Over the past two weekends, Michel and I were able to take part in one of Chicago's truly amazing cultural offerings: the Chicago Humanities Festival. Such luminaries such as opera singer Ana Maria Martinez, playwright Edward Albee, author Lemony Snicket, humorist Delia Ephron, and tennis player Martina Navratilova were among those schedules for this year's festival, centering around the theme of "Animals". (Alright, all of you who like to make fun of my weirdly tall "a" when I say that word, here is your chance.) You might recall from the Epic Burger post, that a friend of ours was also in town to present at this said festival. Unfortunately we were unable to attend his lecture, but we were able to attend two others.
Elizabeth Nerds Out
Some of you may know that I like fairy tales. If you are related to me, you probably know that my like of fairy tales is actually an obsession and that not-so-secretly I want to be in a fairy tale, specifically Beauty and the Beast. And if you are my friend, Stephanie, you encourage that dream by calling me Belle. So it should come as no surprise that when an opportunity was presented to study fairy tales in grad school, I jumped on it. Dr. Carl Lindahl was my professor on this journey through fairy tales (though he would correct me: folk tales) and 19th century Romanticism and completely encouraged my deep study of Tale Type AT 425: The Animal Bridegroom/The Search for the Lost Husband type, specifically AT 425C: Beauty and the Beast. It was through this course of study that I discovered my favorite historian of fairy tales was Maria Tatar, professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and chair of the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard. So imagine my nerdtastic delight at finding that none other that Dr. Tatar would be speaking on November 2nd at the Chicago History Museum!
After a soul-crushing disappointment upon finding out that her lecture was sold out (Obviously. She's that awesome.), I got us on the waiting list and convinced Michel to just go to the lecture with me to see if we might get in. After arriving and being told, sure, there's plenty of room, and by the way we only accept cash and a frantic run to two different ATMs, we slipped into the back row of the darkened auditorium just as Dr. Tatar was being introduced. Her lecture, entitled The Big Bad Wolf Reconsidered, explored the evolution of the Big Bad Wolf character from the famous Grimm fairy tales through modern pop culture and the apparent power shift that has occurred in recent incarnations between the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, making Little Red the hunter and the Wolf the hunted. Needless to say, I loved it. Dr. Tatar is an incredibly engaging and affable speaker, responding to the audience's many questions with grace and thoughtfulness. She also made time for those who came down to speak to her after the lecture's conclusion, including me. I have a beautiful copy of her Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, which I had brought, despite assuming I would be too scared to ask for her autograph. She saw me clutching my book and immediately offered to sign it. As she did so, I blurted out that I had studied folklore with Dr. Lindahl at UH, particularly AT 425C. She lit up. "Oh, how wonderful! I just saw Carl last week! I will have to tell him I met you! That's a wonderful tale type. Enjoy your studies!" I have no idea if she did or will ever remember to tell Dr. Lindahl she met me. But I left with a huge smile on my face, thrilled to find out that my fairy tale scholar idol was also a super nice person.
Michel Nerds Out
In light of Michel's workload this week, he has given me permission to talk about his nerdtastic experience at the Festival.
The second event we attended was a conversation with Jenette Kahn, former president and publisher of DC Comics, at the Art Institute. Ms. Kahn was both the youngest publisher and first female publisher in DC history, led the company for 27 years, and spearheaded several major developments for the company, including a move to support Creator's Rights, the release of the first real superhero movie (Superman starring Christopher Reeve), the launch of the Vertigo imprint, and the publication of such landmark titles as Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Sandman, and Crisis on Infinite Earths by authors like Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman. And, of course, she approved the death of Superman. Quite an impressive resume from someone, man or woman, who became president at age 27 with no experience in the comic book industry. Since she left DC in 2002, she has become a successful movie producer, most notably producing Clint Eastwood's highly successful film, Gran Torino.
Like Dr. Tatar, both Michel and I found Ms. Kahn to be gracious, thoughtful, engaging, and funny. She has a bubbly personality yet is a bit soft-spoken, not quite the combination you would expect from the person running a multi-billion dollar company. Yet her grasp of not just the business side but the human side of comic books and publishing in general was evident in her anecdotes and answers, and she was not afraid to discuss the mistakes and difficulties of her tenure as DC president. Her frankness was refreshing.
While we both loved hearing Ms. Kahn speak, there was a problem with the presentation. It was not a lecture but a conversation with a local independent bookseller and zine publisher. Frankly, I was appalled by her behavior. She began by swinging her feet and commenting about how she felt like a little kid in a super-big chair. She appeared completely unprepared and is clearly not a seasoned interviewer. Interviewing is very difficult skill that must be developed. She stuck to her questions and responded to most of Ms. Kahn's answers and stories with a detached "Wow" or "Sure" or "That's great" that did little to mask the panic of her brain trying to figure out how to segue to her next question. The interviewer clearly wanted to make a big issue of how Ms. Kahn's gender and age affected her time at DC, while Ms. Kahn's stance was clearly stated: her gender and age were not what was remarkable about her success at DC. What was remarkable was that she had a remarkable staff working toward remarkable goals. While I am all for a woman succeeding in a man's world, I found myself to be more inspired by and appreciative of this attitude. However, this did not fit with the interviewer's line of questioning, which persisted despite Ms. Kahn's firm but gracious attempts to shut it down. Many of the interviewer's questions were long, rambling, fan-girl theses on a particular comic that ended with, "Oh, yeah, so...talk about that." Her lack of professionalism came to a head when, doing her best Chris Hardwick impression, she asked about DC's recent decision to move all operations from New York to the Burbank campus in 2015 by saying, "So...are they going to California...for mooooviiiiiEEEESS?", raising the last syllable of movies to a high squeak while performing an odd, Egyptian-esq dance with her "question" arms. Except that Chris Hardwick is an excellent and compelling interviewer, and I apologize, good sir, for any offense taken on your part.
The interviewer frustrated me to no end, and Michel was even more distracted. He felt that she missed the opportunity to ask about much of the groundbreaking work that occurred at DC under Ms. Kahn's guidance and was irritated by her unfocused, unprofessional, fan-girl demeanor. Throughout it all, Ms. Kahn responded with kindness and aplomb. We both felt that the audience members who asked questions (I was the first one!) asked much more thoughtful and professional questions that evoked much more in-depth answers from Ms. Kahn. While the opportunity to hear her speak was not one to be missed, and certainly Jenette Kahn herself did not disappoint, we agree that the festival missed the boat on the format for this presentation. Either an audience-driven conversation or a traditional lecture would have better served both Jenette Kahn and the audience.
The Chicago Humanities Festival was a great experience. We both cannot wait until next year and hope to be able to go to several more programs. So if you end up in Chicago sometime between mid-October and mid-November, check out the Chicago Humanities Festival website and see who's speaking or performing. You'll be glad you did!
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