Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 329

February 17, 2015: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Sinatra and Elvis

[Last year, I followed the Valentine’s series with a complementary series analyzing some of the things that just don’t quite do it for me. It was pretty popular, including my biggest crowd-sourced post to date, so this year I’m repeating the series—and repeating the request for your non-favorites for a crowd-sourced post in which we’ll air some grievances!]On the differences between influential and interesting, and why even the former can be problematic.It seems to me that you can’t tell the story of American popular music in the 20th century—and thus the story of American popular music period—without including Frank Sinatraand Elvis Presley in prominent roles. Indeed, given each man’s forays into acting, entrepreneurship, and other cultural and social arenas, I’m not sure you could leave them out of a broader 20th century history of America either. In their own ways, and in their own particular, most successful periods (Sinatra’s career extended well into Presley’s, of course, but he was at his most successful in its first couple decades, between 1935 and about 1955; Presley rose to prominence in the mid 1950s and was at his peak from then until about 1970), the two artists dominated their respective musical genres time and again, leaving legacies that extend well beyond record sales or awards (although both are among the most successful artists of all time as measured in those ways as well).So I wouldn’t necessarily argue with definitions of Sinatra and Elvis as among the most influential musical artists of all time (although I might, in a moment, argue that point too). But influential isn’t the same as interesting, and on that score both artists fall short for me. Partly that’s just about taste and how there’s, y’know, no accounting for it (de gustibus, non est disputandum, as our Roman friends knew); I’m not a big fan of either crooners or rockabilly, and thus likely outside of the ideal audience for either man’s biggest hits or signature styles. But my point here isn’t simply about my personal tastes, which I don’t expect are hugely interesting either—I’m thinking as well about the nature of the men’s mainstream popularity and prominence. Despite the unquestionable (if, in retrospect, very silly) controversy over Presley’s hips, that is, I would argue that both men succeeded as consistently as they did because they were largely unobjectionable, hitting cultural sweet spots with regularity in a way that doesn’t seem as interesting as artists who push the envelope or challenge norms.Moreover, I’m not sure that describing these two artists as influential is entirely justified either. After all, a significant percentage of both men’s songs were written by other songwriters or were covers of other artists; clearly their stunning voices and signature styles played a prominent role in making the songs as successful as they were, but I don’t know that simply singing and performing someone else’s songs qualifies an artist as influential. To be clear, I’m not trying to rehash the old argument about Presley exploiting African American music; that issue is part of the Elvis story to be sure, but the truth is that a great deal of early rock and roll crossed racial and cultural boundaries. Instead, I’m simply trying to differentiate between what we might call performers and artists, and to argue that those whom we would locate in the former category (such as two men whose most consistent successes were as performers singing others’ words, or similarly as actors reciting others’ lines) might be more important than they were influential or interesting.Next non-favorite tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Other non-favorites you’d share for the weekend post?

February 16, 2015: AmericanStudying Non-Favorites: Breaking Bad

[Last year, I followed the Valentine’s series with a complementary series analyzing some of the things that just don’t quite do it for me. It was pretty popular, including my biggest crowd-sourced post to date, so this year I’m repeating the series—and repeating the request for your non-favorites for a crowd-sourced post in which we’ll air some grievances!]On why the highly acclaimed show and I aren’t on the same page.I know I’m in danger of losing my AmericanStudier card with this post, or at least losing the respect of a lot of the people whose opinions on TV and culture I greatly value. And to be clear, I’m not going to argue that Breaking Bad , Vince Gilligan’s groundbreaking show about the gradual descent of a high school chemistry teacher into a life of drug-dealing, crime, and mayhem (a transformation, as Gilligan pitched it to AMC, “from Mr. Chips to Scarface”), wasn’t as well-made and –executed as everyone (including my favorite TV reviewer of all time) says it is. Indeed, from the couple of seasons that I’ve watched (I stopped at a certain point, for the reasons I’ll get to in a moment), I would agree that Breaking Bad was as well-acted, -written, and –directed as anything I’ve seen on TV, and represented a very unique twist on the anti-hero protagonist trend for sure.Part of what make me and Breaking Bad not quite simpatico is as simple as that anti-hero trend, I suppose. Despite writing that linked post and the rest of a week’s series on House of Cards, for example, by the end of that current show’s second season I found myself much more frustrated than entertained by how thoroughly evil is its protagonist Frank Underwood—and yet how much the show expects and requires us to root for Frank nonetheless. That last part is my real problem with such anti-hero protagonists—that in many cases, including both Frank Underwood and Breaking Bad’s Walter White, the audience is asked to root for them not as they strive for something better (which I would say of, for example, The Wire’s Jimmy McNulty, even if he consistently fails in that pursuit), but instead in the depths of their anti-heroic and even evil activities. I can’t say for sure if Gilligan intended that effect, and the show’s eventually tragic ending would seem to argue that he didn’t; but I know that many of the responses to the show over the course of its run emphasized how “bad-ass”was the Scarface version of Walter White.So the concept of a bad-ass bad guy as protagonist doesn’t speak to this optimistic AmericanStudier, no. But what about the overall arc, that Mr. Chips to Scarface transformation? After all, two of my favorite American films are The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2 , and a significant plot and thematic thread across both films is the transformation of good guys into bad (whether that’s Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in both films or Robert De Niro’s Vito Corleone in the second film’s flashback sequences). Yet the same fundamental frame, when executed in a TV show, is far less compelling to me. And in analyzing that contrast, I would have to say that it boils down in many ways to generic differences between film and TV: the ways in which a two-hour film (or rather a few key scenes within it) can tell a particular kind of story, vs. the choices entailed in telling the same story across dozens of episodes in multiple seasons of a TV show. A good argument for how closely tied form is to content, and how much the former informs the way we experience and enjoy—or don’t enjoy—the latter.Next non-favorite tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Other non-favorites you’d share for the weekend post?

February 14-15, 2015: I Love Being an Uncle

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I’ve done the same this week, leading up to this special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and messages in comments!]Last August I featured a week’s series on American uncles and aunts, inspired by my sister and brother-in-law’s impending parenthood. Well, I’m going to keep this special post short and sweet: in late October my sister had twins, Lila and Owen; they, their Mom and Dad, and everybody in the family are doing great. My 9 (!) years as a Dad convinces me that there’s no greater love than what we feel for our children—but being an uncle is pretty nice too! Happy first Valentine’s Day, Lila and Owen!Next series starts Monday,Ben
PS. Loves or other Valentine’s messages you’d share?

February 13, 2015: I Love Magical Historic Sites

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I wanted to do the same this week, leading up to a special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and thoughts in comments!]Flowers and chocolates are okay but pretty clichéd; for my money, you can’t do anything more romantic for Valentine’s Day than taking the one you love to a wonderful historic or cultural site. Here are five of my favorites, which will be familiar to long-time readers of this blog (and about which I won’t say any more, so you can use the time to prepare for your trip!):1)      The Salem Witch Trials Memorial (I know Witch Trials might not seem romantic, but I don’t know any place in America I’d rather share with a loved one)2)      The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (and especially that courtyard!)3)      The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (which is even more awesome if you share those details about Saint-Gaudens)4)      Monticelloand Ash Lawn-Highland (they’re on the same road!)5)      Angel Island and San Francisco’s Chinatown (okay, that’s more of a daytrip, but your love would be impressed by the effort)Special post this weekend,Ben
PS. What do you think? Loves of yours you’d share?

February 12, 2015: I Love Writing Book Reviews

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I wanted to do the same this week, leading up to a special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and thoughts in comments!]In the last few years, I’ve had the chance to review a number of great scholarly books for various journals and sites. Each time I’ve learned so much from both the book and the experience of creating a review of and response to it, and I’m really grateful for each and every such chance. Here are the focal points for my five reviews to date (the last two are to-be-written, so I’m just highlighting the books at this point):1)      James Salazar’s Bodies of Reform (2010) and Andrew Taylor’s Thinking America (2010): I reviewed these two impressive works of American Studies scholarship for my first review, which was published in American Literature in 2011 . The two represent very different scholarly strains—cultural studies and intellectual history, respectively—but as I wrote in that review complement each other very nicely, offering a wonderful perspective on 19th and early 20thcentury America in the process.2)      Matthew Rebhorn’s Pioneer Performances (2012): I reviewed Rebhorn’s groundbreaking book for American Literary History ’s forthcoming, online-only review series. I’ll update this post when the site and review appear, but in the meantime will note that I learned a great deal from every chapter of Rehborn’s book about American drama, 19th century culture and society, and images and narratives of the frontier.3)      Zareena Grewal’s Islam is a Foreign Country (2013): My review of Grewal’s autoethnographic and interdisciplinary study of Muslim American identities, communities, histories, religion, multimedia texts, and more is forthcoming in the Spring 2015 issue of American Studies . I’d put this book alongside Borderlands/La Frontera as an autoethnographic analysis of such topics, and that’s very high praise indeed.4)      Sarah Roth’s Gender and Race in Antebellum Popular Culture (2014): I’ll be reviewing Roth’s book this spring for the Journal of Southern History .5)      Alysson Hobbs’s A Chosen Exile (2014): And I’ll also be reviewing Hobbs’s book this spring for the American Book Review . Next love tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Loves of yours you’d share?

February 11, 2015: I Love American Historical Films

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I wanted to do the same this week, leading up to a special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and thoughts in comments!]On three great historical films you can watch right now on NetFlix (and are still worth seeking out if you don’t have a subscription):1)      John Sayles’ Amigo (2010): The only film I know about one of the least remembered American histories, our military occupation of the Philippines. And a funny, nuanced, passionate, and moving movie in its own right.2)      Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997): Not a perfect movie by any means, but for my money the best film about slavery until 12 Years a Slave came along. I would definitely argue it should be better remembered than more famous and flawed Spielberg films like E.T.3)      The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Of course I think the novel is better, but the film is pretty impressive and important in its own right (and, yes, Springsteen had only seen the film at the time that he wrote “The Ghost of Tom Joad,”although he did get to Steinbeck’s novel eventually). Not sure there’s a better American performance than Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.If you watch any or all of these great movies, come back and share your thoughts in comments, please!Next love tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Loves of yours you’d share?

February 10, 2015: I Love David Simon’s Perspective

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I wanted to do the same this week, leading up to a special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and thoughts in comments!]Two obvious reasons and a less famous one why I can’t get enough of David Simon’s take on America.1)      The Wire : ‘Cause duh. Also duh. And—nah, if you haven’t seen the greatest TV show in history yet, I don’t want to waste more of your time reading! Finish this post (if you would), then go find yourself a way to start watching The Wire (which was recently re-released in HD for HBO Go; I have mixed feelings about the change, but it does mean that it’s readily available for viewing in various ways). You’ll thank me!2)      New Orleans: When it comes to what I just wrote in item 1, I have to admit that I’m a hypocrite—lots of friends and colleagues have insisted over the last few years that I watch Simon’s show Treme, and yet I haven’t gotten around to doing so. I will, I promise (and I imagine there’ll be an update here when I do)—but even before I do so, I can note how much I agree with Simon about the amazing, unique, profound Americanness of the Big Easy. I don’t know another city or place like it, and I know we wouldn’t be the same nation without it. Nice to see it get some love from one of our greatest storytellers!3)      The Blog: This one might come as a bit of a surprise, since I’m a self-confessed optimist and Simon named his website/blog “The Audacity of Despair.” I’m not sure I quite believe him—The Wire, for example, is consistently dark but (I would argue) defined at least as much by the possibility of hope (difficult and uncertain and rare as it may be). But in any case, Simon’s blog is one of the most consistently intelligent, funny, pointed, moving, and just so damn well-written things out there, in any medium and form, and one that every American should be reading. What’s not to love?!Next love tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Loves of yours you’d share?
PPS. Since I wrote this post, I've started watching season one of Treme--and yup, it's as good as I had hoped!

February 9, 2015: I Love Attica Locke’s Mysteries

[For each of the last couple years, I’ve dedicated my Valentine’s week series to highlighting some American loves of mine. I wanted to do the same this week, leading up to a special weekend post on a new love. I’d love for you to share your own Valentine’s loves and thoughts in comments!]On the wonderful first two novels by a new favorite author.Attica Locke’s debut novel, Black Water Rising (2009), was the best book I read in 2014. I shouldn’t have been surprised, as it was shared with me by my favorite writer and book-recommender. But while I knew that meant it would be a good read, I was expecting just that: an entertaining and well-done mystery novel (which would have been more than enough, to be clear). And Black Water Rising is a hell of a lot more than that—I’m not going to spoil any of its particulars here, but will simply say that the book is not only a great mystery and thriller, but also a multi-generational historical novel (one with a lot to say about both the 1980s and the 1960s), a socially realistic depiction of issues such as race, labor, and the rise of the oil industry in Houston and the South, a potent and moving portrayal of family and parenting, and a lot more besides. If you want to know the rest, you know what LeVar Burton would tell you to do!I just got Locke’s second novel, The Cutting Season (2012), as a holiday present, and I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet (too busy writing and scheduling future blog posts before the new semester begins, natch). But I can tell you for sure that no matter how it ends, Cutting Season retains all those elements and adds the histories and legacies of slavery for good measure; the novel reads like a combination of Black Water Rising and David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident(1981), one of my favorite American novels of all time. I would have said it was impossible for Locke to improve upon Black Water, but it seems clear to me that she has indeed taken a significant step forward, engaging more broadly and deeply with American history and identity without losing a bit of what makes her books so engaging and compelling.Locke’s third novel, Pleasantville , is due out this coming April, and is apparently a direct sequel to Black Water Rising, featuring its lawyer protagonist Jay Porter in a mystery set fifteen years after the end of that prior book (slight but not hugely significant spoilers for Black Water at that link). I’m excited to see where Locke takes Jay this time, and what she might be adding to her repertoire with this next book. But at this point, I also have to agree with Dennis Lehane: “I’d probably read the phone book if her name were on the spine.” When I find an author about whom I feel that way, well, that’s one of the things I love best about reading and culture. Next love tomorrow,Ben
PS. What do you think? Loves of yours you’d share?
PPS. Since I wrote this post, I finished Cutting Season, and loved it as well--especially for its powerful evocations of the legacies, settings, and stories of slavery in our own moment and lives.

February 7-8, 2015: Crowd-sourced Conspiracies

[Americans sure can believe some cray cray things. That’s right, I said cray cray. In this week’s series, I’ve AmericanStudied five such conspiracy theories, past and present. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the suspicious contributions of fellow AmericanStudies—add your craziness in comments, please!]Following up on the series overall, Sam Southworth writes, “Near and dear to my heart. I always attempt to eschew conspiracy thinking and discourage it among students because it just seems like an awfully busy way to encourage sloppy thinking habits. But I certainly agree that a great deal can be gleaned by paying attention to the theories and what they say about the people who adopt them, often without much due diligence. Ufology (as it is termed) and JFK-ery would be just the right place to start, and I have labored in both vineyards. The UFO field is just so fragmented and peculiar! Evidence? Slight. Fervor of true believers? Verging on unhinged. And there are some very strange tales out there, for sure. My preference is for caves, tunnels and underground bases, such as (supposedly) Dulce, NM, and Montauk on eastern Long Island.”Angela Allan adds, “Area 51? JFK? Moon landing? Birthers? Truthers? Antivaxxers? So many scary options.”Andrea Grenadier notes, “Just yesterday, I met a very interesting guy over at GW in computer science, who is tracing rumors, their beginnings, and why they never seem to die. The prime example: Obama is a secret Muslim. Other conspiracy theories: that Elvis really isn't dead, and that the Holocaust was a hoax so we could get a cool, new country called Israel.”Heather Urbanski connects such theories to current pop culture, joking that “all the hours watching Marvel CU and Ancient Aliens has sated my conspiracy needs.”Rob Gosselin highlights a brand-new conspiracy theory, about last Sunday’s Super Bowl. Rob also follows up Wednesday’s moon landing post, saliently joking, “I heard they are keeping the props and all the other evidence of the staged moon landing in a hanger at area 51. That's also where the tunnel is that leads to the center of the hollow earth.”Osvaldo Oyola responds to that post as well, highlighting “the brilliant film Room 237, which is in part about the belief that Kubrick helped fake the moon landing.”Finally, Andre Carrington’s response highlights both the radioactive and undeniable nature of the week’s topic: “I don’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, except to say that conspiracy theories are terribly widespread.”Next series starts Monday,Ben
PS. What do you think? Other conspiracy theories you’d highlight?

February 6, 2015: American Conspiracy Theories: 9/11 Truthers

[Americans sure can believe some cray cray things. That’s right, I said cray cray. In this week’s series, I’ll AmericanStudy five such conspiracy theories, past and present. Please share your own conspiracy theories—ones you believe, or just ones you find interesting and worth studying—for a suspicious weekend post!]On how not to respond to a contemporary conspiracy theory, and how to do so.The community of September 11th “Truthers” (those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by Al Qaeda hijackers nor masterminded by Osama Bin Laden, but planned and executed by other forces, most often U.S. government insiders) was back in the news earlier this fall. At the start of the current NFL season, the political website Huffington Post hired former wide receiver Donté Stallworth as a correspondent covering “national security,” and the dedicated community of web hunters soon discovered that Stallworth had Tweeted Truther sentiments back in 2009. To his credit, Stallworth then took to Twitter once more to note that his views had changed in the intervening five years; but whether or not this particular Truther still holds to the outlandish conspiracy theory, there’s no question that many of his fellow Americans continue to espouse those beliefs about one of the darkest and most tragic days in American history.One of the most consistent responses to and arguments against these Truther theories has been that they are disrespectful or insulting to the thousands of victims of the attacks, as well as their families, friends, and communities. But I would argue that this argument doesn’t quite hold up, for a number of reasons. For one thing, those lives were lost and ruined in any case; the tragedy and horror doesn’t change depending on what we say or think about it. For another, a significant part of what makes the event so tragic is that its victims were entirely innocent and disconnected from any relevant histories (compared, for example, to soldiers or combatants killed in war); that factor once again does not depend in the slightest on who was behind the attacks. Finally, and most importantly, if we owe the victims and their loved one and communities anything—besides mourning and remembering them, which are first and vital responses to be sure—it is precisely to make sure that we do not elide any of the details of what happened to them; that doesn’t mean believing Truther nonsense, but it does mean that researching and investigating the events should never be seen as disrespectful or insulting to those affected by them.Just because the Truther theories aren’t insulting, however, doesn’t mean that they’re not seriously wrong-headed and unproductive (to say nothing of crazy and stupid), and responding to them as such can help direct our conversations more productively as a result. For one thing, if we want to criticize the government in relation to 9/11, we have plenty of much more accurate and meaningful ways to do so: highlighting Dick Cheney’s 2001 conversations with Taliban leaders; analyzing President Bush’s inappropriate response to his August 2011 daily briefing about potential terrorist attacks; recognizing how quickly and wrongly we turned our attention to the drumbeat for war with Iraq; and so on. For another, and even more important, thing, correctly attributing the 9/11 attacks to Al Qaeda has the potential—if pursued with nuance and depth—to lead to more far-reaching and ongoing conversations about, among other things, America’s long history in the Middle East, how and how not to combat terrorism around the world, and other such salient issues. Which is to say, the Truthers are right about one and only thing: the truth of 9/11 is complex and worth extended attention, analysis, and discussion.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,Ben
PS. What do you think? Other conspiracy theories you’d highlight?