I am reading, 'Why Does Trajedy Give Pleasure? by A. D. Nuttall (1996), which I picked on a library shelf because I saw it as an interesting question. The author looks at Aristotle's ideas, especially catharsis, Freud's thinking about 'the pleasure principle' [...]
Nuttall suggests that Freud depended on 'that great mass of repressed matter, the Unconscious'. He also looks at Freud's understanding of the Pleasure Principle, including the expression of sexuality and how Freud showed how sexual gratification 'was curbed by the deadening restrictions of civilisation,' with 'Freud's State of Nature' being ' like the fierce "war of every man in Hobbes's 'Leviathan'." ' — Jack Cummins
Deadwood can be read as a power struggle between three archetypes of American machismo:[...] But, more than any other show of its kind, it understands the impossibility of discussing men and power without creating equally vivid female characters [...]
The show’s aesthetics echo its themes. As the man whose gaze shapes our understanding of each woman, Milch mostly avoids hypocrisy by minimizing scenes that use their bodies purely for titillation or as sites of violence. Unlike Game of Thrones, 13 Reasons Why or the increasingly incoherent feminist polemic that is The Handmaid’s Tale, Deadwood shows almost none of the rape, abuse and exploitation that its characters experience. Layered dialogue and subtle acting prove more effective at communicating women’s (and in some cases men’s) trauma than lurid visuals.
Parfois, une pipe n'est qu'une pipe.... Only someone accustomed to television imagery would think that of Freud.As for Freud...is that a gun in his pocket? — Amity
Update: I did get some commentary on the making of the series and some excerpts.
I've concluded that I will not be making a heroic effort to see it. Whatever its literary and dramatic merits - and I gather they are prodigious - it's not my idea of entertainment. — Vera Mont
At 78, whatever I still need to learn about the human condition will probably come unbidden, in humiliating, inelegant forms. I don't need to watch other people pretend to get there first. — Vera Mont
Nevertheless, intriguing. Strong echoes of Orson Welles. It also stirred memories of Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. Of course, the TV frontier towns of my youth were very clean and the good guys were all fastidiously shaved, scrubbed and laundered. But there was a plausible austerity about the sets, matched by the characters' single-mindedness.It's bound to be brutal and nasty. — Amity
Also a different kind of arrogance and a different kind of divine retribution. — Vera Mont
I've concluded that I will not be making a heroic effort to see it. Whatever its literary and dramatic merits - and I gather they are prodigious - it's not my idea of entertainment.
Yes, I know that preferring entertainment over heavy philosophical content is frivolous, but I'm okay with that. — Vera Mont
Here is a father with three adult daughters, whom he claims to love and whose love he demands, and he has no frickin' idea who they are! So he falls for flattery instead of accepting honesty. Asking for it!Lear's arrogance is believing he knows what true love looks like when he does not. — Paine
So was King Lear. I can deal with some level of each, and still be entertained, but not wall-to-wall both.But it [Deadwood] is violent and pessimistic. — Tom Storm
It's bound to be brutal and nasty.
— Amity
Nevertheless, intriguing. — Vera Mont
Yes, I know that preferring entertainment over heavy philosophical content is frivolous, but I'm okay with that.
— Vera Mont
I think Deadwood works well as entertainment and at a deeper level. — Tom Storm
But it is violent and pessimistic. In that way, it is not much different to other long form, scrupulously written, television shows. The performances and the script are astonishing. — Tom Storm
Gaskell's account reveals there is no significant difference between genders and class in the experience of self-interest. We pursue what is best for us. The difference of outcomes come about from slight gains or losses of self-awareness in each person. And nobody gets to check the scorecard since it involves life beyond one's view. — Paine
We pursue what is best for us.
— Paine
We pursue what we believe to be best for us - and sometimes what we know to be bad for us, yet want anyway. — Vera Mont
Yes it is! :up:Who can account for personal taste? I love Deadwood (it's very funny too) — Tom Storm
No fuckin' doubt, Tom, we be a couple of dusty ol' cocksuckers drinkin' from the same crack'd bottle ... like all them other hoopleheads down on their fuckin' luck, laughin' and pissin' it all away in that limey cocksucker Swearengen's saloon. :smirk:... other 'big' TV series like Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Succession, etc. Well written and performed, but I just don't care about the stories or the characters.
from the same crack'd bottle ... like all them other hoopleheads down on their fuckin' luck, laughin' and pissin' it all away in that limey cocksucker Swearingen's saloon. :smirk: — 180 Proof
Dan dismantle the titty corner and set up a poker table.
"Ah, Wild Bill ..." :cool:Dan dismantle the titty corner and set up a poker table.
- Al Swearingen — Tom Storm
Rouse him to spend on pussy, or rob the son of a bitch!
also
You can't slit the throat of everyone whose character it would improve. — Al Swearengen
And some more fuckin' words to live by:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/792330 — 180 Proof
There are certainly more eloquent lines in Deadwood than “I don’t like it, either.” But after rewatching all three seasons of the great HBO western this spring, they’re the words I can’t get over. As uttered by a sex worker named Dolly (Ashleigh Kizer), who spends most of her screen time between the legs of Ian McShane’s coarse saloon owner Al Swearengen, they constitute an assertion of personhood from a heretofore insignificant character. “They hold you down from behind,” Al fumes, as she kneels beside him. “Then you wonder why you’re helpless. How the f-ck could you not be?”
He’s referring to powerful men like George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), who is slowly bringing Al—along with everyone else in the prosperous frontier mining camp of Deadwood—to his metaphorical knees. And so it’s jarring when Dolly replies “I don’t like it, either,” because she’s really talking about the johns who physically pin her down during sex. “I guess I do that, too, with your f-ckin’ hair,” Al muses, his voice softening to an uncharacteristic whisper. Though he does plenty of despicable things in the subsequent eight episodes of the show’s final season, he never treats Dolly so roughly again. — Time - Deadwood was the rare show about men that did women justice
To wake the Muse ... :smirk:Two of my all-time favorite television shows [Deadwood & True Detective]. I need to watch both again soon.
— 180 Proof
Why? Do you have a thesis to write? — Amity
No,no! That's not what I found intriguing. I was intrigued, in spite of that, by the cinematic and structural care that went into making the series. The artistry, not the subject matter.Brutal and nasty' as depicted traditionally and contemporary (personal, social relationships and economic/political dynamics) will intrigue the curious and those willing to compare and contrast perspectives. — Amity
I'm interested in Americans' (and other nation's) self image and how its depiction changes over time. Tv westerns were family fare - not intended as history lessons, but social and moral instruction. And entertainment, of course.Here, we can share memories of past TV programmes; Western sets/characters ridiculed. — Amity
Could you cope with a committee of the of the pesky things? — Vera Mont
Ah, a muse for every purpose. I suppose... Me, I prefer one familiar spirit, even not a particularly powerful one. (My top favourite Terry Pratchett book is Small Gods.)I thought it a case of praying to any muses that might float your fancy. Like Melpomene, Thalia or Erato.
A bit like how Catholics call up St Anthony - that kinda thing. — Amity
When it nags me to work on this, work on that, say "Stop mooching around the forums and matching stupid patterns and get your ass in gear. There's only so much time left!", throws a perfect first line out of the blue, then takes a vacation. (They're entitled - volunteers, not conscripts; we can ask, cajole, tease, petition, but never command.)When do they start becoming 'pesky' — Amity
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