random Friday is random

[extemporanea]

• I'll swear a billboard I drove past yesterday read "BABOONS DISCOVER NEW CITRUS CULTIVAR". I must have been hallucinating. The one about "JUDGE SKINS SPUD" is mildly entertaining, however. Clever headlining to a very valid criticism.
• I'm kinda going to disengage from yesterday's Great Attribution Debate, because we seem to be beating our heads

Comments

Cameron

[herne_kzn]

Certainly the views expressed in the film are deeply disturbing, but any film that dealt with that environment and made no nod to pervasive homophobia would be a hopeless representation of it.

Re: Cameron

[extemporanea]

Valid, but Cameron's argument is that the homophobic elements are not highlighted or invalidated by the treatment of the story in the same way that the racist or anti-Semitic elements are. I agree, that school environment must be rife with homophobia. The problem is if it's naturalised and accepted on a textual level rather than the level of the interior setting.

Re: Cameron

[herne_kzn]

But all of that is happening on a setting level. Anti-semetism was not a feature at all, beyond a sort of mindless evangelism, and anti-black racism was at worst equivocal, at best unacceptable. Things not true of homophobia in those schools at that time.

[dicedcaret]

You weren't hallucinating.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article847943.ece/Baboons-discover-new-fruit

I thoroughly enjoyed the film Spud, and sort of get the Judge's point. But he leaves out the fact that in the film one of the characters appears to be openly gay without suffering any victimisation. He ogles the character of Spud and makes comments like "we like choir boys", yet the other boys aren't bothered by that. Maybe that was the film maker's attempt at balance?

I'm also not comfortable with the "tastless jokes endorse genocide" argument. Just because I take the piss out of a Jewish kugel's mannerisms doesn't mean I'm cheering on anti-Semitic behaviour.

[extemporanea]

aargh. My internet presence today is destined to be battered to bits in arguments. I've read Spud, but haven't seen the movie. Judge Cameron's point in that link seems to me to be internally consistent and valid for my memories of the book, but I have to take it at face value having not seen the film.

Of course you wouldn't be cheering on anti-Semitic behaviour, but an anti-Semitic person might see it as validation, perhaps? Everything is contextual.

[dancing_crow]

My random Friday brought me owls which made me think of your affection for them:
http://mimikirchner.com/blog/archives/2011/01/working-on-3/

[extemporanea]

awww, wols! those are gorgeous, thank you for the link!