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Crap Culture
Oct. 31st, 2008 09:14 amI deleted my previous entry because I wasn't happy with it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sick with myself for dipping into the latest celebrity car crash - especially in such a cynical way. I don't read Heat magazine and I have no intentions of starting now. And to make matters worse, I went to a screening + Q&A last night with Kenneth Anger that was incredibly shambolic, sad... depressing. It left me feeling nauseous. I've been feeling cold for days...
I don't know much about Kenneth Anger except that he is known for some cult films. It seems to me that last night's organisers, Shunt, made him and the paying public a diservice. The whole thing was badly organised, people pushed and shoved as if they were trying to get inside an airplane, I had a seat obstructed by a column (and I was one of the lucky few that found a seat), there were tons of problems with the video and sound, and then an old pile of tosh got applauded because it was Kenneth Anger. To me, we were all there because we wanted something different, something exciting, something beyond Hollywood, TV - something queer - and it just was impossible for those expectations to be met. That's a very depressing realization for this day and age... What we got were video clips that in any other context, by any other person, would have been jeered and thrown out with the garbage. In fact, some people did jeer his found footage of Nazi youths (who reminded me of American summer camps and Guess models). I'm guessing they were the few jews in the audience. But, again, I feel unsure about this judgement because my nausea last night made me feel incapable of trusting my opinion. Kevin says it was a very bad first impression.
I don't know much about Kenneth Anger except that he is known for some cult films. It seems to me that last night's organisers, Shunt, made him and the paying public a diservice. The whole thing was badly organised, people pushed and shoved as if they were trying to get inside an airplane, I had a seat obstructed by a column (and I was one of the lucky few that found a seat), there were tons of problems with the video and sound, and then an old pile of tosh got applauded because it was Kenneth Anger. To me, we were all there because we wanted something different, something exciting, something beyond Hollywood, TV - something queer - and it just was impossible for those expectations to be met. That's a very depressing realization for this day and age... What we got were video clips that in any other context, by any other person, would have been jeered and thrown out with the garbage. In fact, some people did jeer his found footage of Nazi youths (who reminded me of American summer camps and Guess models). I'm guessing they were the few jews in the audience. But, again, I feel unsure about this judgement because my nausea last night made me feel incapable of trusting my opinion. Kevin says it was a very bad first impression.
