#we could have had much fuller and complete careers out of both men and yet they were ruined by what amounts to cancel culture

[escapaldi]

This is why I have a difficult time believing that "saying bad things about our Founding Fathers is a terrible thing" or "don't speak ill of the dead" however that sentiment gets packaged. You can't just say that they were "complex like anyone" and leave it at that as the most in-depth you get. It's not cancel culture or purity culture or whatever to discuss the inherent and vast double standard of these rich WASPy men talking about freedom and rights for only them while on stolen land that was built on the backs of slaves and managed by their wives, all while propping up lies that was only taken as supposed fact because it helped bolster their mentality and way of life. Any time someone mentions even part of this in a discussion about American history, some doofus rises from whatever comfortable suburban lifestyle swamp they're in to harp about how cancel/purity culture is killing us as a nation. We're still talking about them. They're not cancelled. We're just at the point now where we can and want to have dialogue so that we aren't worshipping these people like false idols in the manner every American history textbook for generations has done.

You want to know what are applications of cancel/purity culture that are actually harmful? Not discussing how many people were around before the initial permanent European settlements in North America and why so few of their descendants remain. Not talking about slavery in this nation was waaay different from the Roman slavery the class learned about last semester in World History and not in a good way (understatement). Not acknowledging how there are active people alive in 2023 who are older than not only the Voting Rights Act of 1965(my mom is older than this!!!) but also the 19th Amendment (1920!!!) of all things. Not contextualizing why LGBT+ people only seem to exist in larger numbers recently, and allowed to grow old and proud and out for only the past ten or so years. Not breaking down how the Puritans wrote their own version of history where they were unjustly persecuted and downtrodden and that's part of why our country is the way it is, where people have gotten this far in spite of it all. That is harmful cancel culture. That is focus on purity. That is why we have such knee-jerk reactions from people learning the truth and creating shit like cancel culture and purity culture and whatever other fucking reactive culture there is revolving being disgusted at truths that should have never been hidden from anyone.

There are so many things that get purposefully left out of conversations because it's perceived as "cancelling" the established narrative and might cause kids learning about it to be sad or feel guilty. Guess what? These things fill in important gaps for reasoning, motivation, and context, and those sad kids? They are sad because they're learning how to empathize and that they never want shit like this to happen ever again. Guilt is only there when they've participated, and why might children feel guilty then if this all is in the past? Before they were even born? The only way we'll move towards the nation that was promised to us through history and civics courses is by recognizing these deep flaws and teaching that to the next generations so they won't be stuck on the "glory" of the past. If instead of breaking down these old paradigms for a more complete and truer history you want to prop up these sterile lies fill of denial and erasure, what are you really advocating? That the nation we were all promised is the biggest lie in of itself? Hmm... I wonder why that could be... (.-.)

We have to tell the truth. From the beginning. All of us do. The responsibility has been riding on the backs of the marginalized for far too long. And the easiest way to do that is to teach actual history.

[aion-rsa]

9 Best TV Roles From Gillian Anderson

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Full-time TV goddess and part-time television detective Gillian Anderson is never far from our minds. Here are nine of our favorite TV roles from the actress, whose on-screen legacy reaches far past The X-Files franchise to British period dramas, eccentric Bryan Fuller shows, and animated snarkiness.

Dana Scully in The X-Files

Let’s just get this way out of the way, shall we? Not because Anderson’s turn as Agent Dana Scully over the course of 11 seasons (and counting?) of The X-Files TV show and two The X-Files movies should or could be diminished, but because most everyone is familiar with Anderson’s turn as the chronically skeptical FBI agent.

Dana Katherine Scully is more than a TV character. She’s an institution. I grew up watching The X-Files and having a female character who wasn’t the same cookie-cutter example of what it was to be a woman made me feel like much more was possible. Gillian Anderson’s understated, yet affecting portrayal of the character was a large part of that.

Scully was (and still is) complex and flawed. She is a scientist with a commitment to her Catholic faith. She is a skeptic who, nonetheless, believes in Mulder. And she is funny as anything—much of that down to Anderson’s dry, deadpan delivery (“Bad Blood” being a great, oft-cited example). If Gillian Anderson had to have one character define her career, she could do a lot worse that Scully.

Miss Havisham in Great Expectations

If you’re looking for a great Great Expectations adaptation, the 2011 BBC/PBS miniseries is not your best bet. If you’re looking for a role in which Gillian Anderson gets to chew up the scenery in a miniseries-stealing performance, this three-part series is for you.

Anderson is so often cast in understated roles, and she plays them incredibly well, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t gratifying to see her make moves as a completely over-the-top villainous character, like her turn as the bitter, mentally unstable, and highly-flammable Miss Havisham. As they should probably start saying in England: Come for the Dickens, stay for the Anderson.

Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier in Hannibal

Hannibal is not a show for the faint of heart, but it rewards viewers endlessly with its sumptuous visuals, unpredictably gruesome plot, and its ridiculously stellar cast. Gillian Anderson is only one of the many talented actors who make up this ensemble — including Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne, and Gina Torres.

Remember how we were talking about how Anderson often plays understated characters? Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier may be the most understated of the bunch. Perhaps the most enigmatic character on a show filled with enigmatic characters, Anderson manages to imbue the sly, clever Bedelia with a complex vulnerability that her cold, proper surface only occasionally lets through. If you are a fan of Gillian Anderson or good TV, Hannibalis a must-watch.

Lady Dedlock in Bleak House

A big part of Gillian Anderson’s career renaissance has been Dickensian adaptations and this is, perhaps, the best example. The BBC did a 15-part (eight-hour) adaptation of Bleak House in 2015. Anderson took on the role of the cold, secretive Lady Dedlock and she is one of many deft moving parts in this brilliant retelling of the Dickens classic, which is much more fun than its lawyer-heavy premise might suggest.

Anderson seemingly agrees. She spoke with The Daily Beast about finding an appreciation for Dickens through her acting, saying:

One of the only things that I have regrets about in my life is my experience of school and education. I wish I had known how important it was to pay attention … My first foray into a lot of the classics has been through my work. It’s only after falling in love with the screenplay or adaptation that I’ve then gone on to read the novels themselves.

Stella Gibson in The Fall

If you’re and Anderson fan and haven’t yet watched The Fall,a Northern Ireland-set crime drama about the cat-and-mouse game between Detective Inspector Stella Gibson and serial killer Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan), then stop reading this and go do so now. Anderson plays Stella Gibson, an English DI who is brought to Belfast to stop the series of murders of young professional women that have been occurring in the city. The Fall has been celebrated for the fact that Anderson plays a character who is almost always male. She is extremely focused (and good at) her job, sees sex as a primarily casual habit, and doesn’t have the most robust of personal lives.

Anderson’s nuanced performance makes Stella a strong and sympathetic character — one who is deeply affected by the way that men take out their anger and frustrations out on women, and who knows how to navigate a world and professional space riddled with misogyny and casual sexism. Anderson has called Stella Gibson her favorite role, and it’s easy to see why. The actress is asked to do a lot in the BBC drama—and she more than steps up to the challenge.

Dana Scully in The Simpsons

Sure, this is really just a guest starring role on someone else’s TV show, but how could we not include at least one of Gillian Anderson’s animated turns? (She also appears briefly on Robot Chicken,as Fiona.) This X-Files spoof episode—”The Springfield Files”—comes in The Simpson’s eighth season and it is filled with in-jokes about the paranormal drama. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson basically just voice their characters, but — as A.V. Club‘s review notes — “Anderson is, if anything, even more restrained than she is on The X-Files, which makes her lines funnier.”

“The Springfield Files” is far from the best episode of The Simpsons, but it is another great example of the kind of range Anderson has. Sure, she may be playing another version of her most well-known character, but getting that same character across in voice work is far different from getting that character across on live-action TV. Anderson nails it.

Media in American Gods

Sadly, Gillian Anderson is no longer on American Gods, which has suffered a series of high-profile “departures” that began with the “exit” of showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green before Season 2. But we will always have one season of Anderson as Media, the mouthpiece of the New Gods, in this Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s bestselling novel. As Media takes on the form of various celebrities and lives off the worship people give to their various screens, we got to see Anderson transform herself into people like Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, and David Bowie—a smorgasbord of eclectic Anderson performances all in one show! For one season, we truly were blessed.

Jean Milburn in Sex Education

For a show that is mostly about The Youths, Anderson certainly makes her presence felt in Netflix’s British dramedy Sex Education. Anderson plays Jean Milburn, a single mom to teen protagonist Otis (Asa Butterfield), and a sex therapist. When Otis somewhat accidentally shares some of the sex education his mother has been feeding him presumably for his entire adolescence to a school bully, he falls into the sex advice business, helping his classmates with their sexual struggles. As Jean, Anderson gets to be both wise and neurotic, a mother and not defined by it. She also gets to regularly deliver lines like: “Why don’t you start by telling me your earliest memory of your scrotum.” Honestly, we deserve this show and its brilliant casting of Gillian Anderson.

Anna Pavlovna in War & Peace

Still have room for one more Gillian Anderson-starring period drama? (You know you do.) In this lush yet somewhat soulless 2016 adaptation of Tolstoy’s tome, Anderson plays “glittering society hostess” Anna Pavlovna. Written by period adaptation master Andrew Davies and directed by Peaky Blinders‘ Tom Harper and featuring a cast that also includes Paul Dano, Lily James, and James Norton, War & Peace has a lot going for it even if it never fully capitalizes on its deep reserves of talent and, honestly, with such an expansive cast and Anderson in a supporting role, our fave only gets a small amount of screen time. But, per the usual, Anderson steals the show.

What are your favorite Gillian Anderson TV roles? Sound off in the comments below…

The post 9 Best TV Roles From Gillian Anderson appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[shafferangelina95]

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[visionnepal3-blog]

Between Parturition and Manufacture

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

STEFANI GERMANOTTA is a hero of inauthenticity — a star of both invention, giving herself a stage name, Lady Gaga, that would never pass for a birth name, and reinvention, working her way through pop music genres and a succession of outlandish looks that refuse a fixed point of identity. She seems in line of succession to Cindy Sherman, David Bowie, and Madonna, with no doubt Joan Riviere and Judith Butler already mobilized in her name in many an academic quarter. Yet A Star Is Born is a property that wants to affirm authenticity.

There are more versions of it than the four films called A Star Is Born (from 1937, 1954, 1976, and 2018) and a radio version of the same name. The main elements are already in play in What Price Hollywood? (1932): the older alcoholic man whose career is on the skids, the younger female star, the fall of one against the rise of the other, ending in the man’s suicide. The only major change in the transition from What Price Hollywood? to A Star Is Born is the addition of sexual relationship or marriage between the two. What Price Hollywood? is itself a reworking of elements from the novel The Skyrocket (1925), made into a (now lost) film the following year: the rise and fall motif, the ingénue, the enabling man of power, the conflict (for the woman) between career and marriage. Between the 1976 and 2018 Hollywood versions, there were two Indian films to hit each of these plot points: 2013’s Aashiqui 2 (Romance 2) in Hindi and 2014’s Nee Jathaga Nenundali (I Want To Be Your Companion) in Telugu. The gay porn film The Light from the Second Story Window (1973) is sometimes referred to as a version, and there are very many films called things like A Porn Star is Born.

All versions in various ways worry away at the ambiguity in the most familiar title. What does it mean to say a star is “born”? The only time any of the films use the phrase is in the 1937 version, when Norman, the man who has discovered and championed Esther, says it to her after the premiere of her first film (where she now has her star name, Vicki). This is a straightforward colloquial usage, suggesting the way something may seem to suddenly appear. However, it leaves open the question of whether a star is someone indeed born with an innate star quality or whether stardom is something manufactured, a manipulation, an illusion. All versions want to hold on to some sense of the former, but they differ in the degree to which they see it as something that breaks through industrial cultural production uncontaminated and authentic. The Skyrocket unequivocally acknowledges that Sharon, a nothing special young woman outside the spotlight, comes to fascinating life before the camera, but it also emphasizes the role of the man, the director William Dvorak, in molding this creation: she may have no talent as an actress but “he could always trick her before the camera for the things he needed.” In the following versions, the idea of manipulation is played down. While there are scenes of the man Max (again a director) coaching the woman Mary in What Price Hollywood?, there is also a sequence in which, after a disastrous first shoot, she practices by herself all night so that the next day she delivers a mesmerizing performance in a tiny role. Certainly, when it comes to the rushes, it is clear that Mary is aided by editing and lighting, but still, it is she who glows.

Mary’s overnight labor on her performance suggests that her stardom is not (like Sharon’s) just a happy accident of presence before the camera. However, like Sharon and Esther in the 1937 Star, there is also a sense that all she wants to be is “a star.” None of them talk about acting. What Price Hollywood? has Mary dressing herself from the fan magazines and putting her own face in place of Garbo’s in a double spread with Clark Gable, and 1937 Star opens with Esther coming home dreamily after seeing a Norman Maine movie and avidly reading the fan magazines; they all just want to be “in pictures.” There’s none of this in the 1954 and subsequent versions. Of course Esther (1954, 1976), Aarohi (Aashiqui 2), and Lady Gaga’s Ally (2018) want success, but there is also a sense of their sheer love of performing — they’re longtime professionals who have finally gotten noticed. In each case, a sequence shows them singing in an unprestigious locale, establishing their exceptional, but as yet undiscovered, talent and quality. The starmakers are now actors or singers, who can open doors for their discovery but are not in a position to shape them. The film and music industry are seen as obstructive to varying degrees, but this is just what the star has to break through: authenticity will out.

The move away from an awareness of the manipulation, or at the least the role of others and technology, in the production of stars toward a wholehearted embrace of a notion of transparent star quality is aided by the role of men and black people. One of the things that most struck me about the new A Star Is Born was how very male it is. There are fleeting glimpses of comedienne Luenell, singers Brandi Carlile and Halsey, an engaging but brief appearance by Rebecca Field as Gail, an aide to the man here, Jackson Maine, and his childhood friend Noodles has a wife (Drena De Niro), but the only sustained representations of the female, apart from Ally, are the drag queens in the bar where Jackson first sees Ally. With these, the film plays on the paradox of a swaggering, often muscly masculinity being adorned with sequins, lip gloss, and baroque hand gestures, the male beneath the feminine accoutrements emphasized by having Ally perform there, an assertion of a non-paradoxical alignment of body and adornment. She sings “La Vie en Rose,” a song made famous by the ne plus ultra of raw expressivity, Édith Piaf, but covered more recently by another pop performance artist, Grace Jones. The song positions Ally between the performativity that has made Gaga famous and the expressive self that the film wants us to credit her with. It also completes the salute to the queer culture that Gaga has allied herself with — a tribute that began in the film with Ally singing a snatch of the verse to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”; now the film, Ally, and perhaps Gaga can move on. When Ally makes forays into the kind of glam femme artifice that made Gaga famous, Jackson is contemptuous and the film shoots from behind television cameras and cuts away as soon as it decently can. By the end of the film, she has left queerdom behind.

Ally (Stefani Germanotta) is positioned between the performativity that has made Gaga famous and the expressive self that the film wants us to credit her with.

Not only does this A Star Is Born sideline women (despite its central star and protagonist), it is also bursting with masculine maleness. The film opens with Jackson Maine in concert, his country rock among the most virile of authenticity musical genres (and the band used in the film is named Promise of the Real). Neither he nor Ally has mothers anymore. She has a father who hangs out with his taxi driver chums (all men), plays opera, and venerates Frank Sinatra. It’s a cheerful background and we learn no more, and she seems to have no women friends or colleagues. Jackson, who has the fuller backstory and attendant occasions for melodrama, with a brother-manager old enough to be his father, anguishes over the destruction of his drunken father’s grave and hard-drinking, hard-driving habits. The screen treatment of Ally’s performances cuts back to him — his pleasure, his drunkenness — and her final affirmative performance, for the first time giving herself a surname, his, with a song he wrote that declares she’ll never love again.

Earlier versions of the story have also had few women in them other than the star who is born. It is the incandescence of the star who played each one that distracted attention away from the lack of other women. There is even something of a progression through the various versions, as men gradually eclipse women. This may have something to do with the decreasing involvement of women in their making. Adela Rogers St. Johns, a successful journalist well connected to Hollywood, wrote The Skyrocket and the original story for What Price Hollywood? Dorothy Parker contributed to the script of the 1937 Star and Joan Didion to the 1976. Judy Garland was the driving force behind the radio version, although she had to wait until she left MGM and married Sid Luft to get the 1954 film made. Barbra Streisand was an even more decisive driving force behind the 1976 version.

The Skyrocket has a best friend, helpful wardrobe and make-up artist, rival and supportive stars and ex-stars, all women. While Max in What Price Hollywood? is a magnetic male figure (whose lack of apparent sexual interest in Mary, together with prissy mannerisms, might suggest him as queer), the film keeps Mary center screen. And though much of the drama focuses on both her gratitude toward and need to get away from Max, there is also a well- (some say too well-) developed plot concerning her marriage to a playboy. In the 1937 Star, Esther’s parents and brother make fun of her fandom, but it is her grandmother, a pioneer woman who compares Hollywood to the frontier, who understands Esther’s aspirations, lends her the money to go to Hollywood, and then, at the end of the film, after Norman’s suicide, persuades her to go back to work.

In the 1954 Star, attention is more or less equal between the man and the woman, but later versions build on the melodrama of his troubles, providing him with more screen time and backstory. One index of this is the presentation of his death. Norman Maine in 1937 and 1954 wades into the sea and drowns off screen, as if easefully swallowed by the watery element; John in 1976 kills himself in a car crash and Rahul in Aashiqui 2 throws himself of a bridge, both in drawn-out dramatic sequences; in 2018, more discreetly but horribly, Jackson hangs himself.

In 1954’s “A Star Is Born,” Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland) peers around a mirror to observe the men coordinating her transformation into Vicki Lester.

It might be objected that the films do no more than reflect the fact that most of the powerful roles in Hollywood and the music industry have been occupied by men. Occasionally there does seem to be an awareness of this. In the 1937 Star, men discuss what name to give Esther, in front of her but without consulting her, and others worry over the qualities of her face. The latter idea is developed in the 1954 version, where three make-up men stand around Esther on the morning of her screen test, wondering what to do with her unsatisfactory face. The composition features mirrors within mirrors that Esther has, as it were, to peer round as the men discuss the problem, herself unable to get a word in edgeways. The men produce her as a pink amalgamation of a number of other stars, unrecognizable to Norman when he comes to pick her up. Yet such perceptive moments are rare and nowhere to be found in the later versions.

Men change women’s names in more than one way. The studios make Esther Blodgett “Vicki Lester” in 1937 and 1954, while bridegrooms make Mary Evans “Mrs. Lonny Borden” in What Price Hollywood?, Esther/Vicki “Mrs. Albert Henkel” in 1937, and “Mrs. Ernest Gubbins” in 1954 (Norman Maine’s birth name respectively in the two films). The films play on the tensions between these names. Being treated as Mr. Evans or Mr. Lester is wounding. After Norman’s suicide, Esther/Vicki makes her first public appearance proudly announcing she is “Mrs. Norman Maine,” effectively subsuming her identity in both that of her husband and the film industry that gave him his name. In 1976, Esther refuses to have her name, Hoffman, changed, a gesture as much to do with not eclipsing a Jewish identity as female autonomy, but she does, after John’s suicide, announce herself as “Esther Hoffman Howard,” a common gesture that nonetheless parades a woman’s connection to a man in a context where the man rather seldom does the same vice versa. In 2018, Ally has a surname for the first time in the film, when, after Jackson’s suicide, she is announced as “Ally Maine.” Only in Aashiqui 2 does the question of the woman’s name not come up, neither from the studios nor from Rahul, since they do not marry.

Esther (Barbra Streisand) in 1976’s “A Star Is Born” performs in a trio called the Oreos.

In What Price Hollywood? Mary has a black maid, Bonita (Louise Beavers, who had played the black support for a white career woman in the 1934 Imitation of Life), whom she treats casually even as Bonita attends to Mary’s material and cosmetic needs. In 1954, black dancers are briefly seen, leaping with tambourines or performing a crooked walk, in the “Swanee” routine in the “Born in a Trunk” number, a routine celebrating, in time-honored fashion, a Southern white homeland with marginalized and merry blacks. Later, in “Lose That Long Face,” a number cut from the original release, Esther is dressed like a street urchin and dances between two black kids. In 1976, Esther is first encountered as lead singer between two black women in a trio called the Oreos, a naming decision which I won’t even begin to try to unpack; the first word of their number is “black” (sung only by Esther/Streisand, with a near-Afro hairdo alongside her African-American back-ups’ relaxed styling). In 2018, Jackson’s school friend Noodles (yes, well) is black, and it is he and his black wife who encourage Jackson and Ally to marry and in the former’s local black church. This shift from servant to terpsichorean and musical support to emotional, even spiritual validation suggests that in telling this story it is hard quite to let go of, or exactly to acknowledge, the role of African Americans in securing the material, rhythmic, and affective authenticity of white Americans. Perhaps Esther’s grandmother in the 1937 Star is not all wrong when she compares Hollywood to the frontier.

Nearly all versions of the story have the moment in which the man sees the woman in performance for the first time. It’s the moment when the man — and we — must be convinced the woman is the real deal, has “that little something extra,” as Norman says in 1954. From 1954 on, that moment is a song, and in all cases they do not perform their own material and what they sing has nothing to do with what is happening in the story at that point. “The Man that Got Away,” the big torch song hit of the 1954 version, has no relation that we know of with Esther’s past and everything to do with her skill and pleasure in singing, signaled by this emotionally desperate number ending with her smiling and laughing with her fellow musicians. Later, Esther, in deep despair at Norman’s self-destructive drinking, pours out her sorrows to the studio boss, but in between takes of the upbeat “Lose That Long Face” that is the antithesis of what she is feeling.

The following Stars close that gap between self and performance. This is partly signaled extra-textually: it is widely known that Streisand part-composed the songs she sings in 1976 and that Gaga was even more involved in the composition of the 2018 songs. Their characters in each film also write, to varying extents, the songs they sing. This conflates tropes from the musical biopic — where the song expresses the person’s inner self and also what they are feeling at the moment of composing and/or performing — with the mythos of the singer-songwriter. (The cover of Carole King’s LP Tapestry is prominent on Ally’s bedroom wall.) Potentially, then, the Star Is Born template, and the ambiguity of that title, lends itself to exploration of the strange tension between self and performance in cultural production since romanticism, and even more so in conditions of industrial, capital-intensive and now digital production. However, in different ways, both the premeditated quality of Streisand’s performance style, evident in every spontaneous wisecrack and affective grimace, and Gaga’s chameleonic theatricality sit uneasily with this.

In Aashiqui 2, the song at the moment of discovery is by Rahul and he later tells Aarohi that she sang it better than he has and that he “never felt any of my songs like this.” As she sings it she looks at a large portrait on the wall of Lata Mangeshkar, uncontested as the greatest playback singer in Hindi cinema; Rahul notices this and later tells Aarohi it was this that made him realize that she, Aarohi, wanted to be a singer. In fact, Shraddha Kapoor, who plays Aarohi, is sung for by three different singers: within the fiction of the film, the voice belongs to her and makes her special enough to be considered alongside Lata, but, to a culturally incompetent viewer at any rate, there is something giddying when in the film we see Aarohi/Kapoor recording a soundtrack to be dubbed for another actress when the voice we hear is anyway not Kapoor’s. At this moment, Aashiqui 2 seems to register the problematic of self and performance.

In the 1954 Star, we see the end of the screening of Vicki’s first film. “Swanee” comes to a climax and theater curtains close on it; the lead singer steps through the curtains, thanks the audience for the applause, and then, in the “Born in a Trunk” number, tells her life story, illustrated by danced and sung moments culminating in the just seen “Swanee” number, which then, as the curtains close, dissolves back to the singer bringing the song to an end. But who is this and whose story? Vicki, who has only recently been invented by the studio? The character she plays in the film, about whom we know nothing? Esther? Judy Garland? A change of framing near the beginning of the sequence shifts it from being something more evidently a film within a film to something apparently taking place in a theater and addressed to — whom? The theater audience? The audience in the film (including Esther) watching the film? Us? These ambiguities are in part a result of the whole piece being added under a different director after the film had supposedly been completed, but it also catches the shifting ontological levels of stardom — real person, star image, character — that run through both this film and the whole star phenomenon. Lady Gaga would seem to be the perfect performer to play more fully on such complexities, but it is not the road that the film, or she, has chosen to go down. Rather than a celebration of female image-manufacture, we have the fantasy of male parturition and the lure of authenticity. A film for our times.

¤

Richard Dyer is Professor Emeritus at King’s College and Honorary Professor at St Andrews’s, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Stars, Heavenly Bodies, White, The Culture of Queers, Pastiche, In the Space of a Song, Lethal Repetition, and La dolce vita.

Source: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/between-parturition-and-manufacture/

[junker-town]

Texans’ only chance at greatness is Deshaun Watson becoming a franchise QB

The Brock Osweiler experiment was a disaster, and once again a promising Texans team was torpedoed by poor QB play. Will Deshaun Watson reverse the trend?

The Houston Texans have been essentially the same team for a few years now: an elite defense, a strong running game, intriguing weapons on offense, and unspeakably bad quarterback play. For three years in a row, they went 9-7. They won the AFC South the past two years and bowed out in the playoffs each time.

At least 2016 was a little different — they won a playoff game and gave the New England Patriots a decent fight in the Divisional round — but the ending was the same. This is a good team, but it doesn’t quite have the horses to keep up with Super Bowl contenders.

Bill O’Brien’s tenure as head coach has been defined by one narrative: His team doesn’t have a franchise QB. From Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2014, to Brian Hoyer in 2015, to Brock Osweiler in 2016, the mediocre-to-bad quarterback play has held back a genuinely talented roster. Now the team is starting over again with first-round draft pick Deshaun Watson — although they’re giving lip service toward Tom Savage being the Week 1 starter. Either way, the Texans are once again heading into training camp with the quarterback situation unsettled.

The Texans have shown that they can win with replacement-level quarterbacks. Two straight division titles is evidence of that. However, to truly get over the hump, O’Brien and Co. need more production out of the position.

The Texans can’t afford to repeat the Brock Osweiler experiment

When Osweiler hit free agency last year, he was expected to be in high demand because teams are desperate to find anyone resembling a starting NFL quarterback these days. Denver didn’t make a serious effort to retain him despite Peyton Manning’s retirement. But that didn’t stop the Texans from opening up the checkbook and signing Osweiler to a four-year deal worth up to $72 million, including $37 million in guaranteed money.

It was a questionable move at the time and became a full-blown disaster as the season went on. Osweiler’s 72.2 QB Rating was second-worst among qualified quarterbacks, ahead of only Ryan Fitzpatrick. His 5.8 yards per attempt was dead last in the league. He threw only 15 touchdowns to 16 interceptions and had a number of shocking misfires, completing just 59 percent of his passes.

By Week 15, O’Brien had seen enough and benched Osweiler for Savage, only to reinsert him in the regular season finale when Savage suffered a concussion. Osweiler and O’Brien reportedly had a heated argument in the locker room, which appears to have been the final straw.

While the Texans managed to win the AFC South and reach the Divisional round, it was obvious they were headed for a divorce from Osweiler. Sure enough, on the first day of free agency, the Texans banished Osweiler to Cleveland in an NBA-style salary dump trade.

It was a serious black mark on GM Rick Smith’s resume, and he can’t afford to repeat that mistake.

Can Deshaun Watson be the solution at QB?

Since O’Brien arrived in 2014, Houston has had eight different starting quarterbacks, a who’s-who of journeymen, has-beens, and never-weres. We’re talking guys like Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, Case Keenum, Brian Hoyer, and T.J. Yates. Even Brandon Weeden showed up for one start, to give you an idea of how desperate Houston was getting.

So it’s not too surprising that Houston traded up 13 spots in this year’s draft, selecting Clemson’s Deshaun Watson No. 12 overall. It’s the first time since they picked David Carr in 2002 that the Texans drafted a quarterback in the first round. But they paid a steep price to get Watson, giving up their 2018 first-round pick in the process. It’s pretty crucial that Watson works out for the team.

During an interview with The MMQB’s Albert Breer, Smith revealed that he was leaning toward Watson all throughout the pre-draft process, and a private visit on April 18 sealed the deal.

“One of the things we talked about at the end was what the expectations would be if we were in a position to take him,” Smith said. “So we talked about what those are, and I won’t share those, but there was a connection between the two of us where I believe that he was willing to make the necessary commitment to be the best football player he can be.

“I wanted agreement with him on that and a commitment from him that if he were to become a part of our football team, he was going to do that and recognize the significance of the position, and do everything he could to be the best football player and man representative of Houston that he could be. I walked away from that confident he would do it.”

Watson boasts physical tools, impeccable leadership, and a winning pedigree after leading Clemson to the College Football Playoff National Championship. He does have accuracy concerns and will have to learn to take snaps under center after playing out of the shotgun for the majority of his career. He’s also turnover-prone, throwing 32 interceptions in his three-year college career. There’s a lot to like about Watson’s game, and his mobility opens up more options for O’Brien’s offense. But he’s far from a sure thing at the pro level.

With the NFL learning curve, it’s possible Watson won’t be ready to start in Week 1, so O’Brien is hedging his bets, saying that Savage is the starter for now. Savage has been plagued by injuries throughout his short career and looked unimpressive in limited action last year. He has yet to throw a touchdown in 92 pass attempts. Even if Savage wins the Week 1 job, he’ll likely be on thin ice with Watson waiting in the wings.

O’Brien built a reputation as a QB guru going back to his days with the Patriots and Penn State, but he hasn’t had much success finding one in Houston. We’re about to see how good he really is developing QBs when he’s working with Watson over the next few years.

Supporting cast in Houston is still terrific

When Watson eventually takes over, he’ll be surrounded by plenty of quality weapons to succeed. DeAndre Hopkins struggled to do anything with Osweiler last year, but he remains one of the league’s premier receivers, just two years removed from a 111-catch, 1,521-yard campaign. He’s the kind of No. 1 receiver you can build the passing game around. The jury is still out on two 2016 picks: first-rounder Will Fuller and Braxton Miller (former Ohio State QB), but both men have untapped potential.

In the running game, Houston has a reliable workhorse in Lamar Miller, who rushed for 1,073 yards and five touchdowns last season. However, he struggled while playing through injuries and needs someone who can spell him during games. The Texans addressed that issue with third-round rookie D’Onta Foreman, a 233-pound bruiser who should be an upgrade over Alfred Blue as the change-of-pace back.

And then there’s the defense. How good is this defense? The Texans lost three-time Defensive Player of the Year J.J. Watt in Week 3 and still finished with the best defense in the NFL.

A big reason for the defensive stability was the emergence of Jadeveon Clowney. After two injury-plagued seasons, the 2014 No. 1 draft pick finally stayed healthy and dominated, becoming a disruptive force on the defensive line and earning his first Pro Bowl nod. In addition, Whitney Mercilus continued to terrorize opposing quarterbacks, recording 7.5 sacks.

If Watt comes back healthy, this could easily be the most fearsome pass-rushing trio in football. The front seven also got another reinforcement in the draft, with linebacker Zach Cunningham being a potential steal in the second round. This is an incredible unit, but as we’ve seen in the past few years, that hasn’t been enough to make the Texans true contenders.

Time to turn potential into results

On paper, there’s a lot to like about this Texans team. Their defense is great, and should get a boost when Watt returns. They have young, promising weapons on offense, with a legitimate star in Hopkins. They have the talent to win the division and make a deep playoff run.

But Houston needs that franchise quarterback, and after years of trying to patch the position with short-term Band-Aids, the team finally made the bold move to go get one. That’s a good thing. If Watson pans out, the Texans are in good hands for the next several years.

So what happens if Watson isn’t the guy?

Well, they might be OK in 2017 anyway. The defense can keep games close, and maybe they’ll eke out another 9-7 year if the AFC South is down again. But that feeling of deja vu is already starting to linger and will only intensify if Houston sold out its first-round pick for a dud.

We’ve seen the Texans’ ceiling without a competent quarterback. We haven’t seen their ceiling with one, and that’s reason enough to be excited for the future. There’s a lot of pressure on Watson, but he’s used to handling pressure.

O’Brien and Smith are going all-in on Watson, if not in Week 1, then in the near future. If their gamble pays off, they could be looking at a Super Bowl contention window. If it doesn’t, they’ll probably be looking for new jobs. That’s the risk you take when you’re pursuing a franchise quarterback in today’s NFL.