Talk:Bill Gunn (writer)

not best known for ganja,
which is a black niche thing, but for his connection with classic tv, the province of the 80% white population of this country; he was on naked city, route 66, outer limits, fugitive, etc, etc - That's what he's best-known for. do the math. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.120.197 (talk) 18:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to say I think the description "black niche thing" is inappropriate and incorrect, but I agree that "best known" is an imprecise convention (so I changed it). But the notion that what is most meaningful to the "80% white population of this country" is an extremely problematic approach. Let's not go down that road. I think one could argue that Gunn was more famous as a playwright, but not so much as an actor (roles were not major). A cursory Googling would support the claim that Ganja and Hess was what he was most famous for. His film retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010, also supports this: http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=2056 --Mozucat (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

the black niche thing is admittedly anecdotal; i've just never run across a white person who's heard of it, and i've known a lot of them and talked films and tv with most of them. inappropriate: are you looking for 'african american'? i'm black; that's what i call myself and what the black people i know call themselves. maybe you mean something else. whatever. my point was just one of numbers; more people have seen gunn on tv than have seen ganja. provable by looking at the broadcast history of the programs on which he appeared (ratings monsters which have never ceased to be rerun since their original airings, seen by millions upon millions) compared to the box office numbers of ganja's original and revival runs (assuming there've been a few) and home video sales. the google search is skewed for reasons too complicated to be articulated at the moment. 'best-known' means 'most-known', and he is most-known for his work in tv. moot point stuff now that you've changed it, but i wanted to explain my original comment.


 * Well, inappropriate in that you are implying that if only black people know about this guy's work, then it is not relevant to the larger (presumably white) community online. I just worry that people use this line of reasoning to delete stuff. I mean, when something is "well-known" to the Pokemon community, no one seems to challenge its notability in Wikipedia. You know what I mean? But despite the numbers of viewers - how many people recognized the actor? Gunn did have a film retrospective at BAM - plus his Warner Brothers film is getting a re-release this year. Articles about him seem to mention his acting as a side-venture (http://www.themovingarts.com/lone-wolf-in-black-america-a-bill-gunn-retrospective/) despite the number of roles you fairly point out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mozucat (talk • contribs) 13:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

i objected to 'best-known for ganja' on only the basis of numbers. this: "...if only black people know about this guy's work, then it is not relevant to the larger (presumably white) community online" is all you. my larger point is against the bias that underlies this article, fundamentally skewed for trying to avoid really acknowledging that gunn was what he is most-known for having been - an actor. if you were to learn that evel knievel, daredevil and entertainer, had also written novels and plays, less well-known than his daredevil entertainments, you wouldn't dream of re-titling his wiki article 'evel knievel (writer)'. that gunn was a writer will come as news to most if not all of any of the millions who upon seeing one of his tv performances of the '60s might someday feel moved to look him up here; imagine their confusion upon seeing him identified primarily as a writer when it emerges from the article that his writing was done on a profile lower than that of his work as an actor. i'm of course aware that gunn's work as a writer is chic, a comfortable point of focus if we're seeking to put him in a light more glamorous than that we imagine his work as a supporting actor on tv casts him in. even he may have been embarrassed by the relatively inglorious aspect of his acting career. check out the ivan dixon interview on youtube where he says that everything - everything - he ever did in hollywood (except of course 'the spook who sat by the door') was garbage. but 'bill gunn (writer)' is no more correct than would be 'ivan dixon (director)'. the article in the link you provided states that gunn began his career as an actor in the '50s before beginning to write his own plays. and nobody shares the screen with raymond burr and david janssen before audiences of millions as a side-venture. whatever gunn's writing may have meant to him and however he may have identified himself are unimportant for purposes of how he is identified here. edgar allan poe considered himself to be a poet but everyone else considers him to have been a writer of short stories. and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.177.100 (talk) 07:26, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * hi . actually if you google bill gunn, the first results that come up for this bill gunn all mention first that he is a writer. for instance this obituary says "Bill Gunn, a playwright, screenwriter, novelist and actor, died Wednesday in Nyack (N.Y.) Hospital, one day before his play The Forbidden City opened at the Public Theater. He was 59 years old and lived in Tappan, N.Y." Bouket (talk) 05:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

first google result is IMDb: "Bill Gunn, Actor" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.177.100 (talk) 05:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * thats not what it says, it says "Bill Gunn, Actor: Ganja & Hess". wasnt the topic you started this thread with "not best known for ganja & hess"? Bouket (talk) 16:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

that's precisely what it says. it goes on to name ganja, as his page goes on to name other things; my point was that he is identified by imdb as being first an actor. google 'james stewart'; imdb's search result summary says 'james stewart, actor: rear window'. james stewart is not best-known for 'rear window'. the basis for my argument is common sense, not imdb. i repeat that gunn played scenes as an actor that have been watched by audiences of millions upon millions; it is sheer elitist bias that his wiki article is titled 'bill gunn (writer)'. 67.171.177.100 (talk) 03:10, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * have you read any wikipedia policies? for instance WP:VNT. you need to have sources that verify he is more well known as an actor than a director - more reliable sources than the ny times source already provided. it is not enough to simply argue it. can you do that? no matter how many times anyone says anything, if there is no reliable source for it it isnt supposed to be here, according to policy. Bouket (talk) 06:42, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

i need no sources; i'm making no changes. Mozucat made the 'best-known' change based on the logic of my first comment regarding the use of that phrase re ganja; the logic of my comments re the title of this article might cause him (or her) to change the title as well. i'm sure you're aware that wikipedia is full of things at variance with policy but in perfect accordance with common sense. 63.142.146.194 (talk) 07:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * so you are saying the new york times got it wrong, but you got it right? just trying to understand here. Bouket (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

the new york times got it wrong. re '...but you got it right?', please stop focusing on me, personally; sarcasm and personalities play no part in this. again, i'm operating on common sense. to see the sometimes valuelessness of written references, check out the one serving as the primary basis for this article, identified as [1] under 'references': http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2010/03/bill-gunn-surfaces-at-bam/ its "...Bill Gunn, the African-American actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright who..." effectively cancels out the new york times reference, it being impossible to say which is the 'more reliable' source; the new york times is more well-known but general, the filmmaker less well-known but specific ('the magazine of independent film'), specializing in writing about figures such as gunn. 63.142.146.194 (talk) 16:54, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * that same article goes on to contradict you: "In the series The Groundbreaking Bill Gunn, which begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday, one can get a glimpse at both of Gunn’s studio screenwriting credits (Hal Ashby’s remarkable Brooklyn gentrification comedy The Landlord and Czech New Wave stalwart Jan Kadar’s first American feature The Angel Levine, both from 1970), and his best known work, 1973′s Ganja & Hess." in fact it doesnt really mention his acting at all. if you can find a single source anywhere discussing how well known he is as an actor then maybe you have a point, but it doesnt sound like common sense to me, it sounds more like 'things are like i say not like everyone else says'. i dont think you repeating your point over and over again is helping anyone, if you cant back it up with an outside source Bouket (talk) 18:10, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

that the article cancels out the new york times reference means also that the new york times reference cancels out it; it is valueless because contradicted by an equally reliable source. a further indication: it calls ganja his best-known work within the context of discussing the bam series focusing on gunn's screenwriting and directing, and that series' page (http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=2056) states, under Series Description, "Actor, playwright, novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker: Bill Gunn was a boundless artist." again, the various contradictory written references re gunn are impossible to use as bases for how gunn is identified here; in such a case, we can rely only on common sense. and again, please stop focusing on me, personally. "...goes on to contradict you...", "...it sounds more like 'things are like i say not like everyone else says'. i dont think you repeating your point over and over again is helping anyone..." this is inappropriate language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.142.146.194 (talk) 18:38, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * alright, i have stated that i disagree with your interpretation of the facts, for the record, and will now distance myself from this discussion, unless invited back in to once again state my thoughts on what this article should be called. i think my time can be better spent than dealing with trivia such as what to put as the title of this article. Bouket (talk) 20:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

the title of this article is no more or less important than that of any wikipedia article. i'd like to know the basis for your disagreement with my interpretation of the facts. if you disagree that the written references to gunn's primary activity are unusable because contradictory, i'd like to know why; if you disagree that a lack of usable written references requires reliance on common sense, i'd like to know why; if you disagree with what i see as being the common sense identification of him as an actor for the reasons i explained in especially my 2nd and 3rd comments, i'd like to know why. as an aside, and to further amplify the idea that this article's title and the other articles identifying him as other than an actor attempt to glamorize gunn at the expense of the facts, review this village voice profile: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-03-30/film/the-groundbreaking-bill-gunn-at-bam/ from it: "He worked as an actor through the '50s...An April 10, 1957, edition of this paper spotlighted Gunn under the headline: "OFF B'WAY: These People May Become Stars." It didn't happen. "When a good part for a Negro actor does come along, they always offer it to Sidney Poitier," Gunn told Variety. "If he turns it down, they rewrite it for a white actor." So Gunn started writing, for stage (Johnnas) and page (1964's presumably semi-autobiographical novel All the Rest Have Died). Both feature a character Gunn would return to, the sensitive black artist (or potential artist) who's got no place to do his thing." this is of interest re his writing and ultimately his directing being side ventures made as responses to his acting career not following the desired trajectory (he was an actor who had 'no place to do his thing'), but it is, again, a secondary issue. in light of the international fame, success, and continuing popularity of the tv shows on which gunn appeared as an actor, ganja is an obscurity. gunn's appearance as namana in the 1964 episode of 'the man from u.n.c.l.e.' called 'the double affair' has alone already been seen by millions more than have or ever will see, or perhaps even hear of, ganja, and ganja is by far the most prominent written work of gunn's (again, based on the size of its audience); it is his work as a writer, then, that is the basis for this article's title? that's plainly illogical. 63.142.146.194 (talk) 21:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Ganja got how much attention at Cannes?
DanLanglois (talk) 00:01, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a massive amount of acrimonious debate on the talk page, when the article has only a few sentences. Literally I count three sentences of biography. I come here to question one of those sentences:

'His 1973 cult classic horror film Ganja and Hess was chosen as one of ten best American films of the decade at the Cannes Film Festival, 1973.'

I'm wondering where this rumor got started that Ganja & Hess was 'chosen as one of the ten best American films of the decade etc.'

This online reference is given: Harris, Brandon. "Bill Gunn Surfaces at BAM." Filmmaker Magazine. 31 Mar. 2010. Retrieved 18 February 2011.

http://filmmakermagazine.com/6596-bill-gunn-surfaces-at-bam/

And I quote from this: '..the toast of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival’s Critic’s Week before it was radically recut by its distributors into a sexploitation film and boxed up under six different titles in the early days of VHS.'

In point of fact, I hesitate on the matter of whether Ganja & Hess is a cult classic. But also, what is 'chosen as one of the ten best American films of the decade' at the Cannes Film Festival? What is "Critic's week"? It is, first of all, programming on the occasion of the *upcoming* Cannes Film Festival. Also, it showcases first and second feature films. Perhaps Ganja & Hess was merely selected to be screened.

In any case, the reference given does not substantiate the claim in the article.