Last semester I took a course that focused entirely on Jane Austen. We read her novels, her letters, her juvenilia, her unfinished works, her biographies. We read articles about her, watched adaptations of her novels, and we talked about her role in society. It was very interesting to see how at the end of the semester, after we had all become Austen scholars, all of the students' opinions of her had changed. Many people came into the class with the same stereotype as exists in the rest of society, which is that Jane Austen is only read by teenage girls and housewives looking for something light to read about romance. As it turns out, Austen is ranked among the greatest of British authors to have lasted since her lifetime. Readers' devotion to Austen's work and the mysterious minutiae of her life parallels that of Shakespeare addicts, and yet Austen maintains this less-than-flattering public image.
I recently saw a trailer (see bottom of post) for the upcoming Austen biopic entitled Becoming Jane. It stars Anne Hathaway and tells the story of "her true love" or some other such nonsense according to Mr. Voice-Over man. Here's the thing - we don't know a whole hell of a lot about Austen's romance by the sea. We know she rejected a proposal from an eligible suitor, which was a very bad financial decision for her to make. I am really curious how this movie is going to be all happy and romantic if the true story ended with her being a spinster writing letters to her spinster sister and being dependent on the kindness of her brothers. I mean, this is basically Shakespeare in Love but probably with less nudity.
Reportedly, Anne Hathaway does a good job and was coached into having a very appropriate dialectic accent for Austen's time and location. She is quite pretty, though, and Austen scholars will always point out how since her death, Austen has been 'prettified' by those promoting her. The best image there is of her is a sketch done by her sister in which she looks pointed, sour, and a little old. Her relatives revamped this portrait to be published with her works, making her look young, angelic, and quite lovely. Yet more changes are being made to her appearance nowadays, which continues to fly in the face of the feminist Austen tradition.
I guess I'm just curious to see how Bennetizing this film will be on the image and reputation of Austen herself. My hope is that some of what scholars know to be true will be left untainted by this movie, as it is being released in conjunction with a new biography of the same name, I believe. Maybe after it comes out I should have a marathon of all the literary biopics, from Shakespeare in Love to Wilde, Sylvia, The Hours (kinda), Capote, Miss Potter, and any others I can find.
P.S. I did a Google search of "literary biopics," and apparently Michelle Williams, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Evan Rachel Wood have been cast to play the Brontë sisters. Yowza.
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
boob tube
Being a student at a pretty rowdy party school, I go out fairly often, and though Thursday is generally a very busy night, I didn't feel like putting in the effort yesterday. However, I wasn't abandoning a big party on the penultimate weekend before finals because I was planning on studying or something (pshaw)...it was primarily because I had a date with my television. A few yards away from my dorm, girls were wrestling in jello with little people who'd been hired for the occasion (I shit you not - disgusting), while I curled up in bed with primetime.
Some may scoff at the third parent of America's children, but I think television's value is ineffable. So without even attempting to explain why I carve so much time out of my schedule to watch tune in, here's a brief overview of my must-see TV shows. One small disclaimer - there are quite a few quality TV shows on cable, but I just don't have that at college. Some, like Showtime's Dexter, I find a way to watch "on demand" when visiting my parents' house, but for the most part, my cable TV viewing is on hiatus until I move out of the dorms.
HEROES
Mondays at 9pm on NBC
My appreciation for this show could be described as sinusoidal. I started watching it because it had gotten so much hype, and at first I was unimpressed. The first few episodes, however, got me telling people about how it was at least much better than most of the crap that gets picked up for networks nowadays, and isn't that really the best endorsement a fledgling series can get? As the season went on, I got more and more hooked. Some of the characters, like Hiro and Claire and Matt, are pretty interesting. Hiro, of course, is the most original, but those three capture my attention far more than the others. Peter's powers are, frankly, bitchin', but as a character he's kind of boring. Then there's someone like Niki/Jessica whose storyline has taken too long to be explained, and as such I lost interest in figuring her out or paying much attention after a few episodes. In terms of the storyline, though, Heroes wins at creating suspense and adrenaline for a series which, at first, stole too much from X-Men to be that exciting. At times there are a few too many things going on and an episode will thin out too much, but there is almost always a great cliffhanger at the end of each one, and it keeps me tuning in every week! The mid-season hiatus isn't something I'm pleased about when it comes to a show's first season, however, and I admit I've been a little forgetful by the time these last couple of episodes have aired, but I look forward to the new developments of season two.
America's Next Top Model
Wednesdays at 8pm on The CW
When ANTM came out, I never would have expected to want to see it once, let alone weekly, year after year. I started watching about halfway through Cycle 2, then forgot about it for a couple of years. But Yoanna's great face, and Shandi's boyfriend drama were better than a lot of scripted TV (yeah, I get that "reality" TV is as scripted as anything else, but I plan to devote a whole post to that eventually...). When I got to college, I finally had less homework and more free time, eventually found a group of Top Model Enthusiasts, and I am more than glad to have reentered their ranks. You see...the "skinny bitches show," as my dad calls it, is completely addictive. Though I generally couldn't care less about the modeling industry, somehow this show sucks me in. I can't really explain it. I went to all girls' school for nine years, so you'd think I'd have had my fill of girl-drama, but these hungry women make me nostalgic, I guess. And when the judges critique their posing or walking, I just eat it up. "Oh yeah," I'll say, "she needs to be a lot more fierce. She's hiding her neck, and has dead eyes." Perhaps it's because I'm waaaay too short to ever entertain the possibility of modeling, but I get such a feral kick out of criticizing these poor girls. I think if I were a fashion photographer and a model was being too timid on set, I'd pull out a conch and yell, "Sucks to your ass-mar!" Perhaps most importantly, though, I really don't like Tyra Banks. I am far too tired of the girls squealing every time they see her, I hate how "helpful" she is all the time, and 75% of the time she makes herself look like shit even though she's gorgeous. I love this show in spite of Tyra. That's a pretty big deal.
LOST
Wednesdays at 10pm on ABC
Last summer I rented season 1 of this show, in the wake of The Lost Experience, which made me feel as if I'd missed out. Having been in some sort of bubble, I really didn't know what to expect at all. But I specifically remember being completely surprised by the tense mood that the pilot put me in. It was pretty damn cool. I ate up the entire season on DVD, and spent way too many hours during my boring summer office job scouring the internet for LOST theories, explanations, and recaps. Season 2 came out on DVD right before the premiere of season 3, and it was a very tense race to the finish line for me, but thank god I made it. Season 2 was really spectacular, and though the current season has not exceeded it in suspense, I don't think it's gone that far downhill. The only characters I actually care about are Hurley, Jin, Sun, and Sawyer, but dammit I want to know the WHY of the island! This is where the show's creators really did it right. They had a good formula with flashbacks, and a good concept, but in the first few episodes they set up a system whereby they can always keep the audience waiting for answers. And I will keep watching until it gets explained. For the record, the episodes since the mid-season hiatus this year have been far superior to the first few of the season (barring the excellent premiere).
The Office
Thursdays at 8:30pm on NBC
For far too long, I was determined to dislike this show. Mostly, the advertising just never drew me in, and I have too many traces of Anglophilia holding over from my days as a teenage Janeite to want to buy into the Americanization of what I'd heard to be superb British comedy. So, I set some time aside within one of my favorite pastimes - watching whole seasons of TV shows on DVD in one or two sittings - to watch the entire UK version, followed by the first two seasons of the US show, which were available on DVD at the time. By the end of the Christmas special of the UK version, tears of joy in my eyes, my resolve to hate the US version was firmly in place. What Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman, Lucy Davis, and Mackenzie Crook did was magical. And I can still watch the show on DVD over and over again and be entertained. Then I watched season one of the US version, and was disgusted. Frankly, I still feel like the first season is entirely not worth watching for fans of the original. I've come to realize this is because the humor and energy of the writers and actors was being stifled by their unreasonable attempt to poorly imitate the dry genius of their predecessors. Seasons 2 and 3, however, have completely won my respect and admiration. I feel that the actors have finally been given an opportunity to breathe life into their quirky characters, and I am very glad that Steve Carell is not in a show that I at first thought was below him. There is only one thing about this new iteration of the WernhamDunder-HoggMifflin universe that irks me, which is that the pacing of the original is incompatible with the US version's desire to stay on as long as is financially possible. Let's face it - Tim and Dawn only worked as a couple because we had to wait until the last possible moment for them to get together. The Jim and Pam relationship has already gotten stagnant and recycled too many times, and I just hope the show doesn't go too far, too fast.
Grey's Anatomy
Thursdays at 9pm on ABC
This was another show that I didn't watch during its time slot until having rented the first two seasons on DVD. To be honest, I don't have too much to say about this show's substance. I think Shonda Rimes & co. do a fantastic job of unrealistically witty banter that women love, and I'm okay with buying into it. I got obsessed with this show as soon as I started watching it, and it's nice to have a show which has made me cry (heart-wrenching medical emergencies), laugh (oh, that droll Cristina Yang!), and think (ew, I hope I'm not too much like Meredith). Plus, there's a ton of hot hot hotties on it. I suppose on a slightly deeper level, I appreciate the show's treatment of multiracial coupling and families - not making a big deal or very special episode out of a Jewish Korean-American dating an African-American, or portraying a Hispanic woman as being the more powerful, wealthy, and intelligent in her marriage with a white man. I attribute this to the impressive diversity among the writing team, and as an aspiring screenwriter myself, it's nice to see a minority female doing so well in this field. I know the blind casting on this show is unrealistic, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a show like this. Also, Sara Ramirez, Katherine Heigl, and Kate Walsh are just goooorgeous. I'd watch them sitting around making quilts for an hour... I mean, come on!
30 Rock
Thursdays at 9pm on NBC
I only just started watching the episodes of this show which were on the network's website, so I can't really say anything comprehensive, except that the absurdist comedy works so perfectly to balance the outlandishness of the Tracy Jordan and Jack Donaghy characters with the awkward realism of Liz Lemon. I am very much looking forward to watching the whole 1st season on DVD, as I've had to relegate my viewership to catching up online as a result of my previously existing appointment with Grey's. Also, it's nice to have a Tracy Morgan fix that isn't watching Brian Fellow clips on the internet. For the record, Tina Fey is also my idol. She's funnier than I could hope to be, and she champions hotness for bespectacled brunettes everywhere!
ETA: Since the season finale, NBC has put the entire series of 30 Rock online. I totally watched the whole thing when I was procrastinating, and I recommend it as a way to put off doing anything useful!
Some may scoff at the third parent of America's children, but I think television's value is ineffable. So without even attempting to explain why I carve so much time out of my schedule to watch tune in, here's a brief overview of my must-see TV shows. One small disclaimer - there are quite a few quality TV shows on cable, but I just don't have that at college. Some, like Showtime's Dexter, I find a way to watch "on demand" when visiting my parents' house, but for the most part, my cable TV viewing is on hiatus until I move out of the dorms.
HEROES
Mondays at 9pm on NBC
My appreciation for this show could be described as sinusoidal. I started watching it because it had gotten so much hype, and at first I was unimpressed. The first few episodes, however, got me telling people about how it was at least much better than most of the crap that gets picked up for networks nowadays, and isn't that really the best endorsement a fledgling series can get? As the season went on, I got more and more hooked. Some of the characters, like Hiro and Claire and Matt, are pretty interesting. Hiro, of course, is the most original, but those three capture my attention far more than the others. Peter's powers are, frankly, bitchin', but as a character he's kind of boring. Then there's someone like Niki/Jessica whose storyline has taken too long to be explained, and as such I lost interest in figuring her out or paying much attention after a few episodes. In terms of the storyline, though, Heroes wins at creating suspense and adrenaline for a series which, at first, stole too much from X-Men to be that exciting. At times there are a few too many things going on and an episode will thin out too much, but there is almost always a great cliffhanger at the end of each one, and it keeps me tuning in every week! The mid-season hiatus isn't something I'm pleased about when it comes to a show's first season, however, and I admit I've been a little forgetful by the time these last couple of episodes have aired, but I look forward to the new developments of season two.
America's Next Top Model
Wednesdays at 8pm on The CW
When ANTM came out, I never would have expected to want to see it once, let alone weekly, year after year. I started watching about halfway through Cycle 2, then forgot about it for a couple of years. But Yoanna's great face, and Shandi's boyfriend drama were better than a lot of scripted TV (yeah, I get that "reality" TV is as scripted as anything else, but I plan to devote a whole post to that eventually...). When I got to college, I finally had less homework and more free time, eventually found a group of Top Model Enthusiasts, and I am more than glad to have reentered their ranks. You see...the "skinny bitches show," as my dad calls it, is completely addictive. Though I generally couldn't care less about the modeling industry, somehow this show sucks me in. I can't really explain it. I went to all girls' school for nine years, so you'd think I'd have had my fill of girl-drama, but these hungry women make me nostalgic, I guess. And when the judges critique their posing or walking, I just eat it up. "Oh yeah," I'll say, "she needs to be a lot more fierce. She's hiding her neck, and has dead eyes." Perhaps it's because I'm waaaay too short to ever entertain the possibility of modeling, but I get such a feral kick out of criticizing these poor girls. I think if I were a fashion photographer and a model was being too timid on set, I'd pull out a conch and yell, "Sucks to your ass-mar!" Perhaps most importantly, though, I really don't like Tyra Banks. I am far too tired of the girls squealing every time they see her, I hate how "helpful" she is all the time, and 75% of the time she makes herself look like shit even though she's gorgeous. I love this show in spite of Tyra. That's a pretty big deal.
LOST
Wednesdays at 10pm on ABC
Last summer I rented season 1 of this show, in the wake of The Lost Experience, which made me feel as if I'd missed out. Having been in some sort of bubble, I really didn't know what to expect at all. But I specifically remember being completely surprised by the tense mood that the pilot put me in. It was pretty damn cool. I ate up the entire season on DVD, and spent way too many hours during my boring summer office job scouring the internet for LOST theories, explanations, and recaps. Season 2 came out on DVD right before the premiere of season 3, and it was a very tense race to the finish line for me, but thank god I made it. Season 2 was really spectacular, and though the current season has not exceeded it in suspense, I don't think it's gone that far downhill. The only characters I actually care about are Hurley, Jin, Sun, and Sawyer, but dammit I want to know the WHY of the island! This is where the show's creators really did it right. They had a good formula with flashbacks, and a good concept, but in the first few episodes they set up a system whereby they can always keep the audience waiting for answers. And I will keep watching until it gets explained. For the record, the episodes since the mid-season hiatus this year have been far superior to the first few of the season (barring the excellent premiere).
The Office
Thursdays at 8:30pm on NBC
For far too long, I was determined to dislike this show. Mostly, the advertising just never drew me in, and I have too many traces of Anglophilia holding over from my days as a teenage Janeite to want to buy into the Americanization of what I'd heard to be superb British comedy. So, I set some time aside within one of my favorite pastimes - watching whole seasons of TV shows on DVD in one or two sittings - to watch the entire UK version, followed by the first two seasons of the US show, which were available on DVD at the time. By the end of the Christmas special of the UK version, tears of joy in my eyes, my resolve to hate the US version was firmly in place. What Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman, Lucy Davis, and Mackenzie Crook did was magical. And I can still watch the show on DVD over and over again and be entertained. Then I watched season one of the US version, and was disgusted. Frankly, I still feel like the first season is entirely not worth watching for fans of the original. I've come to realize this is because the humor and energy of the writers and actors was being stifled by their unreasonable attempt to poorly imitate the dry genius of their predecessors. Seasons 2 and 3, however, have completely won my respect and admiration. I feel that the actors have finally been given an opportunity to breathe life into their quirky characters, and I am very glad that Steve Carell is not in a show that I at first thought was below him. There is only one thing about this new iteration of the WernhamDunder-HoggMifflin universe that irks me, which is that the pacing of the original is incompatible with the US version's desire to stay on as long as is financially possible. Let's face it - Tim and Dawn only worked as a couple because we had to wait until the last possible moment for them to get together. The Jim and Pam relationship has already gotten stagnant and recycled too many times, and I just hope the show doesn't go too far, too fast.
Grey's Anatomy
Thursdays at 9pm on ABC
This was another show that I didn't watch during its time slot until having rented the first two seasons on DVD. To be honest, I don't have too much to say about this show's substance. I think Shonda Rimes & co. do a fantastic job of unrealistically witty banter that women love, and I'm okay with buying into it. I got obsessed with this show as soon as I started watching it, and it's nice to have a show which has made me cry (heart-wrenching medical emergencies), laugh (oh, that droll Cristina Yang!), and think (ew, I hope I'm not too much like Meredith). Plus, there's a ton of hot hot hotties on it. I suppose on a slightly deeper level, I appreciate the show's treatment of multiracial coupling and families - not making a big deal or very special episode out of a Jewish Korean-American dating an African-American, or portraying a Hispanic woman as being the more powerful, wealthy, and intelligent in her marriage with a white man. I attribute this to the impressive diversity among the writing team, and as an aspiring screenwriter myself, it's nice to see a minority female doing so well in this field. I know the blind casting on this show is unrealistic, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a show like this. Also, Sara Ramirez, Katherine Heigl, and Kate Walsh are just goooorgeous. I'd watch them sitting around making quilts for an hour... I mean, come on!
30 Rock
Thursdays at 9pm on NBC
I only just started watching the episodes of this show which were on the network's website, so I can't really say anything comprehensive, except that the absurdist comedy works so perfectly to balance the outlandishness of the Tracy Jordan and Jack Donaghy characters with the awkward realism of Liz Lemon. I am very much looking forward to watching the whole 1st season on DVD, as I've had to relegate my viewership to catching up online as a result of my previously existing appointment with Grey's. Also, it's nice to have a Tracy Morgan fix that isn't watching Brian Fellow clips on the internet. For the record, Tina Fey is also my idol. She's funnier than I could hope to be, and she champions hotness for bespectacled brunettes everywhere!
ETA: Since the season finale, NBC has put the entire series of 30 Rock online. I totally watched the whole thing when I was procrastinating, and I recommend it as a way to put off doing anything useful!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
i carried a watermelon
In 1987, two very important things happened, for which the year will be earmarked in the pages of history. In July, I was born. But a few short months earlier, another bundle of creative energy, joy, and inspiration was brought into this world. Yes, I am referring to none other than cinematic tour de force, Dirty Dancing. Some people seem to like this movie in a tounge-in-cheek, "get me drunk and I'll sit and laugh at it with my gal pals" sort of way, but to them I turn a wry smile and think with fondness about what they're missing out on.
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, Dirty Dancing will be rereleased into theaters in honor of its 20th anniversary. Though I can't know for sure yet, I'm worried that end of semester business will prevent me from seeing one of my all-time favorite films on the big screen at last. Enough with the pessimism, though... Let's just bask in the cool knowledge that enough people understand the importance of this picture to bring it back for audiences old and new.
I can't remember how old I was when I first watched what must certainly be Vestron Pictures' magnum opus, but I remember finding out that there were "controversial themes" in the storyline which I had been too young to pick up on. I have some vague memories of watching my mother iron while nobody put baby in the corner on TNT, but I just cannot pinpoint the moment at which I could declare that I was truly a fan. Sometime in early high school, I think it was TBS that hosted a 12-hour marathon of Dirty Dancing. That's right - the same movie six times in a row. Now who would actually sit through something like that? Well, me, of course!
I cannot claim that this picture is a guilty pleasure of mine because I have loved it since before I knew what a guilty pleasure was. I can't tell if it falls into the category of cheezy dance movie that I love or cheezy romance that I love, but I figure it must be enough of both that it cycles out of the cheezy category altogether. I understand that the dancing is not that great, the actors are not really super-hot, and the performances are...alright. But somehow this neither diminishes my enjoyment of the movie nor forces me to love it in a so-bad-it's-good sort of way. I think that the mediocrity of some aspects of the film is perfectly balanced by the highlights of the characters involved and the lowlights of the situations they're placed in. Kellerman's is a completely boring place for the rich and complacent, and the location it was filmed in lacks even the natural beauty of a resort like Mohonk which must have inspired it. Finding a little bit of inspiration or romance in an otherwise unremarkable locale is tried and true, and this is where Dirty Dancing hits the spot.
Because to me, it's not about dance or love or even rebellion, really. It's about a teenage girl on the precipice of adulthood - too smart for her family, too naiive for independence, and too insecure in general. She wants to be free to learn about herself and change the world, but the reality is that she's too scared to let go of her support system.
"Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all - I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." Baby says this to Johnny and I don't really think it's because she knows they're soulmates or anything. I'm sure there was a time in my preteen years when I believed that, but I've come to view her attachment to Johnny as a transference of security from her father to her lover. I'm not judging her motivations or saying they're too Electra-complex to be valid, but it just seems a likely explanation for how alone she feels when he is gone.
Baby represents intelligent, inexperienced, white-collar teenage girls everywhere, and I think her character marks an interesting change in American society. Her character grew up a child of the optimistic, economically-booming 1950s - the era of the teenager. By the time she had come into her own and was ready to attend Mount Holyoke, she must have absorbed enough of early second-wave feminism to believe that there was a cause in the world with her name on it. Poverty, hunger, and war are too big too start out with, so Johnny acts as a good stepping-stone for her. But the movie didn't come out in the '60s; it was released over two decades after it's set. I believe that the implications of a young woman looking to balance her sense and sensibility (notably not a new topic, Austen-ites) would have been quite resonant in a time when women's roles in the workforce were in a period of difficult adjustment.
I identify with Frances "Baby" Houseman, perhaps because I recognize so many of her flaws. She wants so badly to do something meaningful, even if she's fooling herself into thinking her actions are more important than they are. The good-hearted father coming to terms with his daughter's blossoming sexuality, the first love, the search for excitement - these are all old tropes. But Baby gets something that almost none of us get. She gets those "celluloid moments" that I mentioned in an earlier post. She gets lifted up by a strapping young man in a lake with summer rain falling on her face. She gets to wear a flouncy pink dress and dance with a group of street-wise hotel employees who all know the steps. This is something that many of us envy, and I don't think there's anything about that to feel guilty for.
~Kat
P.S. I refuse to respond to any comments regarding the sequel, as I am barely willing to acknowledge its existence. However, if anyone's seen the musical based on the movie, I'd love to hear what you thought about it!
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, Dirty Dancing will be rereleased into theaters in honor of its 20th anniversary. Though I can't know for sure yet, I'm worried that end of semester business will prevent me from seeing one of my all-time favorite films on the big screen at last. Enough with the pessimism, though... Let's just bask in the cool knowledge that enough people understand the importance of this picture to bring it back for audiences old and new.
I can't remember how old I was when I first watched what must certainly be Vestron Pictures' magnum opus, but I remember finding out that there were "controversial themes" in the storyline which I had been too young to pick up on. I have some vague memories of watching my mother iron while nobody put baby in the corner on TNT, but I just cannot pinpoint the moment at which I could declare that I was truly a fan. Sometime in early high school, I think it was TBS that hosted a 12-hour marathon of Dirty Dancing. That's right - the same movie six times in a row. Now who would actually sit through something like that? Well, me, of course!
I cannot claim that this picture is a guilty pleasure of mine because I have loved it since before I knew what a guilty pleasure was. I can't tell if it falls into the category of cheezy dance movie that I love or cheezy romance that I love, but I figure it must be enough of both that it cycles out of the cheezy category altogether. I understand that the dancing is not that great, the actors are not really super-hot, and the performances are...alright. But somehow this neither diminishes my enjoyment of the movie nor forces me to love it in a so-bad-it's-good sort of way. I think that the mediocrity of some aspects of the film is perfectly balanced by the highlights of the characters involved and the lowlights of the situations they're placed in. Kellerman's is a completely boring place for the rich and complacent, and the location it was filmed in lacks even the natural beauty of a resort like Mohonk which must have inspired it. Finding a little bit of inspiration or romance in an otherwise unremarkable locale is tried and true, and this is where Dirty Dancing hits the spot.
Because to me, it's not about dance or love or even rebellion, really. It's about a teenage girl on the precipice of adulthood - too smart for her family, too naiive for independence, and too insecure in general. She wants to be free to learn about herself and change the world, but the reality is that she's too scared to let go of her support system.
"Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all - I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." Baby says this to Johnny and I don't really think it's because she knows they're soulmates or anything. I'm sure there was a time in my preteen years when I believed that, but I've come to view her attachment to Johnny as a transference of security from her father to her lover. I'm not judging her motivations or saying they're too Electra-complex to be valid, but it just seems a likely explanation for how alone she feels when he is gone.
Baby represents intelligent, inexperienced, white-collar teenage girls everywhere, and I think her character marks an interesting change in American society. Her character grew up a child of the optimistic, economically-booming 1950s - the era of the teenager. By the time she had come into her own and was ready to attend Mount Holyoke, she must have absorbed enough of early second-wave feminism to believe that there was a cause in the world with her name on it. Poverty, hunger, and war are too big too start out with, so Johnny acts as a good stepping-stone for her. But the movie didn't come out in the '60s; it was released over two decades after it's set. I believe that the implications of a young woman looking to balance her sense and sensibility (notably not a new topic, Austen-ites) would have been quite resonant in a time when women's roles in the workforce were in a period of difficult adjustment.
I identify with Frances "Baby" Houseman, perhaps because I recognize so many of her flaws. She wants so badly to do something meaningful, even if she's fooling herself into thinking her actions are more important than they are. The good-hearted father coming to terms with his daughter's blossoming sexuality, the first love, the search for excitement - these are all old tropes. But Baby gets something that almost none of us get. She gets those "celluloid moments" that I mentioned in an earlier post. She gets lifted up by a strapping young man in a lake with summer rain falling on her face. She gets to wear a flouncy pink dress and dance with a group of street-wise hotel employees who all know the steps. This is something that many of us envy, and I don't think there's anything about that to feel guilty for.
~Kat
P.S. I refuse to respond to any comments regarding the sequel, as I am barely willing to acknowledge its existence. However, if anyone's seen the musical based on the movie, I'd love to hear what you thought about it!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
the final countdown
I just came from registering for next semester's classes. Look at me, all grown up and a senior in college! I will be taking "Film and Literature," which is looking like an overview of most of what I've been studying these past few years, but I'm sure will be a good class to take concurrently while I write my thesis because a) it's exactly the subject I'll be writing about, and b) it's taught by my advisor and thesis reader! Wrapping up my last course requirement for my lit major I've signed up for "Women and Comedy," which is taught by my current (amazing) Jane Austen prof, and focuses on 18th and 19th Century lit.
The honor of fun elective will go to "L.A. Stories," a Pomona class which could be very helpful to me in the future. L.A. is a great setting and a better character, and we may indeed learn some history about my beautiful home as well. According to an email from the professor, "How is Los Angeles made and remade in the products of its culture? An exploration of that question in the overlapping fictive forms of noir, social realism, postmodern fantasy, and neo-noir. Writers to be considered include Nathanael West, Raymond Chandler, Christopher Isherwood, Chester Himes, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Joan Didion, Karen Tei Yamashita, Luis Valdez, and James Ellroy. Some attention, as well, to the more theoretical work of Theodor Adorno, Mike Davis, Norman Klein, and D.J. Waldie, as well as to the relationship between L.A. and our own Inland Empire. Films, roughly, from The Big Sleep to The Big Lebowski." If we don't watch Chinatown I'm going to have a fit.
Somehow I, a former dedicated athlete, managed to get this far in college without having completed her final P.E. requirement. To compensate, I'm taking two next semester. I'll be taking ballet again, which will be good for my state of mind, and I'm paying $50 to spend one weekend kicking some guy in the nuts and learning how to defend myself against attackers. Too cool.
Also, I'd just like to thank those of you who have read my blog so far. In the future I don't intend to continue with this many posts a day, but I'm just trying to bulk it up while it's getting started. If you like what you read here, I encourage you to sign up for blogspot so that there can be some discussion about what's posted, suggestions for what should be discussed, and communication among interested people about the cultural zeitgeist!
~Kat
P.S. Zeitgeist. What a word, huh? It's one of those terms that I hate myself for using, but I can't get enough of. Like...Schadenfreude, mise-en-scène, and even "deus ex machina." What are your favorite guilty pleasure words/phrases? I'd like my snobcabulary to expand as much as possible, please.
P.P.S. Yes, I just conflated two normal words to make a weird one that would never fit into its own description. I rock. If this is how I am after three hours of sleep, I'm doing alright!
The honor of fun elective will go to "L.A. Stories," a Pomona class which could be very helpful to me in the future. L.A. is a great setting and a better character, and we may indeed learn some history about my beautiful home as well. According to an email from the professor, "How is Los Angeles made and remade in the products of its culture? An exploration of that question in the overlapping fictive forms of noir, social realism, postmodern fantasy, and neo-noir. Writers to be considered include Nathanael West, Raymond Chandler, Christopher Isherwood, Chester Himes, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Joan Didion, Karen Tei Yamashita, Luis Valdez, and James Ellroy. Some attention, as well, to the more theoretical work of Theodor Adorno, Mike Davis, Norman Klein, and D.J. Waldie, as well as to the relationship between L.A. and our own Inland Empire. Films, roughly, from The Big Sleep to The Big Lebowski." If we don't watch Chinatown I'm going to have a fit.
Somehow I, a former dedicated athlete, managed to get this far in college without having completed her final P.E. requirement. To compensate, I'm taking two next semester. I'll be taking ballet again, which will be good for my state of mind, and I'm paying $50 to spend one weekend kicking some guy in the nuts and learning how to defend myself against attackers. Too cool.
Also, I'd just like to thank those of you who have read my blog so far. In the future I don't intend to continue with this many posts a day, but I'm just trying to bulk it up while it's getting started. If you like what you read here, I encourage you to sign up for blogspot so that there can be some discussion about what's posted, suggestions for what should be discussed, and communication among interested people about the cultural zeitgeist!
~Kat
P.S. Zeitgeist. What a word, huh? It's one of those terms that I hate myself for using, but I can't get enough of. Like...Schadenfreude, mise-en-scène, and even "deus ex machina." What are your favorite guilty pleasure words/phrases? I'd like my snobcabulary to expand as much as possible, please.
P.P.S. Yes, I just conflated two normal words to make a weird one that would never fit into its own description. I rock. If this is how I am after three hours of sleep, I'm doing alright!
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