Gary Norris is another who is adopting phrases without thinking
carefully enough about the meanings. he accuses Tarantino of
'sensationalism' and 'extorting responses'. Just on sensationalism, can
I suggest you read Thomas Boyle's BLACK SWINE IN TH SEWERS OF HAMPSTEAD
- I am not making up that title, I wish I had that much nous - which
brilliantly demonstrates the hypocritical elitism which underlay the
emergence of that concept as a language for rejecting the popular press
in the early nineteenth century.
Given the prevalence of moralising refusers of films, I would have
thought that film academics have a responsibility to be a tad more
cautious, if not analytic, in their ways of talking about films.
Martin Barker
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