Pop Culture/Film/Literature

Facebook Privacy Dis-Agreement

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Digital Humanities, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching 0 Comments

It’s been a little while since the inhabitants of Facebookistan got all fired up about something–  where are you now Kony2012?— so I was half-delighted and half-disheartened to see the newest brouhaha to hit the social media site, which I’m calling the Facebook Privacy Dis-Agreement (FPD).  As these things tend to happen, FPD had been…

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Storytelling and Incredulity

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

The new film version of Yann Martel‘s 2001 novel Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee and starring the  wide-eyed and captivating Saraj Sharma in the title role, is (exactly as the posters promise) an “epic journey of adventure and discovery.”  And that’s the problem with it. I read Life of Pi shortly after it…

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Young Adult: The Least Funny Comedy of 2011

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Weak Humanism 4 Comments

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who saw the trailers for the new film Young Adult (directed by Up In The Air and Thank You For Smoking auteur Jason Reitman, penned by Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody) and thought to myself: that looks really funny! I want to see it! I mean, I didn’t expect…

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The Parking Lot Movie: In Defense of Service Workers

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

Many years ago, when I found myself griping about the horrible and infuriating treatment that restaurant service-people– at the time, that included me– get from their patrons, I remember my father telling me: “Everyone should have at least four types of jobs in his or her life: (1) a job in the service industry, (2)…

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2011 Year in Pop Culture

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 2011 Year in Review Lists, Dr. J's Lists, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Year in Review Lists 0 Comments

Doing the end-of-the-year Pop Culture list is definitely something that I look forward to each December. I was worried that last year’s list was going to be hard to top– what with 2010’s introduction of the Facebook “like” button, the Jersey Shore “GTL” mantra, the iPad and the Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear– but…

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Good Guy, Bad Guy

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

George Clooney’s 2011 political film The Ides of March is based on Beau Willimon‘s 2008 play “Farragut North,” which is itself based on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean. That is to say, The Ides of March is a political drama situated squarely in the “now.” It’s story is post-9/11, post-Iraq and -Afghanistan…

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First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Occupy Movement, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 1 Comment

We barely had a moment to digest the horror of the incident at UC-Davis, where police pepper-sprayed nonviolent student protesters associated with the Occupy Movement, before the image of the offending policeman (Lt. John Pike) was transformed into an internet meme. Pike’s image was photoshopped into some of the great works of Western art, including…

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The Material Infrastructure of the Internet

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 1 Comment

Like most people, I presume, I have a tendency to think about “the Internet” or “cyberspace” or the “virtual world” as something fundamentally non-material. I type emails, I post on my Facebook page or this blog, I search and find things on Google, and it seems to me each time as if every strike of…

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The Uncanny Valley 7: Sonzai-Kan

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Uncanny Valley 4 Comments

Every time I try to put away my obsession with the uncanny valley, some new robot or robot-story invades my world and reanimates that fascination all over again. Regular readers of this blog will know that I first became interested in robotocist Masahiro Mori’s theory of the uncanny valley back in October of 2010, when…

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Entre Nous?: The Merits (and Demerits) of Gossip

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 2 Comments

Let me begin by illuminating the obvious: we live in a gossip-obsessed culture. You don’t even have to make all that much of an effort to find yourself more intimately familiar with the very personal details of celebrities, politicians, athletes and other real(ity) pop-culture figures’ lives than you are with those of your own friends…

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