JCVD Life Lesson #2: The Dissertation Attack

I was walking to class today pondering our JCVD project; like anything new I am excited about, it inevitably consumes my thoughts, and I find myself fixating on what I want to accomplish. Both Kate and I knew from the start that we wanted to talk not only about movies, but also about life, the universe, everything. While Douglas Adams has revealed the answer to be 42, I think I’ve been hoping a little bit that JCVD would unveil the question.

It occurred to me, though, as thoughts about my dissertation vied with thoughts about Van Damme in my head (it probably speaks to my potential as a scholar since my research has to compete with my musings on action movies) that Kate and I had created a methodology, explained it, and implemented it. Methodologies are tricky things; if you want to make up a word and argue that this word names a concept or social conception/construct that has, as of yet, gone unnoticed you have to present a methodology--the studious, critical approach you will take to define, reveal, and prove that your social observation is both correct and valid.

Think about whatever philosophy you’ve had to read in your life. At some point, usually the beginning, when the philosopher is discussing how s/he came about the insight s/he plans to spend the rest of the book fleshing out, there is a defining of terms and a creation of proof--as in mathematical proof. It isn’t exactly a mathematical proof obviously, but the idea here is that someone else can read your work and use your methodology to do their own study of the concept created.

Are you confused? Welcome to the world I have willingly chosen to make my life.

I have no idea (NO IDEA) how to go about writing something like this, or, at least, I didn’t. But on my walk to class today it occurred to me that I had already created a methodology. Our VD ratings system.

The Claim: That all JCVD movies can be evaluated against each other for merit and meaning

The Proof: Our criteria listed in the our Mission Statement.

The Result: The JCVD Project and whatever entertainment and or value it offers to those who read it.

We have established a set of criteria and defined them creating a structure for our theories of what makes a worthwhile JCVD movie and why. We have explicated our reasons for rating the movies we watch based upon said criteria. We have offered specific reasons for why doing this matters to us.

Basically what this means in simple terms is this: I’ve written something that almost precisely models what I will have to do for a Doctorate of Philosophy. And I’ve done it with Kate on Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.

Tell me you too recognize the ludicrousness of what has happened here.

But more than having stumbled upon an unplanned “writing practice” I’ve begun to engage in the exact activities I am constantly trying to teach to my students. When we study world literature I spend entire lectures attempting to demonstrate to them that they are already doing at home what they must in class. When they watch a movie or tv or whatever and then talk about it with their friends the thought process that is being engaged in is the same as the process required for education, work, and general self evaluation. Granted, often times it is a more simplistic and naive process, but that doesn’t change the significance of recognizing the two processes as similar.

Being able to justify an appreciation for JCVD is, at its core, the same thing as justifying an appreciation for Homer or Milton (I know, half my friends are cursing me right now and the other half are groaning because they realize I’m really not going to ever get a job and will, in fact, be living in their basements). You have to work harder for a justification of JCVD because a purely aesthetic argument, “I liked it cause shit blew up,” doesn’t justify it as worth anyone else’s time to think about, and many JCVD movies are lacking in the larger themes, never mind ubiquitous cultural context, of the texts studied in the classroom. But it can be done, and that’s the part that I feel is important. That’s also the part I feel we forget to make clear when we are teaching why thinking matters. Not Milton, not Shakespeare, not Chaucer or Dante--it’s the thinking that matters and the process of questioning why anything is worth reading or watching. The “classics” just lend themselves more obviously to the sorts of questions that need to be asked.

But just because it seems silly to examine human nature through the lens of JCVD doesn’t make it worthless. It might be unexpected and possibly even ridiculous, but no matter what any one person finds this to be in the end, the subject matter is inconsequential--it’s the process that counts. I think JCVD the action hero could appreciate that.

And I say “whatever” to how ludicrous this all sounds: JCVD is gonna help me graduate. That’s like a metaphysical roundhouse kick/groin shot combination.