Old Homestead. Yes all those letters are burned out.
Consuming: It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but thanks to a gift of some screeners and a lot of time at the movies, I’ve seen all the (long form, English language, live action, fictional) movies being nominated for awards shows like The Golden Globes except for The Florida Project and Roman J. Israel, which will be streaming next month, and The Greatest Showman and The Leisure Seeker, which have gotten very iffy reviews and are unlikely to win anything (though TGS did win best song at The Golden Globes. I saw all the other winners). Still plan to see The Last Jedi at the theater. Continued my Seinfeld tour with The Old Homestead steakhouse. Finished SMILF, started The Deuce, and read Little Fires Everywhere and The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities over the no appointment period.
Producing: I am not sure quite where I was on conference proposals last time I posted, but I’ve now submitted 4. Got into PCA, which I’ve paid for, and New Directions in Humanities, did not get into SCMS, am still waiting to hear about DH2018, a specifically Digital Humanities conference, which I’d prefer to go to instead of the New Directions one. A “process map” of my old and new jobs–seems like most of the fun creative stuff is getting taken away and the boring stuff is left. Everyone but one student is graded for last term (that student has an I) and my courses are teed up for this term. My partnership was asked to clarify information for a college award we just might get.
Anticipating: A new term that’s lighter in teaching than last term. Planning to apply for an NEH grant (unfortunately the best ones either have just had deadlines or we aren’t competitive for them), finally get that book proposal done and out, and at least one conference paper to write. Lots of TV we watch is coming back–fortunately it is sort of staggered–and some of the new shows like The Good Girls, look good.
A very young Lori Loughlin in a Coleco commercial. YouTube.
Elaine: Hey Jerry when do you consider that sex has taken place?
Jerry: I would say when the nipple makes its first appearance.
“The Red Dot.” Seinfeld. (writer: Larry David). December 11, 1991.
I’ve been talking somewhat vaguely about this Seinfeld project for months, right? It’s a Digital Humanities project tracing the careers of the approximately 1500 people who worked on the show (in front of or behind the camera, or in many cases, both). Among them, they worked on 32,500+ other media items (mostly movies and TV shows, but IMDb also includes video games and web specials and series) starting in 1936 and continuing to yesterday. We’re calling that the “Reach.” The project was feeling sort of irrelevant, compared to feminist media studies of teen shows, but it’s interesting and I was enjoying working on it, along with my colleague Diane and some students last term (and probably another this term).
Guerrero with boxing gloves. LA Times.
Then all hell broke loose in Hollywood. The Harvey Weinstein accusations came out, and after that a cascade of sexual abuse and assault accusations by women against powerful men in the movie business, in TV shows, on news shows, and in Congress. As I’ve mentioned in the past, “my people” included a Cosby accuser and a Polanski accuser. When all these revelations started coming out, I wondered which of the women who worked on Seinfeld would say #metoo about someone they’d worked with on another project. I wasn’t hugely shocked when producer Gavin Polone (who appeared on “The Pilot”), weighed in on Weinstein. Then Lisa Guerrero told her story of harrassment and retribution for not responding to advances from Steven Seagall.
What I wasn’t counting on was that the men of the show might be perpetrators. I already didn’t care for all of my people–Rudolph Giuliani and Geraldo Rivera are not people I’d ever want to spend time with. However, although there had been rumors of him not being a particularly nice guy, Jeremy Piven is in a number of my favorite movies (mostly the ones starring John Cusack), and someone I’d specifically watched other movies and shows to see. Seeing that he’s being accused of assaulting and possibly even raping multiple women makes me quite ill.
Bette Milder. Ruthless People.
Rivera has weighed in to defend Matt Lauer saying “Sad about @MLauer great guy, highly skilled & empathetic w guests & a real gentleman to my family & me. News is a flirty business & it seems like current epidemic of #SexHarassmentAllegations may be criminalizing courtship & conflating it w predation.” (Rivera tweet) Which led people to go find a video clip of accusations by Bette Midler (another one of my people) on a Barbara Walters interview, that “[Rivera] and his producer left the crew in the other room, they pushed me into my bathroom, they broke two poppers and pushed them under my nose, and proceeded to grope me… I did not offer myself up on the altar of Geraldo Rivera. He was unseemly.” (Heil, Emily. “Bette Midler: Geraldo has ‘yet to apologize’ for alleged groping”. Washington Post. November 20, 2016.
Skyler White (Anna Gunn) Photo Credit: Lewis Jacobs/AMC
Anyhow, in light of the accusations against Louis C.K. I’ve been worried that either Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David will be accused by woman and be discredited as well. I have not heard any such thing and certainly believe the women who have been accusing these powerful men, but who knows anymore? It’s tough to see that a lot of people whose entertainment I’ve enjoyed over the years have been monsters in some way.
Janeane Garofalo looks like I feel. RealClearPolitics.com
But as an academic who depends on publishers and grant-making associations and conferences to endorse her work, it’s scary. There’s no good way to shift this work so it’s about another show. If we’d started with just that data and not done so much coding, we could have done Friends or Will & Grace (both of which have smaller number of people involved, and a different “Reach” though I have no way of knowing yet if it’s bigger or smaller) instead, but it wouldn’t be the same thing at all. I’ve gotten to know “my people” pretty well by now and short of another sabbatical (something I’m not eligible for for another 5 years and then may not get then since they are competitive and many of my colleagues haven’t had one yet), this is what I’m committed to. We do live, as they say, in interesting times.
Girls Who (Don't) Wear Glasses 