xtcian

pardon our progress

3/1/05

This is our fourth year of returning to Chapel Hill in the spring to teach Peter Kaufman's scholarship class, and it's awesome for two reasons: one, the classes are usually full of great students who ask interesting questions (i.e. there's nobody like ME when I was a student) and two, this trip always means spring is just around the corner.

Today we taught a class discussing the Pink House movie and "Five Wives" but managed to slip a few stern warnings about media literacy in there as well. One of the great things about going to a decent college is that you leave with enough ego and know-how to look at our culture and call bullshit on the things you know to be flawed. Before I was in college, I used to accept everything in a newspaper or on TV as absolute truth, and afterwards I could color it with the appropriate tones of salt.

Anyway, we had the students write down answers to the following questions about "The Pink House":
1) did anything confuse you?
2) what scenes or characters did you like?
3) what scenes or characters did you dislike?
- and tonight, lying in bed, I read through the papers and thought, "there's no pulling the wool over these kids' eyes." Even if you haven't seen the movie (and few of you, as yet, have) you might get a kick out of some selected responses:

"I usually hate animation in movies - it gives me those weird 'Mary Poppins' vibes - but I thought the animation in the movie worked really well."

"You need to make the connection between Chloe and Windy more clear, as she is the key to the message in the film - she is the real 3-D manifestation of what the 2-dimensional painting of Chloe embodies: the lasting, eternal nature of love."

"I didn't really understand why the school was 'Carolina Baptist College' - I mean, there didn't seem to be a huge Baptist influence."

"I loved the whole 'magical realism' genre."

"I was confused by Pritchard's sudden change, and the old Oxford's sudden appearance in the basement. The situations seemed too coincidental. I realize this somehow fits with magical realism, but I think it could fit better."

"If Murray is graduating, how can he be Student Body President? He's not going to make a good President if all he cares about is the Pink House."

"I liked the scene with Zola and her German boyfriends. I also thought the party was really realistic - my favorite scene!"

"I loved the Spanish girl in the house. She was clichéd to the point of being endearing."
"If you do consider the audience's relationship to the film as a protagonist relationship, the 'True Loves' archetype is absolutely necessary, because everyone tried to relate to that. Nobody wants to be any of the other archetypes, but everyone likes to think they have the potential for true love - so great ending!"

"I loved it. Keep doing what you're doing."