was it just an idea that took off?
Kelly: Did you have to learn the Italian song you sang in “The Maestro” or did you have prior experience?
Davia: Was improvisation encouraged or did you strictly go by the script?

Here are what I found to be the most interesting responses:

First, as you’re probably aware, virtually all episodes of Seinfeld were taped before a live studio audience (note the ever-present laugh-track). But the episode “The Doll” (in which The Maestro, Kramer, and Frank Costanza play pool pantless to avoid getting creases) was not. Evidently there was some issue with Jerry Seinfeld’s having to be out of town during the scheduled taping, so “The Doll” was shot without an audience. (Sidenote: I tweeted directly after he said it, but Metcalf told my students he wasn’t wearing pants as he was speaking to them. Much laughter ensued.)

Second, although he cited “The Contest” (on masturbation) and “The Yada Yada” (anti-Dentites, yada-yada’ing sex) as two of the most “artful” and well-conceived episodes of the series, Metcalf did not really have a personal favorite. Why, you ask? Because, apparently he didn’t watch Seinfeld (!!!). His son regularly enjoys it even now, and Metcalf occasionally catches an episode since “they’re so hard to get away from” (i.e., syndication), but he never watched it religiously, it doesn’t seem.

Third, when asked why his character was not brought back for the series finale (in which dozens of minor characters return to testify in court), Metcalf was told that only secondary characters whom Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer “treated poorly” were reintroduced. According to the writers, the The Maestro was not treated badly, so he did not return.

Thanks (Yet Again), Twitter

This “event,” we’ll call it, has been in the works for a while now—and all because of Twitter. Yes, I am going to sing the praises of this social media platform for the umpteenth time. Here are how things came about:

2009: I signed up for Twitter.
2010: As a place to house my research, findings, etc. on Gene Kelly, I set up a blog. This blog inadvertently morphed into Gene Kelly Fans, a legitimate fansite with multiple contributors and regular readers. Weird, yes. (More info about this process in my post “On Academics and Fansites“.)
Early 2011: Gene Kelly Fans expanded to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Late 2011: A Milwaukee author who interviewed Gene Kelly at his home in Beverly Hills followed @genekellyfans (and thus me) on Twitter. We conversed about his time with the song-and-dance man and have done the same since via my personal Twitter account, @kellimarshall.
2012: I promoted my Seinfeld class on Twitter and Vine. Shortly after, my Milwaukee friend sent me a tweet that Mark Metcalf is his neighbor and is usually quite happy to share his time speaking to others.
A week later: I am emailing “The Maestro.”

There you have it. Primarily because of connections made through social media my students and I were able to talk with someone who was there when Seinfeld was at its pinnacle.

So I offer a big thanks to Twitter, my Milwaukee friend (and fellow Gene Kelly fan), my Spring 2013 DePaul Seinfeld students (who were fantastic, btw), and most certainly to Mark Metcalf who took time out of his day and endured the often odd one-sidedness of Skype to talk with us about his experiences in the industry.

Mark Metcalf skyping with my students.

(Mostly) Academics on Memes: A Bibliography

2013-05-03T18:28:18Z

Earlier today, a colleague posed the following question to a Media Studies Facebook Group:

“Hey media folks, does anyone have any suggestions for undergrad-level articles on memes—meme production, meme replication, etc.? Also open to any other recent writing on other aspects of internet culture that might have caught your eye. Thanks!”

In roughly 50 minutes, several academics responded to the question, offering up over a dozen sources. (That’s right: we’re fast.)

But since Facebook statuses are fleeting (i.e., in two years, we’ll never find that post again!), I’ve compiled all the answers/articles/videos into the following bibliography. That way, academics (and anyone else who’s interested in memes) can locate these helpful sources in one place. If you have other sources that aren’t listed, please let me know in the comments section below.

On Memes

Blackmore, Susan J. The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.
Blackmore, Susan J. “Memes and ‘Temes.’” TED Talks. TED Conferences, 2008. Web. 30 November, 2012.
Burgess, Jean. “All Your Chocolate Rain Are Belong to Us? Viral Video, YouTube and the Dynamics of Participatory Culture.“ Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube. Institute of Network Cultures: Amsterdam, 2008. 101-109.
Burns, Kelli S. “From Memes to Mashups: Creating Content from Content,” Celeb 2.0: How Social Media Foster Our Fascination with Popular Culture, p. 75-87.
Davison, Patrick. “The Language of the Internet Meme.” The Social Media Reader. Ed. Mandiberg, Michael. New York: New York UP, 2012.
Gleick, James. “Chapter 11: Into the Meme Pool.” The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood New York: Viking, 2012.
Johnson, Davi. “Mapping the Meme: A Geographical Approach to Materialist Rhetorical Criticism.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4.1 (2007): 27-50.
Jurgensen, Nathan. “Speaking in Memes,” The New Inquiry. 24 Oct. 2012.
Internet Meme Timeline (via Dipity).
Klein, Amanda Ann. “I Can Haz Nyan Cat.” Judgmental Observer. 12 Dec. 2011.
Knobel, Michele and Colin Lankshear, “Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production.” A Media Literacies Sampler. Eds. M. Knobel and C Lankshear, 2007. 199-228.
Marshall, Kelli. “Animated Gifs, Cinemagraphs, and Our Return to Early Cinema.” MediAcademia. 8 Jun. 2011.
Marshall, Kelli. “Obi Wan Obama, Bin Laden’s Death, and Tumblr.” MediAcademia. 4 May 2011.
PBS Idea Channel (via Mike Rugnetta) ”Are LOLCats and Internet Memes Art?” and “Are Internet Memes & Digital Culture Creating a Singularity?“
PBS Off Book. “Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium” 27 Jul 2012.
Zittrain, Jonathan. “Memes & Society.” ROFLCon. Video.

15 Films I Cannot Finish

2013-05-02T17:53:40Z

I’ve begun each these films with the intent of finishing them. In fact, some of these films I’ve attempted to watch more than once because they’re “classics” and “critically acclaimed” and stuff.

But ultimately these are 15 films that — because of their subject matter, pace, genre, and/or character depictions, I cannot, and in some cases, will likely never finish. Here they are, listed in chronological order…

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

If you can deal with Mickey Rooney’s Puck for that long, you’re a better woman/man than I.

2. 8 1/2 (1963)

As someone who teaches film, I shouldn’t even be admitting this, especially on a public blog. Yeah, yeah, I see that Guido’s cool and all, and the opening sequence of 8 1/2 is admittedly delightful. Moreover, I can appreciate this film’s place in cinema history. But still, zzzzzzzzzz.

3. Umberto D (1952)

I love, love virtually all things Italian Neorealist, but frequent readers will understand that I cannot handle the dog.

4. The Black Hand (1950)

This stars a “dramatic” Gene Kelly as a revenge-seeking Italian. Y’all, it’s bad. Like most musical fans, I need singing and dancing Gene Kelly, not a knife-wielding, vengeful Gene Kelly.

5. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

I’ve tried three times. It ain’t happening. And, no, it’s not because of the “Singin’ in the Rain” bit.

6. Blue Velvet (1986)

Like A Clockwork Orange and American Psycho below, this film just isn’t made for me. Unlike 8 1/2 or Umberto D, which deserve recognition (if not my full attention), I don’t think I will ever understand the critical acclaim for this one. My only solace is that the late Roger Ebert agrees with me, especially about Rossellini:

“Rossellini is asked to do things in this film that require real nerve. [...] She is degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film.”

Thanks, but there’s no need to explain in the comments section below WHY I should like and/or appreciate this film; I’ve read it all. Blue Velvet‘s just not for me.

7. Valmont (1989)

It’s a shame when a ponytailed Mr. Firth can’t keep my attention.

8. The Last Action Hero (1993)

Aside from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1993), this is the only film I’ve walked out of in a theater. Ironically, I now own the DVD for the excellent Hamlet scene, which is chock full of intertextual references, satire, and sheer silliness. The rest (that I’ve seen)? Meh.

9. The Gingerbread Man (1998)

Even King Henry V couldn’t save this one. Zzzzzzzz.

10. American Psycho (2000)

See my comments on A Clockwork Orange and Blue Velvet. Also, I WANT to like or at least support this one as it’s the only film on my list directed by a woman (Mary Harron). But alas, from the parts of American Psycho I’ve seen, I have to side with Stephanie Zacharek: “Harron’s made a passionless movie about a passionless man, and it’s all supposed to add up to make us feel or even just think something, but what?”

11. Dancer in the Dark (2000)

While I don’t agree with Variety that Dancer in the Dark is “a 2½-hour demo of auteurist self-importance that’s artistically bankrupt on almost every level,” this “modern musical” just doesn’t jive with me.

12. The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Roughly 85% of my students gasp when I tell them I fell asleep 20 minutes into this one.

13. Transformers (2007)

Does this really need an explanation?

14. Nine (2009)

I hear that the stage production of Nine, which I’ve not seen, is fantastic. If that’s the case, then let’s keep it onstage, shall we?

Yes, I know Nine is riffing off 8 1/2, and while I’ve not seen ALL of 8 1/2 (see above), I know enough to make sense of it — and arguably Nine. But after watching the first 30 minutes and then stopping/fast-forwarding/stopping through at least three musical numbers after that, I’m inclined to agree with the Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday: “Nine is film within a film about a film within a film, and seems to lose layers of authenticity with each iteration, finally becoming a profoundly alienating experience.”

15. Horrible Bosses (2011)

Good lord, does the first word in the title ever fit this one!

Part-Time Professing: It’s Not ALL Doom and Gloom

2013-04-12T16:51:59Z

Essays detailing the long-term risks of graduate school have been pelting my social media feeds like that Louisiana hailstorm in 1989 that made our family Ford look 20 times worse than Bonnie and Clyde’s (above). Here’s a sampling:

“Thesis Hatement: Getting a PhD Will Turn You Into an Emotional Trainwreck“
“Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go“
“The Disposable Academic“
“Reform the PhD System, or Close It Down“
“Is the PhD Broken?“
“Just Don’t Go to Grad School“
“Don’t Try to Dodge the Recession with Grad School“
“Don’t Go to Graduate School“
“The Real Reason I Dropped Out of a PhD Program“
“Should You Go to Graduate School? (No.)“

There are also entire blogs devoted to warning graduate students to run the other way: 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Grad School (each post representing one reason) and How to Leave Academia. Finally, spread widely amongst academics in 2010, is also this (funny and depressing) animated video “I Am Going to Be a College Professor”:

Most of these posts may be summed up thusly: young student, please do not get a PhD (in the humanities) because 1) tenure-track jobs are virtually extinct, and 2) part-time employment — for which you’ll receive virtually no pay, too many students, no benefits, no retirement, no office, and no job security — is all you will ever achieve. To be blunter, academia is broken and you best “get out of here, baby, but quick,” as Walter Neff from Double Indemnity (1944) would say.

So, is academia broken? Yes. Are tenure-track jobs dying out? Yep. Do part-time (or adjunct) positions now make up the majority of higher-ed faculty? Indeed, studies show (a chart here). If so, are all part-time professorships really that horrific? No, they’re not. And I’m here to tell you about them.

A Silver-ish Lining…

While completing my PhD, I taught part-time at a large state university and a community college in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. The subject: English, literature and composition. The pay: horrible, maybe $1,800 for teaching one 15-week course? (It’s been a while, so I’m not 100% sure on that.) Additionally, I was offered no insurance, I shared an office with another part-time instructor, and my commute from school to school took at least an hour depending on traffic.

No, this is not ideal; in fact, it’s criminal. And I understand that this scenario is what a large number of part-time instructors, especially in the humanities, face daily. And significantly, it’s the reason The Adjunct Project was created — and that so many of these “don’t go to grad school” posts are constantly cropping up.

This is not my situation now, however. Here’s the lowdown on my current “part-time” job(s):

I currently teach (a manageable) three courses each term at two schools in downtown Chicago: DePaul University (2 courses) and Columbia College Chicago (1 course).
Usually one of the three courses is Introduction to Film, which I’ve taught for 8+ years now. This means there’s virtually no prep work for this class unless I’m assigning a different film or topic.
The two schools are a short seven-minute walk apart down Michigan Ave.
I teach in “smart classrooms,” and aside from the low lighting, my primary class — with its plush seats and tiered rows — is just about as perfect as one could want for teaching/screening film. Here it is on Instagram.
I have an office with a computer, a printer, and easy copy machine access (unlimited copies).
I have the opportunity to contribute to a 401K.
My classes are always capped at 15 (Columbia) and 30 (DePaul) students.
I’ve never been made to feel like “an adjunct” at either school. In fact, I’ve been invited (and have gone) to department parties, colleagues’ homes for dinner, etc.
I am asked to contribute to the department curriculum based on my teaching and research interests. The dean emails me, What can you offer our students next term?
I make very close to the starting salary of an Assistant Professor in the humanities (without “required” duties like advising students, attending faculty meetings, etc.).

Honestly, my biggest problem at the moment is scheduling: one school is on the quarter system, the other’s on semester. Keeping those things straight is a bit wonky at first.

So would I rather have a secure position teaching at one school, with health benefits, etc.? Sure. But is my current situation horrific, making me regret ever obtaining a PhD in the first place? No. As you can tell, I have a decent amount of freedom. Moreover, I teach only 2–3 days a week in nice places with smart, funny, accessible people. Finally and perhaps most importantly, I get to interact with students who, for the most part, are receptive to learning; they are legitimately interested in the subject matter, screenings, and discussion afterward.

It’s Whom You Know, and Knowing Yourself

I’ll close this post with two bits of advice.

First, get to know people in your field. Whether through social media or conference networking, introduce yourself and make acquaintances; you never know when said people will pop back into your life. As your parents once told you, sometimes it is “whom you know” that makes the difference. (Indeed, I owe much of my current situation to a colleague who once “threw my name into the pot,” so to speak.)

Second, go for it – if you know without a doubt that this is the road for you (i.e., you would be miserable outside a classroom, you shudder when you think you’d never get to interact with college students again, etc.). Once you’ve determined that, then be wary, but don’t let all 1,320 of those “NEVER EVER GO TO GRAD SCHOOL” posts deter you from your academic aspiration(s). For even in the part-time arena, it’s not always doom and gloom.

Further Reading:

Comic Conversations and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

2013-04-20T15:49:42Z

I’ve published articles on Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Middle, David Letterman, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Nancy Meyers’ screwball comedy Something’s Gotta Give.

I teach a media theory course at Columbia College Chicago that focuses on American television comedy, specifically sitcoms, satire, and sketch from 1990-present. And in less than two weeks at DePaul University, I’ll begin teaching a course solely on Seinfeld. (Yes, it is fun.)

In October 2010, on nothing more than my measly visiting-assistant professor’s salary, my husband and I flew to Washington DC to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, helmed by satirists/funnymen Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. (There’s a fine line between stupidity and dedication.)

Finally, over the years I’ve paid my hard-earned money to see the stand-up acts of these comedians: Louis CK, Jon Stewart (yep, on occasion he still does stand-up), Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan (three times), Sarah Silverman, George Wallace, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, D.L. Hughley, Marc Maron, and Tommy Davidson.

Needless to say, I loves me some comedy.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I’m a bit fascinated by this new genre cycle that has exploded over the last few years in which comedians sit down and talk with each other before a camera. It’s something I’m calling comic conversations and am exploring in a presentation for the 2013 Cultural Studies Association Conference, scheduled May 23–26 in downtown Chicago.

What follows is my abstract for the presentation, essentially an overview of the comedy genre cycle itself and what aspects of Jerry Seinfeld’s “comic conversational” web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, I’ll be considering. (If I’m missing anyone or any show, please lemme know!)

Comic Conversations and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Over the last five years, an unusual genre cycle has emerged: comic conversations. Shows in which comedians interview or randomly talk to other comedians have erupted both online and on television. Perhaps the three most successful are WTF with Marc Maron, a podcast which currently averages 2.75 million downloads per month; The Adam Carolla Podcast, which recently broke the world record for most downloaded podcasts ever; and The Ricky Gervais Show (with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington), a podcast that held the aforementioned Guinness record until Carolla broke it in 2011.

Comic conversations may also be found weekly on these podcasts: Never Not Funny (with Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap), Doug Loves Movies (with Doug Benson), Comedy and Everything Else (with Jimmy Dore and Stefane Zambrano), Comedy Bang Bang (with Scott Auckerman), The Greg Fitzsimmons Experience, The Nerdest (with Chris Hardwicke), and How Was Your Week with Julie Klausner? (significantly the only woman in the bunch).

David Steinberg interviews Billy Crystal for Showtime’s Inside Comedy (1.4)

This new genre cycle isn’t restricted just to iTunes though. Television has embraced the comic conversation with gusto as well. In 2012, for example, we saw the release of Comedy Bang Bang (IFC), a spinoff of the above-mentioned podcast with Auckerman and comedian Reggie Watts; Talking Funny (HBO), a roundtable discussion featuring Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis CK; and Inside Comedy (Showtime), a series in which Canadian comic David Steinberg talks with Ellen Degeneres, Don Rickles, Martin Short, and Sarah Silverman among others.

We can also add to this list The Green Room with Paul Provenza (Showtime), in which panels of comedians discuss their craft (but mostly try to one-up each other), as well as parts of Louis CK’s critically acclaimed experimental series Louie (FX), which occasionally features the comedian conversing with his colleagues around poker tables and offstage in NYC comedy clubs. Finally, Marc Maron is slated to star in a television show (IFC) in the summer of 2013 in which he, imitating his WTF podcast, conducts interviews with comedians out of his own garage.

Seinfeld and David en route for coffee/tea.

It was only a matter of time, then, that America’s most well known stand-up comedian would toss his hat into this growing ring. Last summer, Jerry Seinfeld quietly released Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a weekly web series in which he and a fellow comedian are documented driving around Los Angeles or New York, drinking coffee (or tea, in the case of Larry David), and “pouring over the excruciating minutia of every, single, daily event” as Seinfeld‘s Elaine Benes would put it. Yes, as Larry David observes at the end of the series’ first episode, “Jerry, you have finally done a show about nothing.”

While my presentation will consider this current wave of comic conversations and some of the reasons for its existence—the shows are cheap to make, self-distribution is possible (see Louis CK’s Live at the Beacon Theater experiment), comedians are presumably functioning as “the punk rockers of today” (so sayeth Mike Birbiglia)—it will focus primarily on Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Specifically, I’m interested in exploring the episodes’ length (at 12 minutes each, they’re by far the shortest of those cited in this abstract), methods of shooting (obvious digital camera platforms and wide-angle lenses that deglamorize guests), production values (total coffee porn), and selection of guests (fans have berated Seinfeld on Twitter for excluding female comedians). Moreover, I’ll consider how the series both directly and indirectly serves as an extension of Seinfeld (1989-1998), that little “show about nothing” which will likely always overshadow Jerry Seinfeld’s latest endeavor.

Evolution of a Student’s Intro on Gilda (1946)

2013-03-09T15:46:48Z

Last week I put together a post called “Evolution of a Student’s Intro on Taxi Driver.” In short, it features several drafts of an introductory paragraph from one of my film noir students and subsequently illustrates how much patience, time, and energy the writing process often requires.

Today I’d like to feature the work of another noir student, this time on Gilda (1946).

After nearly 15 email conversations and much tweaking and revising, this student and I are finally satisfied with her introduction, which argues that Rita Hayworth’s Gilda should not be labeled a femme fatale because, unlike most femmes fatales in classical film noir, she doesn’t know what the hell she wants.

I’ll begin with the student’s initial attempt and end with the (lovely) introduction that will begin her digital essay project, which is due next week.

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…

I will consider Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) in light of Spicer’s Film Noir‘s description of the good-bad girl as: “the best and most complex example of the type is Rita Hayworth in Gilda.” However, the good-bad girl is not only well represented through character types, rather, Gilda‘s stylistic elements — mise-en-scene (costume and sound specifically) — accentuate the construction of sexual stimulation in the classical film noir. It is these elements I will analyze in my project.

Elaborating

Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) has been considered by Variety‘s description of its story as: “practically all the s.a. habiliments of the femme fatale have been mustered for Gilda” and by the view of the The Film Noir of the Week as “Gilda is not your regular femme fatale who manipulates everyone to get what she wants.” However, rather than being the femme fatale, Gilda is the good-bad girl based on her gender role and stylistic elements — mise-en-scene (costume and sound specifically) — accentuate the construction of her ambiguous character type in the classical film noir. It is these elements I will analyze in my project.

Adding More Evidence

Several critics describe the character Gilda (Rita Hayworth) from Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) as a femme fatale. For example, Variety describes her as “practically all the s.a. habiliments of the femme fatale have been mustered for Gilda.” As well, [author] from Film Noir of the Week believes “Gilda is not your regular femme fatale who manipulates everyone to get what she wants.” Finally, The Classical Hollywood Style Book by Caroline Young says “Rita Hayworth embodies the femme fatale to perfection.” However, I see her character as the good-bad girl because she does not know what she wants. I will use the elements of narrative (plot development and sense of closure specifically) to demonstrate the construction of this particular character type in the classical film noir.

Can You Fill in Those Bold Parts For Me?

*I reworked the format here a little bit and asked
the student to complete the bold parts of her introduction.

Sounding Better

Critics often label the character Gilda (Rita Hayworth) from Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) as a femme fatale. For example, Variety claims that ”practically all the sex appeal habiliments of the femme fatale have been mustered for Gilda.” As well, the thesis and dissertationThe Alluring and Manipulative “Spider Woman” of the Silver Screen: Femmes Fatales of the Hard-Boiled Fiction, Classic Noir and Contemporary Noir Periods by Gretchen Brinker affirms what makes Gilda’s spider woman femme fatale character believable and likeable is that she is confident about her goals and dreams. Finally, in The Classical Hollywood Style Book Caroline Young writes, “Rita Hayworth embodies the femme fatale to perfection.” While I see these critics’ point such as Gilda’s sensual main figure, provocative customes, and most importantly her particular way of manipulation toward her partners, I would argue alongside Andrew Spicer in Film Noir that Hayworth’s character better fits the noir character type of the ”good-bad girl.” After all, unlike most femme fatales, Gilda does not know what she wants. To explain this, I will look specifically at the elements of narrative (plot development and sense of closure specifically) to demonstrate the construction of this particular character type in the classical film noir.

By George, I Think We’ve Got It!

Critics often label the character Gilda (Rita Hayworth) from Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) a femme fatale. For example, Variety claims that ”practically all the sex appeal habiliments of the femme fatale have been mustered for Gilda” (par. 1). As well, in The Classical Hollywood Style Book Caroline Young agrees that in Gilda, “Rita Hayworth embodies the femme fatale to perfection” (par. 2). Finally, in her dissertation The Alluring and Manipulative “Spider Woman” of the Silver Screen, Gretchen Brinker further argues that Gilda functions as a believable femme fatale because she is confident about her goals and dreams (page 8). While I see why these critics would label Gilda a femme fatale (e.g., her sensual figure, provocative costumes, seeming authority and manipulation of men), I would argue — alongside Andrew Spicer in Film Noir (102) — that Hayworth’s character better fits the noir character type of the ”good-bad girl.” After all, unlike most femme fatales (and contrasting Brinker’s claim above), Gilda does not know what she wants. To explain this, I will look at the film’s characterization of Gilda as well as its plot development and sense of closure.

Academics, If You Must Read Your Conference Paper…

2013-03-07T15:02:53Z

Recently, the hosts of the podcast Aca-Media asked colleagues to offer advice for those attending the 2013 Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Conference. Several folks weighed in including (in order of appearance) me, Tim Yenter, Drew Morton, Tony Bleach, Derek Kompare, Beth Corzo-Duchart, Amanda Ann Klein, Michael Dwyer, Karen Petruska, Kristen Warner, and Lindsay Hogan.

I’ve transcribed my advice below, but the full podcast “More Dash Than Hyphen” is available on Aca-Media, and if you’re just looking for the section on conference tips, begin about 42 minutes in. SCMS is currently taking place at the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago.

My Advice for Academic Conferences

Traditionally at academic conferences, panelists read their 20-minute presentation — sometimes word for word, monotonously, and without ever looking up at the audience. Dull doesn’t even begin to describe it. Although this is beginning to change in some circles — i.e., conference presentations are becoming more like, well, presentations — the majority of academics still read. So my advice is for that lot.

Academics, if you feel you must read your paper, please do three things:

Write casually. In other words, as you type your brilliant thoughts on that computer screen, use conversational language to support your scholarly point, and if you can, throw in a joke or two. Virtually no one wants to sit through a monotonous, 20-minute, jargon-filled Lacanian analysis of Two and a Half Men, which brings me to point #2…

Stop writing at 7 double-spaced typed pages. One double-spaced, typed page equates to 2.5 minutes of reading. Thus, seven pages equals about 17 minutes of presentation time — just enough to get your point across, refrain from boring your audience, and end on time so that your panel chair will praise your name forevermore. This changes, however, if you follow rule #3…

Bring visuals. Handouts, media clips, PowerPoint presentations: it doesn’t matter. Just make sure the audience has something to look at as you’re casually and energetically reading your work. That said, if you screen clips, cut your paper accordingly.

That’s it: write casually, stop at seven pages, bring visuals. And oh yeah, have fun!

A Friendly Reminder: Seinfeld Was Criticized Too

2013-03-05T19:40:05Z

Yesterday, College Humor posted “If People Talked about Seinfeld Like They Talk about Girls,” a satirical reaction to current media criticisms that HBO’s Girls is racist, juvenile, just TMI, hipster sexist (apparently that’s a thing), a fantasy world for Millennials, and founded entirely on nepotism.

I’m not here to debate these readings of Girls (who has the time and/or energy?). Rather, I am interested in what College Humor is maintaining via its send-up: namely, that Seinfeld (1989-1998), at its inception and throughout its run, was immune to criticism. First, here’s College Humor‘s (fairly witty) post:

Do you watch Seinfeld? Do you like it? REALLY?! Ugh, I mean it’s fine, I guess, I just think it has A LOT of problems.

The whole thing just seems SO self-indulgent. Seinfeld stars a comedian named Jerry Seinfeld who plays a comedian named Jerry. Wow. Really, Jerry? He also created the show and writes it. It’s like he can’t give up control of anything.

Sometimes it seems like he’s just using this show as an excuse to play out his fantasies, y’know? Every show opens with him performing stand-up to a great crowd that loves every one of his jokes. And he’s constantly having sex with these beautiful women. Like, WAY too beautiful for a schlubby guy like Jerry. Even George, who’s like short and fat, and Kramer, who’s just kind of gross, both also have sex with these beautiful women. It’s like, yeah, okay, Jerry. I guess enjoy the dream while you can.

He really seems to think he’s funny. Do you think he’s funny? I don’t think he’s funny. Like, the critics say it’s a funny show, but the comedy is kind of weird. And nothing ever HAPPENS. It’s just these privileged white people (and I mean, they’re ALL white) living their lives in New York. The only non-white characters are wacky immigrant cab drivers and soup vendors. Oh, hilarious: they can’t speak English well — what’s so groundbreaking about that?

And are we supposed to LIKE these characters? I know you say that part of the humor is seeing yourself reflected in these characters, but none of them are good people. They’re selfish, petty, narcissists. They’re constantly talking about themselves while treating other people like garbage. They claim to be friends, yet they do absolutely horrible things to each other. Are we supposed to see ourselves in this? That seems kind of twisted to me.

Did you know there’s an episode called “The Contest” that’s all about masturbation? And one called “The Apology” that’s about Jerry being casually naked around the apartment with his girlfriend. I know they’re trying to be edgy, but honestly it’s boring. Like, wow, an ugly guy doing things I’m used to seeing hot guys do. Great. It’s not funny; it’s just off-putting. And have you seen the stuff Jerry wears? He’s got big white sneakers and tight jeans – not flattering at all.

Also, did you know Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the daughter of the billionaire Gerard Louis-Dreyfus. It seems a little disingenuous to cast her as personal assistant when she’s probably never had to work a day in her life.

And speaking of never working a day, what’s up with Kramer? He doesn’t seem to have a job and yet somehow he can live by himself in a giant high-rise Manhattan apartment. Are we to assume that his parents are giving him money? Is all this someone’s New York experience? Because it sure ain’t mine!

I guess I just like a different kind of comedy. Have you seen Louie? Now there’s a great show that can’t have the exact same criticisms leveled against it.

See, it’s funny, right? But to claim that Seinfeld was completely without its detractors is—like the grammar in the title of College Humor‘s piece—inaccurate (when a clause with a verb follows, it’s as, not like).

In fact, for its first two seasons especially and then somewhat throughout, Seinfeld was panned by critics for being too lame, too self-indulgent, too racist, too homophobic, too yuppish, and too liberal in its depiction of New Yorkers. What’s more, this now “defining sitcom of our age” was even questioned (repeatedly) by those who put it on the air! The show is “too New York, too Jewish,” NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff once balked.

I’ve compiled below several of the criticisms heaped upon Seinfeld, both at its beginning when it was titled The Seinfeld Chronicles (like the bad press, betcha most don’t remember that either) and at its end, when it was “master of its domain,” so to speak. This is the result of about an hour of researching (a show that began pre-Internet). I’m fairly sure, if I didn’t have a conference presentation to write and deliver tomorrow (eek!) and had time to delve into library indices and databases, I could locate several more.

Update: See also Jaime Weiman’s reaction to the post as he argues that “the College Humor author is almost proving the opposite of the point he’s trying to make.”

Seinfeld: An Insidious Message about the Future of Western Civilization

“But lacking much in the way of attitude, the show seems obsolete and irrelevant. What it boils down to is that Seinfeld, likable as he may be, is a mayonnaise clown in a world that requires a little horseradish.” — Matt Roush, Life

“This five-episode summer diversion, which NBC has been kicking around for at least half a season waiting for the ‘right time’ to unleash it on the viewing public, is not what could be termed an inspired piece of television. There’s none of the self-referential surrealism of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show that the show’s premise—a comedian playing ‘himself’—suggests there will be. The revolutionary concept here consists of cutting a couple of times per episode to Jerry performing his act at a comedy club where, naturally, everybody laughs at all his jokes. Theoretically there’s some sort of—I hesitate to use the word—’counterpoint’ between the stand-up material and what loosely passes for the plot. Now, Jerry Seinfeld is funny—in sort of an upscale, Jewish George Carlin kind of a way—but he’s not that funny. The stand-up situations obviously aren’t real, so it sounds like he’s working a room of laugh-track machines. It would have been better, but too daring for NBC, to have him delivering jokes to an empty room, or to the camera.” — Rick Marin, The Washington Times

“In the history of pilot reports, Seinfeld has got to be one of the worst of all time. I have it next to my desk; it says ‘overall evaluation: weak.’” — Warren Littlefield, former NBC President of Entertainment

Seinfeld is “too New York, too Jewish.” — Brandon Tartikoff, then President of NBC

“Call me a hopeless Puritan, but I see, in this airwave invasion of sitcoms about young Manhattanites with no real family or work responsibilities and nothing to do but hang out and talk about it, an insidious message about the future of Western civilization.” — Elayne Rapping, The Progressive

Seinfeld is the “equivalent of sophomoric talk radio.” — Steven D. Stark, Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events That Made Us What We Are Today

“They think they’re doing Samuel Beckett instead of a sitcom.” — Roseanne Barr, comedian

“Is horror too strong a word for what is, after all, only a depressingly insipid stand-up comic and his painfully tame sitcom? I don’t know. […] These people are very depressed. Let me tell you, kids, being that depressed can be really scary. Thus the horror of Seinfeld. It leaves me that depressed. Not only depressed but lonely.” — Ron Rosenbaum, Esquire

“Why do I find myself becoming uneasy about the show? Increasingly, it seems, Seinfeld wants to be about something, and that something is either painfully obvious or awkwardly jarring. […] The show has never been terribly concerned with political correctness. Its depictions of minorities, from Babu the Pakistani who was eventually deported because of Jerry’s carelessness to the Greek diner owner with an apparent yen for amply endowed waitresses, can be patronizing. And its attitudes toward women can become downright hostile, as the final episode illustrated with its portrait of a gleefully nasty female network executive. — John J. O’Connor, NY Times

“Seinfeld is the worst, last gasp of Reaganite, grasping, materialistic, narcissistic, banal self-absorption.” — Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic

”Why don’t the characters just move to penthouses on Fifth Avenue? How can they be playing smart Jewish people hanging out in a diner eating all the eggs they want for $3.99 when they are the most highly paid TV actors of the late 20th century? Why don’t they just tie Jerry Seinfeld’s compensation to how the Knicks do next year?” — friend of NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd as quoted here.

“The passing of Seinfeld, that Cheez Doodle of urban fecklessness, into cryogenic syndication inspires no tear in this cave. Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine never spoke for my New York, not on a Southern California soundstage, lean and mean in their terrarium, wearing prophylactic smirks to every penis joke.” — John Leonard, New York Magazine

Lambs Trump Gigolos

2013-02-28T19:21:20Z

My film students get to choose next week’s film…

Students: So what’s American Gigolo about?

Me: Young, hot-ish Richard Gere running around naked, involved in a murder.

Students: Yeah, we’ll go with The Silence Of The Lambs.

– Style and Storytelling in Cinema

Evolution of a Student’s Intro on Taxi Driver (1976)

2013-02-28T19:26:19Z

Before my students get too involved with their essays, they are required to submit to me via email their theses and then a week later, their full introductory paragraphs. Usually a teacher can tell if an essay is doomed to fail or soar gloriously into the heavens based on the introduction alone.

As is usually the case — with my conscientious students — COPIOUS emails are exchanged. We discuss their interest in the topic and why they chose to analyze that particular film noir (or TV episode or Shakespeare film) over all the other moving-image texts at their fingertips. Literally, Netflix is just a fingertip away.

Then, we look at the first drafts of their theses. We tear them down. We rip them apart. And ultimately, like an Amish barn, we build them (again).

What follows is an example of this process. Over the course of a week and about 15 emails, one of my film noir students and I honed his introductory paragraph for his paper on Taxi Driver (1976). Unlike some students who grow increasingly frustrated with all the revising and my suggestions, this student seemingly understands that writing is tough, time-consuming, prone to lots of redrafting, and based on trial-and-error.

It’s important that Millennials, the epitome of our get-it-fast-and-get-it-now mentality, understand this process. The student’s final introduction is listed first, and his original draft is last.

Final Product

Roger Ebert describes Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) as dream-like: “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts?” (par. 16). I agree with Ebert’s emphasis on the film’s dream-state because its primary character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), views the world in a surreal, perverted way. Moreover, Bickle’s insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. According to Andrew Spicer (146), this dream-like sensation is typical of the postmodern neo-noir paranoiac protagonist, so it is this characterization of Travis Bickle I will consider. Moreover, I will look at the film’s cinematography and narration, specifically ___ ___, and ___ [the student is adding this today] and argue that they too reinforce the film’s dream-like effect.

Almost There

Roger Ebert describes the movie Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) as dream-like: “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? (par. 16).” I agree with Ebert’s emphasis on the film’s “dream-state” because its primary character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), has a conflicted view of the world he lives in, a negative surrealistic perversion of the world around him. Moreover, His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. According to Andre Spicer (pg. 146), “Travis conforms to Schraer’s conception of the late noir protagonist who has lost his intergrity and stable identity, the prey to ‘psycotic action and suicidal impulse.” This dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the neo-noir paranoiac protagonist, so it is this characterization of Travis Bickle I will consider. Moreover, I will look at the film’s cinematography and profound narration and argue that they too reinforce this nightmarish, surrealist dream-like effect (Ebert, “Taxi Driver”).

Yup, Still Tweaking

Roger Ebert describes the movie Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) as dream-like: “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? (par. 16).” I agree with Ebert’s emphasis on the film’s “dream-state” because its primary character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), has a conflicted view of the world he lives in, a negative surrealistic perversion of the world around him. Moreover, His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. The ex-vet’s desolate loathing for the night-scene and corruption that exists in front of his eyes only further delineates his sense of reality. This dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the neo-noir paranoiac protagonist. I will argue that this dream-like element has a profound effect upon Travis Bickle and his own view of the world around him and is rudimentarily caused by the post-Vietnam trauma he has suffered (Ebert, “Taxi Driver”).

Still Tweaking

Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in the movie Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976), has a conflicted view of the world he lives in. His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York streets at night. The ex-vet’s desolate loathing for the night-scene and corruption that exists in front of his eyes, only further delineates his sense of reality. The dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the Noir-ish visual and introspective paranoiac protagonist. Bickle’s sleep deprivation, as well as his PTSD pushes the boundaries of civility and causes cataclysmic repercussions, of which the audience witnesses both through the haze of the Noir-ish New York night-time & corruption, as well as the radical behavior portrayed by De Niro. Many critics including Roger Ebert describe the narrative as ‘dream-like’, for example, Ebert states, “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts?” It is these elements that I will consider in my essay.

Tweaking

Many critics including Roger Ebert describe the narrative of the movie Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) as ‘dream-like’, for example, Ebert states, “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts?” Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in the movie, has a conflicted view of the world he lives in. His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. The ex-vet’s desolate loathing for the night-scene and corruption that exists in front of his eyes, only further delineates his sense of reality. The dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the Noir-ish visual and introspective paranoiac protagonist. Bickle’s sleep deprivation, as well as his PTSD pushes the boundaries of civility and causes cataclysmic repercussions, of which the audience witnesses both through the haze of the Noir-ish New York night-time & corruption, as well as the radical behavior portrayed by De Niro. This element of a dream-like narrative is what I will consider in my essay.

Let’s Work on This

Roger Ebert describes the movie Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) as “dream-like,” for example, Ebert states, “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts?” I agree with Ebert’s emphasis on the film’s “dream-state” because its primary character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), has a conflicted view of the world he lives in. Moreover, His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. The ex-vet’s desolate loathing for the night-scene and corruption that exists in front of his eyes only further delineates his sense of reality. According to Ebert, “Throughout the film, his (Travis’s) mental state has shaped his reality.” The dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the film noir visual and introspective paranoiac protagonist. Bickle’s sleep deprivation, as well as his PTSD pushes the boundaries of civility and causes cataclysmic repercussions, of which the audience witnesses both through the haze of the neo-noir New York night-time & corruption, as well as the radical behavior portrayed by De Niro. This dream-like element is what I will emphasize upon (Ebert, “Taxi Driver”).

First Draft

Roger Ebert describes the movie Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) as “dream-like”, for example, Ebert states, “The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. Is this a fantasy scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts?” I tend to agree with Ebert’s emphasis on the dream-state within the narrative. Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) has a conflicted view of the world he lives in. His insomnia forces him to stay awake through the dreary hours of the night, fueling his hatred for the “scum” that walk the New York City streets. The ex-vet’s desolate loathing for the night-scene and corruption that exists in front of his eyes, only further delineates his sense of reality. The dream-like sensation that results is one quite typical of the Noir-ish visual and introspective paranoiac protagonist. Bickle’s sleep deprivation, as well as his PTSD pushes the boundaries of civility and causes cataclysmic repercussions, of which the audience witnesses both through the haze of the Noir-ish New York night-time & corruption, as well as the radical behavior portrayed by De Niro. This dream-like element is what I will emphasis upon.

Media Scholars Discuss NBC’s Smash (Season 2 Premiere)

2013-02-24T00:42:50Z

What follows is a continuation from my last post “NBC’s Smash: Dividing Critics, Uniting Scholars, and Enduring the “Peak-Vagina” Era of Television.”

In short, a bunch of media scholars watched the season 2 premiere of Smash and discussed it in a roundtable, which was put together by my friend/colleague Amanda Ann Klein, assistant professor of film studies at East Carolina University. I’ve taken the dialogue directly from her blog, with permission.

Introduction

This roundtable, focusing on the season 2 premiere of NBC’s Smash (airdate: February 5, 2013), arose in response to a recent article “How “Smash” Became TV’s Biggest Train Wreck” by Kate Aurthur. Though the article accurately addresses many of the problems in Smash’s first season (Emory Cohen’s dead performance as marijuana addict, Leo, Ellis’ unexplained and over-the-top villainy, Debra Messing’s scarves), it also pins most of the series’ failures onto the Season 1 showrunner, Theresa Rebeck (who apparently also likes scarves). So one goal of this roundtable was to identify what changes, if any, have been made to season 2 with its new showrunner, Josh Safran (of Gossip Girl fame).

Another question that was raised by those of us who read this article was: was Smash’s first season really “TV’s Biggest Trainwreck” or are the people who watch (or rather who “hate watch”) Smash simply unaccustomed to rhythms of the musical? The six academics participating in this roundtable are all fans of the musical genre and therefore, never saw Smash’s narrative as a failure since we were never watching the show for its narrative in the first place. But are great numbers enough to keep viewers around for season 2? Let’s find out… — Amanda Ann Klein

Narrative (Too Much Talking, Not Enough Singing)

Alfred Martin: I do like that they’ve seemed to cut out all the extraneous plot and really focused in on the show and aren’t dinking around with Julia’s (Debra Messing) marriage. And thank GOD they seem to have gotten rid of her HORRIBLE son (Emery Cohen).

Kyra Hunting: I understand that many people feel that the show didn’t work because of the narrative or that the show worked despite the narrative on the strength of the musical numbers, cast, etc. But here is the thing: I LOVE the narrative – and so do many of my colleagues who are big fans of classical Hollywood musical. I feel like the disconnect for many is that a musical narrative logic is being imposed on a television environment. At its core I feel like Smash is a sexed up, knives out version of a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical – New York is a pretty big barn – but hey lets put on a show!

Knives? What knives?

Amanda: In an effort to mend the narrative and character issues from season 1, I think Josh Safran decided to frontload all the narrative changes and focus less on the musical performances (and just giving a few solo/duet performances at that, very few group numbers with dancing). At least I’m hoping this was the case. Because if it’s not, I am not sure I’ll continue to watch. The narrative in this show isn’t strong enough to keep me around–there are better melodramas out there.

Jennifer: I’m a little worried that the remaining staff have taken too many of the criticisms to heart and gone to what might seem like safer zones. That might mean fewer numbers, or numbers more motivated by the musical. That might also mean going in a more familiar direction with Debra Messing’s character, Julia. I got antsy when I noticed how many “Grace” (of Will and Grace) moments there seemed to be in the second episode: moving in with her gay best friend after the end of a failed relationship, taking to the bed with her misery and not bathing enough, even doing Grace’s little “d’oh” sound at one point. Having looked back over the first season a bit and re-read a lot of the recent commentaries, I will agree that Julia was probably given too many of the plot points and paring some back may have been a wise choice, but I don’t think taking Debra Messing back to Grace will make the show any better.

Alfred: One of the things that made Smash so great in the first season is that it did not rely so heavly on covers (a la Glee) and instead produced some really top notch Broadway songs (“History is Made at Night” is an AMAZING song). It seems like the notes (from these first two episodes) have been to try to make it more like Glee because the theory (I think) might be that by doing cover songs, it gives viewers a point of entry. Instead, it’s just sucked all the air out of the room and as we saw from the overnights, the ratings were no bueno. And someone breaking into song at a party wouldn’t be told to shut the hell up?

Kelli: I’ll admit it: the premiere was not good. I’m not sure if this shift is a result of all the backlash from Season 1, i.e., setting up new storylines to compensate for those we’re losing (Ellis, Frank and Leo), introducing new characters such as the douchebag bartender/lyricist and his amiable friend/co-worker, generally fixing what the creators assumed (or TV critics and social media kept telling them?) was “broken.” Whatever the reason, the episode didn’t work for me overall.

Karen Petruska: I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be–I didn’t watch all of last season, and I had a strongly negative reaction to the first hour of the new season premiere. So, I used to work in theatre. And I hate these people on Smash. I hate their petty problems, I hate their fakeness, I hate their sham stakes. I hate them all. I would never hate watch this show because I don’t enjoy hating. How is it that they completely miss the allure of theatre? The work in the rehearsal room? Best part. Television seems to have transformed the theatre into these big production numbers–all flash, no substance. It is the work, the sweat, the tears, the failed attempts, the successful guesses–that’s what is interesting. Oh, and all those chorus people in the background? They matter. They make up the heart of the show. Focusing on the stars in theatre is dumb–it makes zero sense. Sure, in film it makes sense. Even in television, it may make sense. But in theatre? Nope. You are only as good as the person across from you. If their energy saps, your energy saps. If they can’t look at you with a genuine reaction, you can’t be in the moment.

Amanda: Karen, I think it’s really interesting having you in this conversation since you didn’t watch the first season. I will say that we did see a bit more of the “work, the sweat, the tears, the failed attempts, the successful guesses” of putting on a show in season 1. We see Tom (Christian Borle) and Julia composing songs and trying them out. We watch Karen learning how to become a better dancer. We see the cast workshopping the numbers and trying out different routines. One thing we do not see much of though, is what life is like for the members of the chorus. Sam (Leslie Odom, Jr.) gets a bit of a spotlight at the end of season 1, but only because he is dating Tom (and once he started to get more screen time we knew he was going to be Tom’s next love interest). All of this is to say that I think the season 2 premiere was highly focused on critics’ problems with the show and, consequently, not very interested in pulling in new viewers like yourself.

Kelli: Yes, one of my favorite things about season 1 is the repetition of the numbers during rehearsals, workshopping, etc. The viewer gets to learn the numbers alongside the cast members–and the duplication of them from episode to episode makes it feel as though the toil, practice, etc. is legit.

Amanda: Yes! By the end of season 1 I felt like I was getting to know the numbers and starting to fall in love with them (like listening to an album a few times before you really start to love it), and I got excited when I started to recognize the numbers. That’s quite a feat for original music. I’ve said this a few times on Twitter: I would pay to see Bombshell. Even without Megan Hilty and the others in it.

Kyra: Agreed, and the struggles the show is having would be the perfect opportunity to go back to that. Workshopping scenes that didn’t work, changing numbers, trying to sell themselves to new investors…it would have fit this new narrative so easily, but no sign in sight. The best moment in the two new episodes was the one moment Ivy did a number from the show.

Scarves

Amanda Ann Klein: I wasn’t all that bothered by Julia’s (Debra Messing) scarf-wearing in season 1 but now that her scarves are gone I like Julia more. Coincidence? I think not.

Jennifer Lynn Jones: I honestly never noticed the scarves although I feel that I subconsciously registered that the costume designers were signifying that Julia was approaching “a certain age.” Thinking back on it now, that and some other Julia plot points are bugging me, like too many offstage domestic dramas being heaped on her plate. And why can’t Julia be reaching “a certain age” and still be fabulous? Maybe scarfless Julia will be. Maybe that’s something to look forward to.

Alfred: I never noticed the scarves either. I find it interesting that (and I can’t remember from last season if) Debra Messing got top billing last season.

Amanda: Her scarves got top billing.

Ladies of Smash

Jennifer Hudson

Amanda: The best number of the night was definitely Jennifer Hudson’s first number, “Mama Makes Three,” in the musical within a musical, Beautiful (though I thought it was hilarious that Karen [Katherine McPhee] described Hudson’s character in the show as “this sweet 1950s Aretha/Etta James type but she has this really overbearing mother.”). I personally love musical numbers that are set on an actual stage and this one was really fun: costumes, dancers, etc. This is what I want from my musicals! All I wrote in my notebook during this number was “WOMAN CAN SING.” On a related note, Katherine McPhee must never ever, ever sing another duet with Jennifer Hudson (“On Broadway”). Never.

Jennifer: I agree! Just hearing J.Hud in the previews for the next episode gave me chills.

Alfred: Why does the black lady have to be connected to Aretha Franklin and Etta James? But Jennifer Hudson looks and sounds AMAZING (I’ve loved her since her days on American Idol). The first scene shown seems to suggest that she is starring in a “black” musical, which I think is really interesting given this show. Really? She’s getting ready to star in a revival of The Wiz? This role seems to be trading on clichés big time, particularly with this character. The song “On Broadway” should just simply be barred from anyone singing it ever. It’s a horrible song that is locked in its specific temporal moment (and I always see the opening of All That Jazz in my head whenever I hear it). Also, her character doesn’t seem to be integral to the story. I’ll be really interested to see how (and if) they integrate her more deeply into the story.

Megan Hilty

Amanda: Hilty’s last number, “They Just Keep Moving the Line,” performed at the Generic Theater Association Event (you know, the one filled with “Broadway Bigwigs”) was amazing. I will sit through 90 minutes of bullshit narrative to hear this woman sing.

Kelli: Indeed, girl. Indeed. Hilty ain’t messin’ around.

Jennifer: Yep. I wasn’t always on Ivy’s team, but this and all the sorrow they’re heaping on her now are definitely getting me there.

Kyra: I never disliked Karen the way many did, but I do think the best possible thing about the stupid Hipster musical is Karen could move on to that, the sort of Songs For A New World thing her voice might work for, and Ivy could finally go back to being Marilyn. Derek splitting these two projects might be interesting to and would take Karen/Ivy’s rivalry in a novel direction.

Alfred: I really disliked Ivy until two things happened: One, it was revealed that her TV mother is Bernadette Peters; Two, she became one of the more complexly-written characters on the show. And she is really acting the crap out of that character. And indeed, this episode started when she SLAYED that song. That voice?!?!?!?

Katharine McPhee

Amanda: I loved McPhee during her season of American Idol, maybe because she performed mostly pop music? But on Smash, which is mostly focused on broadway music, her voice just never sounds as strong as it needs to be. It’s almost impossible to believe that she would be cast in the lead role of Bombshell, over Megan Hilty. I don’t buy the excuse that she is Derek’s “muse.” Or does “muse” just mean “someone I want to screw”? If so, she is totally Derek’s “muse.” That plot, which was so central to season 1, was always the most problematic one for me. But it seems like that will be less of an issue for this season, which is a plus.

Jennifer: I’ve had several conversations with different people about McPhee’s character Karen, though, especially comparing her to Ivy. Most people I’ve spoken to about the contrast between Karen and Ivy don’t seem to get why Karen would even be in the running against Ivy, something that Rachel Shukert brought up during Julie Klausner’s special Smash-themed podcast episode “How Was Your Smash.” Ivy seems to look so much more like Marilyn Monroe, and has those great Broadway pipes to boot. However, there’s a certain vulnerability in Karen that I think really resonates with Monroe and often gets overlooked, so for that reason, I’ve pretty much been pulling for Karen all along. However, I found her whinier and more cloying in these first two episodes, so we’ll see how it goes for the second season.

Kyra: Jennifer, I really really share some of your feelings about Karen and her vulnerability. I saw below that she is Norma Jean, and Norma Jean after all was the core that made Marilyn so appealing. I also think the assumption that her voice couldn’t be a Broadway one depends on a pretty narrow understanding of a Broadway voice. Ivy definitely has the more traditional belt but I’ve certainly seen modern musicals with the quieter/poppier sound that Karen has. Nonetheless, I think this has been such a flashpoint for people, and so often used to deny realism, that breaking the Ivy/Karen Marilyn competition might be necessary.

Amanda: Well said, Jennifer and Kyra. I understand this reasoning but for me, Broadway numbers are about being BIG! BIG! BIG! I want big emotion, big drama and big pipes. This is why I was so disappointed with Anne Hathaway’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” in Les Miserables ( 2012, Tom Hooper). Her voice sounded pretty and her acting was moving but I don’t care about all of those things when I’m listening to that song. When Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream” I want it to bore into my soul: I want her pain and rage over her lover’s betrayal and consequences of that betrayal to crescendo into a big, full throated burst of song. I don’t want quiet in my musicals. One exception: Once (2006, John Carney).

Alfred: I’m just happy that the other characters have stopped calling McPhee “Iowa.” I kind of think she makes sense as Marilyn because she has a kind of lightweight, breathy voice that I think is more suited for what the role is in my head and seems to be more “realistically” (as if that word even makes sense in the world of Smash) rooted in the person she is supposed to be portraying. All that having been said, I just don’t think McPhee is ready for the role she’s been thrust into. For me, she just doesn’t have the chops to carry a show (or the show within the show).

Julia/Derek/Douche

Sad Julia, Sad Derek

Amanda: I’m glad Julia is getting a divorce and I’m glad that Derek (Jack Davenport) is realizing that maybe women only sleep with him because their jobs depend on it.

Alfred: For me, it’s less about getting rid of the scarves and more about them having gotten rid of her husband, Frank (Brian D’arcy James). As much as I liked James in Next to Normal on Broadway, he was underutilized and annoying as hell in Smash. I’m not sure about them going down this Will & Grace retread with Julia and Tom (Christian Borle) planning to live together.

Kelli: I kinda like that Derek is realizing this too, but that “Robert Palmer” number was just…too much.

Jennifer: No, the Palmer-style Eurythmics song did not work for me either, but can we really imagine a kinder, gentler Derek? And would we really want one? Dickishness is half his charm, the rest obviously being accent and scruffy hair. I think he does a good job with that bad boy charmer role. As director, he rides the line between leader and villain well.

Kyra: Derek without Dickishness and arrogance hardly seems like Derek at all. It seem odd to me that this never occurred to him before and while I really like him having to deal with the consequences of his actions, I don’t want him to become a saint.

Amanda: I agree the “Would I Lie to You?” number was odd. But I believe it was the only “fantasy” number in the first two episodes of season 2 and so for that reason, I was glad to see it. I read somewhere that the show is trying to get away from these numbers, as they are the ones most likely to turn off audiences who don’t like musicals. I think that if you view a spontaneous Bollywood number ( “A Thousand and One Nights”) as odd simply because it was inspired by the eating of Indian food (to name one example of a fantasy number that was skewered by fans last season), then you probably don’t like musicals all that much. So why are you watching this show then, haters? Musicals need the flimsiest of excuses to launch into a number. This is the point of a musical, no? I really enjoyed Karen’s Bollywood fantasy number from Season 1. If you can get past the ethnocentrism of the piece, it had all the elements of a great number: beautiful costumes and make up, fun choreography, and loads and loads of performers. I thought it was aware of its own campiness and embraced it. I loved it.

Kelli: I like the way you think, Klein! I’ve repressed my love for and enjoyment of the Bollywood number on The Twitter Machine (and the like) so I would not be reamed in public. I did, however, show it to my Cinema History course last spring when we discussed America’s appropriation of Bollywood. Also showed a Zumba workout video, if you’re interested.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hipster/Douche

Amanda: What singer/songwriter living in New York City and working on composing a musical doesn’t want people to hear his work, especially when those people are in a position to help him? Jimmy (Jeremy Jordan) tells Karen “I write for myself” and “I don’t need other people to tell me I’m good.” Ridiculous. I declare shenanigans on this hipster character.

Jennifer: This guy? Too much. The fact that they namecheck The Strokes, even just to mock Karen, gives the tell that these writers don’t know from hipsters. And how many hipsters are writing musical theater anyway? Nonetheless, I do like the idea of having more than one musical being staged for the show, and I love the idea of these shows competing against each other. That seems fitting for Broadway in a sense: competing for space, competing for talent, competing for attention and audiences. And if the new musical brings in more songs, ALL THE BETTER.

Alfred: More importantly, what an awkward way to let the viewer know that he is “fair game” for Karen as a love interest than to have his gay pal declare his heterosexuality. Is it too soon to ask for this dude to be written out? His whole “too cool for school” act is old already and we’re only two hours in. It would seem, as y’all have said before, that someone writing a musical would really be a lot more open to people who could drum up opportunities for him rather than being an asshole hipster.

Amanda: [raises fist in anger] HIPSTERS!!!

The Showrunner Fiasco

Karen: In terms of journalism, it is more of a gossip piece than anything else, but I think there are interesting things to read between the lines. This is a clash of culture, in some ways. But I am intrigued that everyone resisted Rebeck’s seeming authority as a writer. As if a writer should not want to protect their work–that seems an awfully cruel treatment of a writer. But in television we praise showrunners and ignore all other writers in the room. So showrunners get blamed, too. Why the show sucked in the ratings could be a lot of things, but who wants to watch a show that has the stink of an old, smelly sock? They needed a radical shift–like, for example, firing McPhee. It wouldn’t have been her fault, necessarily, but it would have been news. And it could have prompted curiosity–more than firing a relatively unknown showrunner.

Jennifer: Smash had everything going for it: It had the famous director. It had the best producers for adapting stage to screen. It had the Tony-award winning songwriting team. It had great–even some legendary–Broadway performers. It had the network’s full backing. And at the beginning it had the critics’ love. And then over the course of the first season, it failed to deliver because of one megalomaniacal old crone who couldn’t see that all her ideas were shit. That may be the legend, but I’m not buying it. Not that there weren’t problems in the first season. However, laying the blame for all those misses at the feet of one person, the only woman in a team of nine executive producers, is fallacious, even if her name is the one under the marquee in the opening credits. From the initial promos alone, we know that her name wasn’t the one being used to sell the program anyway; her name wasn’t being dragged out until there needed to be a scapegoat. The plight of the female showrunner has been an ongoing story over the past few years, as there are so few in the industry but of late so many of those have been raked over the coals and thrown under the bus.

Final Thoughts

Kyra: The two biggest potential pitfalls of the show that I see for many viewers is the pacing and the stakes and both work for me if you accept some musical logics. I feel like the stakes and therefore the narrative are high enough for me because in my world who gets the part, or what number makes it into the show really does feel like life or death stakes. The season two reboot, however, worried me. Certainly I’m not sad to see Ellis (Jaime Cepero) go, and I can only hope that ditching the romantic partners means ditching some of the excess narrative that distracts from the shows larger focus. But I totally agree with Karen that we need much more time in the studio, at the piano, rehearsal, etc. It is, when its at its best, a backstage show and these two episodes pretty much took away our backstage. I can see the eventual value of the Hipster guy’s musical in bringing in a different musical theater style, one better suited to Katherine McPhee’s voice, but right now it seems a weird detour. Most worrying to me, as Amanda points out, there is a lack of well-integrated musical numbers. There aren’t enough numbers and very very few pull their narrative and emotional weight. Josh Safran seems to want to stick with largely diegetic realistic musical moments (with limited exceptions) and they often feel small (not in the good intimate way). Ivy at the end of the second episode gives a hint of the possibility of the magic. But I fear Safran is going to make this a show about a musical and not a musical television show, clearly a risky proposition for the critical mass but one that I had come to love.

Kelli: “It is, when its at its best, a backstage show and these two episodes pretty much took away our backstage.” I like this point very much, Kyra. It’s not necessarily narrative coherence or complex characterization I’m seeking when I watch Smash (or Glee, Top Hat, Grease, or Singin’ in the Rain for that matter). Rather, I need spectacle. And I’d appreciate it if a few of said numbers were integrated (not sung onstage or in a dream state). See, for example, the pilot’s “Let Me Be Your Star,” which–in spite of its (and the show’s) clichéd contrasting of blonde girl/brunette girl–is just about as perfect a closing number as one could hope for. Through montage, crosscutting, and the pairing of McPhee and Hilty (at home, on the street, onstage), it so nicely sets up the stories and, more importantly, the caliber of numbers to come. Last night’s episode, however, didn’t leave me feeling this hopeful…or impressed. Thus, if 2.1 is what we’re going to get after the infamous showrunner-swap and “the most involved reboot of the TV season” to quote EW (Jan. 11), I think I’d rather stick with Season 1, Julia’s scarves included.

Kyra: Kelli, I completely agree with the above. “Let Me Be Your Star” was exactly the number I was thinking of missing in the first two episodes. It was just the right amount of diegetic and fantasy, did tons of narrative and emotional work, and was just a great number. There was nothing like that last night.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jennifer: In Denise Martin’s “How Smash Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hate-Watchers” she writes: “Numbers will either be grounded in reality… or entirely in the clouds. Safran likes fantasy sequences so long as they make sense in the context of the characters…. But no more sudden singing and dancing in the bowling alley. ‘I am against bursting out into song,’ Safran said.” I cite Safran’s “rules” because I just don’t think that he gets it, and I’m not sure that any of these kinds of changes are going to make much of a difference in the critical reception of the show. Like Kelli wrote above, musicals aren’t about narrative coherence, and they’re not about rules either. Even when music and dancing are “motivated” by a performance storyline, so much of the pleasure is in the opportunities for the extraordinary in the everyday from the unexpected performance Did that guy not even see Fame? Musicals aren’t about fantasy that makes “sense.” They’re about the fantastic and the impossible, the hoping against hope that all will work out, that you’ll get the part, that you’ll be the star, even when all the odds are stacked against you. Putting parameters on the performances sounds a bit like taking the musical out of the musical. I’m not yet willing to claim that that’s the intent or the result, but it does put a damper on the proceedings, and I think we’ve seen some of that in these first two episodes.

Roundtable Participants

Kyra Hunting is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she is completing a dissertation entitled Genre Trouble: Cultural Difference and Contemporary Genre TV. Her work has appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture, Transformative Works and Culture, and Communication Review. She blogs at and co-edits the media blog Antenna: Responses to Media and Culture. You can find her at: http://wisc.academia.edu/KHunting.

Jennifer Lynn Jones is a doctoral candidate in Film and Media Studies at Indiana University’s Communication and Culture program, writing a dissertation on celebrity, convergence, and corpulence (in short, “fat stars”).

Amanda Ann Klein is an Assistant Professor of film studies at East Carolina University. She recently published her first book, American Film Cycles: Reframing Genres, Screening Social Problems, and Defining Subcultures (University of Texas Press, 2011). You can follow her on Twitter: @AmandaAnnKlein or read her blog: Judgmental Observer.

Kelli Marshall is a lecturer of Media and Cinema Studies at DePaul University. When she’s not teaching or live-tweeting Smash, Kelli researches two rather disparate fields: Shakespeare in film and popular culture, and the film musical, specifically the star image and work of Hollywood song-and-dance man Gene Kelly. Follow Kelli on Twitter at @kellimarshall and/or read more about her take on TV/film (and her adventures in higher ed) on her blog, MediAcademia.

Alfred L. Martin. Jr. is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies at the University of Texas -Austin where he studies race and sexuality on television. He currently serves as Co-Managing Editor for Flow, the Department of Radio-Television-Film’s online media journal.

Karen Petruska received her PhD in moving image studies from Georgia State University in 2012. She is currently a Postdoctoral Teaching Associate at Northeastern University. Her scholarly interests include television studies, media industry studies, new media, and feminist studies.

NBC’s Smash: Dividing Critics, Uniting Scholars, and Enduring the “Peak-Vagina” Era of Television

2013-02-24T00:44:50Z

For the past few months, you’ve likely heard about “the show that everyone wanted to love — and everyone loved to hate” (Entertainment Weekly). No, it’s not ABC’s Nashville – although one of my colleagues and I so loathe that show that every time it aired over winter break, we’d meet on Twitter to ridicule its a) unnecessarily whorish characters, b) boring storylines (Scarlett/boyfriend, I’m talkin’ to you), and c) atrocious accents. (Hey, Nashville, please see the cast of Justified for a lesson in decent Southern dialects.)

Rather, in 2012 the show everyone was apparently “hate-watching” — incidentally, a term I despise even more than ABC’s Nashville – is NBC’s musical drama, Smash. A large number of viewers and TV critics evidently hated, for example, the show’s

costume choices (Julia’s scarves!),
melodramatic storylines (adoption, overdosing, suicide),
characters (Ellis, Leo, Dev, and Rebecca Duvall to name a few), and its
unrealistic or implausible narrative devices (poisoned smoothies, Karen’s singing at a bar mitzvah)

What’s more, the behind-the-scenes aspects of Smash are, some would argue, just as preposterous as what was being shown onscreen.

To wit: aside from Entertainment Weekly‘s recent cover story, which airs some of the show’s dirty laundry, perhaps the most circulated piece on Smash‘s internal combustion is Kate Aurthur’s “How Smash Became TV’s Biggest Train Wreck.” Authur’s thesis is this: “Smash is a case study in how megalomania and television can clash unproductively; in how high expectations can crash immediately; and in how intense network and studio oversight can result in a paranoid show creator who causes workplace misery and, most importantly, a bad TV show.”

When Aurthur promoted her column on Twitter late one night, several TV critics praised it and retweeted, subsequently applauding the amount of research involved (indeed, there are several anonymous quotes from Smash‘s current and former employees). What I took away from the piece differed, however:

Shortly afterward, a few others Smash-watchers echoed my concern, and as you can tell from this Storify (thanks, Karen!), things got a little heated for some involved.

Whether unintentionally or not, Aurthur’s column one-sidedly paints Smash‘s showrunner, Theresa Rebeck, as a demanding, unwavering monster and blames her for virtually all of the show’s missteps and apparent demise. Such a portrait might not make headlines had it not come on the heels of other recent public criticism about women showrunners like Amy Sherman-Palladino and Lena Dunham or the “peak-vagina” and “labia saturation” controversy from Two and Half Men‘s (male) showrunner. In other genres, see the hostility bestowed upon Julie Taymor for Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark and Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty’s (she-sure-loves-her-some) torture scenes.

Time‘s James Poniewozik writes a bit more judiciously about this situation and Rebeck in particular, who ”delivered exactly the show the pilot implied: big, broad, kind of corny and unapologetically earnest.” A bit flummoxed by the firing/replacement of Rebeck, he continues: “I don’t quite see how you make the show into something else at this point—nor how you do that while taking the show away from someone who had a fairly auteur-like level of involvement with it from the beginning, writing the episodes and coordinating a complex effort involving songwriters and a show-within-a-show.” While viewers will never know the WHOLE story, all of this does seem a bit fishy.

Thus, with Poniewozik’s questioning, Aurthur’s column, and the critical bashing of Smash in mind, those of us who are willing viewers of the show (and who appreciate the structure and purpose of the musical genre) — media scholars, PhD students, musical fans — convened in a roundtable last week to discuss Smash‘s Season 2 premiere.

What follows this post is that account (link below), put together by my friend/colleague Amanda Ann Klein, assistant professor of film studies at East Carolina University. I’ve broken the dialogue into sections to make it easier to read. Or you can, uh, pick your poison. #BadSmashSmoothiePun

Media Scholars Consider NBC’s Smash (Season 2 Premiere)

WTF Is With All Those Centennial Celebrations of Gene Kelly?

2013-04-14T21:44:39Z

The folks at Virginia Quarterly Review were nice enough to let me write an essay for them on Gene Kelly. In the piece I discuss

the slew of centennial events celebrating the star (some of which are still going on, btw),
a few reasons Kelly and his image are circulating in twenty-first century pop culture,
my attraction to and interest in the song-and-dance man (nothing new to regular readers of this blog), and
Kelly’s complicated (masculine/feminine) star persona

So, if any of that interests you, head over to VQR‘s “Gene Kelly, Star Signification, and Centennial Celebrations.” Thanks for reading!

Locating Shakespeare: Book of the Month and 33% Discount!

2013-01-03T18:13:25Z

The book Gabrielle Malcolm and I co-edited, Locating Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century, has been selected as January’s Book of the Month. And there’s a 33% discount! So whatcha waiting for?

Details from our publisher…

2013 is upon us, and with the new year comes a brand new Book of the Month deal: we at Cambridge Scholars are happy to announce that, in addition to our usual offer of a 33% discount, each Book of the Month title now comes with your choice of any single volume from our catalogue, absolutely free! Please simply reply directly to me to order your books, as we are unable to extend this offer to website purchases. [If you'd like to purchase, contact me, and I'll forward you the email in question!]

January’s Book of the Month for Language and Literature examines contemporary adaptations and representations of Shakespeare’s works. Read a sample extract and contents page.

Please note that this offer is only available during January 2013.

Anne Hathaway’s Uvula, Layers of Grunge, Zombie Whores, and Other Distracting Elements in Les Miserables (2012)

2013-03-09T21:09:27Z

Two things before I ~~rail against~~ discuss Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables (2012)…

As someone whose first academic love is Shakespeare onscreen (my dissertation, if you will), I am fine with almost any kind of film adaptation: stage to screen, novel to screen, short story to screen, poem to screen, and (to an extent) screen to screen (e.g., we didn’t need another Footloose). Unlike Interview with a Vampire‘s Anne Rice who once claimed Tom Cruise was “no more [her] vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler” or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory‘s Roald Dahl who once dubbed the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) “crummy” and Gene Wilder’s performance “pretentious and bouncy,” I don’t consider such page-to-screen reworkings all that heretical. Then again, I’m not the author/playwright/screenwriter of these things.

The second thing: I’ve seen Les Miserables performed onstage three times: in London’s West End, on the Broadway stage, and via a professional touring company in Dallas. I have watched PBS’s Les Miserables 25th Anniversary special twice. I have a “Les Miserables station” on Pandora. And until the cotton material gave out, I owned a Les Miserables t-shirt like the one above. Thus, without meaning to sound haughty, I know Les Miserables.

With these two things in mind then, let me proceed with my ~~pummeling~~ consideration of Hooper’s Les Miserables. Regarding any potential spoilers — yep, those revealing plot points over which the Internet community, like Nicholas Cage, often loses its sh*t – I’ll quote comedian Kelly Oxford: ”Bitch, please, I’m not ‘spoiling’ a 150-year-old novel and a 30-year-old musical.”

Universal Gave You Dough to Spend, But Stop Wasting It on CGI

Hooper’s Les Miserables opens with extreme-long, high-angle shots of thousands of “prisoners” hauling a ridiculously huge ship into port. As they toil below and Russell Crowe’s Javert (the police captain) scowls from above, the “prisoners” sing “Look Down.”

You’ll notice I’ve placed the word prisoners in quotation marks. This is because with the exception of Hugh Jackman’s Jean Valjean and a few of the extras who surround him, all of the other “men” tugging on those massive ropes are presumably fake. Also fake: the sky, the water, the ship, the port, and the cliff on which Javert stands. Yes, Hooper’s computer-generated imagery (CGI) is so unbelievably “CGI-y” here that it’s distracting. Rather than paying attention to the (supposedly) epic features in/of the shots and listening to the song, I was trying to see which of the pixelated “men” were duplicated over and over to construct the “army.”

Unfortunately, the scenes in which Javert stews atop roofs/bridges and some of those featuring the barricades appear similarly. Also, impossible camera movements — e.g., moving from the heavens to Javert’s head in the matter of 3 seconds — don’t help the matter. Here, nineteenth-century Paris is just so noticeably fake, which makes my following comment somewhat ironic.

All That Grunge

Equally off-putting is the dirt. All the dirt. Everywhere dirt. Sure, I understand the world of Les Miserables is gritty and full of poverty; it ain’t titled The Miserables for nothing. But to quote NY Times‘ Manohla Dargis, all that “grunge layered onto the cast can be a distraction, as you imagine assistant dirt wranglers anxiously hovering off camera.” Indeed, sometimes too much “realism” does not enhance the (already solid) story; rather it can detract from it. We need a happy balance here, Mr. Hooper.

Please Step Away from the Camera and Then Nail It to the Ground

I’ve not read many reviews of Les Miserables, mostly so I can come to my own conclusions about the film without being swayed one way or another. But of the few I have read, all mention Hooper’s camerawork, which borders on claustrophobic and then frenetic. Interestingly, a quick search on Twitter reveals that it’s not just the critics (and academics) who notice this. Here are the first four tweets I came to yesterday.

My review of Les Mis…. Hugh Jackman is amazing… Everything else…… Not so much. Find a different camera angle for the love of god.

December 26, 2012 4:44 pm via Twitter for iPhone ReplyRetweetFavorite

@JurassicaxPark

Jess

All the awkward close up camera angles in Les Mis made me realize how little I want to stare at these people’s mouths for three hours

December 26, 2012 7:18 pm via Twitter for iPhone ReplyRetweetFavorite

@patrick_nowak

Patrick Nowak

Tom Hooper you dropped the ball. #LesMis thank god for the music and the actors, bc the camera made me want to die.

December 25, 2012 5:47 pm via UberSocial for BlackBerry ReplyRetweetFavorite

@a_myosborne

Amy Osborne

Best part: Anne Hathaway. Worst part: up-nose close-up camera shots. #LesMis

December 25, 2012 9:36 pm via Twitter for Android ReplyRetweetFavorite

@bensinger333

Ben Singer

This close shot distance and the wide-angle lenses work well in Hooper’s The King’s Speech (2010), an intimate narrative about a king (Colin Firth) literally trying to find his voice through a debilitating stutter. Focusing on Firth’s face and stammering mouth as his character undergoes this process is justified. But in an “epic picture” like Les Miserables, all these recurring close-ups, extreme close-ups, and wide angle lenses make little sense. And aesthetically, it’s tiresome. In addition to the ones above, I’ve read several comments from viewers who’ve reluctantly come face to face with “Anne Hathaway’s uvula” and who’ve been closer to Wolverine’s tonsils than they’d prefer. These are elements of the film we’re not supposed to be paying attention to.

All this and I’ve not even delved into Hooper’s other cinematographic issue: when his camera’s not firmly affixed to the nose of his cast, it’s frantically roaming about. I’ll leave this part to Chicago Tribune columnist Michael Phillips: “Hooper’s camera bobs and weaves like a drunk, frantically. So you have hammering close-ups, combined with woozy insecurity each time more than two people are in the frame. Twenty minutes into the retelling of fugitive Valjean, his monomaniacal pursuer Javert, the torch singers Fantine and Eponine and the rest, I wanted somebody to just nail the damn camera to the ground.” Yes, sir. Preach. (Here, Hooper discusses his camerawork, which is designed “to serve the power of songs.” Whaaa?)

Big Songs, Not-As-Big Voices

Released seven days ago, Anne Hathaway’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” has been downloaded over 20,000 times. Um…no.

While 20K people would apparently disagree with me, this song is too big for Anne Hathaway. Or she emotes too much through it. Or something. (Listen here.)

“I Dreamed a Dream” — like most songs in Les Miserables or in all musicals for that matter! — should generate emotion. Or goosebumps. Or a lump in the throat. Or a tear. Or again, something. But during this song — and I’m sorry to say, most of the others — I felt mostly nothing. (I’m aware others have experienced feelings from Hathaway’s performance(s), but — and this may not be fair — I wonder how many of them have never seen/heard a professional stage production of Les Mis?)

Yes, for the most part, I’m heartless. And with the exception of Pixar’s Up (oh lord, the sadness in Up!), I don’t tear up during moving pictures. But I’m not the only one who left Les Miserables feeling, let’s say, let down. I’ll allow longtime film critic Leonard Maltin, also a fan of the stage production btw, speak for me: “It would take a lot to completely spoil the material, but I never felt the surge of emotion that the play engenders. In fact, I think the movie, for all its pomp and production values, offers a diminished experience. I realize that most moviegoers won’t be comparing the two presentations, but after 25 years of international stage success I don’t think I’m out of line.”

No, you’re not out of line, Mr. Maltin. And reactions like these make more sense when one compares Hathaway’s supposedly “realistic” rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” with other “unrealistic” (?) ones, some of which I’ve featured below. Please note as/if you watch: no close- or extreme close-ups are needed in these performances, and as I watch and listen to them on a 13″ laptop (as opposed to a 30′ screen), I get goosebumps.

Perhaps more than Hathaway’s, the voices of Russell Crowe, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, and Amanda Seyfried are also too small/weak for the songs of Les Miserables. Of the big names on the billboard, Hugh Jackman fares the best; he has Broadway/singing experience, so he should. But Jackman’s “Bring Him Home” left me cringing (albeit not as much as the dude who tweeted below). Seriously though, Jackman’s not a tenor (is he?), and why didn’t he go into a falsetto voice on this one?

In Bring Him Home, Hugh Jackman sounds like he is making sweet, tender love to a mountain goat. #LesMiz

December 25, 2012 5:48 pm via Twitter for iPhone ReplyRetweetFavorite

@JFly99

John Flynn

Those whose performances are a testament to the power of Les Miserables: Samantha Barks (Eponine), Aaron Tveit (Enjolras), and tiny Daniel Huttlestone (Gavroche) from whom I wanted to hear a lot more. Do you know why their scenes/numbers affected me more than the others’? They are experienced musical performers (well, as experienced as you can be at age 11). Here’s Barks singing “On My Own,” for example.

As I teach my film students, we have to consider ALL stylistic aspects when analyzing an actor’s screen performance: mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound. So I’m aware that Hooper’s unyielding camerawork, editing (or lack thereof in the case of “I Dreamed a Dream”), and all that dirt affect the musical numbers. But in this section, I’m concerned with the quality of the actors’ voices, not whether they can belt the songs to the back rows of a theatre, which is of course unnecessary onscreen. Rather I am critiquing them on their fullness, richness, and weightiness — which these songs require.

Well, It’s Not ALL Tom Hooper’s Fault

So there you have it, a few reasons Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Les Miserables mostly fails (in my eyes): not enough realism (CGI), too much realism (the dirt!), intruding and claustrophobic camerawork, and several mediocre performances.

To be fair, there are other industry factors that complicate things. For example, coming off an Oscar win for The King’s Speech, Hooper is expected to deliver another award-caliber film, but this time with a big studio (Universal) behind him. Hooper on the matter: “You’ve always got to get the balance right in filmmaking between commerce and art. You are in the end spending a large amount of someone else’s money, so you need to be able to make a proper case that there is a possibility of getting their money back. I take that financial responsibility quite seriously.”

So how might one deliver this “balance between commerce and art”? Take on an epic tale. Make sure that epic tale is a lavish musical (see recent musical Oscar nominees/winners Dreamgirls, Sweeney Todd, Nine, Moulin Rouge, and Chicago). Hire recognizable screen stars in the key roles, even if they’re not the best singers. Spend money on CGI to showcase said epic tale. Market the hell out of the film.

Because of this (preordained?) approach, Hooper’s Les Miserables will make money, and I predict it will be nominated for and win all sorts of awards. But that, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s completely worthy of such.

Other Random Observations

WTH is that new song doing in there? Supposedly “Suddenly,” sung by Jackman’s character to a sleeping Cosette, was written at Tom Hooper’s request to make the story clearer. But I’m gonna go with this quote: “the addition of new song ‘Suddenly’ smacks of awards opportunism — squeezing in an extra tune, just as Chicago and Dreamgirls did, in order to have a chance at picking up a Best Original Song Oscar.”
The husband: “I didn’t know there were going to be zombies in this.” You’ll see when you get to the prostitute scenes (below).
Take note; I’m saying something nice! I kinda appreciated that the musical’s two most recognizable songs — “I Dreamed a Dream” and “On My Own” — were both shot in one take.
The lead actors whose physical characteristics best suited their roles: Russell Crowe, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Helena Bonham Carter. Too bad their voices weren’t up to par.

The Stage: Life Cannot Compete (Quote of the Day)

2012-12-31T15:19:27Z

This entry is part 28 of 29 in the series Quote of the Day.

You know there is one thing about acting that I miss.

I was in love with an actress. Beautiful, talented actress. And when we were together on the stage it was like, it was like having sex in public.

And I have never felt as close to anyone. And we played all of the great love scenes, and we meant it. And people would stand, and they’d cheer, and they would throw flowers. And then we would go home, and we would make love… And that, I miss that. Because
life cannot compete with that.

– Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross). Slings and Arrows (1.3)

Help! (or Yay?) I’m Married to Brian Williams

2013-05-04T11:42:13Z

Reading this profile of comedian Jerry Seinfeld in today’s NY Times reminds me of a post I’ve been meaning to construct for quite some time. But, you know… sometimes teaching, grading, and researching get in the way. Now that the fall term is over, no deadlines are looming, and the Christmas shopping is complete, I think I’ll give it a go…

“Walter Cronkite of the 21st Century” Does Impressions?

Brian Williams is known first and foremost as a journalist. Currently, he is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and the host of its offspring, Rock Center with Brian Williams. Unquestionably, the newsman’s job is a serious one and one that he—like his (white male) predecessors David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw—does not take lightly.

See, for example, Williams’ reporting on the devastation of the 2005 Asian tsunami and his coverage inside the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina, the latter of which garnered NBC a Peabody Award. Significantly, according to current NBC News president, Steve Capus, it was these events/stories that “quieted critics who tended to dismiss Williams as an attractive lightweight” and have led some to dub him the “Walter Cronkite for the twenty-first century.”

In the same vein, Williams was quoted in 2005 as saying a post-9/11 newscast should be serious: “if you want sweetness and light, there are 500 cable channels set up to deliver entertaining images. We don’t do light stuff. I won’t allow it.” As a regular viewer of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams (yes, I’m old), I think the anchor has relaxed this rule a little bit. Of late, Williams has covered, albeit briefly, the most popular YouTube videos of the week (he’s partial to ones featuring dogs) as well as the marital woes of celebrities like Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. Still, on the whole, the above holds true: Williams mostly tackles weighty stories/events, and his job, some of the time, is a tough one.

But Brian Williams also likes to hone his comedic chops. For example, he has hosted Saturday Night Live and has appeared on the show’s “Weekend Update” segment. He has repeatedly “slow-jammed” the news with Jimmy Fallon (here, he’s known as “Brian Will.i.ams”). He has cameoed as himself on NBC’s wacky sitcom 30 Rock. He has twice impersonated Regis Philbin on the Late Show with David Letterman (start at 10:20), and as a regular guest on the program, the news anchor virtually always hits back when Letterman throws him a comedic/sarcastic curve-ball. We could say the same for Williams’ frequent appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which each man tries to outdo the other comedically (although Williams clearly comes prepared, Stewart almost always wins).

The “Giant Head of Brian Williams” on The Daily Show

What’s more, every now and then if you’re watching closely enough, you’ll hear Williams throw a tiny joke into his nightly news reporting or you’ll see him raise an eyebrow in jest. NY Magazine has even profiled Williams and his affection for comedy in “The Comic Stylings of Brian Williams” and further asks why we don’t take that part of him more seriously. Finally, in the same piece, we learn that Tina Fey has accused Williams of having “a nerdy obsession with comedy.” Apparently, as a kid he stayed up late to watch Carson, studied the comedy of Richard Pryor and Sam Kinison, and requested SNL tickets after watching the premiere episode in 1975. While watching Williams’ appearances on Letterman and The Daily Show, I get a sense he is still studying the art of comedy, this time in person.

So what does Brian Williams have to do with my spouse, and why do I feel symbolically married to him?

Critical Decisions and Making Comedy

Like Williams’, my spouse’s job can be serious. For instance, over the last 16 years he has come face to face (figuratively and literally) with anorexia, hazing, suicide attempts, fatal car accidents, alcoholism, drug use, mental illness, racial injustice, and sexual assault. The police have called him/us at 2:56 AM because of some of these things. He has had to make difficult and sometimes impossible decisions that greatly affect the lives of those with whom he comes in contact. And at times, his rulings have resulted in questions from the media and intense meetings with the president(s) and board of his institution.

My spouse is a judicial (or student conduct) officer in higher education. At some places he would be considered the Dean of Students. In any event, think of him as the principal of the school but with a bit more pressing issues than overbearing parents (though he’s seen some of those too) and the coordination of custodial and cafeteria services.

He has fulfilled this role at a large state university with on-campus housing (36,000 students), a medium-sized one with on-campus housing (9,000 students), and a large community college with no housing at all (25,000 students). As you can imagine, the type of school and the students therein vary greatly. At some places, minor offenses like plagiarism and roommate bickering are the norm; but at other schools, things get more serious—as you can glean from the list above.

That said, when he’s not making critical decisions, my husband is silly. Very silly. And like Brian Williams, he is interested in comedy. He has read books on comedy, attended several stand-up acts (just this week we booked tickets to see Jim Gaffigan), watched countless comedy specials, and has even taken a class on comedy and its history.

Whether by doing impromptu karaoke at an office event, posing ridiculously for pictures (see below), or supplying fodder for my Twitter feed, he makes others laugh—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Either way, it’s a good trait to have, especially—as I’m sure Brian Williams would attest—during rough patches. As you can see from the tweets below, several of which took place during our trying stretch of unemployment, even though no money was rolling in, the laughs still were.

The husband getting his Ferris Bueller on.

Showing no sign of ever acting his age.

The Spouse in Twitter Form

Me: “I’d like for my ashes to be scattered on the floor of The Globe Theatre.”
The husband: “I’ll pull a Shawshank’ and sprinkle your ass there.”

Me: “You seen Rear Window?”
The husband: “Yeah, dude’s in a wheelchair, falls out his window because he’s dizzy, then birds eat him.”

Me: “Les Mis is coming to Chicago in November. You going with me?”
The husband: “Would rather watch Hoarders to see people crawling on a pile of junk.”

Planning our trip to Salem, MA.
The husband: “They have a Days of Our Lives tour? I think Patch lived down by the docks one season.”

Me: “Did Magic Mike make you uncomfortable in any way?”
The husband: “I refuse to answer for fear that my comment will show up on a blog somewhere.”

The techno-illiterate husband:
“Come down here and set up Citizen Kane. I need to get my Rosebud on.”

“I am woman; hear me roar,” sings the husband.
Me: “Why?”
Him: “It’s National Woman’s Day!” Then, he recites Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman.”

“I don’t want the burnt one.
I like my cookies like I like my women: soft and doughy.”

Me: “Soon, I’m gonna go see Gene Kelly’s letters in Boston.”
The husband: “Oooo, is that like the Silence Dogood letters?”

“I will not be objectified in my own house.”
The husband upon hearing my iPhone’s Twitter whistle going off.

As the husband puts on Gold Bond this morning,
“It rubs the lotion on its skin…”

The husband: “You writing a post on 9/11?”
Me: “Nope, Fatty Arbuckle.”
The husband: “Is that a cartoon character?”

Me: “This sandwich is too big for my mouth.”
The husband: “I find that hard to believe.”

Student worker to the husband: “You remind me of Matthew McConaughey [he means the hair].”
The husband: “It’s my abs.”

“Last turn on Words with Friends, your mother played oral.
Today she played teats. This is getting uncomfortable.”

Me: “NPR…Romano…Owen…Wendell Pierce…Andre Braugher [silence] Did you hear anything I said?”
Husband: “Every word, but I just don’t care.”

Me: “Phyllis Dietrichson, best femme fatale ever.”
The husband: “I’m partial to Jessica Rabbit.”

Me: “Hey, today’s National Coming Out Day.”
The husband: “Anything you wanna tell me?”

The husband: “You watching Tommy?”
Me: “No, it’s Jesus Christ Superstar.”
Husband: “Yeah, same thing.”

Commercial: “Do you love stylish, sexy jeans? Do you love soft, comfy pajama bottoms?”
The husband, softly: “Yes.”

Me: “You wanna see Drive tomorrow?”
The husband: “Who’s in that?”
Me: “Ryan Gosling.”
The husband: “Mmm, he’s a fine specimen.”

Me: “Ooo, Bringing Up Baby is on tonight.”
The husband: “Is that the prequel to Dirty Dancing?”

The husband — fan of sports, Broadway, and moisturizer:
“I’m 33% straight male, 33% gay male, 33% female. I’m the Benetton of sexuality.”

Laptops in the College Classroom and Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning

2012-12-08T22:38:04Z

In his book I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom (2004), professor Patrick Allitt asks his American history students at the start of each term to regard the classroom as “somewhere special, set aside for teaching and learning.” To foster this, Allitt bans eating, drinking, hats (yes, hats), cellular phones, and the like. As well, to ensure the classroom is “free from as many contaminations of the outside world as possible,” the British-born prof, like many (but certainly NOT ALL) college instructors, includes on his syllabus strict policies about tardiness, plagiarism, and in-class participation. Regarding the latter, he warns students, “I will be calling on you by name during discussion, and I will expect you to be able to talk about these works on the basis of a careful reading” (6).

While I subscribe to some of this (a strict tardy policy, lawd yes) and reject other aspects (eat and drink in my classroom all you want, folks), it’s not Allitt’s syllabus guidelines or his book that charms me. It’s this mentality, which the history professor imparts upon students when they register for his courses:

Whatever you do beyond the classroom is your own business, but so long as you are here, I am going to assume that you came here with the intention of learning. I am the teacher, and I am doing everything I can to put you in a position conducive to learning. (6)

I often think of these two statements when compiling my own syllabi, especially when I get to the section on the use of laptops in the classroom.

My Erratic Laptop Policies and the Power of Twitter

My policies on in-class laptops has been inconsistent, to say the least. For many years, I banned them. For a couple of terms, I allowed them but only on the back rows. My reasoning: students monkeying around during lectures with websites, social media, and Internet porn (sure, it happens) will not distract their 130+ classmates if they’re in the back of the room, with no one behind them. And, yes, for a few terms now, I’ve allowed laptops, iPads, etc. in my classes, in any row for that matter.

Truth be told, my recent decision to admit laptops in the classroom is a result of Twitter. In short, I caved to my colleagues who asked and/or explained the following:

Why would someone teaching media courses NOT allow her students to use laptops?
What does it matter if your students are surfing the Web or checking Facebook during a lecture? That’s their problem, not yours.
I think most teachers ban laptops because they’re scared students aren’t going to pay attention to them (nod to above image).
With an outright ban, why punish students who use their laptops appropriately (i.e., note-taking)?

All valid points. But here’s the thing: more often than not, it seems college students do not use their laptops responsibly in class.

Even Students Think Their Own Laptops Are Distracting!

Several studies — formal and informal — reveal that the majority of college students who bring their laptops, iPads, etc. to class do not use them for academic purposes. For example, Georgetown law professor David Cole — who now bans laptops in class – surveyed his students and found that 95% of them admitted to using their computers for “purposes other than taking notes” (e.g., surfing the Web, checking e-mail, instant messaging). Similarly, a whopping 98% reported seeing their classmates do the same.

Nicole Glass similarly recalls her experience at American University in classrooms that allowed laptops. She remembers hearing the “sound of fast-paced typing” but looking around to see that “no one was taking notes.” Rather her classmates were “online shopping, answering emails, and chatting or finishing assignments for other classes.”

A 2006 study of psychology classes at Winona State University also confirms this behavior: over 25% of the time, students used their computers for something other than note-taking purposes (about 17 minutes out of every 75-minute class).

Laptop overload.

Furthermore, in 2011 a St. John’s Law School professor stationed “observers” in the rear of his lecture halls to record his students’ laptop/cell-phone behavior. Again, his findings align with the above. For five minutes or more, “87 percent of the upper-year students used laptops for non-class purposes.” And at least half the time, “58 percent used them for non-class purposes.” Moreover, even when the law professor announced that students should not be surfing the Web during lecture, they continued to do so.

Finally, in 2008 the problem had apparently gotten so bad at the University of Chicago Law School that classroom Internet access was shut off altogether (Washington Post). I admit, dear reader, I kinda love this.

Some Implications of In-Class Laptop Use

But what’s more disturbing are (some of) the ramifications of all this in-class computer use. According to several studies — again, formal and informal — on the whole, students who employ laptops in the classroom are more distracted and earn lower grades than those who do not. Get ready; more evidence ahead…

For example, one professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder compared the grades of students who used laptops in her classroom with those of the students who did not. On one of the first exams, the laptop-using students scored 11% lower than their counterparts without laptops. At the end of the term, the professor found that students who used laptops averaged a grade of 71%, “almost the same as the average for the students who didn’t come at all.”

Some professors have even installed “activity monitoring ‘spyware’” on student laptops to assess productivity or the lack thereof (yes, the students agreed to this). In “Examining the Affects of Student Multitasking with Laptops during the Lecture” James M. Kraushaar and David Novak found that their students engaged in “substantial multitasking behavior with their laptops and had non course-related software applications open and active about 42% of the time.” To put things another way, the average student in this study looked at 65 new, active windows per lecture, and one student, it seems, averaged 174 new windows per lecture. (Holy crap.)

My version: “Seriously, no one’s crotch glows like that.”

But interestingly, in Kraushaar’s and Novak’s investigation, it wasn’t students who frequently checked e-mail and surfed non-course-related sites that earned the lowest grades. Rather, those who used their laptops for instant messaging scored significantly lower on homework, quizzes, and exams.

As implied by these studies and others like Nancy Maxwell’s “From Facebook to Folsom Prison Blues: How Banning Laptops in the Classroom Made Me a Better Law School Teacher,” some laptop-using students not only fare poorer on assignments, but they are also more distracted than their counterparts who do not use laptops. For instance, in his informal survey cited above, David Cole found that “80% reported that they are more engaged in class discussion when they are laptop-free.” Similarly, the Winona State report shows that students identified their own and their classmates’ laptop use as “the biggest source of distraction during lectures.” I’m gonna’ say this one more time: even students who use laptops in the classroom find them distracting.

A Position Conducive to Learning

Disclaimer: some of the instructors I reference below have only 1-2 students regularly using computers in the classroom.

When I informally surveyed my colleagues (tenure-track/tenured professors, adjuncts, and PhD students who TA classes), several of them saw a link between in-class laptop use and grades. My initial question was this: “what percentage of your students who consistently use a laptop, iPad, etc. in class earn a grade of A or B?” I received the following: ”maybe 20%,” “probably 10%,” and “none, nada.” Likewise, one instructor recalled that nearly all of her students who used laptops/tablets in class did poorly on their exams.

But several of my colleagues also claimed they saw no correlation between regular laptop use and high/low grades, and in some cases, most of the computer-users “are my top students.” One instructor said her statistics are split about evenly: 50% use laptops responsibly and are A-students, and about 50% are in danger in failing. Another admits that his lower-level students who use their laptops during class are probably less successful than the upper-level students/majors who do (one of the studies I cite above mentions something similarly). Finally, one instructor claims that it’s the students using their smartphones in class (rather than laptops) who are the bane of her existence (I paraphrase that last part).

If I look back over my spreadsheets for the terms in which I’ve allowed laptops, I find a pattern that mostly echoes the studies in the first half of this post: that is, overall, the laptop-using students’ grades are poor and they are consistently distracted in class.

I have heavy computer use in some classes; close to 70% of my students sit behind the glow of a screen. But in other classes, only 10% of students regularly use laptops, iPads, etc. After revisiting all grades — participation, exams, written projects, etc. — and applying the question I asked of my colleagues (what percentage of your students who consistently use a laptop, iPad, etc. in class earn a grade of A or B?), I’ve found that

Only 3 of my laptop-using students have earned a final grade of B.
All of the other students who regularly type/surf on their laptops during class have scored a course grade a C or lower.
To date, no regular laptop-using student has earned an A in my classes.

Having taught at the college level for 13 years, I realize there are MANY factors that contribute to poor or average grades: scanty attendance, incomplete or shoddy assignments, student underpreparedness, my inattention to and/or students’ ignorance of learning styles, and too-difficult assignments on my end. I am also aware that regular in-class laptop use may be beneficial as Kristen E. Murray points out in “Let Them Use Laptops: Debunking the Assumptions Underlying the Debate Over Laptops in the Classroom” and as this Michigan State “advertisement” for the student response system/teaching module LectureTools indicates.

Moreover, regular visitors to MediAcademia know that I’ve incorporated Twitter into the classroom (long story short: I think it works better outside the class than within it) and that I’ve recently asked my students to create video essays and post assignments to their own blogs. In other words, I’m certainly not opposed to technology in pedagogy. But still, I am beginning to rethink things on the in-class laptop front.

Forget the web-surfing, Facebook-checking, and porn-gawking for a minute. It’s also clear that even when we use laptops appropriately in class — for notetaking — we’re ultimately transcribing the material, not necessarily learning it. As David Cole points out, “The note-taker tends to go into stenographic mode and no longer processes information in a way that is conducive to the give-and-take of classroom discussion. Because taking notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, is so much slower, the student actually has to listen, think and prioritize the most important themes.”

All of this brings me back to Patrick Allitt’s motto: I am the teacher, and I am doing everything I can to put you in a position conducive to learning. Yes, I am the teacher, and it is my job to make sure, as best I can, that my students get a solid introduction to film, an in-depth look at film noir, a thorough understanding of Seinfeld, and/or a heavy dose of media theory and television comedy. And it is, you can ask my students, not a job I take flippantly.

So next term, unless a student accommodation is needed or an assignment calls for screens, I will probably not allow laptops, iPads, etc. to be open in my classrooms. Will this decision yield better grades across the board? Will there be no doodling on notebook paper (instead of online shopping)? Will it make all students pay attention? Eh, maybe not. But I hope that I will at least have put my students in an environment more conducive to learning.

Addendum/Response to Comments

1 Dec. 2012: Based on some of your responses via Twitter and below, I need to clarify a few things in this post (that I knew would be somewhat controversial).

To those asking about the studies… From what I can tell, most of these studies take place in large lecture halls (150+ students). With the exception of schools/students who use (or can afford?) software like LectureTools, clickers, etc. (i.e., a seemingly more active approach to teaching/learning), I will take that to mean that the setup here is, yes, what some would consider “old school”: professor as lecturer, student as vessel/note-taker.
To those asking about pedagogy and whether we can work with this technology… Are there ways we can gauge students’ laptop use in the classroom and subsequently use those screens for good? OF COURSE. “Best Practices for Laptops in the Classroom,” a ProfHacker post by Mark Sample, points out some ways (e.g., polling, question posting, low-stakes writing assignments). Similarly, in his post on dealing with gadgets in the classroom, Jason B. Jones reminds, “Being tech-friendly doesn’t mean ‘anything goes,’ and it also doesn’t mean that you have an all-or-nothing policy.” Agreed—which is why I’ve amended the conclusion of my post to this: So next term, unless a student accommodation is needed or an assignment calls for screens, I will probably not allow laptops, iPads, etc. to be open in my classrooms.
Directly related to #2… In the comments below, Professor Jung Choi mentions that he has had success with student laptop use in his “flipped” classroom (explanation and infographic). To be honest, this is a teaching method I’d not heard of—at least I didn’t know that specific term—but it is one I am certainly willing to check out. One question though: what if students do not have laptops, iPads, or smartphones? Are they left out of the assignment? Will they feel uncomfortable or inadequate? While a couple of the teachers with whom I’ve conversed in the last hour tell me that ALL of their students have screens, that’s certainly not the case everywhere, right?

In the last 24 hours, several professors have shared with me their views on this matter, and I thank them for that. To those teachers who allow screens: while you’ve provided me with some excellent reasons we should embrace technology and ways to integrate screens into the classroom, no one has shared with me any data about your students’ grades. Since you’ve moved to a “flipped” classroom or have heavily integrated laptops, iPads, etc. in your classroom, have you noticed any difference and/or improvement in student grades?

Thanks again, all, for your RTs, comments, and food-for-thought. And in case it needs to be said: if this no-screens-unless-called-for experiment does not work — i.e., grades don’t rise, students don’t seem to be learning, paper notetaking is a miserable catastrophe, etc. — I will certainly rethink things…yet again.

Not a Traditional America Anymore: A Roundup of Commentary on Obama’s Reelection and the (Presumed) Gradual Demise of White Hegemony

2012-12-31T15:20:58Z

Even Bill O’Reilly, perhaps the most rational of Fox News pundits, called it: “It’s not a traditional America anymore.”

After President Obama’s reelection Tuesday night, many writers have set out to explain the victory. Specifically, they maintain that this country will longer surrender to the ideas of those who’ve governed it for so long: conservative white men who fear and/or disrespect women, minorities, the working-class, the LGBTQQIA community, the poor, immigrants, non-Christians, and atheists. No, a chunk of America, it seems, has had enough of such patriarchal, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, and prejudiced ways of thinking and governing.

Granted, there’s still a way to go and there are certainly other explanations for Obama’s win; but in the meantime, here are some of the most revealing thoughts from the aforementioned journalists, bloggers, and the like:

Welcome to the Future

The brown people and the black people and the women handed the white men’s asses to them as unsentimentally as white men have bought and sold and manipulated America for centuries now. Welcome to the future. — “Dying of the White: Requiem for the 2012 Election,” Cord Jefferson

Going, Going, Gone

Today, Obama is still the president, thanks to being the choice of an overwhelming margin of women, after (for the most part) not backing down, or away from, reproductive rights and women’s autonomy. A dazzling change achieved last night after years of hard work is the unprecedented wave of women elected to office, many of whom, like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin, are strikingly progressive. Instead of projecting words asserting women’s rights outside the Capitol, these women will be asserting them inside. It appears there could even be 20 women senators.

Today, Akin is gone. Mourdock is gone. Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., who said an abortion could never save a woman’s life, is gone. Tom Smith, who said that his daughter having a child out of wedlock was as bad as if she’d been raped, is gone. Republican women who were variously wielded as proof against the party’s misogyny, including Michele Bachmann (who narrowly held on to her seat) and Mia Love, mostly did not do well. Their recent foremothers, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, are mostly forgotten. – ”Still Want to Fight a War on Women?” Irin Carmon

Behold the New Jerusalem

This may be the last election in which anyone but a fool tries to play — on a national level, at least — the cards of racial exclusion, of immigrant fear, of the patronization of women and hegemony over their bodies, of self-righteous discrimination against homosexuals. [...]

A man of color is president for the second time, and this happened despite a struggling economic climate and a national spirit of general discontent. He has been returned to office over the specific objections of the mass of white men. He has instead been re-elected by women, by people of color, by homosexuals, by people of varying religions or no religion whatsoever. Behold the New Jerusalem. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a white man, of course. There’s nothing wrong with being anything. That’s the point.” Barack Obama and the Death of Normal,” David Simon

We’re Growing

Women are people. Latino Americans are people. Asian Americans are people. Lesbians are people. Gays are people. Bisexuals are people. Transgendered are people. African-Americans are people. This broad coalition reflecting the America that was always here, rendered invisible by a majority older white male demographic in so many previous election cycles, buckling to reality that we’re not going anywhere. We’re growing. — “It’s Not a Traditional American Anymore,” Feministing

White “Identity” Politics

Conservatives are creating their own electoral enemies. The beating heart of modern conservatism is its visceral appeal to anxieties and fears of white Christians. This is a different statement than saying the beating heart of modern conservatism is white racism or white supremacy. It’s not, or not principally. It is simply white “identity” politics, with all of the pathos and ugliness that implies. — “White identity politics doomed 2012 Republican effort,” Chris Hayes

Open-House Chicago: Jewelers Building (Photo)

2013-01-01T00:00:27Z

Top of the Jewelers Building on a rainy Chicago day. Taken during Open-House Chicago, a free public event that offers behind-the-scenes tours of 150 buildings in downtown Chicago. Presented by the (always informational) Chicago Architecture Foundation. 2012.

An Entirely Different Version of Hitchcock’s Rear Window (Pic of the Day)

2012-12-07T17:45:44Z

This entry is part 14 of 13 in the series Pic of the Day.

Fall Near the Fence Post (Photo)

2012-12-07T17:45:44Z

Loud Lunch Break (Photo)

2012-12-07T17:45:44Z

Lunch below the El, State Street. Chicago.

MediAcademia

Sidney Poitier on “That Slap”

My Students Skyped with Seinfeld’s “The Maestro” (All Because of Twitter)

Q&A with The Maestro

Thanks (Yet Again), Twitter

(Mostly) Academics on Memes: A Bibliography

On Memes

15 Films I Cannot Finish

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

2. 8 1/2 (1963)

3. Umberto D (1952)

4. The Black Hand (1950)

5. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

6. Blue Velvet (1986)

7. Valmont (1989)

8. The Last Action Hero (1993)

9. The Gingerbread Man (1998)

10. American Psycho (2000)

11. Dancer in the Dark (2000)

12. The Lord of the Rings (2001)

13. Transformers (2007)

14. Nine (2009)

15. Horrible Bosses (2011)

Part-Time Professing: It’s Not ALL Doom and Gloom

A Silver-ish Lining…

It’s Whom You Know, and Knowing Yourself

Comic Conversations and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Comic Conversations and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Evolution of a Student’s Intro on Gilda (1946)

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…

Elaborating

Adding More Evidence

Can You Fill in Those Bold Parts For Me?

Sounding Better

By George, I Think We’ve Got It!

Academics, If You Must Read Your Conference Paper…

My Advice for Academic Conferences

A Friendly Reminder: Seinfeld Was Criticized Too

Seinfeld: An Insidious Message about the Future of Western Civilization

Lambs Trump Gigolos

Evolution of a Student’s Intro on Taxi Driver (1976)

Final Product

Almost There

Yup, Still Tweaking

Still Tweaking

Tweaking

Let’s Work on This

First Draft

Media Scholars Discuss NBC’s Smash (Season 2 Premiere)

Introduction

Narrative (Too Much Talking, Not Enough Singing)

Scarves

Ladies of Smash

Jennifer Hudson

Megan Hilty

Katharine McPhee

Julia/Derek/Douche

Sad Julia, Sad Derek

Hipster/Douche

The Showrunner Fiasco

Final Thoughts

Roundtable Participants

NBC’s Smash: Dividing Critics, Uniting Scholars, and Enduring the “Peak-Vagina” Era of Television

WTF Is With All Those Centennial Celebrations of Gene Kelly?

Locating Shakespeare: Book of the Month and 33% Discount!

Anne Hathaway’s Uvula, Layers of Grunge, Zombie Whores, and Other Distracting Elements in Les Miserables (2012)

Universal Gave You Dough to Spend, But Stop Wasting It on CGI

All That Grunge

Please Step Away from the Camera and Then Nail It to the Ground

Big Songs, Not-As-Big Voices

Well, It’s Not ALL Tom Hooper’s Fault

Other Random Observations

The Stage: Life Cannot Compete (Quote of the Day)

Help! (or Yay?) I’m Married to Brian Williams

“Walter Cronkite of the 21st Century” Does Impressions?

Critical Decisions and Making Comedy

The Spouse in Twitter Form

Top 12 Posts of 2012: Breaking Bad, Academic Woes, and (Yes, More) Gene Kelly

Top 12 Posts of 2012

Laptops in the College Classroom and Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning