the venezuelan coup is a subject of contention, the OC is gay (not in the bad way)

If you were a set designer and you wanted to dress the set of a graduate student's room during finals week, you could use my apartment as a model, aka: there are stacks of paper layered across the entire surface area of the floor. You have to literally wade through paper to get from my desk to the bathroom, the only path I've had to walk lately, oh this is embarassing. Then there's the laundry, and the stack of dishes in the sink. I'm ashamed.

But, let me tell you. Ok, I presented one of my papers today, and that leaves one presentation and one paper to go. I presented on the gay OC one today. I was a little nervous about it--I wanted to make a strong argument but I also don't want to valorize the show too much--well I won't bore you here--ok ok you have to hear this though. I'm watching the OC with Spanish subtitles (I needed those DVDs. For research.) And here is the OC's title in Spanish: Orange: Vidas Ajenas which translates as: Orange: Other People's Lives. True, right? Anyway. If I could expand this paper, like if I had gone the TV route on my thesis, I would talk about the discourses of race and class on this show.

I know what you're thinking, you're like, the OC, it's the Whitest show on TV, right? But see, I would argue that Ryan and Seth are both marked as other within Newport Beach because of their racial hybridity. For Ryan I would have to completely rely on fan readings of his character as Latino, ie, in fanfic Ryan often speaks Spanish, cooks chimichangas, listens to reggaetón, etc., which actually makes sense in that the Chino version of the Cohens (Ryan's adopted family) are the Diazes, and if Ryan grew up with their family he would totally speak Spanish etc. For Seth, his position as half-Jewish is foregrounded. If Seth grew up in Scarsdale do you think he would have been an outcast? Because, you know what I think? No. I don't think the show thinks so. What would a television show that destabilized our understanding of the construction of race look like? Probably not the OC. So I would have to argue that fan readings of the show indicate that it does not go far enough, that readers are looking for texts that demonstrate the permeability of their ideas of "Whiteness" (and the romanticization of the non-white (ethnic? ghetto? what are people seeing here exactly?) White figure). Do you know what I hate? I hate when academics say, there are important racial dynamics at play in this text/medium but discussing them is not within the scope of this paper. Am I doing that, by writing about queering the OC, just because it's easy? What if no one else ever writes about race on the OC ever?

Sorry to ramble. I'm stopping now. And I'm taking a break until 9 am tomorrow, when it will be time to start working on Thursday's presentation. Gird yourselves against my feelings about the Hugo Chávez administration and, oh, I guess the nature of truth.

And in the meantime, I'm opening the next year of my life up to a vote. Should I proceed with my plan to research and write a thesis comparing media arts curricula in San Antonio vs. Austin public schools? Or should I write my thesis on the relationship between television producers and fans in the following TV shows: West Wing, Buffy, OC, maybe, like, Lost. The first is good for going straight into teaching at a primary/secondary level and the second if I want to apply to PhD programs.

Oh and finally since I'm talking about race on White TV shows, did you know Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia on Buffy) is half Mexican, half Cherokee? Now that I say it you totally see it, right? It's just that, I think there is still a value to pointing out that nothing is as all-White or as all-anything as its supposed to be. Racist systems are alot easier to combat when we can poke so many holes in these illusions of purity, I think. At least some of the "diversification" work we have to do is already done. It's the ways we think about race, the ways it functions, that have to change the most.