Customer Reviews

Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O.J.

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

That is, publicly comment on other people's evaluations of my work. I'm usually happy to let others decide the value of my writing...which is why I'm writing this--to encourage readers to judge "Twilight Zones" for themselves rather than on the impression created by the Kirkus Review and the second customer comment on this page. I don't care about the "stars" (I only rated myself because I was asked to.) But I do care about the misleading prominence of comments written by people whom I believe are not in touch with current cultural trends or their impact on our lives. Essays from "Twilight Zones" are being reprinted in first-year textbooks for undergraduate students. Yet the perception that this is an obscure, irrelevant, self-indulgent tome dominates this page. I think that's an extreme misrepresentation....

Bordo's Twilight Zones continues the powerful critical trajectory set up by her award-winning Unbearable Weight, showing how media impacts our daily lives in the most intricate ways. More than any other public intellectual writing today, Bordo's writing is a compelling and passionate analysis that clears up many forms of mystification, academic and cultural. This book provides new and complicated ways of understanding contemporary events and how they are created/represented in the mass media, and how these creations in turn work to shape our lives.

Whenever I feel like quitting graduate school and going to do something *useful* with my life I turn to Bordo. She shows us the practicality of cultural criticism in an accessible way. I find that scholarship, especially of this kind, is often obscurely written with no wider breadth or purpose than appealing to the readership of an obscure academic press.
In this particular work, Bordo shows us why cultural criticism matters and makes a strong case for the applicability of the field in everyday life. While I feel that the work itself has too much Bordo in it (she speaks at length of her own experiences, her own body type, her own students, etc), it is nevertheless insightful, funny, and engaging. It is in many ways a breath of fresh air in an academic field that seems stale and rotten.

I find Bordo's work, as always, resonant and timely. It is a strange experience reading the negative reviews on this site - every time I read Bordo I feel I have happened upon a gem.

As a student for a significant amount of time, I have read a lot of academic literature. This particular book was not read as an academic assignment, rather on its initial personal appeal to me. While it addresses very pressing issues, particularly those of individuals in this society needing to access and identify the controllers of thought and opinion within mass media, I don't believe it does so with the effectiveness I seek in an academically oriented work. The tone of the work seems more one of complaining or lamenting rather than one of solid academic treastise.

Before you consider my assessment harsh or unfounded, read not just the introduction, but the first essay. The use of all the parentheses (inserted comments) detracts from the book's logical and critical presentations. It comes across as an annotated copy of a draft, rather than a final copy ready for publication. I am constantly admonished to keep personal issues out of my academic writing, to present it logically, concisely and objectively. Granted, not all subjects go well with these strictures and there are times and places when academic writing needs to be embellished with a personal point of view. In the case of Ms. Bordo's book, I think it could be done in a far more effective fashion.

Despite what I perceived as its shortcomings, it did present very interesting material. It took some effort to get through the material, but what I gleaned from it is both timely and very useful.

It's been a while since I begrudgingly, and achingly, plowed through this book. I recall that most of the essays were really unimpressive critical readings of cultural issues, like O.J., the depiction of women in the media, etc. And frankly, Bordo didn't say much...

Bordo is best known for her book on Descartes. Since then, she's become better known to a broader audience, and the quality has suffered for this. As a pop culture critic, Bordo should know this pattern all too well.

Now as I recall, there is one essay of philosophical (un)interest. Bordo treads the tired postmodern versus liberal feminism debate. She pull the rabbit out of the hat by doing a Houdini act whereby she criticizes both and at the same time affirm both.

And here's a short review of her book on women and eating disorders: mostly good but then Bordo makes her "nowhere/everywhere" argument. Her solution to the alleged contention in feminism is to bring in Foucault as the Deus ex machina of her silly essay.

In other words, don't take Bordo's philosophical writings seriously. You're best served to read the people and the books that she claims to be arguing for or against. If you're looking to get a summary of the current issues and debates in feminism, don't look to Bordo. Her occasional essays in these areas are so watered down and so high and mighty that they do a great disservice to the many great works being done by feminists today.

On the other hand, if you take her pop culture writings seriously... you probably watch too much t.v., and seriously at that.