Go Here First
Well, I suppose it's sweet to think that myself (and others) are beautiful and unique snowflakes for liking comics, as opposed to liking other mediums with messages of empowerment, such as fairy princesses* ... But you know, I'm kind of over it. I'm kind of tired of being treated like, "Ooooh! A girl who reads comics! This is so hot! Aren't we diverse for attracting women?" on male-heavy message boards and then hear the old muscles-are-just-as-bad-to-exaggerate-as-boobs speech and the "Ha-ha! Your wife wants to wait to go to the superhero movie! You henpecked loser!" and "[Female Character X] is such a whore." I mean, you hear a lot of that and the shiny veneer of specialness starts to wear off.**
Most of the times the female comic reader is a "special" one in a group of many male fans. But I think blogs like When Fangirls Attack have shown than even if we are a minority of about oh, we'll go with these ten-year-old statistics of 8 percent we're still a sizable minority that can form a community. And we are a community who are helping to hold up a medium that has been continually struggling. And you know what? I don't know about DC, but a few years ago I had a conversation with Bill Jemas and even though he was dismissive about Sequential Tart, he still said that he WANTED Marvel to have more female readers. Bill Jemas wanted more female readers. And his company-at-the-time made a few stabs at reaching them (unfortunately, a lot of them were crap, but that will be my next rant).
But honestly, the whole point isn't if the Big Two do or don't care (although I think they do, albeit in a bone-headed way, much like my male friends on the messageboards who want women to come to the table and then still treat it as a boys' clubhouse), but that they should. They should care and they should actually worry, because this is a whole medium at stake.
"Just go read manga!" is not the answer because it sets a scary precedent to say that if you girls want to be involved in sequential art, either as characters or creators you'll only get to find it in a country that isn't your own, and for all intents and purposes not as advanced in feminism as the west. It's also not the answer American-made manga (besides from mostly flagrantly missing the point of what makes manga so popular and thinking they got it just because they managed to draw a girl with big breasts and big eyes) isn't necessarily representative either. There's a lot of manga-influenced webcomics by girls, but from what I've seen, most of what Antarctic Press - the big publisher of American manga - puts out is by men.
Oh, and turn to the Indies/Vertigo doesn't cut it either. Because:
1.) As cute as those "How to Get Your Girlfriend to Read Comics" articles are, if the mainstream hasn't already hooked them, they're probably not going to go digging through a comic shop or even at Borders (most of which have horrifically messy and badly shelved American comics sections) to find their Sandman trades.
2.) They're still produced mostly by men. I think Top Shelf Comics is the best of the smaller press companies, and many of the people they've signed are talented and sweet people (or maybe Andy Runton's sweetness just overpowers everyone else). Do you know how many women they have in their catalog? THREE. Three and one is Melinda Gebbie.
3.) They aren't immune to misogyny either. Dave Sim and R. Crumb, anyone?
Like it or not, Marvel and DC, for now, are the face of the American comics industry. Even if people turn away from superheroes later in life, they, and probably the Sunday funnies, are the "gateway drug" which hook supporters into the medium. And the medium has had an insanely rocky history and is struggling. If it wants to survive, their comics OUGHT to appeal to the other half of the population. And to do that they NEED to listen to that eight percent. This is part of our culture. This is IMPORTANT.
* As an aside: I will admit that the Disney princesses from the "new renaissance" of Disney have been pretty tough and cool, but honestly, I'd rather go for the vicarious thrill of punching out evil scumbag than the vicarious thrill of trading I'm-so-awesome quips with the Prince before being saved by the guy at the end and later marrying him. Just a thought.
** I'm not knocking these communities per se. Heck, I found my boyfriend on one of them, but the whole game gets really tiresome really fast.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Another Hideously Huge Review Post
Books
A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
This book is not a good book. No. It has the pace of tortoise and it's episodic to an insane degree. Merry Gentry is a Mary Sue of the annoying "Oh, I'm pretty but NOT PRETTY ENOUGH" type of Sue. The men are all boring. Laurell K. Hamilton takes half-pages to describe characters' hair and what they are wearing, to the point where Merry at one point asks two of the guys, "What's wrong?" but then has to stop and describe their clothes even though they ALL WEAR CLOTHES TO MATCH THEIR HAIR AND SKIN ALL THE TIME, AAAARGH! And the beta-villains are killed way too easily. Oh, and Laurell also does that annoying thing she's done in previous novels where she'll have a secondary female character who you're supposed to feel pity and scorn for because she's a victim but OMG! She's allowed herself to be a victim, so it's okay to forget about her for the rest of the series.
And yet ... I had fun reading this. No matter what her faults, it's impossible to deny that Hamilton is a great world builder and I really, really do like this world. I liked the initial plot before it ended within the first hundred pages. I really, really liked the mythology. And, while the sex wasn't great, it was at least interesting enough to keep me reading the book and integrated to the point where the sex didn't feel tacked-on. I got frustrated with the book a lot when I was reading it, but I never stepped over to outright disliking the book. Hamilton has some interesting, interesting ideas. Alas, I wish she was better at execution. I want to read the whole series, but will probably only read the second one because I hear the series falls apart at three. [sigh] What a pity ...
I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight by Margaret Cho
Let me first say that I love Margaret Cho. I thought the book I'm the One that I Want was a great mixture of comedy and memoir, and you really got a good sense of who this woman was. I thought the stage show by the same name, as well as Notorious C.H.O. were absolutely excellent. Revolution had some tiresome parts, but not enough to ruin the show for me ...
I can't say the same about this book. I read most of it rolling my eyes and when she got to her opinions on how the news media has failed so we should all just read blogs because then we only have to hear the news we want, yay I threw the copy across the room. (And I swear most of the people who say this seem to be the type who haven't read a newspaper in ever, but oh well ...)
Weirdly enough, that was the only thing I outright disagreed with Cho on. Politically her and I are very similar, but in the book she not only makes her arguments without any intelligence or wit, but she seeks to be a badass while unabashedly preaching to the converted. She's not even funny ... and some of these people she picks on (like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter) are easy targets. The Michelle Malkin one kind of came close to being witty with her saying, "Yay! The Asians have their own Clarence Thomas!" But alas, I think she was actually a bit too serious on that one for it to be funny.
But yeah, everything I liked about I'm the One that I Want: her humor, her overall message of self-love and empowerment, her tangible love yet distance from her family, are all missing here. It's just a bunch of ill-focused rants that make people who disagree with liberals think that they're all idiotic and smug know-it-alls who see everyone else as a religious freak. And you know, she could have at least been FUNNY about it, but in the book she just comes across as angry.
Such a shame, really. I bought the book used a short time ago, and now I'll be putting it up on bookmooch. I really do love Margaret Cho, but she's making herself hard to love these days.
The Dueling Personas of Kevin Smith by Matthew Miller
This book is actually a published thesis which talks about how Kevin Smith has cultivated both a "indie filmmaker" and an "mainstream-friendly fanboy" image, and it's a pretty interesting short read on Kevin Smith. It's an interesting look at how he's presented himself in interviews to the press as well as on his online messageboards, and how it may have influenced how people see his movies. There's also an interesting part which compares his Askewniverse canon to the Star Wars canon. At $10 the book is a little pricey for it's short content. I also think I caught a few factual inaccuracies. Still, it is well worth the read if you're a big fan of Kevin Smith. I would have liked to see an addendum that factors in the negative response to Jersey Girl, which all the fans (and, I think for a time, Smith) thought would be a critical darling. But oh well. Still a good book.
Stolen by Kelley Armstrong
I really like Stolen. This surprised me, because while I thought Bitten had a fun plot and some neat side characters (such as Jeremy), Elena's darque wangst past and ridiculous pseudo bad boy relationship with Clay (oh come on. I know you read that stupid scene where he subdues her and ties her up and then ASKS NICELY before he has his way with her so that all of us ladies can feel good about our rape fantasies) made me roll my eyes. However, now that Elena's over it and Clay is acting like less than a bastard, I just got to enjoy a damn good adventure story with some cool characters and a villain who gets his just desserts.
Favorite parts: Cassandra - yes, she was a bit of an antagonist but after so many emo vampires it was nice to see one who was just cool and practical. And the scene where she casually looks in the bag with the severed head was great. Writer managing to keep a relationship from a previous novel going without any majorly-forced drama - Thank you so much, Miss Armstrong. Fast pace of the book - Good. Savannah being an emotional teenager without stepping over the line into annoying - Thank you so much. And did I mention the villain getting his just desserts? That was so awesome.
My one beef with this book is that I think Armstrong fucked with her own canon a bit there. (I thought werewolves were on a monthly, not weekly cycle. I also thought mutt wolves were able to change at will ...) However, this book actually made me excited about reading Dime Store Magic where Bitten didn't make me excited about Stolen so ... yeah, I'm very, very happy with Stolen. It was a pleasant surprise. :-)
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Note to all future writers: If you want to create a nameless character in an attempt to make her seem like an everywoman, maybe you should realize that every woman does not live in New York and go to NYU for a masters degree in child development and act as a Nanny in their spare time. Also, if you're going for an everywoman thing, you may not want to bring up unnecessary secondary characters in their life, especially if you're not going to resolve their subplots by the time the book ends.
I mean seriously, what happened with Harvard Hottie? Did she ever find a new job after that one weird interview with the "We don't want white girls to help our inner-city kids?" people? Did her thesis defense go well? WHAT HAPPENED?
Oh wait, it doesn't matter. Because we're all supposed to concentrate on how funny it is that Mrs. X is such an awful parent despite being rich. Oh, ha-ha! The rich! How silly they are, thinking they're better than us upper-middle class white women! Isn't it so funny when they neglect their children while they have fevers?
I know, I know. Who pissed in my cereal, right? I will give the writers credit for at least not turning their villain into a one-note monster like The Devil Wears Prada did. The book was also far more readable than Prada - I finished it within three days. Still, I just get frustrated with chick lit defenders who call the critics anti-feminist, not realizing that their material is so specific and really geared to one type of woman. And I am really annoyed that we didn't get to know "Nanny" because the writers were so hung-up on the "everywoman" concept.
Movies
Ali G Indahouse
I kind of feel sorry for this film. It can't help but be what it is: a studio attempt to take an out-of-the-ordinary comedic character, squash him into the standard "Kind-hearted doofus hero makes good" plot and then make money. But really, stupid studio people should have realized that Ali G is not kind-hearted or a hero, just a doofus. And thus his whole making good and getting the girl come off as tiresome and outright offensive at points, because why would anyone be with this sexist dick?
Granted, it did make me laugh at points, but there was too much in there that seemed like it was made up by a bunch of guys in three-piece suits that didn't understand the character. And I am so, so, so sick of hot girls being considered the "neuter" female in comedy. The scenes with the ambassador or whatever from Thailand was particularly embarrassing and doesn't really work with Sacha Baron Cohen's usual goal of exploiting people's prejudices. When he gave her the ping-pong ball upon hearing she was from Thailand, it was funny. When she shot it out of her twat ... it stopped being funny and just became an illustration of the stereotypes Cohen claims to go against.
And it's weird, but I hadn't heard about Borat's cameo before I watched it. And seeing him made me laugh when I was on a 30-minute stretch of feminist cranky-pants-ness over this movie.
But yeah, Tivo only for this one, and even then only if you're a Cohen fan or have really, really, really low standards for formulaic movies to the point where you don't understand why the formula works.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Now this was a good movie. Heck, the fake-bootleg DVD case was about as good as the movie. This movie is truly transgressive, and it really, really makes you feel uncomfortable at laughing at it. Not because the jokes are all that sick (Well, okay, the naked wrestling scene was sick ...) but because people in this movie say such heinous things, but are really serious about it.
This is really well-made for a movie that's a gimmick, though. Unlike most "reality" programs, the director/editor/Cohen do a really good job of making a plot out of seemingly-random encounters, to the point where you really do wonder how much is real and how much isn't. Those dead-spots where everyone seems to just stare in confusion and mumble that are so common in reality TV are also absent here. (See any episode of
Survivor for an illustration of what I'm talking about. Bonus points if they go "Mumble mumble mumble [BEEP!]")
So, yeah, despite my reservations and my dislike of Indahouse, I was really impressed with this movie. It's worth watching at least once ... if you can handle the naked wrestling scene. [shudder]
Room Service
Boy, the "Zeppo" in this movie is really dumber than a bag of rocks, isn't he?
I kind of liked this film. The eating scene is genius and Harpo trying to get the turkey is great and Harpo pretending to be dead is ... Well, this is basically a good Harpo movie in general. Groucho and Chico, not so much. Chico seems rather confined and Groucho seems to spend too much time pushing the rather uninteresting plot along. ("We have to wait for a guy to get in here and sign a paper! OH NOES!") Movie is also weird in that I'm not sure if Lucille Ball is supposed to be Groucho's girlfriend or not. She doesn't ACT like his girlfriend, but then she randomly kisses Groucho and calls him "darling". Very weird.
But ... a decent way to pass the time, this movie is, yes. At least there aren't any sleep-inducing singing scenes or god forbid -- BALLET SCENES.
A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
This book is not a good book. No. It has the pace of tortoise and it's episodic to an insane degree. Merry Gentry is a Mary Sue of the annoying "Oh, I'm pretty but NOT PRETTY ENOUGH" type of Sue. The men are all boring. Laurell K. Hamilton takes half-pages to describe characters' hair and what they are wearing, to the point where Merry at one point asks two of the guys, "What's wrong?" but then has to stop and describe their clothes even though they ALL WEAR CLOTHES TO MATCH THEIR HAIR AND SKIN ALL THE TIME, AAAARGH! And the beta-villains are killed way too easily. Oh, and Laurell also does that annoying thing she's done in previous novels where she'll have a secondary female character who you're supposed to feel pity and scorn for because she's a victim but OMG! She's allowed herself to be a victim, so it's okay to forget about her for the rest of the series.
And yet ... I had fun reading this. No matter what her faults, it's impossible to deny that Hamilton is a great world builder and I really, really do like this world. I liked the initial plot before it ended within the first hundred pages. I really, really liked the mythology. And, while the sex wasn't great, it was at least interesting enough to keep me reading the book and integrated to the point where the sex didn't feel tacked-on. I got frustrated with the book a lot when I was reading it, but I never stepped over to outright disliking the book. Hamilton has some interesting, interesting ideas. Alas, I wish she was better at execution. I want to read the whole series, but will probably only read the second one because I hear the series falls apart at three. [sigh] What a pity ...
I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight by Margaret Cho
Let me first say that I love Margaret Cho. I thought the book I'm the One that I Want was a great mixture of comedy and memoir, and you really got a good sense of who this woman was. I thought the stage show by the same name, as well as Notorious C.H.O. were absolutely excellent. Revolution had some tiresome parts, but not enough to ruin the show for me ...
I can't say the same about this book. I read most of it rolling my eyes and when she got to her opinions on how the news media has failed so we should all just read blogs because then we only have to hear the news we want, yay I threw the copy across the room. (And I swear most of the people who say this seem to be the type who haven't read a newspaper in ever, but oh well ...)
Weirdly enough, that was the only thing I outright disagreed with Cho on. Politically her and I are very similar, but in the book she not only makes her arguments without any intelligence or wit, but she seeks to be a badass while unabashedly preaching to the converted. She's not even funny ... and some of these people she picks on (like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter) are easy targets. The Michelle Malkin one kind of came close to being witty with her saying, "Yay! The Asians have their own Clarence Thomas!" But alas, I think she was actually a bit too serious on that one for it to be funny.
But yeah, everything I liked about I'm the One that I Want: her humor, her overall message of self-love and empowerment, her tangible love yet distance from her family, are all missing here. It's just a bunch of ill-focused rants that make people who disagree with liberals think that they're all idiotic and smug know-it-alls who see everyone else as a religious freak. And you know, she could have at least been FUNNY about it, but in the book she just comes across as angry.
Such a shame, really. I bought the book used a short time ago, and now I'll be putting it up on bookmooch. I really do love Margaret Cho, but she's making herself hard to love these days.
The Dueling Personas of Kevin Smith by Matthew Miller
This book is actually a published thesis which talks about how Kevin Smith has cultivated both a "indie filmmaker" and an "mainstream-friendly fanboy" image, and it's a pretty interesting short read on Kevin Smith. It's an interesting look at how he's presented himself in interviews to the press as well as on his online messageboards, and how it may have influenced how people see his movies. There's also an interesting part which compares his Askewniverse canon to the Star Wars canon. At $10 the book is a little pricey for it's short content. I also think I caught a few factual inaccuracies. Still, it is well worth the read if you're a big fan of Kevin Smith. I would have liked to see an addendum that factors in the negative response to Jersey Girl, which all the fans (and, I think for a time, Smith) thought would be a critical darling. But oh well. Still a good book.
Stolen by Kelley Armstrong
I really like Stolen. This surprised me, because while I thought Bitten had a fun plot and some neat side characters (such as Jeremy), Elena's darque wangst past and ridiculous pseudo bad boy relationship with Clay (oh come on. I know you read that stupid scene where he subdues her and ties her up and then ASKS NICELY before he has his way with her so that all of us ladies can feel good about our rape fantasies) made me roll my eyes. However, now that Elena's over it and Clay is acting like less than a bastard, I just got to enjoy a damn good adventure story with some cool characters and a villain who gets his just desserts.
Favorite parts: Cassandra - yes, she was a bit of an antagonist but after so many emo vampires it was nice to see one who was just cool and practical. And the scene where she casually looks in the bag with the severed head was great. Writer managing to keep a relationship from a previous novel going without any majorly-forced drama - Thank you so much, Miss Armstrong. Fast pace of the book - Good. Savannah being an emotional teenager without stepping over the line into annoying - Thank you so much. And did I mention the villain getting his just desserts? That was so awesome.
My one beef with this book is that I think Armstrong fucked with her own canon a bit there. (I thought werewolves were on a monthly, not weekly cycle. I also thought mutt wolves were able to change at will ...) However, this book actually made me excited about reading Dime Store Magic where Bitten didn't make me excited about Stolen so ... yeah, I'm very, very happy with Stolen. It was a pleasant surprise. :-)
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Note to all future writers: If you want to create a nameless character in an attempt to make her seem like an everywoman, maybe you should realize that every woman does not live in New York and go to NYU for a masters degree in child development and act as a Nanny in their spare time. Also, if you're going for an everywoman thing, you may not want to bring up unnecessary secondary characters in their life, especially if you're not going to resolve their subplots by the time the book ends.
I mean seriously, what happened with Harvard Hottie? Did she ever find a new job after that one weird interview with the "We don't want white girls to help our inner-city kids?" people? Did her thesis defense go well? WHAT HAPPENED?
Oh wait, it doesn't matter. Because we're all supposed to concentrate on how funny it is that Mrs. X is such an awful parent despite being rich. Oh, ha-ha! The rich! How silly they are, thinking they're better than us upper-middle class white women! Isn't it so funny when they neglect their children while they have fevers?
I know, I know. Who pissed in my cereal, right? I will give the writers credit for at least not turning their villain into a one-note monster like The Devil Wears Prada did. The book was also far more readable than Prada - I finished it within three days. Still, I just get frustrated with chick lit defenders who call the critics anti-feminist, not realizing that their material is so specific and really geared to one type of woman. And I am really annoyed that we didn't get to know "Nanny" because the writers were so hung-up on the "everywoman" concept.
Movies
Ali G Indahouse
I kind of feel sorry for this film. It can't help but be what it is: a studio attempt to take an out-of-the-ordinary comedic character, squash him into the standard "Kind-hearted doofus hero makes good" plot and then make money. But really, stupid studio people should have realized that Ali G is not kind-hearted or a hero, just a doofus. And thus his whole making good and getting the girl come off as tiresome and outright offensive at points, because why would anyone be with this sexist dick?
Granted, it did make me laugh at points, but there was too much in there that seemed like it was made up by a bunch of guys in three-piece suits that didn't understand the character. And I am so, so, so sick of hot girls being considered the "neuter" female in comedy. The scenes with the ambassador or whatever from Thailand was particularly embarrassing and doesn't really work with Sacha Baron Cohen's usual goal of exploiting people's prejudices. When he gave her the ping-pong ball upon hearing she was from Thailand, it was funny. When she shot it out of her twat ... it stopped being funny and just became an illustration of the stereotypes Cohen claims to go against.
And it's weird, but I hadn't heard about Borat's cameo before I watched it. And seeing him made me laugh when I was on a 30-minute stretch of feminist cranky-pants-ness over this movie.
But yeah, Tivo only for this one, and even then only if you're a Cohen fan or have really, really, really low standards for formulaic movies to the point where you don't understand why the formula works.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Now this was a good movie. Heck, the fake-bootleg DVD case was about as good as the movie. This movie is truly transgressive, and it really, really makes you feel uncomfortable at laughing at it. Not because the jokes are all that sick (Well, okay, the naked wrestling scene was sick ...) but because people in this movie say such heinous things, but are really serious about it.
This is really well-made for a movie that's a gimmick, though. Unlike most "reality" programs, the director/editor/Cohen do a really good job of making a plot out of seemingly-random encounters, to the point where you really do wonder how much is real and how much isn't. Those dead-spots where everyone seems to just stare in confusion and mumble that are so common in reality TV are also absent here. (See any episode of
Survivor for an illustration of what I'm talking about. Bonus points if they go "Mumble mumble mumble [BEEP!]")
So, yeah, despite my reservations and my dislike of Indahouse, I was really impressed with this movie. It's worth watching at least once ... if you can handle the naked wrestling scene. [shudder]
Room Service
Boy, the "Zeppo" in this movie is really dumber than a bag of rocks, isn't he?
I kind of liked this film. The eating scene is genius and Harpo trying to get the turkey is great and Harpo pretending to be dead is ... Well, this is basically a good Harpo movie in general. Groucho and Chico, not so much. Chico seems rather confined and Groucho seems to spend too much time pushing the rather uninteresting plot along. ("We have to wait for a guy to get in here and sign a paper! OH NOES!") Movie is also weird in that I'm not sure if Lucille Ball is supposed to be Groucho's girlfriend or not. She doesn't ACT like his girlfriend, but then she randomly kisses Groucho and calls him "darling". Very weird.
But ... a decent way to pass the time, this movie is, yes. At least there aren't any sleep-inducing singing scenes or god forbid -- BALLET SCENES.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
My Day of Vindication has Come ...
Once upon a time (like not too long ago), I wrote slash fanfic with Spider-Man. People called me an evil woman who was ruining their superhero and made them cry.
I just heard how Mary Jane dies in Spider-Man: Reign #3.
I'll be expecting an apology any day now. With spider and green goblin kisses.
I just heard how Mary Jane dies in Spider-Man: Reign #3.
I'll be expecting an apology any day now. With spider and green goblin kisses.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Your Manolos Don't Make You a Martyr
Lately at work I've been reading an amusing blog titled Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels. I'm not a romance novel reader myself, but Candy and Sarah's mockery of romance novel covers are great, and I am impressed by their liberal quoting of South Park and Homestar Runner. Sometimes they make me want to read romance novels, although I do fear what happened when I started to read Mrs. Giggles regularly.
Mrs. Giggles: [snarks on bad romance]
Me: "Hey, these novels seem quite bad and she seems to have read a lot of books. I wonder what books she likes."
Mrs. Giggles: "The sequel to Flowers in the Attic is the best book ever, despite the overblown plot and characters that I railed about in every other book I hate. It doesn't matter now BECAUSE I LIKE IT!"
Me: "Um ... pass."
But I digress. I still haven't totally given up on one day finding a romance novel I like. Or at least something I like in its cousin, Chick Lit. Granted, Flowers in the Attic (overblown drama, ridiculous situationse and purple prose ahoy), The Devil Wears Prada (whine, whine, whine, I hate my boss, whine) and Fourplay (flashbacks to mom's post-separation behavior ... and no foursomes) have done nothing to change my mind. But I like your occasional romantic comedy movie, particularly one that messes with the formula - I love Secretary, but also dig When Harry Met Sally because of the dialogue. So never say never.
But this isn't about The Bitches. This is about their commentators. (And I don't mean Nora Roberts).
Recently the Bitches posted their reaction to a particularly scathing attack on Chick Lit by columnist Maureen Dowd. They make what I feel are legitimate comments about the condescension some people make towards women-oriented literature. I can dig. Plus, it's been historically true. One book I read, The Friendly Dickens by Norrie Epstein, told of an instance of a man in Victorian times horrified by seeing two women on a carriage ride out in the country and found they were discussing [gasp!] NOVELS instead of the scenery around them. Oh the horrors! But yes, this stuff is nothing new.
However, some of their commentators take the "everyone wants to repress women writers!" to a whole new level, and make accusations that simply are not true.
bungla writes:
How come nobody turns against all the boo-hoo, woe is me, I was abused as a child so I turned to substance abuse and my life broke into a million little pieces fantasygraphies out there with such vitriol?
O RLY? And come on, James Frey was pretty much raked over the coals by plenty of the people when the truth came out, not just Oprah. I remember Richard Roeper also writing a column about how the book was entirely unbelievable to begin with. There have been two parodies of that book in print. Trust me, the vitriol is out there.
As for non-James Frey, I don't have the link with me, but I do remember Slate also putting out a "Can you believe how much this guy has exploited his past?" piece about Dave "The Child Called 'It'" Pelzer. ETA: And here it is, hooray! So, really, these guys aren't immune from criticism.
Miranda writes:
Another ‘women’s pasttimes are silly and so are they’ article. Notice how no one talks about how the frivolity of football/basketball/hockey/etc games.
Hey, I do that all the time! And I've actually been to many and have a right to complain. Granted, nobody listens to me, but ...
There are some men's pasttimes that are criticized. I'm a huge comic book reader -- a typically "male" pasttime. And "comic books" are pretty much synonymous with "badly written, empty headed crap" despite the fact that Time added Watchmen by Alan Moore to its "Best 100 Novels English-Language Novels Since 1923" list, and other books such as Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller have earned many awards and acclaim.
Also, the mostly male-oriented Sci-Fi community? It was their genre being called a "lazy way of writing" by PublishAmerica that led to the Atlanta Nights debacle. It's not just the women's genres that are picked on, it's all genres.
December writes:
Maureen Dowd? Oh, riiight. She’s a feminist. Who obviously hates women.
... Um, no.
It is possible, believe it or not, to dislike a type of writing and not dislike the people behind it. I consider myself a feminist, but "feminist" literature like The Awakening by Kate Chopin makes me want to barf. (Why? Frankly, [spoiler alert!] I'm not very fond of a novel that says "since men will never allow you to have everything you want, you should just kill yourself." [end spoiler alert!]) This doesn't mean I hate women. This doesn't mean I hate feminists. This means I don't like The Awakening.
It is also possible to feel alienated from a work or group of works, even if you're technically a part of the target audience. I may be a journalist, but I'm a journalist who went to a public college and had to work at a big Boxmart bookstore with bosses who didn't realize that it wasn't possible to take apart a wood crate with your bare hands or you can't get 60 calendars on a shelf that's only meant for 30. Therefore Andy's ivy-league college, living in New York, I'm-in-a-sucky-job-that-actually-will-help-my-career-but-woe-I-have
-to-get-coffee's problems just don't ring very true with me.
Going beyond the subject, I went to college, but all those "frat house we love beer and tits hurr hurr" movies? I couldn't stand them even when I WAS in college. I also was a girl in high school once, but most girl-in-high-school books and comic books bore the shit out of me. Sometimes a genre doesn't click with a person.
Does this make Dowd's condescension any less worse? No. Does this make her ridiculous "You're contributing to the war on terror and should be reading The Red Badge of Courage!" argument any less ridiculous? No.
But does it make her anti-woman? No. Does it mean that men's media is not criticized with the same amount of venom? No.
Mrs. Giggles: [snarks on bad romance]
Me: "Hey, these novels seem quite bad and she seems to have read a lot of books. I wonder what books she likes."
Mrs. Giggles: "The sequel to Flowers in the Attic is the best book ever, despite the overblown plot and characters that I railed about in every other book I hate. It doesn't matter now BECAUSE I LIKE IT!"
Me: "Um ... pass."
But I digress. I still haven't totally given up on one day finding a romance novel I like. Or at least something I like in its cousin, Chick Lit. Granted, Flowers in the Attic (overblown drama, ridiculous situationse and purple prose ahoy), The Devil Wears Prada (whine, whine, whine, I hate my boss, whine) and Fourplay (flashbacks to mom's post-separation behavior ... and no foursomes) have done nothing to change my mind. But I like your occasional romantic comedy movie, particularly one that messes with the formula - I love Secretary, but also dig When Harry Met Sally because of the dialogue. So never say never.
But this isn't about The Bitches. This is about their commentators. (And I don't mean Nora Roberts).
Recently the Bitches posted their reaction to a particularly scathing attack on Chick Lit by columnist Maureen Dowd. They make what I feel are legitimate comments about the condescension some people make towards women-oriented literature. I can dig. Plus, it's been historically true. One book I read, The Friendly Dickens by Norrie Epstein, told of an instance of a man in Victorian times horrified by seeing two women on a carriage ride out in the country and found they were discussing [gasp!] NOVELS instead of the scenery around them. Oh the horrors! But yes, this stuff is nothing new.
However, some of their commentators take the "everyone wants to repress women writers!" to a whole new level, and make accusations that simply are not true.
bungla writes:
How come nobody turns against all the boo-hoo, woe is me, I was abused as a child so I turned to substance abuse and my life broke into a million little pieces fantasygraphies out there with such vitriol?
O RLY? And come on, James Frey was pretty much raked over the coals by plenty of the people when the truth came out, not just Oprah. I remember Richard Roeper also writing a column about how the book was entirely unbelievable to begin with. There have been two parodies of that book in print. Trust me, the vitriol is out there.
As for non-James Frey, I don't have the link with me, but I do remember Slate also putting out a "Can you believe how much this guy has exploited his past?" piece about Dave "The Child Called 'It'" Pelzer. ETA: And here it is, hooray! So, really, these guys aren't immune from criticism.
Miranda writes:
Another ‘women’s pasttimes are silly and so are they’ article. Notice how no one talks about how the frivolity of football/basketball/hockey/etc games.
Hey, I do that all the time! And I've actually been to many and have a right to complain. Granted, nobody listens to me, but ...
There are some men's pasttimes that are criticized. I'm a huge comic book reader -- a typically "male" pasttime. And "comic books" are pretty much synonymous with "badly written, empty headed crap" despite the fact that Time added Watchmen by Alan Moore to its "Best 100 Novels English-Language Novels Since 1923" list, and other books such as Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller have earned many awards and acclaim.
Also, the mostly male-oriented Sci-Fi community? It was their genre being called a "lazy way of writing" by PublishAmerica that led to the Atlanta Nights debacle. It's not just the women's genres that are picked on, it's all genres.
December writes:
Maureen Dowd? Oh, riiight. She’s a feminist. Who obviously hates women.
... Um, no.
It is possible, believe it or not, to dislike a type of writing and not dislike the people behind it. I consider myself a feminist, but "feminist" literature like The Awakening by Kate Chopin makes me want to barf. (Why? Frankly, [spoiler alert!] I'm not very fond of a novel that says "since men will never allow you to have everything you want, you should just kill yourself." [end spoiler alert!]) This doesn't mean I hate women. This doesn't mean I hate feminists. This means I don't like The Awakening.
It is also possible to feel alienated from a work or group of works, even if you're technically a part of the target audience. I may be a journalist, but I'm a journalist who went to a public college and had to work at a big Boxmart bookstore with bosses who didn't realize that it wasn't possible to take apart a wood crate with your bare hands or you can't get 60 calendars on a shelf that's only meant for 30. Therefore Andy's ivy-league college, living in New York, I'm-in-a-sucky-job-that-actually-will-help-my-career-but-woe-I-have
-to-get-coffee's problems just don't ring very true with me.
Going beyond the subject, I went to college, but all those "frat house we love beer and tits hurr hurr" movies? I couldn't stand them even when I WAS in college. I also was a girl in high school once, but most girl-in-high-school books and comic books bore the shit out of me. Sometimes a genre doesn't click with a person.
Does this make Dowd's condescension any less worse? No. Does this make her ridiculous "You're contributing to the war on terror and should be reading The Red Badge of Courage!" argument any less ridiculous? No.
But does it make her anti-woman? No. Does it mean that men's media is not criticized with the same amount of venom? No.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Mini-Reviews of a Bunch of Stuff I've Been Reading/Playing/Watching
Some of these I haven't seen/read in a long time, like months ago, but I wanted to get it all out there. I'm leaving out the Battle Royale manga and the Arsene Lupin book, because I think they need full entries.
Books:
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
I'm a big fan of Neil, but not to the point where I think he's a god. (Example: I'm on his blogfeed but can't be bothered to actually read what he posts 99% of the time). I do think he has a wealth of really good ideas for stories, though. So I very much enjoyed a lot of Smoke and Mirrors, because a lot of stuff makes me wish I'd thought of it first. Particular favorites: "Snow, Glass, Apples" (a retelling of Snow White where she's a vampire and the "evil queen" is totally awesome), "Babycakes" (sick parable), "Chivalry" (woman finds Holy Grail in a thrift store), and the one about the fox which I think is called "The White Road", but I'm not sure. Particular not-favorites: "Foreign Parts" (particularly because of Gaiman's WTF explanation on how it's a tale about love and finding yourself or whatever - uh, yeah, guy mysteriously gets an STD despite not having sex for three years that makes sense) and "When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawn Morningside, age 11 1/4" (11 =/= baby talking like a six-year-old).
Watchdogs of Democracy? by Helen Thomas
It wasn't the most fun read. Mostly it was a lot of what I already knew. "Journalists are wimps and don't question the government a lot, blah blah blah". HOWEVER, it was really cool to hear journalist history from a woman who had actually lived it. Her stories of how she interacted with all of the presidents and stories of some of the first women who really broke ground in the field. Mostly will just be of interest TO journalists, though. And probably just left-leaning ones because Thomas indulges in some Bush-bashing.
The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
I'm going through the Anita Blake oveure, doing pretty much the "good parts version" i.e. I'm actually taking everyone's "Stop after Obsidian Butterfly approach". Anyway, I liked this novel a bit better. Hamilton's vampires are rather "Ho-Hum" for me, but I really, really, really like her zombies. And she has a rather disturbing villain who makes some creepy-ass zombies. Thus, I liked this book, even if I think Jean-Claude is a tool.
All the Dave Barry You Could Ever Want by Dave Barry
I don't know what it was, but I think I must have initially read this in a bad mood, because I didn't like a large part of it. I know I didn't like the dating book because I get sick of Barry's "Men like sports! Women want to talk!" shtick. On the other hand, I thought the baby book was really funny. The home repair book really bugged me until the joke about the "Suicide Module" - a device which explodes appliances when they stop working so you don't have to feel bad about not repairing them. (That had both me, and the Indian lady I used to work with at my old job laughing for about a week). I also liked the corporate book, because that was sadly true. So maybe I liked about 60% of it. I guess that's not too bad.
Dave Barry's Guide to Guys
A lot of the shtick I don't like, but I enjoyed it more, for some reason. I think my favorite part was about "Steve", the guy who actually can repair stuff. I don't remember much more of this book ... I read it all in a day.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
I feel ashamed that my father had to tell me about this book. I bet he read it for the homosexual relationship in it, because he is profoundly uninterested in comics. Anyway, he insisted I read it and I was sad I hadn't read it earlier. I'm not much of a Golden Age comics fan. (I'm more into the Silver Age when I want to take a trip to the past.) But this book made me want to find out about the Golden Age and find out more about early comic book history. It was so easy and heart wrenching to feel for the characters in this book and all the troubles they go through. The few gay scenes were quite hot and romantic. The cameos from actual comic book people at the time made me happy. Overall, I really, really loved this book. My one issue with it was the hard vocabulary - otherwise I'd be recommending it to my boyfriend who also loves comics. I hope the movie is at least half as good as the book.
I also want to say that, while I had to give the book back to my Dad, my Dad gave me the three Escapist anthologies for Christmas. I can't tell you how happy it made me to get them, even if I haven't read them yet. :-)
Big Trouble by Dave Barry
Now this was a really good book. What made it so good was, while Barry kept a lot of his observational humor and he made some fun, wacky characters, he also took the story seriously - especially when it came to the bad guys. You had stuff like The Client from Hell and the guy thinking his dog was a demonic Elizabeth Dole, but then you also had villains who were planning on raping a young girl and an abusive husband. Of course, things don't get too dark, but I was amazed at how serious the book could get at times. I really liked it a lot.
And from everything I heard, I'm avoiding the movie like a plague.
Little Children by Tom Perrota
This book was really tough for me to read, because I think Perrota went through at least some of what he describes in this book. A lot of the passages about Sarah and Todd were ... well, they were good. I'll leave it at that. I really liked Sarah, though. She seemed like someone I could become in 10 years. I also appreciated that Perrota tried to get the reader to understand where all of the characters were coming from, even some of the characters who were despicable and unworthy of it, without doing a hand-wringing "pity the poor child molester" thing. Actually, his treatment of the child molester was rather biting. It was like one minute you wanted to feel sorry for him, and in the next he does something heinous or mean and you just can't. The book isn't perfect. I thought May's note was incredibly lame in that it-would-only-happen-in-a-work-of-fiction way, and the ending was a bit rushed. And Mary Ann being rejected by her husband should have been handled differently -- when I read it at first I couldn't tell if she really was being rejected or if she was just overreacting because she's an annoying character in general. But there was a lot in this book that's going to stay with me a good long while.
I think I changed my mind and will see the movie, too.
Comics:
Watchmen
... Naw, fuck it. I can't review Watchmen. Watchmen is too amazing. Go read it yourself. I love Rorschach.
Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Vol. 1
I really was not thrilled with this book. Parts of it I liked and liked very much. I liked the sort of epic feel to the book. The ending was great. Norman's letter and story about killing the woman and interaction with Spider-Man was great. I liked how the Scorpion got to be dangerous again - with a Venom symbiote to boot. I liked the interaction between MJ and Felicia. But ... a lot was not as good. And I kept wondering WHY they put this under a mature imprint when it seemed like a lot of the "adult" stuff was so unnecessary. Like the Electro-is-now-bi thing, which normally would make me a happy slasher, but it just didn't have anything to do with anything. Same with some of the brutality and cursing. Also, Millar writes an okay Spider-Man. It's like he only ALMOST gets it, the real Peter Parker is trying to come out of his prose but doesn't quite make it. But, yeah ... it was overall just okay.
I was also reading Civil War, but in my move I couldn't follow it as closely. Woe is me.
Movies:
Crash
Good movie? Yes. Better than Brokeback Mountain? No. Better than any of the other nominees for best picture? No. I thought it didn't really have the emotional resonance or profoundity of the other four movies that were up for Best Picture last year. However, when I thought the girl got shot I cried. I'm such a sucker.
V for Vendetta
I think this is one of those movies that seems good until you read the source material. I haven't gotten to read all of Alan Moore's graphic novel yet. (My brother bought me the DVD with the sampler, and I read that.) However, what little I did read seemed like this movie was a poor imitation. The odd Bill O'Reilly character was particularly head-scratching, as was anybody thinking that Natalie Portman looked like jailbait in that freakin' Raggedy Ann costume. She just looked like ... well, a totally-not-a-teenager-Natalie-Portman as Raggedy Ann. I did, however, like V quite a bit. And I thought it was a well made movie overall. But I had a sense the whole time that I wasn't getting the real story, and that was hard to ignore.
Inside Deep Throat
I can't believe I watched this with my Mom. Basically I'll go with 1.) I don't really think Linda Lovelace is a good source on anything that happened 2.) I can't believe the people in it got all that flack and pretty much no money 3.) The image of that RealDoll getting a clear dildo shoved in her mouth disturbed me for some reason. I don't know why either. It was a pretty good documentary overall, however.
Infamous
Did you like Capote? You should see this one too, if nothing else for the study of how two films can be so similar but give such a different, but not conflicting perspective. Also, gay kissing! (I'm so easy to please.) It's not as good as Capote, but I felt like I found out a lot more from this film. So ... yeah, double feature it.
Running with Scissors
Original author of the book Augusten Burroughs liked this movie, but I can't imagine why. Where did half of this stuff come from? Why is Agnes now Augusten's surrogate mother? Why is Neil Bookman writing poetry at Deidre's house? What was with that Agnes/Deidre confrontation? WHERE IS THE BOOK I FELL IN LOVE WITH? I mean, the movie wasn't a total waste. I thought Natalie's "He was all I ever wanted and now he doesn't love me anymore!" speech was shockingly powerful. The portrayal of Deidre was amazing -- that character could have so easily been turned into a cartoon, but the actress took her seriously and gave a really amazing performance. I also liked Alec Baldwin as Augusten's father. But ... yeah, a lot of disappointment in this movie.
And I wanted Augusten's brother with Asperger's syndrome to have a cameo. Yeah, I knew it wouldn't happen, but I wanted it to anyway. Instead they gave one of his lines to Neil Bookman. Boo.
The Queen
I saw this on Halloween. Wow. I've never been much for watching the royals, but I thought this was a great movie nevertheless. Helen Mirren is amazing as the queen, and the whole sort of behind-the-scenes look at these people was great. It made me ashamed that I don't know more about British politics. The relationship between the Queen and Tony Blair is fascinating in this film. I also really enjoyed the scenes with the Queen Mum, because she made me laugh. ("They always have a plane ready for when I kick the bucket." "MUM!") I asked a few people who were into British-royals-watching if she had that sort of sense of humor in real life and most of them were like, "Yeah, I think so." Again, great movie. I love the corgis.
Dreamgirls
From everything I heard about the original musical (and the original soundtrack tape, which my Dad and I dulled the sound on), it seems like they took bits of the original and then added new stuff and brought out the original connection to the Supremes and hit puree. I felt bad Lorell didn't get her own song, because that song was so much fun and I still think it's better than any of the three new songs (although I did end up buying "Listen" by Beyonce off of iTunes). Still, I liked this movie. I found it a lot more engaging and socially-conscious than Rent, actually. [dodges tomatoes] I had one personal prejudice against Jennifer Hudson (she looks like someone I would rather forget), but that didn't overwhelm the movie for me. It's good.
Children of Men
I liked this one, too. It was filled with a lot more black humor than I expected, but was good as a thriller and kept me engaged and made me believe in the world they created. Not for everyone, but gooooood movie. I heard the book is good but much different, so I'll be reading that soon.
Hard Candy
STOP WHISPERING! Other than that ... you can pretty much substitute a lot of the above review for this one, too. Thrilling, engaging, kinda scary. Great dialogue. Oh ... and Ellen Page is excellent and fucking creepy. Don't see it if you don't know what it's about already, though.
Television (Non-Anime):
The Venture Bros. (Have not seen all)
This show started coming out when I was in college and usually didn't use the television, so it pretty much flew under my radar at the time. But I think I'm in love now - particularly with just about everyone in The Monarch's crew. It's a really great mix of making fun of old TV shows and comic books, with dialogue that I quote for weeks at a time. Fantastic Four fans who can take a bit of a razzing should definitely check out the episode "Ice Station, Impossible!"
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Have not seen all)
I really never thought I would like this show because 1.) my old roommate Lex liked it, and I usually hated most of what she liked (particularly Antonio Banderas as an Arabian who is exiled into a retelling of Beowulf - WTF?) and 2.) it seemed like Cartoon Network's line-up for kids was producing a lot of crap for awhile. And the whole production just seemed mediocre to me. Well ... it's not. It's actually pretty clever and really funny. Some of the backstories they've given to their characters are rather surprisingly deep, too. And I love Eduardo and Cheese. ("I like CEREAL!" "And I like po-ta-toes!")
At Last the 1948 Show (Seen all that was available)
This was a sketch comedy from the 1960s done by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman (Young Frankenstein's Igor), Tim Brooke-Taylor and "The Lovely" Ami MacDonald. My brother bought me a DVD of the Swedish compilation episodes (one of the few things that survived when the studio who created this show decided to trash a lot of their stuff. I thought this would be mediocre Python but it was actually really, really, really funny. It has the original "4 Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was later remade by the Pythons for a live show and a version with Eddie Izzard and Alan Rickman also exists somewhere. Also features sketches of people treating the ballet like a sporting event and John Cleese rebelling on a How-to-Teach-English show. If you manage to see it in the store and you like the Pythons even a little bit, BUY IT. It's cheap and it will make you laugh.
Metalocalypse (seen most)
I like this show, although watching it on marathon (like we did New Year's Eve) is a little much. I get tired of the characters being such jerks after awhile. There are some absolutely great lines in the show, though ("Boy, I really hates it." "I need a hundred beers ... exactly one hundred beers."). Plus, my brother is a metalhead and the whole thing kind of reminds me of him, so I enjoy that aspect of it. Favorite characters are Toki and Nathan Explosion. I like William Murderface the least.
Anime
Master of Mosquiton
Girl wants to be young forever, has a super laid-back vampire to help her. Hate the female characters except for Yuki, but I found the show to be pretty entertaining. Or maybe that's because we were all making fun of Rasputin's incredibly-long fingers. What was up with that?
Elfen Lied
I'd heard good and bad about this show. And I did worry that I wouldn't like it, because the last show I watched that liked to straddle genres was Mahoromatic and I eventually had to give up on that. But did I like this show. Yuka should die, but there's a lot of good buried under the whiplash tonal shifts. Some of the scenes are more powerful than you'd expect. I also still love the opening theme, even if they overplayed it to death in the show. My only regret is the manga isn't out on this side of the Pacific, because I feel like there's a lot more to the story.
Kino's Journey
This show got a little muddled in the middle, but I'm always up for a really solid short story, and thus I liked this series. I also like female characters who don't have the fact that they are female as their prime character trait. So ... yeah, this was a good series.
I also watched a little more Hare + Guu last night. I think that series needed to grow on me. I'm liking it a lot more than I did when I first watched it.
Video Games
I was going to do this like the other sections, but I really haven't played THAT much and it's not like I even have my own consoles (this is stuff I play at friends' house or brother's DS). Anyway, I've played a little Phoenix Wright and I find that game a lot of fun, even if parts of the story make me go "Bwuh?" Guitar Hero II is lots of fun, alone or multiplayer (Yay I'm William Murderface!). I played the old Gunstar with my friend Jon for three hours and got kind of bored with just SHOOTING. Wii Sports is fun, especially when the crazy Miis are making you laugh.
And the Wii version of WarioWare ... I don't know what masturbatory drug the developers were taking, but they seem to have ingested a lot of it. Playing elimination when you're in multiplayer and you're both dressed in angel costumes is ... disturbing. Also, while they seem to be good at making everything gender appropriate, sometimes they screw up ... like at the end of the jumping game in multiplayer where they make the "female" silhouette by taking the male silhouette and putting a LITTLE PINK BOW on its bald head. And the fact that the Wiimote is the sacred object throughout the game is just ... yeah.
Oh, and I almost forgot. One night three of us played Bomberman 3, which I did very poorly at because I really had no idea how to play (although I did manage to win one round). At my worst, I was blowing myself up for rounds at a time. This exchange followed.
Valerie: "Ha-ha! You went into the skull!"
Me: "The skull is bad?"
Valerie: "Uh, yeah."
Jon: "When is the skull ever good?"
Me: "The good things in this game are bombs and fire! How was I supposed to know the skull was bad?"
And ... I think that's it. Maybe I'll actually go outside now.
Books:
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
I'm a big fan of Neil, but not to the point where I think he's a god. (Example: I'm on his blogfeed but can't be bothered to actually read what he posts 99% of the time). I do think he has a wealth of really good ideas for stories, though. So I very much enjoyed a lot of Smoke and Mirrors, because a lot of stuff makes me wish I'd thought of it first. Particular favorites: "Snow, Glass, Apples" (a retelling of Snow White where she's a vampire and the "evil queen" is totally awesome), "Babycakes" (sick parable), "Chivalry" (woman finds Holy Grail in a thrift store), and the one about the fox which I think is called "The White Road", but I'm not sure. Particular not-favorites: "Foreign Parts" (particularly because of Gaiman's WTF explanation on how it's a tale about love and finding yourself or whatever - uh, yeah, guy mysteriously gets an STD despite not having sex for three years that makes sense) and "When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawn Morningside, age 11 1/4" (11 =/= baby talking like a six-year-old).
Watchdogs of Democracy? by Helen Thomas
It wasn't the most fun read. Mostly it was a lot of what I already knew. "Journalists are wimps and don't question the government a lot, blah blah blah". HOWEVER, it was really cool to hear journalist history from a woman who had actually lived it. Her stories of how she interacted with all of the presidents and stories of some of the first women who really broke ground in the field. Mostly will just be of interest TO journalists, though. And probably just left-leaning ones because Thomas indulges in some Bush-bashing.
The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
I'm going through the Anita Blake oveure, doing pretty much the "good parts version" i.e. I'm actually taking everyone's "Stop after Obsidian Butterfly approach". Anyway, I liked this novel a bit better. Hamilton's vampires are rather "Ho-Hum" for me, but I really, really, really like her zombies. And she has a rather disturbing villain who makes some creepy-ass zombies. Thus, I liked this book, even if I think Jean-Claude is a tool.
All the Dave Barry You Could Ever Want by Dave Barry
I don't know what it was, but I think I must have initially read this in a bad mood, because I didn't like a large part of it. I know I didn't like the dating book because I get sick of Barry's "Men like sports! Women want to talk!" shtick. On the other hand, I thought the baby book was really funny. The home repair book really bugged me until the joke about the "Suicide Module" - a device which explodes appliances when they stop working so you don't have to feel bad about not repairing them. (That had both me, and the Indian lady I used to work with at my old job laughing for about a week). I also liked the corporate book, because that was sadly true. So maybe I liked about 60% of it. I guess that's not too bad.
Dave Barry's Guide to Guys
A lot of the shtick I don't like, but I enjoyed it more, for some reason. I think my favorite part was about "Steve", the guy who actually can repair stuff. I don't remember much more of this book ... I read it all in a day.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
I feel ashamed that my father had to tell me about this book. I bet he read it for the homosexual relationship in it, because he is profoundly uninterested in comics. Anyway, he insisted I read it and I was sad I hadn't read it earlier. I'm not much of a Golden Age comics fan. (I'm more into the Silver Age when I want to take a trip to the past.) But this book made me want to find out about the Golden Age and find out more about early comic book history. It was so easy and heart wrenching to feel for the characters in this book and all the troubles they go through. The few gay scenes were quite hot and romantic. The cameos from actual comic book people at the time made me happy. Overall, I really, really loved this book. My one issue with it was the hard vocabulary - otherwise I'd be recommending it to my boyfriend who also loves comics. I hope the movie is at least half as good as the book.
I also want to say that, while I had to give the book back to my Dad, my Dad gave me the three Escapist anthologies for Christmas. I can't tell you how happy it made me to get them, even if I haven't read them yet. :-)
Big Trouble by Dave Barry
Now this was a really good book. What made it so good was, while Barry kept a lot of his observational humor and he made some fun, wacky characters, he also took the story seriously - especially when it came to the bad guys. You had stuff like The Client from Hell and the guy thinking his dog was a demonic Elizabeth Dole, but then you also had villains who were planning on raping a young girl and an abusive husband. Of course, things don't get too dark, but I was amazed at how serious the book could get at times. I really liked it a lot.
And from everything I heard, I'm avoiding the movie like a plague.
Little Children by Tom Perrota
This book was really tough for me to read, because I think Perrota went through at least some of what he describes in this book. A lot of the passages about Sarah and Todd were ... well, they were good. I'll leave it at that. I really liked Sarah, though. She seemed like someone I could become in 10 years. I also appreciated that Perrota tried to get the reader to understand where all of the characters were coming from, even some of the characters who were despicable and unworthy of it, without doing a hand-wringing "pity the poor child molester" thing. Actually, his treatment of the child molester was rather biting. It was like one minute you wanted to feel sorry for him, and in the next he does something heinous or mean and you just can't. The book isn't perfect. I thought May's note was incredibly lame in that it-would-only-happen-in-a-work-of-fiction way, and the ending was a bit rushed. And Mary Ann being rejected by her husband should have been handled differently -- when I read it at first I couldn't tell if she really was being rejected or if she was just overreacting because she's an annoying character in general. But there was a lot in this book that's going to stay with me a good long while.
I think I changed my mind and will see the movie, too.
Comics:
Watchmen
... Naw, fuck it. I can't review Watchmen. Watchmen is too amazing. Go read it yourself. I love Rorschach.
Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Vol. 1
I really was not thrilled with this book. Parts of it I liked and liked very much. I liked the sort of epic feel to the book. The ending was great. Norman's letter and story about killing the woman and interaction with Spider-Man was great. I liked how the Scorpion got to be dangerous again - with a Venom symbiote to boot. I liked the interaction between MJ and Felicia. But ... a lot was not as good. And I kept wondering WHY they put this under a mature imprint when it seemed like a lot of the "adult" stuff was so unnecessary. Like the Electro-is-now-bi thing, which normally would make me a happy slasher, but it just didn't have anything to do with anything. Same with some of the brutality and cursing. Also, Millar writes an okay Spider-Man. It's like he only ALMOST gets it, the real Peter Parker is trying to come out of his prose but doesn't quite make it. But, yeah ... it was overall just okay.
I was also reading Civil War, but in my move I couldn't follow it as closely. Woe is me.
Movies:
Crash
Good movie? Yes. Better than Brokeback Mountain? No. Better than any of the other nominees for best picture? No. I thought it didn't really have the emotional resonance or profoundity of the other four movies that were up for Best Picture last year. However, when I thought the girl got shot I cried. I'm such a sucker.
V for Vendetta
I think this is one of those movies that seems good until you read the source material. I haven't gotten to read all of Alan Moore's graphic novel yet. (My brother bought me the DVD with the sampler, and I read that.) However, what little I did read seemed like this movie was a poor imitation. The odd Bill O'Reilly character was particularly head-scratching, as was anybody thinking that Natalie Portman looked like jailbait in that freakin' Raggedy Ann costume. She just looked like ... well, a totally-not-a-teenager-Natalie-Portman as Raggedy Ann. I did, however, like V quite a bit. And I thought it was a well made movie overall. But I had a sense the whole time that I wasn't getting the real story, and that was hard to ignore.
Inside Deep Throat
I can't believe I watched this with my Mom. Basically I'll go with 1.) I don't really think Linda Lovelace is a good source on anything that happened 2.) I can't believe the people in it got all that flack and pretty much no money 3.) The image of that RealDoll getting a clear dildo shoved in her mouth disturbed me for some reason. I don't know why either. It was a pretty good documentary overall, however.
Infamous
Did you like Capote? You should see this one too, if nothing else for the study of how two films can be so similar but give such a different, but not conflicting perspective. Also, gay kissing! (I'm so easy to please.) It's not as good as Capote, but I felt like I found out a lot more from this film. So ... yeah, double feature it.
Running with Scissors
Original author of the book Augusten Burroughs liked this movie, but I can't imagine why. Where did half of this stuff come from? Why is Agnes now Augusten's surrogate mother? Why is Neil Bookman writing poetry at Deidre's house? What was with that Agnes/Deidre confrontation? WHERE IS THE BOOK I FELL IN LOVE WITH? I mean, the movie wasn't a total waste. I thought Natalie's "He was all I ever wanted and now he doesn't love me anymore!" speech was shockingly powerful. The portrayal of Deidre was amazing -- that character could have so easily been turned into a cartoon, but the actress took her seriously and gave a really amazing performance. I also liked Alec Baldwin as Augusten's father. But ... yeah, a lot of disappointment in this movie.
And I wanted Augusten's brother with Asperger's syndrome to have a cameo. Yeah, I knew it wouldn't happen, but I wanted it to anyway. Instead they gave one of his lines to Neil Bookman. Boo.
The Queen
I saw this on Halloween. Wow. I've never been much for watching the royals, but I thought this was a great movie nevertheless. Helen Mirren is amazing as the queen, and the whole sort of behind-the-scenes look at these people was great. It made me ashamed that I don't know more about British politics. The relationship between the Queen and Tony Blair is fascinating in this film. I also really enjoyed the scenes with the Queen Mum, because she made me laugh. ("They always have a plane ready for when I kick the bucket." "MUM!") I asked a few people who were into British-royals-watching if she had that sort of sense of humor in real life and most of them were like, "Yeah, I think so." Again, great movie. I love the corgis.
Dreamgirls
From everything I heard about the original musical (and the original soundtrack tape, which my Dad and I dulled the sound on), it seems like they took bits of the original and then added new stuff and brought out the original connection to the Supremes and hit puree. I felt bad Lorell didn't get her own song, because that song was so much fun and I still think it's better than any of the three new songs (although I did end up buying "Listen" by Beyonce off of iTunes). Still, I liked this movie. I found it a lot more engaging and socially-conscious than Rent, actually. [dodges tomatoes] I had one personal prejudice against Jennifer Hudson (she looks like someone I would rather forget), but that didn't overwhelm the movie for me. It's good.
Children of Men
I liked this one, too. It was filled with a lot more black humor than I expected, but was good as a thriller and kept me engaged and made me believe in the world they created. Not for everyone, but gooooood movie. I heard the book is good but much different, so I'll be reading that soon.
Hard Candy
STOP WHISPERING! Other than that ... you can pretty much substitute a lot of the above review for this one, too. Thrilling, engaging, kinda scary. Great dialogue. Oh ... and Ellen Page is excellent and fucking creepy. Don't see it if you don't know what it's about already, though.
Television (Non-Anime):
The Venture Bros. (Have not seen all)
This show started coming out when I was in college and usually didn't use the television, so it pretty much flew under my radar at the time. But I think I'm in love now - particularly with just about everyone in The Monarch's crew. It's a really great mix of making fun of old TV shows and comic books, with dialogue that I quote for weeks at a time. Fantastic Four fans who can take a bit of a razzing should definitely check out the episode "Ice Station, Impossible!"
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Have not seen all)
I really never thought I would like this show because 1.) my old roommate Lex liked it, and I usually hated most of what she liked (particularly Antonio Banderas as an Arabian who is exiled into a retelling of Beowulf - WTF?) and 2.) it seemed like Cartoon Network's line-up for kids was producing a lot of crap for awhile. And the whole production just seemed mediocre to me. Well ... it's not. It's actually pretty clever and really funny. Some of the backstories they've given to their characters are rather surprisingly deep, too. And I love Eduardo and Cheese. ("I like CEREAL!" "And I like po-ta-toes!")
At Last the 1948 Show (Seen all that was available)
This was a sketch comedy from the 1960s done by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman (Young Frankenstein's Igor), Tim Brooke-Taylor and "The Lovely" Ami MacDonald. My brother bought me a DVD of the Swedish compilation episodes (one of the few things that survived when the studio who created this show decided to trash a lot of their stuff. I thought this would be mediocre Python but it was actually really, really, really funny. It has the original "4 Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was later remade by the Pythons for a live show and a version with Eddie Izzard and Alan Rickman also exists somewhere. Also features sketches of people treating the ballet like a sporting event and John Cleese rebelling on a How-to-Teach-English show. If you manage to see it in the store and you like the Pythons even a little bit, BUY IT. It's cheap and it will make you laugh.
Metalocalypse (seen most)
I like this show, although watching it on marathon (like we did New Year's Eve) is a little much. I get tired of the characters being such jerks after awhile. There are some absolutely great lines in the show, though ("Boy, I really hates it." "I need a hundred beers ... exactly one hundred beers."). Plus, my brother is a metalhead and the whole thing kind of reminds me of him, so I enjoy that aspect of it. Favorite characters are Toki and Nathan Explosion. I like William Murderface the least.
Anime
Master of Mosquiton
Girl wants to be young forever, has a super laid-back vampire to help her. Hate the female characters except for Yuki, but I found the show to be pretty entertaining. Or maybe that's because we were all making fun of Rasputin's incredibly-long fingers. What was up with that?
Elfen Lied
I'd heard good and bad about this show. And I did worry that I wouldn't like it, because the last show I watched that liked to straddle genres was Mahoromatic and I eventually had to give up on that. But did I like this show. Yuka should die, but there's a lot of good buried under the whiplash tonal shifts. Some of the scenes are more powerful than you'd expect. I also still love the opening theme, even if they overplayed it to death in the show. My only regret is the manga isn't out on this side of the Pacific, because I feel like there's a lot more to the story.
Kino's Journey
This show got a little muddled in the middle, but I'm always up for a really solid short story, and thus I liked this series. I also like female characters who don't have the fact that they are female as their prime character trait. So ... yeah, this was a good series.
I also watched a little more Hare + Guu last night. I think that series needed to grow on me. I'm liking it a lot more than I did when I first watched it.
Video Games
I was going to do this like the other sections, but I really haven't played THAT much and it's not like I even have my own consoles (this is stuff I play at friends' house or brother's DS). Anyway, I've played a little Phoenix Wright and I find that game a lot of fun, even if parts of the story make me go "Bwuh?" Guitar Hero II is lots of fun, alone or multiplayer (Yay I'm William Murderface!). I played the old Gunstar with my friend Jon for three hours and got kind of bored with just SHOOTING. Wii Sports is fun, especially when the crazy Miis are making you laugh.
And the Wii version of WarioWare ... I don't know what masturbatory drug the developers were taking, but they seem to have ingested a lot of it. Playing elimination when you're in multiplayer and you're both dressed in angel costumes is ... disturbing. Also, while they seem to be good at making everything gender appropriate, sometimes they screw up ... like at the end of the jumping game in multiplayer where they make the "female" silhouette by taking the male silhouette and putting a LITTLE PINK BOW on its bald head. And the fact that the Wiimote is the sacred object throughout the game is just ... yeah.
Oh, and I almost forgot. One night three of us played Bomberman 3, which I did very poorly at because I really had no idea how to play (although I did manage to win one round). At my worst, I was blowing myself up for rounds at a time. This exchange followed.
Valerie: "Ha-ha! You went into the skull!"
Me: "The skull is bad?"
Valerie: "Uh, yeah."
Jon: "When is the skull ever good?"
Me: "The good things in this game are bombs and fire! How was I supposed to know the skull was bad?"
And ... I think that's it. Maybe I'll actually go outside now.
Monday, January 22, 2007
34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
If you are pro-life, this post will not convince you to be pro-choice any more than a post for the inevitable "Blog for Life" day posts will convince me to be pro-life. If I had my way, we would all put aside this issue and work on reducing the amount of abortions through the spread of knowledge and better adoption care, but unfortunately, when it comes to an issue that -- in the immortal words of Jon Stewart -- "Asks one group to defend what some consider to be rape with what others consider to be murder" [paraphrase], it's far too easy to scream at each other.
For me, sometimes, it gets too easy to scream about this issue. It's hard for me to keep a level head when men like Bill Napoli say a woman who suffered "simple rape" should suck it up and have the kid, because she wasn't battered or forced to have sex with multiple men. It's hard for me to keep a level head when Gov. Jeb Bush cries over the inhumanity of abortion while he is tight-fisted with money for children's programs and won't let gay people adopt. It's hard for me when people are willing to kill doctors, prevent pharmacists from giving out needed medicine, and harass poor taxi drivers who have the gall to escort paying women to the abortion clinic as conspirators in a murder.
Of course, these things are not what all pro-life, probably most pro-life, people approve of or want. There are legitimate, well-meaning reasons to be against abortion -- my boyfriend tells me them all the time. If I get pregnant, I have no plans to abort the child. But I am not everyone, and everyone has different reasons for feeling the way they do.
Some say one shouldn't abort because of religion, but not everyone has the same religion. Some say one shouldn't abort because others would want to adopt the baby, but American adoptions are so full of red tape that many don't want to bother even trying to adopt babies in the United States. Some say one shouldn't abort because it's not taking responsibility for your actions, but others may think it's more responsible to not bring another child in this world than to abandon it to the state.
Some people may think this reasoning is flawed, but for many they are not. For many the belief in choice is a close and valuable one. It was one of feminism's largest victories. Some who point out the large number of pro-life women in the world don't understand this, but for women who fear the Bill Napolis and Jeb Bushs of the world, for women who fear the very real and still remaining stigmatization of single mothers, the right to choose is something to hold close and to hold fast.
I am pro-choice. I am pro-choice because women should have a weapon against the sexist attitudes of people like Napoli and the anti-child attitudes of people like Jeb Bush. I am pro-choice because women should not be forced into a life they are not ready to live. I am pro-choice because women who want to abort should not feel like they have to do it in an unsafe, illegal environment.
But, if you have read to the end, I want you all to know I don't think those choice should be taken lightly. I want you to all be aware America has far more unwanted pregnancies than any other industrialized country. I want you to think about how many loving couples want to adopt but can't because they're both the same sex.
I really want us to put aside all this and work to cure these problems with knowledge and not scare tactics. We should have comprehensive sex education, which is proven to work, instead of abstinence-only, which has not held up in any study. We should care more for our children in adoptive and foster care. We should not cut funding for women's centers overseas which help with essential reproductive care beyond abortion.
George W. Bush has not been willing to do this. I can only hope that whomever is president next will be different.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Oh, dear ...
From here.
I could do without the totally creepy background detail of Sakura’s mother getting married at the age of sixteen, but I’m letting it slide for now.
Ooooh ... you're in for quite a few surprises, Karen. @_@
I could do without the totally creepy background detail of Sakura’s mother getting married at the age of sixteen, but I’m letting it slide for now.
Ooooh ... you're in for quite a few surprises, Karen. @_@
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Fanfic to the eXtreme!
Okay, so it took me weeks to do this in my actual move to the first state, but I'm here to review what can probably best be known as "eXtreme fanfic" ... and I say that with my tongue way, way, way, way in cheek. It's something my brother said, after all.
So, what constitutes eXtreme fanfic? How about a $75 porn collection where Alice (of Wonderland), Dorothy (of Oz) and Wendy (of Neverland) all do the nasty? Or how about Tiny Tim all grown up and working in a brothel house when he stumbles on a child prostitution ring? eXtreme? I would say so!
Lost Girls
by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
If you're in the comic book fandom in any capacity, this graphic novel needs no introduction. If you're not ... the short story is that the three aforementioned girl-goes-to-a-magical-land heroines all meet up in a hotel as adults and tell each other the stories of their sexual awakenings, which are all loosely represented as the original tales.
Opinions of this book have ranged from "this is a work of genius" to "this is appalling trash" to "this is so outdated and sexist and lame." I fall firmly into one of these categories, but before I tell you which, I want to say a couple of things.
First of all, one of the very true things about this book is that it knows no taboos. Working on the assumption that this is, at it's heart, a work of fiction ABOUT works of fiction, Moore and Gebbie take that conclusion to the [cough] ... extreme. This comic contains homosexuality, beastiality, and incest ... in a couple of scenes with characters who are not only underage, but are obviously prepubescent. So, there basically are going to be some scenes that are going to make you uncomfortable (I was uncomfortable, anyway).
The other thing is this, I've read a couple of books by Alan Moore: Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 & 2, The Mirror of Love and Marvel's Captain Britan trade. I think all of these books have ranged from excellent to sublime, but their beginnings? With the exception of The Mirror of Love, not so much. The beginnings to both LoEGs are obtuse and boring (especially in number two, where the whole first issue of a sequel story starts us off with characters we never saw in the last story and aren't seen for the rest of the tale). Captain Britan nearly put me to sleep. Even Watchmen, which starts off with the blood-stained happy face and a murder mystery, is outshone by the later chapters.
So, when he and Gebbie start Lost Girls, what do they do? They dump the first couple of chapters into the market, stop to finish the rest, and end up doing so over a decade. So the impression left in everyone's minds is of the typical slow-burn Alan Moore beginning with a naked, elderly Alice talking to reflection in a mirror, a silver-shoed Dorothy getting fucked by someone the audience doesn't know, and Wendy and her husband's Austin Powers-esque shadow play. These passages are servicable, and re-acquaint us with the characters/acquaint us with Moore and Gebbie's versions of the characters but that's just it.
So I think Lost Girls was just a tough sell to begin with, and the exorbiant price tag just made it worse for people who were ready to hate the book based on the little they saw, which was not a very good representation of the rest of the work. This is a shame, because it's left people with the impression that this is basically just pretty, exploitative femmeslash.
It's too bad. Because the book is so much more than just a bunch of old fantasy characters having sex with each other. It's also about what they have to say about sex: how it feels, what it does, the good and the bad about it. One of the best illustrations of this comes at the end of the first book, when the characters go see "The Rite of Spring" and become sexually inspired by the work, because I think it's just a perfect representation of what it feels like to read or watch something and have those feelings awakened. I remember being in awe when I read it, because Moore, supplemented by Gebbie's free-wheeling, dreamlike art, just caught it all so well.
The book is also brilliant in how it utilizes the cliches of pornography while making a comment and adding depth to them at the same time. For example, Wendy starts off as one of pornography's stock characters: the repressed woman who needs a good fucking. This is usually a sexist cliche, and Moore follows it to an extent when Alice quasi-rapes Wendy, who soon grows to enjoy it. However, as Wendy's story comes to its conclusion, we see her as she once was: someone who not only was familiar with sex, but faced it's ugliness incarnate as a sexual woman and emerged a damaged warrior.
And Gebbie's art is beautiful, both as her own and in her pastiches of various artists. And yes, resentful slashgirls, there is m/m in this story, so long as you don't mind the old men. Some of it's more explict than some yaoi, even.
I don't think I'm going to change anyone's minds with this review, but I thought this book was one of the greatest things I've ever read: it's explicit without being exploitative and appeals to both the base and cerebral in the reader. At least it does for me. I love it.
I must ask, though ... what brings to mind lesbianism and mental institutions when it comes to Alice. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland had the Wonderland-characters-as-horny-women theme and American McGee's Alice takes place in a mental institution. I must be interrogating the text from the wrong perspective ... and all.
Mr. Timothy
By Louis Bayard
I still don't know where you get "A grown-up Tiny Tim stumbles on a child prostitution ring" out of the original story. I really don't. What was his pitch like? Why did they take this on the basis of that pitch? Did curiosity get the best of the publishers?
At any rate, I'm glad it did. As weird as the concept is, this book is actually very good. Bayard said in the Afterword that he didn't mean for this to be an imitation of a Charles Dickens novel, and indeed it doesn't feel like one. In fact, it often mocks the conventions of a Dickens novel. However, Bayard does so in a manner that sort of turns around again back into a homage. When he writes the reformed Scrooge as getting so into Christmas that he keeps up the decorations and serves wassail well into March, it may seem like Bayard is making fun of Dickens, but on the other hand, extremely eccentric characters who took their behavior to such extremes are common in Dickens novels, as are characters with houses which reflect their personalities.
Overall, I would say that while the book does not feel like it was written by Dickens, it feels like it takes place within the same universe, albiet a darker corner. Stuff like Captain Gully having a wrench instead of a hook and having a house infested with cats to the point where three come running out the door when Timothy opens it seem right at home. As does the overall theme of evil adults preying on the weak children. Of course, Dickens would never show a girl being raped and the Artful Dodger would never grope a woman like the 11-year-old rascal Colin the Melodious ...
Plus, the book works really well as a thriller. I felt engaged throughout the whole thing, even through some of the harder vocabulary. I think if you like Dickens, you should give this one a try. It's a really interesting and entertaining work. Plus, Dickens himself makes two cameos as "the staring guy."
Next: I don't know, either Lupin the first or Battle Royale manga
So, what constitutes eXtreme fanfic? How about a $75 porn collection where Alice (of Wonderland), Dorothy (of Oz) and Wendy (of Neverland) all do the nasty? Or how about Tiny Tim all grown up and working in a brothel house when he stumbles on a child prostitution ring? eXtreme? I would say so!
Lost Girls
by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
If you're in the comic book fandom in any capacity, this graphic novel needs no introduction. If you're not ... the short story is that the three aforementioned girl-goes-to-a-magical-land heroines all meet up in a hotel as adults and tell each other the stories of their sexual awakenings, which are all loosely represented as the original tales.
Opinions of this book have ranged from "this is a work of genius" to "this is appalling trash" to "this is so outdated and sexist and lame." I fall firmly into one of these categories, but before I tell you which, I want to say a couple of things.
First of all, one of the very true things about this book is that it knows no taboos. Working on the assumption that this is, at it's heart, a work of fiction ABOUT works of fiction, Moore and Gebbie take that conclusion to the [cough] ... extreme. This comic contains homosexuality, beastiality, and incest ... in a couple of scenes with characters who are not only underage, but are obviously prepubescent. So, there basically are going to be some scenes that are going to make you uncomfortable (I was uncomfortable, anyway).
The other thing is this, I've read a couple of books by Alan Moore: Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 & 2, The Mirror of Love and Marvel's Captain Britan trade. I think all of these books have ranged from excellent to sublime, but their beginnings? With the exception of The Mirror of Love, not so much. The beginnings to both LoEGs are obtuse and boring (especially in number two, where the whole first issue of a sequel story starts us off with characters we never saw in the last story and aren't seen for the rest of the tale). Captain Britan nearly put me to sleep. Even Watchmen, which starts off with the blood-stained happy face and a murder mystery, is outshone by the later chapters.
So, when he and Gebbie start Lost Girls, what do they do? They dump the first couple of chapters into the market, stop to finish the rest, and end up doing so over a decade. So the impression left in everyone's minds is of the typical slow-burn Alan Moore beginning with a naked, elderly Alice talking to reflection in a mirror, a silver-shoed Dorothy getting fucked by someone the audience doesn't know, and Wendy and her husband's Austin Powers-esque shadow play. These passages are servicable, and re-acquaint us with the characters/acquaint us with Moore and Gebbie's versions of the characters but that's just it.
So I think Lost Girls was just a tough sell to begin with, and the exorbiant price tag just made it worse for people who were ready to hate the book based on the little they saw, which was not a very good representation of the rest of the work. This is a shame, because it's left people with the impression that this is basically just pretty, exploitative femmeslash.
It's too bad. Because the book is so much more than just a bunch of old fantasy characters having sex with each other. It's also about what they have to say about sex: how it feels, what it does, the good and the bad about it. One of the best illustrations of this comes at the end of the first book, when the characters go see "The Rite of Spring" and become sexually inspired by the work, because I think it's just a perfect representation of what it feels like to read or watch something and have those feelings awakened. I remember being in awe when I read it, because Moore, supplemented by Gebbie's free-wheeling, dreamlike art, just caught it all so well.
The book is also brilliant in how it utilizes the cliches of pornography while making a comment and adding depth to them at the same time. For example, Wendy starts off as one of pornography's stock characters: the repressed woman who needs a good fucking. This is usually a sexist cliche, and Moore follows it to an extent when Alice quasi-rapes Wendy, who soon grows to enjoy it. However, as Wendy's story comes to its conclusion, we see her as she once was: someone who not only was familiar with sex, but faced it's ugliness incarnate as a sexual woman and emerged a damaged warrior.
And Gebbie's art is beautiful, both as her own and in her pastiches of various artists. And yes, resentful slashgirls, there is m/m in this story, so long as you don't mind the old men. Some of it's more explict than some yaoi, even.
I don't think I'm going to change anyone's minds with this review, but I thought this book was one of the greatest things I've ever read: it's explicit without being exploitative and appeals to both the base and cerebral in the reader. At least it does for me. I love it.
I must ask, though ... what brings to mind lesbianism and mental institutions when it comes to Alice. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland had the Wonderland-characters-as-horny-women theme and American McGee's Alice takes place in a mental institution. I must be interrogating the text from the wrong perspective ... and all.
Mr. Timothy
By Louis Bayard
I still don't know where you get "A grown-up Tiny Tim stumbles on a child prostitution ring" out of the original story. I really don't. What was his pitch like? Why did they take this on the basis of that pitch? Did curiosity get the best of the publishers?
At any rate, I'm glad it did. As weird as the concept is, this book is actually very good. Bayard said in the Afterword that he didn't mean for this to be an imitation of a Charles Dickens novel, and indeed it doesn't feel like one. In fact, it often mocks the conventions of a Dickens novel. However, Bayard does so in a manner that sort of turns around again back into a homage. When he writes the reformed Scrooge as getting so into Christmas that he keeps up the decorations and serves wassail well into March, it may seem like Bayard is making fun of Dickens, but on the other hand, extremely eccentric characters who took their behavior to such extremes are common in Dickens novels, as are characters with houses which reflect their personalities.
Overall, I would say that while the book does not feel like it was written by Dickens, it feels like it takes place within the same universe, albiet a darker corner. Stuff like Captain Gully having a wrench instead of a hook and having a house infested with cats to the point where three come running out the door when Timothy opens it seem right at home. As does the overall theme of evil adults preying on the weak children. Of course, Dickens would never show a girl being raped and the Artful Dodger would never grope a woman like the 11-year-old rascal Colin the Melodious ...
Plus, the book works really well as a thriller. I felt engaged throughout the whole thing, even through some of the harder vocabulary. I think if you like Dickens, you should give this one a try. It's a really interesting and entertaining work. Plus, Dickens himself makes two cameos as "the staring guy."
Next: I don't know, either Lupin the first or Battle Royale manga
Sunday, November 26, 2006
More like Poorly-Argued Myopic Guide to English and American Literature...
So ... occasionally there are these books in the store at soon-to-be-left menial job, and they're called The Politically Incorrect Guides (P.I.G.) to whatever. I skimmed through their anti-feminism book once, basically seeing the old standard, "Oh, well you may think that you're happy with your jobs but you're totally miserable and you're totally going to miss out on the joy of having babies" in the pages. Now I skimmed their PIG to English and American Literature, specifically writer Elizabeth Kantor's section on Charles Dickens, as he's my favorite writer and all.
Sheesh. I can't believe this woman has a Ph. D. Her attempt to re-cast Dickens as a champion of conservative values (and not a great liberal reformer) could have worked ... especially because the true Charles Dickens was a fully formed human being with complex feelings and contradictions whose opinions changed over time and some of those feelings were, indeed, conservative. Unfortunatley, she made her point pretty much through anecdotal evidence. A Tale of Two Cities is anti-liberal because it's anti-revolutionary and this is true because Margaret Thatcher said so! Dickens is anti-liberal because of my interpretation of one character in Bleak House. Granted, I haven't read either but considering that those two statements are pretty much the crux of her argument, she sounds like she's reaching. However, I have read Hard Times, which she claims has anti-liberal sensibilities because Dickens criticizes "radical education systems." Oh, you mean that system that reduced children to learning facts at the expense of imagination and creativity? Oh yeah ... that totally sounds like something that a liberal would like. Her assertion that Dickens is also anti-liberal because he ignores unintended consequences (which is a dubious claim to begin with) and then not backing it up with any examples from the book was also special (unless she counts Mrs. Jelby, but even that's only one).
As for the rest, the book seemed rather myopic. She dismissed even analyzing Steven King, comic books and pornography because they're not "real literature". Look, you may prefer them, Dr. Kantor, you may even believe that they're not as valuable as a Shakespeare play, but that doesn't mean that they don't have effects on pop culture in general and shouldn't be analyzed. I also wasn't fond how she dismissed Virginia Woolf's analyses because she's just a "petty and catty feminist". She would probably argue that this feeling just makes me another "petty and catty" feminist. Actually, the part of the book where she called feminists crazy, foot-stamping nuts who just can't accept the truth of the natural roles of male and female was rather telling ... in the face of a disagreeable viewpoint, just dismiss the other side as "crazy." It's the written equivalent of "Well, I'm right and you're a butt-face!"
Still, I have to say that I was sad Dr. Kantor didn't review Jane Eyre (she did say that she liked the Brontes). I would have liked to have seen her ignore the challenges to gender roles and interpreting Jane as a wonderful Christian who wouldn't have pre-marital sex and was rewarded with a man ... who now has to totally depend on her for everything but that's just evidence of how a woman should give up everything for a man, really! The cognitive dissonance would have been cute.
Seriously, though ... trying to crunch the culture of the past into the narrow political boxes of today -- liberal or conservative -- is pretty much a huge mistake. You end up seeing what you want to see and not the whole picture ... but I guess that's the point of the P.I.G. series.
Next time I'll review a book that I read the whole way through, though. Tune in for ... comic book porn! (No, really.)
Sheesh. I can't believe this woman has a Ph. D. Her attempt to re-cast Dickens as a champion of conservative values (and not a great liberal reformer) could have worked ... especially because the true Charles Dickens was a fully formed human being with complex feelings and contradictions whose opinions changed over time and some of those feelings were, indeed, conservative. Unfortunatley, she made her point pretty much through anecdotal evidence. A Tale of Two Cities is anti-liberal because it's anti-revolutionary and this is true because Margaret Thatcher said so! Dickens is anti-liberal because of my interpretation of one character in Bleak House. Granted, I haven't read either but considering that those two statements are pretty much the crux of her argument, she sounds like she's reaching. However, I have read Hard Times, which she claims has anti-liberal sensibilities because Dickens criticizes "radical education systems." Oh, you mean that system that reduced children to learning facts at the expense of imagination and creativity? Oh yeah ... that totally sounds like something that a liberal would like. Her assertion that Dickens is also anti-liberal because he ignores unintended consequences (which is a dubious claim to begin with) and then not backing it up with any examples from the book was also special (unless she counts Mrs. Jelby, but even that's only one).
As for the rest, the book seemed rather myopic. She dismissed even analyzing Steven King, comic books and pornography because they're not "real literature". Look, you may prefer them, Dr. Kantor, you may even believe that they're not as valuable as a Shakespeare play, but that doesn't mean that they don't have effects on pop culture in general and shouldn't be analyzed. I also wasn't fond how she dismissed Virginia Woolf's analyses because she's just a "petty and catty feminist". She would probably argue that this feeling just makes me another "petty and catty" feminist. Actually, the part of the book where she called feminists crazy, foot-stamping nuts who just can't accept the truth of the natural roles of male and female was rather telling ... in the face of a disagreeable viewpoint, just dismiss the other side as "crazy." It's the written equivalent of "Well, I'm right and you're a butt-face!"
Still, I have to say that I was sad Dr. Kantor didn't review Jane Eyre (she did say that she liked the Brontes). I would have liked to have seen her ignore the challenges to gender roles and interpreting Jane as a wonderful Christian who wouldn't have pre-marital sex and was rewarded with a man ... who now has to totally depend on her for everything but that's just evidence of how a woman should give up everything for a man, really! The cognitive dissonance would have been cute.
Seriously, though ... trying to crunch the culture of the past into the narrow political boxes of today -- liberal or conservative -- is pretty much a huge mistake. You end up seeing what you want to see and not the whole picture ... but I guess that's the point of the P.I.G. series.
Next time I'll review a book that I read the whole way through, though. Tune in for ... comic book porn! (No, really.)
Friday, November 24, 2006
An Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my new blog! I figured it goes with my new life in which I don't live in New Jersey and don't have a menial job.
Basically, here's the short story of who I am. I'd lived in New Jersey for all my life with my Mom, Dad and little brother. Other than getting picked on a lot in school, life was pretty uneventful until I was about twelve. When I was 12 my Dad came out as gay to me, and I was molested by a classmate. Things felt pretty uncool for a couple of years after that, especially around 16 when one of my uncles got ALS and had to come live with us (he eventually died about a year later) and my Dad left the house. Lucky for me, high school was fairly pleasant, despite attending during the years of the Columbine High School massacre and the 9-11 attacks. After that, I went to college, eventful years where I went to very few parties but met some friends and a boyfriend. In the end, I recieved a BA in Communications with a specialization in Journalism (I also minored in Political Science) and graduated with a manga cum laude.
And now, after six months of menial job purgatory, I've gotten to use that degree in the lovely land of ... Delaware. Or I'm going to do so. I'll be doing that in a week. Until then, I shall be around with harrowing tales of what I read today, because from everything I heard there's not much to do in Delaware.
Basically, here's the short story of who I am. I'd lived in New Jersey for all my life with my Mom, Dad and little brother. Other than getting picked on a lot in school, life was pretty uneventful until I was about twelve. When I was 12 my Dad came out as gay to me, and I was molested by a classmate. Things felt pretty uncool for a couple of years after that, especially around 16 when one of my uncles got ALS and had to come live with us (he eventually died about a year later) and my Dad left the house. Lucky for me, high school was fairly pleasant, despite attending during the years of the Columbine High School massacre and the 9-11 attacks. After that, I went to college, eventful years where I went to very few parties but met some friends and a boyfriend. In the end, I recieved a BA in Communications with a specialization in Journalism (I also minored in Political Science) and graduated with a manga cum laude.
And now, after six months of menial job purgatory, I've gotten to use that degree in the lovely land of ... Delaware. Or I'm going to do so. I'll be doing that in a week. Until then, I shall be around with harrowing tales of what I read today, because from everything I heard there's not much to do in Delaware.
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