tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post1885337981088179633..comments2024-02-04T05:13:04.501-05:00Comments on Nik at Nite: Slayage Conference: Day ThreeNikki Staffordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-67519420200899353232008-06-27T07:42:00.000-04:002008-06-27T07:42:00.000-04:00Given that the Slayage Conference recently ended a...Given that the Slayage Conference recently ended and that Jeannine Basinger of Wesleyan gave a speech there I feel rather guilty for not mentioning Wesleyan's fine film archive. Doe anyone else other than me have a sneaking suspicion that Joss Whedon's papers will end up at Wesleyan?Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-81214669075512628602008-06-26T20:57:00.000-04:002008-06-26T20:57:00.000-04:00taking to the source...We do have some wonderful i...taking to the source...<BR/><BR/>We do have some wonderful interviews with those who worked with Hitch on the DVD's. Universal and the WB have done a wonderful job filling the discs with extras including things like the storyboards for the original ending of the Birds, letters, etc.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-71765491078530207392008-06-26T09:59:00.000-04:002008-06-26T09:59:00.000-04:00Cedar: I agree completely with what you're saying ...Cedar: I agree completely with what you're saying about a plurality of approaches. It was what I was trying to say, only you said it far better and more eloquently. :) I think your approach, helfron, is indeed a good one, but it's just one of many, as I see it. <BR/><BR/>About Matthew Pateman's way of collecting research, however... I'm not sure how he tracked down Jane Espenson -- you'd have to ask him that -- but when I tracked her down it was easy peasy. I don't have any insider track on Hollywood at all. I'm not in with the studios or the cast and crew or anything like that, yet I interviewed David Fury, Espenson, Alexis Denisof, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, and probably 10 more along the way, and it didn't take much at all to track them down. I simply did some quick searches online and the next thing you know, I'm on the phone to their agents or publicists or managers.<BR/><BR/>So if you want access to these people to help out with your papers, it's there. You just have to seek it out. Generally, I write my books from the fan perspective, so I'm not actively seeking to talk to anyone from Lost, for example. However, I could probably do so if I pursued it. <BR/><BR/>Of course, to go back to helfron's discussion about film studies, if you wanted to talk to the source when doing a paper on Hitchcock films, things might get a little more difficult. :)Nikki Staffordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-40058117877838404872008-06-25T18:36:00.000-04:002008-06-25T18:36:00.000-04:001."gaining access to such rare extra-textual mater...1."gaining access to such rare extra-textual material is not practical for the average Whedon scholar". True but that doesn't excuse the lack of primary source research in English, Film, and Cultural Studies faculties and department. It is always, as historians know, a hard slog finding relevant documentary material. Granted, given the paranoia and secrecy of the film and TV industries it is very difficult in this case. This is likely to change in the future, however. Film sources became available in the sixties and seventies, for instance, and there is some great stuff housed at UCLA, UW--Madison, Indiana--Bloomington (the Welles and Ford papers), BYU.<BR/><BR/>2. "authorial intention does not exist in a genderless cultural vacuum." Precisely my point. that is why one has to go beyond the text to explore this issue. To explore gender in Buffy requires an engagement with institutional documents (Mutant Enemy, WB, Fox). Textual criticism should not take place in an ideologically driven vacuum either.<BR/><BR/>3. My problem with Jowett is that she spends a significant part of the book pooh pahing manichean dualisms and then she brings them back in in order to analyse a show that seems to me to explode gender dualities. I find far too many academics ideologically imprisoned within their own culturally constructed prison houses of ideology. <BR/><BR/>As to Jowett's "reading" of Anya's death I find it without merit and likely a product of her ideological prison house. A bit of primary source research can and should help bring many of these issues into clear focus.<BR/><BR/>4. I have no problem with a historically sensitive textual analysis (textual explication sensitive to primary source materials). I have a problem with ideologically driven and academically constructed symptomatic textual criticism. <BR/><BR/>5.Are academics and intellectuals the only ones obsessed with Freud, Lacan, the male gaze, the mirror stage, oedipal complexes, and all that jazz. Why is it that these cultural constructs have become so important in the life of certain parts of the academy? Prison houses of academic and intellectual ideologies?<BR/><BR/>6. Actual audience research is also difficult but essential if we are to understand how real people read texts. Such analysis requires the utilisation of interview techniques, ethnographic practises, surveys. Simply staring into the text as if it were a magical crystal ball or some Du Lac Cross of textual analysis and saying that this is how a text should be read doesn't get at the various ways readers read. It simply gives us a glimpse into the processes by which some academics read texts. And I am not sure that such readings are generalisable.<BR/><BR/>Cheers...Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-77653018072410329212008-06-25T15:48:00.000-04:002008-06-25T15:48:00.000-04:00Though I certainly agree that Pateman's lecture wa...Though I certainly agree that Pateman's lecture was brilliant, I have to return again to my points on practicality and diversity. Pateman had access to personal e-mail correspondence with Espenson herself; she provided him with scripts that are not publicly available. So while I applaud Pateman's work and ability to attain this material (indeed, the audience audibly gasped when he explained his approach), I also acknowledge that gaining access to such rare extra-textual material is not practical for the average Whedon scholar. I would also point out that Pateman used close readings of the texts themselves to illustrate a progression of ideas. Equally impressive to me was Rhonda Wilcox's close reading / textual analysis of the lyrics of "Blue" in relation to "Conversations With Dead People." This paper contained little extra-textual material, yet provided me (and, presumably others) with a new and interesting understanding of the episode. For me, academia can remain relevant only when a plurality of approaches is available and valued. Valuing a plurality and respecting diversity within scholarship allows for healthy academic disagreement and counter arguments. As to Jowett's book, I think Jowett provides, through her detailed discussion of gender and culture, powerful and relevant extra-textual material. After all, authorial intention does not exist in a genderless cultural vacuum. And neither does the image of crystal ball gazing.<BR/><BR/>On your recommendation, Helfron, I've ordered two of David Bordwell's books and also the Close-Up text containing Deborah Thomas's "Reading Buffy." I look forward to expanding my knowledge of the field, and I thank you for leading me in new directions.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-1812172582876933552008-06-25T11:32:00.000-04:002008-06-25T11:32:00.000-04:00I am perhaps being too coy here. When I was a stud...I am perhaps being too coy here. When I was a student the whole panoply of theoretical approaches that would transform film studies from a textual explication industry to a symptomatic textual industry was underway. I was caught up in many of these. I liked and still like early semiological approaches. I like and still like aspects of the early postmodernist critques (particularly those of the early Baudrillard). I can't say that I find psychoanalytic approaches in all their variations that compelling, however.<BR/><BR/>It is this symptomatic textual criticism that I have problems with. And though symptomatic textualists accused explicatory textualists (who were often, particularly in the early and mid-sixties auteurists) of being romantic ahistoricists, I don't think that symptomatic critics are any less romantic or ahistorical in their own way.<BR/><BR/>I like textual explication but I think it to needs to be more historical as well. The first two editions of Toronto's own Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films is brilliant and incisive textual analysis. It was Wood, in fact, who made me realise just what a brilliant film Marnie is (shouldn't all good explicatory textualism be polemical on some level?). I think Wood's work would be even more powerful if he did some archival research. We, of course, have some great Hitchcock interviews, the one between Truffaut and Hitch probably the best known. <BR/><BR/>What I mean by historically sensitive film and TV studies is a criticism that is sensitive to historical context, to production, to institutional structures, to social, economic, and political contexts. I don't mean a criticism that is text centred and grounded in a psychoanalytic approach that is about as far removed from empirical evidence as all types of literal fundamentalism.<BR/><BR/>Ah, the polemics. Sorry for the jargon (anytime you have a division of labour, anytime you have specialisation in any institution or cultural formation, you are going to get specialist discourses...)Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-58359265567674939082008-06-25T09:27:00.000-04:002008-06-25T09:27:00.000-04:00Nikki and Cedar,I am enjoying our discussion...I d...Nikki and Cedar,<BR/><BR/>I am enjoying our discussion...<BR/><BR/>I don't have a problem with text only analysis particularly when you are doing comparisons like you want to do. I think, for exmaple, that it is useful to compare the damaged man motif across textual time and space.<BR/><BR/>In fact, I am a a big fan of the Movie style of textual analysis (Bordwell calls it textual explication as opposed to symptomatic textualism). I appreciate the work of Robin Wood, Ian Cameron, V.F. Perkins, Andrew Britton and such neo-Movieites like Deborah Thomas (whose "Reading Buffy" I regard as one of the best textual analyses of BtVS), John Gibbs, and Andrew Kleven.<BR/><BR/>What I would caution on is drawing historical conclusions exclusively from the text without any exploration of how that text is actually produced. An example: The notion, solely derived from textual inferences, that the Torah/Five Books of Moses is made up of a number of "documents" (J,E,P,D) is interesting and does make some textual "sense". The problem with this hypothesis is that there is no extra-textual empirical evidence to back up the assertion. One could argue equally well that the Torah is made up of a variety of oral traditions drawn from sacred hero sites (we could use what we have surmise about the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey to back up this assertion). Again, however, we have limited extra-textual evidence for this assertion. These claims thus remain to me at best interesting unproved and unfalsified hypothesis and at worst the ideologically driven readings of academics.<BR/><BR/>With the work of Joss Whedon there is a treasure trove of extra-textual materials that can be drawn on to prove or falsify hypothesis. I find it sad that more scholars don't make use of this material. <BR/><BR/>This is not to say that there aren't the beginnings of a historically sensitive critisism out there. The introduction to the French Cinema Book lays out some of the theoretical issues (Michael Temple and Michael Witt (eds.: The French Cinema Book, London: BFI, 2004). There is some decent stuff on the economic and political contexts of Hollywood (Douglas Gomery). Michelle Hilmes's work on the history of broadcasting and NBC is helpful though again it doesn't do much in the way of historically sensitive textual analysis. In Whedon Studies think of how powerful Pateman's analysis of Jane Espenson's scripts and Lavery's exploration of Whedon is because of the extra-textual materials) they utilise along with textual analysis.<BR/><BR/>An example of my problem with crystal ball textualism: In her book Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005) Lorna Jewett writes on page 37 that Anya’s death is due to the fact that she is a “minor” (disposable) female character” and hence "powerless". In his commentary on Chosen, however, Joss Whedon (Commentary: “Chosen” (722), Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Seventh Season on DVD) claims that he killed Anya for narrative reasons (someone had to die) and that he chose Anya because Emma Caulfield had decided that five years of playing Anya was enough. It seems to me that anyone analysing the Buffy text should pay attention to this exra-textual information.<BR/><BR/>Granted, as cultural anthropologists doing ethnography and historians working with sometimes contradictory primary source material have learned we must be cautious and sometimes skeptical when doing production research. Still, or so I would argue, it is important to explore this material, deal with it, and confront it. In my mind, "crystal ball" textual criticism doesn't generally take this material seriously because of the ideology that you can find it all in the text (hence the crystal ball metaphor I am using and which I stole from Jonathan Nash). I don't find this approach a particularly compelling one.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-85907711887348876282008-06-25T09:17:00.000-04:002008-06-25T09:17:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-67761147258784901232008-06-25T06:30:00.000-04:002008-06-25T06:30:00.000-04:00Cedar and helfron: Great conversation you two are ...Cedar and helfron: Great conversation you two are having! I'm wondering if the model of criticism you are proposing, helfron, is simply one way of dealing with it. I believe you can evaluate the text for its own merit, and it doesn't necessarily have to be grounded in history. To do so is simply one way of handling the subject matter (i.e. today I will talk about the development of new language on television from Monty Python to Buffy) but it's not necessary. I don't see the problem with talking about Buffy as its own text, either within the Whedonverse or simply episodes within the series itself.Nikki Staffordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04463618183850438914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-45737465002801429362008-06-25T00:49:00.000-04:002008-06-25T00:49:00.000-04:00Can you give me an example of a paper from the Sla...Can you give me an example of a paper from the Slayage conference (or in Whedon scholarship in general) that accomplishes the model of criticism of which you speak? Reading an example of such a paper would help me to understand your points. Or, if you feel comfortable doing so, perhaps you could direct me to one of your own papers in the field. Thanks.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-87327329038099817312008-06-24T23:16:00.000-04:002008-06-24T23:16:00.000-04:00I would argue for a model of criticism that starts...I would argue for a model of criticism that starts with exegesis (the production contexts) and then moves on to hermeneutics, homiletics (or polemics), and audience analysis (not academic presumptions about how audiences read text but actual audience analysis based on questionnaires and ethnographic research on "real" readers"). I would suggest that a "crystal ball" criticism, a criticism grounded in nothing but the text and only the text is fatally flawed.<BR/><BR/>As fatally flawed as religious fundamentalist criticism which asserts that the only thing one needs to grasp is the meaning (god's meaning) of the text or a scientific biblical criticism which finds documents (J, E, P, D, Q) in the biblical text but nowhere else. <BR/><BR/>I would argue that academic criticism because it is so textual and acontextual (ignoring primary source material for the most part) is nothing more than a form of reader response(it arises in specific institutional and ideological contexts that have developed over time). <BR/><BR/>By the way, if you have not read Bordwell's analysis of film criticism check it out. I really enjoyed it.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-3814145983151634822008-06-24T21:45:00.000-04:002008-06-24T21:45:00.000-04:00Interesting observation, Helfron. I, myself, focu...Interesting observation, Helfron. I, myself, focus primarily on text (or comparison of Whedonverse texts with other texts)--indeed, this is one way in which I am able to defend my publications as appropriate to my general discipline (i.e. English). I think the benefit of interdisciplinary conferences such as Slayage is the variety of approaches used. I might focus on a rhetorical issue, while someone else focuses on historical context (for example). The other aspect to consider is the relative youth of Whedon Studies. Perhaps an area for further exploration as the field develops is historical context. In that case, I would not blame the current scholars for neglecting historical context, but instead recognize that a door is open for historians to explore the field. Indeed, I just read an article by a historian that explored the representation of menopause throughout decades of television ("'Gladys, Take Your Medicine!' Medicine in North American Popular Culture since 1800," by Cheryl Warsh). Though not on Whedon, the article illustrates a historical approach to television studies. I am, however, not a television analyst beyond the Whedonverses, and it was the language of the Whedonverses that made me want to write on the shows. So, historical context is not as important to me personally as it might be to other scholars.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-58336741615910222842008-06-24T17:15:00.000-04:002008-06-24T17:15:00.000-04:00Cedar...Do you think there is a kind of historical...Cedar...<BR/>Do you think there is a kind of historical amnesia gripping many current film and TV analysts? If so do you think it is related to the fact that so many critics (particularly in English, Film, and Cultural Studies) focus almost exclusively on the text.<BR/><BR/>wow it is fun to write posts when you are listening to the B-52s 6060-842...Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-78898677007518926392008-06-24T14:27:00.000-04:002008-06-24T14:27:00.000-04:00Helfron,I think you make good points regarding the...Helfron,<BR/><BR/>I think you make good points regarding the history of the damaged man. The problem with conference papers, of course, is the limited timeframe (despite the featured speaker length). This, too, can be a problem even with published articles. I recently had an article published that had to be reduced from its original 6500 words to 5000 words--as did all the articles in the book because of demands from the publisher. So, inevitably, there's always something else that could have been said if length restrictions were not an issue. I thought that Abbott adequately contextualized the concept of damaged man in the introductory segment of her paper. A longer segment on the history of the concept as represented in other works would not have been practical in the context of a Slayage conference paper. Therefore, I agree that the history of the damaged man would make an interesting topic and context for Abbott's argument; however, I do not agree that the absence of detailed examples outside Angel is problematic in Abbott's paper. Maybe she'll write a book on the subject!Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-32487045189625545942008-06-24T14:22:00.000-04:002008-06-24T14:22:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-15649314857089706692008-06-24T01:12:00.000-04:002008-06-24T01:12:00.000-04:00My problem with Stacey Abbott's paper on the damag...My problem with Stacey Abbott's paper on the damaged man motif in Angel had to do with the papers limited exploration of the historical background of this theme.<BR/><BR/>The damaged man motif in literature certainly can be taken back to the work of the Bronte's and Austen. Perhaps we can take it back even further: is Homer a damaged man? Jacob? Lancelot?<BR/><BR/>In film you can find damaged men in some of the UFA films of the 1920s (M) and in Carne and Prevert's "poetic realist" "Quai des brumes". Damaged men, of course, continue to show up in the work of Clouzot in the forties and fifties and in Godard later in the sixties<BR/><BR/>These noir themes made their way to the US thanks in part to the Nazis. Think of all those immigrants from Wilder to Siodmak to Lang who came to Hollywood to escape Hitler. UFA style and themes would also, of course, impact Alfred Hitchcock's work.<BR/><BR/>As for direct influences on Whedon's damaged men I suspect that Anthony Mann's films with their intense and vengeful damaged men (Jimmy Stewart in Winchester 73, Bend of the River, The Far Country,The Man from Laramie--my favourite--and Gary Cooper in Man of the West) were a major influence on Whedon's work.<BR/><BR/>By the way, the other director who would well utilise Stewart's intense and manic acting side was Hitchcock (Vertigo, Rope).Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-50303123436713158072008-06-24T00:57:00.000-04:002008-06-24T00:57:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-29918012388459899572008-06-24T00:55:00.000-04:002008-06-24T00:55:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-53932288565469656872008-06-24T00:41:00.000-04:002008-06-24T00:41:00.000-04:00Hulu.com has just put season one of Angel up...Hulu.com has just put season one of Angel up...Ronald Helfrich Jnr.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01979221009291819300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-68041475539249671522008-06-23T01:38:00.000-04:002008-06-23T01:38:00.000-04:00Haunt, You seem like yet another amazing person of...Haunt, You seem like yet another amazing person of the Slayage community. See you next time. And I look forward to reading your posts on this blog and others in the meantime.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-48398728392844217512008-06-22T23:56:00.000-04:002008-06-22T23:56:00.000-04:00Ah yes. Great paper indeed. (And your secret is ...Ah yes. Great paper indeed. <BR/><BR/>(And your secret is safe with me.)Haunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03409167630207818428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-75547985252156464652008-06-22T11:39:00.000-04:002008-06-22T11:39:00.000-04:00Haunt, what the hell? How am I to remain anonymou...Haunt, what the hell? How am I to remain anonymous? LOL. I think you came up to talk to me afterward and said that I'd convinced you to rewatch the episode.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-19368463158176493042008-06-22T07:50:00.000-04:002008-06-22T07:50:00.000-04:00Cedar, what was your paper? Mrs. Haunt and I made...Cedar, what was your paper? Mrs. Haunt and I made an effort to see every <I>Angel</I> presentation.Haunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03409167630207818428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-11325429989338749452008-06-22T02:11:00.000-04:002008-06-22T02:11:00.000-04:00Is it my imagination or has Mr. Pointy become bigg...Is it my imagination or has Mr. Pointy become bigger over the years? In that picture you've posted with Rhonda and Mary Alice, Mr. P. seems, well, not fully developed. Perhaps Matthew could shed some light on this subject. <BR/><BR/>I'm truly enjoying reading these posts and the comments! As to Haunt's comment on Buffy Studies--I think Whedon Studies is gradually becoming the accepted name for the field. It's just that Buffy started it all. I agree with Haunt's comments on Stacey's passion for Angel--she has blazed the trail in Angel scholarship. My paper was on Angel this time (mainly because Stacey asked for more Angel papers last time!); however, when I entered the field (back in 2005), I would never have imagined writing on Angel! Let's see where Dollhouse takes us all.Cedarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08387687034508838126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30892649.post-73956272840834553112008-06-14T12:43:00.000-04:002008-06-14T12:43:00.000-04:00Stacey Abbott has always been something of a hero ...Stacey Abbott has always been something of a hero of mine at these conferences because she (along with Lorna and Bronwen) so passionately espouses the virtues of <I>Angel</I> as a series and Wesley as a character. I've been somewhat frustrated in the past that these things are always referred to as "Buffy" studies, which seems to me sort of dismissive of Joss' other works. Even this time around I heard FAR more reference to <I>Buffy</I> and <I>Firefly</I> than I did to <I>Angel</I>. So Stacey earns a very special place in my heart for waving the <I>Angel</I>/Wesley flag so proudly.<BR/><BR/>Her "damaged man" paper was probably my favorite presentation this year. I apologize for not even realizing you were in the audience. Had I known you were such a big Wesley fan I absolutely would have overcome my shy and somewhat antisocial nature to come introduce myself.Haunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03409167630207818428noreply@blogger.com