{"title":"Epistemology of the Curtain: Sex, Sound, and Solidarity in Singin' in the Rain and Sorry to Bother You","authors":"B. Honig","doi":"10.1353/cul.2023.a905073","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Singin' in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952) and Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018) carry a common thread: one (mostly) enacts and the other subverts the \"epistemology of the curtain.\" The curtain, iconic to sound studies' acousmatic sound objects, is a figure of forensic knowing, but Sorry queers it, decentering Singin's curtained couples with a crowd and highlighting, maybe even repairing, the raced dance theft that Carol Clover first traced in Singin'. Harlem's Black Hoofers of early twentieth-century dance, usually unremunerated and uncredited, return with a vengeance in Sorry as the equisapiens that Cash Green first encounters in a men's room. Where Schaeffer named Pythagoras as a figure for sound studies, the queered curtain of sound studies might call, rather, for Pan.","PeriodicalId":46410,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Critique","volume":"17 1","pages":"1 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cultural Critique","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.2023.a905073","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:Singin' in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952) and Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018) carry a common thread: one (mostly) enacts and the other subverts the "epistemology of the curtain." The curtain, iconic to sound studies' acousmatic sound objects, is a figure of forensic knowing, but Sorry queers it, decentering Singin's curtained couples with a crowd and highlighting, maybe even repairing, the raced dance theft that Carol Clover first traced in Singin'. Harlem's Black Hoofers of early twentieth-century dance, usually unremunerated and uncredited, return with a vengeance in Sorry as the equisapiens that Cash Green first encounters in a men's room. Where Schaeffer named Pythagoras as a figure for sound studies, the queered curtain of sound studies might call, rather, for Pan.
期刊介绍:
Cultural Critique provides a forum for international and interdisciplinary explorations of intellectual controversies, trends, and issues in culture, theory, and politics. Emphasizing critique rather than criticism, the journal draws on the diverse and conflictual approaches of Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, political economy, and hermeneutics to offer readings in society and its transformation.