![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistThis morning, as I was consuming my coffee, I was flipping through the TV channels, and came across an episode of Saved By The Bell: The College Years, an ouvre largely unfamiliar to me. That particular episode revolved around everyone taking a Cultural Anthropology class. Zack only takes the class so that he can be in the class with some girl he likes. The professor notices this and tells Zack that he has a lot to learn, but if he thinks he is so smart, he can be off the hook for the rest of the semester: if he presents the professor with a scientific explanation of what women want, he won't have to come to class and he'll get a B for the course. Of course, Zack jumps at the opportunity and learns something in the process.
Watching it, I got to thinking: why is Anthropology so frequently portrayed on TV as the college class freshmen take, where there is "symbolic" correspondence between what they learn in school and their own experiences. Then it hit me: anthropology classes, in TV-land insane imaginary of my discipline, is like a narrative proxy for issues of mating. Romance, courtship, sexuality, infidelity, all get conveniently explored in the context of I-am-not-anthropology-but-I-play-one-on-TV educational endeavors.
TV "exoticizes" anthropology in the same way that proto-ethnographers, once upon a time, exoticized the indigenous peoples they were describing. The TV version of anthropology is insane because it's like, this pre-Boas discipline, presented as a science, and taught exclusively by eccentric, extremely unprofessional young & hot professors who are all somehow deviant.
Here is, to the best of my recollection, the "classroom" scene from the Saved by the Bell episode:
The professor is talking about how every culture has a courting ritual. He asks Zack and some blonde girl he is pursuing to come down to the front of the auditorium for a demonstration. He tells Zack to succesfully woo the girl [see above re: unprofessional], but "like primitive people, he can't use language." Zack then struts around the girl, who is pissed at him for kissing Kelly, and the professor notes: "She is not interested. She is thinking that there are plenty of better choices in her own tribe." Based on this, the professor tells Zack that he has to learn a lot about women, and that's how the deal described above transpires. Zack then uses the project as an excuse to get girls' phone numbers (his project is "interviewing" girls on a camera that Screech is wielding), but then he learns a lesson, which is that women want different things. Just like guys. After this amazing scientific insight, the professor keeps his promise, gives him a B and tells him he does not have to come to class for the rest of the semester. Zack says "if I give you the girls' swimming team footage, will you raise it to an A?" The professor seems torn, but then says "don't push it."
The episode concludes by the professor getting ready to start the class, looking homoerotically forlornly at Zack's empty seat, sighing that "I guess everyone who is going to be here is here." But THEN Zack walks in, and the professor beams.
I think later in the season the professor dates Kelly. Who is his student.
Furthermore, all this made me think of my favorite 90210 character ever, Lucinda Nicholson, the ABD student in anthropology who has an affair with Brandon, and also tries to seduce Dylan to get money for her film. Her research is all vaguely concerned with sexuality and polygamy, which is reified by her (it is implied in a self-serving way) as a "healthier" and "more natural" primitive outlook. Lucinda Nicholson is the perfect embodiment of the American cultural stereotypes about female anthropologists: they have an "exotic" aura, and are a weird amalgam of feminist and postfeminist which translates into sexually liberated/promiscuous and ambitious/bitches. Brandon first meets Lucinda at the gym; he gets fascinated with her trips to exotic places like Central America, her collection of Melonesian wines, her several strategically tossed indigenous terms, and her philosophy of polyamory that seems to stem from either cultural relativism or naturalistic fallacy (unclear, because as I mentioned before, TV tends to treat cultural anthropology as a science). Lucinda also teaches an anthropology class that Brenda and Kelly and Andrea enroll in, which is tinted with the aura of vagino-feminism and, like, quilts. First of all, if they all are at a university, there is no way that they would be in a class so small (12 people?) Even my graduate seminars are larger. Second of all, it's very doubtful that an ABD student would teach her own full course. Not inconcievable, but unlikely. She would be more likely to T.A., doing a section of a large class. But noooo, it's her class on the show. Her class which is her platform for second-wave-type waxing about the beauty of polyamory. And she's so exotic with her tanktops and wild curly hair. All subtle implications that she learned a little something from those polyamorous savages and now she is a real Amazon woman in the sack. And although her affair with Brandon isn't strictly unprofessional, since Brandon isn't one of her students, because her students don't have penises, it's still portrayed as deviant because she is married. Because she is not tortured and guilty about cheating on her husband. She's all epicurean and original sin about it.
Don't get me wrong, I really, really loved Lucinda. And for about 5 minutes she was actually an interesting character. Of course, in the end she was written as a money-grubbing, ball-busting ho. That always made me sad.
Watching it, I got to thinking: why is Anthropology so frequently portrayed on TV as the college class freshmen take, where there is "symbolic" correspondence between what they learn in school and their own experiences. Then it hit me: anthropology classes, in TV-land insane imaginary of my discipline, is like a narrative proxy for issues of mating. Romance, courtship, sexuality, infidelity, all get conveniently explored in the context of I-am-not-anthropology-but-I-play-one-on-TV educational endeavors.
TV "exoticizes" anthropology in the same way that proto-ethnographers, once upon a time, exoticized the indigenous peoples they were describing. The TV version of anthropology is insane because it's like, this pre-Boas discipline, presented as a science, and taught exclusively by eccentric, extremely unprofessional young & hot professors who are all somehow deviant.
Here is, to the best of my recollection, the "classroom" scene from the Saved by the Bell episode:
The professor is talking about how every culture has a courting ritual. He asks Zack and some blonde girl he is pursuing to come down to the front of the auditorium for a demonstration. He tells Zack to succesfully woo the girl [see above re: unprofessional], but "like primitive people, he can't use language." Zack then struts around the girl, who is pissed at him for kissing Kelly, and the professor notes: "She is not interested. She is thinking that there are plenty of better choices in her own tribe." Based on this, the professor tells Zack that he has to learn a lot about women, and that's how the deal described above transpires. Zack then uses the project as an excuse to get girls' phone numbers (his project is "interviewing" girls on a camera that Screech is wielding), but then he learns a lesson, which is that women want different things. Just like guys. After this amazing scientific insight, the professor keeps his promise, gives him a B and tells him he does not have to come to class for the rest of the semester. Zack says "if I give you the girls' swimming team footage, will you raise it to an A?" The professor seems torn, but then says "don't push it."
The episode concludes by the professor getting ready to start the class, looking homoerotically forlornly at Zack's empty seat, sighing that "I guess everyone who is going to be here is here." But THEN Zack walks in, and the professor beams.
I think later in the season the professor dates Kelly. Who is his student.
Furthermore, all this made me think of my favorite 90210 character ever, Lucinda Nicholson, the ABD student in anthropology who has an affair with Brandon, and also tries to seduce Dylan to get money for her film. Her research is all vaguely concerned with sexuality and polygamy, which is reified by her (it is implied in a self-serving way) as a "healthier" and "more natural" primitive outlook. Lucinda Nicholson is the perfect embodiment of the American cultural stereotypes about female anthropologists: they have an "exotic" aura, and are a weird amalgam of feminist and postfeminist which translates into sexually liberated/promiscuous and ambitious/bitches. Brandon first meets Lucinda at the gym; he gets fascinated with her trips to exotic places like Central America, her collection of Melonesian wines, her several strategically tossed indigenous terms, and her philosophy of polyamory that seems to stem from either cultural relativism or naturalistic fallacy (unclear, because as I mentioned before, TV tends to treat cultural anthropology as a science). Lucinda also teaches an anthropology class that Brenda and Kelly and Andrea enroll in, which is tinted with the aura of vagino-feminism and, like, quilts. First of all, if they all are at a university, there is no way that they would be in a class so small (12 people?) Even my graduate seminars are larger. Second of all, it's very doubtful that an ABD student would teach her own full course. Not inconcievable, but unlikely. She would be more likely to T.A., doing a section of a large class. But noooo, it's her class on the show. Her class which is her platform for second-wave-type waxing about the beauty of polyamory. And she's so exotic with her tanktops and wild curly hair. All subtle implications that she learned a little something from those polyamorous savages and now she is a real Amazon woman in the sack. And although her affair with Brandon isn't strictly unprofessional, since Brandon isn't one of her students, because her students don't have penises, it's still portrayed as deviant because she is married. Because she is not tortured and guilty about cheating on her husband. She's all epicurean and original sin about it.
Don't get me wrong, I really, really loved Lucinda. And for about 5 minutes she was actually an interesting character. Of course, in the end she was written as a money-grubbing, ball-busting ho. That always made me sad.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:16 pm (UTC)Do you really not have Micronesian masks adorning your spacious bungalow apartment? I hope you at least like spicy food! Please don't ruin the image for me too much. Ha ha ha.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:30 pm (UTC)i do have a good memory for details; my friends always say that my memory is "creepy," but Lucinda was a particular love of mine, so I remembered everything about her. Someone who is not in grad school may not have even registered what "ABD" is, but to me, watching reruns in the fall of 1999, during my first year in grad school, it was a meaningful acronym. Like, if someone on a show was a young starting-out architect, wouldn't you remember the random technical terms they would append to him/her to make him/her sound vaguely "legit"?
Haha, no Micronesian masks, just a bunch of knives from South America, previously referenced earlier today. Although I have to admit I do the "signifying" thing with my clothes/jewelry that passes for professional dress code in my field.
also, have you ever read danny drennan's 90210 recaps? they are quite detailed and very funny, they were sort of the precursors to Television Without Pity format. here is a link to a page that has some of them
http://www.inquisitor.com/90210/
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:50 pm (UTC)ok, you watched reruns in 1999 -- i was thinking that you remembered this detail from 1994! (while still in high school, or whenever this was filmed).
i don't know if i'm glad or sad that there aren't any architects on tv (aside from mr. brady of course). in real life we're totally boring, but i'd love love love to see how the stereotypes would be played out. i really have no idea if they'd portray an architect as some asshole ego half fratty/half metrosexual dude (aka modern day Howard Roarke), or a snotty effiminant guy that could be interchangeable with a fashion designer stereotype.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 06:46 am (UTC)And as for TV, the mom on Family Ties, wasn't she an architect too? And Mr. Ed's owner?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 06:54 am (UTC)Mr. Brady was an architect. I didn't realize that Elise Keaton was too. There is no way she would have had that kind of free time!
im learning feminist anthropologist
Date: 2004-01-26 10:21 pm (UTC)can u sumarize veiled sentiments by lily abu lughod? do you know the answer to this question? would anthropologist agree that women are universally subordinated to men? why or why not. i have a mid term Friday. (:
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:15 pm (UTC)Which really isn't much of a point at all...
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 06:52 am (UTC)im learning feminist anthropologist
Date: 2004-01-27 12:08 am (UTC)can u sumarize veiled sentiments by lily abu lughod? do you know the answer to this question? would anthropologist agree that women are universally subordinated to men? why or why not. i have a mid term Friday. (:
LOL!
Date: 2004-01-27 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 05:46 pm (UTC)Well my university is pretty medium-sized, but our department is very small. My graduate seminars have between 2-10 people in them, and most anthro classes (besides 101) have a maximum of 17 students. Minor point though.
Then it hit me: anthropology classes, in TV-land insane imaginary of my discipline, is like a narrative proxy for issues of mating.
TA'ing 101 last semester I got to see how curious a lot of casual students (who often come from business or criminology or psychology) are about sexuality and gender. Often they want something that will tell them that it's not just hormones.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 09:46 pm (UTC)Including, um, me.
In my school (SFU), one can do a sessional course with an ABD (not much more $ than a TA). (I think this not uncommon in Canadian universities).
I saw some Desmond Morris books for sale yesterday at a secondhand bookshop near McGill and wondered whether I shouldn't have burned them.