My genre is "urban haute bourgeoisie."

Friday, cigarette #4
Outside the Irregardless Cafe, 1:30pm

The House Next Door has linked to Big Media Vandalism's interview with Arnold White in which he explains how it makes sense to love Wes Anderson but still think Noah Baumbach is "an asshole":

AW: Some people say, "Oh, it's white boys in India." Now they're concerned about watching white boys for two hours? Now?... [I]t reminds me of the stupid criticism of the films of Whit Stillman, like The Last Days of Disco. They complain that it's a film about white people, just about white people. Oh, now you're concerned about "just about white people?" What about when 90% of the movies that come out there are only about white people, that's okay. When they finally get a filmmaker who understands what race and class mean, they complain. Actually, let me put it better: when they get a filmmaker who understands what white privilege means, then they complain. Filmmakers who just accept white privilege as the natural order, that's fine. Let's celebrate that and throw some Oscars at it.

SB: Kind of ignore the whole fact of it.

AW: "White boy." That's not a criticism of Wes Anderson and Whit Stillman. They understand the white world. You think they [the critics] understand that Ron Howard is a white boy? That Steven Soderbergh is a white boy? They don't even think about that.

Whit Stillman and Wes Anderson make movies about white privilege that seem "genre" rather than "realist," and that's the point. Wes Anderson's films aren't quirky for quirk's sake. Their quirkiness makes the point that East Coast white life is just as much a foreign language as the old weird South or Spike Lee's ghetto.

Uh-oh! Eve Tushnet got there first:

Anyone who is or feels herself radically opposed to the currents of the day is liable to feel that her own account of her life is "unrealistic." Her perspective is not realist. Her perspective is fantastic, outside, genre.

"Realism" only works for people whose worldviews are already accepted as realistic. The rest of us must make do with genre.