i'm troubled at least as much by the tone of the message initiating this thread as i was by the original article -- an article that has already been the subject of extended conversation on the film-philosophy list-serv, which readers of this note may wish to check out while i find a lot of what weddle says uninformed, misinformed, and petulant, it is certainly NOT "particularly snide" . . . from the original message one would never guess that weddle goes out of his way to find out what this new thing called "film theory" amounts to, that he interviews constance penley--whom he treats quite fairly--and visits a class by branigan, to whom he is less fair the issues weddle raises ARE real issues . . . they would be real issues on their substantive claims alone, and are made all the more relevant by the fact that very few people except for those who do theory have any appreciation of its value . . . to the extent -- a very great extent, as the article allows -- that theory is driven by leftist politics, the views of the overwhelming majority of the film going public can't simply be disregarded as beneath contempt of course it was to be expected that this list-serv, and other discourse arenas like it, would immediately become the site for a great deal of defensiveness, self-justification, and name calling . . . i think we do ourselves, our enterprise, and our causes a great disservice by going that route mike ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org