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shadowkatAs an aside, I keep having people I have never heard of friending me on Facebook. Is this common? Why would you friend someone on Facebook, you don't know? LJ is different - that's blogs you read. Unless of course, you think they are someone else? Also why would you want to friend 347 people? How do you keep track of everyone?
Should go to bed, tis late and must get up at 6 am to go to work tomorrow. But my brain is busy thinking deep thoughts again on this bitterly cold night. Not inside, outside. Inside toasty, and a bit on the dry side - even with radiators that hiss and spit in the background.
While thumbing through an entertainment mag as I half-watched the news tonight, I hit upon an article about the new TV show Dollhouse - with a summary statement by the co-creators of the series, Joss Whedon and Eliza Dusku, which said - the series is about identity particulary in this age of information overload, with ipods, media saturation, internet blogs, and so many venues telling us who we are, what we should be, and how we are perceived. Actually that's my summary, this is the exact quote:
Dusku credits a four-hour lunch with Whedon in creating DOLLHOUSE, 'We talked about life and what was in the forefront of our minds in terms of what's going on in the media, the world, politics, the Internet, everything."
"Everybody is questioning their identity, the meaning of who they are,"Whedon says. "Are they a good person? What are they doing with their lives? How can they sum themselves up?"
It hit me reading this bit - that this may be why I've been so fascinated by Whedon's writing, the concept of identity, and how it gets mixed up with how we think we are percieved by others - or another way of putting it, what we see reflected back at us.
But this is not what's been tossing about in my brain tonight and I'm not even sure I can convey it well here in this measley blog. Words aren't after all always interpreted the way we intend, not always through any fault of our own.
I think that sentence above may be the key to what's been nagging at the back of my brain for some time. This tendency to misconstrue or misinterpret what we see or read. To make assumptions and adhere to those assumptions without looking at all the information. It's the flaw, I believe in the analysis, what makes the analysis slippery and questionable.
Example - years ago, I wrote a short story for a creative writing course in college. It was called Just a Bunch of Ants - and was written in the point of view of a young, lonely, frustrated art student yearning for his girlfriend. I based the character and voice on a bunch of letters I'd received from my brother. Where he jokingly tells me that he's so lonely he's writing notes to his trash can. In the story the art student has a shaved head and so does his girlfriend. I don't explain why. The class read the letter and according to the rules, I was not to say a word until they finished discussing the story and what they believed it meant.
The teacher thought it was about a survivor of a holocaust, dying of radiation poisoning. That, my teacher told us explained the bald heads and the notes to the trashcan.
Other's thought the main character had cancer or was just insane.
While a few, about a handful, figured out it was about a lonely, somewhat eccentric, art student yearning for his girlfriend and frustrated with his life.
All caught the abject lonliness, the internal struggle for identity, and the battle against a world that lacks meaning or purpose - but they didn't really understand the story - they were too busy making assumptions.
When I told them what the story was about, what my intent was - I was told that it did not matter by my teacher. Who was a bit ruffled by the fact that he'd gotten it all wrong.
He said if the plot and intent is not clear to the reader or audience, then the writer has failed. A friend of mine who was taking the class with me at the time and obsessed with Samuel Beckett's plays, specifically End-Game, vehmently disagreed - stating just because he didn't get it, did not mean I had failed. Why couldn't it be the simple story of someone who was struggling for meaning? Was it my fault they'd complicated it? Or my fault that the story wasn't the one they wanted or needed it to be?
I guess it depends on how we view stories. Are they a conversation between the reader and the writer? The writer telling us something from their perspective, sharing with us how they see the world, what is bugging them, and who they are? Is the story they are sharing about them or is it about us? I wonder sometimes if we can seperate the two - take ourselves out of the equation. Try to see the story from the writer's perspective, see what they are telling us.
Without superimposing our desires, fantasies, dreams, nightmares upon it?
Another interesting tid-bit about that creative writing class - I wrote over 20 stories for that class. I submitted numerous ones to literary publications at the school. But only one was I told by my instructor to submitt to a contest. A contest that was judged by middle-aged male and female professors. The story I submitted was about a middle-aged man struggling with what to do with his mother who was currently in a nursing home. It was in his point of view and took place on an airplane, about ten-fifteen pages in length if that. In the story an annoying, elderly passenger who resembles his mother, sits next to him, and suffers an attack, getting violently sick - much like his own mother is sick. She's not his mother, but he is struggling with the guilt. Because he's not taking care of her, he is far away, taking care of his own life. I wrote the first draft while suffering an 105 degree fever. OF the stories I wanted published, that was my least favorite and it was the hardest one to share with my family - because I'd based the tale on my own father. My intent was to discuss the complexity of how people feel about their family members, about illness. The complicated emotion. This story was more successful than Just A Bunch of Ants - because it made sense to those judging it. It fit within their framework. They identified with the main character and had experienced or were experiencing that character's anguish. Just A Bunch of Ants did not make sense to them - it was about a 18 year old art student, alone, and frustrated - farther away. Who cursed and used foul language. And was angry at the world. Just A Bunch of Ants pushed my teacher's buttons or it was a story that by itself, without the nuclear holocaust, etc - was uninteresting.
In school, when I was taught how to do literary analysis - you are taught by the way, you don't just wake up one morning and do it - I was told that you should try to figure out authorial intent, as well as what it meant to you. One is subjective and one objective analysis. The second in some respects is far harder and requires greater skill, because you are attempting to get inside someone else's head - someone you don't know. But by understanding the author, the work itself often makes more sense. I'm not sure you can fully understand Faulkner's Sound & The Fury by the way - if you did not know about the loss of his child and his own grief. And Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire takes on a whole new meaning when you find out about the child she lost and obsessed over. Same deal with Joss Whedon - it helps to know when watching Buffy, that Whedon originally wrote the story for his activist mother, who died of Cancer before the TV series aired. OR that he has written in numerous interviews that he is fascinated with the conflict about an individual's identity and society's view of what that identity should be. Also the fact that Whedon himself is a white guy, who went to prep/boarding schools, and is the child of an activist and literary mother and a television writer father. These facts do provide insight to his work. Just as the fact that James Joyce was Irish, poor, and had the majority of his later transcripts typed by French Nuns who couldn't speak English - is critical to understanding his work. He wrote about Dublin. He often wrote in Gallic and English. He had a love for the rhythm of language.
But, I often see in analysis - these items forgotten or overlooked. Critical reviews do this a lot, I think. Until they become or feel if you will excuse the term, like masturbation.
The critic indulging him or herself. Not all. I'm not saying that. Certainly not. Nor am I saying that I think you have to take authorial intent into consideration. But, to a degree, perhaps we should?
It's like having a conversation with someone - in which after a while you realize the other person is misinterpreting every word you say. Putting their own twist or meaning on your words. I've had these types of conversations with both Wales and my brother. As they have had with me. Where, we are reacting to what we think is being said, not listening and thinking about what is being said. I think this is true with stories too - the difference between the emotional reaction - which is vicerial and does not always have anything to do with the author's intent but our own perceptions or moods or what have you, and the thoughtful reaction. Right vs. Left brain if you will, although I don't believe it is nearly that cut and dried.
Anyhow it is late. Must sleep. Just letting this hang out there for whomever may pass it by, for the moment.
Should go to bed, tis late and must get up at 6 am to go to work tomorrow. But my brain is busy thinking deep thoughts again on this bitterly cold night. Not inside, outside. Inside toasty, and a bit on the dry side - even with radiators that hiss and spit in the background.
While thumbing through an entertainment mag as I half-watched the news tonight, I hit upon an article about the new TV show Dollhouse - with a summary statement by the co-creators of the series, Joss Whedon and Eliza Dusku, which said - the series is about identity particulary in this age of information overload, with ipods, media saturation, internet blogs, and so many venues telling us who we are, what we should be, and how we are perceived. Actually that's my summary, this is the exact quote:
Dusku credits a four-hour lunch with Whedon in creating DOLLHOUSE, 'We talked about life and what was in the forefront of our minds in terms of what's going on in the media, the world, politics, the Internet, everything."
"Everybody is questioning their identity, the meaning of who they are,"Whedon says. "Are they a good person? What are they doing with their lives? How can they sum themselves up?"
It hit me reading this bit - that this may be why I've been so fascinated by Whedon's writing, the concept of identity, and how it gets mixed up with how we think we are percieved by others - or another way of putting it, what we see reflected back at us.
But this is not what's been tossing about in my brain tonight and I'm not even sure I can convey it well here in this measley blog. Words aren't after all always interpreted the way we intend, not always through any fault of our own.
I think that sentence above may be the key to what's been nagging at the back of my brain for some time. This tendency to misconstrue or misinterpret what we see or read. To make assumptions and adhere to those assumptions without looking at all the information. It's the flaw, I believe in the analysis, what makes the analysis slippery and questionable.
Example - years ago, I wrote a short story for a creative writing course in college. It was called Just a Bunch of Ants - and was written in the point of view of a young, lonely, frustrated art student yearning for his girlfriend. I based the character and voice on a bunch of letters I'd received from my brother. Where he jokingly tells me that he's so lonely he's writing notes to his trash can. In the story the art student has a shaved head and so does his girlfriend. I don't explain why. The class read the letter and according to the rules, I was not to say a word until they finished discussing the story and what they believed it meant.
The teacher thought it was about a survivor of a holocaust, dying of radiation poisoning. That, my teacher told us explained the bald heads and the notes to the trashcan.
Other's thought the main character had cancer or was just insane.
While a few, about a handful, figured out it was about a lonely, somewhat eccentric, art student yearning for his girlfriend and frustrated with his life.
All caught the abject lonliness, the internal struggle for identity, and the battle against a world that lacks meaning or purpose - but they didn't really understand the story - they were too busy making assumptions.
When I told them what the story was about, what my intent was - I was told that it did not matter by my teacher. Who was a bit ruffled by the fact that he'd gotten it all wrong.
He said if the plot and intent is not clear to the reader or audience, then the writer has failed. A friend of mine who was taking the class with me at the time and obsessed with Samuel Beckett's plays, specifically End-Game, vehmently disagreed - stating just because he didn't get it, did not mean I had failed. Why couldn't it be the simple story of someone who was struggling for meaning? Was it my fault they'd complicated it? Or my fault that the story wasn't the one they wanted or needed it to be?
I guess it depends on how we view stories. Are they a conversation between the reader and the writer? The writer telling us something from their perspective, sharing with us how they see the world, what is bugging them, and who they are? Is the story they are sharing about them or is it about us? I wonder sometimes if we can seperate the two - take ourselves out of the equation. Try to see the story from the writer's perspective, see what they are telling us.
Without superimposing our desires, fantasies, dreams, nightmares upon it?
Another interesting tid-bit about that creative writing class - I wrote over 20 stories for that class. I submitted numerous ones to literary publications at the school. But only one was I told by my instructor to submitt to a contest. A contest that was judged by middle-aged male and female professors. The story I submitted was about a middle-aged man struggling with what to do with his mother who was currently in a nursing home. It was in his point of view and took place on an airplane, about ten-fifteen pages in length if that. In the story an annoying, elderly passenger who resembles his mother, sits next to him, and suffers an attack, getting violently sick - much like his own mother is sick. She's not his mother, but he is struggling with the guilt. Because he's not taking care of her, he is far away, taking care of his own life. I wrote the first draft while suffering an 105 degree fever. OF the stories I wanted published, that was my least favorite and it was the hardest one to share with my family - because I'd based the tale on my own father. My intent was to discuss the complexity of how people feel about their family members, about illness. The complicated emotion. This story was more successful than Just A Bunch of Ants - because it made sense to those judging it. It fit within their framework. They identified with the main character and had experienced or were experiencing that character's anguish. Just A Bunch of Ants did not make sense to them - it was about a 18 year old art student, alone, and frustrated - farther away. Who cursed and used foul language. And was angry at the world. Just A Bunch of Ants pushed my teacher's buttons or it was a story that by itself, without the nuclear holocaust, etc - was uninteresting.
In school, when I was taught how to do literary analysis - you are taught by the way, you don't just wake up one morning and do it - I was told that you should try to figure out authorial intent, as well as what it meant to you. One is subjective and one objective analysis. The second in some respects is far harder and requires greater skill, because you are attempting to get inside someone else's head - someone you don't know. But by understanding the author, the work itself often makes more sense. I'm not sure you can fully understand Faulkner's Sound & The Fury by the way - if you did not know about the loss of his child and his own grief. And Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire takes on a whole new meaning when you find out about the child she lost and obsessed over. Same deal with Joss Whedon - it helps to know when watching Buffy, that Whedon originally wrote the story for his activist mother, who died of Cancer before the TV series aired. OR that he has written in numerous interviews that he is fascinated with the conflict about an individual's identity and society's view of what that identity should be. Also the fact that Whedon himself is a white guy, who went to prep/boarding schools, and is the child of an activist and literary mother and a television writer father. These facts do provide insight to his work. Just as the fact that James Joyce was Irish, poor, and had the majority of his later transcripts typed by French Nuns who couldn't speak English - is critical to understanding his work. He wrote about Dublin. He often wrote in Gallic and English. He had a love for the rhythm of language.
But, I often see in analysis - these items forgotten or overlooked. Critical reviews do this a lot, I think. Until they become or feel if you will excuse the term, like masturbation.
The critic indulging him or herself. Not all. I'm not saying that. Certainly not. Nor am I saying that I think you have to take authorial intent into consideration. But, to a degree, perhaps we should?
It's like having a conversation with someone - in which after a while you realize the other person is misinterpreting every word you say. Putting their own twist or meaning on your words. I've had these types of conversations with both Wales and my brother. As they have had with me. Where, we are reacting to what we think is being said, not listening and thinking about what is being said. I think this is true with stories too - the difference between the emotional reaction - which is vicerial and does not always have anything to do with the author's intent but our own perceptions or moods or what have you, and the thoughtful reaction. Right vs. Left brain if you will, although I don't believe it is nearly that cut and dried.
Anyhow it is late. Must sleep. Just letting this hang out there for whomever may pass it by, for the moment.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:23 pm (UTC)It's why I think we communicate - to solve problems to figure out things, because we can't see all the angles of the diamond by ourselves. The issues raised in Buffy - I think are meant to be shared. I think that's why they are being raised by the writer, because I don't think the writer knows the answers and is working them out by writing them. I don't know if that's true - I just know that this is one of many reasons I'm driven to write. And I'm guessing from reading interviews with Whedon and others such as the writer behind BattleStar Galatica - that they also write to work out these issues, to explore them, and understand them.
The idea of Buffy being intended to be a community activity, I like that – not only are the writers sharing ideas with us, there does seem an expectation that we’ll share them with one another (“in the chatty rooms”, as Angel said).
The self-awareness of BtVs and AtS mean they include the viewer in the text from the very beginning – as in, the text speaks to us as viewers by saying, “hey guys, look, you’re watching a TV show.” (EG with the play on genre expectations at the very beginning of Welcome to the Hellmouth, with the blonde girl being the villain, Darla) But also absorbing you in the story. All of which is very fertile ground for discussion, for unpicking things as a community.
And saying them very well.
I can’t remember if I said thanks already but…thanks! Forgive me if I reply to things twice/miss stuff out… I find livejournal comment bits really visually confusing!
Also I love your icon. But then I'm a BSG and Starbuck fan.
I’m so into BSG right now… getting more and more exciting as it rushes to the end. But I don’t want it to be over. But I’m glad they’re seemingly going out with a bang. Can’t wait til next ep.
On the mirror bit - this can at times get in the way of a lot of good analysis. People often will get caught up in the aspects of the text that either mirror their lives or reflect aspects of their experience that they'd rather forget.
Yes, there is an extent to which we try to FORCE art to imitate life, our lives, which distorts art. Though I suppose sometimes relating to a particular element of a story can help bring out various meanings – as in, you relate to one bit, and that draws you to inspect that part of the story closer, and once you’re up close, you might actually see details you would’ve missed otherwise. Can’t actually think of any examples right now but…maybe?
A good friend of mine said recently that going online and discussing Buffy on a fan board or with others - provides more insight. We can't see the whole story by ourselves. We are limited by our own perception of it.
Very much so. Don’t have anything to add but…yes.
I also agree about changing one's mind about things. I've done it many times myself. I am admittedly stubborn and a bit opinionated. But I try to stay open and work hard to read views that I disagree with, sometimes vehemently so.
Once I’m in a corner, I do tend to dig in. But sometimes, in the right kind of argument, I will be coaxed out.
I changed my mind about the Seventh Season of Buffy. On the first two watchings, I found it clunky with huge plot gaps. The third viewing and reading some new takes on the season, changed my mind. That season is now arguably among my favorites. It's ambiguous in places. And deals with some complex and unanswerable questions regarding leadership, power, and friendship, not to mention gender politics.
Interesting. I still don’t like season 7, but…. Do you have any posts dissecting it and why you like it anywhere? I’d be very interested to see what you think makes it good.
TBC
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:23 pm (UTC)I love it. I think one of the reasons I loved Lord of the Rings so much as a kid was they did a lot of walking as part of the plot. Or perhaps the reason I liked walking was down to LoTR? Chicken, egg…
I don't remember what I write half the time.
…which definitely reinforces the “we don’t own our own work once it’s out there” point of view. I had a tutor once whose mantra was: “kill your babies.” Not getting too attached to a piece of work, or to a particular element of a story, can often lead to the best stories, when you’re able to junk something because it isn’t working and not hang onto it just because it’s your own, your precious and you wantsss it (since I’m on a LoTR tip).
I think Whedon has admitted that he is an intuitive writer. So am I, which may explain why I like him. Intiutive writers tend to be more interested in exploring characters and less into plot. Whedon often will team up with good plotters to counter-act that problem. Because plot is important. And knowing where you are going is as well.
Yes – I think when Joss falls down it’s sometimes because he’s focusing too much on the “cry now” character moments and not enough on the overall structure. Most of the time this works out fine though I think, because the characters drive such a strong story.
A writer who’s awful in that regard is the guy who was doing doctor who (or possibly still is), Russell T Davies, who couldn’t structure a season if it bit him in the arse, and focuses too much on “wouldn’t it be cool if x happened?” Though I suppose the problem there is that he’s focusing neither on plot nor character, but rather on moments. I still love the new incarnation of Doctor Who, but I’m looking forward to the new showrunner, whose episodes have tended to be much better than RTD’s.
Actually, with the comics, I think Joss’s are often weaker issues. Loved Brian K Vaughn’s stuff (he’s generally very good, though Pride of Bagdhad was a little heavy handed, but Y Last Man is brilliant – and rather Buffy-like at times).
That said, I think Whedon does know the end of his story, he just doesn't know the middle. I can relate to that.
Yeah, getting from A to B can be the hard thing. Though I do personally find once I know the ending it becomes a lot easier to write. I’m rather bad in terms of knowing how to begin a story, but then having no clue where I’m going to end up and rambling until I get…somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 03:24 pm (UTC)True. Logic is also evil (I mean formal logic). Anything that uses letters and numbers instead of words brings me out in a rash. (I gave up maths at 16 for a reason, and that reason is…maths is evil, language is king, and anyone who claims maths is a language should tell me how to swear in maths. A language without decent curse words is a language I don’t want any part of.)
And it is a great analogy. If you look at some of the responses above - each person picked up something different from my post.
Speaking of wood for the trees, I’ve been so focused on your responses to my responses that I haven’t read any of the others, must go and do so asap. Very curious to see what others have said and experience – as you say – the kaleidoscope of all those views.
Hee, for this and the K comment certainly.
Mmm, cookies :D
On TV - there's too many people involved. Fool For Love had three writers. Conversations with Dead People - five different writers. And that's not including everyone else.
Yes. I think it’s easy to forget that Joss is shorthand for “everyone who made this episode happen from a creative point of view – including the suits who wouldn’t allow stuff to happen and therefore forced the creative types to come up with new solutions.”
He was most interested in what the reader got out of it. And I have to say that sometimes, as a writer, I'll like what someone else has seen in my story more than what I may have intended.
Yes, that is a very satisfying thing. Though most of the time the stuff I write is just comedy/silliness so there aren’t all that many layers to be found. But when there are, I definitely appreciate people seeing nuances I hadn’t really intended. Though I must say, I do get peeved if they miss something I thought was really obvious (in a petulant way, I don’t actually get cross with them, I just have a secret wail).
I'm not sure art can exist in a vaccume, if it does it is rather uninteresting. I think we influence each other.
Perhaps certain sorts of art thrive in a vacuum (the very contemplative kind?) but others feed off feedback/influence. The Buffyverse is definitely a feedbackverse.