The obtuse vernacular of the academic.
Currently writing a 2000 word essay on ‘genre hybridity’ in one of my favourite films, Strange Days. It’s a movie i’ve enjoyed and admired since I first saw it on the big screen, way back in 95, but by researching it for this essay i’ve unearthed a mountain of facts I’d never been aware of before. And discovered that some people write the most pretentious pish about films. If one word is guaranteed to strike fear into my heart, it is the word ‘academic’. Is there a bit of writing software somewhere that goes through your paper and finds the most obtuse version of each word in order to make you sound more intelligent, a sort of ‘Microsoft Word for Academics’?
For example, I was trying to define ‘Science Fiction’ as I see it, in order to engage with certain ideas. To me, Sci-fi is a text which engages, at some level, with advanced technology; be it a spaceship, sonic screwdriver or the SQUID device from Strange Days. Darko Suvin (good name) an ‘academic’, describes sci-fi thus-ly – ‘SF is distinguished by the narrative dominance or hegemony of a fictional “novum” validated by cognitive logic.’
WTF!
Christine Cornea (Who’s book Science Fiction Cinema is a recommended read) explains the above passage as meaning, ‘the fictional inventions or non-human characters that colonise the genre are logically justified within the world of the genre… (but)…remain outside of a known reality’
So, basically, anything with spaceships and aliens!
And this is what I have to deal with when writing essays. Don’t even start me on some of the Film theorists.
Anyway, back to the essay.
I loved Strange Days when it came out, particularly Ralph Fienne’s ties, but I watched it recently and it seemed to have aged badly. not surprising, I guess, for a film about Millennium tension.
mark eastwood - April 27, 2009 at 7:43 pm |
Thanks Mark. I agree that the storyline was always going to age it and it’s pretty obvious that the SQUID unit is just a minidisc player but great ideas and film-making never go out of fashion. I think Strange Days has entered into that world of late-night TV screenings for future generations to happen across and discuss next day at work.
fortunesfool73 - April 27, 2009 at 10:12 pm |