Letters to the Editor
softdog
Published Letters: 186 Editor's Choice: 8
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It's a bad play adaptation.
[Read the article: "Bug"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Bug is a humorless picture, a somber, arty exercise in deep denial of its exploitation roots."
I can tell you this is not how it played on the stage, but live theater has different storytelling rules and can present such arch material in a far more knowing and humorous way.
Stephanie misses the point by barely addressing how this is an adaptation of a play. Like so many play adaptations, it fails to get past the different expectations and conventions for live theater and film.
Adaptations which work alter the source material to fit film narrative or use a style which lets the audience accept a more stagey material.
It sounds like Bug does neither - Letts probably shouldn't have been allowed to adapt his own work.
It also has deceptive marketing which passes off a surreal play as a more straight narrative.
Yet Stephanie's review reads as if she fell for the marketing despite knowing the source material.
All of her complaints are rooted in this disconnect betwen stage and screen and what sound like a bad peformance of the play, period. This explains why it's a mess, and why it ignores film exploitation traditions - because the play wasn't rooted in them.
It would be like trying to do Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" as a some sort of "28 Days Later" knockoff because the plot includes people transforming into beasts. The end result would be equally confusing and irritating.
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Echo of 17 Years Ago
[Read the article: "The Trap"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I totally feel for these kids. And I think it is true their political power is being artificially restrained by debt.
Although I'd also argue it's 9/11 politics as well. Before 9/11, there was a growing anti-globalization movement which drew it's sheer power from the increasing number of very young and agressive members. Then the War On Terror scared the fight out of everyone - at least long enough for everyone to feel beleagured by the shrinking economy.
Yet it's not just the youth who are suffering. People of every age group are feeling the pinch, and thus are less prone to be politically active (complaining on the internet or in a march isn't active) because they don't have the time.
It's a mark of youth to feel they are the only ones who are suffering, or the only ones who can make a specific excuse.
In fact, they are just the latest wave of folk to get out of college and face diminished prospects, massive debt and terrifying retirement. It's been going on since Bush/Reagan, with a brief respite during the Clinton / Net Boom years which temporarily staved off class warfare.
Yet I can also say these kids are living through an even worse version of the early 90s.
I graduated from college a few years after Black Monday - the stock market crash in 1987 which was felt into the 90s. The Baby Boomers were at prime job age and far outnumbered recent college grads, and the slow economy stuck them in every job level so even crap cubicle jobs were harder to find.
Luckily the economy was slightly more forgiving for the young and penniless. Gentrification had barely begun, gas was cheaper and - in Chicago at least - there was more public transportation. Drinking was a lot cheaper, there were more discount cinemas - all offset the increasingly bleak pre-net job market.
My peers were surly, detached, and too stressed for political activity. Current college grads don't even have cheap rent, booze and gas to assuage them. Cheap downloads barely cut it. So I feel for them.
But in the early 90s it wasn't just us - those outside the priveleged groups of all ages were chafing at the crap economy. It was also white angst. Minority groups were in even worse shit as industry collapsed and drugs and neglect devastated neighborhoods. And as New Orleans shows, there's far worse off. What's happening now is the white middle class is even less able to pretend they get an exception.
And again, it's not just 20 year olds facing massive debt and no real retirement.
My point, if I have one, is whining about The Trap might be cathartic in the short run, but it's also an excuse for doing nothing and hoping things get better for going on 17 years. If we don't organize and fight back at some point, the Trap will crush us all.
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Fake letters from scarecrows
[Read the article: If we leave Iraq, do we lose for good?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In an attempt to be fair I skimmed CP's latest, but the letter format is doubly annoying.
First, they seem fabricated or (at best) heavily rewritten by the author. Second, they offer distorted strawman versions of current debates which enable Paglia's rambling.
At this point, Paglia is self parody. The only way she could become moreso is if Salon used the Onion gag "Ask a [fill in the blank]" where the responses have nothing to do with the letter.
For example:
Dear Camille Paglia,
My husband and I have a poly relationship, but recently one of his co-workers, a deeply troubled 19 year old, has been making aggressively unwanted advances. She seems to be having issues. Should I offer counseling or just tell her to bug off?
Sincerely,
Mother Hen
Dear Mother Hen,
I can't tell you how many confessional letters I've received like yours since I arrived on the scene with my first book in 1990. Not much will change until the oppressors (my baby boom generation of trend-chasing p.c. faculty) retire over the next 10 to 15 years. Then perhaps young people can begin to breathe free and reclaim their own originality. Meanwhile, congratulations on finding your niche.
Sincerely,
Camille Paglia