http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22the+sopranos%22&hl=en&lr=
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:54 (fifteen years ago) link
I really can't believe there's a disproportionate amount of SF being studied in academia, unless you're talking about backwater US schools that offer majors in Klingon.
― chap, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:56 (fifteen years ago) link
in "the tactful saboteur" by frank herbert, the foreign element is a species with five genders. this species' family unit is made up of a representative of each of these genders, and "head of the household" status passes around the circle every couple of years, effectively changing the gender of the person who has it, or gives it up. the intricacy and subtlety of this arrangement prompts the human protagonist of the story to finagle one of these family units into the head of a powerful government department on the basis that their knowledge and tact makes them a better candidate than any of the available humans. embarrassingly for this species, the only way he can do this is by revealing the secrets of their "ego transfer" in an open courtroom, which is apparently akin to describing each moment of a rimjob
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:58 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,920 for "the sopranos". (0.12 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 18,300 for "star trek". (0.08 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 26,800 for "star wars". (0.22 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 851 for goodfellas. (0.15 seconds) xxp
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:58 (fifteen years ago) link
you'd think this story would be, uh, "eaten up" by gender studies courses but no
xpost
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 15:59 (fifteen years ago) link
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22elephant+shitting+on+the+floor+in+blue+peter%22&btnG=Search
Real critical underappreciation.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:01 (fifteen years ago) link
star trek: 1966 star wars: 1977
sopranos: 1999 goodfellas: 1990
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,210 for "buffy the vampire slayer". (0.20 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 744 for "the breakfast club". (0.18 seconds)
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:07 (fifteen years ago) link
"Buffy" is pretty bad I must admit. Most/nearly all TV/film SF I don't like, personally.
If you're arguing that taking geekish/"cult" TV/film into "serious" academia is ridiculous, then you might have a point worth expanding on there. So it might be worth expanding on it, Dom.
― Pashmina, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:10 (fifteen years ago) link
nerds be goin into academia. so what?
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:11 (fifteen years ago) link
the university of google!
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:11 (fifteen years ago) link
"so what" is a perfectly valid response, I agree.
― Pashmina, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
The ridiculous number of people emotionally-invested in making Buffy seem cleverer than it actually is always astounds me.
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 8,650 for "film noir". (0.09 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 1,870 for "professional wrestling". (0.13 seconds)
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
You people are so dismissive of what you don't understand, which is why I'm arguing _against_ a culturally hegmonic approach to what is taken from popular culture into the academic field. I'm trying to help you.
-- Dom Passantino,
But Captain Passantino! What is this human thing you call critcal discourse?
Jesus Dom.
― Anna, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:14 (fifteen years ago) link
I can't write an extended post at the moment, but I think this "Why professional wrestling makes for a more informed viewer than science fiction" thing needs expanding on. I will come back later.
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 79 for "stone cold steve austin". Results 1 - 10 of about 64 for "ashlee simpson"
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Stone Cold Steve Austin had America's biggest selling t-shirt of the 1990s. The fact that he is only mentioned in 79 academic texts is another example of the failings of modern universities.
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:17 (fifteen years ago) link
uh, I would think that the fact that he's mentioned in as many as 79 academic texts is a stronger example of the failings of modern universities
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:19 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 417 for "hulk hogan" Results 1 - 10 of about 316 for "daleks".
Check that out.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:19 (fifteen years ago) link
Why so?
Results 1 - 10 of about 948 for "barry bonds". (0.17 seconds)
And that's from a sportsman who plays a (in world terms) minority sport. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the second biggest grossing US performer in the history of one of the few sports (alongside football, boxing, and track athletics) that has a legitimate worldwide fanbase.
xp
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:21 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 1 of 1 for "jimmy bullard".
BINGO!
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:22 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,680 for giant haystacks. (0.37 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 13,900 for william riker. (0.19 seconds)
hmm
― DG, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:22 (fifteen years ago) link
I think there's something more... honest about pro-wres than sci-fi.
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:23 (fifteen years ago) link
Results 1 - 10 of about 18,800 for "jules verne". (0.12 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 6,640 for "isaac asimov". (0.38 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 8,930 for "william gibson". (0.19 seconds) Results 1 - 10 of about 37 for "rowdy roddy piper". (0.36 seconds)
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:24 (fifteen years ago) link
if dramatically expunging evil is your bag then wrestling definitely gets er done
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:25 (fifteen years ago) link
Y'see, now you're trying to tar wrestling off with the "only rednecks watch it" brush. That's not helpful.
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Look, some people like sci-fi, some people like oiled up muscled men grappling around in their pants, can't we all just get along?
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:26 (fifteen years ago) link
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of Suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque [Barthes here refers to characters in neo-classic French plays by Molière and Racine]. Of course, there exists a false wrestling, in which the participants unnecessarily go to great lengths to make a show of a fair fight; this is of no interest. True wrestling, wrong called amateur wrestling, is performed in second-rate halls, where the public spontaneously attunes itself to the spectacular nature of the contest, like the audience at a suburban cinema. Then these same people wax indignant because wrestling is a stage-managed sport (which ought, by the way, to mitigate its ignominy). The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so; it abandons itself to the primary virtue of the spectacle, which is to abolish all motives and all consequences: what matters is not what it thinks but what it sees.
you've got your abstract right there dude
― dan m, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:28 (fifteen years ago) link
wrestling is a closer relative of soaps and telenovela than anything else. uh xp
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Wrestling _pre-dates_ both the soap opera and the telenovela.
― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:29 (fifteen years ago) link
this is the best simulation of an old ILX thread i've seen for ages, well done dom
― DG, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:30 (fifteen years ago) link
is dom doing a tuomas?
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:31 (fifteen years ago) link
more like a muomas
― DG, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:32 (fifteen years ago) link
2007 numbers for WWE (taken from wikipedia):
Revenue ▲ $485.7 million USD Operating income ▲ $68.4 million USD Net income ▲ $52.1 million USD
2006 numbers for MLB (taken from Plunkett Research):
Revenue 5.2 Bil. US$ Overall Operating Income 360 Mil. US$
I couldn't find net income.
So, you want to know why a currently-active marquee player embroiled in controversy from a massively more successful sport has more Google hits than a retired marquee player from less successful sport? Does this really need to be explained? And what does this have to do with your science fiction thesis in the first place?
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:35 (fifteen years ago) link
wrestling a dom thread is a closer relative of soaps and telenovela than anything else. uh xp
-- gff, Tuesday, June 3, 2008 11:29 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
― gff, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:36 (fifteen years ago) link
(And to go back to my previous dismissive, unless you are specifically studying the psychology behind professional sports or the historical and cultural repercussions of an event in a professional sport, like say the integration of leagues, I think any university that spends time studying any professional sport is doing its students a massive disservice.)
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:38 (fifteen years ago) link
I also think that if you like fiction in general, separating out the "science fiction" is a bit trickier than you might think.
This is a very good point. A lot of literary ficton creeps in the odd SF or fantasy device, tainting it with everything that Dom is against.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 16:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Any literary writer that does this usually spends the following year explaining how, even though their novel is set in the future and features imaginary technology it isn't SF because <insert any rant from upthread here>
― Soukesian, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 17:26 (fifteen years ago) link
some ilxors sure do think a lot of themselves lately.
Disappointed ilx
― Ste, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 17:48 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't really understand in what universe buffy the vampire slayer is 'science fiction' before it is three or four other things - 'horror', 'teen drama', whatever -
i actually think there's something worthwhile to be teased out of dom's hostility - which isn't all that ludicrous, really, given that there's at least four books on the philosophy of harry potter - which okay is also not fantasy - but, you know, fuckit
― thomp, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:25 (fifteen years ago) link
barthes on wrestling.
― Dy, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:26 (fifteen years ago) link
okay, a question: given that what happens in english departments HAS NO BEARING ON THE WIDER WORLD WHATSOEVERANDEVER, why does it matter that people are writing about buffy and not the wire?
― thomp, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:26 (fifteen years ago) link
hey - our "OMG WINEHOUSE" exam made the national presses ;-)
― Just got offed, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:27 (fifteen years ago) link
two things which are slightly tangled thus far:
i) the difference between the dangerous and hateful influence of SF in academia, and the (alleged) dangerous and hateful influence of it in the actual real world - no one seems to be addressing the latter
ii) the fact that the entity tracer and a bunch of others are calling 'science fiction' is historically, aesthetically, culturally different from the entity that dom is calling 'science fiction' (a bit like the difference between the entity barthes is discussing w/r/t wrestling and modern pro wrestling)
― thomp, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:30 (fifteen years ago) link
... holy shit, you're oxbridge?
that explains a thing
Isn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer also a really creepy concept? A blonde-haired, blue-eyed devil killing racist caricatures of Jews?
Except Buffy (well, Sarah Michelle Gellar) is Jewish (as is Willow). And as for the head vampire, Spike...
http://www.partypro.com/mm_PARTYPRO_/Images/416X.JPG
^Nazi goth?
― DavidM, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link
about to do a school shooting
― DG, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link