I haven't seen the new Joker movie--in part because, as I'm writing this, it's not yet released, but more than that is it doesn't interest me. Not only is it rated R (not a deal breaker for me, but certainly an indication that I need to make a more educated decision if I were to want to see it), but the story of the Joker from which, I take it, much of the film derives its inspiration is a graphic novel that has heavy emphasis on the graphic part. I've flipped through it and…yeah, it's not for me, I think. (I mean, seriously: Who wants to read a hyperviolent story about a killer clown?) And though the early reviews are definitely mixed--well-made movie that ultimately says nothing is what one chap on the radio said this morning--there's no doubt that the film has caused some reflection and conversation. Much like Game of Thrones, I can appreciate how these quasi-polemic texts--even if it's full of content that I don't want to see--can generate debate and worthwhile considerations. That, I think, is really worthwhile. To go along with this, I saw an article that deserves a read. It's a bit long, but Wilkinson's analysis is really thought-provoking. She doesn't spend a lot of time calling out the bed-wetters whose lives are so devoid of purpose that threatening critics of a movie they haven't been able to see seems to be the best use of their time, though she certainly would be justified in making an article exclusively like that. Fandoms are a peculiar thing; belonging (in the unofficial way in which anyone belongs to a fandom) to a handful of eclectic pieces, I can assert that being able to enjoy a thing on its own levels and for what it is can be enjoyable. So, too, can the feeling of belonging that a mutually shared interest provides. That is to say, I get where fans are coming from when they want to defend the art with which they've cultivated their identities. But Wilkinson's piece is about more than that, including the tricky balance of how art is massively influential yet somehow held guiltless for crimes done in its name. Neither violent movies nor violent video games cause real-life violence, but that doesn't mean that art is amoral. It does affect people--otherwise, we probably wouldn't worry about it. I think to my own feelings about Hamlet (and Hamlet) and I know that the art of Shakespeare can definitely make a difference in how a person feels. Wilkinson brings up a number of good points throughout her essay, but there are two that I'd like to focus on. First: [I]f Joker engenders sympathy for the devil, so to speak, then it’s well within critics’ and audience’s rights to call it out and decry its moral bankruptcy if they think that’s bad. This made me sit up a bit straighter. I've been reading Areopagitica with my CE class students this term, and it's put me on a months-long Milton buzz (though I feel like we didn't wrestle with the text nearly enough). Not only is Areopagitica pertinent to what we're looking at here (licensing, not censorship, is Milton's bugbear, but the idea of stifling content is significant in our day just as it was when he wrote the pamphlet), but so is Paradise Lost. When Wilkinson writes about a right to call out the "moral bankruptcy" of a piece of text that "engenders sympathy for the devil", then there's a major question about what to do about Paradise Lost. I think of Blake's comment about how "Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it" and how charismatic, charming, convincing, and conniving Milton's Satan is. I've had plenty of students admit that they really like him as a character--and, stripped of the religious context that Milton was expecting his readers to bring with them (indeed, could not, I think, imagine a world without, despite his prodigious powers of imagination), Satan is the most interesting and sympathetic character of the whole poem. The life that infuses Paradise Lost's first ten books peters out in the final two books, in no small part because Satan has finished his part of the story. Should there be a moral outcry over Paradise Lost on the same grounds as the valorization of violence that Joker purportedly generates? Clearly, Paradise Lost is old news: The poem was published in the mid-1600s, and though it has always been significant and in print, it's a stretch to call it fresh. (At least, in terms of its longevity. The ideas, I would argue, are perennial.) Joker is so new that we're buzzing about it before the general public could see it. But the fact is that if there's something pernicious in the art, it ought to be opposed…right? And that's where the second part of Wilkinson's piece, a thought found in the final paragraph, comes in: Safe art is usually bad art; then again, not all unsafe art is good art.
It reminds me of a tweet I saw somewhere in passing that was grousing about the "clean" comedy of BYUTV's comedy troupe, Studio C. The tweet said, in essence, "Just because something is 'clean' doesn't mean it's inoffensive." I think they were talking about a skit that relied on fat-shaming for its laughs. That's "safe" in the sense that, content-wise, it isn't edging into profanity or sexuality or even politics for its presentation. And though I've enjoyed bits from Studio C in the past, their comedy isn't really one that I follow. (I think I may not like skit-comedy, now that I think about it, since I don't find SNL funny either.) Anyway, the point I'm going for here is the idea that Wilkinson is bringing up: "Not all unsafe art is good art". We don't get absolutes in this part of life--we struggle to even define art in the first place, to say nothing of the modifiers good or bad. Earlier in her piece, Wilkinson mentions that she used to do film reviews for conservative Christian audiences. Being in that demographic (kind of), I knew exactly what she meant when she said that her audience cared more about the explicit content sections of the film than the overall point that the movie was trying to make. I think this is some of what I struggle with when I bring up (in a tired way) how It changed me for the better, despite the bad things inside of it. What I really like about Wilkinson's observations is that she's teasing out important nuances: The Passion of the Christ did quite well at the box office because of church groups going to see the film en masse, despite it being rated R for intense violence. And, as many people have mentioned within my hearing, a faithful adaptation of the Book of Mormon would also be rated R for violence, what with the decapitations and dismemberments that pepper the text. Oh, and the cannibalism, too. That's…gross. Yet I'm certain many members of the Church would not let that rating interfere with their participation in the art because it is doing something within it. Or maybe I'm wrong. That's what's been difficult for me to parse out lately: Perhaps we're just sublimating our desires for extreme content by justifying post hoc benefits. It almost feels the same to me as when I figure out why I should, say, buy a Moleskine Pen + Ellipse digital notebook: I could benefit from being able to digitize and store my hand-written notes. I would be able to produce a lot more content for my website and there's a lot of stuff that I write but don't share simply because I don't want to type up the same thoughts again. See? I really should buy this $200 pen! It's actually beneficial! Do we do that with the harsher, more titillating parts of art? Do we say that vicarious violence lets us indulge in the baser impulses without it damaging an actual person, so it's really okay? Are we unimpressed with the hypocrisy of decrying violence in our media yet saying that films like Saving Private Ryan are acceptable because it's historical violence--as if that film isn't a fantasy of its own, or that the on-screen violence somehow not violent because of its historical nature? Should we be carving out such exceptions? Part of me wants to say no, as then we have an actual standard of behavior that isn't bending to whims and changes of culture. But part of me thinks that suppression of feelings isn't wise and that we have to acknowledge the parts of our humanity that are just as much integral to us as loving and eating and breathing, but are much less flattering. How much of our darkness do we need to look at? Are we less moral because we've sheltered ourselves too much from the harshness of our natures? Maybe someday I'll be able to find answers to these questions…or, even better, answers that I can believe in. Have you noticed those "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" billboards that have been flowering through Utah Valley the past couple of months? I sure have. And it…really is weird to me. But, since I'm not a single, vivacious, unique, starry-eyed blonde Mormon woman (I am, according to my latest calculations, not even half of those things), I didn't put too much thought into it save, in true LDS-fashion, a quick "What the fetch?" as I was continuing my commute. Now that we're in the last throes of June, the deadline for the millionaire's matchmaking dreams has come and passed, the ending of which I still don't know. The blessing of Twitter, however, has given me a much needed (and wonderfully snarky) update to the story. You should read this before you finish mine, if only because the professional writer does such a great job, plus it fills you in on some of what I'm talking about. And, as a heads up, I'm not interested in simply ridiculing those involved (Meg Walter does it well enough). Everyone finds those who matter in different ways, so perhaps this millionaire finds happiness through this process. In fact, it's less the people and more the process that I want to look at here. From where I sit (in my Tudor-esque office, overlooking a neighborhood street with wind-rippled trees undulating prettily) and from my essential non-experience*, I feel like much of what is constructed in Mormon-culture (or, as I use the term, Mormonism, which, I would argue, is quite different from the culture endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much as the doctrine of the Church and the history of Mormonism are not necessarily the same, either) with regards to dating, courtship, and marriage, is massive spectacle. Consider Guy Debord, in The Society of the Spectacle: The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (1) There's a highly performative aspect to Mormonism on many (perhaps all) fronts: Clothing, verbiage, political point of view, daily behaviors, and much, much more. The interiority of conversion is encouraged, via monthly testimony meetings (Open Mic Sundays, as I like to think of them), to be brought out publicly for communal commodification and inspiration. Tears are not uncommon accompanists to the spiritual retellings of private moments**. The society of Mormonism is a fascinating amalgamation of traditional accumulations and nonce incorporations. Ossification happens, as does innovation. In many ways, the "modern conditions of [spiritual] production" truly do prevail within Mormonism and the Church proper. (A quick example: The Church has fully embraced the power of social media--to the point that a process of "selling God" is so prevalent that, though I don't have any Mormon-related views of videos on YouTube, I still get Church-sponsored ads on that website.)
One of the things, interestingly, that the Church has now given up on, is the spectacle par excellence of the "Mormon Miracle Pageant" in Manti, Utah, a sanitized version of Church history, performed with all the spectacle that a pageant ought to have, on the extreme slopes of the Manti Temple. (I went once. I was not a fan.) Despite that, there's still plenty of spectacle that's part and parcel of the Mormon experience, though it is often a spectacle that is done with an eye toward symbolism and spiritual depth: Baptism is one, complete with attendant witnesses and audience; marriage (as it is throughout non-Mormon society) is also highly spectacle driven, even if the ceremony itself is often privately attended inside the temples. Performative worship, while nothing compared to, say, the whirling dervishes, is also part of the Mormon experience. So it's little wonder that there's also performative spectacle when it comes to Mormon cultural expectations. Which leads back to the LDS Millionaire Matchmaker Challenge (it's not really a challenge, which is sad, because it would have been great to see a played-straight Iron Chef segment where the ladies had to incorporate something bizarre into their Jell-O dishes, ranging from carrots to marshmallows) and the experience as shown in the video and described by Meg Walter (again, follow the link). What happened at the actual event is, for me at least, an awkward afternoon that has a serious assumption underpinning what was thought of, by some of the contestants, as a joke, and that has to do with prosperity theology. This is not a uniquely Evangelical (though you could make an interesting argument about how Evangelical-like (-lite) Mormonism is), and though it isn't an official Church doctrine, it is absolutely part of how many Mormons view wealth. Particularly here in Utah, it is much more unusual and uncommon to see a teacher, a librarian, or any number of countless lower-middle class workers become involved in Church leadership than those who are of a more wealthy class. Since the Church is a lay religion, the bishops and stake presidents all come from the wards in which these leaders live. They don't attend seminary or any sort of rigorous, full-time training to do their service. It's all on the Church leader--say, the stake president--to do both money-making and Church-leading activities. Again, it's not the rule, but it is the trend to see those who are financially more well off--upper management, software CEOs, retired-before-50 types--in the leadership roles. Implicit, then, is the idea that wealth = righteousness, with the idea of additional wealth an indicator of even greater righteousness. I can't cite numbers, as this is more my intuition than anything, but I think it's fair to say that members who struggle financially, despite doing all of the things prescribed by the Church, have moments of wondering if they simply aren't righteous enough--aren't obeying the manifold rules well enough--to be given the blessing of wealth. One other thing to add to the mix: Mormonism's highly conservative tendencies mingle in disastrous (in my view) ways when it comes to self-reliance (an actively taught principle in the Church; it's a part of the doctrine, which is probably why part of me likes Milton's Puritanism to a certain degree) and what happens when a family requires Church assistance. There's a stigma to taking welfare of any type in the Church (but not, interestingly, in giving it…provided it's with the Church's name slapped on the side of the truck, rather than a governmental agency), and, from what I can tell, that is only made worse by the assumption on the part of some members that the reason a person is failing financially is because he's*** also failing spiritually. So the words "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" sound, superficially, as though that's all there is: A millionaire who happens to be LDS is looking for a relationship. As I mentioned before, there are manifold ways of finding a worthwhile partner. Why not advertise it, if you have the means? But those words imply an additional level of piety that may not be visible to the uninitiated. This nameless, sheet-drenched millionaire (who couldn't afford to just, I don't know, take all the ladies on dates?) isn't simply saying that he's financially well off (I don't want to say "stable" because millionaires don't necessarily make good financial decisions all of the time--another assumption about wealth that, I personally think, plays into the trust that members put in their (rich) leaders: He's wealthy, so he must know how to make the right decisions!). No, those three words mean--to me, at least--that there's someone who is available and is, in essence, flaunting his righteousness by asserting his wealth status. Like a peacock whose feathers are made out of dollar bills, there's the outward spectacle that's meant to catch everyone's eyes; but the peahens are also aware of what those feathers are really saying. --- * Many of you know that my courtship with my wife involved meeting her as a junior in high school, dating her exclusively (so exclusively that we've never had any other serious relationship; we've only ever held hands with each other; neither of us has so much as kissed any other person romantically), and marrying her when we were both 21. I do not speak with personal experience at all when it comes to courtship and marriage. ** Please note, I am not disparaging those whose emotional response to important things is through crying. If anything, we need to have more times where it's socially acceptable (though not expected or required) to shed tears. *** And I mean he in many of the cases. The idea of a working Mormon woman as being someone without condemnation is a recent phenomenon and it doesn't have a lot of widespread application. That's a whole other subset to this: Single women are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of marriage; poor men are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of wealth. Recently, Russell M. Nelson, the prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a talk about the change in what he wanted people to say in reference to the Church itself. This is not a new topic for him; in April Conference of 1990, he gave a separate address that touches on the same themes. All of them are concerned with how the Church is named and how people refer to it. What is different is who is saying it and the more distinct prohibitions that have come down as a result.
I feel that I should say that I wrote about my own feelings about how the Church is discussed a couple of years ago, and much of what I wrote there remains my opinion. As much as possible, I feel like people talking about the Church ought to designate it using its full name, per the request of the institution. There is, however, more to be said about this topic. The problem with talking about it is some assumptions that I want to unpack. If you're unfamiliar with the Church, you may not recognize the way the president--often called the prophet (as opposed to the Prophet, who was Joseph Smith) of the Church--is considered. Particularly in official decrees over the pulpit during General Conference (which is what that first link is connected to), the pronouncements of Church leaders is considered sacrosanct and of divine origin. This is part of the reason why, back in October 2010, there was a kerfuffle about Boyd K. Packer's modified version of his talk on same-sex attraction: If the speakers at General Conference are inspired of the Lord, how can they say anything astray? This type of thinking is fundamental to Mormonism (yes, I used the M-word; I'll explain why in a minute) because the entire concept of coming into the Church, of conversion, is a belief in continued revelation--both organizationally and personally--that allows anyone to come to know the truth of the gospel as contained within the doctrines of the Church (see Moroni 10: 3-5). Without revelation about what is and is not orthodoxy (and, quite often, orthopraxy), the Church's entire conceit is lost. So when a Church leader says something in April or October General Conference, it's considered a soft-kind of scripture. (Most talks recycle ideas and themes from the canonical texts, though they will quote each other frequently, and very rarely would anything come across as being "new" doctrine--hence the stir Elder Packer's comments created, as well as their omission.) This is why it's such a big deal that the president of the Church made the kinds of nomenclature changes* as he did back in October. As a member of the Church, I'm not supposed to criticize or argue against what has been done. As a Mormon, I'm really uncomfortable with the declaration. And the two conflicting emotions have given me a bit of an identity crisis. Part of this is because I still stand by the idea that Mormonism isn't Christianity. While I love my Christian friends and my atheist friends and my Muslim friends and my all-of-the-other-things friends, there is enough difference between Mormonism and Christianity that I do not want to be considered a Christian. That is a term for the branch of religion from which Joseph Smith broke back in 1830. Christians believe in the Bible; Mormons believe in the Book of Mormon and the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants. Much like Jews believe in the Tanakh and Christians in the New Testament and the Tanakh, I feel that my religion is an outgrowth of a previous one, built upon its foundations and using its texts, while at the same time expanding. And a term that works very well for indicating that unique and powerful doctrine is Mormon. Now, President Nelson pointed out that using the term Mormon omits the name of the Savior from how we're viewed. I don't disagree: It's one of the things that makes it hard for other Christians to understand that we believe in Christ. I don't think that someone who doesn't know who we are, however, is going to have more positive feelings toward us simply because our two-syllable name is eschewed in favor of the eleven-syllable one. And I simply don't feel that my belief in Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, and His Atonement are lost when I use the word Mormon to describe my beliefs. And that, right there, is part of what makes this particular topic so fraught. How can I say I disagree with the prophet? A man whom I said I sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator? It's…tricky. Believing in President Nelson's guidance as the leader of the Church doesn't mean I have to turn off my brain. I flatly disagree with my Sunday School teacher, who said that the leaders of the Church are "perfect". I resist the hero-worship that many Saints practice (as one bishop said, "If it's good enough for President Monson, it's good enough for me") and would rather not defer my feelings to another. But why would I be enamored of a nickname to the point of opposing the president? (And I don't think I'm opposing him; I'm stating why I feel differently than others.) President Nelson alluded to Romeo and Juliet (how could you not? Shakespeare is everywhere) in his talk, saying, "What's in a name, or in this case, a nickname?" A rose really does smell as sweet, regardless of the language naming it. Without going into Derridean postmodern deconstruction on the purpose and power of words--which absolutely do matter and, so far as our society operates, really do mean things--I assert that Mormon is a word that easily and clearly describes the types of beliefs that I hold. Mormonism is an excellent way of describing the religious philosophies that I espouse. In his talk, President Nelson reminds us of how the term Mormon was used as an epithet and a way of speaking derogatorily about members of the Church. That much is true. But the thing about derogatory terms used against a particular group is that the group can also appropriate that term. Because words matter and mean things, that means that words are power. To usurp a persecutor's power, one can usurp that persecutor's term. This is why the Black community can use the N-word (and those outside of it really can't), as it defangs the pain the word can cause. Queer members of the LGBTQ+ community (and I know there's arguments about what to do with that argument which I'm not up to speed on, so I'm using this term for the nonce) also took what was supposed to be the verbal rock of the word queer and used it to build their own fortress to protect themselves from the scorn of those who hated them. In other words, it's only an epithet to me if I'm willing to let it be. And, as a member of the community, I feel I'm justified in choosing to feel that Mormon describes me in a non-persecutorial way. Additionally, it's important to note that our early history shows an acceptance of the term. Brigham Young was fond of saying "Mormonism" (as he always put it into quotes), going so far as to asssert that "Mormonism" was true. Even Joseph Smith omitted Christ's name in an early version of the Doctrine and Covenants**, and I don't think that Smith's actions were "victories for Satan". Of course, that's the tension inside the Church, isn't it? We believe in continuing revelation, but we always cleave to our canonized past. I don't know how to square that circle, save to say that, for me and myself, I don't have any problems with the M-word. It fits who I am and what I believe; it's convenient and it creates a solidarity for the persecuted past through which my ancestors suffered; and even if it is a bit of a shibboleth to others, I see it as pushing me into a deeper exploration of whom I believe in. --- * Clearly, it's not a "change" in that the Church didn't get a new name. It's the same as before. In fact, it's not even a request to others that they stop using the term Mormon, as the Church has been asking that for years. It's a change in how we, as members, think of ourselves. ** "Joseph Smith oversaw the editing of the text of some revelations to prepare them for publication in 1835 as the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints" (Introduction). ==== Hey, friends. I have been releasing essays on my website for a couple of years now at a pretty steady rate. I'm happy to do so, as it benefits me as a writer and (I hope) you as a reader. I also think that, as a writer, it's okay if I believe that my work has some value monetarily as well as emotionally. To that end, I've created a Ko-Fi account, which is basically a way to give an online tip to a creator whose work you appreciate. The idea is, you can buy them a cup of coffee. (That's what the name of the website sounds like, if you're curious.) I'm not charging for any of the content on my website; instead, if you'd like to toss me a cup-le (see what I did there?) of bucks to show your gratitude, that would be cool. I'd totally appreciate that appreciation. If you don't? No problem. We can still be friends. As always, thanks for reading! Out of curiosity, I did a quick search through the essays that I've written this year. A rough count leads me to think that I have written over 200 essays in 2018, 62 of which mention Shakespeare in one form or another--so, not necessarily about the Bard, but his name is put into the text somewhere. Similarly, I have written about 23 essays that mention Milton somehow. Since I'm talking about the poem in class right now, I thought maybe I should do something that I don't normally get to do with my fingers: Gush about the beginning of Paradise Lost.
Oh, don't get me wrong: I talk about the beginning of Paradise Lost at length with my students. But the thing is, by the time I'm home from a long, enjoyable day in the classroom, I'm tapped out. The desire to write about what I just repeated for four hours throughout the day is pretty low. I don't want to go through my lesson a third time, even if it is something that I love. Today, however, ended up not quite working the way I expected. No, I correct myself: It went about as well as I could have expected, considering past experiences, my audience, and the way my schedule worked. This year, I didn't get to have a day to introduce Milton and dig into some of the cool things that are involved with a study of the Poet-Prophet. Instead, I had to push the reading and the introduction into the same day. The result was, after twenty-six lines, the bell rang to dismiss the class. Why twenty-six lines? Well, without getting into the weeds of the conversation, I brought up why Milton felt like he needed "to justify the ways of God to man" in this epic poem. To understand that need, I had to explain theodicy and the problem of evil. And when you have a bunch of kids who are Latter-day Saints and excited to read about a take on their theology as potent as Milton's, it's bound to take some interesting turns. The result of this particular use of time is that I didn't get anywhere near as far along as I wanted to. Which also means that I haven't talked about some of the cool stuff that are in the first 300 or so lines of the poem. So here's one thing that John Milton manages to do that really blows my mind: His similes are some of the most intricate, mind-bending pieces of comparison that--I think--have ever been put into the English language. Here's one that stands out to me, found in the first book of Paradise Lost, lines 197-208. As whom the Fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the Den By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream: Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam The Pilot of some small night-founder'd Skiff, Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell, With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes: Okay, so he's talking about the fallen angels who have been cast out of heaven and are now lying about the lakes of molten fire that comprise hell--a place specifically created for these rebel angels. Milton describes them as enormous creatures who are spread over the landscape like "Fables" of "monstrous size". He invokes--as he almost always does--both classical and biblical allusions to flesh out his images. Hence the Titans fighting Zeus ("that warred on Jove") and also "Leviathan…that swim th' Ocean stream". These two competing influences are in perpetual argument for Milton, as his love of both is only outweighed by his own guilt (?) at loving the pagan classics at all. There is plenty to look at with that concept, but the point is to look at the simile that he creates. Not only does he liken the angels to pagan gods--and, even worse (perhaps) to those entities who dared wage war on Olympus--but he also then invites the reader to picture just how large they are. His choice of Leviathan is wonderful, as it excites the mind of immense size. Not content to end with that, Milton pushes this even farther, giving a miniature horror story that feels like what H.P. Lovecraft would do if he could actually write: Milton speaks of a "Pilot" of some small boat, lost in the night, who has--according to the tales of seamen--accidentally mistaken the massive whale (what we assume the old stories meant by Leviathan) and anchored to it, thinking the Pilot had somehow found an island. The Pilot attaches himself to the "scaly rind" of the creature and moors there, "under the lee"--a place that is assumed to be safe--and there waits for a morning that is delaying whilst night "invests the sea". By adding in the aside that stories such as these are those that "Sea-men" tell, Milton relies on the allusive force of these images to arrive in the hearer: The Pilot is not safe at all, but, having moored on a whale, is dragged down into the watery depths below when the creature dives. In other words, without having to say it, Milton shares two things: One, that the scope and scale of the fallen angels is gargantuan--big enough to be mistaken for an island--and two, that anyone foolish enough to attach themselves to the ideas that these rebel angels embrace will be dragged down to hell as surely as the Pilot was, himself, foundered. My clumsy recapitulation of Milton's graceful lines goes to show how enjoyable--and, perhaps, frustrating--his poetry is. There's so much there, and he relies on his readers to have read as broadly and deeply as he has, which makes it an exhilarating if exhausting race just to keep up. Some of his allusions and similes are clearer--the "Tuscan artist" is clearly Galileo, a man who, in his blind, later years, met with a young John Milton and discussed the ways of heaven--a not insignificant detail, considering how Milton's own eyesight failed him before Milton fully began writing (or, perhaps more accurately, dictating) Paradise Lost. This sort of thing is everywhere in the poem, and it's one of the major reasons I love reading it and teaching it. There is always more to see and unpack and enjoy and explore. That's why I always want more Milton. An article from The New York Times came out ("Should Art Be A Social Battleground?") in which the author, Wesley Morris, makes an argument/observation about the Morality Wars--the next step in the Culture Wars of the past two or three decades. Morris gave me some things to think about--stuff I agree with and others that I don't--which I wanted to jot down here. I'm not going to give a lot of context to his arguments, as I recommend you use one of your free articles to read on the Times' website to read what he has to say. He begins with his argument that "culture is being evaluated for its moral correctness more than for its quality," but I don't get the sense that he sets down any parameters for what "quality" may mean. This is not an unfamiliar experience for me: At my school, we're a liberal arts, classical school in a lot of ways. We talk about (much more often than we read) the Classics (capital C) and as I teach World Civilizations from the High Middle Ages to current affairs, that focus on the classics is something that I have to wrestle with all of the time. As an unabashed Bardolator and Miltonite, I am perfectly comfortable claiming those two dead, white, British males as the dead center of the English canon. Part of it is the undeniable quality of their writing--which, as a native English speaker, I can appreciate in a more fundamental and satisfying way than I can anything in translation (sorry, Homer and Dante)--that continues to keep it firmly planted. The universality of some of the thoughts, feelings, and problems (not in the superficial way that "Shakespeare in the Bush" would make you think, but in important, fundamental ways) of this aspect of the canon make them indispensable. At the outset, I have to recognize that bias inside of me. I don't think it's a subjective-only claim, and I'm not talking about popularity, either (most people don't know anything about Milton or Paradise Lost, though they've used the word pandemonium, a word that Milton coined). Provided one is willing to invest the time and can understand the language these men are speaking, there is something for everyone inside of this part of the canon. If you want to talk about quality, then that's where we land. Moving out from there, however, things rapidly become murky and additional criteria are necessary. In part because of the continuing growth of art, we gain more and more potential voices. Which ought to be selected? Which studied? Which embraced? Which ignored? Which reconsidered? I bump against this problem in choosing my curricula, which focus on the European side of history more than any other section (though I have been criticized by a student for not teaching more American history in my World History class). This is where the question of quality begins to be begged, I feel. There is no equivalent to Shakespeare. There's nothing like Bach. They are, so far as we can see, unique to their time and place, rare instances of fortunately-timed preservation of genius. There are other beauties of the world from every culture. Many--perhaps most--will be forever forgotten and unknown, preserved (or not) in a way that prevents us from knowing about them. The idea, however, that quality is exclusively found within the Western Canon is the problem area: The story of a creation myth from Igboland isn't comparable to Paradise Lost in terms of its raw, poetic power--but it also isn't supposed to be. Judging a piece of art for areas of deficiency is not the best way to criticize that art. Or, to repurpose Neal A. Maxwell, it would be like faulting a phonebook for lack of a plot. The Igbo version of creation isn't supposed to compete with Paradise Lost (or the Bible, for that matter); it's part of the same genre and that's about it. The purpose, delivery, and quality of it are contextualized in ways that don't apply to Western cosmogonies. My thinking is that there is a lot of art out there that is of excellent quality and part of the process of living is to find, learn from, and enjoy it. So when Morris makes that opening claim, it immediately makes me question. Now, I can easily take a "for the sake of argument, let's operate on an intuitive level" approach to Morris' paper, and that is for the better, as it allows me to get into some of the other things that he brings up. For instance, he brings up this idea that societal pressures are increasing on not what is said, but who gets to say it. Morris says, "We're talking less about whether a work is good art but simply whether it's good--good for us, good for the culture, good for the world." He says that in a way--as I took it, anyway--that bemoans that loss of addressing the quality of the art, focusing instead on the way that the art's effects are felt. On one hand, I get that: Is Wonder Woman a good movie? For the most part, yes, though it fails to stick the landing with a rickety third act and a couple of other strange choices throughout. That can be debated, by the way, and there have been some people who have put forth some worthwhile critiques of the film whose points are solid, even if I disagree that the flaws disqualify the movie from being "good". However, part of what made Wonder Woman so popular and important is the way in which it operates in the broader cultural milieu. Without a reliable rubric for what makes a film good to base any other judgments on, the greater contribution to the conversation of superhero movies, female representation, and acknowledgment of previously unheard voices means that Wonder Woman has more purpose to it than whether or not the cinematography is well done or the editing competent. Though what I just described is Morris' point--we're no longer appreciating art in a vacuum--I have another hand I want to gesture with. Removed from that cultural moment, Wonder Woman absolutely loses power. In terms of raw filmmaking, it is well done. I'd say that the editing and color palate are more dynamic and intriguing than, say, Batman Begins, but it can't compete with the filmmaking mastery that Nolan demonstrated in The Dark Knight. In that sense, Wonder Woman isn't as good of a movie as TDK. So is that a satisfying analysis? Do we strip out the context of the world--with everything that has happened to America in the past two years--and allow the caliber of moviemaking dictate the worth of the film? I'm sure some people would say yes, thinking that a reliance on a supposedly objective rubric can demonstrate the quality of a piece, as if criticism is algorithmic. To a certain extent, that is worthwhile, but I don't think that extent goes to the extent that Morris is implying in his text. One of the things that Morris mentions that I agree with fully is the consequence of the type of criticism we have at our disposal. "The goal," he writes, "is to protect and condemn work, not for its quality, per se, but for its values." Morris believes that this makes sense and he celebrates those who were once marginalized now have a voice, though he acknowledges that such stretching does "start to take a toll". Morris pushes this idea further (after a quick recap of social history from the past three decades that is quite interesting. Here's a taste: "The culture wars back then [in the previous 30 years] always seemed to be about keeping culture from kids. Now the moral panic appears to flow in the opposite direction. The moralizers are young people, not their parents. And the fit is no longer over what we once called family values. It's for representation…") when he gets into his final quarter of the essay. Morris explains his difficulty with The Cosby Show in light of the decades of abuse that Bill Cosby has been convicted of. After exploring the impact of having Cosby's true nature come to light, Morris notes that the corporations erased "it from all platforms", a kind of cancellation of the art that a (monstrous) man made. But, Morris argues, "the show is innocent of Cosby's crimes". Yes…and no… Morris' claims about the quality--something he never gives us as a rubric, so we're again running on the intuitive feeling of what that means here--is what he's after. The show was well done. The man who made it was a monster. They aren't the same thing and ought to be judged separately--that, at least, is what I got out of Morris' argument. The twist is that Morris argued against that position earlier when he asks "Why not keep those things [historical context, the history of the author, cultural norms of the time] in mind as you consume it?" Like me, Morris was trained in a Barthesian approach to textual analysis: The death of the author. That is, he was trained to rely on textual evidences for interpretation, rather than for diving into the past of the writer/artist in order to extrapolate (or, sometimes, infer) the meaning of a text. Since college, I've eased up on the absolute use of this technique, but I think it's a mistake to turn every interpretive exercise into a biographical research (even if it is just a quick look up on Wikipedia). Sometimes, it can be helpful: I was better able to understand 10 Books that Screwed Up The World when I learned the author was a Roman Catholic apologist. "Methough I Saw My Late Espoused Saint" by John Milton gains exponential value when you learn about his rough marriage and the fact that he was blind. I think the danger of relying too heavily on the biography is that it can "botch the words up fit to their own thoughts", as the Gentleman warns Gertrude in Hamlet 4.5. It's from trying to read biography into Shakespeare, after all, that we get the nonsense from antistratfordian "scholarship". With modern art, however, the risk is lower: In some cases, we can simply ask an artist what she meant by a piece. (Whether or not she answers is up to her, of course, and provides its own type of interpretation.) Maybe it's the fact that there is an attempt at monopolizing meaning that such reliance on authorial intent engenders that has me pushing against some of Morris' piece. I think particularly of the (and this is a subjective judgment on my part) laughably bad artwork of Jon McNaughton. I first learned about him during the Obama years during which time he painted "The Forgotten Man" (and, yeah, the Forgotten Man is a white guy, so there I go, justifying exactly what Morris was describing in his paper). What makes this piece particularly egregious, I would argue, is the copious amount of writing that McNaughton does to explain his artwork. I think it's elsewhere on his site where a person can mouse over any part of the picture and have McNaughton explain that section of the painting to you. That, to me, smacks of 1) a failure to trust in the artistic ability to communicate within its own medium, and 2) a desire to dictate what's received. Both of those possibilities--and there are more--strike me as a "have my cake and eat it, too" mentality that, frankly, isn't possible. Interpretation is a personal act, and being told what to think or what a thing means by virtue of appealing to the author(ity) is unconvincing. If "correct" interpretations were simply a matter of an artist's explanation, then we wouldn't need the art in the first place. Let McNaughton write an essay about how he hates Obama's policies--why bother with his "fine art" at all? I think there's something about art that is different, and perhaps it's that democratization of meaning that I find so crucial. I don't think McNaughton is the sole arbiter of meaning of his piece, and the fact that he interprets it is fine. But there's so much more going on with the art than what's on the canvas. And that's the tension: Sometimes we want to strip things of context (e.g. Wonder Woman as a "bad" movie), but not others. Morris is guilty of this paradox, as am I: I want to add in McNaughton's comments, his politics, his other artwork to better understand "The Forgotten Man", but I don't think it's fitting to squeeze Edward DeVere into Shakespeare's plays simply because Oxford stabbed someone behind a curtain. I had this issue a few years back when people were bagging on Cars 2. It's not a particularly memorable film, but the issue was that we were judging it by the other work that Pixar has done. In comparison to the entire Pixar catalogue up to that point, Cars 2 was a bit of a wreck (lol, pun). Should Cars 2 be judged simply on its merit? That was the argument I was trying to make. But its merit isn't found in just that film alone; it's packaged up as a single part of a much greater whole. And that leads back to the Cosby connection. I've been struggling with this concept for some time--not the Cosby side, as I didn't watch his show and he wasn't much of a presence in my mind as an entertainer--because I don't know how to parse the problem. Back when I was a kid, my dad got really upset at my brother because my bro had bought a Nu-Metal album with a parental advisory sticker. Dad was mad because the purchase of the album showed the support of what was on the disc, regardless of whether or not my brother listened to the songs with bad words in them or not. That has stuck with me for a long time, as has this Mormonad* from many years back. Since I write some things that might be considered objectionable (my characters are violent and swear, among other things), I've often wondered if that ad is accurate. If there's something bad inside, doesn't that affect the whole?
When it comes to art, I'm sad about the misogyny that's easy to find in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost. It's hard to really venerate the Founding Fathers when some of my brothers and sisters of the human family were viewed by them as subhuman (three-fifths human, as a matter of fact) and enslaved. The failure of the Catholic Church (specifically, though others can be put in) to stop clerical abuses likewise shatters conceptions about the holiness of an institution. So do I stop enjoying or appreciating the contributions of those entities? I know that we're all human and we all have foibles. The issues here are deeper than just "We all make mistakes," though. What Cosby did wasn't a "mistake", it was calculated and abusive. Same with the Founding Fathers. They didn't accidentally import humans. And Shakespeare's progressiveness is all a comparative thing anyway: He says some pretty horrible things about women in his plays and that wasn't by accident. Ah, but the times change, yes? So that's why! We can excuse the past for being more benighted because it was more benighted. Except…the culture accepting the horrible things has changed, but the horrible things are still horrible. Sometimes, moral relativism will try to insert itself as meaning that everyone feels differently, so therefore there's nothing to worry about. I disagree: I think that morals are the same, but our willingness--societal and personal--to allow their breakage shifts. Women have been saying for centuries that the way men treat women is inappropriate and illogical. The stories brought up in the #MeToo movement aren't a sudden uprising--they're long-embedded realities from generations of our past. They weren't talked about, maybe, but they were still wrong "back then". Societally, we've started to say, "It's wrong now, too." So, does that mean that art's quality is being lost? Well, again, I don't know where Morris was looking for his definition of quality, so I can't answer that. I do know that I don't disagree with much of his stuff. That shows me that I still have more to think about, more to process. I don't know what to do about liking a piece of art whose artist is "problematic". I don't watch Louis C.K. stuff anymore, despite having previously enjoyed many of his routines. I don't know if that's the right choice. One thing is certain, though: Morris definitely gave me a lot to think about. I liked his approach and I wish that I had more answers. Of course, if I did, we'd be able to move past this problem, wouldn't we? --- * For those not in the know, a Mormonad is a pithy piece of advertising that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would put into its monthly youth magazine. They were popular when I was growing up, though I don't know if their popularity has remained these days. I guess I could ask someone. Maybe I will. I finished reading the quite disappointing Fight Club 2 comic book yesterday. I've read the book twice and seen the movie once (a CleanFlix version) many years ago, and I love the dark humor and twisted sense of reality that it provides in both of its iterations. I didn't think that it needed to a sequel. Having read the sequel, it didn't really, um…make sense? There was a lot of random stuff in it, the appearance of the author, Chuck Palahniuk, was too meta and obvious to be anything other than dumb (though the panels where an angry fan says, "There's a book?" and Palahniuk rubs his face in exasperation is pretty great), and though there were a couple of moments of pretty good stuff--things that worked really well for a comic and wouldn't have landed the same way if it were in novel form--on the whole it was a lot of sound and fury that signified nothing.
You might feel differently, but if you do choose to read it (or check out the originals), you should know that there's a pretty strong content warning on all of it. That leads to a conflict I've been wrestling with. Reading through my thoughts on The Hate U Give from a few months back, I pointed out--a couple of times, actually--that the book swears. A lot. And, considering its film is coming out in October, and is rated PG-13, it's clear that they tidied up that particular aspect of the source material. I don't think I would want a rated-R The Hate U Give, even though the book would be (because of language and some violence), because I personally find frequent swearing a distraction and detraction. Additionally, for a story as important as THUG, having a PG-13 rating will help it gain a broader audience. Which makes me think about content and what we mean by that. I've used the phrase myself. "Content warning," as if there isn't content in everything in media. Of course, when we say "There's content" we mean, perhaps, mature content, inappropriate content, or bad content. We drop the adjective in order to broaden its meaning--after all, it's the adjective that is carrying so much of the meaning--and allow our societal backlog to fill in the gap. The problem is, there's a lot of reason to avoid stuff with "content warnings". I think a lot of movies and books have trashy content (there, I put an adjective in) because they're schlock and, well, trashy. Back when I had zombies on the brain, I picked up book called City of the Dead by Brian Keene because it said that zombies had gotten a major upgrade in Keene's works. It was a sequel, but I picked it up anyway, thinking that I'd like to see something fresh with the genre. As it turned out, his take was interesting in that the zombies were corpse-inhabiting demons. That meant that everyone who died turned into a zombie, regardless of if they'd been bitten (kinda like what we see in The Walking Dead), but the bodies were controlled by intelligent demons. Zombies driving tanks is the elevator pitch I would use. The book, however, was pretty stupid. Premise aside, it just wasn't very good. The writing was poor, characters made stupid decisions, and on the whole I didn't like it very much. It ended with everyone--and I do mean everyone--dying and the demon-zombies devouring the world. Plus, of course, it was filled with graphic violence (zombie story, after all) and swearing. So, by default and virtue of having bad content, the story was therefore bad. Or so the thinking goes. But then I read It. I know, I know: I've brought It up a bunch over the past year, ever since I read it in summer of 2017. I reread the thing this summer, and there's a remote-but-real possibility I'll read it in 2019. (Since it takes about 3 weeks for me to get through it, there's a chance I won't.) In terms of "bad" content, it has it all--sex (including some really bizarre stuff for which people have--rightly, I think--panned the book), incredibly graphic violence, and tons of swearing. Admittedly, It clocks in at over 440,000 words--but if you were to take out all of the swearing, it would probably drop by over a thousand. In other words, It has a lot of content--in both sense--and so, by the equation explored above, it should be a lot worse than Keene's (significantly shorter) novel. But that is really far from the case. I've never read a still-living author's work that has affected me as profoundly as It has. There are many reasons for this, and I'm pretty certain that its power (Its power?) comes because of certain confluences within my own life and past, things that correlate to the story in ways that are unique for me. Obviously, every reader has a unique experience reading a book, but It touches on certain aspects about me in ways that have really helped me understand myself better. (I wrote a bit about this back when talking about my reading journal.) Again, It has deeply impacted me…yet it's a "rated-R" book (and movie…which is pretty good, I thought, though not particularly scary). This is the real rub: Some of the best stuff I've read/seen has "content" that makes it inappropriate for most audiences. How do I square that circle? As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I'm supposed to seek after that which is "virtuous, lovely, or of good report". A book about a killer clown from outer space that eats children in the sewers doesn't seem to fit that definition. Yet, here I am, insisting on the importance this book has had on my adult life. Returning to The Hate U Give, there are plenty of people who would not want to read the book because of the "content". This is particularly galling, as the swearing is bothersome (to a prude like me), but the things the book is talking about--racial injustice, the difficulties of being a Black girl in a dangerous neighborhood, the humiliation that is so often heaped upon the minorities in our country--are also "negative" content. The book is talking about bad things--and it's a message that people ought to hear. Need to hear, in fact. That being said, I don't know how I would feel if I were asked to teach this book. It seems much more fraught even than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Maybe because it's more topical while still discussing the same problems? Maybe it's a problem that I have, that I can look at the racist epithets from an academic distance (since it's not part of my past, it's not part of my inheritance) but the "eff-word" is too much everywhere to have that comfort zone? I don't feel like I've really expressed this idea well--an indication that I wasn't ready to tackle the subject today--and so I may return to it later. I don't know. If you haven't already, go read The Hate U Give and see which content bothers you more: The injustice of the world Starr inhabits, or how many times they swear. For nine months out of the year, I wear a tie six out of seven days of the week. I wore a tie daily for two consecutive years when I served my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I was sick of ties by the end of it. Despite hating ties, I'm in a career that has an expectation of wearing them. Such is my life. I hate ties for a couple of reasons, the least of which is that they're uncomfortable. While there are reasons why uncomfortable clothes should be worn (formal dances, weddings, and Halloween all make sense), surely ties can go away as a piece of fashion. There's a health reason not to want ties: They're swimming with bacteria and pathogens, which makes sense: They're not designed to be cleaned, and peeing in a urinal causes microscopic (and, sometimes, not-so-microscopic) splash-back. They're touched by hands--never the cleanest thing on a man's body--and rarely does a person think to wash his hands before tying a tie. They're also old-fashioned. I'm not one to dismiss something just because it's old---or new, for that matter--but preserving things that no longer serve (or ever served?) a useful purpose simply because that's what we've always done isn't a strong enough reason for us to keep using it. While there are some superficial changes to what's been "in style" in the last hundred years or so, the point is that wearing a suit and a tie has been the go-to male standard for a long, long time. These minute changes--cut of the suit, color of the clothing, shape of the collar--aren't enough. I want neckties to go the way of straw hats. Lastly, the fact that it's a brightly colored arrow pointing to a man's crotch* is really uncomfortable once you realize that's what a tie is doing, and since you just finished reading that sentence, you, too, will now always think of ties in this way. You're welcome. But this essay isn't about ties and why they are horrible and need to go away. It's actually about the times when I don't have to wear them. It's about the other portion of my wardrobe, what I wear after work and on weekends. I'm talking about my graphic tees. Now, If you'd asked me a few years ago if I thought fashion were significant, I would have snorted and shaken my head. And I still don't think fashion is the most important thing in the world. However, I've since changed my mind on its inherent superficiality. While there are some bizarre things in the fashion world, as a tool of communication and attempt at identity expression (a fraught phrase, but we'll go with it for now), it's worth exploring, if only a little bit. I am, after all, quite interested in communication--I'm a writer, after all--and so I no longer want to close off an entire subset of such communication simply because I don't think about it much. For me, I love to wear graphic tee-shirts. Here's one: And this one I wore on Shakespeare's birthday: I'm a scrawny white guy (very white, based upon both my choices of shirts, and the pasty color--or lack thereof--of my arms), and I like to demonstrate my interests through what I wear. In fact, sometimes, when I see one of my favorite shirts, I say, "Yaaas!" to myself as I pull it out of the closet. I did so with the Wonder Woman shirt pictured above (which also served as the impetus for today's essay). I do so with my singular John Milton shirt, and some of my better dinosaur shirts, too.
This is a peculiar behavior, in part because it's an expression I render because of forgetfulness. "I forgot I have this shirt!" is part of the reason for my miniature celebration. It's also strange to me the significance of some shirts because of a) where I've worn them (they accompanied me to England, for example), or b) where I purchased them (I still have a Resident Evil shirt from when I went to North Carolina for an NCUR presentation). In the unsurprising way of a neoliberal-capitalist society, I have created sentimental reasons for preferring certain articles of clothing, placing an unjustified value on one piece or another. Even more than that, though, is the way in which I allow the clothes to provide a definition of my selfhood. "I support this band" or "I understand this pop culture reference" or "I enjoy this joke" are all subtexts that undergird my selection of shirts, as much when I buy them as when I wear them. I went to a poetry reading a few years ago where I wore my NaNoWriMo Winner shirt. I selected it specifically because I figured, of all the people who might see it, a group of poets would likely understand what it meant without me having to explain it. It's interesting to me that by wearing a silent piece of cloth, styled and stylized the way it is, can say so much. I saw a little girl running toward Café Rio the other day. She wore a cute Wonder Woman shirt and frilly skirt/tutu (I thought) combo. Chasing after her was her dad, adorned with the Superman "S" logo on his shirt. That says something about that family, something that I'm familiar with. In that sense, I wear my graphic tees as a way of indicating solidarity with the subset of culture that I more closely identify with (nerd/geek culture, mostly) and have even found a measure of comfort when I see someone wearing a shirt with a Tri-Force on it. Because of the communication that it sends out, I find myself more closely associated with the entire community the message represents. This isn't to say that I don't identify with people wearing ties, but it certainly isn't saying the same thing, is it? The best that a tie can communicate is something about the person wanting to appear "professional", an ambiguous enough term that it may as well not be said at all. Sadly, I'm not in charge of fashion. (Which is good for people who make clothes like this, I suppose.) And I think there's probably a lot more going on with it than I've noted here. The point is, I'm glad it's Saturday, so that I don't have to wear a tie. I think that's about all I was really trying to say. --- * My source for this observation comes from Michael Kimmel in this speech. You can skip to about 4:30 to hear his take on it. This picture is interesting to me.
My wife and I were on a rare date a few months ago, killing time in Macy's as we waited for a movie to start. She had to go to the bathroom, which has a difficulty level akin to surviving a Dan Brown novel, so we somehow ended up on the topmost floor, the place even janitors fear to tread. Tucked into this ghost-town section of the store was the needed restroom, along with spartan décor for bedrooms and living rooms. It felt like the abandoned ideas of an Ikea layout had all been carelessly aggregated there by an employee on her last day at the job. There wasn't a lot to look at in the first place, and what was there had price tags that would impoverish my family if I did more than glance at them. While I waited for Gayle to take care of the necessary, I spotted the aforementioned picture. It took me a moment to really process what I was looking at. After all, if you're trying to give potential customers a sense of how furniture might work in a room, you'd think that you might want to avoid sepia-toned grayscale for the wallpaper, regardless of the image printed on it. Why make the background to the poorly laid-out display appear to be a circa-1946 photograph of some posh tosser's forgotten study? I can't account for those particular decisions. I did, however, consider what it's trying to say--or, rather, what I'm hearing. I feel like the poster is a visual version of the phrase "pseudointellectual"*. As my friend likes to say, "Knowing enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know what they're talking about." A more generous way of considering this would be to call it "the Reader's Digest version". Wait. No. A Reader's Digest version would at least have words in it. The problem I'm seeing is that images like this--printed out, pasted onto a narrow section of the wall, and then "tastefully" arranging a would-be living room around it--gives a handful of impressions that have a bizarre cachet. That is, giving the impression that there's a valuing of the knowledge of these books (the cachet), but, on closer inspection, seeing there's nothing there at all (the bizarre). This attempt at faux-culture is everywhere in department stores--it's their primary way of hawking their schlock. The seams seem sharper here, though, in part because of my affinity for the thing they're pretending. I really like books. I'm the kind of guy that will stare at a stranger's open book for far too long if I think I might be able to snatch a glimpse of the title. Seeing people reading makes me happy. Being around books makes me happy (which is why I like being in my office, the bookstore, and the library--in that order). But the picture isn't about books: In a far more distressing format of creating the parallax gap between signifier and signified than even "The Treachery of Images" can get at, I see not only non-books (because it's a picture), but non-book books in the non-book poster. Every single one is titleless, as much of a mirage of the potential information that's inside of it as it is a mirage of depth that the high-definition print job creates. It's a poser poster, having taken a photo of something that isn't and pretending that it actually is. In other words, the full package of a department store's slavish (and maybe even, in this late-capitalist phase, desperate) attempts toward generating artificial value via open consumption, all of which masquerades as meaning, stands in isolated and bleak contrast to the blank walls that surround it. In terms of "pseudointellectualism"**, this is the hollowness of having learned something and remembered nothing of it. It's the reason that grades are so fundamentally insufficient for communicating the intellectual capabilities or personal worth of an individual. It's indicative of arrogant opinions, generating an outward veneer of capacity while, in reality, masking the artificiality from and through which the supposed understanding derives. It's a poser. And I think I dislike it so much because it feels like I'm looking into an intellectual mirror. Provided you've stuck around this long through my polysyllabic rant, you might be tempted--and rightly so--to point out that I've just gassed in a pseudointellectual*** mode about the very thing that stands in for pseudointellectualism. Yup. That's my point. When it comes to imposter (imposer) syndrome, I'm the poser (poster) child--albeit self-proclaimed, which adds another level of irony in there somewhere. Nothing points out my own inadequacies as does teaching. After a bit of mathing (not a word, nor a topic I'm very good at), I estimate that I've spent 16,000 hours teaching in a school setting. You would think that, after all of that time, I would consider myself an expert at it. On one level, I know that I am. But on another, more pressing, painful, and some-other-word-that-starts-with-P level, I've only come to a better knowledge of how little I know. I've lamented this before, but I really do feel inadequate to do my job.**** I don't know very much, and what I do know is either mostly-useless trivia (see: Anything I've written about Shakespeare) or isn't what we mean by saying we know something. This was brought to light (again) for me today while I tried to put together the proposed path for next year's Shakespeare class. I'm teaching Shax and his predecessors, which is supposed to look at tragedy through history, comparing it to Shakespeare's genius in order to get a better sense of why we say the Bard is the best. To get to that point of the analysis (and, yes, I know I'm begging the question on that topic; I'll try to frame it better when I get into the class), we have to pass through things that I haven't read or fully understood. I don't feel that I have the intellectual capacity/skill/background to do what I've been asked to do. And while I can take refuge in the fact that I need to have enough of a grip to teach high schoolers, there's the realization that, though they're kids, they're intelligent, capable humans, too. They have a lot to offer, and I don't think it's unfair of me to expect myself to be at least at that same level. Then again, maybe I'm just blowing smoke. Maybe it's just a pos(t)er and I should calm down. Pseudointellectual.***** --- * Full disclosure: I misspelled this word when I first typed it. That embarrassing irony will likely haunt me. ** Misspelled it again. *** Got it this time! Third time's a charm. **** The fact that my boss sees my posts and can read this particular essay should worry me. Strangely enough, it doesn't. Says a lot about how I feel toward my administration--and what I think they feel for me. ***** Nailed it. I wrote a rough draft of a possible paper that I would like to (maybe? I've never been and I might have some pretty hardcore imposter syndrome if I went) present at the Wooden O symposium. The symposium is open to "general scholars", which I guess puts me in that category, so on that front I'm okay. It also asks for abstracts, rather than the entire paper. Perhaps this is so that would-be presenters don't waste their time on something they won't actually present. More likely it's because the people accepting papers don't want to wade through what could be hundreds, if not thousands, of pages…depending on the quantity who submit.
And that's the thing: I've never been, so I don't know how big it is. Last year, we went to the Utah Shakespeare Festival during the week of the symposium. Because of our arrangements, we didn't spend a lot of time in Cedar City, so I only went to the plays, then returned to St. George where we were staying. This year, as I was poking around, I saw that the price of attending the symposium was $150 per person. That made my jaw drop and also do a good deal to dissuade me from just bopping in. I'd love to go, of course, but that price is, um…high. I mean, that's only a little less than what I pay for two plays (since I get two tickets per show). So that makes me curious and concerned. I mean, I guess if presenters don't have to pay or get a half-price discount or something, that might work for me. But just out of pocket? Naw. I don't have the resources for that. Still, as a matter of personal growth, I want to see what I can do with an approach to a scholarly presentation. I teach high school, so the levels of expertise that I have versus what I need for my job are pretty separated. But as I am to my students, such is the academic world to me. I can make some interesting points in my essays, but that isn't really the same as writing for a presentation that genuine scholarly professionals would be attending. Perhaps it's delusions of grandeur. Whatever the case, I can't get in unless I submit an abstract. And, hey, if they accept me but want too much of my moneys, I can always say, "Flattered, but poor," and be done with it, right? Knowing that I could have presented, had financial circumstances gone correctly, is as good as actually having presented. Right? Right? I mean, I do have some experience presenting at an academic conference. For two years in a row I submitted short story pieces to NCUR--the National Conference of Undergraduate Research--and was accepted both times. UVU sent me and the other NCUR participants to North Carolina and California the two successive years. For me, I read my story aloud to small groups of people who were somewhat interested in hearing short stories. I attended some of the panels my friends and classmates were in, ditched out on some of the others, and got to see some of Raleigh and San Francisco. They were a lot of fun, educational, and some of the highlights of my college career. It would be kind of cool to have that sort of experience again, albeit closer to home and with my beautiful wife around, instead of her staying at home (pregnant during the second trip…and only a couple of weeks away from giving birth, though we didn't know it at the time). To do this, I need to put together an abstract. These tend to be between 250-500 words (they don't say on the website what they prefer), so I have to condense my short outline of ideas into something that expresses what I'm talking about, but doesn't use up all of the cool ideas that the paper has. Sell the sizzle, as it were. Make 'em want more. Pique interest. In case you can't tell, I'm stalling here. The reason is simple: This is the same process as trying to write a query for a book I've written, and I'm not particularly good at those, either. Okay, enough diversion. Here we go: Language is the primary mode of Shakespearean appreciation. The power of his stories and themes is amplified through his characters' speech. Othello, then, follows the Derridean concept of racism requiring language. This paper focuses less on others' specifically racist comments and instead on the ways in which Othello internalizes that process and how Othello simultaneously critiques it. Well, that's rubbish. It's barely over fifty words (which maybe is sufficient for this sort of thing?) and makes it sound different than what I actually wrote about. Let me try again. Despite 400 years of static between Shakespeare's time and ours, the language of racism is still sharp, divisive, and the generator of genuine pain… Nope on that one, too. I'm not exploring that aspect of racist language. Then again, my rough draft will have to be refined. Maybe I can put it in later? Add a section about modern racist language? But that isn't what I want to do: I want to stay focused on Othello and, preferably, on Othello. Iago speaks a lot in this play, and so I feel like he gets too much attention. "Don't feed the trolls" kind of thing: I want to focus on Othello. Here's another go at it: Othello's racial themes are founded on the language of the oppressor. As the Other within Venetian society, Othello must navigate the difficult process of living within a world replete with white supremacy and insinuations of his insufficiencies. This paper focuses on the Derridean idea of racism as an outgrowth of language, drawing attention to the ways characters casually bandy about racist ideas as well as driving in their bigoted concepts more forcefully. This paper seeks to explore the complicated structures of racism that both create the world of the play and, in the inimitable Shakespearean way, critique our world in the process. Okay, that's probably about where I'd want it. It's two words over one hundred, but I think it gives a pretty fair gist of what my paper is about. I'll polish that up and then send it along. I should know in about a month whether or not they liked what they saw here. Thanks for sticking around. Note: Every year, the Utah Shakespeare Festival has a symposium, called The Wooden O, in which scholars and aficionados of the Bard get together and, well, sympose, I suppose. This year, the three plays that are being put on during the summer season are The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Kind of like I tried to do last year, I'm going to write an essay that I want to submit to the symposium. Last year, I missed the deadline for abstracts, so I'm jumping on this right now in the hopes that I can generate some sort of thesis of this essay and then get an abstract out of it. Additionally, these are preliminary thoughts, so there's a chance that this might crop up again Jacques Derrida: "There's no racism without language…The point is not that acts of racial violence are only words, but rather that they have to have a word. [Racism] institutes, declares, writes, inscribes, prescribes."* Juliet: "What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet." Othello: "I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,/And weigh'st thy words before thou giv'st them breath." Iago: "I hate the Moor." In his eponymous play, Othello is called by his own name twenty-seven times. He is referred to as "the Moor" forty-three times. David Suchet makes a similar observation about Shylock in the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice: "He's only called by his name, Shylock, six times; Jew, twenty-two." These two statistics underscore the use of nomenclature as violence against aliens, the way the most fundamental system in which people operate and learn and grow--namely, language--can be sharpened as a tool of oppression. From Derrida's perspective, that is the only way that racism germinates. We can perhaps interrogate Shakespeare's motive, but, like Iago's, it is as allusive as it is illusive. Certainly, meter plays a part of Shakespeare's decisions. "The Moor" has two syllables, while Othello does not. And though "uh-THELL-oh"** contains a full iamb, on its own it's an amphibrach. The Bard could not end a line with Othello's name without pushing it into a feminine ending (with the stress on the penultimate syllable). This is not to say that Shakespeare doesn't rely on feminine endings. Desdemona completes her husband's line in 3.3.282: "I'll not believe't./How now, my dear Othello?" Always keeping in mind that perhaps Shakespeare was less worried about his lines than we are, we can see all three of Desdemona's lines are feminine. The extra syllable is necessary, of course, to express all of the words that she's using, but there could also be an additional tension, an indication that though she's innocent of the crime he assumes of her, she senses something wrong in him. The lines throughout this middle section of the scene scan differently. Lines with too many syllables, others with too few--Desdemona's words and actions, all orbiting around the napkin that proves to be the false evidence her husband needs to commit murder, interact with the tension of something being wrong. The relationship, much like the scansion, is falling apart at this crisis moment. There are other moments where the language of oppression is subtly attuned via the euphemism. For example, when Iago expresses his enmity toward the hero (1.3.375), the line also scans differently than the norm (emphasis mine): But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor. Not only is it eleven syllables, but the inclusion of the pyrrhic foot between the ultimate syllable of "profit" and the monosyllabic "I" is what causes the line's extension. Rather than pretend to know a viable alternative for the line, it's clear that "Othello" could not be simply swapped into this line's current structure. It would become hexameter instead of pentameter and gain an unstressed ending. The deterritorialization of humanity and Othello's ontological beinghood that is perpetrated by means of the euphemism thus stands within the poetic system as being integral, yet at the same time uncouth, out of place, and indicative of a deep problem. In a word, it is a poetic excoriation of racism. Shakespeare tends not to take sides--his urge to editorialize in any particular area is countermanded by some other aspect of his work--and it would be too much to say that a bonus syllable on a line early on the play is his way of subverting the oppressive system which allows the continuation of racism. Rather, it may be better to consider this as symbolic, a recognition of the ways in which something that is wrong can nevertheless be explained away, incorporated into the system, and--as is especially the case of Iago--thought of as "the way things are". There's nothing too extreme about having an eleven-syllable long line. So, too, do racists often justify the small expressions of white supremacy with which they vocally oppress minorities. Snide comments, failure to listen to those whose lived experiences are replete with examples of the very real ramifications of racism, or jokes that only operate by assuming the worst of a stereotype are all "eleventh syllable" versions of racism--tiny things, operating on the fringe, yet embraced and allowed with the system. That Othello--both the man and the play--exists in a world and whirl of words underscores and expresses the depth of the anxieties within the Venetian society (as well as subsequent generations). Iago as his foil is foul, his mind at its starting point in the gutter and only descending lower. Much has been made of the various possibilities of his motivations--so much, in fact, there's no reason to repeat them here. Iago's vileness is sketched at first with hasty lines about what Othello and Desdemona are doing--a married couple's consummation seems to fill him with revulsion and disgust. And though his (in)famous line about the "old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88-89) equates the act among the same species, his implication is only a matter of degree away from Horace's "snakes do not mate with birds, or lambs with tigers" (qtd. Neil 41). That these are racist "undertones" is clear: To imply that there are gradations of humanity, that the Human Race can be subdivided into separate species, some of whom are inferior to another, is visible inside of how almost everyone sees and treats Othello. Othello has to struggle against the internalized racism, which slips out in some of his moments of distress. Consider: "Her name, that was as fresh /As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black /As mine own face" (3.3.388-390). Equating the color of his skin to an inherent filthiness is perhaps not surprising when one recalls that Othello is a former slave (1.3.138), or that his father-in-law is so openly hostile that he accuses Othello of having charmed his (Brabantio's) daughter, a piece of witchcraft that could be the only explanation for the miscegenation: I therefore vouch again Certainly there's something about Othello's society that has seeped into him. We see his words degrade the longer he spends time with Iago. By the end, it seems as if he's swearing almost as often as his ensign. Perhaps the endless assaults on his basic humanity, the innuendos and the prejudicial barriers, the need to justify a behavior as fundamentally human as falling in love with a woman and, seeing that love reciprocated, marrying her--perhaps it's not surprising to see Othello is crippled with doubt.
This is the reason why the race issue can't be ignored. Othello's eventual downfall is done because the privilege of choosing a beautiful woman as a wife without it being called into question is a privilege that is far too often held in abeyance for a Black man. It's certain that Shakespeare didn't see race the way that we do, as the four hundred years of static between our cultures has seen monumental and significant shifts. Nevertheless, his words about the ways in which the words we use to classify--and, more importantly and painfully, separate--the many beautiful varieties of the human race are earnestly and urgently needed. Iago uses the verbal tools of his own demoniacal brilliance and the linguistically saturated assumptions of the racist society in which he lives to leverage that gift in order to extract all would-be meaning from the life and marriage of Othello. Though Shakespeare doesn't always imbue deep significance in the final words of many of his creations, he does do so on occasion. In the case of the end of Othello, there is great meaning in Iago's final lines: "Demand me nothing: what you know, you know; / From this time forth I never will speak word." Sadly, the silence of Iago cannot undo the damage that his words have done. "There's no racism without language," but sometimes silence comes too late. --- * As quoted in "Othello's African American Progeny" by James R. Andreas. Materialist Shakespeare: A History. ** See http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/characters/charactersO.html for a pronunciation guide. |
AuthorWould you like to support my writings? Feel free to buy me a coffee (which I don't drink, but I do drink hot chocolate) at my Ko-Fi page. Thanks! Archives
July 2022
Categories
All
|