Sunday, April 19, 2009

Grey Gardens on HBO

The HBO film recently screened is intriguing although there are many questions left unanswered so far as I am concerned.  From 1936 through the making of the documentary in 1973 through the present, there's still a lot that remains unexplained or unsaid.

Not sure whether the scenario adequately explains what becomes of Big and Little Edie and how they found themselves living in such squalor in East Hampton.  The sense one gets is of two frivolous, useless upper class women who never learned to do anything and found themselves in a house full of breeding cats and raccoons.  Also that they were slightly insane although the situation would require an uncanny combination of insanity and intelligence.  

Added Note: Need revision.  Now love the HBO production. More development. 

About Me

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I am a writer and a professor of English at the City College of New York, and the CUNY Graduate Center. My books include Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1979), Invisibility Blues (1990), Black Popular Culture (1992), and Dark Designs and Visual Culture (2005). I write cultural criticism frequently and am currently working on a project on creativity and feminism among the women in my family, some of which is posted on the Soul Pictures blog.