Do normal people re-watch Terms of Endearment, like, for fun? Well, at any rate I do. And it really is the gift that keeps on giving. Exhibit A:
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Friday, August 29, 2014
Lobsters, Sculptures, and the Trouble with "Normal"
Nick Moore, played by Scott Valentine, becomes Mallory's boyfriend in season four of Family Ties, and their relationship lasts for the remainder of the series. Nick wears an earring and a leather jacket, drives a motorcycle, and greets everyone with an elongated, "Hey-yyy." He often gets dumb lines (which makes him a great match for how Mallory's character is often written), but he's a likable, talented sculptor and eventual art teacher, and he always treats Mallory well. But the way Family Ties treats him makes the show nearly unwatchable at times.
Alex and Steven (and occasionally other family members) make fun of Nick's intelligence, joke that he's a criminal, and never become truly comfortable with him dating Mallory. In one episode, we learn that Nick lives with his aunt, and it's implied that they don't have much money; (we see the fridge, and it's nearly empty). In short, class, education, and appearance are all conflated, by the show and the characters, into a great big ball of ugly elitism, played for laughs.
The episode that both engages with this the most and comes closest to acknowledging it is probably "Mr. Right," from season four, early in Mallory and Nick's relationship. Nick joins the Keatons for dinner at a restaurant but doesn't understand that he's supposed to select a lobster from the tank; instead he sets them all free. Nicks sees that he's upsetting the family and not fitting in, and he asks Alex for help: "I'm always getting in trouble around your parents. I mean, it really upsets Mallory, and I don't want to put her through it anymore.... I gotta be more acceptable to your parents, but I don't know how."
Nick gets "in trouble" for an unlikely accident and an honest mistake, but the show doesn't acknowledge that not everyone eats lobster or would know how to act at a restaurant that serves them. Basic familiarity differences, and the class issues that surround this particular kind of difference, are not addressed; the Keatons act like eating lobster is everyone's normal. Normal is also invoked in Alex's advice to Nick: "If you want to fit in here at all, you have to learn how to make normal conversation, okay? No more monosyllabic grunts….See, you got to know things. You got to read the newspaper. You got to get a job. You have got to change, Nick."
So Nick cuts his hair, puts on a suit, stops making art, and gets a job at a shoe store, but the only people who like this version of him more are Alex and Steven; Mallory hates it.
Steven, seeing how unhappy Mallory is, convinces Nick to go back to the way he was. His whole speech is played for laughs; the shoe store manager thinks Steven and Nick are lovers.
Steven says, "Whatever our problems are, we can work them out. Our relationship has to be based on mutual trust and respect. I love what you tried to do for me. But it was wrong, Nick. Don't change for me." The studio audience laughs and laughs.
That misunderstood-for-gay speech is unfunny now, very 1985, and false to boot; (it's not until the penultimate episode - more on that later - that Steven tries to work out his problems with Nick). The blatant linking of respectability to job status, attire, and conversational skills also feels uncomfortably outdated. (I'd love to read something on the evolution of the leather-jacket-wearing TV boyfriend and social class, if anyone has any recommendations).
The episode does nod at how boring "respectability" can be, as when Nick puts people to sleep with his discussion of the differences between rubber and leather soles, or how civic-mindedness is absurd when taken to its limits, as when Nick engages Steven in conversation by wondering, "Scientists say the earth is going to self-destruct in two billion years. Now, what can we as citizens do?"
The show and the characters do grow to respect Nick's art more, though Alex really only appreciates the sculptures when he sees how much money Nick makes selling them. And while the action literally stops when Elyse picks up a guitar, Nick's art is never treated with such reverence.
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| The Keatons take home the lobsters that Nick freed; Alex catches one that "tried to make a break for it." |
Nick gets "in trouble" for an unlikely accident and an honest mistake, but the show doesn't acknowledge that not everyone eats lobster or would know how to act at a restaurant that serves them. Basic familiarity differences, and the class issues that surround this particular kind of difference, are not addressed; the Keatons act like eating lobster is everyone's normal. Normal is also invoked in Alex's advice to Nick: "If you want to fit in here at all, you have to learn how to make normal conversation, okay? No more monosyllabic grunts….See, you got to know things. You got to read the newspaper. You got to get a job. You have got to change, Nick."
So Nick cuts his hair, puts on a suit, stops making art, and gets a job at a shoe store, but the only people who like this version of him more are Alex and Steven; Mallory hates it.
Steven, seeing how unhappy Mallory is, convinces Nick to go back to the way he was. His whole speech is played for laughs; the shoe store manager thinks Steven and Nick are lovers.
 |
| Yes, that's Alan Blumenfeld again! |
That misunderstood-for-gay speech is unfunny now, very 1985, and false to boot; (it's not until the penultimate episode - more on that later - that Steven tries to work out his problems with Nick). The blatant linking of respectability to job status, attire, and conversational skills also feels uncomfortably outdated. (I'd love to read something on the evolution of the leather-jacket-wearing TV boyfriend and social class, if anyone has any recommendations).
The episode does nod at how boring "respectability" can be, as when Nick puts people to sleep with his discussion of the differences between rubber and leather soles, or how civic-mindedness is absurd when taken to its limits, as when Nick engages Steven in conversation by wondering, "Scientists say the earth is going to self-destruct in two billion years. Now, what can we as citizens do?"
The show and the characters do grow to respect Nick's art more, though Alex really only appreciates the sculptures when he sees how much money Nick makes selling them. And while the action literally stops when Elyse picks up a guitar, Nick's art is never treated with such reverence.
The parents occasionally recognize what they have in common with Nick; more than once, Elyse says that Nick reminds her of Steven when he was young. "You know, it's funny," she says near the end of one episode. "If we were in college right now, we'd be more likely to be friends with Nick than with Alex."
"Well, we'd never get to meet someone like Alex," Steven replies. "Unless we were working for him."
As for Alex, he helps Nick pass an English test and get his GED (in part by associating the parts of speech with the parts of a motorcycle).
Now Nick can get his dream job teaching art to kids at the YMCA. But, as with so many character advancements on sitcoms, Alex's investment and Nick's diploma and job don't change the central jokes about Nick's abilities; the next season, we see Nick reading The Little Engine that Could with Andy, and it's the latter who's presented as the better reader. Like the shoe store moment, it's painfully unfunny.
In season six the show introduces us to Nick's estranged dad (the great Dan Hedaya), a used car salesman who left the family when Nick was 11, and the two reconcile. But in the end, the show seems most interested in a reconciliation with a different father figure. In the penultimate episode of the series, Nick stays with the Keatons while his apartment is being painted. He's in Steven's way, and Steven reacts rudely. Later, he apologizes: "I realize I've made things pretty unpleasant for you these last few days."
"Years," Nick corrects him. There's no studio audience laughter this time.
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| Isn't this a great shirt? |
***
OK folks, here's my plan now that I've finished the series: I'm going to write one more post about how U.S. presidents are portrayed on the show; I'm going to give you that in memoriam post I know you've been dying to read (sorry, couldn't resist the pun); I might write something about Michael J. Fox staying on the show even after the crazy amazing success of Back to the Future; and I'll definitely end with recommendations for further reading - and for watching the show itself. For all the reasons I've written about and more, this isn't a show I'd recommend most people watch in its entirety, the way I did, but there are some great nuggets I'll point you toward. If there's any other aspect of the show you want me to cover, let me know, but do it soon: to paraphrase Rod Stewart, with the quarter system, by late September I'll be needed back at school :)
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
What Creates a Culture of Graffiti?
In a bathroom stall today at the university where I teach, I found myself looking a bit sadly at four blank walls. In grad school, the library bathrooms were filled with graffiti - women's voices proclaiming, counseling, dissing, and querying. There was always something to ponder, scoff at, lament, admire. I wasn't in the library bathroom today, so to be more scientific I suppose I'd better venture over there, but I'd be surprised if I encountered any ink.
Maybe it's because this school is primarily a commuter campus? Maybe the range of students, including many who have full time jobs and/or families, include fewer who are going to turn to a random wall for advice about art, school, health or love?
Except I don't think of stalls as random walls. I think of them as communities of sorts, early versions of Internet message boards or comment threads.
Maybe this perspective and my love of bathroom graffiti comes from my experience at the University of Chicago in the late 90s. There, it wasn't just the library bathrooms that were filled with musings; in the basement of Ida Noyes Hall, which housed the campus bar, movie theater, and rooms used for everything from Social Dance classes (fulfilling a PE credit!) to annual events like Blues and Ribs, I found one of my favorite scribbles: "For a good time call Avogadro's number 6022141..." (etc.). That probably epitomizes U of C's self-congratulatory nerdiness, but there were other good ones too, including paeans to Ira Glass. I wish I'd taken better notes, frankly.
Over time I added my own words to those walls. In the Reynolds Club (the student center), I wrote down lines from a Lucille Clifton children's book: "And Everett Anderson knew/his father loved him through and through/And whatever happens when we die/Love doesn't stop/And neither will I." Why? I don't remember, except for some reason I'd read that book and loved it. I saved the Derek Walcott line "The classics can console, but not enough" for, of course, the Classics building bathroom. And on the eve of the 2000 election, I photocopied a New York Times editorial that argued why people should not vote for Nader but instead, Gore. I highlighted what I considered important sentences and taped the editorial inside stalls around campus.
I'm not that young woman anymore; for one thing, I'd be far more aligned with those Nader voters I feared and loathed. For another, I get that there are other ways to express oneself and to connect with a community. There are other ways to be vocal and anonymous (while, um, being more sanitary), now.
But I'm interested in why some women's rooms are so quiet. And I still love when I find one that's not.
Maybe it's because this school is primarily a commuter campus? Maybe the range of students, including many who have full time jobs and/or families, include fewer who are going to turn to a random wall for advice about art, school, health or love?
Except I don't think of stalls as random walls. I think of them as communities of sorts, early versions of Internet message boards or comment threads.
Maybe this perspective and my love of bathroom graffiti comes from my experience at the University of Chicago in the late 90s. There, it wasn't just the library bathrooms that were filled with musings; in the basement of Ida Noyes Hall, which housed the campus bar, movie theater, and rooms used for everything from Social Dance classes (fulfilling a PE credit!) to annual events like Blues and Ribs, I found one of my favorite scribbles: "For a good time call Avogadro's number 6022141..." (etc.). That probably epitomizes U of C's self-congratulatory nerdiness, but there were other good ones too, including paeans to Ira Glass. I wish I'd taken better notes, frankly.
Over time I added my own words to those walls. In the Reynolds Club (the student center), I wrote down lines from a Lucille Clifton children's book: "And Everett Anderson knew/his father loved him through and through/And whatever happens when we die/Love doesn't stop/And neither will I." Why? I don't remember, except for some reason I'd read that book and loved it. I saved the Derek Walcott line "The classics can console, but not enough" for, of course, the Classics building bathroom. And on the eve of the 2000 election, I photocopied a New York Times editorial that argued why people should not vote for Nader but instead, Gore. I highlighted what I considered important sentences and taped the editorial inside stalls around campus.
I'm not that young woman anymore; for one thing, I'd be far more aligned with those Nader voters I feared and loathed. For another, I get that there are other ways to express oneself and to connect with a community. There are other ways to be vocal and anonymous (while, um, being more sanitary), now.
But I'm interested in why some women's rooms are so quiet. And I still love when I find one that's not.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Swimming Away from "LeAnne"
I've been thinking a lot about course evaluations lately, probably because I'm teaching at a university and it's my first job out of grad school and my contract has not been officially renewed. And because my numbers from last quarter are not what I would have liked and there's at least one review of my teaching on Rate My Professor that is negative. (So, you know, no reason!)
I say "at least one" because I haven't been able to bring myself to go back there after seeing that one, the first. I used to Google my name occasionally because I thought that being aware of search results was part of being a responsible adult in the world. And I did find it interesting to see what made it to the front page - my participation in the Seattle Edible Book festival or my tutoring bio or a short story I wrote when I was 14, somehow surfacing from the Internet deep 20 years later.
I guess I was a digital innocent though, because all that stuff was positive or neutral (well, maybe not everything in that story. Who is only admiring of their 14 year-old self other than some 14 year-olds?) Now I'm finding that I don't want to know about this self out of there that's supposedly me. Maybe it sounds funny or hypocritical to write that here, on a blog - if I don't want to participate in the Internet, what am I doing here?
I used to want to be famous, or at least have famous friends. When I was 11, I wanted to be orphaned so I could live with the cast of Cheers. (There's so many things wrong with that sentence, aren't there?) But if I can't handle ordinary disgruntled students, how could I handle 1/10th of the negative attention someone like Anna Gunn gets? (Woman, you are amazing).
Anyway, I've also been re-reading Art and Fear. Here's a passage I like:
The audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold)
approval on the one issue that really counts - namely, whether
or not you're making progress in your work. They're in a good
position to comment on how they're moved (or challenged or
entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge
or interest in your process.
Students aren't an audience, but they (rightfully) don't care about the teacher's process of learning to become a teacher. They can talk authoritatively about the finished product of our classroom, but they don't know if I'm making progress. In teaching, unlike in art, progress isn't the one thing that really counts; it's pretty low on the list, below, you know, student learning. And I want to learn from my students in all the genres available to me, including their direct, written assessments. But they aren't taught how to write course evaluations, so the Internet (Rate My Professor, etc.) is their main teacher. And the Internet has a tendency to teach its students to be mean. Just ask Anna Gunn.
What am I doing here? I'm processing stuff, on my own terms. I'm having a conversation with you dear, few readers (hello there!) I'm not trying to create a brand or become famous. I'm not checking to see who Google thinks I am today. I have colleagues whom I like and respect who can read what their students think of them and more or less happily swim up and away; maybe someday I'll be like them. But for now I fear that if I swim into the deep of who the Internet thinks I am, I'll only get lost. Is there a name for this purposeful turning away other than "thin-skinned"?
I say "at least one" because I haven't been able to bring myself to go back there after seeing that one, the first. I used to Google my name occasionally because I thought that being aware of search results was part of being a responsible adult in the world. And I did find it interesting to see what made it to the front page - my participation in the Seattle Edible Book festival or my tutoring bio or a short story I wrote when I was 14, somehow surfacing from the Internet deep 20 years later.
I guess I was a digital innocent though, because all that stuff was positive or neutral (well, maybe not everything in that story. Who is only admiring of their 14 year-old self other than some 14 year-olds?) Now I'm finding that I don't want to know about this self out of there that's supposedly me. Maybe it sounds funny or hypocritical to write that here, on a blog - if I don't want to participate in the Internet, what am I doing here?
I used to want to be famous, or at least have famous friends. When I was 11, I wanted to be orphaned so I could live with the cast of Cheers. (There's so many things wrong with that sentence, aren't there?) But if I can't handle ordinary disgruntled students, how could I handle 1/10th of the negative attention someone like Anna Gunn gets? (Woman, you are amazing).
Anyway, I've also been re-reading Art and Fear. Here's a passage I like:
The audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold)
approval on the one issue that really counts - namely, whether
or not you're making progress in your work. They're in a good
position to comment on how they're moved (or challenged or
entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge
or interest in your process.
Students aren't an audience, but they (rightfully) don't care about the teacher's process of learning to become a teacher. They can talk authoritatively about the finished product of our classroom, but they don't know if I'm making progress. In teaching, unlike in art, progress isn't the one thing that really counts; it's pretty low on the list, below, you know, student learning. And I want to learn from my students in all the genres available to me, including their direct, written assessments. But they aren't taught how to write course evaluations, so the Internet (Rate My Professor, etc.) is their main teacher. And the Internet has a tendency to teach its students to be mean. Just ask Anna Gunn.
What am I doing here? I'm processing stuff, on my own terms. I'm having a conversation with you dear, few readers (hello there!) I'm not trying to create a brand or become famous. I'm not checking to see who Google thinks I am today. I have colleagues whom I like and respect who can read what their students think of them and more or less happily swim up and away; maybe someday I'll be like them. But for now I fear that if I swim into the deep of who the Internet thinks I am, I'll only get lost. Is there a name for this purposeful turning away other than "thin-skinned"?
Sunday, December 8, 2013
The Heartland of Nonbelievers
Some smart blog posts I read today - one about Ted Cruz's rhetoric of the "real America" and another about the future of queer theater - have got me thinking. I'm hungry for representations - in politicians' speech or in art - that assume certain ways of thinking and living. In other words, Cruz claims that Texas = America and D.C. does not; I want to hear a politician talk earnestly about "the heartland" and mean New York City. I want to watch a show where a death occurs and no one utters the word "God." Or where a gay couple - or any couple - are happily without children, and it's not a defining aspect of their identity. Or where living spaces are normal-sized and as unremarked upon as the giant apartment on Friends or the lush real estate on Modern Family.
I know that there are some politicians and some plays, movies, and TV shows that embrace or at least approach the perspectives I'm discussing. What I'm (naively? misguidedly?) hungry for in this moment are mainstream, mass audience, nationally-known examples, ones as available as the click of a remote control or mouse.
In his first inaugural address, President Obama said, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." One of my friends was in the car with her husband at the time, listening to the address over the radio, and after she heard "nonbelievers," she turned to him and exclaimed, "He just said our name! We're famous!"
I do want more of those kinds of moments in our national discourse, where the facts of our pluralistic country are presented in fuller array. But here I'm talking about something stronger. Maybe I'm advocating a view as one-sided as the individuals and institutions that frustrate me. But if so, it's because lack has made me hungry for moments of one-sided abundance. I'm not saying that my politician or my TV show would bash Texas, God, children, or large houses. She/he/it would simply treat as normal, as self-evident, other views, other ways of living.
What would we call this?
I know that there are some politicians and some plays, movies, and TV shows that embrace or at least approach the perspectives I'm discussing. What I'm (naively? misguidedly?) hungry for in this moment are mainstream, mass audience, nationally-known examples, ones as available as the click of a remote control or mouse.
In his first inaugural address, President Obama said, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." One of my friends was in the car with her husband at the time, listening to the address over the radio, and after she heard "nonbelievers," she turned to him and exclaimed, "He just said our name! We're famous!"
I do want more of those kinds of moments in our national discourse, where the facts of our pluralistic country are presented in fuller array. But here I'm talking about something stronger. Maybe I'm advocating a view as one-sided as the individuals and institutions that frustrate me. But if so, it's because lack has made me hungry for moments of one-sided abundance. I'm not saying that my politician or my TV show would bash Texas, God, children, or large houses. She/he/it would simply treat as normal, as self-evident, other views, other ways of living.
What would we call this?
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