The Black Hole of USC Cinema

or fuck Linda Brown

The other day Jonathan P. Linton Jr messaged me to ask if I would like to go and see Brian Cox talk about the universe. I was very excited as Succession is an excellent show. Sadly, this was the other Brian Cox who is apparently very famous and beloved but I have never heard of him before.

Because I have never heard of him I assumed no one else had heard of him, but I was surprised to get to the Wilshire Ebell theatre and find a most eclectic mixture of people. There were nerdy boys, nerdy men, and some terrifyingly beautiful women dressed as if they were on an episode of Selling Sunset. Jonathan P. Linton Jr and I had not seen each other for a couple of years, and we were excited to catch up for five minutes and hear all about one another’s anxiety and stomach ailments, and then we ran out of things to talk about and were grateful when the lights went down.

I did not really understand much of what Professor Brian Cox said. He made a Succession joke which was kind of him, and said some stuff about Black Holes and Mathematical Equations and Relativity and there was some kind of LED lightshow which failed to move me and even though I find myself an extremely open-minded kind of middle class white person, I was frankly pretty bored. Instead of getting agitated about being bored, I decided to sit still, try not to think about the fact everyone was richer, happier and more successful than me, and simply enjoy the rare phenomenon of a man giving a lecture in a confident and self-important manner and expecting us to be quiet and listen, as if I had not been doing this my entire life.

It was a pleasant and utterly pointless evening which broke up the monotony of my existence, which could be characterized as “poverty - desperation - job - relax for one second - someone fucks me over - chaos and panic - I finally get paid - someone pays for me to go out - I don’t see them for two years - repeat”. [Funnily enough I started learning to code at Stanford and it strikes me that my life could be programmed very simply which is really depressing]

The one thing I did recall was Professor Brian Cox said something very smart about how we are likely the only living beings in the whole galaxy. Or universe. Or maybe both.

That really got to me. His point was something along the lines of “What a gift this life is!” but frankly I just felt really fucking depressed and disappointed. This is as good as it gets? Fuck.

Recently I have been training my inner monologue to stop screeching, and to adopt a more gentle tone. It now says “You kind of fucked that up, didn’t you?” in a passive aggressive way, rather than screaming at a high pitch. This is a nice change.

I felt really bad today. I picked up poor N from school and immediately burst into tears. I have been battling one particular professor at USC for six months. I have had cunty professors before, and white-knuckled it through, but this one is the gift that keeps on giving because she is the Head of the Cinematography department and therefore has the keys to the kingdom of Cine. I love Cine. Not as much as I love writing, but it’s one of the skills that I love most about this crazy film world. I took her Intermediate Cinematography class last fall. She told us we were the worst class she had ever taught and claimed she had taught “special needs kids who were smarter”. I mean, it was a great class, but I do not think I have to trade my dignity for a good class, not when I am already paying this institution about 200k for entry into a dying career.

When my Dad died and I had to take a couple of days off over the semester, she refused to accommodate me. I went back to Wales, watched my Dad die, then hurried back to complete my Cine coursework. I was in LA for ten days and then flew back for Dad’s funeral. While at Dad’s funeral I had an accident and sustained second degree burns. I flew back to LA and missed the written final because I’d lost all the skin off my legs and couldn’t walk. She gave me a B. Then a couple of days after his funeral, she took away my upcoming Documentary Cinematography SA position, thus severing 10k of aid from my financial package too late for me to find another position to replace it, and after I had left a job with 10K of aid to take this new one. She insisted I was not qualified for the position of assisting a professor because I hadn’t taken a particular class. So I got another position in a lower level Cinematography class, and she stopped that one too. I got another - the same. At this point I complained to the Chair of the Department, who made some soothing noises and said she would talk to the Professor and ask her to basically cut it out. All was calm. I was besieged with making a film, and dealing with my ex who exploded in a vicious way in the middle of the semester (more of that another time). I thought everything was resolved and we had all moved on.

Last week, I was offered another SA position with a great Cinematography Professor. But then he called me, panicked. “She’s stonewalling me. She won’t sign off. She won’t put it in writing, but I can’t do anything. I can’t hire you.”

It is worth noting that this never happens. If a Professor chooses you to be an SA, the Head of the Department just signs off on it. There is no justification for not giving a student the job if they’re on that track and are taking the classes. My track was cine. Not anymore!

So I sent off another missive to the Chair, who then informed me, in a particularly unsympathetic way, there was nothing she could do, fuck off.

This plunged me into deep misery. I have spent so much of my life in self-loathing, analyzing my behavior over and over, driving myself insane, wondering why someone would do [insert cruel behavior]. The answer is that people are massive cunts. “Oh, they don’t realize how cruel they are being. They don’t realize how hurtful this behavior is.” Yes, they do. This is why they do it, even when you have asked them to stop. If someone came to me and said, “Hey, this is upsetting me, please stop,” I would say, “Yes, of course”. Only pathologically evil people keep doing things to hurt other people. Of course we victims have to learn to stop reacting when we realize assholes get a kick out of us crying, but with this situation - is the lesson here really I should have accepted the fact I just forked out 200k for an education I’m not getting because some old white lady doesn’t like me? I don’t fucking think so. I am therefore diverting my anger and rage away from myself, towards USC with the aim of just making their life difficult and maybe getting some money out of the arseholes.

I called a lawyer, which is very American of me. It just so happens that my UCLA colleague sued UCLA last year for something similar but different. We are all locked into this absurd cycle of suing each other. This, again, could be coded it is so predictable.

So with Brian Cox’s words ringing in my ears, I said goodbye to 10K, a priceless learning opportunity, and a chance to hang out with a cool cinematography professor for fifteen weeks, and was forced to face the fact I now have one expensive semester left in a school I have come to hate and which has provided me with a pretty mediocre, overpriced education. Not hate with a flame thrower, just hate with the quiet, painful despair of someone who already knew that talent, hard work and commitment is not enough to get you anywhere in life. I didn’t make friends with any rich people either, which was silly of me.

The hardest thing about being a student and a single mom, has been dealing with the middle aged women at USC. Linda Brown, Carol Folt, Dean Daley - fuck you all. Wenches of Evil.

I am tired and I need something nice to happen.

Also N told me he has decided to call his Little Brother Malachi or Zion which is a terrifying proposition.

We can all see how this will end.

He is Risen.