PROFESSOR: Mary Ann, would you mind reading your poem aloud so that we can hear it in your own voice?
MARY ANN: Absolutely. Ahem.
Who’s the black private dick
That’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
SHAFT!
Ya damn right!
Who is the man that would risk his neck
For his brother man?
SHAFT!
Can you dig it?
Who’s the cat that won’t cop out
When there’s danger all about?
SHAFT!
Right On!
They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!
He’s a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
JOHN SHAFT!
PROFESSOR: Thank you, Mary Ann. Ok, class, let’s start with the things we like. Then we’ll move on to the things we think could be improved.
[Long pause.]
AMERICAN STUDIES MAJOR [pensively]: I really appreciate how the poem argues with itself, even contradicts itself—“If I contradict myself,” it seems to echo Whitman, “I contradict myself.” In fact, I find a lot of parallels between the chief persona in this poem and the Whitman/ Emerson/ Thoreau American Transcendentalist milieu, if you will. This man, this John Shaft, I think we can all agree, would not exist without Emerson’s tenets so formidably outlined in “Self-Reliance,” am I right? Am I right? [Flashes a toothy white smile toward Romanticist.]
ROMANTICIST: [giggles]
[Modernist glares at Romanticist.]
SWAG (Studies in Women and Gender) MAJOR: I disagree. I think the most provoking contradiction in this piece is when the speaker asserts that Shaft is a ‘bad mother.’ This bends all our preconceptions of male/female roles in a domestic space. That is the main dialectic at work here, not the juxtaposition of popularity versus existential alienation.
MODERNIST: Really? So you’re saying that one gender-bending line overshadows the obvious post-modern Prufrockian slant in the entire piece? I mean, I think it’s pretty clear that when the speaker asserts that no one understands Shaft but his woman, the speaker is being ironic, using indirect discourse to suggest that this is what Shaft has to tell his woman to assuage her concerns regarding her insecurities as a lover.
ROMANTICIST: [gasps, incredulous]
[Modernist glares at her.]
SWAG MAJOR: Um…well, considering where the line comes in the piece…
ROMANTICIST: Well, I for one don’t think [air quotes] His Woman [air quotes] is [air quotes] insecure [air quotes] about her abilities as a [air quotes] lover [air quotes] at all! I mean, Mary Ann says—
PROFESSOR: The speaker says….
ROMANTICIST: [air quotes] The speaker says [air quotes] that John is a bad mother—can’t we consider what this means in terms of what kind of man John really is? Mother…mother-love…lover…bad mother/bad lover…bad mother lover…bad mother-fuc…
SWAG MAJOR [continuing]: …the line is clearly the poem’s volta—yes, I would say this is the crux of the entire poem. And I think it’s unfair to assume that Shaft is the most secure lover just because he’s male. I mean, if that were the case, why all the verbal overcompensation in the poem?
ROMANTICIST: Exactly. That’s what I was [air quotes] saying [air quotes].
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING MAJOR [louder than necessary]: See, I read that line, line 13 differently; it seems to be street slang that is then cut off by the secondary voice—or voices—that bring the refrain in each quatrain, those responsible for the majusculated expostulation, “SHAFT!” and the like. I feel quite strongly, given the way Mary Ann read her piece, that “mother” is part of a longer phrase that undergoes interruption by the voices of the refrain. This is why it is absolutely imperative that this issue of punctuation be fixed, and the problem can be remedied quite easily by “mother” being followed by an em-dash.
CLASSICS MAJOR: I mean, I think we can all agree that it’s pretty obvious that the secondary voices interacting with the primary lyricist compose the chorus of the piece, yes? I think Mary Ann need be praised for reinventing this age-old tradition in an entirely fresh way.
MARY ANN: Thank you.
PROFESSOR: Ok, before we move on, any last comments?
ROMANTICIST: Well, I just want to praise the quite visceral interjection we get in the end—[air quotes] “John!” [air quotes] Mary Ann—excuse me—[air quotes] the speaker [air quotes]—cries out. [air quotes] “John Shaft!” [air quotes], as though, before, we the readers, as well as the populace of the poem, did not know this impervious persona—never really knew him—until this ultimate line, coming after the penultimate, which is also incredibly moving. Who can possibly understand this [air quotes] “complicated man?” [air quotes] [air quotes] “No one understands him but his woman.” [air quotes] [Looks imploringly at Modernist. Trembles.] No one! [air quotes] [Weeps.] [Flees classroom.]
[Long pause]
SLOW IRONIC HIPSTER GUY [to no one in particular]: Hey, ya know what? I think I’ve—yeah, I’ve definitely heard this somewhere before….
this is fucking hilarious.
Love it. Go Isaac Hayes!
Looks like Mary Ann’s raised more questions than she’s answered. I don’t think she really earned that ending, either. You know who would’ve earned that ending? JOHN SHAFT.
What really confuses me, or interests me, is that you’ve got this really unusual reference to Gilligan’s Island going on, and aren’t you too yong to know about Gilligan’s Island? “The Professor and Mary Ann” – didn’t they have it going on?
Anyway, Shaft was remade a few years ago with Samuel L. Jackson, so I can undertand how you’d know about him, but Gilligan’s Island?