The Princess Of Nebraska Is A Gay Retard

Wayne Wang, the director of such films as The Joy Luck Club and Smoke (and also Maid in Manhattan) has decided to premiere his 2007 film The Princess of Nebraska on YouTube. The internet is winning! It's a serious drama about a young Chinese woman in San Francisco dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and the immigrant's experience. While the experiment in alternate distribution is certainly an interesting one in terms of success (as A.O. Scott pointed out in his NYT review yesterday, "as of Sunday afternoon, the film had attracted more than 140,000 views, which is a larger audience than it would have found in a limited art-house release in New York and Los Angeles") and the incorporation of serious, professional content in a medium currently dominated by serious, professional trampoline accidents, what makes the experiment most notable is the immediacy and abundance of viewer feedback. A.O. Scott also noted this in his review, highlighting the ridiculousness of a comment like "THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NEBRASKA." But inane one-off comments are to be expected. The real treasures are to be found in the heated exchanges between these online cineastes.

My favorite after the jump.

LOLZ. I really liked AlvinSmithLover's use of a Deleuzian dialectic to explore some of the stronger themes in the film, but it was JimmyMyTube's constant reference back to the Lacanian mirror stage that I think was the stronger critique. In the words of Danny Mothers, "Good. Very critical."

You can watch the movie here.

Posted by Gabe at 3:30 PM in Everyone's A Critic, WebJunk
Tags: Internet Commenters | The Princess Of Nebraska | Wayne Wang

3 Comments

I wish I had gone to blog school so I could better deconstruct the musings of these internet debaters. If you did in fact go to Word School, and my guess is that you did, at least you are putting it to good use.

Like how when kids have to learn algebra, and they're like "I'm never gonna use this!" But see? You're using it.

Posted by: Angelaaaa at 10/21/08 6:10 PM | Reply
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anyone who can connect the epistemological debate between Delueze and Lacan on Freud, lack and desire to youtube comments gets props from me. And although i think lacan is somewhat full of crap, jimmy youtube clearly wins
BONG BONG!

Posted by: Slangdini at 10/21/08 10:51 PM | Reply
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nice gay retard comment. wish I was twelve again.

Posted by: mary at 10/22/08 10:04 PM | Reply
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