Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 267

February 20, 2017: Precedents Day

[A holiday special post, making the case for a different way to celebrate Presidents’ Day. I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions in comments!]On how we can make this national holiday into a more meaningful remembrance of our leaders and histories.
One of the most nonsensical of our current, shared national narratives (emphasis on the “shared national”—the top ten thousand most nonsensical current narratives stem from the general area of one Mr. Trump, but I’m focusing here on narratives that have achieved a pretty broad, bipartisan, and cross-community level of support and buy-in) is the idea that we have lost a certain kind of civility in our public or political discourse, and that one of our main goals should be finding and reemphasizing it. Civility may or may not be a worthy goal in and of itself, but it has most definitely never been central to our public and political cultures; even a few minutes’ reading of the materials related to the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates over the Constitution, the controversies over the Alien and Sedition Acts, the extremely heated and divisive Adams v. Jefferson election of 1800, and many other foundational and Early Republic moments should be more than enough to make clear how uncivil those public and political cultures have often been from the outset.
That isn’t necessarily a good thing, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s a historical reality thing, and the goodness or badness of it would have a lot more to do with our own perspectives and agendas in narrating the histories. And the truth of the matter, as it so often is when it comes to our national narratives—hence this blog, at least in significant measure—is that we have precious little interest in understanding or narrating the historical realities, especially since they so often refuse to fit neatly into our simplifying ideas (such as “We used to be one big happy family who were nice to each other, and now we’re so divided and partisan and mean”). A few years back, much was made of a particular line from President Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial service, when he expressed his hope that the tragedy’s deaths could “help usher in more civility in our public discourse”; but I would contend that the far more significant sentiment came later in the same sentence, when he called instead for “a more civil and honest public discourse.” Again, whether or not civility is a worthwhile pursuit, I believe that honesty is most definitely a more worthwhile and valuable one—and, not unrelatedly, that an honest assessment of our history would force us to admit that we have never been particularly civil.
So on this President’s Day, I’d like to set, in my own small way and space, a precedent for future remembrances of our national leaders: honesty rather than celebration, accuracy to history’s complexities rather than “respect for the office of the president” (which is really just another way of saying civility) and all that. This does not, I hope it goes without saying, mean simply revisionist attacks on our presidents; those are just as simplifying, just as dishonest, as any hagiographies could be. Instead, I mean genuinely complex, honest engagement with the whole pictures; not necessarily of every president (to put it uncivilly, who really gives a fuck about Chester Arthur?), but of the ones we particularly want to remember as prominent parts of our histories and identities. Obviously such honest engagement would require more time and effort than a simple President’s Day remark allows, but still, even in the shortest lines we can work in starting points toward it: Thomas Jefferson, articulate defender of democracy and slaveowner who almost certainly conducted a multi-decade affair with a slave, impassioned opponent of the Alien and Sedition Acts and imperialist who more than doubled the nation’s lands with the likely unconstitutional Louisiana Purchase; Abraham Lincoln, who held a nation together and in the process decimated fundamental civil liberties like habeas corpus, who without question would have been willing to sacrifice any pretense of abolitionism to preserve the union but who once the war had begun was a vocal and steadfast defender of African American rights; Ulysses Grant, who presided over the most corrupt administration of the century but wrote and worked ceaselessly for freedmen’s rights; Teddy Roosevelt, who contributed greatly to negative stereotypes of Native Americans and the Filipino insurgency but helped solidify the National Park System and entrench Progressive reforms; and so on.None of those get close to capturing the complexities of each man and administration, and the precedent would be most ideal if it just inspired more reading and research, more investigation and analysis of these historical figures and periods and the many issues and questions to which they connect. And if in so doing we got a bit closer to the historical realities of who and what we’ve been, and started to emphasize honesty and accuracy more than either agendas or civility, well, that’d be a day worth celebrating each year. Annual non-favorites series starts tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?

February 18-19, 2017: Crowd-sourced JustifiedStudying

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. Leading up to this crowd-sourced post with responses from a few fellow JustifiedStudiers—add yours in comments, please!]Two-time Guest Poster and Justified super fan Emily Lauer shared a couple responses:Responding to the start of the series, she writes, “I love this show too and I'm excited about the week of posts on it! I yearn for a post on Gangstagrass, and one comparing the overall arc of the show to the plot of the first Elmore Leonard story it's based on (that gave its title to the pilot).”And responding to Tuesday’s post on Raylan and Boyd, she adds, “(Spoilers ahead) On the subject of Boyd and love, I found it fascinating that for a good long while, Boyd and Ava's romantic relationship was the most well-adjusted and communicative one on the show. Neither of them had been depicted as mature open people before that, but their power couple dynamic felt believable and aspirational regardless.”On Twitter, Shelley Girdner writes, “I just discovered Justified and have been trying to name what I love about it, so I’m happy to read [these posts] heeding the call.”Megan Fulwiler Tweets, “Loved it almost as much as The Wire too. It’s all about the banter between Raylan & Boyd.”Vanessa King shares, “My boyfriend was born and raised in Central Va. And I have lived here since high school. We loved both The Wire and Justified.Does Justified take advantage of stereotypes and Southern caricatures? Yes. Do my boyfriend and I think any of them were particularly out of place or incorrect, no.”Finally, one of my favorite TV writers, Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall, is as always very worth reading on Justified, such as in this post as the series finale was about to air (also see this concluding interview with series creator Graham Yost). Next series starts MondayBenPS. What do you think? Other responses to Justified you’d share?

February 17, 2017: AmericanStudier Hearts Justified: Justified and Deadwood

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]On what links the two great shows, and what differentiates them.If I’m to believe my usually reliable friends at the , Justified creator Graham Yost had no role in the production of David Milch’s groundbreaking and wonderful Deadwood(2004-2006). One reason for my disbelief is that in the course of its six-season run Justified employed a very very large number of Deadwood alums, not only star Timothy Olyphant (who played a U.S. Marshal in both shows) but also W. Earl Brown, Sean Bridgers, Jim Beaver, Peter Jason, Garret Dillahunt, and Gerald McRaney (and that’s just the ones I know for sure). And it’s not just the common cast list that links the two shows: in the opening seasons of both, Olyphant’s quick-draw and hot-tempered marshal character arrives in town and develops an enduring love-hate dynamic with an especially eloquent but dangerous local crime boss (with Ian McShane’s charismatic Al Swearengen serving as Deadwood’s equivalent of Boyd Crowder) while romancing a recent widow (with Molly Parker’s headstrong Alma Garret as Deadwood’s equivalent of Ava Crowder). Even the fact that Deadwood is set in 1876 South Dakota, not early 21st century Kentucky, isn’t a big a distinction between the two shows as you might think, given the heavy emphasis throughout Justified on wedding a Wild West main character and tone to that contemporary setting and context. The two shows are connected by more than just a stable of actors and a similar premise and genre, however. Both, it seems to me, are fundamentally focused on questions of community and individual identity, and of whether and how each side of that duality affects the other. While this is a reductive point in each case, it would be possible to say that Deadwoodwas centrally about whether the town would become more Swearengen’s or Seth Bullock’s (Olyphant’s character), while Justified was about whether Raylan’s or Boyd’s vision for Harlan’s future would come to pass. At the same time, each setting was exerting its pull and influence on the two men (and everyone else within its purview); the unofficial Justified anthem “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” could just as easily substitute in “Deadwood” and work equally well for that setting and show. Similarly, characters like Ava and Alma offer a chance to see how the same questions play out for a strong single woman, while Deadwood’s Chinese community boss Mr. Wu (Keone Young) parallels Justified’s Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson) as a complex and compelling spokesperson (if in Wu’s case one who by choice doesn’t speak much English) for a powerful minority community in town. The more I write these first two paragraphs, the more I feel that Yost learned a great deal from Milch’s show, and wedded those lessons to Elmore Leonard’s novella to create the template for Justified’s setting and world.There are of course lots of differences between the shows as well, and I would highlight in particular an overarching element of Deadwoodthat, perhaps, pushes that show into a stratosphere that the excellent Justified didn’t quite achieve. David Milch clearly believesthat what happened in Deadwood in 1876 and after represents no less than the birth of the modern United States, and over the course of the show’s (frustratingly aborted but possibly still evolving) arc worked hard to suggest precisely that sort of symbolic change and growth beneath the muddy realities of his frontier town. Whether we agree or disagree with that concept—I find it echoes a bit too closely Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis, and would highlight a number of other national origin points as more broadly representative than Deadwood—it reflects a level of artistic and national ambition behind Deadwoodthat seems to me to have been present in only a handful of TV shows. Justified is much of the time a less weighty pleasure, one with compelling stories to tell and an equally engrossing community to create, but not quite as ambitious a sense of the symbolic value of either those stories or that community. As I hope this week’s series has made abundantly clear, I very much love Justified for what it is, and would recommend it to anyone for a binge-watching session.Special Guest Post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other loves you’d share?

February 16, 2017: AmericanStudier Hearts Justified: Limehouse and Noble’s

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]On the potent lessons of the show’s most surprising community, and their limits.As all of my posts this week have hopefully highlighted, I learned a great deal from Justified about many aspects of Harlan County and its histories and communities. But no history or community stood out and surprised me more than Noble’s Holler, the multi-generational African American community (it dates back to the immediate aftermath of Emancipation, we’re told) led by Mykleti Williamson’s all-knowing yet tight-lipped, congenial yet dangerous butcher, restauranteur, and under-the-table banker and businessman Ellstin Limehouse. Based on an actual Harlan community, and introduced as a central setting and plot element in the show’s third season (with a recurring role in the fourth and sixth seasons as well), Noble’s is dominated by Limehouse and his agenda, relationships, and machinations, just as the show’s other season-long villain like Mags and the Bennett clan become focal points of their community and world. But because Limehouse and the people of Noble’s are the only residents of color we meet in Harlan, just about every scene with Williamson—even if he’s ostensibly just advancing aspects of the plot or aiding or hindering another character’s efforts—also has a great deal to tell us about this historic and isolated African American community and its presence and role in Harlan.One of the most interesting aspects of that latter communal role is Noble’s long (and again apparently historically authentic) legacy of providing shelter to abused women of all races looking to escape from their significant others. That legacy is deeply relevant to both Ava Crowder (who utilized those services multiple times during her marriage to the abusive Bowman) and Raylan Givens (whose mother often sought refuge from Raylan’s abusive father Arlo in Noble’s), and thus echoes into the show’s present and plot in numerous ways as well. But it’s certainly one of those aspects of the show that extends beyond specific plotlines and episodes, and helps us think about how oppressed and endangered minority communities (a description that in Harlan fits both African Americans and abused women looking to escape the confines of marriage, I would argue) find ways to survive and even thrive through both codependence and independence. That is, Noble’s has clearly benefited in various ways from its relationship with (especially) white women—we see Limehouse take both money and information in exchange for providing shelter, and of course having allies in the larger white community doesn’t hurt either—but it is able to perform that role precisely because it is self-sufficient, a quality that Limehouse is consistently determined to preserve and strengthen.At the same time, Limehouse and Noble’s are still limited by the show’s emphasis on genre and plot. Although (unlike many of the season-long villains) Limehouse survives past the end of his focal (third) season and indeed through the end of the show, he and Noble’s are featured in the later seasons only if and when a particular character needs one of the things that Limehouse can offer (shelter, money, information, aid). That’s probably inevitable, and certainly understandable, but it also frustratingly replicates in artistic terms the segregation and isolation that Noble’s and its African American community have faced throughout their Harlan existence. That is, we the viewers of Justified can go long stretches of time—such as the entirety of the 5th season, I believe—without seeing and thus (perhaps) without thinking about Noble’s, and only remember its presence in Harlan when we (through one of the show’s main characters) need something from it. You could say the same about many aspects of Justified’s community and world, to be sure (many critics have noted that both of Raylan’s fellow Deputy Marshals came in and out of the show, left out of many plotlines entirely); but there’s nonetheless something particularly frustrating about this absence and elision when it comes to the show’s and Harlan’s one overtly minority community. Yet I suppose it’s a sign of how much I love Justified that I desperately wish we had more stories involving one of its characters and communities!Last Justified Valentine tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other loves you’d share?

February 15, 2017: AmericanStudier Hearts Justified: Mags and Ava

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]On what links and what distinguishes two of the show’s strongest female characters.Anyone who is familiar with Margo Martindale’s work on The Americans (a show with a deep, wonderful cast in which Martindale has still managed to stand out in a relatively small role) won’t be surprised that her Emmy-winning performance as Mags Bennett in season 2 of Justified was one of the show’s true high points. As I wrote in Monday’s post, Justified was consistently built around the marshal-and-criminal dynamics of its genre, and Mags was no exception—the main villain of season 2, her Harlan County crime boss was one of Raylan Givens’ most worthy adversaries. But at the same time, Mags was a lot more: the matriarch of a complicated and conflicted family, with unique and evolving relationships with all three of her sons; an adopted mother of sorts to young Loretta McCready(Kaitlyn Dever), a headstrong teenage girl whose father Mags just happened to have killed in the season’s first episode; and, in one of the season’s and show’s most impressive moments and speeches, an impassioned advocate for her community and opponent to a mining company’s plans for the county and its mountains. In all of those dynamics, Mags is partly defined by her villainous ambitions, partly by her gender and her identity as a matriarch, but partly transcends and escapes any such categorizations to become one of the show’s most fully three-dimensional and nuanced characters.For much of the show’s first two seasons, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter) seemed to fit a far more stereotypical female role: as a love interest to the show’s central men. Ava is a local Harlan woman who had been harboring a crush on Raylan Givens since childhood, and with whom he begins a relationship in the first season; when that affair ends, over the course of season two she slowly moves toward a romantic relationship with Boyd Crowder instead, one that would endure for the remainder of the show’s run. Yet the reason for the slowness of Ava’s warming to Boyd is the same reason they share a last name: Ava had for many years been married to Boyd’s brother Bowman, a violent and abusive man; until, just before the events of the show’s opening episode, she shot and killed Bowman in cold blood in their kitchen (while he was distracted by his favorite meal, her fried chicken). While we don’t necessarily always see that hardness and strength and self-sufficiency in Ava in the show’s first few seasons, they gradually become more and more apparent, until by the show’s concluding season Ava is entirely a co-lead along with Raylan and Boyd, and a character with as many layers as Mags Bennett—layers likewise defined in part by villainous ambitions, in part by her gender and beauty and sex, and in part by experiences and perspectives and nuances that make her just as rounded and complex as Raylan and Boyd (if not indeed more so).So Mags and Ava are alike in many ways, as multi-layered female characters who can and do go toe-to-toe with the show’s male leads. (Significant series SPOILERS in what follows.) But while both women were born and bred in Harlan, they have very distinct perspectives on that setting and community. Mags wants nothing more than to rule the county, with an eye (it seems) toward doing right by the entire community and an eye (for sure) toward establishing a strong future for her own family; at various times in season 2 she is given opportunities to cash out and depart, but consistently chooses to stay rooted in Harlan (a decision that ultimately leads to her death). Ava, on the other hand, wants nothing more than a way out, to prove that the song “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” (used in that season 5 concluding moment as well as any song has ever been used in any TV show, I say) is not, in at least this one case, accurate. She certainly recognizes how fraught that goal is, as illustrated by her statement to Raylan, late in season 6, that “the past and the future are a fight to the death.” Yet of all three of the show’s leads, it is Ava who seems, in the extended epilogue that concludes the series, to have most fully found a way out, not just literally (Raylan too has left Harlan for good) but personally and symbolically. Which just might make her the show’s strongest character, in every sense of the description.Next Justified Valentine tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other loves you’d share?

February 14, 2017: AmericanStudier Hearts Justified: Raylan and Boyd

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]On why it can be problematic to love characters, and why that love is still worth embracing.
Justified was a star vehicle for Timothy Olyphant (if there were any true justice in the world, Deadwood would have already achieved that purpose, but I digress), and throughout its six seasons Olyphant was never less than compelling and charismatic in that central role of Marshal Raylan Givens. But the true breakout star was Walton Goggins, long an acclaimed character actor (such as in The Shield ) whose performance as Raylan’s boyhood friend, teenage coal mining colleague, and ongoing nemesis Boyd Crowder was so good it literally changed the entire show: Crowder, the other main character who appears in Leonard’s novella, was originally supposed to be in only the show’s pilot (which was based directly on the Leonard story); but Goggins was so magnetic and his chemistry with Olyphant so undeniable that the show’s creator Graham Yost wrote him into the remainder of season one. And the rest is television history: Boyd would go on to become a co-lead in Justified, with at least as many plotlines and arcs dedicated to his character, relationships, and communities as to Raylan’s. I dare you to watch the 3-minute video/interview at that last hyperlink and not see the chemistry between these two actors, which, combined with each’s potent individual talents and charisma, makes for an infinitely lovable pair of central characters.
I don’t want to be a Valentine’s Day Grinch, but such love can have its downsides, and in the case of Raylan and Boyd, I think our love for the pair might make it easy to overlook a couple problems with their characterizations. In the case of Raylan, from the first season on his propensity for answering problems with violence is presented as a potential, complex legacy from his abusive, violent, thoroughly unpleasant father Arlo Givens. By the show’s conclusion Raylan has certainly made peace with Arlo and that legacy, yet in the final episode, one of Raylan’s last scenes is another quick-draw showdownthat he wins by killing someone; and while such showdowns are an unquestioned pleasure, they don’t allow for any true resolution of Raylan’s questions. Somewhat similarly, Boyd is first presented as a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, spouting hate about Jews and African Americans; eventually the show wants us to see that identity as one of Boyd’s many self-inventions and performances, but the fact that those performances are so consistently engrossing doesn’t in any way minimize the problematic fact (in 2017 even more than ever) that the originating one was as a purveyor of bigotry, hate, and violence. It’s easy, that is, to forget that origin in the course of the show—but we shouldn’t, and so perhaps we shouldn’t love Boyd as much as we come to.
On the other hand, we can love something or someone and still be critical of it (that might in fact be the subject of my most recent book), and so recognizing these shortcomings in the characterizations of Raylan and Boyd doesn’t mean we have to stop loving them. And I want to argue briefly for both psychological and AmericanStudies benefits of doing so. On the psychological level, I believe one of the things art can do most powerfully is allow us to think deeply about humanity, about identity, about the things that define us and shape us and how we move through our lives; and loving characters helps pull us as fully as possible into their stories and identities, furthering the possibility of us engaging with those fundamental and vital questions both for them and (through them) for ourselves. And on a related, AmericanStudies level, doing so can also help us connect and engage with experiences and communities that might seem very distinct from our own—such as, in the case of these two Justifiedcharacters, the experience of growing up in a community like Harlan, of working together in the coal mines there, and of trying with at best mixed success (as illustrated by their amazing final conversation in the show’s closing moments; SPOILERS, obviously) to shape a life beyond those Kentucky starting points. Those experiences and questions wouldn’t resonate nearly as much, I don’t believe, if we didn’t love the two men going through and asking them.Next Justified Valentine tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other loves you’d share?

February 13, 2017: AmericanStudier Hearts Justified: Appalachian Action

[Last fall, I spent a very happy month or so binge-watching all of FX’s Justified. With main characters based on an Elmore Leonard novella, the show focused on—but was in no way limited to—the exploits of Timothy Olyphant’s federal marshal Raylan Givens. I loved many many things about Justified, so for this year’s Valentine’s series I wanted to highlight and analyze a few of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, or other things you love, in comments]On the limits of a cops-and-robbers TV show about Appalachia, and how Justified transcended them.Two and a half years ago, as the last main post in a weeklong series entitled AmericanStudying Appalachia, I wrote a post on two Appalachia-set action films: Steven Seagal’s Fire Down Below (1997) and the recent Christian Bale- and Casey Affleck-starring Out of the Furnace (2013). As I noted in that post, both films offer some unique and interesting lenses through which to analyze their Appalachian settings and communities, but both are also hamstrung, not only by unnecessary failings but also and more relevantly by the necessary limits of their action genres. That is, while we may (and I would argue do) learn something about Appalachia in the course of the films, that isn’t and can’t be their central purpose or goal—and in order to achieve their actual purposes (which if I were to sum up reductively, I’d call showing Seagal kicking everyone’s butt and leading up to a Bale and Woody Harrelson showdown, respectively), both films necessarily have to minimize their cultural and social worldbuilding sufficiently to render our glimpses of Appalachia partial and relatively superficial. Again, that’s not a critique of them—if they come up short, it’s as mediocre action films—but rather a reflection on the limits of a genre like action in presenting multi-layered depictions of settings and communities.From the famous opening scene of its very first episode, in which Timothy Olyphant’s Stetson-wearingMarshal Raylan Givens approaches a notorious Miami criminal, gives him two minutes to leave town or face execution, and then, when the man draws on him instead, shoots to kill, Justifiedclearly established itself within a particular genre as well: a Wild West-echoing, marshal-and-outlaw update for the 21st century. The rest of the show’s six seasons, which saw Givens transferred to the marshal’s office in his native Kentucky, followed that lead in many ways: not only specifically, in giving Raylan many many more opportunities to outdraw villains; but also more broadly, in presenting both single-episode standalone and season-long (or, in one special case about which more tomorrow, series-long) serial plotlines about Raylan and his fellow marshals pursuing and bringing justice to criminals. To be very clear, Justified executed that genre (pun intended) far better than do the two aforementioned action films, so my point here is even less of a critique than it was with them. But at the same time, the genre nonetheless presented similar limits—I’m sure there were a few characters in the course of the show who weren’t overtly linked to one or another of its law enforcement or criminal communities or plotlines, but I can’t think of any offhand; and in any case those plotlines certainly and consistently dictated what we saw of the show’s Appalachian world.Yet nonetheless, what made Justified particularly great is that it frequently transcended its genre to become a show about that Kentucky setting. One way it did so will be the topic of tomorrow’s post: the multi-layered lifelong association between Raylan and the show’s other main character, Walton Goggins’ Boyd Crowder; Raylan and Boyd not only grew up together in Harlan County, but (in one of the show’s most oft-repeated phrases) “dug coal together,” allowing for extensive engagements with that place and identity through these two men. Another main strategy for this worldbuilding was the result of a very conscious choice: to link the main villains of each season (about a couple of whom, Mags Bennett and Limehouse, more in the week’s third and fourth posts) to different sides of Harlan and Kentucky, producing a show that (much like David Simon’s The Wire) gradually developed a powerfully multi-layered portrayal of that Appalachian community alongside its genre emphases. And as loyal readers well know, if I’m comparing a show to The Wire, my love for it is already clear!Next Justified Valentine tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other loves you’d share?

February 11-12, 2017: Crowd-sourced Kids’ Histories

[February 7thmarks the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of America’s most famous writers and a cultural voice who provided entry points into American history for many many young readers (and then TV viewers). So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of texts and contexts of histories for kids, leading up to this crowd-sourced post on where and how fellow AmericanStudier got their childhood history—add your thougths in comments, please!]
Responding to the American Girl post, Irene Martyniuk writes, “I have much to say about American Girl dolls, in large part because of their role in my nieces’ lives, but also my own.  I’ve been to the Chicago main store (it is now much smaller) and the NYC main store, and the Boston and Columbus stores.  I’ve seen theater productions at the first two and had meals there.  And I’ve financed or helped to finance their place in my nieces’ lives.  I don’t want to reveal their stories—their dolls and their lives are their own—but I can say that every penny and every experience has been worth it.  I’m willing to admit that perhaps I’ve simply drunk the kool-aid, but to my mind, both of my nieces are strong, independent people—voracious readers who appreciate their dolls on multiple levels.  The message of AG—that every girl is beautiful, powerful, and in control of her own destiny may seem to be contradicted by the marketing strategies (dress-like-me outfits, etc), but it works.  I’ve seen it.  It works. 
I frequently ask my students about their AG dolls.  I cannot say every student exudes the AG mantras, but it is remarkable in much students remember about their dolls and think about their stories.  They not only learn about history but they also see many historical moments through the eyes of young girls—an approach which they may not get in school.
I’m not naïve—I realize that AG and Mattel are all about the bottom line.  They are clever in the their marketing—retiring certain girls and their items, creating on-line flash sales alongside different, story-only flash sales, introducing a girl of the year every year on New Year’s Day, and making mini AG dolls.  The company wants to turn a profit and when the AG line quits providing that, AG will simply disappear.  But, as you suggest, the outcomes of this marketing and far larger than simply collecting and playing with dolls.”
On a very, very different note in response to the same post, Catherine Proctor shares this quite funny way to rank the American Girl dolls according to their betchiness level.
Other kids’ history nominees from fellow AmericanStudiers:
Rachel Weeks Bright writes, “Horrible Histories (magazines, books, and videos from CBBC) and the Crash Course US and World History series (YouTube) are huge favorites with my kids.”
Sarah West nominates, “My history buff grandfather, who was a reporter for the Washington Star and in the Marines during WWII. Mr. Kirby's history camps. :) My daughter (age 12) is learning a ton about Revolutionary-era history right now by being obsessed with Hamilton .”
Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello shares, “In grad school I helped develop and run architectural history and cultural geography walking tours for K-3 students -- we used the book Make Way for Ducklings to explore Boston Common, Beacon Hill, and the Public Garden with all kinds of ‘I spy’ types of activities and quacking!” She adds, “I offer it here because anyone can do it with their kids and the book-- I did with my son when he was littler-- we still talk about it.”
Heather Urbanski writes, “I actually got my introduction to US Civil War (and years preceding) via the very soap-y & only partly accurate mini-series, North and South (both parts). But it got me interested enough in the period to read more historical sources and do research reports on it for school. And, of course, being a Philly kid, trips to the Liberty Bell (pre-Constitution Center) were required. As was learning about Billy Penn, and standing under his statue on City Hall when they used to let people up there. That was when a bunch of elementary school kids learned they were afraid of heights.”
Katharine Covino-Poutasse shares, “As kids we listened to all kinds of audio books. I remember learning a lot from different tapes about the Civil War and WWII. I suppose, in hindsight, there may--possibly--have been some perks to the 'no tv' rule...”
Janice Alberghene notes, “There's an age 10-14 bio of Claudette Colvin I really like. If you are looking for suitable books for your guys, just go to the American Library Association's website. It's fantastic. My parents hauled us to various historical sites. Check out the Kennedy Library in Boston (after my time); google ‘local historical associations’ and allow the search engine to use your current location; make/bake a dish from the colonial era; when the weather gets better do Boston's Black Heritage Trail or Portsmouth's, search internet for stores with old fashioned penny candy, see if any towns near you will be celebrating bicentennials or tricentennials (I made my acting debut in a school play celebrating the latter); have your kids search for the oldest thing in your house or apt., or for something that has historical significance; construct an hourglass or sundial with them, yada yada yada.” Jan also remembers, “I was an exhibit in a historical field trip for pre-schoolers in BHSU's day care. Reagan was visiting this very conservative campus. The thirty or so of us protesting his visit were relegated to an area some distance from the auditorium where he spoke. Frustrating, but we experienced great comic relief when we saw a group of pre-schoolers with their teacher. Their teachers situated the kids at a ‘safe’ distance from us, but we could still see her point at us and hear her gravely inform the kids that we were protesters.”
Vanessa King writes, “My daughter Anna loves the show, Mysteries at the Museum . Short little segments with audio and visual representations of history. And she watches it with us and can ask us follow-up questions!”
Amy Ryan shares, “You've probably already talked about the Magic Tree House books . I'd rather gouge my eyes out than read another one, but they are so popular. They do introduce historical events and periods in a really accessible way for kids. The author also has some more in-depth study guides to accompany some of the books. They were among the first chapter books both of my kids read.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Any other kids’ histories you’d remember and share?

February 10, 2017: History for Kids: School Projects

[February 7thmarks the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of America’s most famous writers and a cultural voice who provided entry points into American history for many many young readers (and then TV viewers). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts of histories for kids, leading up to a crowd-sourced post on where and how you got your childhood history (or where your kids are getting it)!]Thanks to their wonderful Massachusetts public school, my sons have had the chance to work on numerous unique and exciting projects, including many focused on historical figures and themes. Here are brief descriptions for and historical lessons from three of them:1)      The Negro Leagues: As part of their 4th grade Social Studies curriculum, both boys have had the chance to read about and study the Negro Leagues, culminating in a project creating a ginormous biographical baseball card for one particular player (my older son chose Josh Gibson; my younger son is the process of making his choice). The entire unit offered a wonderfully specific and engaging way to think about issues of race, social justice, and sports in American culture, and the baseball card project in particular asks the students to consider how such themes became part of the life story of their chosen figure (both in limiting and in inspiring ways, or at least that’s certainly how my son’s Josh Gibson project played out). It’s not always easy to know how we should remember something as fraught yet vital, frustratingly circumscribed yet impressively successful, as the Negro Leagues—much less how we could teach such a history to kids. But this unit and project do so very effectively on all levels, I’d say.2)      Explorers: Another part of 4th grade Social Studies focuses on explorers and exploration throughout history, from Marco Polo and the Vikings up through 19th century Americans like Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea. This year the unit features a new multi-pronged culminating project, with one option being the chance to create a board game based on a chosen explorer’s journeys. My younger son has chosen Sacagawea, and as I write this is in the process of finalizing his board game of her role in and contributions to the Lewis and Clark expedition and an expanding national identity. Thanks to how much the unit has taught him, and to his own empathetic perspective, he’s including some of the expedition’s negative effects—both its own deaths/losses and the ways in which it led to often disastrous consequences for native tribes and communities across the continent—as well as its and Sacagawea’s more positive and heroic sides. As with other native figures such as Pocahontasand Sarah Winnemucca, it can be hard to navigate those more inspiring and more painful sides to their lives and legacies—but this unit and project have helped my son to do so, and in a board game no less!3)      The Lost Boys of Sudan: As part of his 5th grade Social Studies class, my older son recently completed a unit on the Lost Boys of Sudan, one centered around Katherine Applegate’s historical novel Home of the Brave (2008). The unit’s most striking and exciting culmination was a visit to their class from two of the actual Lost Boys, now young men living their unfolding American lives and sharing their stories here. (As an important aside, refugees from Sudan would no longer be allowed to come to the U.S. under Trump’s new Executive Orders.) But the unit also featured a final project, in which my son and a couple classmates created a newspaper featuring stories about a number of moments and figures in the story of Applegate’s fictional Lost Boy protagonist Kek. As he worked on the newspaper, he was able to think not only about Kek’s experiences and perspective, but about the vital question of how we can tell such stories, how we can connect them to audiences (something that the visiting Lost Boys also helped model, of course). One more great lesson from these wonderful school projects!Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Kids’ histories you’d remember and share for the weekend post?

February 9, 2017: History for Kids: Kate Milford’s The Boneshaker

[February 7thmarks the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of America’s most famous writers and a cultural voice who provided entry points into American history for many many young readers (and then TV viewers). So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts of histories for kids, leading up to a crowd-sourced post on where and how you got your childhood history (or where your kids are getting it)!]On more overt and more subtle lessons from a tale of historical horror.Nearly five years ago (ah, how time flies when you’re AmericanStudying!) I wrote a post about young adult novelist John Bellairs and his supernatural horror novel The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull (1984). In the years since I’ve had the chance to share Bellairs’ books with my sons, and we’ve experienced together the chills and discomfort (in a good sense) about which I wrote in that post. I don’t know many other children’s authors like Bellairs, but earlier this year we discovered a book that’s very much in his tradition: Kate Milford’s wonderful The Boneshaker (2010). Moreover, while Bellairs’ books do tend to be set in a vaguely past moment (to feel slightly antiquated on purpose, that is), Milford’s novel is much more overtly historical: it’s set in 1913 Missouri (in the fictional crossroads town of Arcane), and is as interested in conjuring up that historical period and place as in its teenage protagonist Natalie Minks and the supernatural horrors she and her family and friends face. As a result, The Boneshaker communicates a number of complex and compelling historical lessons along with more than its fair share of chills.Many of the novel’s most overt historical lessons concern the constrasting yet interconnected presences of traditional and modernizing influences in that 1913 moment. Without spoiling any specifics, I can safely say that the novel’s villains are a group of traveling snake-oil salesmen, huckers and con artists led by the sinister Jake Limberleg. They gain access to the town in part because the more modern Doc Fitzwater departs in the opening chapter, driving his fancy new car to a neighboring town that has been struck by a flu epidemic. In between those two ends of the spectrum are Natalie and her family: her father is a mechanic obsessed with new technologies (an obsession and set of skills he has passed on to Natalie), while her mother is a kind of town mystic who knows its past and stories (knowledge and talents she has likewise passed on to Natalie). To combat Jake and his crew, Natalie needs both sides of her heritage and identity, offering a compelling case for the roles of both past and future. But even beyond the book’s plot, these distinct influences position 13 year old Natalie as a particularly interesting representive of a moment and nation on the cusp of the 20th century but still very much linked to and defined by its 19th century past. That’s a complicated but crucial historical lesson, and one Milford’s book conveys on these multiple levels of setting, plot, and characterization.The novel features a number of other interesting characters, but for both me and my sons by far the most compelling was old Tom Guyot. A supremely talented African American guitarist whose story features a prominent crossroads encounter with the Devil, Tom clearly echoes Robert Johnson, the real yet semi-mythic blues guitarist who was born in neighboring Mississippi just two years before The Boneshakeris set. Yet Tom differs from Johnson in a couple key ways: he was born into slavery, and brings that historical legacy into the novel; and he chose not to make a deal with the Devil during their crossroads encounter, a choice that echoes into the novel’s present and plot in many ways. Moreover, Tom becomes a crucial mentor and friend for Natalie, a role that partly echoes that of Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(another novel set in Missouri) but with none of that novel’s controversial and (to this AmericanStudier) too casual racism. In an understated but potent way, then, Tom allows Milford to revise longstanding mythic images of African Americans (such as Johnson and Jim), to make slavery and its legacies part of her book’s setting and historical moment, and to feature a powerful and heroic African American character (something still too rare in much children’s and young adult literature). Just one more vital historical (and contemporary) lesson in a book the boys and I highly recommend.Last childish history tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Kids’ histories you’d remember and share for the weekend post?