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My latest experience with this book came at an upstate NY diner at 2 am. As I was waiting for my credit card receipt, the boy I recognized as a Vassar kid, who had bought himself a steak dinner to eat alone at a diner at two am on a weeknight, approached me. Not the typical- hey you go to Vassar and I’m a freshman (obvi) so I don’t understand that not everyone is ENTIRELY fascinated by the coincidence that we might find ourselves in the same location off campus at any given point (because I can’t criticize that, I used to get tickled when I’d see vc kids on the subway) oh no. this was to be a far more noteworthy exchange. I had offhandedly (read: pretentiously) made some comment in passing about the inherent misogyny of film (hello, laura mulvey! How nice of you to rear your ugly head!) as the nature of the medium with the male gaze, etc etc same overly digested pretentious film major bullshit we’re all prone to spout on occasion. To be completely honest, I’ve said such obnoxious things so many times in the past that I didn’t see it as a particularly noteworthy comment. However, our dear eavesdropping friend took note, and made a point to introduce himself and ask me to clarify what I meant. This was followed by a somewhat sketchy reassurance that when he takes film 210-211 he’ll read the mulvey article I was referencing (that God and everyone’s uncle has read by the time they graduate Vassar) and that it’s relatively simple theory about male gaze as personified by penetrative camera, et cet et cet. A two minute overview of what he will no doubt employ whenever inspiration fails to strike on a critical theory paper assignment. (notes: 1. I say this because I always default to feminist theory when I don’t have anything better to write about. 2. I realize how obnoxious I am, and thus feel it necessary to preserve my youthful arrogance so that at some point in the future I can look back and call myself a tremendous chach.) So he questions whether this is relevant in films about women by women (citing lovely and amazing, which I’m pretty sure is a queer feminist film so, like, duh, not misogynistic) and whether it’s a product of the medium or the industry. I gave him some backhanded twaffle about Almodovar and the industry working through the medium and Mulvey’s references not being overarching, recommended some book that I haven’t read but is on my shelf on women in the industry, and offered him a ride back to campus. This is that book. It's not particularly relevent to the Mulvey comments, but I love the title (mae west reference) and I think reading pseudo-feminist film industry texts makes the future seem significantly less bleak What a strange bird. He’s now my facebook friend. I’ll probably end up giving him that book I referenced, as part of my Trish from SLC punk complex that I’ve been cultivating since sophomore year of high school and was faux-old enough to consider myself capable of having a “protégé” (man, I’ve always been a terrible twat, haven’t i?)

2023-01-10 08:18