march medialog and things

[allchildren]

BOOKS (goodreads)

• cold magic (kate elliott)
• the brief wondrous life of oscar wao (junot díaz)
• first 64 pages of world war z before i ragequit (max brooks)

MOVIES

• the kids are all right
• our idiot brother (rewatch)
• breaking dawn
• hanna (rewatch)

TV

• adventure time ("incendium" rewatch)
• arrested development (s3 rewatch)
• call the midwife (all)
• community (as aired)
• cosmos (first episode)
• fringe (febuary episodes)
• mad men (as aired)
• new girl (as aired)
• parks and recreation (as aired)
• project runway all stars (as aired, minus the finale)
• the colbert report (idk, a few)
• the crimson petal and the white (final installment)
• the daily show (idk, a few)
• the good wife (as aired)
• the legend of korra (first two episodes) (twice) (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)
• the new batman adventures ("girls night out" and "mad love", also the one before them but i was paying like 10% attention)
• the secret circle (three of the six or so episodes i was behind on because goddamn that show is boring)
• the voice (all battles)
• the x-files ("demons")
• top chef texas finale + reunion
• young justice (as aired minus yesterday's ep)

Oh, I promised opinions.

Korra: I've seen some talk that I found bemusing and I guess what it comes down to is that I trust Mike and Bryan's narratives and revere their worldbuilding more than any other mainstream storytellers, and so while I can only go so far as to call it a hope, I'd like to think that the questionable elements in the setup of Republic City are intended to be questionable and that the natural direction of the narrative will be to dismantle them from the inside out. The ultimate point of the anti-bending faction shouldn't be that nonbenders are evil, jealous, or small-minded, but that benders do have a lot of unexamined power, particularly in the social hierarchy of Republic City, which was founded by benders and is currently policed by them. That is, benders have privilege. Even in a jokey exchange like "You're oppressing yourselves!" "That doesn't even make sense!" there is a reflection of real life issues; victim-blaming and denial of privilege is always the go-to defense of the privileged in consciousness-raising conversations. My hope is that instead of BOO HISS VILLAINY we'll get the tables turned on Korra as she learns her spiritual role and discovers that balance is about more than just air, water, earth, and fire.

Nuaaaaaaaaaance.

And The Hunger Games: First, the macro of my grump is that these books should have been about what it means for the revolution to be televised and the observer effect and Katniss being a person and maybe even Katniss/Peeta being interesting and fucked up, but what they were actually about is what Katniss wore every goddamn day of her life and oh no her stylist has a bloody nose truly that is the greatest crime of all and the world's least interesting love triangle and gratuitous unearned unexamined atrocities that last a paragraph and and Katniss never knowing what is going on and going into comas once a month which makes her a gr8 narrator april fools and male/female relationships being prized at the expense of Arrested Development-style hollow female relationships like Katniss's great love for the 99.9% offscreen-until-gratuitously-killed Prim (although despite these shitty priorities Peeta's recovery from being brainwashed also happens offscreen, SO FASCINATING). Oh, let's kill Coin instead of Snow. CHIX R EVIL AMIRITE. Sure sure. The micro of my past month's grump is, jfc who the fuck cares if Battle Royale came first? The books are not even about kids killing kids. They are about the (most passive imaginable) revolution of a dystopian state. Two of the three books do not even contain kids killing kids! The Quarter Quell is mostly full of adults! why do I care, nobody knows, I just feel very grumpy about all this mediocrity and point-missery that fills mine eyes

HOPE U ENJOYED

Comments

[crossedwires]

That's my take/hope for KORRA too! <333

Can I ask what made you ragequit World War Z? My brother recced it some time ago.

[allchildren]

The novel is told in small interviews with narrators from all over the world. A good 10 or more narrators went by, all of them male, with the only women mentioned being offscreen wives/widows and nurses for the real agents (doctors). The first woman mentioned as a real character was initially spoken of, on page 62 or 63!!! as an "Alpha cunt who should be shot." Then the first woman narrator's interview began with such an onslaught of soccer mom whose life is only about her husband and kids stereotypes, including "if I wanted to be depressed I could just step on the scale in the morning," and I had to stop lest my head explode.

[softestbullet]

Damn, really? I was introduced to WWZ through this beautifully ladycentric fic... Shoulda known canon would let me down.

[allchildren]

Ha, yeah, when I complained about this to sophia_helix she told me about that exact fic! I was really surprised and disappointed by the blatant sexism of the book because I've seen it highly recommended; and scrolling through its top Goodreads reviews, I didn't see a single mention of it!

However, if you are interested in actual intersectionally friendly (so to speak) zombie OMGWORLDBUILDING, I do recommend Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy.

[softestbullet]

A million years later: I rllly liked the first one, but then all the girls died, so I stopped, but you think it's still good?

[allchildren]

Lack of girls is definitely not an issue as the trilogy progresses. I actually found the final book of the trilogy rather anticlimactic, but the second book is gr8.

[crossedwires]

Thanks. That's terribly disappointing. I'll be giving it a miss.

[brooms]

but that benders do have a lot of unexamined power, particularly in the social hierarchy of Republic City, which was founded by benders and is currently policed by them

everyting grant morrison's x-men should have been!

HOPE U ENJOYED

i did, thanks.

[allchildren]

I AIM TO PLEASE

OCCASIONALLY

[whatimages]

I thought that's what they were getting at with that worldbuilding too--I thought the setup was pretty explicit? But idk, that's just how I read it.

I wish the Hunger Games was everything it aspired to be. Alas, earwax.

[allchildren]

I think it's pretty explicit that Republic City is messed up -- it's a police state, there's gangs, and people are homeless. (Although I saw people even questioning whether the militant policing was supposed to be bad!) The antibending stuff I hope is/will be made explicit but right now I just don't think we've seen enough to know for certain. Or maybe people are just afraid to trust in how a story should be now because they've been BSGed too many times. *shrug*

[ghost_lingering]

Re: Korra -- YES. I think that Tenzin's wife's comment that she wants a child that is "like her" was the first subtle example of how the bender/non-bender dichotomy can wear even on non-benders who are positive about bending.

[asfriedhr]

Seconded!

And yeah, Tris, I've found a lot of the dialogue in the fandom/general media community surrounding the worldbuilding and politics of Korra to be overly simplistic; like, there is a lot present (explicitly so) in just those first two episodes not just suggesting but setting up a power imbalance between those who can bend and those who cannot within Republic City. People are noting that imbalance and assuming it won't be addressed, but I think that imbalance is purposeful! And, well, hm, maybe I'm just willing to give Mike and Bryan and the rest of the Avatar team the benefit of the doubt on the strength of ATLA. They've a track record for addressing moral complexities and people doing bad things with good intentions, and doing so without apologia.

(I'm actually REALLY EXCITED! to see Korra address this stuff, ahhhhhhhhh, SO EXCITED OH MY GOSH!!!)

[allchildren]

Yeah, it's just -- AVATAR IS ONE OF THE MOST MORALLY SOPHISTICATED SHOWS OF ALL TIME. (OF ALL TIME!!) I started to say "it was never about dichotomies" but, I mean, in some ways that's all it was -- but in the Taoist tui and la sense of cosmic dichotomy that also reveals that within every yin there is some yang, and vice versa. The Earth Kingdom included freedom fighter terrorist teenagers and brainwashing disappearing operations and the Fire Nation was home to the poor and oppressed! "The Southern Raiders"! ZUKO! So whether people are ready to Oncelette out on Amon or hate him because he's the bad guy, I'm sitting here thinking, but really? Because whatever happens, he will have had some kind of a point, and to cast either side as good or evil misses so much of what these stories and these storytellers have encouraged us to embrace.

FEELINGS.

And yes, I am very very excited indeed for a story that could potentially be about the dismantling of social privilege, for kids, with pov poc!!!

[allchildren]

Now I wanna write fic about Pema and what it's like for her to have to be the MOTHER OF THE NEW AIRBENDING RACE and the huge responsibility and pressure to reproduce that goes with and the guilt she must feel even thinking such a thing, even though it's totally true that mothering kids who can literally fly away must be such a damn chore.

lolol feelings about fictional mothers 4 lyfe

[softestbullet]

Omg going through ancient tabs to say:

male/female relationships being prized at the expense of Arrested Development-style hollow female relationships like Katniss's great love for the 99.9% offscreen-until-gratuitously-killed Prim

Ha ha GOD what a perfect breakdown of something I hate so much (haven't even watched AD, but). So many stories do this. GRGHH

[allchildren]

just to clarify lest you think that was also a dis on AD, it was actually in re: the show's model home, which is furnished by hollow/faux appliances, furniture, and plastic food!