Riot vs. Uprising

riot (n): a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a governmental policy, etc., in the streets.

uprising (n): an insurrection or revolt; an act of rising up.

For years after 1992, what happened following the Rodney King police brutality verdicts was simply referred to as "the riots" or "the LA riots". People would ask, "Where were you during the riots?" or "See that burned out building over there? That happened during the riots." You did not need to qualify which riot or when, you just knew what someone was talking about.

With history and perspective behind me, I now no longer refer to them as the LA Riots, but rather the LA Uprising. While this may seem like simple semantics, there is a real intentional choice (at least for me) behind this change. To me, riots imply bedlam and chaos, with no real meaning behind their genesis. An uprising, however, gives some power back to the historical events that led up to a group of people taking to the streets and expressing an anger, fear, and/or disillusionment.

Do not get me wrong, there was certainly bedlam and chaos in the streets of Los Angeles in 1992, but does calling them "a riot" give those of us who live outside of that world some level of emotional, intellectual, or empathetic distance? Is there a difference between looting a liquor store and throwing boxes of tea off of a ship? And if so, why?

For this week's blog post, I want students to watch the video linked here and then reflect on whether they consider what happened in Los Angeles in 1992 to, in fact, be a riot or an uprising. Why do you choose one over the other? Was it hard to make a choice and, if so, why? Do semantics matter? 

LA 92

This week in Literature of California we are kicking off our work with Anna Deveare Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by gathering a little bit of historical context. We are doing so by watching the documentary LA 92. While most of my students are likely familiar with some aspects of the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles following the Rodney King police verdicts, they hopefully are learning a lot more about the events leading up to it as well as the variety of experiences and multiple perspectives that must be understood in order to fully grasp the magnitude of this event.

For this week's blog post, I simply want students to write one to two paragraphs reflecting first on what you knew of the Los Angeles uprising of 1992 before starting to watch the film. Then, talk about what you have learned from LA 92 so far. Did watching the film change your understanding of the event? What questions do you have and what questions were answered? How do they see the events of 1992 playing out in your experiences today as California citizens?

The Greatest Minds of Our Generation?

Last week in Literature of California, we started out looking at the rise of suburbia in post-World War II California and the irony of a place traditionally seen as wild, unfettered, and non-conformist also giving birth to the ultimate symbol of conformity: the faceless suburb. We also watched an episode of "Father Knows Best" to understand how this idea of the "perfect nuclear family" permeated American culture with the advent of the "television age".

We used this understanding to help set up a world in which the Beat Generation arises as a resistant voice to the seemingly pervasive attitude of conformity of the 1950's. We watched an early episode of  "The Twilight Zone" in which Rod Sterling challenges the selling points of suburban life (family, trust, safety, etc.) with an ironic and critical eye. This then led to a quick overview of the Beat Generation, what they stood for, as well as the famous people and landmarks of the movement.

One cannot really talk about the Beat Generation without mentioning Allen Ginsberg's 1955 epic poem Howl. Inspired by a vision Ginsberg had while taking the hallucinogenic drug peyote, the poem has come to symbolize the ethics and style of Beat poetry. The poem, which features explicit references to drug use and sexuality (both heterosexual and homosexual), was deemed "obscene" and when Lawrence Ferlinghetti sold the poem at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the store manager was arrested and all copies of the poem were seized. The charges were challenged and eventually the case reached the California Supreme Court where, in 1957, the charges were overturned and the poem was deemed to have "redeeming social importance".

It is one thing to read Howl, but another thing to hear it from Ginsberg's own mouth. For this week's blog post, I want students to watch/listen to Howl as read by Ginsberg himself back in 1959 in Chicago. It is a long poem and I think best experienced if you have the poem itself in front of you as well. You can find a copy of the poem here. After you have listened to and read the poem, write a 1-2 paragraph reflection in which you discuss your thoughts on the poem, what impressions it made on you, and specific lines that you found particularly interesting and/or memorable. Enjoy!

Implicit Bias

For this blog entry, I want you to discuss the video you watched in class about implicit bias as well as the two implicit bias texts you took. In your blog reflection, please make sure to answer the following questions:

• What did I think of the video? Did I learn anything new? Were there any windows or mirrors?
• Which bias tests did they take. What were the results? Were they surprised by the results?
• How does this understanding of implicit bias relate to our work with If He Hollers Let Him Go?

Please submit this by the start of our next class.

For your reference, a link to the video is here and the link to the implicit bias tests is here.

The "Cover" Up

Our first novel for the new year in Literature of California is Chester Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), which follows four days in the life of a black, Ohio-transplant who has come to California to work in the booming World War II shipyard industry. Whereas the cover of the edition that we are using in class is fairly subdued (Caucasian and black fingers intertwined with one another), we can see from the above images of previous covers of the novel, that the artwork was more provocative. For this week's blog post, I want students to take a hard look at these book covers and write a short reflection on what they think these covers say about the themes of the novel that they have encountered so far in their reading. Are these covers accurate? Problematic? Which one really stands out to you and why? 

The Influence of Noir

This week, in Literature of California, we are wrapping up our literary and film noir experience. In many ways, we see 1930's and 1940's detective fiction and film noir serve as inspiration to this day in all aspects of pop culture, from film and television to music videos and video games.

The comic above is from the fantastic Calvin and Hobbes and features a recurring character, Tracer Bullet, that Calvin habitually uses as escapism fiction when he has gotten into trouble. In just a few frames, we can see Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Patterson utilizes many of the tropes associated with hard-boiled fiction and noir.

Both genres have also been used to great satirical effect. Below are two clips from Steve Martin's early 1980's film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, in which Martin actually wove original film noir scenes into his parody film about a hard-boiled detective.

Hard-boiled detective novels and film noir are not just for adults, either. Below are clips from the Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and an old Muppets cartoon, both of which use the two genres for inspiration.

For this week's blog post, I want you to write a short paragraph about why you think hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir are still so influential in pop culture today. What about both genres still speaks to modern audiences? What stylistic choices, both in the literature and in film, make it so compelling to honor and make fun of, artistically? Finally, pick two or three tropes that your film group is planning on including in the noir film you are creating. 

Hollywood Crime

(Jewelry Store Hold Up, Los Angeles, July 23, 1932. Foteka.com)

In Literature of California, having wrapped up The Day of the Locust, we have moved into our Hollywood noir unit, having recently watched the classic film noir, Double Indemnity (1944) and students are currently reading Raymond Chandler's short story "The Lady in the Lake".

Chandler is quoted as saying, "Hollywood is wonderful. Anyone who doesn't like it is crazy or sober." In this, he perfectly captures the paradox of Los Angeles (and Hollywood) post-World War II. In her critical piece "The Dark Side of the Dream: The Image of Los Angeles in Film Noir", Tina Olsin Lent notes that, after the Depression and World War II, people could not ignore that the world they saw in Hollywood pictures was not really the world that they were living in and that "in the collective consciousness of the media, Los Angeles remains the contemporary icon for the dark side of American culture."

For many years, the image of California had been sunshine and beaches, warm Santa Ana winds and flowers in bloom all year round. With the advent of literary and film noir, authors and filmmakers began to explore those shadows in the sunshine that we have been concerning ourselves with all year. Additionally, as filmmaking became more popular and photography more available to the masses, a more realistic picture of what Los Angeles was really like came into view.

For this week's blog post, I want students to step back in time a bit and see the Los Angeles that Raymond Chandler and his literary noir counterparts saw. In recent years, photographers have gone through the LAPD photo archives and published photos from the time period in which "The Lady in the Lake" takes place. Please visit the Foteka website, which has an amazing archive of these photos (warning, some photos can be disturbing). Browse through the archive and then choose one picture that stands out to you. I want you to copy that image and paste it into your own blog entry and then write a paragraph on why you chose that particular image. What stands out about it for you? How does it affirm or challenge your understanding of Los Angeles during this time period? Please also note any connections you see between what is displayed in the photo and what you have read or watched so far related to literary and film noir.