This movie sounds like the worst movie ever. Beyond Showgirls bad. Beyond Gigli bad. Beyond even Can’t Stop the Music bad, and that’s a movie starring Bruce Jenner and The Village People. I mean, for God’s sake, David Zucker, why? You made Airplane! and The Kentucky Fried Movie. I mean, for God’s sake, David Zucker, why? You made Airplane! and The Kentucky Fried Movie. I know, the whole Meet the Spartans nadir your genre has fallen to may have driven you insane (then again, it’s partly your fault, isn’t it?) but still, why would you make An American Carol, a movie that sounds like a comedy penned by Sean Hannity, only not as subtle?

Whew. Okay, relax. Maybe I’m being unfair. It’s a conservative comedy, and that usually ends up as The Half Hour News Hour…but Zucker made Police Squad! He has to be able to make conservative humor funny. Right? Well, let’s see…

Executive producer Myrna Sokoloff has put together a “pro-soldier, support our troops, pro-America” comedy, which Stephen Hayes previews in the new Weekly Standard. In it, filmmaker Michael Malone (Kevin “brother of Chris” Farley) and his organization MoveAlong.org are trying to repeal the Fourth of July when three angels—the Angel of Death, George S. Patton, and George Washington—come to him and convince him to change his ways.

Okay, maybe it could sort of be…

Fat-assed Malone travels to Cuba, pledges to destroy America, and takes advantage of the invisibility granted by ghost status by grabbing a protestor’s boobs. Bill O’Reilly appears out of nowhere to slap him. “I just like doing that,” he says. Terrorists led by everybody’s favorite pockmarked tough guy Robert Davi bitch that they’re low on suicide bombers (”All the good ones are gone!”) and all answer to the name Mohammed. In a scene that Sokoloff described, but didn’t bring, Patton and his soldiers storm a courthouse that’s about to remove the Ten Commandments and start opening fire on the people trying to stop them. “You can’t shoot these people!” Malone says. “They’re not people!” says Patton. “They’re the ACLU!” At this point we see that the ACLU members are unkillable George Romero zombies.

Oh. Oh my. Well, maybe it has some redeeming…

In February, it was reported that Kelsey Grammar would be Scrooge in the new movie. He’s actually playing the ghost of George Patton, and Jon Voight is playing George Washington. In a clip we saw, Washington takes Malone to St. Paul’s Cathedral to lecture him on freedom of religion and “freedom of speech, which you abuse.” Malone is grossed out by dust in the priest’s box, so the doors open onto the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center. “This is the dust of 3000 innocent human beings!” bellows Washington. Malone whimpers that he’s just making movies. Washington won’t have it. “Is that what you plan to say on Judgment Day?”

“That scene,” said Sokoloff, “is hard to put in a comedy. But we had to do it.”

Well, yeah. Because comedy is funny, and that’s not funny.

I’m not opposed to making fun of liberals. Everybody needs to get their ideas mocked and ridiculed once in a while. But this isn’t humor — it’s eliminationist fantasy wrapped up in a nice bouquet of 9/11 fetishization. It’s not funny — it’s far too serious in its animosity to be funny.

Good satire is done with a rapier. Zucker used to be able to do good satire. But this isn’t good satire — it’s being carved with a sledgehammer. The only question is whether, like Manos: The Hand of Fate, it’s so bad it’s good, or whether, like Glitter, it’s merely so bad it’s bad. I’m betting on the latter.

I now have the trade paperback collection. so I’ll mail the first five issues of Buffy season eight to the first taker.

(My guess is that it’ll cost a couple of bucks to mail, which I’m happy to pay for, but if you live on another continent and can paypal a few bucks to defray the additional mailing costs that would be cool.)

From AV Club:

Ah, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that sentient ray of sunshine sent from heaven to warm the heart and readjust the attitude of even the broodiest, most uptight male protagonist. In his My Year Of Flops entry on Elizabethtown, Nathan Rabin coined the phrase “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” to describe that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” […]

Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life. She’s on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness.

See as well a post on PopPolitics, quoting an article by JiJi Lee:

At the heart of these films is the implication that women have the desire and energy to devote themselves to their troubled male counterparts, further ossifying the traditional roles that men and women are supposed to play. While the progressive twist depicts men as the ones in distress, women are still meant to cosset them. […] She brandishes a bottle of scotch instead of an apron, but the quirky girlfriend is the modern version of Donna Reed or the flashy new sports car, serving as an antidote for the man’s emotional ailment.

Some of the examples given on AV Club: Natalie Portman in Garden State, Meg Ryan in Joe Versus the Volcano, Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, Melanie Griffith in Something Wild.

I can think of some other examples: Mimi from Rent, Mary from Something About Mary (although that’s partly a satire of the form, so including Mary may be unfair), Charlotte from Lost in Translation, Geena Davis’ character in The Accidental Tourist, and definitely Ana from Stranger Than Fiction. And maybe Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, although maybe not.

I really like most of these films — and I’ve found the stock MPDG character attractive lots of times — but the critique seems spot-on to me. It’s lazy and shallow filmmaking, and sexist to boot.

So are there Manic Pixie Dream Boyfriends? Maybe — someone in the AV Club thread suggested Benny from Benny and Joon– but I don’t think these guys are nearly as common, because that’s not the slot movies shove male characters into. I do think there are sexist tropes for male characters, but “manic pixie” isn’t one of them.

•  Scott at World-o-Crap disassembles an awesome Carey Roberts column, in which Mr. Roberts proclaims, “Hey girls, want to get skanky? Well, sashay down to your local abuse shelter and get buzzed!”
• Via Amanda, news that the Mounties spied on women’s groups in the 1970s.
• Pro-Lynching singer Toby Keith declares Barack Obama “don’t [sic] talk, act, or carry himself as a black person.” Even Glenn Beck is taken aback.
• 9 percent of women suffer PTSD after giving birth.
• Kevin Drum to liberal bloggers: Don’t Panic!
• John McCain suggests that his wife enter a topless beauty contest.
• Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe is awesome at Guitar Hero. I guess.
• John McCain is trying to relaunch the “maverick” brand, which I guess is better than his “douchebag” brand.
• And BrettFavre (both names must be used at all times, due to the Madden Act of 2001) tells ESPN that the “best thing for [the Packers] is for us to part ways.”

(SYTYCD spoiler under the cut.)

Read the rest of this entry »

The Bechdel test asks if a movie (or play, in this case) has 1) at least two female characters, with names, who 2) speak to each other about 3) something other than a man.

From The Mind of Genevieve:

In Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Little Night Music, Fredrika and Madame  Armfeldt are frequently talking between themselves.  Their main topic is Fredrika’s mother, Desiree, though there’s other stuff as well.  There’s also a conversation between Petra and Anne which touches on sex and theoretical men, but no concrete men.  It’s much more about their owns sexualities.  And in Leonard Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, sisters Ruth and Eileen are constantly talking about jobs, food, life…it’s their story.  And I love finding plays, and particularly musicals, which pass so well.  It’s often a crapshoot.  Wicked, for example, passes with flying colors (Elphaba, Galinda, Nessarose, Madame Morrible…yeah).  Avenue Q passes by the skin of its teeth (one tiny conversation between Mrs. Thistletwat and Kate allows it, but I still love it anyway).  I don’t know how well the stage version of Rent does; the film passes only due to the song ‘Take Me Or Leave Me.’  The Producers does not pass.  Spamalot does not pass.  I believe Aida, Mamma Mia, Gypsy, and Chicago all pass by some degree, but I’d have to revisit them all to be sure.

I’m positive that Gypsy passes, and so does Chicago.

Since I’m a Sondheim fanatic, this made me think of how other Sondheim musicals fare:

Assassins: Passes (the two female assassins have a conversation at one point. They talk about killing President Ford, of course, but also about other things.)

Sweeney Todd: Fails.

Into The Woods: Maybe the only Sondheim musical, other than A Little Night Music, to pass by a wide margin.¹ Cinderella and the Baker’s Wife talk about the Prince, but also a bit about other things, and Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella get a scene together in “No One Is Alone” that’s not about a man. Plus The Witch, Jack’s Mother and the Giant argue a bit. And in many productions, the Narrator is cast as a woman, which adds a couple more female/female conversations to the list.

But alas, most Sondheim musicals fail: Sweeny Todd,² Bounce, Sunday In The Park With George, Passion, and Merrily We Roll Along all fail the Bechdel test. And so does Company, I suspect — there are lots of female characters, but do they ever talk to each other about anything but Bobby? Ditto for Follies. (UPDATE: As folks point out in comments, I was wrong about Sunday – it passes.)

It’s not a Sondheim show, but for anyone looking for a cutting-edge, smart musical that passes the Bechdel Test by a mile, I’d recommend picking up the cast recording for Michael John LaChiusa’s First Lady Suite. (This is one of those cast recordings that you can listen to and follow the story very well, even without having seen the musical.)

* * *

In the same post, Genevieve also writes:

Now, for a pet peeve of mine when I’m seeing plays…particularly those set between 1920 and 1960 or so? (This isn’t specific to this festival; I’ve seen this at local theaters, on Broadway, and at my high school.) The ‘bimbo accent.’ If there is ever a character in one of these plays who’s supposed to be a lower-class woman of ‘low morals’ (and possibly small brain capacity), the actress will adopt a high-pitched, nasal, giggly voice which sounds totally unnatural.[…]

The voice itself annoys me, the redundancy of it moreso, but what is it saying? That women who have (premarital, ‘promiscuous’) sex are lesser. That we’re dumb and can be taken advantage of, easily. Because these characters aren’t going to turn out to be geniuses. They’ll sometimes end the story married and in love, but the audience knows the man is with them for their body, not their brain or personality, and not a combination of the three either.

She’s right — this is an overused cliche that should be allowed to die. But having said that, I have to admit, I still love Lesley Ann Warren’s performance in Victor Victoria, and Jennifer Tilly’s sublimely over-the-top moll in Bullets Over Broadway.

1. There’s also Gypsy, but since Sondheim just wrote the lyrics to that, not the music, it’s often not considered a “Sondheim musical.” (back)
2. I don’t think Lovett throwing the Beggar Woman out of her shop really counts as the two characters talking. But props for the part of Mrs. Lovett, arguably the best female lead in any musical. (back)

Two more good posts critiquing Dr. Horrible from a feminist P.O.V.: one at The Hathor Legacy, and one at Rebecca Allen’s place. There’s a lot of good discussion going on in their comments, as well.

* * *

Here’s a relevant quote, from an interview with Joss:

Q: I’ve been reading some criticism (insert audible gasp here!) of “Dr. Horrible” about the lack of a strong, empowered female lead. They claim that Penny is merely a prop for Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer to fight over.

What are your thoughts on that?

Joss Whedon: […] Yeah, Penny is not the feminist icon of our age. And yes, she does exist in the narrative as part of Doc’s fate — but everyone in the story is there to move the story. Is she less real than Hammer? (Is ANYTHING?) We gave her a cause so she wouldn’t JUST be the Pretty Girl but the fact is, neither Doc nor Hammer gives her the attention she deserves — Doc’s crush comes before he has the slightest idea what she cares about. Which is not uncommon. It reminds me of “Sweeney Todd,” the Judge and Sweeney singing “Pretty Women” — a beautiful duet with no insight whatsoever. Just images.

But we shoulda gave her more jokes.

Joss is right that Penny needed more jokes. Dr. Horrible’s mocks the cliches of supervillains, and the cliches of superheros — but there are practically no jokes about the cliches of the Polly Pureheart girlfriend. It ends up feeling as if the video sees that the supervillain/superhero roles need to be questioned critically (by which I mean, “pointed at and mocked”), but takes the Polly Pureheart cliche seriously.

In a story that’s all about the funny, Penny never gets to be funny. I don’t think the feminist audience necessarily wanted to see Penny kick ass, or to live happily ever after, or not to make stupid choices about men (like sleeping with Captain Hammer). I myself would have been happy if her character was as funny as the other two leads. (And the normal-human, straight man role can be made funny; think of how hilarious Jane Curtin was on Third Rock From The Sun).

Joss is right, of course, that all characters are there just to serve the story. And given this story, it would have been hard to make Penny as rich¹ a character as Dr. Horrible or Captain Hammer. So yeah, to avoid making Penny a sort of boring would have required a bit of above-average writing. But there’s nothing wrong with the audience expecting and wanting above-average writing.

(By the way, Felicia Day is completely capable of being funny — check out the internet sitcom The Guild, which Day writes and stars in, if you haven’t already).

* * *

Finally, the official online comic book, which was written by Joss’ brother Zack, and beautifully drawn by Eric Canete. It’s got a “funny” prison rape joke — Captain Hammer warns readers not to be criminals, or else you’ll “go to prison… with this guy” (illustration shows freakishly huge, muscular prisoner, telling his much smaller cellmate “you have good bone structure.”).

A few points:

1) People might be tempted to defend the rape joke on the grounds that it’s told by Captain Hammer, and that’s just the sort of boorish humor we expect from CH. That’s true, but in the video the humor in all of CH’s comments is that CH is a total ass and saying utterly appalling, awful things. In the comic book, it comes across as the comic book telling a generic prison rape joke, rather than making fun of the person telling the joke.

(Compare this to the prison rape joke Faith makes early in the Buffy episode “Who Are You?,” in which the joke is played as unfunny and appalling.)

If the intent was to make fun of how boorish Captain Hammer is, then the script failed to get the point across.

2) As Liss says, “the jokes normalize and effectively minimize the severity of rape and thusly perpetuate the rape culture.” Why would anyone want to contribute to that? Similarly, from the SAFER blog:

You know why we can’t make fun of rape? Because doing so trivializes the pain inflicted by rape, and that contributes to a general cultural attitude of not taking rape seriously or holding perpetrators accountable. That type of culture makes rape more common.

3) Even if you don’t give a shit about all that, why would any writer who’s not a hack tell a prison rape joke? I can’t imagine a duller, more played-out cliche.

1. Note that rich doesn’t mean “realistic” or “deep,” which none of these characters were! (back)

Have you heard of Fat Princess? It’s a new video game,¹ which Feminist Gamers ² describes as “a TF2-like³ capture-the-flag game where the point is to feed your princess enough cake so that she grows really fat so that the opposing team can’t carry her back to their castle.” Apparently the game mechanics are well-designed and innovative.

Liss at Shakes is pissed. (Curtsy my friend Bill, who despite being fat himself is pissed that Liss is pissed.)

As I said in Bill’s comments, I guess I should be pissed by Fat Princess, but honestly I have a hard time giving a shit; it’s just people trying to be immature and offensive, because that kind of thing is funny. (And it is.)⁴

These kind of fat jokes are rebellion for the gutless — offensive enough so that people can pretend to be daring, but not so offensive that they’re risking pissing off anyone who matters. Fat jokes today are what Polish jokes were in the 1970s.

Fatophobic crap like “Fat Princess” is more effect than cause; it’s a reflection of an anti-fat culture, and when the culture changes then the sheep who made “Fat Princess” will move on to some other target.

UPDATE: Excellent post at Feministe, by a game designer.

1. By the way, I’ve got no patience for the people who say “c’mon, it’s just a game.” So if that’s all you’ve got to contribute, then take your anti-intellectual cliches elsewhere, please. (back)
2. In the thread at Feminist Gamers, I thought the folks discussing creating a game called “Arm the Princess” were on to something, but it would be better if instead of the Princess just fighting to repel invaders, she was fighting to kill off her parents and rule the land herself (that’ll teach them to try and marry her off). And why is the princess in “Arm the Princess” so thin? Make her fat, please! (back)
3. For the record, I have no idea what TF2 is. (back)
4. Years ago, someone — I think it may have been bell hooks — pointed out how ridiculous it is that people argue about “is ____ offensive or funny,” as if these are mutually exclusive categories. (back)

When I say there are spoilers, I mean it. Go and watch Dr Horrible before you read this post.

I’m still very unsure how to read Dr Horrible’s Singalong blog, and the thread at Feministe reveals that there are many ways understanding Dr Horrible’s story.

As an origin story I appreciate it; I’d even say it was well done. Not just that there was a lot of the funny clever stuff that I’d expect (the appearance of Bad Horse was pure genius), but showing villains as having origin stories as well as heroes is a cool way of undercutting many of the tropes of an origin story.

I can also appreciate a straight political reading of the story (which is encouraged within the storyas both Penny and Dr Horrible directly discuss how to create change). I don’t really mind that the wet liberal who gets sucked in by those in power dies (although not necessarily realistic, as a metaphor it shows the likelihood of that strategy working). I also don’t disagree that nihilist, individualists often put their ego before the change they are trying to create and do harm without doing any good. But I don’t think any of that says anything particularly substantial, without an alternative (The Chain, Chosen, Graduation, Anne, Prophecy Girl, Jaynestown - Joss does know the alternative).

One of the big questions for me is the depiction of Penny, as the only substantial female character (and it didn’t pass the Bechedel test). I actually dislike the ‘Joss writes strong female characters’ idea, because it is so often referring solely to the female characters who are capable of beating someone up. As someone who was always more interested in Willow than Buffy and Kaylee than River, I appreciate his ability to write interesting female characters, more than his tendency to write so-called ’strong’ ones. The idea that the most important female characters to depict are those that can beat up the men who are trying to abuse them, comes perilously close to victim blaming. It’s very satisfying to watch Buffy killing Angel at the end of Becoming II, but the death of the robot at the end of I Was Made to Love You, is just as true statement about relationships.

So I have no problem with Penny dying, because women do die when men fight over them (this is from the New Zealand news media today, it’s being called a ‘crime of passion’). I don’t even really have a problem that she is so one dimensional, as we see her through Dr Horrible’s eyes, and it is clear that she is just an object to him.

The one thing I did object to was the shot of her in the laundromat with frozen yoghurt, presumably waiting for Billy. The idea is that Billy could have got what he wanted if only he was prepared to treat Penny like a person. If he’d talked with her, rather than built a freeze ray, she would have returned his affections. I really dislike that aspect of these sorts of geek stories, because sometimes people don’t love you back. As written it plays into Billy’s entitlement over Penny.

I do think that Penny’s death and Dr Horrible becoming actually evil was the only way the story could end, and I can see the importance of it as a story. To take us in through the eyes of a low-rent villain, and have us believe him that he’s actually the hero, until he’s not.

But ultimately, it’s not a story that interests me that much. A death ray may be a substitute for a rocket-launcher, but this story didn’t have any emotional resonance. The only person whose path was real enough to resonate was Dr Horrible. His loneliness in the last shot, and even the hollowness of getting have truth in them, but for me that is undercut because Dr Horrible’s feelings for Penny didn’t resonate, and must be, on some level, creepy.

Even more fundamentally, I come back to Grace Paley - because this story was lacking both blood and money. Now Joss has always been kind of shaky on the material reality of his stories (which was what made Firefly so strong), but he’s always written about family - actual and created. Without blood there is not heart to his story.

I’m sure there are people out there who aren’t aware that Joss Whedon has written an internet musical alled Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog. I guess it’d be inappropriate to describe these people as living under a rock, since they probably have very fulfilling lives. But I’ve been very excited about Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog since Joss first started talking about it during the writers strike.¹

It was released at drhorrible.com on Monday, the second part came out today, and the denouement will be available on Friday Saturday. I’m enjoying it so far. The acting is superb - Nathan Fillion is particularly funny as Captain Hammer the cheesy uphimself hero nemesis of Dr Evil. The dialogue is very clever, and the songs are fun. The superhero as villain and villain as character we empathise with isn’t particularly original, but it’s well done. I particularly like that Captain Hammer is a corporate whore who is in with the mayor. But Joss can do better. Penny, Felicia Day’s character, is shown entirely through Dr Horrible’s eyes. While we’re supposed to sympathise him, he is pretty much a textbook nice guy. And it has yet to pass the Bechdel test (in fact there has only been one woman on screen so far). So far the characters don’t resonate in any but the most superficial way, because they have no depth. And we all know that the importance of resonance, and rocket launchers.²

In the meantime watch Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog, but also read Sugarshock, which is stronger short-silly-Joss.

PS - Yes I am alive, but I’ve been pretty sick this New Zealand winter, and when I have had time to write I’ve been overcome with outrage about local issues, and haven’t had the energy to translate them for an international audience (you can see my various rants on my blog).

1. It was so dreamy when Joss Whedon my favourite writer who I’ve loved for a decade, became Joss Whedon a militant union activist. (back)
2. ** That’s from Joss Whedon’s audio commentary on innocence (since I’m not sure that this post can get any geekier I won’t worry about revealing that I have an audio commentary pretty much memorised.) (back)

The Bechdel Test — which I mistakenly called The Mo Movie Measure (I’m both inaccurate and a sucker for alliteration) — asks if a movie (or play, comic, etc) has these traits:

1) there are at least two named female characters, who

2) talk to each other about

3) something other than a man.

Kira Dancing wonders how many of Shekespeare’s plays pass the Bechdel Test. There’s a fun discussion going on in her comments.

(There are some spoilers in this post.)

I was bewildered by the plot point about bone mass. The writers went out of their way to establish that generations of living in low gravity have reduced bone mass to the point that people can no longer stand upright — until the plot called for them to stand, at which point, they stood. It was especially hard to buy how easily all the humans were standing on Earth at the end; they should have been writhing in agony after reaching Earth. And they definitely should not have been able to walk.

It bewilders me, because they could have avoided the whole problem by not bringing it up in the first place. I’d be quite happy to accept a movie just ignoring the problem. But why explicitly bring up a problem in the script just so they can fail to solve it?

The best part of the movie — the first forty minutes or so, before the plot leaves the planet’s surface — presents a world in which humans are entirely absent (although the evidence we were once there is all over the place). And it was pretty damn cool, because humanity wasn’t the subject of the movie; it’s a movie about robots. Then, in the final act, suddenly the plot became human-centric. It’s as if the humans writing the film couldn’t stand letting the story be centered on non-humans.

The film would have been better if it were indifferent to the fate of the humans. I would have loved it if all the humans had died in the course of the film, but the ending was nonetheless happy because Wall-E and Eve lived happily ever after. (Why should they care what happens to the meat?)

* * *

FAT

A lot of bloggers have been commenting on the politics of Wall-E. On the up side, conservative bloggers hate this film, so gotta love that.

On the down side, it’s been getting a lot of criticism from pro-fat blogs, and rightly so. The Chicago Tribune review (via Big Fat Blog) summed up the film’s take on fat:

Awaiting the word that Earth is once again habitable, the ship spends year after year in space, sustaining the last remaining humans–blobby, pampered creatures who never get out of their whiz-bang flying loungers long enough to look at what they’ve become.

My take on this is that although there was annoying fat bigotry built into the film’s concept, I’ve seen much worse. I was able to enjoy the film despite the fat bigotry.

But it’s going to depend on one’s individual taste. Wall-E’s fat characters aren’t contemptible, repulsive slobs, like Fat Bastard, nor — despite the constant sipping of drinks — are they food-obsessed like Homer Simpson. Instead, they’re presented as huge infants: round, helpless, cheerful and friendly. So unlike Jessica, I didn’t find it all that wince-able, and enjoyed the film.

Fatshonista points out that Pixar apparently changed the film to make it less anti-fat, compared to its initial conception.

My Pixar friend said that essentially, the idea is that humanity was supposed to spend just 5 years on the luxury spaceship, but got trapped for 700 years, and because of the super-artificial situation (it was meant to be a total vacation to recruit people into going), got dependent in an artificial way. Originally they were apparently designed to be rather more gross and creepy, and had no intelligible lines; both of those were changed by the team working on the movie because of concerns about what it would suggest about fat people.

Now, the equation of sloth + fast food = fatties is still at the heart of this, and is undeniably problematic.

I liked this comment from Rethink:

Pixar tries to suggest in one throw-away moment that the people are fat because they have been in space so long and lost some bone density, but the much clearer message is that they are chunky because they are lazy and eat too much (and several times the characters’ large size is used for visual jokes). A clear sign that Pixar recognized the nastiness of their message is that they chose not insult their target audience: kids. There are no children, let alone overweight children, at all on the ship — we see only babies and chubby adults. [And good luck finding images of any of the chubby characters in Disney’s advertising for the film or the film’s official website.]

More ironic still is that the film’s criticism seems to be levelled at the very folks who are viewing the movie — you and me, sitting there, doing nothing, watching a screen while consuming buttered popcorn and Junior Mints. The movie wants us to know that mass consumerism will doom this planet and its people. And you can show your support for that message by going out and buying all the Disney tie-in products and toys that will be filling your store shelves, and eventually your landfills, in the next 6-12 months.

I also think this post from Red No. 3, responding to defenders of the film, is good:

….irregardless of what sci-fi talk about bone density was snuck into the film, audiences took the characters to be fat and ultimately the audience interpration matters more culturally than the filmmakers intent. Intent is nice, but if that intent was not effectively communicated to the audience, it doesn’t matter. Just look through what the reviews say. From professionals to amateurs, people talking about the film have consistantly identified the future humans as “obese”. And of course they do, because that is the visual language the film is using, complete with cues about the characters’ gluttony and inactivity.

More fat-and-Wall-E blogging: Professor What If and Feministe.

* * *

GENDER

I haven’t seen much discussion of the genderization of the robots in Wall-E. Essentially, Wall-E is presented as male, while Eve is presented as female. Visually, this is done by constructing Wall-E of machinery that resembles construction site equipment — rusty, dirty, treader tracks and forklifts — while Eve is rendered to resemble a Macintosh computer — smooth, curved lines of white plastic. (As methods of making a robot femme goes, it could be much worse. Actually, it’s extraordinary they resisted the impulse to either color Eve pink, or to give her a bow or eyelashes.)

I wish the gendering hadn’t been done; it would have been wonderful if Pixar had shown a romance that wasn’t gendered at all. But still, as Professor What If says, props to Pixar for making Eve tough and strong (she rescues Wall-E several times during the film), for making Wall-E nurturing, and for not making Eve’s toughness a threat to Wall-E.

(And in case you’re wondering, no, this movie doesn’t pass The Bechdel Test.)

* * *

RACE

Oh, and although I’m sure folks will rationalize it (”in the racist Earth society, the people rescued and sent into space were disproportionately white!”), it bothered me that humanity, as presented in Wall-E, is overwhelmingly white. (I think some background characters were people of color; every single human who had a speaking role was white).

In a science fiction movie — and one that didn’t face any real-world casting limitations — there’s no excuse for not presenting humanity as it is. To reflect the actual make-up of humanity, most of the humans in Wall-E should have been Asian, with substantial minorities of Europeans, Africans, and Latin@s.

The Terminator TV show (all nine episodes that exist so far) is an extremely pleasant surprise — who would have expected it to be good? Heron61 deduces some implications of time travel in the Terminator show and movies (some spoilers):

Read the rest of this entry »

Joss Whedon’s new show, “Dollhouse,” released (or perhaps had leaked) this pre-casting description of one of the recurring characters:

November
20’s, any ethnicity, beautiful and heavy. Another Doll, a hopeful child in the house and everyone else you need her to be outside. A comforting, radiant presence, who tends to get fewer of the criminal gigs and more of the personal ones. Recurring.

(Empahsis added). I remember reading that and thinking “cool.”

Now the casting choice for November, Miracle Laurie, has been announced. That’s a picture of Ms. Laurie to the right. Not exactly “heavy,” is she?

I’m annoyed, but not surprised.

To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with casting a thin actress in a part originally written as fat. I’ve done a little theater, and I know that often minds change once actors read for parts. No doubt Miracle Laurie hit just the right notes for November, better than anyone else who auditioned, and that’s why she got the part.

But. Four points.

1) This sort of casting choice is a one-way street. By which I mean, producers will decide that a thin actor is right for a character who was originally concieved of as fat, and so rethink the character. But it will virtually never be the case that a fat actor is seen as right for a character originally concieved of as thin.

2) If a thin actor has the right “look,” then producers will make allowences for them being less than perfect in other ways. So, for instance, David Boreanaz — who wasn’t much of an actor on the first season of Buffy – was cast for his looks and his potential. And he grew in the role, and became a lot better as an actor. Fat actors are rarely given that chance to develop.

3) Because of who gets a chance to develop, I suspect that frequently thin actors are, objectively, better actors. This is because they get bigger parts early on and become seasoned actors, and seasoned actors are better actors, all else held equal.

4) I wonder how frequently “any ethnicity” on a casting call turns out to be “white” once they’ve actually cast the actor?

(I suspect that points 1-3, above, apply as much to actors of color as they do to fat actors. When the musical Miss Saigon originally opened on Broadway, they cast a white actor in an important Asian role, because the role required a star and there weren’t any Asian actors with that stature. Casting decisions like that become self-fulfilling prophesies.)

Vivian Stringer is the head coach of the Rutger’s women’s basketball team, so many of you may have heard her name in the wake of Don Imus’s racist and sexist comments.  However, her story and her influence as a pioneering woman extends well beyond the Imus controversy.  She has an amazing biography, and she is undoubtably a pioneering African American woman.  Her influence as a role model extends well beyond her coaching background, as revealed in the press surrounding the book:

 A gifted athlete, she had to fight for a place on an all-white cheerleading squad in the sixties. In 1981, just as her coaching career was taking off, her fourteen-month-old daughter, Nina, was stricken with spinal meningitis. Nina would never walk or talk again. Still grieving, Stringer brought a small, poor, historically black college to the national championships—a triumph hailed as “Hoosiers with an all-female cast.” In 1991, her husband, Bill—her staunchest supporter, the father of her children, and the love of her life—fell dead of a sudden heartattack, but that same year, she led yet another young team to the Final Four. Through these dark times and others—including her bout with cancer, shared here for the first time—Stringer has carried her burdens with grace. Given her history, it was no surprise that she led her team to respond to Don Imus’s slurs with dignity and courage.

Standing Tall is a story of quiet strength in the face of punishing odds. Above all, it is an extraordinary love story—love for the game, for the players she has coached, for her close-knit family, and for the husband she lost far too soon. It will resonate long after the last page.

Stringer releases her autobiography today and I encourage everyone to check it out.  It’s often that I put up stories about the mistreatment of black women in the US, so it is nice to have an occasion to celebrate some one who helps challenge those images of black women.

Update: Here is an interview I heard with her today.

I had to post this — it so nicely overlaps my political interests with my geekish side. Plus, I think Nichelle Nichols totally rocks.

It’s also an interesting reminder of how a character who is, looked at today, a glaring token (only woman cast member, only Black cast member, in a very subservient role) was nevertheless important and groundbreaking at the time.

Curtsy to Julian.

I’ve loved Joss Whedon for going on ten years now. Sometimes my fangirl moments can be fickle and short lived, but my love for Joss Whedon has remained constant.

It’s helped that every so often Joss will surprise me by being far more awesome than I ever imagined (have you ever listened to the Innocence commentary? There’s a lot of awesome there). The first I remember was from the Onion AV Club, way back when I didn’t know that much about his politics:

don’t want it to have my name on it if it doesn’t reflect what I want to say. Because once you get to the position of actually getting to say something, which is a level most writers never even get to, and is a great blessing, you then have to worry about what it is you’re actually saying. I don’t want some crappy reactionary show under the Buffy name. If my name’s going to be on it, it should be mine. Now, the books I have nothing to do with, and I’ve never read them. They could be, “Buffy realized that abortion was wrong!” and I would have no idea. So, after my big, heartfelt, teary speech, I realize that I was once again lying. But I sort of drew the line. I was like, “I can’t possibly read these books!”

Joss has often suggested collective action as the solution for the big problems and recently that’s got a lot more overt (I’m thinking the Buffy series finale, and ‘The Chain’ comic)

But I still didn’t expect him to become a militant union activist. He’s just posted on United Hollywood. He said

Our negotiators have the specific task of forgetting the past and dealing only with the numbers before them. Their ability to do that impresses me greatly, but I maintain that it’s their job to treat the studios like business partners and it’s our job to remember who they really are. The studios are inefficient, power-hungry, thieving corporate giants who have made the life of the working writer harder from decade to decade. They are run by men so out of touch with basic humanity that they would see Rome burn before they would think about the concept of fair compensation. I maintain that they have never revealed their true agenda in the causing and handling of this strike, and to expect them to now is cock-eyed optimism of the most dangerous kind.

and

This is not over. Nor is it close. Until the moment it is over, it can never be close. Because if we see the finish line we will flag and they are absolutely counting on us to do that. In the room, reason. On the streets, on the net, I say reason is for the ‘moderates’. Remember what they’ve done. Remember what they’re trying to take from us. FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.

I have been mugged an embarrassing number of times, even for a New Yorker. I’ve been yelled at and chased, beaten down and kicked, threatened with a gun and the only mugger who still hurts my gut is the one who made me shake his hand. Until there is a deal – the right deal, not the DGA deal – held out, let’s keep our hands in our pockets or on our signs. Let’s not be victims. Let’s never.

He also did a radio show on the strike, which is of similar stuff.

If you missed last night’s Super Bowl, you missed a great game. I’ve gotten out of the habit of following sports since I moved to the east coast and could no longer follow my (original) home teams, but a few weeks ago, I decided to watch the NFL Conference championship between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. What attracted me to that game was the weather. It was held outdoors in below zero degree temperatures, and I wanted to see how they were going to play in those inclement conditions. That game was great, and of course, I was rooting for the underdog New York Giants, not because I live in New York, but because I enjoy a comeback story.

Given the excitement of the Conference Championship game, I was looking forward to the Super Bowl. Again, I was routing for the underdog Giants. I used to like the Patriots, but there is something very unsettling about the win at any cost attitude that has driven the Patriots success over the past few years. The Patriots are cheaters (or at the very least, folks who are willing to bend the rules). They spied on other teams practices to steal signals, and the NFL punished them with the loss of a draft pick, a team fine of $250,000, and a fine of a half million dollars for the coach. The Patriots were also undefeated and favored to win by almost two touchdowns.

The game didn’t disappoint. It was exciting and culminated with a game winning, touchdown drive by the Giants in the remaining two and a half minutes. The Giants were known for coming from behind and winning on the road, and they appeared to revel in the underdog position. They also emphasized team play over star power, and the often ignored defense was the primary difference in the game. To me this win was a victory for sportsmanship.

Since I was hyped-up from the game and couldn’t sleep, my mind started wondering to of all thing–politics. I realized that the parallels between politics and sports are numerous. Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, which is the Conference Championship of Presidential politics. On the eve of the contest, I figured a I’d share a few of my thoughts about Presidential politics and sports, focusing on the contradictory values that influence the ways Americans views sports and politics.

Religion

One of the more hilarious and dangerous commonalities with politicians and athletes is that they seem to think God is on their side. They pray before the contest, and thank God and Jesus after it. How many times have you heard people say, “Without God, this would not be possible?” I have a really hard time believing the God has a favorite sports team or politician. Do people lose because God is against them?

Underdog’s

The underdog is big in sports, and while I think it’s a little less popular in politics, it is still there. There is the old saying “throw the bums out,” but at the same time, most of us love the bums we elect. For example, right now the favorable rating for Congress is very low, but when you ask people about their own Congressperson, they are much more favorable. We are also willing to tolerate much more inappropriate behavior from our own bums than from other folks bums. Nevertheless, there are times, when we do want the underdog to get ahead. If the underdog makes us feel good about ourselves, if the underdog symbolizes change, if the underdog beats incredible odds to make it to the top, or if the underdog reaffirms our belief in the inherent fairness of the system, then the underdog can become a fan favorite. The problem with this is that every side has a few skeletons in their closets, and we often overestimate the extent to which the individual politician or team is really going to change the system.

Cheating and Dirty Tricks

Some people want to win at any cost. They smear their opponents; they lie, cheat; and steal. I’m not cynical enough to believe that everybody does this, but I am realistic enough to know that it is common place. My concern is that when we become too cynical we are all to willing to accept lying, cheating, and stealing as an acceptable part of competition.

Experience vs. New Blood

As a culture, Americans love both experience and new blood. During the Super Bowl, the announcers informed us every time a rookie made a great play. We also got to hear about the deserving veterans, who finally got their shot at victory. In politics, we have a love hate relationship with veterans. The career politician is loathed, and re-elected over and over because of name recognition and the power of incumbency. New blood politicians are treated a little better than rookies in the sporting arena. Many people associate new blood with lack of corruption, which is probably naive given the nature of campaigning and fund raising.

The Comeback Story

Rather than giving the comeback story too much time–I’ll refer to the discussions about Experience vs. New Blood and Underdogs. It seems that comeback stories combine both of these two sets of values.

Social Inequality

I think most people want to believe that just about everyone has a fair shot to make it sports and politics, and our level of denial about the realities of social inequalities (in particular those of race, class, gender, religion, disability, and sexuality) is almost humorous. This gets particularly absurd with race. In sports and politics, we can’t even talk about racism without somebody trying to shut down the discussion. You didn’t have to follow the Super Bowl closely to notice that both the quarterbacks were the classic white guy quarterbacks, both the coaches were classic white guy coaches, the defensive backs for both teams were all black, the offensive lines were nearly all white, and the defensive lines were nearly all black. I’m sure somebody is going to be mad at me for pointing this out. The person, who I anger, is going to note the exceptions to these patterns, and tell me to lighten up. The same is true for politics. We’re supposed to believe that two people Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama prove that we are somehow above racism and sexism. Rather than clinging to the reality of politics where white, heterosexual, Christian, guys with money run the show, we are supposed to focus on the exceptions. What’s also funny is that if you really want to add nuance to the discussion by pointing out both Obama and Clinton are only disadvantaged on one of these forms of social inequality, many folks play dumb and can’t get it. Instead, we’re supposed to deny, deny, deny–”the system is fair and if we worked hard enough we all have the same chance. Don’t rain on our parade by telling us other wise.”

Bringing It All Together

The irony of these values is that they often conflict with each other, and many folks are content with this, partly because they are wearing blinders and partly because many of our social norms require us to hold contradictory beliefs. I’m sure my own glee over the Giants wins is full of contradictions. Now, that the underdogs are on top, and I’m going to have to find another team that makes me feel that sports are fair.

Like most people I want to believe in meritocracy, even though I know it takes a lot more than merit to make it to the top. Even though I know that competition can bring out the worst in people, I want to believe that the “good guys” win in the end. Even the division of people into “good guys” and “bad guys” reflects an unrealistic dichotomy, but one that most of us use as a lens to view society. Nothing should remind people more of this sports and politics.

To conclude my three day Joss-a-thon I’m going to review Tales of the Slayers. This is a collection of short comics about the lives of 8 slayers in different points in history. Although my reviews are usually spoiler-ific this review will be much more spoiler free. The very shortness of the stories means they rely on their plot twists, so while I do talk about the set up, I’m not going to tell the endings.

What stands out from me, particularly compared to season 8, is how interesting the art is. Very different styles of art are used for different stories, and they reflect often reflect the times the stories are set in. This is particularly effective with the story set in 1930s Germany.

The quality of the stories is extremely mixed. Two of Joss’s story’s are brilliant. The first is very short, and is about the first slayer. It is just one moment in her life, and sets up the rest of the stories.

Joss’s second story, set in the middle ages, is written in verse (which I bet made Joss very happy). It is a simple story, told from the point of view of the Watcher, but is very effective

Jane Espenson’s Regency era slayer is beautifully done. The author’s voice is deliberately modelled on Jane Austen, and works perfectly. Jane and Joss were the only authors who used the literary forms of the time they were writing about, and it makes their stories much stronger. I think they also both understood the limits of the space, and had the right sized story for a very few pages. Really the authors only had time to set up two characters, and one plot turn, and Jane and Joss both do this very well.

The other stories, set in Revolutionary France, America at the time of colonisation, Nazi Germany and 1970s New York, are less successful. The most dire is Sonnenblume, set in Nazi era Germany. It’s slightly less subtle than being hit over the head with a mallet (which is a real shame, because, like I said, the art is very good). I found the Revolutionary France story similarly trite, possibly because it was trying to deal with something very big in a very small space (or possibly just because Amber Benson doesn’t have very interesting ideas about revolutionary France). The story set in America at the time of colonisation, works for the first few pages, but relies on simplistic statements as a substitute for character development, and in the end appears to be making an argument for assimilation. Nikki’s story is OK, but not particularly interesting.

The comic ends with another Joss story, this one about Fray. By itself this short piece isn’t even a story (and I was disappointed, because after several stories of in period or practical clothing, Fray is wearing a very short, loose, cut off top, which you absolutely wouldn’t be able to fight in. I guess I should be glad no-one found a place in the story to have a bath). But it ends with Fray finding, and reading the Watchers diaries of previous slayers.

In the end despite the mixed quality of the stories, I would definitely recommend this to any Buffy fan. Because what it does do so nicely is expand on the idea, implicit in the Buffyverse, that struggle has a history and each generation in that struggle is connected to those that have gone before it.

The latest Buffy comic has a backstory. Last year Darkhorse ran a competition inviting 100 word essays on ‘How Buffy Changed My Life’ - Joss would chose the winner who would then appear in one of the comics. The winner was Jarrod’s essay, he wrote about his wife’s schizophrenia, and how they’d watched Buffy as she was getting sicker and sicker. Robin appears in this story, she is a minder who has to guard unstable reality fields (or possibly demons). It’s well done, and the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Although I don’t know that much about schizophrenia, so I don’t know how well the storyline reflects reality.

Overall I liked this comic, although I remain unsure about the genre. I’m going to like any comic which has Buffy and Willow talk about their relationship. Of course, the bitter part in me, that does believe in showing not telling, would have rather that they’d had Buffy and Willow have a relationship in season 6 an 7, than explain to us with small words what’s going on.

I loved the little details of this story, the ever developing ‘Anywhere but Here’ was really fun (and a nice little bit of continuity). I loved that we found out where the money was coming from, because it really annoys me when fiction ignores economics. I love even more that Buffy is stealing from Swiss banks, not being particularly fond of banks and all.

I wasn’t so happy about the Dawn revelation, if this is the final twist (and it may not be) it does bear a striking resemblance to her being punished for having sex. I love giant dawn; I love her giant suitcase of clothes. I don’t love punishing female characters for having sex.

The comic ends with Buffy and Willow walking off separately. It’s clear that this season is going to be about stripping Buffy of her allies. I can’t help but feel that we’ve seen that before and, like I said in my last review, these plotlines would be anchored better if we had more idea what normal was for the relationships between these characters.

On the art front, this is the first story arc in a Buffy comic which hasn’t involved a female character taking a bath. It was almost comical how hard the artists appeared to work to draw Robin so that she didn’t look like a comic book girl.