Disavowing Female Desire: Magic Mike and “Book Club”
It’s no secret: I’m really excited for Magic Mike. You already know that Channing Tatum is My Favorite Doofus. I’m excited it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh, I’m excited about Matthew McConnaghey doing what he does best (read: be hot-sketchy), I’m excited for Channing Tatum dancing, I’m excited it’s getting good reviews.
I’m also unabashedly excited to ogle male bodies. I mean, the trailer is a blatant, unapologetic call to objectify the (finely tuned) male body -
Warner Bros., which produced Magic Mike (budget = $5 million) has naturally channeled its marketing, exploiting the male bodies the same way that a trailer for a film featuring Megan Fox exploits the female body. Lots of imperceptibly slo-mo shots of undulating bodies, abs, and, er, packages. This marketing tactic has predictably alienated a large swath of the male audience — a situation that Tatum and Soderbergh have worked to correct in interviews:
“Look, this is not a movie that is exclusively aimed at women and gay men. To what extent are women going to be able to talk their boyfriends into going? I don’t know. But I don’t think guys will be sitting in the theater thinking, ‘This is torture.’ Ten minutes into the movie, they’ll realize they are not being excluded from this experience at all.”
Does that mean that there’s female nudity in the first ten minutes? Yes, I believe so. But what matters is that this film has been blatantly and almost exclusively marketed to a female audience. Unlike rom-coms, which appeal to a woman’s sense of romance and the specter of sex, these ads appeal very directly to women’s desire.
But that desire is still illicit. No matter how far American society has come in terms of acceptance of sexuality (and its various manifestations) in the public sphere, female sexuality is still sublimated and made abject. You know this: the tremendous flustered anxiety over funding women’s birth control, the GOP censure of the word VAGINA (vagina vagina vagina!). Women should have babies, but they somehow shouldn’t have sex — or, god forbid, sex that doesn’t produce babies.
Magic Mike is thus, in many ways, a perfect counterpoint to the suffocating, frankly misogynistic rhetoric of the last year. But what’s most interesting to me is how the television campaign at once invokes and transgresses this understanding of female desire.
Earlier this week, while watching The Bachelorette (long story), I saw a new set of ads for Magic Mike - all of them invoking “book club.”
I couldn’t find the exact ads on YouTube, but here’s one on Facebook. Watch it.
Or, if something stops you, then here’s what you need to understand:
These intertitles are wedged between shots of abs, gyrating, and leather pants. Right after Matthew McConaughey tells a room of stripper-anticipating ladies that “The law says that you cannot touch! ….. But I think we got a lotta law breakers up in this one.” He’s addressing the audience in the film, but Soderbergh films him head-on, in a manner that suggests direct address. In other words: McConaughey (and, by proxy, the filmmaker, the producer, the studio, the commercial) is acknowledging that you’re going to break the “law” of acceptable female behavior. You’re going to go to this movie, and you’re going to love it.
BUT! You, Bachelorette-watching, romance-loving woman that you are, feel guilty about it. Why? Because patriarchy makes you feel bad about desire that isn’t for your boyfriend/husband/homosexual partner. That’s why you have to tell him you’re going to something as homosocial (meaning: all your own gender) and ostensibly desire-less as book club. (Little does boyfriend know: lots of bookclubs are filled with sex talk about sexy books. It’s not all The Help and cheese plates).
Now, I realize that this ad is supposed to be funny. It is funny. But like most humor, it’s funny because it’s true: in our supposedly liberated, postfeminist society, the only way to make female desire acceptable is to disavow it.
A Concise Case for Leo: The Perfect Gatsby
Did you know that Baz Luhrmann, he of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge fame, has been filming an adaptation of The Great Gatsby? You didn’t? You’ve obviously not been following me on Twitter or Facebook, because I’m nuts for it.
Luhrmann can be an acquired taste — some are alienated by his fearlessness when it comes to excess. (I’ve been writing about German Expressionism lately, and in some ways, he’s the perfect collision of German Expressionism and postmodernism, combining the surreal, the squalid, and the pure — and coming up with something sneakily political). Some dismiss Luhrmann as pastiche, but they are blind to the massive, pulsing heart that structures and motivates all of his work.
And he’s perfect for Gatsby. If you haven’t read Gatsby since high school, you need to return to it. I’ve returned to it twice in the last three years — one for a class I was taking, once for a class I was teaching — and its magic endures. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, mournful — a knowing harbinger of the America that was to come. And at its core: excess, regret, love, and a reverence for surfaces. Luhrmann’s forte.
When the trailer for this Gatsby went live earlier this week, there was, of course, much ballyhoo.
Anxiety, judging from the trailer, that it’s going to be one long music video. (My guess = the beginning scenes of the trailer are clips of a big, bombastic opening number — a Luhrmann trademark). Complaints about casting, dormant since the initial decisions were announced, were given new life. [My favorite casting quip from The Hairpin's lengthy discussion: "I want [Kan]Ye As Gatsby, Rick Ross as Nick Carraway, Amber Rose as Daisy Buchanan, and Wocka Flocka as Tom Buchanan].
And no small amount of disdain for DiCaprio as Gatsby:
I’m betting it’s all DiCaprio’s choice. Homie wants that Oscar so bad he can taste it’s smooth golden skin and he angstily reasons that history=GRAVITAS.
I like Leo just fine, but just still don’t think he’s that great an actor. He is very good at having a nice face to look at, and very good at furrowing his brow and looking concerned, but that’s about it. The fact that he’s been cast in SO MANY really excellent movies and hasn’t won an Oscar yet suggests that others share my point of view.
Again, I don’t think he detracts from movies or anything, he’s just never been the one to make a movie really sing for me. But I’m happy to keep looking at him!
He’s not that great! I mean, I understand he’s Marty’s new golden boy, but Leo, even Scorcese didn’t get an Academy Award until The Departed.
Ugh! Leo is going to way too brow furrowing to be Gatsby! Gatsby was cool, collected, understated. That’s what made it so crazy when he did show emotion-and it was basically all of his mysterious sexiness. Leo is going to over dramatize this role to death! Gah!
I WAS the girl with the Leo posters, I will admit. I love me some floppy haired blond boys. But he was the only crush that stuck because, in my opinion, he is an excellent actor. But you’re right about the brow furrowing, and I sort of feel like he’s trying to hard to be Serious Actor, Not Hearthrob?
I admit: DiCaprio is quite the brow-furrower. And as my friend/former colleague Colin Tait has pointed out on this blog, he’s just emerging from a period of serious “beard acting.” I’m sure he wants an Oscar. He does choose he roles very deliberately, and seems to value the dramatic over the light or comedic. He’s become a very particular and very serious sort of actor.
Which is part of what makes him UNBELIEVABLY PERFECT FOR GATSBY. Here’s the truth: DiCaprio’s star image bears remarkable, if imperfect, resemblance to that of Gatsby, one of the most well-known (if often misunderstood) literary “stars” of our time.
Let’s break it down.
Gatsby is:
A self-made man (nouveau riche) who has eschewed his initial image (a nice Midwestern boy) because it was too boring, too flatly attractive, to win the interest of the thing (Daisy) he desired.
DiCaprio is:
A self-made man (movies stars are totally nouveau riche) who has eschewed his initial image (teenage heartthrob) because it was too boring, too flatly attractive, to win the interest of the thing (talented directors) he desired.
Gatsby is:
Preposterously wealthy because of success in a business he wishes not to remember, beautiful, stereotypically-American-attractive.
DiCaprio is:
Preposterously wealthy because of success in a business he wishes not to remember (heartthrob days), beautiful, stereotypically-American-attracive.
Gatsby is:
Obsessed with clothes, but only when they serve his purpose. A means to an end. Looks exquisite in a tux.
DiCaprio is:
Dismissive of clothes (please, I beg you, see his go-to frat outfits in all candids of him ever) but recognizes how his fan base appreciates him in nice ones. A means to an end. Looks exquisite in a tux.
Gatsby’s name:
Is known throughout New York, but no one knows who he is. He is a concept more than an actual man.
DiCaprio’s name:
Is known throughout the world. But apart from some advocacy for the environment, very, very little is known about his private life. He is a concept more than an actual man. (You could say this for all stars, but it’s particularly true of DiCaprio. You need a big, monster star to play this part — someone with charisma, tremendous fame, but something missing).
Gatsby attracts:
Beautiful, perfect women in droves, but seems unsatisfied with them all.
DiCaprio attracts:
Beautiful, perfect women — models! more models! Blake Lively! — but seems unsatisfied with them all.
Gatsby desires:
Affection and adulation from the object of his desire (Daisy) — the driving force of his life.
DiCaprio desires:
Affection and adulation from the object of his desire (Scorsese, Eastwood, The Academy) — the only (visible) driving force of his life.
Gatsby is best friends with Nick Carraway (played by Tobey Maguire)
DiCaprio is best friends with Tobey Maguire (played by Tobey Maguire)
As emphasized above, the role Gatsby is not meant for a good actor, or even a character actor. He must, must be played by a super star — but a superstar whose private life is elusive. Robert Redford was, at least on the surface, a perfect fit for the role - he had the same tan, blank Americanness. But that film fell flat, in part because it was bloodless, and the script was a hack job. This adaptation does not run that risk.
What remains to be seen — and, in my opinion, what will make or break the film — is if DiCaprio can pull off the underlying insecurity that so pains Gatsby, that bubbles up from beneath the calm, controlled exterior when Daisy comes around.
We see that perfect, controlled Gatsby several times in the trailer, most exquisitely at right about the 1:10 mark — and approximated in the production still below.
We have to see Gatsby in his element to understand how out of it he is when he enter’s Daisy’s world. We have to see him with the same swagger and gravitas as he has in, say, Catch Me If You Can, so that we can see him disassembled, brought to the point of confusion and near-delirium of Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island. We need an actor who can be both at once.
And for those of you who think DiCaprio is a bad actor. Maybe he is. But that’s even more perfect, because Gatsby himself is a bad impersonation of a Jazz Age man, a Midwestern con artist posturing as a blue blood. His bad acting is what makes him so tragic, so iconic.
I, for one, think DiCaprio is an amazing actor — good enough, I think, to be a bad actor at life….and a perfect Gatsby.
Joining the Slumberparty: A Response to Molly Fischer’s “Ladyblog” Critique
I’ve been distracted all day. Or at least ever since reading Molly Fischer’s recent piece in n+1, “So Many Feelings,” outlining the demise of the ladies’ magazine and the rise of what she terms the “ladyblog.” Sassy and Jane are dead; Cosmo and Glamour aren’t hip; Vogue is for people who don’t actually exist. In their place, we have now have Jezebel, The Hairpin and, more recently, XOJane and Rookie. I’m going to quote Fischer’s piece at length below, but here’s the gist: ladyblogs don’t grapple with serious issues. They’re either self-effacing and whimsical (The Hairpin) or working really hard to be P.C. (Jezebel) and thus evacuate the site of any real feminist or political work. Because these sites are neither radical nor unceasingly serious, they’re essentially spectacle and/or pablum for the (middle-class, educated) masses.
To wit:
The Hairpin was sort of about women, but really it was about editor Edith Zimmerman’s sensibility: internet-fluent and self-consciously eccentric, with a nostalgic streak for both childhood and history. There were photographs of brightly colored items organized by color, a list of “Things to Name Your Oregon Trail Family,” and a discussion of 17th-century dildo pranks. Creepy dolls were objects of ongoing fascination, and Steve Buscemi was included in a game of Fuck/Marry/Kill. This was cute performed for an audience that disliked Zooey Deschanel but still liked reading about eco-friendly cat bonnets. It was cute that was always also a joke about being cute, with hyperbole or alcohol or icky things thrown in to make sure everyone got the joke. Accompanying some posts were Zimmerman’s own shaky little line drawings of a dolphin, a birthday cake, a disembodied smile.
The Hairpin’s media criticism tended toward the observational, peculiar, and irrefutable. (In what must have been her most popular post of all time, Zimmerman presented “Women Laughing Alone With Salad,” a collection of stock photos, without commentary.) The exception was posts by Liz Colville, who at first sat below Zimmerman on the masthead. Seemingly there to legitimize The Hairpin’s status as a “women’s website,” Colville dealt straightforwardly with gender and politics; many of her posts wouldn’t have been out of place on early Jezebel. Last January, Colville posted “How Lady Magazines Fared in 2010,” an earnest breakdown of 2010 circulation figures and cover subjects for women’s magazines. “The data suggests that in a lot of cases women just aren’t getting what they want from a magazine,” she concluded. Her post appeared back-to-back with Zimmerman’s “Oo-ooh, Someone’s Mad at the New Yorker,” about a woman who was demanding a refund because the vast majority of the magazine’s writers were men. “Does this bother you?” Zimmerman wrote. “This doesn’t bother me. If you like a magazine, read it; if you don’t, don’t. Also, if you’re mad at a magazine, sounding like a total drag can’t be the best way to get what you want.” By January, Colville had left the website.
After this weird insinuation that Edith essentially offed Liz for being “too feminist,” the piece goes on to belittle other columnists and past and current Hairpin editors, segues into an overview of XOJane and Rookie, and concludes with the following:
My own mother went to college in the early ‘70s. She started a women’s resource center with a newsletter; it was called The Bimonthly Period. She retains a second-wave feminist’s fondness for the very deliberate use of the word “woman.” She is a doctor, though, and occasionally she says “lady” when discussing gynecological matters. (“Sometimes ladies need a few stitches after labor.”) The word allows a certain decorous remove from discomfort—it is a polite way to acknowledge the listener’s presumed squeamishness or embarrassment about anything particular to her sex.
On the ladyblogs, adult womanhood is a source of discomfort, and so when we write posts or comments, we tend to call ourselves ladies. We also might be tempted, at slightly braver moments, to call ourselves feminists. Indeed, each ladyblog’s approach appears intended to counter a particular brand of easy misogyny. Women are not mindless consumers, declares Jezebel; women are funny, proclaims The Hairpin.
But the ladyblogs are not feminist simply by virtue of offering women an alternative to traditional female media—feminist blogs are of a different genre, with a specific and explicitly political project. The ladyblogs are fundamentally mainstream general interest outlets, even if a façade of superiority to the mainstream (edginess, quirkiness, knowingness) constitutes part of their appeal. Neither Jezebel or the Hairpin concerns itself with the harder to articulate, more insidious expectations about women’s behavior. Neither knows how to write for and about women without almost embarrassing itself in its eagerness to please. Jezebel is too painstakingly inoffensive to hurt anyone’s feelings. The Hairpin is too charmingly self-effacing to take itself seriously, too tirelessly entertaining to ever bore a visitor. They bake pies with low-hanging fruit: they are helpful, agreeable, relatable, and above all likable.
Surely one can’t, and shouldn’t, strive to like and be liked all the time. But how else can one be? This is not a likable enough question for the ladyblogs to entertain. In the end, they tell us less about how to be than about how to belong, and they are better at this than Sassy ever was, because no place is better for performing inclusion than the internet. Readers write to The Hairpin’s advice columns in painful imitations of the house style. (“SO MANY FEELINGS.”) Commenters squeal over plans for real-life meet-ups in bars. (“I registered just so I could RSVP YES to this!”) The internet, it turned out, was a place to make people like you: the world’s biggest slumber party, and the best place to trade tokens of slumber party intimacy—makeup tips, girl crushes, endless inside jokes. The notion that women might share some fundamental experience and interests, a notion on which women’s websites would seem to depend—“sisterhood,” let’s call it—has curdled into BFF-ship.
I would strongly suggest reading the piece in its entirety (here’s the link one more time, go for it, I’ll be waiting). And full disclosure, my brother, Charles Petersen, is an editor for n+1, although he gave me no indication that this piece was in the pipeline. And, of course, I am a regular contributor to The Hairpin, and I am proud to associate its good name with my own. Which is precisely why I take such umbrage at this piece: Fischer’s critique of The Hairpin (and ladybloggers) not only applies to The Hairpin, but my own writing on The Hairpin, and, by extension, this blog.
I challenge Fischer’s argument on several levels, but the most crucial thing she gets wrong is perhaps the simplest. She suggests that feminism and fun are mutually exclusive, and that a site that makes room for eyeliner techniques doesn’t also have room to talk about women’s reproductive rights, historical (problematic, hilarious) representations of women, American Dolls, being a queer woman today, white wine, and (ahem) scandals of classic Hollywood.
The urge to delineate between “good” and “bad” feminisms has divided women for YEARS. Decades! The Porn Wars divided an entire generation of women against one another! YOU GUYS, THAT IS TOTALLY WHAT PATRIARCHY LOVES! Divide and conquer….. YOURSELVES! Jezebel vs. Hairpin, Second Wave Feminists vs. Third Wave Feminists, Feminists of Color vs. Feminists Not-of-Color. We just keep on thinking of ways to disagree with one another instead of uniting around the issues that make a difference in our material realities. Sometimes those issues are Capital Letter Big Issues like “Do I have the right to get an abortion?” or “Do I receive equal pay?”; sometimes they’re lower-case issues like “How do I negotiate the pleasure I take in non-feminist texts, like Twilight?” or “I like how my eyes look with make-up on; is that okay, and if so, can you teach me how to do it better?” It’s not that we shouldn’t talk about these things, but when we do, we should talk about them in a way that’s fair and
Some people like a solid dose of didactic, self-serious, in-your-face, militaristic feminism everyday. That’s what makes them feel energized to be a person in the world. Other people encounter issues that make them think about the place of feminism in our world EVERYDAY. Take a look at my life: I interact with 15-18 year old girls constantly. In the classroom, in the place where I live, while eating, while working out — I am constantly thinking about what feminism means to both myself and to these girls. Put differently, because I am a feminist, feminism inflects everything that I do, everything that I write, everything that I read. Sometimes my feminism manifests itself critically, sometimes it’s trying to work through my apathy, sometimes it’s disgusted, other times it feels proud, especially when I see things like the teens here organizing a male-and-female feminism group on their own accord. Because here’s one thing that feminism should never be: prescriptive. I don’t necessarily agree with women who see sex work as liberating, but I also don’t hate them, or tell them that they’re doing feminism wrong. Why? Because I still want them on my team, and want to continue the conversation, and talk about what each of thinks about how sex work functions within patriarchy. I don’t call them sluts, and they don’t tell me that all I want in life is happy f-ing sleepovers.
And that’s exactly what I feel Fischer is attempting to do. But I don’t need to prove it to you, because The Hairpin commenterati has done the work for me. (See the comment in their ever-growing entirety here). Ultimately, I’m less concerned with my own reaction to the piece and more interested in what the Hairpin readership has had to say in response, which demonstrates their particular awareness of the site, its balance between the (ostensibly) frivolous and the explicitly political, and the benefits of cultivating a commenting atmosphere that is inclusive (and not, crucially, without disagreement — it’s just that people aren’t being assholes when they don’t believe the exact same thing).
Here’s a sampling of my favorites, at once serious and hilarious….which, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down, doesn’t mean that they’re not also good, or smart, or political, or feminist.
******
Come to think of it, I am getting sick of the hairpin being fun to read and the commenters being funny and welcoming.
******
And yo, if you don’t catch any smart, important shit on this site, you ain’t readin’ it.
******
That’s the thing. People, (ladies and dudes, or as that writer would prefer, MEN AND WOMEN) come to the Hairpin because the comments section is that unicorn of the internet: intelligent, funny, humane and most of all, civilised. The recent Bob and Eli thread is a perfect example. All the while I was reading the thread and and admiring people’s insight and perspicacity, and laughing at the funny stuff, I was thinking that on nearly any other site, no matter what its remit or readership, the civilised comment response to that letter would almost immediately be swamped by irrational fury, ad hominen attacks on other commenters, rampant misogyny, prejudice, racism etc etc etc. The Hairpin is a haven for commenters who are like real life friends. That’s why it’s great.
******
Just because the writing can be a bit whimsical doesn’t mean it’s glib.
******
Her last sentence:”The notion that women might share some fundamental experience and interests, a notion on which women’s websites would seem to depend—’sisterhood,’ let’s call it—has curdled into BFF-ship.”
I mean, I don’t even get why she thinks sisterhood would “curdle” if it becomes “BFF-ship.” Shouldn’t sisterhood encompass that, or does she have this imagined notion that “sisterhood” is adulterated if it’s not always unequivocally and expressly written with the intent to stick it to the patriarchy?
The Hairpin sincerely trying to connect with readers and commenters on a “hey friend” level sounds gravy to me. Just because she doesn’t like the tone of it doesn’t make it wrong-if you don’t like slumber parties where we drink Qream and listen to Robyn while talking about pertinent issues, then don’t come. But you’re still invited, anyway.
******
Ladyblogs are a big enough ‘thing’ now to warrant a critical media eye and thinkpieces. Yay?
Regardless, ladyblogs were some of the first places where it was … cool to be a girl, again. A woman. A feminist. And not just because we were raised to believe we were equals and could do it all, but because we could be MORE than equals. The “silly” things we value and enjoy didn’t have to be silly at all. No need to pretend to like dude stuff, just to get dude approval. What do YOU actually like? From political to profane to pretty, baby, you can have whatever you like. Let’s talk about Roe and our reproductive rights, debunk the economic value of Newt’s proposed simplified tax code, have a chat about hair-pulling during sex and then let’s all make paper snowflakes, apply fake eyelashes and drink Qream, shall we? SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT ALL OF THOSE!
Ladyblogs also, I think, taught a lot of people about how to name yourself as a feminist and be okay with that. And they brought the language and knowledge of the LBGTQ community to the forefront. If only in vocab(cis-gender, transwhatever, hell, the idea of queer itself) but also so much more.
I get the concept of ladyblog as a likeable on-line slumber party, but what I don’t get is why that’s a bad thing. The readership and commentariat is self-selecting. And there are many places to go. If I choose to seek out the blogs that resemble me the most because that’s what I like…I fail to see the problem.
*****
I have so much gratitude to Jezebel and Hairpin, for reasons beyond makeup tips, girl crushes and endless inside jokes.
Both sites SHOWED me what a feminist is, what it means to be a positive, responsible person, what it means to command self-respect and self-confidence. Y’all called out Rich Santos’ bullshit and made me less willing to take that bullshit in real life. Jez and the Pin introduced me to LGBTQ issues, and to issues around race and privilege. AND all this in a fun, sometimes funny, but always approachable manner.
Thanks for the slumber party.
*****
I think there’s a point worth looking at there, but also not? It does get sort of disappointingly vapid in the “Friday Bargain Bin” posts or likewise sometimes. If I had to venture a guess, I would say it’s because the women reading this site *are* super-smart feminists who feel uncomfortable talking about lipstick and rompers in their real lives and here they are provided the space to talk about them with the implication being that it’s safe to do so without being judged as vapid (heh, I proved them wrong?), because it’s a defined “smart -lady blog”. That’s cool and I appreciate it, but I sometimes do feel like it can tip in mindless consumerism, especially when some of the more absurd things (like crazy high heels or rompers you can’t pee in without discomfort) are presented without commentary as to just how absurd they are and maybe we should look at *why* we like the things instead of snapping them up like magpies. <3 you, Edith & Jane et. al, and also aware that I can just not read what I don’t like, but I kind of wanted to speak up on this, because it’s been itching me for a while.
Blogging and Advertisements: Where’s the line?
So here’s a meta-post for you:
What do I do about all these offers to advertise on my blog? How can I say yes? Or, more importantly, how can I say no?
My blog garners moderate traffic — generally between 1500 and 2000 hits a day, although that number jumps considerably when I have a post up at The Hairpin (or a new post on the blog). That’s by no means rockstar traffic. But I nevertheless receive at least one email every week offering compensation for various forms of advertisement, from streaming car videos to links to other celebrity sites.
Now, this isn’t an elaborate humblebrag — most of these solicitors most likely see the “celebrity” in my blog title and little else — but it does bring up a genuine question concerning blogging (and “academic” blogging in particular) and compensation.
As I tweeted a few weeks ago, a decent blog post of average length (around 2000 words) takes at least four hours to complete. With zero compensation, I am paid zero dollars an hour for that work. But then again, I am also paid zero dollars an hour for the work I put in on every academic article, and am at times even asked to pay for the privilege of submitting my work for potential publication. I am effectively paying to do work so that massive academic publishing companies can make money by selling their journals at exorbitant rates to libraries.
But my blog is not peer-reviewed. It will not get me tenure, although, as Jason Mittell points out in his recent post on blogging and its relationship to tenure, a blog may not = tenure, but it will increasingly be considered part of the constellation of a candidate’s body of scholarship. It may not be as serious (or proof-read) or vetted as the work that he/she does for, say, Cinema Journal, but it’s still an extension of the scholar’s thought process and (as loathe as I know many are to use this word) their academic “image.”
For many reasons, some warranted, others silly, academia and “making money” have been deemed mutually exclusive. In other words, scholarship that turns a profit is suspect; work that sells to libraries and other academics is highly valued. It follows, then, that a blog that makes any sort of profit is, by default, not as serious or academic (or valuable, ironically) as a blog that does not have advertisements. I can understand the rationale — an academic’s work should not be biased by sponsors — but I cannot understand the poverty mentality. Perhaps I’ve lived too long with the economic realities of being an academic in the humanities, and am too much in debt: but this is bullshit. I really like writing this blog, but I’m working so hard on actually making money to pay off my loans that I can’t write nearly as often as I’d like. Obviously this situation is ridiculous.
But because I have a a job, and am no longer on the market, I made an executive decision. When an ad salesman emailed me asking if I’d put a non-obstrusive link to AT&T U-Verse on my homepage and, in exchange, he’d pay me $200 for every six months that I stayed there, I went for it. Was I implicitly endorsing U-Verse? Perhaps. Was I explicitly doing so? Not at all. Was I finally being compensated for intellectual labor? Yes. Did you, as a reader, get pissed at me and think that I had compromised my academic ethics? You tell me.
I started thinking about Google Ads. What if I just put a little banner on the side? Is that okay? You’re exposed to Google Ads all day, every day — and they don’t make you think less of various sites; they only make you realize that they have an imperative to actually turn a profit if they wish to employ writers and pay them salaries and give them health benefits. But here’s the ridiculous thing: after four months of using Google Ads, four months of 1,000-2,000 people a day seeing a banner directed towards them (but not necessarily clicking through on said banner), do you know how much I earned? GUESS.
No seriously, guess.
I bet your guess was nowhere near…..
20 CENTS!
I’m yanking these ads soon — the visual distraction (and clear commerciality) is not worth less than half a cent a day. I think most readers would agree that it’s okay to get paid something to blog, so long as it doesn’t compromise the integrity of the blog. But the other day I received an interesting offer — one on which I’d like your advice, whether as an academic or a non-academic.
On Monday, I received the following email:
Hello,
I was doing research for one of my clients and came across your web page - annehelenpetersen.com. Your site stands out as an excellent candidate for a partnership with my client. Specifically, they are interested in placing a resource on one of your pages that would be relevant to your content and useful to your visitors.
You would receive compensation in exchange for your partnership as well as relevant future partnership offers. I would appreciate the chance to discuss this proposal in further detail. Please let me know if you have any interest, and I’ll send you specifics.
Thanks in advance!
Seemed pretty vague, but I thought I’d see what this person had to offer. I requested further details, and the guy, who works at an ad company, responded with the following:
Thanks for your response. The client is the Nipissing University and they’re just looking for a simple anchor text link. Here are the details:
We would like to use this page:
http://www.annehelenpetersen.com/?p=2413
The placement would be in a short sentence with the anchor text: masters of education
We would prefer that the link be placed within your existing content near the sentence in the second paragraph of the section SECOND, THE JOB : My undergraduate and M.A. degrees qualify me to teach English; my five years of teaching experience qualify me to teach; my two summers teaching gifted and talented high school students qualified me to teach high school students.
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To summarize: I would need to place a link to Nipissing University, a public, liberal arts institution in Ontario, in the body of the blog post that I wrote last year about getting my job here at The Putney School. I wouldn’t need to explicitly endorse it, but in the paragraph where I mention my teaching experience and M.A., that link would need to pop up.
The first question is whether or not it would be ethical for me to accept this sort of advertising. (Is it ethical that I have that link to U-Verse over there? You tell me). The second, more complicated question, and on on which I am honestly confused, is whether an ostensibly “academic” blog should accept advertising at all.
The Ryan Gosling Meme Has Jumped the Shark
Three things happened in Ryan Gosling meta-commentary news this week:
1.) The Ryan Gosling Tumblr-sphere expanded to include “Biostatistics Ryan Gosling.” Add it to the pre-existing blogroll of “Medieval History Ryan Gosling,” “Public History Ryan Gosling,” “Feminist Ryan Gosling,” and dozens more discipline-specific Gozes to which I have not even been made aware.
2.) Inside Higher Ed published a (brief) thinkpiece on the phenomenon.
3.) Well-known media theorist Nancy Baym tweeted “What’s up with this Ryan Gosling tumblr meme thing?
4.) My friend Rebecca, pop culture enthusiast and American Studies dissertator, posited “Don’t you think this whole thing has jumped the shark? You need to write about it quick.”
I have to agree. Biostatistics Ryan Gosling is Jumping the Ryan Gosling Tumblr Shark. Not because I don’t like Biology, but because it lacks the very thing that made the original Ryan Gosling Tumblr (Hey Girl) work so well: you could actually imagine Ryan Gosling saying the very phrases that adoring bloggers were photoshopping into his mouth.
To be more precise: The reason “Hey Girl” works is because Ryan Gosling’s image supports it. You can imagine The Goz saying things like….
…because his image is that of a considerate, intelligent, somewhat quirky yet somehow also adorable and amusing man. (For the specifics of Gosling’s image, see my earlier post on “Why You Love the Goz“). His picture personality may dictate otherwise (read: he plays a lot of assholes and weirdos), but somehow the weight of his extratextual image is enough to convince most of America that he’s really Noah Calhoun (of Notebook fame) transplanted off the screen and into the 21st century.
What’s more, the very notion that Ryan Gosling COULD SAY THESE THINGS is reinforced by clips of him being adorable WHILE SAYING THESE THINGS. He knows about the Tumblr; he finds it quite funny (and somewhat absurd); he laughs at himself and his image which, in reality, just reinforces his image. He gets the joke! The Hotness just multiples!
And Feminist Ryan Gosling is “Hey Girl” taken to its natural (feminist) conclusion. Ryan Gosling’s image goes to grad school! But here’s the thing: Ryan Gosling’s image wouldn’t go to get his PhD in Biology. Or Public History. His image has evidenced no interest in biology other than hanging out with those ducks in The Notebook. Ryan Gosling’s image would either sell out and become a lawyer (see, for example, many of his picture personalities) or pursue an altruistic career in the humanities (see Half Nelson), more specifically, English and/or Gender Studies. And I’m not just saying that because I have a Ph.D. in the humanities: if I were interested in making The Goz be part of my cohort, then I’d be arguing that Ryan Gosling Film Studies is awesome, which I’m not. See below).
But Feminist Ryan Gosling is doing more than just placing feminist theory next to well-chosen pictures. It’s combining rigorous feminist theory with something that’s not quite so rigorous — it couples the theoretical stances we believe in with the negotiated way we live them.
Take this image, for example. Yes! I believe that the hegemonic relationship between the state and the prison industrial complex is bullshit, and needs to be eradicated. But I also want someone to hold me! (And in my personal fantasy space, that person could be Ryan Gosling. It couldn’t be, say, Brad Pitt, because his image doesn’t seem like it would want to go to gender studies grad school. Architectural school, sure).
Or here. Yes, gender is a construct. To live that idea everyday — that’s tough (necessary) work. To emphasize it to your students, to your parents, to your kids, to your peers — seriously, that’s tough, because you’re pushing against a whole heavy load of ideology. But again, the idea is paired with the idea that everyone, including those who make theory in personal praxis, enjoy and hunger for human touch and intimacy.
Apart from the fit with Gosling’s image, there’s also an element of pleasure and play at work. As Danielle Henderson, creator of Feminist Ryan Gosling, explains,
Feminists are apparently not supposed to have a sense of humor. I think people are really liking the fact that this site is intelligent while simultaneously silly, and obviously self-referential. A lot of my followers are women’s studies majors, or people who have taken women’s studies classes, and love seeing inside jokes presented in this way. For example, if you’re a women’s studies major, you’ve probably read “The Yellow Wallpaper” at least 18 times. Now matter how much you like that story, it gets a little ridiculous.
There’s a lot of “snark” (hate that word), and a lot of intellectual examination of pop culture going on with most popular feminist sites, but not a lot of fun. I think I’m having fun with feminism, but not making fun of feminism. People recognize and respond to that crucial difference.
That element of play has far less to do with Ryan Gosling’s image and far more to do with feminism‘s image. But again, it only really works because the feminism can actually work with Gosling’s image. Would it work with Will Smith? With Tom Cruise? With Daniel Craig or Jackie Chan or Channing Tatum? You need a very specific constellation of star attributes in order to make it seem plausible that the person in that picture could potentially read, understand, and repeat the theory contained therein. You need an image as inflected with feminism as The Goz’s.
(Note: I realize that part of this process is self-fulfilling and tautological: Gosling’s image seems feminist so feminist theory can be ascribed to him, which, in turn, makes his image seem even more feminist. Star image formation is complicated shit).
As I was writing this post, several of my friends alerted me to “Film Studies Ryan Gosling.” Part of me wants to love this, if only because I want to imagine Gosling’s image’s familiarity with the likes of Bordwell and Thompson. But Ryan Gosling image isn’t that of a cinephile, and it’s most definitely not indicated an interest in apparatus. I so wish he were. If anyone should be responding to these meme, it should be me — someone who loves Gosling AND film theory. But when you apply his name to film studies, it only make sense with knowledge of the meme and its previous application - not by itself. In other words, if “Hey Girl” is Ryan Gosling’s extratextual image turned into a meme, and Feminist Ryan Gosling is the higher ed extension of that image, then there’s just not a space for Ryan Gosling, Film Theoretician.
What’s more, the author gets it wrong: sure, Grad School Gosling would know Mulvey and the theory of the male gaze, but he would also twist the theory so that he wasn’t embodying the very oppressing gaze against which Mulvey was arguing. For Gosling to be the male gaze suggests that he’s fully enveloped in patriarchy — which is the exact opposite of what his image suggests.
Here’s the simple truth: all pop culture phenomenons, especially those which gain traction on the internet, exhaust themselves eventually. Sometimes it happens through overexposure, sometimes it happens by being spread too thin and thus losing their potency. Whether Stuff White People Like or even LOLcatz, there’s a certain point at which the very thing that made it work — made it special, made if hilarious, made it something that you wanted to pass along to your friends and laugh at a common joke — ceases to function in the same way.
Pairing star images with dense theory is funny. Every scholar wants to think that an object of their desire would be interested in the things they’re interested in — would have a discussion in which you share a secret language familiar to a select few (and then, after you’ve had a good debate, you an go to the Farmer’s Market and snuggle). I wish Ryan Gosling’s image wanted to get his PhD in media studies with me. But it doesn’t — he fell in with the gender studies people long ago. That’s where his image belongs. That’s where it works. To take it beyond can be funny……but, if we’re honest with ourselves, misses the point. It’s a meme built on a meme, and thus evacuated of its core.
Maybe Postmodern Ryan Gosling would have something to say about this?
Girls’ Media: What are your essential texts?
At the school where I teach, the students don’t have finals. Instead, at the end of each semester, they embark upon two massive, two-week projects of their own devising. For example, I’m sponsoring individual project weeks on Cult Film and classic feminist texts. But students can also pick to participate in a “group” project, which means that a teacher comes up with a very specific idea (kind of like a mini-seminar) and they investigate said idea in detail.
There are about 12 group projects this semester, ranging from The Study of Happiness to The Cultural and Musical Roots of ’60s Rock. As for geeky me, I’m doing Girls’ Media Studies.
I took a grad seminar in Girls’ Media Studies during my first year in my Ph.D. program at UT, but the idea of girls, media, and the relationship between the two has long been a pet project of mine — in part because I was strongly influenced by several media texts as a “girl,” but also just because I find girlhood — as a discursive construction, as a societal point of anxiety, as a generally sucky time — really fascinating, and I love thinking about my own girlhood and where it fits within the historical continuums of girlhoods, including girlhood’s current iteration, marked, as it is, by constant mediation, ubiquitous screens, and contradictory messages about what it measn to be “good,” “pretty,” “smart,” “sexual,” etc. (Of course, all of our girlhoods were filled with contradictory messages on these topics).
So long story short: I’m looking for texts. The class is only two weeks, and I’m going to be doing some background on how “girls” have been conceived over time and in media, some Patty Duke, some Nancy Drew, some old school Seventeen, and, of course, some seminal texts from my own girlhood. The students will also select some texts on which they’d like to focus, and they’ll do final projects on a text of their choice.
If you were teaching a class of 14-17 year old girls, what would you show them? What sort of questions would you consider? What television shows, magazines, books, movies, albums, songs, etc. would you want to discuss? What would you want to say about it? Stuff from now, stuff from then, stuff from whenever. Help me make this class as awesome as possible.
Almost-Winter Media Endorsements
Television:
I’ve already told you how much I love Claire Danes, but seriously, you should be watching Homeland. I realize it’s nearly impossible to obtain without premium cable, but there are ways, media-savvy readers, THERE ARE WAYS. It’s the best thing on television right now.
Speaking of which, did you know that My So-Called Life is streaming in its entirety on Netflix? I’m teaching Girls Media Studies and am going to screen the entire thing — it’s still just as good as it was when you watched it every night at 7 pm on MTV. (Or, if you were like me, it’s just as good as when you watched it every Thursday on ABC and then every night, over and over again, on MTV for the next four years). And if you’ve never seen it…it’s never too late to jump on the best-teen-show-until-FNL bandwagon.
No show — not even Parks and Rec, which I love with abandon — has made me laugh as deeply as Louie. You might not want to watch it with your Grandma or 5-year-old, but it has the verve and honesty that 99% of comedic television lacks. (Season 1, also streaming on Netflix).
Film:
Prestige-film season is in full-swing, but I still think Beginners is the best film I’ve seen this year. Innovatively-plotted, perfectly-acted, beautiful and poignant and elegant and sad. I absolutely loved it, and think you will too. Even the trailer is charming.
(But have no fear — the movie never veers into the overly cutesy or overly sentimental).
I’ve spent two long nights watching Carlos, a mini-series/really long film (three two-hour chunks) about a terrorist/freedom-fighter/Marxist/really complicated real-life guy, commonly known as “Carlos the Jackel.” The plot is convoluted and the politics are complex, but it is gripping as filmmaking gets. Directed by Olivier Assayas, the man behind the gorgeous Summer Hours, with a stunning star turn by Edgar Ramirez. Also streaming on Netflix (do you see a pattern here?).
Music:
First of all, I highly recommend investigating Spotify. I’m still dubious about the way it compensates the millions of artists whose music is available, but for things like, say, yoga playlists, it is aces. I pay $4.99 and have access to pretty much everything released by a mainstream or even quasi-mainstream artist. It’s like Pandora with a whole lot more control.
As for specific albums — I’m listening to so much of the following:
The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart, specifically “Down in the Valley.” Just listening to these guys makes me miss the Northwest like whoa.
The National, Boxer, specifically “Green Gloves” (I go through periods of listening to The National when I become physically addicted to an album — as in cannot not be listening to it while I’m awake. I’m just emerging from one of those periods).
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues, specifically “Battery Kinzie”
Feist, Metals, specifically “Anti-Pioneer.” GORGEOUS.
Rihanna, Talk that Talk, specifically “Drunk on Love.” The xx + RiRi = Annie’s new favorite song.
The Bieber, specifically “Mistletoe.” The video! I DIE! No shame!
Reading:
I’ve been spending a lot of time reading things with my students, but I’ve also had a chance to do some pleasure reading on the side, including Jeffrey Eugenides’ much-ballyhooed The Marriage Plot. I liked it quite a bit, but wonder if those who are not familiar with the woes and confusions of first encountering post-structuralism will feel the same. (Tell me? Do those sections make sense?)
Jill Lepore’s essay “Birthright,” on the war against Planned Parenthood, is an absolute must-read, no matter your political affiliation. It’s historical, contextual, and packs a huge punch. It’s behind the New Yorker paywall, but it is so worth the article charge. Or find your favorite New Yorker reader and bum a copy off of them. (Or if you live in close proximity to me, bum my copy).
I generally abhor Caitlin Flanagan. But her Atlantic essay on why girls - and women — read Twilight is, bar none, the best explanation for why the particulars of the narrative (not just the vampire narrative, but this vampire narrative) draws us in. Not behind the pay-wall, and especially appropriate given the release of Breaking Dawn. (If you’re interested in my own article on feminist readers of Twilight, it’s coming out this summer, but I’d be happy to send you a digital copy. Just let me know). The recent Hairpin article on “Our Bella, Our Selves” is also quite good.
So there we go — share your own endorsements in the comments? Or try and fight me on the merits of The Biebs? Let’s go.
Katy Perry: The Very Good, The Very Bad
The other week I happened upon the latest issue of InStyle. While InStyle popularized the notion that celebrities, as opposed to supermodels, sold fashion (and thus belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine), the magazine is pretty straight up minivan majority. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term — which I borrow from Lainey Gossip — see my early, early post on the subject). Point is: InStyle is fashion for “the rest of us,” and by “the rest of us” I mean people with a modicum of capital. It’s not high fashion — that’s Vogue - but it’s also not cheap. (Sometimes there’s a gesture towards thriftiness, but there are a whole lot of $100-$500 items featured in its pages). Put it this way: people who read InStyle often also read Real Simple. Reese Witherspoon and Katie Holmes are essentially the magazine’s mascots.
But InStyle put Katy Perry on its cover last month, very appropriately mixing her candy cotton pink hair with a super conservative-let’s-all-go-to-the-office-in-metallics dress that covered all that Perry usually bares. But pink hair! YOU GUYS, A GIRL WITH PINK HAIR ON A MAINSTREAM MAGAZINE!
What’s that you say? Isn’t Katy Perry the girl who turned a song about making out with a girl into a number one hit? Who put the words “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It” onto the lips of millions of American girls? Isn’t that actually subversive? Not really, because while the song explicitly describes a queer activity (a girl kissing a girl) it’s actually a thoroughly heteronormative song. A brief refresher:
This was never the way I planned, not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion
It’s not what I’m used to, just wanna try you on
I’m curious for you caught my attention
I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong, it felt so right, don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it, I liked it
No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter
You’re my experimental game, just human nature
It’s not what good girls do, not how they should behave
My head gets so confused, hard to obey
In other words: kissing a girl is something that you do only when drunk, as an experiment, and can be “tried on” in the same fashion as a piece of clothing. It’s something that you do while you still have a boyfriend and are thus firmly rooted in heterosexual identity. I could go on, but the song (and Perry) construct queerness as an “experimental game,” not an identity or lifestyle. Or, as Beth Ditto, lead singer of The Gossip explains, I Kissed A Girl is a “boner dyke” anthem for “straight girls who like to turn guys on by making out or like faking gay.”
But then again, the song is catchy as shit. So catchy, in fact, that it enabled millions of people who would hesitate to imagine themselves in queer scenarios to ACTUALLY SAY THAT THEY KISSED A GIRL AND THEY LIKED IT. I realize that’s a lot of caps, and I realize this song is deeply problematic…..but that doesn’t mean that putting those words in girls’ mouths isn’t transgressive in some way.
Now, I realize that I’m arguing all sorts of things here — she’s heteronormative! Her vision of queerness is offensive and problematic! She’s transgressive! It’s true: Perry is all of those things. Like most huge stars, her image is polysemic, meaning that it can “mean” many things at once, even if those things seem to blatantly contradict one another.
Because for every transgressive thing that Perry does, there’s something conservative to counter it. For every pink dye job, there’s slightly sussed-up power suit. She sings about getting wasted in Vegas, but her parents are pastors. She appears on Sesame Street, but wears an outfit that shows too much of her breasts. She’s incredibly feminine (she loves pink! dresses! bubble gum!) but in a way that manages to be infused with sexuality. Her appearance consistently evokes the ’50s pin-up, with its mix of traditionalism and explicit sexual gratification.
Or take her relationship with Russell Brand. Russell Brand is RIDICULOUS. After watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I was pretty sure he was the funniest/crassest person alive. He was also an alcoholic, a rampant drug abuser, and a general asshole. Even Wikipedia says that he was “known for his promiscuity.” Until he went to treatment, that is, and became follower of the Hindu faith and started a regular meditation practice. Now he’s sober, even if his performances and image still emanate transgressiveness.
And Katy Perry didn’t just date Russell Brand, she MARRIED him. Sure, celebrities often get married because they realize how it can positively affect their brand. And while Perry and Brand didn’t sell the “exclusive rights” to their wedding, they did show footage from it on MTV. But she married him. She didn’t date him; she didn’t have a child with him “out of wedlock,” she MARRIED HIM. And as much as Kim Kardashian persists in making a mockery of the significance of marriage, it is important to remember that marriage is still a very traditional pledge of fidelity, and heterosexual marriage remains the antithesis of moral transgression. But again: she’s married, but she’s married to RUSSELL BRAND. Conservativeness tinged with rebellion.
Which brings me to her other, more recent, even more popular songs. The songs that I quite frankly and unabashedly love. I mean, “I Kissed a Girl” was catchy, but it also kinda sounded like a one-hit-wonder. I kinda hate “California Girls,” but there’s a reason it was the uncontested “Song of the Summer” last year — it’s addicting, it has Snoop Dogg, and it references pure and highly evocative pleasures. Daisy Dukes Bikinis On Top, to be specific. The description evokes skin and suggestiveness, but it’s coated in the saccharine sound of the actual song.
But then came “Teenage Dream,” which effectively reversed everything I’d thought previously thought about Katy Perry. I thought that she was playing the celebrity game with certain savvy, but I also recoiled from her songs. Yet “Teenage Dream” combined a pure pop anthem with a wistfulness, nostalgia, and simply evocative images of what it’s like to be young and think that you’re in love. All of her songs have the same simple imagery, but something about the way she uses it in Teenage Dream — combined, of course, with the actual aural affect of the song — makes it exponentially more powerful.
“Firework” is a classic ballad with pretty little substance (other than HEY LISTENER, YOU’RE AWESOME), and “Last Friday Night,” which is basically a “I got drunk and did crazy shit” song, very much in the vein of “Wakin’ Up in Vegas” (from her first album), is still highly evocative and admittedly, okay, FINE, fun. ”E.T.” is about having sex with aliens! That’s transgressive, right! Only so fantastical as to not actually be transgressive AT ALL? More like a game of make believe? But don’t forget: for the single, she let Kanye West rap a verse, which grants the otherwise derivative, B-Grade Dr. Luke song just enough edge to become popular.
Perry’s most recent single, “The One That Got Away,” returns to the “Teenage Dream” vein, describing what it’s like to be totally into someone, break up, and then think back and wonder what life would have been like. If she added violins and a mandolin, this could be a country song.
And therein lies the crux of Perry’s success. Sure, her image embodies the transgressive and the traditional. You see this in her music videos, in her romances, in her sartorial choices. But with the help of her very savvy producers, she also writes songs WITH STORIES. And as Taylor Swift’s success has made abundantly clear, amidst all the unintelligble lyrics and songs that are essentially European disco tunes (LMFAO, I’m talking to you), there’s something incredibly attractive about a song where you can not only decipher the words, but understand and relate to the ways in which those words turn into a story.
And that, in the end, is what’s so highly contradictory and highly appealing about Perry: she tells highly traditional love stories, but she tells them with pink hair. When she’s talking about getting drunk with her friends and not remembering, she’s doing so while also thoroughly married and abstaining from most drugs and alcohol. She’s traditional and contemporary, topless on the cover of Esquire and suited-up on the cover of In Style.
Brad Pitt Stars as Brad Pitt in New Brad Pitt Movie
Writing about Brad Pitt is too easy. He’s the quintessential movie star. He’s the type of star that fits so neatly into Richard Dyer’s conception of stars as images both extraordinary and ordinary that embody and reconcile ideologies. That’s a complex way of saying that Brad Pitt plays the societal function that classic stars did: his image is of a particular type of masculinity, and that masculinity mirrors what the dominant American society values/tolerates/expects/valorizes in a man in terms of looks and attitudes towards women, parenting, multiculturalism, philanthropy, or marriage.
When we say “Brad Pitt is the ideal man,” what we are actually saying is that he embodies what our current society thinks is ideal. Brad Pitt didn’t make those things ideal; he became popular because his image matched the things that our society values.
And Pitt, like all iconic stars, also embodies ideologies that are seemingly contradictory. Take, for example, his attitude towards marriage. He went through a very public divorce, joining himself with another (sexual, sultry) woman who seemed to have moved in when he was still married to his first (All-American) wife. He and this women then adopted several children and had three biological children of their own, but Mom and Dad are still not married. Very un-American of you, Brad. Very anti-marriage. But here’s the thing: his relationship with Angelina Jolie is, by all accounts, the very portrait of a blissful union. They forward an image of happiness and engagement, modeling a parenting style that is tolerant, multicultural, and cosmopolitan. (Whether or not this is true is completely beside the point: they sell it so well, it’s impossible not to buy).
In other words, Pitt and Jolie are ahead of the (ideological) curve, but not so ahead that they profoundly disturb existing ideologies. They model an ideal, but one that’s not quite been achieved across America: a couple together because they love each other; a blended family; tolerant and playful parenting; a global lifestyle that promotes understanding, awareness, and philanthropy.
Photo via People.com
If Brad Pitt and George Clooney started dating and had the same family, that still might be too out-there (read: transgressive) for mainstream audiences to swallow. But Pitt and Jolie are just “normal” enough — and just beautiful enough — that they make practices and attitudes that might otherwise be “other,” “weird,” or otherwise transgressive into the mainstream. Or at least make them speakable — some may not agree with their parenting style, their refusal to marry “until everyone can,” or how they let Shiloh dress, but that parenting style and non-marriage decision is still very visible. In this way, it prompts discussions that might not otherwise take place, and it makes what was formerly “fringe” behavior into the mainstream.Sometimes the popularity of a star can highlight a societally regressive moment (Britney Spears, Charlie Sheen); sometimes they highlight a progressive one (Obama, Gaga).
Superstardom makes Brad Pitt easy to talk about. But the way he arrived at superstardom was more than just marrying Jennifer Aniston and leaving her for Angelina Jolie — although that certainly has a tremendous amount to do with his seemingly everlasting appeal. (That and the crinkled eyes when he smiles, but I digress).
Plainly put, actors become stars through two primary means:
1.) Playing “themselves” on screen, which is to say playing a relatively consistent version of their established image;
2.) Maintaining an extratextual (“private”) life that reinforces that image.
They’re reinforcing processes, but as long-term readers of this blog know, it’s all about constructing a unified and coherent image. Sometimes that image can be summed up in a word (“cool,” “indie,” “All-American,” “girl-next-door”) sometimes it’s a combination of things (gravitas and sex appeal; hooker with the heart of gold, etc.). Angelina Jolie is intense, dark, and sultry physical sexual energy; Brad Pitt is shining, golden, easygoing sex appeal. That’s part of why their images go so well together: sex and sex. (Sex and cute, not so much. See Aniston and Pitt. Sex and snotty, also not so much. See Pitt and Paltrow).
The star also needs to not play himself from time to time, mostly in the name of proving that he/she can act. There’s a fantastic academic article from the early ’90s on how Warner Bros. would use the times when Bette Davis played “against” her image as a means of selling the picture — “See Bette Davis play a husband-killing total bitch!” (See: Little Foxes!). In these cases, playing against type actually functions to reinforce type. Look at this star acting so different from their “true” image! (these performances are also the opportunities for big stars to win Oscars, mostly because the “acting” is so on display).
Of course, the innate fallacy is the belief that a star’s image is not an act in and of itself. A star’s image is no more the “real” star than any other performance. The image, however, is polished, consistent, and has the trappings of “authenticity,” despite the fact that it has been polished and practiced far more than any single movie performance.
Which brings us to Pitt. Pitt’s dominant on-screen image (also known as his “picture personality”) is, to generalize a bit, that of a hot, charismatic guy who gets what he wants. Sometimes this guy is more emotive, sometimes he’s less so, getting by on his charm.
Most of the time, especially in his recent films, he’s doing a lot of eating. There are slight variations — sometimes he plays Brad Pitt-as-half-Greek-god, sometimes he plays Brad Pitt-as-assassin — but there’s nevertheless a strong centerline running through the performances. We’ll call this:
“Pictures When Pitt Plays Himself”:
Thelma & Louise (establishing the persona)
A River Runs Through It
Legends of the Fall
Seven
Sleepers
Seven Years in Tibet
Meet Joe Black
The Mexican
Spy Game
Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen (all three of these crystallize the Pitt image)
Appearances on Friends
Troy
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Tree of Life
Moneyball
Clearly playing "himself" in Moneyball
Then there are roles in which Pitt is clearly playing against type — and the spectacle of that “against-type-ness” is part of what draws the audience to the film. We’ll call this:
“Pitt as Character Actor”:
Kalifornia
True Romance
Interview with the Vampire
12 Monkeys
Fight Club (the dirty underbelly of the Pitt image; absolutely fascinating)
Snatch
Babel (arguable whether performance belongs here or above)
LATE EDITION: Burn After Reading (I have no idea how I could forget this — SO, SO GOOD).
Inglourious Basterds
And, perhaps best of all, there are the films that play on Pitt’s existing star image, creating a text that’s sort of a palimpsest of existing images and what the film inflects on Pitt’s image. Lots of big stars wouldn’t dabble in this, but Pitt partners with smart, savvy directors. (Hitchcock famously did this sort of play with the images of Cary Grant and James Stewart). We’ll call this:
“Pitt and Director Playing with Image”
Appearances on Friends
Being John Malkovich
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Full Frontal (appearing as “self”)
and, most compellingly, The Assassination of Jesse James, which uses the most famous actor in a meditation about fame, gossip, reputation, and the discrepancies between the image and the self. (Which is part of the reason why I think the film is woefully underrated and totally brilliant).
I didn’t put years besides the films, but those of you who have been watching films for the last ten to fifteen years know when these films came out. They weave together, almost tit for tat. Every time he does a film that challenges his existing image, he has another in the pipeline that reinforces it. It’s brilliant, and it’s why he’s been the biggest male star, both domestically and internationally, for more than a decade. Brad Pitt opens movies, even when Brad Pitt isn’t playing “himself.” Brad Pitt playing himself, however, as he does almost perfectly in Moneyball, can turn a film into a global (even if not domestic) blockbuster. (For those of you who disagree with me re: Moneyball, please see: hilarious eating, bonhomie, asshole-mixed-with-charisma, golden-boy past, lots of emotive staring-into-space. No womanizing, but he makes up for it with the comedic timing and ubiquitous chin-ups).
I saw Moneyball this weekend. It was fine. There was something off about the pacing. But I’d go see it again, if only because I love watching Brad Pitt play Brad Pitt. It looks effortless, which actually means it’s probably pretty hard. But because it seems so easy — because the charisma seems authentic, because it looks like he’s just walking out his real life and onto the screen — it makes it all the more appealing. Someone who goes through life with that ease exists. Or at least that’s the promise that “playing oneself” makes. It’s a beautiful illusion to watch — and it’s the reason the film, no matter its merits, will make money, and why Pitt receives the paychecks he does. Moneyball may not have beat The Lion King in 3D, but few things get infrequent movie-goers to the theaters like a real movie star acting as such onscreen. I could watch it all day. And so could you.
Brad Pitt plays Brad Pitt in New Brad Pitt Movie
A Brief Note on Coach Taylor’s Emmy Win
I’ve mostly written the Emmy’s off. They generally favor the mainstream over the truly great, a trend best evidenced by its complete snubbing of The Wire over its five-year run.
But when Kyle Chandler won the Emmy last night for Best Actor in a Drama Series, beating out Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire), Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), and Hugh Laurie (House), I jumped up and did a totally ridiculous and embarrassing little dance.
Because here’s the thing: Hamm might, indeed, have deserved the award. What he did with Don Draper over this tortuous/quasi-redemptive fourth season was truly a marvel. Beschemi was so masterful at reconciling the powerful and the vulnerable in Boardwalk Empire, and Olyphant finally proved that he could act (and wear the shit out of a pair of pants). But I don’t want to think of this in terms of Chandler being “better” or “more deserving” than the others in his field.
Rather, I just want to think of this win as a celebration of and a benediction for Chandler specifically and Friday Night Lights more generally. I’ve written on Why We Watch Friday Night Lights before, and everything that I said about the first three seasons remained true over the course of the final two. In fact, everything got better. If you’re already on board, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, you probably think the show is about football, or about high school, or about small towns that have been forgotten. It’s about all of those things, but only obliquely. It’s really about class, and race, and a marriage, and what it’s like to live in a place where life is by turns bleak and beautiful.
But because of network bumbling and mis-marketing, it was never the hit. Or maybe because of its heart, and the way it refused (except in the first half of Season Two), to stoop to sensationalism, it never could have been a hit. Like My So-Called Life before it, it was just to beautiful to live. But by hook or by crook, FNL managed to eek out five seasons — none of which are perfect, but all of which made me feel and think more than any other show on television. It’s a quiet show, and the acting on it is equally quiet. But my hope is that this win, this awareness, might push you to let it speak to you.
So try it. The first episode of the first season is not necessarily what the rest of the season will look like. There will be football, but there will be much, much more. And then you, too, will become an FNL proselytizer, buying “Dillon Football” t-shirts (I totally own one) and unironically using phrases like “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose.”
And for those of us who know and love Friday Night Lights — TEXAS FOREVER. My only sadness is that Mrs. Coach couldn’t have shared in Chandler’s glory.
[IN RESPONSE] I feel like at the Hairpin, the assumption is that everyone here is smart enough to understand absurdity when we see it, even if we simultaneously enjoy (ironically, guiltily, or just plain enjoy) it in whatever form it takes.
*****
I’m a raging feminist complete with Dr. Tiller pins and a chip on my shoulder everywhere I go, but if I felt that part of being a srs bsns feminist was completely detaching myself from all problematic media, products, websites, etc….well, I would not have much to do, and that would be pretty fucking boring. After all, you don’t really get to judge and impact a culture without participating in it.
*****
The assumption that Girl Things are stupid because they are Girl Things is just flat poisonous. And I say this as someone who is by and large just not into most feminine frippery, so I don’t even want to think about the message being broadcast at someone who can’t get enough of it. The idea that shoes and make-up and nail art is stupid and shallow but gadgets and weight-lifting and performance cars are serious things for serious people is fucked up and bullshit.
*****
As a woman who has never been into a lot of traditional feminine stuff I think reading the Hairpin has helped me get over some of my own unconscious partaking of this attitude about Girl Things. Seeing eye shadow posts discussed by the same folks who are talking about nerdy books and art history has made me realize how much I have in common with ladies who don’t pick the same presentation style as I do but still have brains and senses of humor. It’s terrible, but I didn’t realize how much I was sort of automatically dismissing women who read as ‘too girly’ to me - or how much I was assuming that they dismiss me.