Marni Newell
Arts Journalism: Marin Heinritz
3/16/09
After the all the male staff members of CollegeHumor hire interns who are “hot”—that is, slim, long-haired, and tightly clothed—instead of qualified to work at a website, the men find themselves doing all of their work plus running errands for the interns. So begins both the hilarity and the gender stereotypes of CollegeHumor’s second episode that aired on MTV in late February.
A few scenes after hiring the “hot girls,” three of the men are gathered in a stock room looking for a three-hole-punch and an ink cartridge when they hear footsteps.
“Quiet, I hear a hot girl coming!” one shouts, and they all lean against the shelves stiffly in an effort to look cool and non-chalant. When their female coworker Sarah Schneider walks in, they all bust out laughing. Confused, she laughs and asks what they’re laughing about.
“We thought you were a hot girl,” one of the men answers and Schneider’s smile vanishes
This is just the beginning of jabs at Schneider’s looks in comparison with the interns along with the failed efforts of the men at the office to strike up a conversation with the “hot girls.”
When one lanky male employee, Patrick Cassels, wants to work up the courage to talk to his intern, he solicits the help of stout coworker Sam Reich to play the part of the intern while he fumbles out a conversation. Even the simulation ends badly, however, and an irritated Reich, still impersonating an intern, returns to texting instead of listening to Cassels.
With that, it’s evident the CollegeHumor show is making fun of more than just Shchneider and playing with more than just the ridiculous standards to which women are held. Unfortunately, as shown by a comment by MTV.com user “freduardo,” it goes over some of the veiwers’ heads. Under the video of the second episode, “freduardo” writes, “WTF happened to the days when ‘hot girls’ had to have boobs?” Apparently, the slim “hot girls” CollegeHumor hired weren’t hot enough.
In the end, when all laptops are closed and packed up, it’s the images of “hot girls” and not the jokes about the guys that have a lasting effect.
Not surprising, perhaps, to anyone who’s been to the CollegeHumor website. With a click of the mouse one can access an entire page dedicated to “girls” which has every “Cute College Girl of the Day” for the last few months. These user-submitted photos show mostly young college women in bikinis or making pouty faces hid behind long hair and skin tinted orange from product or tanning booths. Next to these photos, there is a short interview asking sometimes-condescending questions to make the women even more of an object.
Cosmopolitan.com shows an interesting contrast to this. The site—devoted mostly to women—also has a drop-down menu specifically labeled “hot guys.” There, women can compare boyfriend pictures, check out the Cosmo bachelors, and scan through naked pictures of muscular men. However, the overall feeling of these pages is starkly different—down to the chef-themed nude photos of men. Even with their personal bits blocked by mixing bowls and aprons, the men are smiling and laughing instead of sporting the “sexy” gaping-mouthed and pouty-lipped look the women on CollegeHumor do. Not to mention the rest of the site, as well as the magazine, is almost entirely dedicated to ways to “please” men intimately as well as toning and weight loss tips for women.
Why, then, do women play into unhealthy situations like CollegeHumor’s search for the “Hottest College Girl in America” (they’ve narrowed it down to 64 and are awaiting user votes) and, by extension, society’s impossible standards of physical beauty? The answer is subjective, a grab-bag of insecurities: a need for acceptance, low self-esteem, because Billy Princeton called you “braceface” in middle school, the list goes on.
So, why is CollegeHumor so popular, starting off with just a stupid website and working its way up to a television show? The answer to that, is simple: because it’s funny.
The ugly truth of the nearly impossible standards women are held to by most college men—tiny waists and large breasts—is easier to swallow when it comes as a joke.
When the Phantom of the Office—an employee with a top hat, mask, and operatic voice—is a guest on Bleep Bloop, CollegeHumor’s short videos about current videogames he lists off his favorite childhood games in his melodramatic vibrato, “Hoop stick, drown the cat, drown the rat, caged rat, bald rat, I liked Beat the Greek, Hobble the Goat, oh, and Frogger.” His stupidity makes up for his earlier sexist comment when he tells Schneider to “ask her thighs” why he gave her Diet Mountain Dew instead of regular.
Moments of pure humor without nearly-exposed breasts and glamour shots of women hoping to be named “cute” by these very average-looking CollegeHumor employees shine through on the website and in the television show. Amidst videos entitled “POV: Hot Girl. Get inside her. Deep inside her,” are videos like “Sarah’s Birthday” which show the men of the office forgetting the words and the tune to the birthday song. They each give their attempt at remembering it after one of the men says “I’m thinking the first word isn’t ‘happy.’” What ensues are, “Birthday, birthday candles on your cake,” and “You’re older than you were before sha na na na” before they all break out in a barbershop rendition of “Baby, it’s your birthday” that leaves Schneider in angry tears. After she storms out, claiming they’ve ruined her birthday, they all gather and sing their barbershop version together as an entire office, and the last scene shows Schneider, her arms crossed, wearing a birthday party hat and grimacing.
Even if CollegeHumor showcases women attempting to fit ridiculous standards of beauty and the average-looking men who are trying to enforce the standards, it also produces videos goofy enough to laugh at. Currently, the habit of scrutinizing women’s bodies is generally accepted as normal and websites like CollegeHumor are part of a vast collection of men objectifying women. Fortunately, there’s a bigger habit, one that has been popular since before the internet and will still be around long after which somehow eases the pain of the insults and distracts from the constant comparisons to women with “hot” bodies and that is, simply but powerfully, the desire to laugh.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Whatever, it's funny
I know this was supposed to be an article, and I'm sure I can find an article about women and how they're not as hot as they used to be or some BS like that, but I feel you all should know how funny CollegeHumor can be.
Also, before I get to that, have you heard of Jocelyn Wildenstein? Check this out, although I agree with some of what Lionel says, his tone as altogether too accusatory and deprecating toward women. After all, why do women get plastic surgery? I don't think it's to look good for other women, but maybe I'm wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1609D9jr7-w
Ok, but now for some hi-larious stuff, here's an original video from colleghumor that I've watched too many times to admit. It still makes me giggle.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1901719
Sadly, it was hard to find one that didn't make fun of girls in some way. Whatever.
Also, before I get to that, have you heard of Jocelyn Wildenstein? Check this out, although I agree with some of what Lionel says, his tone as altogether too accusatory and deprecating toward women. After all, why do women get plastic surgery? I don't think it's to look good for other women, but maybe I'm wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1609D9jr7-w
Ok, but now for some hi-larious stuff, here's an original video from colleghumor that I've watched too many times to admit. It still makes me giggle.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1901719
Sadly, it was hard to find one that didn't make fun of girls in some way. Whatever.
Monday, March 2, 2009
CollegeHumor Final
Marni Newell
Arts Journalism Final
CollegeHumor
3/1/09
After a coworker hires a skinny, long-haired, tight-clothed intern to help him with extra office work, his colleges set out to find their own intern.
“The interns we hire should be skinny,” the short, pale one says.
“But not too skinny,” his equally pale bespectacled coworker adds.
“Just super hot,” the last closest-to-handsome coworker adds.
So begins the infiltration of the “hot” female interns to the offices in Mtv’s CollegeHumor Show’s second episode. Eventually, these skinny, long haired text-fiends overrun the working space, leaving the male workers shut up in walled offices, scared to emerge. The running joke of the episode, beside the unsuccessful attempts of the men to talk with any of the “hot girls,” is senior writer Sarah Schneider’s—the only woman in the workplace, and of average build and self-described “Holly Hunter thing going on”--attempts to show her coworkers how useless the “hot” interns are and the jabs at her image that ensue.
At one point, three men are in the stock room looking for a three-hole-punch and printer ink when they hear footsteps. “Quiet, I hear a hot girl coming!” one shouts, and they all lean against the shelves pretending to be cool but when Sarah walks in they burst in laughter. Confused, she laughs, too, and asks what’s so funny.
“We thought you were a hot girl,” one says. She stops laughing and points out how they’re doing the work the interns should be doing.
“Oh my G,” one says, as if it hits him, but he says instead, “You’re so jealous!”
The rest of the 30-minute show has countless nearly-identical jabs at Schneider and more instances of the male CollegeHumor writers doing both their jobs and the “hot” interns bidding while the women sit in their boss’ chairs and lick lollipops or text friends.
Before they had a regular spot on Mtv, CollegeHumor.com found a loyal audience with popular original videos featuring reoccurring characters like Jake and Amir, a straight man-funny man relationship reminiscent of Abbot and Costello but contemporary, and the Phantom of the Office, an office worker not much different than most, but with a mask, top hat, and operatic voice.
Perhaps that’s why the television series comprised of a compilation of already filmed original videos and a new scripted narrative of life at the CollegeHumor offices seemed so jarring as it continuously mocked Schneider’s appearance in all three episodes; just perusing the most-watched videos of CollegHumor.com could result in stupid-humor that had little to do with women’s appearance.
That’s not to say that the website is free from the exploitative user-submitted photos of college women in bikinis with their mouths hanging open to be named “Cute College Girl of the Day” or videos entitled “POV: Hot Girl. Get inside her. Deep inside her,” but the videos that don’t include bouncing breasts and shower scenes are funny, actually funny and have no hint of sexuality.
In one video, the men of CollegeHumor present Schneider with a birthday cake and attempt to sing “happy birthday,” but they have all forgotten the tune and the words. They each proceed in giving their version of the birthday song which includes, “Birthday, birthday candles on your cake,” and “You’re older than you were before sha na na na” as Schneider waits angrily for the actual birthday song. They end in a pseudo-barbershop rendition of “Baby it’s your birthday” with one of the men playing a keyboard. Although Schneider is upset, claiming their bad memory has ruined her birthday, the rest of the office gathers to sing and dance to this new song and the end shot is of Schneider grimacing in a cardboard party hat with her arms crossed.
Short videos like this one are put at the beginning and ends of each episode, but the episodes are also interrupted by ads for the new movie Miss March, about a high school girlfriend “a solid seven” according to one of the characters, who grows up to be a Playboy Bunny. “Do you think she’s still a virgin?” her ex-boyfriend asks his friend who’s peering closely at a picture in Playboy, “Nope, I’m afraid not.”
The saddest part of the series is the viewer comments of each episode on Mtv’s website. The comment at the top of the board for the episode “Interns” says, “WTF happened to the days when ‘hot girls’ actually had to have boobs?” According to “freduardo” who posted this, the “hot girls” CollegeHumor found weren’t actually hot enough, which begs the question, what exactly does it take for a woman to be attractive? The episode had enough painful moments of the men of the office attempting conversation with the “hot girls” to make the point clear that they weren’t “hot” enough men for the women, but, thanks to “freduardo” the “narrow definitions of beauty” as Schneider called them keep getting narrower. All the while, college women are taking flattering, or in some cases just hypersexual, photos of themselves in an effort to be named by these gawky, pale, unattractive men as one of the “Cute College Girls of the Day.”
In the March 2008 issue of Glamour, Gabriel Olds wrote an article about the women he’s dated who have had surgical enhancements and his reactions to them. After relaying awkward epiphanies of his partners’ breast augmentations and rhinoplasty, Olds decided the “surgical enhancements” were a sign of insecurity, “it didn’t seem like a celebration of beauty, but a scrambling attempt to fix something...It was as if something purchased to say, ‘Hey, check me out’ actually said, ‘I don’t like myself very much’” The article tried to spin this as positive by generalizing that all men want natural beauty, but the quoted men at the end of the article are counterproductive. Lee Cohen from Portland said, “I love the way fake breasts look—they’re a turn-on. But I couldn’t see myself getting involved with someone who’d go through that just to turn into a fantasy.” There you have it, women should be stick thin with large busts, but it needs to be natural or no dice. It’s all becoming so clear and manageable now.
Gabriel Olds is a semi-attractive, slightly chubby, very average-looking man as are the men at CollegeHumor, and probably all the men quoted at the end of the article yet these are the makers and enforcers of women beauty standards. Put as bluntly as this, the power seems to be in the hands of women now, why do they submit to these judgmental and unrealistic standards?
Arts Journalism Final
CollegeHumor
3/1/09
After a coworker hires a skinny, long-haired, tight-clothed intern to help him with extra office work, his colleges set out to find their own intern.
“The interns we hire should be skinny,” the short, pale one says.
“But not too skinny,” his equally pale bespectacled coworker adds.
“Just super hot,” the last closest-to-handsome coworker adds.
So begins the infiltration of the “hot” female interns to the offices in Mtv’s CollegeHumor Show’s second episode. Eventually, these skinny, long haired text-fiends overrun the working space, leaving the male workers shut up in walled offices, scared to emerge. The running joke of the episode, beside the unsuccessful attempts of the men to talk with any of the “hot girls,” is senior writer Sarah Schneider’s—the only woman in the workplace, and of average build and self-described “Holly Hunter thing going on”--attempts to show her coworkers how useless the “hot” interns are and the jabs at her image that ensue.
At one point, three men are in the stock room looking for a three-hole-punch and printer ink when they hear footsteps. “Quiet, I hear a hot girl coming!” one shouts, and they all lean against the shelves pretending to be cool but when Sarah walks in they burst in laughter. Confused, she laughs, too, and asks what’s so funny.
“We thought you were a hot girl,” one says. She stops laughing and points out how they’re doing the work the interns should be doing.
“Oh my G,” one says, as if it hits him, but he says instead, “You’re so jealous!”
The rest of the 30-minute show has countless nearly-identical jabs at Schneider and more instances of the male CollegeHumor writers doing both their jobs and the “hot” interns bidding while the women sit in their boss’ chairs and lick lollipops or text friends.
Before they had a regular spot on Mtv, CollegeHumor.com found a loyal audience with popular original videos featuring reoccurring characters like Jake and Amir, a straight man-funny man relationship reminiscent of Abbot and Costello but contemporary, and the Phantom of the Office, an office worker not much different than most, but with a mask, top hat, and operatic voice.
Perhaps that’s why the television series comprised of a compilation of already filmed original videos and a new scripted narrative of life at the CollegeHumor offices seemed so jarring as it continuously mocked Schneider’s appearance in all three episodes; just perusing the most-watched videos of CollegHumor.com could result in stupid-humor that had little to do with women’s appearance.
That’s not to say that the website is free from the exploitative user-submitted photos of college women in bikinis with their mouths hanging open to be named “Cute College Girl of the Day” or videos entitled “POV: Hot Girl. Get inside her. Deep inside her,” but the videos that don’t include bouncing breasts and shower scenes are funny, actually funny and have no hint of sexuality.
In one video, the men of CollegeHumor present Schneider with a birthday cake and attempt to sing “happy birthday,” but they have all forgotten the tune and the words. They each proceed in giving their version of the birthday song which includes, “Birthday, birthday candles on your cake,” and “You’re older than you were before sha na na na” as Schneider waits angrily for the actual birthday song. They end in a pseudo-barbershop rendition of “Baby it’s your birthday” with one of the men playing a keyboard. Although Schneider is upset, claiming their bad memory has ruined her birthday, the rest of the office gathers to sing and dance to this new song and the end shot is of Schneider grimacing in a cardboard party hat with her arms crossed.
Short videos like this one are put at the beginning and ends of each episode, but the episodes are also interrupted by ads for the new movie Miss March, about a high school girlfriend “a solid seven” according to one of the characters, who grows up to be a Playboy Bunny. “Do you think she’s still a virgin?” her ex-boyfriend asks his friend who’s peering closely at a picture in Playboy, “Nope, I’m afraid not.”
The saddest part of the series is the viewer comments of each episode on Mtv’s website. The comment at the top of the board for the episode “Interns” says, “WTF happened to the days when ‘hot girls’ actually had to have boobs?” According to “freduardo” who posted this, the “hot girls” CollegeHumor found weren’t actually hot enough, which begs the question, what exactly does it take for a woman to be attractive? The episode had enough painful moments of the men of the office attempting conversation with the “hot girls” to make the point clear that they weren’t “hot” enough men for the women, but, thanks to “freduardo” the “narrow definitions of beauty” as Schneider called them keep getting narrower. All the while, college women are taking flattering, or in some cases just hypersexual, photos of themselves in an effort to be named by these gawky, pale, unattractive men as one of the “Cute College Girls of the Day.”
In the March 2008 issue of Glamour, Gabriel Olds wrote an article about the women he’s dated who have had surgical enhancements and his reactions to them. After relaying awkward epiphanies of his partners’ breast augmentations and rhinoplasty, Olds decided the “surgical enhancements” were a sign of insecurity, “it didn’t seem like a celebration of beauty, but a scrambling attempt to fix something...It was as if something purchased to say, ‘Hey, check me out’ actually said, ‘I don’t like myself very much’” The article tried to spin this as positive by generalizing that all men want natural beauty, but the quoted men at the end of the article are counterproductive. Lee Cohen from Portland said, “I love the way fake breasts look—they’re a turn-on. But I couldn’t see myself getting involved with someone who’d go through that just to turn into a fantasy.” There you have it, women should be stick thin with large busts, but it needs to be natural or no dice. It’s all becoming so clear and manageable now.
Gabriel Olds is a semi-attractive, slightly chubby, very average-looking man as are the men at CollegeHumor, and probably all the men quoted at the end of the article yet these are the makers and enforcers of women beauty standards. Put as bluntly as this, the power seems to be in the hands of women now, why do they submit to these judgmental and unrealistic standards?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The state of my final
I've thought about what I'd like to write about for my final since I've turned in the proposal. It's changed about 45 times.
So, to start I had this idea:
For my final Arts Journalism project, I’d like to explore food and food prices in terms of health. For instance, the cheapest (and in some cases tastiest) foods are shockingly unhealthy, while organic food, or even lower fat options at restaurants are more expensive and usually bland. I could go a little into fad diets, but I guess to keep myself grounded I could choose one or two restaurants that have lower fat options and critique the meal. I think TGI Fridays and Chili’s all boast of having healthier options, and I think it’s TGI Fridays that has decided to serve smaller portions, Right Portion Right Price kind of thing. I could talk about the dollar menu at McDonald’s or any other fast food place, and can even talk about supermarkets and organic and lower fat and sodium options being more expensive than regular items. In order to stick with the critique idea, I’d need to narrow it down and select one or two things to critique, so I could do a meal at TGI Fridays and see if there’s any meals that are similar and not a healthier choice and compare the two. I guess I need you to tell me when my story is straying from a critique and getting into regular feature writing.
Then, I thought about the last time I wrote about food and how hard it was, so I decided against food reviews. But I love food, and I actually do like reviewing movies, so I thought about some food-related movies. Well, more specifically, I had been thinking a lot about body image and then food and then media. So, I came up with the Gilmore Girls, because they're supposed to be this gorgeous mother-daughter duo who are inept in the kitchen and eat out all the time. They only eat pop tarts and cheeseburgers and they're both stick-thin. Then, I remembered reading an interview with Lauren Graham (the one who plays the mom) and as she was answering questions she was eating an arugula salad, then she said some things about how much she exercises and she doesn't really eat like her character does. I mean, I figured she didn't actually eat like that, but who doesn't want to believe that they can eat as much as they want like they're favorite tv stars and still stay thin? It had been a comforting thing, like when I ate badly they were my justification, as crazy as that sounds. It felt like false advertising.
They do that on the Disney show iCarly, too. I'm getting over how much of a weirdo this all makes me sound like. Anyway, there's one really skinny character who eats all the time and is known for eating all the time. It's this new trend of playing into American habits of overeating, but making the characters also fit the American beauty standards of being model-thin so it keeps all audience members happy.
I hope I have a story here, because I think I could get 1000 words out of it. We'll see.
So, to start I had this idea:
For my final Arts Journalism project, I’d like to explore food and food prices in terms of health. For instance, the cheapest (and in some cases tastiest) foods are shockingly unhealthy, while organic food, or even lower fat options at restaurants are more expensive and usually bland. I could go a little into fad diets, but I guess to keep myself grounded I could choose one or two restaurants that have lower fat options and critique the meal. I think TGI Fridays and Chili’s all boast of having healthier options, and I think it’s TGI Fridays that has decided to serve smaller portions, Right Portion Right Price kind of thing. I could talk about the dollar menu at McDonald’s or any other fast food place, and can even talk about supermarkets and organic and lower fat and sodium options being more expensive than regular items. In order to stick with the critique idea, I’d need to narrow it down and select one or two things to critique, so I could do a meal at TGI Fridays and see if there’s any meals that are similar and not a healthier choice and compare the two. I guess I need you to tell me when my story is straying from a critique and getting into regular feature writing.
Then, I thought about the last time I wrote about food and how hard it was, so I decided against food reviews. But I love food, and I actually do like reviewing movies, so I thought about some food-related movies. Well, more specifically, I had been thinking a lot about body image and then food and then media. So, I came up with the Gilmore Girls, because they're supposed to be this gorgeous mother-daughter duo who are inept in the kitchen and eat out all the time. They only eat pop tarts and cheeseburgers and they're both stick-thin. Then, I remembered reading an interview with Lauren Graham (the one who plays the mom) and as she was answering questions she was eating an arugula salad, then she said some things about how much she exercises and she doesn't really eat like her character does. I mean, I figured she didn't actually eat like that, but who doesn't want to believe that they can eat as much as they want like they're favorite tv stars and still stay thin? It had been a comforting thing, like when I ate badly they were my justification, as crazy as that sounds. It felt like false advertising.
They do that on the Disney show iCarly, too. I'm getting over how much of a weirdo this all makes me sound like. Anyway, there's one really skinny character who eats all the time and is known for eating all the time. It's this new trend of playing into American habits of overeating, but making the characters also fit the American beauty standards of being model-thin so it keeps all audience members happy.
I hope I have a story here, because I think I could get 1000 words out of it. We'll see.
Forget about the economy, let's watch movies
The eighty-first Academy Awards which aired last night set its own stage up for a possible disappointment with its decided change from the norm and the way it went about promoting itself. After the red carpet but before the ceremonies there was a behind-the-scenes look at the stage and music production at the curtain of crystals hanging from the ceiling and the recognizable theme from Lawrence of Arabia, but with a swing beat. Take all of the eccentricities and add Hugh Jackman—the first non-comedian single host since further back than anyone’s recent memory-- and let the nail-biting begin. David Carr summarized the pressure in the end of his pre-Oscars projection, “Can Hollywood find a way to acknowledge the times we are living in without giving in to the gloom?”
Jackman answered all of these questions with ease as he introduced his opening number, “Due to budget cuts,” he explained that there wasn’t originally going to be an opening song. Luckily, Jackman says he “stayed up all night in his garage” making props, and out comes a make-shift “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” set made from pizza boxes and glittery green letters on cardboard. Then Jackman started his song with full vibrato.
The longer Jackman was on stage singing about the biggest movies of 2008—props to Jackman and writers for the intense dance scene complete with backup dancers as he sang “I haven’t seen The Reader”—the more comfortable the audience became. He ended the number with a duo reenactment of Frost/Nixon with Ann Hathaway and finally Jackman belting the line “I’m Wolverine.” His playful jabs at the actors before the first award presentation was funny but by then the laughter felt more like his payment for not letting the audience down with his musical opener.
In perhaps the best-intended but minimal-follow-up joke Jackman mentioned Brad Pitt saying, “I don’t have a joke for him, my contract says I have to mention his name five times—that’s one.” He noted Pitt in the second number of the show, but for the most part, Jackman was offstage, letting the rest of the big-name presenters have full attention.
The awards lived up to its promise of changing from the norm by letting five previous winners of the best actor and actress awards present the nominees and the Oscar. It felt more like a moment from Star Trek as five of the Academy’s elite stood in a wide half-circle on the stage and gave individual praise to each nominee before the middle actor or actress opened the envelope.
The ceremony was rushed during the recognition of some of the technical aspects of film—the visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing— all presented by Will Smith. He seemed to be continuously tugged around the stage by those beautiful-but-business-oriented silver-clad stage women as he moved from presenter to background to presenter again. At one point acknowledged the rushed awkwardness, “Yes I’m still here,” and “I believe Hugh is napping” at another. It was if that section of the show was thrown together at the last minute and Smith was stuck with more than his share of presenting and in half the amount of time to do it.
The Academy Awards were starkly different this year finally in a lack of long-winded acceptance speeches; no one got the orchestra music to signal a wrap-up. With a great majority of the winners giving their own version of Hilary Swank’s “I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream” speech, the Oscars had the effect of a feel-good movie. Even with bleak economy and bleak Midwestern winter it was easy to watch the excited faces and, like Swank, start to dream.
Jackman answered all of these questions with ease as he introduced his opening number, “Due to budget cuts,” he explained that there wasn’t originally going to be an opening song. Luckily, Jackman says he “stayed up all night in his garage” making props, and out comes a make-shift “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” set made from pizza boxes and glittery green letters on cardboard. Then Jackman started his song with full vibrato.
The longer Jackman was on stage singing about the biggest movies of 2008—props to Jackman and writers for the intense dance scene complete with backup dancers as he sang “I haven’t seen The Reader”—the more comfortable the audience became. He ended the number with a duo reenactment of Frost/Nixon with Ann Hathaway and finally Jackman belting the line “I’m Wolverine.” His playful jabs at the actors before the first award presentation was funny but by then the laughter felt more like his payment for not letting the audience down with his musical opener.
In perhaps the best-intended but minimal-follow-up joke Jackman mentioned Brad Pitt saying, “I don’t have a joke for him, my contract says I have to mention his name five times—that’s one.” He noted Pitt in the second number of the show, but for the most part, Jackman was offstage, letting the rest of the big-name presenters have full attention.
The awards lived up to its promise of changing from the norm by letting five previous winners of the best actor and actress awards present the nominees and the Oscar. It felt more like a moment from Star Trek as five of the Academy’s elite stood in a wide half-circle on the stage and gave individual praise to each nominee before the middle actor or actress opened the envelope.
The ceremony was rushed during the recognition of some of the technical aspects of film—the visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing— all presented by Will Smith. He seemed to be continuously tugged around the stage by those beautiful-but-business-oriented silver-clad stage women as he moved from presenter to background to presenter again. At one point acknowledged the rushed awkwardness, “Yes I’m still here,” and “I believe Hugh is napping” at another. It was if that section of the show was thrown together at the last minute and Smith was stuck with more than his share of presenting and in half the amount of time to do it.
The Academy Awards were starkly different this year finally in a lack of long-winded acceptance speeches; no one got the orchestra music to signal a wrap-up. With a great majority of the winners giving their own version of Hilary Swank’s “I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream” speech, the Oscars had the effect of a feel-good movie. Even with bleak economy and bleak Midwestern winter it was easy to watch the excited faces and, like Swank, start to dream.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Kael Revision
Marni Newell
With lewd humor and images, Kael’s art shines through
2/20/09
Oscar Wilde describes criticism as an art form that is staunchly subjective in his essay “The Critic as Artist.” The art Wilde speaks of is in the critic’s ability to convey her sense of personality in the criticism and make the piece her own. He says “the highest Criticism deals with art not as expressive, but as impressive, purely.”
Pauline Kael, in this sense, is the pinnacle of Wilde’s portrait of a critic. Kael’s critiques of films are a reflection of her values and her reasoning in a way that is as entertaining as it is informative. This allows for readers to draw their own conclusions on the films she reviews without simply agreeing with her decision.
Renata Adler describes Kael’s writing style, or more specifically, what Adler perceives as Kael’s shortcomings as a critic, in her essay, “House Critic.” Adler details Kael’s use of questions, seemingly unclear metaphors, uses of personal pronouns, and repetitive images in Kael’s latest anthology of critiques, and cites them as reasons why Kael has “ceased to care about” films.
More accurately, these quirks in Kael’s writing represent her unique style.
One of Adler’s criticisms of Kael is her use of questions in reviews, which Adler believes distracts the reader and has them blindly reaching for answers. What Adler doesn’t appreciate about Kael’s use of questions, is the effect they have on the reader that cannot be mirrored with a statement; it gives the sense of inviting the reader to disagree with Kael instead of telling them what to believe. For instance, one question Adler quotes is, “How can you have any feeling for a man who doesn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren?” This question catches the reader’s attention and is rhetorical, humorous, and illuminating.
With this one question, Kael opens the readers eyes to a different perspective of the actor who isn’t enjoying being in bed with Sophia Loren, it recalls them to specific scenes, and then, lastly, allows them chuckle at the absurd idea that any man wouldn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren.
The effect would fall drastically short if Kael had followed Adler’s strict guidelines and written, “A man who doesn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren can’t be taken seriously.” Odds are the aggressive sentence would have been overlooked and dismissed.
Similarly, Adler picks apart Kaels images and metaphors that deal with bodily functions. One example she cites is Kael’s phrase “just a belch from the Nixon era.” Even not knowing the context of this statement, a clear image is still communicated: an attempt at something that not only fell short, but stank.
Adler summarizes her criticisms with a list of four aspects of movies Kael does seem to appreciate, “frissions of horror; physical violence depicted in specific detail; sex scenes...; and fantasies of invasion.” With this, Adler is attempting to warp one of the main duties of a critic: to know what they like. Adler distorts and emphasizes the perversity in her description of Kael, but the fact remains that she does have a style, she has preferences, and she is consistent in pointing out when a film executes these correctly and when they do not.
In the end, readers know where Kael stands based on their knowledge of her inclinations and can enjoy her critiques as both entertainment and an assessment of the film based on her unique interests and perspective.
With lewd humor and images, Kael’s art shines through
2/20/09
Oscar Wilde describes criticism as an art form that is staunchly subjective in his essay “The Critic as Artist.” The art Wilde speaks of is in the critic’s ability to convey her sense of personality in the criticism and make the piece her own. He says “the highest Criticism deals with art not as expressive, but as impressive, purely.”
Pauline Kael, in this sense, is the pinnacle of Wilde’s portrait of a critic. Kael’s critiques of films are a reflection of her values and her reasoning in a way that is as entertaining as it is informative. This allows for readers to draw their own conclusions on the films she reviews without simply agreeing with her decision.
Renata Adler describes Kael’s writing style, or more specifically, what Adler perceives as Kael’s shortcomings as a critic, in her essay, “House Critic.” Adler details Kael’s use of questions, seemingly unclear metaphors, uses of personal pronouns, and repetitive images in Kael’s latest anthology of critiques, and cites them as reasons why Kael has “ceased to care about” films.
More accurately, these quirks in Kael’s writing represent her unique style.
One of Adler’s criticisms of Kael is her use of questions in reviews, which Adler believes distracts the reader and has them blindly reaching for answers. What Adler doesn’t appreciate about Kael’s use of questions, is the effect they have on the reader that cannot be mirrored with a statement; it gives the sense of inviting the reader to disagree with Kael instead of telling them what to believe. For instance, one question Adler quotes is, “How can you have any feeling for a man who doesn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren?” This question catches the reader’s attention and is rhetorical, humorous, and illuminating.
With this one question, Kael opens the readers eyes to a different perspective of the actor who isn’t enjoying being in bed with Sophia Loren, it recalls them to specific scenes, and then, lastly, allows them chuckle at the absurd idea that any man wouldn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren.
The effect would fall drastically short if Kael had followed Adler’s strict guidelines and written, “A man who doesn’t enjoy being in bed with Sophia Loren can’t be taken seriously.” Odds are the aggressive sentence would have been overlooked and dismissed.
Similarly, Adler picks apart Kaels images and metaphors that deal with bodily functions. One example she cites is Kael’s phrase “just a belch from the Nixon era.” Even not knowing the context of this statement, a clear image is still communicated: an attempt at something that not only fell short, but stank.
Adler summarizes her criticisms with a list of four aspects of movies Kael does seem to appreciate, “frissions of horror; physical violence depicted in specific detail; sex scenes...; and fantasies of invasion.” With this, Adler is attempting to warp one of the main duties of a critic: to know what they like. Adler distorts and emphasizes the perversity in her description of Kael, but the fact remains that she does have a style, she has preferences, and she is consistent in pointing out when a film executes these correctly and when they do not.
In the end, readers know where Kael stands based on their knowledge of her inclinations and can enjoy her critiques as both entertainment and an assessment of the film based on her unique interests and perspective.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Hicok Review
Sorry this is posted late, I don't have the stamina for the K life anymore and everything seems to be falling by the wayside.
Self-taught poet charms K College
Marni Newell
In the room packed shoulder-to-shoulder with Kalamazoo College students and faculty, Bob Hicok, the self-taught poet from suburban Detroit, sympathized with his audience. “If it’s any consolation to those who are here because they have to be,” he told the rustling students. “I hate poetry readings. I can’t focus on the poetry.”
Lucky for the students who had to be there, his poetry was interesting enough to focus on. As visiting professor Glenn Deutsch stated in his introduction Hicok’s short-but-dense poetry is “serious-funny.”
In one poem about and named for the gene that has been linked to cancer, BRCA-1, Hicok describes a woman who has the gene and then imagines she’s had a mastectomy and her ovaries removed, “The faux breasts and egg sacs are gone.” He continues talking about her ovaries, or more appropriately, her “novaries” as she blow dries her hair in the bathroom near where he waits in the bedroom, petting his dog, “I would not dry my hair in such a moment, but I’m bald.” In nearly all of Hicok’s poetry, if the audience is ever unsure of whether to laugh or not, it’s probably safe to laugh.
Hicok succeeded in being just as entertaining in that awkward space between poems by talking about how awkward that space of time is. In another space between poems, he discussed his hatred of the debate about a stimulus package for the country and said of President Obama, “I hope for Michelle Obama, he does have a stimulus package.” An audience member, comfortable with him by now, shouted back, “Oh, he does, Bob!”
His poetry, never pretentious or abstract, utilizes images and metaphors that are accessible without being cliché. He is honest in his descriptions because he isn’t trying to please anyone. In the same poem about a woman’s cancer, his line “I have no reason to use the word cancer while petting a dog” reverberates with simplicity, yet hits a common emotion.
Hicok never extends himself beyond what he can accurately describe, and this leads to concise, sincere poetry that induces both chuckles and serious thought. In his poem, “Lost American in Paris,” he describes following a wandering violin player before exclaiming, “I felt doctors had replaced my heart with a kitten.”
His poem about Michigan was a favorite among the Midwestern audience and perfectly timed for the snowy Wednesday night of his reading. Michigan, Hicok says, has a February that’s fourteen months long, which explains why “‘What did we do?’ is the state motto.”
Unlike most contemporary writers, Hicok rarely writes more than one draft of a poem. As he describes it, his poems are “records of a moment,” and the moment he wrote it in is as important as the subject matter. Hicok’s refreshing perspective on poetry lends itself to poems that are simple yet honest to the complexity of human emotion and never void of humor. It was hard not to be inspired by his quirky poetry as the large crowd filed back out into the 14-month-long Michigan winter.
Self-taught poet charms K College
Marni Newell
In the room packed shoulder-to-shoulder with Kalamazoo College students and faculty, Bob Hicok, the self-taught poet from suburban Detroit, sympathized with his audience. “If it’s any consolation to those who are here because they have to be,” he told the rustling students. “I hate poetry readings. I can’t focus on the poetry.”
Lucky for the students who had to be there, his poetry was interesting enough to focus on. As visiting professor Glenn Deutsch stated in his introduction Hicok’s short-but-dense poetry is “serious-funny.”
In one poem about and named for the gene that has been linked to cancer, BRCA-1, Hicok describes a woman who has the gene and then imagines she’s had a mastectomy and her ovaries removed, “The faux breasts and egg sacs are gone.” He continues talking about her ovaries, or more appropriately, her “novaries” as she blow dries her hair in the bathroom near where he waits in the bedroom, petting his dog, “I would not dry my hair in such a moment, but I’m bald.” In nearly all of Hicok’s poetry, if the audience is ever unsure of whether to laugh or not, it’s probably safe to laugh.
Hicok succeeded in being just as entertaining in that awkward space between poems by talking about how awkward that space of time is. In another space between poems, he discussed his hatred of the debate about a stimulus package for the country and said of President Obama, “I hope for Michelle Obama, he does have a stimulus package.” An audience member, comfortable with him by now, shouted back, “Oh, he does, Bob!”
His poetry, never pretentious or abstract, utilizes images and metaphors that are accessible without being cliché. He is honest in his descriptions because he isn’t trying to please anyone. In the same poem about a woman’s cancer, his line “I have no reason to use the word cancer while petting a dog” reverberates with simplicity, yet hits a common emotion.
Hicok never extends himself beyond what he can accurately describe, and this leads to concise, sincere poetry that induces both chuckles and serious thought. In his poem, “Lost American in Paris,” he describes following a wandering violin player before exclaiming, “I felt doctors had replaced my heart with a kitten.”
His poem about Michigan was a favorite among the Midwestern audience and perfectly timed for the snowy Wednesday night of his reading. Michigan, Hicok says, has a February that’s fourteen months long, which explains why “‘What did we do?’ is the state motto.”
Unlike most contemporary writers, Hicok rarely writes more than one draft of a poem. As he describes it, his poems are “records of a moment,” and the moment he wrote it in is as important as the subject matter. Hicok’s refreshing perspective on poetry lends itself to poems that are simple yet honest to the complexity of human emotion and never void of humor. It was hard not to be inspired by his quirky poetry as the large crowd filed back out into the 14-month-long Michigan winter.
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