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| http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/10/television.gilligan.reut/index.html
Now, I saw this ad for the "New" Gilligan's Island on some blog site or
another, and at the time I ignored it, not thinking it had any
redeeming value. I was wrong. Apparently it set off a minor
controversy, the results of which are ripe with the opportunity for wry
commentary.
"the "Pie Fight" advertisement has been bandied about cyberspace along with criticism that the spots objectify women."
Well, of course it objectifies women. The other issue, which is
conveniently ignored, is that it objectifies pie. Pie is something so
much more than a substance for lithe young women to writhe in. It's
disappointing that individual potential of both women and pie is
ignored in favor of a sticky conflation of the two. Women don't need
pie, and pies don't need women. They have value in and of themselves.
This is neither edible nor edifying, so how could anyone say it was
anything less than improper objectification? I'd just love to hear the
counter-criticism on this one.
"That ad is a visual signal, shorthand for a whole world of issues that women have to struggle against every day,"
Like what? Being pie-slapped by another woman? And yes, the ad is a visual signal. Videos usually are.
Seriously though, if this is "shorthand" for a "whole world" of issues facing women, than it's a small world after all.
Sure, you could count many of the horrible crimes against women as a
result of objectification, but that's just an arbitrary subset of
victims. I can't imagine criminals imaging their victims as people when
appraising them. A mugger sees his victim as means to obtain cash, a
batterer sees his victim as a entity to dissipate his rage. So why
pretend a general problem is solely a specific one?
If you ask me, most of the real externally-inflicted repression of
woman stems from precisely the opposite source, which is reactionary
opposition to even the possibility of "objectification". When women
aren't allowed to associate in any capacity with men, drive cars, or
uncover their head, then we have instances of a real and ultimately
avoidable oppression of women. But even back in the days where men were
Men and women, Women, there was an unlimited capacity for objectifying
lust, sexual impurity and sin. The issue of assisting imagery is an
ever-important one, but it is not the core one. Who cares that this ad
is going to assist men in indulging in an age-old sin when women can't
even *vote* in some countries? How could this ad possibly be the
summary of all issues facing women when the very countries that won't
let women vote would never let such an ad air in the first place?
Although I'm beginning to delve into it, I don't really want to turn
this into a discussion of what differentiates a genuine appreciation of
feminine beauty from a salacious one. I'll leave that to the annual
debate in the Cabinet about female attire that the spring
letters-to-the-editor bring. Suffice it to say that this ad certainly
isn't any sort of legitimate appreciation, and that many societies have
erred so fair in the reactionary opposite direction that no true
appreciation is possible.
Let's avoid all that and keep it simple: Isn't the real issue that the
ad clearly appeals to prurient interest, not that it's somehow
emblematic of every issue affecting women?
Evidently, no. Not according to "Amy" who said
"Shame on TBS -- not for producing soft porn, but for failing to also objectify men,"
Oh, right. Because the remedy to the ostensibly wrong objectification
of women is the equal objectification of men. It doesn't matter that
they're wrong; that's fine. What matters is that they are
-consistently- wrong. In the kingdom of the blind, the man with one eye
is an asshole?
"Steve Koonin, executive VP and chief operating officer of TBS and TNT,
defended the commercial as a clever parody. "It was a very targeted ad
to men that tried to answer the age-old question Mary Ann or Ginger? --
with a funny spin,""
Yes, I'm sure a pie fight between two scantily clad women is a scenario
bubbling with hilarity rather than lurid licentiousness. More
importantly, what the hell kind of joke is the question "Mary Anne or
Ginger?" if the supposed punchline is a near-naked food fight?
I'm beginning to think that I don't know what humor is, or that it's
vastly different than how I've always imagined it. It seems that when
my parents said "You'll understand when you are older" they weren't
referring to the content of a joke, but rather the very nature of jokes.
I guess I'll have to watch the director's cut, which is only available
after 10 pm on TBS.com, presumably because that late hour is far more
conducive to humor than primetime. Since children apparently don't get
'humor', it makes sense that it's only available late at night. The
only sad thing is that I *am* older, and I sincerely wish that I didn't
"get it". | | |
| Well, the denouement approaches. I will face the full wrath of the DMV.
The culmination of all recent Meyer-related history starts on June 14th
at 1:15. A cataclysmic battle of eschatological porportions is
imminent.
I'm sort of breaking my rule by writing this, as I make a habit of not
actually writing anything here about myself, per se. But, as a 22 year
old who's nearly 23, it's damn near embarassing that I do not have a
license to operate motor-vehicles on public roadways. Actually, saying
it that way makes it seem quaint rather than lame.
Anyway, I dread the DMV. They managed to mess up my name twice when I
got my permit and non-drivers ID. The DMV person I had could only
aspire to incompetency, as he misentered my name from a standard form.
He also typed two letters at time, with a five second pause between
each two letters. It appeared at the time that he was carefully
verifying my form while entering it.
I say "appeared" because, as I mentioned, he still managed to put my
last name where my first name should be. You would think such a mistake
would come from quick carelessness, not meticulous attention to detail.
Anyway, it got worse from there, because he improperly closed down the
file. So when the second person tried to help me he filled the entire
screen with my correct information only to see it not save. I wish that
was the end of my troubles, but alas, that was not to be. Many more
trials and tribulations awaited me that fateful day.
So this is why I predict an epic conflict. I'll probably have to fight
for control of the wheel during my driving test, because the driving
instructor would likely sooner see us both dead than let me have a
license. I'll also probably have to recreate my entire identity from
scratch when they "accidentally" delete my entire existence from both
state and federal records.
And lord knows how many evil looks I'll get for keeping the employees
busy past 4, when the offices officially close at 5. It's much easier
to be angry at someone else than to do the job right the first time, I
suppose.
| | |
| Today's Title?: An Eclectic mix of Madness.
I had a dream last night that George Lucas kept hallucinating that
lizards were crawling all over the walls and his handlers were
desparately trying to feed him powerful anti-psychotics, which, much to
their chagrin, he would reject. Simple enough? Well, not quite enough
for Meyer's mind, because I saw this all from my own eyes, as if I were
him. I just had this powerful and inexplicable notion that this was all
about George Lucas somehow.
True is stranger than Fiction, and I really need to stop thinking about Star Wars, like right-soon-immediately-now.
In another uncannily unusual case, France actually voted down the new
EU constitution. That's as surreal as a subtle bitch slap. I mean, it's
like if Virginia didn't ratify the US constitution. The fact that
Holland just voted it down today too only adds to the savory
strangeness.
Illinois lawmakers also recently banned the sale of violent
videogames to minors, with state Rep. Monique Davis saying "Don't let
them become the monsters that we see in these violent games."
Yes. Very true. I learned the ways of malicious mayhem at a very young
age, starting with SimAnt. If only I knew then what I know now, then I
wouldn't have sent thousands of simulated ants to the literal grinder
of an approaching lawnmower. As a result, I have became totally inured to
ant violence, as I undoubtably crush a dozens a day without a single
thought.
That pales in comparision to my later exploits though, in which I
habitually engaged in thermonuclear war. I eventually developed such a
callousness towards such behavior that I would cackle "SIC TRANSIT
GLORIA MUNDI" with glee while incinerating whole cities.
Let's just say it's a good thing that I'm not the President and likely never will be.
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George Lucas might be a great cinematographer, but he is
entirely lacking in the script and plot writing departments. His latest movie,
Revenge of the Sith, has visuals of breathtaking emotional power that allude to
most poignant images in history, while his plot has a fundamental disconnect
from all the principles that history would appear to teach.
His vision led to such a tremendously potent image as storm
troopers marching by ranks into the bastion of the old order, slowly rising as
they climb the steps against a night sky lit by the cityscape of the capital
behind them. Lucas, in those scant few moments, succeeds in evoking the
terrible majestic beauty of totalitarianism: the scene is a powerful provocation
of both dread and awe as it skillfully induces an uncomfortable ambivalence between
apprehension and astonishment.
I have rarely seen such a visual expression of the appeal of
totalitarian might that simultaneously raises deliberate emotional questions
about the propriety of it. You know that Anakin is embarking on a mission of
great evil, but the sheer triumphal power of it remains alluring. Lucas shows
how totalitarianism can be so epic and momentous that you can feel its
attraction despite your knowledge of its immense evil.
That scene is a clear allusion to the celebratory torchlight
march of the SA when Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30th, 1933. The film is
replete with similar scenes that show the cogent and copious use of a metaphoric
vocabulary capable of powerfully expressing sentimental ideas. Lucas uses it
time and time again to establish the emotions he wants the audience to feel.
Lucas certainly intended the audience to make such
connections, as he has said that the movie is about how democracies turn into
dictatorships. He recently expressed a fear that the US
was in danger of losing its democratic ideals. In furtherance of that idea, Lucas
has clearly attempted to write the story of the movie as a specific political
message, a warning, to the United States
and its president.
This is where Lucas ultimately fails. Movies are more than
just slideshows of disparate images that elicit vaguely similar emotions; they
are specific stories that resonate with us because they draw upon the power of
the real without actually being real themselves. Visual imagery must serve the
story, making the truth inherent to the story more real than the mere words ever
could. If the imagery becomes the story in and of itself, then the only story
it can tell is each individual’s emotional interpretation of that image. Lucas
is not telling the eternal truth of how a democracy turns into a dictatorship though
the means of a story, he is merely making a metaphor about how it feels.
There is nothing in the Revenge of the Sith that connects it
to the real world other than a few hammy lines. Without an outside interaction
to establish one, there is no recognizable greater context. This is the inverse
of how it should be; Lucas should not have to artificially introduce Bush’s
statements into the universe to show the connection, the internal story of the
movie should instead make the external parallel absolutely clear.
In the movie there are no real plot parallels to history.
Democracy doesn’t just come crashing down to sound of thunderous applause; it is
destroyed by real and describable processes that Lucas never bothered to
explore. The Galactic republic is not the Weimar
republic, there is no Dolchstosslegende,
there are no Freikorps. There isn’t even anything like the Nazis, just one
chancellor who inexplicably takes total control with only the weakest of
reasons and methods. Lucas isn’t interested in the complex machinations of the
destroyers of democracy and the situations that enable them. He has no
real thoughts about it other than drastic simplifications that lack any
realistic explanation. Instead of writing about ideas, he has employed a
barrage of imagery.
It is sad really, because science fiction is a unique
literary vehicle for expressing socio-political ideas. It is the perfect method
of exposition as writers can simply create whatever society and history they
wish, freeing them from the confines of what actually occurred. Instead of
wasting time trying to get their ideas to fit the scenario, writers can
literally make the scenario fit the ideas.
It is not quite as simple as that, though, because the
writer must strenuously maintain plausibility. The scenario can be made to fit
the ideas, but the scenario itself must be made to fit what can be learned from
history. History might not be deterministic, but there are certain base truths
which all stories must reflect. If they don’t, they are ineffectual,
inconsistent and untrue. If Lucas intended to make an allegorical tale, he should
made it ring true by making it consistent with the lessons of history in fact,
rather than just feeling.
The ultimate irony of the plot is that Lucas has cast the
logical enemies of freedom as the very defenders of it. The Jedis are entirely
unaccountable, and benefit from unparalleled martial abilities that only
decades of training can confer. They are, in the Star Wars universe, virtually
unstoppable. If one doesn’t recognize that as a recipe for tyranny then one
obviously hasn’t read the cookbook of history.
The obvious analogy, and one Lucas himself makes by labeling
them Jedi Knights, is Feudal Europe or Japan.
The state of technology in those periods made the emergence of warrior class
inevitable. The weapons of the time required a level of mastery beyond the
grasp of the average peasant, so only those who could dedicate themselves to
the practice of war were any good at it. Such a warrior class has historically
been the enemy of democracy, not its champion. The clear lesson to be drawn
from history is that the Jedi would be ruling the galaxy, not serving it.
Lucas, in efforts to create a parable about the nature of
evil and tyranny, has actually written a story in which he implicates himself.
When Lucas has Obi-Wan rebuke Anakin for his statement (and Bush’s) “If you’re
not my friend, you’re my enemy” by saying that “Only the Sith believe in
absolutes” he is really referring to himself; the only thing preventing the
Jedi from taking total control is their innate absolute goodness, which Lucas ascribed
to them. To reuse my own metaphor, for someone who is evidently ignorant of the
cookbook of history, Lucas is quite capable of serving delicious irony.
If the enemies of democracy are as simple as those presented
in the Revenge of the Sith, we have absolutely nothing to fear. The methods
they utilize against liberty will never stand the true test of reality because
they were written in a fictional world which has mechanics entirely dissimilar
to our own. Lucas’s warning is meaningless because the future it portends is
impossible in our universe.
There is another problem though. Careless critics, like
Lucas, who ignore the mechanics of our history, are raising a unique danger of
their very own. They will, by the dubious virtue of their own vehemence, help
to ensure the very future they purport to prevent. This is the fundamental
problem with the forces ostensibly opposed to tyranny-they cannot truly define
it, or even recognize it. By decrying all sorts of perceived abuses they dilute
everyone’s ability to combat real ones. The fable of Shepard crying wolf could
not fit better.
The opponents of Bush and his current politics are largely stuck
in the same conundrum as Lucas. They have a wonderfully allusive language for
expressing the emotions and images that accompany incipient totalitarianism,
but they are entirely incapable of tying it to reality. Often times a true
analysis of the situation is eschewed in favor of fanciful and mistaken
allusions that rely more on the illustration of history than the actual substance
of it. Invoking the specter of tyrannies past and all their accompanying mental
imagery never serves as sufficient explanation for why any particular proposal
or law should be opposed.
The PATRIOT act is not to be confused with the Enabling act,
Guantanamo is not the GULAG, the “Religious
Right” is not synonymous with 16th century Puritanism, Abu Gharib is
not Lubyanka, and Senator Palpatine isn’t President Bush. Those comparisons all
draw more on emotional association than on rational resemblance.
We do need a powerful emotional method of expressing just
how bad totalitarianism is, so Lucas’s visual creations have their place. But
they must be used sagaciously and in accordance with what history teaches us.
If we fail to carefully save our negative connotations for ideas and abuses
that are truly inimical to democracy, we will be emotionally bankrupt in the
face with enemies who are far cleverer than anything Lucas could ever dream of.
| | |
| http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/04/20/robot.jockeys.ap/index.html
Title?: Foolish humans hubristically help facilitate their own impending doom.
Yup. It's just another block in the mechanized monument of our own stupidity.
When it all comes crashing down and we realize, finally, that the
robo-apocalypse is upon us, then, maybe, I'll get the pyrrhic pleasure of being
recognized as being right. Too bad I'll probably have a robot riding me like
the damned "old man of the sea".
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/21/njess21.xml
Title?: Disillusioned 20 year old student who never voted Labour
may not vote Labour in May
Now, the telegraph is a traditionally conservative paper in England,
but I have serious trouble trying to understand just what the heck the point of
this story is. Maybe they’re trying to demonstrate that Labour is having
problems, if so, they’re doing a ham of job.
See, Jessica Haigh never did vote for labour, so I don’t
really understand how it matters if she lost faith in it. It’s amazing that she
could even talk about “sense of disappointment and betrayal felt by those who
had voted for him.” when she certainly wasn’t 18 in the last election back in
2001. The best she could have done was vote for the EU parliament last year. Of
course, she probably didn’t even do that as the turnout was below 40% in England
and Jessica is a member of the demographic group that probably votes the least.
If the best indication of the lack of electoral support for
Blair that the Telegraph can find is a person who never even voted for him in
the first place, I’d say Blair is in much stronger position than even the polls
say.
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