The Muppets go to Grad School

I’ve talked in the past about academic work in my field(s)—with some humor, but also with both affection and respect for the serious exploration done by, in particular, grad students and early career scholars exploring how serious issues play out in (in particular) popular culture. Here’s another example:

From the communal rebuilding of a computerized datapaths and software programs, to the reinvention of what a television show could look like during a global health crisis, to the rallying of a community of creatives after the sudden passing of their leader and friend, the Muppets always find a way to come together for the sake of each other. This commitment to what we owe one another acts as a countermeasure to the brutality of social norms and sincerely asks us to imagine “otherwise possibilities” 

Coby, Laura M. 2023. “ Muppets Take Windows 95: The Queer Failure of Muppets Inside: CD-ROM.” The Journal of American Culture 00 (0): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13482.

I do get, honestly, why work like this—an examination of a Muppets interactive product from a queer theory perspective—might seem weird, or even pointless, to people not in the academic humanities, or who haven’t spent much time thinking about it, but honestly most of that, all of that really, is a kind of snobbery, and reflects a real lack of understanding about scholarship in the humanities (and in the social sciences, as well, far too often).

I mean, if you take a step back and bracket prejudices towards queer theory or popular culture or interactive CD-ROMs (or computer games or whatever), it should be readily apparent that this is no more pointless than much (most, possibly even all) of the scholarship on Shakespeare or Jane Austen. Work on the Muppets and on contemporary material, arguably, is even more important because it helps us understand the current moment in culture (and also in capitalism). If work on Shakespeare or Jane Austen is more important, it’s only because more people read them, still, than are likely to engage with this Muppets product.

And that’s not invalid. Though it does remind me of a bit from David Lodge’s wonderful novel about academia and English departments in particular, Changing Places, in which one of the main characters, Morris Zapp (a riff on Stanley Fish), wants to write the definitive critical examination of Jane Austen from every angle, feminist, Marxist, practical criticism, you name it—so that when he’s done, no more scholarly work on Jane Austen will be possible. (Because presumably, he’s sick of how much of it there is, but I think we are meant to think it also reflects a sexist hostility toward or deprecation of Austen… and women more generally.)

And younger academics have to find topics that have not been done to death already, if they are to get papers published, get a dissertation through, have any hope of getting a tenure track position, or—increasingly these days—any paid position. So they look for new angles on old texts—queer rereadings of Austen, for instance, though that’s barely, not even at all, a stretch—or work on newer, and therefore perforce less widely known, read, popular, texts, like… the Muppets.

And also the Muppets just rock. I’d be happy to see whole special issues of journals devoted to Muppets scholarship.

For more…

• The Muppet Movie (1979) – Amazon
• The Muppets (Season 1) – Amazon
• Small World, by David Lodge – from independent bookshops

Filed under: Pop Culture, academics

“Scottish female herring workers on romance novel covers”

I am—or at least was/might be—an academic working in the areas that tend to come in for ridicule with the general public when they look at what academics are up to—areas like film, popular culture, theory, cultural studies. When pundits take cheap shots at MLA conference papers with goofy, hip or sexy titles (“Deciphering Victorian Underwear”), or at professors for wearing mango-colored Comme des Garçon jackets—as if that kind of sartorial style was incompatible with intellectual seriousness or merit—it is most often in the areas and on topics that are close to my work and interests.

I tend to view these attacks—”look at what the eggheads are up to now”—as motivated, at least in part, by anti-intellectualism (unfortunately all too prevalent in the USA) or by politics. More often than not, it seems, the academics and work being attacked or made fun of are fairly obviously “leftish” or liberal in their perspectives, engagements or implications. Marxist literary theory, feminist history, queer studies—when a paper is held up to ridicule or put forward as an example of the waste or tendentious of university studies, there’s a more than average chance it’s from a discipline or tendency such as these.

But as critical as I am of most attacks on interesting academic work in the areas of theory and popular culture, even I have difficulty stifling a chortle at some of the things I run across:

“A very glamorized picture, that”: images of Scottish female herring workers on romance novel covers
Author: Jane Liffena

Abstract
This article analyses portrayals of Scottish female herring workers on the covers of romance novels and investigates how far these representations conform to, or subvert, the genre of romantic fiction. Covers are analysed to establish whether they accurately portray Scottish female herring workers at their labour. If romanticisation of the women’s working role is evident, the ways in which this manifests itself and the possible reasons for this romanticisation are examined. Composition of images and the mise-en-scne of covers are analysed, as well as aspects concerning the narratives of the novels, and elements of herring processing work that are noticeably absent in the depictions are also considered. These elements excluded from the covers are examined through theory relating to the abject in an attempt to ascertain whether the covers potentially provide models of female empowerment for the reader. (via Social Semiotics.)

Social Semiotics, Volume 18, Issue 3 September 2008 , pages 349 – 361

Okay—this is the sort of thing I’ve been known to do: a kind of ideological critique of a particular thread of popular culture, in this case, analyzing the representations of women—in particular, “female herring workers”—on book covers. A number of issues are probably germane—attitudes toward that particular kind of labour and women blue-collar labour in general, and the way that women are depicted more generally—though the article seems particularly focused on the accuracy of the portrayal.

All these issues, including the question of accuracy, are absolutely run-of-mill in academic work: useful, relevant, serious topics for academic inquiry. This is not, at least as far as can be determined from the abstract, a marginal or dubious piece of fluff masquerading as scholarship. Representations of women are heavily studied, and some terrific work has been done on romance novels, work of interest and relevance to literary studies, popular culture and women’s studies in general, not just to people interested in that particular topic.

Further, the whole issue of Scottish female herring workers is not as outré as it might seem at first glance to people not already in the know. The herring industry is very important in and around Scotland, and Scottish women, perhaps unexpectedly, have historically comprised a significant proportion of the herring industry’s workforce [eg, here and here]. And the life and work of the “herring girls”—or clann nighean an iasgaich—is a topic for tourism and historical interest [here].

But still, serious and genuine as this piece of scholarship no doubt is, I did indeed chortle when I read the title…

For more…

• Weird Universe – brief discussion of the article
• ingentaconnect ‘A whirling vortex of women’: The Strikes of Scots Herring Women …. – article in Labor History Review
• Herring Girls – the Ness Historical Society
• Walking through Scotland’s history.
• Frumpy or Chic? Tweed or Kente? Sometimes Clothes Make the Professor – The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Deciphering Victorian Underwear, And Other Seminars – NYTimes.com – the article in which “mango wool-and-silk Comme des Garcons blazer” is cited

Filed under: Cultural Studies, academics, history, humor