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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.
no subject
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.