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thesublemon · 1 month

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best picture

For the first time in a long time, I watched all of the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. Partly on a whim, partly for a piece I’ve been working on for a while about what is going wrong in contemporary artmarking. I cannot say that the experience made me feel any better or worse about contemporary movies than I already felt, which was pretty bad. But sometimes to write about a hot stove, you gotta put your hand on one. So. The nominees for coldest stove are:

Poor Things. Did not like enough to finish. I always want to like something that is making an effort at originality, strangeness, or style. Unfortunately, the execution of those things in this movie felt somehow dull and thin. Hard to explain how. Maybe the movie’s motif of things mashed together (baby-woman, duck-dog, etc) is representative. People have been mashing things together since griffins, medleys, Avatar the Last Airbender’s animals, Nickelodeon’s Catdog, etc. Thing + thing is elementary-level weird. And while there’s nothing wrong with a simple, or well-worn premise, there is a greater burden on an artist to do something interesting with it, if they go that route. And Poor Things does not. Its themes are obvious and belabored (the difficulty of self-actualization in a world that violently infantilizes you) and do not elevate the premise. There’s a fine line between the archetypal and the hackish, and this movie falls on the wrong side of it. It made me miss Crimes of the Future (2022), a recent Cronenberg that was authentically original and strange, with the execution to match.

Anatomy of a Fall. Solid, but not stunning. The baseline level of what a ‘good’ movie should be. It was written coherently and economically, despite its length. It told a story that drew you along. I wanted to know what happened, which is the least you can ask from storytelling. It had some compelling scenes that required a command of character and drama to write—particularly the big argument scene. The cinematography was not interesting, but it was not annoying either. It did its job. This was not, however, a transcendent movie.

Oppenheimer. Did not like enough to finish. But later forced myself to, just so no one could accuse me of not knowing what I was talking about when I said I disliked it. I felt like I was being pranked. The Marvel idea of what a prestige biopic should be. Like Poor Things, it telegraphed its artsiness and themes and has raked in accolades for its trouble. But obviousness is not the same as goodness and this movie is not good. The imagery is painfully literal. A character mentions something? Cut to a shot of it! No irony or nuance added by such images—just the artistry of a book report. The dialogue pathologically tells instead of shows. It constantly, cutely references things you might have heard of, the kind of desperate audience fellation you see in soulless franchise movies. Which is a particularly jarring choice given the movie’s subject matter. ‘Why didn’t you get Einstein for the Manhattan project’ Strauss asks, as if he’s saying ‘Why didn’t you get Superman for the Avengers?’ If any of this referentiality was an attempt to say something about mythologization, it failed—badly. The movie is stuffed with famous and talented actors, but it might as well not have been, given how fake every word out of their mouths sounded. Every scene felt like it had been written to sound good in a trailer, rather than to tell a damn story. All climax and no cattle.

Barbie. Did not like enough to finish. It had slightly more solidity in its execution than I was afraid it would have, so I will give it that. If people want this to be their entertainment I will let them have it. But if they want this to be their high cinema I will have to kill myself. Barbie being on this list reminds me of the midcentury decades of annual movie musical nominations for Best Picture. Sometimes deservingly. Other times, less so. The Music Man is great, but it’s not better than 8 1/2 or The Great Escape, neither of which were nominated in 1963. Musicals tend to appeal to more popular emotions, which ticket-buyers and award-givers tend to like, and critics tend to dislike. I remember how much Pauline Kael and Joan Didion hated The Sound of Music (which won in 1966), and have to ask myself if in twenty years I’ll think of my reaction to Barbie the same way that I think of those reviews: justified, but perhaps beside the point of other merits. Thing is. Say what you want about musicals, but that genre was alive back then. It was vital. Bursting with creativity. For all Kael’s bile, even she acknowledged that The Sound of Music was “well done for what it is.” [1] Contemporary cinema lacks such vitality, and Barbie is laden with symptoms of the malaise. It repeatedly falls back on references to past aesthetic successes (2001: A Space Odyssey, Singin’ in the Rain, etc) in order to have aesthetic heft. It has a car commercial in the middle. It’s about a toy from 60 years ago and politics from 10 years ago. It tries to wring some energy and meaning from all of that but not enough to cover the stench of death. I’d prefer an old musical any day.

American Fiction. Was okay. It tried to be clever about politics, but ended up being clomping about politics. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t any more interesting than any other ‘intellectual has a mid-life crisis’ story, even with the ‘twist’ of it being from a black American perspective. Even with it being somewhat self-aware of this. But it could have been a worse mid-life crisis story. The cinematography was terrible. It was shot like a sitcom. Much of the dialogue was sitcom-y too. I liked the soundtrack, what I could hear of it. The attempts at style and meta (the characters coming to life, the multiple endings) felt underdeveloped. Mostly because they were only used a couple times. In all, it felt like a first draft of a potentially more interesting movie.

The Zone of Interest.Wanted to like it more than I did. Unfortunately, you get the point within about five minutes. If you’ve seen the promotional image of the people in the garden, backgrounded by the walls of Auschwitz, then you’ve already seen the movie. Which means that all the rest of the movie ends up feeling like pretentious excess instead of moving elaboration. It seemed very aware of itself as an Important Movie and rested on those laurels, cinematically speaking, in a frustrating way. It reminded me of video art. I felt like I had stepped through a black velvet drape into the side room of a gallery, wondering at what point the video started over. And video art has its place, but it is a different medium. Moreover video art at its best, like a movie at its best, takes only the time it needs to say what it needs to say.

Past Lives. I’m a human being, and I respond to romance. I appreciate the pathos of sweet yearning and missed chances. And I understand how the romance in this movie is a synecdoche for ambivalent feelings about many kinds of life choices, particularly the choice to be an immigrant and choose one culture over another. The immigrant experience framing literalizes the way any choice can make one foreign to a past version of oneself, or the people one used to know, even if in another sense one is still the same person. So, I appreciate the emotional core of what (I believe) this movie was going for, and do think it succeeded in some respects. And yet…I was very irritated by most of its artistic choices. I found the three principal characters bland and therefore difficult to care about, sketched with only basic traits besides things like Striving and Being In Love. Why care who they’d be in another life if they have no personalities in this one? It’s fine to make characters symbols instead of humans if the symbolic tapestry of a movie is interesting and rich, but the symbolic tapestry of this movie was quite simple and straightforward. Not that that last sentence even matters much, since the movie clearly wanted you to feel for the characters as human beings, not just symbols. Visually, the cinematography was dull and diffuse, with composition that was either boring or as subtle as a hammer to the head.

Maestro. Did not like enough to finish. Something strange and wrong about this movie. It attempts to perform aesthetic mimicry with impressive precision—age makeup, accents, period cinematography—but this does not make the movie a better movie. At most it creates spectacle, at worst it creates uncanny valleys. It puts one on the lookout for irregularities, instead of allowing one to disappear into whatever the movie is doing. Something amateurishly pretentious in the execution. And not in the fun, respectable way, like a good student film. (My go-to example for a movie that has an art-school vibe in a pleasant way is The Reflecting Skin). There’s something desperate about it instead. It has the same disease as Oppenheimer, of attempting to do a biopic in a ‘stylish’ way without working on the basics first. Fat Man and Little Boy is a less overtly stylish rendition of the same subject as Oppenheimer, but far more cinematically successful to me, because it understands those basics. I would prefer to see the Fat Man and Little Boy of Leonard Bernstein’s life unless a filmmaker proves that they can do something with style beyond mimicry and flash.

The Holdovers. Did not like enough to finish. It tries to be vintage, but outside of a few moments, it does not succeed either at capturing what was good about the aesthetic it references, or at using the aesthetic in some other interesting way. The cinematography apes the tropes of movies and TV from the story’s time period, but doesn't have interesting composition in its own right. It lacks the solidity that comes from original seeing. (Contrast with something like Planet Terror, in which joyous pastiche complements the original elements.) The acting is badly directed. Too much actorliness is permitted. Much fakeness in general between the acting, writing, and visual language. If a movie with this same premise was made in the UK in the 60’s or 70's it would probably be good. As-is the movie just serves to make me sad that the ability to make such movies is apparently lost and can only be hollowly gestured at. That said, the woman who won best supporting actress did a good job. She was the only one who seemed to be actually acting.

Killers of the Flower Moon. The only possible winner. It is not my favorite of Scorsese’s movies, but compared to the rest of the lineup it wins simply by virtue of being a movie at all. How to define ‘being a movie’? Lots of things I could say that Killers of the Flower Moon has and does would also be superficially true of other movies in this cohort. Things like: it tells a story, with developed characters who drive that story. Or: it uses its medium (visuals, sound) to support its story and its themes. The difference comes down to richness, specificity, control, and a je ne sais quois that is beyond me to describe at the moment. Compare the way Killers of the Flower Moon uses a bygone cinematic style (the silent movie) to the way that Maestro and The Holdovers do. Killers of the Flower Moon uses a newsreel in its opening briefly and specifically. The sequence sets the scene historically, and gives you the necessary background with the added panache of confident cuts and music. It’s useful to the story and it’s satisfying to watch. Basics. But the movie doesn’t limit itself to that, because it’s a good movie. The sequence also sets up ideas that will be continuously developed over the course of the movie.* And here’s the kicker—the movie doesn’t linger on this sequence. You get the idea, and it moves on to even more ideas. Also compare this kind of ideating to American Fiction’s. When I said that American Fiction’s moments of style felt underdeveloped, I was thinking of movies like Killers of the Flower Moon, which weave and evolve their stylistic ideas throughout the entire runtime.

*(Visually, it places the Osage within a historical medium that the audience probably does not associate with Native Americans, or the Osage in particular. Which has a couple of different effects. First, it acts as a continuation of the gushing oil from the previous scene. It’s an interruption. A false promise. Seeming belonging and power, but framed all the while by a foreign culture. Meanwhile potentially from the perspective of that culture, it’s an intrusion on ‘their’ medium. And of course, this promise quickly decays into tragedy and death. The energy of the sequence isn’t just for its own sake—it sets up a contrast. But on a second, meta level it establishes the movie’s complicated relationship to media and storytelling. Newsreels, photos, myths, histories, police interviews, and a radio play all occur over the course of the movie. And there’s the movie Killers of the Flower Moon itself. Other people’s frames are contrasted with Mollie’s narration. There’s a repeated tension between communication as a method of knowing others and a method of controlling them—or the narrative of them—which plays out in both history and personal relationships.)

Or here’s another example: When Mollie and Ernest meet and he drives her home for the first time, we see their conversation via the car’s rearview mirrors. This is a bit of cinematic language that has its origins in mystery and paranoia. You see it in things like Hitchcock or The X-Files or film noir. By framing the scene with this convention, the movie turns what is superficially a romantic meet-cute (to quote a friend) into something bubbling with uneasiness and dread. This is not nostalgia—this is just using visuals to create effects. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen anything that uses the convention before, although knowing the pedigree might add to your enjoyment. The watchfulness suggested by the mirrors and Ernest’s cut-off face will still add an ominous effect. It works for the same reason it works in those other things. Like the newsreel, it is a specific and concise stylistic choice, and it results in a scene that is doing more than just one thing.

In general, the common thread I noticed as I watched these nominees, was the tendency to have the ‘idea’ of theme or style, and then stop there. It’s not that the movies had nothing in them. There were ideas, there was use of the medium, there was meaning to extract. There were lots of individually good moments. But they tended to feel singular, or repetitive, or tacked on. Meanwhile contemporary viewers are apparently so impressed by the mere existence of theme or style, that being able to identify it in a movie is enough to convince many that the movie is also good at those things. The problem with this tendency—in both artists and audiences—is that theme and style are not actually some extra, remarkable, inherently rarifying property of art. Theme emerges naturally from a story with any kind of coherence or perspective. And style emerges naturally from any kind of artistic attitude. They are as native as script, or narrative, or character. A movie’s theme and style might not be interesting, just like its story or dialogue might not be interesting, but if the movie is at all decent, they should exist. What makes a movie good or bad, then, is how it executes its component parts—including theme and style—in service of the whole. When theme is well-executed it is well-developed. Contemporary movies, unfortunately, seem to have confused ‘well-developed’ with ‘screamingly obvious.’ A theme does not become well-developed by repetition. It becomes well-developed by iterationand integration. Theme is like a melody. Simply repeating a single melody over and over does not result in the song becoming more interesting or entertaining. It becomes tedious. However, if you modify the melody each time you play it, or diverge from the melody and then return to it, that can get exciting. It results in different angles on the same idea, such that the idea becomes more complex over time, instead of simply louder.

Oppenheimer wasprobably the worst offender in this regard. Just repeat your water drops, crescendoing noise, or a line about ‘destroying the world’, and that’s the same as nuance, right? Split scenes into color and black and white and that’s the same as structure, right? That’s the same as actually conveying a difference between objectivity and interiority (or another dichotomy) via the drama or visual composition contained in the scenes, right? When I watched many of these movies, I kept thinking of a behind-the-scenes story from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story goes that Joss Whedon was directing Sarah Michelle Gellar in some scene, and when the take was over he told her how great she was, and that he could see right where the music would come in. And Gellar replied that if he was thinking about the music, he clearly wasn’t getting enough from her acting alone. This conversation then supposedly informed Whedon’s approach to “The Body,” a depiction of the immediate aftermath of death that is considered one of the best episodes of television ever made, and which has no non-diegetic music whatsoever. Not to imply that music is necessarily a crutch, or to pretend that “The Body” is lacking in other forms of stylization (it is a very style-ish episode). But more to illustrate the way that it is easy to forget to make the most of all aspects of a medium, particularly the most fundamental ones, once one has gotten used to what a final product is supposed to feel like.

And that’s why most of these movies don’t feel like movies. They create the gestalt of a movie or a ‘cinematic’ moment—often literally through direct vintage imitation—without a sense of the first principles. Or demonstrating a sense of them, anyway. Who needs AI when the supposedly highest level of human filmmakers are already cannibalistically cargo-culting the medium just fine.

[1] “The Sound of Money (The Sound of Music and The Singing Nun).” The Pauline Kael Reader. (This book contains the full text of the original review, rather than the abbreviated review that I linked earlier.)

#posts: art #movies #am rusty at blogging and don't have all the virtuous nuance i would like in this but we will go with it

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thecolorblockcurator · 11 days

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What's the worst book you've ever read? (Feel free to rant) 🌸

Oooof

The worst book I’ve ever read was for a class in college- before switching my major to art history in undergrad I was going for teaching English - for secondary ed. (High school)

And omg I’ve never been so angry at a book. It was the boy in the striped pajamas.

Not only was it just awful writing, storytelling, characterization, infantilizing.

It’s actively harmful in re-writing history. & because it was so popular and being pushed as a safe and censored way of talking about the holocaust in high schools. It’s no doubt what will be remembered by a lot of people as fact. My professor loved it- and he highly recommend everyone to add it to their curriculum when they taught. And I went & laid it all out why it was actively harmful in his office hours. & idk if ever changed his mind.

The way it depicts the genocide- the blissful ignorance of the MC, and his little friend in pajamas behind a fence who’s sad for some reason. And how his dad has an important boss “the fury” it’s garbage. Nazi youth would have been intrenched in propaganda- the child of an officer in charge of a concentration camp wouldn’t have been blissfully unaware. And in the end the only person you’re supposed to feel for is the child of the nazi officer who accidentally got killed & his family I guess?

Talk about recentering the genocide & white victimhood.

It’s bad - and dangerous

Other than that - every awful book I've read - or left unfinished has been so mild compared to that pile of garbage. lol

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sepublic · 3 months

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They did the Keepers SO dirty in Seabound!!! They’ve dedicated themselves since the dawn of time to preventing Wojira’s return, and Nyad herself was evidently a Keeper, but then Seabound actually rolls around and they end up doing nothing to help. Those annoying British guys who stole the amulet from them, the reason the Keepers can’t help, get to do more to prevent Wojira’s return than they do.

Idk it just frustrates me how Clutch and the Explorers Club literally stole from the Keepers but the show still acts like the ninja are required to play by their rules, as if the ninja don’t steal all the time from other bad guys. Because even if the show is making a joke about them being stuffy British guys, it’s still kinda downplaying their colonial aspect by portraying them as goofy comedic relief who get their time in the spotlight helping out, especially with how Clutch doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist for rendering half of The Island for nothing.

This is getting into conspiracy territory but I wonder if someone higher up realized the racial implications of the Keepers, but the sets were too far into development to redo everything, so they minimized the number of episodes they dedicated to The Island to brush past it as quickly as possible, and that’s also why the Keepers do basically nothing in Seabound.

Of course, despite the attempts to minimize the issues with the Keepers’ portrayal (making them not bad guys, it’s all just a misunderstanding and they even treat their prisoners fairly well!) the show still falls into some racist traps, like making them superstitious natives who get fooled by more ‘civilized’ peoples and need other civilized people to rescue them. Timothy gets to play a role in stopping Ronin using one of their catamarans, but not the Keepers whom Ronin was exploiting in the first place (and this is coming after Master of the Mountain, which did much more to give the Munce and Geckles agency against Vangelis).

And then the show tried to subvert the trope of natives worshipping a foreigner as a god… By having then sacrifice him to appease another deity instead. When you add all this and how the narrative acts as if the Keepers can’t be entrusted to protect the storm amulet (but Shintaro can), it comes across as deeply infantilizing. It’s also just wasted potential from a basic storytelling perspective, because these guys literally have lightning powers tailored to fight aquatic beings but then never interact with the Merlopians. Mammatus would’ve soloed Kalmaar.

#Ninjago #Mammatus

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the-real-rain-world-confessions · 3 months

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Arti adopting Pebbles doesn't infantilize him

it's an animal that lost it's kids growing attached to another creature after "protecting" it

could be spun as quite tragic given the right storyteller

#rain world confession #five pebbles #rw artificer

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talesfrommedinastation · 4 months

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On Neurodiversity and Parenting

Before I get into the meat of this, let me tell you about one of the best vacations I’ve ever had as a parent.

It was a group of my good friends, all alumni of the same university. We all graduated in the same year, we had all been roommates, the works. But we are now super busy professionals, and hadn’t seen each other in years.

So, we organized a 5 day long extravaganza in the desert. We rented a massive house with a HUGE, gorgeous pool, a game room, volleyball court, and plenty of bedrooms for the people coming. We had two married couples, two single people, and 4 kids in between the ages of 1 to 7. The area surrounding us had museums, outdoor activities, and a few breweries.

It should have been hell, especially for someone like me, who has mild ASD, shoved into this house with all of these people. Noise, socializing, the whole kit and kaboodle.

It was awesome. Why?

My daughters (both of whom are very young) were always fed, watched over, and entertained by the two other kids and at least another adult at all times. Responsibilities were shared, and communication was crystal clear. I myself was never stressed out, worried, angry, or overwhelmed–all things that happen when you have ASD and loud, social activities are happening.

We, as adults, all took turns with the kids and allowed ourselves to retreat and relax when it was needed. The kids, as a result, were all conked out by 7 pm, allowing us to mingle and chill on our own time. It was one of the few vacations I’ve taken as a parent where I came back refreshed and recharged.

I bring this up, because many times, neurodiverse individuals are often infantilized, belittled, or even mocked when we talk about having families. Worse is the borderline eugenics comments, the ‘do you want more people like you in the world’ remarks. Which is disgusting, but not unexpected.

I’m also writing this because our favorite neurodivergent clone, Tech, finds himself as the father of a small daughter in Far Past the Ring. I went through this storytelling route as I wanted to not only explore Belter vs Clone biology (more on that later) but also how neurodiverse folks can successfully parent.

Far Past the Ring is not meant to be a found family fluff piece–it is an epic story of two cultures meeting, working together, and fighting for their right to live.

It’s also about the growth of Tech from a defective commando in a massive army to becoming a leader amongst his chosen people, the Belters of The Expanse.

Besides, I do not like most of the formats in which Tech is presented with kids when it is written–he’s often seen as bumbling, cold, or irritated, none of which is flattering, or, to be perfectly candid, canon (The man can handle himself in battles and facing monsters, but not a whining kid? Come on now, his brother is Wrecker). I think it paints an unflattering picture of how neurodiverse people are interpreted as parents, and I find that both ableist and, quite frankly, ignorant.

I say this, again, as a neurodiverse mother of two neurotypical girls, both of whom are bright, happy, loved children.

So, let’s dive in.

How to Successfully Parent as a Neurodiverse Individual:

- Support: Teamwork makes the dream work. This is one of the biggest things in successfully raising children, and one I hope you’ve gathered from both the story above and in Far Past the Ring. But it especially rings true for the ND parent, who might be exhausted socially and psychologically from being ‘on’ with a small child, constantly.

I myself have struggled with this, as my daughters love their mama, and often climb, grab, yell, and scream, even when it makes me anxious and worked up (being touched out is AWFUL, let me tell you).

But having other outlets of affection and support for children helps an ND parent. Knowing that they had other people to help them makes me a better parent, and my daughters are confident in knowing that so many in this world love them.

One especially cruel comment screamed at Tech by his daughter’s aunt in Far Past the Ring is that he is ‘not wanted, nor needed’. While this is tragic that Tanke Drummer said this to him (and has extreme ramifications throughout the story), she was not entirely incorrect.

Omega 'Meg' Drummer, Tech’s daughter, was currently being raised by not only her mother, but also by two aunts, an uncle, and older cousins that were always there to take care of her in a massive family compound. She was also being raised in a culture that is very community oriented: a necessity for Belters to survive in a dangerous environment such as space.

Hence why Sjael Drummer, Meg’s mother, is not especially angry or resentful when she sees Tech again. She’s had help and support, no questions asked, in raising their little girl. As she says in Into the Techiverse, Tech is a piece of the puzzle that fits in perfectly when he does arrive.

The story would be much, much different if it was just Tech and his child’s other parent doing it alone. There would be a lot more stress, anxiety, and anger, no doubt.

But they are not, and that makes the difference.

Because of the communal nature of the Belters, not unlike those of the clones, and the large network of friends and family that live and work together on Medina Station, Tech and Sjael are not overwhelmed or stressed with their daughter. Additionally, Tech came into the picture when Meg was a toddler, not as an infant, so things are bound to be different.

Later, when Tech becomes more entrenched within the Drummer family, when he’s worn out, there’s other family members to help, the man doesn’t even need to ask. Homeboy won the support lottery, per se. Speaking of which…

- Communication: It was mentioned in previous author’s notes, but being able to effectively talk to your parenting partner is even more crucial than your romantic partner, simply because you have other lives depending on you. In the case of my vacation example, my friends and husband are all massive talkers with no filters.

Passive aggressive hints that my ND self would have missed–well, that just didn’t happen! When someone was exhausted, needed a break, or needed to do something (cook, clean, etc), it was either verbally stated or texted, and quickly adhered to.

Tech, luckily, managed to knock up a Belter. The Belter culture of The Expanse is not only community oriented, but their communication style is very forward and blunt. Passive-aggressive, subtle behaviors are a waste of time to them. If something is needed by another person, it is stated quickly and without issue.

After all, Belters are people who spend their entire lives in space. As a result, things must happen efficiently, or terrible occurrences can happen. Not only that, but Sjael Drummer lives with her extended family, where everyone is either talking or communicating via text or message on their comms devices, a necessity for space living and survival that is a common part of Belter life.

If our neurodivergent prince needs help, he can easily blurt it out and be helped, no judgment at all. And having that takes a massive load off of your back as a parent, especially if you are ND.

- Have A Retreat: Admittingly, living in a house with tons of other people can be hell for the ND individual. I struggled with that as a kid in a massive Catholic family, but luckily, had a retreat for myself when I was overstimulated via my bedroom. Thus, I’ve learned, having a recharge station (like an office or a bedroom) is necessary for a successful ND parent. Currently, I have my office/studio in my home.

As for Tech, he starts off with Sjael’s room, followed by other spaces as the story unfolds, such as spots on the Rocinante and the massive apartment that Clone Force 99 moves into at the very end of Far Past the Ring. Keep an eye out.

Additionally, he’s never overstimulated by his child, thanks to the supportive network he has. This stems from both from his brothers and his daughter’s extended family, going right back to the communal nature of The Belt.

I say all of this not only as a parent and an ND individual, but as a friend of many on the spectrum as well. I’ve seen some really struggle, and it’s usually due to one of the mentioned things above not being met properly. Where the ND parent is anxious from overstimulation, overwork, or just feeling too much, having help, communication, and an outlet makes them a successful parent.

Actually, I think it would help all of us as parents, now that I think about it.

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artist-issues · 5 months

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Oh yeah, the live action Snow White situation. They really picked the wrong person for the role of that sweet princess (even though I still find them making a live action remake for this pointless). She may have a good voice, but she has such a wretched personality. And we’re supposed to believe that she’s prettier than Gal Gadot, who’s playing the Evil Queen?

I don't know, I don't know Rachel Zegler's personality and I'm sure they'll take beauty completely out as any consideration in the movie. As per usual, they'll humanize the Evil Queen, or make her lust for power instead of being plan jealous. But they can't have their Snow White character be "beautiful," as a characteristic that causes change in the movie, because they're probably operating on the infantile idea that "women are more than just their looks and should never be associated with their looks."

Of course women are more than their looks. But in fairy tales, beauty without is meant to symbolize beauty within. What makes Snow White's beauty powerful in the real fairy tale is the fact that it is genuine: it reflects what her heart is like. That's the edge her beauty has on the Queen's false beauty. It's symbolic--and it shows how shallow the Evil Queen is, making Snow White an even better heroine by comparison.

But they won't do all that. Because they don't remember how to tell stories that are true and faithful, instead of stories that are simply pandering to whatever opinion the culture has moment-to-moment.

Anyway.

All that to say, it really never mattered if the actress they got was "prettier" than the actress they got to play the Evil Queen. You could easily look at the animated version and say that the cartoon Snow White isn't prettier than the cartoon Evul Queen. Because actual aesthetic beauty is, in most cases, in the eye of the beholder 🤷‍♀️ You might think Zegler isn't as pretty as Gadot, but the next person in line could completely disagree with you, and the next person in line might not have noticed either of them to be especially pretty at all.

That was never the point. They could get any two actresses and say "this is the Evil Queen, who is beautiful, and this is Snow White, who is more beautiful, and that's why the Evil Queen hates her," and what either of the actresses looked like wouldn't matter to the story. But again. The concept of "beauty" as a storytelling tool isn't going to be used in this retelling, I bet you money.

Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler are good actresses. But they clearly don't understand the original story. And Zegler, at least, lacks respect for the movie her retelling is supposed to be based on. And even the very best actresses can't make up for that sort of thing, because good acting comes from understanding.

#Snow White #Snow White and the seven dwarves #Snow White and the seven dwarfs #snow #sw #live action Snow White #gal gadot #Rachel Zegler #Walt Disney #Disney #notmydisney #Not my Disney #real Disney #Snow White 2024

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sofiamorgana · 2 years

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#concept character #art #artist #artwork #digital art #illustration #nature #storytelling #drawings #sketch #comic #infancia #infantil #animation

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thewebcomicsreview · 10 months

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Latest DoA comic seems to imply Dorothy is reaching the end of her mental rope regarding thinking she can just handle everything, with extra emphasis on feeling like Joyce just needs constant supervision/reassurance in some form or another. What's your over/under on seeing that properly addressed in the next year or so?

It would’ve been terrible storytelling, but I was kind of hoping the dream sequence would keep going on for like a month.

But I don’t think it’ll take long for this to be “addressed”, it’ll probably come up this chapter, or at least this book.”Joyce has evolved beyond the need for Dorothy” has been a bit of a running storyline all throughout the last book. Joyce has become stronger and more independent, but Dorothy (and Becky) have been unable to see that, and it’s causing increasing friction as Joyce is getting madder about being infantilized. Dorothy is increasingly ruining her own life in order to give Joyce “help” that’s increasingly not needed or appreciated any more.

Dorothy, meanwhile, is going the other way. No one can accept that Joyce is finally getting it together, and no one can accept that Dorothy is finally falling apart. This has been kind of the running background story for a while now, and I...don’t think it’s getting resolved this chapter, since this is the start of a book. I think this’ll be the finale storyline, and the blowup will happen....um....next May, would be around when the final storyline of book 14 would be starting. I’m not at all confident of that but if I’m right I’m going to look like a fucking genius for calling it here.

#Dumbing of Age

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majorbaby · 1 year

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i really enjoyed your post on sidney freedman!!!! i'm wondering, what do you think of radar, as a character or as a storytelling device or both? imagine my little anon sunglasses face resting on my hands smiling so smittenly and kicking my feet. i adore your thoughts theyre SO fun and interesting to read

hi! thank you for your kind words.

In Dear Sigmund good ol’ Sidney tells us rather than shows us the Radar character thesis:

Actually Sigmund, it’s a wonder more people around here don’t take a vacation from reality. Some people even manage to grow - Radar for instance. In so many ways he’s still as innocent and naïve as the local orphans he plays with. And yet this boy keeps this unit, this state of chaos running smoothly.

The early years establish that pretty well without actually saying it outright. I do find Radar very enjoyable during that period, but he had to be completely re-tooled alongside the rest of the show as of Season 4. The reason for that is Radar and Henry were a package deal, maybe even in a more effective way than Trapper and Hawkeye because the former pair gives you some contrast. The gag with Radar-Henry was that Henry was this privileged, middle-aged dude, a surgeon, and the CO at the 4077th, but he’d run the camp into the ground were it not for Radar, an almost-legal child. The point of that seems very clear to me, this lower-class kid from rural Iowa with nothing but street smarts going for him is far more competent than anyone else in the camp. I love that. Without Radar, Trapper and Hawkeye can’t pull off a lot of their hijinks. Henry can be something of a wild card, in theory he’s on HawkTrap’s side, definitely more than I can say Potter was ever on HawkBeej’s side, but the thing with Henry is he likes to be liked by others, including by the army brass, whereas HawkTrap and Radar don’t give a shit about that.

That early version of Radar takes a huge hit when Potter rolls in, and we see Radar’s subversive role diminished significantly. Actually if I were a Radar stan I’d be pretty pissed off about that, but usually my annoyance is reserved for the Potter-Klinger relationship. As a class-dynamics stan, I am heartbroken. Think about what we got instead in the mid-late years when it came to class… Rizzo whose class is the butt of the joke 90% of the time, Klinger who gets really into moneymaking schemes for some reason (think about why the only brown character on the show got that as a character beat) and uh… tha’s it. The next person on the ladder might be Hawkeye. Radar is still around until season 8 but they lean really hard into his being “simple” and infantilizing him and he’s no longer this scrappy, street-wise kid, who Charles frequently refers to as a “bumpkin”. I get why Gary Burghoff might’ve started to tire of playing that, he was nearing 40 by the time he left MASH. The early years allowed his character to be much more complicated in my opinion, and tbh, he was funny as fuck back then.

Radar does get some solid content in 4 - 8. Burghoff is a great actor and he convincingly sells the more dramatic moments like in The Interview, Bug Out, Dear Sigmund, End Run, and Mail Call… Again. I don’t care for the framing of Fallen Idol but I think Burghoff and Alda have good chemistry and it was fun to see some conflict in their relationship. My problem with Radar-centric episodes in that era is they rely on “... and now Radar is all grown up!” as the moral of the story, but that only lasts until the next Radar episode rolls around and he’s a little kid again. I prefer episodes where we get to see him have fun. Your Hit Parade has always been a favourite of mine, I love Radio-DJ Radar.

Unfortunately I think the moment Radar is truly seen as “grown up” on the show is Goodbye Radar parts 1 and 2, which is embarrassingly late imo. We see that he’s now grown up in a few ways: his role as the backbone of the 4077th has a noticeably different tone – people outwardly express their reliance on him, and Radar himself “takes on” the burden of running the unit rather than it magically falling to him, and he argues with Hawkeye on his level about staying. Before all that stuff about Radar was unsaid, and the one time Sidney does say it its preceded by “this 19-year-old is as childlike as the 4-to-5-year-old local Korean kids”. In Goodbye Radar it’s called out multiple times in the open. The other way we see that Radar has “come of age” is he takes more of an assertive role during his encounter with his love interest, Patty. We see him actually go for what he wants, trying to delay his flight, making the first move to kiss her and being noticeably disgruntled at having to leave her behind. I suppose it happens so late because they couldn’t manage him past that point, which is why he continues to be stagnant until that point.

When he does finally “come of age” it doesn’t land well for me because it’s so sudden. This is the same Radar who 10 episodes ago sought advice from the whole camp on how to talk to a pretty nurse in Hot Lips is Back in Town. I think that was the third or fourth time we saw that plot. I love a coming-of-age story but they need to be gradual for them to be effective, and that’s not easy to do on a episodic show. Really with the exception of Margaret and maybe Charles, I don’t know that any of the characters on MASH have a concrete character arc. I’ve gone back and forth with BJ - I like to see an arc there, but I have no clue how intentional it was. And with Margaret and Charles it might be a bit easier because they start out as antagonists.

To be clear though, I don’t think “character development” is a surefire sign of a good character or a good show. I think Hawkeye is a fantastic character and he doesn’t develop much. But when the show made the shift to character drama, certain characters suffered a lot. Radar was one of them, Frank was another which is why Linville’s exit makes so much sense to me and he literally said of Frank, “there’s no where else for this character to go”. So that’s it really – I think Radar was a character who couldn’t quite land the leap to the show’s new format, but who was a fan favourite. He shows up less and less throughout season 7 and the excuse we’re given is that he’s “off on R&R”, so you almost get used to him not being there.

To properly answer your actual question: I think he really worked well as a device in the early years. He buttresses the messaging of the show, he’s on the side of the “anti-regular-army” and – something that I think gets overlooked a lot – he’s fucking horny lmao. He may be virginal but he leers at women, he wants to have sex and go on dates with them, he can be devious and he’s not always automatically on Hawkeye’s side, sometimes he wants something in exchange for his help. It was a very fun vibe. So it was weird for me to see him go from that to this delicate little cherub who is only looking for a pure, lasting love – that was what his character was based around in the character drama years and I don’t care for it. Let Radar fuck tbh. He isn’t 10 years old, he’s 18-19-20.

There is also this thing I wrote about him that got way more traction than I could’ve imagined. It started out as a meta post but I kinda hit flow with it and just started writing… it’s half-way between meta and prose and it generally sums up my feelings about Radar in a less analytical way that I’ve done here.

Thank you so much for the interesting ask!

#mash #re: mash #radar meta #radar o'reilly #replies #long post #class on mash

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monstersinthecosmos · 2 years

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Why is Armand depicted as looking like he's 12 in so many fanworks? I know 17 is young, but I don't remember myself or any of my classmates looking like fetuses in high school. I can't remember anything in the books describing him as looking like a little kid either so where did it come from?

Ngl I'm fine with any casting that doesn't follow this fanon description because I don't want to see anybody who looks that young sucking and fucking.

Gonna be real with you, I've personally never seen fanart where he looks 12, so I'm not sure where you're seeing it.

What I have seen, overwhelmingly, is that most artists in this fandom don't use veristic art styles. I've been reblogging Armand art for years and there's not a ton of realism in here lol. If you see any of these random Armands and think he looks 12, I feel like that's a You thing.

TVL does describe him as being chubby and there's a handful of artists who draw that a lot! Like having baby fat in his face still, that's so tragic lol. A lot of characters describe him as cherubic. I think the two extremes of Armand art are either his chubby face or his complete waification. I think it's also always worth asking the creator why they depict him as younger. It could be a point of catharsis to exaggerate for their own storytelling purposes, it could also be their style or level of technical skill. I'm not the person to answer that for everybody.

I see this conversation in anime fandoms a lot, too, this idea that the art or animation style is so far removed from the human form that it becomes whatever the artist says it is. And you as the viewer make those decisions, as well, even if it's subconscious. Like lol -

I reblogged this pic of Louis the other day, too; does he look 12 because he's chibi or can you look at it and understand it's just cute and that he's a grown man?

It really gets into this kinda hairy conversation about art being coded and I don't think you can draw those lines without falling into some problematic traps. I can't recall what the anime title was but a while back there was this big controversy with fandom antis upset that this adult character was "child coded" because she was short and had small tits. It gets into this area of saying that women are children if they have small tits. In Armand's case, it gets into rules like "skinny people don't look like adults" or "people with chubby faces don't look like adults" and whether you're intending to say this or not in your ask, in Fandom Wank Olympics this conversation always concludes with: You are a predator if you're attracted to someone who is too skinny or who has small tits or a chubby face. Likewise, if you are too skinny or have small tits or a chubby face you do not have the agency to enter adult relationships because everyone attracted to you is a predator. Same goes for the infantilization of short people.

(Cough, looking at you AMC and how Claudia is doomed for having small tits.)

So anyway not to get heavy but that's where it sounded like your message was going.

In the end, it's art, it's 2D, I'm not sure where you're seeing 12 year olds in the Armand artwork but I'd wonder if that's your own lens and your own bias. I've been a hardcore loser Armand stan for most of my life and I haven't seen this fanon that people treat him like he's 12. The opposite, in fact.

Fanart of a vampire who has never existed does not hurt anybody. You cannot victimize Armand, he is not real. So whether people make him look 12 on purpose or not ........... who cares?

As far as the show goes, they hired a 19 year old for Claudia and made it obvious that they're not willing to work with minors, so I wouldn't worry about it. They're not going to hire a 12 year old. And like you said, 17 year olds don't look like that anyway, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

As a final bonus meta point: I think it's funny when people get grossed out by Armand (or Claudia's) age because it's exactly the reason their stories are horrifying. You're supposed to be uncomfortable lol. Their lives are difficult because people think they are children. Armand manages because he looks a bit older, but every character describes him as being so disarmingly beautiful because he seems young, when he's in fact so cold and shrewd and dangerous. That dichotomy is where the flavor's at, baby! That's the point! He's 500 years old bro!

But if it makes you uncomfortable I'd suggest just blocking artists whose styles look too young. Curate your dash! I know sometimes a blocked OP shows up in reblogs and whatever but I'd suggest muting the OP's name on XKit to prevent that, it works really well for me!

#fandom wank lol #also the requisite dig at AMC but they obviously don't give a fuck about anyone's fanon LMAO

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seyemvertisepra · 6 months

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A list of known Centauri nonbinary cultural identities in the pre-Republic era. Of course, there are infinite ways for a person to express being outside a gender binary, and I could not possibly list them all here.

This is, however, a list of some of our more prominent and culturally established ones. As with all gender concerns, these are not rigid categories and it wouldn't have been unheard of for an individual to mix and match traits from two or more of them.

**Trailwatchers**

A Trailwatcher, sometimes Trailmaid, is a short-crested Centauri that lives within a Creche and who is seen as a woman. They were often trusted with the task of greeting incoming Claves and establishing friendly communication with them.

Humans might recognize elements of butch identity in Trailwatchers, who were often ascribed outspoken and boisterous personalities and served as protectors for the other women of their Creche.

Additionally, this identity is strongly associated with lesbianism. Trailwatchers typically dressed very feminine and despite their crests associated far more with other women than with men.

In the Republic era, Trailwatchers were often infantilized and characterized as mentally fragile, being pushed to shave their crests and grow manes, and otherwise blend in with a typical Abbey woman. While male-aligned genderqueerness was typically punished harshly, women's divergent identities were treated as correctable and something to be pitied. Cognitive behavior therapies were often employed to coerce them into a binary presentation.

**Go-Betweens**

Widely varied in presentation and identity, a Go-Between is a term used to describe Centauri who easily fraternize with both men and women and often maintain both Clave and Creche bonds. These people can be male, female, or androgynous presenting. They would live a nomadic lifestyle, periodically staying in a Creche-City and then being picked up by a passing Clave until they arrived in the next city.

Go-Betweens are seen as friendly, energetic, and mercurial. Though very diverse, a well-known Go-Between look was a short trimmed mane styled in a crest like poof or topknot and a masculine or androgynous style of dress.

They were often pansexual or asexual, even non-partnering. They were perhaps the most well traveled of all Centauri, even more so than binary men, and often became guides and wise folk in old age when they became too frail to continue their journeys.

In the Republic Era, Go-Between became a common catchall for genderqueerness, with other distinct identities often being mistakenly or perhaps maliciously folded into it. In the process, the identity itself largely disappeared, and only recently has a liberated younger generation begun to reclaim aspects of it. It is probably the identity most commonly blended with that of other Centauri third genders.

**Over-Seasoners**

An Over-Seasoner is a crested or maned Centauri who often lives long term in a Clave and may identify as a man or simply live the lifestyle of one while feeling themself to be female or androgynous.

They get their name from their flamboyance and their tendency to spend the long winter seasons with a Creche containing their relatives telling stories they picked up on trips with their Clave. The double meaning of "over-season" is intentional and translates directly from Centauri Common into English; referring both to their "spiciness" and their living habits.

Over-Seasoners are artists and storytellers, often musicians. Their ability to convey cultural information between Claves and Creches helped maintain the bonds between family lines over long distances. They are usually seen as the originators of drag in Centauri culture, as they often wore women's clothes during performances in particular.

Like Go-Betweens, there is little evidence to suggest this gender contributed to reproductive labor in particular, and many Over-Seasoners saw themselves as gay men.

Individuals identified as Over-Seasoners suffered very openly in the Republic era, simultaneously being oppressed and fetishized. The propaganda campaigns against this identity framed it as a form of male weakness, often put side by side with other forms of Aberrancy.

Still, many found a way to live as themselves through sex work, a mixed bag that allowed for self-expression at the cost of being objectified by those who lusted after them. Men who were not Over-Seasoners could often be accused of such if they were perceived by their peers as too effeminate or sympathetic to women.

#alienkin #alterhuman #the great misc tag empire the lion of the galaxy #the two genders paintbrush and ponytail #history lessons #biology lessons

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cantarella · 7 months

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Actually losing my mind bc someone said that reading Furina and Neuvillette as father & daughter infantilizes her character and I’m??? Genuinely what? I’ve been trying to understand what romance these ppl are gleaning from their interactions/dynamic… it also seems like viewing their relationship through a romantic lense is what actually lends its hand to infantilizing her. But it’s such a popular pairing; I feel like ppl would have my head for simply saying they *look* related on purpose

"I’ve been trying to understand what romance these ppl are gleaning from their interactions/dynamic" you and I both my man I've been feeling like I'm in the fucking twilight zone for the past month. their shooters say they're coded, like how the "the little oceanid" play in her sq would be a parallel for their relationship and like that's... just inaccurate in so many ways. like 1. that's not how any of it went down are they hallucinating 2. IF it was a parallel then it'd be one to focalors specifically and that's another character 3. why on god's green earth would hyv have to use coding for a m/f pairing. do they even know what that shit is for? why would a chinese company need to use that? ofc they don't I forgot 90% of the fans are homophobes they don't care. anyway

you've got it exactly right, viewing their whole dynamic as romantic is the infantilization here actually. you can't deny what happens on screen, and furina acts quite literally like if you put fischl, or any theater kid you can think of, in charge of an entire nation with no guidance. she is overwhelmed and scared of the fact everyone would die if she fails at her task, and by pretending to be someone else she was in stasis for 500 years, never allowed to live her own life and grow up as a person. so in a situation far beyond her she seeks protection from the only person always in her life, who is an older looking man who has his shit genuinely just more put together than her despite everything about him, and has the power to actually protect their people

if you read this as meant to evoke a familial dynamic then it's easy to see how this is a coming of age narrative, of a young adult who has been going through a lot of pain (hello metaphor for adolescence in the form of 500 years of repetitive torture labyrinth. does anyone here like utena) breaking free of the life that chained her and starting to live her own, while learning to not depend anymore on her guardian who still supports her from a distance, but aknowledges her growth through gifting her the last push for full independence (the vision)

if you look at it romantically... well what is there exactly. you have to deny furina is mentally meant to be young to not be gross, so you have to deny the 500 years being stasis so she presumably grew, so she's a deeply emotionally unstable woman seeking protection from her stronger male partner bc she's too damaged to be competent at her job. great fucking dynamic you got there, I think my parents put on a less heteronormative display during their marriage than this. not to mention how it disregards all the pain furina went through with her lack of sense of self and inability to form emotional ties, and neuvi's own arc of isolation from everyone around him. 2 hit mischaracterization combo

also yeah you essentially get hunted for sport if you say it but they literally look related lol. everyone forgot about what visual storytelling is overnight bc the cishet demons possessed them

#sorry this is so long it was hating then it became a mini analysis halfway through and then it went back to hating #but as always. I never mind these asks it's nice to be able to articulate my thoughts #chi.txt #ask #anonymous #teyvat talk

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