Journal X Volume 7 Number 1 Autumn 2002 Article 3 2020 Toward a Postmodern Pastoral: Another Look at the Cultural Politics of My Own Private Idaho Sharon O'Dair University of Alabama Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jx Part of the American Film Studies Commons Recommended Citation O'Dair, Sharon (2020) "Toward a Postmodern Pastoral: Another Look at the Cultural Politics of My Own Private Idaho," Journal X: Vol. 7 : No. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jx/vol7/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal X by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. O'Dair: Toward a Postmodern Pastoral: Another Look at the Cultural Politi Toward a Postmodern Pastoral: Another Look at the Cultural Politics of My Own Private Idaho Sharon O'Dair Sharon O'Dair is Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) is a professor of English film that rewrites Shakespeare's Henriad1 by fol at the University of lowing the adventures in the Pacific Northwest Alabama, where she of two male prostitutes, Scott Favor (played by teaches in the Hub- Keanu Reeves) and Mike Waters (played by son Strode Program in Renaissanc Stud River Phoenix). The film is a spicy conceit, but ies. She is the author in the criticism produced so far on it, cultural of Class, Critics, critique is bland and predictable, a register less and Shakespeare: of the film's politics than the critics'.