It's getting a reaction.
This new Dickinson show on Apple TV+ is hilarious for the simple reason that it’s triggering copious amounts of white people into “This isn’t Emily Dickinson!” rants and that makes me wanna watch it more, oddly.
— Major K, MBA (@MajorKMusic) September 22, 2019
Bravo, Tim Apple...
Me, I'm going to watch it and everything else more oddly.
Posts
82 comments:
it’s triggering copious amounts of white people into “This isn’t Emily Dickinson!” rants
Wha?? I mean, do I object to the brazen racism? The petty stupidity? The nonsense that he needs white people to justify his viewing habits?
Which part of this tweet is the best example of how twitter makes us worse people?
Ok, I watched the first 45 seconds. I could see copious amounts of triggering from people who care about historical accuracy in their historical dramas and wish that if something is going to be a work of fiction, they don't pretend it's based on an actual person. That's lazy and manipulative. A cheap marketing ploy.
I don't know why, but I love that Trump has basically dubbed Tim Cook "Tim Apple".
I'm not interested in paying another monthly fee for YASS (Yet Another Streaming Service). I'm already subscribed to Netflix and Amazon Prime and I'm debating on whether or not to subscribe to the soon-to-be-realeased Disney+ service (which I gather will be $13 a month, price parity with Netflix).
Top Gun for Girls
2019 woke woman added to a 19th Century drama.
OK.
No knee-jerk attacks on Major K. Watch the trailer, think about who's getting triggered and why (or look it up) and then and only then, respond to Major K's lighthearted, amusing racial critique.
Advice from your moderator.
The challenge of "re-imagining" historical figures is that they ending up being what you want them to be rather than what they were. As entertainment it will likely capture the current moment. But in terms of its perpetual value in understanding humankind -- which is what literature has if it is literature --the re-imagining runs the risk "freezing" the lessons in the popular mind and making it resistant to a better understanding.
Seems like Emily Dickinson is getting the Hamilton treatment. But the folks that loved the real Alexander Hamilton weren't likely on the left so it was all good.
Looks like a parody, dude. A modern millennium oddly in the other room, er, I mean other century, garnering hip snickers. (That's hipsters giggling, dude, not cannibal cookies.)
Interesting to see the effort (apparently joined by Ann) to normalize being “triggered” — it’s not just a phobic or hysterical response of a snowflake to something they want suppressed, you see, it covers any criticism of or disagreement with a politically motivated show or statement.
Me, I'm going to watch it and everything else more oddly.
This made me laugh. I appreciate your unique sense of humor, Althouse.
As usual, Althouse, I don't intend to follow your link, but speaking of racial critiques, does he address that the (so Charming in True Grit 2010) half-breed Hailee Steinfeld got a white woman's role? I commend Hollywood for advancing the career of a female who is not pretty, but surely this is some kind of appropriation? Or is it the good kind?
No knee-jerk attacks on Major K. Watch the trailer, think about who's getting triggered and why (or look it up) and then and only then, respond to Major K's lighthearted, amusing racial critique.
No thanks. I'd rather have my lighthearted, amusing racial post deleted.
The Hamilton-ization of another historical figure. Yay! That ought to make the woke white folk want to watch it. (The audience it was intended for, obviously.) Major K knows it wasn't made to make people of color feel more included, but so the creators can feel more progressive about themselves. That it triggers the complaining white historical-accuracy buffs is almost enough to make Major K give it a peek. Almost... After all, who's the bigger racists here? The triggered or the panderers?
Sigh, that's dull. Might be improved with nudity.
OMGN. NNN. Triggers be damned.
Narr
Can I come back after I retch?
it’s triggering copious amounts of white people into o “This isn’t Emily Dickinson!” rants
False; it looks like one of those 8 google results might refer to this program.
For a moment I had her confused with Jane Austen -- I don't generally think of Emily Dickinson as a young person -- and I was good and pissed. Dickinson ... meh. If she were alive today, she would probably be a Commie.
According to 'Major K,' he is enjoying the series because it is triggering 'white people' into complaining about its a-historicity. Not because it is an audacious re-imagining of the life of Emily Dickinson. Not because it dramatizes how the Patriarchy stunted a genius poetesses' life and career. Not because of the lesbian make-out scene. Just because it gets up certain people's noses.
Yeah, sounds pretty typical.
I watched less than a minute. I am way past angry at people who (1) infuse 21st century attitudes into 19th century (and sometimes earlier) characters, and (2) bring up 17th and 18th and 19th and early 20th century situations as a way of trying to imply that this has anything to do with today. Live in today’s world or go kill yourself.
I doubt Emily Dickinson ever said the word "dude" in her life, much less refer to a woman that way.
OK..she calls a man "dude"..but she still would have never said that.
Watched it, couldn't find anything in the leastwise objectionable. But then I'm not well informed about Dickenson and her times. I studied her briefly in college but I've forget what I learned. What am I missing?
So, They're going to make Emily Dickinson, the New Role Model?
I'm assuming this is part of the "Let's Glorify Mental Illness" craze?
Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals...was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence.
It looks like SWPL.
Female-type SWPL.
But I think they are likely to leave out the Christianity.
Dickinson probably never wanted a career, and it seems likely that her apparently atypical neurology would have caused problems.
As for "celebrity" female authors, they were pennies a dozen in her time.
What's the problem? Wasn't Dickinson a cracker? Isnt Steinfeld a cracker? And everyone should know by now that its a requirement to have black people in places they shouldn't exist, and at least hint to lesbianism between really hot chicks and not flannel-wearing construction-types, to get anything made these days.
Men bad, gay Emily good, twerking good.
Of course, diversity breeds adversity for Apple profit. Also, an ahistorical recollection of women in American society useful for progressing the conflict between sexes. A sample that was not, is not representative. Never go full Pro-Choice. Reconcile.
Not because of the lesbian make-out scene.
Transgender, too? They are very defensive of their sociopolitical constructs ("="), which are objectively, selectively exclusive.
I read "The Life of Emily Dickinson" by Richard Sewall over two decades ago. I think any movie/television series you make about Dickinson's life is likely to be almost total fiction structured around the extant letters written by and to Dickinson. There is no other poet I would like to spend a day with than Dickinson, but I suspect that you could have spent a year with her and not gain any understanding. She is just about the biggest enigma there is in major literature.
Nobody sent me the list about what's fair game for revisionist history and what isn't...
Why does anyone care about Emily Dickinson? Honest question. Nearly all known poets are overrated. Poetry is mostly lazy, solipsistic nonsense. I've never understood it's allure for some. It's too easy and pointless. You could rearrange the sentences I just wrote, tinker with the punctuation and formatting, and boom ... someone would consider it poetry. And if I were a "marginalized" person, all the better.
I can't imagine what about Dickinson's life could possibly be interesting enough for a show.
Judging from the commercials, there isnt a single Apple+ I would want to watch without
pharmaceutical assistance.
I have read a lot of poetry over the years, but almost no American stuff. I liked The Spoon River anthology and a small bit of Walt Whitman. Poe. I don’t count Eliot as American; neither did he I think. I guess I garner poetry oddly. But Dickinson just isn’t part of my mental universe at all.
"think about who's getting triggered"
Does being triggered into laughter count?
I've literally--LITERALLY--seen this add over 200 times on Twitter. Suspicious about their angle on selling it. "No one can stop Emily!"
OK, don't care.
"I'm going to watch it and everything else more oddly."
I didn't know that was a conscious choice on your part, but have at it.
Speaking as an Emily Dickenson fan, I will avoid this show since it would probably annoy me. I doubt that any TV show would improve the experience of reading her.
I’m really hoping none of that was racist, but now I’m thinking it all was…
-Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) Edge of Seventeen
Buwaya makes an interesting observation.
Mrs Braddon
Fanny Trollope
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Louisa MAy Alcott
Most authors were men certainly but famous female authors were not rare.
Uh, oh. Plopping dear Emily into our upturned faces.
"But Dickinson just isn’t part of my mental universe at all."
It should be if you have any interest in poetry at all- she was a giant of the art form.
What I see is not "white folks being triggered." What I see is an entertainment industry, mostly made up of white people, that really, really wants Emily Dickinson, Jane Austin, and all of the Brontes (and throw in Mary Shelley) to have been mixed race woke feminists, with lots of dark skinned close friends, rather than what they were. Which was pasty white women with emotional problems.
The woke people need to learn to deal with it. Emily Dickinson is a patron saint of the sort of smart, introverted teen age white girl who goes on to become an English teacher. Dickinson represents the hopes and aspirations of those people, not "white people."
I think an ahistorical show can be fun, if intentional and brazen. It can add another dimension and be amusing, like Archer, the animated series.
Also, I'm not sure how much general interest a straight forward,historically correct series about ED would garner [think usage is correct here].
Was it not the case that when in her later years Dickinson's neuroticism significantly abated and her psychological condition changed markedly for the better, she ceased writing poetry? I seem to recall from my college English lit courses that her genius as a poetic was tied to her troubled psychology and when her mental health improved her genius dissolved.
I love Emily Dickinson's poetry and have used it many times in class and as a part of a weekly puzzle I create for the local newspaper (an anacrostic). Normally I would be glad for a movie on a poet like this but the clip showed me too much MeToo and not enough SheWas.
Poetry is important. One may not agree with me on this, but I'm not going to write up an apologia for poetry. All I'll say is, poetry is very important. And, like all art forms, good poets are a rarity, and great poets are rarer still -- which is as it should be. Emily Dickinson, to the best of my admittedly limited recollection, was one of the greats.
I had to stop watching the trailer because the modern day language with the period clothing was too jarring.
I don't remember reading about dancing like that.
Yancey
I know that’s the general idea. It’s like Verdi. I consume classical music on an industrial scale. I own thousands of CDs. But I can go years without playing Verdi or even thinking of him. I own 20 of his operas, most unheard.
I might give her a try. But I have Orlando furioso on my table to read first. And Ovid to reread. And ...
I guess I would probably watch this, but not if I have to get an Apple subscription to do it.
Hailee was good in the “Pitch Perfect” movies.
Didn't Ann warn us recently about satire when it is believed by others to be true? But doesn't a film like this, a film that has little or no historical basis, create the same danger?
She was excellent in the "True Grit remake."
Both "True Grit(s)" were terrific movies, each in its own way.
I loved the modern-day language. The modern-day attitudes are what ruins the concept, especially the oppressed-woman stuff. Spinsters were free to do as they chose, as I understand it.
Love her poetry. Luminous, condensed.
So much intelligence and industry (sets, costume) invested in such a farce of a mockery of two shams. ED lived in Jerry Springer's world?
I used to use Haendel's music for the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba as my mental standard for anachronism: if she really visited King Solomon, it's a safe bet the greeting was absolutely nothing like that. This is right up there.
The racial angle (whatever it is, honestly the trailer was confusing) is way down on my list of problems with this trend.
Narr
At least with GFH you get great music
We need a Frederick Douglass drama with an Asian actor as Douglass. I'll love all the Rants from liberals and POC's over historical accuracy. Haha. And of course Althouse would love it.
Anyway, who cares about Emily Dickinson - except chicks. Let them have a black Emily dickenson. It'll make women happy.
Is this really all about the actress playing Emily to be slightly toasted, skin-color wise?
Not knowing Dickinson, just how honky was she really? What is her proper shading? Did she have any "Black Irish" blood? When can't quadroons play white parts? What is all this race shit? Ban Othello.
Well Hollywood was never big on accuracy.
Sessue Hayakawa was a big silent star. Made two million bucks a year You might know him as the commandant on Bridge on the River Kwai. He played Pancho Villa once.
From the trailer the thing most ignored is her actual poetry.
The historical shoe-horning of POC's into places and roles they wouldn't have been seems like the most heavy-handed kind of crypto-racist patronizing. Still, as James Skinner could have told you, the British weren't just painting the globe pink. Whole lot of bumping going on and I imagine there was a whole lot of suspiciously dusky folk with Eton accents all over the place.
Yancy Ward and any other poetry fans out there,
What do you think of Russian poetry? Mrs. CWJ and I spent two weeks in Russia this year, and couldn't turn around without being shown where this or that poet lived or died. It's not just Pushkin.
Amexpat wrote:
"Also, I'm not sure how much general interest a straight forward,historically correct series about ED would garner"
Having read a detailed biography of her life such as it could be recontructed from the letters from the estate of a later relative, no one really could make a historically correct series about her life- little is actually known, and what is known would bore a television audience. Since she made little impact while she was alive in her own home town, it is quite likely she was like a cat lady recluse you never see but once or twice a year taking out the garbage, and then only if you look at night.
Obviously, the woman was incredibly intense with a deep an powerful intellect, but she probably was such an interior person that only those closest to her, and living with her ever knew it, though she did carry on long distance correspondence with a few people, but then you can't easily construct a movie or series out of that.
To be honest, I've become sensitized to any form of 'diversity treatment' that I tend to automatically reject it in knee-jerk fashion. Humorous or otherwise.
Pushkin is pretty much the only Russian poet of whom I have read anything. I tend to stay away from foreign language poets due to the translation problems involved in poetry. I would want to read it in the original language, but am no Pete Buttuvwxyz.
...but having said that, I wouldn't watch Emily Dickinson regardless of who is playing what part, so really don't care. Indeed, I call it rubbish, regardless. And this one is rubbish. It's just a/my fact.
What existing photographs there are of Dickenson are all daguerrotypes, which like all process back then were sensitive for all practical purposes only to blue and ultraviolet light. They do not give as realistic rendering of skin tones (which requires red sensitivity) as later materials could do. Having said that, she seemed to be more fair than swarthy.
Separately, the notion of having historical characters speak with modern idioms in dramatizations has always seemed jarring to me.
My wife in particular will immediately turn off a costume drama if she spots a zipper on a dress that's supposed to be from before the 19th century (1893 to be precise). I wonder if the costume designer cut that particular corner in this production.
What was dad going to do, throw her out of the house?
The perfect TV series for 15-year-old girls who think the world of themselves and that one day they'll show us.
I admit, seeing the contemporary language and attitudes was jarring, but once I settled down I realized there was nothing here worth watching.
I mean, what's the story? She writes some poems, she has some fantasies, she preens, but it's all a celebration of her, her, her, her.
But the trailer doesn't answer the question: Why should I care about her?
Baz Luhrmann did the contemporary stuff much better in "Moulin Rouge."
I appreciate the humor in "Tim Apple" but I think Major K, MBA is likely to be overestimating how many white people are being triggered by this show. Admittedly, I don't think of myself as easily triggered, but I did't see anything I could imagine would trigger a specifically white person. I guffawed at the gratuitous (and likely, highly anachronistic) use of the word "dude" by the eponymous character. I was not offended as a white person, I was entertained yet insulted by the cheap laugh line.
I would think Apple TV has a predominantly white customer base, like the rest of their products. But come-on, how wide is the reach of a show most people lack the hardware to see on a subject (poets) that most people have no interest in? I would say, very few. But I wish Major K, MBA, well. If he enjoys a show for a reason which exists mainly in his imagination, why should I care?
Hollywood has done this kind of thing since forever. This kind of portrayal is no more incendiary or insensitive than having a White Cis Male (George C. Scott) play General George Patton who, in reality was a mixed race trans who "passed" as a man his entire adult life.
of all the ridiculous things, they could have discussed about this series, well this takes the cake,
The fact that she led a small, quiet life shouldn't inhibit the film makers. I don't know that much about Emily Dickinson. She was a fine poet, but she didn't live large. Poetic license, It's not just for poets. Maybe if they use tasteful nudity in the lesbo scenes, it might be worth seeing.
The movie Mary Queen of Scots is playing on HBO. It stars Saoirse Ronan but avoid it like the plague... Some of the advisers and ladies of the court are shown to be variously black, brown and Asian. That's fine with me. Richard III was played by Al Pacino, and that base born Papist was no Englishman. Shakespeare's audience would have been shocked, but Pacino is arguably better than Olivier in the role. Inclusive casting gives minority actors a chance at roles in period dramas. There's a jolt, but you adjust.....My objection wasn't to the casting as such. Here's the anachronism that took me out of the drama: One of Mary's attendants was shown as a cross dressing gay man. Mary was shown as supportive of cross dressing gays as opposed to the hateful religious bigots of her era. So far as can be determined, neither Mary nor Elizabeth were into gay rights or feiminist causes. They were mostly in favor of monarchical privileges. That was their big issue.
It's good that these comments are moderated. Even at this far remove, the strident polemics that Emily engaged in inspires heated and hateful comments. She's the Hillary Clinton of poetry. Not like that sweet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Such a nice girl.
I think all biopics are a tad dishonest. The leading character is played by a movie star. Movie stars are known for their good looks and/or magnetism. The overweaning ambition of a lot of world historical figures can be attributed to compensating for their lack of good looks and sex appeal....Well, whatever works. I watched the BBC series on Queen Victoria mostly because of Jenna Coleman. Jenna Coleman is super cute and endearing. This was not how Victoria's appearance struck contemporaries, but who wants to watch a small, squat woman get fatter and duller over the years.
Wait, Emily Dickinson wasn't a sassy Woman Of Color? Next thing they'll tell me that Robin Hood really didn't have a black bestie who invented the telescope.
,,, the notion of having historical characters speak with modern idioms in dramatizations has always seemed jarring to me...
_
Is it true that closest idiom to Shakespeare is Appalachian hillbilly cracker?
Not Oxbridge!
'diversity treatment' that I tend to automatically reject it
Diversity or color judgment (e.g. racism) is a progressive policy that needs to be aborted.
I'm not sure how much general interest a straight forward, historically correct series about ED would garner
Quite a lot, I should think. Given the subject, a few lesbian love scenes would make sense. Plus you'd have all the exotic locations in India and China and so forth, and the excitement of hunting big game like tigers and rhinos, searching for a cure....
Ken B said...
I have read a lot of poetry over the years, but almost no American stuff.
Wallace Stevens? Stephen Crane? Even Ogden Nash?
phil. said....
My wife in particular will immediately turn off a costume drama if she spots a zipper on a dress that's supposed to be from before the 19th century (1893 to be precise). I wonder if the costume designer cut that particular corner in this production.
Your wife (and maybe you?) might find this funny
Karolina Żebrowska argues with herslef about period drama costume design
Nichevo
Read a bit of Nash in humour anthologies. No Stevens. No Crane. As little Frost as I could get away with.
By contrast, most of Milton, Donne, Blake, Houseman, Chaucer, etc. Lots. Just not yanks 😉
Your loss, Bubba. 🙍
I don't even have to watch the trailer to know that there will be ahistorical POCs. The Magic Negro strikes again.
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