Science fiction writers and the new Star Trek

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Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, Star Trek, TV, writing

Having seen the teaser trailer for the new STAR TREK TV series, I wonder if the producers will do something that I think made the original series so memorable: Hire writers, like the original series’ Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, Norman Spinrad, and Richard Matheson, who are better known for their work outside TV.

Imagine what THE MARTIAN’s Andy Weir could contribute to STAR TREK.
Or Stephen King.
Or Neil Gaiman.
Or Ernest Cline (READY PLAYER ONE).
Or China Mieville (THE CITY & THE CITY).
Or Ruby Dixon (ICE PLANET BARBARIANS).
Or, for that matter, the still-active Ellison and Spinrad.

I’d tune in. Would you?

Should Islam change as Christianity did?

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Christianity, Islam, Wahhabism

I’ve read opinions saying that Islam needs the kind of reformation that Christianity went through. Maybe so.

But I don’t think so.

For one thing, you could argue that Islam (at least Sunni Islam, the faith of over 80% of all Muslims) has already had a reformation. Its Martin Luther was 18th-century cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who wanted to “purify” Islam and preached a hard-core fundamentalist approach. Today, Wahhabism in one form or another seems to influence ISIS, al-Qaida and other extremist Islamists.

If you don’t buy Wahhab as Luther, consider this: Why should Islam follow the Christian model at all? I don’t think that Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, or other major faiths have gone through a Christian-style reformation. They’ve changed and evolved in their own ways. So has Islam, for that matter.

Either way, I wouldn’t stay up nights waiting for a 21st century Islamic reformation.

A TV fantasy (for unattractive guys)

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Erinn Hayes, Kevin Can Wait, Kevin James, Leah Remini

Here we go again: another sitcom with a dumpy, older guy and a gorgeous, younger woman.

Remember Kevin James’ sitcom THE KING OF QUEENS? Leah Remini, hot enough to have had a Facebook page dedicated to her butt, played James’ wife.

In James’ upcoming new sitcom, KEVIN CAN WAIT, the woman playing his wife is Erinn Hayes, who is not only beautiful but also 12 years younger than James. (Remini was/is only five years younger.) James is not only the show’s star but also one of its executive producers, so I presume that he had some influence over casting.

The website TV Tropes calls this syndrome “Ugly Guy, Hot Wife“:

“The trope both reveals and helps maintain one of the most widespread cases of a double standard . . . .
While actors are held to a high standard of attractiveness, there are still leading roles available for plain looking guys, ‘funny fat guys,’ and average Joes. The beauty standard for women, however, is much higher . . . .
Therefore, the reverse (Ugly Wife, Hot Husband) is almost unheard of.”

Genius, monster, or both

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Actors, Genius, Lou Reed, Pop culture

Lou Reed: A gifted songwriter and performer, and an abusive scum, says this article. Victim of mental illness who deserves understanding, and a monster whose cruelty to, apparently, anyone who came near deserves disgust.

What is it about people whose work shows deep humanity but whose talk and behavior can be vile? Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Charles Dickens, Pablo Picasso — there are a lot more.

I think of people with good reputations, and I wonder: Does Tom Hanks torture doves? Is George Clooney a racist rapist? Does Jennifer Lawrence pour scalding coffee on homeless veterans?

A key quality of successful people is passionate ambition to achieve their dreams. Does this drive, this single-minded focus on making everything secondary to reaching a goal, lead them to disregard everything else, including other people’s feelings?

I’ve been in the presence of people who were brilliantly successful and who seemed, by all accounts, to be good to the people around them: Charles Schulz, Jack Kirby, Robin Williams. So it’s possible to be both great and good. Of course, Schulz and Williams suffered from depression — but they don’t seem to have turned their illness into a habit of abusing other people.

Which means that people who go out of their way to be monsters have no excuse.

 

Unconventional speech

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Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, politics, Presidential election

I’m thinking ahead to the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions.

Usually, the nominee’s speech is a guns-blazing attack on the other side’s nominee and his party. (If the other side has the presidency, the speech includes an attack on the incumbent).

That kind of speech fires up the base, but the nationally televised Republican or Democratic nominating convention isn’t just for the base. It may be the candidate’s best chance to get the whole country to hear his or her words. I don’t know if a hit-’em-hard assault attracts votes beyond the people who were going to vote for the candidate no matter what.

Besides — and this is just a personal thing — I’m uncomfortable with slash-and-burn rhetoric even from candidates that I like. I’d prefer to see something more positive and forward-thinking, like this:

“I’d like to speak tonight to the moderates, the independents, and the undecided voters. I know you’re listening. Let me tell you what I’ll do as president, why it’s good for this country, and why it’s better than what the other party’s candidate would do.”

That’s a speech that I’d like to hear.

Telepathy vs. guesswork

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Donald Trump, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, Muslims, politics

It sometimes amazes me when someone writes, on Facebook or in a distinguished journalism outlet, about the hidden urges and secret psyche of people they don’t know very well, whether those people are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, or millions of Muslims.

If you claim to know someone’s deepest thoughts, emotions and desires, then get a cape, mask, and tights, because you have telepathic powers and should use your abilities for the greater good.

If you claim to know the thoughts, emotions and desires of a populace numbering in millions, then you should ascend to heaven immediately, because you’re a god.

Some people really do know a lot about other people’s inner workings: a psychologist who’s met frequently with a patient, a biographer who’s spent years researching a biographee (yes, I just made up that word), a pollster or ethnographer who’s repeatedly studied and questioned a population.

But the rest of us? We’re just guessing.

Big stars, small bodies

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acting, Actors, Hollywood, Movies, Pop culture, Show business, Television

Seems to me that one of the most common comments after meeting an actor is “He/she was shorter than I expected.” It’s especially true if the actor is known for heroic leading roles, like Robert Downey Jr., or explosive or driven characters, like Jack Black. And it seems that everyone knows that Tom Cruise is not tall, but he’s been the biggest star in the world.

Not all stars are short — Liam Neeson and Tilda Swinton, for instance, are very tall — but Hollywood appears to have a relatively high proportion of smaller people like Salma Hayek, Daniel Radcliffe and Eva Longoria.

Why?

In my opinion, a key factor is what screenwriter William Goldman called “early entry.”

Acting — unlike, say, engineering or law or medicine — often needs people who are very young. Many productions have roles for children or young teenagers.

But a production that hires a child or young teen faces a lot of challenges. A kid actor may have less maturity, training and professional discipline than adults. And the law prevents a kid from working as many hours per day.

But if a performer’s a legal adult who looks younger — for instance, an 18-year-old who can play 14 — then several problems with hiring kids go away. Short actors have an advantage in that situation. They get opportunities that other another actor may miss.

And if they’re really good, they can rise in their profession, if not in their physical stature.

Fitness vs. health

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Fitness, Health, Longevity

People seem to worry a lot about being fit — but fit for what? As my lovely bride Lea Seidman Hernandez has pointed out, a champion heavyweight wrestler’s body, while undeniably athletic, isn’t necessarily fit for figure skating.

I prefer to concentrate on health rather than fitness. If I want to be fit for anything, it’s for living a long time. (I’m admittedly biased, since I wrote The Longevity Sourcebook. You can find it on Amazon.)

Unfortunately, health isn’t as obvious as fitness. A friend of mine, a model, had a beautiful body, but she suffered terribly from lyme disease. Another friend, a convention cosplayer who looked sensational, has had irritable bowel syndrome. Other people who look fit could have fibromyalgia, lupus, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, or schizophrenia.

Goodness knows that I want a body that looks so trim and muscular that it draws admiring stares — but I’ll settle for one that lives a long, healthy, disease-free life. Since the two often come together, maybe I’ll get both if I eat and exercise right.

Do Christian movies deserve their criticism?

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Christianity, Movies, Pop culture

Explicitly Christian movies don’t seem to get much love from the smartest, most respected critics. Yet critics and other experts venerate Christian-themed works of art from the past — Leonardo’s Last Supper, Michelangelo’s Pieta, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and so on.

You might say that critics are harder on new, unproven work than on established masterpieces or that they can accept Christianity from a dead artist, who can’t stand up and challenge non-Christians (or secular “Christians in name only”) to devote their lives to Christ.

But I think that something else is at work.

It seems to me that Christian movies like, say, God’s Not Dead (and novels like the Left Behind series) tell stories pitting modern Christians against non-Christians, while the greatest works of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and so on focused on events from the Bible and Christian lore.

A scene of a self-sacrificing Jesus or a suffering saint can have deep emotional power. A work of art based on such a scene can move people regardless of their religion or lack of it.

But Christian vs. non-Christian stories often seem to employ an us-vs.-them structure that is likely to alienate today’s non-Christians, especially if the stories offer today’s non-Christians as bad guys.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the recent, modern and contemporary Christian art most universally loved — by Christians and non-Christians — is gospel music, which often concentrates more on the glory of Christ than on denouncing non-Christians.