Monday, March 12, 2012

Suburbs of Our Discontent

Um, I Don't Get It?



Some people assume that Shakespeare professors are just big ol' culture snobs in general, which is not at all true. I love Stephen King and all things horror-genre. Caroline loves all things reality t.v. Just to name a couple examples of our high/middle/low mash-up of tastes.

But even I was stunned at how alienating the "high culture" modern dance documentary Pina felt to me this weekend. I mean, I've always felt clueless about la danse, but this was like, well, just so out there. I went with two other over-educated people to see the film, and all three of us spent the two (felt like ten) hours exchanging perplexed looks and snickering at the dancers' weird costumes and their sado-masochistic-themed choreography. Sometimes our eyes just rolled backwards and we nodded off for a little while, which didn't matter at all because the movie was so freakin' long!

And the whole time, I'm thinking, Why? Why are these young men and women writhing around in dirt and water? What does it mean? Why is that man dropping that woman over and over again in a room filled with chairs in a dance piece with the very silly name "Cafe Mueller"? Not for one second did I grasp the artistic meaning of anything that was happening. And it's done by that Wim Wenders guy, too! I totally loved Wings of Desire!

Compared to "Cafe Mueller," Hamlet is like Law and Order, just the regular one, not even SVU or anything. I'm serious.

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