Responsible Tweeting

In the past my approach to conference tweeting has been a mix of straightforward reportage, meta-commentary, and non-conference related conversations with fellow conference participants. But when tweeting under the @CJatSCMS handle, I took more time and care in composing each tweet, waiting until I found an effective and accurate way to summarize a point in 140 characters before hitting the enter key and keeping editorializing to a minimum. In other words, the pseudo anonymity of the @CJatSCMS account made me less concerned with my personal Twitter brand (i.e., snark) and more concerned with the transmission of information. Which is, I suppose, how it should always be when recounting the scholarship of others. Likewise, in the weeks leading up to the conference, everyone involved with the @CJatSCMS account agreed on a loose set of Best Practices (including requesting permission before tweeting panel/workshop content). Asking permission seemed to ease presenters’ minds about the prospect of having their work reported to a broader audience.

Less Tweeting

When live tweeting a TV event like the Oscars I generally aim for speed, volume, and humor. If you don’t move fast, your voice gets lost in the furious river of tweets moving past your screen. In the past my conference tweeting followed a similar speed/volume model. However this time around I discovered that fewer tweets packed with more information (i.e., “thick tweets”) are ultimately more useful in the conference setting since most people reading the Twitter stream are searching the conference hashtag (#scms13) for information, not a play-by-play. Indeed, the very conditions of the shared account forced me to lower my own tweet volume. On Thursday afternoon, when all five @CJatSCMS “reporters” were tweeting at full capacity (thus exceeding Twitter’s 100 tweets per hour limit), we found ourselves locked out of the account (the dreaded “Twitter jail”). This meant that we all had to tweet more sparingly the next day, thinking even more carefully about what and when we would share information.

The Labor of Digital Reporting

As Suzanne Scott notes in a recent blog post about experiencing SCMS remotely: “SCMS is a space to test our new ideas, and learn from old ones, and it makes sense to develop a corresponding digital space that evokes those same principles that we embrace for 5 days a year in perpetuity.” This year, more than any other, the digital space of the conference came to life for me. The official Twitter feed was a conduit for valuable scholarly exchanges, providing access to the conference to those not physically present, and then relaying their thoughts and questions back into the spaces of the conference. In many ways, I felt like I was part of an actual news team, with the attendant desire/responsibility to report on what was happening at each panel. Indeed, numerous panels and workshops at this year’s conference (including “Publishing on Digital Platforms” [B21], “Digital Humanities and Film and Media Studies” [J23], and “Gender, Networking, Social Media, and Collegiality” [E23], to name just a few) were examining these questions of academic labor: what do we count as labor in the world of digital and social media, what is the “value” of that labor, and how do we document it? To me, live tweeting the conference felt like labor in the same way that serving as secretary for a university committee feels like labor.

Ultimately, the experience of tweeting as a “CJ Reporter” has led me to reconsider the delicate work of tweeting about the scholarship of others, the necessity of establishing clear guidelines and best practices for conference tweeting, and the value of digital labor. I look forward to SCMS 2014, when hopefully even more groups — representing various academic journals, blogs, special interest groups, or even individual departments — will establish their own reporting teams. A proliferation of these group Twitter accounts at future conferences could encourage more rigorous online conversations about the scholarship being presented, generate twitter feeds that can tackle a more diverse range of panels and workshops, and, hopefully, further justify the value of the labor performed within the actual, and virtual, spaces of the conference (as well as our home institutions).

But Daniel Tosh and his apology don’t matter. Men who like to rape women are not going to rape less women based on whether or not Tosh apologizes for making an unfunny rape joke. Tosh was not apologizing for contributing to the climate of fear in which so many women exist. Like a chastened child forced to say “sorry” on the playground, Tosh’s apology had nothing to do with making amends with those he offended and everything to do with getting out of trouble. That’s generally how these “scandals” go.

But with the entrance of comedian/actor/director Louis CK, this public story became infinitely more interesting. On July 10th, in the midst of the kerfuffle, CK logged onto Twitter and defended Tosh. Comedians offend people for a living so when they defend other comedians (and they often do), they are really defending themselves and their craft. But soon enough CK realized that he made the critical error of alienating his base (liberals, feminists, academics) so he headed to The Daily Show to assure them that when he tweeted his support for Tosh he had not been aware of the rape-joke scandal. You see, he was “in Vermont.” I think we can all agree that this is a terrible excuse. But CK then went on to discuss how the incident led him to read some blogs on the subject of rape and that he now understood how rape “polices” women’s lives, adding: “They have a narrow corridor: they can’t go out late, they can’t go to certain neighborhoods…”

It was refreshing to watch a smart comedian like CK speaking in favor of educating and informing himself on all angles of a complicated issue before speaking about it on national television. As CK states in the above interview “all dialogue is positive.” The fact that for almost two weeks, a corner of the media (including cable news programs, blogs, tabloids, online magazines, and social media addicts like myself) was engaged in a critical discussion of rape and power and representation is pretty amazing. I’m a big believer in the power of dialogue, context, and debate so I was happy to see that Louis CK was doing just that instead of reciting the “hyperbole and garbage,” to use his words, that is usually offered up in response to delicate topics. But then, because he’s a comedian, CK capped off this great moment of nuance and understanding with a piece of advice to all of those angry women who had been talking and writing and complaining about Tosh: “Now that we heard you—shut the fuck up for a minute.”

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to shut the fuck up. That’s why I am still talking about Daniel Tosh and his incredibly stupid rape joke almost three weeks after it happened. Because the point is not that comedians can’t make jokes about rape. I believe even the most horrifying of human experiences can become the subjects of genuinely funny jokes if they cause us to think about these horrors in a new light, either by overturning what we thought we understood about the subject or, even better, by forcing us to look at ourselves and our own culpability (and sometimes, if the offensive jokes are really funny, none of those things even matter). For me, stand-up comedy is at its best when it walks the line between hilarity and horror; make me laugh when my first instinct is to cry. Isn’t that the comedian’s job?

And when comedians or celebrities or politicians or even good old-fashioned real folks screw up and say or do something that is wrong or hurtful, we owe it to ourselves to talk about it rationally and in context. We need to stop going for the easy fix, the easy laugh, and the sound bite. Because taking down statues and banning costumes from movie theaters don’t stop pedophiles from raping children or maniacs from shooting moviegoers. These measures only offer the appearance of having done something. They offer powerful images and headlines but they won’t stop these atrocities from happening again. Instead we need to talk to each other. And once we’re all listening, I’ll be happy to shut the fuck up.

For example, almost every Jersey Shore episode features a scene in which the roommates sit down to an elaborate Sunday night dinner—plates of pasta and sauce, sausage and peppers, garlic bread, etc. This traditional Italian-American meal, usually prepared by the matriarch of the house, is a time to put aside arguments and reconnect with “family” before the start of the workweek. It is significant, however, that the shopping, cooking, and very often the cleaning for this ritual meal is orchestrated by the men of the house. This stands in contrast to the casts’ personal experiences with domestic chores. When, for example, Vinny’s mother visits the house in season one, Pauly D compares her to his own mother, an “old school Italian,” because she cleans the Jersey Shore house after fixing the roommates an extravagant lunch. And Snooki claims that Vinny’s mother reminds her of her grandmother: “That’s like a true Italian woman. You want to please everyone else at the table. And then when everyone’s done eating, you clean up and then you eat by yourself.” However, lacking compliant women to perform these domestic labors, the Jersey Shore men must men cook and clean for themselves.

The men also violate traditional gender expectations in their obsessive grooming habits. Mike codifies his daily toilette with formal titles, like “Gym, Tan, Laundry” and discusses his grooming habits as an imperative, not as a personal choice: “If you don’t go to the gym, you don’t look good. If you don’t tan, you’re pale. If you don’t do laundry, you ain’t got no clothes.” Mike also makes weekly trips to the barbershop for haircuts and eyebrow waxing. Likewise, when preparing for a night on the town, the men don something Mike has termed “the shirt before the shirt,” a preshirt that is worn until moments before heading out the door. Although Mike’s clever reframing of his obsessive compulsive grooming habits as de riguer behavior for any self-respecting guido provides yet another way to cash in on his reality stardom, it also deflects attention away from behaviors that would otherwise be deemed “too feminine.”
The women of Jersey Shore are not burdened with a similar beauty regimen; often, when the men head to the gym, they go shopping or get drunk. And Snooki has been known to go to work wearing the same outfit and make up that she wore the previous evening. While we do see the women in the house prepare for a night at the club with hairspray and push up bras, MTV’s cameras do not devote nearly as much screen time to this process. Instead, Jersey Shore highlights the labor that goes into the production of male beauty within the guido subculture.

Can we read the Jersey Shore men’s singular drive to humiliate, bed, and then dispose of an endless string of women as simply another symptom of the complex gender roles they must inhabit in order to be cast members on the Jersey Shore? If Mike didn’t GTL or smush, would he still be a guido? And if the roommates didn’t eat a traditional Italian meal every Sunday could they still lay claim to their status as authentic Italian Americans? Jersey Shore highlights the conditions under which certain gender roles are performed within ethnic subcultures, specifically, how the presence of reality TV’s cameras enforces a compulsory masculinity on the aspiring Jersey Shore “guido.”

Musical numbers are also used to express the inexpressible. When Gene Kelly performs the title number in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), his voice and his body radiate pure joy. He has just fallen in love and the only way he can express these emotions is through song and dance. Therefore, the transition from the real world, where a rainy day is dreary and depressing, becomes a dream world, where the pouring rain is a delight. For most of its run, Glee has eschewed this type of musical number. Song choices may relate to the narrative, but performances are rarely used to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality (for more on Glee’s mishandling of some of the basic conventions of the musical genre, see Kelli Marshall’s insightful Flow article). Instead the show often functions as a kind of “Glee’s Follies,” that is, as a musical revue featuring unrelated performances that showcase the talents of each of its stars and sell singles on iTunes.

However “Grilled Cheesus” (a fantastic title) is one of the few Glee episodes to not only establish, but also to play with, the opposition between dream world and real world in the musical. For example, early in the episode, Mercedes tells the Glee club that she has been struggling to come up with something comforting to say to Kurt after his father is hospitalized: “Then I realized I don’t want to say it. I want to sing it” she explains. Mercedes then launches into a rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You,” which asks Kurt/the audience to believe in the ability of a higher power to comfort us in our suffering. The shot/reverse shot between Mercedes and Kurt at the conclusion of the number implies that Kurt has been moved (his eyes are filled with tears) and that he now “believes” in the dream world created by Mercedes’ performance. But instead, Kurt calls out the lie of the musical, telling Mercedes, “Your voice is stunning but I don’t believe in God.”

This scene thus pulls the audience into the dream world only to abruptly force us back out of it again. As Sue Sylvester notes, in a brutally honest argument for the case of atheism, “Asking someone to believe in a fantasy, however comforting, is an amoral thing to do.” Mercedes may have a beautiful voice, but Kurt should nevertheless be prepared for the possibility that his father will die.

Even Rachel’s schmaltzy version of “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” worked in this regard. The scene begins with Finn and Rachel sitting in the park at night. When Finn asks why they are outside, Rachel explains “Because I don’t want anything coming between us and God. And because Yentl was outside when she sang this song in the movie.” So while Rachel’s song is a musical prayer for Kurt’s father, it is also very much about Rachel’s desire to perform. The scene transitions from the dark outdoors to the bright interior of a hospital room, where we find Rachel singing to Kurt’s comatose father. Rachel’s passionate performance effectively transports the viewer into the dream world of song and faith. However, we are abruptly returned to reality when Rachel concludes her emotional song with“Who’s next?”

While I am prone to criticizing Glee, I think this episode worked as both an example of the musical’s primary theme—dream world versus real world—and as its critique. Yes, it is unrealistic that Kurt’s father wakes up from his coma at the conclusion of the episode. But the deus ex machina is not faith in God, but rather Kurt’s faith in his father.  The episode seems to be equating the former with fantasy and the latter with reality. And it’s hard to get too wrapped up in the dream world of the final number, “What If God Was One of Us,” when it is intercut with Finn contemplating, and then eating, his Grilled Cheesus.

Though his behavior is rude, Sonny’s frustration with the tourists’ pitying gaze is understandable. In the months following Katrina the complexities of the spiraling disaster were overly simplified. As David Simon puts it, the Lower Ninth Ward became “symbolic of the whole city.” Nevertheless, Sonny makes his living primarily by capitalizing on the sentiments of tourists who are looking to hear something “authentic.” Sonny resents the tourists’ simplified view of his city but he caters to it as well.

I cite this scene because the cast members of the latest edition of The Real World, also set in New Orleans, is a lot like that group of Wisconsin tourist-volunteers: naive outsiders with seemingly good intentions. According to The Real World executive producer Jon Murray, the group will be tasked with rebuilding homes during their stay in the Big Easy because “we’re hoping our cast members and the series can play a small role in the city’s rebirth.” Helping others is noble but make no mistake: these kids are in New Orleans to help themselves. More specifically, they are there for the “journey”—a term Real World cast members have historically used to refer to the combined experiences of getting drunk, learning not make racial/ethnic/sexist/homophobic slurs (at least not while on camera), and breaking up with the significant others they left at home. Thus far New Orleans appears in the series as the colorful backdrop for the casts’ bacchanal undertakings.

MTV’s vision of contemporary New Orleans is best exemplified by the décor of the Real World mansion, which is filled kitschy signifiers of its home city: seafood, feathers, brass instruments, and lots and lots of Mardi Gras beads. And when a cast member accidentally (or not so accidentally) reveals a breast or rear end to the camera, the forbidden body part is blocked out with a tiny purple and green Mardi Gras mask. This final touch would probably induce Sonny to commit seppuku.

But me? I’m not so bothered by all of this touristy-ness. In fact, Treme’s “authentic” vision of the city and the Real World’s seemingly inauthentic one serve as useful counterpoints on the contemporary televisual image of New Orleans. David Simon’s series is mournful and nostalgic, a scarred landscape of restaurants that can’t stay afloat, potholes that don’t get fixed, and bodies that don’t get buried. By contrast, MTV is showcasing a New Orleans that is tentatively getting back on its feet, a city ripe for tourists who want drunken nights on Bourbon Street, live music, and women who will bare their breasts for trinkets. Sonny might not approve of MTV’s version of New Orleans, but beloved New Orleans trumpeter Kermit Ruffins clearly does—he pops up several times during the season premiere.

Furthermore, since filming of the series wrapped in April, just before the devastating Gulf oil spill, this season of The Real World depicts a New Orleans frozen in time, wholly unaware of the disaster about to be unleashed on its shores. After watching a sobering series like Treme this winter, followed by the devastating coverage of the oil spill throughout the spring, it’s comforting to spend the summer with this tourist’s vision of New Orleans: where the beignets are hot, the Mardi Gras beads are flying, and everyone is dancing, happily, to “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Let’s begin with The Good: I loved Finn and Puck’s rendition of Beck’s “Loser,” sung in the aisles of Sheets n’ Things because it cameclose to my definition of a true integrated musical number, that is, a song and dance number that arises seamlessly out of the diegesis, expressing character emotions and furthering the plot. Indeed, the tone of Beck’s slacker anthem perfectly expressed the ennui, the funk, if you will, of a dead end job. And the workers’ robotic movements—sweeping, stacking, and folding in time to the beat—were a classic example of non-choreography. “Loser” moved effortlessly from reality to fantasy and back again—something that most numbers on Glee fail to achieve. And while I don’t think Quinn had the vocal chops to tackle James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” (very few singers do), I was nevertheless moved by her passion. If anything can illustrate how we are all still living in a “man’s world,” it is a line of sorrowful, pregnant, teenage girl’s. Funky? No. Poignant? Yes.

The Bad: “Funk” was peppered with moments that were intended to be “edgy” but just came off as offensive. When, for example, Terry catches Puck playing air guitar in the middle of Sheets n’ Things, she snipes, “I thought Jews were supposed to be smart.” This joke might have worked if Puck’s Jewish identity had been highlighted earlier in the episode or if he had actually been doing something stupid at the time. But without these elements in place, the comment is out of place, offensive, and worst of all, not very funny.

The Funky: Early in the episode Mercedes scoffs at the idea of white people being “funky” and Finn seemed determined to prove her right; I noticed that the camera kept cutting away from his dance moves during “Good Vibrations,” as if it were embarrassed to watch for too long. However, Will’s sultry performance of “Tell Me Something Good” (and the close-ups on his tight rear end) was reminiscent of George Michael (and I mean that in a good way). Also bringing the funk was Brittany, whose dancing is so much better than her castmates’ that it can become distracting in group numbers. During “We Got the Funk” I found that I kept searching for her in the crowd, waiting for her next solo. But we should expect this from the dancer who toured with Beyoncé.

Ultimately, “Funk” exemplified everything I’ve come to expect from Glee: a confusing mix of rousing musical performances and out of place racist/sexist/heterosexist jokes — a perfect mix of the good, the bad and, thanks to Will and Brittany, the funky.

This illusion of anonymity was rigorously maintained for the first five seasons of the series. But by season six it became clear that something had changed. For example, in the first few minutes of the season six premiere, “Put on a Happy Face,” a defeated-looking Stephanie Pratt sits down for lunch with Lauren “Lo” Bosworth and launches into a frank discussion about her time in a rehab facility. She concludes, ”I’m only 23 and I’ve been to jail twice? I mean, that’s not normal.” Later in that same episode, Heidi Montag, still physically and emotionally fragile from her ten plastic surgery procedures, flies to Colorado to visit her mother, Darlene Egelhoff. Upon seeing her daughter’s altered visage for the first time, with its artificially raised brows and swollen lips, Darlene begins to cry. “No one in the world could have looked like Heidi Montag,” her mother tells her, clearly mourning the loss of the daughter she once knew. In these two scenes, the extradiegetic world has penetrated the formerly impermeable borders of The Hills’ diegetic world — cast members are admitting to mistakes they made outside of the world of the show and crying real tears.

In the past I would have been cynical about these “confessions” and “emotions.” After all, Spencer Pratt has stated in interviews that his job is to perform the role of “Spencer,” referring to himself and Heidi as “improv TV personalities.” But it appears that in season six the world inside The Hills has effectively merged with the world outside The Hills. This is not to say that the show is no longer scripted, but its narrative has clearly shifted. The Hills has become, as DiSanto feared it would, a show about what it’s like being the stars of The Hills. Being “a star of The Hills” means: drinking too much, investing thousands of dollars in healing crystals, and disfiguring your body as a ploy to stay in the tabloid spotlight.

Indeed, the most tragic story of the season is Heidi, the poster child for the potentially deleterious effects of the reality TV machine. Since embarking on her love affair with Spencer Pratt, Heidi has been the willing pawn in a series of bizarre publicity stunts, ranging from earnest, poorly choreographed music videos to fake marriages to extreme plastic surgery. The latter has provided Heidi (and by extension, Spencer), with several tabloid covers and is by far one of the most compelling story lines in the current season of The Hills. Heidi has become a kind of reality TV Frankenstein’s monster: an uncanny hodgepodge of cartoonish female body parts stitched together for the benefit of the show’s probing cameras. As Anne Petersen puts it in a recent blog post, “the ideological work of celebrity is physically mapped on [Heidi’s] body in the form of plastic surgery so drastic that it has made her back bow.”

Thus, in its final season The Hills has morphed into a treatise on the “reality” of reality TV “stardom,” a reality crafted by the rewards and labors of a life of constant surveillance and confession. I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that this season can also serve as an allegory of the current cultural moment—in which we are starting to take stock of the high costs of self-exposure. For this jaded fan, The Hills is once again must-see TV.