SWTX PCA/ACA: A Review

Two weeks ago, my friend Kj and I, among many other popular culture enthusiasts, descended upon the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque New Mexico for four days of academic investigations of film, television, literature, technology, music, and more. This was the annual conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association. Presenters included graduate, PhD students, professors, and authors as well as some undergraduates and independent scholars.

The conference conference more than lived up to the expectations we had coming into the event for a second time. It's hard to imagine a better way to spend a week than holing up in a hotel with one of your best friends, listening to 50 some papers, drinking lots of coffee and smoothies, attending screenings of some of the best episodes of your favorite television shows, and visiting three restaurants on rotation. In the few hours we had outside of the conference, we filled our time with mozzarella sticks, episodes of Angel and an afternoon double-feature at the local cineplex. So much joy. My heart ached when the week came to an end.

Here are the panels I attended-most of which coincided with my conference companion. Following the panel title is my choice for the standout paper of said panel.

Science Fiction & Fantasy 19: Battlestar Galactica and Narrative
Standout Paper: Your So-Called Dance: Combative Narrative in Battlestar Galactica
Paul Zinder, The American University of Rome

Myth & Fairy Tale 2
Standout Paper: Once Upon a Not so Unique Time: Reconciling Individualism and Literary Borrowing in Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose"
Ashley Benson, University of New Hampshire

Science Fiction & Fantasy 3: Whedon, Sexuality and Gender
Standout Paper: Anya's "Disturbing Sex Talk": Breaking the Pattern of Punished Female Sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Tamy Burnett, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Science Fiction & Fantasy 5: Sex and Violence in Twilight
Standout Paper: "Why Are You Apologizing for Bleeding?": Confronting the Evangelical Embrace of Twilight
Kj Swanson, Mars Hill Graduate School

Religion 3: Conservative Christianity and Culture
Standout Paper: Sacred and Sexular: Ann Veal in Arrested Development
Brandon Barnes, Texas A&M University

Computer Culture 7: Game Studies 7
Standout Paper: Beyond the Button: The Nintendo Wiimote Interface and its Implications for Embodiment, Performance, and Play
David O' Grady, University of California, Los Angeles

Science Fiction & Fantasy 8: The Dangers of Twilight
Standout Paper: Un-Biting the Apple and Killing the Womb: Genesis, Gender and Gynocide in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga
Colleen Orihill, Cleveland State University

Science Fiction & Fantasy 9: Whedon and Genre
Standout Paper: Firefly: Between the Noir Frontier and the Final Frontier
E. Charlotte Stevens, York University and Ryerson University

American History & Culture: Rethinking Suburban Sense of Self: Identity and Memory in the Suburbs
Standout Paper: Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Mega-Religion in Lone Star Suburbia
Charity R. Carney, Stephen F. Austin State University

Computer Culture 11: Game Studies 11
Standout Paper: Hyper-Ludicity, Contra-Ludicity and the BFG
Steven Conway, University of Bedfordshire

Science Fiction & Fantasy 12: Whedon, Technology and Ethics
Standout Paper: There's an Echo in this Horrible Dollhouse, Doctor: Memory, Identity and Neurotechnology in Riley, River, Gunn, Echo, and, of course, Spike
J. Douglas Rabb and J. Michael Richardson, Lakehead University

Horror (Literary & Cinemantic): Affective and Imaginary Machines of Horror
Standout Paper: Manufacturing Images: Allegories of the Factory in Tomb Raider
Craig Bernardini, Hostos Community College

Science Fiction & Fantasy 14: Whedon's Re-Visioning
Standout Paper: "Look Where Free Will Has Gotten You": Brave New World and Angel's Body Jasmine
Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, State University of New York, New Paltz

Computer Culture 14: Ethnography, Writing, Second Life, and Film
Standout Paper: The Sex Life in your Second Life: An Ethnological Study of Women as Sexual Objects on Second Life
Alexis Waters, Northeastern Illinois University

Science Fiction & Fantasy: Whedon & the Body
On this panel, I had the privilege of presenting my paper: “I Like My Scars”: Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and the Narrative of Flesh
Standout Paper: Postmodern Anxiety: Androids and Cyborgs in the Whedonverse
Susan J. Wolfe and Lee Ann Roripaugh, University of South Dakota

Computer Culture 16: Theorizing Internet Forms
Standout Paper: “Wizards and Witchcraft in the Wired World”: Magical Thinking in Popular Culture
Nicholas Goodman, Northeastern State University

"A Single Man?! Are you single?"

Somehow I knew that going out into downtown Albuquerque-having a full eight hours to kill before Kj arrived-something would happen. Not necessarily something bad per se, but there was a sensation brewing within me that I would have an experience. Not 30 minutes after checking into my hotel, dropping my bags, and sitting down in the local movie theatre to catch a 5:05 screening of A Single Man, I had that experience. Of course, it was a never-before-had experience in a movie theatre.

I was really looking forward to seeing A Single Man. By myself. A single man. Or at least a singular man. Is that irony? I sat down in my preferred row-the one with the railing that you can sit your feet on. I was the only one there until about ten minutes before the movie when an elderly couple sat down in the back.

Five minutes into the movie, an African American woman came in to the theatre. Now that I think of it, I think she came in multiple times-checking things out? Then the moment came when she fully entered the space and says to me me at room volume: "Don't tell me you're here all by yourself!"

"Y-yes," I said.

"A Single Man?! Single?! Are you single?"

"Heh...I'm killing time."

She rushes over to me. She sits down. RIght next to me. In an empty movie theatre. Did something I say sound like an invitation? Hardly. She was committed.

There is rustling. Intense rustling-going on as she situates herself in her seat.

"What happened? Is it good?"

Oh my lord. No. I should have taken a clue and moved right then. But, how? I whisper, "This is a day in his life. His partner just died. It's set in..."

Again, at full volume, "He's GAY?!"

She cuts me off as I say, "...in 1962."

"They were GAY then?!"

...

"Where's my candy bag?.." She pulls out a plastic bag, unwrapping what I assume is the remnants of a Hershey's bar due to the unmistakable aroma of wax and sweaty chocolate.

I am frozen. I continue to debate with myself whether I should move. Through the movie I press (read slam) my body further into the armrest opposite her, legs curling up against the other chair.

Colin Firth's character looks at a woman. Close up on her large eyes, soft lips. Cue violins.

"Is he not gay anymore?!" she asks.

"Shhh."

Firth speaks in a lecture hall (I paraphrase): "Let's leave the jews aside for a moment. There are other minorities that are perceived a threat to people-either real or imagined..."

"Black people!" she exclaims in a harsh whisper.

"Please. Please, I'm trying to watch," is my cry. In the darkness. She acknowledges this only by looking at me and placing another piece of chocolate in her mouth.

Her commentary continues. I am fleeing. But only inside. I can't bring myself to escape.

Every few minutes: "What's a puff?" "What's tonic?" "Is he bisexual?" "Is that the Mashed Potato dance?" Additionally, any time there was sexual tension-which Tom Ford handled like a seasoned film master, incidentally-or skin on the screen, she would gasp, or giggle, or cackle. Or all three in some unholy trinity of inappropriate reaction. At one point towards the third quarter of the film, it sounded like she was chewing her teeth.

I kept asking her to be quiet. This never worked. I began to believe she was incapable of not commenting during movies. Actually, I imagined she did this in everyday life. It was easier to accept that she did this all the time in conversation with people-or by herself-than to think she would somehow not be aware of the impropriety of talking to one's self or others during a film.

I can't help but wonder whether this was a fated encounter. Whose cosmic choice mattered more? Me seeing the movie or her choosing to come in five minutes late and approach me? A Single Man-which I had wanted to see-was felicitously the only movie playing at the time. At a time that I wanted to go to a movie. That was it. It was that moment; it was then she chose. And I was there. I was the chosen.


A Single Man-as a film, not the experience-was extraordinary. I was misty-eyed minutes into the movie but what gave me that immediate reaction in the beginning transformed into something deeper, more subtle, electric, and nostalgic. Yes, it was emotional and the filmmaking beautiful, but it is so purposeful, so personal. It pulls you, stretches you, and surprises you-not by shock, but by its play with sensuality and proximity if not intimacy.