reaction to The Critical Eye

Yeah, I don't really know what to say about this text. It was fairly straightforward this is this and that is that, almost didactic.
The things that I didn't have a clear idea about, distribution, funding, marketing, I still don't have a clear idea about. I liked the history section, The American Industry. It was interesting to better understand how intricate Hollywood is linked to our societal image.
I think that, since we are critical readers, we approach everything in our lives critically. It's a curse really. Sometimes, I'd just like to watch bad tv without noticing the predjudices present or how men and are portrayed or how whole groups of people are missing from the mainstream picture. Because we are critical readers, I think that most of what the editors/writers pointed out were things I already acknowledged. There were a few interesting facts by and by. I didn't know there was a sort of transgendered acceptance within some Native American tribes that had been portrayed in a movie, especially during the era it was produced. The section on editing highlighted things I knew, but had never consciously or seriously considered. I liked how the editors/writers consistently paralleled moviemaking and writing. I saw that myself within the descriptions of the craft. If anything, the book helped me to put together a whole picture of American moviemaking.
Hopefully, you guys will have a bit more indepth analysis of the book.
later, pardners

On Black like You

Strausbaugh's first few chapters were almost enough to, in any other context, make me discredit the book and put it down as not so useful. Some of the "facts" seemed not so factual and sometimes plainly used out of any educated context. (An early example of this is when, on page 39, Strausbaugh says that the soon to be enslaved West Africans saw Western sails as "demonic". Any study of traditional West African wordview and religion will clearly state that West Africans neither believed in demons or the traditionally evil vs. good protestant worldview. For West Africans, good and evil worked hand in hand to create a balanced society. Evil was just as useful as good, and "demonic" as an adjective, if used, would not have had a negative conotation as it does in the western world.) Besides this, and even after finishing the book, I don't think that Strausbaugh had a decidedly identifiable audience. The book was much too generalized and unannotated to be aimed at an academic audience, but it also assumed too much retractable knowledge of specific names and types, the hotentot for example, to be aimed at a more general public.
These things aside, there was no evidence of a real organizational strategy. I kept having to look back at the titles of chapters to remember what it was I was supposed to be reading about. In the Afterword by James, he says that Strausbaugh is "explor"ing blackface and minstrelsy. Yeah, he's exploring in an unlit room with arms outstretched.
These couple of three aspects of the book were so alarmingly distracting so that I was only able to concentrate on the content of the book by the third or so chapter. From that point, I tried to ignore the instances where the above discussed showed up.
So, the thesis is I don't know. Americans are mutts. Got it. Contemporary social issues and music have a history. Duh.
I did find interesting the reoccurence of queer theory within the text, given more time in the afterword. But, there was never any real connection made between all the various topics explored. It's interesting stuff. I look forward to seeing how it came together for you all. Oh, and I do have a thing or two to say about how he approaches southern dialect. Yep, that's all folks!