Thanks for the thorough reply. We’ll have to talk The Wire some other time in person.

I knew you were doing the Herman Gray on the Cosby Show. I think, though, if you look at the level and intensity of family conflict on the Cosby Show, it looks more like Roseanne (albeit at a much higher SES). Besides, Roseanne was the next sitcome from the same production company, which produced several family sitcoms afterward. I think the institutional track leads us to a Cosby influence. I don’t think there’s a family sitcom of the 80s and early 90s that isn’t Cosby-influenced. Cosby saved the genre.

I have to admit I haven’t read my Debord… Society of the Spectacle, right? Well, you know when my dissertation ends in 1855, blue INK is like whoa! So I’m going to hope that Debord is out of my time period and keep it moving.

I’ll be back in NYC after Jan 3. Hope to see you.

Happy Everything!

I hear you on white fears in South Africa being ridiculous, and, from my biased perspective, “Invictus” actually makes white South Africans who are anti-Mandela look needlessly angry and paranoid. But I’m biased; I’m not white. (Yet the film doesn’t really underscore what I’m sure many Americans don’t know: that South Africa is really a black country and during apartheid 10% of the country was controlling everything)

I second your thoughts on masculinity, and I guess my rush to write this caused me to neglect it. The masculinity thing is usually why I avoid such movies, but, eh, the movie theater is a block from my house, so I saw it… Ok, well, anyway, yes, it’s all very butch (and of course, it being rugby, vaguely erotic, though much less visibly than if a gay director had directed it). Still, we see stories of national reconciliation through women as well (The Blind Side!), but those don’t make as much money at the B.O. But women’s movies in general don’t make as much money. I need to read a book on why.

The “Cosby” in my Times quote was unfortunately out of context! In the original post I used the “Cosby” as an example scholars like Herman Gray point to as mainstream (Gray basically argues Cosby as a Reagan text, which is a bit much), and while I’m not sure I’d go as far as to posit it a kind of pre-”Roseanne,” surely “Cosby” had a lot more nuance that it’s given credit for.

On justice: yes, we need it. I guess I’m interested in what mass media can do for society. And I actually think media is best at idealism and woeful at justice. And I would include Obama’s whole PR campaign as a media image like Invictus or Star Trek, which are about utopias. I suppose I’m gesturing toward Debord here, but saying that spectacle isn’t always bad.

I love using the example of “The Wire.” Because I think scholars are always saying that so many mainstream narratives are individualistic, shallow and lack institutional critique. “The Wire” is by far the most thorough meditation of urban injustice ever created for TV/film and very anti-spectacle, but let’s be real: it took 50+hours to thoroughly deconstruct our urban woes (forget the national woes) and what does it leave us with? Certainly not a program for justice; it properly diagnoses problems, but televisual narratives don’t do well with solutions (it gives us a few, to be sure, like “Hamsterdam”). That’s really hard for a film to do (TV has more time, but even then…). So I liked “Invictus” for being honest about what it is: a way to envision a destination, an ideal, and inspire us to achieve it.

I love when Miles comments! I get substance, so rare for the Internets.

I’m still stuck in my dungeon of work but should re-emerge in New York around the holidays. See you then!

I meant to congratulate you a long time ago on having your blog cited in the NYT. I’m so jealous. (Can I ask you to lay off the Cosby Show? I know, I’m only one voice, but it wasn’t nearly as sugary as, say, Full House. In fact, I’d argue the strife in the Huxtable house pointed the way more toward Roseanne and later shows than backward toward Leave it to Beaver).

As for _Invictus_, I was a bit surprised that you did not mention that these stories of national unity and interracial harmony are almost always filtered through sports because these are stories of *men* agreeing to turn their violent energies outwards rather than against each other (or the state). After the onslaught of such fare as Remember the Titans, Coach Carter, and (to an extent) his own Million Dollar Baby, I have to wonder if Eastwood thought the stories of American men bonding through directed violence were used up and so decided to choose an analogous case in South Africa.

Forgive me, but what a crock! It is extremely discouraging to see this version of exclusively male-bonding as the solution to all our national woes. With the attendant sexism and ban on the fulfillment of same-sex desire (Damon and Freeman can look they are going to kiss, but they can’t do it!), sports movies and war movies are, to my mind, no cause for hope. I agree with your very necessary point that hope is an ethical obligation. I just don’t see it in these sexless movies about love affairs among men. So I won’t be seeing Invictus. Ever (I pray).

I also think it’s fascinating that the largely symbolic victories of Obama (or Mandela) cause in white people such an immediate fear of loss that is as urgent as the fear of rape. What did white South Africans’ lose? Their property was not confiscated. No reparations were paid to black South Africans paid miserable wages and then imprisoned or shot if they protested. The film’s message that black people should treat lightly at these moments is nothing other than trying to equate whites’ fear of losing with the *reality* of black deprivation. And there’s no getting around it, for the actual achievement of equality, there has to be some loss, some payback. And in every situation where we’ve tried to do reconciliation while sparing whites the experience of loss, we’ve ended up with neocolonialism, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and on and on. Perhaps it’s time we level with white folks: The way to the future without strife that you mention is through justice. The perpetuation of injustice will perpetuate strife. We might not be able to reach a state of affairs that every person agrees is just. But right now we’re doing a right poor job, IMO.

Maybe it’s time I start my own blog. Self-expression and no jealousy of your success….