Oscar Round-up

As every movie-related article will tell you, it's a weird year for the Oscars. Release dates were delayed, which has probably contributed to what is probably a weaker crop of films than usual. Weirder still, most of us haven't been to a movie theater in over a year. I think the last film I saw in theaters before the pandemic was 1917, which would have been in January of 2020 (and would have been as good a theater experience as any to tide me over for a while). Usually, I try hard to see as many of the Best Picture nominees as possible. Last year, I saw all but one. (Ford vs. Ferrari, which I rented shortly after the ceremony. It was fine.) This year I missed three, which was a bummer. As much as I prioritize seeing as many of these films as possible, I am not, as a matter of principle, willing to pay $20 on a rental.  The good news is that more nominees than ever are available on streaming, including non-English Language films and documentaries, so I ended up watching plenty.

I missed Minari, Judas and the Black Messiah, and The Father. Here are the other five, in the order I enjoyed them. Spoilers for all, of course!

5 - Mank

Here's a movie that relied too much on the audience's appreciation for another movie. I can't imagine really enjoying Mank, or even "getting" it, without having intimate familiarity with Citizen Kane. Heck, I've seen Citizen Kane a bunch of times, outside of a few moments of pride in feeling like I got the Easter Egg (the broken bottle to echo a broken snow globe, etc.), I was left cold. The dialogue was witty but so stylized it was hard for me to empathize with Mank, et al as real people. Clearly, this is a well-made film and between its black and white moodiness and its history of Old Hollywood, I'm not not surprised critics went nuts for it. Didn't do it for me, although bonus points for Bill Nye the Science Guy as Upton Sinclair, a truly inspired and deeply weird piece of casting.

4 - Nomadland

If Nomadland wins Best Picture - and I think it's the favorite - it will quite possibly be the Best Picture I've enjoyed least. Ever. It's not like I don't get it: Frances McDormand is a national treasure, the cinematography was brilliant, the politics are subtle but timely. But it was slow and meandering, and had only the bare bones of a plot. The character wasn't uninteresting. She's dealing so much grief - for a husband, but also for a town, a job, a way of life - and I wanted to see her find happiness, and end up with David Strathairn, even though I had a feeling it wasn't going to happen. But I felt like the movie was more interested in nomad culture itself than in Fern's character, and to me, the interest felt misplaced.

3 - Trial of the Chicago Seven

There's a big divide between #3 (a movie I liked) and #4 (a movie I didn't). This was a lot of fun. A fascinating moment in history, with obvious resonance for our own time. A quick, witty script by Aaron Sorkin, (still) at the top of his game. A whole bunch of excellent character actors having a good time together. A lot of the credit has rightly gone to Sasha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne, as Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden, respectively, who represent two opposing ideologies even though they're on the same side. (Their argument before the end of the trial is one of the film's best scenes.) And how about Frank Langella in the totally thankless roll of Judge Julius Hoffman?

2 - A Promising Young Woman

This is the kind of superhero movie I can go for: one in which the heroine uses her wits to put every entitled, douche-y guy in his place. Take that, McLovin'! Like many superheroes, Cassandra has a tragic backstory, but the movie's greatest strength is its tone, which is full of energy, dark humor, against a backdrop of righteous anger. It's a great revenge story, and its twist ending feels earned. The problem for me is (SPOILER ALERT) the reveal that Ryan witnessed, and failed to intervene in the rape of Cassie's best friend. It's a gut punch, that left just feeling sad and kind of gross. Would it have killed the film's creators to depict one token example of non-toxic masculinity? Would the movie have really suffered for it? I get that to some, this kind of criticism seems based in my own male fragility. Maybe it is. Still, in the past year I've watched a bunch of films that deal with #MeToo-related issues: this one, The Assistant, and Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, as well as the limited Netflix series Unbelievable. I liked all of them! I'm down with believing women! I think harassment and assault happen all too frequently and need to be stopped! But I mean... I also think a lot of guys are pretty decent. Or at least more than these movies seem to suggest.

1 - Sound of Metal

The synopsis sounds like standard tearjerker stuff: Musician has to cope with loss of hearing. What's amazing is that this film never felt overly melodramatic or manipulative. (And at several moments, it made me a little misty.) I think part of what works is Ruben's character: he's not especially kind of pleasant. He can be prone to outbursts. Basically, he's a human being instead of some sort of tragic angel, and  Riz Ahmed (who is awesome, by the way) makes us relate to his suffering, even when Ruben is being a bit of a jerk. Paul Raci's deaf guru provides a great counterbalance. The final sequence, set in Paris, is strange and poignant. And of course the sound design just makes the movie. Is it Best Picture material? All I know is it's a good one.

A few more nominated movies I saw:

Another Round (Best International Feature)

Diverting comedy-drama about four high school teachers in Denmark who start turning up to work buzzed. (Because what could possibly go wrong?) Every time Mads Mikkelsen is on  screen, I kind of can't look away. It has some sweet, funny, human moments (as well as some insights into Danish culture), but I didn't find it especially weighty.

Collectiv (Best International Feature and Best Documentary)

I wouldn't have believe that this year's best documentary is about the illegal dilution of cleaning supplies in Romanian hospitals, but here we are. Collectiv is like the Romanian answer to Spotlight, a movie in which you spent two hours rooting for intrepid reporters to expose a corrupt system. Those clips of the nightclub fire are totally horrifying.

My Octopus Teacher (Best Documentary)

It's one of the oldest stories: man meets octopus, man films octopus, man waxes poetic about his place in the universe. Seriously, it's a pretty incredible story, and the relationship between man and octopus is probably as close as we can hope to get to the nonfiction version of ET.

Crip Camp (Best Documentary)

It starts out as kind of a nostalgic reminiscence of Camp Jened, a summer camp that, during the 1970s, provided disabled kids with a safe space and way to find their voice. Many of the campers would one day establish themselves as important voices in the Disabled Rights Movement, which culminated with the twenty-five-day occupation of a San Francisco federal building. Crip Camp presents this relatively obscure chapter of recent history in an engaging and personal way. The title, which suggests gangs more than disabled right advocates, is the worst thing about it.

Life (Best Documentary)

An African-American wife raises three sons while her husband/their father serves time in prison. The combination of home movies and original footage is really affecting here. The film's main focus is the strength of the mother, who does seem like a total badass, and the human cost of having a father in prison. I get that the crime (armed robbery of a credit union) wasn't really the point. But... I wanted more about the crime and the ensuing punishment. The film seemed to take it as a foregone conclusion that the sentence (sixty years, I think) was longer than the crime warranted. And I'm prepared to believe that was the case. But why not spend at least a little proving it?

It's more important to actually read MLK than ever before.

I confess I haven’t always “observed” Martin Luther King Day, at least not in the true sense of the word. Sure, I’ve always enjoyed the day off from work, but my observance pretty much ends there. (The date is often the same as my mom’s birthday too, which only makes it more likely to be overshadowed.) Don’t get me wrong: I’ve always been as pro-MLK as the next guy. It’s just that, until recently, I hadn’t thought about him much.

There are two main reasons for my neglecting him. The first one is that I’m white, and white privilege affords me the choice not to think much about MLK or Civil Rights or anything race-related if I don’t want to.

The second is that years of annual school assemblies celebrating King’s life and legacy have essentially left me numb. In thirteen years as a student (pre-college) and fifteen more as a teacher, I’ve attended a lot of them. They’re always earnest and well-meaning, and bland. They always include something about MLK’s having had a dream and a reference to his famous line about judging people by the content of their character, instead of the color of their skin. They always steer clear of any whiff of controversy, which makes sense since their audience is comprised of students no older than eighteen.

I don’t want to criticize the convention of the MLK assembly, which schoolteachers put together in good faith and with the best of intentions. But all too often, their net effect is to reduce King to a cardboard cutout: a saintly figure preaching banalities about loving one’s fellow man.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot more to him. It wasn’t until relatively recently that I learned King was targeted by the FBI. (A documentary on the subject is now streaming on Amazon Prime.) I haven’t seen it yet, but I have read Why We Can’t Wait, his 1964 book, which amounts to a manifesto about Civil Rights, and shows him as a charismatic leader, and a true intellectual, not to mention a clear and forceful writer. I’ve taught “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to my AP Lang students several times. Addressing the eight clergymen in Birmingham who claimed to be sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement despite praising police response to demonstrations, and criticizing King’s tactics as “unwise and untimely,” he politely but firmly defends both his cause and its timing. It’s the centerpiece of Why We Can’t Wait, and it also happens to be a masterclass in rhetorical writing. I’ve also read Malcolm Gladwell’s chapter on King from his book David and Goliath, which paints him, as well as his compatriot Reverend Wyatt Walker, as a shrewd and cunning trickster who outwitted Birmingham’s racist Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor.

There’s a danger in remembering King as a caricature, rather than a flesh-and-blood human being. When we reduce him to a handful of famous soundbites, his words can be manipulated and taken out of context to support causes he would obviously have opposed. In recent years, and especially in 2020, I’ve seen critics of Black Lives Matter practically weaponize King’s words, especially the line we all learned back in school: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

These critics’ perverse logic goes like this: Because King wanted individuals to be judged on character over skin color, we should stop paying so much attention to race. The more conversations we have on race, the more we exacerbate the problem. The best course of action (I guess?) is to leave the problem alone and it will naturally fix itself. (Just watch this guy in the white t-shirt try this argument in a sit-down between advocates of police and BLM. And then watch the woman in gray succinctly shut him down: “Martin Luther King would be down for Black Lives Matter.”)

This line of thinking is of course ridiculous. And the notion that King would have supported this nonsense is even more ridiculous. The central idea of Why We Can’t Wait is that America’s problems with race will not take care of themselves. Proactivity, not passivity, will lead to change.

Still, this intellectually dishonest misinterpretation of MLK persists. King himself has become a talisman for right wingers: as long as he is on their side, they are protected from charges of racism. Even if the King they invoke is really some bizarre funhouse mirror version of King who never existed.

In this moment of extreme political rancor, teaching MLK is potentially more challenging than ever – and also more important. If we are going to celebrate the man, we ought to study him so we know who we’re celebrating, and so we can clear up once and for all what he would and wouldn’t have stood for.

The Hate U Give - If not now, when?

For those who have never read The Hate U Give, it's a 2017 novel by Angie Thomas about a black teenage girl, Starr Carter, who witnesses the death of her friend Khalil at the hands of the police. The central incident bears of course more than a passing resemblance to the real-life cases of Philando Castile, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and many others. In the novel, Starr must deal with the aftermath of her friend's death while simultaneously navigating between her home community, the black working-class neighborhood of Garden Heights, and her predominantly white private school, located a thirty-minute drive away.

Most of my students agree that it's a good book, and a decent movie. All agree that it's one of the most memorable books we read in ninth grade English.

This will be my third year teaching The Hate U Give, and I think it's more important and timely now than ever before. The novel does what all fiction does best: it allows readers to see the world through the eyes of a character whose experience is different from their own. In doing so, it offers a new perspective, while (I hope) helping to foster empathy. For every student, Starr Carter's story will feel at least somewhat familiar. She attends a predominantly white private high school, and her pop culture frame of reference (Beyonce, LeBron James, Fresh Prince of Bel Air) is similar to that of our students. For many black students in particular , this novel is bound to strike close to the bone, especially in its depictions of the code-switching Starr needs to do in order to get by in both the affluent, mostly white world of her school and her all-black, working class neighborhood, Garden Heights. "This is exactly like my life," one of my ninth graders told me last year. At the risk of generalizing, the novel tends to broaden the perspective of my white students, while validating the experience of my black students.

Of course, tension between police and African-American communities lies at the center of the novel. Many of our students don't think much about political or social issues. To some, Black Lives Matter is only an abstract concept, if it's even on their minds at all. This novel gives the idea a human face. I know that since I've read it, I haven't been able to think about Black Lives Matter, or about any of the all-too-frequent police-related tragedies, without thinking of the Starr Carters of the world. 

To be sure, teaching this book has also presented its challenges. Although from my perspective the book does not vilify law enforcement at large - Starr's beloved Uncle Carlos is a policeman - some students have complained that it has an anti-police agenda. Two years ago, a student voiced that he thought it was propaganda. In discussions, I try to take a neutral tone when appropriate, a challenge in and of itself because I believe so strongly in Thomas's message, while pushing back against comments more insensitive or demeaning than political. I also attempt to stress that neither the author nor I are trying to "brainwash" anyone. Like any author, Thomas has an agenda, which readers are free to accept or disregard as they see fit. In teaching her book, my goal is not to indoctrinate, but to broaden my students' view of the world.

In the past, I have also presented - without comment - a conservative takedown of the novel, which appeared in the New York Post. For the record, I think it's total bullshit but I try not to tip my hand, instead allowing students to react to for themselves. It's fun to read their righteously indignant responses: they're allowed to say everything I wish I could.

At the same time, it's important not to attack students who question or challenge some part of this book's message. A couple years ago, a conflict arose in my class when a student rightly took exception to being called a racist by one of his peers after he asked an innocent question that had been misinterpreted. (The three of us talked about the incident outside of class, and it ended up a good teachable moment.) 

It's always risky to expose students to such sensitive subject matter. There might be hurt feelings, and tense moments in the classroom. To me, it’s all worth it. In the current climate, it’s more important than ever to examine our attitudes, which sometimes means reading texts that make us uncomfortable. 

Kiddie TV #1

Lately, Maya and I have been watching a lot of shows geared towards kids. There's kind of no way around it, especially these days when we're all spending so much time at home. If I happen to be in the room while my kids are watching tv, I'll usually pay a minimal amount of my attention to what's on. But that's often enough to form a general impression, and sometimes some pretty strong opinions.

Some quick reviews:

Fireman Sam

My kids are really into this one right now. They're apparently not the only ones: it's run for 12 seasons, albeit intermittently and in different iterations, over the span of four decades. It came out in 1987, when it used stop-motion animation. Maybe there's a nostalgia factor for parents who are my age and might have grown up on it. I don't know. All I can tell you is that in it's current form, it totally sucks. The animation is generic and charmless. But the absolute deal-breaker is the voice acting, which is so exaggerated that it renders the show basically unwatchable. I can't even comment on any other aspect of the show because I haven't gotten past those voices. The only semi-bright spot is that there's a character named Elivs Cridlington, which is a cool name.

1 out of 5 stars

Octonauts

We're just coming out of a major Octonauts phase. My kids absently sing the theme song to themselves during the day. Every submarine they see is the Octopod. Every penguin is called Peso. I get the appeal: it's a fun show. The voices are great (are you listening, Fireman Sam??), with every new underwater creature using a different type of accent from the English-speaking world. It teaches kids about about underwater life without getting too wonky about it. And my kids have retained most of it, too. My son told me about the crown-of-thorns starfish, which is a menace to the coral reef. And my daughter used the phrase "marine mucilage" (!?) in its proper context. My only gripe: it's subtly sexist. The three lead characters, the only three who are named specifically in the intro, are all male. Since every character in the show is practically interchangeable, would it have been that hard to make one of the leads female? I know my daughter would have appreciated it. As a consolation, she's latched on to Peso, the penguin medic who is easily the most endearing of the bunch.

4 out of 5

Daniel Tiger

At the age of four, my kids have basically outgrown it now, but it served as a great introduction to tv. It's a sweet show, full of moments that are relatable for toddlers (nervousness about being left with a babysitter, trying new foods, etc.). The jingles are kind of catchy, and because they are sung approximately 67 times over the course of a twenty minute episode, they are quick to stick in my head. Like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, the show that spawned it, it's an incredibly well-meaning show, that's also a little too earnest and saccharine at times. Not that my kids have ever complained. I get that I'm not the target audience, but there are definitely shows I enjoy more.

4 out of 5

Bread Barber Shop

We've only actually seen a few episodes of this show, but it's notable for its incredibly odd premise. Here's the premise, as described by Netflix: "Bread is a master cake decorator who gives life-changing makeovers to his customers." I'd add that the title character is a slice of white bread and that many of his customers are donuts, to whom he gives the works: glazing, frosting, sprinkles, etc. We watched it once, and then I told my kids it was too weird, and turned it off. They didn't protest, although once in a while my son will ask me, apropos of nothing, "Why is Bread Barber Shop weird?"

2 out of 5

Puffin Rock

This quiet, peaceful show about puffins and other animals who live in a remote island off the Irish coast has been in the regular rotation for almost a year. The animation are charming, the characters are cute and pleasant, the stories are full of information about animal behavior and climate, and it's narrated by the delightful Chris O'Dowd. It's a little formulaic ("Another lovely day on Puffin Rock"), but who cares? #ShrewCrew4Life

5 out of 5

A Paper I Wrote Got Slammed by Some Florida Professors Whom I've Never Met

This has been on my mind for a while and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

From time to time, I like to Google the handful of articles I've written, especially the ones that have appeared in academic journals. I've published two such papers, one about Cormac McCarthy and Shakespeare and one about motif of cake (yes, cake) in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre.

My searches don't tend to yield anything earth-shattering, but once in a while I'll find something. As far as I can tell, my work has been cited three times:

1 - A Master's candidate named Amy Wilson, from Georgia State University, cited my cake paper, which is so awesome and flattering. Her work is impressive: it really resembles a doctoral thesis more than anything I wrote for in my Master's program. I hope her professors liked it enough to give her that Master's.

2 - Professor Stacey Peebles from Centre College in Kentucky, cited a paper I wrote for The Cormac McCarthy Journal in an essay from her book Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, and Screen. She is the editor of the journal, and one of the foremost experts on McCarthy. I was honored enough that she accepted my article to her journal, and just so pleasantly surprised when I found that she had cited it in her own work. Truthfully, I haven't read the whole book, and I doubt I ever will. Doesn't matter. It's still awesome.

3 - And then there's the third citation. About a year ago, I happened to come across a paper prepared by three professors from University of Central Florida that cited my cake paper rather heavily. The paper had more to do with pedagogy than with literature. Specifically, the professors talk about teaching their students to distinguish between good sources and bad ones, using sample essays from academic journals. Its title is "The Prestigious and the Predatory: Helping Online Students Navigate Open Education Sources in a World of 'Fake News.'"

It will come as no surprise to you, given my less than enthusiastic tone, that my own paper is featured in this article as one of the bad ones. Yes, these three professors combed through academic journals for an article that represented a perfect example of what not to do, and they landed on my humble paper "Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre" featured in an online journal called The Victorian. 

Here's a direct quote from professors Hohenleitner, Campbell, and Raible:

Their final essay, which is read in conjunction with Donaldson’s, is “Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre” by Alexander Barron. Also an Open Education Source from a journal called The Victorian, this article is generally easier for the students to read critically. Some get very excited about the idea of cake because it’s accessible, but Barron’s argument is a bit circuitous and doesn’t really prove anything profound about the reading of either text. They are quick to identify his gmail address; some even question the validity of Breadloaf College of English (which actually is a legitimate organization associated with Middlebury College). One student even went so far as to critique his “gratuitous quoting of plot summary” which really made me proud. Unfortunately, she was the exception.

Oof. Where to begin? My first instinct was defensiveness. I even started to draft a response before realizing that there was no way to respond without sounding defensive. That I never ended up sharing my thoughts in e-mail form is probably for the best. Anyway, that's what the blog is for.

I wrote the paper for a class I took in summer of 2013: the Victorian Novel, with Professor Isobel Armstrong. (She was hands down my favorite Bread Loaf professor, and this was one of two classes I took with her.) Most papers are written by PhDs well versed in their specialty areas. When I wrote this one, I was a Master's candidate who had just read Jane Eyre for the first time that very summer. So if my work seems a little elementary in comparison to some other published essays, there's a reason for that.

The main topic (cake) is admittedly quirky. And my writing style is, for better or worse, simpler than what you'd find in most comparable articles, which makes it "accessible" at best and hard to take seriously, at worst. In the world of academic writing, "accessible" is sometimes code for "frivolous," as though in order to be worthy of serious attention and respect, one's writing must be as obtuse and impenetrable as possible. This position is total bullshit, and it certainly shouldn't be advanced by anyone who teaches writing, but the professors in this article aren't the only academics who perpetuate it. (And for what it's worth, the voice in "The Prestigious and the Predatory" is pretty lucid.)

Of all the many charges levied against my paper in this paragraph, I'm most willing to admit that it "doesn't really prove anything profound." It deals with what I thought was a cool detail about Victorian culture. Not profound, I guess, but I have to wonder whether or not my point is really any less profound than the central points of similar academic papers.

Is my argument circuitous? I mean, obviously I didn't think so, but I'd be willing to hear you out if you told me it was.

The accusation of "gratuitous quoting of plot summary," rankles me since it's something I caution my own students against. I think I provided necessary context in my paper, rather than gratuitous summary. That unnamed student and I will have to agree to disagree.

The most laughable point here is the insinuation that Bread Loaf is some sort of obscure, phony, or non-accredited school. Both the Masters' program and the annual literature conference are famous in academic circles. For God's sake, Robert Frost taught and worked at Bread Loaf for like fifty years. Besides, does the University of Central Florida really want to be throwing shade at other Master's Programs in English? #SorryNotSorry

I can't fault undergrads for not having heard of the program, but you'd think their professors might know better. The revelation that the school is "actually legitimate" is such a lame concession, as though a professor had to hastily Google this improbably-named school just to confirm its existence.

See?? It's a real thing!

The author continues, "I want to be clear that I don’t intend to dismiss the work of a critic like Barron categorically" (How charitable!), before finally dismissing my work as a "random discussion of one image in two novels," which, I guess if you're comparing to another paper written by a feminist critic that clearly fits into the larger context of Feminist readings of Victorian Literature, then yeah, mine is going to seem kind of random.

She also talks about the merits of face-to-face class time with students, rather than using online discussion boards. That way, she can slam my article in real time. She writes, "Online, sometimes someone has already posted a full endorsement of the intellectual profundity of the cake article before I or other students have the chance to rebut it, and then I never know for sure if that student will ever revisit the board to read the continued conversation." Yes, it would be a shame if some student actually saw the merit in my argument before the professor had a chance to set the record straight about its actual worthlessness.

How am I supposed to feel about all of this? On the one hand, the old "No press is bad press" axiom might be applicable. I'm flattered to know my little paper is even being discussed. When I publish these things, I assume no one outside my immediate family will ever read them, so I'm kind of tickled to know that some kids in Central Florida have not only read this paper but have opinions about it.

Then again, these professors completely tore my paper apart, and apparently encouraged their students to do the same. I'm not adverse to constructive criticism, and in fact I don't even necessarily disagree with some of the charges levied against my paper. But damn, that stings.

The title, "The Prestigious and the Predatory" seems to cast me in the role of predator, which is a laugh. If anything, I feel like I've just been eaten alive. Better than being left on the shelf to spoil, I guess.

A message to the three distinguished professors from UCF.

What a Week for Drew Brees

This may be an unpopular opinion, and I'm not even sure it's my place to say this, but I accept Drew Brees' apology.

The entire country is reeling from another completely avoidable death of a black person at the hands of the police. And this is the moment he chose to trot out the old tired argument about disagreeing with those who "disrespect the flag." It was especially bad timing for this type of rhetoric (not that there's ever really a good time), and he was justly criticized for it.

And then he apologized on Instagram. He called his previous remarks "insensitive" (they were) and said they "completely missed the mark" (they did). He wrote in his post that his comments, "lacked awareness and any type of compassion of empathy," which is absolutely true. He literally said the words, "I would like to apologize," and "I am very sorry," which many feel is a necessity for a sincere apology.

Inevitably, some people will question his sincerity or claim that he's sorry about the backlash more than the actual sentiment of his original remarks. But I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. To me, the whole purpose of advocating for Black Lives Matter is to change people's minds, often by asking them to recognize their privilege. We hope that in so doing, they'll reflect on their attitudes towards others and come out with more empathy. Isn't that kind of reflection exactly what Brees is doing in his statement? And if you don't think it is, then what exactly are you looking for?

I'm glad Mr. Brees took the time to think about what he had said and why it upset people. A lot of people would have callously dismissed their critics as a bunch of snowflakes or "cowards and Marxists," in the words of former NFLer Burgess Owens. (Eye roll.) Well done, Mr. Brees.

And now on with the fight!

And by the way, he knelt for the anthem along with his teammates.

We Shall Never Surrender

ASSIGNMENT

Part 1

Select an excerpt from a speech on the "Great Speeches" website and commit it to memory. Record yourself performing the excerpt, upload the performance to Youtube and post the link in the submission box below.

Obviously, you are performing this excerpt from the comfort of your own home, which means I can't be absolutely sure you've committed the whole thing to memory. That's alright. If you'd like, you may use note cards or a teleprompter (if you have one?), but do not just read. In fact, if you are reading - even just notes - you need to disguise this fact. Your delivery needs to sound natural. You are performing - not simply reciting and not reading. That means dress up a little (as in, please don't just wear your sweats for this), find an appropriately dignified spot in your house, and put a little energy into it.

PS - The list I've provided, "35 Greatest Speeches in History," is rather sexist. It doesn't include a single speech by a woman, so take the "greatest" claim with a huge grain of salt. That said, the site is called "Art of Manliness," so I guess the omission of women isn't all that surprising, and to be fair, the list does include some wonderful speeches.

Part 2

Write a rhetorical analysis of the speech you recited (min. 500 words). You may use first person and maintain a fairly informal tone, but you must talk about how the speaker uses rhetorical strategies and devices in order to persuade his audience. See my own example. You can find it on my blog: "We Shall Never Surrender.")

Post the rhetorical analysis on your blog, along with a link to the recording of your speech on YouTube.

______________________________________________________________________


Here's my attempt:


Winston Churchill's "We Shall Never Surrender" Speech

June 4, 1940; House of Commons; London

Of all the speeches, why would I be so foolish as to try to do justice to this one? Churchill's speech before the House of Commons is one of the most iconic of the twentieth century. And it received a boost (even though it didn't need one) from Gary Oldman's delivery of it in the final scene of Darkest Hour, the 2016 film that won him an Oscar.

To be clear, I don't have an acting background, or the requisite English accent needed to really pull this off. But I've always want to see what it was like to deliver such an inspiring speech, in the way that someone playing Guitar Hero wants to know what it's like to play the solo to "Free Bird" in front of a packed house. Besides, it seems like such an apt speech for this moment, when we could all use a bit of inspiration. Churchill spoke these words to parliament in the face of the Blitz. It's risky to try to compare his situation to ours, but in the sense that it has brought the people together to take action for the common good, the Coronavirus might be the closest thing to the Blitz in my lifetime.

Churchill has always been respected as a great orator, and with good reason, but we ought to appreciate him for his writing as well. He was a lover of poetry, and quite literally a poet himself. (His daughter helped to collect and anthologize his original works after his death.)

With its appeals to his audience's and his shared British-ness, the speech primarily deal in ethos. By calling Britain "our island home," he galvanizes his people, who are famously proud of their geographical and cultural isolation from the rest of Europe. (The phrase may also serve as a subtle allusion to John of Gaunt's famous monologue in Richard II, which calls England "this sceptred isle.") The frequency of the word "we" - it appears a whopping thirteen times in this excerpt of just over three hundred words - only serves to reinforce a shared sense of purpose.

As verbose and poetic as he can be, Churchill clearly knows the value of a good sound bite. Long sentences are punctuated with short and powerful declarative clauses: "At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do" and "[W]e shall never surrender." Of course, the most famous part of this speech is its climactic list. The anaphora of the repeated phrase "we shall" (often, "we shall fight") works as a mantra, reminding the British of their patriotic commitment. And by calling out groups of British, who will serve their country in different ways and in different places (beaches, streets, landing grounds, fields, hills) he embraces his entire audience, and demonstrates that he values their work in all of its various forms.

The excerpt ends with strong couples of words ("subjugated and starving," "armed and guarded," "power and might," "the rescue and liberation"). The individual words in these pairs lean on each other for strength, and ultimately create an effect beautiful in its poetry and firm in its purpose.