*Scoff*...WOMEN...tsk tsk...smdh

Can we stop creating race/gender/sexuality based tests for movies and shows? Ultimately they're utterly meaningless. Those works are what they are, good or bad on the merits of themselves. If they include minority characters in some capacity or another and do so in a moderately positive manner, then good for them.

I'm not saying we need to praise every film that comes out simply because it features a female character doing something other than having sex nor am I saying that we need to damn every film that doesn't or doesn't do so under overly idealistic circumstances. I'm just saying consider a movie on its own. Don't compare and contrast its theoretical socio-political strengths or faults or distinctions as the be all and end all of the film or work itself. It's a component, nothing more, nothing less. Judge everything by its own standards and with the same specific criteria. If those aspects are overwhelming in the given work or they are a significant theme being explored or addressed and they legitimately lend themselves to analysis, then by all means, analyze and critique away.

But every summer blockbuster and every giant award winning film doesn't need/deserve/necessitate the kind of repetitive, vaguely defined, and ultimately futile haranguing they get. Movies, at the end of the day, are just that- movies. They aren't definitive tent-pole landmarks by which our sociological tendencies should be judged. They are only indicative of those attitudes and ideas in a broad way as it is. Films more often than not are such specifically focused entities, giving off notions and perspectives and opinions that are usually nothing less than the given point of view a select number of individuals (i.e. the cast and crew). If those ideas are ones that you don't necessarily agree with or if they aren't executed in a manner you find particularly effective or positive or ideal then you have every right to address those matters however you see fit. But to act as though the latest Michael Bay flick or the newest Star Wars movie will be the definitive end to the positive depiction of women on screen seems a bit much. Is the argument you're making that those films are inherently or theoretically sexist in some small or large way invalidated? No. But we do tend to live in an age where we use hyperbole and exaggeration far too heavily. These arguments have been made for years and more often have been done so in a manner much more accurately and legitimately critical than in the stuff you so often read in modern op-ed pieces and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. We speak in such broad and vague terms that we never actually get to the heart of the matter. We use an abundance of overly fancy language to make it seem as though we saying something much more important or relevant than we may be.

A decent example of this arose in my Simpsons class during my final semester. We were discussing an extended excerpt from Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble which details her analytical perspectives on they very concept of gender and sexuality. Our teacher admitted that while Butler's points are at the very least interesting and allow for a great deal of discussion on the issues she raises in the course of the book and especially that she does argue and support herself well enough- the prose and the language that is used is almost impossibly difficult to get through. If at the end of the day you're making a more or less valid argument about a legitimately controversial and an enormously complex issue, why hinder yourself by using word choice that distances your readers or at the very least is only really understood by academics?

If your point is that a recent film is bad because it represents a minority in a poor light, that's a completely valid and accurate criticism. In theory. But if all you do in the course of your review/article/discussion is rant in unsupported ways of how this one film specifically can and should be used as the quintessential pinnacle of what's wrong with Hollywood's perspective on _____________ (insert minority group here) then you're kind of missing the point.

These issues are so enormous in their scope and so (essentially) complex in terms of the ways they've been represented over the years in our media that it's simply not adequate to break them down into one film and say "This is the movie that should be used as a point of reference." The issues themselves are just that- issues. They are inherently and aggressively complicated and appear in such a multitude of forms and guises that it's nigh impossible to say that Sucker Punch or Pacific Rim are good or bad because of how they represent women as characters. Far too often I've seen critics and online bloggers discuss these matters in such one-sided ways and with such (surprisingly and laughably) limited perspectives and terms. Entire books have been written on the treatment of African-American and/or female and/or LGBT and/or any minority really characters over the years and they have attempted to encapsulate and carefully define the rise and fall of the various issues attributed to any of those kinds of characters. To just arbitrarily announce that a recent superhero or sci-fi flick or minority-centered drama is the worst thing ever to happen to someone/something is just absurdly inflating the issue to a level it doesn't exist at.

How I Learned to Hate Quirky John Hughes Smiths Songs and Other Random Crap

There's this really bizarre trend I've noticed in recent fiction books I've been reading. Keep in mind, I read a fair amount of YA stuff mostly b/c that's where a decent number of my intended works fall subject-matter/audience-wise. Point is this though- the books are either incredibly long or incredibly short. And yet regardless of their length, there are whole sequences that seem to be missing from these novels. Like the narrator (usually in first person/from the protagonist's point of view) will just describe the events of an entire conversation or a given day's/week's occurrences. And not just once or twice in an intentional way on the part of the author to show a clear and necessary passage of significant amounts of time, but just huge chunks of potential story seem to be cut out. More and more I'm noticing this lame tendency of authors/editors to simply excise enormous parts of the text to keep the pacing quick and to make it an easy read and (more often than not) to create this obvious message to readers that "this book should be a movie." I can't tell you how many recent books I've read that feel like Love Story (all the character bits and narrative oomph and pretty much everything that makes a book...a book have been eliminated for the sake of a selling point for a future screenplay adaptation).

It's been such a long while that I've read something and felt "yes, this is a well-done actual book book." And on one level I get it. All the cult-oriented YA stuff is trying desperately hard to be the next Twilight or Hunger Games (and frequently both the books and movies fail b/c they just don't understand the literal appeal of character or story). It's the same bullshit Hollywood flicks go through as they're re-written and re-shot to appeal to more audiences. And yet on another level, it just seems so bizarre to me that an individual author of a solitary work is apparently so singularly hellbent on creating a work of fiction that is purely intended for mass marketability and franchising. Like- didn't it used to be incredibly hard to get published regardless of what you were writing? Is it then necessary too for pretty much all authors to just sell out and create trade paperback bullcrap because they'd rather make some money than craft an original work?

And I don't even mean this on a "wah, wah, no one's noticing my brilliance" level either. I mean this on the purely basic level of all that is good. Is there really nothing original in this world anymore? Even writers like John Green are pissing me off, because they're inspiring more pseudo-intellectual, "cool" (still incredibly male-centered) authors to write crappy, vaguely well-intentioned, spiritual, semi-realistic (though not really), John Hughesian-as-an-author claptrap books that sell like hotcakes. Everything has its own niche market and super specific subgenre. Look on the back of every new book and you'll see someone compare the author to someone else who is better known. We need constant points of comparison and context apparently in order to get validation on our supposed interest in a work. We can't simply listen to an excerpt from a song or watch a trailer for a movie that doesn't have a plethora of voiceover work. We need multiple trailers. And TV spots that slather on all the highlighted good reviews from Rotten Tomatoes. Seemingly everything has become product now. Movies, TV shows, music, and...books. And whenever something daringly, genuinely, actually new and interesting and original comes along we brush it aside and call it a fluke or don't give it a chance at all because the numbers simply aren't impressive enough. Seriously- everything has become about the box office and sales numbers. Not a newsflash I'll grant you. But still- EVERYTHING. Not to say it isn't important or a necessary component of these kinds of things, but at some point enough has to be enough. Writers actually get chastised nowadays by their overlords- the producers and agents and teachers and anyone else in the upper echelon who holds apparently more significance and money and power for...whatever reason...because there's simply not enough marketability to their work. Granted, these things are products that need to be sold. But somewhere someone needs to say yes. And take a risk. And just have faith that maybe a writer or the creator of an original story is on to something, even if it's...dare I say...a bit outside the box.

With all the hundreds of thousands and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars we throw into the making of sequels and reboots and remakes and prequels and reimaginings and what have you, you'd think Hollywood (as it did in the old days) would have enough/save enough to spend a couple million here and there on the good old-fashioned non-franchise films. This used to be an actual thing believe it or not. Before the rise of Weinstein and independent movie companies and the like, the big producing teams like Warner Bros and Paramount and MGM would save some money and spend it on the production of a select few less expensive films which would inevitably be made by incredibly talented directors who wanted to work more or less outside the giant generic Hollywood system for themselves. To create small, intimate, and original films that were a bit more daring in terms of their subject matter or their tone or the actors used. And these almost always became the big Fall and Winter films, the ones that would go on to be the Oscar nominees and winners.

Instead, today we get a complete crapshoot of unpredictable movie-making. Everyone's vying to do this or that, to make the next big film series, or to produce independently their own little egocentric film. Just because these films can be made or do get made doesn't mean that they should. Is independent movie making a good thing and an excellent starting point? Yes. But it's also a very, VERY slippery slope and can often end in disaster. Take for instance- Joey. He's a businessman. He makes a ton of money. But he's always dreamed of making movies. He has enough to hire a bunch of people to shoot his 250 page script and to create his own indie project that he thinks will inevitably launch him to stardom. Not knowing much, a handful of film students (most of whom are extremely eager to get any and all work) latch onto the production and give a helping hand. And there Joey stands at the center of it all making his movie. But he's running out of money. He thought he had enough. But filmmaking is apparently harder than it looks. And takes longer. Especially because Joey bought some shitty camera and lighting equipment that his best friend recommended. Do you see where I'm going with this? Of course this isn't always the case. There are many, many well intentioned and talented young filmmakers who go on to have stellar careers after a few hiccups. You learn from your mistakes and all that jazz. Every situation is different, etc. My point is, we've made making movies simultaneously far too easy and far too difficult. And the same applies to books. And TV shows. And music. We've all been given the ease of creating these things which are incredibly hard to create even on the best of days. And we all foolishly assume that because something is popular or will potentially sell well, there is a specific quality to be had in the product. And we all doubly foolishly assume that because we are given the means to create such a product with such enormous ease and without the training or at least with any earlier trial and error experience that our given product will be a success. And then those sad fools, led inevitably by Joey, are left scratching their heads with an unfinished film or an unpublished book, wondering where they went wrong.

Or...much worse...they are given the rest of their money or the means to self-publish because a bigger bunch of wayward fools with even worst tastes in art and products have to decided to buy in. They wanna see Joey's film. They wanna read Fifty Shades. Because something in those works appeal to the lowest common denominator. Because Hollywood has taught and manipulated so many to just accept it all. Every last explosion, every last crude joke, every sappy line. It's rare that there are unmitigated disasters anymore. Even the lousiest of books and films make huge amounts of money because people will pay for anything. Even when they know that what they will be getting is crap.

I'll end on this one shining example- and I think it summarizes more or less what I mean. I had a friend in high school for a couple of years (we're not friends anymore because she's kind of a bitch). We saw a few movies together over the summer one year. And more than anything else in the course of viewing movies with her, I can vividly recall one incredibly fascinating thing she'd do. At the end of virtually every trailer (throughout which she'd ooh and ahh at every special effect and explosion) she'd insist that we go see that as well. I, being a seasoned film goer, could more or less sniff out the real dogs from the good stuff (not always, but no one's perfect). And when I say every movie trailer, I mean EVERY movie trailer. It was laughably bizarre if I do say so myself. And that takes me back to the books. These damn books. At some point in the past, when they were much different and probably longer (or shorter, I don't know, maybe length has nothing to do with it), they were probably much better or at least much more interesting. But instead they've become like most modern movie trailers. Filled to excess with the constant bombast of Hans Zimmer Inception-like BRRM BRRM's. And chock full of endless, cryptic narration. And fleeting cuts of cool special effects and explosions. Books have become the teasers for their own movie adaptations. And the result is sad. But mostly weird.

But seriously, here's an example of how a given book's scene might read:

"And then I got home and had a long conversation with my dad about everything that'd happened the night before. We were both very sorry about what we'd said and instantly made up and decided to never speak about the argument ever again throughout the course of the rest of this book because readers can't comprehend any form of long lasting conflict that isn't wrapped up by the novel's end."

or in the case of a John Green-esque book:

"Snarky comment, snarky comment."

"Cliched reference to an 80's movie or a Smiths' song that's supposed to be endearing."

"Angst, angst, angst. Relate to me!"

"I love you. I don't love you."

"Let's have chaste sex."

"Ok."

"Btw, I'll probably die by the end of the book so the reader can cry a shit ton and learn about 'life'."

"Ok, that's fine. Your death will be the inevitable spark that'll make me love myself and force me to understand how women's brains work because we all know women can't figure shit out without some kind a guy's influence on them. Especially if that guy's quirky or dies after we fall in love."

"Cool. Now say hi to my inevitable Black and/or Asian and/or some kind of non-white person and/or gay best friend that doesn't have an actual story arc other than being gay or having...a race...to show how tolerant I am of gay people and/or people of color."

"I sure am glad this story is realistic and people can say how much it changed their lives!"

"Me too. Uh oh, if you'll excuse me I've gotta go die conveniently yet shockingly off screen because we're roughly 85% of the way through the book/at the 75 minute mark of the movie."

"Don't forget your letter to me that you'll read to me via voiceover during your funeral while your best friend plays some fucking 80's song on a boombox because- QUIRKY."

Really though. Don't ever use quirky to describe a character ever again. Or a movie. Or anything. I hereby banish quirky as a thing in this reality. Also- fuck John Hughes. And overused Smiths' songs.

COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU-

A Review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2