oh industry

Thanks. You helped me understand the movie much b...

2010-08-08T14:41:52.128-07:00

Thanks. You helped me understand the movie much better.

@Ramzi: Thanks so much for your remarks, and for p...

2010-08-06T15:51:17.373-07:00

@Ramzi:
Thanks so much for your remarks, and for pushing us to engage more fully with the affective dimensions of TKAAR. We made an effort to at least gesture to the range of feelings the film provokes in each of us--especially the feelings of discomfort, and the "ugly feelings" (to use the parlance of Sianne Ngai) that I think truly come from a strong emotional response to (and a certain recognition of) the bonds we saw depicted. Working through our own disavowal and embrace of the structures of affiliation in TKAAR coaxed us into an ideological critique, but one that I hope bears within it an acknowledgment that such intimacies and identifications cannot simply be discarded as "bad politics."

The cumulative "moments" of which you speak--the ones that suture lives and loves together within the family but also, necessarily beyond it--are, of course, more rich and complex than even a reparative reading allows. Thank you for sharing so generously your own affective encounter with the film.

A brief post-script to my lengthy post: Having n...

2010-08-04T11:02:05.366-07:00

A brief post-script to my lengthy post:

Having not had a chance to read Lisa Henderson's post, it seems we have a similar bifurcated relationship to the film and wanted to echo her thoughts about highlighting the affective qualities of the film (even some of the most cliché ones) as something more than superficial paeans to normativity. It's too easy to efface the experience of relating to a text, even when it is riven by ideological nonsense and contradiction (and perhaps me saying this is a cliché as well). This is all to say that I love your review, but would be interested in broadening the conversation to address the psychic dimensions of the film.

R

First, let me echo the other comments by saying wh...

2010-08-04T10:54:02.932-07:00

First, let me echo the other comments by saying what a delightfully acute and lively post this is - having perused a variety of other very negative reviews of this film (many of which I similarly agreed with yet felt unsatisfied by) this seemed a fantastic corrective. And yet...despite all the brilliant unpacking of the ideological underpinnings of "The Kids Are Alright," in all these reviews, I’m surprised that an affective reading of the film (one that attends to what it's saying about the construction and maintenance of relationships/bond over time) seems to be largely absent in the interest of uncovering its ideological workings. Don't get me wrong, the film is a wreck on this front, yet the almost knee-jerk reaction we have as queer inflected thinkers against the idea of normative social relations (whether it be the heterosexual couple, the family etc.) can blind us to the actual emotional labor that goes into the forging of those bonds, which are often queer in their own right. I'm thinking here, of the scene when Nic says, "You're an interloper. This is my family. If you want a family, get your own." Certainly, at an ideological level, this could be read as a homonationalism in its most pernicious form, but at a psychic or affective level, it is anything but. When my family and I saw this movie (more on them in a minute) we read this moment as Nic saying to Paul that he could never be part of their family because he'd never shown respect for the time they had shared together before they met him. This is hit home by the fact that before this moment, Joni expresses her feeling that she wishes Paul had been "better"...this to me is not homonationalism (or at least, not only). Affectively speaking, it’s about demanding accountability and ethics in the construction of relationships, normative, alternative or otherwise. What is Nic to do here? In the name of anti-normativity, should she willfully unravel the bonds she shares or negate feelings of distrust and betrayal? I'm not so sure "the family" can be totally disavowed or unraveled as a category of intimacy because of it's ideological inheritance.

But I should foreground this claim with the fact that I saw this movie with my white/Middle-Eastern queer family (my two lesbian moms specifically) in Southern California no less. There was no way we were going to leave the film not feeling some sense of relation to what was happening on-screen. Rather than simply eat it all up hook, line, and ideology, we were critical of the race and class politics of the film while acknowledging that it describes a certain struggle to maintain and develop intimacies that both appeared normative within the structure of the family but were also very queer in terms of our everyday negotiations. At first blush we are the paragon of normativity in terms of our family structure and lifestyle, yet the way our connections have developed and our outlook on the family as a unit of intimacy open to a variety of connections might be considered very queer. Perhaps the moment in the film that sealed our interpretations of the "interloper" scene was the final drop-off of the daughter at school. This was a moment that we had lived almost exactly. I remember when my moms dropped me off at UC Berkeley, the last hug, the moment they drove away, and the fear and exhilaration of a newfound independence. Sure, the scene is pure drama, but it serves to remind the viewer that it makes sense for Nic and Jules to be the ones saying goodbye (and not Paul) because the moment is legible to them as part of a genealogy of moments shared. Is there necessarily a familial insularity happening here? Of course. But is it reducible to ideological defensiveness? I'm not so sure.

- Ramzi (GWU American Studies)

2010-08-04T10:53:57.670-07:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

@Lisa Henderson, I think your point about the affe...

2010-08-03T10:44:59.034-07:00

@Lisa Henderson, I think your point about the affective modalities of the film is a great one. I was struck too by the slow, sad, melancholic meandering of the Volvo when driving Joni to to her college residence--the reconsolidation of the nuclear family laden with heaviness and resignation, not triumphalism nor celebration. I think that there are many other moments in the film where affect does the work of producing a pointed internal critique of the film's narrative, alongside some of the moments of dialogue that we point out. So thanks for your observation!

@wcheng: The song mistake is my bad--I did transpose two very devastating songs about relationship woes. But I agree, "All I Want" is even more damning than "A Case of You."

Thanks--great review. I especially like this love...

2010-08-03T10:20:53.510-07:00

Thanks--great review. I especially like this lovely phrasing: "what is gained is divided by what is lost, and what is kept owes something to what is added, and so on."

Thanks for a really great review. It puts so much ...

2010-08-03T09:40:02.778-07:00

Thanks for a really great review. It puts so much in place about the "ugliness at the heart of queer and bourgeois-boheme fantasies about being different—and yet not." There's the rub. The film (and your comment) made me squirm with aversion and recognition of all kinds--though there were things I liked in the movie, I confess. I left, however, not much liking the characters (despite loving the actors), drained by Nic's and Jules' incapacity to be pleased by anything. They're surrounded by delights--the house, the food, the light, health, the possibility of a new world, and on. True, they're also in relationship hell, when everyone gets to spend time in that tank where all the other sights and sounds are obscured (like Nic's scene at dinner after she finds Jules' hair in Paul's drain--been there). But that consuming interiority and irritation never end, and I think that was a part of Cholodenko's (and co-writer Blumberg's) sting--where the miseries of the well-heeled self forever exceed the pleasures and realities of the world and then some, and punish others to boot. I read TKAAR as a knowing critique of white privilege in the worldly sense, and of the things people give up (like their lives) in the name of something that is supposed to give them a life afterall. But it's also a critique in the sensory sense--irritation as privileged attachment, or something like that. For me, your review stands in contrast by being so sharp and so open--what the leads, to their loss and others', can't do or be.

Thanks again.

--Lisa Henderson

Thanks for the review! I just wanted to mention o...

2010-08-03T09:05:36.498-07:00

Thanks for the review! I just wanted to mention one thing I liked about it: that there's absolutely no effort on the part of the script/characters to find the "truth" of the children in the bio-father. No discussion of traits, of how they got to be the way they are, no real interest in biology -- ust that one moment of Jules seeing their facial expressions in his face.

@Wendy: Thanks for the correction! My tonal memory...

2010-08-03T00:27:14.580-07:00

@Wendy:
Thanks for the correction! My tonal memory (having only seen the film once) gave me the sense that we mis-identified the song. But as I mentioned to LD, we composed hastily, on the road, using mobile media so we couldn't confirm. But I love the correction/hint at an alternate reading you offered with "All I Want." We will correct tomorrow!

so good. thank you. small correction: the joni mit...

2010-08-02T23:51:08.404-07:00

so good. thank you. small correction: the joni mitchell song nic and whats-his-name sing together is "all i want," not "a case of you." but i think the lyrics for that song serve your larger points even better than those of "a case of you."

This is so smart and right on the money. thank you...

2010-08-02T20:20:45.599-07:00

This is so smart and right on the money. thank you!

I love the wild wonder of a reparative interpretat...

2010-08-02T19:48:35.953-07:00

I love the wild wonder of a reparative interpretation. I look forward to seeing the movie.

Liz

@Lucas Thanks so much for chiming in with some goo...

2010-08-02T19:26:33.013-07:00

@Lucas
Thanks so much for chiming in with some good, solid media studies reminders about genre! We hoped to make a stronger point about genre and comedy (hence the conclusion about laughing at ourselves for being fucked up), but again, this was written in some haste, so we couldn't quite get to that.

As for the relatability of the characters in TKAAR: I actually think that's part of what creates the horror in the humor of the film. The fact that some of us actually can relate, even if only fleetingly, is a little scary and not exactly a pleasurable experience. Not a likeable experience to say the least. But I get your point.

And I really do appreciate how you underscored the California critique available in the film (which we could only gesture to with our reference to Laurel Canyon).

Perhaps we've attributed Cholodenko with too much critical consciousness in her making of the film, especially in our efforts to be reparative, but I do hope we managed to convey the other ways of reading TKAAR beyond reinscribing the burden of the representative, "lesbian filmmaker."

@Lisa, Thanks so much for your response and for cl...

2010-08-02T19:26:14.613-07:00

@Lisa,
Thanks so much for your response and for clarifying a point we hoped to make about the white, bourgeois "managerial class" its tendency to veer towards more "andro" gender presentations. The piece was cobbled together over the last 36 hours via text messages, email and on a laptop as I was driving back from Vegas, so we couldn't quite capture some of these nuances. There's also something to be said about thinking through what "andro" could mean through the lens of other nationalized/racialized/classed contexts (whether or not it reads as "butch" for example amongst the professional class) but that's a whole other conversation.

I do, however, think the critique of masculinity--or to be more specific, the critique of PATERNITY in its improvised and biological forms--is quite salient in the movie. And of course, both Nic and Paul are implicated in that critique.

As for the likability factor of the characters in Choldenko's oeuvre--I suppose likability is in the eye of the beholder. There are certainly things we may find charming, compelling or intriguing about the figures in High Art and Laurel Canyon, but they're also deeply narcissistic, annoying, selfish, and in certain instances naive. Maybe it's a little hasty to say there's no one to like in these films, because the genius in each of them has also been in the casting, and in finding actors who we at least WANT to like--hence our own emphasis on the way certain star-texts can over determine our desire for her characters to be good, lovable, etc. As for LC specifically--I agree it's really hard NOT to like Frances McDormand, no matter how fucked up her character can is.

Thanks for responding and for keeping the convo going! Looking forward to chatting more about it (and Laurel Canyon--which I liked even more) when I see you next.

2010-08-02T19:24:59.047-07:00

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Sorry to append my already over-long comments, but...

2010-08-02T17:42:22.280-07:00

Sorry to append my already over-long comments, but one more thing that I think has been overlooked in responses to the film is the issue of genre: it's a comedy, and therefore I don't think its representations are intended to be taken "straight." Rather, like a comedy of manners, it gently skewers its characters who are supposed to be both a little ridiculous and sympathetic.

Thanks for your attentive and thoughtful review. I...

2010-08-02T16:59:01.482-07:00

Thanks for your attentive and thoughtful review. I must say that I actually love the film and find it quite perceptive and sympathetic about its characters (or most of them), including their flaws. It's a film about people, which is in short supply at the cinema. It's interesting to me that I keep seeing/hearing the characters referred to as unlikable/unsympathetic, when I find them quite familiar and relatable, far more familiar than most representations of present-day lesbians or gays. I think Cholendenko understands these women, their performance of a certain kind of "liberal" gay-marriage bourgeois bohemianism that, like any relationship or lifestyle, has its flaws. I found that my friends and I were often the only people laughing in the theater, and I felt like we were in on the jokes in ways that many of the straight audience members weren't. I also think it's a film that's very much about California and a kind of self-satifisfied liberal politics that I find very frustrating. I sympathetically enjoyed the lesbian processing but also the moments of rupture, as when Annette Benning goes on a rant about hemp milk or their daughter comments on their "perfect lesbian family." It's interesting to see marriage represented as less than perfect after all the Prop 8 drama, a time when queer people who don't advocate marriage can't take a position against it because it was a right that was taken away. And, let's be honest, I know a lot of queer women who occasionally sleep with men. I understand that representing this may be politically questionable or confuse a mainstream audience, but I actually appreciated seeing this represented with intelligence--and without the Julianne Moore character ever questioning that she is, always, a lesbian. Finally, after seeing Julianne play the repressed or perverted housewife (Far From Heaven, The Hours, Savage Grace), it was nice to actually see her play loose. The major issue I have with the film is the way the gardener is treated as disposable. I like to think that the film is critical of the Julianne Moore character's treatment of him, but this is one case where I fear we are supposed to identify with her position.

Thanks for this provocative, thoughtful review--so...

2010-08-02T16:34:33.547-07:00

Thanks for this provocative, thoughtful review--so different from my facetious off the cuff vomit-blog-post! I especially appreciate the framing of the film as a homonormative white family policing its borders. But I do have trouble attributing that critique to the director--I think the film could be read as an endorsement of that policing, as easily as it can be interpreted as constituting a critique of it, especially with regard to the racializations. I didn't see one ounce of critique inhering in the film, though after reading this review I can see the critical reading. I don't see the critique of masculinity as popping out that easily off the text of the film either, but I do see that such a critique is available.

Stockton and I rented Laurel Canyon after seeing TKAAR, and it was notable that that film, which also featured the white normative couple threatened then reconstituted, featured basically *likable* characters (we thought). As flawed as they all were, they were all appealing on some level. So as well with High Art--flawed, but likable leads. TKAAR seemed to us to be a rather huge departure, in that all the characters but the kids were sort of repulsive (to us). Only Paul had a streak of the kind of appeal that the Laurel Canyon characters have, but not a wide one!

Finally, I don't think Nic and Jules were represented as butch-femme. They were both kind of andro, with just a little gendered space between them. And that kind of andro-bonding is, I think, more acceptable/accepted as the privileged white form of lesbianism than butch femme, which has working class and aristocratic historical roots (mainly white, but not entirely--obviously, I'm being horribly reductive in this space). The white professional-managerial class goes all andro (or pseudo andro) respectability, and that's the reference point for Nic and Jules, I think.

Thanks again for the dose of seriousness! I had sooo much trouble being serious at all, as I vibrated with revulsion after seeing this film!

--Lisa Duggan

thank you. awesome, awesome review of the film.

2010-08-02T14:47:19.160-07:00

thank you. awesome, awesome review of the film.

by far the best review of this film I have seen! ...

2010-08-02T14:40:40.023-07:00

by far the best review of this film I have seen! Bravo!

I would like to exchange links with your site www....

2010-08-02T11:00:52.582-07:00

I would like to exchange links with your site www.blogger.com
Is this possible?

I would like to exchange links with your site www....

2010-07-31T15:47:43.706-07:00

I would like to exchange links with your site www.blogger.com
Is this possible?

There will no doubt be some cute K-Am Catholic chi...

2010-07-26T00:07:58.225-07:00

There will no doubt be some cute K-Am Catholic chick, but here's to hoping that hot PK is Methodist or Presbyterian. No charsimatics, pls!

i love scarlet!!!

2010-07-20T10:53:18.465-07:00

i love scarlet!!!