User:KWatson/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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his transformation here from nice Jewish boy to badass boxer. Despite this love affair with his image, Mailer shatters the filmic mirror when, at the conclusion of ''Wild 90'', the Prince demands to speak to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and informing the audience that the CIA9 is watching all of us. He then goes on to tell us, in his garbled, drunken voice that his favorite author is Norman Mailer—presumably, because he is both his creator and a substantial part of his self.

Mailer’s appearance, particularly in the mirror scenes of ''Wild 90'', is crucial to his efforts to make masculinity and unmake Jewishness, two concepts at odds because of the internalization of a long history of popular representations and stereotypes of the weak Jew. While Mailer combats this weakness in part through his tough guy exterior—carefully cultivated through hard-drinking, hard-talking, and hard-fighting in an effort to make himself out as a latter-day Hemingway—Mailer’s voice registers this construction as well. In the notes taken during my first screenings of ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Wild 90'', I repeatedly try to describe the voice of the characters he portrays. In my notes on Beyond the Law, I wrote that the poor sound quality of the film combines with Mailer’s voice to create the effect of almost incomprehensible yelling from Lt. Francis Xavier Pope for an hour and twenty-four minutes. My notes on Mailer’s gangster voice as the Prince of ''Wild 90'' remark that his accent makes him sound like a cross between Marlon Brando and Fred Flintstone with marbles in his mouth. In my second viewing, I crossed out this assessment, and wrote that he sounded more like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion from the ''Wizard of Oz''. I am not alone in trying to describe Mailer’s voice. Michael Mewshaw describes Mailer’s voice as “the Irish brogue of a whiskey priest” coming from the body of a man who “looked about as threatening as a teddy bear” (14), and Jane O’Reilly notes that “words rumble and bubble and jump out, in a variety of accents: New York, faintly southern, all g’s dropped (as in ‘Ah’m talkin’) when he is particularly shy”(198 ).10 More recently, in an article about the New York Mailer retrospective, A.O. Scott describes Mailer’s voice as a “rapid, forceful stream of half-baked nostrums and brilliant ''aperçus'' delivered in that inimitable ac

Mailer’s appearance, particularly in the mirror scenes of ''Wild 90'', is crucial to his efforts to make masculinity and unmake Jewishness, two concepts at odds because of the internalization of a long history of popular representations and stereotypes of the weak Jew. While Mailer combats this weakness in part through his tough guy exterior—carefully cultivated through hard-drinking, hard-talking, and hard-fighting in an effort to make himself out as a latter-day Hemingway—Mailer’s voice registers this construction as well. In the notes taken during my first screenings of ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Wild 90'', I repeatedly try to describe the voice of the characters he portrays. In my notes on Beyond the Law, I wrote that the poor sound quality of the film combines with Mailer’s voice to create the effect of almost incomprehensible yelling from Lt. Francis Xavier Pope for an hour and twenty-four minutes. My notes on Mailer’s gangster voice as the Prince of ''Wild 90'' remark that his accent makes him sound like a cross between Marlon Brando and Fred Flintstone with marbles in his mouth. In my second viewing, I crossed out this assessment and wrote that he sounded more like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion from the ''Wizard of Oz''. I am not alone in trying to describe Mailer’s voice. Michael Mewshaw describes Mailer’s voice as “the Irish brogue of a whiskey priest” coming from the body of a man who “looked about as threatening as a teddy bear” {{sfn|Mewshaw|2002|pg=14}}, and Jane O’Reilly notes that “words rumble and bubble and jump out, in a variety of accents: New York, faintly southern, all g’s dropped (as in ‘Ah’m talkin’) when he is particularly shy”{{sfn|o'Reilly|1974|pg=198}}.10 More recently, in an article about the New York Mailer retrospective, A.O. Scott describes Mailer’s voice as a “rapid, forceful stream of half-baked nostrums and brilliant ''aperçus'' delivered in that inimitable accent, an audible palimpsest of Mr. Mailer’s Brooklyn childhood, his Ivy League education and his World War II combat service in an Army unit composed mainly of Texans and Southerners.”

~~cent~~, an audible palimpsest of Mr. Mailer’s Brooklyn childhood, his Ivy League education and his World War II combat service in an Army unit composed mainly of Texans and Southerners.”

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 his transformation here from nice Jewish boy to badass boxer. Despite this love affair with his image, Mailer shatters the filmic mirror when, at the conclusion of ''Wild 90'', the Prince demands to speak to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and informing the audience that the CIA9 is watching all of us. He then goes on to tell us, in his garbled, drunken voice that his favorite author is Norman Mailer—presumably, because he is both his creator and a substantial part of his self.
-Mailer’s appearance, particularly in the mirror scenes of ''Wild 90'', is crucial to his efforts to make masculinity and unmake Jewishness, two concepts at odds because of the internalization of a long history of popular representations and stereotypes of the weak Jew. While Mailer combats this weakness in part through his tough guy exterior—carefully cultivated through hard-drinking, hard-talking, and hard-fighting in an effort to make himself out as a latter-day Hemingway—Mailer’s voice registers this construction as well. In the notes taken during my first screenings of ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Wild 90'', I repeatedly try to describe the voice of the characters he portrays. In my notes on Beyond the Law, I wrote that the poor sound quality of the film combines with Mailer’s voice to create the effect of almost incomprehensible yelling from Lt. Francis Xavier Pope for an hour and twenty-four minutes. My notes on Mailer’s gangster voice as the Prince of ''Wild 90'' remark that his accent makes him sound like a cross between Marlon Brando and Fred Flintstone with marbles in his mouth. In my second viewing, I crossed out this assessment, and wrote that he sounded more like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion from the ''Wizard of Oz''. I am not alone in trying to describe Mailer’s voice. Michael Mewshaw describes Mailer’s voice as “the Irish brogue of a whiskey priest” coming from the body of a man who “looked about as threatening as a teddy bear” (14), and Jane O’Reilly notes that “words rumble and bubble and jump out, in a variety of accents: New York, faintly southern, all g’s dropped (as in ‘Ah’m talkin’) when he is particularly shy”(198 ).10 More recently, in an article about the New York Mailer retrospective, A.O. Scott describes Mailer’s voice as a “rapid, forceful stream of half-baked nostrums and brilliant ''aperçus'' delivered in that inimitable ac
+Mailer’s appearance, particularly in the mirror scenes of ''Wild 90'', is crucial to his efforts to make masculinity and unmake Jewishness, two concepts at odds because of the internalization of a long history of popular representations and stereotypes of the weak Jew. While Mailer combats this weakness in part through his tough guy exterior—carefully cultivated through hard-drinking, hard-talking, and hard-fighting in an effort to make himself out as a latter-day Hemingway—Mailer’s voice registers this construction as well. In the notes taken during my first screenings of ''Beyond the Law'' and ''Wild 90'', I repeatedly try to describe the voice of the characters he portrays. In my notes on Beyond the Law, I wrote that the poor sound quality of the film combines with Mailer’s voice to create the effect of almost incomprehensible yelling from Lt. Francis Xavier Pope for an hour and twenty-four minutes. My notes on Mailer’s gangster voice as the Prince of ''Wild 90'' remark that his accent makes him sound like a cross between Marlon Brando and Fred Flintstone with marbles in his mouth. In my second viewing, I crossed out this assessment and wrote that he sounded more like Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion from the ''Wizard of Oz''. I am not alone in trying to describe Mailer’s voice. Michael Mewshaw describes Mailer’s voice as “the Irish brogue of a whiskey priest” coming from the body of a man who “looked about as threatening as a teddy bear” {{sfn|Mewshaw|2002|pg=14}}, and Jane O’Reilly notes that “words rumble and bubble and jump out, in a variety of accents: New York, faintly southern, all g’s dropped (as in ‘Ah’m talkin’) when he is particularly shy”{{sfn|o'Reilly|1974|pg=198}}.10 More recently, in an article about the New York Mailer retrospective, A.O. Scott describes Mailer’s voice as a “rapid, forceful stream of half-baked nostrums and brilliant ''aperçus'' delivered in that inimitable accent, an audible palimpsest of Mr. Mailer’s Brooklyn childhood, his Ivy League education and his World War II combat service in an Army unit composed mainly of Texans and Southerners.”
-cent, an audible palimpsest of Mr. Mailer’s Brooklyn childhood, his Ivy League education and his World War II combat service in an Army unit composed mainly of Texans and Southerners.”