Sunday, July 31, 2016
Update
Because of this blogger's interesting column, I'm working on removing certain images from my blog to comply with copyright law. I'm leaving movie stills, which seem to be posted everywhere without much problem, and I'll be working to add my own images as appropriate.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
On Not Recognizing Famous People
It's a cliche that younger generations will not know about or recognize the technology and celebrities of the past, and we all must get used to questions like, "What's an 8-track tape?" and "Who's Pete Townsend?" It's just part of getting old -- realizing that what mattered to you will no longer matter to the generations that follow.
However, I find it interesting that the time interval for the generation gap seems to be collapsing. My students previously frustrated me by not knowing Marlon Brando and not recognizing references from Star Wars (before the movies were re-released). But more recently, my students in an American literature class seemed to barely recognize any of the 1990s-era actors from this celebrity-packed reading of the Declaration of Independence. We're talking about actors like Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Spacey, and Winona Ryder. These were all incredibly famous film stars who are still alive and mostly still working. The video itself was made in 2003, so it isn't particularly old (although my younger students would have been 2-3). I think the only actor my students admitted knowing was Morgan Freeman, and that's only because he keeps playing the president.
Similarly, in a recent review of Last Man Club, a film critic (of all people) described actor Barry Corbin as well as some other actors as "nationally unknown." That seems like a patently unfair and dismissive characterization, and it seems to also emanate from a lack of deep knowledge of film. Corbin has never been a top-billed movie star, but he should be well known to anyone who was alive in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly for his roles in Urban Cowboy (as Uncle Bob), WarGames, and the TV series Northern Exposure. More recently, he had regular roles on TV's Blood and Oil and Anger Management. The implication of "nationally unknown" is that Corbin is a Texas actor, which is true in as much as he's from Houston, but he's hardly "unknown" to film audiences. Whether the critic is himself young I do not know, but I suspect he means to say that Corbin would be unrecognized by Millennials, which is undoubtedly true in that those audiences generally aren't the target audience for shows starring Charlie Sheen and are generally turning away from mainstream TV.
Of course, younger people are not to "blame" for not knowing certain actors or cultural memes of the past. It isn't particularly shameful to lack knowledge of bygone popular culture. A common theory that I tend to agree with is that Millennials in particular are overly inundated by images and media choices, an endless supply of YouTube videos and Netflix original series, so that they can hardly be expected to pay attention to old films and TV shows. This makes sense. When I was growing up, we were locked into a few TV networks, and shows like Roots became collective American viewing experiences.
I have had students laugh at old movies, as if they can't believe how films used to look and sound. There's a real lack of visual literacy going on there, and a seeming gleefulness in being ignorant and dismissive of the past, both of which I think are more important than not knowing the names of dead movie stars.
However, I find it interesting that the time interval for the generation gap seems to be collapsing. My students previously frustrated me by not knowing Marlon Brando and not recognizing references from Star Wars (before the movies were re-released). But more recently, my students in an American literature class seemed to barely recognize any of the 1990s-era actors from this celebrity-packed reading of the Declaration of Independence. We're talking about actors like Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Spacey, and Winona Ryder. These were all incredibly famous film stars who are still alive and mostly still working. The video itself was made in 2003, so it isn't particularly old (although my younger students would have been 2-3). I think the only actor my students admitted knowing was Morgan Freeman, and that's only because he keeps playing the president.
 |
| Here's me with Richard Dreyfuss, an actor who used to be pretty famous. |
Similarly, in a recent review of Last Man Club, a film critic (of all people) described actor Barry Corbin as well as some other actors as "nationally unknown." That seems like a patently unfair and dismissive characterization, and it seems to also emanate from a lack of deep knowledge of film. Corbin has never been a top-billed movie star, but he should be well known to anyone who was alive in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly for his roles in Urban Cowboy (as Uncle Bob), WarGames, and the TV series Northern Exposure. More recently, he had regular roles on TV's Blood and Oil and Anger Management. The implication of "nationally unknown" is that Corbin is a Texas actor, which is true in as much as he's from Houston, but he's hardly "unknown" to film audiences. Whether the critic is himself young I do not know, but I suspect he means to say that Corbin would be unrecognized by Millennials, which is undoubtedly true in that those audiences generally aren't the target audience for shows starring Charlie Sheen and are generally turning away from mainstream TV.
Of course, younger people are not to "blame" for not knowing certain actors or cultural memes of the past. It isn't particularly shameful to lack knowledge of bygone popular culture. A common theory that I tend to agree with is that Millennials in particular are overly inundated by images and media choices, an endless supply of YouTube videos and Netflix original series, so that they can hardly be expected to pay attention to old films and TV shows. This makes sense. When I was growing up, we were locked into a few TV networks, and shows like Roots became collective American viewing experiences.
I have had students laugh at old movies, as if they can't believe how films used to look and sound. There's a real lack of visual literacy going on there, and a seeming gleefulness in being ignorant and dismissive of the past, both of which I think are more important than not knowing the names of dead movie stars.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Creative submissions and response times
Getting rejected is part of the game of writing, and any serious writer who wants to be published needs to get used to the idea. Stephen King used to pin his rejection letters to his wall, as a perverse kind of motivation, or just to remind himself that he was in fact submitting and working hard. As artists with a personal investment in what we write, writers naturally take rejection hard, and it can be dispiriting and disheartening.
While it's risking exposing myself as a fraud -- someone who's not as successful a writer as I'd like to be -- I must admit that yesterday I received a particularly difficult rejection for a non-fiction piece from a magazine I admire and was hopeful about contributing to. Writing this essay proved emotionally draining, but I believed the end result was worth it. The editors unfortunately compounded this psychic pain by prolonging the rejection process, sending me a curtly worded slip after having the piece in their possession for six months.
Normally, when an editor takes such a long time to return something, the writer is apt to take that as a positive sign, a variation on "no news is good news." So a writer may get hopeful, which is not the editor's fault as such, and then must still process the rejection as a routine sort of thing that happens very often in the writing business.
I have edited a literary journal and understand that dealing with the volume of submissions, even for relatively unknown journal, can be overwhelming. Yet it seems unconscionable that we have come to accept it as "routine" for an editor to take six months or longer to respond to a writer. And sometimes editors don't respond at all.
This isn't just about being rejected. It's about professionalism and the very real harm that comes from taking a piece off the market for six months, assuming the writer is being respectful enough not to send out simultaneous submissions, which annoy most editors. Unfortunately, because of the market dynamics, writers have no say in how the game is shaped or played. We are expected to conform to editors' demands (which vary widely), wait patiently for any kind of response, and be grateful and respectful when an editor declines.
All of this makes me personally reluctant to even submit material, although I have of course had work accepted in the past. The process is just emotionally tiring and frustratingly inefficient. But of course, I continue on, because I recognize the value of publication from an artistic standpoint (not from the standpoint, as many non-writers sometimes assume, of vanity). Here's an earlier piece I wrote about the value of publication, and while I'm more jaded now, I suppose I stand by it.
While it's risking exposing myself as a fraud -- someone who's not as successful a writer as I'd like to be -- I must admit that yesterday I received a particularly difficult rejection for a non-fiction piece from a magazine I admire and was hopeful about contributing to. Writing this essay proved emotionally draining, but I believed the end result was worth it. The editors unfortunately compounded this psychic pain by prolonging the rejection process, sending me a curtly worded slip after having the piece in their possession for six months.
 |
| Publication's important, but how long should we wait? |
Normally, when an editor takes such a long time to return something, the writer is apt to take that as a positive sign, a variation on "no news is good news." So a writer may get hopeful, which is not the editor's fault as such, and then must still process the rejection as a routine sort of thing that happens very often in the writing business.
I have edited a literary journal and understand that dealing with the volume of submissions, even for relatively unknown journal, can be overwhelming. Yet it seems unconscionable that we have come to accept it as "routine" for an editor to take six months or longer to respond to a writer. And sometimes editors don't respond at all.
This isn't just about being rejected. It's about professionalism and the very real harm that comes from taking a piece off the market for six months, assuming the writer is being respectful enough not to send out simultaneous submissions, which annoy most editors. Unfortunately, because of the market dynamics, writers have no say in how the game is shaped or played. We are expected to conform to editors' demands (which vary widely), wait patiently for any kind of response, and be grateful and respectful when an editor declines.
All of this makes me personally reluctant to even submit material, although I have of course had work accepted in the past. The process is just emotionally tiring and frustratingly inefficient. But of course, I continue on, because I recognize the value of publication from an artistic standpoint (not from the standpoint, as many non-writers sometimes assume, of vanity). Here's an earlier piece I wrote about the value of publication, and while I'm more jaded now, I suppose I stand by it.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Donald Trump, TV reality star
I can find plenty to criticize about Donald Trump, and I find the prospect of his becoming president, as well as the thought of so many people rallying behind him, frightening. Yet I also find the dismissal of Donald Trump as a "reality TV star," a label often thrown about by his closest rivals like Jeb Bush, to be disingenuous. All modern politicians are products of the media in one way or another, and it could be argued that politicians use TV when it's to their advantage and dismiss it when it is not. Bush's particular contempt for Trump as a "TV star" seems to stem from his own frustrations with his lack of telegenic presence and the fact that Trump's controlled media exposure has pushed him to the front of the race. (Meanwhile, Ted Cruz accepts endorsements from reality TV stars, a truly strange sign of the times.)
Such dismissals based on former roles, while they might be construed as fair criticisms of a politician's record or experience, are really constructed on the decidedly non-American idea that we cannot remake ourselves. What of the past lives of other presidents? The conservatives' favorite icon, Ronald Reagan, after all, was a former movie star. Actually, he wasn't really much of a movie star, but was rather a second-rate movie actor who starred mostly in throwaway movies like Bedtime for Bonzo (not a bad movie for 60-year-old comic fluff). He reinvented himself as a politician and president, in his second life and career. America is the place of such reinventions and second acts.
What about other presidents? Sure, most of them were businessmen, lawyers, generals, or career politicians, but Gerald Ford worked as a fashion model in his 20s. Here he is on the cover of Cosmo.
Carter famously worked as a peanut farmer (which his critics used as a punchline and his supporters argued made him well connected to the common man; perhaps a similar connection to commonness could be said for Trump). Lyndon Johnson was a Houston high-school teacher. Truman was a haberdasher, and Teddy Roosevelt, generally a bad-ass, was an all-around adventurer and author. I'm sure there are others.
The point is that the U.S. presidency should not exist as a rarefied position of power that is achieved only through ascending through elitist hoops of predetermined experiences. The presidency as a unique American office is not an identity but is something that a person must define on his own terms, within the parameters of the Constitution of course. Trump would mostly likely be a terrible president not because he starred on TV, but because he is devoid of substantive ideas and relies too heavily on politically incorrect language and dangerous scapegoating. Though it makes for a good soundbite, it isn't enough to simply dismiss him as superficial based on a previous job. It's just trading one superficial jab for another.
Such dismissals based on former roles, while they might be construed as fair criticisms of a politician's record or experience, are really constructed on the decidedly non-American idea that we cannot remake ourselves. What of the past lives of other presidents? The conservatives' favorite icon, Ronald Reagan, after all, was a former movie star. Actually, he wasn't really much of a movie star, but was rather a second-rate movie actor who starred mostly in throwaway movies like Bedtime for Bonzo (not a bad movie for 60-year-old comic fluff). He reinvented himself as a politician and president, in his second life and career. America is the place of such reinventions and second acts.
What about other presidents? Sure, most of them were businessmen, lawyers, generals, or career politicians, but Gerald Ford worked as a fashion model in his 20s. Here he is on the cover of Cosmo.
Carter famously worked as a peanut farmer (which his critics used as a punchline and his supporters argued made him well connected to the common man; perhaps a similar connection to commonness could be said for Trump). Lyndon Johnson was a Houston high-school teacher. Truman was a haberdasher, and Teddy Roosevelt, generally a bad-ass, was an all-around adventurer and author. I'm sure there are others.
The point is that the U.S. presidency should not exist as a rarefied position of power that is achieved only through ascending through elitist hoops of predetermined experiences. The presidency as a unique American office is not an identity but is something that a person must define on his own terms, within the parameters of the Constitution of course. Trump would mostly likely be a terrible president not because he starred on TV, but because he is devoid of substantive ideas and relies too heavily on politically incorrect language and dangerous scapegoating. Though it makes for a good soundbite, it isn't enough to simply dismiss him as superficial based on a previous job. It's just trading one superficial jab for another.
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