April 3, 2023: NeMLA Reflections: My Panel on Niagara Falls

[A coupleweekends back I was in Niagara Falls for the 54th annual NortheastModern Language Association Convention. Longtime readers will know well howmuch I loveNeMLA, the organization and the convention alike, and this year was noexception. So as usual, here are a handful of reflections on a great NeMLAconvention!]

On takeawaysfrom the two great papers (and, yes, mine too) from my session on Niagara Fallsin American pop culture.

1)     VaughnJoy on honeymoon films: University College London History PhD candidateVaughn Joy has become one of our most prominent and prolific public scholarsfor her Twitter threads & thoughtson all things Hollywood, and she brought that veritable expertise to this panelwith a great talk on Niagara honeymoons on the silver screen between 1940 and1980 (Superman II,natch!). She also historicized those cinematic representations with analysis ofchanging views and realities of marriage, premarital sex, and gender roles overthese mid-20th century decades. Really productive and powerful blendof Film and American Studies, and one that helped us all think further aboutthe place where we were, literally and figuratively, geographically andsymbolically.

2)     Jamie Carr onshort stories: While Vaughn crossed an ocean to join our conversation, Dr. JamieCarr came just down the road from Niagara University, where she’s Professor andChair of English. Her scholarly work has focused both on place and identityoverall and on writersand Niagara Falls in particular, and for this panel she linked thosesubjects to a pair of evocative stories from a particular contemporary andlocal writer, StephanieVaughn. Everything about Vaughn’s stories sounds well worth our time, but Iwas especially struck by the way they and she evoke the histories and legaciesof the region’s nuclear sites (operating and then wastedisposal), which I had never thought of as a very distinct frame for thearea’s waterways, the Falls, and the ground itself.

3)     Me on the famous sketch: In my Septemberblog series on APUSH I wrote about the famous “Niagara Falls” comedy sketch,and specifically there the Three Stoogesversion. I had a vague sense at that time that the sketch went far beyondthat one version, but it was only when researching this talk that I reallylearned both the breadth of those versions and how fully they connect to the 20thcentury history of comedy and culture in America. From contested Vaudevilleorigins to competing 1944 sketches from Abbott and Costello andthe aforementioned Stooges to TV adaptations from Lucille Ball and DannyThomas to meta-commentaries from M.A.S.H.and Steve Martin to a discosong from Divine, “Niagara Falls” is just about everywhere in Americanculture—a fitting conclusion for a great conversation about its many tendrils!

Nextreflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. If youwere at NeMLA, I’d love to hear your reflections too!