One of the things that both Java and Java and Haarute harped on was an ill defined term that seems to have become the knee jerk mantra of post-baby boom cohorts, "cheese". In"The Harvest", the second part of the first episode of Buffy, Java femme made the claim that some of the acting in that episode was "cheesy". Haarute, on the other hand, seemed--I say seem because like so many kids stuck in adolescent development he wasn't precise in his terminology--to use "cheesy" as a synonym for Dickensian sentimentality and melodrama. As I wasn't clear on how these kids were using "cheese"--they clearly weren't using it in scholarly or systematic and analytical fashion and they clearly were not using it as a synonym for trite or hacknayed--all I got from Java femme was that the "cheese" was in the extras, the acting extras. All I got from Haarute was a substanceless deflection and--though largely unsuccessful--an attempt at wit. When I pushed both for a more precise, systematic, and scientific definition of the term the best our reactors could offer was, in the case of Java femme, substanceless repetition, something, I suppose, appropriate to a medium that is in itself repetitive in its genres and tones. It, "cheese", she repeated, is in the fried cheese extras, and silence. Haarute, on the other hand, offered nothing of substantive value, something common among those engaged in YouTube reaction videos for fun and--limited--profit.
Interestingly, another poster on the Java and Java "The Harvest" thread was more up for the reasonable challenge of defining "cheese" and "cheesy" than was our Java female. He actually did try to offer a more precise definition of the term, one interestingly blissfully ignored in subsequent replies by Java femme. According to the poster M.S. "cheese" was a synonym for "inauthentic" acting by extras.
There are so many problems, as I pointed out to Java femme, M.S, and Haarute to no avail--Java femme soon knee jerked into that curious mixture of anti-intellectualism, arrogance, ignorance, self-righteousness, dogmatism, and cry baby cry snowflake mode so characteristic of amateurs--with both of these "definitions" that it is difficult to know where to begin our critique of the use of the term. Let's begin with the term itself. If "cheese" is inauthentic than the use of the term "cheese" by these kids is clearly inappropriate. Cheese is real. Velveeta, processed cheese, somewhat inauthentic cheese, would probably be a better term for supposed television acting inauthenticity. But let's not forget that many post baby boom fanboys and fangirls have never been particularly known for either their aesthetic use of the English language or for their scientific precision.
Another problem with the use of the term "cheese" is that the use of it by these two reactors is ahistorical. The conception of cheese as a synonym for inauthentic is grounded in a realistic conception of television (and by extension, theatre, film, literature, and popular culture). The problem here, of course, is that television (and by extension theatre, film, literature, and popular culture) are not real. They are economic products that use editing, tone, genre, mise-en-scene, music, and visuals to manipulate reality by turning a representation of reality, at best, into a story, into a narrative with a plot and even, if too rarely, character development, all in the hope of getting people to watch so that those who make film and television ca, in the process, make lots of monies. Television (and theatre, film, literature, and popcult) is, in other words, inherently inauthentic. Even documentaries are not realistic for the reason that they too manipulate "reality" through editing, tone, genre, mise-en-scene, music, and visuals. When this fact was pointed out to both Java femme and M.S. the only response I got something that did not surprise me, dead silence, something one would expect from those ill educated in science and the call and response nature of intellectual culture.
A further problem with the use of the word "cheese" to describe a supposed inauthentic style of acting is that this use of the term is ahistorical. Those who throw it around like tossed salad don't seem to grasp the historical fact that acting has never been singular. There have long been various approaches to acting across time, across space, and within time and space. While both the method and Brechtian approaches to acting, for instance, are equally grounded in notions of realism, the notions of realism and the acting practises they give rise to are different and inconsistent with each other. There has thus never been a singular notion of what "realist" acting is. Finally, notions of what constitute realistic acting has never been consistent across time within space. One suspects that the psychological realism of the method actor Marlon Brando would not be considered realistic by our fangirl Java femme or our fan boy M.S., today. The realism of past generations, in other words, is not necessarily the realism of the historically illiterate generation of post-baby boomers today. Unfortunately, given their ethnocentrism, their fetishisisations, and their ahistoricism, I suspect both Java femme and M.S. would argue that acting is more realistic today than in the past. Perhaps they will live long enough to hear the realism they argue for referred to as cheesy by future generations of historically anemic young people.
Another problem with YouTube reactors and the videos they grind out for money is the general lack of knowledge each of these reactors have about the very show, its tone, and its genres and the history of the medium and research on it they are engaging. Java femme seems blissfully unaware of the history of satire, black comedy, and parody and the acting strategies associated with each, which are themselves multiple. Haarute seems blissfully unaware of the long history of melodrama and he seems blissfully unaware that, if we link melodrama to inauthenticity in order to try to square the "cheesy" circle, that humans have historically loved sentimentality and melodrama in the stories they tell amongst themselves and in the stories, the fairy tales, that are told to them. The fairy tale film Pretty Woman (1990), for instance, a reworking of Cinderella, was despite its inauthenticity, quite popular at the domestic box office as were and are many of the hyper-unrealistic superhero films that come out of Hollywood in droves.
Then there is the problem of the term itself. Is "cheese" a synonym for parody, satire, black comedy, melodrama and the acting styles associated with each? If so, why use an imprecise term like "cheese" when more precise terms that have been used for years are available to describe these varying general acting styles? Additionally, we should not forget that Buffy itself is multi-tonal and hence parodic, satiric, and dark comedic styles and forms of acting may be intentional on the part of those who made the television show.
Finally, there are the acting issues themselves. What does it mean that extras are "cheesy"? They are extras, after all, and do not have speaking parts. Is it in their smiles, their frowns, their quizzical looks? In the way they walk? in their gazes? in the way they move their eyes? Is it in the way they move their heads? in the way they dress? in the way they walk into a classroom? If the answer is yes to any of these or similar others it is incumbent on the person making the claim to detail precisely how the extras are acting "cheesily". Needless to say, neither Java femme or M.S. do this pointing up just how lacking in scientific precision and analytical skills their "approach" is.
All in all, the imprecise, ahistorical, and lazy use of the term cheese by the younger generations is sadly reflective of something going on in the broader core nation English speaking world, namely, a lack of education and schooling in critical approaches to television and beyond, and in scientific approaches to texts. Science, after all, strives for precision rather than imprecision. In the end, perhaps, "cheese" and "cheesiness" is best understood as an inauthenticity of approach by some human beings, particular those human beings engaged in offering reaction videos on YouTube and other social media sites. And while this has long been a common problem it is now, in the brave new world of digital media, simply more noticeable because of the omnipresence of reaction videos like that of Java and Java and Haarute, reaction videos which point up the lack of historical and scientific literacy amongst even the semi-schooled in English language core societies.
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