Dr. Dove's Blog

Aesthetics and Society blog from Fall 2013 @ Barrett, the Honors College

[shaloved30]

“You look really familiar.”

∟Nola Darling meets Nola Darling: Tracy Camilla Johns (1986) - Dewanda Wise (2017)

[drdovevie]

If you’re in my Spring 2018 Looking for Love class, make sure to follow the blog linked here, not the drdovevie blog.

[drdovevie]

After our conversation today, I thought of this recently published short story about modern dating. It explores some of the ideas we were discussing: love and how it's interpreted (sometimes differently) by the lovers, the impact of technology, how relationships begin and end, and our expectations about the behavior of both our partners and ourselves in relationships.

[drdovevie]

Community Post: Post-Structuralism Explained With Hipster Beards: Part 1

The most controversial intellectual movement of the 20th century explained with the help of 11 epic face-forests.

The post I mentioned in class that explains de Saussure's signs and syntagm using hipsters.

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Media, Community and Identity Politics

If you're in my Identity and Place class, make sure to follow the blog linked here, not the drdovevie blog.

[drdovevie]

Not about love, but one of my favorite poems

Metamorphosis If Kafka could turn a man into an insect in one sentence perhaps he could transform me into something new, a slow willful river running through a forest, or simply the German word for river, a handful of letters hidden in the dark alphabetical order of a dictionary. Not that I am so miserable, but I could use a change of scenery and substance, plus the weather reminds me of him. I imagine Kafka at his desk: the nib of his pen, like the beak of a bird, disturbs the surface of a pool of ink, and he writes a sentence at the top of a page changing me into a goldfish or a lost mitten or a cord of split wood or the New York Public Library. Ah, to awaken one morning as the New York Public Library. I would pass the days observing old men in raincoats as they mounted the ponderous steps between the lions carrying wild and scribbled notes inside their pockets. I would feel the pages of books turning inside me like butterflies. I would stare over Fifth Avenue with a perfectly straight face. ~Billy Collins (from Questions About Angels, W.W. Norton, 1991)

[drdovevie]

calculus love poem

the calculus of you by aaron abeyta         a balloon is rising at the rate of 5ft/s         a boy is cycling along a straight road at a speed of 15ft/s         when he passes under the balloon it is 45 ft above him         how fast is the distance between the balloon         and the boy increasing 3 seconds later something inside of me says to solve for X where X is the distance between the boy and the balloon and i am the boy and you are the balloon and therefore Y i must set both to 0 because i am looking for something 3 seconds from now  like a moment after you turn away but before the perpetuity of the instant before you leave i wonder stupid things like what color is my bike and of course it matters what season we are in because i somehow love you more in spring yes  the road is straight but is it paved i know it can’t be because our love is old and sometimes i compare it to the moon in short  there are too many variables to the way i love you    so i wonder is this really a love poem you  after all are ascending away from me at a rate which has been determined to be 5 ft/sec and therefore 15 feet further away 3 seconds after i began chasing you me  i’m traveling at 15 ft/sec which means i am moving faster than you  which insures that this is in fact  a love poem because i’ve also read about the horizon and something forgiving inside of me also whispers gravity this is just another way for me to say that i love you and though it is longing now i ride  i ride i ride so that i will hold you somewhere in a spring field whose specks of green are barely visible but this doesn’t answer how fast the distance between the boy and the balloon is increasing so i remind myself of the horizon of gravity  of how much i love you so that my love becomes something like this  where distance is called D though D is temporary and because this is still calculus we divide the temporary by how fast i am pedaling and factor in the rotation of the earth and i love the earth too because it makes what i am about to say possible the distance of the balloon multiplied by spring    divided by the dirt road factored into the earth’s spinning which is 800 mph because i’m not at the equator is just another way of saying that i am riding my bike because i love you and in case you care i’ve made my heart into a metronome to pace my pedaling i know my professor will mark this wrong but by my calculations you  the balloon  and me the boy  are not getting further apart in fact  i’ve determined that you will enter into my arms at pt Z in exactly the time it takes for me to pedal there

[drdovevie]

My friend Ginny and her production company, Not Literally (they did those Harry Potter music videos), just finished their latest video. And it's about fan fiction--what serendipity!

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"I'm not here to make friends!"

[drdovevie]

The Fosters

Since I've mentioned The Fosters a couple times in class, I just wanted to take a moment to discuss why I see it as a response to some of the complaints many of you had regarding queer and racial diversity on television.

The Fosters' inclusionary format may seem a little hokey--like a veritable rainbow coalition of diversity: two moms (one a white police office, one a biracial vice principle), the police officer's biological (white) son from a previous marriage, Hispanic adopted twins, and the series' protagonist, a troubled teenage girl (white) and her young brother who the moms take in. In truth, the show is fairly melodramatic and full of teenage angst and drama. It's not high art, but it is noteworthy for other reasons. 

I decided to tune in this summer because I like to watch new series that I think might be either entertaining or worth keeping tabs on for my own research down the line. What's interesting about The Fosters is that the show's moms are both essential to the narrative and yet not the main focus of the narrative. In an LA Times review of the show's pilot, Robert Lloyd writes,

"Such multicolored, multi-cultured thoroughness would seem to be making a point — that we all can get along in this rainbow world. Yet the real point is that it's beside the point. The show allows some minor reaction to the two moms thing but confines it to a raised eyebrow and a single impertinent question, quickly parried."

The show is just like many other family dramas: a little cheesy, sometimes sweet, trafficking in moments of intense decision making and discussion around "teen issues" (sex, drugs, alcohol, sexual assault, bullying, cheating, sneaking out, etc.).  It's not the best thing I've ever seen by any stretch of the imagination, but it does seem a step in the direction of having central characters who just happen to queer (or of color) rather than that being their only defining characteristic.

[drdovevie]

Fan fiction springs from a what-if moment. It takes something a text has offered to us as inevitable—a plot, a character trait, a setting—and unmakes it, thereby opening up a different set of possibilities. What if Oz had not decided to pursue a werewolf education, and instead stayed in Sunnydale with Willow and the rest of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer gang? What if Xena were not a warrior princess but a drug lord living in New York in the 1990s? What if, when Bella dove off the cliff in the second Twilight book, she broke her back and ended up paralyzed from the waist down? What if—to take the classic example—Kirk and Spock were lovers? In fan fiction, asking the question both unmakes one story and makes a new one possible. Consider this familiar premise: a fan visits a vast cultural preserve. She is perceived as a trespasser by the property owners, who have erected fences around their material. To sustain herself on her journey—because she will be moving on—the fan must help herself to the conceptual game and vegetation. This, of course, is the story of the textual poacher, arguably the most influential story told about media fans in the last 20 years. It's a good story, but it's not the only one available to us. In a slightly earlier version of this story, the fan isn't passing through the cultural preserve but instead rebuilding it from the ground up. She uses existing materials to change the design; she reroutes the roads that allow access; she introduces new technologies that offer a different experience to future visitors.

Juli J. Parish, "Metaphors we read by: People, process and fan fiction," http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/486/401

Really interesting article in the most recent issue of the academic journal Transformative Works and Cultures, which is a project supported by the Organization for Transformative Works (I mentioned them in class: http://transformativeworks.org/). Parish considers the (in)famous metaphor of the fan fic writer as "textual poacher."

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World's largest fanfiction archive and forum where fanfic writers and readers around the globe gather to share their passion.

Fair warning: some of the writing (as in any arena) is terrible no matter what fandom you choose. Some of the writing is pretty good. You can sort fandoms based on number of reviews/favorites, which does help a bit but is no guarantee of quality. 

[drdovevie]

Yet, expanding the "queerbaiting" debate to include subtext in general makes it a bit troubling. First of all, there's the question of just how "overt" is overt. Maybe those two same-gender characters' eyes lingered on each other for a little longer than was necessary, but was that necessarily intended by the show creators, or is it just being interpreted that way by shippers in the fanbase? Fan interpretations are, of course, perfectly legitimate, but intention should be considered if one is going to accuse the show creators of homophobia for including subtext. Some fans, for better or for worse, do see subtext wherever they go. It's also important to understand subtext in the context of its past. Historically, gay or lesbian subtext has been seen as a positive for the LGBTQ community – a way to get around rigid censors or unfriendly audiences. A way to throw us a bone when we normally wouldn't have anything, to acknowledge that we're there in the audience when the powers that be would prefer to ignore us. A lot of older generations of LGBTQ people have fond memories of classic films with wink-wink-nudge-nudge bits of potential queerness designed to fly under the radar of the Hays Code. (For more on this, check out The Celluloid Closet.) And even after it ended, both the new MPAA rating system and worries about audience reactions meant that filmmakers had to still be cautious. TV was no better; if it took until the late 1960s to get the first scripted interracial kiss on mainstream US television, is it any surprise that homosexuality was so hard to find there until the past decade? As such, those using the broader definition of "queerbaiting" to dismiss any and all overt subtext should at least consider the concept's progressive history; too often, the conversations in fan spaces about this seem to be ignoring this context when it comes to older works. As one Tumblr user put it: "The original Star Trek series didn’t queerbait. At the time, nobody knew that there was an audience for male/male romance stories, so any romantic tension between Kirk and Spock was accidental. But my God, there was loads of it." However, the writers of today's television shows may be too caught up in this history. Because, with the exception of certain genres, like children's shows, the times where subtext is far as one could go are long past. The point is about expectation; if we are expecting nothing, the occasional nod our way is a pleasant surprise. But when we're given reason to hope for real representation, having it never go beyond hints – hints that not every viewer is going to pick up on – is mostly just infuriating.

Rose on Autostraddle, http://www.autostraddle.com/how-do-we-solve-a-problem-like-queerbaiting-on-tvs-not-so-subtle-gay-subtext-182718/

This is what I was trying to say about queerbaiting in terms of its historical context vis-a-vis subtext.  Of course, this also speaks to what we'll be discussing on Monday in terms of fan fiction.

[drdovevie]

Richard Serra, "Television Delivers People," 1973

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The outcome of conflict [on television] is pre-established, and all conflicts are mere sham. Society is always the winner.

Theodor Adorno, "How to Look at Television"

[drdovevie]

What I Learned from Television | This American Life

Stories recorded during our 2007 live tour. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Dan Savage, and other favorite contributors went on the road with us to New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles; and performed brand-new stories in front of sold-out audience.

[iyliayazmin]

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ursuchakant:

scwheele:

iyliayazmin:

The ladies of Auckland Uni Law Revue took Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ by its balls and gave it a good shake.

Scholastic, smart and sarcastic indeed! 

Probably THE best parody out there. Spread the love!  

So it’s a little raunchy and I apologize, but it’s all too perfect for me to not post. I mean, it’s nothing compared to the original music video (which understandably sparked the parody). I was thinking about this during our discussion in class a week ago when Dr. Dove brought up the Harry Potter parodies, and of course with our talk about feminine roles in society and codes. I forgot to bring it up though so I figured i’d post it to Tumblr. To make it even more perfect, the video mentions Freud’s castration anxiety. It’s definitely entertaining. 

I’m gonna be “that person” again haha. I loved this parody at first too, but then I read a really great feminist criticism of why it’s actually bad and it totally changed my view.

Basically, humiliating men through emasculation, sexual degradation, and castration threats doesn’t really challenge patriarchy. It reinforces the idea that a man’s worth is his masculinity and his penis, that femininity is a punishment because it is shameful for a man to embody femininity, and that sex is a zero sum game with a winner and a loser where the loser is subordinate and feminine and the winner is dominant and masculine. It also implies that only smart, educated white women don’t deserve to be objectified (whereas shallow “plastic” women do). I long for the day when everyone, even feminists, stop seeing femininity as degrading and start seeing it as something for everyone to celebrate (and embody if they so choose).

This is a great parody that actually challenges white, heterosexual, patriarchal gender roles and lets everyone experience masculinity and femininity in a fluid, positive way, rather than making the feminine role a submissive object and the masculine role a dominant aggressor.

(I want to make it really clear that these are all very great ideas that totally did not occur to me at first and I’m not judging anyone who enjoyed Defined Lines at first because I did too.)

While I completely understand the problematic nature of the Thicke parody video—in fact, it made me quite uncomfortable the first time I saw it, and that had nothing to do with its “raunchiness” and everything to do with the fact that I find flip-the-script style feminist enagement inherently discomfitting (objectifying men isn’t the solution to women being objectified, etc.)—I also like to leave room open for multivalent responses and reactions to the issues we confront in our lives. Mikhail Bahktin writes “that in parody two languages are crossed with each other, as well as two styles, two linguistic points of view, and in the final analysis two speaking subjects.” I’d add that there are often more than two, in parody or other forms of cultural engagement, but also that judging what response is right, which subject speaks or if both/all speak simultaneously, is difficult. I think it’s easier to judge the wrong response, but can a response to something which offends us ever be right? And right to whom? Moreover, since being offended is so personal (and I'm talking about the original offense here as the Robin Thicke video), how can the response,  through parody or otherwise,  then not be personal and, therefore,  not "right" for everyone?

Tl;dr: can even the responses we don't think are "right" have some (cultural/use) value? (This is an honest question,  not rhetorical.)