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The new Netflix series is a perfect reflection of the culture war that is stirring America
The Department of English, Netflix's new series, manages to reflect the culture war that is currently stirring American campuses and the entire world.
Amanda Pete's writing is excellent, Sandra's acting is great and the six episodes leave a taste of more
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Department of English - Series
TV review
Avner Shavit
Sunday, 22 August 2021, 00:30 Updated: 00:31
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Trailer for the "Department of English" series (Netflix)
Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, was previously president of Princeton University. Having successfully made the transition, he stated that "compared to college politics, governance is child's play." Another version claims that he once said that he left the university and ran for president because "he was tired of engaging in politics," but I found no reference to that.
Either way, there is no doubt that the academic world is bursting with juicy intrigues - Joseph Cedar, himself the son of a great professor, illustrated this well in the film "Footnote". Despite this, the world of television does not often bite into the subject, perhaps because of the elitist image of the university ivory tower. After all, who would want to see a series about what's going on in the Faculty of Humanities?
Well, it turns out that this commodity still has buyers - and the result is a series called "The Chair", which aired this weekend on Netflix.
As its name implies, Sandra or plays the first non-white woman to be appointed head of the prestigious department at some fictitious American university.
Throughout the six episodes she is present time and time again that indeed, Woodrow Wilson was right.
It is likely that Netflix approved the project not only because of the theme, but mainly because of the big names behind it: not only Sandra Or, but also Amanda Pitt, who until now was best known as an actress, and here first signed a series as a creator and producer.
Along with her you can also find among the producers the creators of "Game of Thrones", Dan Weiss and David Benioff - the latter is Pete's partner in professional and personal life.
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To the full article
"Footnote", American version. Holland Taylor, "Department of English" (Photo: Eliza Morse / Netflix)
In an interview with the New York Times, Pete said she wrote the series following an argument with her daughter: She criticized tic-tuck because of her immodest attire, and in response her child questioned her commitment to feminism. This little conflict is a good example of the intergenerational culture war now taking place in the United States and in the world at large, and the creator has sought to delve deeper into it. The campus was for her a perfect arena for this, being a place where lecturers from one generation engage in dialogue with male and female students from another generation, and wrestle around values, perspectives, political correctness and identity politics.
This culture war is at the center of the series. Its triggering event occurs when one of the popular lecturers in the class, played by Jay Duplas, tries to prove a point through a joking use of a hand-raised motion - which of course provokes a commotion from God and a student protest demanding his dismissal. This mess falls on his new boss, who, it turns out, has a relationship with him that is far from just professional.
During this plot there are two problems: First of all, although the series purports to be objective, it seems to have a certain mockery of the righteous students, even when they are right.
Another problem is the fall into Goodwin's law, and the expected and too easy choice of raising a hand as the movement that shakes the ship.
More interesting are the less banal scenes, which also occupy a less dramatic volume: for example, the fascinating debate that ensues when a veteran lecturer, played by Bob Balban, seeks to teach Melville's "Moby Dick" as he and his predecessors have done for decades.
That is, the aging professor separates the work from the artist and ignores the fact that the writer has beaten his wife - and of course the students are challenging this etrog.
Not just handsome.
David Duchovny, "The English Department" (Photo: Eliza Morse / Netflix)
Discussions on freedom of expression and the culture of cancellation are as relevant to the United States as they are to Israel and any other country, and as relevant to the Faculty of Humanities as they are to any other media and cultural arena. This makes "The Department of English" a series of public interest, and much more than an internal joke of academics.
At its other level, however, this comedic drama addresses the specific challenges facing humanities faculties: existential uncertainty, budgetary difficulties, the difficulty of recruiting new students, and the need to turn to populist districts to survive. A painfully accurate moment describes how one of the veteran lecturers is furious to discover that she will no longer be able to use her office. Another plot line puts David Duchovny, who plays himself here, in the cauldron. The TV star, it turns out, has previously done a master’s at Yale University, and the university seeks to hire him instead of more experienced academics, in the rather pathetic hope that the rock star will help her attract an audience and keep her head above water.
Since we have not seen many American series dealing with the academic world, certainly not with such a degree of detail, it goes without saying that the "Department of English" stirred the university feed on American Twitter over the weekend.
While overall credible and accurate, there are of course resentments about it: for example, complaints that it beautifies reality, describes the composition of English students as much less white than it really is, and echoes the trendy concept of "critical theory of race" more than it actually does. .
There are also grievances that it focuses on the plight of faculty members, when in fact they are privileged in relation to the real poor of the current market - the lecturers who have not yet been given tenure.
Score A. From the "Department of English" (Photo: Eliza Morse / Netflix)
The "Department of English," in conclusion, turns out to be a great reflection of the contemporary culture war and has become the talk of the day around the virtual fountains of academics - but it is also more than that, and can entertain even those who are not interested in political correctness and universities.
She enjoys witty writing, a gallery of characters full of color and character and a respectable team of actors and actresses.
Its six episodes progress at a steady pace and leave a taste of more.
It’s also nice to see how the series manages to maintain interest without succumbing to old-fashioned clichés and fantasies.
In one of the first chapters, for example, a nice student initiates an interaction with the scandalous lecturer, who has just been widowed.
The expectation is that in the best tradition, an affair will develop between them, but the script that Amanda Pete wrote with Annie Julia Weiman goes in a completely different direction, and is entirely worthy of our day.
As she learned in conversations with her teenage daughter, and as the classroom discussions illustrate here, the clichés that once starred can no longer work today.
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