Geek Jock

In his essay, High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies, David Denby asks whether genre films reflect reality.  Throughout his essay, Denby points out the ways that the teen movie genre reflects the high-school hierarchy and the ways that geeks always end up on top.  Denby is correct in his observations but I would like to expand whether these typical hierarchies actually reflect reality. 

Obviously there does exist cliques in high-school that can often times be very rigid.  If, however, as Denby writes, teen films are written by geeks in order to put geeks on top and show the world that "geeks rule!", then its very likely that the representation of high-school hierarchies themselves are greatly exaggerated in order to over-emphasize the sense of smallness that the geeks feel.  In other words, are jocks really so dumb?  Are cheerleaders really so petty and shallow?  Are geeks really so victimized?

In my opinion, teen-films don't reflect the reality of high-school hierarchy.  High-School hierarchies are much more fluid and undetermined than teen-movies portray.  For example there are plenty of premier athletes who also have 4.0 GPA which means that they value high quality school work, are interested in their subjects, and spend a good amount of time doing work.  Does the fact that a person is a premier athlete make them a jock, or does the fact that they are devoted to learning make them a geek?  Can't a geek and a jock be friends without any social awkwardness?  The answer is a definite yes.  They can and they are.  

The reason for this unrealistic portrayal of high-school hierarchies is most likely a product of plot driven characterization and a need to exaggerate the angst and loneliness of the typical "geek" protagonist.  By portraying an environment with clearly defined roles it's easy for the viewer to quickly pick up on the main character's motives and feel sympathy for him. 

I Heart I Heart Huckabees

One of my favorite movies, I Heart Huckabees, is a movie I just saw for the first time this summer when my girlfriend showed it to me.  I immediately loved the pace and the witty, sarcastic humor.  I Heart Huckabees is film that seems to breathe naturally.  The acting is perfect and the storyline is just the kind of weird, existential driven plot that always keeps me on edge. 

 

This movie has a kind of low-budget feel even though it offers a star-studded cast of Dustin Hoffman, Mark Wahlberg, Jude Law, Jason Shwartzman, and Lily Tomlin.  The themes of searching for the meaning of life, who we are, what our purpose is, and even what questions to ask are heavy but the writing is playful and light.  For a sense of the feel take a look at the trailer:

I Heart Huckabees isn't a movie that is going to change your perception on life. It will make you laugh at yourself for asking many of the same questions it parodies.

Deadspin: Anti-ESPN

• Deadspin.com is a sports blog that specializes on obscure, unusual, personal, and especially humilitating stories. It serves as the TMZ of the sports world, uncovering pointless scandals and providing completely biased opinions daily.

• Sometimes Deadspin makes up their own hilarious stories, like the one where they auto-summarized one of sportswriter (and OU alumn), Jay Marrioti's articles.
• It's the anti-ESPN, anything goes, and the commentators know this. Comments come in the form of rapid one-liners, usually delivered as a random, crude, perverse/sexist/racist punchline to the story.
  
• Commentators often add punchlines onto other peoples' punchlines actually creating some very funny moments.
• The most used technique of a Deadspin commentator is quotationalism from another story. In the second comment on this story about Donte Stallworth, commentator shea_guevara makes a reference to Michael Vick in a joke.
  
• The most fascinating aspect of Deadspin is sometimes how far people are willing to take a joke when it involves a touchy subject such as a death.
  
• Erin Andrews, the attractive ESPN sideline reporter, has long been a compulsion of Deadspin. Her image was posted everywhere and she was used in countless jokes. Everything seemed innocent until recently it was discovered that somebody had secretly videotaped her nude inside her hotel room setting off an enourmous scandal and sending Deadspin into a guilt trip
• The comments on Deadspin are always more of a conversation than an argument but "conversation" is not the perfect metaphor.  "Conversation" fails to capture the random, fast paced style with witch the comments are posted.  
• All the comments are somewhat related to the story, but each comment stands on its own, not necessarily related to the other posted comments.  
• What makes Deadspin the most unique is that because of its blog-format, they don't have to conform to any "moral" code or even use reliable sources.  It's based off of hilarious rumors and infinite inside-jokes that only steady followers of the blog will truly understand.

Animal Cruelty

David Gebroe's scathing review of Pink Floyd's Animals uses two of the moves in the Harris textbook but blatantly disregards the last one.  Gebroe spends most of the review "defining the project" of the album and explaining the context under which the album was created.  He points out that Animals was inspired by Animal Farm but he interprets this as the songwriter's "contempt for humanity within his effort to pull down a degree of literary respectability."  

The second move defined by Harris is "noting keywords or passages in the text".  Gebroe does an excellent job pointing out lyrics from specific songs and examining the metaphors in the lyrics: "the businessmen are dogs, the corrupt leaders are pigs, and the clueless hoi polloi are the sheep, of course."  Ending the text with a quote from one of the songs was an effective use of this move as well.

"Assessing the uses and limits" of Animals was a move that Gebroe clearly ignored.  While the limits were expounded upon the entire length of the text, there were no positive remarks concerning any aspect of the album.  The nature of the Column, "On Second Thought" delivers opinionated writing that almost depends on this one-sided argument and draws the ire of its readers (and commentators).  

Re-writing Prose's Prose

Reality TV is a parody of the democratic society we live in and of ourselves. It's a showcase of social darwanism on display for TV watchers across the country every night of the week. Beyond simply being a passive form of entertainment, reality TV affects its viewers in the way they percieve ordinary situations--creating a false sense of a competition where there can only be one winner. Viewers learn that the only way to make it is to look out for oneself and to trust nobody. It's straight out of Hobbes.

Images From The History of Popular Culture

Human beings become obsessed with everything: other people, ideas, books, fantasies, emotions, works of art, even themselves. Then, when the fascination culminates and a new obsession emerges, the old subject is relegated to being a thing of the past--even though it may still be around! 

• The images included in the reading are symbols of manias that consumed the entire nation for extended periods of time to a point where it would have become impossible not to be aware of it.  
  
• These images do not just represent American popular culture.  They were so talked about, so closely scrutinized, so ingrained into society that they are pop culture.  The values represented were imitated by the masses therefore breeding American culture itself.
  
• As inevitable as it is that one compulsion will die, a new one will be there, waiting, to take its place--so goes human history.  

Remember when Gone With The Wind was the Greatest movie of all Time?  Or when every movie was in black and white?

• From Judy Garland to Britney Spears and from the silver screen to the computer screen these images demonstrate a changing of values and technology over time.
• They are milestones of change.  Elvis brought "sex" to TV sets in every household.  The Beatles changed what music could be.  Britney Spears told millions of 8-year-old girls that they could be sexy school girls.  
• Youtube brought this: 
• How could that have possibly become part of American popular culture even 10 years ago?

Here's a new one to add to the list: