X-Sender: kcwalker at MAILBOX.syr.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 05:17:50 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Kelley Crouse <kcwalker at syr.edu> Subject: Re: Michael Moore Responds In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980528112156.00e5c550 at pop.qut.edu.au> References: <709be5f0.356c838f at aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 11:21 AM 5/28/98 +1000, you wrote:
> But I have also been critical of what I
>consider to be the descent into the grotesque in this film particularly in
>its portrayal of the rabbit lady.
I'm not precisely sure what you might mean by "descent in the grotesque" However, it seems to me that the rabbit lady symbolizes what people are driven to under the conditions of capitalism. In the same way, the man who evicts people from their homes is symbolic of intra-class warfare. If it is the case that you're concerned that this woman appears to look like 'trailer trash' well I truly don't get that one. Does it make our students squirm? Do they laugh? Blame her? Think that she's pretty dumb to not see how silly her plan is, that she's pretty callous to move from 'pets' to 'meat'? You bet. But, of course, the problem we often have with our students is that they often cannot see the same dynamic with regard to Roger Smith or the Flint Chamber of Commerce or the folks at the country club oblivious to the human statues.
I've been teaching at two private liberal arts colleges for a couple of years--Colgate U and Hobart and Wm Smith Colleges--both of which are located in small rural towns in upstate NY. My students operate with some rather interesting, elaborate codes for making distinctions between 'white trash' and 'hicks': white trash are poor because they are morally culpable for their poverty while, apparently, 'hicks' are commendable and superior insofar as they try hard to be middle class and embrace middle class values. It seems to me that suggesting that the rabbit woman is 'grotesque' is to suggest that she is somehow morally culpable for failing to see how her actions might be cruel, inhumane, ineffective. To do so is to ignore the fact that Roger Smith, the town fathers, and the Grosse Pointe elite are equally grotesque.
Kelley Crouse University of South Florida Department of Sociology Tampa, FL