I'm a latecomer to this thread. Some of the issues here arre similar to those tossed around over at (believe it or not) the Johnny Depp discussion on this same channel. To Murray and Meryam, a phrase from the old Certs commercial: stop, you're both right! I may be wrong, but I don't think Murray would quarrel with a student who, like Meryam, objected to the drowned woman in Short Cuts, then using this objection as a means by which the film and/or filmmaker and or filmmaker's cultural baggage could be analyzed and critiqued. It seemed to me from his original posting that Murray was objecting to a particular style of foreclosing analysis and debate, whether on the grounds of ideology or just rampant laziness. It seems to me that there is always a danger that a teacher will mistake a paradigm shift for ideology, and thereby unfairly complain that the students just don't get it. But the process of differentiating the two, imperfect as it is, goes with the job, doesn't it? Jeff Apfel ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]