Spontaneous Musings

Before going off to eat and veg in front of tv - few things to post. Lost is on tonight, but I'm DVR'ing. I want to go to bed at 10, dang it. Plus, it's better on DVR than live.

!. Just scrolled back on lj. Smattering of posts on the inaugration. I liked liz_marcs the most, partly because we are simpatico in the political department, but mostly because she actually researches the links and understands politics. Had the most informative political posts during the election.

2. On BSG - yes, I saw it. While it did surprise me, it made sense. Bleak. Very bleak. Yet with a smidgen of hope entwined. ( herein lie spoilers )

3. Have made the wise decision to stay far far away from socio-political analysis of television and film. I honestly think this is a dangerous mode of analysis and you shouldn't do it unless you understand the subject matter. Often the analyst makes the mistake of projecting their own values, views, prejudices, and in most cases, justified frustrations on to the subject matter they are critiquing. In lot of cases, not all, their analysis does not hold up. And even if it does, they get really nasty when other people don't see what they see or don't respond accordingly.

Emotion can't really be divorced from socio-political analysis - the topics is too heated.

That said, there are one or two people on my reading list who do it rather well. Both clearly have backgrounds in social/political analysis and theory. Or at least they appear to.
They are londonkds and selenak. I've seen both do rather decent and somewhat objective critiques with socio-political analysis. I don't always agree with them, and at times their logic seems a bit, well off, which happens with a lot of media/art analysis actually, but more often than not, I find their analysis persuasive and an interesting and informative read.

I prefer psychological/philosophical analysis as well as literary (plot), socio-cultural, legal, and quantitative analysis - but that's only because I was trained in those areas and it's where I'm most comfortable.

The thing about analysis...is you got to make sure it tracks. And you can't ignore the bits that don't. You don't get to pick and choose. If there's something that screws up your theory, that goes in. And it's probably best to avoid emotion - because emotion will often screw with the analysis. You won't see the gaps in your logic. And when someone tries to point them out, you may attack or lash out at them. I speak from experience - having done that myself on many an occassion. It's hard to avoid doing that of course. Also best not to do it with something that you are emotionally invested in or obsessed with, which is of course what we all do it with - why? Because you are likely to ignore key factors and it is more than likely that you aren't open to views outside your own and just want your own views validated.

Ah, the pitfalls of analyzing media as a fervent fan of that media.

Okay dinner calls.

[For embers_log who was upset when I deleted my last post on this topic.]

Ran into a fellow novelist (actually a published one) on my way to the wine store this afternoon. He used to own a genre book store and ran a genre book club I'd joined in the late nineties until it disbanded like all book clubs eventually do. This one made it almost eight years before going the way of the Dodo.

At any rate, he told me he had an adventure tale, a la Indiana Jones coming out, as well as a novella entitled Chasing the Dragon. Then we chatted about the Stephanie Meyer phenomena otherwise known as Twilight for a bit, which he compared to The Da Vinci Code. Except of course for one teeny little detail, Da Vinci is better written. I was actually able to make it through the Da Vinic Code and enjoyed aspects of it (the movie's better by the way), not so much regarding Twilight. Hmm, if the film version of Da Vinci Code was better than the book - maybe the film version of Twilight will be better? Amazing as it might sound but there are some novels that actually translate better to the screen - The Godfather, The Exorcist, and Rosemary's Baby are examples. [Not to imply that The Godfather, the Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby weren't well written, they were, and in no other way shape or form compare to Twilight, well except for Rosemary's having a monster child...but outside of that...not so much.]
( Long opinionated piece about the Twilight hype and why it is stupid and yes I spoil the last book - although not quite sure how you could have avoided that spoiler. )