Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Who Watches the Watch-Nerds?

dark-city.jpg

After criticizing the literary establishment yesterday and planning to review a book on nerds this Friday, I should note for clarity that I was (a) a nerd and (b) an English major (or at least, half an English major — I double-majored in that and philosophy), but I was never an English major nerd, which is to say, someone who thought people were fools if they weren’t fascinated by Tennyson, etc.

On the contrary, as yesterday’s entry hinted, I retain my sympathy for the average-American reaction to a lot of highbrow artsy stuff, precisely because I was the sort of nerd who (quietly, humbly, and without imperiling my grades) sat through English classes thinking “Isn’t the sci-fi novel Ringworld arguably better than Thomas Hardy?”

I’m not sure I still think that, but my point is that I think it’s a perfectly “permissible” thought, and the cool kids don’t — whether cool for current purposes means black-clad rockers or just assistant professors of literature. The two types exhibit similar pack mentalities, I fear. Nerds can be just as bad as the cool kids and the elites, even worse, but at least nerds are often blissfully unconcerned about the social repercussions of their aesthetic judgments, which in some sense makes them more objective, or at least honest (though a consistent social-democrat might argue that “objective” taste simply is whatever is decreed by the masses — whom Edward Bulwer-Lytton called “the great unwashed,” by the way, another bit of genius from that ostensible idiot).

•••

Our intellectuals like to think they’ve created an open-minded culture, yet it takes some courage to rattle off a list like the following without pausing to ask oneself which parts are acceptable to the various cultural elites and which aren’t:

I like white socks with black shoes, Shakespeare, comic books, the theme song from the animated series Starblazers, the Fixx (about whom much more tomorrow), Fozzie Bear, cows more than horses, watching robots but not being around children, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine far more than Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Ewoks (yes, the Ewoks), canned ravioli, cold weather rather than summer or beaches, avoiding travel and unnecessary exercise (aside from walking), Dadaism but not ballet, Road Warrior but not figure skating, and the absence of tattoos no matter how hip. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about any of it, even if you’re an art critic at the New York Times — and even if you have an army on your side, and it’s quite likely you don’t, so there, if you see what I mean.

Or to put it less combatively: in these matters of taste, it seems a shame simply to import other people’s and spend a lifetime stifling your own. The award the cool people give you for thinking like them — even if it’s a Pulitzer — probably won’t be as much fun as living your own life would have been.

On a related note: Where were all these adoring Dark Knight fans ten years ago when the film’s co-writer created the wonderful sci-fi film Dark City and no one but Roger Ebert seemed to care? (He called it the best film of 1998, which means a year later, he may have reacted to The Matrix much the way that Scott Nybakken and I did: “That was good, but it felt sort of derivative of Dark City.” And indeed, The Matrix re-used some of Dark City’s actual sets, not just some of its reality-altering tropes.)

In short: we all know the herd mentality exists in aesthetic judgments, but I think we could still do more to resist it.

12 comments:

Jacob T. Levy said...

Yes to Starblazers, DS9>TNG, Road Warrior. But no to using Ringworld as your example of meritorious SF.

I mean, it’s brilliant– an inspired core idea, and then more ideas building off of it on every page. But it’s also, well, not very *good* as a piece of prose– and it was late enough in the development of SF that the idea of plausible characters having plausible dialogue wasn’t completely alien to the genre anymore…

Todd Seavey said...

Hey, I said (as a teen) I thought it was better than Hardy, not better than Shakespeare…

BONUS ITEM: Obscure comics factoid of the day, from Wiki.:

In “The Education of Jaime Sommers” episode of Bionic Woman, Tom Gilchrist (played by Jordan Bridges) notes, “One of my favorite comic books was The Freedom Fighters. There was a character called The Human Bomb” — and pulls back his tuxedo jacket to reveal explosives strapped to his body.

Adam Cohen said...

Ten years ago, at least one of those adoring fans of The Dark Knight was sitting in the center of a nearly empty Manhattan movie theater wondering why the film, which I loved, hadn’t attracted a larger opening night crowd. Today, Dark City is being released in high definition glory on BluRay (less than $20 at Amazon), with both the original theatrical release, a new Director’s Cut, a digital copy (for iPods and the like), and several film length commentaries featuring the director, set designers, and Mr Ebert, too. For those of you equipped to cherish it, bon appetit!

I hadn’t thought of Starblazers in ages, Todd. Epic sci-fi for kids in the eighties. Loved it.

Elizabeth said...

I love Dark City

Diana Fleischman said...

I thought Dark City was really cool but some of the plot was illogical which is where it lost some if its nerd cred.

“I was (a) a nerd”

Todd, isn’t using the past tense a bit presumptuous? You ARE a nerd; say it proud!

And I’ve taken Todd to art exhibits before and he looked at paintings and relayed anecdotes from comic books, no foolin’.

toddseavey said...

Hey, don’t say I never gave ya cultcha, though. Thanks ta me, you and the whole egg-sellers panel from our Lolita Bar event has been mildly insulted on HuffingtonPost, per my latest blog entry:

http://toddseavey.com/2008/07/29/huffingtonpost-vs-debates-at-lolita-bar/

Dee Lightful said...

I once had ambitions to be an author but then I scrapped what was going to be my debut novel when I discovered that if I read a few hundred more books of a certain type I could be a literary author. So that’s what I’m working on now. You can’t be that unless you read Thomas Hardy, Beaudelaire, and all the other highbrow stuff (or as I will soon be saying… material). Besides, if you buy Folio Society books, you get illustrations to boot, which makes the highbrow a little more comic-ey and fun.

TheGuyWhoNoticed said...

Nobody noticed that the director’s cut of DARK CITY was released on DVD yesterday?

Todd Seavey said...

See fifth comment up from your own by Adam Cohen.

Chad said...

Heh, just this morning I started whistling the Star Blazers theme song (the long slow sad version) and several co-workers also recognized it. I swear that will be played at my funeral.

GuyWhoHatesAdamCohen said...

Good ol’ Adam Cohen. He sure does ramble on before getting to the important stuff, doesn’t he?

Todd Seavey said...

Hey, be nice. He has done us all a service.