Genre matters. It especially matters to
students in the Duke in Los Angeles program where we study all things genre, whether
in film, television, music, gaming, or comics. Los Angeles also matters, and this site should also share helpful information about what to do while staying in Los Angeles.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Lucha Libre
I haven't decided if we're going to do this as a field trip this year, but I thought I'd at least point it out. Learn more about it here. Thoughts?
My first thought when I read Aaina's comment was to start formulating an ICK genre. In order to do that, I needed more information from its creator, and like David, I wondered what aspect of Lucha Va Voom placed it in that genre for Aaina -- was it the wrestling, the burlesque, the midgets? Then David asked the question, but his reference to "not surgery" indicated a presumption that the ICK genre had to do with gore or violence. There was no basis for this presumption, in that Aaina could just as easily have an aversion to burlesque, male stripping on pogo sticks, midget wrestling, or some other matter of taste, besides a presumption that this particular exhibition of wrestling (and its barely that) would be gross. As a genre critic, Davi, had started to define the ICK genre in one direction over another. Then, as the original genre critic who developed the term, Aaina sought to correct this restrictive definition by pointing out that Nip/Tuck, and surgery for that matter (both of which I would have included in my own definition of ICK genre) did not fall into her ICK category. Then she offered to further refine her genre definition.
Good use of the Critic's Game, you two genre critics!
In terms of a non-genre way of looking at it, I really was curious which part of it looked icky -- not in a judgmental way, but in a "getting to better know you" kind of way. Dave was likely doing the same. Nevertheless, both of y'all's comments remind me that e-mail, blog posts, and such often lose subtleties of inflection or humor and sound more aggressive than intended. Final word: We are in a class studying pop culture, both in theory and practice. By its very definition there's a tremendous taste factor. No one is going to be judged for not liking comics, Sam Fuller films, or old talk shows. I'm not going to judge Aaina for liking Nip/Tuck although I personally never got the charm of that program. At the same time, I think its probably okay to explore why someone doesn't like it -- this is a seminar format and all talk is encouraged. But also remember that lack of inflection thing and how it might read, rather than sound. 'Nuff Said?
Now is Sam going to come back and point out some inartful or harsh post that I made, and then say that even I need checking once in awhile? (see, that's a joke!) Where are those damn smiling faces my e-mail program inserts.
I can't believe I'm weighing in on this discussion, but I am. The more I think about it the less of a future I see for the development of an ICK genre. How can you call it a genre if we can't agree on what is ICK? Everybody knows what's western about a western and what's melodramatic about a melodrama, but ICK? Movies that make me feel icky: Eraserhead, Delicatessen, Palindromes, Being John Malkovich, Natural Born Killers, eXistenZ, Pulp Fiction, and Hairspray. Potentially icky movies that don't bother me: Blue Velvet, Dawn of the Dead, Freaks, Evil Dead, and American Psycho. Oh, and burlesque midget stripper wrestling.
ICK is clearly a matter of taste, and I don't see how taste can ever translate into genre, although I'm hoping Jim will have some counter-examples...Jim?
what is that emoticon doing sam? Jim- i'm also in for this but i think if we do the later date im out of town. also, sweaty nearly naked wrestling men isn't ick to me...it's just sort of discomforting. there should be a genre cycle not from adjectival description to noun classification but from the gerund. it can be called genrund.
also, the definition of melodrama was disputed by the feminist critics and then by neale, which altman then belittled as trade press usage. if there were an anti-woman's film, im sure ick would fall under it.
According to Wikipedia, that emoticon is scratching its head. And I hate to break it to you Janet, but it's 21+. If you want we can watch sweaty nearly naked wrestling men on TV while everyone else has fun at the show.
comedy has to do with taste since some potentially funny, designated comedic films escape me with their inanity which i find in no way to be funny. thus ick might be permitted as genre with subgenres of that satisfy the ick requirements of distinct audiences.
Janet, I've been thinking about your point that comedy is a matter of taste. I totally agree that some comedies are anything but to me. I thought Talladega Nights was incredibly unfunny, but at the same time I know it's a comedy. It seems like with a comedic film the genre expectation is to potentially laugh. We all know it's a comedy because it's presented as one, although that alone doesn't make it funny.
Being John Malkovich doesn't present itself as an ick movie, but for some reason I can't explain, it's way up on my ick list. But then do any movies present themselves as icky? I guess Eraserhead and Pink Flamingos do. But I bet David Lynch and John Waters don't find them icky at all!
On the sweaty almost naked wrestling men angle --- I don't know why its discomforting. They're wearing masks.
Actually, they usually have pretty full costumes. I also should make clear that this really has little to do with American style WWF style wrestling. For that matter it really doesn't have much to do with serious lucha libre style wrestling either. It's kind of a Tijuana meets Vegas meets San Francisco high camp event at this point in time. It's not for everyone's taste, but it's fun.
Sam, I agree that Malcovich left me with an icky feeling. But then again, Blue Velvet left me with an even ickier feeling. Now I'm doubting whether the word ick should apply to these. Perhaps I'm thinking more along the lines of perturbed, distressed, uneasy. For me, ick is a more juvenile- the Team America barfing scene for example. Now that is really ick. But funny. So then it's comedic ick or com-ick.
Now to do an amateur Jim and attempt to elegantly merge topics: Nacho Libre is a comedic film with masked wrestlers that may or may not be funny to some and thus support the argument of comedy as taste.
Sam, Janet sort of beat me to the punch on the comedy aspect of ICK. Let me be more specific though. Sam said, "I don't see how taste can ever translate into genre." To sub-genres of comedy -- the black comedy and the gross-out comedy both have as their defining convention a challenge to conventional mainstream "taste." Think, for example, of Harold and Maude, or Something About Mary. Those goes beyond an individual's taste (like Sam not liking Talledega Nights, or me not liking CARS this year)and deals with a deliberate assault on taste. I would say that if Hitchcock is the master of the suspense genre, John Waters has a similar connection to this bad taste area of genre development.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Aaina ICK is the same thing,hers was presumably more personal -- but Altman (and me)like to open up genre designation to as subjective a level as possible. If Blockbuster has the power to reconstruct genre into ACTION, DRAMA, and COMEDY only, because it suits its purposes, then I see no reason why Aaina can't have an "AAina says ICK" genre. Neale and Schatz would disagree.
Tom Green is another deliberate practitioner of ick. In fact, I think you could look at Freddy Got fingered as practically the Citizen Kane of ICK cinema. I think Janet's word "discomforting" is helpful -- ICK would be one of those genres like horror or comedy wherein it is tied to an emotional reaction rather than to iconography or some underlying thematic.
Final thought (for me) -- maybe Aaina jumpted the gun on ICK as genre and its still in adjective phase. SAW is probably an icky horror film, etc.
Well I'm glad we had this discussion. It was a very ICK-citing and intellectual debate. Haha, but seriously folks... Also, we should congratulate ourselves for contributing to the longest Duke In LA blog post to date! :-D
17 comments:
I'm totally game. And Aaina, what would be ick? It's wrestling, not surgery. Seriously.
My first thought when I read Aaina's comment was to start formulating an ICK genre. In order to do that, I needed more information from its creator, and like David, I wondered what aspect of Lucha Va Voom placed it in that genre for Aaina -- was it the wrestling, the burlesque, the midgets? Then David asked the question, but his reference to "not surgery" indicated a presumption that the ICK genre had to do with gore or violence. There was no basis for this presumption, in that Aaina could just as easily have an aversion to burlesque, male stripping on pogo sticks, midget wrestling, or some other matter of taste, besides a presumption that this particular exhibition of wrestling (and its barely that) would be gross. As a genre critic, Davi, had started to define the ICK genre in one direction over another. Then, as the original genre critic who developed the term, Aaina sought to correct this restrictive definition by pointing out that Nip/Tuck, and surgery for that matter (both of which I would have included in my own definition of ICK genre) did not fall into her ICK category. Then she offered to further refine her genre definition.
Good use of the Critic's Game, you two genre critics!
In terms of a non-genre way of looking at it, I really was curious which part of it looked icky -- not in a judgmental way, but in a "getting to better know you" kind of way. Dave was likely doing the same. Nevertheless, both of y'all's comments remind me that e-mail, blog posts, and such often lose subtleties of inflection or humor and sound more aggressive than intended. Final word: We are in a class studying pop culture, both in theory and practice. By its very definition there's a tremendous taste factor. No one is going to be judged for not liking comics, Sam Fuller films, or old talk shows. I'm not going to judge Aaina for liking Nip/Tuck although I personally never got the charm of that program. At the same time, I think its probably okay to explore why someone doesn't like it -- this is a seminar format and all talk is encouraged. But also remember that lack of inflection thing and how it might read, rather than sound. 'Nuff Said?
Now is Sam going to come back and point out some inartful or harsh post that I made, and then say that even I need checking once in awhile? (see, that's a joke!) Where are those damn smiling faces my e-mail program inserts.
+
In the words of the great "Comic Book Guy, "There is no emoticon for what I am feeling" when I read this thread.
Oh wait, yes there is: fO_o
I can't believe I'm weighing in on this discussion, but I am. The more I think about it the less of a future I see for the development of an ICK genre. How can you call it a genre if we can't agree on what is ICK? Everybody knows what's western about a western and what's melodramatic about a melodrama, but ICK? Movies that make me feel icky: Eraserhead, Delicatessen, Palindromes, Being John Malkovich, Natural Born Killers, eXistenZ, Pulp Fiction, and Hairspray. Potentially icky movies that don't bother me: Blue Velvet, Dawn of the Dead, Freaks, Evil Dead, and American Psycho. Oh, and burlesque midget stripper wrestling.
ICK is clearly a matter of taste, and I don't see how taste can ever translate into genre, although I'm hoping Jim will have some counter-examples...Jim?
what is that emoticon doing sam?
Jim- i'm also in for this but i think if we do the later date im out of town. also, sweaty nearly naked wrestling men isn't ick to me...it's just sort of discomforting. there should be a genre cycle not from adjectival description to noun classification but from the gerund. it can be called genrund.
also, the definition of melodrama was disputed by the feminist critics and then by neale, which altman then belittled as trade press usage. if there were an anti-woman's film, im sure ick would fall under it.
According to Wikipedia, that emoticon is scratching its head. And I hate to break it to you Janet, but it's 21+. If you want we can watch sweaty nearly naked wrestling men on TV while everyone else has fun at the show.
comedy has to do with taste since some potentially funny, designated comedic films escape me with their inanity which i find in no way to be funny. thus ick might be permitted as genre with subgenres of that satisfy the ick requirements of distinct audiences.
i guess i will have to wait for two more years in order to have grown mature enough to witness this. i believe this is appropriate for the moment:
=\
Right on Aaina. Embrace the ick!
Janet, I've been thinking about your point that comedy is a matter of taste. I totally agree that some comedies are anything but to me. I thought Talladega Nights was incredibly unfunny, but at the same time I know it's a comedy. It seems like with a comedic film the genre expectation is to potentially laugh. We all know it's a comedy because it's presented as one, although that alone doesn't make it funny.
Being John Malkovich doesn't present itself as an ick movie, but for some reason I can't explain, it's way up on my ick list. But then do any movies present themselves as icky? I guess Eraserhead and Pink Flamingos do. But I bet David Lynch and John Waters don't find them icky at all!
On the sweaty almost naked wrestling men angle --- I don't know why its discomforting. They're wearing masks.
Actually, they usually have pretty full costumes. I also should make clear that this really has little to do with American style WWF style wrestling. For that matter it really doesn't have much to do with serious lucha libre style wrestling either. It's kind of a Tijuana meets Vegas meets San Francisco high camp event at this point in time. It's not for everyone's taste, but it's fun.
Sam, I agree that Malcovich left me with an icky feeling. But then again, Blue Velvet left me with an even ickier feeling. Now I'm doubting whether the word ick should apply to these. Perhaps I'm thinking more along the lines of perturbed, distressed, uneasy. For me, ick is a more juvenile- the Team America barfing scene for example. Now that is really ick. But funny. So then it's comedic ick or com-ick.
Now to do an amateur Jim and attempt to elegantly merge topics: Nacho Libre is a comedic film with masked wrestlers that may or may not be funny to some and thus support the argument of comedy as taste.
Tada. Now for some Liberty Valance.
Sam, Janet sort of beat me to the punch on the comedy aspect of ICK.
Let me be more specific though. Sam said, "I don't see how taste can ever translate into genre." To sub-genres of comedy -- the black comedy and the gross-out comedy both have as their defining convention a challenge to conventional mainstream "taste." Think, for example, of Harold and Maude, or Something About Mary. Those goes beyond an individual's taste (like Sam not liking Talledega Nights, or me not liking CARS this year)and deals with a deliberate assault on taste. I would say that if Hitchcock is the master of the suspense genre, John Waters has a similar connection to this bad taste area of genre development.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Aaina ICK is the same thing,hers was presumably more personal -- but Altman (and me)like to open up genre designation to as subjective a level as possible. If Blockbuster has the power to reconstruct genre into ACTION, DRAMA, and COMEDY only, because it suits its purposes, then I see no reason why Aaina can't have an "AAina says ICK" genre. Neale and Schatz would disagree.
Tom Green is another deliberate practitioner of ick. In fact, I think you could look at Freddy Got fingered as practically the Citizen Kane of ICK cinema. I think Janet's word "discomforting" is helpful -- ICK would be one of those genres like horror or comedy wherein it is tied to an emotional reaction rather than to iconography or some underlying thematic.
Final thought (for me) -- maybe Aaina jumpted the gun on ICK as genre and its still in adjective phase. SAW is probably an icky horror film, etc.
Well I'm glad we had this discussion. It was a very ICK-citing and intellectual debate. Haha, but seriously folks... Also, we should congratulate ourselves for contributing to the longest Duke In LA blog post to date! :-D
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