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kimyoonmiauthor · 3 years

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The Real History of the European 5-Act

In researching the European story structures to try to figure out the history of the 5-act play, I encountered a ton of massive retconning and false attributions that my literature professors have repeated, but it was wrong. So in order to set the record straight, I propose going after the actual history of this particular Story structure, the retcons that made it possible, and the lies that are instituted today. Note: This file is probably going to be corrected a few times as I find more information. What is presented is what I know as I know it. I will do my best to keep it up to date.

Madame Hardy helped with portions of this essay.

The Myth So usually, it goes something like this, your Literature professor/teachers stands up in front of the class and then argues that the root of all great European Literature is the Greeks! And particularly Aristotle, who argued for the Three act model: Beginning Middle and End. And this was until Shakespeare came along--another great White man and reshaped the history of plays by making it Five Act. He was forced to do this because of candles. Candles in the Black Friar, and this is now the correct and forever structure of all plays, movies, and hopefully books. At the center of this is conflict. And then linear time.

This however, is a big fat lie that seems to be repeated through massive retcons on actual history and how it actually worked out. It’s mostly critics retconning history without people checking if that is true. So to recover that history, let’s review what Aristotle really argued for.

Aristotle

Besides Aristotle, 384–322 BCE, being a misogynistic, classist, ethnocentric pig, here are the key points Aristotle really argued for: - The Two Act play. (I know) - The Twelve Act play (Yes, I know) - Women and slaves cannot write for crap. (Yes, I know this is terrible). - Simple and long plots are better, but not episodic.

You’re sitting there and going, BUT THE THREE ACT PLAY! He argued for three acts!

He didn’t. He said plays have a Beginning Middle and End, but said the act structure should be two acts, not three. He only laid out the Beginning Middle and End to define them, like a school grader. A beginning (As roughly said with less poetic language) is stuff with things after it. (Which to be clear is more eloquent than he was). A middle is stuff before and after it. And and end is stuff before it. This is what he said in Poetica. BUT when it came to act structure, he argued the best play is long, and only two acts. Happy with something bad is discovered, and then it all goes bad.

The superior play, to him had the best chorus ever. No good tragedy or Comedy was without a chorus! This is clearly the best part to him. Also, character is of very little importance. And the core of the story should be morality through negative reinforcement, not conflict.

- Complication

- Denouement

(Note that the definition of beginning middle and end is actually still 2 acts, not 3 according to him.) http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-19.html

The order of importance according to Aristotle is:

Melody

Events

Diction

Character

Spectacle

Note, again, this would give most Literary Agents serious pause if you said that. (If you want a reason, look at Gertrude Stein’s Modernist writers as the primary motivator, though there are earlier writers that brought characters to the fore over events, such as Jane Austen, it solidified later in history, but this is not a lecture on European and European Diaspora individualism in Literature. Research that yourself.)

Despite that, I still have this picture of someone setting their manuscript to music and then demanding that the agent read a list of events without much characters and the agent screaming WTF and posting it on some social media website. But wait til you get to the part where women can’t be “manly”...

Errata he argued for:

Note: When he says plot, he means events, since he separates plot and characters as different things, but doesn’t talk about events as separate from the plot. Plot to him, is more like the event chain, absent of character. Character is more an avatar for the audience.

- “If they had to perform a hundred tragedies, they would be timed by water-clocks, as they are said to have been at one period.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- Can be performed from memory. http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- “The limit, however, set by the actual nature of the thing is this: the longer the story, consistently with its being comprehensible as a whole, the finer it is by reason of its magnitude.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-8.html

- “The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man as its subject.” http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-9.html

- “Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear. Such incidents have the very greatest effect on the mind when they occur unexpectedly and at the same time in consequence of one another; there is more of the marvellous in them then than if they happened of themselves or by mere chance.” --http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-10.html

- “Of simple Plots and actions the episodic are the worst.” -- http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-11.html

- “A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the personages marked for good or evil fortune.”-- http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- “...Peripety, will arouse either pity or fear“--http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- “A third part is Suffering; which we may define as an action of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage, tortures, woundings, and the like.” -- http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-12.html

- This is how the stage was to be divided: “Prologue, Episode, Exode, and a choral portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon...“ --http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-13.html

- He argues for the tragic flaw here: (loosely, error in judgement): http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-14.html

- “The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play—which is the better way and shows the better poet“ -- http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-15.html (Note that modern writers mostly would say either combination of events+character or character, not plot alone.)

- Argues for emotional artist here who is “mad”: “Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the, former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion.”

So if it wasn’t Aristotle that laid out the Three Act Structure... Who was it?

Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus, mid-Fourth Century, was the one that argued for the Three Act Structure, with the Beginning Middle and End, in a critique of one person, Terence, who wrote Six plays. And only in the prologue: Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex. The leads to the next difficult part. The source material Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex has never been published with English because the original Latin text is damaged and they can’t publish it in English. Its partially translated in German. So this strikes it as a good source material to push Literature students. It’s difficult to find out if Donatus actually did argue for three acts and what those acts should contain because no one has bothered to translate the text in all this time, but he is the one that laid out protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe as the basis. (Though without the original text this is hard to discern).

It’s not likely given later texts that he argued for conflict as the center of the story. But he was after the invention of the 5-act story.

Horace

Horace, Poet 65 BCE - 27 BCE, was the one that said 5 acts is the correct number, but also argued, as Aristotle did, for a chorus, and also that the center of the play should evoke Morality and should make people feel something.

He didn’t actually bother defining what’s in those 5 acts or what they require, which is a step back from Aristotle. To him, a good play should be “No play should be longer or shorter than five acts”

But also commented: - Deus Ex Machina--he was a fan. “And no god should intervene unless there’s a problem. That needs that solution, nor should a fourth person speak.” - Loved a good Chorus--clearly the best part.

“The Chorus should play an actor’s part, energetically,

And not sing between the acts unless it advances,

And is also closely related to the plot.”

- Teach morality:

“It should favour the good, and give friendly advice,

Guide those who are angered, encourage those fearful

Of sinning: praise the humble table’s food, sound laws

And justice, and peace with her wide-open gates:

It should hide secrets, and pray and entreat the gods

That the proud lose their luck, and the wretched regain it.”

But it’s notable he was not in favor, as Aristotle was to make it negative reinforcement specifically.

- The part that people skip the most about him, is that he argued that loosely, poets should write about what they know and that what they write about should make people feel something.

- He does not delineate time as a primary principle of how to structure a play, compared to Aristotle. Also doesn’t bitch and moan quite like Aristotle does. Since his core argument is about emotionality, then morality, with a good Chorus, he does not care to lay out proper structure beyond that. What he and Aristotle would agree upon is The Chorus is the best part of the play. All else is second.

Five acts, but no definition for the acts and morality as the x axis and emotionality as the y axis? And there you go. That’s Horace for you.

But--but Shakespeare...

Was retconned. Shakespeare never wrote his plays in 5 Acts. He didn’t label them as such. That happened much later in time. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36059/theater/shakespeare-sunday-hamlet-of-acts-and-scenes

It was after his death that the Five Act play became popular, not during it, so saying he intended the plays to be five acts when the five act play as we think of it was invented after him, is wrong. It’s like saying a 16th century writer must have intended their work to be clearly Modernist to Gertrude Stein’s standards of a good story and those sensibilities. But that is not true. Some historicism needs to be applied before readercism.

Four Acts! in Europe only after Shakespeare: http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/fortuna/intro.html

It’s better to read the paper than me to go on about my interpretation of the paper.

Notable is the Shift in Character-centric over Plot Centric around 1811-1820′s. Might be because of mass industrialization taking effect. Noted by Worsley in A Very British Romance documentary.

Five Act Again?

https://www.videomaker.com/article/f04/17174-dramatic-structure-story-arc-freytags-pyramid

The parts screen capped are found here: https://archive.org/details/freytagstechniqu00freyuoft (Note that it does not work with online readers--I could not find a better version.)

Freytag (1816 – 1895), created a Pyramid in Die Technik des Dramas and then retconned history to argue his was right. Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and dénouement

p234

304-305

Something he got right:

p 19

On Page 20 he outlines what is thought of the three modes of conflict, but he’s arguing instead for three modes of EMOTION, not conflict. This goes to show the concept of what it means is different over time. The whole It’s either internal conflict, external conflict, or man v. nature isn’t what he argues at all. He argues for emotion turned outward, inward, etc and using those as contrasting points to bring excitement.

p 24

His concept of Greece is a bit off. Also shows a bit of inflated ego. The idea that culture is a great progression to a pinnacle of evolution is something certainly believed in his time, but it is hardly true and needs much updating. Maybe if he believed as most anthropologists now do, he wouldn’t want to do genocide on Polish people... and hope the Germans take them over because he thinks Germany is superior to everywhere else. To be fair, you can smell World War I and World War II in his attitudes. (And yes, I know, the whole not all, thing, but most definitely him.)

29 He argues against conflicts continuing throughout the piece here. The lack of denouement would not be OK with him. Unlike Aristotle, he argues for a consistent progression of events so that the ending feels inevitable.

p 41

So many wrong assumptions with no support for his conjectures... there are no writings from Shakespeare on how to write.

46-47

If you remember, Aristotle was dead against episodic. Freytag is 100% for it and defines it for you.

Just in case you doubt his a-holeness... here is p54-55. It’s a high brow way to say Jews (and worse the Turks) Japanese and Hindus are inferior to his Greeks and Germans. If you don’t feel stabby yet, remember, he doesn’t like women that much either as writers.

p. 75

This is so wrong that I think my Aunt (a classical professor) and one of my lit teachers would have a field day with this. I don’t even know where to start with this. As I said he cites nothing and you have to take him and his ego that he’s correct. He cites things, mostly plays as ways to back himself, but doesn’t really prove it as fact, but more something to retcon it was true.

p 80-81 argues for tension through emotion, heightened, but not conflict, but contrast-- saying it is a German ideal.

p. 90 Here, you will see the argument for the individualism of character. There are some arguments from social sciences and humanities that the movement towards individualism comes from industrialization and the need for neolocal living patterns within that. But it is worth noting, too, that Freytag was a huge imperialist, and so it might also come out of his ideas of imperialism and superiority.

p 94-95 This sounds like the groundwork for what later will be called the “Inciting incident”

p. 96 Freytag was also known to be highly religious. It’s not hard to imagine that this might have had ain influence on how he thought of this story structure.

p. 98 He imagines how the Greeks were... but it’s fanciful at best and has no support in reality.

115 (diagram)

121 He explains what the exciting force is here.

Rising Movement: p. 125

Definition of the Climax: 128

p. 133 “Downward movement” definition and reason for existence.

p 137--Definition of Catastrophe.

p. 188-189 His ego doesn’t end, because he asserts his invented structure is correct and therefore Shakespeare born before him did it wrong and used his structure wrong. How can you use a structure wrong when you don’t know it even exists and is invented some 300 years after you?

To me it sounds something like, “Look at that Neanderthal use that hand axe. Pshaw, why can’t they use a stainless steel axe with an industrial made handle ordered online?”

190-191 (Exciting force and Tragic Force)

It is worth mentioning around this time, to put Freytag into historical context, there was John Ruskin and other Preraphaelite types. So the general thought was things like celebration of nature and returning to the old forms in reaction to some of the impressionists. It shouldn’t be a shock, then, that Freytag follows suit and extols the virtues of Shakespeare and Greek Philosophers, particularly the likes of Aristotle, even if done wrongly. The idea of returning to “classics” was popular.

19th and Early 20th Century

Selden Whitcomb

In 1905, Selden Whitcomb made “The Study of the Novel.” Selden Whitcomb was a university Professor at Grinnell, Iowa. He served there from 1895-1905. There is no other paratext about him I could find. Note: Unlike many of the men on this list he didn’t get any credit for what he did and also is not interested in self-aggrandizing so his work comes off more academic, and as he intended, a tool for teaching the variety of what a novel could be. He also mentions and appreciates women writers. There’s also indications he read Aristotle and Shakespeare in full and faces that head on in the text, and comparing their writing to his contemporary takes of novels from his time period and analyzing that, rather than pure worship of Shakespeare and Aristotle (like Freytag, Rowe, Egri, somewhat and Field). His examples are also very varied covering a range of works from the European sphere. I give him a break since mass translation wasn’t big in 1905, however, he doesn’t put down People of Color at all in his citations.

He’s arguing for the variety in novel structures. He does this in the majority of the book. Page 3.

Showing that they understood psychological effects of manipulating sentences, words, but the push for chapters to do the same came later in history with people like Gertrude Stein.

He likes to draw diagrams for the majority of the novels to describe various parts of the structure.

This was apparently before the invention of the novelette, novella, etc terminology.

He often uses Silas Marner for analysis, but more as a crutch to look on, though it’s clear from his reading list, he read the gamut of books.

p. 56 -57 This shows he actually read Aristotle in full. A Miracle considering the other people on this list. (Though it’s clear that Lajos Egri read all the books he says he did)

See, he doesn’t think of the chapter as a psychological unit. It’s before Freud.

Here, he’s referring to Romance, as in the “Romancism movement” of the 19th century, rather than the genre, Romance. There were different forms for novels at the time, including Morality tales, Realism, Romanticism, etc.

This is his diagram of a Epislatory novel Redgauntlet by Sir Walter Scott. This might look familiar later in history with a similar diagramming of story from the 1980′s.

He describes the braided essay/plait here. This has fallen out of favor, though it was used in Encanto since it’s often used with Indigenous voices.

More examples of him showing the way to group things. Comparative Lit Profs would be pleased.

A much better definition of Beginning Middle and End than Aristotle.

Oh look, he read Aristotle in full. The continuity and single action is described much like this in Aristotle, but he gives wiggle room and updates Aristotle’s ideas to allow for flashback, etc.

Argues really hard for “Dramatic line” making me think he thought he was the first to think of it this way.

If it looks familiar, it’s because Kenneth Rowe stole from him later without credit. He also drew one for Jane Austen. Kenneth Rowe stole both.

“Line of Emotion” which was later described by Kurt Vonnegut for his proposed thesis that was rejected.

Early Narrative Film

The first narrative director was Alice Guy-Blaché who was of Chilean descent, but grew up in France. She rose from the status of being a secretary to the first female director ever. She cast interracially and was the first to make a film with a 100% black cast. It’s not racist. The whole film is a lot of fun and asks about socio-economic background rather skillfully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBk_rSgAMJw

It was restored recently, but if you watch the whole film, the film really isn’t about conflict, but a portrait of one man and his decisions about money and what he learns about rich people. It has a circular ending. https://www.themantle.com/arts-and-culture/women-directors-silent-cinema In fact, much of the silent film era was helmed by women, not men. The earliest film was mostly documentaries, but later films also experimented heavily with what could be done with the medium, until talkies came along. Once men found that film could make a lot of money, they took over the industry, pushing out a lot of the female directors. This is about when the shift in narrative changes.

After World War I

Most literary scholars will mark this as the Modernist period. One of the most influential periods for contemporary writing. At the center was Gertrude Stein for much of literature, but there were other movements parallel to hers going on. While Gertrude Stein was more interested in the limits of what language itself could do, what repetition really meant and the sound and movement of words themselves, many of her contemporaries were experimenting with form, structure, etc of format. Gertrude Stein had in her circle both visual artists and writers. This included, but was not limited to Picasso, Steinbeck, Faulkner, etc. More people remember them, than her. Gertrude Stein was also a lesbian and open about it, which is worth noting, since she isn’t that well remembered and it ties into the last section of this run down of history.

To be honest, I hate the guts of Steinbeck. He can go stab himself in the eye.

I respect Faulkner, though he’s not my favorite. He wanted to push the limits of narration and form.

People felt disillusioned after they felt the world broke. There was a pandemic, two World Wars, so much of the things they did during the modernist movement was to try to break form and tradition. There was a huge amount of experimentation on what the old forms could and couldn’t do and to press those limits. Separate movements also sprung up at the time.

This is when the birth of the chapter as a psychological control came about, and the use of first person and more narrative choices became available. The shift from omniscient to other points of view started to come into play.

Among the thinkers of that era was Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). This name was given to me by Jim Fitton to check out since it seems he was opposite of what we have now and opposed to Freytag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht

He would have come to age during the First World War in 1914 and also witnessed World War II.

He created what is known as “Epic Theater.”

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/12210346/13-the-modern-theatre-is-the-epic-theatre-yoonsookslesection

p. 37 I don’t think it should come as a surprise that his, like many of the authors of his generation is more focused on reflection and morality. Pandemics and two World Wars will do that to you. His ultimately was flattened from memory, even thought he’s shortly after Freytag, but I thought it was worth noting because everyone argues that it was a straight line. But this is not the case. How story and story structure has been thought of has changed. The difference is that the landscape has often been flattened to argue for superiority, rather than open it for debate. If he, in his position, could be flattened, then who else was flattened and forgotten in our rush to say that the European 5-act and European 3-act are the only ways? Where are our marginalized authors, then?

Three Act Again?

The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (1888 - 1967) might not be the first to have introduced conflict as a center point of the plot, but it evidenced that by 1946, when this book was published, that this became the center point of story structure as outlined in his preface. Note that he’s not as much of an a-hole as some of the other writers and critics on this list and at least has a hint of humbleness about him, though a limited knowledge of story as he cites mostly white men and no translated works.

The very shape of the beginnings of the contemporary ideals of what story should do and say are in these words. Everything must start with a “premise” and a character. And the premise must have a conflict. Spelled out for you, right there. The word conflict, not contrast. The surmised shift is somewhere around the 1910′s-1920′s. Maybe with Birth of a Nation. (The racist film it is).

He argues for the y-axis to be tension, but not how the acts are to be laid out.

Despite this, like previous writers, like Freytag, he argues strongly for emotion as a requirement of the script/play. This may have been stripped from later explanations of the requirements, since I’ve seen emotionless plays based on such prescriptions before where conflict become more event-based (Like Wonder Woman 1984) and less about the emotions it evokes.

You can see his shortcomings in this “answer” in his book. All of the citations are white males. Also, it ignores other story structures like 1001 Arabian Nights, which was translated in 1811, which are multiple premises. Despite this he does have a good point here:

But you can see a sharp shift in how story is thought of from Freytag to Alice Guy Blaché to here. There is much, much more emphasis on premise, individualism and conflict. The addition of conflict as a way to get emotions out becomes center stage, but also notice that the primary citations from him, mostly include white male writers. The times he was writing in, also might have played a bias, since it’s after World War I and World War II, but subsequent generations didn’t question this absolute need for conflict in the story might have been a result of the conflict during the rise of Hollywood itself. Even Freytag was far more about ensemble casts and highlighted generally large overarching stories and more on the spectacle.

Here, there is more emphasis on character and (His) individualism being illustrated. This led to Syd Field reading his book, picking up points from it and then coming up with a drawn out dramatic structure.

Syd Field.

Dramatic Question, condenses and invents “Inciting incident”, conflict-centric, as taken from Lajos Egri. Cited as 3 acts, but kinda 4 acts, trying to expand on Lajos Egri and other former writers.

Five Act Again, Again. (rebooted with conflict and blended with Syd Field)

I can’t trace the book (There are too many how-to-write book by the time period mentioned) but I’ve read and watched enough movies to know that the five act was reintroduced, most likely in the laste 70′s early 80′s and said it was Shakespeare. In my own lifetime I’ve seen the structure of the 5-act change. There has been some realization thrown in around the early 2000′s. The amount of denouement has also dropped dramatically, such that the fall action is much longer than before. People keep saying that it has always been the same as Casablanca, but then I often pause movies, etc to figure out the timings of the structure and keep track of the time stamps and I can say it’s shorter and shorter on the denouement. Sometimes the denouement is followed by another conflict. The timing from an older movie like Casablanca, if you don’t retcon it to today’s standards and follow what Syd Field said, and the timing of today’s TV episodes and how the conflict is laid out has changed drastically.

This is where I’m not quite sure why it changed so much from the late 70′s to late 80′s and who retconned Shakespeare again. I only can prove that it changed by asking people to compare the time stamps on Casablanca to say something like A more recent marvel movie.

The women and marginalized writing about writing.

The majority of women contemporary to the men, of which are written here and have surviving writings are not as prescriptive as the men, even up to contemporary times.

These would include writers like Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, L.M. Montgomery, Anne Lamott, Gertrude Stein, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley (though her reputation was ruined in post, it’s still worth noting she did write about writing in the back of her books). Most of the time writing and how to write for marginalized groups is couched in a lifetime of proof and more reflective, than prescriptive. It might be the nature of privilege itself that makes a white cishet man more emboldened to plant a flag and say their way is the correct way and discount their privilege might have had a factor in their grand success.

No, the majority of the writing about writing for women is couched in this or that life experience that made them realize and reflect maybe they should do that for their own writing. It’s loaded in anecdotes of things that they experienced for themselves and how they teased it out for a specific book. Almost as if if they said it out loud, they fear they won’t be believed.

This means that the history of women’s writing is being subverted by white cishet men’s prescriptions of the “correct way”, but in examining that writing, maybe there is another story structure waiting to be tapped out of it. One that was implicitly suppressed by men closing the doors on women’s success over generations.

In my own experience, I’ve seen more women suggest Stephen King’s “On Writing” than men suggest Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.” Some of the women writers are hard pressed to remember she even exists at all. But isn’t that a kind of cultural destruction to say that a cishet man can write better about writing than a woman can? What happened to What about Virginia Woolf? No one read the backs of Anne McCaffrey’s books. No one tried to read about women talking about the struggle of writing? The same contemporaries as the men listed are often said to be invalid for advice and they aren’t even thought of when one asks, “So who do you read for writing advice?” Audre Lorde wrote a ton about how to write. So did Adrienne Rich. Lorde is a lesbian black woman, but I’ve never seen a single person point to her for writing advice, though she gives that and life advice out by the bucketfuls. Rich is a lesbian and writes about writing in a whole entire book. I’ve never heard her recommended. And I think, women and marginalized groups should really think about what that all means that we, the marginalized, have deferred over time to white cis het men to tell us that the way that we write stories and structure them is somehow “wrong” or at least “inferior”. Is there something truly bad about being more reflective in one’s writing as many of the previous women have done in their writing. Instead of prescriptions they lay out why it worked for them, and I would think that’s valuable advice to have.

What exactly would a Romance, the most popular genre look like if it was solely shaped by women and marginalized people, and not men? Would it be more close to how women write about writing? Maybe we won’t find out because generations of people hold men to be the most important for shaping how narratives should be told and done.

But I’d personally like to see what a narrative shaped on the history of women writing about writing would look like, especially for something like romance. Would it still have the conflict prescribed by people like Lajos Egri, or would it look different? Maybe so-called European canon should be renamed white cishet male canon instead. Where all the minorities lost the game in having a say in the form over the generations.

Conclusion

Most of the history about European and European diaspora story structure has been severely retconned without anyone going back and questioning if it’s true. No one has checked their sources and seen who wasn’t there most of the time.

Out falls from history of story structure, women and marginalized voices who were in Europe all that time and they are told they didn’t exist or they were unimportant with their opinions about what story should or shouldn’t be. But ignoring these voices and retconning, is it telling the true history of literature, or is like saying that Neanderthals should have had the internet and intended to have access to wikipedia, and therefore Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger can say that they should know the difference between a search engine and a click?

Who gets to dictate history, including literature history and who is allowed to retconned should be examined more closely before we say it was true for the author. Death of the author is fine, but be realistic about if the author actually was thinking about such things at the time and if we should be using such story structures to understand literature and its history.

#European Story Structure #World story structure #literature history #literature

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thecagedsong · 3 years

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Forgotten Light: Chapter 4: History

A/N: Hey guys! Afternoon update since I was busy with pancake breakfasts this morning. Another Kendra chapter. Ronodin gets a little pushy, but it’s still G rated and won’t ever get worse than this, you’ll see what I mean. Remember, you are supposed to hate him. Still playing around with the chapter title for this one, and some of you who caught my analysis post a few months ago might recognize some themes.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11

Chapter 4: History

Kendra picked another book off the shelf, noticed it was in a language she couldn’t read, and put it back. Over half the books in this library she couldn’t read, which seems like poor planning on her part.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to read. It had sounded like a good way to get her mind off her apparently outrageous life story, but there was really no hope of thinking about anything else.

Kendra was the seventeen-year-old daughter of a noble family, very old fashioned, that obtained their status through years of keeping the undead enslaved and trapping dragons and other magical creatures considered dangerous to mortals. Kendra, as the eldest, was expected to follow in her family’s footsteps as jailors, but had grown doubtful that their way of life was right.

Kendra had met Ronodin at the engagement party for her arranged marriage with his cousin, Bracken. Ronodin teased her that his cousin was such an ugly bore, she had fled from Bracken right into Ronodin’s arms. (Kendra had rolled her eyes when he said that). He had been invited, as family, but Ronodin was far from welcome.

He wouldn’t tell her why just yet, but promised to soon, when they trusted each other a little more. Having nearly killed him, she agreed that that explanation could wait.

Ronodin and Kendra started meeting in secret, and talking. They fell in love strolling through the dragon prison her family kept. To throw suspicion off their meetings secret, they told her family that she was fine going through with her engagement with Bracken.

Her wedding was approaching in a couple of months, and they cared for each other more than ever. Kendra knew that not even her family’s love was worth marrying anyone but Ronodin. He had sounded so amazed when he quoted her, awed that someone so amazing could ever feel that way about him.

Kendra had blushed at her own boldness, and simultaneously felt heartbroken over that fact that she had given that feeling up. She was attracted to Ronodin, certainly, but when she tried to summon the life changing love he talked about, she had nothing. Just attraction and the feeling that he was speaking to someone else.

She had apologized, and he said she would just have to let him court her again. He’d do it as many times as it took to stick, he had laughed. He would understand if she wanted to break off their engagement, but he hoped she would still give him a chance.

Kendra promised to think about it.

They devised a plan, to take place just after she and her brother participated in a coming of age trial specific for their family against the dragons of sanctuary. It was a disgusting spectacle, offering the dragons their freedom once a generation, if they can claim the wizenstone first. It would be the last thing her parents ever forced her to do, she had vowed, and arranged for it to look like her servant had kidnapped her in the immediate aftermath.

For, despite everything, Kendra loved her family. They tried to follow the traditions of their ancestors without cruelty, and they had faced hundreds of trials together. By staging her own kidnapping, she would be breaking their hearts, but in a way they would understand. She would preserve their reputation, and be utterly free.

And that was apparently who she was. Kendra hadn’t counted on losing her memory, but maybe she had felt okay doing it for her brother when she knew about her fake kidnapping going to occur. She must have trusted herself to fall in love with Ronodin again, and Ronodin to take care of her. It was a lot of trust to place in someone.

Kendra did wish she had a family picture. If she went to such great lengths to protect them, then she must have wonderful memories of them, locked under the enchantment. She picked up another book, this one in English, The Forgotten Crown.

The library kept with the crimson and black theme, and she picked a black leather armchair by a fireplace. Normal fire, this time, not blue. It was strange, when things were lit by blue fire, it washed out the red and made the black look like a void. Ronodin must have handled the design choices, she couldn’t imagine picking this out herself under any circumstances.

She wanted to warm her feet, but didn’t think she could move the heavy chair, so sat on it sideways. Her black dress rode up her thighs, but the exposed skin felt the warmth from the fire, so she didn’t bother with modesty while alone. Mendigo was standing guard, he’d knock if someone was going to come in.

Kendra curled up with her book, and started reading about what the author called the six great crowns. They were the pillars of immortality that moved the natural world through its extremes: The crowns of the Giants, the Dragons, the Underking, and the Demons, the Fairies, and the Fair Folk. Humans were the interlopers, and the author took a three whole pages to describe why humans were the absolute worst.

Their sins included but were not limited to:

-Having the audacity to not always want immortality

-Ignoring boundaries like disrespectful heathens

-Killing immortals

-Assuming they have purpose

-Not tasting good

And their greatest sin of all: daring to change. Their ability to change affected even perfectly happy immortals, how dare they! After the rant on humans, Kendra got absorbed in the discussion on the powers and functionality of each crown, and there was a diagram of how they related to each other.

It started with an upside-down triangle. Fairies on the top left corner, Demons on the top right, and the Fair Folk at the bottom point. These three crowns were defined by their morality. The Fairy Crown on light, innocence, and creation. The Demon crown on darkness, pain, destruction, and cruelty. The Fair Folk were the forgotten crown, the main topic of the book, after the background was set. They were entirely neutral, and refused to take part in wars, and only ever offered to broker peace. Their power came from their neutrality, and the author recorded rumors of the horrible fall that came from the one time they broke their neutrality.

Kendra was tempted to skip ahead, but the background came first for a reason. The second triangle overlaid the first to create a six-pointed star. They were creatures based on space. Giants were the lower left corner, and took the sky, the Underking on the lower right took the places below ground, and Dragons stood at the top able to dwell high in the air and a ways underground. Their morality mapped the first triangle. Dragons had the capacity to create and destroy, love goodness or love evil, and came in every space on that morality line. Sky Giants tended between creation and neutrality, while the undead and the underking worked between destruction and neutrality.

The first triangle also worked within the second. The fairies tended between the air and the land, Demons below and on the land, while the fair folk, in the opposite of dragons, could only dwell on the land.

The opposites were also important. Dragons were many things, but it was extremely difficult for them to be neutral. Demons and Sky Giants avoided each other’s domains, so it was most difficult to understand their relationship. The Fairy Realm and the Under Realm however, were the most combative pair of opposites. Neither could tolerate the other. Darkness would swallow light, or light banish darkness, it came down to strength, and there was very little middle ground.

What middle ground there was came from the rare case where beings abandoned their magical alignment for the opposite, spiritual alignment. There were rumors of a demon sworn to pacifism, that occasionally helped naiads, and —

There was a single booming knock, the door flinging open with a bang. Kendra spazzed, fumbling her book and sinking into the armchair. The book fell, and Kendra glared at her “fiancé”, who was chuckling at her again.

“You look lovely,” Ronodin said, pausing to take in her disheveled state.

“Your whole ‘let’s make Kendra jump’ deal makes me think yesterday wasn’t the first time I’ve attempted to kill you,” she said. Well, one sleep ago. Time was hard without clocks or the sun.

That made him laugh once more, and Kendra couldn’t help but smile in return.

“No, not the first time, and probably not the last,” he said with a grin, “But you’ve never regretted holding back.” His eyes flicked to her pale legs.

Pale, bare legs. Kendra squeaked, and tried to pull her dress down, but only managed to flip herself onto the floor. She stood up with burning cheeks and a huff.

“I’m sorry, you’re just so easy to rile up. I love that look in your eye,” Ronodin said.

“Mendigo! Come here,” Kendra called, and the puppet came into the room. “Mendigo, next time, please do some gentle knocking yourself instead of letting the guest attempt to destroy the door before entering.”

Mendigo nodded.

Kendra turned and was about to say something when Ronodin squinted at her.

“Oh, right, sorry,” she said, and with a couple of deep breaths managed to dim her own light. It was an odd sensation, like walking around with her fist clenched. She would get into the habit again eventually.

Ronodin led her into another room down the little hallway of their living space, where Chinese takeout was set up for the meal.

“I’m going to take a guess and say my suave fiancé can’t cook?” she said, noticing the cartons.

“If you’re going to be rude, you don’t have to eat,” Ronodin said, pulling out her chair for her.

“Do I know how to cook?” she asked.

Ronodin shrugged, “I don’t think so, you usually had servants for that, and you lost any memory of experiences that would help you cook. We’ll just stick to take out for now.”

“You have any trouble out there?”

“If you mean your family, no,” he said. “You seemed to have pulled it off, and no one knows where you went. It won’t be long, I think, before we can find somewhere else, if that’s what you still want.”

“Yes please,” Kendra said, serving herself some friend rice. It smelled good, even if she couldn’t remember if she liked it or not, “Look, maybe its part of the fairy thing, but I can’t live in hiding forever. This place is really nice, even if it could use some color, but if you’re going to make me fall in love with you again, its not going to be here. Sorry.”

“I’m working on it, I promise,” he said, pulling her free hand into his and giving it a kiss. He pressed it to his heart, like he had done when Seth had made her touch him with the glove, and it made her blush again.

“I need that hand for eating,” she complained, lightly twitching her hand to reclaim it. It wasn’t like she was repulsed by Ronodin, but his overly physical affection got tiresome.

“You can have it back if you promise to hold your chopsticks right,” he said.

Kendra huffed, “Not all of us grew up using these. And even if I had, I lost my memory. You should be giving me a lot more breaks than you are for that.”

He simply waited, smiling, still holding her hand tightly. Kendra sighed, “Fine, show me how?”

Ronodin grinned and helped position her fingers. Kendra ordered the variety that Ronodin had brought in order from most favorite to least, and Ronodin commented on what his favorites were.

“Careful, you’re going to want the left overs,” Ronodin said, when Kendra eyed the remainder of her favorite. “I met with our host on my way back in.”

“Oh? I thought you said I arranged this myself before I came down here.”

Ronodin sighed dramatically, “Yes, and part of your ‘oh so brilliant’ arrangement was to loan your wonderful and talented fiancé out to our host for errands. I have to go out tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but tomorrow night is probably the soonest we can hope for.”

“Oh,” Kendra said. Sure, he was often annoying, but he cared for her and was the only company she had besides Mendigo. “I guess I’ll explore the library some more.” She stood up to throw her dishes in the sink.

“You could do that,” he said, coming up behind her. “Or you can ask nicely for your other present.”

“I have the feeling asking nicely doesn’t actually go very far with you,” she put her hands on her hips and faced him, “And presents are meant to be given, not asked for.”

Ronodin’s arm snaked forward, pulling her into a kiss. She had a moment to flail, then he released her, and it was over. “You’re right, my favors have costs. Lucky for you, you just paid in full,” he teased.

“Ronodin!” she said, flushing and shoving him away. “Don’t do that.”

He just grinned cheekily and held a shopping bag towards her.

Kendra snatched it from his hands. “I mean it. I’ve known you two very stressful days, no kissing yet.”

Ronodin bowed his head in mock humility, “My lady, I didn’t mean to irritate you. I had to try the old fairy tale cure somehow. Alas, it appears true love’s kiss wasn’t the cure to this curse.”

She wanted to protest that of course it didn’t work, she didn’t love him. But she’d pulled that line once before to get him to back off and he always looked haunted when she did that. Haunted and sad, she didn’t have the heart to keep throwing that in his face, no matter how rude he was. This was at least as difficult for him as it was for her. And a small kiss didn’t hurt her, not really.

Instead she changed the subject by looking in the bag. “Wood blocks, books, fabric, and paint?”

“Your hobbies were another reason your family was suffocating,” Ronodin explained, “You liked carving, painting, and sewing more than dragon slaying and ‘monster’ hunting. Each of these materials comes from a magic source. The wood comes from different enchanted trees, the fabric is made from the hair of a goat the size of a house or lotus fibers, and the paints are mixed with tears and blood of various magical creatures.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because you are one of the select few beings that can craft magic items,” Ronodin said, “Part of you is that everfull wellspring of magic. You’ve done amazing at dimming it by the way, your control after just a day is astounding. But you can also recharge magical items that have run out of power, and when using the right materials, you can create new ones.”

Kendra’s eyebrows raise, “I thought…” she chased the elusive fact down, “I thought only wizards can create magical items.”

“They create it by crafting a vessel, using the same materials, and then binding their own magic into the object through an enchantment. You can skip that part, with the unlimited magic source you have at your disposal. You are more limited in what you can create, especially when starting out, you generally have to stick to reinforcing and enhancing the properties of the materials you’re using. When you do it right, the item will retain its magic long after you’ve put it down.”

“Wow,” she said, “And I could paint, sew, and carve?”

He nodded, “Enchanting items wasn’t at all in your family’s plans for you, so you tended to craft in secret. It will probably take you a while to pick up the skills again, but at least you’ll have something to occupy yourself if the library fails. The books in there provide some basic theories that will help.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling and holding the bag close. “This was really thoughtful. I know that since I gave up my memory and my family in one swoop, I don’t have a chance at getting them back. But little connections like this help me feel…a little less lost.”

“I love you, Kendra,” he said, simply, “I’ll do anything to make you happy.”

Kendra smiled back uncertainly, unable to reply in kind. He seemed disappointed when she didn’t respond, but moved on to helping her set up a crafting room.

What kind of person led the life that she did? What would it take for old Kendra to not be a stranger anymore? Ronodin was a lot of things, but he deserved so much more than to have her break his heart at every turn.

#This is Ronodin at his worst tbh #Forgotten Light #Forgotten Light Chapter 4 #Kendra Sorenson #Ronodin the unicorn #Not my favorite chapter #Mostly background stuff #Might post another chapter tonight if I feel like it #Fablehaven #Dragonwatch

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rwby-redux · 4 years

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Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: History

In hindsight, I probably should have called this topic political sciences, or social studies, or the humanities. Literally any of those would’ve been more accurate than simply calling it history. Sort of shot myself in the foot with that one. Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to make do.

History (as it’s defined by the Redux) is an umbrella term for human geography, economics, legal systems, global affairs, anthropology, civil rights, technology, and resources. Its primary concern is analyzing how all of these studies shaped the actions of people in the past, and the ripple effects that carried those societies into the present. Being an interdisciplinary topic, it’s nearly impossible to talk about any of these studies in isolation without accidentally overlooking crucial details. Anyone who’s ever opened a history textbook knows that with that complexity comes controversy, and RWBY isn’t exempt from that trend. As we’re told by Salem in the show’s debut, modern-day Remnant was forged by that forgotten past, by the omission of the gods and monsters that set things in motion.

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. And if history is indeed a book, then you’ll quickly find that RWBY’s has pages missing.

Let’s start by laying our cards on the table and talking about what facts we do have. RWBY’s canon can be roughly divided into three vague time periods: the era of Humanity v1.0, prior to the gods’ exodus; the era where Salem and Ozma’s first host briefly ruled together, several million years after Humanity v2.0 evolved; and the era characterized by the aftermath of the Great War, about several thousand years after the collapse of Salem’s and Ozma’s apotheotic kingdom. Anything in-between is obfuscated by the show, either accidentally (due to a lack of worldbuilding) or intentionally (as an attempt to make the series “mysterious”).

My first instinct is to start calling bullshit left and right. There is no justification for spoon-feeding your audience crucial lore through a spin-off series, and then waving your hand and saying that the show doesn’t have the time for worldbuilding. If I had to start pointing fingers, I’d lay the blame on the writers for prioritizing animating bloated fight scenes that ate up the episodes’ already-stunted runtime. I say this knowing that some people will balk at the accusation, because there exists a demographic of viewers that does prefer watching the fight sequences with their brains turned off. And I’m not above that. (I could spend an hour raving about the choreography of the fight between Cinder and Neo, or about the coordination of the Ace Operatives in their takedown of the Cryo Gigas. Believe me, I’m not knocking the absurd enjoyment of spectacle fighting.)

My problem is that RWBY’s premise is so deeply-entrenched in rule of cool that it left its worldbuilding malnourished by comparison.

But fine. Let’s, for the moment, give RWBY the benefit of the doubt. What in-world reasons would the series have for its history being believably underdeveloped? (And no, we’re not talking about the erasure of the Maidens and magic. We know that information was deliberately expunged from the annals of history. We’re focusing on the parts of Remnant’s history that deal with ancient cultures, defunct countries, and influential past events.)

The immediate solution that comes to mind is the Creatures of Grimm. As we’re told by numerous sources, the Grimm not only prioritize attacking humans and Faunus, but they discriminately destroy any of their creations. [1]

“With every alternative form of communication that was proposed, there seemed to be the perfect obstacle. The destructive nature of the creatures of Grimm severely limited the reliability of ground-based technologies.” | Source: World of Remnant, Volume 3, Episode 3: “Cross Continental Transmit System.”

This leads to the conclusion that Remnant’s past was physically destroyed, and any traces of it were removed by the Grimm. This would include archeological records—artwork, architecture, books, clothing, jewelry, burial sites, tools, ecofacts, and so on.

The issue I have with this explanation is that it’s not consistent. Throughout the show we see ample evidence of immediate-past and distant-past societies. The remains of Mountain Glenn and Oniyuri still stand, despite the high presence of Grimm at the former (and the presumed presence of Grimm at the latter). Brunswick Farms is relatively intact and provisioned with food and fuel, even though the Apathy are quite literally hanging out under the floorboards. The Emerald Forest even has the derelict ruins of an ancient temple that Ozpin incorporated into the Beacon initiation.

Petroglyphs (parietal stone-carving artwork) of early hominids fighting a Death Stalker. | Source: Volume 1, Episode 7: “The Emerald Forest - Part 2.”

If the Grimm are RWBY’s get-out-of-jail-free card, then they’re certainly not being used to their full effect. The examples I provided tell us in no uncertain terms that Remnant does have an accessible history in the form of archeological artifacts. For fuck’s sake, Oobleck is literally an anthropologist. He teaches history classes at Beacon Academy and has a PhD on the subject.

Similarly, if we assume the format of World of Remnant (a classroom lecture given by Qrow) to be applicable in-world, then that means the history of the last few centuries pertaining to the kingdoms is common knowledge. [2] The existence of this information tells us that Remnant has a flourishing history, and yet we see little of it represented in the show.

I chalk up the lack of history to a nasty habit of the writers. You see, CRWBY has this infuriating tendency to treat RWBY like “it’s like our world but…” It’s like our world but with magic; it’s like our world but with Dust; it’s like our world but with bloodthirsty monsters. You get the idea. As I said back in the Worldbuilding: Overview, if you make your fictional world a one-to-one analog of your own, you end up either ignoring, underdeveloping, or erasing the history exclusive to that setting. And RWBY is largely bereft of any historical identity that it could call its own. Here, let me pitch a few examples of what I’m talking about:

If slavery was only outlawed less than eighty years ago, why don’t we see Mistral creating legal loopholes to retain the system, like through indentured servitude or penal labor? An empire built on human rights violations doesn’t lose that disregard overnight. While we see plenty of poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Mistral, [3] and we’re told about its infamous criminal underworld, [4] these aspects of Mistrali culture seem rather disconnected from the recent history of the country, and ultimately have no impact on the main characters or the plot.

The Faunus Rights Revolution was a three-year conflict that (presumably) took place across all four kingdoms, and involved countermanding the reparations made to the Faunus after the Great War. From a chronological perspective, this was extremely recent. I know Rooster Teeth has a track record of poorly handling systemic racism. Usually this manifests in characters doing tokenly racist things, like using slurs or refusing to serve Faunus customers. But here’s the thing: a discrimination-based conflict this recent should have more bearing on current events. We should see examples of things like police profiling, higher incarceration rates, a lack of representation in media, social pressure to conceal Faunus traits or assimilate into human culture, fetishization, inadequate healthcare, forced sterilization, a lack of clothing retailers which stock apparel that accommodates Faunus traits, and so on. To put it bluntly: Faunus are an underprivileged minority, and immediate history should be influencing how that plays out in the show.

To reiterate: the Great War was eighty years ago. Meaning that there are likely still people alive that fought during it. How have their attitudes and beliefs shaped the world in the last few decades? Did they pass on any lingering hostilities or biases to their family members or community? What about in the present-day? Do people from Vale that migrate to Mistral ever deal with bigotry? Do people in Atlas harbor any lingering ideologies from that time? Is authentic pre-war artwork from Mantle considered priceless because most artwork was destroyed during Mantle’s suppression of creative expression? Did immigrants from the other kingdoms help rebuild Atlas’ cultural identity by supplying it with the values that they brought with them? What about shifts in culture? Did kingdoms have to ration resources like sugar or cream? Did this result in cultural paradigms, where nowadays drinking black coffee is more prevalent as a result of adapting to scarcity?

Because Vacuo’s natural resources were heavily depleted by invading countries decades before the Great War, did this have a major bearing on technology? Does modern Vacuo have wind farms or solar arrays to compensate for a lack of Dust? How does this affect their relationship with other kingdoms? Mistral loves to pride itself on its respect for nature. [5] Does this attitude ever anger Vacuites from the perspective of, “Yeah, I can really see how much you ‘respect’ nature. You respected it so much that you invaded our country and destroyed our oases.”

As you can see, history can’t be idly ignored. It has long-lasting impacts on the people who lived through it, and it continues to inform the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of people to come. What we get instead are traditions that only exist within the relevance of the immediate past, like the color-naming trend that emerged in response to artistic censorship. Anything which predates it, though? Remnant might as well have sprung into existence a hundred years ago with how little its history exists beyond that context.

It’s frustrating and disheartening. We know precious little about Remnant because its history either exists separately from the story (and is delivered supplementarily through transmedia worldbuilding), or it wasn’t developed in the first place. This doesn’t even take into consideration how much the writers deliberately withhold for the sake of artificially creating suspense. (A suspense, I might add, that frequently lacks payoff, either because it gets forgotten by the writers, or the characters never bother to seek out knowledge from available sources, like Ozma. Seriously, why do these kids never ask any fucking questions? They did this throughout all of Volume 5—Ruby in particular, who I badly wanted to strangle when she said “I have no more questions” back in V5:E10: “True Colors.”)

RWBY didn’t even bother to give us a calendar era, like the BCE/CE one used today. Hell, if the writers wanted to buck the system, they could’ve gone with something similar to Steven Universe or The Elder Scrolls, where eras are divided by significant historical events.

Sorry. I swear, I’m done dredging up examples. I’ve already made my point. As we talk about the other topics in their respective posts, we’ll be able to analyze these problems in greater detail.

Trust me. We’ve only just scratched the surface.

[1] Volume 1, Episode 1: “Ruby Rose.” Salem: “An inevitable darkness—creatures of destruction—the creatures of Grimm—set their sights on man and all of his creations.”

[2] World of Remnant, Volume 2, Episode 2: “Kingdoms.” Salem: “In the countless years that humanity has roamed the planet, civilizations have grown and fallen. But four have withstood the test of time: Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, Vale.”

[3] Volume 5, Episode 6: “Known by Its Song.”

[4] Volume 5, Episode 1: “Welcome to Haven.”

[5] World of Remnant, Volume 4, Episode 2: “Mistral.” Qrow: “There's one common thread that links all these people together, though, and that's their respect for nature. Particularly the sea and the sky.”

#deconstruction #worldbuilding #writing #history #this is the second time i've mistakenly posted something under the wrong blog #i was like where the hell is the post i know i didn't delete it #and then it dawned on #man. my followers over on my science blog are gonna be really confused when they see the angry rant about anime on their dashboards

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randomoranges · 4 years

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monmongary week day 5: motorcycles

honestly this was a prompt i really wanted. i mean - there’s the fact that ed rides motorcycles and no one is taking advantage of this delicious morsel of information. this is a gem. so here we are.

also i said og that i didnt want any of the prompts to be related to current situation and yet this one takes place in current situation lamao.

Also the title comes from an old gif @allbeendonebefore made like - a number of years ago.

also also sorry gary is out of this one. BUT HEY, IT’S THE ONLY PROMPT HE’S OUT OF. CONSIDERING MY TRACK RECORD THIS IS GOOD.

Vroom Vroom Tabarnak

Étienne follows the sound of the faint music in search for his boyfriend, still half asleep, but slowly coming to.

He had woken up to a quiet house and wondered briefly, where the other inhabitants of the household had gone off to. His first answer was a note left on the kitchen table, from Calvin, stating that he was off to run errands and pick up groceries. He has no idea when the message was left, but from the sounds of it, Calvin might still be out. The house is far too quiet, it’s odd, and it reminds him too much of before. There’s another note, from Edward, besides it, that says he’s in the garage (because, apparently, in this world, garages are a separate building from houses and Étienne will never ever understand that. Ever.) Therefore, Étienne heads off towards the garage after putting on a sweater.

He knows better now.

It’s then that Étienne hears the music, muffled and coming from towards the garage, and he decides to follow it to see if it would lead to Edward.

He’s not sure what he expects to find when he opens the door, but he’s surprised by it and takes a moment to observe the spectacle before him, for it is a spectacle and he’s quite pleased he’s stumbled upon it.

The music amps up with the door open and Étienne recognises the popular rock song playing from the speakers or radio that must be hidden somewhere in the garage. The truck is outside so that Edward could have more space to work and in the middle, he sees Edward, tinkering away on what seems like a piece of scrap metal. Étienne can’t really tell what it is his boyfriend is doing, but he observes and watches silently, his mind entertained for the moment.

Edward whistles along to the song, unaware that he has an audience and it takes Étienne a moment to realise that Edward looks completely and utterly content with the world. There’s a soft smile to his lips as he fishes a tool out of his toolbox, before he returns to the hunk of metal and keeps working at it. There’s at least three layers of grime on him, a stain of oil across his left cheek and a dirty rag that may have been once white hangs from his dark jeans.

He looks – beautiful – gorgeous – at home, here in his garage tinkering away on this project of his and Étienne is content watching, soaking up Edward’s peaceful aura for a moment. It’s a different look to him – one Étienne hasn’t seen often, but it suits Edward – tremendously. He thinks he could get away with going unnoticed – that Edward will never need to know that he had walked in on him and his little side project, but then Mercury decides to show up as well, curious as ever, and maybe a little lonely herself, and she manages to squeeze past Étienne’s legs, before Étienne can properly stop her.

Edward hears her approach – hears the dangling of the tags on her collar and he stops to wipe the grime from his hands before he bends down to pet her head. He crouches low to be more on level with her and she absolutely goes for it, putting her front legs up on his thigh in order to lick his face. Edward laughs and Étienne briefly wonders if he can bottle up the sound and let it nourish his soul on a cold winter day. He regrets not having his phone with him to snap a photo of this tender moment, but consoles himself that at least he witnessed it.

It’s then that Edward looks his way – from where Mercury came and then he spots him. Étienne tries to look casual, as though he hadn’t been standing there like a fool for the better part of the past fifteen minutes, but – he knows Edward can see right through him, even if he acts nonchalant. He lets it slide and figures it’s best if he walks into the garage to at least retrieve his dog, if Edward doesn’t want to be bothered.

“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” Edward says as a greeting and Étienne knows there’s no bite behind it – no tease or illusion to him oversleeping or being lazy. Edward is very careful not to wake him, tries to be quiet in the morning – Calvin as well, by extension, probably because Edward told him.

“Hmm, yeah, what’s all this?” He asks as he drapes himself over Edward’s shoulders, mindful of the dirty rag and other stains. He’s in a borrowed sweater and he’s not sure the sweatpants are his either anymore.

“This, my dear, is a 1967 Triumph Bonneville,” Edward says proudly, looking at the scrap of metal as though it is a first-born child. Étienne blinks, convinced he’s missed something and Edward laughs when he sees the confused look on his face, “Or, at least, it will be. I’ve been working on this old clunker for ages – on and off as I find parts and have time. With confinement and such I’ve had more time to tinker away at her and she’s finally starting to look like a bike!”

Étienne isn’t sure it looks like much of anything, but Edward looks far too happy and pleased for him to burst his bubble. Instead, he nods and lets his mind wander to pleasant images of Edward riding motorcycles. It’s a good daydream, one he’s very familiar with.

“You know,” Étienne starts, his voice a whisper in Edward’s ear and his mind still conjuring pleasant images of Edward in nice leather jackets and tight leather pants, “I do recall you offering me a ride once upon a time, many, many years ago...” It had been summer of 87, July 23rd, to be exact, but – Edward doesn’t need to know. Étienne isn’t even sure why it is he remembers the day, just that Edward had been in town for a visit, they’d been hanging out, and Edward had let slip that he’d bought an old bike and had been working on it and was looking forward to a ride.

Étienne’s mind had stilled, stalled and booted back up as it tried its best to wrap itself around this delicious morsel of information. Even then, his mind had gone to leather jackets, tight pants, defined boots, and Edward with a motorcycle between his legs. Windswept hair, the attitude, the casual smile and easygoing saunter... he’d been a mess over the thought.

Étienne had casually mentioned he’d love to have a ride. Edward had said he’d save him one.

The problem had been that at the time, Edward seemed allergic to the idea of having Étienne over, afraid his friend would be bored out of his mind in his city, and so, Étienne had only rarely visited, and when he had, there’d never been time for that ride.

It’s a tragedy, Étienne knows, and he figures it’s a good time as any to remedy that.

“Did I now?” There’s a teasing edge to Edward’s question and Étienne can’t help but grin against his boyfriend’s shoulder. He takes in the smell of grass, gas, and Edward and finds they all mesh really well together.

“You did; I’m still waiting for that ride, mister.”

“Well, unfortunately, the Triumph still isn’t ready, but lucky for you, I have more than one bike. We can go after you actually eat something and once I shower.”

Étienne makes a face at the thought of breakfast, but he supposes it’s a fair bargain. Edward’s been very adamant about him having a minimum of two square meals a day – almost sits with him to make sure he eats something. He knows it comes from a good place in his heart and he is trying. Therefore, he nods, calls Mercury back to him, before she gets her paws into something she shouldn’t and heads towards the kitchen, leaving Edward to finish off with what he was doing.

Étienne has no qualms admitting (to himself) that he’s fantasised about Edward in leather many times over the years, since that day in 1987, but nothing prepares him for the actual sight of Edward in actual leather. The pants are nice and tight; hug every curve and every muscle of his legs just right, the jacket is a thing of wonders, with patches in various colours on it. It’s so very masculine and so very sexy – so very rebel bad boy. He loves the look – absolutely has a thing for this look and it also helps that Edward hasn’t bothered drying his hair, has merely passed a hand through it to comb it back. There’s something seductive and provocative about the way Edward looks – about the confidence that seems to roll off his shoulders and Étienne doesn’t even stop himself from staring. Leans against the wall and lets his eyes drink in the sight. Edward looks good this way. Étienne commits every detail of this look to memory. He gives an appreciative nod and Edward smirks, even goes as far as striking a pose for him.

“Like what you see, Maisonneuve?”

“Oh, absolutely, Murphy,” He replies, matching his tone, levelling with him. Étienne likes that they can do this now – that there’s no shame between them. That they can tease and taunt and even flaunt without fear. He likes this side of Edward. A lot. Edward would ask him to bend over for him right then and there, or to get on his knees and suck him off and he would. Without question. (He would on any other occasion as well, but this look is doing things to him. He has a thing, maybe. He knows he has a thing for Edward – that’s not a surprise to anyone at this point. But Edward? In leather? And actually seeing it for himself? It is a thing of beauty and he mourns the fact that it has taken this long for it to become a reality.)

Edward shakes his head, amused, and then tosses a jacket to Étienne who somehow manages to catch it before it falls to the floor. “What’s this?” He asks as he looks at the jacket. It’s nice, a dark navy blue and it smells of well loved leather and of Edward.

“It’s for you – it might be a little big on you, but you should wear it.”

Edward gives him a look that might be a little self-indulgent and Étienne wonders for the space of a brief moment if Edward isn’t trying to live a fantasy himself. Étienne shucks on the jacket and it is a little big, but he likes the way it falls on his shoulders and if he’s to judge by it, Edward likes it as well.

“All right, let’s go.”

Edward leaves a note for Calvin, in case he gets back before them, and Étienne follows him out.

“Have you ever ridden on a bike?” Edward asks him as Étienne takes a good look at the motorcycle. It’s a nice model, he supposes, looks – more recent, maybe – he couldn’t tell, and his mind blissfully blanks out for a moment when his boyfriend mounts it. He looks – extremely hot doing so and so very much at ease, that Étienne takes a moment to appreciate the sight. He has definitely missed out on this.

It’s strange to say, but he has actually never been on a motorcycle before. Of all the people he’s been with, of all the rides he’s gotten, it has never been on such a device. He laughs to himself, amused, and when Edward asks him what’s so funny, Étienne tells him that he’s a motorcycle virgin, and isn’t it nice that Edward gets to pop that proverbial cherry of his.

Edward’s cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink and Étienne loves it.

“The rules are quite simple. Hang on tight, don’t let go – and don’t fucking try to do anything stupid.” Edward tells him as he hands him a helmet. Étienne nods and climbs behind Edward. Hanging on tightly will not be a problem and if he sits a little closer to Edward, if he presses himself nice and snug against him, Edward doesn’t say anything about it, and if anyone asks, Étienne will simply say that he would hate to fall off.

They’re off with a roar soon after and Étienne squeezes Edward tightly, surprised by the sudden burst of speed and the wind blowing right through him. It’s an exhilarating feeling, an instant high, almost, and Étienne briefly wonders if there’s a connection to be made there. It takes him a moment to get a feel for the wind and the balance of his head against it, what with the helmet and such, but when it no longer feels like he’s fighting to look straight ahead, he takes in the blur of buildings and trees as they whizz by.

He laughs, unable to stop himself, as a feeling of freedom he seldom ever feels courses through him. He wonders why it is he’s never tried this before, considering there is very little he hasn’t tried at least once, and makes himself a note to ask Edward for more rides, before he decides to head back home.

He’s half convinced they must be speeding beyond measure and he’s quite surprised when he manages to get a look at the speedometer and sees that Edward is respecting the limit and that they’re cruising at a steady sixty. Yet, when Edward zooms away, manoeuvres the bike from one lane to the next, passes cars as if they’re standing still, it feels like they’re going faster than ever and Étienne would love for this feeling to last for a lifetime.

“All good?” Edward asks him over the noise, when they get to a red light.

“Absolutely!” He responds, wide grin taking over his face. Edward answers with a soft smile of his own, before he pushes his visor down and then they’re off again.

There’s no real point to the ride and Edward goes through calm streets and busy streets, crosses over one bridge and Étienne experiences the sights of the city through a new angle. All the while, he holds on closely and never misses an opportunity to snuggle up to his boyfriend, when they need to stop at a streetlight.

It feels like they’ve been on the road for hours, but Étienne is quite surprised when they make it back to Edward’s and he notices that it hasn’t been quite that long. He’s a little unstable when he un-mounts the bike and Edward is there to offer steady hands as he helps him off. Étienne welcomes the contact and settles for a proper hug after he’s ridden himself of the helmet.

“So? Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” He says with emphasis and Edward’s smile is part relieved, part pleased. Étienne thinks it’s a very good smile on him – goes well with the bad boy look Edward has going on and manages to tell him so. The lovely pink from earlier returns to Edward’s cheeks and he mumbles something or other as he puts the bike and the helmets away.

When he’s done, Étienne follows him back inside and when he goes to remove his jacket, Edward tells him to leave it on a little longer.

Étienne laughs and does as he’s told. He has not, is not and will never be one to say no to Edward and follows his boyfriend further into the house, to wherever it is Edward wants to go.

FIN

#pc: montreal #pc: edmonton #edward murphy #étienne maisonneuve #fic #projocanondoko #monmongary week

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nathanieldorsky · 5 years

Text

Brett Kashmere’s writing about Nathaniel Dorsky’s A Fall Trip Home

This article on A Fall Trip Home (1964, 11 min, sound) was most generously written for Canyon Cinema by Brett Kashmere and presented on their website.

Image: Nathaniel Dorsky, A Fall Trip Home

Autumn Erotic: Nathaniel Dorsky's A Fall Trip Home

By Brett Kashmere

In the Shreve High football stadium, I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel, Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home, Their women cluck like starved pullets, Dying for love.

Therefore, Their sons grow suicidally beautiful At the beginning of October, And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.

James Wright, “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” (1963)

In America, fall is football season. An evidently irresistible cultural form despite our awakened comprehension of its traumatic aftereffects, the game’s popular appeal depends upon mediation. (This makes sense to me, elementally. Have you ever attended an outdoor football game in Ohio in October?) College football and NFL contests dominate the TV schedule from September to January, spilling further and further across the weekly grid: from Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the 1950s and 60s, to Monday nights (starting in 1970), then Sunday nights (as of 1987), and, since 2006, Thursday nights. Today, game footage is captured with high-speed cameras from every conceivable angle, repeated and dissected in slow motion replays, supplemented by torrents of statistics and a parallel fantasy football industry, in which players become interchangeable with, and reduced to, their data profiles. Mediated football’s affective, sensual pleasures are partly defused and redirected by its high-tech, scientific presentation.

As the media scholar Margaret Morse notes, “Football on television is a world of representation which has abandoned Renaissance space and Newtonian physics – but not the claim to scientificity of sport.”[1] This recourse to scientific-investigative observation and statistical fixation is a means by which the erotic spectacle of football, wherein men are permitted to touch each other in a variety of aggressive and affectionate ways, is disavowed by its majority straight male audience. The anthropologist William Arens remarks that, while in uniform, “players can engage in hand holding, hugging and bottom patting that would be disapproved of in any other {straight} context, but which is accepted on the gridiron without a second thought.”[2] And as the folklorist Alan Dundes observes in his psychoanalytic interpretation, the sexually suggestive terms of American football – “penetration,” “tight end,” “hitting the hole,” and so on – combined with the game’s structural goal, of getting into the opponent’s end zone more often than the opponent gets into yours, imply “a thinly disguised symbolic form by, and directed towards, males and males only, {that} would seem to constitute ritual homosexuality.”[3]

Few have lensed this symbolic ritual and pageantry of masculinity as sensuously as the film artist Nathaniel Dorsky. Even more remarkable, Dorsky’s delicate handling of the game and its defining season was made at the tender age of 21. The second film of a career-opening trilogy, A Fall Trip Home (1964), like its sister films Ingreen (1964) and Summerwind (1965), is restrained in its visual concept and skillfully executed. Partially inspired by James Wright’s football poem “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,” Dorsky’s subjective camera interleaves Northeastern foliage with the tangled, swirling, and collapsing bodies of adolescent footballers as well as close-ups of rapt onlookers. The flow of images is modulated by montage editing, slow motion photography, and floating superimpositions. A Fall Trip Home’s fluid construction was achieved through intuition and simple means, using a synchronizer and A/B rolls: “At that time, I can’t tell you how much one was winging it,” Dorsky explains. “You’d imagine this over that, then this over that. You didn’t really see it, until you got it back from the lab.”[4]

The film begins with an extreme long shot of a train, echoing the title, with fog rising from the distant tree line. A progression of blue-green forested hills and flora follows, signaling early fall. Dorsky’s landscape impressions meld with snippets of kids playing pickup football in a grassy yard, a high school stadium, pieces of mundane game action, a marching band, pompoms, and a cheering audience in dissolving cascades. Throughout the film’s 11-minute running time, images surface, assemble momentarily, then vanish and reemerge. Outside of its initial framing, the film adheres to a nonlinear logic; documentation is suffused with qualities of remembrance and fantasy. A mixing of film stocks adds to this perception of disjunctive timeframes. Most of A Fall Trip Home is shot on Kodachrome II, “the greatest stock they ever made,”[5] but a passage in the middle of film, of imagery we saw earlier in full color, appears in black-and-white. A grainier, high-speed color stock is used for the final nighttime sequence, accentuating the juxtaposition of exterior and interior scenes visually and temporally.

Dorsky describes the film as “less a psychodrama {though it is that} and more a sad sweet song of youth and death, of boyhood and manhood and our tender earth.”[6] Dissolves between visuals of players and leaves emphasizes the themes of transformation and maturation. Tenderness is the film’s foremost emotional register[7] until the conclusion, when A Fall Trip Home takes a sharp turn towards psychodrama. This shift in tone, from affection to anxiety, follows a move into the filmmaker’s family home. We see his mother at the kitchen window backlit by artificial light. It’s getting dark out, and Dorsky is seemingly being called inside. With this move, from public/social/day into private/familial/night, we are cut off from the reverie of male teenaged bodies inscribed in slow motion and layered assemblage. That spell has been broken by the domestic setting. Here we see black-and-white images of planes dropping bombs, connecting football to war, re-photographed off a television monitor. A sense of despair, claustrophobia, and unease attends this final passage. Returning home also entails a reminder of what one needed to leave in the first place.

Roughly speaking, A Fall Trip Home is what its title asserts: a return to the filmmaker’s hometown of Millburn, New Jersey, shot intermittently over the course of a season with his Bolex. At the time, Dorsky was living in Manhattan, a 35-minute train ride away, and attending film courses at New York University. What might be of visual interest to a young artist honing his craft, and, as Scott MacDonald writes, “coming to grips with the combined excitement and terror of gay desire,”[8] upon returning to the autumnal suburban landscape of his childhood? Given the time, place, and circumstances of its production, it’s not surprising that A Fall Trip Home would focus upon the poetic and aesthetic aspects of football within the context of a seasonal rite, staged here as going home (crucially as a subject in flux). More accurately, it seems fitting that Dorsky would cast his eye on the male homosocial sphere of football, with its regiment of intimate male contact, as subject matter.

As Dorsky explains, “Like a lot of kids, I loved playing touch football after school. I was crazy about it. I mean, in the fall. You only played football in the fall, and you only played baseball in the spring. I loved playing touch football, but I was never on the level that I would want to play varsity high school football. In fact, I was in the marching band. {Laughs.} I was in the orchestra, and then the orchestra was the marching band during football season. So I did go to all of the football games, as a band member.”[9]

Dorsky’s recollections of football are framed within the pleasures of performance, looking, and accompaniment (as band member), at a remove from the competitive and violent physicality of organized tackle football. A Fall Trip Home mobilizes these personal threads into a fascinating counter-narrative of masculinity and erotic longing through primarily visual means – though unlike the majority of Dorsky’s films, A Fall Trip Home does have a soundtrack. Japanese flute music, discovered by the filmmaker in a record store in San Francisco’s Japantown, contributes to the film’s pensive mood and complements the slow-motion imagery. In eschewing the bombastic music most commonly associated with high school and college football – that of the percussive, upbeat marching band – for a solo performance of elegiac, non-Western music, Dorsky heightens his idiosyncratic presentation of this American game.

Image: Nathaniel Dorsky, A Fall Trip Home

A Fall Trip Home is also notable in the way that it anticipates formal advancements in sports media language. Dorsky’s film was shot at the same time that NFL Films was being conceived as a publicity instrument of the National Football League – the ultimate marriage of sports, advertising, and corporate media. Both Dorsky, working with film individually and non-commercially as an artist, and NFL Films, an institutional, large-scale documenting apparatus, used slow motion cinematography and color 16mm film to evoke distinctive visions of football: compassionate in Dorsky’s case, while mythic for NFL Films. The grainy texture of 16mm and the vibrant, high-contrast range of Kodachrome reversal convey a sense of romanticism and nostalgia. Unlike video, which imbues immediacy and “presentness,” film images carry an intrinsic archival effect, a sense of the past. And unlike the slow motion of the instant replay, an electronic process associated with analysis, Dorsky’s use of the technique affirms the theme of, in his words, “a melancholy struggle. I realized that if you slowed down the football players it would turn more into… not a bromance {laughs}, to use a modern word, but slightly eroticized.”[10] John Fiske similarly observes that the use of slow motion in mediating sports functions “to eroticize power, to extend the moment of climax.”[11]

Dorsky’s film speaks to one of the foremost paradoxes of football. Forged in the culture of the late 19th century Ivy League, football has long been an emblem of white supremacy and heterosexual power, organized as a colonizing conquest of an opponent’s territory. At the same time, football is a homosocial enclave that authorizes the objectification of male bodies for a primarily male gaze: a fraternal exchange which belies the game’s homophobic culture and its racist practices. As scholar Thomas Oates describes, “From its earliest days, football has been a complex and conflicted cultural text, in which seemingly straightforward assertions of the power of white men consistently involve an undercurrent of uncertainty and anxiety.”[12] In A Fall Trip Home this undercurrent is expressed by a desirous yet detached subjectivity. Male bodies are captured on film, slowed down, studied, but also obscured under layers of superimposition. The film’s specular gaze is complicated by aesthetic rather than scientific mediation. Here, a game in which masculinity is defined and affirmed unfolds in front of the camera, but its homoerotic traces are “masked by the (supposedly) hyper-masculine setting of football.”[13] The erotic undertones of A Fall Trip Home are circumscribed within the seasonal frame. “I always found … like the composer Mahler, there’s something erotic about autumn, because it’s a season of death, of dying,” Dorsky notes. “That kind of thing sometimes intensifies a kind of erotic compensation, of life itself, as opposed to death.”[14]

A Fall Trip Home’s sensuality circumvents the accepted mythology of American football and in doing so complicates the dominant image of masculinity as embodied and expressed in popular media coverage of the sport. By shifting focus away from heroism, winning, and depictions of physical strength, A Fall Trip Home offers a gentle queering of football’s construction of manliness. At the same time, it highlights – and savors – the homosocial conditions that football creates.

Homosociality provides an important context for understanding what goes on when men watch other men perform in the sporting arena. In Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick explains that “‘Homosocial’ is a word occasionally used in history and the social sciences {to describe} social bonds between persons of the same sex; it is a neologism, obviously formed by analogy with ‘homosexual,’ and just as obviously meant to be distinguished from ‘homosexual.’ In fact, it is applied to such activities as ‘male bonding,’ which may, as in our society, be characterized by intense homophobia, fear and hatred of homosexuality.” Football’s sexually violent hazing rituals are an example of the fear (heterosexual panic) produced by homosociality. “To draw the ‘homosocial’ back into the orbit of ‘desire,’” Sedgwick continues, “of the potentially erotic, then, is to hypothesize the potential unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual – a continuum whose visibility, for men, in our society, is radically disrupted.”[15]

Football, through its enforcement of homosocial but often homophobic behavior, adherence to male authority, and suppression of individual speech, teaches patriarchal thinking and practice. The consequences are considerable. As bell hooks notes, “To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings.”[16] Football’s culture of violence stems in part from this condition of denial. The tenderness and poeticism that underpins Dorsky’s representation draw, as Sedgwick puts it, the homosocial into the orbit of desire and the potentially erotic. If even for a handful of moments, the viewers of A Fall Trip Home are accorded “the ambiguity of sexual orientation in the liminal state of love for and identification with the object of desire.”[17]

Brett Kashmere is a media artist, historian, curator, and doctoral student in Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also the founding editor of INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media. His writing on experimental cinema, moving image art, sports media, and alternative film exhibition has appeared in Millennium Film Journal, MIRAJ, The Canadian Journal of Film Studies, PUBLIC, Senses of Cinema, Carolee Schneemann: Unforgivable, The Films of Jack Chambers, and Coming Down the Mountain: Rethinking the 1972 Summit Series.

1. Margaret Morse, “Sport on Television: Replay and Display,” in Regarding Television: Critical Approaches – An Anthology, edited by E. Ann Kaplan (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1983), 49.

2. William Arens, “An Anthropologist Looks at the Rituals of Football,” The New York Times, November 16, 1975, 238.

3. Alan Dundes, “Into the Endzone for a Touchdown: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of American Football," Western Folklore 37, no. 2 (April 1978): 87.

4. Nathaniel Dorsky, telephone interview with the author, July 16, 2018.

5. Dorsky, interview.

6. “A Fall Trip Home,” Canyon Cinema website, http://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=802

7. This quality of tenderness separates A Fall Trip Home from celebrated mainstream cinematic treatments of the sport, such as North Dallas Forty (1979) and Any Given Sunday (1999), which often explore the visceral brutality and degrading aspects of football’s professionalized variant.

8. Scott MacDonald, “Nathaniel Dorsky,” in A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 78.

9. Dorsky, interview.

10. Dorsky, interview.

11. John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1989), 219.

12. Thomas P. Oates, Manliness and Football: An Unauthorized Feminist Account of the NFL (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 8-9.

13. James L. Cherney and Kurt Lindemann, “Queering Street: Homosociality, Masculinity, and Disability in Friday Night Lights,” Western Journal of Communication 78, no. 1 (January–February 2014): 2.

14. Dorsky, interview.

15. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 1-2.

16. bell hooks, “Understanding Patriarchy,” in The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (New York: Atria Books, 2004), 18.

17. Morse, “Sport on Television,” 57.

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torentialtribute · 5 years

Text

SCRUM’S THE WORD – CHAMPIONS CUP FINAL SPECIAL

Come on, pull on.

Come on, get stuck. It starts with La Rochelle and Clermont in the Challenge Cup on Friday night, which – if they bring their yellow armies to the show – can be an amazing spectacle of color and skill.

Then it is the turn of the blue and black bulldozers to hit each other, well, black and blue on Saturday the Saracens and Leinster meet in the final of the Champions Cup.

Stop drooling at the back, it's unpleasant. Just read Scrum & # 39; s the Word yeah?

This is your guide for the weekend and more. Go there.

St James & Park in Newcastle United will host the European rugby final this weekend "

Park will host both European rugby finals this weekend "

St James & Park in Newcastle United will host the two European Rugby Finals this weekend

]

Well, then.

Here we have Saracens – four domestic and two European titles since 2010 – against Leinster – four national and four European titles since 2008.

Solid then. Leinster could win a record fifth European Cup, Sarries could be the first English team to win three of these crowns.

Interestingly, Saracens players played 325 minutes more than the squadrons this season – but not

Scrums that Sarries says are obscured, but as if to prove how much talent there is in this competition, view our combined XV!

The players of Saracens played 325 minutes more per squadron this season "/>

The players of Saracens have played 325 minutes more per man in the squadrons this season

Apart from James Lowe (who could eventually play for Ireland) and Sean O & # 39 Brien (who goes to London Irish) who may not be too far away for Lions XV in 2021 …

15 Alex Goode (Saracens) 14 Liam Williams) 13 Garry Ringrose (Leinster) 12 Owen Farrell (Saracens) 11 James Lowe (Leinster) 10 Johnny Sexton (Leinster) 9 Luke McGrath (Leinster) 1 Mako Vunipola (Saracens) 2 Jamie George (Saracens) 3 Tadhg Furlong Maro Itoje (Saracens) 5 James Ryan (Leinster) 6 Michael Rhodes (Saracens) 7 Sean O & # 39; Brien (Leinster) 8 Billy Vunipola (Saracens)

In short, if you are none of ide teams support, let's hope for a belter to match some of the amazing football this week.

Rugby's turn to step up. This competition should define a decade.

GOODE IN FANTASY LAND

Alex Goode can win a lot this season.

Saracens have two types – one to & # 39; pull & # 39; style system, another is the classic type where transfers are used

The rest of the team was happy in the design (the Jackson Wray team is even called Everyone vs Goode) when Goode was the last to choose … but the full-back went to Liverpool & # 39; s Sadio Mane.

Sadio Mane has proven this season to be an inspired fantasy contest by Alex Goode

Sadio Mane has proven to be an inspired fantasy football player from Alex Goode this season

With 20 goals and two assists, Mane has accumulated 216 Fantasy Premier League points behind Mo Salah this season ( 256), Eden Hazard (237) and Raheem Sterling (229).

A clever coup for Goode, who played a child for Ipswich, and someone who is likely to spend a few pounds on spending the late summer drink of Saracens.

& # 39; People don't seem to like it. I won, & he said.

& # 39; Maybe I am a little too smug. I'm not smart. I don't have a family, which probably helps you get started! "

SARRIES MR WHIPPY-IED UP They always do things differently, from Saracens.

Ironically the idea of bringing the truck in came from the nutritionists .. but the kit-

Clermont is not the Challenge Cup team. probably winning on Friday, after having had a terrible season last year and entering the second-class competition, but if you look at their back line for the La Rochelle game, you simply fall in.

Morgan Parra, Camille Lopez, Alivereti Raka, Wesley Fofana, George Moala, Damian Penaud, Isaia Toeava

Oh, and Pato Yato, Greig Laidlaw and Tim Nanai-Williams are on the couch. Terrifying.

Clermont is not a challenge

Clermont is not a Challenge Cup team and will probably win the competition on Friday night Cup team and will probably win the competition on Friday evening "

Clermont is not a Challenge Cup team and will probably win the competition win on Friday evening

JOINT CARE

Scenario! You have a ticket for Anfield on Tuesday evening. Liverpool is leading 3-0 against Lionel Messi & # 39; s Barcelona and stares at a horrible Champions League-exit in the face.

You are a fan of Liverpool, but your work has a lot to offer where you really should be. It's a big black tie and you even host the thing.

So what are you doing?

Well, of course if you are Danny Care, you stay on the Stoop to participate in Harlequins & # 39; end of the season awards night

It is clear that Liverpool has no chance to make one of the biggest comebacks ever by scoring four without answering the Catalans and making the final …

Do you think the Danny Cipriani saga will end? Of course not.

The Fly half of Gloucester was named the Player of the Rugby Players & Players Player of the Year this week and would – if the judges are healthy – take the double place in the Premiership Rugby prizes on May 22.

Still does not play for England.

We have heard all the reasons why he was chosen and they will all reappear in the next few months – but let's just add some interesting information to the mix.

Safe to say – at least true.

Safe to say – at least true. Jones is worried – there is a striking club that he keeps coming back to.

Gloucester star Danny Cipriani cleans up in the prize season, but cannot earn a call from England "

Gloucester star Danny Cipriani cleans up in the prize season, but cannot earn a call in England

Most viewed teams by English coaches this year:

1 Gloucester, Bath, Exeter – 15, 2 Harlequins – 13, Saracens – 12, 4 Northampton – 11, 5 Leicester – 7 Sale – 7, 7 Bristol, Wasps – 6, 8 Worcester, Newcastle – 4.

Totals of Eddie Jones: 1 Gloucester – 8, 2 Harlequins – 6, 3 Northampton, Bath, Saracens – 5, 4 Worcester, Leicester, Wasps – 4, Bristol, Sale, Exeter – 3, 6 Newcastle – 2

When you put those numbers in black and white, d It seems like a strange obsession, and yes, it might be a convenient location to go to, and he might happen to the opposition or other players (answers to that on a postcard), but when Jones goes to Gloucester in eight of the fifteen weeks and two.

Kieran Read (Toyota Verblitz), Ben Smith (Pau), Waisake Naholo (London-Irish) , Ryan Crotty (Kubota Spears) and Kubota Spears.

This is a list of New Zealanders leaving New Zealand next year.

Owen Franks (Northampton), Nehe Milner-Skudder (Toulon), Liam Squire (TT Docomo Red Hurricanes), Matt Proctor (Northampton), Jeff Toomaga-Allen (Wasps), Jackson Hemopo (DynaBoars), Luke Whitelock Melani Nanai (Worcester)

Add this to these already outside Kiwiland: Jerome Kaino (Toulouse), Liam Messam (Toulon), Victor Vito (La Rochelle), Aaron Cruden (Montpellier), Julian Savea (Toulon), Charlie Faumuina (Toulouse), Malakai Fekitoa (Wasps), Lima Sopoaga (Wasps), John Afoa (Bristol), Steven Luatua Piutau (Bristol), Ben Franks (Northampton), Francis Saili (Harlequins), Tawera Kerr-Barlow (La Rochelle) ), George Moala (Clermont), Charlie Ngatai (Lyon), Tamanivalu Arrow (Bordeaux), Colin Slade (Pau).

Ok, some of them are a thing of the past, but that is thousands of caps worth of overseas experiences now. The All Blacks do not choose players who play abroad.

How long will that take?

So James Haskell is retired

So James Haskell is retired.

In the midst of the testimonials, one gesture would mean more than most, we are embarrassed because he desperately wants to do a final hurray in Japan with England, and a shame for the game because it will miss him.

The Barbarians must invite Haskell to play for them on June 2.

One of the things Haskell wrote in his statement in which he announced that he would leave the game after the end of this season was that he regretted that he never had the chance to play for the iconic side.

<img id = "i-83938a4f98d84cda" src = "https://dailym.ai/2CYdfvj 2019/05/10/16 / 13345834-7015461-image-a-89_1557501011725.jpg "height =" 402 "width =" 634 "alt =" forward Northampton

Unfortunately, Haskell & # 39; s dodgy teen means he is not fit to play, but as the flanker

And if Haskell is selected, god will help the social media channels of everyone and the bars of Soho.

] Come on Pat Lam, do the right thing. Haskell deserves a dear goodbye. ] – Leinster has never lost a European Cup final, winning the Heineken / Champions Cup in 2009, 2012 and 2018 and the Challenge Cup in 2013.

5 – Johnny Sexton, Cian Healy and Devin Toner were able to achieve their fifth European victory Both Saracens and Leinster have scored 32 attempts to go to the final.

[2] – European Cup wins as captain for Brad Barritt – Martin Johnson (Leicester), Fabien Pelous (Munster), Lawrence Dallaglio (Wasps), Jonny Wilkinson, current coach, has won it three times as a skipper.

Johnny Sexton (photo), Cian Healy and Devin Toner could win their fifth European Cup "

), Cian Healy and Devin Toner could win their fifth European Cup.

Johnny Sexton (photo), Cian Healy and Devin Toner were able to win their fifth European Cup

0 – Saracens have never had Leinster in Europe The teams played four times and the English lost them all

2 – Challenge Cup titles won by Clermont – in 1999 and 2007 – so another victory and they would end up right away with Harlequins as the most successful team in the competition.

15 – Several sides have won the Challenge Cup and seven have won it from the Top 14. This is the first all-French final since Biarritz defeated Toulon in 2012.

EUROPEAN WEDSTRI JDGIDSEN

CLERMONT v LA ROCHELLE St James & Park Friday 7:45 PM LIVE BT Sport 2 from 7:00 PM

Clermont: Toeava; Penaud, Moala, Fofana, Raka; Lopez, Parra (c); Ulugia, Kakabadze, Zirakashvili, Jedrasiak, Yato, Laidlaw, Nanai-Williams, Naqalevu,

Replacements: Ulugia, Kakabadze, Zirakashvili, Jedrasiak, Yato, Laidlaw, Nanai-Williams,

]

La Rochelle: Rattez; Retiere, Doumayrou, Aguillon, Andreu; West, Kerr-Barlow;

Replacements: Bourgarit, Pelo, Joly, Jolmes, Kieft, Bales, Sinzelle, Botia

Prediction: Clermont

SARACENS v LEINSTER St James & Park Saturday 5:00 PM LIVE BT Sport 2 from 4 PM and channel 4 from 4:30 PM

Leinster: R Kearney; Larmour, Ringrose, Henshaw, Lowe; Sexton (capt), McGrath; Healy, Cronin, Furlong, Toner, Ryan, Fardy, O & # 39; Brien, Conan

Replacements: Tracy, J McGrath, Bent, Ruddock, Deegan, O & # 39; Sullivan, R Byrne, O & # 39; Loughlin.

Saracens: Goode; Williams, Lozowski, Barritt (c), Maitland; Farrell, Spencer;

Replacements: Gray, Barrington, Koch, Isiekwe, Burger, Wigglesworth, Tompkins, Strettle

Forecast: Saracens

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#SCRUM’S THE WORD – CHAMPIONS CUP FINAL SPECIAL"

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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Sports Sunglasses Are Stepping Out Of The Shade And Trending Hard

http://fashion-trendin.com/sports-sunglasses-are-stepping-out-of-the-shade-and-trending-hard/

Sports Sunglasses Are Stepping Out Of The Shade And Trending Hard

From the front of the Tour de France peloton to the front row of Fashion Week, sporty, streamlined sunglasses are on the move in more ways than one.

Functional eyewear has always been the sportsman’s choice but now garish wraparound shades are beginning to secure a foothold in the style world too. Like fitness watches, they’re functional, nerdy kit and right now there are few things the fashion crowd likes more than technical performance wear.

So, whether you’re searching for something to keep the bugs out of your eyes as you try to beat your PB on Strava, or simply a means of shielding your peepers from street-style photographers’ flashes, let’s take a look at how and where you should be spending your money.

CMMN SWDN

Buying Considerations

Before we delve into the actual shades themselves, there are a few things to want to bear in mind. Paying close attention to frame shape, lens type and other factors will help you walk away with the best sports sunglasses for your style and needs.

Material

Paying close attention to what a pair of shades are made from will help you to decide if they’re going to be right for the job.

For example, if you’re planning to use them for intense exercise then you should opt for something lightweight, like shatterproof plastic.

However, if you’re hopping onto the futuristic specs bandwagon purely for aesthetic reasons, feel free to play around with styles that incorporate heavier materials.

Lenses

Generally speaking, the frame tends to be the most important factor when selecting a pair of sunglasses, but brightly coloured polarised glass is what sets sporty spectacles apart from their casual counterparts.

It’s not all about looking jazzy. Different coloured lenses can improve visibility under different conditions so make sure to do your research into what type is going to work best for you.

Shape

The wraparound frame found in sports sunglasses is what defines them. And while most designs conform to the same basic foundation, there are still a few variations to consider.

First of all, you need to decide whether you want a double or single lens. Single-lens glasses provide an undisrupted panoramic field of vision, but they tend to cost more.

You’ll also need to choose between full-frame or half-frame. In full-frame, the frame is all around the lens, holding it securely in place. Meanwhile, half-frame models feature a band across the brow from which the lens is suspended. Again, the latter option provides a clearer field of vision.

The Best Brands For Sports Sunglasses

Oakley

When Jim Jannard began selling ergonomic handlebar grips to motocross riders from the back of his car, he couldn’t have imagined the future empire for which he was sowing the seeds.

Oakley – named after Jannard’s dog – is now widely regarded as the best when it comes to high-performance sunglasses, goggles and extreme sports apparel. The brand’s shades are known for their wraparound styling and brightly-coloured, polarised lenses. Streetwear hype machine Palace has even worked with Oakley on a collab recently, giving further weight to the argument that sports sunglasses really are back in vogue.

Buy Now: £185.00

Ray-Ban

Okay, so admittedly heritage sunglass brand Ray-Ban is hardly known for its sporty aesthetic. However, alongside classic aviators and the Wayfarer, the renowned brand has produced some sleeker silhouettes which have proven themselves to be cult favourites.

Take 1967’s Balorama, for example. This aerodynamic frame couldn’t be further from the typical Ray-Ban look but its streamlined design and curved shape successfully set the tone for what was to come in the world of sports eyewear.

Buy Now: £163.00

Prada

Esteemed Italian label Prada has been known for sleek and sporty sunglasses since long before the current uptick in wraparound shades.

Obviously, these specs aren’t designed with the velodrome in mind. However, if you’re more concerned with breaking necks than breaking World Records then a pair of wraparound sunglasses from this bona fide fashion legend is exactly what you need to get those heads turning.

Buy Now: £226.00

Smith Optics

Born out of one powder fiend’s determination to ski in the absolute harshest of conditions, Smith Optics was the first brand to use sealed thermal lenses in its goggles. This allowed founder Bob Smith and his friends to shred when everyone else had to stay at home.

Today Smith’s goggles and glasses are the weapon of choice for everyone from Olympic snowboarders to runners and cyclists. Proof, if ever it were needed, that Smith is still one of the best in the sport sunglasses game.

Buy Now: £82.53

Nike

We shouldn’t have to drone on about Nike’s credentials as a sports brand because whoever you are, wherever you’re from, you already know it.

Just like the rest of the US giant’s output, Nike’s sports shades offer unparalleled performance coupled with industry leading technology from the brand’s Oregon innovation lab. Think one-piece lenses with complete panoramic clarity, ventilated frames and superior comfort.

Buy Now: £160.95

Mykita

High-end German sunglasses brand Mykita is well known for its premium handmade frames and boundary-pushing approach to design.

Granted, they’re not the kind of thing you’d want to take for a session in the squash court, but if you did you’d no doubt get a few compliments.

Buy Now: £459.00

Bloc

Since 1988, UK-based eyewear manufacturer Bloc has been laying waste to the notion that perfection can only be achieved through excessive prices. The company’s offerings usually come in as much as 50 per cent cheaper than its competitors, without sacrificing any of the quality or good looks.

With a variety of models ranging from the sleek and subtle to the, well, not so subtle, and price starting as low as £40, it’s a budget option that doesn’t look it.

Buy Now: £45.00

Rudy Project

Founded in Italy by Rudy Barbazza in 1985, Rudy Project has been changing the face of performance eyewear for over 30 years.

The company is meticulous in its use of athlete feedback, using it to tailor products, create new problem-solving innovations and ultimately to make some of the most well-adapted and high-performance sports eyewear available to buy.

Buy Now: £129.99

Moncler

Luxury Italian sportswear label Moncler borrows its name from the French alpine town Monestier-de-Clermont, so it stands to reason that it excels in making top-shelf kit for tackling the great outdoors in style.

The label is known for its down jackets, but what good is it being nice and warm if you’re being blinded by the sunlight bouncing off the alpine landscape? Luckily the brand’s sleek, sport-inspired eyewear offers a solution to that particular first-world problem.

Buy Now: £143.65

Cazal

Self-described couture for the eyes: Cazal’s shades are probably better suited to the runway than the running track. If that sounds like your type of thing, however, you’d struggle to do better.

The label’s fashion-forward frames helped define the classic hip-hop look of the 1980s and earned it a place in the fashion hall of fame in the process. Think first-class materials, precision workmanship and some seriously wild designs.

Buy Now: £463.00

Adidas

No roundup of anything to do with sports could possibly be considered complete without the inclusion of German powerhouse Adidas.

The brand with the three stripes is one of the big sportswear frontrunners and it has the futuristic tech to prove it. Think lenses that naturally increase contrast and design touches to keep sweat out of your eyes.

Buy Now: £160.00

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njawaidofficial · 6 years

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Why Katy Perry Can’t Save “American Idol”

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/13/why-katy-perry-cant-save-american-idol/

Why Katy Perry Can’t Save “American Idol”

American Idol judges’ giant head display takes over the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, March 12, 2018, in Hollywood.

Brandon Williams / Getty Images

Since the announcement early last year that American Idol was coming back on ABC, after wrapping up its supposedly final season on Fox in 2016, most of the excitement about its return centered on the new panel of judges. The trio that ABC ultimately selected is a motley assortment, plucked from across the musical celebrity spectrum: contemporary pop queen Katy Perry, throwback R&B legend Lionel Richie, and the “King of Bro-Country,” Luke Bryan. The controversy over Perry’s $25 million salary probably made the most news, and since the show’s debut, Perry’s antics have garnered most of the attention. But the overall focus on these celebrity judges speaks to a larger problem for Idol that helps explain why the onetime ratings giant lost steam and seems unlikely to regain its former glory.

It’s hard to remember now how Idol grew into a groundbreaking ratings juggernaut, outperforming the Oscars, peaking at 36 million viewers in 2006, and inaugurating a new wave of old-fashioned talent competitions, from America’s Got Talent to The X Factor. It did so by making stars, not hiring them. The original judges — producer Simon Cowell, ’80s pop star Paula Abdul, former A&R executive and bassist Randy Jackson — became iconic as judges, not for bringing their own pop star brands onto the show. But once Abdul, and later Cowell, left the franchise, it was reduced to relying on outside celebrities to attempt to bring audiences in — losing ratings, its own star-making power, and some of its identity as a forum for pop democracy in action. The show’s producers started trying to generate ratings by moving the focus from the contestants to the judges, in a way that distracted from the show’s musical focus and inspirational aura, as the legendary 2013 blowout between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj proved.

The show’s uplifting brand became tarnished through these “reality” tactics, which began to seem increasingly desperate as the show’s ratings fell — ending its run on Fox with 9.3 million viewers, a quarter of the audience it drew at its peak — and the later winners failed to graduate to successful (or even visible) careers in the music industry. In contrast, NBC’s The Voice, the kind of competitor that Idol’s success opened the door for, found a more organic way to center its celebrity judges. They were reframed as down-to-earth “coaches” who could relate to the singers onstage, in a role that allowed them to keep their own brands intact (and be replaced, as celebrity schedules inevitably demand, without upsetting the fundamental dynamic of the show).

The fact that Kelly Clarkson, arguably the face of Idol, chose to join The Voice this season as a coach — as well as Idol’s ratings loss to The Voice in its premiere — underlines that the fresher competitor now better represents the earnest authenticity that Idol is struggling to recapture. Everything about the reincarnated Idol, besides the judging panel, is nearly unchanged from its first life — down to the set and Ryan Seacrest’s blinding white smile. And relying on the star power of Katy Perry or her fellow judges to bring in viewers is at best a temporary patch over the changing realities of television and music that made Idol’s promise of blockbuster pop stardom impossible to keep.

Winner Kelly Clarkson embraces fellow contestants during the American Idol Season 1 finale on Sept. 4, 2002.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Even if you didn’t watch the first season of American Idol in 2002, you might have seen Kelly Clarkson’s coronation from the first finale. It is, by design, one of the most compelling moments of reality television history. YouTube is full of bootleg videos of the moment; one has over 5 million views. Clarkson had just been selected — through 15.5 million phone calls, pre-texting — as the first American Idol. Like a pop Miss America in prom-night curls, she immediately went on to sing the perfectly crafted pop power ballad “A Moment Like This” — cowritten by one of the Swedish pop wizards who helped launch Britney Spears to stardom — which was supposed to become everybody’s prom and wedding anthem. As the song builds, Clarkson makes it her own with her big, belting voice, which begins to crack as she sings “I can’t believe it’s happening to me.” She apologizes for her tears, the camera often turns to her own crying mother, and it all culminates with the other contestants coming in for a group hug and helping her finish the song as her voice breaks.

Clarkson cry-singing “A Moment Like This.”

Fox

That one moment represented what made early American Idol great: a brilliant mixture of pop perfection, unembarrassed sentimentality, and reality television surprise. With its promise of a major label recording contract at the end, it was less amateurish than Star Search, yet it still flourished on the underdog appeal of its contestants. After Clarkson’s win, the entertainment press raised questions about how “amateur” she really was, but the focus and excitement was entirely on her, and such questioning was still entirely in line with what the brand was selling.

Clarkson wasn’t the only previously unknown quantity whose stardom was minted during that first season. Throughout the process of auditions, “Hollywood week,” public voting, eliminations, and results shows, the public also came to know and love (or love to hate) the judges. Cowell, with his be-sweatered pecs and performance of snooty Englishness, seemed almost like a parody of American ideas about critics as effete Europeans. Paula Abdul had disappeared from the music scene, clearly done with her pop moment, and had never really had a defined public personality beyond her brilliant dancing and music videos, so she was a revelation. Witnessing her loopy attempts to frame feedback in positive terms was almost like watching Hallmark spoken word poetry. Randy Jackson was the seemingly objective, level-headed judge, giving practical feedback on singing — often describing performances as “pitchy” — and coining an iconic catchphrase/meme (“gonna be a no from me, dawg”).

The original trio established the perfect template of commentating chemistry: the good cop, the bad cop, and the neutral tiebreaker.

After the auditions phase of each Idol season, the judges acted more like sports commentators than active participants in shaping the contestants’ personas — they were central to the show, but not the center of it. And in retrospect, that original trio established the perfect template of commentating chemistry: the good cop, the bad cop, and the neutral tiebreaker. There was a delightful quality to all this perfect, cheery fakeness, which could be enjoyed both sincerely and as camp. The show, initially itself an underdog, turned unknowns into stars at every level and remained on brand, and growing, for a decade.

The show’s growth was aligned with its mission of launching pop stars, and the drama it generated was primarily about the contestants — both the clashes of different musical styles and their fates on the charts after the show. The second season had the show’s highest-rated finale ever, followed by eager speculation over whether runner-up Clay Aiken would end up outselling winner Ruben Studdard. Season 3’s Jennifer Hudson went on to win an Academy Award and star on Broadway, and Carrie Underwood emerged as the show’s country star in Season 4, which pitted her folksy appeal against Bo Bice’s rocker style.

Idol ratings peaked in Season 5, in 2006, as sexy-sad rock singer Chris Daughtry was upset by Taylor Hicks’s drunk-uncle-at-karaoke act (much to Cowell’s annoyance), though Daughtry ended up massively outselling him. From there, the show’s winners began to blur into a forgettable hegemony of white guys with guitars, punctuated by the spectacle of Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert as the show’s first not-yet-openly gay pop star in 2009 — arguably the last season the show made news for the right reasons.

Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson on the set of American Idol, broadcast live July 16, 2002.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Paula Abdul uttered one of the great truths of our time when she declared, on her masterpiece Bravo reality show Hey Paula, that people don’t treat her like the gift that she is. On Idol, she was the gift that kept on giving: a tireless engine of train wreck television and sweet platitudes. But when her salary demands weren’t met for the ninth season — she reportedly wanted a raise from $4 million to $12 million — she tweeted her goodbye. “I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day one become an international phenomenon.”

It’s impossible to pinpoint one cause for Idol’s struggles in its later years, as it failed to produce pop stars and ratings declined, but songwriter Kara DioGuardi’s addition as a fourth judge during Abdul’s final season (she was most memorable for her singing battle with “Bikini Girl”) certainly upset the existing balance and chemistry of the judging panel. The show’s falling ratings fell further once Abdul left, and even more tellingly, that was the first season that none of the top four finalists achieved noteworthy singles or sales success.

Ellen DeGeneres joined the panel for Season 9, in what she later called the biggest mistake of her career. Like Abdul, she didn’t want to be mean, but as a professional comedian she gave harsh critiques wrapped in humor (“the line between sexy and scary is a thin line”) without any of Abdul’s loopy charm. (Though she did jump on Cowell’s lap to dispel persistent rumors of a feud.) Ellen’s stint on the show made clear that Abdul was impossible to duplicate, and probably worth every penny. But more importantly, it highlighted the difficulties of bringing established celebrities onto the show in an organic way.

Some critics have argued that Cowell’s departure after Season 9, which both diluted the Idol brand and contributed to TV’s singing-competition overload by bringing The X Factor to the US, put the nail in the coffin of the show’s ratings. But X Factor and post-Cowell Idol both had the exact same problem: They were trying to bring in ratings and recapture the magic of watching no-name artists become big stars, while leaning on static formats and the attraction of famous judges who would inevitably distract viewers from actually paying attention to the contestants.

Big pop stars like Jennifer Lopez have no incentive to pollute their existing brands by becoming a mean Simon or a compellingly zany Paula.

Idol tried to solve the problem by hiring Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler for the 2011 season, but neither were distinctive or compelling judging personalities, and even their big names weren’t enough to prevent a major 13% ratings drop. They played their already existing pop personas and seemed more interested in boosting their own careers than adding to the show. As CNN noted, it was unclear if Tyler was promoting Idol or himself. Lopez debuted new videos on the show, performed her own songs, and used the job to launch a further TV career. But big pop stars like Lopez have no incentive to pollute their existing brands by becoming a mean Simon or a compellingly zany Paula. Idol offered these stars in need of a career boost a huge platform, but the celebrity judges got more than they gave, and Idol only slid further into irrelevancy.

While Idol and The X Factor (which recruited Britney Spears, with disappointing results) were struggling with their judging problem, The Voice appeared in 2011, and seemed to find the best role for itself in the new pop landscape by giving the judges, and their interactions with contestants, as much screentime as possible. Featuring Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton in its first season, The Voice purposely framed the judges as coaches and co-conspirators, and made their relationships with the contestants the point of the show: They work together on teams. Because they didn’t have the specter of any original, archetypal judges to compete with, The Voice’s pop star coaches basically played themselves, and the format still worked.

The show also benefited from viewers coming to accept that TV competitions are — for numerous reasons having to do with the way the music industry has shifted — no longer a viable way to instantly mint stars. The Voice’s very name doesn’t promise pop stardom, but rather the chance to craft a style based on “pure” vocal talent, as the famous chair-swiveling shtick of the show’s blind auditions suggests. The turn to live television for the public eliminations on Voice does send some of their songs rushing to the top of iTunes, and this more modest success somehow seems like an acknowledgment of the way that pop stardom — in the age of Spotify playlists and SoundCloud indie rap — can no longer be a big destination predetermined from the top down, but an ongoing process of tiny wins. The complaint against The Voice has always been that it has never launched a star, but arguably, after Adam Lambert, neither did American Idol.

The Voice Season 8 coaches, from left: Adam Levine, Pharrell Williams, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton.

Nbc / Getty Images

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bizmediaweb · 6 years

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How One University Used Social Media to Raise $28M in a Single Day

Attributing revenue to social media is a big challenge for businesses, but Purdue University may have cracked the code with their annual fundraising campaign.

In 2017 they raised $28.2 million in single day—$10 million more than their single-day campaign in 2016. They also increased support from international donors by 87 percent.

In this episode of the Hootcast podcast, we chat with Steve Schlenk, who is the director of philanthropic communications for Purdue University’s development office, and Kate Jolly, director of digital fundraising at the Purdue Research Foundation.

In this podcast, Schlenk and Jolly tell us about:

The social media strategy behind their fundraising campaign

How to get people excited about social media contests

How to run an effective Snapchat campaign

Press play to hear the show in its entirety, or if you don’t have a set of earbuds handy, read the transcription of our conversation below.

Q&A with Purdue University

Purdue’s Day of Giving Campaign is a fundraising campaign that you run every year. Where did it come from and what is it about?

Day of Giving started in 2014. It began as an initiative from our vice president. He asked us with coming up with a way to garner new donors for the fiscal year.

We thought ‘why not go big or go home?’. And so we created Purdue Day of Giving, which targets the whole Purdue community on the day.

You’ve had some big year-over-year improvements. Last year you raised $18.3 million and this year you raised $28.2 million, and you had an 87% increase in international donations. What are some big changes on social from 2016 to now?

We’ve added social platforms each year. In our first year we only focused on Facebook. Since then we’ve added Twitter, Instagram, and we do a little bit on LinkedIn as well. But this year we added Snapchat, where we had three days of scavenger hunts for some very desirable prizes. And our primary goal with that was to raise awareness with students, though anyone following Purdue’s Snapchat channel could participate.

We also launched a series of user-generated content challenges in the week leading up to the day where we invited our colleges and schools and programs and other units across campus, as well as individuals, to share Purdue Day of Giving-themed images and videos.

We also continued with our video sharing challenge, which awards bonus dollars to the campus units who have had the most shares of our Purdue Day of Giving video, which is a piece create each year to help promote the day.

Our social team was particularly interested in the Snapchat scavenger hunt and the leader board challenges that you guys did. They thought that was really cool. Do you think you could dive into that a little bit and walk us through what that looked like?

This year we held our very first Snapchat scavenger hunt to promote Purdue Day of Giving. We had multiple opportunities for participants to win throughout a three-day period leading up to the big day, and we learned a lot. We’ve got a few tips and tricks for anyone who wants to try it.

First off, plan ahead, and secure desirable prizes and show them off in a post previewing the scavenger hunt to help drive some interest and participation. Our prizes included Roku devices, Amazon, Echo Dot, Snapchat Spectacles, a pizza party for ten, football suite tickets and lots more.

Second, share a teaser post about five or ten minutes ahead of you clue for the first prize, so that those who want to participate will have a chance to prepare and have a moment to get ready to stand by.

You should always be clear on how someone wins, and as soon as you have a winner, take a picture of them with their prize within Snapchat rather than on the camera roll so that the post looks as good as it can within that Snapchat app.

And finally, before the scavenger hunt begins you can promote it on your other social media channels to let everyone know that if they want to follow you on Snapchat, they can win some really great prizes.

How did experimenting with some new platforms, like Snapchat, and doing new things on Instagram, contribute to success this year?

We feel that Snapchat and Instagram really helped us raise awareness for the day, especially on campus, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. In fact the scavenger hunt was more popular than we anticipated.

We also had the Snapchat filters available across campus during the Purdue Day of Giving, and we had a huge turnout for the comedy show that we presented to celebrate the day. It was open to the general public, and this year it featured then-Saturday Night Live cast member Vanessa Bayer and Anna Drezen.

Did you find one tactic particularly successful out of all of the campaign pieces?

I wouldn’t say one is more successful than the other; all of them serve a purpose. So the most creative selfie and Instagram video really create great user-generated content, whereas the 50th original tweet is decided on in the first 45 seconds because people are literally posting right at that time. But it helps to get it trending on Twitter, it helps to get the word out.

Can you talk a little bit more about how social has contributed to the fundraising results? Like would you attribute the amazing participation and widespread engagement to the increase in donations that you saw this year?

Absolutely, social is definitely part of it. With annual giving, you’ll have traditional channels (direct mail, phone) and web (email or online giving). Without social media, we wouldn’t be able to reach people outside those channels.

It’s a really important way for reaching young alumni or people in our database that we have their parents’ home address, and we don’t have an active email address because it’s still their Purdue.edu that doesn’t exist anymore.

Did you find that increasing the number of challenges to 33 hourly challenges and increasing the number of networks also helped to amplify that reach and contribute to the big bump in the amount that you fundraised?

Absolutely, and we also have a metric for engagement, so we have impressions, and that number of impressions has increased year over year. We had 34 million impressions last year, so getting those units to serve as ambassadors in garnering their own social ambassadors increases that number.

Has your strategy changed a lot from network to network?

Yes and no. Facebook is still the king for us in terms of where we get the biggest bang for our buck, because there are so many of our target audiences on Facebook. You have parents, students, young alumni, old alumni, and grandparents. With other platforms you have more defined audiences. Twitter is mainly just going to be your students and younger alumni. Same with Instagram, and then LinkedIn is a more professional network with maybe a higher base of international alums seeing things.

We have to look at our target audiences and what platforms they’re using and then adjust for that.

Where do you focus most of your resources leading up to and during this campaign?

When we were starting out, we focused on building awareness around the day. Each year we’ve shifted more of those resources away from awareness and education in the weeks leading up to the big day to spending more money on the day itself, so we can let people know that Purdue Day of Giving is here.

Thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today. You’re given us a lot of really great information that our listeners I’m sure will be really excited to hear.

I would also say that all the planning and preparation that goes into Purdue Day of Giving wouldn’t mean a thing if it weren’t for all the wonderful donors who make it possible and set records every year. So we just want to say a big thank you to all of them, and we’re ever grateful to everyone who’s participated.

Well thanks again for joining us today, it was great to have you both on.

Listen to the Full Episode

The post How One University Used Social Media to Raise $28M in a Single Day appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

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unifiedsocialblog · 6 years

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How One University Used Social Media to Raise $28M in a Single Day

Attributing revenue to social media is a big challenge for businesses, but Purdue University may have cracked the code with their annual fundraising campaign.

In 2017 they raised $28.2 million in single day—$10 million more than their single-day campaign in 2016. They also increased support from international donors by 87 percent.

In this podcast, Schlenk and Jolly tell us about:

The social media strategy behind their fundraising campaign

How to get people excited about social media contests

How to run an effective Snapchat campaign

Press play to hear the show in its entirety, or if you don’t have a set of earbuds handy, read the transcription of our conversation below.

Q&A with Purdue University

Purdue’s Day of Giving Campaign is a fundraising campaign that you run every year. Where did it come from and what is it about?

Day of Giving started in 2014. It began as an initiative from our vice president. He asked us with coming up with a way to garner new donors for the fiscal year.

We thought ‘why not go big or go home?’. And so we created Purdue Day of Giving, which targets the whole Purdue community on the day.

How did experimenting with some new platforms, like Snapchat, and doing new things on Instagram, contribute to success this year?

Did you find one tactic particularly successful out of all of the campaign pieces?

Has your strategy changed a lot from network to network?

We have to look at our target audiences and what platforms they’re using and then adjust for that.

Where do you focus most of your resources leading up to and during this campaign?

Thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today. You’re given us a lot of really great information that our listeners I’m sure will be really excited to hear.

Well thanks again for joining us today, it was great to have you both on.

Listen to the Full Episode

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yourpointsofreference · 7 years

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POR Reviews: Gottwood Festival 2017

After a long and scenic drive along the north wales coast towards the north-west tip of Anglesey, you arrive at what has to be one of the most remote yet stunningly beautiful locations the UK has to offer a festival site. Every year, a family farm opens up its doors to the Gottwood revellers, a fun & good willed bunch who pitch up every year in search of a weekend of bohemia, extravagant décor, and a bill packed with some of the most forward-thinking electronic music acts from around the globe.

It’s very apparent from the onset that this festival and their organisers place an open mind and a friendly atmosphere at the top of their agenda. From the minute you receive a wristband that reads ‘Gottwood Family’, you know everyone is invested in each other and there is very little to suggest otherwise. Even the security managed to make warnings to revelers sound friendly and charming.

Move D made a very sound point during his Q & A on Sunday afternoon concerning our rave and dance music culture, that it is often viewed as sitting on the wrong side of the law. This can be manifested by heavy handed and at times aggressive festival security, but it was a far stretch from that at Gottwood, the scene is set for a protected and welcoming environment for a looming weekend of music loving escapism.

As a festival of only 5000 attendees, it certainly has its perks. Firstly, the walk from the campsite is very short – no matter where you set up camp, it was no problem whatsoever to pop back and grab that ‘thing you needed’, without missing too much of the music. Secondly, it allowed the organisers to focus on quality and detail – a perfect example of this was the awe-striking light shows at each and every stage, carrying perfect motion, timing, blends of colours, and healthy doses of strobes coming from all angles.

As late arrivers on the Thursday, we were welcomed by strong sea winds and characteristic rain, but to our delight there were very short search queues (a theme of the whole festival) and easy entry into the site. It took no time to get set up and ready to go. Like eager school children, the lights and sounds just in touching distance of the other side of the woodland bordering the campsite, we made sure we were not hanging around the tents for long!

Our first night we spent our time exploring the location, checking out the décor, the stages, the scenery - it is quite a sight at night time. The crowds were predominantly fresh-faced students and twenty somethings dressed in an colourful assortment of charity shop rarities and throw-back fashion labels. Despite the weather, they carried the festival at a very high energy throughout its course, a priceless asset when you are approaching the end of your power come Sunday.

Throughout the years we have been to our fair share of festivals abroad and at home but were completely blown away by the visual aspects of Gottwood. The stunning attention to detail & effort in the production of Gottwood is one of the defining features and set the bar very high in the midst of other dance/electronic music festivals - it is obvious this is a festival designed to elevate and intensify the senses' reception of the music. This glorious production is further combined with truly intimate spaces, there is no main stage just a collection of 500 or so capacity stages meaning you are fully integrated into any space you are experiencing.

Of the bunch it was The Trigon stage, in its second year at the festival, that really stood out. A hay bailed walled garden surrounding a space with a terraced bar providing exceptional views over the crowd from the back. The genius of the stage was a giant wood-framed triangular DJ booth with a protruding prism structure, stretching over the crowds with a lighting rig running through it. The result was a stage with real energy and immersion, and creating a sense that each and every dancer was a participant in the performance. This coupled with high quality strobes lining the walls, made it one of the most absorbing & unique spaces we have had the pleasure to dance in.

It is unfair to simply highlight the Trigon stage however, with shout-outs to the amazing craft and dedication that went into the warping & imposing The Mother Owl, the serene lake-side setting of The Lawn, the seemingly constant party vibes pumping out of the Walled Garden and the transformation of the Tree House from a tame, muddy daytime clearing into a night-time other-worldly, trippy spectacle, with the crowd always in reaching distance of the DJs (Bradley Zero, Black Madonna & Helena Hauff to name a few).

Gottwood, now in it’s 7th year, has above all the other things been a festival that promotes, forward thinking, innovative & modern dance music in all it’s forms. Whilst you could argue the music certainly leans towards House & Disco there is everything on offer from UK Bass, Dubstep, Techno, Drum and Bass, Garage, every corner of the UK dance market is represented. It is testament to the festival that legends such as Move D keep coming back year on year - playing not one, but 2, 3 or maybe even four sets across the whole weekend.

Considering the variety of music the weekend has to offer, our experience was heavily biased towards House & Disco, with particularly impressive sets from Bradley Zero who played for a total of 6 hours on Sunday across two B2B sets. A live, groove-laden Ross From Friends set, featuring an incredibly enthusiastic bassist playing to a packed out crowd by the lake, loosening us into the Sunday evening frivolities. Antal laying down his signature Rush Hour sound, O’Flynn having the time of his life at the Lawn Stage and the ever reliable Move D showing us what he is all about. POR Favorites Ishmael Ensemble, Bastien Keb & Harvey Sutherland also made their mark with stunning live band performances during the day to nourish the hangovers.

With those noteworthy sets aside, there were some truly exceptional moments across the festival that need special mention:

Helena Hauff

Helena is a DJ that has been on the bucket list for some time now, and as part time techno fans we knew that she was the real deal - and she did not fail to deliver. As the build up grew throughout the weekend, and the thirst for something completely different intensified, we arrived at the Treehouse after a quick break at the campsite in prep for the night. Upon arrival, it was the first time that we had seen this stage in all its glory, and whilst the dancefloor was not at all crowded at first, it soon packed out upon her arrival.

The scenes during that set were utterly jaw-dropping, a combination of green lasers flooding the dancefloor, a stage that was completely transformed by the oceans of people arriving, and the winds that carried away Helena's hair whilst she DJ'd made you feel like she was physically driving the crowd at full throttle. This was electronic music in its purest form - audacious, bold, immersive, and spectacular. You could physically see fellow dancers being drained by the euphoric intensity before your eyes.

Move D (Disco Set)

On his last set of the weekend on Saturday day, there was definitely a feeling in the air that this was the moment many were all waiting for. We made sure we got there early to get a good spot, and thankfully we made it just in time. This was definitely a huge highlight for everyone in attendance - with his feel-good selecting, flawless mixing, and uber enthusiasm, Move D nailed this prominent slot. From well-known classics, to crate-dug gems, the crowd went absolutely wild for the entire time he span the records.

Gwen McCrae 'Keep the Fire Burning', Chemise 'She Can't Love you', and MFSB 'Love is the Message' all made the cut, but a particular highlight was Sister Sledge's 'Lost in Music'. All of these, key ingredients to a set that was sending revellers up the 4 metre walls to rip their tops off and go completely wild to the masses. Considering Move D has only more recently become known for his disco sets, this party was absolutely popping.

DJ Tennis

After only recently becoming a DJ Tennis fan, upon seeing his 3 hour closing set at the Trigon stage Friday night, I can safely say that I am a total convert. Arriving an hour late, (we had been catching Move D at Ricky’s Disco) during a torrential downpour that only got worse as time progressed the crowd was not totally sold on his selections at first with their dismay primarily focused on the drenching we were all receiving. One of best attributes of any good DJ is adaptability and knowing how to play to a certain crowd, that doesn’t mean crowd pleasing, but it is more an understanding of the atmosphere and mood, and catering selections to get the most from the crowd - DJ Tennis showcased exactly this. At around the halfway point he shifted his selections away from the darker side of the spectrum, and tapped into the lighter piano chords and synth notes, whilst keeping his foot firmly on his unique brand of techno. The shift resulted in the exact uplift the crowd needed, tracks like his finisher the incredible TB – Invitation to Love should point you in the direction to what I mean here.

With the rain consistent in its intensity, some patient and thoughtful mixing from Tennis took us up and down through the levels and the mind altering visuals (strobes in particular), this was a set of true quality and distinctiveness, I doubt I will experience something of this kind anytime time soon.

Banoffee Pies DJ’s

Anyone who visits POR regularly should know all about Banoffee Pies, a Bristol-based label showcasing some of the most eclectic and forward thinking music from Bristol & the UK. Over the past year or so they have been gaining more and more notoriety as DJs in their own right, being signed to TSA Artists and with appearances on shows such as Moxie's NTS show. These boys have shown they have what it takes to spin a few records and they certainly showed the crowd at Gottwood exactly the quality they have to offer.

Playing a 3 hour daytime slot at the Walled Garden at their own stage takeover on Sunday (they were essentially warm-up for Young Marco), it started as a very eclectic affair playing to handful of people, with selections pulled from the dark corners of their bags, they chose the likes of bhangra, afrobeat, jazz and more. It was on the arrival of a sudden downpour on an otherwise beautiful day, the Walled Garden suddenly became awash with festival goers looking for shelter from the rain - the boys then seized there chance and laid down a set of pure party starters much to the surprise and joy of the revelers in the tent. Going through the motions with garage, house and disco tracks, they showcased their true character as DJs. Todd Terje’s edit of ‘Stuck In Middle With You’ was a particularly special moment with rapturous cheering and applause at its halfway point. What I love the most about this duo is that they're the sort of DJs who don’t mind making mistakes, they take risks with their mixing, and change genre and tempo every few songs whilst projecting constant smiles, and playful interactions with the crowd, which really translates to the music.

Like all the best things, it was a set that took us completely by surprise and with these two behind the decks we all learnt a lesson to expect the unexpected!

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Overall, there's only one way to describe Gottwood: one of a kind.

Yes, there are many other boutique festivals around the UK, and yes, there are many smaller dance festivals, but what makes Gottwood stand out is its mystique, its beauty, its unpredictability, and its thriving party attitude.

With incredible line ups at every stage, and something for every dance music fan - this farm, for one weekend, becomes party heaven.

#features

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