I forwarded Weddle's piece to a friend with a doctorate in British history. He replied: Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:32:04 -0500 From: Patrick Leary <[log in to unmask]> Wellsir, I have to admit that I did have some sympathy with [Weddle's] complaints, and groaned in all the right places about forcing kids to use Russian formalist terms and so on. And I'm always up for a little grumbling about Pomo imperialism and obscurantism. But two things really bothered me about this thing, which is essentially an industry insider attack on the academic world, and a replay of 1960s political hatreds. The first is its absolutist mentality. There's no middle ground -- *all* "film theory" of any kind is utter crap, a monstrous swindle, a dangerous cult, etc., etc. And "theory" seems to be defined as anything other than the approach to film he was taught in college, or alternatively as anything that doesn't help kids get film jobs in L.A. Never, he seems to be saying, think or talk about film in terms that would make the pros on a Hollywood set laugh at you -- because, obviously, if you do they won't give you a job. Wanta know about film in the real world? Talk to a guy who's been head of Spelling Television! The second thing, though, is what gives Weddle's game away: his obsession with Marxism. It's just ridiculous to contend that all film theory is Marxist, but this is what he does -- it's all, he suggests, a conspiracy rooted in the New Left. That portrait of Branigan, dandruff and all, is meant to evoke the dirty 1960s radical. The subtext also points up Weddle's L.A. beautiful people snobbery: how could anybody take seriously a guy who looks like this? So his real, unspoken conclusion is that these film majors should learn how to think and talk and dress like the Hollywood pros so they can get jobs with those Hollywood pros -- what else has he spent his money for? -- and these daffy left-wing college professors, by undermining all that with their fancy-schmancy theories and their suspicion of mainstream corporate media, are costing these kids their rightful places in the West Coast media hierarchy. A deeply cynical and instrumentalist view, but one that's not limited to him. The view of universities as places to learn, as distinct from getting credentialed and making valuable contacts, seems to be going by the wayside... ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html