Amy Ponds of the 99% (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
allchildren) wrote2011-01-19 07:21 am
allchildren) wrote2011-01-19 07:21 am
Entry tags:
those anarcho-nerds are mysterious
I recently read Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, and now I am disappointed in all other things because it is becoming clear to me that over the last two or three years I've developed an affliction with regards to fiction that is gradually rendering me a gibbering mass of contrariness.
I believe Homer Simpson best summed my issue up with his timeless epigram, "Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems." Only in my case we will swap out beer (which causes me no problems other than in its sad dearth) for "rich people."
I guess it's not just rich people, but privileged characters in general. And I am aware that by saying so I point out my own privilege in having been able to go with the privileged-fictional-people flow for so long, and for reaching this particular breaking point out of narrative considerations rather than social justice ones. I disclaim here and now that I have been consistently humbled by the work of social justice-minded fans who've woken me up to a fucking ton of real social injustice mirrored and reinforced by media and that in my srs life goals addressing those issues is my media-related priority number one. But I also want to be clear that right now I'm not talking about social justice and privilege irl (not that, as a middle class white USian I would necessarily be the most insightful speaker on the subject) -- I'm talking about how fictional narratives are framed and whose viewpoints are backed up by the narrative.
I just. I was just watching North & South (the BBC one), right, and I'm only halfway through so I am reserving judgment but so far I'm watching this going "..." Lower-upper (?) class gentlewoman's family is forced to move to an industrial town where there are POOR PEOPLE and FACTORIES and COMPETITIVE TRADE and she calls it hell. Oh, if only I could move back to the country and not know that business operates! She makes friends with a working family and is sad as she dispenses charity. She sides with striking workers who of course riot and of course listen to her straightaway when she defends their boss (WHO PUNCHES HIS EMPLOYEES WHEN FIRING THEM) except then the guy with the six starving children hits her in the head with a rock! And I can't help but feel, I don't know if it's just that I'm in a terrible mood or that I saw something very similar on the far superior Downton Abbey when I marathoned it last week or WHAT, but what I think is supposed to be "moral complexity in a shitty situation for all involved" is just coming across to me as this politically fucked up condescending cop-out where the only person blameless in this situation is the girl highest on the social ladder, whose story this is, whose infinite compassion allows her to help shoulder the burden of poverty even though she obviously has no complicity in the system. And LIKE I SAY I haven't seen it all so maybe the story will not end up being about how sad it is to watch other people be poor and how beating up your workers kinda sucks but hey Logan Echolls something something now make out!, but that's not even the point.
The point is, I see this everywhere! In all different ways, but always reaffirming the privilege and moral strength of the protagonist and almost always allowing the status quo to live blamelessly on. Yesterday Rhea posted about The Hunger Games pulling punches and consistently allowing Katniss to avoid making really hard decisions, and: yeah. She's got to kill SOMEONE? Well, don't feel too bad, they're just mega-blonde "Careers" who are totally into being forced into a televised battle to the death. (From the vault: Dude don't you love it when Our Hero is held captive and for some reason everybody else around him is totally IN THE TANK for their captor even though they are also slaves and are forced to fight in the arena and get no food or sleep? It takes a special kind of sensitive soul to be offended by being a slave, I guess. That's how you identify a hero.)
This weekend I saw The Green Hornet and, you know, I thought it was going to be really "here is Seth Rogen, also here is this not white dude but DID YOU SEE SETH ROGEN" but early on it begins to be "Kato is great at everything, why isn't this movie called The Kato is Great At Everything Movie? fucking Seth Rogen! and I say this as one of very few media-obsessed feminists who will profess to actively liking Seth Rogen" and then in an amazing twist ACTUALLY BECOMES TEXTUALLY ABOUT HOW KATO IS GREAT AT EVERYTHING AND SHOULD HAVE HIS OWN MOVIE OR AT LEAST A SUPERHERO NAME. So I was pretty pleased with this level of textual awareness and trickery, and unrelatedly also how Seth Rogen does not even a little get the girl, but even with this joy visited upon me I couldn't help but be bummed because as far as it went in subverting the presupposed narrative privilege, it could have gone further. This is how contrary I am. Get close and I'm just thinking "no, closer." Because I've just lost all my reasonableness about this shit.
It's just, every chosen one and every special destiny and how every story that starts out being about ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances somehow always ends up pulling a secret connection out of its ass so that instead of our hero just being a hero because they're rad they've been under the watchful eye of the villain ALL THEIR LIVES!!1 And every monarchy in every fucking fantasy story, even when it's fucking Merlin and King Giles literally just executes people for the fun of it and some evil bitch with magic hates him which automatically makes him righter. And so, so much sci-fi where John "Ugly American Cultural Imperialist Seriously If You Tell Me How Great Farscape Is Right Now I Will Cut You" is the hero and in Starfleet where every captain and 98% of crewmembers we see are human and we've never seen a single good Romulan EVER and every serious critic of the Federation must eventually either die or capitulate.
I just... I don't know. I dream of narrative revolution. I dream of costume dramas that remember that POC had POVs before 1970, of engagement with class that doesn't SOMEHOW end up being pretty much about the lives of rich people, of actual fucking free will and narratives aren't fucking about the continuity of power and the unique specialness of heroes when the unique specialness inherent to being a person at all should really probably be plenty. I dream of villains who are just allowed to HAVE GOOD POINTS instead of always going off the rapey and/or mustache-twirling end. What about a collective revolution, what about breaking the format, what about not using a format at all?
I've lost my ability to interrogate text from the proper perspective anymore. Baby, I'm a narrative anarchist :(
ironic icon choice is ironic (oh eleven, ilu but don't think i wouldn't put you in the pandorica myself, i mean really)
I believe Homer Simpson best summed my issue up with his timeless epigram, "Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems." Only in my case we will swap out beer (which causes me no problems other than in its sad dearth) for "rich people."
I guess it's not just rich people, but privileged characters in general. And I am aware that by saying so I point out my own privilege in having been able to go with the privileged-fictional-people flow for so long, and for reaching this particular breaking point out of narrative considerations rather than social justice ones. I disclaim here and now that I have been consistently humbled by the work of social justice-minded fans who've woken me up to a fucking ton of real social injustice mirrored and reinforced by media and that in my srs life goals addressing those issues is my media-related priority number one. But I also want to be clear that right now I'm not talking about social justice and privilege irl (not that, as a middle class white USian I would necessarily be the most insightful speaker on the subject) -- I'm talking about how fictional narratives are framed and whose viewpoints are backed up by the narrative.
I just. I was just watching North & South (the BBC one), right, and I'm only halfway through so I am reserving judgment but so far I'm watching this going "..." Lower-upper (?) class gentlewoman's family is forced to move to an industrial town where there are POOR PEOPLE and FACTORIES and COMPETITIVE TRADE and she calls it hell. Oh, if only I could move back to the country and not know that business operates! She makes friends with a working family and is sad as she dispenses charity. She sides with striking workers who of course riot and of course listen to her straightaway when she defends their boss (WHO PUNCHES HIS EMPLOYEES WHEN FIRING THEM) except then the guy with the six starving children hits her in the head with a rock! And I can't help but feel, I don't know if it's just that I'm in a terrible mood or that I saw something very similar on the far superior Downton Abbey when I marathoned it last week or WHAT, but what I think is supposed to be "moral complexity in a shitty situation for all involved" is just coming across to me as this politically fucked up condescending cop-out where the only person blameless in this situation is the girl highest on the social ladder, whose story this is, whose infinite compassion allows her to help shoulder the burden of poverty even though she obviously has no complicity in the system. And LIKE I SAY I haven't seen it all so maybe the story will not end up being about how sad it is to watch other people be poor and how beating up your workers kinda sucks but hey Logan Echolls something something now make out!, but that's not even the point.
The point is, I see this everywhere! In all different ways, but always reaffirming the privilege and moral strength of the protagonist and almost always allowing the status quo to live blamelessly on. Yesterday Rhea posted about The Hunger Games pulling punches and consistently allowing Katniss to avoid making really hard decisions, and: yeah. She's got to kill SOMEONE? Well, don't feel too bad, they're just mega-blonde "Careers" who are totally into being forced into a televised battle to the death. (From the vault: Dude don't you love it when Our Hero is held captive and for some reason everybody else around him is totally IN THE TANK for their captor even though they are also slaves and are forced to fight in the arena and get no food or sleep? It takes a special kind of sensitive soul to be offended by being a slave, I guess. That's how you identify a hero.)
This weekend I saw The Green Hornet and, you know, I thought it was going to be really "here is Seth Rogen, also here is this not white dude but DID YOU SEE SETH ROGEN" but early on it begins to be "Kato is great at everything, why isn't this movie called The Kato is Great At Everything Movie? fucking Seth Rogen! and I say this as one of very few media-obsessed feminists who will profess to actively liking Seth Rogen" and then in an amazing twist ACTUALLY BECOMES TEXTUALLY ABOUT HOW KATO IS GREAT AT EVERYTHING AND SHOULD HAVE HIS OWN MOVIE OR AT LEAST A SUPERHERO NAME. So I was pretty pleased with this level of textual awareness and trickery, and unrelatedly also how Seth Rogen does not even a little get the girl, but even with this joy visited upon me I couldn't help but be bummed because as far as it went in subverting the presupposed narrative privilege, it could have gone further. This is how contrary I am. Get close and I'm just thinking "no, closer." Because I've just lost all my reasonableness about this shit.
It's just, every chosen one and every special destiny and how every story that starts out being about ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances somehow always ends up pulling a secret connection out of its ass so that instead of our hero just being a hero because they're rad they've been under the watchful eye of the villain ALL THEIR LIVES!!1 And every monarchy in every fucking fantasy story, even when it's fucking Merlin and King Giles literally just executes people for the fun of it and some evil bitch with magic hates him which automatically makes him righter. And so, so much sci-fi where John "Ugly American Cultural Imperialist Seriously If You Tell Me How Great Farscape Is Right Now I Will Cut You" is the hero and in Starfleet where every captain and 98% of crewmembers we see are human and we've never seen a single good Romulan EVER and every serious critic of the Federation must eventually either die or capitulate.
I just... I don't know. I dream of narrative revolution. I dream of costume dramas that remember that POC had POVs before 1970, of engagement with class that doesn't SOMEHOW end up being pretty much about the lives of rich people, of actual fucking free will and narratives aren't fucking about the continuity of power and the unique specialness of heroes when the unique specialness inherent to being a person at all should really probably be plenty. I dream of villains who are just allowed to HAVE GOOD POINTS instead of always going off the rapey and/or mustache-twirling end. What about a collective revolution, what about breaking the format, what about not using a format at all?
I've lost my ability to interrogate text from the proper perspective anymore. Baby, I'm a narrative anarchist :(
ironic icon choice is ironic (oh eleven, ilu but don't think i wouldn't put you in the pandorica myself, i mean really)
no subject
Which is not to say you aren't right - there are TONNES of problems with N&S from a social justice perspective - but that you're ALWAYS going to find this problem with Vic-lit in particular: N&S is Vic-lit aimed at the conscience of the industrialist and otherwise master-classes, and written by someone from them, and so will have particular aims, particular prejudices, and particular techniques, because of what the author was trying to achieve. For 18-mumble, when the general middle-class perspective on workers striking was "oh those idiot half-savages, EEK! we will all be murdered in our beds!", the lengthy rants of the father of the family Margaret attaches herself to would have been a SHOCKING eye-opener . . . .although again, I don't know how much they preserved of that in the adaptation.
I'm sure there's some fascinating fic to be written from the textile-workers' point of view, though - isn't that what fandom is for? ;)
(Edit: Oh, another aspect of Vic-lit: in 18mumble, yes, employers punched their employees when firing them sometimes. And in labour disputes, labourers brought in to break a strike were often beaten to death and found in the river later. Class and the police usually protected the actual industrialists - naturally - but not the strike-breaker, if his fellows could get their hands on him. It's a different context and a different set of expectations. Again, not to say that this is RIGHT or anything, just another "Vic-lit and its adaptations may not be for you.")
You may find this post at least vaguely applicable, altho it's about the book, not the adaptation.
I dream of costume dramas that remember that POC had POVs before 1970
I'm working on a huge historical fantasy that does this. It may take me another thirty years*, but I'm working on it!
*this is either why historians should never write historical fantasy (we are obsessive about the details and the interconnections and never satisfied until we know EVERYTHING), or why only historians should write historical fantasy (so that historians reading it don't go "BUT THAT'S NOT ACTUALLY HOW THE MANORIAL STYLE OF GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL RELATIONS WORKED, GODDAMNIT!"), take your pick.
no subject
no subject
N&S is just the thing that set me off, not the thing that itself offends me.
*nod* I got that; just the wording in particular was similar to what I've heard on the topic by people who aren't familiar with the period, and I am prone to overexplaining things, so it was more a "if these things aren't going to work out to your satisfaction, you probably don't want to watch the rest." Forgive me for assuming.
no subject
(AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Haaaaaa.
Dude don't you love it when Our Hero is held captive and for some reason everybody else around him is totally IN THE TANK for their captor even though they are also slaves and are forced to fight in the arena and get no food or sleep? It takes a special kind of sensitive soul to be offended by being a slave, I guess. That's how you identify a hero.
This reminds me of the season 1 Angel episode "The Ring," which almost subverts this. (Nobody really cares about Angel's pain as self-appointed Spartacus until the inevitable - blah - resolution. Hah, def not a reVolution.)
Would you recommend The Green Hornet remake, then? I must say that other Seth Rogan movies have instilled in me the urge to kick him very very hard in the shins. But if the movie really is about how the Kato character is fabulous at everything, then I may make some time!
I dream of villains who are just allowed to HAVE GOOD POINTS instead of always going off the rapey and/or mustache-twirling end.
Me too. Though I won't lie, I more deeply resent heroes or "antiheroes" privileged by the text to the extent that the narrative doesn't even recognize being a bad boy (or girl, in some cases) does not mean we can ever just shrug off the romantic interest's major - in some cases, starring - role in sexual assault and/or facilitating sex without free and informed consent! Even if the narrative holds them more accountable - in some cases, accountable at all - for some things. (See aforementioned Logan Echolls, Faith from BtVS even if I love her, etc.) TANGENT ENDS. Agree with your point!
eleven, ilu but don't think i wouldn't put you in the pandorica myself, i mean really
HEE SAME HERE.
Get close and I'm just thinking "no, closer."
GOOD MESSAGE, for reals.
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
re: sexual assault
YES. It is so unfortunate. >:(
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
My feelings about TGH are largely based on my feelings about Bruce Lee as Kato in the TV series (who according to wiki was so popular in Hong Kong that it was marketed as The Kato Show there). Also I hear Jay Chou is Taiwanese, which makes the remake of extra interest to me. Wiki makes the remake sound okay, so perhaps I will watch it, Seth Rogen notwithstanding!
YES. It is so unfortunate. >:(
Yeah; in fact, to backtrack on myself a little, Willow is actually a better example than Faith of the female hero/antihero who gets this treatment on BtVS. (Though there is so so much sketchiness about treatments of sex&consent in the Buffyverse, period.)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Otoh, I also saw this by (I think) an Asian guy at 8asians.com asking/ranting, Is Kato just another model minority stereotype? Which has me thinking (yet again) why, if Rogan's character isn't all that, he needs to be in the movie at all (or why the lead dude, even if he isn't awesome can by played by a POC, and have a sidekick POC too).
On the third hand, Jay Chou learned English in one month for this movie, and I kind of think I should see it just for that, because that is impressive. I mean, it's not like I'll be watching Thor for anything other than Idris Elba (and I don't even know what character he plays or how big his role is in the movie).
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Which has me thinking (yet again) why, if Rogan's character isn't all that, he needs to be in the movie at all (or why the lead dude, even if he isn't awesome can by played by a POC, and have a sidekick POC too).
Yeah.
On the third hand, Jay Chou learned English in one month for this movie, and I kind of think I should see it just for that, because that is impressive.
That is really impressive! I will definitely see it now.
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
FAITH
All right. Playin' hooky. Score one for the boarding school brat. Anya's technique's probably a little different than what you're used to.
AMANDA
(walks upstairs from the basement into the kitchen) Do you think there are gonna be questions about her sex life on the test? 'Cause I really hope I don't have to study all that.
FAITH
Yeah. (grins) Whenever she starts talking about getting all sweaty with Xander like that I just remind her I had him first. Shuts her right the hell up.
It struck me as incongruous because it's hard for me to imagine being able to mention the one thing blithely when it's so tied up in retrospect with Xander's subsequent attempt to "reach out" to Faith, Faith sexually assaulting and almost throttling Xander, etc.
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
XANDER: The point being I could be the target here. Faith finds Mr. Xander Harris still in town, she goes tighter than cat gut. Got a lotta pent up feelings there. I'm only saying.
GILES: (wearily) Yes, I'm sure.
XANDER: See, I can't be held responsible for the effect I have on women.
GILES: No...
XANDER: See, Faith and I have this little thing between us called history...
Eugh, ME. D:
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
The fuck.
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
Re: (AGAINST THE GRAIN YEAH)
no subject
YYYY. One of the things I like about The Wire is that it does some of this, and it does it really well (well, I'm only just starting S2, but S1 was great). It definitely breaks with the formula, and it unfolds slowly and without a neat ending to every episode. More like reading a book than watching a procedural*. It's not about any one heroic person and their journey; rather, it uses the "giving a fuck when it's not their turn to give fuck" (to paraphrase) trope, which allows both the 'good' guys (cops) and 'bad' guys (drug dealers) to have character motivations beyond altruism or special Chosen One prophecies. It's really about institutional ~isms (mostly class and race, I think, though it also has two canonically queer characters) and politics (within organizations, like a drug operation and the Baltimore PD). I find it fascinating (and I think the only way it works is because it's very specific to a time and place (Baltimore, early 2000s, post 9/11; I don't think it would work if it tried to be in a generic location or didn't interact with the setting - and people living there - in a meaningful way).
Anyway, I think this essay on that trope explains it better.
*Homicide: Life on the Street, sort of a precursor to The Wire, is a little more conventional, but I always forget it was an NBC/network program because it breaks with formula so much (at least the first 5 seasons; the last two aren't so great); and I think it was the first time I ever saw a character directly address racism (and intersectionality with (white) feminism) and be so right about it (there was no hipster joking or backpeddling from the narrative). AND it was not the entirety of his character or characterization: He's Frank Pembleton, Murder Police and Brilliant in the (Interrogation) Box, not Frank Pembleton, Token Angry Black Man. He is so very awesome in many, many ways. As for the rest of the show, I like that it's not about chasing the bad guy or finding some obscure clue to lead them to a murderer; it's about the cops and their interactions with one another.
...Er, apologies for the ramble, and if you already know all about these shows.
Homicide: Life on the Street
this is pembleton in my icon :D
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
And I like that with this trope you don't even have to like the character that much! (because I don't really like McNulty, but I don't mind watching him because the show isn't about him as a main character just because he's the white dude, and I don't get the impression that I'm supposed to like him or think he's right all the time either.)
(Come to think of it, H:LOTS does this with Tim Bayliss too, though I think perhaps he's not quite as much of an wretch as McNulty.)
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
And yeah, I think Bayliss and McNulty are pretty different in important ways, though they do both give a fuck when it's not their turn to give a fuck (sometimes).
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
Re: this is pembleton in my icon :D
no subject
no subject
no subject
I hate to be the jerk who comments two weeks after the fact, but here I am, hello, allow me to trespass upon your kindness a bit.
I'd go ahead and second the recommendation of The Wire for the above reasons listed, with the caveat that it's not really about women. The Wire is an allegory for America where all the characters are shaded well, even the stone cold killers, but barely mentions sex workers. A part of the show follows children on the cusp of puberty, and it's GREAT, but they're all boys. There is a skeezy, mostly off-screen relationship between a down on her luck informant and the police officer she's working with, that is not shown as being a problem in any sort of way.
I'm having difficulty putting exactly what my difficulties with it into words (story of my life), but I find it disingenuous and even disgusting that a show that is telling the story of America ignores the stories of women in such a way, and isn't bothered by it at all. For a show to discuss race and class in such amazing ways, and even include queer characters, to ignore gender in a fundamental way makes me incensed. I'm thinking of a couple female characters in the main ensemble who are Characters, while a lot of others are Objects.
I NEED A QUESADILLA is a mood I find myself having far too often, btw.
no subject
(I actually even LIKED Logan Echolls! A lot! BUT -- Veronica Mars season one, you were... so very far away, now. Let us never speak of you again.)
Anyways, I love this note on The Wire, because although I haven't seen it, one of the reasons I've never quite gotten around to it* is that I always tend to prioritize fiction that's ladycentric, and only one person who's talked about the show to me has ever mentioned an important female character. You're dead-on that a show which is regarded as the Story of America is falling down on its job if it's not also about women, and now that you've brought it up I'm pretty grossed out that it's been so widely hailed as the Greatest TV Show Of All Time (Of All Time!!!) with nary a caveat about this huge gap.
I still do want to watch it, though.
*see also my lifelong failure to watch more than a couple episodes of The Sopranos, even though my dad loves it and owns all of it on DVD, and I know that that show at least does have a few important female characters besides the ubiquitous naked women in the background because of course setting Tony's business meetings in a strip club was a totally narratively necessary decision and has nothing to do with casual objectification
no subject
I (jokingly) say I judge all shows by H:LOTS (and by extension now, The Wire) standards, but I mean that until such a time when there's another show that sets the bar higher for me. (I also don't see either show as "The Great American Story"; I think its strength is that it's very specific to a place and time and certain groups of people (I'm not exactly thrilled with the representation of Asian or Jewish characters on the show either), though I guess the themes are more universal.)
(er, here again! after seeing this linked. :))
no subject
no subject
Them Ghosts. 8378 words. Author's notes: "Kimmy and Tosha's lives from ages 15-16 up through what we see of them on the show. Contains spoilers for the canon through season 3, but mostly pertaining to Kimmy and Tosha's fates. There are also mentions of violence, drugs, sex, etc. Basically, it's what you'd expect from the fandom, which is a pretty intimidating one to write in." Another reason why I like this story so much is that it is, to my knowledge, unique in that I think it ends up presenting a valid critique of a very (and justifiably) popular character.
Amor Non Vincit. 842 words. Spoilers through the end of season 3-ish. Author's notes: "For the first choc_fic challenge. Prompt #14: 'The Wire, Kima Greggs: Lookin' for love in all the wrong places - "Oh, how I wish that I could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E"'"
The Hustle. 2929 words. Spoilers through the end of the show. Author's summary: "Nobody ever gave up their hustle except for one reason." After the series finale, all about Kima and what keeps her going. Pitch perfect in the spirit of the show: the nuances of dialogue, characterization, every last thing. One of the best fics I've read for anything ever, in fact.
no subject
no subject
no subject
io9 had this post some years back, when BSG was running (and more about that in a moment) that said that BSG's fault was that it made the Cylons too likeable, let the viewers see their internal drama and what they were trying to do, and no one wants that in their SF; they want the appearance of moral ambiguity, but not actual moral ambiguity. There should be a good guy and there should be villains and that's why we're watching genre and not some movie about Iraq or something.
And speaking of pulled punches, BSG pulled every single one! And I wouldn't mind if they weren't so lauded for tackling the tough issues. But they never actually tackled them; they just looked like they did. A friend of mine who is deeply read in politics, particularly of the Middle East, watched it after I did and was thorougly disgusted with it and I was like, yeah, exactly.
But the io9 post, as well as the uphill battles of social justice folks in fandom, make me think that the consumers of these kinds of narratives don't want that. They WANT things to be simpler, whether a seemingly simpler time in which they can ignore the ugly bits in their costume fantasy, or a simpler moral code, or whatever. And if they wanted things that were complicated, you know, like real life, they'd be reading/watching something entirely different. But they don't want that. And I get that, and wouldn't mind so much if there wasn't so very little that wasn't that.
no subject
I, hahaha, can't really talk enough smack about BSG, so you won't get any disagreement from me there. The idea that BSG was TOO morally complex is frankly hilarious to me. The show is the very epitome of "the appearance of moral ambiguity, but not actual moral ambiguity"! Every time a human rose up against the narrative's heroes, they were painted as a mustache-twirling supervillain -- the irredeemable for no reason Tom Zarek, the overzealous Admiral Cain -- and every time a human fought against the monolith that had committed MASSIVE GENOCIDE they were painted to really be the ~worse than the Cylons who got off scott free with everything. A narrative having NO moral position is not at all the same as a COMPLEX moral position. Likewise "everybody is a horrible asshole" doesn't really prove anything other than that the show isn't fun to watch anymore. So while I agree with the io9 premise, I think it's proven by BSG's success, not its "fault" -- it certainly managed to win hordes of fanboy masses in a way that, say, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles never did, was honored by the friggin' UN, and is now onto its second prequel. Some failure.
no subject
AND yes, the show could never recover from the genocide. It never even tried. It was like, "well, they had their reasons for wiping out an entire civilization! people were mean to them!" Funnily enough, when the show was still airing a friend of mine said to Ali that he thought she'd like BSG because DS9 is her favorite Trek and RDM wrote so much of it. She was in the middle of a rewatch anyway, so she paid attention to who wrote what and lo, he wrote the episodes that she found tiresome. AND ALSO, those episodes did the same deus ex machina late game save bullshit that kept anyone from actually having to take a difficult moral stand. Just like BSG!
And my aforementioned friend, one of the reasons people talked BSG up to him (and he's a BIG genre fan; he's like, THAT geeky guy) was the whole suicide bombing and he was like, "that had NOTHING to do with suicide bombing in the real world wtf." He was like, so mad. It's sad, how vindicated I felt by his disgust with that show.
See the difference with ATLA is that Ozai is the true Fire Lord; he's just crazy. And so the whole thing with Zuko not being the one to take him out is like, it isn't a struggle for power. It's about how Ozai is the ultimate manifestation of what his grandfather started, which is a goddamned mess. If it were a typical high fantasy narrative, then Ozai's very rule would be incorrect in some way, like he'd be the jealous bastard son, the Prince John, the Scar, and in that would be his wrongness. So it isn't just that ATLA was really great in saying "it isn't that the Fire Nation are horrible people" but also "it isn't that they have the wrong king, just a bad one."
no subject
I've noticed the same thing about DS9, too (as noted in the post after this). More than once I was watching an episode and without having seen the credits KNEW it had to be Ron D. Moore because only he could take a complex situation and turn it into black and white good versus evil with such infuriating panache, or disregard every ethical directive there is (omg, still not over the episode where Worf's brother -- who has been recurring since early TNG days, so like a decade -- has his memory wiped and identity replaced by a STARFLEET DOCTOR, without his consent, to the objections of absolutely no one. !!!!!). Luckily for DS9, RDM was never the head honcho or working unchecked, but his fingerprints are still easily visible, unfortunately.
Excellent point about Ozai. Although one could argue that Ozai's rule IS incorrect; Azulon shouldn't have been murdered, and following that Iroh should have taken the throne. Instead Iroh's protege does.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject