I'm reading a PhD Thesis about pro-wrestling, and it is coming out of the gate swinging.
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I'm reading a PhD Thesis about pro-wrestling, and it is coming out of the gate swinging.
It says, the WWF was built on the back of "Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea, a 330 pound, 6’8” blonde strongman
with off-the-charts charisma and limited technical wrestling skill" and, yes that's absolutely true but I've never read it put so directly.https://repository.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3328&context=gradschool_dissertations
I read a *lot* of academic papers on media and entertainment and most of them are dry and dense.
This one is breezy and conversational. Information dense, for sure, but written by someone who clearly enjoys reading (unlike many of the papers I read.)
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
Usually, there's this huge mismatch between how interesting the subject of the paper is, and how interesting the paper itself is.
The worst example of this, I think, is The Hollywood Meme, which proposes an anthropological framework for analyzing transnational, cross cultural adaptation of media properties in the 20th century and beyond.
Basically, it recasts modern pop culture as folklore (great!) and then gives repeated examples of the ways that things that appear to be adaptations or remakes are often so completely transformative as to really only use the American property as a kind of set dressing to tell an entirely new story (Wonderful!) and then the paper goes in to a deep dive on several films from multiple countries and compares the way each region's adaptations of American properties served as a reflection of their cultures and their economic situation and ...
It should be a slam dunk. Everything about this book should be a slam dunk.
But it's so MECHANICAL. "In this chapter I will X, Y, Z." followed by X, Y, Z, followed by "In the preceding chapter, I gave examples of X, Y, and Z, and in the following chapter we will explore how this can be complicated by A B and C." Over and Over again forever.
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
And, like, I don't have a degree. I don't write academic papers.
I learned a ton from The Hollywood Meme. It was a hugely informative book that developed a useful framework for analyzing cross-cultural adaptations in film.
But I can't help but think that it could have been Enjoyable too, you know?
There's another book often sold along side it as a companion piece called "How the World Remade Hollywood"
I dunno if the two are related. I don't know much about the folks who wrote them.
I know that they cover the same ground, but How the World Remade Hollywood is less academic, significantly broader and less deep, and ultimately less useful as a book, but it's 10x more fun to read.
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
And, generally speaking, I've learned to live with this. Academic stuff tends not to be super fun to read. That's fine.
But it absolutely can be, and it's delightful when I find something that is.
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
(I keep both The Hollywood Meme and How the World Remade Hollywood in stock at our bookstore, if you're interested.
How the world remade Hollywood: https://www.hemlockbazaar.com/product/how-the-world-remade-hollywood-global-interpretations-of-65-iconic-films-glaser-ed/
The Hollywood Meme: https://www.hemlockbazaar.com/product/the-hollywood-meme-transnational-adaptations-in-world-cinema-smith-iain-robert/
They start on the same ground, but one goes deep in to cultural analysis, and the other goes broad covering 65 films and talking about how they were made and what they changed rather than why they were made, and what they mean.)
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
Alright, back to reading this paper about pro-wrestling.
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Andrew (Local TV Bozo)replied to Andrew (Local TV Bozo) last edited by
It's so rare to read a philosophy paper with a Villain, but this one has a villain and his name is Vince.