In response to brian Taves' thoughtful remarks on b movies, one question:
You remark that some b filmmakers were "self-conscious" while others were
not. Need we place a greater "value" on works we can ascribe to
"self-conscious" filmmakers -- and what, precisely, are such
self-conscious filmmakers actually conscious of? It's a question I'm
grappling with as I'm in the midst of teaching a course on b movies this
semester and am constantly wavering between "auterist" -- even
studio-as-auteur -- enthusiasms on the one hand and more clinically cult
studs type approaches on the other. I find that much academic work on pop
culture falls loosely into one of these two camps -- a "gee whiz I'm
slumming and having a great time of it" approach and a "capitalist pig
ideologues are trying to brainwash us even though working
class/marginalized/etc. audiences are actually oh-so sophisticated and
active" approach. I suppose trying to harvest cultural capital out of the
fields of pop-kultur has its risks....
--James Schamus