This blog has had over 26,000 visits. By far, the most visitors arrive here from google searches of "movies you hate," "top 10 movies i hate," etc., which direct to my post "10 movies I hate" from October 2005.
"10 movies I hate" is now the number 2 google hit for the search "movies you hate." Atrios linked to this post in November 2005. Prior to that, this blog had had maybe a few hundred hits. I think it got something like 6,000 hits that week.
In retrospect, I was quite harsh on the films I discussed, most of which are not bad films, or are bad in an interesting way. The post was an attempt to think about what the opposite of cinephilia might be, and the various forms it might take: moral or political outrage, disappointment due to heightened expectations, disgust prompted by inexplicable subjective particularity, taking offense at a film that purports to represent you or your kind but fails to do so in a satisfying way. A study of cinephobia, if you will.
There were many nasty comments on that post. I thought about deleting some of the harsher ones, but decided against it. Let people read and come to their own conclusions.
Many people linked to the post and solicited others for their top ten least favorite films.
I'm thinking of starting a new blog called "Movies You Hate." Or perhaps a Facebook application that lets you select five things you don't like, something like Pick Your Five, but with least favorite things. It could be called "Do Not Want!"
At the same time, I'm not sure I want to perpetuate the hate. Hating is so very out of style these days. "Hater" has become a synonym for "bigoted jerk."
Is there a place for a productive hatred? Is it useful to name the things we hate, and to think about why we hate them? Or does this activity only make us big bad haters?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Friday, June 06, 2008
What Does Hillary Want? Part 2
What does Jesse want? Why won't Jesse stop? These questions rang across the nation during the summer of 1988 when Jesse Jackson stayed in the race until the Democratic Convention, in order to ensure that the interests of his supporters would still be addressed. For those authors who have invoked the "What does Hillary want?" question in a self-conscious manner (for example Dan Conley in Salon), the 1988 Jackson presidential campaign is the more explicit point of reference. In an example of misogyny overlapping with and displacing onto race, a belittling insinuation hovered around the Jackson question as well. Addressing the annual Operation PUSH convention, Jackson highlighted the way that the "What does Jesse want?" question drew focus away from his constituents:
My point is not to compare Hillary Clinton to Jesse Jackson, but rather to point out that framing a politician's candidacy as a matter of individual desire — delusional desire, even — rather than as the result of collective will, undermines the power and importance of the candidate's supporters, be they African Americans, women, the poor, an amagam thereof, or anyone else. It is one of many tactics that shift the focus away from collective issues onto individual personalities and identity politics.
Mr. Jackson spoke of the importance of the Vice Presidency. But he said talk of "What does Jesse want?" obscured the growing political power of the poor and minorities.
"I'm not on a delusion," Mr. Jackson told about 2,000 participants. "No one is negotiating with me. Seven million voters are being negotiated with."
My point is not to compare Hillary Clinton to Jesse Jackson, but rather to point out that framing a politician's candidacy as a matter of individual desire — delusional desire, even — rather than as the result of collective will, undermines the power and importance of the candidate's supporters, be they African Americans, women, the poor, an amagam thereof, or anyone else. It is one of many tactics that shift the focus away from collective issues onto individual personalities and identity politics.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
What Does Hillary Want?
It’s a phrase that has been bandied about a lot over the last few weeks, in the mainstream media and on blogs. Dozens of reporters have titled their columns with this phrase. A recent Google search revealed about 159,000 results for it (a search for “What does Barack want?” yielded only five results), suggesting that this is a meme specific to Mrs. Clinton. Some posters spruce the phrase up a bit, adding mild obscenities. A disappointing number of those who use it are women. Clinton even asked this question herself, in a moment of self-reflexive citation of the press’ treatment of her.
What I would like to know is: what do people mean when they ask, What does Hillary want? What are journalists saying when they title their pieces with this question? Why do pundits find it so appealing, and what do they hope to accomplish with it?
Obviously, they want her to go away, and they want her to name her price. Whether you agree or disagree with this sentiment, though, it is clear that there are a vast number of ways to express it that do not involve quoting one of the most famous misogynist phrases in history.
Late in life, Sigmund Freud reportedly uttered the question “What does woman want?” (“Was will das Weib?”) to Marie Bonaparte. This phrase, which does not appear in the Standard Edition, has nevertheless become one of the founder of modern psychology's most famous quotations. When Freud asked this question, he meant to convey that the question itself is unanswerable: that women are simply one of the great unsolved mysteries (and problems) in life. Along with his characterization of the female psyche as a “dark continent,” and his description of female desire as “veiled in obscurity,” this quotation is regularly invoked as evidence of Freud’s misogyny. It is perhaps one the most contentious phrases in all of psychoanalysis, and it has had a profound effect on Freud’s legacy.
What does woman want? What does Hillary want? Replacing “woman” with “Hillary” transfers the question’s misogynistic implications to Clinton. The insinuation is that her desire, like that of Woman with a capital W, is unfathomable, that the things she wants are impossible, and that her motivations are suspect. Her goals and choices are not informed by reason; rather, they derive from some dark corner of a narcissistic mind, inspired by jealousy, revenge, and other irrationalities. Like Woman, she is simply one of the great, annoying conundrums of life.
Respected journalists, many of whom hold advanced degrees, have written "What does Hillary want?" in bold headlines and titled their columns with it, deploying it so acerbically that one can practically see the sarcasm dripping off. Many of them would claim that their criticism of Clinton is not in any way related to her gender. Many of them would also read the above paragraph and consider it a fair and objective description of Clinton — and suggest that it's merely a coincidence that these same accusations have been leveled at ambitious women for as long as they have existed.
The saddest thing is that the damage accrues not only to Clinton, but to all women who aspire to public life. Only a small leap of illogic is required to conclude that for a woman, any woman, to have the audacity to “want” the Presidency of the United States of America is outrageous and unreasonable. Her motivations for running could only stem from some bizarre, questionable place in her psyche.
When Mrs. Clinton repeated this question back to the press, to her credit, she just answered it literally.
* P.S. Women are not the only subjects whose wants are characterized as unreasonable by the press and others in a position to set the terms of debate; people of color are likewise told to be patient, to suppress dreams and desires, and so on.
What I would like to know is: what do people mean when they ask, What does Hillary want? What are journalists saying when they title their pieces with this question? Why do pundits find it so appealing, and what do they hope to accomplish with it?
Obviously, they want her to go away, and they want her to name her price. Whether you agree or disagree with this sentiment, though, it is clear that there are a vast number of ways to express it that do not involve quoting one of the most famous misogynist phrases in history.
Late in life, Sigmund Freud reportedly uttered the question “What does woman want?” (“Was will das Weib?”) to Marie Bonaparte. This phrase, which does not appear in the Standard Edition, has nevertheless become one of the founder of modern psychology's most famous quotations. When Freud asked this question, he meant to convey that the question itself is unanswerable: that women are simply one of the great unsolved mysteries (and problems) in life. Along with his characterization of the female psyche as a “dark continent,” and his description of female desire as “veiled in obscurity,” this quotation is regularly invoked as evidence of Freud’s misogyny. It is perhaps one the most contentious phrases in all of psychoanalysis, and it has had a profound effect on Freud’s legacy.
What does woman want? What does Hillary want? Replacing “woman” with “Hillary” transfers the question’s misogynistic implications to Clinton. The insinuation is that her desire, like that of Woman with a capital W, is unfathomable, that the things she wants are impossible, and that her motivations are suspect. Her goals and choices are not informed by reason; rather, they derive from some dark corner of a narcissistic mind, inspired by jealousy, revenge, and other irrationalities. Like Woman, she is simply one of the great, annoying conundrums of life.
Respected journalists, many of whom hold advanced degrees, have written "What does Hillary want?" in bold headlines and titled their columns with it, deploying it so acerbically that one can practically see the sarcasm dripping off. Many of them would claim that their criticism of Clinton is not in any way related to her gender. Many of them would also read the above paragraph and consider it a fair and objective description of Clinton — and suggest that it's merely a coincidence that these same accusations have been leveled at ambitious women for as long as they have existed.
The saddest thing is that the damage accrues not only to Clinton, but to all women who aspire to public life. Only a small leap of illogic is required to conclude that for a woman, any woman, to have the audacity to “want” the Presidency of the United States of America is outrageous and unreasonable. Her motivations for running could only stem from some bizarre, questionable place in her psyche.
When Mrs. Clinton repeated this question back to the press, to her credit, she just answered it literally.
* P.S. Women are not the only subjects whose wants are characterized as unreasonable by the press and others in a position to set the terms of debate; people of color are likewise told to be patient, to suppress dreams and desires, and so on.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Notes on some tv police procedural styles
Law and Order: Hand-held camera; no extra-diegetic score; New York location shooting with ambient sound; simple transitions and titles without effects; chronological with temporal ellipses; aesthetic of liveness; aesthetic of realism; "gritty." Opening credits sequence: bass guitar and blues riffs (almost retro, reminiscent of a dangerous 1980s downtown New York), still b/w photos with grain showing and red/blue tint, images of cast.
CSI Miami: steady camera; expensive/licensed score; elaborate, semi-fantastical sets with little to no attempt at realism (mansions, super high-tech police depts); flash transitions with freeze frames, white-outs, and sound FX; subjective imagery (flashback, imagined flashbacks/hypotheticals); "glossy." Opening credits: soaring helicopter shot, the Who, MTV-style, promises some elements of a prime-time soap as well as a procedural.
The Wire: steady camera; frequent long shots emphasizing figures' placement in landscape; diegetic music but no extra-diegetic score; Baltimore location shooting; seamless continuity editing/no punctuation as in L&O; however, cross-cuts often editorialize or suggest complex relations between one scene and another, one group of characters and another. Slightly stagey/theatrical aesthetic at times. Frequent pov shots (surveillance), but no subjective imagery as in CSI, and no shaky hand-held pov as in L&O. Opening credits: variations on the theme song w/difference performers, montage condenses the season and anticipates events that have not yet happened (creates a game of identifying the shots from the credits sequence as they arrive in the season). Also does not show cast members; rather, fragments of bodies, objects, the city.
CSI Miami: steady camera; expensive/licensed score; elaborate, semi-fantastical sets with little to no attempt at realism (mansions, super high-tech police depts); flash transitions with freeze frames, white-outs, and sound FX; subjective imagery (flashback, imagined flashbacks/hypotheticals); "glossy." Opening credits: soaring helicopter shot, the Who, MTV-style, promises some elements of a prime-time soap as well as a procedural.
The Wire: steady camera; frequent long shots emphasizing figures' placement in landscape; diegetic music but no extra-diegetic score; Baltimore location shooting; seamless continuity editing/no punctuation as in L&O; however, cross-cuts often editorialize or suggest complex relations between one scene and another, one group of characters and another. Slightly stagey/theatrical aesthetic at times. Frequent pov shots (surveillance), but no subjective imagery as in CSI, and no shaky hand-held pov as in L&O. Opening credits: variations on the theme song w/difference performers, montage condenses the season and anticipates events that have not yet happened (creates a game of identifying the shots from the credits sequence as they arrive in the season). Also does not show cast members; rather, fragments of bodies, objects, the city.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Sicko
The final post about Sicko, and my actual review of it.
Michael Moore has perhaps one of the most readily recognizable signature styles of contemporary American directors. This is interesting in part because he works primarily in documentary. Here's a list of some of his signature elements, as I see them, after having seen Sicko during its opening weekend.
1. Moore's dominant affect is incredulity.
Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko all begin more or less with the same question: How could this have happened? How could this be? Bowling for Columbine starts with a vignette about the bank that gives away free shotguns when you open an account: surely you must be joking, we think. Fahrenheit 9/11 ups the ante, beginning with a montage about the 2000 U.S. election: did this really happen? How could America let this happen? (Moore: "Look, there's Ben Affleck, and that guy from Taxi Driver!") Similarly, Sicko starts with a set piece about an uninsured patient who had to choose between re-attaching his ring finger and his middle finger, each for a hefty price, and goes on to a story about a couple with health insurance who were nevertheless bankrupted by an illness. Moore prompts us to be more incredulous about things many may have bitterly accepted as necessary or even unavoidable evils: election fraud, gun violence, poor health care.
At other times, Moore plays up a crocodile incredulity for effect, as in Sicko when, in a dumbfounded tone, he repeatedly asks people at Canadian, British, French, and Cuban hospitals whether the services are really free of charge. He becomes like a reverse American Borat in these moments. There's a layering of irony: "I know that you know that I actually already know the answer to this question, but humor me anyway."
2. Moore is master of the pathos appeal: the appeal to raw emotion.
The grieving mother appears as often (if not more) in Moore's films than the evil corporate executive. High melodrama. His films also incorporate slapstick elements, "stunts" that are grand and political in nature, but with all the daring-do and glee of Charlie Chaplin kicking the boss-man in the pants. We are meant to hiss and cheer, get indignant, feel empathy and shame. The pivotal stunt in Bowling for Columbine: the K-Mart protest, where injured teenagers successfully lobby the corporation to change its ammunition sales policy. In Sicko, the main stunt is Moore taking a group of sick 9/11 responders by boat to Guantánamo Bay for health treatment, only to find that they are more welcome in Cuba. (The Bush administration, not surprisingly, has played right into the hands of this situational irony by attempting to prosecute the rescue workers for violating the Cuba embargo.)
Moore urges us to feel outrage at situations that we have come to accept as facts of contemporary life. Doctors in Britain are given bonuses for getting patients to quit smoking or lower their cholesterol, while HMO employees in the U.S. are given bonuses for denying treatment ("it's not denying care; it's denying payment"). There are people who are paid to find inconsistencies in your declarations of prior conditions so that they may retroactively deny your insurance policy. Congress is fully in the pocket of the health care and pharmaceutical industry. In France, government-employed doctors make house calls, five weeks of vacation per year is standard, and neuro-surgeons will wash your dirty skivvies for free. Such scenes are meant to arouse indignation and jealousy: blunt-edged emotions, to be sure, but they certainly do stick to your ribs.
3. Moore prefers anecdotal evidence to ironclad data.
Pathos is generated at the expense of logos: we are meant to feel rather than to think, even to glide over factual errors — or so say some of Moore's critics. But what if feeling and thinking are not opposed to one another? Could it be that we are meant to think through our incredulity, grief, and anger rather than putting them aside? Moore's arena has always been the court of public opinion; he is a filmmaker, not a researcher at the World Health Organization. But in the case of Sicko, the anecdotal strategy makes a curious kind of logical sense. If even one, just one human life is deliberately sacrificed in accordance with an insurance company policy for the purpose of maximizing profit, well, shouldn't that be all we need to know to say that there's something wrong with that policy? Anecdotes documenting 10 or 20 similar stories, and email records revealing 25,000 more, are only icing on the cake at that point, as are the missing statistics that would likely show that those numbers are in fact greater.
4. Moore uses old-school film propaganda techniques in a self-conscious way.
Michael Moore seems fully aware of how his films use propaganda techniques: leading voice-over, emotionally manipulative and commentative music, syllogistic editing and montage sequences, caricature. He's not ashamed — after all, he is fighting fire with fire, and these are the same techniques deployed by mainstream media. But his use of them is much more self-conscious, as demonstrated in Sicko by the inclusion of archival Soviet and Eisenhower-era propaganda footage, a gesture toward campy humor that seems both mocking and self-mocking. In the final scene of Fahrenheit 9/11, the woman standing outside the White House in protest over her son's death in Iraq says, "This is all staged!" No matter: the strength of the image is that it can be propagandistic, reveal this to us, and still move and persuade.
5. Moore's films offer epiphanies about the big picture that would have been impossible had he stuck strictly to the facts at hand.
Moore offers a very simple observation in voice-over at the end of Sicko (I paraphrase and expand it here). The reason we are scared to change the system is itself a fault of the system: we are drowning in debt caused by education and health care expenses, the very things that are socialized in other countries. We cannot afford to protest, go on strike, or try to shift the balance of power, because the retaliation could literally be fatal to ourselves and our families. If someone in my family is sick, I simply cannot afford to lose my job; if I am saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, I am effectively enslaved to my employer. Moore has claimed that his films are ultimately less about their purported topical issues than about fear. It is by straying from universal health care to digress through 9/11, war, French ways of life, and GITMO, that the film stays most on task.
Michael Moore has perhaps one of the most readily recognizable signature styles of contemporary American directors. This is interesting in part because he works primarily in documentary. Here's a list of some of his signature elements, as I see them, after having seen Sicko during its opening weekend.
1. Moore's dominant affect is incredulity.
Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko all begin more or less with the same question: How could this have happened? How could this be? Bowling for Columbine starts with a vignette about the bank that gives away free shotguns when you open an account: surely you must be joking, we think. Fahrenheit 9/11 ups the ante, beginning with a montage about the 2000 U.S. election: did this really happen? How could America let this happen? (Moore: "Look, there's Ben Affleck, and that guy from Taxi Driver!") Similarly, Sicko starts with a set piece about an uninsured patient who had to choose between re-attaching his ring finger and his middle finger, each for a hefty price, and goes on to a story about a couple with health insurance who were nevertheless bankrupted by an illness. Moore prompts us to be more incredulous about things many may have bitterly accepted as necessary or even unavoidable evils: election fraud, gun violence, poor health care.
At other times, Moore plays up a crocodile incredulity for effect, as in Sicko when, in a dumbfounded tone, he repeatedly asks people at Canadian, British, French, and Cuban hospitals whether the services are really free of charge. He becomes like a reverse American Borat in these moments. There's a layering of irony: "I know that you know that I actually already know the answer to this question, but humor me anyway."
2. Moore is master of the pathos appeal: the appeal to raw emotion.
The grieving mother appears as often (if not more) in Moore's films than the evil corporate executive. High melodrama. His films also incorporate slapstick elements, "stunts" that are grand and political in nature, but with all the daring-do and glee of Charlie Chaplin kicking the boss-man in the pants. We are meant to hiss and cheer, get indignant, feel empathy and shame. The pivotal stunt in Bowling for Columbine: the K-Mart protest, where injured teenagers successfully lobby the corporation to change its ammunition sales policy. In Sicko, the main stunt is Moore taking a group of sick 9/11 responders by boat to Guantánamo Bay for health treatment, only to find that they are more welcome in Cuba. (The Bush administration, not surprisingly, has played right into the hands of this situational irony by attempting to prosecute the rescue workers for violating the Cuba embargo.)
Moore urges us to feel outrage at situations that we have come to accept as facts of contemporary life. Doctors in Britain are given bonuses for getting patients to quit smoking or lower their cholesterol, while HMO employees in the U.S. are given bonuses for denying treatment ("it's not denying care; it's denying payment"). There are people who are paid to find inconsistencies in your declarations of prior conditions so that they may retroactively deny your insurance policy. Congress is fully in the pocket of the health care and pharmaceutical industry. In France, government-employed doctors make house calls, five weeks of vacation per year is standard, and neuro-surgeons will wash your dirty skivvies for free. Such scenes are meant to arouse indignation and jealousy: blunt-edged emotions, to be sure, but they certainly do stick to your ribs.
3. Moore prefers anecdotal evidence to ironclad data.
Pathos is generated at the expense of logos: we are meant to feel rather than to think, even to glide over factual errors — or so say some of Moore's critics. But what if feeling and thinking are not opposed to one another? Could it be that we are meant to think through our incredulity, grief, and anger rather than putting them aside? Moore's arena has always been the court of public opinion; he is a filmmaker, not a researcher at the World Health Organization. But in the case of Sicko, the anecdotal strategy makes a curious kind of logical sense. If even one, just one human life is deliberately sacrificed in accordance with an insurance company policy for the purpose of maximizing profit, well, shouldn't that be all we need to know to say that there's something wrong with that policy? Anecdotes documenting 10 or 20 similar stories, and email records revealing 25,000 more, are only icing on the cake at that point, as are the missing statistics that would likely show that those numbers are in fact greater.
4. Moore uses old-school film propaganda techniques in a self-conscious way.
Michael Moore seems fully aware of how his films use propaganda techniques: leading voice-over, emotionally manipulative and commentative music, syllogistic editing and montage sequences, caricature. He's not ashamed — after all, he is fighting fire with fire, and these are the same techniques deployed by mainstream media. But his use of them is much more self-conscious, as demonstrated in Sicko by the inclusion of archival Soviet and Eisenhower-era propaganda footage, a gesture toward campy humor that seems both mocking and self-mocking. In the final scene of Fahrenheit 9/11, the woman standing outside the White House in protest over her son's death in Iraq says, "This is all staged!" No matter: the strength of the image is that it can be propagandistic, reveal this to us, and still move and persuade.
5. Moore's films offer epiphanies about the big picture that would have been impossible had he stuck strictly to the facts at hand.
Moore offers a very simple observation in voice-over at the end of Sicko (I paraphrase and expand it here). The reason we are scared to change the system is itself a fault of the system: we are drowning in debt caused by education and health care expenses, the very things that are socialized in other countries. We cannot afford to protest, go on strike, or try to shift the balance of power, because the retaliation could literally be fatal to ourselves and our families. If someone in my family is sick, I simply cannot afford to lose my job; if I am saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, I am effectively enslaved to my employer. Moore has claimed that his films are ultimately less about their purported topical issues than about fear. It is by straying from universal health care to digress through 9/11, war, French ways of life, and GITMO, that the film stays most on task.
Addendum to the previous post
The third of four posts after seeing Sicko. Read the previous posts first if you haven't.
Apologies to HR personnel and benefits administrators; you are not the real target of the satire in the previous post. The target is the insurance and finance industries that design these systems in the first place. American retirement and health plans essentially require customers to stake their own lives as a precondition of service – and they do so under the guise of freedom, choice, and individual agency. When they work, they do so not by design, but by the sheer dumb luck of the planholder who never gets sick or who retires at exactly the right moment in the stock market cycle.
Imagine how many of life's most onerous stresses would vanish if we were relieved of these so-called choices: through universal, single-payer retirement and health care plans.
The previous post is meant to be humorous, but my outrage about these issues stems from a sad personal experience (warning: downer below). My mother passed away 12 years ago, at the age of 52, at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Clara, CA (an HMO). She had been treated the previous night in the emergency room of the same hospital, and was sent home with the assurance that her condition was not life threatening. She died less then 24 hours later. An autopsy ruled that she died of natural causes, but the causes of death listed on the coroner's report were not backed up by solid medical evidence. Subsequent conversations with doctors and attempts to interpret the report revealed nothing. One physician — a physician! — even chided us for probing too deeply, suggesting that sometimes, "it's best just to accept God's will."
To this day I have the nagging suspicion that it was not God, but rather the managed health care plan that was to blame for my mother's passing. I worry that therefore, I am to blame for not having understood what an inferior product it was and urging her to get different insurance. Would it have made a difference? Perhaps not. Should we have sued? We couldn't: Kaiser requires planholders to agree to mandatory arbitration through its own offices and waive the right to litigate through the courts.
A few days later, Kaiser sent us a bill. Apparently, emergency medical treatment when you are dying is not a covered benefit.
Apologies to HR personnel and benefits administrators; you are not the real target of the satire in the previous post. The target is the insurance and finance industries that design these systems in the first place. American retirement and health plans essentially require customers to stake their own lives as a precondition of service – and they do so under the guise of freedom, choice, and individual agency. When they work, they do so not by design, but by the sheer dumb luck of the planholder who never gets sick or who retires at exactly the right moment in the stock market cycle.
Imagine how many of life's most onerous stresses would vanish if we were relieved of these so-called choices: through universal, single-payer retirement and health care plans.
The previous post is meant to be humorous, but my outrage about these issues stems from a sad personal experience (warning: downer below). My mother passed away 12 years ago, at the age of 52, at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Clara, CA (an HMO). She had been treated the previous night in the emergency room of the same hospital, and was sent home with the assurance that her condition was not life threatening. She died less then 24 hours later. An autopsy ruled that she died of natural causes, but the causes of death listed on the coroner's report were not backed up by solid medical evidence. Subsequent conversations with doctors and attempts to interpret the report revealed nothing. One physician — a physician! — even chided us for probing too deeply, suggesting that sometimes, "it's best just to accept God's will."
To this day I have the nagging suspicion that it was not God, but rather the managed health care plan that was to blame for my mother's passing. I worry that therefore, I am to blame for not having understood what an inferior product it was and urging her to get different insurance. Would it have made a difference? Perhaps not. Should we have sued? We couldn't: Kaiser requires planholders to agree to mandatory arbitration through its own offices and waive the right to litigate through the courts.
A few days later, Kaiser sent us a bill. Apparently, emergency medical treatment when you are dying is not a covered benefit.
Your Benefits Elections
Post two of four after seeing Michael Moore's film Sicko. The previous post is supposed to be the epigraph for this one, à la "Shouts & Murmurs."
Let's pretend I've just started a new job — with benefits, yay! — and now I get to make my benefits elections. So, which plans should I choose?
Well, that depends on how much risk you can tolerate. Are you the gambling sort? Well, then the Aggressive Plan is for you, please walk over to the high-stakes table. How about upping that amount to half your monthly salary, and investing it all in high-risk equities? That's the only way to get rich in this country, you know. Heck, that's the only way not to end up on Skid Row! Not comfortable with risk, you say? Well, here's a geriatric investment plan that might be more your style [chicken noise, chicken noise]. Oh, and p.s., you're going to kick yourself later when you're forced to sell your home and retire in your children's basement. Because you should have invested in Finance Flavor of the Month XYZ. It went from zero to $200 a share in under two hours! Diversification is for losers. And Americans are not losers.
So, when would you like to retire? When you're 65? Well, if you're over 30, tsk tsk, I'm afraid you're going to need to go double or nothing. Here, try the Super Aggressive Plan. Who knows, you might end up living the high life, no worse off than if you had started socking it away at age 15! But you could also lose everything. Just so you know. So in case you do lose everything and end up old and broke, remember that it was your own fault. It's true, some people aren't comfortable with that level of risk [chicken noise]. But you know what? You should probably just go ahead and do the Super Aggressive Plan anyway. If the stock market crashes, you won't be able to retire no matter what, so you might as well at least give yourself that faint kernel of hope that you could strike it rich.
What, you say it isn't fair? You know, you're lucky to have this at all. Sheesh, Americans are so spoiled. There's a starving child in China who would be thrilled, just thrilled, to have that Super Aggressive Plan. Plus, we have to turn a profit: did you ever think of that? And the more your invest, the more profit we turn. How else do you expect it to trickle down to you, the consumer? And look, if you think it's that bad, why don't you try Social Security? You say it's broken, all gone? Well, good riddance to those commies. Now, aren't you glad we have real choices? Ok, sign here to authorize your monthly deduction.
Ok, now it's time to choose a health plan. Lucky you, getting insurance! We have two wonderful plans for you to choose from. Plan A costs around $9000 a month. You can go to any doctor you choose, any time, any where, no pre-approval required, and everything is covered, no questions asked. But the deductible is high, about $10,000 a year. Oh, and prescriptions aren't covered, nor are certain routine lab tests. And preventative care isn't covered either (it's considered experimental). Also, you can't have this plan if you've ever been sick before. So, this plan is really only for very cautious people with zero tolerance for risk. You're a tolerant person, right?
So, let's just turn to Plan B. Plan B is for normal, active Americans who don't foresee any major health crises. You're not planning to get into a car accident, right? Or get cancer? Of course not, what fool would want to do that. You've got great genes, by the way. And you're willing to bet on it? Good, then Plan B is for you.
So, Plan B represents a significant savings for you, with a cost of just $200 per month. All prescriptions are free, and there's a low deductible of $1500. You can only see in-network doctors, and all visits and treatments have to be pre-approved by your Primary Care Physician (PCP). The PCP you will be assigned to is very busy with the 800 or so patients on his roster, many of whom are deathly ill. So you may have to wait 6 months for an appointment. But don't worry, you're very healthy! And if you need treatment fast, you can always go to the emergency room. But don't go without calling us first. Failure to notify your insurance company prior to an ER visit constitutes grounds for non-payment (sign here, please).
Also, with Plan B it's standard procedure for us to dispute each charge you incur. Don't worry, it's just a formality. It's easy to figure out how to work the system; just read this 10,000 page benefits guide and provide the required documentation. The reading gets a bit tedious at times, I'll admit, but think of it like counting cards: there's a potentially big payoff at the end if you stay alert and informed (and some consequences if you don't!). We'll also send you a 600-page update to your benefits guide each month, free of charge. You're welcome! Don't throw it away. It's mostly about miniscule changes in how we administer claims for drug formularies that you'll never be prescribed. But one day, when you least expect it, buried deep within your benefits update, there will be a hidden clause that legally authorizes us to cause your bankruptcy or death. Only if you get sick, of course, which you said you weren't planning to do anyway. And of course you'll get to choose which one you want, bankruptcy or death. You always get to choose in America. Congratulations on your wise benefits elections. And good luck.
Let's pretend I've just started a new job — with benefits, yay! — and now I get to make my benefits elections. So, which plans should I choose?
Well, that depends on how much risk you can tolerate. Are you the gambling sort? Well, then the Aggressive Plan is for you, please walk over to the high-stakes table. How about upping that amount to half your monthly salary, and investing it all in high-risk equities? That's the only way to get rich in this country, you know. Heck, that's the only way not to end up on Skid Row! Not comfortable with risk, you say? Well, here's a geriatric investment plan that might be more your style [chicken noise, chicken noise]. Oh, and p.s., you're going to kick yourself later when you're forced to sell your home and retire in your children's basement. Because you should have invested in Finance Flavor of the Month XYZ. It went from zero to $200 a share in under two hours! Diversification is for losers. And Americans are not losers.
So, when would you like to retire? When you're 65? Well, if you're over 30, tsk tsk, I'm afraid you're going to need to go double or nothing. Here, try the Super Aggressive Plan. Who knows, you might end up living the high life, no worse off than if you had started socking it away at age 15! But you could also lose everything. Just so you know. So in case you do lose everything and end up old and broke, remember that it was your own fault. It's true, some people aren't comfortable with that level of risk [chicken noise]. But you know what? You should probably just go ahead and do the Super Aggressive Plan anyway. If the stock market crashes, you won't be able to retire no matter what, so you might as well at least give yourself that faint kernel of hope that you could strike it rich.
What, you say it isn't fair? You know, you're lucky to have this at all. Sheesh, Americans are so spoiled. There's a starving child in China who would be thrilled, just thrilled, to have that Super Aggressive Plan. Plus, we have to turn a profit: did you ever think of that? And the more your invest, the more profit we turn. How else do you expect it to trickle down to you, the consumer? And look, if you think it's that bad, why don't you try Social Security? You say it's broken, all gone? Well, good riddance to those commies. Now, aren't you glad we have real choices? Ok, sign here to authorize your monthly deduction.
Ok, now it's time to choose a health plan. Lucky you, getting insurance! We have two wonderful plans for you to choose from. Plan A costs around $9000 a month. You can go to any doctor you choose, any time, any where, no pre-approval required, and everything is covered, no questions asked. But the deductible is high, about $10,000 a year. Oh, and prescriptions aren't covered, nor are certain routine lab tests. And preventative care isn't covered either (it's considered experimental). Also, you can't have this plan if you've ever been sick before. So, this plan is really only for very cautious people with zero tolerance for risk. You're a tolerant person, right?
So, let's just turn to Plan B. Plan B is for normal, active Americans who don't foresee any major health crises. You're not planning to get into a car accident, right? Or get cancer? Of course not, what fool would want to do that. You've got great genes, by the way. And you're willing to bet on it? Good, then Plan B is for you.
So, Plan B represents a significant savings for you, with a cost of just $200 per month. All prescriptions are free, and there's a low deductible of $1500. You can only see in-network doctors, and all visits and treatments have to be pre-approved by your Primary Care Physician (PCP). The PCP you will be assigned to is very busy with the 800 or so patients on his roster, many of whom are deathly ill. So you may have to wait 6 months for an appointment. But don't worry, you're very healthy! And if you need treatment fast, you can always go to the emergency room. But don't go without calling us first. Failure to notify your insurance company prior to an ER visit constitutes grounds for non-payment (sign here, please).
Also, with Plan B it's standard procedure for us to dispute each charge you incur. Don't worry, it's just a formality. It's easy to figure out how to work the system; just read this 10,000 page benefits guide and provide the required documentation. The reading gets a bit tedious at times, I'll admit, but think of it like counting cards: there's a potentially big payoff at the end if you stay alert and informed (and some consequences if you don't!). We'll also send you a 600-page update to your benefits guide each month, free of charge. You're welcome! Don't throw it away. It's mostly about miniscule changes in how we administer claims for drug formularies that you'll never be prescribed. But one day, when you least expect it, buried deep within your benefits update, there will be a hidden clause that legally authorizes us to cause your bankruptcy or death. Only if you get sick, of course, which you said you weren't planning to do anyway. And of course you'll get to choose which one you want, bankruptcy or death. You always get to choose in America. Congratulations on your wise benefits elections. And good luck.
Huey Newton was a Kaiser
One of four in a series of posts after seeing Michael Moore's film Sicko.
I heard a moaning and a groaning, and I went over and it was — this Negro fellow was there. He had been shot in the stomach and at the time he didn't appear in any acute distress and so I said I'd see, and I asked him if he was a Kaiser, if he belonged to Kaiser, and he said, "Yes, yes. Get a doctor. Can't you see I'm bleeding? I've been shot. Now get someone out here." And I asked him if he had his Kaiser card and he got upset at this and he said, "Come on, get a doctor out here, I've been shot." I said, "I see this, but you're not in any acute distress…" So I told him we'd have to check to make sure he was a member…And this kind of upset him more and he called me a few nasty names and said, "Now get a doctor out here right now, I've been shot and I'm bleeding." And he took off his coat and his shirt and he threw it on the desk there and he said, "Can't you see all this blood?" And I said, "I see it." And it wasn't that much, and so I said, "Well, you'll have to sign our admission sheet before you can be seen by a doctor." And he said, "I'm not signing anything" and a few more choice words…
This is an excerpt from the testimony before the Alameda County Grad Jury of Corrine Leonard, the nurse in charge of the Kaiser Foundation Hospital emergency room in Oakland at 5:30am on October 28, 1967. The "Negro fellow" was of course Huey Newton, wounded that morning during the gunfire which killed John Frey. For a long time I kept a copy of this testimony pinned to my office wall, on the theory that it illustrated a collision of cultures, a classic instance of an historical outsider confronting the established order at its most petty and impenetrable level. This theory was shattered when I learned that Huey Newton was in fact an enrolled member of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, i.e., in Nurse Leonard's words, "a Kaiser."
— Joan Didion, "The White Album," 32-33.
I heard a moaning and a groaning, and I went over and it was — this Negro fellow was there. He had been shot in the stomach and at the time he didn't appear in any acute distress and so I said I'd see, and I asked him if he was a Kaiser, if he belonged to Kaiser, and he said, "Yes, yes. Get a doctor. Can't you see I'm bleeding? I've been shot. Now get someone out here." And I asked him if he had his Kaiser card and he got upset at this and he said, "Come on, get a doctor out here, I've been shot." I said, "I see this, but you're not in any acute distress…" So I told him we'd have to check to make sure he was a member…And this kind of upset him more and he called me a few nasty names and said, "Now get a doctor out here right now, I've been shot and I'm bleeding." And he took off his coat and his shirt and he threw it on the desk there and he said, "Can't you see all this blood?" And I said, "I see it." And it wasn't that much, and so I said, "Well, you'll have to sign our admission sheet before you can be seen by a doctor." And he said, "I'm not signing anything" and a few more choice words…
This is an excerpt from the testimony before the Alameda County Grad Jury of Corrine Leonard, the nurse in charge of the Kaiser Foundation Hospital emergency room in Oakland at 5:30am on October 28, 1967. The "Negro fellow" was of course Huey Newton, wounded that morning during the gunfire which killed John Frey. For a long time I kept a copy of this testimony pinned to my office wall, on the theory that it illustrated a collision of cultures, a classic instance of an historical outsider confronting the established order at its most petty and impenetrable level. This theory was shattered when I learned that Huey Newton was in fact an enrolled member of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, i.e., in Nurse Leonard's words, "a Kaiser."
— Joan Didion, "The White Album," 32-33.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Top 10 Films of 2006
10. Follow My Voice (Catherine Linton)
9. Love for Share (Nia Di Nata)
8. Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton and Faris)
7. Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell)
6. Stephanie Daley (Hilary Brougher)
5. Inside Man (Spike Lee)
4. Madeinusa (Claudia Llosa)
3. The Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou)
2. Inland Empire (David Lynch)
1. United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
9. Love for Share (Nia Di Nata)
8. Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton and Faris)
7. Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell)
6. Stephanie Daley (Hilary Brougher)
5. Inside Man (Spike Lee)
4. Madeinusa (Claudia Llosa)
3. The Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou)
2. Inland Empire (David Lynch)
1. United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
Exercise and the Nutrition Paradigm
Food writer Michael Pollan has written about the nutrition paradigm, and how it’s resulted in changed notions of what counts as food. The story goes: once upon a time, we ate breads, butters, beets, and other food items. Then, sometime in the 1970s, we started to eat from “food groups”: starches, meats, dairy, fruits and vegetables. Today, our food is yet more abstract: we consume calories, grams of protein, percentage-based intakes of vitamins, minerals, and other “nutrients.” Pollan’s advice: if your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, then it’s probably not.
There is a scientific argument against the nutrition paradigm. It goes something like this: “nutrition” is poor science, for we do not ultimately know whether it’s the nutrients and calories in themselves that create health benefits, or whether there are properties within the original foods that exceed the sum of their quantified parts. We do not know for certain why a fresh potato is “better for us” than an energy bar or processed meal containing an exactly equivalent amount of vitamins, fiber, protein, calories, and so on. But common sense and the evidence of thousands of years of human eating habits suggest as much.
There is also an argument that pertains to pleasure: actual foods are not only better for you; they also taste better. There is pleasure in the culture surrounding these foods: buying and carefully preparing (or even growing) them, reading about them, going to restaurants where they are served, is a leisure activity with a yield of value far in excess of putting something in the microwave. A possible counter-argument: not everyone has the time and money to cultivate pleasure and knowledge around their food consumption, or perhaps only on holidays or other special occasions.
Finally, there is a political and philosophical argument. I think we have moved toward a cultural paradigm in which what Marx called the General Equivalent has been applied to food. The concept of “nutrition” abstracts and quantifies the experience of eating concrete foods: it alienates us from food, from the complex characteristics of living bodies, from the senses of taste and smell, which used to be a barometer of what was good to eat. It’s analogous to the alienation that Marx attributes to assembly-line and clock-punching systems of labor. I am no longer making a car; I am logging hours and quantifiable units of work. I am no longer eating a pizza; I am intaking caloric value. The current culture in one in which, in many cases, the numeric breakdown of a food’s nutritional content is strangely more recognizable than the actual ingredient list.
With exercise, a similar critique can be made. How do we know that burning X number of calories over Y duration of time spent on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym is equivalent to burning the same amount of calories working in a garden or hauling firewood? The question seems absurd to contemporary ears: if the goal is to burn calories, why should the activity matter? And yet it is analogous to the argument Pollan makes about nutrients vs. food. There may be health benefits in the different types of motion, the exposure to sun, the state of mind one achieves when performing an actual task, that are not quantifiable in calories burned or minutes logged in exercise. Benefits that we lack the means to quantify, but that thousands of years of human experience prior to the invention of the treadmill might suggest.
Is the computer-programmed exercise machine the equivalent of nutrient-enriched foods? Is there a movement among exercise professionals analogous to the slow foods movement, the organic foods movement, and the “eat local” movement? If so, what is it?
One alternative form of exercise would be yoga, pilates, and so on — types of movement that address the whole body and mind, where the goal is not simply weight-loss, calorie burning, an aesthetically conforming body, and so on, but mind-body awareness, organ health, injury prevention, and so on (to paraphrase yoga instructor Bryan Kest, “Which machine at the gym is for your spine? Your kidneys? How many machines at the gym are for your butt cheeks and biceps? Is that really a health club, or is it an aesthetics club?”). Still, in its current American form, yoga too easily becomes a type of “exercise,” packaged and sold in commercial classes and how-to books, often obeying the same logic as the timed treadmill. Power yoga, which emphasizes cardio workout value, is an example of this. It is difficult to escape the exercise mentality, which has been naturalized to the point of appearing obvious.
Another alternative is more traditional and less trendy: organized sports, whether professional, intramural, or just loosely organized in a group. In sports games, calories are burned and people break a sweat. But there are goals (no pun intended) beyond exercise for exercise’s sake: to win in competition (agon), to improve one’s skills and strategy (techne), to experience working as part of a team (the polis, the social aspect).
There are also sports that emphasize the “fun” aspect (what Roger Caillois calls ilinx or vertigo), what we might loosely term “extreme sports.” Skateboarding, surfing, rock climbing, and so on have the benefit of strengthening the body and burning calories, but as with organized sports, few practitioners would say that this is their main reason for playing.
I imagine a new business model for the “health club” or gym that would promote ends other than just burning calories or building aesthetically valorized muscle groups. Sports and other physical activities that involve a social, mental, or skill-building aspect (dance, some forms of yoga, exercises like swimming that reward technique-building, etc.) offer one way. But another way would be to offer activities that resulted in a product, that emphasize creativity, service, and making things (what Hannah Arendt calls homo faber) rather than the brute labor of logging hours at the gym (what Arendt calls animal laborans). What if instead of spending one hour running on a machine, every gym member spent one hour raking leaves, shoveling snow, or building public housing? Or even just walking or riding a bicycle somewhere? How many people drive an hour to work, only to spend an hour that evening walking or riding a bicycle in a gym going nowhere? How many people circle endlessly around a parking lot so that they do not have to carry their bags of groceries too far, only to go lift weights in a gym? Gyms could partner with community organizations to promote and design initiatives that would channel all this Sisyphean human energy.
These remarks are part of a larger, very loose set of new ideas about the relationship between games, play, and labor in contemporary human experience.
There is a scientific argument against the nutrition paradigm. It goes something like this: “nutrition” is poor science, for we do not ultimately know whether it’s the nutrients and calories in themselves that create health benefits, or whether there are properties within the original foods that exceed the sum of their quantified parts. We do not know for certain why a fresh potato is “better for us” than an energy bar or processed meal containing an exactly equivalent amount of vitamins, fiber, protein, calories, and so on. But common sense and the evidence of thousands of years of human eating habits suggest as much.
There is also an argument that pertains to pleasure: actual foods are not only better for you; they also taste better. There is pleasure in the culture surrounding these foods: buying and carefully preparing (or even growing) them, reading about them, going to restaurants where they are served, is a leisure activity with a yield of value far in excess of putting something in the microwave. A possible counter-argument: not everyone has the time and money to cultivate pleasure and knowledge around their food consumption, or perhaps only on holidays or other special occasions.
Finally, there is a political and philosophical argument. I think we have moved toward a cultural paradigm in which what Marx called the General Equivalent has been applied to food. The concept of “nutrition” abstracts and quantifies the experience of eating concrete foods: it alienates us from food, from the complex characteristics of living bodies, from the senses of taste and smell, which used to be a barometer of what was good to eat. It’s analogous to the alienation that Marx attributes to assembly-line and clock-punching systems of labor. I am no longer making a car; I am logging hours and quantifiable units of work. I am no longer eating a pizza; I am intaking caloric value. The current culture in one in which, in many cases, the numeric breakdown of a food’s nutritional content is strangely more recognizable than the actual ingredient list.
With exercise, a similar critique can be made. How do we know that burning X number of calories over Y duration of time spent on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym is equivalent to burning the same amount of calories working in a garden or hauling firewood? The question seems absurd to contemporary ears: if the goal is to burn calories, why should the activity matter? And yet it is analogous to the argument Pollan makes about nutrients vs. food. There may be health benefits in the different types of motion, the exposure to sun, the state of mind one achieves when performing an actual task, that are not quantifiable in calories burned or minutes logged in exercise. Benefits that we lack the means to quantify, but that thousands of years of human experience prior to the invention of the treadmill might suggest.
Is the computer-programmed exercise machine the equivalent of nutrient-enriched foods? Is there a movement among exercise professionals analogous to the slow foods movement, the organic foods movement, and the “eat local” movement? If so, what is it?
One alternative form of exercise would be yoga, pilates, and so on — types of movement that address the whole body and mind, where the goal is not simply weight-loss, calorie burning, an aesthetically conforming body, and so on, but mind-body awareness, organ health, injury prevention, and so on (to paraphrase yoga instructor Bryan Kest, “Which machine at the gym is for your spine? Your kidneys? How many machines at the gym are for your butt cheeks and biceps? Is that really a health club, or is it an aesthetics club?”). Still, in its current American form, yoga too easily becomes a type of “exercise,” packaged and sold in commercial classes and how-to books, often obeying the same logic as the timed treadmill. Power yoga, which emphasizes cardio workout value, is an example of this. It is difficult to escape the exercise mentality, which has been naturalized to the point of appearing obvious.
Another alternative is more traditional and less trendy: organized sports, whether professional, intramural, or just loosely organized in a group. In sports games, calories are burned and people break a sweat. But there are goals (no pun intended) beyond exercise for exercise’s sake: to win in competition (agon), to improve one’s skills and strategy (techne), to experience working as part of a team (the polis, the social aspect).
There are also sports that emphasize the “fun” aspect (what Roger Caillois calls ilinx or vertigo), what we might loosely term “extreme sports.” Skateboarding, surfing, rock climbing, and so on have the benefit of strengthening the body and burning calories, but as with organized sports, few practitioners would say that this is their main reason for playing.
I imagine a new business model for the “health club” or gym that would promote ends other than just burning calories or building aesthetically valorized muscle groups. Sports and other physical activities that involve a social, mental, or skill-building aspect (dance, some forms of yoga, exercises like swimming that reward technique-building, etc.) offer one way. But another way would be to offer activities that resulted in a product, that emphasize creativity, service, and making things (what Hannah Arendt calls homo faber) rather than the brute labor of logging hours at the gym (what Arendt calls animal laborans). What if instead of spending one hour running on a machine, every gym member spent one hour raking leaves, shoveling snow, or building public housing? Or even just walking or riding a bicycle somewhere? How many people drive an hour to work, only to spend an hour that evening walking or riding a bicycle in a gym going nowhere? How many people circle endlessly around a parking lot so that they do not have to carry their bags of groceries too far, only to go lift weights in a gym? Gyms could partner with community organizations to promote and design initiatives that would channel all this Sisyphean human energy.
These remarks are part of a larger, very loose set of new ideas about the relationship between games, play, and labor in contemporary human experience.
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