MovieChat Forums > Oleanna (1994) Discussion > 'You have to explain that word to me'

'You have to explain that word to me'

posted 13 years ago by Christ_is_of_Faith
2 replies | jump to latest

Ugh. I`ve read through the debate here, and it all seems very interesting, but you people seem to be ignoring one aspect of the way the characters were written, and that is how friggin` stupid Carol was.

It has nothing to do with her sexual or ideological agenda, it is just how amazingly slow and stupid she was. Has Mamet ever teached in an university? Because I have seen people as ignorant as Carol, so I`m wondering whether he based that character in some real student.

For example, some poster here complained about the way Mamet`s script spells everything out, but ignoring Mamet`s own literary style, that character did need everything spelled for her. Perhaps the only way to explain her not understanding half the words Macy uses or his book is by giving her an agenda -a con, if you will- that has to put her in that place, the place of the bitter bimbo who gets mad at charts and big words and who just keeps saying "I don`t understand! I don`t understand!".

I don`t know, even before I got cought up in the developing plot I was just angry at her annoying stupidity. Clearly Macy`s character did love teaching if he could waste words on that lost cause...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&Video ID=34906112

[–] cagneychick182 13 years ago

It's been a good long while since I've seen the film, but I don't think her not knowing words was because she was stupid. The implication was that she come from an uneducated and backward background and was trying to break into the world of upper society and academia. Because she was not of the culture, she was unaware of the vocabulary that comes with it.

The more power she got as the movie went along, the better her vocabulary became.

***
You wake up one day and your baby is stealing a foot.

[–] forthesafetyofpuppies 8 years ago

5 years later, but I'm in.

I think its not out of the bounds of realism for her to not know words. She's of an age where there are gaps, and Macy's exceedingly florid with language. But it's mostly symbolic. It'subverted in the second halfm where it's Macy who can't understand IIRC he even cant understand a word or two used in the document.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qssvnjj5Moo