Awards shows and writing...a little ranty

[shadowkat]

Ahhh the Academy Awards...is it just me or are they getting more and more predictable every year?

Honestly I knew the winners in pretty much every category after the nominations were announced- which is why I skipped most of it and watched a movie instead. Did see the last 20 minutes though, so caught two lovely musical performances: The Bellevue rag and A Kiss At The End of The Rainbow (which always makes me laugh for some reason - I think because it's such a perfect parody of all of those folk songs I adore, both celebrates the tradition and makes fun of it.). Knew Lord of The Rings would clean up - the Academy was waiting until Return of The King came out to give them the rewards. So, what they did was give the awards to the triology not just that movie. Can't give 8 or more rewards to each film each year - that would just be wrong. Yeah they did it with the Godfather, but it wasn't really a triology and they didn't knew Coppola was planning two in a row unlike Jackson who filmed his back-to-back. Knew they'd probably do it that way when Fellowship came out.

I also knew Scean Penn would win (sorry, but it was obvious, Bill Murray played himself - which wonderfully hard as that is, the Academy never gives you an Oscar for it - just look at Carey Grant and Dean Martin who often did the same thing. And the others? Their movies didn't resonate strongly enough - Mystic River was one of the Best Pic nominees and since they were planning on giving LoTR everything - but acting, this was the perfect place to award Mystic River which had been acclaimed for its acting. Add to that Scean Penn has only been nominated in Best Actor category 4 times, best supporting at least once for Carlito's Way, and could have just as easily been nominated for 21 Grams as well. His time had come. Ironic, since Penn is notorious for telling people how much he hates awards shows...and doesn't think you can gauge whose the best actor - since every performance is different and every role demands different things. I tend to agree with him. Just look at the people who were nominated? Each role was incredibly different with different demands - it would be a better contest if they all played the same role, and even then? How can you judge? Also what about the people who weren't nominated and should have been? Paul Giammitti in American Splendor was riveting, an amazingly layered performance with all sorts of bizarre demands. Or Hope Davis who played his wife?

Same thing about best actress. You always know that when an actress decides to undergo a physical change for a role and against type and manages to pull it off to about 65% of the viewers - she'll get the award. Hilary Swank did it for Boys Don't Cry, Elizabeth Taylor (who could care less about Oscars, having already won one and just cared about the craft at that point) got it for Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf. Now there's a risky performance. And probably the best of the three in my opinion. But few actresses can come close to doing what Liz did on screen. So, Theron's win didn't surprise me. That said, is it fair to judge the actress who has to go through a physical transmogrification against actresses who don't have all that makeup to work with to get into a character? And what about the ones who weren't nominated? Theron did a good job.
But I agree with Penn, there's no such thing as "best" in that field. Although the prolification of awards shows leads us to think there is. What's up with that by the way? Why do we have to have so many awards shows or accolades given? It's not like these people aren't getting any recognition - they are paid very well, they get good critical reviews..
And why do we have to make everything into a competition or contest - where there can only be one winner?

At any rate...awards shows annoy me now. I used to love them, but that was when there was only two or three televised a year - those were the good old days.



Finished Wicked by Gregory MaGuire this weekend. Interesting novel. Very much a political satire, but then so was The Wizard of Oz, I'm told.
Wouldn't know since I never read the original version.

What struck me about Wicked, is a comment made by a few thriller writers and the historical novelist John Jakes - "we don't read any fiction, just non-fiction, because we are afraid of stealing ideas or having our style unduly influenced" . Hah! For some reason this comment always pisses me off. Why? Because it is anathema to everything I was ever taught about writing. And why we write. You don't write in a vacuume. You write to share your thoughts with others and in return get theirs. It's about *communication*, the *sharing* of ideas, so we can figure out things together and develop new concepts.

Wicked, a fascinating novel by Macguire, basically proves these guys are missing out on some wonderful writing opportunities by avoiding fiction. My Dad echoed that speech about 'how certain fiction writers avoid reading fiction so as not to be unduly influenced to me' and I told him to ignore these guys - pay attention to what the *really* good writers have done. Harlan Ellison reads Issac Asimov, they even borrow from each other. Neil Gaiman is a huge Bester fan. Stephen King reads anything he can get his hands on, including some suspense thrillers by Louisa May Allcot who gave him the idea for a horror novel. Heck his new series, Kingdom Hospital, is partly based on The Kingdom by Lars Von Tries.

Wicked is a twist on The Wizard of OZ and it's pretty clear that MaGuire is not only very familar with the tale but has also read it a few times. Wide Sargrasso Sea is another example - that's a twist on Jane Eyre. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnette is a twist on a character in Charles Dickens' novel The Old Curiosity Shop. And Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials - was Pullman's response to reading C.S. Lewis' Chronicals of Narnia. Heck - Shakespeare borrowed ideas all the time - you didn't think he dreamed those tales up, did you? Legions of fantasy writers were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Every creative writing teacher I've ever had or workshop I've been too has said the same thing: If you want to write well? Read a lot, particularly things similar to what you want to write. Learn from others. Don't worry about stealing or borrowing ideas, there aren't any new ones (trust me) and beside you can't frigging copyright an idea. Just don't copy the way the writer is telling the tale - that is plagirism and unless you plan to do what Janet Daily once did with a Nora Roberts novel..which is copy the entire plot, style, and just change the name of the characters and settings- you should be fine legally.

Yeah, it's a typical Monday morning and I'm in my typical bitchy mood, can't you tell? ;-) Won't bore you with the reasons, done that enough lately, haven't I? At any rate, must mosey on - already 12:30 pm and I have to clean my bathroom and kitchen today...preparations for my Mother visiting..

Oh the lovely new default icon is courtesy of wisteria who creates some of the best ATS icons out there. It fits my mood, I think.

Comments

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

What I loved most about Wicked is how Maguire is able to take characters that are not his own, and completely claim them for himself, making them thousands of times more fascinating than in the original source material, and also how he was able to take some incredibly dark political satire and place them into a fantasy setting without diffusing the message or the fantasy. On a sidenote, you might want to read the original book when you get a chance, because there are a great deal of details in Wicked that tie into Baum's book rather than the film. Wicked the musical, interestingly, is very much a prequel to the film, while the book is a prequel to the book. This is fitting, because many of the differences between the book and the film would not have made sense to an audience who had only seen the film. The musical, which I've seen twice now (if you ever get a chance, go to the Gershwin Theatre--it's on 51st, between 8th and Broadway--They never sell the front row seats and instead do a daily drawing for $25 front row seats 2 1/2 before each performance. All you need is cash and an ID and you can get in if your name is called. Weekends are almost impossible to win, but in the middle of the week, it's much easier. I got in on a Tuesday night, not too many people there. Check wickedthemusical.com for info on the times of the drawing each day, if you're interested) does a very good job of compressing the story, by only focusing on one element: the Elphaba/Galinda relationship. This thread keeps the show very focused throughout and saves the show from the trouble many other adaptations have of trying to cram too many disparate threads into 2 and a half hours. I think you'd find the differences between the novel and play very interesting. I personally prefer the book, but on its own, the musical is fantastic. And Idina Menzel (Elphaba) and Kristen Chenoweth (Galinda) give brilliant performances.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I really agree with the idea that writing is interdependent, collective, all a part of a cultural mix. And one of the most wonderful things about the best writing group I've ever been in was the way we took each other's ideas and images, and went with them.

But it's not just the legalities, I think, that make people worry. I get really upset (it's horrible) everytime somebody publishes a novel like the one I'm working on, because I think that makes it that much less likely that it will salable, both to a publisher and to the public.

I agree that some of the neatest things I'ved read are twists on old stories--not just the great ones you name, but the re-told fairy tales, even Buffy in a sense (plays off the stereotypical damsel and vampire plot by reversing it)--and American Gods, and, and.... I'm loving Kij Johnson's retelling of Japanese myths and novels, interwoven.

And you're right, it's interdependent in reality. A completely original work with no reference to anything else probably wouldn't be interesting at all.In fact, I teach a course in Asian Literature, and one of the hardest things about it is that the students can't recognize this happening, because they don't know the songs, stories, tales, etc. It's the intertextuality that makes a lot of literature work.

Still, I'm not reading those books like mine.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I never saw OZ as a political novel. Baum wasn't that sort of person, as far as I can tell. He was a dreamer, who loved fairy tales and storytelling, acting and poetry. He was very unsuccessful as a businessman and did not seem to be political at all-he tried to run a luxury department store in the middle of a pioneer town. His books are filled with descriptions of gorgeous palaces, rich clothing, fine foods, royal balls. There is some cultural satire, but that's very different from anything in Wicked.

Baum wrote fairy tales because he read them, and wanted to tell them in his own way. He retold them to fit his American sensibilities and viewpoint, and because he liked nothing better than to share his imagination with children.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

The only people who should worry about being unduly influenced by what they read are rip-off artists. I remember back when I was a kid and had the urge to write but no life experience of my own to base any writing on. I used to get these great ideas for stories that were just slightly altered versions of the movie I saw over the weekend or the last book I read. I didn't have an original bone in my body in those days.

But good writers take what they see and read and put a new spin on it. Something novel. Like you say, most great writing pays tribute to what came before it. Takes in everything that influenced it, stirs them all together, and creates something new and interesting from bits and bobs of what is old.

May well depend on what you are writing

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

If you are writing a standard legal thriller for instance, I wouldn't suggest reading a bunch of legal thrillers - except to figure out what the publishers are looking for and the basic framework. I know my Dad, when he decided to write business thrillers - read many books within that genre to see what sold and what worked and didn't work.

When I worked and finished my unpublished novel, [which needs lots of work apparently and me with no time to focus on it...] (ugh) I did read books within that framework - none were close enough to what I was doing though - did keep hunting to see if someone did something close enough - they didn't. Reading other books within the genre gave me an idea though what publishers look for.

When you write that query letter to publishers - one of the first things they look for is do you know of other books similar to the one you wrote? How would you market this book? Where would it fit on the bookshelves?

You think - "my god they are stealing my idea or I'm stealing theirs", but you *are* wrong. I know you don't believe me on this...but, it's not the *idea* that is important it is *how* you write it. Your style. For example: the Oprah books - there were a couple of books she did that seemed a great deal alike - abused girl jumps from home to home with bad parents theme. Yet how the writer conveyed the story, the differences in plot, the characters - showed they weren't alike. Another example - current movies out - there's two that look exactly alike: Twisted and Taking Lives - both are about serial killers, both have a female protagonist, both make us wonder if the female protagonist isn't involved in the killings somehow, but they are *very* different. If you worry about someone doing your idea first or getting out there first - you'll never make it through the book. And if you avoid books in your genre, which may be similar to what you are writing but not exactly - you could be missing something that will inspire you.

There's a book written by Dean Koontz which states read the best of the genres you want to write in and the worste, see what these people do, and what intrigued the publisher. Getting published is believe me far more difficult than writting a book. At the same time, if, like you state, these other books that have plots similar to yours kill your thought process and don't inspire you?
Than don't read them. But I hope and pray that isn't all fiction.

Hope that made sense.

Interesting....

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You mentioned how Wicked the musical works as a prequel to the movie the Wizard of OZ, I wonder if you knew that The Wizard of OZ originated as a Broadway musical in the 1940s? The actor who played the scarecrow in the film version was the same actor who played it on Broadway, same with the lion and tinman I believe. They'd wanted Shirly Temple for the role of Dorothy by the way. If you've seen the DVD, you probably know all this and much more. My memories on it are sketchy at best.

What interested me about Wicked is how the writer expands on a disturbing implication in the movie (not sure if it's in the book too) which is - why did Glinda put those slippers on Dorothy and not just tell her to click her heels and why on earth did she send Dorothy to the Wizard?
Yes, we all know the psychological reasons - face your worst fears and find it out on your own. But the political ones are interesting...was Glinda actually playing games with the Wicked Witch of The West and The Wizard? And why did the Wizard want the Wicked Witch of The West dead so badly? The Wizard of OZ is a very odd story if you think about it too long, just as Alice in Wonderland is an odd story if we think about it too long.
Wicked touches on some of it and does it rather well.

Wicked unlike The OZ books, is *not* for children. It has some very dark passages in it and interesting implications. What it does is ask us questions, about souls, about belief, about the nature of evil - or the origin of evil.

Was a little disappointed that MacGuire didn't let Elphaba become quite as wicked as she is portrayed in the movie version. Elphie comes out of Wicked better than most of the characters do and I'm not sure that works.
But that could just be me. Did it for a book club, where at least three of the women had seen the musical...curious to see what their reactions are.

Ah yes..

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The only people who should worry about being unduly influenced by what they read are rip-off artists. I remember back when I was a kid and had the urge to write but no life experience of my own to base any writing on. I used to get these great ideas for stories that were just slightly altered versions of the movie I saw over the weekend or the last book I read.

I think most kids are like that...we write fanfiction in our heads. Grabbing something in a movie or book and taking off with it. Sometimes it can be original, mostly it's just a rip-off, like the bad fanfiction you see on the internet, most of which is written by kids. I know I did one based on Indiana Jones, except it was a female Indiana Jones - I called her Jade Falcon, she was twisted like Indy and tough, with a male side-kick and a guy who betrayed her.

You are right though - it is the rip-off artists and certain genres really bring them out: cozy mysteries, spy thrillers, legal thrillers, Regency and gothic romances,
horror novels - a la Dean Koontz/Stephen King variety which is why those guys tend to avoid some of the stuff in their own genre now. If you are writting within one of those genres it's a tough.

Political satire?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I didn't see The Wizard of OZ as political satire either, until a friend pointed it out to me and I started to think about it.

Okay...Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked Witch of The East, Glinda Good Witch of The North and the central figure OZ. Dorothy plops down and convienently kills the dictator of Munkinland, The Wicked Witch of The East - the sister of the Witch of the West. Before Dorothy can apologize, Glinda, the Good Witch of The North gives Dorothy the witch's slippers and sends her off to the Wizard - the emperor of the land for guidance, who will certainly be happy that she got rid of the dictator. Before Glinda shows up - the munchkins are about to declare Dorothy queen. Glinda conviently never tells Dorothy all she needs to do to get home is click her heels together three times to get home. The Witch of West shows up, is furious, but isn't threatening to kill Dorothy, she just wants the slippers. Glinda advises Dorothy never to give them up. Off goes Dorothy to the Wizard. The Wizard tells Dorothy, he'll only help if she brings the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Okay, he may not have intended anything politcal here but it was written in the late 1800s around a time when people in the middle of the country were struggling for an identity since everyone was journeying to the west or east. Wicked Witch of The West - the westward progress, the Wicked Witch of the East - the industry of the east.
Baum was frustrated in industry. He lived in Iowa (flat, non-descript and like most Iowans saw Kansas City and Chicago as the place to be - The Emerald City. So there's a political flavor to his books, even though he probably didn't consciously intend it. But then there's a political flavor to all fairy tales...human beings like it or not tend to be political creatures. I think we do it instinctively.

The web site is interesting though in how strongly it proclaims there was no political intent. The original seems to have been published somewhere around 1906.

http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/faq02.html#15

For anyone interested in further analysis. OZ was never my passion personally, which may explain why I didn't fall in love with Wicked, even though I enjoyed it. I enjoy the original musical...because it's wickedly subversive in places and well, I like musicals. But it doesn't grab me on the same emotional/intellectual level Angel or Btvs do...not sure why.

Re: Interesting....

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Was a little disappointed that MacGuire didn't let Elphaba become quite as wicked as she is portrayed in the movie version. Elphie comes out of Wicked better than most of the characters do and I'm not sure that works.

Then you very well might enjoy the play more, where it implies in the latter part of the second act that Elphie actually is going slightly crazy. Likewise, Galinda isn't nearly as unlikable as she is in the book. In a way, they both even each other out. At times, they each do horrible things to each other, and other times good things that humanize each of them. And it is quite fascinating to see how each witch creates the other one. The woman each of them becomes is a direct result of actions by the other woman.

Even more so than in the novel, the political implications of creating a villain for a country to rally around are stressed, as it fits so well with the times. (One of the best lyrics, sung by the Wizard: "There are precious few at ease/With moral ambiguities/And so we act as if they don't exist...")

At times, it tries a little too hard to make every single "prequel" element set itself into place for "The Wizard of Oz" portion, but on the other hand, it makes for a "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" effect in the second act, where we never actually see Dorothy but see Glinda and Elphie moments after Dorothy has left or is about to arrive each time, like a behind-the-scenes version of the story. And most of the tweaks to the story work, either as cute asides (such as "Oh, so that's how Elphaba got her pointy hat!"), or as more serious implications.

Also interestingly, the ending is changed in the play in such a way that IMO was actually an improvement. But I won't spoil you, in case you want to see the play.

Re: Ah yes..

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I know I did one based on Indiana Jones, except it was a female Indiana Jones - I called her Jade Falcon, she was twisted like Indy and tough, with a male side-kick and a guy who betrayed her.

Not all apparent cheesy rip-offs necessarily have to be that way. The above just sounds like your attempt to project yourself into a fictional world you enjoyed. You couldn't imagine yourself AS Indy, so you invented a female Indy. IMO, that's just a legitimate way a reader enhances her enjoyment of a book or film or tv show.

Now if you tried to publish said story, we'd be in rip-off-ville, most likely. It depends on how closely you mirrored the I.J. world in your story. If it's just a swash-buckling adventure with a female archeologist, it has potential to be fresh and homage-y rather than a rip-off.

Re: Ah yes..

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

There was a very good episode of Xena that played off this concept. It took place in the 1940s and all of the actors played these characters who were searching for "the lost Xena scrolls." It had a nice subversion of what was expected, too, as the modern version of Gabrielle was the strong, tough, slightly twisted Indy character, whereas Xena was the shy and feminine damsel in distress.

Re: Political satire?

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the info. Of course, I find AtS and BtVS more compelling too. Oz was always escapism for me as a kid, but AtS helps me understand myself and others. It's like the difference betweeen looking in a mirror and looking in a crystal ball. (Which might make sense only to me!)