Who gate-keeps the gatekeeper?
Issue No. 3
It’s Issue no. 3, baby!
I have been very busy working on my master’s projects, so this month there isn’t really anything specific in the newsletter, just a big ol’ overview of everything I watched, read, and listened to in July. As you will see, I watched a fair amount of documentaries (three of which Henry Rollins appears in because that man just won’t say no to anything), so I suppose that is the main theme of this months issue.
I have changed up the format a bit too which I think I prefer. It feels a lot more streamlined and easier for you to pick out what sounds like a bit of you and ignore what makes you think, ‘why would anyone want to watch/read/listen to that?!’ Either way, let me know what you think. (Also, please recommend me stuff. I love to be recommended stuff, especially if its cool stuff.)
I have some essays planned, but I also have a lot of uni shit going on, as well as the general chaos that is my life, so prepare for some longer reads but, like, you do have time to prepare, you know.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this month’s issue!
Lily x
What I've been watching:
Minding the Gap, dir. Bing Lui, 2018
Drawing on a decade of footage, Minding the Gap follows three friends, Bing Lui, Keire Johnson, and Zack Mulligan, who met as children through their love of skateboarding. As they grow-up, however, this comes to play a secondary role in their lives as they all grapple with the responsibilities of manhood and attempt to figure out what it means to be a man. Lui explores the intricacies of masculinity with a non-judgemental lens that is as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking.
As the narrative progresses, it is revealed that all three friends were from abusive homes at the hands of their fathers/step-fathers. Thus, it is also about male violence and its effects, especially how cyclical it is and how hard it can be to escape it, even when the people who go on to carry out the same acts were once victims of it themselves.
Despite the heavy themes, Minding the Gap manages to be optimistic. Lui does not sensationalise or exploit his friends, nor does he sugar coat it; it is a refreshingly honest and realistic view of a post-9/11, post-recession, post- America and the men that grew up in it.
A poignant, beautiful film that you should all go and watch.
Available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
All This Mayhem, dir. Eddie Martin, 2014
This documentary follows the Australian skateboarding brothers, Tas and Ben Pappas’ rise to fame in the 1990s and their cocaine-induced downfall in the 2000s.
As children, Tas and Ben Pappas take up skateboarding as a means to escape their chaotic home life and as it turns out, they’re pretty good. As the grow-up, their skills continue to progress and they soon find themselves in America.
As pro-skaters, they are able to travel, to make money and to escape their small suburban life in Australia. However, with their rapid rise to fame comes the mayhem: mainly, cocaine. As both brother’s grapple with addiction, their self-destructive behaviour leads them back where they came from - with dire consequences.
A classic story of too much, too soon, All This Mayhem is a look into the dark side of skateboarding, as well as a providing a portrait of these once legendary but eventually sidelined skaters. (It also made me look at Tony Hawk in a new light…)
Available to watch on Amazon Prime.
Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90), dir. Scott Crawford, 2014
This documentary follows the DC hardcore-punk scene from its beginnings with bands like Minor Threat and Bad Brains in the early 1980s, to the ‘emo-core’ and post-hardcore that emerged towards the end of the decade, such as Rites of Spring and Fugazi.
Now, unless you are into hardcore or interested in music history, this might not be the one for you. However, if you are, it is definitely a compelling watch. It’s well made, has good interviews with band members and scenesters, and
The link below to watch the doc also features a Q&A with the director who was in DC during this period, so that is pretty cool.
Available to watch on YouTube.
American Hardcore, dir. Paul Rachman, 2006
If you’re looking for an all encompassing history of hardcore, then this is the one for you. This documentary goes really in-depth on the history of American hardcore from the DC scene to southern California, and everywhere in-between.
It isn’t particularly groundbreaking, but it is pretty good and informative, so you can’t really ask for more.
Available to watch on YouTube.
Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, dir. Brian Knappenberger, 2017
This film follows the infamous lawsuit Hulk Hogan took against Gawker, after the media outlet leaked his sex tape online, and what the repercussions of this trial had on the censorship of journalism.
The first half was solely focussed on the Hogan case, which made the documentary feel a bit off-balanced, and, whilst I sympathise, Hulk Hogan is not a particularly sympathetic character and nor is Gawker. The second half was better in terms of being more interesting to watch, however it was also rather frightening as it covered more broadly how censorship is becoming of an issue for journalists and media companies, as there is a growing trend of wealthy individuals seizing power to control public discourse in a way that suits them.
Watching this in 2021 is a bit disconcerting considering that the current state of journalism and public discourse is not great. However, it is an important issue that people are aware of but are not particularly educated on, so this film offers an accessible way in to a very complex issue.
Available to watch on Netflix.
Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal, dir. Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, 2015
This documentary is about the ten televised debates that aired on ABC during the Republican National Convention by public intellectuals, William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal in the 1960s.
Its use of archive footage was great as it placed the debates within the context it was originally viewed, it was brilliant paced, and it interviewed people from both sides of the aisle, so if neutrality is your thing, I’d say it definitely has that. (Though, clearly Gore Vidal was on the right side of history, even if he is a lib.) It is also interesting to see how culture wars have always been thing, but have become increasingly exacerbated through technology.
A really great watch for those interested in 1960s culture, politics, culture, etc. and a good pairing with Nobody Speak.
Available to watch on Kanopy.
Joy Division, dir. Grant Gee, 2007
This documentary, surprisingly enough, is about Joy Division. It follows how the band formed, the making of their two albums, and what happened to the band after Ian Curtis’s suicide. It is also an ode to the working-class city of Manchester, which has a somewhat mythic status for producing great music.
In terms of its content, the film wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, but then again, the history of Joy Division was a rather short-lived one, so there is only so much story to tell.* However, it did do some interesting things with it’s cinematography which, despite it being a tad bit outdated in 2021 (there’s a fair amount of footage of iPods), made it more than just your basic talking head style interview.
Overall, I can’t really complain. If you like Joy Division, you’ll like it. And if you don’t like Joy Division, you’re wrong, and I don’t know what else to tell you.
Available to watch on Amazon Prime.
* I would also recommend the biopic, Control (dir. Anton Corbijn, 2007).
Franca: Chaos and Creation, dir. Francesco Carrozzini, 2016
This film documents the life and work of Franca Sozzani, who was an editor-in-chief for Vogue Italia for nearly thirty years, and was the mind behind some of the best and most controversial images in fashion history.
I didn’t know much about Franca or Vogue Italia prior to watching this and, wow, what a fascinating woman. The world needs more people with a point of view, and who aren’t afraid of upsetting people in the process. Art is meant to disrupt and upset and provoke, and Franca clearly understood this. So, go watch - even if you aren’t into fashion, I think everyone could take something from this film.
Available to watch on Netflix.
Dishonourable mention:
Not a documentary, but I also watched half of England is Mine (dir. Mark Gill, 2017), a biopic about a teenage Morrissey in the years just before The Smiths were formed, and it was, uh, not good at all! So bad in fact, I couldn’t finish watching it. If Morrissey is anything like how they present him in the film then he really must be insufferable.
What I’ve Been Reading:
The Story of the Lost Child - Elena Ferrante (2014)
Over the past year or so i’ve been slowly making my way through Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels and this one, the last novel, offers a well deserved conclusion to a brilliant series.
It is an epic story that takes you from the protagonist/narrator’s, Elena ‘Lenù’ Greco, childhood all the way to old age, tracing both her tumultuous friendship with Raffaella ‘Lila’ Cerullo, that anchors the plot and keeps drawing Lenù back to Napoli, despite her desperation to escape them both.
None of her characters - male or female - are perfect, they are all flawed and continuously make bad decisions, but this is what makes them so compelling. Moreover, her ability to put on paper, in words, the female mind; it is otherworldly. She really gets into the intricacies of womanhood, and what it is like to be a woman, to think like a woman, to talk like a woman, to act like a woman. Likewise, her descriptions of Italy, in particular Naples, are immensely evocative and clearly written by someone who knows it well.
I’m looking forward to reading more from Ferrante as, not only did I love this series, I’ve heard great things about her other novels too.
Fake Accounts - Lauren Oyler (2021)
This book is about a woman who finds out her boyfriend is a popular internet conspiracy theorist and how she deals with this. On a deeper level, it is also about the different identities we all create for ourselves. On paper, this all sounds pretty interesting and very à la mode, but whilst this book had so much potential but it just fell flat for me.
The narrator wasn't particularly likeable, which is fine if they’re compelling, but there was nothing particularly interesting about her at all, she just seemed to complain a lot despite not really having anything to complain about.* The plot was all over the place too, it felt very disjointed but not in a purposeful way, more in a first draft kind of way. And, more than anything, what made this novel so meh, is how boring it is. I found myself counting how many pages were left when I was reading because I couldn’t believe it was still going on and just wanted it to end.
What the book did have going for it, though, was its sense of humour. Oyler obviously understands post-irony internet humour and when she employs it in the novel, it is usually pretty funny. Similarly, her commentary on contemporary feminist discourse was rather astute.
Overall, though I wouldn’t rush to read this. Unfortunately it just didn’t quite hit.
* See Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation for a brilliant example of an unlikeable but compelling narrator.
“Unread Messages” - Sally Rooney (2021)
This is an excerpt from Sally Rooney’s new book, Beautiful World, Where Are You, which is out in September and it was so good. It even made me cry (not that that is particularly hard).
Similar to Ferrante, though their styles differ hugely, Rooney has this amazing talent at crafting female characters who are just wildly relatable. They feel so real and tangible, as if you’d go out and get coffee and bump into them. I remember reading Normal People, and just relating to Marianne so much and being amazed that Rooney was able to capture this in a book.
I am a Sally Rooney stan, and I am very excited for her new book to come out, which I will definitely be reviewing.
You can read it here.
Follow me on Goodreads or Storygraph for what I’m currently reading.
What I’ve Been Listening To:
As usual, I have updated The Hernamewaslily Newsletter Playlist with some tunes I’ve been into, but here are some highlights:
The Pennsylvania straight-edge hardcore band, One Step Closer released a new track this month called ‘Chrysanthemum.’ The emo-inspired spoken-word opening of the track (sampled from the talk the dad gives in Call me by Your Name) nearly put me off listening to the rest of the song (my main gripe with emo is when they go all spoken word, it kinda makes me cringe a bit because it’s just so earnest and, although I am an incredibly emotional person, I am also scared of being vulnerable and really putting my emotions out there… So perhaps it says more about me than about the music itself…), but the heavy breakdown that follows lured me back in. Definitely a band to watch.
Australian punk band Amyl and the Sniffers followed up their brilliant track ‘Guided by Angels’ with ‘Security’ another energetic tune that just makes you want to dance. I am very excited for the new album to drop.
I recently listened to all of Turnstile’s back catalogue because they’d been on my radar but I’d never really listened to them, so I felt compelled to go through their back catalogue and… I have mixed feelings. Some of their stuff has a straight-out-the-80s hardcore vibe which I’m rather partial to (we’re Minor Threat hive over here), but the more experimental melodic stuff might take me a while to get my head around. Having said that, their new track ‘Blackout’ has been on repeat, so maybe I will be turned after all.
Thought Control’s debut EP, Shock to the System, is six minutes of fast, heavy, relentless noise and I love it. The opening and closing tracks are particularly good, and ‘Sniff out the Nazi’ gets a special mention as well, because fuck Nazis (obviously). A very promising start.