Who is Snow White?

Tags

Disney animation, Disney princesses, fairy tales, Seven Dwarfs, Snow White, Wicked Queen

If the Disney version of Snow White had what these days we call “agency” — if she were making things happen rather than having trouble or good fortune fall into her path — she would be the villain.

She terrifies the Queen, because (as the Mirror says) she will inevitably usurp the Queen’s status.

She stops the Huntsman from killing her, which makes him run off, presumably far from where the Queen can find him — and far from any home or family he might have.

She takes over the Dwarfs’ home and way of life, bending it to her needs and wishes.

And the way she treats the Prince — well, I wonder if her idea of “happily ever after” matches his.

The opposite of everything

Tags

cliches, Elie Wiesel, indifference, love, writing

Cliche watch:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,” Elie Wiesel is supposed to have said. Wiesel’s a better writer than I’ll ever be, and he’s suffered from more hate than I ever have, but this line is not quite on the mark.

Indifference may be the opposite of love, but only because it’s the opposite of any emotion.The opposite of hate is indifference, the opposite of grief is indifference, the opposite of fear is indifference.

For that matter, indifference is also the opposite of curiosity and passion and lust and bloodlust and confusion and surprise and tightly focused concentration and other states of mind, whether they’re emotions or not.

Thanks, Mr. Weisel, for the food for thought.

Jurassic Sex

Tags

dinosaurs, Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, sex, Steven Spielberg

So I’ve been re-watching JURASSIC PARK. Enjoyable. But . . .

The movie makes much of how all of its dinosaurs start out female, but at least some of them turn male. The movie implies that turning male is a factor that makes them go on the attack.

Reviving long-dead dragons is so tantalizing that the audience (including me) wants to believe it — but it’s still a fantasy, and making it convincing required a lot of hard work by a lot of gifted filmmakers. In a story that’s already walking the edge of the improbable, adding the bit about females turning male stretches credibility even further.

And it wasn’t necessary.

Well before any dinos turn male, the movie proves that they’re dangerous — most clearly in a scene with the park’s warden, a big-game hunter who explains how smart and vicious the beasts can be. In the minute or two while he’s talking, a dinosaur shreds and devours an entire cow. The dino was apparently female at the time.

Besides, the movie has already supplied a reason for the dinos to go rampaging. Presumably dinos, like other beasts, are mostly or exclusively heterosexual. Pen them up without members of the opposite sex, and some may turn to members of their own gender; but a lot of them will just get sexually frustrated — and very angry. And then they’ll get destructive.

I’ve run into this problem (unnecessary story elements, not sexual frustration, thank you very much) as both an editor and a writing teacher.

Writers sometimes over-complicate their stories. The complications end up slowing a story down with excess exposition, over-fancy plotting, or ideas that distract or confuse the reader (or that simply don’t pay off). When JURASSIC PARK brings in the idea of a female dino populace that can turn male — or, really, an all-female dino populace in the first place — it’s over-complicating.

Maybe the original book had good reasons for this stuff, but I’m just going by what’s in the movie.

The movie throws in so many enjoyable scenes and episodes that while watching it, I’m willing to set aside its storytelling mistake — but it’s still there, and it’s still a mistake.

Into Darkness but away from character

Tags

Captain Kirk, James T. Kirk, Jim Kirk, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness

Re-saw STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS the other day, and for all of its wild action, enjoyable character touches (Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy steals scene after scene) and intriguing story twists, it’s —

— not about anything. At least, not anything that matters very much.

The previous STAR TREK was about how two misfits — smart-aleck troublemaker Kirk and fastidious but alienated (no pun intended) Spock — struggled toward their proper relationship with the world in which they lived and with each other. All of the movie’s major scenes and many of the minor ones dealt with some aspect of that subject, and for good reason: It’s an important subject to tell a story about.

INTO DARKNESS starts out dealing with another important subject: Kirk’s readiness to take risks including the breaking of Starfleet rules has made him successful, but as a superior officer tells him, “You think the rules don’t apply to you. There’s greatness in you, but there’s not an ounce of humility. You think that you can’t make mistakes, but there’s going to come a moment when you realize you’re wrong about that, and you’re going to get yourself and everyone under your command killed.”

That’s a hell of a good subject for a story: A self-confident man has to learn humility. His belief in himself has been his greatest strength; he’s trusted it to see him through every trouble. What does he do when it proves dangerous?

But the movie touches on ideas like that only from time to time. The main story thrust — stopping the evil Khan — distracts from Kirk’s journey to become a better man.

And it needn’t have. Khan is what Kirk could become: self-consciously superior, trusting only himself, believing that no one matters except the people he chooses to like. At some point, realizing that he could become as much a monster as Khan, Kirk would choose to become another kind of man: one who realizes that there is wisdom elsewhere than in his own gut feelings and who learns to trust people other than himself, such as his crew.

Bits of a story like this pop up from time to time in INTO DARKNESS. Kirk lets Spock sway his judgment, he lets Sulu captain the Enterprise, he proves willing to sacrifice his life for his crew.

But the movie is more about dealing with Khan and other dangers than it is about the maturing of Jim Kirk. And that’s too bad.

Gimme a gimme

Tags

fantasy, science fiction, storytelling, Superman, writing

When it comes to making fantasy and science fiction credible, there seem to be at least two approaches:

1. The “one gimme” approach: The writer introduces an element that doesn’t exist in our world and extrapolates logically from there. The writer’s implied pact with the reader is something like “Give me your willingness to believe that someone will develop a faster-than-light engine, and I’ll tell you about life when faster-than-light ships are common.” If the “one gimme” is flexible enough and the extrapolation is smart enough, the writer has lots of story possibilities.

But to keep the story grounded and credible, and to play fair with an audience that’s agreeing to accept the “one gimme,” the writer introduces as few other nonexistent things as possible.

He still has lot of room to maneuver. For instance, a society advanced enough to develop faster-than-light travel has no doubt developed other technological advances as well, so the writer can introduce those elements, too. In fact, he should.

But even those elements are logical extrapolations from his “one gimme.”

2. The “if this, why not that?” approach: The one nonexistent element (faster-than-light travel or whatever) frees the writer to introduce all kinds of other elements.

A good example is Superman. Some readers have found it unbelievable that the guy can disguise his identity just by changing clothes and putting on a pair of glasses. He may have super-strength and invulnerability and all, but his powers don’t include rendering everyone so stupid as to buy such a weak disguise.

The answer to that objection is, in essence, “You accept that a man can fly like a bird, bounce bullets off of his chest, uproot mountains, see through walls, hear sounds from another continent, and do other miraculous acts. You’re obviously willing to believe all kinds of impossible things. So why can’t you accept that the man can disguise himself with a pair of glasses?”

Of course, some “one gimme” stories are less than rigorous about never introducing other elements. And some “if this, why not that” stories maintain quite a bit of internal logic and consistency. There are pleasures in all kinds of stories.

The killing in Charleston

Tags

Charleston, dylann roof, gun control, gun rights, guns

If I understand the viewpoint of gun defenders, they feel that the tragedy in Charleston wouldn’t have led to so many deaths if the people in church had been armed and had shot the murderer before he could do much beyond pull his gun.

That argument may be right, if everyone who fires back at a shooter is skilled enough and clear-headed enough to hit him and only him.

But with multiple shooters of different skill levels suddenly whipped into high excitement, one or more of them will probably, accidentally wound or kill innocents. A group of panicked shooters in the heat of a crisis can do more damage than a single shooter, even a crazy one.

“People should go armed to protect themselves” implies a society where nearly every adult should wear a gun because lunatics and monsters wear guns. I think that such a society would suffer more accidental deaths and wounds than we do now.

I’d rather prevent lunatics and monsters from getting guns in the first place. Complete prevention isn’t possible; still, I think we should try harder to approach it.

But what about the Second Amendment?

Its first words are “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” It seems to imply that anyone who carries a gun is part of an organization that protects the state’s security. It’s as if carrying a gun automatically makes you a member of the National Guard.

That’s an interesting concept: Anyone can carry a gun, but only if he or she joins a well-regulated state militia. I can support that.

Seriously?

Tags

self-esteem, sense of humor, seriousness

I’ve heard people say, “I take my work seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously.” I liked that line of thought, so I tried not taking myself seriously. Whenever I felt tempted to think that I had value, that people should respect me and listen to me, and that my feelings and ideas mattered, I made fun of myself.

I ended up with self-esteem so low that it bordered on self-loathing.

I’m not saying that I or other people should take themselves so seriously that they lack a sense of humor. I’ve run into one or two who consider themselves just south of God.

But I think that taking yourself at least a little seriously is healthy.

Comedy hurts

Tags

comedy, violence

The language of comedy is violent: “I really killed up there.” “I knocked ’em dead.”

When comedy fails, the comedian says, “I died up there.” “I was really bombing.”

It’s a matter of force: “I MADE them laugh.”

Comedy provokes a physical, literally visceral reaction; “gut-busting” comedy will make you (in the words of TV’s old Felix the Cat cartoon) “laugh so hard, your sides will ache.”

Comedy: not a profession for wimps.

I predict the next G.O.P. nominee, sort of

Tags

bold prediction, Jeb Bush, Republican nominee, Rick Santorum

I’m not the first to point this out, but . . .

. . . unless they’re nominating an incumbent for re-election, Republicans choose the next logical successor as their presidential candidate.

It’s been that way for nearly 50 years. And it tells me whom they’ll probably pick this time.

The next logical successor can be a literal successor: the vice-president to the last Republican president. The G.O.P. nominated Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s V.P., in 1968. And the party named Vice-President George H.W. Bush to succeed President Reagan in 1988.

Sometimes — actually, often — the G.O.P. nominee is the one who came in second for the nomination last time.
> Ronald Reagan came in second to nominee Gerald Ford in 1976. The next time around, in 1980, Reagan was the nominee.
> In 1988, Bob Dole came in second to George H.W. Bush. Bush ran for re-election in ’92 but failed. Whom did the Republicans nominate in ’96? Dole.
> In 2000, when G.W. Bush won the nomination, the runner-up was John McCain. The next time the nomination was up for grabs — in 2008, after Bush had served his presidential terms — the Republicans picked McCain.
> McCain’s 2008 runner-up was Mitt Romney. Three guesses as to who was the nominee in 2012.

Or the nominee can be a familial successor, as when the G.O.P. nominated George H.W. Bush’s son George W. in 2000 to take back the White House after the Clinton interregnum.

So let’s look at the 2016 race.

Category 1: The last G.O.P. president’s vice president. That would be Dick Cheney, but he doesn’t seem interested in running for president.

Category 2: The previous cycle’s runner-up. The number-two Republican last time was Rick Santorum. And sure enough, he’s running.

Category 3: The familial successor. This time, he’s a double successor: Jeb Bush, the brother of the last Republican president and the son of the second to last.

So I think the nominee will be either Santorum or Bush. Ted Cruz may thrill the Tea Party and Scott Walker may be the billionaires’ choice, but unless something happens to blow the campaign wide open, it’ll be Santorum or Bush.

Some follow-up notes:

Why do Republicans pick the next logical successor? They may simply find that it makes sense or that they like a guy who’s worked his way up and whom they’ve gotten to know. Or, as conservatives, Republicans respect the kind of primogeniture-style tradition that leads to picking the next in line for the throne.

By the way, Democrats don’t work that way.
>Sometimes, they nominate a vice-president: Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Al Gore.
>Sometimes, they pick “outsiders” who are relatively new to the national political stage: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis, Barack Obama.
>And once, they went for a guy who had nearly a decade of national political experience but talked sort of like an outsider: George McGovern, the “prairie populist.”

Tags

Barry Sonnenfeld, Ed Solomon, Men in Black, politically conservative movies, Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes

Been gone from this blog for a while, but I’m back now. And there will be more. Let’s start here:

Just re-watched MEN IN BLACK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_%28film%29) and noticed how politically conservative it is. That is, it’s against big government — in fact, against government of just about any kind.

Agent Zed, to the military men who have just flunked their screening to become Men in Black: “You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government training.”

Agent Jay: “What branch of the government do we report to?”
Agent Kay: “None, they ask too many questions.” (Immediately after this criticism of nosy government bureaucrats, Kay reveals that Men in Black get their funding from patents — a government-protected arena but one that’s all about capitalism and the private sector.)

Whenever people from a government agency appear, something is wrong with them, from the hapless and easily outclassed immigration agents at the beginning of the movie to the bored city morgue clerk who tells someone (an alien bad guy, but whatever) looking for a deceased loved one to fill out a bunch of forms.

The only truly competent government workers in the move are Jay (formerly of the N.Y.P.D.) and Dr. Weaver (the morgue’s medical examiner) — and both of them quit to join the Men in Black.

The movie’s also big on using unregistered, unlicensed guns. There are no background checks when the people carrying the guns have no backgrounds.

I don’t think that the filmmakers deliberately set out to put conservative messages in the movie. Conservatives have attacked Barry Sonnenfeld, the director, for the liberal messages that they see in his pictures (http://libbyquotes.blogspot.com/…/barry-sonnenfeld-hollywoo…; http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/…/9311180019_1_charles-…). And Insidegov.com says that he leans Democratic (http://individual-contributors.insidegov.com/…/Barry-Sonnen…).

The same is true of screenwriter Ed Solomon (http://individual-contributors.insidegov.com/d/c/Ed-Solomon). Producer Walter Parkes has often given to Democratic politicians (http://littlesis.org/enti…/96152-walter-parkes/relationships). And executive producer Steven Spielberg is a longtime supporter of liberal politicians and causes.

Yet the conservative messages are in the movie.

Their presence cuts both ways. On the one hand, conservatives can say, “See? Even Hollywood liberals acknowledge how idiotic government bureaucracy is.” On the other, liberals can say, “Conservatives claim that liberal filmmakers always put liberal messages in their movies; well, the conservative messages in MEN IN BLACK show that their claim is wrong.”

And all that in a picture about giant bugs from outer space.