The Art of The Comment

May 23, 2009 by 3 Comments

Dear Millicent,

I have been thinking of your profile of Jezebel and its evolutions, and agree with the tensions you noted between taking things to task and supporting everybody. It is a problem when every viewpoint is humanized (though, isn’t that an accomplishment of empathy, or just a distracting use of pathos?), and echoed in pop critiques of women’s studies (whininess, black holes of offense and correction, righteousness that insists on the merits of heart and humanity but which cannot offer the same to  the uninitiated).

I hear those critiques most often from people who have never gotten near women’s studies (full disclosure: I have never gotten near women’s studies).  But the field, like feminism, is more vital than its critics give credit for: it’s not the grumpy wall flower as much as the exuberant and just misfit (for imagery here, I am thinking either of Ricki and Delia in My So Called Life at the World Happiness dance, or of Babs in The Way We Were, soused and dancing all night even though she was supposed to be working the refreshment table).

I also like your description of the commenting culture on Jez, and Gawker.  I have to admit that I rarely read the comments, and often wonder why commenting is such an inherent part of blogging.  The idea is sound–a large extended conversation, full of challenges and calls and answers–and I am giddy to read any comments we have here on this site.  However, in general (and again, please do comment here, I am just a grump), comments seem to be a barage of self applause: commenters either offering inane agreeance, witty snarks, or complaints about their workplace.  It seems that Facebook and Twitter have capitolized on this need for constant narration, and I want all comments to really just set up shop over there.  There are times when I have read comments that have taken the conversation in other directions, or that have called shenanigans when appropriate, but I rarely consider commenters part of site.  When reading Jezebel, I read their content alone, and consider the commenters in their own club, with queen bees who can type up a quick response and be instantly applauded.  But then again, maybe I am just jealous because I am not one of them, and we all like applause.

Feministing has a community site as part of their blog, where commenters can post full blog entries.  I like this model more than general comments, and often the editors post one of the community posts to the mainpage.  One of the last comment sections I read diverged into a long scolding of a commenter for using the word “lame” to describe something they didn’t like.  In the following 20 comments, there was an agressive defense and shuddering of the use of the word.  It seemed both irritatingly petty (the old trials of PC language), and wildy effective.  Though it annoyed me that one couldn’t relax about anything, even a slang adjective, while reading a blog, it was also the right fight.  At its base, the word is inappropriate, and disrespectful.  This reminded me of your discussion of the small choices where it is tempting to inclusively let all answers stand as correct (taking a husband’s last name, etc.), and the assertion that the choice (the answer, not just the right to choose) actually matters very much.

And, in a sweep back to the other side, my training as a doula totally disagrees, which makes things interesting.  Doulas are supposed to support a woman’s choices in labor, and bring in no personal opinion besides offering information.  The idea is that doulas are not there to make their version of an ideal birth, but to assist the mother in experiencing her ideal birth.  I consider my work as a doula the most directly feminist thing I do.  I help women have more power, voice and control at a vulnerable moment, and I get to see direct outcomes.  This would suggest the original version– –that we are all snowflakes, and power comes from not denying anybody their snowflakehood.  But, when it comes down to brass tacks, I only like this model when all the snowflakes are snowing for their own good as defined by, well, let’s be honest here, me.

So maybe the great work is not in defending the right to all viewpoints, but digging to the harder, more uncomfortable area of conversation that addresses responsibility?  A hard task for Jezebel, because responsibility is never an effervescent topic.  It makes me think of those horrid serious talks that parents only have with their kids while driving. And maybe that is where commenters come in.  How much more palatable would a lecture on unloading the dishwasher have been if there was a chorus of wits making fun of the DJ on the radio, the claustrophobia of the seatbelt,while making sure that I did indeed absorb that the dishwasher needed to be unloaded by me, or else no ride to the mall.

Yours,

CF

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Peep Show Series 1: Having Fun With the Olives

October 15, 2008 by 2 Comments

Dear CF,

You’re so right about the haziness of the impression PS leaves behind. Maybe it’s because it’s so conversational—things aren’t punctuated even as much as they are in the BBC Office, which gives Brent the Talking Head moments to really showcase his one-liners. Here, though, it’s sort of a delicious stream-of-consciousness sequence in which one delightful discomfort quickly displaces the one that came before. You’re enjoying Mark’s fantasy of crushing the small scary boys outside (why, incidentally, do they call him Clean Shirt?) when BOOM! you’re on the floor looking up into Toni’s face, disfigured with rage over her failure to get Alpen. Next thing you know, you’re watching her eat, her forehead shiny and enlarged, and somewhere, a poo retreats.

I share most of your favorite moments, and thought a few were worth reproducing here.

Mark Moments:

  • “I am the lord of the bus, said he!”
  • “Where is she? Knickers, she’s not on here.”
  • “Of course, she’s giving you the book-off. People don’t want your hands on their bottoms, Mark.”
  • “I don’t want to go to Weight Pros. I want a fuckbuddy.”
  • “The longbow beats the crossbow, my idiotic friend.”
  • “I wonder what kind of socks Sophie wears. Do women wear socks? Well, yes, sometimes, that’s the answer to that. Socks before or after trousers, but never socks before pants. That’s the rule. Makes a man look scary, like a chicken.”
  • “People like him should wear stickers! They’ve got them for their cars. Oh yeah, great idea, Adolf.”
  • (Aloud): “Later, potat-er.” Potat-er. What have I become?
  • “Okay, pen, let’s flirt with Sophie. … Come on. Go crazy. You’re hungry, like the wolf!”

Super Hans Moment:

  • “Oh, so Mr. Fucking Ocean-Color Pants doesn’t get it. Quel fucking surprise.”

Jeremy Moments:

  • “I’m a dirty hobbit and she’s a sexy elf. So she might be “Oh, you dirty hobbit, take off my bodkin and my jerkin. Oh yeah, sexy ears. … Yeah, yield to me, hobbit-slayer. You will touch my magic cock.”
  • “Oh Toni, I feel incredibly tired. Let’s just both lie down on your bed. I hope she gets out the bong, not the fucking cafettiere.” (Next scene: her with the cafettiere.)
  • “Well, yeah, I mean it’s first pressing. Or do you want to wait until everyone else has had their fun with the olives? Fourth pressing. Yeah, like that’s gonna be a party in your mouth, I don’t think.”

Great Exchange #1:

  • Jez: “How thick is wall?”
    Mark: “Depends.”
    (Pause.)
    Mark: “So. What Starbucks does she go to?”

The grocery list, which I must reproduce in full:

  • “I’m making chicken tikka. Plus, I bought us loads of great stuff. Dune on DVD, Bakewell slices, gin, and Sara Lee.”

    • Mark’s optimism is so touching here, and his disappointment when he says the following is an instance, I think, of your point that their delivery is sometimes nothing short of brilliant:

  • “Oh, right. I see. I get it. You were lampooning me. It was a simple lampoon.”

Great Exchange #2

  • Jez: “You’re a posh spaz.”
    Mark (overenunciating): “Oh, really? Well, I’d love to know in what way am I a posh spaz?
    Jez: “In the way you’re always doing posh spazzy things like tidying up and ironing your socks.”
    Mark (outraged): “I do not iron my socks!”
    Jez (cocking his head): “Socks, shirts. Whatever!”

Scenes:

  • The bathtub conversation—yes. Why did we never do this?
  • Mark’s delight in his toast routine, and how he’s actually pulling a fast one because he happens to love wheat toast.
  • Jez idly stabbing at the toaster with a knife while Mark’s telling him about a job opportunity.

Pyramid-Selling Great Exchanges:

  • Toni: “I mean does that look like a pyramid to you? Clearly it’s not a pyramid, it’s a pie.”
    Jez: “It’s like a big lovely club with free money for everyone. I mean it sounds great, but—”
    Toni (schoolmarmishly): “Free money for everyone, ha. Look out the window, Jeremy. That’s never gonna happen, not in this old world. No. See, the early birds are going to find their bird table covered with money pie.”
    Jez, after a pause: “Right.”
    Toni: “But the Johnny and Sally-come-latelies, they’ll get a slice of the pie, but then they look closer, and oh dear, it’s only pastry. Boohoo, Johnny and Sally! Are you with me?”

    • Later, Jez in the bathtub, Mark sitting on toilet:

  • Jez: “Are you trying to piss on my bonfire?”
    Mark: “I’m trying to protect you from pissing all over yourself.
    Jez: “I’m not about to piss all over myself. I’m pissing into the—big time.”
    Mark: “You’re still coming to the interview.”
    Jez: “Yeah, well, I thought–”
    Mark: “Listen, Jeremy. You don’t seem to understand. Nothing you want is ever going to happen. That’s the real world. Your hair isn’t red, people don’t walk around on stilts. Maybe somewhere you can earn money drinking margaritas through a curly plastic straw, but in this world you’ve got to turn up, log on and grind down.”
    (Helps Jez fill his glass from the shower head.)

I think Episode 2 might be my favorite.

Mark’s incredible range between know-it-all high-horsiness and humiliated paralysis is so real–they strike an amazing balance between the impulses that make somebody a righteous prig and a sad little ball of insecurity who regularly imagines that “nothing this bad has happened to anyone, ever,” and switches in the next second to “this is the best thing that has happened to anyone ever!” Which might in the end be about wheat toast. Mark’s non sequiturs and small delights are so much more satisfying than Jez’s because he wants to resist them so badly. His lapses of self-consciousness are so pleasant; how nice, we think, that he forgot himself and actually enjoyed something for a second.

I like, too, that nothing that works for Jez works for Mark. Jez’s whole system—“maybe if I don’t think about it, it didn’t happen,” and vice versa—is based on a sort of anarchic splattering of everything with Jezness in the hope that some of it sticks, and some of it does.

Why is it that Mark is actually comfortable, relaxed, even kind of witty with the goth girl? Is it her youth? Her gothness? Her evident willingness to accept him just as he is and evaluate him according to his own miserable standard and still hang out with him?

Fondly,
Millicent

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