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"Sensation" and lack of sensation | page 1, 2, 3
More troubling to me, as I observed in my Sept. 30 op-ed piece on archaeology and education in the Wall Street Journal, is Said's pivotal role in introducing Michel Foucault to American literary criticism and, second, Said's slighting of the enormous contributions to modern knowledge made by Egyptologists and the great schools of Oriental studies. I also wish that, over the past two decades, Said had been more forthright in publicly decrying the weak scholarship of his academic followers, who have little feeling for literature and art and who have vitiated the humanities programs in this country. Camille Paglia Camille Paglia's column appears in Salon People every other Wednesday.
As the current president of the Modern Language Association, however, Said has indeed tried to swing the profession back to concern with literary values, though a great deal of damage has already been done. In summary, whatever his sins of omission or commission, they do not alter my view of Edward Said's stature as a world-class scholar, whose only peer is my distinguished mentor Harold Bloom. On the pop front, I must make a terrible confession. I actually liked the dreaded Gwyneth Paltrow for one fleeting moment -- in her parody of Sharon Stone on a recent repeat broadcast of "Saturday Night Live." Though Stone herself denounced the skit (ostensibly because of its jab at her "creepy" husband), it was clearly Stone's incandescent femme-fatale divinity that inspired Paltrow to transcend her usual simpering self-consciousness. The satire was hilarious, and Paltrow carried it off with lighthearted drag queen flair. Finally, I must register bitter disappointment with the new female private-eye series "Snoops," which ABC flagged with tantalizing ads all summer. Its beamish creator, the overextended producer David E. Kelley, didn't develop this program a whit beyond its initial hip concept. What stilted writing, limp direction and muddy camera work! Assignment: close scrutiny of three episodes of Aaron Spelling's "Charlie's Angels" (1976-81) to see how such sex-and- And there's no excuse for the show's prodigal waste of the mercurial talents of Gina Gershon. She has a cerebral Suzanne Pleshette directness and intensity with a tough touch of Ida Lupino and a whiff of the mischievous Juliet Berto (see Jacques Rivette's "Celine and Julie Go Boating"). For Sarah Siddons' sake, will someone please write Gina Gershon a decent script? Until then, I'll continue to revel in the vintage films of the American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies channels. Long live old Hollywood! Got a question for the Oracle? Ask Camille.
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