"Ms. America": A Supplement on Lana Del Rey by The New Inquiry

[Sitar]

Lmao it's positive

[evilentity]

This all reminds me of why I needed to get out of academia.

This whole thing reads like "Critical Theory Trends Report 2014, Special Focus: What Lana Del Rey Means To Our Profession."

 

I have spent many an hour in literature and philosophy classes myself, and these types of thinkers and writers are easy to find. They are always insufferable, always self-important, and always unable to create anything themselves. Their only means is destruction; they examine everything like a cadaver.

Not surprisingly, I've got no problem with writing that is critical nor am I necessarily opposed to writers wearing their command of vocabulary on their sleeve. (Or should I say their "sesquipedalianism"?) But for the most part, these articles read like the worst kind of college essay writing, larded up with pretentious jargon and employing buzzy academic concepts creating the illusion of intellect while only occasionally making the odd insightful or cohesive point.

 

If I were their professor, I would ask them to rewrite their essays as plainly and as tersely as possible-- think the Revised King James Version of the Bible, Hemingway, or even fucking Dick and Jane-- with primarily monosyllabic words a fifth grader or their 90-year-old grandma with a fifth grade education could understand, and see if it still works before judiciously adding back in some of the fancy lingo and terms.

 

#evilenglishteacher

 

Edit: Oh, BTW, the irony of me of all people quoting the bolded part in support of this takedown is not lost on me.

Edited July 14, 2014 by evilentity
Irony noted.

[analwinterofmylife]

This all reminds me of why I needed to get out of academia. It must be hard to write about a rock record when you've obviously never heard one before in your life, and you compare the increasing intensity of 'Cruel World' to EDM, when Ultraviolence has as much in common with dance music as it does to polka (a better comparison would be to the Velvet Underground's 'Heroin', which is actually similar to it stylistically)

also throws of brooklyn baby teas asf (instrumentally) 

[graham4anything]

re: the Cruel World as EDM

 

well, if one is like me, in the linear world of the artists who went before her in trailblazing fashion-

the artist I admired as much as Lana would be  Pet Shop Boys, and there is a direct correlation between the "academia" of Neil Tennant's writing and Elizabeth as Lana writing.

 

Being Boring esp.

 

As PSB basically invented EDM (YES THEY DID) though like Lana are not given mass credit for anything, the line is spot-on.

 

from that viewpoint. (with the back artists prior to PSB that I have commented on including Leonard Cohen, Edith Piaf, Lou Reed, Elton, Elvis, Roy Orbison

 

(note-haven't the time to read the whole thing, just commenting on the paragraphs described above)

 

One thing that I can NOT stand is how so many just treat Elizabeth as if she is a stupid girl, it is so sexist, so demeaning and so hateful

(Which is after all what she wrote Brooklyn Baby about).