Working on my presentation for the public defense of my phd on Friday and one thing is certain: I'll have to make clear how the rhetoric of these two men differs in a way that makes it valuable to study them side by side.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I've got to, I really really have to say this, although I clearly shouldn't, although it is definitely not the appropriate scholarly comment to make; and even though I was brought up(probably indoctrinated) to think that Gunter is our hero on a mission to save us all from evil capitalism; but girls, seriously, you know what I am getting at. Based purely on visuals here provided: It is not Gunter, is it? We wouldn't choose Gunter, would we? Dirt on face, hard hat, hero and all. I say no. Hunter clearly - and I remind you that this is based on visuals alone - has what it takes. He looks like he is actually capable of laughing.
All of which reminds me that Troels, my six year-old nephew, recently asked me to explain what an anti-hero is. Should I have said "Hunter"?
I'm on the defense this week, rehearsing for Friday, so excuse me if I'm getting formal ("I'm delighted that you should ask this question, Ms. ..."). Anyway, I turned to Wikipedia to brush up my anti-heroism (where none other than Clint Eastwood (as The Man With No Name) is included a prime example of an anti-hero - so there you go, and there's a photograph too). Hunter definitely belongs under the first of the suggested definitions:
"An anti-hero in today's books and films will perform acts generally deemed "heroic,"" [like going out searching for the American Dream and writing a bold style, street wise classic about it] - "but will do so with methods, manners, or intentions that may not be heroic" [like having the trunk of your car filled for the occasion with 'two bags of grass. Seventy-five pellets of mescaline. Five sheets of high powered blother acid. A salt shaker half full of cocaine. A whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.']
An anti-hero, thus Wikipedia this afternoon, can also just simply be "conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities".
"Anti-heroes can be awkward, antisocial, alienated, cruel, obnoxious, passive, pitiful, obtuse, or just ordinary" And anti-heroes live "by the guidance of their own moral compass, striving to define and construe their own values as opposed to those recognized by the society in which they live."
This last point resembles a main point in my own dissertation in which I define spectacular personal reportage as performances of "critical epideictic work in progress": i.e. as sometimes hapless attempts by the writers to establish and even personally incarnate some common ground between the community in the field and the community surrounding their own texts.
So yes, if you ask me, the answer to Troels might very well be: Hunter.
Post a Comment