All the news that is not fit to print....
Apr. 1st, 2017 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. According to Time Magazine, which tends to be reliable, Joss Whedon has signed on to write and direct the Batgirl movie.
Thoughts?
* It shouldn't be much of a creative stretch considering he didBatman Angel the Series. (Which was basically Batman with fangs.) Also Buffy, which the description of Batgirl sort of resembles..."Barbara Gordon is in graduate school, after undergoing experimental surgery for a spinal injury...think Veronica Mars meets Buffy in a hip Brooklyn version of Gotham" -- (hmmm, hipster Brooklyn is basically Williamsburg. (think trendy, crowded, over-priced, with a lot of people who are mid-20s/early 30s, with beards, tattoos, and white.)
* I read some of the "twitter" criticism embedded in the article. Right now "twitter" is where everyone whinges over things. Which is good, because it's rather easy to avoid. I'm on twitter, I just rarely post or pay attention to it. I find it difficult to follow.
The twitter criticism is basically what you would expect:
1. Why can't Whedon do anything original???
2. Why can't they get a woman director???
3. Batgirl??? What about Batwoman???
Anyhow...twitter criticism is valid.
1. * Whedon hasn't done anything original since Cabin in the Woods. Everything he's done has been an adaptation of another's work, based on another's work, or a continuation of his own or another's work. The only original things he's done were Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doctor Horrible, Cabin in the Woods, and Dollhouse. (Fray and Buffy Comics were a continuation of previous work.) I think it's a tough business, and he may well have pitched original ideas and they just didn't get grabbed. Of the shows he's previously done, the two I'd like to see rebooted with new casts are Firefly and Dollhouse, both had a lot of potential and with some tweaking and rewiring, could turn into fascinating series. I saw a show done recently that reminded me a great deal of Dollhouse, but am spacing the name of it. That said, I can't fault the man for signing on to do Batgirl. I'd have done it. It's an interesting concept, and he's a comic book geek. Seriously, what comic fanboys and fangirls among you, would have turned down that job???
2. * It is odd that they don't have more women writers/directors do these movies. I remember Marti Noxonwhining commenting on how Whedon got all these gigs she craved, writing big action films. (She was basically the Ginger Rodgers in their relationship, doing twice the work, in heels, with very little accolades or recognition. OR future roles afterwards.) She's also right -- Whedon had it easy. He got jobs easy, because of his gender, who his parents were, his connections, and he had a modicum of talent. Is he more talented than she is? No. Is that his fault? No. It is what it is, or as Vonnegut would state...so it goes.
[That said, Shondra Rhimes has outdone Whedon on the television front and she's black, a single mother, and had it harder than both. So...but she doesn't get action films.Very few women directors get action films. Also there is an odd stereotype that women don't love action films or action comics, and they are only interesting to boys. This is not true. Sort of similar to the marketing fallacy that only teen girls loved Buffy -- truth was that the vast majority of Buffy viewers were over the age of 30, and about 50% were men. Straight men. We really have to learn not buy the traditionalist crap we were taught as kids, experience has taught me that it's completely bogus.]
Very few women get the film directing jobs, and in part because Hollywood is an expression of our sexist culture. I work in a heavy male oriented field, and yes, men talk down to women, push them to the side, don't listen, and treat us like children. Women in power often copy the men in this manner -- it was my difficulty with Hillary, to be honest, I found her to be, ironically, more patronizing and condescending than her husband. (And I voted for her.) Talked to a co-worker, who told me that he could not vote for her...it wasn't because she was a woman, it was because she was the wrong woman. (he couldn't trust her, saw her as a phony, and despised her...why he despised her more than the Doofus is beyond me. But it is what it is or so it goes.) See my issue? Is it shouldn't matter that she's a woman. Same with Barack Obama, it should not matter. But in our racist/gender phobic/traditionalist culture it does.
It's odd, but in male-dominated work places, women bosses can often be worse than male bosses in how they condescend to the women beneath them and expect certain things or traditional behavior. (ie. wear jewelry, dye your hair, pluck the eyebrows, have the fancy nail polish, the high heels, the makeup, the dresses...and the designer handbags. Woe to you, if you are female and despise that crap and refuse to waste money on it.) I've noticed it over time...and it boggles my mind. You'd think it would be the opposite, but no. For some reason we've been cultured to see power or handling power -- as well equaling Donald and Ivanka Trump. It's blowing up in our faces, and that's a good thing. It's needs to blow up in our face. Maybe post-Trump, we'll stop going in that direction?
(Hmmm... after writing all that, I saw something that hadn't occurred to me before, the backlash against Marti Noxon in S6-S7 and after in Buffy is reminiscent of the backlash against Hillary post the Bill Clinton presidency and during her election. Actually the fans who bashed Noxon were saying the same things as the people bashing HRC during the election. It's not like we haven't been seeing this on a pop-culture front for the last twenty years.
Interesting that neither Joss Whedon nor Bill Clinton got much flack for decisions they made, but the women standing behind them did. Nor did Ronald Regan, people attacked Nancy not Ronnie Boy. Sad. That's on us, folks and our sick twisted culture, not them. And our media, movies, entertainment, etc is merely a reflection of that. If you actively bashed Marti and Hillary, without looking at and critiquing Whedon and Bill, you shouldn't be all that surprised Trump is president or men get the big directing gigs or jobs, you helped get them there. Your traditionalist views and values led you to the Doofus -- you are paying the cost for your own ingrained prejudices. I find that ironic. And absurdly funny at the same time. We do create our own reality. We create our own mess. This is the world we made, all of us. Whether we want to admit that or not. It's better that we do. Take a hard look at it and ourselves, and think okay, I fucked up. I admit it. Now how can I change my behavior and my views to make the world and my life better?
Anyhow, the reason Whedon got this gig, is partly name-recognition. And...there aren't many female directors that can sell a movie. He also got it because he'd done similar things and brought in the crowds. I don't blame the studio for picking him -- they want a go-to guy, who can get the job done.
It happens in my work place as well, there's two contract specialists, same background, around the same age, one a black man, one a white woman. Who gets the huge prestigious construction projects? The black man. Or, there were two contract specialists, one a woman who had management experience, done a huge number of projects across the board, been at the organization about 18 years, and one a guy who'd been there about 8 years, and had done major projects but nowhere near what she did -- granted she was ill a lot. They gave the Sr Manager job to him and the manager job to her. I understood there were mitigating factors...but, it is an interesting pattern.
Then, jump industries, in the Library Reference Field -- where the majority of the work force is women, the bosses are all men. Same with the teaching field -- headmasters, men. It's rare to have it otherwise. It happens but not often.
So, is it really surprising that a man is slated to direct "Batgirl"? Any more surprising that her title is "Batgirl" and she is seen as a sidekick or subordinate to "Batman"? Just as "Supergirl" is subordinate and sidekick to "Superman"?
I mean come on, did anyone really expect that they would hire a woman to direct a movie about a super-powered woman who is still called a "girl"?
Which leads to...
*3 - "Why a Batgirl not a Batwoman flick?" See above. That's our culture. We're fucked up. Our culture is an expression of us. We don't know how to handle gender differences. We never have. Our culture is sexually repressed and gender phobic. It deals with sex and gender the way a toddler might, with nervous twitters, giggles and fear. So of course the movie is being called "Batgirl".
On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if anyone involved with the film decides to play with that. Whedon being involved with it -- might do that. He did that with Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- the title itself is a commentary on how we view gender and the word "girl". He is making fun of our cultural stereotypes and our view of gender, with that title. It's why many media critics and scholars adore the title, and a lot of people steered away from the series because of it. I think Whedon will embrace the Batgirl title in the same way and make fun of the culture that created it.
2. The national news continues to bewilder and amuse me...it's so absurd, I'm not sure we need April Fool's day.
Yesterday's news headlines...
* The Trump White House has massive Legal Problems even by Trump's standards...
Me: Isn't that by anyone's standards? I mean come on...
* The 2017 Republican Party is most uncaring party in history...
Me: Struggling to remember a time when the Republican Party was caring in my lifetime and I'm drawing a blank. They've always been money grubbing fools, it's just more obvious at the moment.
* President Trump got rattled by a reporter and forgot to sign the executive orders...
Me: Hee hee...and this is a problem because?
* Follow the Dead Russian Corpses to the Truth
ME: Well, if they are dead, you'd hope they'd be corpses. And yes, there has been a plague of Russians leaping out of windows lately, what's up with that? Maybe they spent too many hours bing-watching the Americans?
* Trump decided to declare April - National Sexual Harrassment/Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Which is...uhm...a good thing???
I mentioned this to my mother, who clearly bewildered by it, wondered if he was saying that it was okay to be doing these things during April. Because it makes no sense. The man has more sexual assault charges against him than any other political leader in history at the moment, which is sort of saying something...
It's not funny ha ha, but it is ironically amusing. We live in weird times.
Thoughts?
* It shouldn't be much of a creative stretch considering he did
* I read some of the "twitter" criticism embedded in the article. Right now "twitter" is where everyone whinges over things. Which is good, because it's rather easy to avoid. I'm on twitter, I just rarely post or pay attention to it. I find it difficult to follow.
The twitter criticism is basically what you would expect:
1. Why can't Whedon do anything original???
2. Why can't they get a woman director???
3. Batgirl??? What about Batwoman???
Anyhow...twitter criticism is valid.
1. * Whedon hasn't done anything original since Cabin in the Woods. Everything he's done has been an adaptation of another's work, based on another's work, or a continuation of his own or another's work. The only original things he's done were Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doctor Horrible, Cabin in the Woods, and Dollhouse. (Fray and Buffy Comics were a continuation of previous work.) I think it's a tough business, and he may well have pitched original ideas and they just didn't get grabbed. Of the shows he's previously done, the two I'd like to see rebooted with new casts are Firefly and Dollhouse, both had a lot of potential and with some tweaking and rewiring, could turn into fascinating series. I saw a show done recently that reminded me a great deal of Dollhouse, but am spacing the name of it. That said, I can't fault the man for signing on to do Batgirl. I'd have done it. It's an interesting concept, and he's a comic book geek. Seriously, what comic fanboys and fangirls among you, would have turned down that job???
2. * It is odd that they don't have more women writers/directors do these movies. I remember Marti Noxon
[That said, Shondra Rhimes has outdone Whedon on the television front and she's black, a single mother, and had it harder than both. So...but she doesn't get action films.Very few women directors get action films. Also there is an odd stereotype that women don't love action films or action comics, and they are only interesting to boys. This is not true. Sort of similar to the marketing fallacy that only teen girls loved Buffy -- truth was that the vast majority of Buffy viewers were over the age of 30, and about 50% were men. Straight men. We really have to learn not buy the traditionalist crap we were taught as kids, experience has taught me that it's completely bogus.]
Very few women get the film directing jobs, and in part because Hollywood is an expression of our sexist culture. I work in a heavy male oriented field, and yes, men talk down to women, push them to the side, don't listen, and treat us like children. Women in power often copy the men in this manner -- it was my difficulty with Hillary, to be honest, I found her to be, ironically, more patronizing and condescending than her husband. (And I voted for her.) Talked to a co-worker, who told me that he could not vote for her...it wasn't because she was a woman, it was because she was the wrong woman. (he couldn't trust her, saw her as a phony, and despised her...why he despised her more than the Doofus is beyond me. But it is what it is or so it goes.) See my issue? Is it shouldn't matter that she's a woman. Same with Barack Obama, it should not matter. But in our racist/gender phobic/traditionalist culture it does.
It's odd, but in male-dominated work places, women bosses can often be worse than male bosses in how they condescend to the women beneath them and expect certain things or traditional behavior. (ie. wear jewelry, dye your hair, pluck the eyebrows, have the fancy nail polish, the high heels, the makeup, the dresses...and the designer handbags. Woe to you, if you are female and despise that crap and refuse to waste money on it.) I've noticed it over time...and it boggles my mind. You'd think it would be the opposite, but no. For some reason we've been cultured to see power or handling power -- as well equaling Donald and Ivanka Trump. It's blowing up in our faces, and that's a good thing. It's needs to blow up in our face. Maybe post-Trump, we'll stop going in that direction?
(Hmmm... after writing all that, I saw something that hadn't occurred to me before, the backlash against Marti Noxon in S6-S7 and after in Buffy is reminiscent of the backlash against Hillary post the Bill Clinton presidency and during her election. Actually the fans who bashed Noxon were saying the same things as the people bashing HRC during the election. It's not like we haven't been seeing this on a pop-culture front for the last twenty years.
Interesting that neither Joss Whedon nor Bill Clinton got much flack for decisions they made, but the women standing behind them did. Nor did Ronald Regan, people attacked Nancy not Ronnie Boy. Sad. That's on us, folks and our sick twisted culture, not them. And our media, movies, entertainment, etc is merely a reflection of that. If you actively bashed Marti and Hillary, without looking at and critiquing Whedon and Bill, you shouldn't be all that surprised Trump is president or men get the big directing gigs or jobs, you helped get them there. Your traditionalist views and values led you to the Doofus -- you are paying the cost for your own ingrained prejudices. I find that ironic. And absurdly funny at the same time. We do create our own reality. We create our own mess. This is the world we made, all of us. Whether we want to admit that or not. It's better that we do. Take a hard look at it and ourselves, and think okay, I fucked up. I admit it. Now how can I change my behavior and my views to make the world and my life better?
Anyhow, the reason Whedon got this gig, is partly name-recognition. And...there aren't many female directors that can sell a movie. He also got it because he'd done similar things and brought in the crowds. I don't blame the studio for picking him -- they want a go-to guy, who can get the job done.
It happens in my work place as well, there's two contract specialists, same background, around the same age, one a black man, one a white woman. Who gets the huge prestigious construction projects? The black man. Or, there were two contract specialists, one a woman who had management experience, done a huge number of projects across the board, been at the organization about 18 years, and one a guy who'd been there about 8 years, and had done major projects but nowhere near what she did -- granted she was ill a lot. They gave the Sr Manager job to him and the manager job to her. I understood there were mitigating factors...but, it is an interesting pattern.
Then, jump industries, in the Library Reference Field -- where the majority of the work force is women, the bosses are all men. Same with the teaching field -- headmasters, men. It's rare to have it otherwise. It happens but not often.
So, is it really surprising that a man is slated to direct "Batgirl"? Any more surprising that her title is "Batgirl" and she is seen as a sidekick or subordinate to "Batman"? Just as "Supergirl" is subordinate and sidekick to "Superman"?
I mean come on, did anyone really expect that they would hire a woman to direct a movie about a super-powered woman who is still called a "girl"?
Which leads to...
*3 - "Why a Batgirl not a Batwoman flick?" See above. That's our culture. We're fucked up. Our culture is an expression of us. We don't know how to handle gender differences. We never have. Our culture is sexually repressed and gender phobic. It deals with sex and gender the way a toddler might, with nervous twitters, giggles and fear. So of course the movie is being called "Batgirl".
On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if anyone involved with the film decides to play with that. Whedon being involved with it -- might do that. He did that with Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- the title itself is a commentary on how we view gender and the word "girl". He is making fun of our cultural stereotypes and our view of gender, with that title. It's why many media critics and scholars adore the title, and a lot of people steered away from the series because of it. I think Whedon will embrace the Batgirl title in the same way and make fun of the culture that created it.
2. The national news continues to bewilder and amuse me...it's so absurd, I'm not sure we need April Fool's day.
Yesterday's news headlines...
* The Trump White House has massive Legal Problems even by Trump's standards...
Me: Isn't that by anyone's standards? I mean come on...
* The 2017 Republican Party is most uncaring party in history...
Me: Struggling to remember a time when the Republican Party was caring in my lifetime and I'm drawing a blank. They've always been money grubbing fools, it's just more obvious at the moment.
* President Trump got rattled by a reporter and forgot to sign the executive orders...
Me: Hee hee...and this is a problem because?
* Follow the Dead Russian Corpses to the Truth
ME: Well, if they are dead, you'd hope they'd be corpses. And yes, there has been a plague of Russians leaping out of windows lately, what's up with that? Maybe they spent too many hours bing-watching the Americans?
* Trump decided to declare April - National Sexual Harrassment/Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Which is...uhm...a good thing???
I mentioned this to my mother, who clearly bewildered by it, wondered if he was saying that it was okay to be doing these things during April. Because it makes no sense. The man has more sexual assault charges against him than any other political leader in history at the moment, which is sort of saying something...
It's not funny ha ha, but it is ironically amusing. We live in weird times.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-01 08:25 pm (UTC)But I thought that what was amusing was that the stuff that irritated me in the Buffy S8 comics that was down to either Whedon, or Meltzer as approved by Whedon, was exactly what people were complaining about Noxon doing in Buffy S6.
Although I think that Whedon has a fetish for women suffering which makes me worry about any female character who he gets control of - that it's all going to be extreme physical or mental torment for 95% of the story that he thinks is outweighed by the triumphant ending that isn't really.
(My would-be humorous but half-serious fear for Whedon's Batgirl was that it's going to be the aftermath of "Killing Joke" with Barbara being horribly traumatised... until Joker starts acting as if he maybe regrets doing such horrible things to her and she starts wondering if despite herself she's finding him a bit sexy. After all Whedon has a tendency to write women falling in love with guys who previously terrorised them while soulless, insane, or under evil influences - see Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, Cordy/Angel, Wes/Fred, and Natasha/Bruce.)
no subject
Date: 2017-04-01 11:16 pm (UTC)But swinging around the other bits, I'd like to address something that occurred to me...
Although I think that Whedon has a fetish for women suffering which makes me worry about any female character who he gets control of - that it's all going to be extreme physical or mental torment for 95% of the story that he thinks is outweighed by the triumphant ending that isn't really.
But isn't Whedon making a rather valid and realistic critique of our society? (I mean it may not be pretty and we may hate it but..it is a valid representation/reflection through metaphor.) After all, we just experienced an election in which a female candidate was bashed, and the male candidate who got elected was and is a life-long sexual predator. Not only that, but he did away with Domestic Violence protections, women's health care, and declared April National Sexual Harrassment Awareness Month. Talk about women being traumatized by a sexual predator given all the power. But, hey, we're truimphant, after all a woman candidate ran for President and won the popular vote, also look at the women's march. And oh, National Sexual Harrassment Awareness Month! See? I mean what Whedon writes is a reflection of what is actually happening. He's just doing it on a much smaller scale.
I read an interview in EW's Buffy 20th Anniversary issue...(just a few hours ago)...where Whedon states that the inspiration behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a direct criticism of the horror genre, where the pretty blond party girls were always killed. He wanted to punch the horror genre in the gut. And it was the "horror" genre he was reacting to -- where characters are made to suffer mightily and the triumphant ending is somewhat bittersweet, because, it is horror.
I'm not sure you can critique a writer for telling you the story that writer intended and is at its root a critique of the very sick society in which we live in. I guess you can, we can critique anything we wish. But, it is a bit like critiquing a comic book for being a comic book, or a box for being a box. Art after all reflects how we live. I mean we may not like the story that Whedon tells, but the way to change that story is to change what is reflecting it. I guess, what I'm trying to say is you can't change the cake by scraping off the icing and decoration, you have to work on changing the cake. Or fix a house whose core is rotted by termites by repainting it and making it look pretty. You need to get rid of the termites. OR in this case, we need to shine a bright light on how we view gender in our world and how via that lense we abuse power. I can't fault Whedon for continuing to shine a spotlight on the termites...and asking you how you want to deal with them. It would be nice to ignore them, and dress them up pretty, but the house is still rotting away and sooner or later we will fall through the floor...and guess what? We just did.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-01 11:43 pm (UTC)Regarding the comics..yeah, it was interesting that the same complaints lodged at Whedon/Metzler in S8 comics had previously been lodged at Marti. (I don't know why David Fury got left out...he was the co-show runner with Marti in S6. And some of those ideas were his.)
I liked S6. S8...jumped the shark for me, as you know. Bad idea, bad execution. S6? Intriguing and fascinating ideas, sloppy execution...but hey it broke some definitive television boundaries.