Responding to Lady Gaga post "Hello, Baby..." (SP #2)

I have two thoughts on the Lady Gaga “Hello, Baby” post. The first is that I agree, she has a lot more going on than the average pop star. She writes her own stuff, and she has real pipes. Here’s a classic example of how a manufactured pop star gets schooled when they have to go up against somebody with actual talent.

Check out Jewel's class and poise while Jessica Simpson tries painfully hard to look cool.

I think it’s kind of sad that actual talent seems to have less and less to do with who actually makes it in the music biz. There were always people to write and produce behind the scenes, but now with Autotune and other software, the folks don’t have to be able to really sing at all, either. When we’re listening to pop music, we’ll never know what’s really behind it. LG’s live acoustic stuff proves she’s the real deal.

But – I also think that she is famous in a kind of Elvis Presley way. I’m talking about that fact that he became famous by introducing black music to white America – he didn’t invent it, he just introduced something new to people who hadn’t seen it. In LG’s early days, she got dropped from her record label and went back to playing clubs in the East Village. If you watch her, you can totally see the drag club style coming through – the torch singer vocals, the outrageous fashions, the theatricality, the characters, all of it. She didn’t invent this mix, not even close. Sure, she’s talented – so was Elvis. But she got famous by pulling a piece of East Village drag culture into the mainstream.

Seacrest irritates Idol fans (SP#1)

Last Wednesday, Ryan Seacrest used his Twitter feed to reveal the results of that night’s American Idol before the show had aired on the west coast. The result was a bunch of irritated fans and the lowest-rated result episode in the show’s history. (link to story at Perez Hilton) The results are available online, sure, but Seacrest ending up sending the results to dedicated fans who didn’t necessarily want to know yet. Couple of reactions – first, how self-serving is this? Seacrest is trying to create buzz on his own Twitter feed at the expense of the show. I think that’s called biting the hand that feeds you.

Also, it’s a bit of gray area. It’s good for the show to have celebs like Seacrest tweeting to create buzz, but then, when they go rogue, it can hurt as well. It’s a classic example of old media vs. new. The new medium doesn’t play by the same rules, and the old medium has yet to figure out how to deal with it.

As for the fans who were so upset, I understand that they feel like they got cheated (and by one of the show’s stars), but seriously – it’s just a TV show. The people who really got burned were the advertisers. They paid top dollar for those viewers that Seacrest stole.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Core Post #1

Other than being black superstars, Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier and Michael Jackson are connect by “cost of mainstreaming.” Unlike, white actors in order for a black actor to be a star he has to be:
1. a stereotype, 2. above-the-stereotype or 3. non-threatening.
In order to mainstream, (read: white), a celeb is supposed to strip himself of the things that make him “black,” but still maintaining enough of what is “black” so as not to alienate his original (read: i.e. black) fans. Paul Robeson is famous for playing Shakespeare’s Othello, but his character is viewed as “primitive or barbarian veneered by civilization.” (HB, 78) Whereas Sidney Poitier has to be “the wonder doctor…in order to have the question of his marriage to a white girl discussed.” Baldwin (p78). Michael Jackson mainstreamed in part because of the “racial ambiguity…in his image” (SID 301).
Robeson, Poitier and Jackson have been criticized for being ‘too mainstream.’ The scene between Dr. Prentice’s father explains that he didn’t sacrifice all he had sacrificed for his son to go do something crazy like marry a white woman but Dr. Prentice’s father never criticizes that the idea of his black son being a brilliant doctor in the 60’s is also a ‘crazy’ thing. It’s as if there is an unwritten rulebook that says, ‘be mainstream, be above the stereotype, but don’t be too mainstream cause then you’re a sell out.’ Where is that line?
Even by today, the black star is still dealing with the costs of mainstreaming. Comedian Chris Rock jokes that he lives in a very white affluent neighborhood next-door to a dentist. To this, Chris Rock, asks ‘why do I have to be an international superstar and my neighbor only a dentist for us to live in the same community?’
For a black actor to achieve what his white counterpart achieves, he must appeal to various ethnic groups to succeed. In comparison, a white actor only has to be famous amongst white fans to be a celebrity. Then, when a black star finally makes it, they are said to have sold out. A modern day example of this conundrum would be international star, Will Smith, who is praised for being so mainstream but criticized by both blacks and whites for not doing “black movies” and for not returning to his black hip-hop roots. On the other hand, some actors, such as Oscar winner Mo’Nique, give a swift “middle finger” to mainstream audiences, because it was their ethnicity of origin that supported their career.

1. What are the rules of mainstreaming?
2. Can a black actor be a superstar without mainstreaming?
3. What are the costs of mainstreaming?

I Ain't Much Of A Lover Boy

In response to the reading for "Soft masculinity: Bewildered Men":

No end of material has been written about the post-war American male: how destabilized and emasculated he is. I feel, though, that the progression of identity for the post-war American male is similar to -- if not exactly like -- the same evolution he suffered through as an adolescent.

Rebel Without A Cause, A Streetcar Named Desire -- any movie coming out after WWII and featuring a Method man also includes an angry youth. Displaced, unsure, he represents the post-war American male. He is angry, much like an early teenager: acting out, unsure on himself, in need of Judy Blume.

Flash forward twenty-odd years in his cinematic reputation, a few in this teenager's actual life. Calmer, more mature, he still suffers from identity crises and the effects of emasculation ... but he is less angry about it. More contemplative, less exterior, this is Bonnie and Clyde, Last Tango in Paris (featuring the same Method man as Streetcar).

It seems as though once lost, "masculinity" in its purest, simplest -- and perhaps most untruthful -- sense, can never be regained. At least that's what cinema tells us. Though the stars of and Rebel and Streetcar are masculine, they are not men: wild, out of control, without societal approval ... they may be appealing, but they are not the ideal (James Dean sealed the deal by making them into cautionary tales rather than heroes). Bonnie and Last Tango obviously deal with men reconciling their feminine sides, and today ... Michael Cera is a money-maker.

Clearly, masculinity has still been in crisis since 1945 on. But what I'm trying to say is essentially what Bozzola is in her writing on Warren Beatty: "the usual binary arrangement of sexual roles is broken down". In the period following the post-war era, the '60s and '70s, mainly. I don't know whether this is acceptance of fragmented identity (cool) or a giving up on ever trying to find a true self again (not so much), but the men in those movies seem to be destabilized, emasculated ... and ok with that. Not happy about, but ok with it. It is a constant presence in their lives, which leads them to lead destructive ones, but the anger and fire present in so many earlier films is just not there.

In arguably Beatty's greatest -- at least most famous -- role, he is Clyde Barrow. A bisexual in real life, Beatty (who had almost complete control over this film, so it really was his choice) played him impotent -- clearly not a feature of a masculine man, and in fact the greatest threat to the gender.

The film ultimately reconcils this impotency in a way that reinforces conventional values -- it is not until Clyde truly loves Bonnie and expresses this that he is able to get it up (his impotency is overcome) -- but this is still a characteristic surprising.

Either Beatty is alarmingly secure or crippilingly unsure ... to be with that many women, you have to be one or the other. Say it is the former, though, as his demeanour leads us to believe (although if Cary Grant teaches us anything ...). Perhaps it is this comfortableness, and previous screen performances as macho men, that allows him the security to play so against gender.

Questions for the class:
1) Post-war, is "masculinity" lost forever?
2) Did the wars truly create conditions that so undermined gender expectations, or did they simply reveal a truth that was already there (is "masculinity" as pure, simple, and natural as it is referred to pre-war a myth?)
3) Why would an actor so associated with masculinity play a role so anti-gender? Personal reasons -- escaping type -- or something more?

Great Expectations

Thinking about this in juxtaposition to John Wayne and so many of the other actors who had a single personae crafted by/for them ...

"All the Academy Awards that Joel and Ethan Coen won for No Country for Old Men produced an unintended effect: It made the outlaw brothers respectable. That's got to be driving them nuts. (Have any Oscar winners ever looked more miserable on camera?) Luckily, the idiot-boy side of the Coens barrels out whenever prestige threatens to choke their rebel spirit. Blood Simple begat Raising Arizona, Barton Fink begat The Hudsucker Proxy, and Fargo begat (hello, stoner heaven) The Big Lebowski. For me, the only time the slide into silly didn't work was when The Man Who Wasn't There begat the twin low points in the Coen canon, Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers.

Burn After Reading will have No Country converts running for cover."

- Peter Travers, "Rolling Stone"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ODrmhTbVIA (it's true.)

Hello, Baby; You Called, I Can't Hear A Thing

There seems to be (as always) a lot of talk about Lady Gaga, so I'll throw my hat in the ring ...

I am one of the people that counted down to the release of the "Telephone" music video. This is not because I am obsessed with Lady Gaga herself -- in fact, I believe that she is the star I have felt most ambivalently about in my recent memory.

Where I've ended up on her is this: she is (I'm hoping) following in the path of the Beatles, and starting out with pop music so she can move to something more ... satisfying. I did not believe this until I heard "Bad Romance" -- before that, she just confused me. With her fashion (ala Bowie), oh-so-Tisch theatricality, and disturbingly sincere "little monsters" thing, she clearly has something more going on than the average pop star.

She went to Julliard early, attended NYU for awhile ... she actually knows her shit. So where I've ended up on LG is not blown out of the water at present, but optimistic about the future. In any case, on to the music videos ...

I was so interested in "Telephone" because of "Bad Romance" (from here on out I'm referring to the videos, not the songs). The "Bad Romance" video is absolutely amazing. It has absolutely nothing to do with the song. Whatsoever. And just confuses the hell out of most people, before they press "play" for the forty second time. Confusing, but catchy. I was ready to write it off as a Tisch thing before my friend sent me the link to a blog that had posted a ridiculously long academic analysis of LG and her art ... her music, and -- most relevantly, her videos. Themes, satire, etc, to be found in them (no worries, I'm including the link at the end). Maybe this is what I was talking about before with over-analyziation, but I'd never heard of this happening with Britney.

Essentially, the same deal has happened with "Telephone". It's an amazing video; it has nothing to do with the song; it's being analyzed the hell out of (additional link at the end). I just think it's interesting how several things are happening here ...

The music video is become no longer A) subservient to B) equal to, the song, but something separate from it entirely. The article on "Telephone" (posted hours after it came out) talks about how it speaks to LG's communication that the pop world is a prison -- she seems to be getting out through her fashion, videos, etc. She says something utterly different in her songs (conform: "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" -- how many times have we heard some iteraiton of that?) than she does in her fashion (be David Bowie! androgny's cool ... aka be different), "little monsters" bit (every interview I've seen she references the outsider), and videos (giving you something utterly different than what you expected ... a dance companion to the songs [although, "Bad Romance" and "Telephone" seem to be the only ones that really fit that bill so far, with "Paparazzi" able to be argued either way]). Talk about contradiction in star text.

Links (sorry I don't know how to embed):

"Bad Romance" video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I
"Bad Romance" etc. article - http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2009/12/%E2%80%9Cpop-ate-my-heart%E2%80%9D-lady-gaga-her-videos-and-her-fame-monster/
"Telephone" video - http://www.ladygaga.com/telephone/
"Telephone" article - http://onlywordstoplaywith.blogspot.com/2010/03/lady-gagas-telephone-observations-and.html

An Oldie But A Goodie

In response to the "Masculinity and Genre" readings ...

Last year I took Casper's class on Hitchcock. At the end of the semester, Pat and her daughter (his granddaughter) came in to talk to the class. The granddaughter told an anecdote about her enrolling in a class at LMU on the Master of Suspense himself ... a lot of stories came out of this, but the relevant one involves her professor giving a detailed lecture (similar to Casper) about the symbolic significance of the chair placement in a scene in Rope ... how this subtly indicates so much about the characters, their motivations, etc. Hitch's granddaughter came to visit him, informed him of this lecture, and asked whether her professor was right -- was all this intentional?

"Nope", said Hitch.

Now, this man is known for unreliable interviews ... but I still wonder how this plays into the articles for that week, specifically "John Wayne's America", but uber specifically "The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit".

I wholeheartedly believe that Hitchcock set up those chairs symbolically, significantly, and any other s- synonym -ly you can think of. His Britishness just doesn't allow him to admit that. However, his granddaughter's anecdote calls into question some of what I read in the "Spy" article. Some of the arguments put forth -- sure, make sense: Cohan's assertions about North by Northwest's concern with identity (it doesn't exist, it's all performative and determined by which theatricality is best presented), and marriage as a stabilizing force (this is the only way Roger will ever fully mature). But others appear more far-fetched: Eve's reference to Roger's face as familiar on the train being a self-referential wink to Cary Grant's stardom (Hitch was not one for self-referentiality ... he always made his infamous appearances within the first fifteen minutes of a film so as not to distract the audience from the rest of the plot.), and the poster art representing masculinity in crisis rather than a man in crisis. These seem harder to buy.

But what I wonder, is whether the artist's intention matters. Say Hitchcock had no interest in exploring anything gender related with North by Northwest -- he merely wanted to recover from the economic chaos that was Vertigo. Fine. How does all this metaphor find itself in the film, then?

1) Hitchcock was unconscously incorporating these issues into his work because of a personal interest in them only subconsciously expressed.
2) The conditions of the culture at that time were such that any work representing the period in any real way had to include similar questions, regardless of whether it wanted to or not, because these questions were such a part of the societal fabric that they would pop up regardless of effort.
3) Cohan is crazy and reading wayyyyyy too much into the movie, as are other critics.

I'm including to disregard 3) (when it comes to most of his and others' arguments about the film, anyway), accept 1), 2), and assert that Hitch was consciously including a smidgen of what Cohan etc. assert him to be.

And the same goes for John Wayne, and Willis' writing (not an article -- a preface/introduction) about him. I do not believe that Wayne set out to become the ideology that Willis refers to him as -- indicated by his reference to "John Wayne" as separate from John Wayne (very clever!). But, again, I don't think it matters. The number one take-away from this class, so far -- I think -- is that actors become stars due to things outside themselves. This is not to say that they do nothing to deserve this ... acclaim? name, rather ... but merely to assert that they represent values, problems, etc. of the time, and become so significant for that metaphorical value, not their acting ability alone. So, following this logic, if a star becomes a star -- something more than one person, more than one actor, even -- by something outside oneself, then John Wayne is a star regardless of whether he attempted to achieve status as an ideology or not.

And so, I come to my questions:

1) Does an artist's intention matter? If it can be read into the work, is it just as valid if it's intended as it is if it's not?
2) How much are critics over-analyzing these works?
3) Is becoming more than oneself -- more than an individual, more than an actor, even, but an ideology -- bad in any way? ("I don't want to achieve immortality through my work ... I want to achieve it through not dying." - Woody Allen)

Is America the "land of opportunity"? Not so much.

From Daniel Froomkin's "Social Immobility: Climbing The Economic Ladder Is Harder In The U.S. Than In Most European Countries" at the Huffingtonpost:

A new report from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) finds that social mobility between generations is dramatically lower in the U.S. than in many other developed countries.

So if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.

The report finds the U.S. ranking well below Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Spain in terms of how freely citizens move up or down the social ladder. Only in Italy and Great Britain is the intensity of the relationship between individual and parental earnings even greater.

Response Post to Danielle Golden's Lady Gaga Post - Supplemental Post 3

In response to the Lady Gaga post about whether seeing celebrities as "normal" people is ruining Hollywood, I think Lady Gaga has a theory that she well supports, but I disagree. Yes, when we see a celeb take out their own trash, it does take away from the fantasy of their lives. But, when we really look at celebrities, they are just that: normal people.

The anti-Gaga would be actress Sandra Bullock who makes a star persona off of being the girl next door, or someone who seems totally approachable. Unlike many, I don't think Lady Gaga is crazy, I think she knows exactly what she is doing and every seemingly insane extreme thing she says is very calculated. I think she goes home after a hard day of being in heels to a very normal life. It's quite brilliant. There is always room for extremes in music industry. Like Sandra Bullock, Lady Gaga, has found what persona works for her and does it well. If Sandra Bullock tried to change her persona to someone of extreme glamor, it wouldn't work. The same way, that if Lady Gaga went back to being "normal" her persona wouldn't work.

In answer to the question, no celebs as 'normal' doesn't ruin Hollywood, but going against type does. That's been the case ever since old Hollywood.

For your viewing pleasure, I've embedded a video of Lady Gaga back when her name was Stefanie...i.e. normal and not famous.