What TV Is For

by Rose Woodhouse on February 22, 2012

Ryan McGee criticizes the recent trend toward the “novelization” of television he claims was begun by HBO, says:

HBO isn’t in the business of producing episodes in the traditional manner. Rather, it airs equal slices of an overall story over a fixed series of weeks…HBO isn’t in the business of producing episodes in the traditional manner. Rather, it airs equal slices of an overall story over a fixed series of weeks.

He argues that television’s structure demands that it be about episodes, not long-form story-telling.

James Poniewozik argues against him. But in doing so, he actually says something similar:

It’s true that a TV series is not a novel. But it’s also not a movie. Every medium works best when it takes advantage of what’s distinctive about it.

Both are falling under the spell of what philosopher Noel Carroll called the “specificity thesis.” It’s an idea dating to Kant, and it basically states that each art form should restrict itself the particular properties of its medium do better than any other art form.

But why? The specificity thesis seems absurd and limiting. Don’t we want more great artworks? Who cares if it happens in one art form when it could have arguably been done better in a different art form? Because movies are better at showing snow falling outside a window, do we really want to stop plays from using lighting effects to show snow falling outside of windows? And isn’t there something lovely and clever in the way theater lighting designers come up with ways of showing snow falling outside windows?

Television can be talky. And can be silent and primarily visual. It can be episodic. It can tell a story novelistically over some length of time. Why should any show restrict itself because it is perceived that some other art form can also do any of those things? Surely there have been excellent talky shows, excellent visual shows, excellent episodic shows, and excellent novelistic shows. Should we cut any of those out because we have some preconceived notion of what TV should be? I certainly hope not.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan, although the post seems to be removed now)

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Prenatal Testing and Eugenics

by Rose Woodhouse on February 22, 2012

Slate recently reprinted an article by Tucker Carlson that argues that prenatal testing for genetic disorders amounts to a form of eugenics. The article is generally excellent.

As a philosopher, I sometimes teach applied ethics. I am generally pretty much liberal-ish, so one might expect me to be staunchly pro-choice. But anyone, on either side of the abortion debate, who thinks the answer to the morality of abortion is prima facie obvious has not sufficiently wrestled with the question. The suggested points at which a fetus may be considered to have personhood (conception, heartbeat, quickening, viability, sentience) all strike me as problematic. (I suggest everyone staunchly pro-choice to read Don Marquis’s “Why Abortion is Immoral,” and everyone staunchly pro-life to read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion.”) I do, however, think abortion should be legal.

As indicated in previous posts, I am also a mom of a child with a Ridiculously Rare genetic disorder. He has severe cognitive and psychomotor disabilities. Screening tests indicated he was unlikely to have the three most common genetic disorders (Down syndrome, trisomy 18, and trisomy 13). His ultrasounds were normal. So I opted not to have the confirming amniocentesis, which carries with it a small risk of miscarriage. He was diagnosed soon after birth. I don’t know for sure, but I probably would have opted for an abortion had I received the information prenatally. I am so grateful I did not have the information. He is my sweetest baby love muffin, who has made my life unquestionably more difficult, but infinitely richer and ultimately happier.

With my subsequent child, I did get an amnio. He is genetically normal. I don’t know what I would have done if I had received news otherwise. On the one hand, I adore my disabled kid and am relieved I did not abort him. On the other hand, with two disabled kids my life would basically be turned into Total Caregiver. Luckily, I didn’t have to decide.

Carlson is right about some things:

  1. A life with Down syndrome is not a wreck of a life. Seriously, I see six-year-olds with Down syndrome climbing on the jungle gym and speaking in full sentences. My kid will probably never do either. I would kill for him to end up as high-functioning as someone with Down syndrome. People with Down syndrome have an excellent chance of walking, talking, playing, laughing, socializing in a reasonably sophisticated manner, reading, and being generally happy. They have a decent chance at semi-independent living. I can’t picture any construal of what is means to have a life worth living on which someone with Down syndrome is automatically excluded.
  2. Those who cite the cost-saving benefits and the improvement of society benefits of prenatal testing (and the resultant lack of people with Down syndrome) are indeed basically making a eugenic argument.

One way in which Carlson is wrong. He says:

“We have a clear position not to take a position on the issue of abortion,” says Paul Marchand, head lobbyist at The Arc (formerly known as the Association for Retarded Citizens), one of the country’s largest such groups. The National Down Syndrome Congress, in its “Position Statement on Prenatal Testing and Eugenics,” is equally explicit: “These positions … in no way involve the movement in the debate over whether a woman should have a legal right to abortion.”

Disability groups tend to be on edge when it comes to public perceptions of the mentally retarded (Al Gore learned this the hard way when he referred to Oliver North’s political supporters as “the extra-chromosome right wing,” drawing roars of protest from Down Syndrome groups). They are quick to spot even the most subtle forms of discrimination—The Arc actually has an official policy demanding equal access to dental treatment. So it is puzzling that so few groups have seen fit to comment on the growth of state-endorsed eugenics targeted—in the most discriminatory, dehumanizing way imaginable—at their own constituents. It’s a little like the NAACP refusing to come out against slavery…

Not that The Arc spends a lot of time pondering existential questions like these. The group’s real concern nowadays, says Marchand, is “the federal role in the future of mental retardation”—i.e., getting more money from the government.

It is totally appropriate for the Arc to take a neutral position on abortion. It is begging the question as to whether the fetuses with Down syndrome are the Arc’s constituents. If one takes the view that personhood begins at conception, then yes, they are. If one takes the (plausible) view that personhood happens later in pregnancy, they may not be. The Arc must represent a wide swath of people who often have nothing in common except having a disabled family member. The recent Susan G. Komen controversy suggests that advocacy groups are more effective when they can advocate for everyone under their umbrella.

And, as Carlson notes, raising a child with Down syndrome is very expensive. If Carlson wants to make sure people do carry their fetuses to term, then the Arc’s action of “getting money from the government” would be a big step to that end.

I think prenatal testing should be available to everyone. Not everyone who has an abortion after an in utero diagnosis of a genetic disorder is practicing eugenics (their reasons are often not about cost-saving or general societal improvement). It is really really burdensome to have a disabled child. One parent of a kid with my syndrome put it to me this way: it’s like having a regular kid, but more so, and forever. Exactly right.

But I will add this. John Stuart Mill wanted to defend utilitarianism (an ethical view which states that actions that lead to the greatest pleasure are the more ethical) against charges of a kind of hedonism – that the basest of appetitive pleasures (such as sex and food) should be promoted over more refined and subtle pleasures (such as reading and being well-educated). Mill argued that anyone who has had both experiences (i.e., base and appetitive as well as refined and subtle) will agree that the refined and subtle pleasures are better, and thus should be pursued. Given that people who have experienced refined and subtle pleasure value them more, that ranks them as a higher pleasure.

I’m not a utilitarian. But it is noteworthy to me that some of the same things can be said about disability. People who have relatively little acquaintance with it are probably agreed that the world would be better without it. People who have had intimate experience with it usually think the world would be a worse place if no one with a disability was born. That says something about its value. This is not to say that we don’t wish things were different for our disabled children, or don’t hope that they become as functional as possible. But a world without disabled children, and my disabled child in particular, would be a grayer world to me.

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Tuesday questions, Trumwill edition

by Russell Saunders on February 21, 2012

[Given that the gents over at Not a Potted Plant so graciously allowed me to contribute this week's Monday Trivia question, it's fitting that this week's Tuesday question comes from Will Truman. -- RS]

A couple moves back, I lived in a town with an Applebee’s, but no Chili’s. Prior to that, I had never really eaten at Applebee’s before.  While there, I ate at Applebee’s quite frequently. At some point after we left, the town got a Chili’s. We stopped by there and at at Chili’s solely because we’d always been wanting to eat at Chili’s every time we ate at Applebee’s.

On Twitter, Matt Yglesias commented something to the effect of “In a world where Chili’s exists, why does Applebee’s?”

I tend to like variety. When Wheat Thins go on sale, I tend to buy two of a lot of flavors, including some that I don’t like nearly as much as others. And I recognize that there are some things that I simply don’t like, but others do (fast food Chinese?!). But when it comes to some things, there is one product or entity so much better than the alternative, and so immediately comparable, you wonder why the latter exists. I think that Yglesias’s Chili’s/Applebee’s example is a good one (though I do like the existence of TGIFriday’s).

Another one is KFC. In a world where Popeye’s exists, I don’t understand why KFC does. Popeye’s is better in every imaginable way. They have spicy options that KFC lacks. Their non-spicy option blows KFC’s out of the water. The biscuits are better. The mashed potatoes are better. The
prices are the same or with a slight advantage towards Popeye’s (at least in my experience). The primary argument for KFC is “There isn’t a
Popeye’s around here” or “KFC isn’t as good and so I eat less of it which is healthier.”

Oh, and IHOP and Denny’s. Denny’s will do in a pinch, but why must there be a pinch? Why can’t they all be IHOP?

So what are some products that you don’t understand the rationale for, seeing as how there is such a better product around? The above focus is on food, but it doesn’t have to be about food.

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Virginia’s medical gauntlet

by Russell Saunders on February 20, 2012

Oh, Virginia.  It may be pretty, but I’m so glad I don’t live there.

Over at the main page, Patrick has already noted its new law that requires women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound before being allowed to proceed.  One presumes this is intended to make the decision as psychologically difficult as possible by confronting the women with the visual evidence of the fetus that would be destroyed.  While I do not endorse this particular tactic, I can at least understand why those who believe abortion to be murder might support it.  Making the fetus (or, if one prefers, baby) less of an abstraction and more of a life that is about to be destroyed could, one might argue, make the woman less likely to have it killed.  The intent of the law seems unduly coercive to me, but I’m not ardently anti-abortion.

What makes me recoil from the law is the particular detail that Patrick also found repellent.  In order for the ultrasound to visualize the fetus at the gestational age at which the overwhelming majority of abortions would be performed (<12 weeks), a pelvic ultrasound would be necessary.  Pelvic ultrasounds require the use of a vaginal probe.  “Vaginal probe” means exactly what you’d think it means.  The instrument is a long wand with a somewhat bulbous end.  Deracinated from the ultrasound machine, one could easily mistake it for what is often euphemistically called a “marital aid.”  Women seeking abortions in the commonwealth of Virginia are now required to submit to being penetrated thusly.

This is a disgusting law.

I have long found the pro-choice rallying cry of “my body, my choice” to be a blatant example of begging the question.  Opponents of abortion do not agree that the fetus, though contained within the woman’s body, is actually part of it.  They argue that the woman and the fetus are separate entities, each with their own separate (though necessarily entwined) rights.  One can still be pro-choice (as I am) while questioning the validity of the “I should have the right to do what I want with my own body” argument.

You know what is inarguably part of a woman’s body?  Her vagina.  And it is appalling that any state feels it can force a woman to allow her vagina to be penetrated if she wants a procedure of which it disapproves.

To my mind, this appears to be nothing more than the government of Virginia’s attempt to make abortion an ordeal for the woman, in the truest historical sense of the term.  As a pediatrician and specialist in adolescent medicine, I am generally loath to order pelvic ultrasounds on virginal teenage girls, as the procedure is likely to be very unpleasant for them and potentially traumatic, and is thus very narrowly indicated.  I am horrified that the good people of the Virginia legislature find women seeking abortion so unworthy of their own dignity that they feel it meet and proper to force them to undergo a needless and invasive medical procedure involving penetration of their vaginas in an effort to dissuade them from terminating their pregnancies.  While I do not style myself a legal scholar, this seems a flagrant violation of the “undue burden” standard as laid out by Sandra Day O’Connor.  I hope it meets a speedy judicial demise.

I can understand why those stridently opposed to abortion might want to make it as difficult and burdensome to obtain as possible.  But stripping women of their right to refuse the insertion of an instrument into their genitals for the purpose of changing their minds is coercive in the extreme.  This law is a blight on the state and the country as long as it is allowed to stand.

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The Duties of Downton Abbey

by Rose Woodhouse on February 14, 2012

If you are currently a film studies scholar, writing a paper arguing for the artistic merits of a film is probably a non-starter. It is completely obvious (to most in the field) that aesthetic preferences are merely expressions of political power. So any kind of critique of a film is always ultimately a cultural critique. Films are discussed as cultural objects, not as aesthetic objects. A film’s value is discussed only in terms of whether it criticizes the dominant ideology (good!) or reinforces the dominant ideology (bad!).

Let’s set aside the question of whether aesthetic value only ever amounts to the preferences of those in charge. A topic for another post! The question I want to ask is this: are films and television only valuable insofar as they criticize culture?

This kind of view often trickles its way into the popular press. I just finished watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey and (full disclosure) I was quite fond of it. (Season 1 more than season 2, but still really good.) To some, however, the show is problematic. The aristocratic class is portrayed sympathetically. Many of the lower classes are depicted as being pretty much okay with their lot, and approving of the class structure. So it needs to be explained why a liberal could love it. Going one step further, Simon Schama considers the show “cultural necrophilia.” He relates his biases:

But this unassuageable American craving for the British country house is bound to get on my nerves, having grown up in the 1950s and ’60s with a Jacobinical rage against the moth-eaten haughtiness of the toffs. They still knew how to put One in One’s Place. I’d barely crossed the threshold of one such establishment before its Carson had delicately knocked at the door of my room wondering when he could collect my trousers. He had not asked of course but assumed I’d want them Properly Pressed. I still remember the look on his face as he carried them off between thumb and forefinger as if removing a mysterious object in an advanced form of contaminated decay. Before “retiring,” I was asked by another servant whether I would prefer to be woken with tea or coffee. “Ah,” I said, “how nice. Tea if that’s all right.” “Milk or lemon?” he pressed on. “Oh, gosh, thanks, milk.” “The Jersey or the Guernsey herd, sir?”

I am indeed terribly sorry he had to go through that.

Then he goes on to argue the show is a disservice to the public.

In the current series, historical reality is supposed to bite at Downton in the form of the Great War. The abbey’s conversion into convalescent quarters did indeed happen in some of the statelies. But if Fellowes were really interested in the true drama attending the port and partridge classes—more accurately and brilliantly related in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Isabel Colegate’s wonderful The Shooting Party—the story on our TV would be quite different. Instead of being an occasional suffragette, Sibyl would have turned into a full-on militant, carving, while incarcerated in prison, a “V” for “votes” on her breast with a piece of broken glass. Lord Robert, whose income from land and rents would have collapsed with the long agricultural depression, would be unable to service his mortgage and, subject to the estate duties imposed to pay for old-age pensions, would have to sell the place to a wheat baron from Alberta. And Matthew would be one of the 750,000 dead.

Too much of a downer for Downton? Probably. Sorry, but history’s meant to be a bummer, not a stroll down memory lane. Done right, it delivers the tonic of tragedy, not the bromide of romance. But then that wouldn’t get the high ratings, would it?

This is the story of a specific family. Do you, or your family, exemplify your times in every way? Are you never an exception to your era, your class, your ethnic group? How dreary the fiction that always deals only with the generals, and not the particulars – always only with broad social movements, and never with the microsocial happenings in workplaces and families.

If you reject a film or show because it does not adequately critique its culture, you are basically saying that art should reflect your own social views. But why? You already have those views. You don’t need to be convinced. So art is…not for you? Really?

Art is then a lesson for those who don’t already agree with you. This strikes me as not only fundamentally condescending, but an proscribed understanding of art. Like so many wonders of life, like sex and love and marriage and children and friendship, it seems ridiculously limiting to claim that art serves only one function. And it seems especially to suck the joy out of art to insist it be only for educating others until they have as dark a view as can be mustered of rigid class structures and history.

I am not saying that there is nothing wrong with a system of landed gentry. Or that World War I was a walk in the park, or that women who wanted the vote did not go suffer to earn that right. I do question whether it is the sole job of every single work of fiction set in that time and place to educate people as to those facts. In addition to an education about broad social issues, art can also educate about interpersonal issues, about moral issues. And, dare I say it, some of the functions of art may not be educational at all.

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Stupid Tuesday questions, grammar rodeo edition

by Russell Saunders on February 14, 2012

We got a lot of use out of our satellite radio this past weekend as we drove home across several states.  (Virginia, I may despise your attorney general, but you are definitely the prettiest state when viewed from the highway.  [I was still glad when we left you behind.]  And I’m glad to revise my previous opinion about New Jersey and report that the parts that are visible from I-78 are much nicer than the bits one can see from the turnpike.)  The Critter got to hear lots of old rock music as we cycled between the 70s, 80s and 90s (on 7, 8, and 9, respectively), and it beat listening to the same dozen CDs we’ve had in the car for the past year or scanning through the dial looking for a new station every hundred miles.

It was while listening to “80s on 8″ that the inspiration for this week’s Stupid Tuesday Question struck.  Specifically, listening to “Manic Monday” by the Bangles (a song I love).  Crooning along with Susanna Hoffs, I noticed with admiration that the chorus goes “…wish it were a Sunday,” instead of the increasingly common “was.”  ”Good for them,” thought I, “for getting the subjunctive mood right.”

Which is when it struck me — I am a colossal nerd.  Only a total and irredeemable nerd would: 1) know what the subjunctive mood is, 2) notice it in a rock song and 3) admire it.  I invite you to pause now and pity my son, whose own social standing is probably already sunk given that he is being raised by such a person (who sings along exuberantly to old Bangles songs, to boot).

Of course, this is not a new realization.  If there’s one thing that American elementary and middle schools are incredibly good at instilling, it is awareness of one’s nerdishness.  I’ve known for decades, and have been at the Kubler-Ross “acceptance” stage for years.  But every so often the weight of my nerdishness presses more noticeably.

So, here’s this week’s question — when have you most recently recognized how nerdish you are?  I ask assuming that many of you are self-aware nerds, which I think is a safe enough assumption.  (Those of you too cool to so identify are obviously not going to have anything to answer.)  Keep in mind that this is different from the signaling that goes with geekdom.  As this Venn diagram helpfully indicates, one can have the intelligence and obsessiveness that are the hallmarks of being a geek without the social ineptitude that is a necessary part of true nerdhood.  There is, to take another example from my own personal file, nothing strangely cute about knowing the names and ambits of all nine Muses.  So, friends, what have you got?  What wrinkles the nose of the cute girls you encounter in the frat party of life?  What forever buttons the top button of your soul, no matter how externally cool you may manage to appear now?

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Heading for home

by Russell Saunders on February 6, 2012

Since I’ve been making reference to traveling with my family recently, it probably bears some kind of concluding post to draw the subject to a close.  I made allusion to having hopeful reasons for our travel, and sadly sometimes hopes don’t come to fruition.  Such is the case with us, and we are headed home.

I’m not really the kind of person who barfs a lot of personal detail in forums such as this, and frankly this isn’t that kind of blog.  Suffice it to say that we are disappointed, but generally okay.  I’ll get back to posting regularly rather sooner than expected, in keeping with resuming life as normally lived.  Thanks to those of you who expressed kind words of support, and thanks to the community in general for providing a diversion during somewhat stressful times.

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You’ve gotta hand it to Madonna

by Russell Saunders on February 6, 2012

That halftime show was the gayest thing I’ve ever seen.

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Clank?

by Russell Saunders on February 5, 2012

As I’ve mentioned, while on the road it has been a source of… let’s call it “challenging amusement” to childproof the room where our preschooler son is sleeping.  Among the delightful little fillips to enjoy has been the presence of both a television and radio for him to turn on whenever he happens to wake (4:30-ish, most recently), as well as the small fridge where we are storing some food and milk for him.  Fun for all!

This morning brought a new surprise.  As I was brushing my teeth, I heard an unexpected sound coming from his room.  ”What is that clanking noise?” thought I.  ”Surely we don’t have any glass bottles in that fridge.”

And lo, upon entering the small person’s room I found him opening and closing the bottom drawer of the bureau, wherein could be found an entire unopened six pack of Yuengling rolling around.  Which, while not the brand I would have chosen to leave in my toddler son’s room (thanks, previous occupants!), is still a free six-pack of beer.

I suppose I could call that a mixed blessing?

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Knock this bullshit off

by Russell Saunders on February 4, 2012

As I mentioned recently, I am traveling and thus don’t really have the time to dedicate to particularly thoughtful posts.  (“Why start now?” some of you might ask.)  However, sometimes something pops onto the radar screen that is so patently idiotic that it doesn’t require a lot of effort to comment about it.

Via Andrew Sullivan, I learned that a couple of days ago some moron thought he was making a point by throwing glitter on Mitt Romney.  The point, as I understand it, is “something something gay rights.”  Because apparently nothing says “treat me like a decent and respectable human being” quite like throwing glitter on someone who ostensibly opposes that agenda.  (Yes, America.  There is a gay agenda, and that’s what it is.)

First of all, let’s just get the Romney-specific part of this out of the way.  I’m sure that Romney has said all manner of anti-equality things lately in pursuit of the GOP nomination.  I’m not especially aware of any of them, but let’s assume that such statements are a sine qua non for viable Republican presidential candidates these days.  Fine.  And let us further stipulate that Romney is a human windsock who is already treated with such suspicion by the conservative constituency that he will certainly not touch anything pro-equality with a ten-foot pole should he win the nomination and the presidency.  Fine again.  I certainly wouldn’t vote for the man.  But the same wind-sockery that has won him such suspicion also makes me question whether he really hates gays.  I’m willing to bet that he doesn’t, and anything anti-gay he says is mere rhetoric.  Rick Santorum?  He hates gays.  Romney is just full of shit, like he is on [insert issue here].

But even if Mitt Romney were so homophobic he made Fred Phelps look like Bette Midler, what the holy hell does throwing glitter on someone accomplish?  Who on earth is either impressed or swayed?  I will put cash in your hand, gentle reader, if you can procure one single human being whose mind was changed in a pro-gay direction by this or any similar stunt.  Because to me it seems juvenile and stupid in the extreme, and I’m on the glitter-flinging imbecile’s side!  Not to mention how irksome it is that whoever came up with this craptacular idea in the first place thought that “gay = glitter” was a great meme to reinforce in the first place, as though my life with the Better Half trying to get our son to eat a balanced lunch is somehow one big rave.

Cut.  This.  Shit.  Out.  It’s bad enough that Lady Gaga keeps making videos and thinking they make some kind of point.  We don’t need this.  If the ideas that support the gay rights movement (like, you know, that our basic humanity entitles us to the same dignity and legal protections as everyone else) cannot win on their merits, then puerile stunts like this will hardly make a difference.  I’m embarrassed on behalf of every serious-minded person who has put in genuine effort on behalf of people like me and families like mine.  Whoever did this should be embarrassed too, though somehow I suspect he thought he did something brave and meaningful.  It was neither.

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