Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2010-03-08 08:45 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2010-03-08 08:45 am
To bullshit or not to bullshit?
That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the academic honor code to suffer the quips and red pens of pretentious blowhards, or to make shit up amongst a sea of deadlines, and by inventing end them...
Ugh, so for my theatre class I have to write a review of the mise en scène of this play we saw. Everything about it, from the text to the costumes and sets (or lack thereof) to the wanton stomping on the fourth wall and refusal to let the audience get engaged in the story, was so painfully avant-garde as to be deliberately obtuse. And now I have to give a review with my "reasoned opinion" on it to the professor, who is a raging fanboy of this type of theatre. Dude appears to think any staging that actually represents something and lets the audience suspend their disbelief is hopelessly outmoded, boring, and dumbed down for the masses.
So I have a dilemma. Either I figure it's not worth butting horns with the professor of a class I'm only taking for the free theatre tickets, and I make up some steaming hot bullshit. I know how these people think, I could tell what this play was trying to pull off, I was just utterly unimpressed by it. It would make me feel vaguely dirty to lie through my teeth about my opinions, but it's not an opinion I actually care much about.
Or I can be brutally honest about how much I hated it, back it up with the best arguments I can, and see how much of a fanboy he is. It would feel really fucking good to write, and is definitely the less cowardly thing to do, but I don't really want to wreck my GPA on the off-chance he decides I'm a hopeless plebe for not seeing the brilliance of dumping blue paint all over somebody to represent a sea burial, or a heavy-handed Antigone allegory dragging around phone books full of the names of the dead like a crazy bag lady.
(You don't see the brilliance? You must be hopelessly uncool and un-intellectual and have no understanding of what theatre's actually about--clinging to silly concepts like characters and plot and conflict and immersion in the story, pffft. I bet you like poetry that rhymes, too.)
Ugh, so for my theatre class I have to write a review of the mise en scène of this play we saw. Everything about it, from the text to the costumes and sets (or lack thereof) to the wanton stomping on the fourth wall and refusal to let the audience get engaged in the story, was so painfully avant-garde as to be deliberately obtuse. And now I have to give a review with my "reasoned opinion" on it to the professor, who is a raging fanboy of this type of theatre. Dude appears to think any staging that actually represents something and lets the audience suspend their disbelief is hopelessly outmoded, boring, and dumbed down for the masses.
So I have a dilemma. Either I figure it's not worth butting horns with the professor of a class I'm only taking for the free theatre tickets, and I make up some steaming hot bullshit. I know how these people think, I could tell what this play was trying to pull off, I was just utterly unimpressed by it. It would make me feel vaguely dirty to lie through my teeth about my opinions, but it's not an opinion I actually care much about.
Or I can be brutally honest about how much I hated it, back it up with the best arguments I can, and see how much of a fanboy he is. It would feel really fucking good to write, and is definitely the less cowardly thing to do, but I don't really want to wreck my GPA on the off-chance he decides I'm a hopeless plebe for not seeing the brilliance of dumping blue paint all over somebody to represent a sea burial, or a heavy-handed Antigone allegory dragging around phone books full of the names of the dead like a crazy bag lady.
(You don't see the brilliance? You must be hopelessly uncool and un-intellectual and have no understanding of what theatre's actually about--clinging to silly concepts like characters and plot and conflict and immersion in the story, pffft. I bet you like poetry that rhymes, too.)