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Uncontrollable Bodies: Testimonies of Identity and Culture
anthology featuring Trinh Mihn-ha, others
283 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 9, 2020
Rodney Sappington and Tyler Stallings’ Uncontrollable Bodies collects essays, poems, photographs and more from “filmmakers, poets, visual and performance artists, sex workers, activists, and cultural critics” on the broad subject of bodily identity. The premise excited me and it was on deep discount, so how was I to pass it up?
Unfortunately, barring a few notable standout pieces, this collection is a mess. Both Vivian Sobchack’s “Revenge of The Leech Woman” and Carla Kirkwood’s “Laying Me Down,” for example, promise singular analyses of femininity and aging as experienced by the authors. The former fulfills that promise by looking at a trio of sci-fi B-movies through the lens of Haraway and Kristeva’s writings on horror and the abject, arriving at a powerful and deeply funny thesis delivered in an entertainingly idiosyncratic manner. Kirkwood’s piece, on the other hand, swims in the same waters but never leaves the shallows. While far from the worst piece presented in this collection (and it certainly has its merits—the prose itself is easily some of the best on display here), it also demonstrates some of the key weaknesses that drag down the anthology as a whole. So many of these pieces take on difficult matters of identity and embodied culture with a particular brand of cynical late 80s narcissism that gestures at deep thinking without ever actually piercing the most superficial level of analysis. (Look no further than Scott Bukatman’s bodybuilding-focused X-Bodies to see this impulse at its worst.) When Sobchack tackles the same subject matter, she does so with a tact and wit devoid in Kirkwood’s glum self-loathing.
Similarly, while some of the poems presented are deeply affecting in their language, others read as if they were first drafts never given a second look. The inconsistency of material deeply hurts the collection as a whole. Not recommended, even on the strength of the better material.
Unfortunately, barring a few notable standout pieces, this collection is a mess. Both Vivian Sobchack’s “Revenge of The Leech Woman” and Carla Kirkwood’s “Laying Me Down,” for example, promise singular analyses of femininity and aging as experienced by the authors. The former fulfills that promise by looking at a trio of sci-fi B-movies through the lens of Haraway and Kristeva’s writings on horror and the abject, arriving at a powerful and deeply funny thesis delivered in an entertainingly idiosyncratic manner. Kirkwood’s piece, on the other hand, swims in the same waters but never leaves the shallows. While far from the worst piece presented in this collection (and it certainly has its merits—the prose itself is easily some of the best on display here), it also demonstrates some of the key weaknesses that drag down the anthology as a whole. So many of these pieces take on difficult matters of identity and embodied culture with a particular brand of cynical late 80s narcissism that gestures at deep thinking without ever actually piercing the most superficial level of analysis. (Look no further than Scott Bukatman’s bodybuilding-focused X-Bodies to see this impulse at its worst.) When Sobchack tackles the same subject matter, she does so with a tact and wit devoid in Kirkwood’s glum self-loathing.
Similarly, while some of the poems presented are deeply affecting in their language, others read as if they were first drafts never given a second look. The inconsistency of material deeply hurts the collection as a whole. Not recommended, even on the strength of the better material.
August 1, 2018
A good but not great set of pieces (non-fiction, poetry and art) about the body and identity. Work by Luis Alfaro, Gregg Bordowitz, Scott Bukatman, Dennis Cooper, Leslie Dick, Louise Diedrich, Robert Flynt, Clara Kirkwood, Carol Leigh, Elizabeth Pulsinelli, Rodney Sappington, Vivian Sobchak, Alan Soundheim Tyler Atallings, Lynne Tillman and Trinh T. Minh-ha. Favorite pieces were "Revenge of the Leech Woman: On the Dread of Aging in Low-Budget Horror Films" by Vivian Sobchack and "X-Bodies (The Torment of the Mutant Superhero)" by Scott Bukatman.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews