(Applause Books). In the year 2002; An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith was the first book to gaze at the cinema of one of New Jerseys favorite sons; the independent and controversial auteur of Clerks (1994); Mallrats (1995); Chasing Amy (1997); Dogma (1999) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). Now; a full decade after that successful original edition; award-winning author John Kenneth Muir returns to the View Askewniverse to consider Kevin Smiths second controversial decade as a film director; social gadfly; and beloved media "talker." From Jersey Girl (2004) to the controversial Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008); from the critically derided Cop-Out (2010) to the incendiary and provocative horror film Red State (2011); An Askew View 2 studies the Kevin Smith movie equation as it exists today; almost two full decades after Smith maxed out his credit card; made Clerks with his friends; shopped it at Sundance; and commenced his Hollywood journey. In addition to Kevin Smiths films; An Askew View 2 remembers the short-lived Clerks cartoon (2000) and diagrams the colorful Smith Lexicon.
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Review
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful. I am not one to gossip; but ...By Robert SummersGavin Butt; in his new book Between You and Me; takes up artists such as Larry Rivers; Jasper Johns; and Andy Warhol and their artwork by utilizing "traditional" forms of art-historical research and analysis; but he also utilizes gossip and rumor-those extremely un-academic (anti-academic?) discourses that Butt refuses to redeem or valorize; which is an important stance to take as a self-proclaimed "queer art historian" doing queer work; given; I would argue; there is nothing about gossip; rumor; or other unconventional; non-normative; or so-called questionable modes of discourse or being-with-others to redeem or valorize simply because they are viewed by the dominant regimes as non-academic and non-normative-pace Michel Foucault and Donald Preziosi; the discipline of art history disciplines its subjects and objects; which would include what ways of doing art history are appropriate or inappropriate. So; to redeem or valorize gossip and rumor as a new and valid methodology would play right back into the very realms that Butt is set out to trouble; critique; and undermine: normativity; hetero-centricity; and "proper" art-historical methodologies-all being interconnected. It is this way of doing and working with gossip and rumor in and around art history that I understand Butts methodology as not only "queer" (in all the senses of the word) but also "reparative" -which is to say that doing and working gossip draws sustenance form this very mode of discourse that the normative and hetero-centric discipline of art history dismisses; marginalizes; and elides and erases. By way of a reparative reading and doing; Butt breaths life back into the artists and artworks that so many queers have loved for so long. Indeed; a reparative reading is a loving; a caring; and a nurturing-a harbor from malicious storm created by the eradicating processes of Modernist; traditional; art history. But even these (metaphorical) waters can be usurped for queer purposes.In 1953 Larry Rivers completed Washington Crossing the Delaware; and like the queer mark-making; the putting together and taking apart of various historical paintings by academics during the late 1700s; and the splitting of George Washington into a camp version of a Francis Bacon portrait; Larry Rivers; living in "queer bohemia" and opposed to the horrors of the McCarthy-ran House Committee on Un-American Activities; makes a completely unpatriotic-patriotic work that "no one in the New York art world would doubt was disgusting; dead; and absurd;" but Rivers does it anyway-in a recuperative way-he re-deploys; via oil; graphite; and charcoal on canvas; the "disgusting; dead; and absurd;" as that which can be recuperated as an insanitation of a queering (art) history; and Butts us of the gossip and rumor that surrounds Rivers work only adds to the recuperative process at work.Clearly then; Butts artist and art selections and queer methodologies (i.e.; gossip and rumor as reparative ways of doing "queer art history") run differently than the "paranoid readings" of earlier and current "gay" art historians who argue (rightly; no doubt) that "gay" and "lesbian" artists and homoerotic and/or coded art are suppressed; marginalized; and/or dismissed; but after 20 years of such work; well; dont we all ready know this? Dont we already know that the (still very much) conservative discipline of art history is in the business of eliding; if not eradicating "gay artists and art" and "queer readings and practices" in the field? In a sense; this taking up of gossip-by word of mouth or canvas; Butts refers to some of Rivers paintings as "vertical gossip columns-as that which is done between subjects that marks Butts project-as "encapsulated" by the book-as an important and invaluable step in the queering of art history: for the performing and deploying of gossip is not only reparative and queer-life/art affirming but also embodied and non-prescriptive; Butt doesnt tell us-by way of laying out a "Kraussian grid" out a floor plan on-how to read; or listen; or look; but rather he performs the utilization of verbal and graphic gossip and rumor as one way (among many ways) of doing the work of what has been called "queer art history".Butts historical frame for Between you and I; starts in 1948; the year the Kinsey Report was published and caused a hysterical response from normative culture in general and heterosexual men and their allies in specific. For the publication made "the homosexual;" that statistical figure (an inhuman figure) an ironically invisible-visible centerpiece in US culture: after 1948; "the homosexual" was everywhere and nowhere-just like the "commie" then; and the "terrorist" now. Butts historical frame "closes off" in 1963 with "the homosexual" making front-page news and the so-called cooler-water chat/debate across the US middle-class; thus; putting into play-one that continues today-the so-called homosexual debates: are "they" deserving of special (read: equal) rights; are they good for the country and the military; are they healthy for US culture; are they deserving of marriage and children? (Such idiotic questions--and the assumptions behind them; they make one wonder how one would have energy to even answer them!)Butt; in scripting and staging artists from the period; he is as opposed to fellow "queer art historians" who work on/in "queer art history." He moves away from the positivist methodology that demands verifiable "facts" that prove this or that artist "is" gay and his artwork embodies "gay" or "queer" messages; signals; codes; iconographic marks-of love; lust; and/or auto/biography (18). Though thankful for the brilliant and important scholarship of Jonathan Katz; Richard Meyer; and others; Butt aims to move beyond one of the procedures and protocols of Modernist; traditional; art-historical scholarship (i.e.; positivism)-even if it is scholarship on/about gay artists (and their) art. Just as in feminist art history; "queer art history" is taking the necessary move in questioning the procedures and protocols that allow an artist and his or her artwork into the "art-historical doomsday book" -where all (just and righteous) names are inscribed-as long as they pass the art-historical tests and have been cleans in the Museum. But just as feminist art historians have already asked; why demand a place at the table? Why accept the procedures and protocols of Modernist; traditional; art history as necessary in order to write and talk about; teach and share gay and lesbian; artists and/or their work? The answer? Simple; "we" do not have to demand a place at the table; and why would we want a place at that table; and we do not have to follow the traditions of art history; as it was first articulated by JJ Winckelmann over 200 years ago-and; ironically; there is so much to gossip about that Winckelmann! (Between you and me; Winckelmann was "homosexual" and fancied the company of young; good-looking Italian (rent-) boys; and; as I understand it; his History of Ancient Art; which inaugurated art history was we presently know it; were a series of "love letters" to beautiful Greek and Roman "boys" caved out of marble and other matter. In fact; if you will; it may just be that the beginnings of art history are what Butt is doing in Between You and Me-using gossip and rumor about the sexuality and lovers; and the writing of love letters (with paint or pen) to subjects and/or objects; with the fervor of a mad lover.In the words of Butt "I am interested in how my own discourse of interpretation-especially when faced with a lack of so-called appropriate evidence-often leads me into the realms of what might be construed as more idle speculation about the sexuality; and the sexual meanings; attributed to my chosen artists and artworks. Certainly; ... I have become accustomed to sharing these curiosities with others by gossiping about this or that artist with friends and colleagues working in similar fields; becoming acutely aware in the process of the importance of gossip filling in the gaps left by the lack of documentary evidence and defensible argument. This is not just to reflect on the significance of gossip to a small number of specialist academics working in the field of queer art history but to ask what it might be like to admit such speculations into the discourse of art history itself; rather than leaving it bracketed off as the marginalia of history `proper. (18)"This is; indeed; an important idea and methodological question; to think about: gossip as the acting; the doing; which undoes "the science of art history" and history "proper." Furthermore; Butt argues that when one gossips; as he does throughout his book; one participates in a "viral economy of communication; proliferating information while keeping authoritative `truth forever stalled by means of the various mutations of narrative content and emphasis. Gossips informational economy is therefore unlike the disembodied; text-based episteme of the archive because it relies on an expressly performed; `body-to-body transmission. (18)" Here; at the "viral;" I want to articulate what a "queer art historian" does and what "queer art history" may consist of in its very inconsistency.Virus: Queering Art HistoryThe notion of the viral; the virus; in art history as performed by queers brings to mind what we still face today: the AIDS pandemic. Though Gavin Butts historical frame is set between the years of 1948 to 1963; the issue; the idea; the propaganda; of gay men always-already being diseased and contagious has been a steady idea since the invention of the homosexual as an identity category and a body. (Here it should be noted that lesbians are usually ignored with regard to laws; discussions; and descriptions-indeed; lesbians; for the most part; do not even registering on the medical and political radar screen; which brings up its own sets of issues; some of which have been eloquently discussed by Judith Butler in almost all of her books.) And just as Queer Nation; during the early 1990s; picked up the injurious word "queer" and redeployed it to undermine and counter homophobia; as well as AIDS-phobia; it was never washed and sanctified-it was never redeemed and/or valorized-that is until it was co-opted and commodified by the likes of Showtime and other multi-million dollar corporations.So; what is to be done? I really cant say; for sure.Though this is not on the dish of Butts buffet of deliciously and delightfully gossipy queer art history; he does point to what people who do "queer work" may need to do in order to re-charge what some call "queer art history"-have fun again with injecting and injections and camping it UP. Take it as you will; but a point to work on in this much needed area within the multifarious discipline of art history is to enjoy or symptoms and flagrantly-as in the style of Quentin Crisp; Truman Capote; or Andy Warhol-show off how "we" can cause not only dis-ease but havoc in the normativizing; restraining; and other-eradicating field of Modernist; traditional; art history. Camp it up; play it out; show it off; and who gives a fcuk if we arent respected by a discipline that will never respect us; or are work; and that really doesnt matter; does it? its sure not the reason why we do the work we do ... to be respected by the gaurdians of art history; the art-historical archives; and pristine museums.2 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Great bookBy J. CarterI wish this book was longer. Love the topic and the way it is written.