78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



A little place called the Twilight Zone
2004-10-29   5:13 p.m.

Er, um...OK? Seems I've been commissioned to submit a proposal for an article which would go into an anthology on Female [super] Heroes to be published sometime in Spring of 05. This request came in the form of an email to me, addressing me by "Professor", and asking if I would create a critical analysis of how Jem, of Jem and the Holograms, constructed, enabled, encouraged or perpetuated a particular Western Gender Schema in the early-to-mid-1980's.

Uh, is the moon full today, or what?

Lovely, indeed. Oh I'll do it. It's on. Only problem is, I have no recognition of the name attached to the email, no idea how he got my name, how he knows I'm a working scholar of Women's Studies (though I suppose that is well documented on my University's department website), or, more frighteningly, how he seems to know I have a pre-existing knowledge of, not to mention love for, Jem and the Holograms (Ok so he didn't say as much, but spoke of the cartoon series as if it needed no explanation). That's right - I still have a cardboard box full of Jem dolls complete with tiny, florescent yellow guitars and plastic pumps, still have the cassette tapes that accompanied every doll in the series, and still haven't forgiven my ex-third-grade best friend Jessica for stealing my Synergy doll. She was the hardest to find, too - I was never able to replace her.

An email to my director went something like this: "Hi, everything looks good with the summer schedule, thanks for the class. Um, by the way, you didn't happen to give someone who's looking for a critical analysis of Jem and the Holograms for a gender-studies anthology my email address, did you? Thanks, T."

And her reply went something like this:

"I'm glad you'll be able to do the summer class. Oh and um, NO (???). But sounds like fun! Best, J."

So that's out. I mentioned it to my students, who first laughed and then just quizzically stared at me. They had not passed along my name either. I asked colleagues at two schools if they'd shared my email address with anyone, and they also said no but were amused at the project.

So at this point, should I be skeptical? I wrote back, but am having issues with waiting patiently for a reply. Rrrr. In the meantime, better dig up those old tapes, huh? Crazy Mattel and their girl-band cartoon.

And speaking of crazy, we went to see The Grudge last night, and I do believe it was the scariest movie I've ever seen - no exaggeration. I literally left the theater feeling sick, and more scared than I ever had been by a movie. Even if I compare how scared I was by seeing the Exorcist when I was a child to seeing this movie at 26 - this movie still wins out. Wacky, twisted Japanese. I think a not-too-distant memory of a nuclear attack just does things to a culture, don't you think?

The movie was not particularly gory - that actually would have been much easier to handle and distance myself from. There was an eerie subtlety to the horror instead - this didn't surprise considering the director is Japanese. But this subtlety made the "horror" non-obvious but deeply penetrating; as we were watching we found ourselves overtly emotionally connected as a result. There's a certain pervasiveness to the horror elements, as well - the "bad force" in the film is everywhere, is inescapable, and attacks what is most familiar and comfortable to us. There is no retreat for the characters in the film, and as a result, no retreat for the viewer. It's a lot to take on and take in, overwhelming at times. Slow, fade-in / close-up shots of characters' horrified expressions were painful to watch - the woman a row in front of me literally kept leaning back. Steve had to look away - not because of some "gore" aspect, but because of how disturbingly drawn out the "scary" stuff was. And believe me, that's just not like him at all. I'm the one that's afraid of the dark, not him.

I think here in the West we're just so used to the fast, high-impact images and clips that proliferate in American movies that we get somewhat desensitized or naturally resistant to any psychological impacts they might try to create. But this film was constructed so differently - slowly and with subtlety, as I said earlier (perhaps because of different cultural practices and influences?) - that its psychological impacts are felt immediately. In fact, when we got home later on that night, I found myself already blocking scenes out. And how do I know this? We discussed the movie after a few hours went by and found that parts were "fuzzy". Not normal for us at all, since we're such film junkies and are the types to hang on every word, whether brilliant or poorly written.

Scary stuff. This might have been so traumatic for me that my brain is filing it away in the "bad/trauma stuff" category so that I'm still able to function and all that.

Maybe you'll see it and think it's garbage. Then I'd feel bad for scaring you about being scared.

But then, I think I'm not your average viewer. I think I over-think (heh). I thought, for example, that "The Blair Witch Project" was actually scary - something that most people vehemently disagree with me on. But I chalk this up to my hyper-active imagination and the fact that I'm a writer. Even so, BWP has nothing on this movie. Like I said, wacky Japanese.

Wow, I circuitously blame this on Hiroshima, apparently. I didn't even realize that until I read back what I just wrote. My, I'm tired. I'm going to go swimming now and then have some lentil soup. Steve will be home soon which is good, cause the sun is going down, I'm alone, and, you know, that movie.

What a bizarre week. I think we are in the middle of a karmic shift. We'll see after the polls close, eh?

xo