Then, of course, I learned about textual analysis, and the whole concept that each reader constructs their own reading of each work, only truly applying to them. Fine. But still – fan-fiction’s different, right?

Not so much. On the off chance that you still can’t stand it (or want to convince someone else), here are some thoughts:

1. Fanfiction is very similar to interpretive commentary – but instead of writing about a work, it rewrites the work.
2. In works with multiple authors (many books and plays and musicals, every TV show and movie ever) often the only difference between the fanfic author and the ‘real’ author is money, and possible (but not guaranteed) review by the ‘original’ author.
3. Fanfic was around long before the Internet (For example, Alice in Wonderland was extensively reinterpreted, and it was hardly the first).
4. Plenty of well-known modern works are nothing more than popular fanfic. (Ever hear of Wicked?)
5. Fanfiction is essentially modern communal storytelling/mythmaking – one person makes up a story, others retell it, others make up more stories with the same characters, still others use the same characters in identical situations, and a few put themselves in the story to make themselves look good!
6. If that’s not enough think about this: Shakespeare was a fanfiction author. He took existing historical characters, stole the plot partly from history, partly from preceding plays, and made what’s widely considered the greatest English literature to date.

So anyway, I’ve managed to be convince enough to try writing some myself – hopefully it’ll be easier than writing original fiction (which I’ve mostly failed at before now), and be decent writing practice to boot.

Or not. But fanfic’s fun, anyway!

Not so great.

But there a few that are really… fun, even if they’re not the greatest thing ever (I’m told there’s great art, too [Revolutionary Girl Utena],  but I haven’t seen any yet).

Strawberry Panic! – the ‘!’ is actually part of the title – is one of the fun ones.

Instant summary: There’s bunch of (mostly) rich girls at a (mostly) rich girls’ boarding school. Most are lesbian to one degree or another, hilarity ensues. There’s a dead girlfriend and various love triangles involved.

Let’s get one thing straight: Strawberry Panic! not great art. It’s not even average art, or average pop culture, for that matter. It’s crap. But it’s crap of the very highest caliber. It’s melodrama out the nose, over-the-top plotting, full of romantic comedy cliches (the finale ends with a ’stop the wedding, I really love her‘ moment). There’s random fan service, implausible soap-opera style injuries (instant temporary complete memory loss!) and to make things worse, the writers take their drama way too seriously, and don’t even try to make it campy.

But somehow it works. There’s embarrassingly unintentional humor, for one thing. For example, in the second or so scene of the first episode, the protagonist – Nagisa – gets lost on her way to school and randomly meets the Don Juan-type (Shizuma) under a tree. Shizuma, being a total playa (and y’know, love at first sight) kisses Nagisa on the forehead, who… wait for it… faints. Out cold. For the rest of the afternoon. I burst out laughing at this scene, but it’s played (well, animated) perfectly straight (so to speak). There’s dramatic music and a fade to white. No ‘wink’ at the audience, nothing. Weird, but funny.

But it gets better – the completely bizarre moments are dispensed with eventually. The fan service isn’t so pervasive that it gets into male gaze territory. The characters are quite believable in their melodramatic sort of way.

And the music’s nice, too.

In the end, it’s a very fluffy, sticky sweet romantic comedy with a happy ending, played for all it’s worth. And somehow, it’s all quite strangely compelling.

Echildne wrote a good (if very angry) bit about treating the pro-choice movement as if it was some sort of for-profit corporation, and loosing sight of well, a woman’s right to choose.

I’m going to suggest a slightly different take; the problem is all in the framing.

Isn’t it ironic that this is all about a Super Bowl ad? Think about it: the Super Bowl is, well, football. The game that consists of large, muscular men crashing into each other. The Super Bowl is perhaps the archetypal symbol of hyper-masculinity. And that’s the context in which we’re discussing women’s rights.

This is a problem.

Now, I don’t have and thing against men – or women – playing football. At the end of the day it’s just another sport. But the sport has a long history of sheer hatred toward women, from the beer ads all the way down to the attitudes of the players and coaches (remember all those instances of college coaches hiring strippers with public money). That the Super Bowl is far and away the most watched sporting event – no, televised event period – in the United States says something very significant about our culture (for the record – the most watched event worldwide is the World Cup – that’s no better. But I digress).

And here we are, arguing about an anti-abortion commercial which will be played during an overwhelmingly masculine, patriarchal event. So I’d like to suggest this: The commercial doesn’t matter. While Kissling and Michelman suggestion for a counter-commercial is certainly apt, and would no doubt have a positive effect, so long as women’s issues have to hitch a ride on bigger, more expensive, and more (in the public’s mind) important essentially masculine events, there something very, very wrong with the picture.

That’s what we need to fix. As long as we look at this as some sort of big commercialized game (Oh dear – support for abortion rights is down slightly, but hey! Support for gay marriage is up! High fives all around!) we’re simply doing it wrong. We need to be about cultural change and ideology, not politics, ads, and entertainment money.

(Crossposted @ Fourth Wave Feminism)

I could say that in reality, the disaster is far from over, that we still need to support Haitians, etc. And it would be true – at least to a point.

But in all honesty, Haiti will be okay – as much as it can be. The damage is already done. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and the country destroyed. The humanitarian groups are finally in place, and all the rich foreign governments are involved. The disaster relief machinery is in place, it’s all downhill (or is that uphill?) from here.

And it’s too late to really do anything, because this disaster wasn’t really caused by the earthquake.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It had a terrible infrastructure. The government was inefficient, corrupt, had no resources, and was completely incapable of dealing with a disaster. And on and on it goes.

Haiti needed ‘disaster relief’ long before the earthquake. And if something had been done, the effect of the quake would have been much, much reduced.

That’s how it always happens, though. A part of the world, a people group, some other division has a problem. It could be poverty, potential war or genocide, or just simple racism, sexism, classism. Something happens, the conditions finally become intolerable, and then people (hopefully) do something. If it’s obvious enough (earthquake, hurricane), we do quite a lot. If it’s more subtle, we don’t do as much.

Regardless, by that point all that can be done is clean up. That’s the real disaster.

Something needs to be done before the earthquakes, not after.

So, I had high hopes when I found that they started a podcast – and wasn’t disappointed, either.

It’s called Small Screen Stakeout, and it’s pretty much the same sort of thing as She Made Me Watch This – plus more web series talk, minus the bunny rating system. Which is to say, it’s pretty fun. And very long – which I rather like. (The first episode is 99 minutes long, the second 61).

So, digression on long podcasts:

‘Traditionally’ – although podcasts have only really been around for about 10 years – not much time for a tradition to be created – but still traditionally, podcasts are supposed to be short, 10 minute or so rapid fire gems of entertainment. Except, it never seems to work out that way. You get the intro, random introduction, they hammer their way through the thing, and it’s over. There’s just no time to say anything, and to make things worse, they’re forced to make it dense with information. Which means you have to listen carefully, and can’t do too much else (or you’ll miss it!). On the other hand, with something long and rambling (like Small Screen Stakeout), you can listen and read, write, etc., so in the end, it takes less time to listen to an hour podcast than a 10 minute podcast! Plus, there’s lots more there, so you can always find something entertaining and it’s not such a waste if it’s not particularly good overall.

In other words, Rambling = good!

Anyway, the latest episode was just posted here, and I have to say that it’s quite good so far (even if they do talk about American Idol a lot…)

I actually had hope for this lovely bit of… supposed director criticism, given that it was linked from Afterellen, where writers usually have good taste. Except Mr. Shapiro isn’t really criticizing the various director’s, well, directing (remember, people – they don’t actually write the film, they just tell the actors what to do…). Instead he’s taking random jabs at their films (writing, acting and all!), and than yelling that they suck. Wonderful, isn’t it?

And, you know, it could have been a good article. For one thing, all the directors he goes after are, y’know, famous white guys, who are after all consistently overrated. He’s not going to go that route, of course! His criticism of Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise “… is liberal tripe, although it does provide the best imagistic summary of modern feminism: two irritating “independent” women driving themselves off a cliff.”

Yeah.

Some of his targets could be considered moderately overrated for their directing abilities, of course – David Lynch only really appeals to people who like weird surreal stuff, for instance, and Tarantino, despite frequent moments of genius is so offensive as to balance his work out to only ‘decent’ (entirely my opinion, of course!) But all the same, every director he mentions both created unique works, and is quite influential. If that’s not criteria for a proper ‘rating’, I’m not entirely sure what is.

In any case, all this vitriol made me wonder what kind of directors and movies Mr. Shapiro actually likes. So I clicked over to the blog’s front page. Which is almost entirely occupied by articles praising the great and glorious wonderfulness of former President Bush.

Perhaps the whole thing is an elaborate parody?

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I sat down and listened to the “I have a dream” speech today – and realized that I had never actually heard it before! Sure, I’ve read the speech, and others of his perhaps a dozen times, but I never actually listened to it, all the way through, as spoken by the man himself.

It was surprisingly enlightening.

I spent most Martin Luther King holidays during my teenage year angry, not perhaps at MLK himself, but at the importance that people attached to him. It seemed completely justified at the time – he was a plagiarist, a hypocrite in a variety of other ways, etc. (and I was influenced by my moderately racist local culture). After I became a feminist, I added his occasionally poor attitude toward women to the list.

Eventually, of course, I realized that most of his supposed failings were either fabrications or exaggerations made by a rather nasty group of people (there’s a nice write up here, if you’re curious). But even more important, I think, was realizing who Martin Luther King Jr. actually was.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great speaker. He wasn’t a philosopher or a scientist who single-handedly discovered some great truth. And while he was an excellent leader, I don’t think that’s really why he’s important. Martin Luther King Jr. real impact was that when he spoke, he wasn’t just speaking for himself – he was speaking for an entire community. Even more, perhaps – he spoke for a whole group of people, black, white, women, men, who had one thing in common: they cared about equality.

MLK didn’t just speak about race either, as some would have us think, he spoke about war, about poverty, even about technology. His genius was that he said what the people said; in listening, we can hear the people (including, perhaps, ourselves) speak.

And we would do well to listen.

(Crossposted at Fourth Wave Feminism)

And no, I’m not dead, just busy. I’ll hopefully start posting semi-regularly again soon!

Vivian is under a lot of stress. New place, strained relationship, new ‘mom’, reunion with an old friend. Some people respond to stress by reaching out. Others respond by closing up. Guess which sort Vivian is! By the end, she can hardly tell Aster she still loves her, and she can’t ask her honestly to stay. More importantly, she can’t really tell her, can’t make her understand why she’s acting that way. The same things that keep her from coming out to the school keep her from explaining to Aster. It’s a cycle.

This is an unusual sort of characterization. (And one that I identify with – I act this way, very much) We see ’shy’ characters often, but usually only in stereotype. They’re scared of social interaction in general, or scared of asking someone out, or something like that. The solution is always for them to become less shy, more extroverted, whereupon they are suddenly happier. (Think of Willow from Buffy). The other ‘bottled up’ sort of character refuses to share their emotions – the typical male pattern. Their solution is to learn to share, to relate. But Vivian is neither. She expresses her emotions perfectly well, but is unable to… articulate her reasons, if you will. And Aster only sees this as abandonment.

In real life, as in the show, it’s just not so simple as suddenly being more outgoing, or anything like that. For one thing, you can’t just change yourself, and even if you could it wouldn’t necessarily be better!

It’s all just just one hurdle, one decision at a time, and Vivian needs to find her path among them. Hopefully without driving the people she cares about away.

Things I liked:

• Vivian yelling at the surprised bystanders – one again, no problem expressing her emotions!
• The overall realism. Breakups aren’t all about angry yelling and dramatic exits. And sometimes they just drag on and on.
• It’s good to see that the homophobes are out in full force. I was beginning to thing that Viv was overreacting to the whole situation.

Things… not so much

• I’m confused about Sophie. Hopefully, her story thus far will be cleared up soon.
• The scene on the bench. I think it might have been the camera angle, or the sound, or something, but it felt a bit disconcerting and distracted.

The one-off weird bit:

• “Get me another drink?” Really? Really? Loser.

What made me cry a bit:

• Vivian in bed alone near the end, as the counterpoint to the opening of the two parter.
• “Pride.”

First, Legend of the Seeker:

I really, really wanted this show to be good. The first episiode was good enough that I started reviewing it… but it never got any better, just kind of sat there. I’ve officially lost interest. Which is a shame – I love high fantasy. Someday there will be a good high fantasy TV show. LotS just wasn’t that show.

Oh, well.

Sarah Conner:

I wasn’t really sorry to see T:SCC canceled. It never seemed particularly… focused, I think. Was it supposed to be about Sarah Conner? Or John Conner? Or Cameron? Or The Future Aussie Chick who’s name I can’t remember? In retrospect, the problem with T:SCC was that neither Lena Headey nor the actor playing John Conner were suitable to focus an entire show on. So they brought in Brian Austin Green (who stole far too many scenes!) and lots of other characters to spice it up. And the best actor on the show (Summer Glau) was playing the robot! (I would have liked to see Glau as Sarah Conner.) As a result, the show wasn’t really about anything or anyone, and the only reason to watch was to see Summer Glau beat up everybody!

Nothing against Lena Headey, by the way – she was amazing in Imagine Me And You, but she’s not great action hero material. She did a solid job as Sarah Conner, of course, but unfortunately she didn’t do an outstanding job. And the show needed an outstanding job.

Dollhouse:

I’m not crazy about Dollhouse yet. I don’t hate it, but it’s no Buffy or Firefly. Perhaps it will be eventually, but in the mean time it annoys me a bit that of the short-lived almost-canceled shows I like (Firefly, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daises, etc.) the one that makes it is the one I like the least!

In Plain Sight:

I love this show! For one thing, the protagonist is a badass woman who’s NOT supernaturally gifted in any way. For another, the show manages to be entertaining without always being serious, and yet not making overt jokes. The only bad part of the show is Mary’s family. They who make no sense to me, and the drama is seems senseless and overblown. Happily, it doesn’t take up the bulk of the show.

Bones:

Speaking of jokes, I am competely ticked off at Bones (the show, not the character!). Bones was an unusual and interesting show once upon a time. It featured a highly rational woman who, while lacking certain finer social graces, managed to show an uncanny understanding about the world. Sure, her awkwardness was played for laughs, but if she told somebody, “You’re only saying that because you want to have sex with her,” or “Love is only a chain of chemical reactions in the brain,” it was probably true! She was blunt, but often right. Booth was sometimes right as well – and the mutual learning between the two kept the show interesting. Now, the writers have seemingly become scared of the rationality. They constantly go out of their way to show that Booth (equals feelings!) is right and Brennon is wrong. Brennon is nothing more than a big joke. Worse, they are also trying to show us that Booth is smarter than he looks – i.e. it’s possible for a ‘lab rat’ like Brennon to be just as successful without the rationality. Thus her need to change.

As a moderately rational person, I strongly resent this!

Fear of reason (on the part of the writers, in this case) belies an essential insecurity about one’s environment and nature, leading to unintended negative results. (In other words, I’m not watching Bones anymore.) Bah.

Fringe:

…is the best show on television.

It does have its moments. Walter’s sense of humor is just annoying. Peter serves no function at all. And the boss-man having to talk Olivia down only worked the one time! But it’s all worth it to see Olivia either: A. find some piece of the puzzle, or B. beat the crap out of some really evil guy.

I only wish that Fringe wasn’t quite so disgusting. It’s as if they are overpaying their FX crew, and want to get their money’s worth!

So finally, the moral is:

Anyone But Me is officially better than anything currently on TV. I’ll review the latest episode tomorrow!