A couple more random thoughts about Bamboozled

·         It was very interesting to me that in the movie, Bamboozled, there were only three white characters prominent enough in the story to merit names and 2/3 of them believed they were black and the other 1/3 of them had made it their life’s work to become an “expert” on being black.

·         If the takeaway from this movie is that race is an essential element of each individual, therefore not subject to changing no matter how that person may wish to reinvent themselves, then the conclusion we have to draw is that reinvention can only apply to behavior. You can not control WHO you are; you can only control HOW you act.

Whole Lotta Trickery Goin On!

If a person watched only the first half of Bamboozled, they would probably come away from that experience convinced that Pierre Delacroix was the trickster. He manipulates his situation by creating a minstrel show, Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show, as a way of trying to get one over on his boss and the network he works for, in order to get fired which would release him from his contractual obligation to the network.

In doing this, he appears to display many of the attributes of the trickster: He undermines the unspoken rules of the culture with regard to race. He pits his intelligence and wit against his racist white boss, who holds the power in the situation. He seeks to enlighten the masses with his show, expecting the audience to respond with outrage. Certainly, he creates chaos, as depicted in the scene where the Reverend Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran lead protests against the show. He plays on long-held stereotypes and assumptions of the audience (though he makes the mistake of believing that the audience didn’t really subscribe to those stereotypes).

Had the film ended with Pierre’s dismissal from the network known as “CNS”, and his landing a writing job with another network, where his efforts to launch a new show that would cast black people as intelligent, positive role models, we would all applaud his skill as the trickster in getting over on the folks at CNS. But somewhere along the line, Pierre’s efforts at playing the trickster went horribly wrong, and the situation spirals completely out of his control. He ends up dead, and so do several other characters.

Maybe the real trickster in this film is Pierre’s assistant, Sloan. After all, she is the only one who went into the creation of the show with her eyes wide open, and unlike Pierre, she was able to still keep that focus, even after the show was a success instead of resulting in Pierre’s dismissal.

On the other hand, maybe the racially-insensitive boss, Thomas Dunwitty, is the real trickster. He is, in the end, just about the only character in the movie who has not suffered some sort of loss by the end of the film. In fact, it’s not a far stretch to imagine that for him, life goes on as usual after the deaths of both his writer and his former star, as he viewed their talents as “nothing special” and easily replaced.

If this movie is considered a modern commentary on the trickster figure, I think the message is that you’d better be careful when you set out to play the trickster because things may not turn out the way you foresee and your trickery may backfire on you. Then the joke is on you.

Annotated Bibliography for Essay 2

Brenda Forrey
English 201
Instructor: Scott Weaver
Annotated Bibliography Essay 2
14 March 2011

Annotated Bibliography

Catch Me If You Can. Dir. Stephen Spielberg. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Martin Sheen, Christopher Walken. Dreamworks Video. 2003. DVD. This movie details the life and crimes of Frank Abagnale, Jr., who swindled millions of dollars from unsuspecting corporations by the time he was nineteen years old by posing as an airline pilot, a doctor, an attorney and a prosecutor, and perpetrating check fraud schemes. I may use this movie as one of my literary texts to compare to my definition of “hip”.

 Chandler, Raymond. “Red Wind.”  Stories and Early Novels. Ed. Frank McShane. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. 1995. 368-417. Print. This is a short story about a private detective who witnesses a murder, becomes involved with the woman the murder victim was supposed to be meeting, and ends up a target of the perpetrator of the crime. He ultimately solves the mystery surrounding the murder and recovers a string of pearls belonging to the woman that the murder victim was using to blackmail her. This story is one of the literary texts I will be analyzing in this essay.

 Hemmingway, Earnest. “The Killers.”  Scribd. Scribd., Inc. n.d. Web. 11 March 2011. This is a short story set in the early 20th century about a pair of killers who visit a small town diner in search of their mark. It is one of the literary texts I will analyze in this essay to see how it lines up with my definition of “hip”.

Leland, John.  Hip: The History.  New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print. This book analyzes the history of the evolution of American pop culture and provides the basis for a definition of “hip”.  Mr. Leland serves as a reliable source due to his history of writing about pop culture, and the exhaustive notes and index included with the book are indicative that this work is based on solid research and not merely opinion. I plan to use extensive quotes from this book to establish my personal definition of hip for this essay. This definition, in turn, will be the structure for analyzing the literary texts I’m looking at to determine the “hipness” factor associated with each.

Ray. Dir. Taylor Hackford. Perf. Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington. Universal Studios. 2005. DVD. This movie details the life and musical career of Ray Charles.  This source may serve as a text for the purposes of this paper.  I plan to analyze this movie to see how it compares with my definition of “hip.”

The Confidence Man. LOST: The Complete First Season. By J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof. Perf. Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monaghan, Terry O’Quinn. Buena Vista Home Entertainment. 2005. DVD. Disc 2. This episode sheds light into the character known as Sawyer, how dealings with a confidence man destroyed his family and how he became a confidence man himself.  This source may serve as a text for the purposes of this paper.  I plan to analyze this episode to see how it lines up with my definition of “hip.”

On Catching a Trickster

If you can con millions of dollars by the time you are nineteen years old by posing as a pilot, a doctor, an attorney and a prosecutor, you just may be a trickster. Such was the case of Frank Abagnale, Jr., upon whose life-escapades the movie, Catch Me If You Can, was based.

Now, what, specifically made Mr. Abagnale, Jr. a trickster?

·         He undermined the rules of the culture. “Rules of the culture” could be another way of saying “Laws.” Most of Frank’s money gathering depended on his ability to forge checks and impersonate certified professionals. Highly illegal activities.

·         He worked alone. He was not part of a group and didn’t associate with a clique in his trickster activities.

·         He used wit and ingenuity to win. His cons were not based on physical strength; rather they had their genesis in being smart and creative enough to conceive of and execute actions that moved him toward his goal of amassing wealth through illegal means.

·         He used language as power. Frank Abagnale, Jr. was a slick fast-talker. He used his gift of gab to convince people that he had received professional certifications, which in turn, gave him a platform from which to launch his check fraud schemes.

·         He brought enlightenment to the masses. Not willingly, and not at first, but eventually, as a way to serve part of his sentence, he ended up working in the check fraud unit of the FBI, helping these federal agents shut down other check fraud criminals.

·         He crossed boundaries while undermining them. This man was all about breaking the law, and yet, there is something about the brilliance of his crimes that demands respect from law- abiding citizens and even the FBI check fraud unit. Regardless of personal scruples that keep most people well within the bounds of the law, his cleverness opens the door to imagining perpetrating similar schemes and so escaping the restrictions we allow our society to impose upon us.

“Where most criminals try to leave no evidence, the con artist builds a monument to his creativity and wit.” —John Leland (170).

I wonder if having your life story immortalized in both written and film form qualifies as a monument?

Finding Ray

Poor Mr. Charles.

 As we look towards the bright and shining future that includes a hip dissection of a few literary works, my thoughts have turned to Ray Charles. He hardly gets a mention in John Leland's book, Hip, The History. I wonder why that is. I am contemplating using the movie "Ray", which is based on the life and career of Ray Charles, as one of my literary texts for this essay.

Now I wonder if I am on the right track. . . . hmmm. I think Ray Charles probably was hip. I just wonder why Leland only mentions him peripherally. Maybe he's one of those people that Leland indicated in his preface "fell through one of the many holes in this book" (1).

Well, I'm going to see if I can find him as I look through the lenses of my "hip" goggles. 

Perfection of Imperfection - is this a win/win or a lose/lose?

            Looking at the two qualities that Leland attributes to the Beat generation artists, the “aesthetic of imperfection” (140) and the “license of living in the present tense” (155) and trying to sort out the influence of one on the other is a little like trying to solve the age-old question of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” They are interminably intertwined and co-dependent upon one another.

             One has to wonder if the Beats would have so readily embraced the idea of putting their most imperfect work on display if they had not simultaneously exercised the license of living in the present tense. If there is no future, consequences for past mistakes will never have the opportunity to wreak their havoc. If the consequences will never come to fruition, there is no need to worry about the imperfections that would have spawned them. It’s either a win/win proposition or a lose/lose proposition but so long as the future doesn’t really exist, who really cares? By embracing the idea of the eternal present the Beats erased the threat that putting their mistakes on display would have posed to the time-bound mortal.

            I don’t believe that art is an act that necessarily must strive for perfection. That is what mathematics is for. Or engineering. It is the imperfections in art that allow the audience to see that the product is created by human minds and hands, and the flaws can serve to inspire the creative genious of the audience. Just like when you go to the movies to see a film such as Inception and you leave the theater puzzling over the loose ends of the threads that weren’t quite neatly tied up by the film’s end; these imperfections allow you to insinuate your own ideas into the art and perpetuate the creative process.