Much of the Netflix talk in my classes has been focused on the release of the new season of Stranger Things this past weekend. While I haven't had a chance to watch the series yet, this video below (from the Just Write YouTube channel) smartly discusses how the nostalgic style of the show aligns with literary techniques of pastiche and intertexuality. It's a great way to introduce the young people in your class to what literature and other forms of art have been doing for centuries. Take a look...
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Yes, I will give you a D from time to time. The reason is because that's what you have earned. Sometimes your writing stinks, and that's okay (for a little while). It's what you do after getting the D that I really care about. That response is what will make you a real writer. So get back to work and keep improving.
Whenever students come into my classroom or see me around campus and say, "Hey, Dr. Spivey, how are you?" I always reply with the same answer. I smile in return and say, "Great!" No matter when or where, that's what I say.
I firmly believe that we choose our attitude. And when I'm at work, I always choose my attitude to be "Great!" It's not fake. It's not cheesy. I legitimately do my best to be "Great!" when that person is asking. Recently, a student caught on to my pattern. She asked me, "Why do you always say 'Great!'? You can't possibly be in a good mood all the time, right?" I told her, "I just choose to be in a good mood. I don't believe in letting whatever else is going on around me dictate how I should act toward others. That's all." She didn't seem satisfied with that answer, commenting that being sad or angry or any other emotion is part of life, so it's okay to be honest about it. I nodded along, but then told her to come closer--I would let her in on a secret. "The reason I say what I say," I told her, "is that I have to say it." She was a bit puzzled. "If I come into class moping," I said, "the entire class will be lost. Everyone will feel that negative emotion, and students won't be ready to do the work I want them to accomplish. When you're the boss, you don't get to have negative days in front of those people that rely on you--in my case, my students. That's why my students will never know if I have the flu, if I'm in pain, if I just lost a loved one, if I'm exhausted because I only got two hours sleep, or if I'm ticked off at something. My negativity will never come through. Because it can't. I want my students to be at their best. So I promise to always be at my best. Even if I don't feel like it." She understood, but I don't think she was fully convinced of that approach to life. I told her that when she's in charge someday--of a business, of a family, of an Army unit, or of a classroom--she would understand. She would have a responsibility to be "Great!" We chatted for a few minutes more, and she left my class smiling. "See you next week, Dr. Spivey," she said. "Have a great rest of your day." "You know I will," I replied. I was watching the Alabama/Tennessee game on Saturday when I saw the Vols score a touchdown--their only one of the day--that was accompanied by this: The Vols lost to the Tide 45-7. That's right, Tennessee got blasted by 38 points and had the nerve to act faux-tough toward the number one team in the country. But that wasn't all. Later that night, I was watching the Penn State/Michigan game and this happened: The Nittany Lions blew out the Wolverines 42-13.
These are athletes that are likely going to school for free on taxpayers' dimes, and this is how they act when facing defeat from a superior team. Add this to the NFL's problems, and it's becoming much clearer why so much of America is upset with football players right now. I grabbed lunch at McDonald's the other day and watched the deterioration of our culture right in front of my eyes. At this particular McDonald's, several tables have television monitors with touch-screen video games available on them. As I ate at a nearby booth, I watched a man and his three kids sit at one of these tv tables. The dad ordered at the counter while the kids, all around age 6, immediately started playing the game.
When dad came back with their tray of food, he tried to sit at the tv table, but the size of the monitor made the table too crowded in front of his chair. So he told the kids he couldn't fit at the table and asked them if they would move to an adjacent table so they could all sit together. The kids refused. The dad gave the food to the kids and moved to the other table by himself. I watched him eat his burger in silence, while the kids excitedly played with their screen. This is where we are in the world: kids refusing to take a 15-minute break from their digital obsession to eat a meal with their loving father. When we let frivolous technology govern our lives, and particularly the lives of our children, our demise is not far off. No wonder our families, education system, and the culture at large are in the state they're in. David Fincher is the best director working today (see my Monday review for his work on the new series, Mindhunter), and he uses deliberate techniques to create style, motion, and even character relatability in the way he points his camera. Today's video from Nerdwriter captures the Fincher effect nicely, how the director melds his subject with audience through subtle adjustments in space and movement and elicits a personal reaction from viewers to what is happening on screen. Check out the video, as well as other Fincher films to see his methods in action. The new 10-episode Netflix series Mindhunter premiered Friday, and it does not disappoint. Based on the book of the same name by real-life FBI criminal profiler John Douglas, the show is sort of a meta-detective procedural, simultaneously leading viewers through specific murder cases, while also showing us the nascent behavioral science unit at Quantico. We learn of the process for catching killers while such techniques are first tried out.
Before Clarice Starling or the crew at Criminal Minds, there were just a few intrepid agents, curious to discover a new way of catching society's most dangerous assailants. The story takes place in the late 1970s, and agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) are developing a new method for tracking murderers, specifically those involving sexual assault. They endeavor to flip the prevailing process. Instead of just following physical evidence and waiting for killers to strike again, they begin to investigate the mental processes and personal experiences of criminals, hoping to catch killers before they strike. They want to change the system of FBI investigation. Cops no longer just knock on doors and wrangle suspects. They are psychologists, imploring the darkest minds to reveal how they tick, hoping to learn enough to prevent the next inevitable horrific case. Ford is the ambitious youngster paired with his grizzled and more world-wise partner, Tench. They work together masterfully, but that doesn't mean they don't butt heads. Ford sees opportunity everywhere, while Tench respects process and discretion. Tench is too old to be risking his career on whims. Ford sees the point of having a career in the FBI is to take such risks. Together, they decide to interview serial killers (a term that, amazingly, did not exist until this time period) in prison to get background and modus operandi details in an effort to develop patterns and make predictions. The two agents eventually enlist the help of psychology professor Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) to enhance the academic validity of their discoveries. The FBI higher-ups are largely kept out of the loop regarding this new unit, for fear that taxpayers will not want their money wasted on research and lab tests when more cops with more more guns are needed on the streets. So Ford and Tench delicately dance around bureaucratic protocol for as long as they can. The series is heavy on talking, as the interviews with killers and discussions among agents form the crux of the show--after all, this is what FBI agents spend most of their time doing. And it is in these elaborate discussions that the most interesting elements of how we investigate crimes reveal themselves. The show addresses the nature vs. nurture debate of criminality, how gender is related to criminality, how officers cope with the horrors of their work, and even the ethics and Constitutionality of predicting illegal behavior. There are great sociological questions raised, and the show handles each admirably. Acclaimed director David Fincher helms the first two and last two episodes, but his dimly-lit style permeates all ten episodes. The darkness of the subject matter is reflected in nearly every set piece, and though episodes six and seven lull a bit, the series keeps the thematic intensity throughout. We are always constantly aware of the consequences for everyone involved. Perhaps the most disturbing scenes in the series are the interviews with the serial killers, particularly the exchanges with Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton), one of the most brutal and deranged serial killers in American history. We see Ford and Tench wrestle with his contradictory nature--he is calm and intelligent, even cordial with the agents--as his madness lurks underneath. The agents must fight off sympathetic impulses at hearing his tortured background, and Britton plays Kemper's insanity with an Emmy-worthy understatement. The show is not easy to watch, with much talk of gruesome crimes and demented worldviews, but from a psychological perspective, it offers excellent insight into the complicated nature of police investigation. Cops see the worst the world has to offer, then have to go home at night and live with themselves and their loved ones. They are often in as much need of psychological help as the people they are chasing. Mindhunter gets to the core of what makes people crazy. And there is plenty terrain still to cover. The finale hints toward endless possibilities for continued development of the behavioral science unit, and Ford and Tench are worth following for many more episodes. A release for season two has not been announced yet, but I look forward to continuing on the dark journey. When I was working on my PhD several years ago, I was spending many of my waking hours amid the endless stacks of the massive Hayden Library at Arizona State University. During the school year, when I was teaching during the week, I'd go to the library nearly every Saturday and Sunday. During the summers, I'd go to the library nearly every day. I couldn't wait to finish my dissertation, so I was reading and writing constantly. I would trudge up and down the stairwell that separated the floor containing the literary criticism sections and the floor containing the economics sections, carrying a mini-mountain of historical and theoretical books, many with a thin film of Arizona desert dust on them. I would plop myself down at a huge table, spread the texts before, and sample ideas and words back and forth from each other as if sitting at the most tedious and unsanitary buffet ever. I actually enjoyed the research, but needless to say, there was always some place I'd rather be.
But when I went to library, weekend after weekend, summer day after summer day, it didn't take long before I noticed a trend. When I would take my seat and sprawl out, I would look around the rest of the quiet expanse and see familiar faces. And those faces all had something in common. Literally all of them. In fact, I never saw anyone who was different than them, except me. They, like me, weren't spending their Saturdays tailgating at Sun Devil Stadium. They weren't spending their Sundays sleeping off hangovers or cleaning up frat houses after the previous night's debauchery. And they weren't spending their summers sunbathing. They were in the library--reading, writing, studying, learning--preparing for whatever the world was about to throw at them when they set foot beyond the campus walls. Though I never spoke to any of those students, I felt a kinship with them. Like we all shared a secret about the world, and in our quietude, we kept our prize safe. I was honored to be the one person there who didn't look like any of them, yet we were all the same. We all wanted to be smarter. So who were those mysterious and studious superstars? I'll let you find out for yourself. Do a quick Google search of "SAT scores by race." Then type in "college graduation rates by race." Then type in "average household income by race." Maybe there's a connection between those at the top of those charts and those working their tails off in the library all the time. Tomorrow is Saturday, a new weekend upon us. Where will you be? Jean Twenge is a psychology professor at San Diego State University, and her research expertise is cultural change, particularly across generations. Her 2006 book, Generation Me, was an insightful investigation into the lives of Millennials, showing how the personalities of those born in the 1980s and '90s were beginning to affect the world around them. But a new group of young people has emerged, those born in an era that has always known the existence of the internet, developed social media platforms, and made smartphones ubiquitous. In her latest book, iGen, Twenge explores how this generation thinks and acts, and what their perspective on life might mean for the rest of us.
Today's young people drink less, party less, drive less, and get pregnant less than previous generations. While they seem to be living safer lives and making better decisions, they are also more anxious and depressed, more easily offended by open dialogue and criticism, more inexperienced and unprepared for working life, and more likely to commit suicide. And for all the socializing they do through texting, Snapchatting, and Facebooking, they are actually more socially inept than other generations. Twenge's research points toward the lifelong attachment to smartphone technology for the explanation. Since this is the first generation to have instant access to people and information--through not only cell phone technology, but also the internet--at all times of day and in any location, those college-aged and younger have never known a world without immediate updates, without the power that comes from having the entire world at one's fingertips. iGen'ers (as she calls them) are more empowered and technologically capable than anyone in history. However, she discovers that a price is paid for such access. For example, more young people stay in their rooms at home than go hang out with friends. They are also with their parents...constantly. They also struggle with traditional human communication, such as face-to-face speech and standard writing. Their grades are lower, they study less, and they are less likely to get part-time jobs. Twenge discovers that despite their infinite technological reach, iGen'ers are more isolated and bubble-protected than any previous generation. Young people today are also more politically independent, in distinction from Millennials who are much more opinionated and active. They are also more likely to avoid religion, preferring a quasi-"spiritual" and do-whatever-you-want outlook. They are a generation that has witnessed the constant bickering among ideologies and seems to have chosen to avoid getting involved, mostly out of fear of offending anyone. Remember, as I noted above, this is a generation hyper-sensitive to others' feelings. The book is filled with statistics and charts, as well as plenty of first-hand quotes from young interviewees, so if you're someone who's interested in going beyond the common (and not always accurate) anecdotes about "kids these days," Twenge has mountains of hard data to back up her findings. For those who are parents or educators, Twenge's research adds new perspective to the hunches many of us may have had. Her book's subtitle includes a phrase that iGen is "...completely unprepared for adulthood." We'll just have to wait and find out if that turns out to be true. It was announced over the weekend that British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is this year's recipient for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ishiguro is one of my favorite books, The Remains of the Day, which was later made into an excellent film, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The novel is a beautiful examination of British manners, class, and loyalty in a time of impending war. It also deftly navigates the lonely hearts of its two protagonists, resulting in an aching ending in which we are left wondering what might have been.
Ishiguro is of Japanese lineage, so many of his works explore those cultural themes, but he also dissects his adopted homeland of England (he moved to the UK at age five) with a sharp eye and beautifully precise dialogue. Celebrate this honor by picking up one of his novels this month. Earlier this week, Jordan Peterson and Camille Paglia released a conversation that will be talked about for months to come. The two big-brained, fast-talking heavyweights discuss the state of the modern university, the nonsense of gender constructivism, the stupidity of French intellectualism, and much more in this two-hour video. As an English professor who has personally witnessed his field destroyed by people who don't have any knowledge of history, economics, or psychology, I find their insight truly enlightening. It's interesting to watch these two--who, let's admit, love being the sage on the stage--try to respectfully avoid stepping on each other's toes. And Paglia's frenetic verbosity leads me to only imagine what it must be like to be on a cocktail of speed, cocaine, and a Starbucks caramel macchiato simultaneously. This video is a must-see for anyone affiliated with academia or who is pessimistic about the future of Western culture. Enjoy your weekend. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is one of my favorite bands, so I was sad to see that one of history's great musicians passed away this week. Coincidentally, I have been blasting the Greatest Hits cd found below in my car for the last three weeks. Petty is one of those artists that some may forget about, as he was less iconic than Bob Dylan, less monetarily successful (slightly) than the Eagles. But he fits somewhere in between, a songwriter who churned out a remarkable number of hits, yet remained grounded, productive, and relevant into his 60s. He was still joyfully performing packed three-hour concerts just this year. The Heartbreakers helped him craft a sound that was the perfect mix of bluesy guitar hooks, jangly southern rockabilly, and chorus-driven anthems. Avoiding the self-indulgent guitar solos and jam band time-wasting of so many bands of the late '70s and early '80s, the band followed a strict musical code: "Don't bore us, get to the chorus." That's why even those not familiar with the music of that era can easily identify "American Girl," "Learning to Fly," "Free Fallin," "Won't Back Down," and many more. My favorites, among so many, might be "Into the Great Wide Open," a delightful ballad about youth chasing success, and "Don't Do Me Like That," a poppy, energetic loss of love. But then again, "You Got Lucky" may have one of my all-time favorite lines in rock music: You got lucky, babe / when I found you. The final A-minor is an ominous dare for a girl to try to find someone better than him. Awesome. To learn more about the group, be sure to watch the excellent documentary on Amazon Prime, Runnin' Down a Dream, to understand how Petty and his band influenced the rock and roll world for over 40 years. It's four hours long and worth every minute. Take a listen, tap your foot, and sing along. His songs will continue to be part of the soundtrack of America for many years to come. In the 1980s, the U.S. was embroiled in not only the Cold War, but also a war on drugs and conflicts with South American communist insurgents. While the economy boomed, secrets abound at all levels of our government. But underneath it all was one man, airline pilot Barry Seal.
Seal (Tom Cruise) is a bored TWA pilot who participates in low-level smuggling on occasional international flights. He is approached by a mysterious CIA agent (Domhnall Gleeson) to begin working as a government operative, taking illegal weapons to South America to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. However, he is simultaneously recruited by the Colombian drug cartel, including the notorious kingpin Pablo Escobar, to smuggle cocaine back into the U.S. While Seal's wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright), needs some convincing, they are soon rolling in so much cash, they can't hide it all. It's only a matter of time before the feds smell something fishy, and Seal has to decide just how far he's willing to go for his allegiances. American Made is based on historical events, though I'm not exactly sure how accurate it all is. What is clear, however, is that the 80s was one wild and crazy decade, and there must be no one cooler than Tom Cruise to epitomize the era of flashy smiles and even flashier lifestyles. Knowing the difference between the good guys and bad guys all depends on whose side you're on, and you may even be on both sides if the price is right. Cruise plays Seal's confused bravado as only he can. Yet, he seems oddly out of place in this particular film. One could only wonder what a true character actor could have done with the role, someone not so iconic. The real Seal was a bit of a shlub, so someone like Michael Stuhlbarg, a boozy Ben Mendelsohn, or even a quirky and twitchy performance by Steve Buscemi or John Hawkes would have been more interesting on the screen. Cruise is just too Cruise-y for the down and dirty world of drug- and gun-running. And there is a nagging feeling that producers chose him (or he chose them, perhaps) because there are endless opportunities in American Made to show off Tom's real-life flying abilities. On the other hand, this flick probably wouldn't have gotten wheels up without a big name in the lead. The film is directed by veteran Doug Liman, whose work is usually stellar. He worked with Cruise in the mind-bending Edge of Tomorrow, helmed the first Bourne movie, and helped define 90s cool behind the camera of Swingers. But the camerawork and storyline of American Made lack a discerning touch. Strange camera set-ups disorient the viewer, giving the impression that a recent film grad snuck into the director's chair on a few days. And the script lacks a coherent arc, instead moving episodically from one event to the next in Seal's crazy adventure. He doesn't really develop as a character, and even without knowing the true story, we all can tell how this chaos must come to an end. And the chaos is most depicted in the film's awkward unawareness of tone. We are led to believe this may be something of a comedy, with all the ridiculousness going on. But there are long stretches in which humor disappears and the mood is deadly serious. It's unclear what exactly this film is trying to be. If it is meant to be a dramatic expose, this material has been handled better in the documentary form of Cocaine Cowboys. The balance of humor and real life corruption and danger just doesn't work here, as it did almost perfectly in American Hustle, coincidentally also about a national scandal from the 80s. The historical account is interesting, and Cruise seems to do his best. But he just isn't the right fit here, and the production as a whole seems a bit discombobulated. American Made has its moments of excitement, and though it doesn't crash and burn, it feels like a bumpy descent that ultimately skids off the runway. As always, Tom is Tom, but there's not much else to get on board with. Grade: C |
AuthorDr. Spivey is a college English professor and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Archives
October 2017
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