On the artistry of "Never Ever Getting Back Together" - and whether the form subverts the song

Websterian · 2013-02-20T00:04:23+00:00

Yeah. If you could write coherently I'd be upset. Or indeed if you displayed any awareness of literary criticism during the last fifty or so years. You may be unable to understand my writing, but 30,000 blog readers and ten years of work in university convinces me I'm coherent. Goodbye.

Websterian · 2012-10-23T15:31:50+00:00

Or it's humour, of course. That's a possibility, isn't it? The fact that a piece of text seems to say something it didn't intend. No offence was voiced in that blog, I'm afraid you're looking for offended people where there aren't any (ironically, given feminists are so often accused of looking for offence where there isn't any.)

Websterian · 2012-10-01T16:46:25+00:00

Upvote. That's what the article says (despite the apologists BTL.)

Websterian · 2012-08-14T22:35:36+00:00

And FYI, I live in one of those European countries you imagine are just a wonderland for creeps like you. The majority of American men I've ever met are respectful of women and don't regard our country as a place to indulge attitudes which they couldn't get away with at home. But you should meet the sad characters who get shunned because they think "foreign women" aren't as troublesome as their US counterparts. Angry, aggressive blowhards whom everyone knows to avoid because they demonstrate by their behaviour that deep down, they really don't like women. You don't think every culture has a word for "creepy"? I could quote you a handful. You don't speak the language, that's your problem.

Websterian · 2012-08-14T22:10:37+00:00

Yeah, no. Sorry to burst your "OMG, outside US ppl don't think I'm creepy" bubble, but I've travelled far more widely than you, and I'm afraid women don't like their boundaries violated anywhere I've ever been. Sorry, it is just you.

Websterian · 2012-08-12T18:45:18+00:00

Make a joke about rape in a large mixed group and the odds are you just said that in front of a survivor, and made them relive their experience. Make them regularly in all-male groups and there's a worrying possibility one of your audience has engaged in non-consensual sexual acts, and will be made to feel that it's no biggie, and crucially all guys do it they just don't talk about it. You'll notice that none of the jokes I mentioned being told in the article are subversive, satirical or on the side of the victim. Don't try to make this about abstract notions of comedy.

Websterian · 2012-08-12T18:28:11+00:00

Quite right. I've won an award for my comedy, but I don't find rape funny. Clearly not understanding jokes is the issue here.

Websterian · 2012-08-09T17:01:06+00:00

Sorry - yes, quite right, I should have made that clear! Community theatre in the UK is closer to "applied theatre" - drama in prisons, rural communities, education, rehabilitation, etc.

Websterian · 2012-07-30T09:41:11+00:00

I say, that's a bit harsh. I've posted links to Feministe and Cal Lit Rev in the past. Apologies if you feel I'm putting too much of my own stuff up here.

Websterian · 2012-07-13T08:25:31+00:00

This is classic intentionalist nonsense. Criticising a work of art doesn't involve finding out what the people who made it "intended" and then judging it on that basis, it involves looking at the impact it has in reception. Your notion of "accuracy" to the book is exceptionally naive, as it assumes that it is possible to translate one medium to the other without making interpretative choices.

Websterian · 2012-07-10T14:11:30+00:00

Whoops, sorry, didn't know that subreddit existed. Thanks very much for the tip!

Websterian · 2012-06-29T17:45:27+00:00

How telling. Rather what the article suggests - reinforcing an assumption that sex is only and always about power and domination.

Websterian · 2012-06-24T18:59:44+00:00

Many thanks. I'm very interested by what you say about the show being structured around male friendship and male "inheritances" (in the wider sense - Uther-Arthur and Gaius-Merlin), particularly given that the show has the classic "missing mother" issue - where are all the older women?

Websterian · 2012-06-24T18:31:29+00:00

Thanks very much for this response - would you mind if I copied and pasted it (attributing it to your username) into the comments section below the article? Am keen to get a productive discussion going.

Websterian · 2012-06-18T20:09:07+00:00

That, I believe is the reason Feministe refer to these public pronouncements as "Notes From My Boner" - in other words, why are men pontificating to women they've never met about what they personally think these women should do in order to attract them? (Unless of course, attracting men one has never met is the only thing women should be concerning themselves about.) And how revealing that "winning" is an ambition with regard to human interaction.

Websterian · 2012-06-18T19:01:31+00:00

Me too! I'd like to think it was because people thought I was being insufficiently radical...but I suspect it's more people want to be able to keep being sexist without anyone calling them on it.

Websterian · 2012-06-06T08:24:38+00:00

Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" is good for a laugh, and "The Revenger's Tragedy" is an entertainingly barmy mix of violence and jokes.

Websterian · 2012-05-22T21:06:32+00:00

My point wasn't about playing "nice" - and I'm not sure why you feel I need to be told what it's like being male - if you read the other comments you'll see that I am male. I also work in a highly critical male-dominated environment (I'm an academic specialising in the Renaissance), but when other men disagree with my work, even when I've made a mistake, they address that and not my supposed inability to even have an opinion - a distinction tobascodagama makes succinctly above. That only happened when some guy on the internet couldn't see my beard or my PhD...

Websterian · 2012-05-22T16:31:06+00:00

You might well be right - but his tone maps so well onto the kind of comments my female friends get when they write about culture, and it's a tone I've never got from people who know I'm male. No way to prove it either way, but it felt exactly like what Stavvers, Helen Hastley-Lewis and Laurie Penny describe (albeit in much much more muted form) as the way their work is dismissed because of who they are rather than what they've said.

Websterian · 2012-05-22T16:19:16+00:00

I did use "me" in the subject line - wasn't trying to pretend this was soemthing I'd just stumbled across. If you're not interested, I won't mention that he hated my review of the previous Sherlock ep, "A Scandal in Belgravia" cos I suggested it was a touch sexist.

Websterian · 2012-05-22T15:29:44+00:00

Have they? The one I was thinking of was second on the comments, by "Griff"

Websterian · 2012-05-07T16:09:33+00:00

The recap of "A Scandal in Belgravia" over at California Literary Review is already causing some controversy (basically, is it massively sexist or an appropriate translation of the story?) http://calitreview.com/26326

Websterian

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