Good morning!
The period of September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month (and, no, I have no idea why it begins and ends in mid-month!). Have a happy end of this commemorative month.
GREAT TV
It’s been a while since some TV recommendations. Here’s an update on two shows I have loved over the past few months (with a couple more to follow in a week or so):
Call My Agent. Wonderfully written characters at a French talent agency. A great sensitive, loving post card to an industry ridiculously obsessed with ego and image. I have newfound respect for my friends who had to deal with the crazy insecure, overly demanding, emotionally needy actors that they have to represent. Plus, you can practice your French while listening to the actors and reading the subtitles. Wonderful, humorous and, at times, touching.
The Chair. As I was taught by a member of the Faculty Senate when I was at USC, “faculty politics is intense because the stakes are so small.” This short mini-series is about an English Department in a “second-tier Ivy,” dealing with the 21st century. In its short run of episodes, one hears people reimagining the great texts, watches aging brilliant profs dealing with their waning years and influence, and promising young scholars set on addressing the classics in different ways.
Much of the story deals with the anxious, politically correct students who report the smallest sleights and the slightest mistakes (e.g., a professor talking about fascism who makes a Nazi salute for emphasis in a class). What comes from this is the college’s desire to fire the professor for his Naziism after students protest his singular (stupid) lecture. It’s sometimes silly but really a love letter to those quirky, brilliant role models who taught us and challenged us. Here is a great interview with the co-creator, a Harvard Ph.D., with thanks to Mandy Lowell: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/08/hint-of-harvard-behind-annie-wymans-netflix-hit-the-chair/
ACADEMIA AND STUDENTS
The Chair confronts difficult issues playing themselves out every day:
Older faculty reaching the time when they should move aside for younger professors (and the ageism associated with it)
The historic lack of female and minority involvement at colleges
The fact that everything these days is being videotaped all the time
The effect of a singular, perhaps ill-conceived, act to accentuate a point in a lecture could change a reputation and a career in a moment
The cynical manner in which an institution handles complaints, knowing what’s right but also fearing the repercussions of acting rationally and calmly.
But what is also poignantly presented is the dedication of faculty and the love of the subject matter. These are professors—not from the “preparation for a job” business school, but from an English department in decline—exploring texts to better understand the world, the human condition and the individual. And as I watched snippets of English professors asking students to react to the words, the meter and the punctuation of a poem, I realized that this, more than finding a job in venture capital, is what college is all about. I sometimes wonder whether, rather than trying to argue in local school districts about new topics to be taught in class and colleges trying to teach more “relevant” subjects, we are missing the essence of the experience. A college education should be an opportunity for students to explore the world and themselves in new, complex, and sometimes off-putting and uncomfortable ways. As I watch many of my friends signing up for adult classes and book clubs, it makes me realize that we all have discovered that much of the college experience is wasted on the young.
The juxtaposition of the students protesting the professor who misspoke and other students reading and analyzing literature solely for literature’s sake, was profound. How many of us would love to go back to school to have these experiences, which we sometimes took for granted, once again. And I’m guessing that, perhaps, we would listen a bit more and protest a bit less. Perhaps we would be just a little kinder and a little more humble than the current moment seems to allow.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
From the archives:
You may want to check out The White Lotus. (There’s a GM character that may remind you of someone we know all too well…)