Unlike Mike and his hi-brow students writing about Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders, I have a student who wants to write about the reproduction of black subjectivity in comedies from the 1990s. She has chosen the following titles: House Party, BAPS, Friday, Bulworth, Hollywood Shuffle, School Daze, Soul Food, and The Best Man. I’m of a mind that she has to have an understanding of comedy (if such a thing is even possible) before she can begin to treat these films as texts that tell us (her) something about the nature of black identity in 90s culture. Any advice?
Yeah, we should talk. About film comedy, John will have the best focused sources. But about African-American cinema, two really big names are Ed Guerrero and Manthia Diawara; I think I had ordered books by both of ’em for our library. And both–particularly Guerrero–discuss genre & subjectivity, and in pretty recent films. I also ordered a bunch of anthologies on race/ethnicity in film, so… there may actually be stuff in our woebegone library.
It’s an interesting range of films. But what about “the black guy” in teen comedies, or the representations that pop up in films not focused on “race” as a central defining character of subjectivity (except for the secondary characters, who might be tagged simply by race)?
It was like pulling teeth to get her to pin down a list of films that she wanted to tackle. I, of course, want her to have a solid theoretical frame of investigation and her desire to pursue comedy that spoke or attempted to speak to black audiences is an interesting one, though I fear she will not be diligent when it comes to backing up her close readings with secondary sources. And I think she should be searching out newsweeklies and newspapers for information as to how these films were received in major markets as well as by the African-American community. I’m also interested in the films’ grosses, budgets, stuff like that. I will turn her on to these works you have recently ordered from the library as well. And John is the comedy man?
“though I fear she will not be diligent when it comes to backing up her close readings with secondary sources”
the tyranny of academic reproduction? everything that’s said must somehow reflect something that’s already been said by an “authority?”
Fair enough, your point is well taken. I just want to make sure that her conclusions grow out of some kind of foundation of knowledge. Scholarship (even intelligent close readings) doesn’t exist in a vacuum no matter from what level it is practiced.
Or think of this a bit more generously–rather than seeking ‘authority,’ the student should at least try to grapple with the breadth of discourse that has gone or is going on around a film or set of films. The conversation doesn’t start (or end) with one person’s reading of a film–hell, this blog is evidence that good (and bad) reading depends upon our constant interaction with all the others out there in the audience…
That said, she better pay attention to me. Respectfully listen and take notes. Nod enthusiastically. Maybe even fall into a slight faint at my brilliance, now and again.
Jeff–sorry, didn’t mean to snap at you regarding “secondary sources.” it is a sensitive issue for me! however, I wonder if it’s not best for a student to make as rigorous as possible an analysis of films on his/her own before turning to other materials. or perhaps to read broadly on issues of subjectivity, film, comedy, etc. without thinking of those materials as “secondary sources.” I think the university generally relies on citations and sources and the like to reinforce a system where everyone provides only “commentary” and thereby guarantees the reproduction of the same concerns, readings, materials, etc. who the hell wants to read something called a “secondary source” anyway? unfortunately I also feel that when it comes to film and popular culture the academy does in fact exist in a vacuum—the suffocating system of specialization and professionalization which I am getting to know up close and personal during this job search guarantees irrelevance in many ways, which is why so much film criticism and theory is paradoxically so strident about its relevance and social impact. If I ever get a chance to teach again, I’m not quite sure of how I will handle this issue of critical authority–perhaps by encouraging reckless approaches to every piece of writing, or perhaps by instituting a regime of Tuetonic conceptual discipline?
Frisoli . . . no harm, no foul. First, yes . . . I hope all of us engage a film on its own merits generating initial, unmediated responses. That being said there is more work to do. Let’s do away with primary and secondary sources altogether. Objects of inquiry seem to produce an extraordinary amount of tangential objects of inquiry which are often just as interesting as the “original, dare I say authoritative” text. In my field of theatre studies all we have (for the most part) are trace elements of the “original” from which to generate conclusions or make meaning so interpretation can be tricky (in a fun way). I guess the universities want to make sure we know our stuff–that we have mastered the “literature” but it seems to me (even from the lowly position of a generalist in a perfectly splendid but admitedly first-tier “comprehensive college or university”) that things changed once I got out of the PhD program and started to make my way into the world (leaving grad school hurts like a divorce but in the end it’s damn good for the kids . . . plus, I now smoke a lot less pot, sigh). As a teacher I do want my students to generate their conclusions from some kind of foundation of knowledge. And I want to be able to facilitate that work to the best of my ability (I’m not always successful but I have my moments). It’s really hard to talk about Bad Education, for example, without some knowledge of film noir tropes, the Franco regime, gender as performance, etc. It’s not necessary that a student master Judith Butler to “get” the film (hell, I have no idea what that woman is talking about) but there are sources out there that help students shape their reponses (Picasso stole ideas from everyone until he found his own voice, so to speak). Likewise (and I know I’m telling this site nothing that its players do not already know), it is hard to talk intelligently about Kill Bill without some knowledge of the Shaw Brothers, spaghetti westerns, Japanese samurai culture, Tarantino’s insuferable ego; and if a student can find a couple of reliable sources that provide a way to talk about the merits of pastiche and the complexities of narrative, they will have an accessible way to enter into the dialogue (as opposed to simply shooting the shit over a beer to impress a girl–or maybe a really cute boy dressed up as a girl). Looking for a job sucks and it does seem to me (having recently been a part of our English department’s two searches) that English folks do have a stick up their ass when it comes to the suffocating system of specialization and professionalization. I mean, really, these people are going to be teaching (again, for the most part) survey classes to students who will never be able to authoritatively define post-structuralism to anyone in their lives ever . . . and those students will do just fine out there on the planet and will have many valuable and intelligent things to say about all kinds of stuff. Anyway, I liked your angry post and I appreciated your concilatory post and I look forward to more of both.
i remember when the angry was all one got from frisoli. this new model that also offers the conciliatory confuses me.
Jeff–thanks for your kind and thoughtful response. either I am becoming “post-modern” or just insane, but I’m not sure I believe in sources any more. Also I don’t believe that students can bring “unmediated” responses to anything but I don’t know yet the best ways to help them discover themselves as endless “mediations.” as for the mastery…well, recently, having just finished my doctorate, I was invited by USC to participate in a “hooding ceremony” during which my advisor would cover my head in a “royal blue” hood during the ceremony to symbolize–as the head of the graduate school wrote–my “mastery” of my discipline. I couldn’t believe this invitation wasn’t a bizarre joke, until I remembered that universities and their conceptions of knowledge are stuck in a certain medievalism which they reject when sucking up endowment money but deploy recklessly in the ideology of their departments, programs, degrees, etc. I wrote back saying I would prefer to recognize my newly acquired “mastery” in my own private way–by hanging from my nipples Sioux-style until I experienced a mystical reunion with all my fellow PhD’s who have passed on. now that’s a party! as for specialization, it is perhaps best to meet it with a chuckle and shrug–after studying film in both an MA and PHD program I was unable to apply for a recent film teaching position because I did not demonstrate sufficient knowledge of and scholarship in the area of “Recent Spanish Cinema.” Having taught Comp for ten years, I am rejected for positions because my dissertation did not come to terms with new stances in composition/rhetoric theory and practice. I do not know what students make of all of this–if they, in fact, can even fathom why “writing” is called instead “composition” in the first place.
I guess I hope students are able to interrogate (now I’m sounding postmodern . . . shall we retire that word) the ways in which their idea of self is mediated or shaped by cultural products. Then again this blog is all about the ways in which we who “like to watch” luxuriate in the tepid bathwater of inconsequential (highly irrelevant) narratives (hmmm . . . should I drive into Minneapolis to see Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows this weekend or should I just spend $40 for the region 2 disc over at http://www.asiancinema.com). Damn, I wish the Theatre and Dance Department in Boulder had thrown its graduates a bone upon our graduation. Even bad chedder and a box of wine would have been appreciated. Still, a hooding ceremony sounds so very Oxbridge. Are you sure you went to school in sunny Los Angeles? Dissertations are overrated! And if a book can’t reach beyond a myopically specific interpretive community, why write it? Whose fanny’s being scratched? And while were at it, I think Vertigo is boring.