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Jun. 16th, 2017 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I found myself agreeing in part with this assessment of The Josh Whedon Wonder Woman Script by the Mary Sue.
Except, I'm starting to think during various discussions with people about various topics...that we don't necessarily define words or concepts in the same way, and people have different perspectives based on background, etc.
For example? Years ago I had a lengthy discourse on the nature of the human soul on my journal, or rather it was a lengthy discourse on what the term soul actually meant. Because no one agreed or defined the story the same way.
Here, I think...it's possible not to see Whedon's script as either sexist or misogynistic and see that he may well be commenting on it and our societal view of it. Which he's been doing in various ways in his work for quite some time -- commenting on it. Whedon's work tends to have a meta-narrative element, which many people don't realize, and often a satirical element, that many take literally. He is familiar with the comics and history, also how our world handles powerful women -- so he wrote his script through the point of view of a modern everyday male encountering a woman who is more powerful in many ways...and how does he deal with that? A question Whedon asks himself.
While the writers of the movie, made it more about the woman and less how she's viewed by society.
2. There's a fascinating podcast on SmartBitches about branding and why we read what we read, what attracts us to a novel. It's promoting a story anthology that doesn't reveal who wrote which story until September. And each author writes something in a genre or on a topic they've never written before or are uncomfortable with in some way.
What's interesting is it is a challenge to their readers. Because with genre readers, people tend to read one author whose style they like, or one genre. They don't tend to jump or take risks. So by requesting the author's take risks, their reader's do as well -- both jump outside the comfort zone.
Also the writers mention how unrecognizable some of their fellow writers works are -- style wise, they've changed their style.
Some writers can do this, some can't. Like some actor's can do it, some can't. For example? Cary Grant was always playing well Cary Grant. But Dustin Hoffman is often unrecognizable. You always tend to know it is Elizabeth Taylor, but Meryl Streep disappears in her roles.
They mention a "No Name" series that Louisa May Alcott wrote for, and in 1911, there was a concert series that works were presented anonymously.
I think it is harder to be anonymous on the internet. Though in a way by adopting an pseudonym, we are doing that here, aren't we? I feel freer here under my internet name, than under my real one on Twitter or Facebook or Good Reads. Here...I can say and write things with less...worry, somehow.
Except, I'm starting to think during various discussions with people about various topics...that we don't necessarily define words or concepts in the same way, and people have different perspectives based on background, etc.
For example? Years ago I had a lengthy discourse on the nature of the human soul on my journal, or rather it was a lengthy discourse on what the term soul actually meant. Because no one agreed or defined the story the same way.
Here, I think...it's possible not to see Whedon's script as either sexist or misogynistic and see that he may well be commenting on it and our societal view of it. Which he's been doing in various ways in his work for quite some time -- commenting on it. Whedon's work tends to have a meta-narrative element, which many people don't realize, and often a satirical element, that many take literally. He is familiar with the comics and history, also how our world handles powerful women -- so he wrote his script through the point of view of a modern everyday male encountering a woman who is more powerful in many ways...and how does he deal with that? A question Whedon asks himself.
While the writers of the movie, made it more about the woman and less how she's viewed by society.
2. There's a fascinating podcast on SmartBitches about branding and why we read what we read, what attracts us to a novel. It's promoting a story anthology that doesn't reveal who wrote which story until September. And each author writes something in a genre or on a topic they've never written before or are uncomfortable with in some way.
What's interesting is it is a challenge to their readers. Because with genre readers, people tend to read one author whose style they like, or one genre. They don't tend to jump or take risks. So by requesting the author's take risks, their reader's do as well -- both jump outside the comfort zone.
Also the writers mention how unrecognizable some of their fellow writers works are -- style wise, they've changed their style.
Some writers can do this, some can't. Like some actor's can do it, some can't. For example? Cary Grant was always playing well Cary Grant. But Dustin Hoffman is often unrecognizable. You always tend to know it is Elizabeth Taylor, but Meryl Streep disappears in her roles.
They mention a "No Name" series that Louisa May Alcott wrote for, and in 1911, there was a concert series that works were presented anonymously.
I think it is harder to be anonymous on the internet. Though in a way by adopting an pseudonym, we are doing that here, aren't we? I feel freer here under my internet name, than under my real one on Twitter or Facebook or Good Reads. Here...I can say and write things with less...worry, somehow.
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Date: 2017-06-17 07:32 am (UTC)And quite right too. It's *her* story. Making it all about a man, and how he copes, is just one more way of stealing women's stories from out under them. *cheers for the film that got made*
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Date: 2017-06-17 12:38 pm (UTC)From what I read of Whedon's script, we're in his point of view and Diana's point of view, and what Whedon does is to a degree the same thing he was trying to do, possibly to better avail on Buffy, Dollhouse, and various other projects. Which is show the powerful woman, and show how others handle her. Granted the difficulty with trying to do that -- is it can inadvertently become the story of those defining the superhero or woman. It's a delicate balancing act, and hard to pull off. If done poorly it can end up looking as it is the story of the observer, and not the hero. Weirdly, I've seen this done with straight superhero films and television serials, where the hero is male, and we're in the view of their worshipper or the ordinary man/woman looking at them and experiencing them. In other words, the audience's stand-in. (See for example -- Doctor Who, where we are in the POV of his companion. OR various Buffy episodes, such as Superstar or Storyteller).
So, it's not necessarily meant to be what you think.
The one criticism that I've seen of Jenkins film, and it is apt, is that the men and people around her are almost too accepting of Wonder Woman's powers, there's relatively little negative reaction to them. And that's just naive and unrealistic, when you consider women were not permitted to fight in the WAR and considered the "weaker sex" based on physical capabilities. The writer's chose to make this humorous in the film -- when she displays power, the men react with jokes or it's funny -- shown as absurd. Which is an interesting choice...but this film wasn't about sexism or necessarily "power" but about war.
Whedon's film in stark contrast was solely about sexism and power dynamics, and how difficult it is to be a powerful woman in a world ostensibly ruled by men and has been ruled by a male dominated system for over 2000 years. Unfortunately, in attempting to do this -- he made the same mistakes he did in the Avengers, and other things he's done, which is just reinforce the bias and views he's against. It takes a deft hand to do this well. Such as the film "That Obscure Object of Desire" or "Crazy Ex-Girl-Friend" who both deftly addressed it from different perspectives.
I mean there are two ways you can go here -- you can do the story of a powerful woman, and focus on her issues, and ignore the sexism/misogyny for the most part, although it is definitely in the film. The gender bias is shown, but less stridently. OR focus only on the gender bias and from the perspective of those with the bias, taking the risk of re-enforcing the very views and bias you are stridently against. I think when it comes to Wonder Woman and the superhero genre, it's wiser to go with the first approach, which has been proven here. Because the problem with doing what Whedon attempted...is well, he's not very good at it for one thing (although I know enough about him to think his heart was in the right place), and unfortunately it just echoes what came before. In a way he did it better already in television and I honestly think it is being done better on television with shows such as Scandal then it can really be done right now in film.
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Date: 2017-06-17 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-17 03:04 pm (UTC)The new Wonder Woman movie avoids this trap in the simplest way possible -- by telling a story about the character's emotional journey. She's not an archetype, she's not (sing it like the 70s theme music) "Wondah Wo-man!", she's Diana of Themyscira.
I do agree that the sexism of WWI England was downplayed in the movie; but in retrospect, it's a smart decision, because worrying too much about what the men think would make it about them, not her. This is her story; questions of how the rest of the world sees it can come later.
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Date: 2017-06-19 01:43 pm (UTC)Agree with that assessment. I don't think Whedon's script worked as well as the one they filmed, because his fell into the archetypal trap. At the end of the day, it's a comic book movie about a female comic book hero. There's an ingrained fantastical element within it.
Just had a co-worker inform me that he loved Gail Gadot and Chris Pine, but did not like the movie.
Co-worker: I saw Wonder Woman. Me: So you liked it? Co-worker: No. Me: You didn't like Wonder Woman? Co-worker: No, I'm in love with Wonder Woman. Me: Eh... Co-worker: And Chris Pine aka Captain Kirk, I like a great deal Me: So.. Co-worker: Didn't like the movie. And I'm the perfect audience, I love sci-fi and fantasy. But the plot didn't work, the history was horrible, and that floating greek island, not realistic at all, very comic booky. I was disappointed. Me: It's a comic book movie. It's supposed to be comic booky.
I can't help but wonder if Dark Knight series may have raised the expectation for more than a comic book movie? (shrugs). But if you go into it expecting more than what it is, you will be disappointed.
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Date: 2017-06-17 09:22 pm (UTC)I hadn't heard this podcast but I agree it's interesting for the reasons you mentioned. I read very little romance because I find it disappointing. I've found one author I particularly like, and I try to read within genres I'm already interested in (which has also proven disappointing).
Whedon's work tends to have a meta-narrative element, which many people don't realize, and often a satirical element, that many take literally.
That's a good point. It's super obvious in something like Cabin, but his habit of trying to disrupt tropes and expectations is just the same thing on a smaller scale. I didn't care for his script as a whole for reasons I went into but I did really like how he viewed Diana's likely impact and interaction with the world given the sort of life she's led and culture she is familiar with. It was just entirely different, and presented her as the alien she is. And regarding the feminist issue, my favorite bit of the script addressed it in a way you don't see at all in the current film:
"A cute little girl of 10 stands nearby at the bottom of a gnarled tree. She calls out "Lady?" (points up) "My cat is stuck in that tree."
Diana looks up, sees the cat stuck on a branch, looks back at the girl with dismissive incomprehension.
"Climb it."
I think that speaks very well to your point about what he was trying to do (and why his script would likely never get made, then or now). He notes the girl is 10, not a very small child, and the tree is gnarled, not some tall straight thing that would be unusually difficult to climb. Diana can't understand why this girl wouldn't solve her own problem, because she's never lived in a society where women are raised to be dependent on others. It reminds me of a comment I just posted about regarding the effect of the movie on kids. From the photo, I'm guessing the daughter is about 6:
"Just last night she said out of the blue, ‘I thought girls were always weak, but actually we’re strong plus lots of other things, even trouble-makers in a good way.'”"
Who would have taught her girls were weak? No one on Themyscira, that's for sure. A warrior people who have nothing to do with the modern world and have banned men for very good reasons don't seem likely to be the good fairies that Diana largely is in the film. I did like the movie and am super happy it's done well. But it was a very safe film in any number of ways, whereas Joss was not going for either safe or likable which is a very different approach (not to mention setting and plot).
Although I raised some similar points myself, anyone who thinks this wasn't as much Steve Trevor's film as Diana's needs to reconsider a number of elements, including some mentioned here: http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2017/06/are-all-the-men-really-necessary-a-critical-look-at-wonder-woman/
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Date: 2017-06-18 01:29 pm (UTC)Interesting, I feel the same way about historical and mystery/detective novels unless they are genre hybrids. But, this is what I think...
There are over 2 million romance and mystery novels published. Actually probably more romance novels due to the internet/self-publishing, and also it's a more supportive writing genre than the others, at least for women. And the best-selling of the genres, which is also somewhat interesting and blew my mind when I discovered it. But that's neither here nor there, just shows that it is possible that you just haven't hit the right one or the one that hits your buttons in the right way.
Again neither here nor there...because well, I think or so I've discovered at any rate, whenever I go into things with "expectations" I am either surprised or disappointed. The artist, writer, director, whatever....isn't trying to meet my expectations probably doesn't even know they exist, he/she is just telling their story. When I come to it, I'm bringing myself and everything I've learned to the party...and well, the degree to which I like it or not, has a heck of a lot to do with what I brought with me. My brother, a conceptual artist, used to say that it was impossible to view art objectively or not to interact with it. Even if you did a work of art that was sections of grass, flowers here and there, dirt and called it something -- people would interact, some would dislike it and see it as well dirt, grass, flowers, others might read things into it, and others might see what the artist was seeing when they put it on display. He actually did this for his undergrad thesis in conceptual art and design, and he was right, people did exactly that. My family did. My father saw grass, dirt, flowers...and wished my brother was landscape artist it was easier for him to appreciate this was hard. My mother thought it fascinating on a psychological level but couldn't see putting in her home. I thought it was a lot of work but also thought it was brilliant in various ways and was torn between envy and pride.
When I was listening to the Smart Bitches podcast, it was fascinating what each romance writer read, not what you'd think. Sherry Thomas writes across genres - YA Paranormal Fantasy , Contemporary Romance, Historical Mystery, and Historical Detective Novel Series - but as a reader, she's been on a science fiction binge, and has read Station Eleven, also the non-fiction novel Sous Chef, and two hot contemporary romances, one about a billionaire female Asian executive and white male writer who she knew as a child and is the sole support of his family. Thomas like's it when the romance trope is subverted a bit, much like I do, and she seeks out those novels that subvert it in some small way. Meredith Duran was reading Abraham Linclon's Team of Rivals, and a romance novel by Aiysha Cole, it;s a historical romance that takes place during the Civil War, between a female ex-slave and Scottish Union Solider, who are both spied for the Union Army, go back to the South and attempt to get information, one by joining the Confederacy, the other by allowing herself become a slave again. It's written by a black woman writer. Another writer who writes contemporary and 1960s astronaut romances, is reading YA Paranormal, and a f/f romance comedy novel.
During the podcast, the interviewer and Duran discuss the ex-slave/union solider spy novel -- and Duran tells the interviewer, she liked it better than the interviewer did because she prefers more plot in her stories, and the interviewer responded, that it wasn't that she didn't like plot, so much as she...wanted more emotion in there, she wanted the cake with icing on top and in the center...or as Duran asked, sometimes it feels as stuff is just happening to a character but the character isn't really changing or evolving. And that can get boring.
I think it depends on what people are looking for or need or desire from stories. Some people want "information" -- whether it be historical, how to, what others are thinking. Some want to solve a problem. Some want to understand an issue better or philosophy or means of developing. I think everyone comes to a story looking for something...which as a writer, I find a bit frustrating at times, because sometimes I just wish they came to it to hear what I had to say. Some do, but usually it's because they, on some level conscious or unconscious are looking for or need to hear whatever it was I needed to say. If they don't want to hear it, are resistant to it, or have no interest or are looking for something completely different -- they most likely will not like my story, and either have an ambivalent or negative reaction to it.
There are three episodes of Whedon's Buffy that never worked for me, but worked for others...Superstar, Storyteller, and The Zeppo, all are from a male perspective, all about female hero worship -- yet the need for the male nerdy sidekick to be the hero of the day. Very similar in a way to what was going on in Whedon's Wonder Woman script or the section I'd read of it. Of the three, I found the Zeppo the least irritating and offensive, but I brought my own baggage to each one. I wasn't open to the story being told. The characters of Jonathan and Andrew did not resonate for me, I find both to be whiny and annoying. I found their perspectives or their male gaze...irritating. Yet, in a way, all three episodes were great episodes...and I could from an objective perspective sort of understand why others loved them. But I can't watch them and despised them.
I wish as a species, humans were less self-involved and more open to things...but I wonder sometimes if such a thing is biologically possible? We don come close at times...(shrugs)
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Date: 2017-06-18 02:18 pm (UTC)As I see Superstar, it's not really about Jonathan or his perspective. It's using Jonathan as an archetype in order for Buffy to reach the conclusion at the end: "Jonathan you can't keep trying to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once. Things are complicated. They take time and work." That's something important to Buffy in that moment because of her (and his) experience in WAY when Faith had sex with Riley. At least that's how I see it.
As for Storyteller (which you know I love), this is a cut and paste of my own episode analysis, slightly edited:
Like your other examples, Storyteller is shot (mostly) in a POV other than Buffy's. But as I see it, we're supposed to recognize that Andrew is the most unreliable of narrators. For example, the fact that Andrew can somehow read Tuareg is silly, but remember that this is Andrew telling the story – he’s a fantasy hero, able to what he thinks is necessary to save the day. What “telling a story” actually means, though, is that Andrew has abdicated his own role in life. He is living in a fantasy, “lost in the story”, as he says in the cold open.
We only leave Andrew’s POV when he and Buffy are alone at the Seal, when she forces him to shut off the camera. Buffy forced him out of his fantasy and made him respond to reality instead: “Stop! Stop telling stories. Life isn't a story. … You make everything into a story so no one's responsible for anything because they're just following a script.”
From that point on in the basement, we see events with Buffy as the storyteller – “I’m making it up”, she says, knowing that she’s lying to him about the Seal’s need for blood – rather than events as they are transformed in Andrew’s imagination.
Buffy’s storytelling, like all great art, produces the cathartic moment. She uses the classic Aristotelian duo of pity and fear to effect Andrew’s emotional identification with Jonathan and the purging of Andrew’s own escapist fear. The imagery of the basement scene, with the tears of the repentant sinner halting the spread of evil, is brilliant. That’s the point at which Andrew can begin to have his own story to tell.
If the episode were solely about Andrew, it would be beautiful. What takes it beyond that is what it tells us about Buffy. What I’m about to say in the following 3 paragraphs is influenced by a post written on livejournal by beer_good_foamy. You can find it here (SPOILERS AT LINK) and I recommend it. I’m going to give both a shortened version and my own interpretation, so b-g-f isn’t to blame.
What Storyteller shows us about Andrew is that he’s trapped by the narrative. He spends all of his time living in a world some geek (namely, himself) invented. That narrative imprisons him. It takes him away from reality, such that he can’t ever move forward.
That’s Buffy’s problem too. She’s trapped by the narrative in two ways: within the show itself she’s limited by the conventions of the Slayer line and the ways in which the Watchers, including Giles, interpreted the Slayer’s role. If we take this another step and break the fourth wall, we can see that Buffy’s trapped by the narrative created by Joss Whedon (see his comments I quoted in the chapter on Normal Again) and developed by the other geeks writers on the show: “Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres”, as Andrew calls it. Her fate is determined by what they decide she’ll do; she’s “just following a script”. Buffy herself has no agency, as they say.
And that’s Buffy’s basic dilemma in S7. She needs to be able to create her own life, her own self, to put it in existential terms. To an existentialist, “creating her own life” doesn’t mean living in one’s fantasy world like Andrew: “BUFFY: You make everything into a story so no one's responsible for anything because they're just following a script.” No, it means acting within the world as it truly is, it means taking responsibility for one’s own actions. In order to do that, she needs to be able to break the narrative structure which limits her development, just as she was finally able to break Andrew’s imaginary narrative and put him on a path to adulthood and maybe even redemption.
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:19 pm (UTC)Years after the episode ended you are still trying to change my mind about it. ;-D (Beer_good_foamy tried too, as did cjl for two hours after the episode had originally aired, TCH on the ATPO forum, Rob, and let's see...various others.)
yeah, I got the message. This isn't new by the way, it's been done before. Star Trek liked to do it a lot, and I actually preferred Trek's take on it with the holodrom, Twilight Zone played with the idea, and various sci-fantasy novels including most recently, the acclaimed Ready Player One. So too did Pirandella, Shakespeare, and various playwrites in various guises. Some better than others. My personal favorite was a Star Trek Next Generation Episode which wondered if they too were just a story in someone's head? Then there was Normal Again, which also played with that trope -- are we just stories in your head? Or are we real? What is real? Stop telling stories or role playing! I thought Normal Again had a bit more nuance. So too Once More With Feeling and Hush, in how they dealt with the idea of stories.
Whedon did this sort of thing a lot actually (see episodes listed above amongst many others). The plot would be moving along at a nice clip, then all of a sudden, he'd feel the need to step outside of it and play film professor, and explain the themes, etc to the audience and comment on the story he was telling. Probably the frustrated academic in him. People say he created the meta-narrative, but not really, people were doing it before -- he just did it A LOT. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it annoyed me. It worked better for me when Whedon wrote the episode than someone else, like Espenson, whose writing I've come to realize over time that I'm not overly fond of and is rather weak in places. (I wanted to be...but she's more interested in slapstick comedy or physical comedy, aka embarrassment humor which just makes me cringe and want to leave the room.)
Storyteller in theory should have worked for me. I should have loved it. But from the moment it began, I cringed. Each joke irritated me. And I was rooting for Andrew to trip and fall into the Hellmouth by the end of it. I found the character poorly developed, poorly acted, and poorly written -- he was a walking cliché of the fanboy stereotype and watching him was like listening to nails go down a chalkboard. I probably would have liked the story better if it had been Jonathan or Dawn or anyone else.
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Date: 2017-06-20 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-20 01:58 pm (UTC)LOL! Does it help, if I may have liked the episode if they cast Fran Krantz (who played Topher in Dollhouse) in it instead of Lenk? Because I think Lenk may have been part of it.
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Date: 2017-06-23 06:31 pm (UTC)Missed this until now because it got caught in my spam filter. Not sure why.
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Date: 2017-06-18 05:47 pm (UTC)Wow, that is...astoundingly specific!
Some do, but usually it's because they, on some level conscious or unconscious are looking for or need to hear whatever it was I needed to say. If they don't want to hear it, are resistant to it, or have no interest or are looking for something completely different -- they most likely will not like my story, and either have an ambivalent or negative reaction to it.
I agree, and I think this is why I've generally not found romance novels rewarding. Two things I really hate is stupid protagonists and plot contrivances (both of which tend to go hand in hand). So in romances the point is to keep the couple from committing to a relationship until the very end of the book, and what keeps them apart can be clever, pedestrian, or dumb. Unfortunately in most cases I either don't care about either character or whether they will get together, or else I actively can't stand one or both of them because they are clearly idiots. There have even been a few times when I just wanted one of them to punch the other, walk away, and find someone else much much better for them because in no universe would I ever put up with that sort of crap from another person, and I can't respect a character who does. This is not because people can't be difficult but because in certain stories, there's generally no good reason for them to be together other than an improbable sexual attraction, which I can't share given I can't see the character, and probably wouldn't react the same even if I could.
I tend to do better with fanfic because the first part of the problem is already solved. I'm reading the story because I already care about these characters and, in most cases, am reading because I like this particular ship. (In other cases, I need to be convinced that the ship makes sense). So unless I find the story is changing the characters in order to hit some trope (which I don't share) really hard, or unless the story basically has no characterization and is just a running commentary of what happens next, I'll usually be somewhat satisfied with it because I'm reading it to spend time with those characters. In many cases I don't even care if they get together because a well told gen story is way better than an unsatisfying ship one.
I had different reactions to all three stories you mentioned. I liked Superstar the best because it was the most humorous (to me) of the three, and mostly because I found it more of a commentary on fan fiction and the Mary Sue trope than anything else. (And given that it was written by Jane Espenson, I'm pretty sure that's what she was going for -- there was a similar type of episode in Dark Angel that was amusing for the same reason). I liked The Zeppo alright because it gave Xander some development, and was also a type of story found in fanfic. Even though Xander's a central character in Buffy, it was somewhat like an "outside POV" story where you never get the full scoop on the central story because your character only sees parts of it and they have their own story coloring their perspective.
I liked Storyteller the least for several reasons. First, I never felt Andrew's appeal the way some do (and definitely not as much as Joss and the writers clearly did). He was a comic relief character but one who was not much more than just that, a character kept around for comic relief. It didn't help that the writing was subpar during S7 in many ways. Storyteller was the effort to make Andrew a more fully rounded person, and it did that part ok, plus he got to be the audience stand-in commenting on various things, whether it was the ambivalent state of Xander and Anya's relationship, or how tired everyone was of Buffy standing around and speechifying (because there were more episodes in the season they had to fill so they couldn't have her attacking the First yet, though that part went unsaid). But as an episode it was honestly a welcome break from a lot of the other frustrations I had with the season. I think a lot of people hated it because they wanted that time spent on Willow or Xander or Giles, which is the big beef most had with the Potentials as well.
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Date: 2017-06-18 11:52 pm (UTC)The characters are in the past. They aren't real. There's no comparison, no worry, I can relax. No stress. When I get to work and sit inside my cubicle, flip on the computer, plug in the phone, and start my day...the story doesn't play with my mind or stick with me, at least not most of the time. I can concentrate on the task at hand. And when I sit to write my own stories, it doesn't effect them or change them.
The men are kind, the women are too. There's no violence. No killers waiting in the bushes. Just witty banter. It's sugar for the brain. Without the calories. Serotonen, without the nasty side-effects.
We read for different reasons. And different things at different times.
I wish at times we were like the characters in Sense8, where we could sense what each other feels. But alas we are not. So all we can do is rely on flimsy words...and hope for the best.
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Date: 2017-06-19 12:00 am (UTC)Speaking of this and romances, I can't recall, have you watched the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries?
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Date: 2017-06-19 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-19 03:59 pm (UTC)It's not going to stand up well against Sens8 right now because it's such a different genre. But it's definitely a show about women, and rich in kind characters as well as fun.
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Date: 2017-06-19 05:18 pm (UTC)Doesn't help that I'm a moody watcher, and have too many television shows to watch or check out as it is. If it doesn't hold my interest after twenty minutes, it tends to be gone. Because too many frigging television shows. ;-D
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Date: 2017-06-19 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-19 12:25 am (UTC)They are laughing, judging the art. Saying it is shit-packer porn. And Hernandez states...are is what the viewer sees. If you see that -- then that is a representation of who you are, if you see two man making love, then you that says something of who we are.
When I read the romance novels...I see two people who fall in love but are struggling to communicate or find a way to communicate, even though it feels impossible. My brain is off, that critical demon that feels the need to judge everything...I see that. I want to turn that part off sometimes.
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Date: 2017-06-19 04:05 pm (UTC)I also have the reverse problem though, which is stories or shows that I wish I could like more, but they just don't engage me.
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Date: 2017-06-19 05:15 pm (UTC)But I'm never able not to see the writing problems with something. It matters most to me when something smacks of laziness -- that the writers don't have any respect for their characters or the audience but want us to handwave obvious problems and jerk the characters around on strings to make them do what the plot requires.
I can't get past that either. Although...
It depends on the book and my mood. And to an extent it is admittedly a subjective thing.
All genres, including surprisingly enough, literary have those issues. The best-sellers, weirdly are among the worst offenders. And I can't stand the romance novels at the top of the best-seller list or found in book stores. I like the ones off the beaten track, which subvert the genre and do weird things. But you have to find them on Amazon and they are often rec'd by word of mouth or on places like Good Reads or SmartBitches.
SmartBitches isn't reliable, because taste varies, and they love contemporary, which tends to annoy me. (Mainly because I have difficulty buying the same gender/wealth inequalities emerging in a contemporary than I do in a historical. And I often want to strangle the heroine for being an idiot and sticking with the guy, when she can easily leave. In historicals, that's harder to do. Also historicals have the added benefit of being in the past and not relevant to today's world -- so better escape.) I'm not a fan of contemporary -- the writing is lazy, and the characters often under-developed. (Although there are exceptions.) Not a fan of Nora Roberts (I find her deathly dull), Debbie Macomber, or any of the known ones. Although no one is as bad as Danielle Steel, who doesn't bother with dialogue or to develop her characters much at all, and is a watered down version of Sydney Sheldon. So I do agree the genre does get a bad rap for a reason - quite often the writer is playing to the publisher or the readership which wants their formula and trope dang-it, and will only buy books that give it to them. And a lot of writers write too fast, and there's a formulistic style to their writing that like you said above, smacks of laziness.
This, however, is also unfortunately true of the other genres. I've lost count of how many bad mysteries and sci-fic books I've read, not to mention comic books. (I binge-read mystery novels over a period of twenty years possibly more before I finally got burned out on the genre, the serial killer trope basically did me in. Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, Robert Harris, JA Jance, MJ McGregor (which is out of print now), Patricia Cornwell, Robert Parker, Tony Hillerman, VJ Warchowski, Janet Evonouviche, John D. McDonald, PD James, Minette Walters (the best of the bunch), Ruth Rendell (aka PD James), David Baldouchi, Scot Turow, John Grisham, Elmore Leonard (who I loved) Carl Hianssin, Sara Paretsky, etc.)
There's something about having to push out five - ten books a year that diminishes the writing. Read one mystery/legal thriller that was so bad, it was funny, nothing worked, and my suspension of disbelief flew out the window. Can't remember the name of it. David Baldaccio is popular, but redundant. James Patterson - sigh, can't read him, such a lazy writer -- assuming he even writes them any longer.
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Date: 2017-06-19 07:39 pm (UTC)My own contribution was that it allowed for indirect language about sex. This occurred to me because I was reading fanfic at the time where the author even called mocking attention to the fact that the terms and form of discussion about it hadn't been heard outside of an 18th century novel. And I suddenly realized that you just couldn't do that in a contemporary novel. Well, I mean, you could but really it would seem so absurd and pretentious and completely unlike how you know men actually discuss it.
Oh I agree about other genres, and I wasn't even thinking of romances when I wrote that. In fact I was thinking of fantasy TV shows. And I expect that it's for a similar reason, which is not enough time to get stories done properly. I understand that writer's rooms are not common for British TV shows but they also are scheduled in a very different way (not just shorter seasons but also longer shooting times), and they often begin with the entire season already written.
Regarding fantasy tv shows..
Date: 2017-06-19 10:56 pm (UTC)Regarding sex in romance novels?
Eh, the one's I'm reading have graphic sex. And their euphemisms are similar to fanfic, some better, some worse. There's less of it, sex, I mean in the historical than contemporary. Also it takes much longer for them to have sex -- more build up. The contemporary tend to be "kinky" sex and often, rough sex or seduction - rape. More so than the historical. Also the writer's get bored and start doing weird things with sex...like toys, bondage, spanking, three-somes, etc. Or repetitive. And the language is well ...somewhat funny, in how crude it is in contemporary novels.
That's not to say historical writers don't write that too. They do. But usually it's not as casual or sex just for sex's sake. They occasionally will have it out of wedlock in a historical...which just doesn't quite work for that time period. I keep wondering why the heroine hasn't had a kid yet.
You can't really generalize about the genre as much you think, I've pretty much seen everything. But, Regency's due tend to be rather tame. I don't really like the Regency novels, they bore me. I can't read Georgette Heyer, who is the Queen of the Regency, but sucked at dialogue, and has no sex in her books. Reading Heyer is like reading a rip off of Jane Austen. Rather read Jane Austen.
I prefer the non-Regency's which are the other periods, that have sex in them, and often a plot -- such as mystery, or a conflict outside of the misunderstanding.
Re: Regarding fantasy tv shows..
Date: 2017-06-19 11:50 pm (UTC)I keep wondering why the heroine hasn't had a kid yet.
That made me laugh because it's so true. Amazingly in historical romances, no one gets a prolapsed uterus from excessive childbirth.
Re: Regarding fantasy tv shows..
Date: 2017-06-20 01:08 am (UTC)Looked up Sense8 on Wiki, because I was worried the Whispers/Will situation didn't get resolved in S2. (It does). I didn't spoil myself on anything else.
But found out how they came up with it and how long it took them to develop it. They took it to HBO first, but they didn't understand the concept.
According to the Wachowskis, the origins of Sense8 date back several years before the announcement of the show to "a late-night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us".[32] Straczynski recalls that when the Wachowskis decided to create their first series, because of Straczynski's extensive experience working with the format, Lana chose to invite him to her house in San Francisco to brainstorm ideas together.[31][33] Both the Wachowskis and Straczynski agreed that if they were to do a television series, they wanted to attempt something that "nobody had done before",[34] and change the "vocabulary for television production" the same way The Matrix became a major influence for action movies.[35] After several days of discussion they decided on creating a show that would explore the relationship between empathy and evolution in the human race, and whose story would be told in a global scale, necessitating filming on location in several countries over the world, in contrast to the standard production model for television which attempts to limit or fake that as much as possible.[31][36] A source of inspiration for Straczynski was his own experience concerning friends of his who live in different parts of the world but coordinate to watch a movie at the same time and comment to each other online about it.
The trio became so excited with the concept they came up with, they decided to do initial development on their own instead of pitching it to someone else.[31] The Wachowskis wrote three hour-long spec scripts,[39] and together with Straczynski attempted to shop them around, such as at Warner Bros. and HBO,[40] but when they saw that nobody could understand the concept they decided to shelve it.[36] A few years later, when they felt that the landscape of television had become friendlier towards more experimental concepts, they decided to pitch it a second time.[36] On October 2, 2012, Variety first reported the existence of the show, by writing that the Wachowskis, with the help of Straczynski's Studio JMS and Georgeville Television, would be shopping Sense8 around Los Angeles the week to follow.[39] If the series was picked up, the sisters and Straczynski would be sharing showrunner duties. Additionally, the Wachowskis were planning to direct a few episodes of the show if their schedule permitted it. According to Straczynski, the first meeting with potential buyers was with Netflix. The Wachowskis and Straczynski talked to them about subjects such as gender, identity, secrecy and privacy.[41] According to Lana they pitched shooting on location all over the globe to which Netflix responded favorably, which was in contrast to the "clearly impossible" response they had received by other outlets during their earlier abortive attempt.[40] They also told Netflix they were only interested if they had the freedom to "do anything", like "crazy psychic orgies with all sorts of different bodies" and "live births even" to which Netflix also responded positively.[42] After the end of the meeting, despite it having seemingly gone well,[31] they worried they had made a mistake because they had not pitched any action or otherwise commercial aspects.[41] By noon, and before they had the chance to pitch it to other outlets, such as HBO,[35] Netflix called them to preemptively offer to buy and produce the first season.[31] Netflix announced that they had ordered a 10-episode first season for the series on March 27, 2013.[32] Later, during filming,[43] because of the density of the scripts and the extended length of the first cut of the first episode, the showrunners and Netflix came to an agreement to extend the season to 12 episodes.[33]
Before filming began, Straczynski and the Wachowskis mapped out five seasons worth of stories for the series,[33] including the series' final episode, similarly to what Straczynski had previously done on his Babylon 5 series.[44] The actors cast were signed for five seasons. "We pitched it as a five-year story. We've mapped out five seasons of this thing, our actor deals are being made for five seasons, five or six depending on the breaks", said Straczynski.[45] The first season acts as the origin story for the characters.[46] When asked how long is their story bible, Straczynski replied "It's in our heads".[41] However, Straczynski did compile a 30-page document detailing the key points of a hypothetical second season should the first season become a success.[47]
I wish it hadn't been cancelled. It's weird, series like Grey's and Supernatural, where the writers don't plan at all and have no character bible or pre-plotted stories, last forever, while series that are pre-plotted, with extensive character bibles, which take big risks, don't. Frustrating. But Sense8 cost about $4M per episode. While Supernatural costs more like $400,000 per episode if that.
Re: Regarding fantasy tv shows..
Date: 2017-06-20 03:04 pm (UTC)A source of inspiration for Straczynski was his own experience concerning friends of his who live in different parts of the world but coordinate to watch a movie at the same time and comment to each other online about it.
Heh, so this is inspired by online fandom, especially since it sounds like they came up with this around 2009. I've always found it so underreported or acknowledged how online fandom has been having a pressuring effect on the way that entertainment is released globally.
I wonder if Straczynski will create books with the remaining seasons for Sens8?
Re: Regarding fantasy tv shows..
Date: 2017-06-20 05:14 pm (UTC)The more simplistic and careless a show is, the easier it is to write for (and possibly produce). Plus, a lot of people prefer TV they don't have to follow closely or think about so it tends to repeat well. I generally think that the number of characters in a show is often indicative of how well it's received -- the fewer there are the easier it is to keep track of the storyline and the more people will occasionally watch it
So true. True of books as well...just look at most of the best-seller list and the popularity of James Patterson. I get it. And I know a lot of people, including my parents, who prefer that in a way...in television shows not so much books. You don't have to think, you don't have to work that hard, and it's a nice escape.
The only shows that have had multiple characters that have last multiple seasons tend to be hospital dramas, where the focus is often on the case of the week, and people come and go, or the police procedural drama like NCIS, again where the focus is on the case of the week, and one season is interchangeable with the last one, as are the writers.
Also genre plays a role, the more expensive the show, the harder to maintain. And fantasy/sci-fi is more expensive than something like NCIS or Grey's Anatomy (both going into 13 or 14 seasons and counting, and at the top of the ratings). Sci-fi also appeals to a narrow or nitch audience, so there's that as well. And that audience often prefers violent horror/action to what Sense8 is.
I can see why it got cancelled.
Which is one big reason why the success of Game of Thrones has been such an anomaly.
Well, GoT had a few things that Sense8 didn't. 1) a ready-made audience or fandom going into it. The book fandom is huge. The books were best-sellers prior to the series getting made. 2) a best-selling book series that it was adapted from, with the original creator/writer of the books a co-executive producer, who wrote two or three of the episodes.
You can't beat that. It's why Lord of the Rings got made and had that audience. The marketing campaign just writes itself. And you can do cross-promotion.
Add to this that GoT is a violent, fantasy series aimed at heterosexual men and to some degree women. Specifically those who like historical war epics, with macho characters, and political intrigue -- a very popular trope. It's actually a "mainstream" fantasy series. Very few monsters, more realistic, fantasy for the mainstream audience who doesn't usually like fantasy shows or books. Oh and zombies and dragons, which are crowd-pleasures. Plus sexual violence, and graphic fight scenes. But few if any consensual or loving sex scenes, very little gay or lesbian sex.
While Sense8 was very cult, very risky, and promoted things and ideas that would make a mainstream audience uncomfortable. Sad but true.
I wonder if Straczynski will create books with the remaining seasons for Sens8?
Oh, I hope so. I'd read them. I may have to hunt down fanfic after I finish S2. There's a couple of characters playing with my head at the moment.
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Date: 2017-06-19 05:26 pm (UTC)I also have the reverse problem though, which is stories or shows that I wish I could like more, but they just don't engage me.
Yep, me too. People will rec things to me, and I'll try them and think...this is just not engaging my attention. Recently tried an urban fantasy story that focused on greek myths but it just did not hold my attention.
I don't really know why. Same with the series "Better Call Saul" -- which people love and I couldn't make it past the first two episodes.
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Date: 2017-06-19 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-19 11:15 pm (UTC)If so, I had the same problem. I couldn't get past the first episode. Comedy's and me don't always work. It's very hit and miss, and more often than not, they will annoy me.
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-19 11:40 pm (UTC)There's another one...Downward Dog, that should work for me but doesn't. I can't seem to make it past the first fifteen minutes. Of course I don't like the documentary comedy set-up,, so that's probably the problem with Downward Dog.
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Date: 2017-06-19 06:35 pm (UTC)Years after the episode ended you are still trying to change my mind about it. ;-D (Beer_good_foamy tried too, as did cjl for two hours after the episode had originally aired, TCH on the ATPO forum, Rob, and let's see...various others.)
yeah, I got the message. This isn't new by the way, it's been done before. Star Trek liked to do it a lot, and I actually preferred Trek's take on it with the holodrom, Twilight Zone played with the idea, and various sci-fantasy novels including most recently, the acclaimed Ready Player One. So too did Pirandella, Shakespeare, and various playwrites in various guises. Some better than others. My personal favorite was a Star Trek Next Generation Episode which wondered if they too were just a story in someone's head? Then there was Normal Again, which also played with that trope -- are we just stories in your head? Or are we real? What is real? Stop telling stories or role playing! I thought Normal Again had a bit more nuance. So too Once More With Feeling and Hush, in how they dealt with the idea of stories.
Whedon did this sort of thing a lot actually (see episodes listed above amongst many others). The plot would be moving along at a nice clip, then all of a sudden, he'd feel the need to step outside of it and play film professor, and explain the themes, etc to the audience and comment on the story he was telling. Probably the frustrated academic in him. People say he created the meta-narrative, but not really, people were doing it before -- he just did it A LOT. Sometimes it worked for me, sometimes it annoyed me. It worked better for me when Whedon wrote the episode than someone else, like Espenson, whose writing I've come to realize over time that I'm not overly fond of and is rather weak in places. (I wanted to be...but she's more interested in slapstick comedy or physical comedy, aka embarrassment humor which just makes me cringe and want to leave the room.)
Storyteller in theory should have worked for me. I should have loved it. But from the moment it began, I cringed. Each joke irritated me. And I was rooting for Andrew to trip and fall into the Hellmouth by the end of it. I found the character poorly developed, poorly acted, and poorly written -- he was a walking cliché of the fanboy stereotype and watching him was like listening to nails go down a chalkboard. I probably would have liked the story better if it had been Jonathan or Dawn or anyone else.
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Date: 2017-06-19 07:32 pm (UTC)Yeah, I agree that Storyteller being about Andrew makes it a particular problem if the character irritates you to start with. I thought it was interesting that at WhedonCon Nick Brendon mentioned he hated Xander in S7. He was a little ineloquent as to why, but I gathered it was because Andrew got to be funnier and Xander didn't have that much to do. But perhaps that was also my impression because I've heard it expressed by fans that Andrew got to take the comic relief role from Xander, who had otherwise usually been the one to have a good line or moment to break up tension or drama.
Clearly Whedon really liked Tom Lenk too because he's been in several of his (personal) projects, and playing a very similar character at that. (And I just realized I have no Andrew icons)
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:09 pm (UTC)Whedon, however, liked Tom Lenk and so did all the writers, they thought he was hilarious, and let him improvise and gave him more leeway than the rest of the cast. It hurt the series in S7 and cost them fans and ratings. But they didn't care.
I don't like the actor or the character. Tom Lenk has no range and basically plays himself in everything he does. Topher Grace who played a similar type of role in Dollhouse and later in Cabin in the Woods, is such a better actor, I wished he'd gotten the role. Or the guy who plays Howard in Big Bang Theory. Or even the guy who played Jonathan and Warren, both good actors. But no, they kept they bad one. (Sigh. Television Writers. Sigh).
But, alas, I know people who adore Lenk. (shrugs).
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:43 pm (UTC)Funny you brought up Topher (though I think you meant actor Fran Krantz) as it had always struck me that Topher was an Andrew-type character. But then Joss had used Kranz in Cabin earlier (the movie was stuck in distribution limbo for a long time but had been filmed soon after Serenity) and perhaps realized the same thing you said, since Krantz got the main role and Lenk just a small part ;)
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Date: 2017-06-20 12:28 pm (UTC)Yes, "Fran Krantz", I'd forgotten his name. I'd agree Topher felt like an Andrew type character, but the actor was so good that he was able to provide a certain level of nuance to the role, that Lenk just didn't. Lenk came across as if he was acting. I could feel him acting. His performance, much like Eliza Dusku's often felt too mannered somehow. I still wish they'd made Dichen, the other lead actress on Dollhouse the lead. She was very good.
While Krantz was the character. And I think, you are correct, Whedon began to agree.
Of course, Brendon's idea that he was campaigning for with Joss for S7 was a romance with Buffy which I think a lot of people would have preferred not to have
Apparently SMG and NB were both campaigning for it. And Whedon shot them down right out of the box. He stated, no, that won't work, it goes against the characters and story thread. (It did. Made no sense for those two characters to get together, they had a brother/sister vibe at that point.) Whedon suggested Robin Wood as a romance, but SMG didn't want it. They tried it, but the actors had bad, really bad to zero chemistry. Wood had chemistry with Giles, Spike, and Faith but no one else. So, they went a route that played on the chemistry he had with the other three characters. Wise move.
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Date: 2017-06-20 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-20 04:53 pm (UTC)That was always a problem in Dollhouse for me, that the weakest actress was the lead
Mine as well. You know there's a problem when everyone in the cast is stronger than the lead. She should have just produced it and taken a supporting role. She worked well in Buffy, because it was a supporting role and didn't demand as much. But in Who Are You, which was more demanding -- Gellar unfortunately blew her out of the water and it showed. I don't know why Whedon didn't see her limitations in Who Are You. (shrugs) Mileage varies, I guess.
Amy Acker would have been a better choice.
I would have liked to see him more with Giles and Faith but of course ASH had limited time on set, and Faith didn't appear until much later by which time the plot was ramping up.
Shame they couldn't have brought Faith in sooner, gotten rid of Andrew, and focused more on Giles, but actors schedules, etc, interfered.
I can sort of see why they wanted to do a spin-off with Wood, Faith and Spike. Although...I think Dusku would have been the weak link. (Apparently Dusku was also struggling with substance abuse issues at the time -- she recently came out about it.)
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Date: 2017-06-20 05:06 pm (UTC)Yes, the network was interested in a Faith and Spike spinoff hence the scene of the two in the basement that was supposed to be a sort of test scene for how they'd work together. But Dushku was offered money and a contract at FOX and then the WB wanted Marsters to come to Angel as part of the agreement for a S5.
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Date: 2017-06-20 05:29 pm (UTC)But Dushku was offered money and a contract at FOX and then the WB wanted Marsters to come to Angel as part of the agreement for a S5.
Not sure why FOX did that...did backfire. Every thing she did with them, crashed and burned. (Tru Calling, which was Zach Galifankes (Baskets, and various comedies) first role, and Dollhouse, and something else. Nothing she did after Buffy lasted more than one or two seasons and got horrible ratings.
But yeah, that was the reason she headlined Dollhouse. Both Whedon and Dusku had contracts with Fox. Also why she didn't do the spin-off.
She had a good following with the two Bring it On movies, plus a horror film, and the Faith fandom. But not enough to overcome her limitations.
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:12 pm (UTC)Did I post it in the wrong place? I was answering his email from work.
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Date: 2017-06-19 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-19 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-18 01:49 pm (UTC)True. But. Not in others. (I've seen the negative reviews from the sexist fan faction who can't handle the movie.) Also it's very anti-War, which is a risky in some respects. The Wonder Woman movie unlike Whedon's movie had a different agenda...which was to discuss WAR and the pitfalls of it in a way that did not alienate their audience (action movie fans). And to well show how powerful women can be...again in a way that would not alienate the core audience.
Superhero films are expensive. So you can't really take the same risks that you can with other movies. Also they had two back to back critical failures in the franchise and needed a win desperately. People think Christopher Nolan took risks with the Batman franchise, but he really didn't. Actually none of them really have, most of the risks have been done on TV, and barely.
It's not a genre you can easily take risks in. The ones that do, are either low-budget or under the wire...oddly, I think the comics can take more risks than the movies can, due to the nature of the medium, it's audience, and marketing profile.
I liked the movie better than you did, but I couldn't get through Whedon's script. After twenty pages, I gave up. The dialogue disappointed me and go on my nerves. It felt juvenile and stilted. People don't talk like that. I'm picky about dialogue and had started reading it for the dialogue and found the dialogue to be horrifically bad. While the dialogue in the movie worked for me.
(Gets back to my earlier point about what we bring to the reading. People have rec'd books to me online that I can't make it through because I dislike the dialogue or writing style, yet it worked for them. One person stated that the writing in a book was clear and crisp, I found it flowery and meandering with juvenile dialogue, and thought, okay...are we reading the same book?
(shrugs). No, we just think and process information differently.)
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Date: 2017-06-18 06:21 pm (UTC)And I well understand why everyone wanted to play it safe, I was just pointing out that it's what gave us the script (or at least, final story, since who knows what the script actually said) we got. Which is apparently not what Joss was writing, but rather a story that might have worked better in the comics medium with its much lower stakes.
I agree with you about the dialogue, I also found it really disappointing and, even more so, odd given that Whedon's always been praised for it. What bothered me about some of the criticism of the script though was that it seems cherry picked. For example, I saw a complaint about Diana being in chains and her captor being genderswitched to male. Yet this disassociated that scene from the storyline and also ignored how the very same things were done in other superhero films. I think there was a good reason why Joss wanted her opponent to be male, because he wanted a clear representation of patriarchy and its concerns at the center of the story.
Her capture and the removal of her powers was a way of making a god understand the helplessness and despair of the people around her (which is why Steve also calls her a tourist earlier in the script). So this was no different than Odin making Thor mortal and casting him to earth where he learns both humility and to value the lives of "the ants" (as Loki put it) who were supposed to be under his protection. Also, as much as people are enjoying citing the Superman origins of the movie's scene with Steve and Diana in the alley, apparently no one's remembering that in the Whedon script Diana allows herself to be de-powered in order to save Steve's life and those of his friends. This is not unlike how Kal-el allows his powers to be removed so that he can live a human life with Lois in Superman II. In that film Kal soon regrets his decision because it's suggested that Lois loves him for his powers rather than himself. In Whedon's script Diana ends that story arc with a moment that seemed drawn completely from the finale of Buffy S2 where she catches the sword and replies "Me."
I think Whedon's biggest failure in the script (and there were a bunch of problems with it) is that his Steve is nothing like the film's. Whedon's was cynical and stonewalling whereas the movie's was idealistic and desperate. Whedon's path for Diana was a Jesus allegory with her metaphorically dying for the sins of man and being reborn into her own identity, whereas in the film it is Steve who is the sacrificial figure.
I personally think that the movie's biggest fantasy was not a superpowered Amazon but a man like Steve who was nothing like an American man of his time would have been (and isn't even much like a man of our time would be). The very fact that religion, for example, is never brought up in that conversation in the boat seemed yet another clear effort to avoid controversy (especially given this would be a global film) even though the entire movie is about the fight among antiquated gods.
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Date: 2017-06-18 10:59 pm (UTC)