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Aug. 11th, 2013 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. YA writer, Kristin Cashore discusses two articles she read on how to discuss polarizing topics with people with who you will never agree (in this case abortion, but it be applied to anything actually), and women's weight issues.
Here's an excerpt from the first one, entitled "Talking with the Enemy":
And the second one, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A multiracial view of women's eating problems, by Becky W. Thompson, released in 1994.:
2. Finished watching Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, last night.
It's more or less in the same vein as Tarantino's last film Inglorious Bastards - in which Christoph Waltz also won an Oscar for best supporting. A bloody revenge fantasy focusing on the consequences of racism and bigotry. In this regard, if no other, Tarantino reminds me a little bit of Mel Brooks - who also poked fun at racism and bigotry, as well as Trey Parker and his writing partner whose name presently escapes me. Tarantino is also similar to Brooks in how he parodies/homages old movies or rather old movie tropes. In Inglorious Bastards he homaged the pulp WWII movies. Here he homages the spaghetti westerns (westerns that were filmed in Italy during the 1960s and early 1970s featuring Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel, or Charles Bronson.). These tended to be fairly gritty and bloody westerns, with melodramatic music rolling through the background. Tarantino goes all out - with the music homages - covering everything from classics like The Outlaw Josey Wales to Jeremiah Johnson and El Dorado.
While the film was enjoyable, much like Bastards, it is difficult to watch in places. Actually more so - because Tarantino does not flinch at showing the horrors that Django experiences. Django makes Sergio Leon's Once Upon a Time in the Old West seem rather tame and G rated in comparison. In short, if uber-violence, blood and guts spattering, makes you want to cover your eyes or flee the room - this flick is not for you. But if you have ever watched a Tarantino film - you probably already know that. For example - in one scene, a runaway slave is depicted being torn apart by dogs. This is important - because it's a motivational turning point for Christoph Waltz's character. So I wouldn't call it gratuitous.
The scene is necessary to the plot and it also depicts the horror of slavery in technicolor.
The difference between Sergio Leon's Spaghetti Westerns and many of the Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s is Leon did not romanticize or white-wash the West. Instead Leon exaggerated the violence and the horrors of the time period. Tarantino does the same thing with at times, comic effect. Instead of slow-mo body twists, we have comical blood spurts. And screams of pain. Making fun of the fact that in many Westerns you rarely saw blood or heard pain, so much as a grunt.
You do hate the villains, even if they are almost comical in their over-the-top skating thisclose to stereotypical portrayals. I was yelling at them at one point - "Die Screaming! You Bastards!" Like I said it is not an easy film to watch in places, but none of Tarantino's films are necessarily for the weak of tummy. And he does like to blundegon you over the head a bit - subtle he's not.
That said there are a few rather comical bits in the first half that had me roaring with laughter. One dealt with the KKK. The first half of the movie is actually rather funny, it's the second half, after Leonardo Di Caprio's Calvin Candy pops up that is difficult to watch at times with one too many cringe moments, although since this is a Tarantino flick based on a spaghetti Western, you sort of know it'll end well, with the villains obtaining their just awards.
Overall...a mixed bag. I can see why it got nominated for awards, but rarely won.
3. Pop culture bits...
* Rather like the casting of
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. He's comical and a rather good physical comedian.
Shame he couldn't have been the Doctor in a relationship with River Song - that would have worked better for me. I can see him being an older version of Ten. But other than that, I like the casting choice. (Let's face it - they'd never in a million years go with my preference - which is Helen Mirren, Miranda Richardson, or Idris Elba - the Brits are just as sexist and racist as the Americans when it comes to pulp icons, sad but oh so true. But hey, look on the bright side, at least they aren't into age discrimination or requiring an attractive buff boy).
* CBS vs. TWC battle continues. I've given up. Wrote a letter to Congress about the cable blackouts, wrote posts to TWC, and still no changes. Beginning to see why so many people have cut their TV cable subscriptions. Except I like NY1 News and the convenience of cable.
It's how I watch tv - requires less keeping track of things. And I really don't want to buy tv shows. Oh well, the only tv show that CBS carries that I really care about is The Good Wife - I can probably stream it on Amazon Prime for free.
4. Beginning to get burned out on Romance Novels, yes, I know...finally. But I can't find anything else I want to read or ache to read. Right now - if it's not work related, I only read what I crave. Less intellectual and informative, the better. In short - I'm on an extended pulp kick. But a decidedly "non-violent" pulp kick. This does pose a problem however, since the only pulp genre that is not extremely violent is romance. Annoying that.
I suppose I could switch to cozy mysteries...or family sagas.
5. Was able to walk a little bit in my sneaker, no boot yesterday. Foot is a little weak and sore. This is going to take a lot of time and patience. On plus side, I appear to be losing not gaining weight...mainly because it requires way too much effort to go buy a lot of food.
Here's an excerpt from the first one, entitled "Talking with the Enemy":
For six years, leaders on both sides of the abortion debate have met in secret in an attempt to better understand each other. Now they are ready to share what they have learned.
In the morning of Dec. 30, 1994, John Salvi walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline and opened fire with a rifle. He seriously wounded three people and killed the receptionist, Shannon Lowney, as she spoke on the phone. He then ran to his car and drove two miles down Beacon Street to Preterm health Services, where he began shooting again, injuring two and killing receptionist Lee Ann Nichols.
Salvi's 20-minute rampage shocked the nation. Prochoice advocates were grief-stricken, angry, and terrified. Prolife proponents were appalled as well as concerned that their cause would be connected with this horrifying act. Governor William F. Weld and Cardinal Bernard Law, among others, called for talks between prochoice and prolife leaders.
We are six leaders, three prochoice and three prolife, who answered this call. For nearly 5 1/2 years, we have met together privately for more than 150 hours - an experience that has astonished us. Now, six years after the shootings in Brookline, and on the 28th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, we publicly disclose our meetings for the first time.
How did the six of us, activists from two embattled camps, ever find our way to the same table?
In the months following the shootings, the Public Conversations Project, a Boston-based national group that designs and conducts dialogues about divisive public issues, consulted many community leaders about the value of top-level talks about abortion.
Encouraged by these conversations, the project in July 1995 invited the six of us to meet together four times. The meetings would be confidential and we would attend as individuals, not as representatives of our organizations.
Our talks would not aim for common ground or compromise. Instead, the goals of our conversations would be to communicate openly with our opponents, away from the polarizing spotlight of media coverage; to build relationships of mutual respect and understanding; to help deescalate the rhetoric of the abortion controversy; and, of course, to reduce the risk of future shootings.
And the second one, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A multiracial view of women's eating problems, by Becky W. Thompson, released in 1994.:
Vera's experience raises the question of whether there is something inherently wrong with using food as a comfort when something terrible occurs. If it soothes someone in a time of extraordinary grief – why not? For some of the women, a sign of recovery was coming to see eating as a reasonable way to cope with adversity given other "choices." These questions bring the discussion full circle, since answering them rests on social and political analysis. The "just say no to food and yes to life" approach to eating problems, like the "just say no to drugs" ideas of the Reagan-Bush years, reduces complex issues of social justice and access to resources to psychological issues of self-control and will power. As long as the violence and social injustices that women link to the origins and perpetuation of their eating problems exist, women may continue to binge, purge, and starve themselves.
2. Finished watching Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, last night.
It's more or less in the same vein as Tarantino's last film Inglorious Bastards - in which Christoph Waltz also won an Oscar for best supporting. A bloody revenge fantasy focusing on the consequences of racism and bigotry. In this regard, if no other, Tarantino reminds me a little bit of Mel Brooks - who also poked fun at racism and bigotry, as well as Trey Parker and his writing partner whose name presently escapes me. Tarantino is also similar to Brooks in how he parodies/homages old movies or rather old movie tropes. In Inglorious Bastards he homaged the pulp WWII movies. Here he homages the spaghetti westerns (westerns that were filmed in Italy during the 1960s and early 1970s featuring Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel, or Charles Bronson.). These tended to be fairly gritty and bloody westerns, with melodramatic music rolling through the background. Tarantino goes all out - with the music homages - covering everything from classics like The Outlaw Josey Wales to Jeremiah Johnson and El Dorado.
While the film was enjoyable, much like Bastards, it is difficult to watch in places. Actually more so - because Tarantino does not flinch at showing the horrors that Django experiences. Django makes Sergio Leon's Once Upon a Time in the Old West seem rather tame and G rated in comparison. In short, if uber-violence, blood and guts spattering, makes you want to cover your eyes or flee the room - this flick is not for you. But if you have ever watched a Tarantino film - you probably already know that. For example - in one scene, a runaway slave is depicted being torn apart by dogs. This is important - because it's a motivational turning point for Christoph Waltz's character. So I wouldn't call it gratuitous.
The scene is necessary to the plot and it also depicts the horror of slavery in technicolor.
The difference between Sergio Leon's Spaghetti Westerns and many of the Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s is Leon did not romanticize or white-wash the West. Instead Leon exaggerated the violence and the horrors of the time period. Tarantino does the same thing with at times, comic effect. Instead of slow-mo body twists, we have comical blood spurts. And screams of pain. Making fun of the fact that in many Westerns you rarely saw blood or heard pain, so much as a grunt.
You do hate the villains, even if they are almost comical in their over-the-top skating thisclose to stereotypical portrayals. I was yelling at them at one point - "Die Screaming! You Bastards!" Like I said it is not an easy film to watch in places, but none of Tarantino's films are necessarily for the weak of tummy. And he does like to blundegon you over the head a bit - subtle he's not.
That said there are a few rather comical bits in the first half that had me roaring with laughter. One dealt with the KKK. The first half of the movie is actually rather funny, it's the second half, after Leonardo Di Caprio's Calvin Candy pops up that is difficult to watch at times with one too many cringe moments, although since this is a Tarantino flick based on a spaghetti Western, you sort of know it'll end well, with the villains obtaining their just awards.
Overall...a mixed bag. I can see why it got nominated for awards, but rarely won.
3. Pop culture bits...
* Rather like the casting of
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. He's comical and a rather good physical comedian.
Shame he couldn't have been the Doctor in a relationship with River Song - that would have worked better for me. I can see him being an older version of Ten. But other than that, I like the casting choice. (Let's face it - they'd never in a million years go with my preference - which is Helen Mirren, Miranda Richardson, or Idris Elba - the Brits are just as sexist and racist as the Americans when it comes to pulp icons, sad but oh so true. But hey, look on the bright side, at least they aren't into age discrimination or requiring an attractive buff boy).
* CBS vs. TWC battle continues. I've given up. Wrote a letter to Congress about the cable blackouts, wrote posts to TWC, and still no changes. Beginning to see why so many people have cut their TV cable subscriptions. Except I like NY1 News and the convenience of cable.
It's how I watch tv - requires less keeping track of things. And I really don't want to buy tv shows. Oh well, the only tv show that CBS carries that I really care about is The Good Wife - I can probably stream it on Amazon Prime for free.
4. Beginning to get burned out on Romance Novels, yes, I know...finally. But I can't find anything else I want to read or ache to read. Right now - if it's not work related, I only read what I crave. Less intellectual and informative, the better. In short - I'm on an extended pulp kick. But a decidedly "non-violent" pulp kick. This does pose a problem however, since the only pulp genre that is not extremely violent is romance. Annoying that.
I suppose I could switch to cozy mysteries...or family sagas.
5. Was able to walk a little bit in my sneaker, no boot yesterday. Foot is a little weak and sore. This is going to take a lot of time and patience. On plus side, I appear to be losing not gaining weight...mainly because it requires way too much effort to go buy a lot of food.
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no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 06:02 pm (UTC)I read that she also writes romance novels and I'm kinda tempted.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 09:16 pm (UTC)Now will have to go look up. Latest grab was a book called "Never Deal with Dragons" - which looked funny. It's about a woman who negotiates with dragons and farmers.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 10:11 pm (UTC)Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Such-Sweet-Sorrow-Entangled-ebook/dp/B00DTDH9A4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376258876&sr=1-1&keywords=Jenny+Trout
And the plot looks really silly and convoluted:
Never was there a tale of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo...
But true love never dies. Though they're parted by the veil between the world of mortals and the land of the dead, Romeo believes he can restore Juliet to life, but he'll have to travel to the underworld with a thoroughly infuriating guide.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, may not have inherited his father's crown, but the murdered king left his son a much more important responsibility---a portal to the Afterjord, where the souls of the dead reside. When the determined Romeo asks for help traversing the treacherous Afterjord, Hamlet sees an opportunity for adventure and the chance to avenge his father's death.
In an underworld filled with leviathan monsters, ghoulish shades, fire giants, and fierce Valkyrie warriors, Hamlet and Romeo must battle their way through jealousy, despair, and their darkest fears to rescue the fair damsel. Yet finding Juliet is only the beginning, and the Afterjord doesn't surrender souls without a price...
Sounds like the plot of Orpheus.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 10:37 pm (UTC)She seems to have written a lot of adult books too though. She apparently was very pissed at the way SM is depicted in 50 Shades of Grey and basically wrote her own version of the theme ( it's called "the boss" and available for free at her homepage).
i only skimmed it, but it seems that she gets some things that are important to me, regarding tropes about women and regarding these twilight ideas (like, OMG, total controll is soooooooo romantic and so on).
i was wondering if you knew it because I think the two compare very interestingly.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 12:54 am (UTC)No, haven't seen "The Boss". The response to 50 Shades of Grey was almost as funny as the book. (The first novel really is a bit of parody/homage of 1980s contemporary romance novels and fanfic porn. The whole asshole rich guy trope goes back to the 1970s.) Half the people copied it, the other half were so offended by its popularity - they wrote books attacking it.
Here's a short of list of the books inspired or along the same lines:
1. Sylvia Day's Crossfire Triology (lacks the humor and wit of 50 Shades and is a bit overwrought, and lots of sexual abuse - a popular theme in this trope)
2. Jamie Acquirre's Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster ( which offended me, basically about an abusive relationship - in which the gal decides to give herself totally to him complete with a tattoo stating she's his property on her ass - I kid you not. Oh and it's New Adult - they are college kids.)
3. Beautiful Bastard, and Beautiful Bitch - basically Secretary/Boss, also based on Twilight Everybody's Human AU fanfic (haven't read it - just the reviews)
4. Gabriel's Fire - about a professor/student relationship - where he inducts her into his BDSM lifestyle
5. Double Standard - 1985 Judith McNaught novel about a boss and the executive assistant working for him, which he stalks, harrasses, seduces, and then kicks aside when he believes she's been spying on him for a rival corporation. (this is basically the book that both Sylvia Day and EL James clearly read - the girl meets the guy in the same exact way, almost word for word. It's hilarious how close the stories resemble each other.)
6. Indecent Proposal - boss traps secretary into marriage and fires her, so he can finally satisfy his lust (this one is clearly a rape fantasy and perhaps the most disturbing novella I've read).
7. Maya Banks' Breathless Triology...basically millionaire playboys fall for tiny, damsel type women, who they seduce into a BDSM lifestyle and fall possessively in love with.
You have no idea how insane this trope is or how many novels are in it.
Actually 50 Shades is the most feminist and tamest of this particular trope I've read to date. The woman in that novel saves herself from a rapist (who thankfully is not the hero - the hero never does that), kicks the hero to the curb when he goes to far with the BDSM, and manages to get him to compromise and scale back. All the other novels don't have that - in those novels - he saves her and she's completely dependent on him.
Contemporary romance, particularly erotica, is a crazy field. I have yet to find a decent one. The historicals are frankly better. I can see why people have gone nuts over the paranormal and sci-fantasy contemporary urban fantasy romances. You can make the female character physically strong in those. It's remarkably like fanfic romance actually, the Everybody's Human contemporary made Buffy a whiny weakling, while the paranormal or non-human AU didn't.
Will see if I can find her...and let you know if her "Boss" tale fits with what I've read to date in this trope. I've gotten frustrated with it - I keep wanting to fix it. The women are so annoyingly weak. Come on ladies - one good kick in the balls? Please?
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:14 am (UTC)http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17373314-the-boss
It looks really bad. Here's the plot, young wet-behind-the-ears fashion maven (why such a girly field? can't they be a lawyer or a journalist?) discovers new boss is the guy she had a one-night stand with six years ago. He's in his 40s and much older and mature. She's a sexually experienced 24 year old with Daddy issues. It's basically an Everybody's Human Bangel fanfic.
I've discovered reading book reviews that no one reads the same book - oh it is the same one, but we all perceive it sooo differently. People focus on different things. It's similar to tv shows. People who watched Buffy were the same way. It was like we were all watching a different tv show at the time. Fascinating and weird.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 07:26 am (UTC)http://www.jennytrout.com/#!read
I think if you're interested in more progressive takes on the trope you might actually like it. It's not as tame as 50 shades, but also not as disturbing (in the sense that the man is a total control freak and has a real problem with boundaries that is constantly played as romantic).
The plotline is not innovative, it's the basic deal of the trope, but the execution is not nearly as cringeworthy.
ETA: I think that's kind a her thing. That she takes something where the synopsis sounds amazingly horrible and clichéd and then makes it work via the characters. A bit like you could describe rahirah's alternate universe as "Spike and Buffy marry and have a ton of sweet little kids", but it would of course not do justice of what is really happening in the story.
Trout is not nearly as awesome as Barb, but I do think that she really manages to subvert some cliches along the way and describe two independently thinking somewhat grown up people.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 09:13 pm (UTC)Also, Spike and Buffy marry and have lots of sweet kids is sort of a cliche in fanfic. There's a 1000 fanfics that do that.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 09:46 pm (UTC)Also, Spike and Buffy marry and have lots of sweet kids is sort of a cliche in fanfic. There's a 1000 fanfics that do that.
That's my point, it's not a trope I enjoy. You give me just that information about the story and I will say it's not my cup of tea. But, some people, like Barb, make it work for me. And while trope is there, it is not all that there is to the story.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 11:51 pm (UTC)For me, and again mileage varies on this point, the way EL James wrote 50 Shades of Grey made the trope work for me. She poked fun at it. I couldn't take it seriously and clearly, to me at any rate, the writer wasn't taking it seriously either.
When I read reviews online - I wonder if we read different books. And most likely we did. I focused on the dry subtle wit. But I already explained why I liked it in my blog. You read it. Remember?
I could handle Barb's fic...mainly because she also poked fun at it.
So I was able to ignore it. And she used it to discuss the ambiguous nature of not having a soul. But there were times, it really didn't work for me.
In Sugar Daddy fic - the only time it ever worked for me was when Nauti did it with Spike/Buffy fic.
I don't think I can stomach the writer that you are directing me to, in part because I saw the humor in 50 Shades, and she didn't. Plus she seems a bit full of herself, while EL James really wasn't and was more self-deprecating.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 09:23 pm (UTC)Baghead 1: "Who designed these bags, I can't see a thing."
Baghead 2: My wife worked all night cutting holes in these bags and this is the appreciation we get? I'm out of here.
Baghead 1: So can we take them off now, since we can't see?
Don Johnson: It doesn't matter if we, our horses can see.
Baghead 1 (who I think is Jonah Hill): But how are we supposed to do an effective ambush if we can't see anything?
Chaos ensues. So eh, apparently not that effectively. Actually, it's worth watching the movie just for that scene.
The Spaghetti Westerns usually are after the Civil War, with ex-confederate soliders becoming outlaws and sometimes protagonists. You never see the KKK in them. So I wondered where he got the idea from.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:28 am (UTC)Almost everything Tarantino does is a pastiche of or homage to something else. I think much of his popularity is rooted in his obvious love for movies. Inglorious Basterds, in particular, is as much a movie about films, film making, and the power of movies as its surface subjects.
I've got a very good friend who is an amateur film scholar... and he was very good at catching most of what Tarantino was referencing. One can gain a lot from an annotated version of Tarantino if you can handle his preference toward vulgarity.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 03:08 pm (UTC)Wait, that was supposed to be Alabama and Tennessee?! Then burst out laughing.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 09:11 pm (UTC)Tarantino clearly was trying to homage the Spaghetti Westerns - which were filmed in Italy, but meant to take place in New Mexico, Mexico and Texas. Except the terrain of Italy sort of matches that...the terrain of Colorado and New Mexico does not match Tennesseee and Alabama...LOL!!
It is a wonky movie...
no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 10:17 pm (UTC)The TRULY horrifying bit though is that the mines Django was being sent to was a bit of true history. Watch the PBS special "Slavery by Another Name" about the way they would imprison people and send them to the mines where they basically worked them to death and that was taking place well into the 20th century here in Birmingham.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 12:24 am (UTC)Oh yes, I knew about the mines. Justified touches on it a bit. Our country like the rest of the world has a nasty bloody history. Humans aren't nice animals.