Not Anonymous

Brilliant movie, it was like coming home after a decade, especially seeing as I went to see it with my brother who forced me to read the books back in the day.

I saw the "Lord of the Rings" back in the day and loved them too.

Though unlike LotR, the Hobbit was like watching a Viking mash-up of the book of Exodus and the Seder Hadaga (as I mentioned on tumblr), the Jewish metaphor was strong.

I'll be seeing it again in a few weeks.

I highly recommend it.

Yeah, I know, usually I have more to say about this sort of thing, but I feel like a proper review will have to wait for next year, because then I'll see how it ends.

Talking about The Dark Knight Rises on Twitter, has enabled me to flesh out my thoughts regarding the movie.

( Here they are along with spoilers )

So, like, I know I'm the party-pooper when it comes to the fun of Fandom.

I know I'm Waldorf to someone else's Statler (or vice versa), but I am irked.

It irks me when things like this are received with a *squee* and nary a side eye.

As per the link, there was a panel at SDCC on X-Men and the subject of LGBT themes came up. Zack Stentz, who was involved in writing X-Men: First Class is quoted:

[...]
Stentz basically confirmed Erik/Charles (he called First Class, “the tragic romance of Charles and Erik”) and went on to describe how if certain events/personal ideologies/chosen paths hadn’t forced them apart, Erik and Charles would most certainly be together. According to him, it’s one of those “they’re meant for each other, but fate refuses to let them stay together” situations.

That's nice.

Really it is.

About as nice as being told Professor Dumbledore was gay, two years (if IIRC) after he died.

The fandom went wild, as did I at the time, until I thought about the implications of outing him post-mortem.

And this, oh, the tragic love story of two men who have never ever in the canon shown any kind of evidence beyond subtext that we need to look for, that they loved each other in a way that went deeper than friendship, or even brotherhood.

That quote, right there, that feels like pandering. It feels like fan service. It feels like, there was a big loaf of bread somewhere when it came to who got the benefit of being represented in an honest way in a genre movie.

I don't want to have to have the "Word of God" confirm subtext they put in there so that they could be implicit, rather than explicit, about character development and desire. I don't want a panel at SDCC to tell me that the margins of the text are slightly wider than they were before.

I don't want to be happy about the fact that a movie filled with plausible deniability is a vindication of queer readings in a film, chock full of code and subtext that exists to make the aforementioned deniability hold strong.

The most we can say is "thank god no one is running for the hills due to queer implication" and no it doesn't really matter what the sexuality of the creators are - what matters is what is conveyed and while what is conveyed in the movie is brilliant, this is not a movie that has queer people in it. It is a movie that has queer themes and implications running through it.

Nuance is fun, ambiguity is one of my favourite things. But not at the cost of real, actual, honest to god, LGBT representation.

When am I getting my Batwoman movie?! Oh, never? Thought so. Is Northstar ever going to be something other than a gay Canadian Speedster? No, oh well.

Apollo? Mignighter? Maybe on HBO or Showtime? Yeah, maybe.

Crossposts: http://eumelia.livejournal.com/547114.html

This seems a bit of a silly reason to break radio silence - but man, I have to say my piece. My life is so freakin' hectic at the moment, but fandom is a place of rest of relaxation - so what if I'm a *squee*-harsher.

I'm in the midst of writing a fic in the universe of "X-Men: First Class". I am slogging through it because I have a kink for being as historically accurate as possible when it comes to the portrayal of characters - yes, I do love "Mad Men". I haven't finished it yet, but I will.

This post contains very slight spoilers for "X-Men:First Class", you were warned.

The fandom for this movie is very sweet, I must say. Everyone is *squeeing*, there are fanmixes galore and the well, these young versions of Magneto and Professor X are very pretty indeed. It helps that the actors seem to enjoy fan service and go out of their way to cater to the subtextual narrative that is on everyone's mind.

And really, it is on everyone's mind. And article that came out yesterday titled Magneto and Professor X Had Sex at the Movies This Summer - Did You See It?, in which the author goes on to lay wide open that which slashers see on an almost automatic level - the homoeroticism as homosexual - the emotional ties as romantic feelings.

It feels nice to have that reading acknowledged by the mainstream. Really it does. The queer and racial narratives of X-Men has existed since they began being published back in the Silver Age's Hey Day of the early 60's. Back then, it was much more subtle and the clues were there to find if you knew how to crack at that code.

Nowadays it seems as though the actors are given carte blanche to play as gay as possible... without any acknowledgement of the fact.
I see it in "White Collar", I see it in "Sherlock" by Moffat and "Sherlock Holmes" by Ritchie and now in "X-Men: First Class".
The queer is part of the narrative, by virtue of many of the main/title characters being set apart from other characters who view them as different and differentiated.
Neal from "White Collar" is outside the law.
Sherlock Holmes is outside human thought.
The mutants are beyond humanity itself.

A queer reading is practically mandatory, but in the way homosexuality is constructed in the media today, plausible deniability, in which the straight viewers reside, is built in.
Homosexual desire is hinted at, allegorised or played up for fan service rather than be showen (rahter than told, no one needs to "say" they are "gay". Okay!?) as genuine desire between people in a mainstream cinematic or television event.

The clues in "X-Men: First Class" can be read, as I mentioned, if you know the code.
"I thought I was alone", Erik says to Charles. So did the majority of queers until they met someone else like them later in life.
The tears the two men share, it is a heart wrenching scene, in which the pleasure of using their powers with each other (their so-called deviancy) and together is palpable.
On their so-called "Divorce" on the beach (a term I find extremely distasteful, considering the state of same-sex marriage around the world, the happy News from NYS notwithstanding, and especially considering the idea of queer sexuality being framed into the structure of marriage), they cry and embrace, but do not kiss, which would have happened between a man and a woman.

It being 1962, that makes sense, because public displays of affection between two men was highly ill advised when not in a specific queer place.
Edited to Add: And it's not as though it's that safe for us these days (these of so progressive days) either. Or that specific queer places are in fact safer than most. they're not (link may be triggering). I'm somewhat shocked at myself for neglecting to say this, but I'll blame it on being focused on media rather than experience.

But the subtext that is being brought to the surface all the time, because it is being played up off-screen by James MacAvoy and Michael Fassbender (much like Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law two years ago) gives the illusion that queer representation in mainstream blockbusters is actually on the rise, when all it is, is badly concealed *wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more* titillation of the idea of gayness.

Say no more indeed.
God forbid that instead of the phallic chess pieces between them, we saw an actual erotic embrace with a PG-13 appropriate fade to black.

But who needs actual gay superheroes?

Oh, and I hated the article linked above.

Yes, that was sarcasm. Now, I'm going back to fixing the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's gonna be a gas!

I'm not a Marvel fan, so you'll have to live with the Wonder Woman icon.

I am, however, greatly appreciative of "X-Men: First Class", seeing as it was a Hero's Journey and that hero was ( Magneto )

For the TL;DR people among you. It was awesome, I really really liked it. It is full of slash. It has problems with the way it portrays gender and race, it could've been better.

One of the most wonderful things about Swan Lake is the music. Tchaikovsky is my favourite classical composer, and besides the 1812 Overture, very likely his most well known melody is that damn theme:



It was that theme and of course the entire story of the ballet that accompanied the gruesome story of suffering we are put through when we watch Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.

( Cut for spoilers, deep thoughts and possibly scathing reviews )

OMG!

My excitement for Torchwood has renewed!

Mekhi Phifer is in the cast!

YAYZ! I love him, he's such an amazing actor and I can't wait for the "I don't like you" glares to happen between him and Jack/JB because he does them so well!

I took a step back from Torchwood since the summer, mainly because other fandoms took my fancy and also because, well, I needed a break. I'd been into reading and commenting quite a bit (for me) in that fandom more than any other and frankly, it was exsausting, especially since the Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun shcism that followed 2009 - I'm actually impressed that I kept on full speef for nearly a year.

Then came Inceptiom and honestly, Eames and Arthur and Ariadne are totally my "replacements" for Jack and Ianto and Gwen. There's an interesting parallel between the Torchwood five man band and the Inception.

Huh?

I may talk about that later.

Speaking of which... guess who is hugging her Inception DVD as she writes this.

Hells yes!

So Happy!

I didn't get the new-fangled, special super duper Blue-Ray edition. I just wanted the movie dude.

Now I have it and I will be watching it.

Laters!

*Is devoured by the fangrrl monster!*

Due to a lot of circumstances, I went to see The Social Network last night, while with a head cold, a heavy heart and weary bones which I will tell you about at a later date.

I didn't listen to the hype, or tried not to, and went to see it because of the reason I generally go see movies in which I don't know any of the actors (other than Justin Timberlake, who a real turn off for me, I find him so unappealing as a persona) is the director.

David Fincher, he who did Fight Club, which was a work of sheer brilliance and in a funny way almost an antithesis to The Social Network when you think about it.

In any event, my reaction to the film was "Excellent script, awesome music, okay movie".

The script, by one Aaron Sorkin is possibly the saviour of this movie and could get the Oscar nod, because like all of his writing, it is witty, fast, funny and entrenched with double-triple meaning and force - the words are very much the driving force of the movie - with good reason, as the movie is about a bunch of boys writing code - think Hackers only without the 80's get up and nefarious 80's greed.

Start-Up Greed is the protagonists right, don't you know.

A bunch of boys writing code, making money and getting (or trying to get) laid. Can't say I've never seen it before, but because it's a biopic and based on a True Story and all that, it is supposed to give it an extra edge. Maybe.

I wasn't moved by the film, as I've read others who were. It was funny in parts, the music - as I said - was awesome, but hey when you've got Trent Reznor on board it can't be all that bad.
I wasn't moved because I felt absolutely no sympathy, empathy or one iota of identification with any of the main characters. No one. Certainly not Zuckerberg who, as portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg has one expression to his name... apathy (and skeeviness, yikes).

Total and utter apathy and I must say that's the feeling one get throughout the movie he simply does not care about anything, other than showing his superiority over anyone and everyone, something I would normally be all for, because I myself am a pretty condescending ass-hole when I want to be (or inadvertently) but as a characteristic of the main character I was less than moved, not to mention that he was just boring to watch.
(I was also less than impressed with the fact that we were supposed to sympathise with him at all, especially at the end, when he's shown to be "just another lonely nerd holding on the girl who got away". No, it's creepy)
I haven't seen Zombieland but was told by my friend, with whom I went to see the film and had seen Zombieland that Eisenberg had pretty much the same expression and inflection here as he did there.

I'm not impressed.

Andrew Garfield was by far the most entertaining, also the most sympathetic character, which isn't saying much really. I got the feeling that Eduardo Saverin was no less of an ass-hole than Zuckerberg, but simply had better face-to-face people skills.

The less said about Sean Parker the better. Seriously?

I'll conclude by saying that this movie is much ado about nothing. I went to see it because it does encapsulate a part of culture in which I am entrenched, but the story it tells is a boring one. The hype is about the subject matter, the execution was not bad, but I've seen much better movies when it comes to this type of drama. I've also seen much much worse, but really now? Oscar buzz? As I said, maybe for the script, the editing, the technical stuff etc, because those really were good and they really do save the film.
As the performances were pretty much... meh.

As a piece of fiction it was derivative, as a piece of social commentary it falls flat and as for its quality of entertainment... I might download the soundtrack.

Thanks Sean!

I am still not a huge participant in Inception fandom, I comment little and read much, but I read practically everything there in my preferred characters (which honestly it's almost all of them, so I end up reading a lot).
But I lurk, it's easy to lurk and avoid the fail. Of which there is lots let me tell you, of the sexist kind, the hetero-normative kind, the constant use of Magical Healing Cock, dear god and... the racist kind.

However, there is a lot to chose from and as per usual I tend to skip stories I perceive as to be written when the characters are OOC - Out of Character - as in, do things I don' think they'd do or do things I'm particularly uncomfortable with.

Such a story exists and it is currently the topic of debate in this monster of a baby fandom.
The fic is Metaphores as mixed as you can make them by halflinen, which is about, according to the Author's Note summery: Eames tries to incept Arthur. A story of forgiveness, family, fancy suits, and ~feelings.
I didn't read it, because I don't think or I am uncomfortable with the idea, that Eames would ever do something like that to Arthur.
My perception of Eames doesn't fit with his characterisation in this fic and so I didn't read it.

Another thing that apparently happened in this fic is that Eames is casually racist towards Yusuf - one of the only two non-white characters in the movie - and well, readers have said so to the author.
And have expanded upon what they said to the author
There's another example of a different fic (that I liked) that has begun to be discussed, but it's somewhat different as it isn't a character being racist towards Yusuf, but more a use of the stereotype in the narrative to make a joke about something else entirely, but because it is tied to Yusuf and his Desi heritage it can be construed as an unfortunate combination in the material of the text.

Sorry, I went literature student there, be thankful I did say an "unfortunate metonymy".
( There is Meta and a Point! )

And so my unpopular opinion is thus: exchanges, characterisations and textual proximities may be written in a casually racist way, but they too can be interpreted in a manner in which it actually suits the characters, narrative and don't necessarily mean that the author's ass is showing.
Critique of fic is necessary, good and should be a bigger part of fandom. The writing of issues race, gender relations, gender identity, sexuality, physical, mental and cognitive abilities is also necessary, good and should be done with more thought, rather than regurgitate the old stereotypes, however, things tend to be interpreted differently depending on one's standpoint and that also needs to be taken into account.

Now, after all that, I'm going to read some fic.

Edited to Add: I just found an older post of mine that discusses this topic (during the terrible incident of the Haiti SPN story) and I have found that I've contradicted myself in this manner.
So I'll add that I think there's a difference between writing a story framed in a manner that serves as nothing more than a convenient background for the written fandom at hand and thus appropriates and disenfranchises other characters (and the people reading) which are marginalised (holocaut fail comes to mind) and an incident of characterisation and narrative in a particular story.

Again, the line is fine and this isn't a pass/fail thing, none of the criticisms I linked above do that, but is can easily turn into one and that's my fear when critiques begin to deconstruct fics in this manner - not because the critics are being over sensitive or because I'm "all about the art", but because I sometimes feel there is no space left for ambiguity.

I hate this female character flow chart with a passion I try to keep within me for causes that matter.

Luckily, this is one of them.

I am not the first to be irritated by it, no god no.

My main problem with the flow chart is that it reduces all female characters into foils of the male characters.
All of them.
It is especially irksome when Yoko Ono is there as well, being an actual person and all.

Sarah Connor, a heroine which we are afraid to see in this day and age, reduced to "Mama Bear".
Miss Piggy, one of my personal heroes, a performer of the highest calibre and one of the few regular female presence on "The Muppet Show", reduced to her mood swings, rather the hilarious comedienne that she is.
Lieutenant Uhura is useless?! In what freakin' universe!?!? A woman who held her own on the bridge of a Star Ship. I just... Ah!

Look at the flow-chart and judge for yourselves.

But judging is all that ever goes on when it comes to female characters, huh. It's all about whether they fit a paradigm of looks, abilities and personae.

Do male characters not fit that flow chart. You bet they do, but will there ever be a flow chart so demeaning? No, of course not, that flow chart will be critical and thoughtful and be about the characters as Characters, not the characters as "men".

The chart also demonstrates the notion that archetypes and tropes are a bad thing. I beg to differ, archetypes and tropes are what make a story work. If we look at the shortest form of a story, a joke, the comedy (and tragedy) of the tale works because we understand the history of the character as an archetype and we understand the situation the character is in because it is a common trope.

A horse walks into a bar, the bartender says, "Hey, why the long face"

Despite that joke being as old as the hills, it demonstrates my point - the characters, of which there are two, are in a common setting (a bar) and the funny is in the way is treated (as a human) by the bartender.

The joke wouldn't work without the archetype of the bartender and the trope of being sad in a bar.

Is a "strong female character" someone who manages to overcome the archetypes and the tropes? No, a strong character, regardless of gender, orientation, race, nationality, ability and more, is a person who works those things beautifully.

It is of course worth mentioning, that gender, orientation, race, nationality and ability do matter, because of the white-supremacist masculine-centric hetero-normative society we live in, those characters who do not fit well into the social paradigm listen above are scrutinised, because they have been more often than not been stereotyped, instead of archetyped and as such their stories are, at best, written in order to appease the long laundry list of hierarchies listed above.

The thing is, when it's the feminists (hi there!) who create that chart and continue to critique female characters as though they cannot stand on their own, as though they really are simply gender foils to male characters - well then, what exactly is the point?

Other articles to read regarding our loving and/or loathing of female characters would be Harridans, Harlots and Heroines: women of the classical world, all of which would likely fit in that chart as either Fickle Woman, Lady of War, Shrew, Suffering Wife or an Ideal Woman.

And Connecting with Female Characters in Geek Television which goes in quite a bit about the truly irrational hatred of Gwen Cooper of Torchwood and River Song of Doctor Who - two women characters which have garnered a lot of fandom hatred to the point where it seems to be almost a fetish to write fic that simply bashes them.

I will admit that I didn't like Gwen (though not to the point of murdering her in fic for the sake of calling her a whore and getting rid of her from the lives of Jack and Ianto... yes, I've seen it! *shudders*) in the beginning, but fandom taught me to love her and River is someone I loved from the moment I saw her.

When feminists participate in this kind of misogyny, not to mention racism, check this article out from Den of Geek that came out in July... Martha Jones. Martha "I walked the Earth for a year in order to save the Universe and all I got was a boatload of female Doctor Who fans who hated me for it" Jones.

This is me, giving that article and that flow chart the two fingered salute, the birdie and the request to stop perpetuating sexist ideas about what female characters are supposed to be like in order to be "strong".

Sometimes, being a feminist fangrrl is just no fucking fun at all.