Return of the crank

Over at RogerEbert.com, I muse, darkly, on the ostensible subject of "Art, Freedom, and the Bechdel Test." It's the sort of thing I would normally put up here, but as my editors there have told me that they're eager to let me fly my freak flag in their yard, I figured I'd take 'em up on it. Enjoy, and comment there, or here.  

Comments

[Petey]

I'm cranky about the lack of true crankiness in this piece.

I'm calling the FTC. That's the most blatant claim of false advertising I ever heard in my life.

[Asher Steinberg]

I believe I disagree with much of what you're saying in this piece, but I'm not sure because I'm not sure what you're saying. That said, just a copy-editing nit to pick; I think you meant to put a second "not" into this sentence:

Just as Shakespeare did not himself demand that art hold up a mirror to nature, so too did the cartoonist and writer Allison Bechdel demand that in order to be deemed acceptable, every narrative work of art, particularly cinematic, that she encountered had to contain a conversation between two women in which the subject of men was not broached.

[Cadavra]

Where can I get that T-shirt? :-D

[Gordon Cameron]

I also wanted to point out the copy error that Asher mentioned. I was confused until the context suggested the sentence should read 'neither did' or something similar.

[Glenn Kenny]

I'm having that second "not" put in.

As to what I'm saying, it's the usual amusing-ourselves-to-death, fiddling while Rome burns stuff, with an extra dose of disapprobation for the "watching TV is more complicated than ever" section.

[Petey]

"As to what I'm saying, it's the usual amusing-ourselves-to-death, fiddling while Rome burns stuff, with an extra dose of disapprobation for the "watching TV is more complicated than ever" section."

Meh. Somewhat more interesting than that.

The John Lennon lyric would include Twitter today.

[Dan C.]

What a great collection of epigraphs (with no imputation intended toward the writing between). The essay is just elliptical enough that the pleasure in association hides the extent of its crankiness, but I share your sense that the (mainly convincing) recuperations of television and young adult fiction vindicate incurious taste. In that vein, the "amusing ourselves to death" thing seems less pointed than the parts about dilution and diminished expectations. It's depressing to imagine a world (future or present) where all social justice has become concern trolling and all criticism has become cultural studies.

[Joel Bocko]

What Dan C. says in the last sentence above. And what you say in the last paragraph of the article. +2