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March 1993

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Sender:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
"Russell A. Potter" <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 12 Mar 1993 22:13:59 -0500
Reply-To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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I agree very much with those who emphasize the element of the Spectacle
in _Total Recall_ and other films -- in the course I did, we read both
Debord's _Society of the Spectacle_ and Baudrillard's _Simulations_
alongside our menu of cyberpunk films (TR included).  Plausibility
isn't the point -- it's like all those annoying people who used to
tell me that the giant ants in THEM! would actually collapse of
their own weight because they were wrongly proportioned foe
exoskeletons of that size . . .
 
Also, I stronly agree that the "nuclear" family lies somewhere
near the dark heart of many of these films, T1 and T2 in especial.
There's an excellent essay which makes this point and relates it
also to Lynch's _Blue Velvet by Fred Pfeill; the title is
"Revolting Yet Conserved: Family Noir in _Blue Velvet_ and
_Terminator 2_"  and it appeared in _Postmodern Culture_ 2.3.
(PMC can be ordered bia listserver or ftp; if you login to
[log in to unmask] and go to the directory:
 
 
 pub/docs/pmc/pmc-list
 
you can "get" this file as "pfeill.592" -- I used it in my
class and it led to some excellent discussions.
 
--Russell Potter
--English Dept.
--Colby College

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