#ALSO DONT LISTEN TO THE CRITICS THIS MOVIE GOES SO HARD. I AM A CHANGED MAN ADFTER VIEWING HIT GAME FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S MOVIE ADAPTATIO
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this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin
hello everyone
as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces
i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends
keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better
i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again
im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me
lets talk about this
content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important
putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful
lets fucking unpack this folks
right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement
being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either
also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever
now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending
the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara
whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones
this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong
all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine
i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote
racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it
designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world
the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well
lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that
this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic
similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that
depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people
but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world
as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it
lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person
and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either
implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic
why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that
the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption
how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned
you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know
lets squiggle down just a bit further
so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you
none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity
do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much
can we also talk about this
what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god
on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ
oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel
oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this
also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad
hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her
hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate
and also what the fuck is that last bit
what the actual fuck
i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not
i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae
if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism
editors notes
in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah
the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007
also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee
i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but
im going to throw up
okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened
please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.
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Spirit of Rock and Roll, spirit of Creation.
This is a continuation of Fantasy, good, bad and ugly.
DISCLAIMER: Most of what I am writing here is for myself and not much consideration will take place. This is just a write up of all the things ive experienced and researched on put together as concisely as possible. A practice essay of sorts.
Following a more applicable sense for Fantasy which is “Fantasy is an imagination derived from the Real World in order to better understand it” can have a huge list of consequences (Good and difficult), especially when creating a story. Some authors and story tellers have this in them naturally (Just look at George R. R. Martins Game of Thrones). But I am here to talk about a consequence that is (Or may) be happening that spawn bad fantasies due to unstoppable events.
Origins of Punk-Rock is the philosophy.
Music is one of the many topics of controversy that sprouts between the young generation and the older generation. When rock and roll became a thing, many of the songs were deemed too rowdy, noisy or maybe satanic. But I am talking about 1940′s, 50′s and 60′s. Rock and roll songs from that era are as innocent as a child compared to the music we have today, yet it still got criticized like that. The same way rough metal songs are criticized today. And these comments always seem to come from the older generation of people, perhaps another generation in Culture. Many of these bands and songs from those times actually thrived in these controversies and made them what they were as bands. This image that was rebellions for its time gave them that appeal and aesthetics.
But something happened, very slowly. Music got better, more people started to accept them. Rock and Roll no longer was the same, and as such the music either got worse or went into experimental directions.
One of which directions was directly tied to this change, and that is Punk-Rock. This new musical trend wanted to appeal with what made Rock and Roll controversial. That criticism that rock and roll gets is what Punk-Rock wants, the style of music, its attitude and eventually spreading across towards fashion and politics always aimed to create the bad side of Rock and Roll. The hilarious good Irony is that the criticism rock and roll gets is now pointed at Punk-Rock, which it wants, and as such makes Rock and Roll seem more innocent than it ever was before. Suddenly, people could tell apart from Good and Evil. Without Evil, you would not know what is Good. Without Punk-Rock, Rock and roll would not be anything different.
The best part of all this, how Punk-Rock bathed in the old and Assumed spirit of Rock and Roll, is that Punk-Rock was then untouchable. It was exactly what music, but mostly what society needed, eventually inspiring other genres going forwards in time. Punk-Rocks Rival, Hard Rock or Heavy Metal(A bit after Punk-Rock) was more about the music specifically. Punk-Rock was a trend that knew that Music was also part of society, it gave a little bit of a counter balance to the political scheme of things in more than just music. Because it had the attitude to challenge some kind of perception(This can be anything, music or political) with that old assumed spirit from Rock and Roll.
But I dont really Like to listen to punk-rock, but I understand it at least.
So how does this fit with Punk-Fantasy? Well, if you did read everything Ive written from my previous post, you should know that my narrative is pointing at speculating at fantasy and how perhaps it is getting softer, or less like fantasy and more just escapism. And I do mean to stretch Fantasy across most or all fiction such was Sci fi or alternate histories and more (Go read previous post if you havent). Fantasy in General is eroding, mostly due to new ways of presenting it. Things have gotten even newer in only 20-30 years.
Cinema, luxury of tools and arts are becoming less meaningful.
And I do not mean this in a poetic sense of “Meaningful”, I am talking about the product, the art itself is having less of a footprint upon existence than before. I could go on to create a list of the many things that changed in movies and perhaps games.
To paint you a picture of what I mean, think of the many trends between 80′s movies to today's movies:
Special effects looked more real in the 80′s
Stories were a lot less dated in the 80′s (Less dated as in their story subjects were more isolated or respected than how pandering or obviously politically biased many films of today).
How they were more genre specific than what is watered down of today.
Now these may sound like opinion, in some cases they are. But I am basically pointing at 80s movies in General versus movies of Today in general. Specifically the 80s and not further back because this is when things started to change noticeably. Much like music, the Movie industry were innovating and experimenting with new tools that they did not have before. People were either working harder or easier with the advent of computer special effects, movies have become a lot more normal with easier ways to collect and watch them as how they become even more normalized. Specifically the normalization part is the concern here as films such as Willow is now the subject of the moment when fantasy started to go down-hill.
In my theory, this all was made possible because of movies becoming normal. This is actually happening with games as well, if you are well versed in gaming and looking at its time-line of games and how they changed, that is the kind of relaxed change that is taking over story-telling. From what was purely just a Fun experience, is now an epic en devour all about telling the epic tale of Bratos, the god of Boar.
So, movies are visually looking better, and games are playing better and have the space to take hours of your life. This is actually a good thing, all things considered. But, the spirit that gets a creator to stumble and figure out how to create something beautiful and amazing is less likely to happen. A movie will have an infinite budget and have the best of the best working behind it only to end up mediocre at best once it comes out. It is why many independent games are loved as these creations are creations made by people who stumbled and figured out how to create something.
Ian McKellen is a good living evidence to this with how he almost wanted to quit acting because of the green screen technique they were using for The Hobbit(2013). Reprising his role from Lord of the rings(2003).
Only 10 years apart, technology has eliminated much of the spirit that goes into making a movie. Sincere talent or happy accidents is less likely to happen in mainstream fictional creations today. Creating insincere manufactured creations. This spreads into the genres or ways of telling stories they use. This can create a misinterpreted assumption for younger generations. The future creators of tomorrow may learn from bad fiction.
I have to thank my mother for sharing with me movies beyond my time of birth when i was a kid, as I would have easily been influenced by present media of the 90′s. I am still influenced but at-least I can separate what is good and bad that I liked or still like. One of the many things a lot of schools will teach is to go back in time to find old gems and learn from them. So far back as the silent movies, this same philosophy applies to most or everything. This is not in an attempt to copy the stories from the past, but rather see what the creators had to do, and what it came to create something at all.
An example is the difference of Animation from 1930′s versus Today. We can all be thankful for the advent of technology, but the spirit of creation, the spirit of careful planning, great demand for talent etc was all required and dependent on.
So, what my narrative wants to finally get to is...
to accept that this change going into the future will always happen. Even beyond death, something new can come up and change genres, feelings etc as we know it. The way video games has you do, from how a movie has you watch is an undeniable difference.
What we have to look at is HOW it is being told. I mentioned how Fantasy is Vague even as a genre. I propose a philosophy, equally vague but tries to attune to a great effort/Spirit of creating despite technology spoiling us. Stories are now too easy to tell, so lets give some counter-balance with my(not really mine) prospect that is Punk-Fantasy.
(Continued in a future write up)
(Damnit, looks like this is going to become 3 parts)
#real talk#essay#fantasy#punk fantasy#the hobbit#rock and roll#punk rock#cinema#movies#80s#narrative#stories
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My father was not a hero and yet I looked upto him
I never thought I would pen down this and I had almost quit blogging (Even tumblr said my account was non existent and my previous blogs were not visible. I had to retrieve the password and re-activate the account). And here I am, writing this in the most truthful manner possible, baring and sharing some memories.
I lost my 77 year old father very recently and a lot of things have been running on my mind since then. I felt writing and sharing this with my close family and friends might give some peace to me. I really dont know.
My father was not a hero and yet I looked upto him in almost all walks of my life - unknowingly, unwillingly in most places and admirably in few places may be. Infact, my wife keeps telling me that I’m a lot like my father ( and I always thought I was like my mother). My father was a completely self made man. He lost his parents very early in his life and pretty much became a doctor on his own. He sold cigarettes, pens, notebooks and other small student essentials in his medical college hostel to meet his tuition fees and daily expenses. Every penny he spent on himself and what he has left for us now was earned by him. I cannot even imagine how he could do that.
Me and my sister, while growing up, always thought money was always there with us. My father was very miserly and always looked for ���sasta and tikaoo’ items when he took us for shopping school essentials like shoes, school bags, notebooks etc. and more often than not we ended up getting cheap, barely decent, but strong items. We always wondered why he was like that and very obvious to that age, deprived feelings started accumulating within, which years later, came out in the form of extreme anger. Now, if I look back, I think a part of that was probably justified. But I’m still not convinced he did the right things. Even today, I spend very wisely ( still always looking at price tags first and product later!). Blood is thicker than water for a reason and not just like that.
Contrary to many families, my father introduced me to Hindi movies. Back then when I was in middle and high school, there was only 1 TV channel - DD1 at my home. DD1 used to broadcast 1 Hindi movie each on Friday night and Saturday night every week at 9.30pm. I have watched every single Amitabh Bachchan angry young man classic movie with my dad. How amazing is that! Amar Akbar Anthony, Muqqaddar ka sikandar, Parwana, Suhaag, Roti,Kapda Aur Makaan, Don, Namak Halaal, Namak Haram, Mard, Coolie, Kaala Pathhar, Deewar, Khuda Gawah, Naseeb, the timeless classic Sholay - we have watched almost everything together. Much to the dismay of others, we have even watched Bobby, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Aradhana together. Even till date, a lot of friends and colleagues wonder how I can converse in Hindi so fluently inspite of being a South Indian. Some of them attribute that to my studying days in Pilani, Rajasthan. However, only I know that it is all because of the countless Hindi movies I have watched with my dad. And yet he didnt’t watch a single movie in theatre in 35 years.
With my father, it was always either his way or highway. There was no midway. This was applicable to any stranger or his own wife or son or brothers ( I’m intentionally leaving out daughter from this list as I have my doubts there as he always had a special soft spot for her) in exactly the same manner. He was a really stubborn man. It was always a digital relationship status with him either 1 or 0. By nature, he was a very limited conversationalist and even in that he would talk only to people he liked and never said a hi or hello to the people he didn’t like. It used to be very frustrating and irritating for all of us in the immediate family. But 1 thing about this also was that he never talked ill of the people he disliked at their back. He never had a double faced personality. I have always criticized this side of him. But of late, in last 2-3 years, I started realising how difficult a trait it was, to follow what you stand for, under any circumstances. Easier said than followed. But he was what he was and always stood his ground, right or wrong. I may not be proud of a lot of his actions because of this, but I’m definitely super proud of his rock solid firm attitude. I would want to develop that firm attitude some day.
Like any other father-son relationship, even ours was a very complex one, filled with more fights than normal conversations. My father was a rebel and never listened to his father. I am a born rebel and hence I never listened to my father. Conflicts were bound to occur. ( Now that, I have a son, my wife keeps telling me what goes around comes back. I hope not). Back in 2002, he wanted me to pursue a career in medicine while I wanted to study engineering. This led to a major faceoff in the house and we didnt talk to each other for quite sometime. And then later after I completed my engineering, he wanted to me go to the US or Europe for pursuing higher studies. This time around again I backed off and decided to stay back in India and disappointed him again. He never wanted any of his children to stay back in India ( a wish his daughter is fulfilling now). As destiny would have it, I was in the US for a very short 2 week trip when my father fell critically ill for the last time.
My father was a liberal and conservative both. For some reason known only to him, he firmly believed that every individual should be financially independent, especially every woman in every single household. All along in my entire life till now, I have not seen any other husband encourage his wife's career and put her career over his, more than my father. Back in 1992, when my parents decided to pursue post graduation in medicine, they got seats only for D.Ortho and D.G.O ( both diploma seats). This meant that they would never be on par with MD doctors and they would never be professors if at all they decided to join any medical college. Having understood this quickly, my father bargained hard with the college management for an arrangement wherein he would forego his D.Ortho seat in return for a MD (OBG) seat for my mother, which didn't happen. This truly showed how much he cared for my mother's career at the cost of his own career. Very recently, after my wife gave birth to my son and after my sister gave birth to my nephew, he was very keen on both of them joining back to work although he never said a single word to either of them. When both of them joined back to work, he rejoiced in his own characteristic silent manner without showing anything to either of them.
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, my parents started their post graduation in 1992 and finished that in 1994. So, my father was 50 and my mother was 40 when they started their post graduation. No big deal! Just that most people would start planning their retirement at the age of 52 while my father was planning a new career. Right now, I'm 35 years old and I get so frustrated and scared when people around me talk about switching to a new verification methodology or changing the work domain. When he planned his career move, his teaching staff and professors were younger than him and made fun of his big pot belly and age in front of others. ( I got to know this first hand from one of his professors, much younger to him, visited our home much later in 2000 or so). My mother never wanted to pursue post graduation as she lacked confidence at the age of 40. Today, my mother is a reasonably successful gynaecologist in Shimoga. She credits a large part of her little success to my father. Had he not pushed her, she would have been a general practitioner even now.
While growing up, I always used to wonder why would any patient come to get treated from a gutka betel leaf chewing, curtly speaking insensitive doctor who gave injections in such painful manner.( I never took injections from him except for once and I got treated by a different orthopaedic doctor when I broke my left hand once). And his handwriting was horrific. ( He himself struggled to read he wrote). I found answer to this question years later when I understood what medical profession involved. There are 2 aspects to medical treatment for any ailment - Diagnosis and Appropriate treatment. While most of us patients are really interested in getting the treatment and moving on with life, we fail to understand that if the ailment is not diagnosed properly, it cannot be treated. Bingo!! My father's expertise was diagnosis and not treatment. I have heard so many stories over the years about his dead accurate diagnosis now. People used to just come to him and show the reports and wait for him to speak. He would probably say 1 or 2 sentences in a very straightforward manner without mincing words and they accepted that gladly.
I have way too many memories which are coming to me now. But I neither have the sufficient skillset to write a book nor the time to do so. I will keep those for myself. In a nutshell, he was a very simple, hard working, short tempered, stubborn man who pretty much kept to himself and stayed in that special room in our home where breathed his last, watching political news on TV almost all the time while he was at home.
People who know me know that I'm a very big fan of Leander Paes. Lately, I started finding a lot of similarities between my father's and Leander Paes - both had their share of near death experiences and both fought through them and emerged as winners on more than one occassion, both eccentric, both with "dont give a fuck" attitude to the world.( Ofcourse my father didn't have many privileges which Paes enjoyed). If anyone is following Paes lately, he is urging his fans to support him in his "One Last Roar" campaign in 2020, at the end of which he will retire. My father last ate food on 22nd January 2020. He could not consume food for last 22 days of his life which has eaten me since his death. He didn't get his chance for "One Last Roar" and he passed away silently in his sleep on my parents 40th wedding anniversary on February 13th 2020.
Given a chance and choice, I would like to be reborn to same parents 100 times again with everything unchanged. I would like to grow up with my father, have the same fights all over again, probably in a more fierceful manner. However, next time around, I would want him to enjoy his life more.
As much as I would like to write as per norm "Rest in peace Appaji", I will not do that.
I sign off with this note " Keep roaring wherever you are in that other world Appaji", because I always liked seeing you that way.
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