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rgr-pop: yoursecretary: alexcornetto: Having just finished (and enjoyed!) reading Underworld by Don DeLillo, starting a book like this is some kind of weird relief - stuff happens in this book! And it happens quickly! I always feel like I should be snobby about Stephen King - y’know, since he’s super-popular, and I’m a snob - but based entirely on the two books of his I’ve read (including Misery), he’s a great, compelling writer. 2012 may just have to be the year I start reading without prejudice. i can totally relate to these statements. in my late teens and early twenties i read a lot of early stephen king as a reprieve from what i felt were more serious novels. a riff on “easy listening” i would call king’s work “easy reading.” when people have compared my horror writing to his and i would be both flattered and angry. there is this idea that anything popular is obviously and inherently flawed. thinking about this (and specifically the popularity of  modern horror texts) made me refer to a review megan wrote on cormac mccarthy’s the road in which she said “this book would get five stars except everyone already knows and loves it. therefore it gets four.” we position ourselves as immensely self-satisfied when cutting off our noses to spite our well-read literary minded faces. does king deserve (or has he ever had) a second look? is good horror, in itself, always going to be popular because of our common fears or does it deserve and will it always be written off as innately low brow in a way we embrace (and excuse) other genres and formats such as comics, graphic novels,  and/or speculative fiction? Hey! I hate talking about books because every book is patriarchy, every book oppresses you by alienating you from television and internet and creating a false consciousness that books are superior and will provide for you fairly, but I agree with all of the above. I really think that Stephen King has, while not always written great female characters (or, for that matter, great books), consistently developed some of the most compelling non-male characters written by an American male writer, especially a popular writer. More importantly, though, he’s willing to publicly wrestle with his own abilities and inabilities in writing about women. And I think that’s good. I’m reminded of a conversation I had over dinner last night. Blair described something they called “junk food television,” something that you consume but don’t think about. People talk about this a lot, you know? That they watch things that they know are stupid just because they’re fun, that they “don’t think about” shows that are willfully vapid, that they “turn of their brains.” People say this a lot, and I always find it really alienating. I literally have no idea what that would feel like. As such, I’m always left wondering: are there people that don’t think about things? Or are there just people that say they don’t think about things because they are embarrassed that they enjoy How I Met Your Mother? Emily agreed with me. She said, (I paraphrase), “I can’t even compartmentalize, either. I devote the same amount of thought and theory to Jersey Shore as I do to my schoolwork.” I watch television all the time. And I am never not doing this. I didn’t know there were people, more specifically people who are into theory especially, who don’t do this. I don’t want to utilize a discourse of “pretentiousness” (which isn’t useful to me), but I will say that pretending like there is less to talk about in Stephen King than there is in Cormac McCarthy is not only conceptually weak (and socially shitty), but it just kind of shows that you’re bad at your job. You’re probably lazy and posturing, but you’re also willfully ignoring, like, at least the last twenty-five years of cultural theory and commentary. (Feminist thinkers have been writing critically about Stephen King since the eighties!) And, most likely, you don’t get it. Agreed - Stephen King is a compelling writer & when my aunt graduated from college and had to move back in with my grandparents due to crushing debt, I totally crushed her collection of Stephen King paperbacks and couldn’t sleep for like a week because It tormented my dreams. (While we’re talking both King-praise and King-critique, I would like to take a second to rec Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s article “Stephen King’s Super-Duper Magical Negroes.”) Anyway, what I’m really interested in in this discussion is what RGR brought up re: “Junk food” culture — this is something my boyfriend and I argue about a lot. Like, we have seriously heated arguments about this because I like a lot of what he could construe as “junk food” music, television, books, and movies. When I listen to Nicki Minaj or watch The OC or read a serial young adult fiction book, his immediate reaction is (and this is not even a paraphrase), “Liking that kind of stuff makes you stupider.” Which is a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone because it is both A) shitty and B) patently untrue, but anyway. It’s true that I sometimes just listen to or watch or read something without fully engaging with it/flexing my critical muscles/whathaveyou in the moment of my enjoyment, but it’s also true that I have done some of my richest, fullest thinking about “junk food” culture and my entire academic background has been built around a study of how girls engage with “junk food” culture to develop their identities and the frames of understanding they use to engage with the world around them. Like, as goofy and ridiculous as The OC is, the reality is that it’s a tremendously rich text if you want to talk about the ways in which young people are taught to understand class and upward mobility in the United States. (And the narrative put forth in The OC becomes even richer when you compare it with the narratives put forth in shows like Veronica Mars or Gossip Girl.) I’m wholly on board with RGR in her observation that anyone that takes a stance on “junk food” culture as being somehow less deserving of academic engagement/inquiry is throwing out a few decades worth of pretty compelling & important theory.

rgr-pop:

yoursecretary:

alexcornetto:

Having just finished (and enjoyed!) reading Underworld by Don DeLillo, starting a book like this is some kind of weird relief - stuff happens in this book! And it happens quickly!

I always feel like I should be snobby about Stephen King - y’know, since he’s super-popular, and I’m a snob - but based entirely on the two books of his I’ve read (including Misery), he’s a great, compelling writer. 2012 may just have to be the year I start reading without prejudice.

i can totally relate to these statements. in my late teens and early twenties i read a lot of early stephen king as a reprieve from what i felt were more serious novels. a riff on “easy listening” i would call king’s work “easy reading.” when people have compared my horror writing to his and i would be both flattered and angry. there is this idea that anything popular is obviously and inherently flawed. thinking about this (and specifically the popularity of  modern horror texts) made me refer to a review megan wrote on cormac mccarthy’s the road in which she said “this book would get five stars except everyone already knows and loves it. therefore it gets four.” we position ourselves as immensely self-satisfied when cutting off our noses to spite our well-read literary minded faces. does king deserve (or has he ever had) a second look? is good horror, in itself, always going to be popular because of our common fears or does it deserve and will it always be written off as innately low brow in a way we embrace (and excuse) other genres and formats such as comics, graphic novels,  and/or speculative fiction?

Hey! I hate talking about books because every book is patriarchy, every book oppresses you by alienating you from television and internet and creating a false consciousness that books are superior and will provide for you fairly, but

I agree with all of the above. I really think that Stephen King has, while not always written great female characters (or, for that matter, great books), consistently developed some of the most compelling non-male characters written by an American male writer, especially a popular writer. More importantly, though, he’s willing to publicly wrestle with his own abilities and inabilities in writing about women. And I think that’s good.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had over dinner last night. Blair described something they called “junk food television,” something that you consume but don’t think about.

People talk about this a lot, you know? That they watch things that they know are stupid just because they’re fun, that they “don’t think about” shows that are willfully vapid, that they “turn of their brains.” People say this a lot, and I always find it really alienating. I literally have no idea what that would feel like. As such, I’m always left wondering: are there people that don’t think about things? Or are there just people that say they don’t think about things because they are embarrassed that they enjoy How I Met Your Mother?

Emily agreed with me. She said, (I paraphrase), “I can’t even compartmentalize, either. I devote the same amount of thought and theory to Jersey Shore as I do to my schoolwork.” I watch television all the time. And I am never not doing this. I didn’t know there were people, more specifically people who are into theory especially, who don’t do this.

I don’t want to utilize a discourse of “pretentiousness” (which isn’t useful to me), but I will say that pretending like there is less to talk about in Stephen King than there is in Cormac McCarthy is not only conceptually weak (and socially shitty), but it just kind of shows that you’re bad at your job. You’re probably lazy and posturing, but you’re also willfully ignoring, like, at least the last twenty-five years of cultural theory and commentary. (Feminist thinkers have been writing critically about Stephen King since the eighties!) And, most likely, you don’t get it.

Agreed - Stephen King is a compelling writer & when my aunt graduated from college and had to move back in with my grandparents due to crushing debt, I totally crushed her collection of Stephen King paperbacks and couldn’t sleep for like a week because It tormented my dreams. (While we’re talking both King-praise and King-critique, I would like to take a second to rec Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s article “Stephen King’s Super-Duper Magical Negroes.”)

Anyway, what I’m really interested in in this discussion is what RGR brought up re: “Junk food” culture — this is something my boyfriend and I argue about a lot. Like, we have seriously heated arguments about this because I like a lot of what he could construe as “junk food” music, television, books, and movies. When I listen to Nicki Minaj or watch The OC or read a serial young adult fiction book, his immediate reaction is (and this is not even a paraphrase), “Liking that kind of stuff makes you stupider.” Which is a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone because it is both A) shitty and B) patently untrue, but anyway.

It’s true that I sometimes just listen to or watch or read something without fully engaging with it/flexing my critical muscles/whathaveyou in the moment of my enjoyment, but it’s also true that I have done some of my richest, fullest thinking about “junk food” culture and my entire academic background has been built around a study of how girls engage with “junk food” culture to develop their identities and the frames of understanding they use to engage with the world around them.

Like, as goofy and ridiculous as The OC is, the reality is that it’s a tremendously rich text if you want to talk about the ways in which young people are taught to understand class and upward mobility in the United States. (And the narrative put forth in The OC becomes even richer when you compare it with the narratives put forth in shows like Veronica Mars or Gossip Girl.) I’m wholly on board with RGR in her observation that anyone that takes a stance on “junk food” culture as being somehow less deserving of academic engagement/inquiry is throwing out a few decades worth of pretty compelling & important theory.

  1. teaandtheatre reblogged this from sweethermieharmony and added:
    Few positive feminist King pieces: Rose Madder, chockfull of feminist and traditional mythology references, about a...
  2. sweethermieharmony reblogged this from mootpoint and added:
    I started reading King finally in college, with The Bachman Books, which are quite fascinating. He tells a darn good...
  3. mootpoint reblogged this from rgr-pop and added:
    I agree with this. (Though I haven’t read any Stephen King - except On Writing in high school when I wanted to be A...
  4. thelastgreatpoolparty reblogged this from lookuplookup and added:
    That there even exists a distinction between “high brow” and “low brow” art/entertainment/whatever makes me want to...
  5. lookuplookup reblogged this from rgr-pop and added:
    Agreed - Stephen King is a compelling writer & when my aunt graduated from college and had to move back in with my...
  6. ryancox reblogged this from rivertrash and added:
    There is never a tinge of otherism or tokenism when he writes about a diverse cast of characters (though I don’t...
  7. rivertrash reblogged this from yoursecretary and added:
    I grew up reading a lot of Stephen King novels. In a lot of ways they were my first look into an adult world and they...
  8. rgr-pop reblogged this from yoursecretary and added:
    Hey! I hate talking about books because every book is patriarchy, every book oppresses you by alienating you from...
  9. yoursecretary reblogged this from alexcornetto and added:
    i can totally relate to these statements. in my late teens and early twenties i read
  10. alexcornetto posted this