On HU
This week started off with Erica Friedman talking about the Bechdel test and manga.
Alex Buchet wrote about fairy tales and silhouette art.
Ng Suat Tong reviewed Ma Li and Chen Uen’s popular Taiwan comic Abi Jian.
Richard Cook talked about gender in Final Fantasy XIII.
I discussed Alan Moore and the fans who hate him.
I talked about Moto Hagio’s short story Hanshin: Half-God.
And I reviewed Jim Collins’ Bring On the Books for Everybody.
Oh, and I think I’m going to stop with the music downloads. It’s been fun, but there’s not a ton of interest, and I spend too much time on the blog as it is!
Utilitarians Everywhere
At Splice Today I have an article encouraging gay teens to drop out of school.
Nonetheless, I find the message in the videos I’ve seen frustrating. Yes, it’s good for kids to know that things will improve. But high school isn’t a force of nature. It’s not a hurricane, or even acne. It’s not unavoidable. If high school is making your life miserable beyond all endurance—so miserable that you’re seriously considering killing yourself—then maybe you shouldn’t wait two or three years for your life to get better. Maybe you should just drop out.
Also at Splice Today I have an essay about the I Spit on Your Grave remake, feminism, the end of politics, and Funny Games.
The remake follows through on the group dynamics to some extent—the guys egg each other on; they bring Matthew along to lose his virginity, etc. But it abandons the effort to make the men appear like just folks. Ironically, the director Steven R. Monroe gives one of his characters a video camera, and we see some of the rape through the lens. This is an obvious effort to implicate the viewer, but in fact, this version of the story is much less accusatory than Zarchi’s original.
That’s because, instead of seeing the rape as a result of standard male group dynamics, Monroe tries hard to de-collectivize the guilt. In Zarchi’s version, the men were typical guys, and the rape, too, was therefore typical—a possibility for any man. In Monroe’s version, on the other hand, the rapists are individual monsters, a much less frightening idea.
At Madloud, I discuss 15 or so of the 15,000 covers of “Summertime.
This is fascinating, in a Hey! -that’s-Barry-Manilow-defecating-on-my-porch! kind of way. Philadelphia studio musicians turn Gershwin’s mournful lullaby into a giant lounge turd, complete with smooth-jazz intro and half-assed crappy disco cheese funk. For the full effect, imagine Paul Robeson dancing in a conga line with a white shirt open to his navel. Or, you know, don’t.
Other Links
Alex’s post reminded me of this awesome fairy tale resource.
I haven’t seen the Social Network, but the trailer looks terrible. I was pleased to see Jezebel buck the conventional wisdom and eviscerate it.
And this is several years old, but still an interesting article, on sexual harassment online.
I rather enjoyed the Social Network but I am quite frankly shocked that very few critics noted how openly misogynistic the film is. Is it that so many Hollywood films are like this that people are almost desensitized to it? Or are critics just conveniently glossing over it to put over the film?
Oh, I presume what the movie’s TRYING to do is depict the misogyny inherent to elitist Harvard — and, by implication, the national, political elite — and thus characterize Mark Zuckerberg as a sort of symptom of that illness, like an observer retarded enough socially to grasp the structures in place, and replicate them online… a bit reductive, but that seems to be the objective. However, the film (or at least the script) really does seem to be simultaneously in awe of Zuckerberg’s achievements, so that alternative non-male viewpoints are never given more than narratively convenient lip-service, and determined to simplify his character to something instantly digestible. There’s this horribly pat arc to the character, where literally everything goes back to the nice, smart non-Harvard girl who left him for being an asshole… apparently this isn’t even true, Zuckerberg seems to have had a steady relationship for most of the depicted action, which means Sorkin (presumably) concocted this pat narrative stratagem for the sake of a would-be sympathetic finale. A well-made movie, but very irritating in a bunch of ways…
The critical buzz around this movie recalls the shoujo-Moto Hagio discussion that was floating around David Welsh’s Manga Curmudgeon site a few weeks back. I’m interested in seeing if this issue picks up even more steam in the coming weeks.