We apologize for missing last week's episode, but Google Plus had updated its "Hangouts" feature and we couldn't find the new button. But it's been found! Also, in this podcast we have a first: I've finally figured out how to incorporate images without making the resulting file too large for Youtube. So now if you're watching the podcast, you'll see the visuals we're describing while we're describing them. (At least mostly. I'm still experimenting with keeping the size down and the audio quality high. This is tougher than it looks.) In this episode we discuss making my students weep uncontrollably; the dynamics of the relationship between Tyrion and Sansa; the similarities between Dany and Walter White; the politics of Stannis Baratheon; and many other things beside. Enjoy! Enjoy this fine podcast without the images I painstakingly inserted into it just for you. Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about “Walk of Punishment” (S03E03). Don’t watch — because you can’t — us discuss “And Now His Watch Has Ended” (S03E04). The rudely interrupted first half of our discussion of “Kissed by Fire” (S03E05). The second half of our discussion of religion in “Kissed by Fire” (S03E05). In which we discuss “The Climb” sans spoilers (S03E06). "The Climb" with spoilers (S03E06). Continue reading

As promised, here Steven discusses all those moments he bit his tongue on during the previous podcast with A VERY SPECIAL GUEST. You won't want to miss this! (You more than most will likely recognize a familiar face.) Enjoy! Because you know you're spoiling for 31 minutes of white-hot speculation (.mp3). Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about “Walk of Punishment” (S03E03). Don’t watch — because you can’t — us discuss “And Now His Watch Has Ended” (S03E04). The rudely interrupted first half of our discussion of “Kissed by Fire” (S03E05). The second half of our discussion of religion in “Kissed by Fire” (S03E05). In which we discuss "The Climb" sans spoilers (S03E06). Continue reading

First, Steven and I apologize for the delay. We encountered some technical difficulties -- poor internet connectivity foremost among them -- and it took me a few days to edit the random clicks and taps from the audio feed without having us sound like Cybermen. Enjoy! For those of you who think we have faces made for radio (.mp3). Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about “Walk of Punishment” (S03E03). Don’t watch — because you can’t — us discuss “And Now His Watch Has Ended” (S03E04). The rudely interrupted first half of our discussion of “Kissed by Fire” (S03E05). The second half of our discussion of religion in "Kissed by Fire" (S03E05). Continue reading

SEK pulls his dirty, beaten, decade old Ford Taurus into a toll booth behind PORSCHE GUY from the Republic of FL. SEK’s listening, quite loudly, to the Replacements’ Tim, when he notices PORSCHE GUY seems to be having problems paying his $2.50 toll. PORSCHE GUY: I only have fifty cents. TOLL BOOTH ATTENDANT: It’s a $57.70 fine. PORSCHE GUY: I’m not going to pay that. PORSCHE GUY exits his car and slowly looks around. He turns to SEK, who turns “Bastards of Young” up even louder. PORSCHE GUY: HEY YOU! SEK: IT BEATS PICKING COTTON AND WAITING TO BE FORGOTTEN! PORSCHE GUY: I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! SEK: (turns down music) What? PORSCHE GUY: Can I borrow $2? SEK: (looks at PORSCHE GUY’s Porsche while the fuel injector on his one-eyed Taurus sputters) Sorry. Don’t have it. PORSCHE GUY: How were you doing the tolls then? SEK: (realizing PORSCHE GUY knows some logic) I have $5 and change. Just enough to get me to work. PORSCHE GUY: Can I borrow it? SEK: I have just enough to get to work. PORSCHE GUY: Great. You can pay it forward. SEK: I don’t think that’s how that works. PORSCHE GUY: Are you a religious man? SEK: Not remotely. PORSCHE GUY: Because I am. I believe in Christian charity. SEK: (looking at PORSCHE GUY’s Porsche) I can tell. PORSCHE GUY: Great! PORSCHE GUY gets back in his car and talks to the TOLL BOOTH ATTENDANT. Both point at SEK, who vigorously waves his arms in an improvised semaphore of “NO NO NO.” PORSCHE GUY sticks his head out his window and turns to SEK. PORSCHE GUY: Jesus pays you forward! God bless! PORSCHE GUY speeds off. SEK pulls up to the toll booth and is informed by TOLL BOOTH ATTENDANT that he’d agreed to cover PORSCHE GUY’s toll. She also informs him that if he doesn’t pay the PORSCHE GUY forward, she’ll be docked for the difference. SEK hands over $5.00 and heads to class. Continue reading

When their parents tucked them into bed last night, conservatives knew they wouldn’t be able to sleep. Tomorrow was Benghazi Day! They’d been waiting all year and putting them to bed at 9:00 p.m. was nothing short of torture. They rolled away from the mocking light of their alarm clocks and tried to fall asleep for hours, but when they rolled back over the clock read 9:04 p.m. Four minutes! How were they supposed to make it through the night? In a few hours it would be Benghazi Day, and even though they knew exactly what’s under the Benghazi tree, their imaginations were running as wild as Muslims outraged by our freedom. Obama would be impeached! The Democrat Party disbanded! Niggers and faggots rounded up and shot! Benghazi Day couldn’t come soon enough! They trembled like old men with weak bladders every time they thought they heard those whistles blow. But sleep would not come. Visions of dead Americans danced in their heads to the sweet sounds of a gavel calling liberals to order. They tried counting lies but quickly lost track of which ones were supposed to matter. They thought about the video but then thought better about thinking about it because it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was almost Benghazi Day! They rushed downstairs and turned on the television. FOX was interviewing Benghazi Claus! Happy day! He reminded them that “when we were there, on our watch, we were always ready on 9/11.” What an unexpected Benghazi Day present! They were so excited it took everything in their power not to shoot each other in the face. But it was only 10:00 p.m. Benghazi Day was still hours away! So they went on the Internet and spent the night writing fan-fiction. When they fell asleep on their keyboards they dreamed of a border whose siren song beckoned illegals and liberals into its electrifying embrace. They saw white men in the White House and women who knew their place. Choirs of aborted babies sang their praises to a God who was clearly carrying. They were dreaming of the day after Benghazi Day and they never wanted to wake up. Because it was going to be sweet. And I’m sure it was. I’m sure it was. Continue reading

The majority of people watch Mad Men wrong. What do I mean? A translation of last night’s episode, “For Immediate Release,” from their perspective should suffice: With the exception of Matt Zoller Seitz and a few others, the majority of responses to this episode have focused on how “satisfying” it was to see Don Draper behaving like Draper again. Meaning the majority of the people writing those responses are still watching the show primarily to experience the thrill of being a powerful white man. The episode, directed by the always excellent Jennifer Getzinger, undermines this reading at nearly every turn. Consider when Sterling announces that he’s landed SCDP a chance at Chevy after Don brushed off Jaguar: Pete Campbell upbraids Draper, saying “Don’t act like you had a plan, you’re Tarzan, swinging from vine to vine,” creating an image that would seem to correspond with the “appealing” white male narrative above. Draper isn’t just any powerful white man — he’s the walking-talking embodiment of early 20th Century theories of white male supremacy. Like Tarzan, he’s an orphan who cultivates the talents required to survive in a hostile and alien society; and like Tarzan, when he finds himself among “normal” people again, these talents appear superhuman to them. To become king of the apes he had to become more than just a man. In this particular context, Campbell’s insult almost reads like a compliment; however, this isn’t the first time this season we’ve encountered an ostensibly superior white man in a society of apes: For the second time in two weeks, the show demands we consider the hubris of a white man in the society “unworthy” of his talents. The reference to Tarzan in “For Immediate Release” only seems ambiguous if we conveniently forget that Draper’s mildly obsessed with a film whose premise is that no man — not even a white one on a world mad with apes — is beyond reproach. Campbell’s insult holds these two visions of white male supremacy in tension: Draper can only continue to feel superior if he deliberately forgets what he learned watching Planet of the Apes. Those critics who found this episode a “return to form” fail to realize that they’re taking comfort in a momentary resurgence of white male privilege — a momentary return to that Golden Age “when things just made sense” that conservatives reference every time a woman, person of color, or anyone under the age of forty-five decides to have an opinion. Wasn’t it grand when self-made men like Draper could impose their will on the world? The problem with finding “satisfaction” in this episode, then, is that it requires us to ignore the same things Draper does. Note how the medium shot of Campbell upbraiding him is composed: Draper, representing the old guard, is in the foreground, but he’s a face without a brain and out of focus; Campbell, Ken Cosgrove and Joan Harris, representing the generation after Draper’s, occupy the midground; and in the background is an... Continue reading

How do y'all feel about pool parties? Not attending them, mind you, but hearing other people having them in the background of a podcast you're listening to? Because I think they should make you feel better about yourself, because here you are, listening to an intelligent podcast that makes your brain smarter, whereas the people at the pool party are just drinking and laughing in the Southern California sun. They'll come home drunk, sun-burned and utterly ignorant about what the Talmud has to say about those who collect shit-tons of mitzvot. Enjoy! That 38 minute jog you've been planning for weeks now? Take Steven and I along for company (.mp3). Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about “Walk of Punishment” (S03E03). Don’t watch — because you can’t — us discuss “And Now His Watch Has Ended” (S03E04). The rudely interrupted first half of our discussion of "Kissed by Fire" (S03E05). Continue reading

That theory being, of course, that what he says matters. It doesn’t. But what’s frightening is that in this isolated case, he may be right. (In all others? Not so much.) After trying to apply our new Internet Tradition to what Republicans said on the Sunday talk shows, it occurred to me that a weapon this dangerous can’t be allowed to fall into conservative’s grasp. The power of Peak Exculpation must remain in our scheming hands and our mocking hearts for all eternity. Imagine if conservatives realized that they could say anything they wanted so long as someone followed with a note that they were merely “trafficking in an old theory that was perfectly within the bounds of intellectual discourse not very long ago”? That can’t become acceptable. Sadly, given Jonah’s ability to influence conservative “scholars,” I’m sure it’ll become more than acceptable — it’ll become the excuse du jour among the professionally wrong. It’s not their fault they’re old and white and male, so how can they be held accountable for “trafficking in an old theory that was perfectly within the bounds of intellectual discourse not very long ago.” If you have an issue with their obsolete positions, take it up with Father Time, Jefferson Davis and The Patriarchy. NOTE: Someone who knows how to use the Twitter machine better than I should show @JonahNRO the power of his despicable phrase. Start a clever #hashtag and all. I’m just saying! Continue reading

I’ve already kicked a downed Goldberg while having a laugh and taking a piss on him today, so you know that I wouldn’t target him again unless he wrote something so exquisite his nuts left my knees no choice. Which is exactly what happened. According to Jonah in the article the Other Scott linked, Niall Ferguson should be forgiven because he “was trafficking in an old theory that was perfectly within the bounds of intellectual discourse not very long ago.” Not since “a very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care” has Jonah provided us with a sentence of such valuable vapidity. Consider its lack of specificity: the “old theory” is “old,” but there’s no indication of how old it is; not that its age matters, mind you, because this “old theory” wasn’t merely acceptable back then, it was “perfectly within the bounds” of polite society; moreover, “not very long ago” this “old theory” wasn’t merely “perfectly within the bounds” of decorum, it belonged to the “intellectual discourse,” meaning that the right kind of people discussed this “old theory” all the time, whenever that happened to be. Thanks to Jonah’s brilliant formulation, conservatives can now blame recent historical traffic — of an unspecified age and purview — for every vile thought that leaks through their lips. It’s not their fault that we’re unfamiliar with social etiquette from whenever it was. Continue reading

[View the story "I feel like a bad person." on Storify] Continue reading

In this episode we discuss many things before short-changing you on the subject of religion. If the podcast seems to end abruptly, that's because there's another ten minutes we tabled for a later discussion. Watching it, I must say I'm very disappointed in the manner in which I presented my Grand Theory of Significant Asses. It deserves to be taken more seriously than the words used to refer to the human bum allow. Enjoy! Avoid knowing what I do with my hat by listening to the .mp3 version of this podcast. Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about “Walk of Punishment” (S03E03). Don't watch -- because you can't -- us discuss "And Now His Watch Has Ended" (S03E04). Continue reading

What are we going to do with all you lying bitches? Here we are generously giving you privileges you don’t deserve, and one of you pulls this shit? I just don’t—what else can I say? We tried. We tried to make you rational. We pretended not to ignore your vaginas and needs and civil rights and you repay us by having one of yours fake rape? Don’t you realize this discredits everyone who shares your junk? Christ—that’s it. I’ve had enough. Feminism is officially cancelled. Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear it. You don’t have the right to complain anymore. You could’ve stopped this one woman from fabricating this one rape but you didn’t. And I don’t want to hear about all the other rapes that are real or go unreported because I don’t. I don’t want to hear about them. This woman lied about a rape threat! Just imagine what the person she invented is going through right now. His fictional parents are crying great heavy tears at this false accusation against the son they never had. If he already didn’t exist he’d be wishing he never had. So that’s it feminists. If you can’t rally in defense of men who were never born then I just can’t fathom what you’re good for. Continue reading

STUDENT: It’s so great to get to college and finally have a gay professor. SEK: I bet it is. Ain’t culture shock grand? STUDENT: Absolutely. So what was it like for you in college? SEK: What do you mean? STUDENT: When you first found out one of your professors was gay. SEK: I don’t know that I ever did. Wait, what are we talking about now? STUDENT: I read that thing you wrote yesterday. It made me proud to be in your class. SEK: Wait, I’m your gay professor? STUDENT: It’s awesome to finally have a teacher to relate to. ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS: Scott’s gay? SEK: How about we discuss Game of Thrones now? Continue reading

The most important aspect of Jason Collins’s decision to become the first theoretically employable openly gay male in a major American sport isn’t that this “accomplishment” requires that many qualifiers, but that he has a twin brother who’s a heterosexual. So much of the rhetoric about homosexuality focuses on whether God made homosexuals gay or whether they’ve turned their back on the Lord by succumbing to learned perversions. The distinct sexualities of the Collins twins seem a boon to those who think homosexuals are etymological perverts: Jason has “turned aside” from the righteous path that is his birthright. Why did he do so? He was converted by childhood trauma or an agenda-driven homosexual into thinking his feelings for other men were normal; which is to say he “turned with” an individual who convinced him that other men were as attractive as women. God didn’t put the gay in him — someone abused it into him. Whether that abuse is sexual or rhetorical in nature matters less than the simple fact that it’s abuse. That it’s become socially acceptable for prime-time faggots to queer the very foundation of marriage is a sign that American culture’s in steep decline. Children are being converted into perverts — are turning with those who would turn them aside — and political correctness prevents decent people from objecting to this abuse. But all this talk of conversion and perversion obscures the fact that homosexuals haven’t always had their agenda implemented as precisely as a Zionist plot. Homosexuals were once considered a diaspora of narcissists who wandered the world looking for themselves. They were inverts. They’d “turned inward” and demanded of others the love the mirror denied them. Which is only to say that the operative metaphor changed. What was once thought to be a loathsome inversion of God’s love has become what happens to children when they watch Glee. Because when you introduce contemporary American culture into the classic conversion narrative you end up with a system of dissemination indistinguishable from infection. You don’t need to convince someone to “turn with” you if society’s “putting in” or “doing to” them what the homosexual agenda wants it to. Which is why conservatives express their concerns about Collins’s revelation by not caring with thunder. So long as they ignore its importance the epidemic can be contained. They want Collins to become a non-story. Hence the significance of the fact that Jason Collins has an identical twin brother who’s straight. The temptation to use Jarron Collins’s heterosexuality as proof that Jason was either converted to or infected by homosexuality will prove too great. That Jarron shares Jason’s DNA but not his perversion demonstrates once and for all that God doesn’t sanction the birth of gay babies. Jason couldn’t have been born this way because Jarron was too and look at him. Which means homosexuality is essentially a function of bad parenting: parents either didn’t pay enough attention to who tended to or played with their children or they allowed... Continue reading

(There's a television show in the title. How could it not be yet another one of those posts?) I say “surprisingly” because the show’s producer — and at this point, principle director — is David Slade and I’m not exactly a fan of his work. That means Hannibal is a litmus test for my brand of auteur theory, because I’m genuinely impressed by some of his work here and consider him a derivative hack with all the subtlety of a nine-year-old learning to play the trumpet: whatever talent he possesses is masked by the fact that all he can do is blow. I took the fact that he does so as hard as he can for as long as he can sustain his breath as a fairly damning character flaw. But Hannibal suggests he may have finally learned something. For those of you who know nothing of American popular culture, Hannibal is a show about a man named Hannibal Lecter. He’s a serial killer who loves playing psychological games with know-it-all FBI agents. That’s the show’s motivating irony: he’s contacted by the FBI to provide psychiatric support for their most gifted criminal profiler. He’s solving crimes! While copycatting them! Talk about dramatic irony! The point being that this is a show about people with deep insight into the thought and behavior of sociopaths who fail to notice that their consultant’s therapist is one. It’s a show about psychological isolation — about people who can’t interact with the world or the people who inhabit it because there’s a felt distance between themselves and their humanity. So it only makes sense that even when they’re together, they’re alone. In “Potage,” for example, Lecter meets with the head of the FBI’s behavioral science division and one of their top psychiatrists: The long shot establishes that they’re all in the same room, which is important because if it didn’t, you might not realize that. The conversation proceeds via a series of medium close-ups in shallow focus: The depth of field is so shallow that the items on the front of his desk as unfocused as the wall behind him. His body occupies the thin slice of the world that the camera and lighting conspire into focus. Same with her: And with him: The three of them are sitting in the same room but are connecting neither with it nor each other. Their psychological isolation is being represented by the thin slice of the diegetic world that happens to be in focus. How thin is it? Thinner than this man’s face. It’s almost as if this man — the aforementioned criminal profiler — doesn’t even understand himself. Maybe he should see somebody about that. That’s right — he already is and it’s not working. You can tell because even when Slade switches from medium close-ups that suggest that all men are islands to two-shots that should suggest companionship, the thin depth of field isn’t even ample enough to include both subjects in focus. How isolated... Continue reading

As someone who writes about race and also teaches at the University of California, Irvine, I take full responsibility for this egregious recording. Clearly, I'm a horrible teacher because students I never taught wore blackface on the Internet. So say the emails that poured in after a prominent conservative blogger tweeted my email address in connection with this local scandal. But as I scanned subject lines while deleting said emails, I noticed that I'm not the only one to blame. Irvine also has an African American Studies program that failed to prevent this racist display from happening. And a department of Asian American studies that neglected to inform an Asian American student that racism is bad. The Women's Studies department also did nothing to prevent this performance of antebellum proportions from occurring on its campus (because abortion). Point being, despite all these programs and departments dedicated to creating a more compassionate body politic, there are still students on the Irvine campus who are racist. Therefore, per these emails and the dictates of logic, the aforementioned departments should be shut down. They're disappointing the corporate charter. The only real solution to fighting racism is to stop fighting it. Then it'll just go away. UPDATE: I forgot to mention how humorless these "studies" people are, and how their humorlessness is responsible for everything wrong with America. Continue reading

Attewell is brilliant, as per usual; SEK is scattered, as per usual. Enjoy! Us talking about it in the .mp3 of formats for them that prefer such. Our very civilized discussion of the premiere (S03E01). Fancy-talking about “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (S03E02). Here we are blathering on about "Walk of Punishment" (S03E03). All LG&M podcasts can be found and subscribed to here. Continue reading

I’m beginning to understand why Michelle Malkin and “The Twitchy Staff” publish everything under the byline “The Twitchy Staff.” If I blamed a missing person for the Boston bombing on account of him being mentioned on a police scanner while wearing a Che t-shirt, I wouldn’t want my name directly associated with it either. Or with stories like “We’re pretty sure Dzohokhar Tsarnaev is not Tweeting,” which carry all the authority of a poorly sourced rumor just in case it really happens to be him so that Malkin can engage in some blog-triumphalism if the improbable turns out to be true. Would Malkin do this under her own name? Of course not. As proof I offer as evidence that she hasn’t. It looks like she has, but a quick read of that post shifts all potential blame where she wants it: on the “Twitchy Team.” Who’s responsible for this irresponsible speculation? One of these people. Which one? Wouldn’t you like to know. But you never will, because the site’s designed to facilitate irresponsibility. Despite all Malkin’s proud declarations about the importance of citizen journalists, in the end she’d rather hide, like the coward she is, beyond an anonymous byline because she knows “mistakes were and will be made.” How does she know? Because that’s the point of the entire site. She’s free to publish anything she’d like without having to worry about annoying things like “consequences,” because not only is she not directly responsible for what she’s published, she’s merely aggregating what other people have written on Twitter. It’s a perpetual bullshit machine powered by anonymity. She can take credit for its “findings” when some infernal occlusion causes it to belch out something accurate, but for the most part she denies via “UPDATE” the endless stream of bullshit it was designed to produce. This is a more sophisticated version of the long-standing tradition among conservative bloggers of denying-without-denouncing the sexism and racism and homophobia and xenophobia of their readers. The bloggers are merely exercising their right to speak freely about their conservative values and extending their readers the same opportunity. When those readers inevitably reveal themselves to be within earshot of the whistle, these same bloggers claim to have no idea where all these dogs came from. The problem with this approach is that eventually the stench of urine sticks to bloggers who quietly encourage their readers to lift their leg on the America dream. So Malkin created a forum where figuring out where that smell’s coming from is as difficult as distinguishing one yellow stain from another — we certainly can’t blame her for the mess or the miasma. But I think we can. I think we should force Malkin to take responsibility for the state of her house. She wants to shift the blame to her roommates or their friends but her name is on the deed. Anything they do or say is ultimately attributable to her. (Hence the title of this post.) I normally wouldn’t make such... Continue reading

I apologize for not posting this sooner, but unfortunately my voice deserted me Monday and Tuesday and, as I make clear in the podcast itself, I'm an asshole. We discuss, among other things: set pieces and jump shots; the threat of rape; great moments in horse cinema; hands; musical chairs; and silence. I think that just about does nothing resembling to justice to what we discussed. Also, for the first time ever, some awkwardly included visuals! Enjoy! Download Kaufman and Attewell discussing “Walk of Punishment” here. Our discussion of the premiere (S03E01) and a link to download it can be found here. Our discussion of "Dark Wings, Dark Words" (S03E02) and a link to download it can be found here. All LG&M podcasts can be found and subscribed to here. Continue reading

I make this confession: I'm an anthropologist from the future, intent on discovering feelings that have yet to be offended, except I did something wrong and it collapsed and broke my brain and feet and spleen. Some of the aftermath has been chronicled online.* But the theory, it's still sound! *Including but not limited to the obvious, as well as dealing with a stalker fixated on my wife, a tiny car fixated on my spine, and a liberal impersonating a racist fixated on my job. The Library came after me, then thanked me for the chase. Terrible emails were sent. Cookies arrived. I tried to file. I wanted to kill myself. Was nearly arrested. My cat died. I was covered in blood. Arrived in England. To a volcano. Returned home to a forest fire. Followed by a kidney stone. That brings us to 2010 and doesn't include any events that could topple local governments. It doesn't include my sordid current stalkers or Porch Wars or any of the other random things that never happen to anyone that regularly happen to me. Continue reading

(Of course this is yet another one of those visual rhetoric posts. Can you not see all the pictures?) The title of the episode, "The Collaborators," is so obviously meant to be evocative that it almost sinks beneath its own freight. The episode's foremost "collaboration" occurs between Don Draper and his upstairs neighbor, Sylvia Rosen, who are acting out the transparent stratagems of Updike's titular Couples (1968). Though Updike's novel covers the time addressed in earlier seasons, its particular combination of adultry and war is relevant here: This pattern, of quarrel and reunion, of revulsion and surrender, was repeated three or four times that winter, while airplanes collided over Turkey, and coups transpired in Iraq and Togo[.] (161) Simply put, there's something about having sex while the radio describes some new front in the Tet Offensive makes The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit feel more like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. (And we well know how accurate that novel is.) Consider the first time Don and Sylvia play "collaborators." The scene begins with a point-of-view shot from Don's perspective as the elevator door opens on Sylvia and her husband, Dr. Arnold Rosen, arguing over money: It's significant that even though she's shot in profile here, Don's able to see her entire face. He can see more of her than she can of him; he exists only in her peripheral vision, if at all, whereas he can observe her from two angles. He's not spying on her, but he is paying attention to their private matter. When Dr. Rosen enters the elevator, she throws Don the most meaningful glance she can in the half-second that she has: The director of this episode, some clown by the name of Jon Hamm, uses this medium close-up to great effect. Remember that close-ups are meant to suggest intimacy, whereas medium shots are designed to give some sense of body language. In terms of scale, this medium close-up provides intimate access to her face as she shoots Don a plea, while simultaneously allowing enough frame to depict the familiarity of Dr. Rosen's body language. He's distant from her (emotionally) but doesn't know it (physically); she's distant from Don (physically) but acutely feels it (emotionally); and Don's somewhere back there on the elevator, but the camera's not aligned with his perspective anymore so his feelings are absent from this shot. (If it were his perspective, the eyeline match wouldn't be slightly frame-left.) But not from the scene. This is the first example of the "collaboration" between the two, so it should come as no surprise that after Dr. Rosen enters the elevator, Don remembers he's forgotten his cigarette: The medium shot is perfunctory, because its main purpose is to capture Don's exaggerated gesture. The fact that the gesture's exaggerated is important, or would be if Dr. Rosen were paying attention. (Which he seems not to be.) But Don puts on a show just in case and zips back up the elevator: To... Continue reading

Because she just got burned in a totally effective manner by an actor! From a television show! This @amandamarcotte claims to like quality television? Well here's one show she can no longer watch: JUSTIFIED. twitter.com/yesnicksearcy/…— nick searcy (@yesnicksearcy) April 13, 2013 The problem with this logic extends beyond the fact that conservatives devote Russian steppes of bandwidth to discrediting the idea that actors ought to participate in the public sphere. They start highly effective Twitter-campaigns to boycott actors and employers who make overtly political statements because they believe, deep in their ideological core, that people involved in the production of televisual entertainment have nothing to add to the national conversation. We're talking deep personal convictions here. They'd never enthusiastically embrace the statement of a character actor just because who am I kidding of course they would. They don't hate Hollywood -- they hate that the majority of it thinks their values are antediluvian. And when someone from Hollywood agrees with them? They just can't handle it. Every conservative celebrity-of-the-month becomes the John-Paul-George-and-Ringo of Twitter for awhile. (Adam Baldwin's either sitting alone crying on the abandoned set of Chuck or mercilessly pounding his Twitter trying to make Twitchy love him again.) But the thing about Twitter-campaigns and its meth-dependent scribe is that it all amounts to chatter amongst like-minded folks. Conservatives on Twitter form tiny circles of self-congratulation whose sole purpose is being sky-hooked into illusory importance by a service, Twitchy, that only exists to reinforce that delusion. No fiendish liberal could come up with a plan that mollifies conservative egos with the subtlety of Twitchy. Once they scale Malkin's xerostomic mount they feel like they've made it -- who cares if their throats are too parched to say anything else? It's not like they said much of value before. Take Nick Searcy's declaration above. He will never be more beloved by bigots than he is right now. This is the summit for him. All that was required of him to reach it was a profoundly impotent public statement. No longer will Amanda be able to turn on her television on Tuesday nights and watch Justified because ... because ... because Nick Searcy said so. You'd think someone who's portrayed as many officers of the law as Searcy has would understand the concept of enforceability, but apparently he's more concerned with being Conservative Internet Hero Du Jour than actually saying something that might make sense. But at least he attacked Amanda in a way that might hurt her feelings! Because I'm sure his empty threat to take away toys he doesn't own via means he can't control must really sting. Continue reading

I'm genuinely fond of Gail Simone's work—both in comics and combative internet forums—and I fully support what she says about the addition of a transwoman to the cast of Batgirl: She added that she thinks most superhero comics readers don’t have a problem with increased diversity, but rather with stories that promote sermonizing over storytelling. Alysia will be “a character, not a public service announcement … being trans is just part of her story. If someone loved her before, and doesn’t love her after, well—that’s a shame, but we can’t let that kind of thinking keep comics in the 1950s forever.” Except it's not "just part of her story," because it's just not part of the story. It's an interruption in Barbara Gordon's issue-wide interior monologue. Because in this issue Gordon has quite a bit of confessing to do: You don't even need to enlarge the image to see that the majority of this conversation is filtered through Gordon's interior monologue—those black dialogue boxes speak for themselves. This is Gordon telling you a story about Gordon, which would be fine if this didn't happen: I admit to having edited out three panels of hugging and a close-up of that message-cat, but that doesn't detract from my larger point: Alysia's confession isn't an organic element of the narrative. It's utterly forced. Consider the first set off panels above: it's a series of two-shots emphasizing the bond between Barbara and Alysia that "transitions" to an unnecessarily dramatic close-up on Alysia. Because it's not as if Barbara's confession of having been paralyzed and tormented and stalked lacks emotional weight. Her burden is even indicated, visually, by the purple half-bat that haunts her words. She can't escape what's been done to her and who she is, not even when she's telling her own story to herself. Which, again, is all well and good. I adore the confessional mode so long as it doesn't involve Don Draper talking about swimming. But a narrative written in the confessional mode simply isn't the best place to have someone other than the confessor make a grand gesture. My editorial work above may be a little dishonest, but it's certainly indicative of the issue's overall narrative emphasis. If Simone wanted to have Alysia's moment be hers, she should've placed it in a narrative that didn't belong to Barbara Gordon, because that makes it seem like an afterthought. And that only provides more ammunition to people who think "cis-gendered" is just "another one of those terms invented in universities aimed at eliminating the word “normal” when discussing sexual preferences." Because people who think DC is pushing an LGBT agenda will feel like its being "shoved down their throat" when revelations like this are inserted into narratives so awkwardly. That close-up pushes Alysia into the reader's face in a manner liable to remind readers that the forced intimacy of all close-ups is actually really creepy, and when it comes to rhetorical effect, the difference between "shoved down my throat" and "thrust... Continue reading

Or, another installment of "SEK yet again looks at everything that isn't his webcam, while Race for the Iron Throne's Attewell just looks composed, only this time SEK also looks like a Soderberghian Smurf." (He's not doing himself any favors here.) This podcast discusses, among other things, gender and violence, sex and manipulation, time travel, Batman, and Attewell's amazing ability to corral SEK's dithering into almost topical blather. (Also, the punchline to that pointless joke SEK made can be found here. It may make its way into an argument eventually, but that day is not today.) Enjoy! Download Kaufman and Attewell discussing "Dark Wings, Dark Words" here. Our discussion of the premiere (S03E01) and a link to download it can be found here. All LG&M podcasts can be found and subscribed to here. Continue reading

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