Best In Show 2000

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Best In Show 2000

• This is Spinal Tap (1984)
• Waiting for Guffman (1996)
• Best In Show (2000)
• A Mighty Wind (2003)
• For Your Consideration (2006)

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http//www.westminsterkennelclub.org/
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A conformation dog show

• Dogs are evaluated on how well they conform to
  certain breed standards

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1877 first Westminster show
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1877 first Westminster show

• Westminster pre-dates the invention of the
  light bulb, the automobile, and the zipper the
  building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the
  Washington Monument and manned air flightl and
  the establishment of the World Series. Since
  Westminster held its first show 127 years ago,
  there have been 24 men elected president and 12
  states have joined the union. (westminsterkennelc
  lub.org)

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1875, the Mayflower

• Buck Laughlin scrambles separate myths of
  American identity, the Mayflower, Christopher
  Columbus, different permutations of pedigree.
• The canine contestants and their owners are as
  wondrously diverse as the great country that has
  bred them.
• (from hollywoodjesus.com)

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• Pedigree vs assortment
• exclusivity vs diversity
• democratic vs aristocratic
• few vs many
• exceptional vs exemplary

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Assortment

• The Flecks
• The Swans
• Vanderhoof and Donlan
• Cabot and Cummings
• Pepper
• the real in performance, rather than story
• cf Boogie Nights, Boys Dont Cry

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Sexuality

• territorial, competitive, hierarchical
• and/or
• specialised, aesthetic, niche

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Competition vs Community

• Queer Eye For the Straight Guy
• American Bitch
• Sexuality A Commodity?

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• The arena, space of theatrical performance, a
  place of exemplarity
• Best in Show a category of exceptionality

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Catalogue People
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A Trois

• ch1
• Film opens with Beatrice on the Couch, Freudian,
  uncanny, neurosis circulates beyond human bodies
  and lived experience, into décor, performance
• Sleight of hand did she say anything
• Triangle analyst and patients vs our position
  watching the interviews, we are like the
  analyst (or like Beatrice?).

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• Ch3
• 1875 Great grandfather Milbank and the Mayflower
• Foucault 1870
• Standards a bite standard but not a number of
  teeth standard
• repressive hypothesis, incitement to discourse
• Foucauldian arena vs Freudian domestic space

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• Sexuality choreographed around instances of
  performance, milieu of domesticity, scenes of
  encounter
• Two styles in the film, the interview and the
  stadium
• Interview as domestic, psychoanalytic, conjugal
• The Show as split screen.

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Scott and Stefan, flâneurs(cosmopolitan, gay)
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• Mockumentary
• faux documentary
• largely improvised
• the real in performance, rather than story
• cf Boogie Nights, Boys Dont Cry