I'm Positive I've Got Something Good for You

I’m awfully sorry I haven’t been posting lately.

I know how all five of you are disappointed (sorry, Mom).

I was thinking about bitching to you as to why I haven’t been posted, but I’m going to postulate that your lack of caring plus your own problems means . . . well, I’ve never been good at math, but I’m sure someone out there can figure it out.

Anyway, one of the biggest drains on my time recently has been a new web-comic I’ve discovered.

That’s right: I discovered. I’m like Columbus all up in this Internet-shit, and just because there are a bunch of naked, indigenous people looking at me like “What the hell does this guy think he’s . . . AGGGGHHH! SMALL POX!” doesn’t mean I don’t have a good claim. As Eddie Izzard says in his special, Dress to Kill, “Do you have a flag?” I’ve got a flag, son, and I’m planting it on the World Wide Web.

Screw Internet neutrality.

Never mind that for now. What I was trying to say was that I’ve started reading a new web-comic, and as I am wont to do, started from the beginning. Unfortunately, the artist, R.K. Milholland, was a little bit of a “go-getter,” and having started in 2001 (and updating a lot more frequently than many web-comics), left me a great deal to go through to catch up. I’m currently somewhere in the middle of 2006. It’s nice.

Oh, the strip? It’s actually pretty famous, as far as web-comics go. It’s called Something Positive, and it’s essentially the story of a group of late twenty-somethings in Boston. It’s got its requisite nerd-fodder (lots of gaming – D&D and the like), melodrama (relationships), and pretty good artwork (for a comic).

It’s also incredibly wordy. This is dialogue-driven, and that’s one of the reasons it’s taking me so long to read through them all (that and the pirated wireless I’m currently using is in-and-out – Thank you, East Village person who doesn’t know how to password protect their network!). Granted, some of the words get in the way of . . . I guess I’d call it “enjoyment.” Milholland is writing semi-autobiographical stuff, so a lot of it can tend to be personal. That in and of itself isn’t bad, but it sometimes means that the Milholland is a bit into the narrative, and seeing it’s his own site, can be as verbose as he chooses.

As someone who isn’t at all like that, it can sometimes be annoying.

The other thing is that a lot of the jokes get repeated. Again, though, I’m reading them straight through, so it’s a lot easier to recognize the patterns (which is an interesting idea to study: how does reading through a web-comic archive or a television show DVD change the medium . . . Oh McLuhan, you’ve invaded my life again!)

What I like so much though, is that it is not just a comic with characters, but a comic about characters. These characters grow, change, and amazingly enough, age (think of a certain Bill Watterson character and the fact he keeps coming back from summer vacation to have Ms. Wormwood – and the fact that he has different summer vacations). They may not be the most realistic characters, but they’re also cartoons.

I will warn you, though, that the subject matter is Rated R for extreme violence, adult language, strong sexual content, cruelty to animals, excessive drinking, abject pessimism, sickly-sweet sentimentality, and adult situations.

“Adult situations” is such a stupid term – reminds me (and man, I’m already repeating my references) of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where they want to go see a movie, and Calvin notes that it has “Adult Situations.” Curious, he asks Hobbes what that means, and he says: “Oh, you know, paying bills, doing laundry, going to work,” to which Calvin replies “I guess that’s why they don’t want kids to go see it.” Or something like that. "If my answers frighten you Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions".

Extremely violent, but ironically acceptable, because most of it is girl-on-guy violence.

(Huge Aside: Acceptable, I say, because in our culture, we seem to have reached a point where man (especially The Father), is seen as an object of easy ridicule. I might have mentioned this before, but either way, here it is again: Watch television commercials or sitcoms. See how the father is situated in the family dynamic. I guarantee you that nine times out of ten he will be a bumbling-yet-tenderhearted idiot, who continually messes up, but usually makes good in the end. He will have a sassy and out-of-his-league attractive wife, and you will wonder, if he’s such an idiot, why they are together in the first place. Like this show . . . )

There is also a lot what I guess I’ll call “queer content.” There is a strong pro-gay sentiment in this strip, and Milholland is almost nonchalant about his inclusion of the topic. I think the fact that it is on the Internet, and there are no censors except advertisers, means that content can go in any direction the writer wants. Based on the “success” of Something Positive, I would say that he’s giving his audience what they want, and part of that is a whole lotta’ gay.

Speaking of a “whole lotta’ gay,” I seem to do that a lot. Well, try taking a class about gay identities in popular culture, and see how far you can get without noticing it. I promise you soon to give you my list of things I’ve noticed this semester. Something Positive will be on it.

That’s all for now. Devote some time, start from the beginning, and read the strip. It’s like an good, easy novel. A summer read that you can’t take to the beach.

Peacey-weace, sausage guts.

If I Love it So Much, Why Don't I Marry It?

I love "South Park". Love it. It is the most consistently topical weekly show on air, and has been ever since the Elian Gonzalez case. In case you forgot about that over-blown custody hearing, Elian was a Cuban boy who was basically being “defected” by his family in America. Apparently, though, no one asked the boy’s father if that was “cool” (“frio”). ‘Twasn’t. Well, for some reason, we decided that the reputation of the American brand was worth more than the fact that a extremely impoverished (um, thanks to us), politically impotent island south of us wanted to get in our face. We should have told the father to come pick him up, and then let both of them stay, at the Plaza, smoking Dominican cigars.

Wearing ironic Ché Guevera t-shirts. Ah, capitalists banking on “Marxists.” The system works (and by the way, if you don't get the irony, and are wearing a Che t-shirt, I hope someone thows a box of hornets at you).

Anyway, if you remember, on Easter Sunday (2000), Janet Reno, taking time off from her dance party:



sent in INS commandos to storm Elian’s family’s house, where they found him in a closet.

South Park had an episode about this that Wednesday.

That meant they wrote, animated, voiced, and edited it in 3 days.

Genius.

What is so interesting about their topicality, though, is that for all the liberties they take, they are essentially politically conservative. How can that be? you may ask yourself. You may then ask: Why am I asking myself questions that, if I need the answer, couldn’t possibly answer myself? Let’s stick with the former question.

Look at their track record:

In the Boy Scout episode, Big Gay Al is removed from his post as Scout Leader because the Boy Scouts (which they weren’t called on the show, of course) don’t allow homosexuals to volunteer as adults. They (the real Boy Scouts) find it immoral, and as a private organization, feel that homosexuality is a poor role-model for young men. There is also the more ridiculous idea that homosexuals are inherently pedophiles, but more on that later. In the episode (which also features an homage to the great "Rowdy" Roddy Piper/Keith David They Live fight+), Big Gay Al is pressured into suing, and upon hearing his case, the Supreme Court rules that this is in fact discrimination. Al, though, refuses the ruling, saying that he hopes that one day the Boy Scouts see the error of their ways, but that the people who run the organization are clearly doing what they think is best for boys, and that the organization itself is ultimately a positive force in forging young men. So, with the liberal outcome so clearly in his grasp, Trey Parker and Matt Stone flip the script, making Al voice a more moderate, less reactionary one. In other words, conservative. (To get back to the pedophilia thing: in the episode, the “man’s-man” who takes over the boys’ troop ends up being the pedophile, showing how pedophilia and homosexuality are clearly not mutually exclusive (if mutual at all)).

+

Other episodes clearly follow this path. In the anti-smoking episode, Rob Reiner is made out to be, again, a reactionary who is willing to kill a child if it will get people to stop smoking. The tour through the cigarette factory demonstrates clearly that people are free to do whatever they want with their bodies, and anyone who doesn’t yet know that smoking is bad for them is either a moron or a douche-bag. Either way, you live your life, and let me live mine. The fact that Reiner, bemoaning how unhealthy cigarettes are, is shown to be an obese, obsessive over-eater, only helps to drive the point home.

In the Al Gore episode, they rip into his global warming theory by using the metaphor of a “Man-bear-pig.” Although I think they were off about this one, the idea of their conservativism was crystal clear: Look out for people who wail from the roof-tops.

In other words, it’s one thing to have beliefs. In fact, it’s important that you do have beliefs. At the end of each episode, Stan or Kyle will say “You know, I learned something today. . .” Clearly a cliché, and one that they even joke about from time to time, but there is always a lesson to be learned, and generally that lesson is: Don’t worry so much about what other people are saying. Yes, listen to them. But don’t adhere to their words like Scripture. Because, usually, the people are in no position to make the claims they are making. Al Gore is very intelligent, but no matter what he thinks, he’s not a scientist. Rob Reiner is not a doctor. Rosie O’Donnell is not a politician. If anything, the show is a voice of reason against the cult of celebrity we cling to in America. They aren’t afraid to take down the Right, as George Bush was made the butt of an entire season worth of shows (albeit not "South Park"). A few weeks ago, they made sure to rip into the evangelical minister from Colorado who claimed that, after three weeks of intense spiritual training, was “cured of homosexuality.”

And that’s where the distinction lies. They are conservative, not the Religious Right. While Matt Stone is a Republican, Trey Parker is a Libertarian, but neither acts pedantic about their politics. In one interview, Stone summed it up so perfectly: "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals." With that sentiemnt, they tend to let their work take aim at those talking-heads and egos who feel that because there are cameras in their faces that their opinions suddenly matter. I don’t think Stone or Parker ever overtly say: this is right, this is wrong. Instead, they simply make sure people realize how ludicrous situations become, and how we too often take for granted what other people say, instead of coming to our own conclusions. “I learned something today” is the boys’ line, but it a call for us to make sure that at the end of a debate, we learned something (I'm kind of proud of that last line).

What kind of brought this up is this idea of South Park as being conservative. There is actually a term (or terms) being bandied about regarding this phenomenon: "South Park Conservative" (or Republican, as the case may be). In either form, the concept is that there are young people who clearly have conservative ideals (smaller government, less government interference, free trade, the “unlogic” of political correctness*), but aren’t necessarily morally conservative. The think that conservatives can have a good time, and yet still adhere to the idea of government that is the political implication of conservative. It’s funny that Stone and Parker both dismiss the term (and I’m guessing they do so in colorful language), but the idea is still there. Call it South Park Conservativism, call it Libertarianism, call it whatever.

Just don’t call it late for dinner.

(Couldn’t resist).

*Watch the episode about the South Park flag for a good idea what I'm talking about.

I'd Make a "This was my SAT score" Joke, But I Don't Think That Makes Sense Anymore

In bowling, they’d call it a perfect game. If you hit it for your career, you’d be a Hall of Famer.

It’s 300. It was dope.

Dope-a-holic rex.

I liked it a lot.

First off, let’s give Frank Miller props. He made sure that Batman wasn’t a nipple-wearing jag-off, he made it so that people under the age of 25 know who Mickey Rourke is (which is questionable in its goodness, I know, but still. . .Diner. The popcorn. Mickey
Rourke), and he did it again with this movie about Sparta.

You know, of “This is Sparta!” fame.

Gerard Butler, who (which surprises the hell out of me), sucked crap as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera (the movie on the whole was pretty bad, save Emmy Rossum (hooray, cute girls!)), was really good as King Leonidas. What little dialogue there was in the movie, he delivered well, and I’m amazed he could talk after production, because everything was in that growly, shouty voice. Very impressive beard, too.

In a role much better than what he was given in Lord of the Rings, David Wenham did a great job as Dilios. Not that he was bad as Faromir, just that the role itself wasn’t that good, because Peter Jackson kind of made Faromir a dick/pussy. He wasn’t the Faromir of the books. In this movie, though, Wenham has a chance to make a character that does a job that doesn’t disappoint. He should be in more stuff.

The acting, though, wasn’t really what was important (although, of course, acting is always important). The key thing in this movie was the visuals. Like Sin City, the movie truly played up its graphic novel legacy, and the colors were surreal and yet believable. The armies, the action, the costumes – it is all staged to show fantasy. For example, the Spartans have the most impressive collection of six-packs since Delta Tau Chi threw their toga party. Seriously, those guys are ripped. I don’t want to get into another homoerotic thing so soon after my last post, but, I mean, Greece. . .

That aside (or that in the forefront!), the movie is awesome. The story is pretty basic David versus Goliath meets Braveheart fare (and it’s important to realize that Braveheart, with perhaps Glory, is the predecessor of this heroic, battle genre of movie: The Patriot (Braveheart Goes West), Gladiator, Troy, King Arthur, etc. -- perhaps, unsurprisingly, all movies I do not think are that good), but it’s not supposed to be anything overwhelming in that regard. It’s supposed to be about cool slow-mo action sequences, a little bit of breasticles (I’m sure that’s a word), and a tall-ass, half-naked dude with a ton of piercings and an impossible deep voice.

I know it might sound like I’m making fun of this movie, but I’m really just knit-picking (the one exception being some of the home-front political machinations – but even those aid the story). I loved this flick, and I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t. It’s violent, but not super gory, it’s sexy without being pornographic, and it’s fantastic without being absurd. It’s just a simple story with amazing graphics and competent acting.

I only wish I had seen it in IMAX.

It may be Fire, but is it flamin'?

I saw the movie Fire last night, and all I can issue is a paragraph of disgust. I was appalled at the way the women in the movie acted, as if lack of instant marital bliss was enough of a justification for the revocation of ones vows, traditions, and customs. Call me old fashioned, but the sanctity of marriage is a holy union, and one that is not taken lightly. And yet the two women, Sita and Radha, are not only discontent with their marriages, but discontent with everything that makes them Indian as well. Exposing their weaknesses, while exploiting their husbands’ lenience, they fall into each others embrace as if it is the most natural thing in the world! Living in sin, the two find “comfort” with each other, meanwhile displacing the family dynamic, including causing the expulsion of their faithful servant Mundu and upsetting poor, voiceless Biji. In fact, except for the part when Biji spits in Radha’s face, there is no redeeming part of this movie other than when Radha catches on fire. It’s only a shame she doesn’t die.

It’s also a shame if you agreed with anything I just wrote in the paragraph above. As fun as misogyny, homophobia, and the preservation of ”quaint traditions” might be, there has to be a point where you realize that being a narrow-minded bigot is both unattractive and a little crazy.

Let’s face facts:

1) When is it ever bad when two hot women make out?

And, more seriously (but, to be honest about myself, not too much “more seriously”)

2) Who the hell are you?

Listen, I’m not an expert on hermeneutics (and right off the bat, if you use the Bible to justify your arguments about any topic, and don’t know what the word “hermeneutics” means, you should probably take yourself immediately out of the running to be part of this conversation), but I’m pretty sure that the New Testament (the part of the book where Jesus shakes up and clarifies the practices and beliefs from the Old Testament) never says anything about ripping on other people for what you yourself perceive to be transgressions. There is no call for “sin shouting,” as it were. In fact, when I think back to the eight years of religious education I so joyfully sat through as a child, three main points seemed to have been drilled into my head time and time again:

1) The Golden Rule: Love others as you would love yourself
2) He who is without sin cast the first stone (which therefore eliminates everyone from casting stones)
3) Parents do not appreciate having to pick up their child for making “funny” comments during religion class. Apparently it’s a little embarrassing.

Aside from the third one, the rules that Jesus brought down to Earth were about love and compassion, forgiveness and understanding. And while I think it’s pretty heinous to even think about homosexuality or queerness as being a sin in the first place (and I try not to comment on my hyper-links, but the music alone is worth going to the previous link - it's hilarious), even if it is, it’s not anyone’s place to say so. I realize this might seem offensive to pretty much everyone, but I think it’s important to understand the whole picture, and I see it as this:

If your beliefs are teaching intolerance of others, then what’s that say about your beliefs?

Going back to the movie itself (which, if you’re still reading, you must be thinking to yourself: How the hell do you talk about cinematography after that little diatribe?), it was actually quite stunning in its simplicity and beauty. The dialogue is sparse (which is good, if only because the sound editing was pretty atrocious – of course, it might have been dubbed, but if so, it looked like the actors were speaking English), but effective. The use of color and light created the exotic and erotic well. And of course the parallelism between the repeating story of the god Ram, Sita, and the trial by fire with the actual narrative helps show why it is so important that Radha doesn’t die in the fire. Her love, in the end, is pure, and despite that, she must be exiled. It is interesting that the character named Sita in the movie and the character in the folk-story do not line up. I’m not quite sure what the point of that was except maybe to make it not so obvious, and therefore, blatantly cheesey.

Probably more important than anything is that although the movie is about discovering and giving in to desire and physical pleasure, the very acts are rarely seen. If they are, it is only through glimpses and muted scenes, showing how very unimportant the sex act is after all. It is the desire that is important, and that’s why Sita says to Radha: “There is no word in our language that can describe us. How we feel for each other.” Showing sex would be a way to try to define it, and you really can’t. Oddly enough, the most graphic sexual act are the two scenes in which Mundu masturbates while watching porno in the presence of Biji. I think it’s telling that these scenes are both disturbing and comical.

A few things did bother me about the movie, but they are more technical matters more than anything. First, although I had a good idea what the movie was about, I was still surprised that not enough had transpired to indicate that Sita was in love with Radha. It seemed very sudden to me. That might tie into the fact that I felt the movie was a bit disjointed at times. Scenes were provided almost as snapshots instead of continuous narrative, and sometimes I thought more information might have done us, as the audience, a bit of good. But overall, the story was provided as a powerful whole, and I’m glad I saw it.

Still, I'm not sure I recommend it, at least not as a piece of entertainment. It's not entertaining, but informative. But it is also only informative as an archive, because it's over a decade old. To put it another way, it's a good movie, but a possibly dated one: we can still learn from it, but I think the cultural impact it would have today is almost more about the Indian rather than the queer. And maybe that's the point in the first place.

Correcting my friends (Politically)

Last weekend, I got into a “friendly” (because we always remember, eventually, that we are friends, despite the heat and disgust we might feel towards each other at the time) argument about the formation of images and the crafting of messages.

Or, at least, I think that’s what we were talking about. These things tend to spin wildly out of control.

What it came down to was a discussion of why I would never see Borat. My friends, who know me quite well, insisted it was my kind of humor. I insisted it was America-bashing, and that while satire is fine, it is the custom of satire to bring the king down to our level.

As Chase, in the beautiful piece of cinema Drive Me Crazy, points out: “We laugh when the debutante slips on the banana peel, not Tiny Tim.”

While the people in these movies may deserve our ridicule, it is because (at least in my opinion) the people were set-up to be suckers. I don’t care that Sascha Baron Cohen and his lawyers provided waivers – they were counting on human nature to overcome that hurdle. These people were not fully aware of the situation, and thus conned into revealing things they probably (and I acknowledge the “probably”) would not have, and ultimately made to look like fools by a professional clown (which isn’t a disparagement, but rather a way of identifying what Baron-Cohen does for a living).

We argued about that.

At some point we got to Fahrenheit 9/11, and once again I proclaimed I would never see that movie. Oddly enough, despite its clearly anti-Bush rhetoric (which I don’t necessarily disagree with, just despise for its simplicity – in my mind at least; you may wish to question me on that), my dislike of the movie stems from a dislike of Michael Moore and his blatant subjectivity (he said ironically). Baron Cohen, who I think can be genuinely funny and insightful, has a movie I won’t watch for specific reasons. Moore, who I find thoroughly detestable, has a movie I won’t see because of what amounts to strict irrationality.

It should be noted that this dynamic isn’t surprising, and yet I feel I’m not always conscious of it, and that is not really a good thing for someone who aspires towards objectivity, even in my opinions. In other words, I’m trying to be open-minded, but too often my fingers are in my ears, and I’m shouting “LA LA LA LA LA!!!”

-- This condescending description of how opinions work brought to you by David --

Moore, who was both attacked and defended through the invocation of such inflammatory names as Coulter and Limbaugh, led to my friend asking if I ever read Al Franken’s latest book. I scoffed.

The reasoning behind my scoff was because I’m oddly allegiant to conservatives, in spite of some of my overwhelming liberal tendencies (you try to shut down political evolution with six years of university under your belt). I believed (and still believe) that it is one thing to criticize the talking-head morons on the Right, but it is another to do so in a way that, in turn, creates the perception that you are making fun of the beliefs of half the country.

Remember that word: “perception.” It is important because what I tried to argue (in other words, I argued and tried to get across) was that it would ever matter what Franken’s message was, because of the medium in which he chose to convey it. This had pretty much always been my position regarding avoidance of inflammatory (seeming) Liberal rhetoric, but having recently been inundated with copious amounts of Marshall McLuhan, I think I finally localized my argument into a semblance of coherent, rational thought.

As such, I was very proud of myself and equally bewildered by my friends’ inability to not only grasp my argument, but to not bow to the magnificence of my logic. It’s very bothersome.

My contention was that by framing his argument via the humorous essay (in book-length form), Franken is producing a text that is automatically abhorrent to the very people he’s trying to convince. His arguments could be sound and irrefutable, but if the idea is to convince the Right that their unelected spokesmen are full of it, he chose exactly the wrong medium. His proposals are preaching to the choir, because they are the only ones who would ever be inclined to read it.

At some point during this argument, someone (me) brought up An Inconvenient Truth. To set this up, it must be noted that I saw this movie because I was a global warming skeptic, having just read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. My friends thought I was an idiot (and I’m man enough to admit that they were right. . .to a point, but that’s a whole other conversation), so I suggested I’d watch the movie if they read the book. I saw the movie, but my “friends” (yeah, those lying bastards are in quotes for the rest of this paragraph), didn’t read the book. But that’s not really super-important right now.

What is relevant is that the movie was not only about Al Gore’s ideas, but starred Al Gore. This is where my problem lied (lie? lay? laid? Goddamn verb tenses!), because to me, Al Gore is such a polarizing figure. This may surprise some people, as it surprised my friends, because to many, Gore is practically a harmless figure in the political arena, but to Conservatives, there is no person more heinous than William Jefferson Clinton, unless that person is Hillary Rodham Clinton. After that, though, there is hatred by proxy, and Gore, through association with the Clintons, is a figure that brings out irrationality in a lot of normally level-headed folk. My thought was how this affected his message. Because by making a movie that appears to be Al Gore talking about global warming, instead of a movie about global warming, he effectively alienates a segment of the population that needs not be alienated.

This is not about skepticism. I’m sure there were/are skeptics in both parties, and no movie is going to be strong enough to shake someone with a solid belief. But there were people on the fence from the right who could have been convinced, but were repelled by Gore. Repelled by Gore and his antagonistic title. Repelled by a politician at a politically-charged time.

Despite the fact that the movie is not political, per se (obviously it’s political, but it’s not about national, Red versus Blue politics), it comes off as being political by people who want to see it as political. Al Gore on the screen makes it electorally political. The problem with that is that the movie is supposed to be about global warming. It is a universal issue that needs universal (and immediate) coverage, but instead looks like an overt attempt to re-enter the political arena. It plays as political, and not as scientific, especially to people who haven’t (and because of the reason stated above, won’t) seen the movie.

My suggestion, then, was for Al Gore to have stepped aside and allowed a less politicizing figure to narrate the story. At the time, I was advocating a “neutral” movie star (personally, I was gunning for Will Smith, because that guy is box-office gold!), but I’ve started to realize that although that might have brought slightly more people to the theatre, it might have provided fodder (as my friend argued) for the movie’s critics. So instead, I think perhaps a no-name actor, or better yet, a Conservative scientist, using Al Gore’s script and slides, could have done a better job at selling the movie. If the idea is to spark action against global warming, then why does it matter that Al Gore did the work putting this together? What’s more important: Al Gore getting all the credit, or global warming being exposed to a mass audience? I know which side of the fence I’m on, and I’m pretty sure which side of the fence my friends are on. I think it’s just harder for them because they don’t see how distasteful Al Gore can be to some people.

Remember, though: It doesn’t matter if you understand the reason, it matters that you are prepared to act on it.

Of course, last Wednesday, Gore was on television, testifying to Congress, so maybe this is a moot point. Still, in a world where our lives are practically dictated by Madison Avenue, wouldn’t a sounder marketing strategy have created a better opportunity to get the facts out in the open? I just think that the idea wasn’t even considered.

Don’t get me wrong, either. I’m using Gore’s movie here because that’s what I talked about with my friends, but this goes for almost all political texts (texts as in movies, books, essays, columns, and radio shows), in which the end result is not to truly create change, but to sell a product. It is politics as commodity, where you preach to the choir knowing full well that they will lap it up, even though it means cutting off the opposition, and often-times antagonizing them (inadvertently or not). Limbaugh is loathsome to the Left because he plays the game so well. Franken is loathsome to the Right because he tries to play the game.

And Gore is bothersome, because he didn’t realize that he was still in the game.

Stick It! - The Musical

Or, Why Movies Aimed at Teenage Girls Tend to be Enjoyable for Teenage Boys.

If you haven't seen Stick It (and really, why would you have?), then you don't know what's it like to watch an entire movie about girl gymnastics and not care one whit about gymnastics.

"Whit" is a funny word, isn't it?

One thing that's so interesting is that the headliner of the movie is Jeff Bridges. Now, I like Jeff, but I think the girls in the leotards are a bit more of a draw than the son of Lloyd.

No, the real star of the show is the unfortunately named Missy Peregrym, who I kind of see as a hotter Hilary Swank (which might cause some arguments, although trying to win an argument about hotness is like trying to shoot a gerbil from a cannon through a hole in the wall):



The movie is loosely based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and when I say loosely, I mean that there are characters and dialogue.

It's the story of a young girl who falls on the wrong side of the law, but who used to be a world class gymnast. Instead of being sent to boot camp, she's sent to gymnastics school.

Justice is served.

She is rebellious, she has an epiphany, blah blah blah. But it is still a sports movie, and you all know how I feel about that.

And it's cute girls in leotards. I might have mentioned that already, but it bears repeating.

One incredibly annoying aspect of the movie is the rival, played by Vanessa Lengies, who you probably don't remember from the show American Dreams, for some reason is retarded in the movie. All her jokes are about her being stupid, and that in turn is stupid. Hate to be hyper-critical of a movie of this caliber, but. . .no, I totally love being hyper-critical.

The ending is this kind of odd, defiant think where the girls take the results into their own hands, but I have to say it's pretty unbelievable. Why would any of these girls take themeselves out of the chance to be part of the "world team." But that's where they get the title "stick it."

It's a pun. Or double entendre. One of those.

If you want to spend some time completely not thinking, this is a great movie. It's like watching a van Damme movie, except for little girls.

And apparently 25 year-old guys.

It's also much better than most van Damme movies, regardless of genre or demographic audience.

Anything with the tag-line "It's not called gym-nice-tics" deserves a chance.

My Message is the Message

I’ve been reading Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media, in class, and I was asked to do a presentation on chapters 29 and 30, “Movies” and “Radio”.

In case you don’t know who McLuhan is, he’s the guy who came up with the often misunderstood phrase ”the medium is the message”, as well as the term “global village” as we know it today.

He’s a genius, perhaps even prescient at times (his meaning of “global village” envisioned the Internet before Al Gore had the chance to invent it), and he knows it. As such his writing is dense, sometimes circular, and oftentimes not easy to understand. But like with most theoretical works, if you can get even a nugget or two or knowledge from this piece, it is definitely worth it.

Here is my presentation, although not in transcript form. I guess I just felt I had some interesting things to say about these two chapters, and felt I needed to share them. Enjoy.

“Movies” and “Radio”

Movies are the merger of print culture and the electric age. They are in fact a continuation of print technology, and I will return to that further down.

First, though: There is a need to once again visit the argument of “hot” media and “cold” media. In chapter 2 of Understanding Media, McLuhan says:

“A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in “high definition.” High definition is the state of being well filled with data,” (22).

He goes on to say that “Hot media are [. . .] low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience,” (23).

Lastly, he ends the chapter by saying “the hotting up of one sense tends to effect hypnosis, and the cooling of all senses tends to result in hallucination,” (32) - one reason we can get “lost” in a movie, but not TV, or why there is now the debate in psychology circles concerning the idea of “internet addiction” (MCKenzie Funk, in the March 2007 Harper’s, has a great article about internet addiction entitled “I was a Chinese Internet Addict”).

One thing that’s important to understand is that McLuhan is writing at a time without THX surround sound – sight was clearly the majority sense-holder, so to speak. Yes, he does say that it is not a single medium, writing:

“A collective art form with different individuals directing color, lighting, sound, acting, speaking,” (292). But here he is talking about production, not viewing. The movies we watch is a single medium.

Although movies today involve sound much more prominently, it is still a primarily visual experience:

You “see” a movie: passive, singular sense (in a way, individualistic)
You “watch” TV: active, “observation,” multi-sensory to a larger extent.

[I’m “bolding” this because I feel this was the gem of my presentation. I felt this especially when my professor said he wanted to steal it. Cite me, suckahs!]

If for anything else, the very size of the theatre was visually stimulating – you are surrounded by darkness, with the giant screen capturing your attention. The movie theatre is predicated on tunnel vision: there is no periphery in the theatre.

You are alone (although there might be others around you), and you can’t interact with them (it is taboo), because you will miss something – this might seem true of television, except for one point that McLuhan points out about movies:

They provide your imagination for you - he notes this a couple of ways:

1) when he goes back to discussing the Photo on page 291 –

“It was pointed out how the press photo in particular had discouraged the really rich from the paths of conspicuous consumption. The life of display that the photo had taken from the rich, the movie gave to the poor with lavish hand.”

The movie became the production of dreams – you don’t have to imagine anything – it’s being done for you.

With the addition of sound, this is set even firmer, because now you don’t even have to come up with the soundtrack that you weren’t provided in silent films.

2) On page 285, he points out:

“The business of the writer or the film-maker is to transfer the reader or viewer from one world, his own, to another, the world created by typography and film.”

Film is about unreality, a suspension of disbelief. “Movie magic” today refers to special effects, but movies themselves have a sense of “magic” about them that we still subconsciously adhere to:

Think about this: Why is dinner and a movie such a popular and clichéd first date?

The movie is even more magic to the non-literate - McLuhan points out, unabashedly (McLuhan is writing before the PC revolution, so to speak, so he doesn’t feel constrained by cultural sensitivity), that Africans watching movies would be surprised when a character on screen suddenly “disappears off the side of the film.” They want to know “what happened to him” (285). He goes on to point out that oral cultures tended to not have a concept of visual perspective, so that when the camera panned, it appeared to the non-literates that objects moved (287).

He points out oral cultures such as Russians needed to interact with the film. It makes us wonder then what sort of culture we live in today when the teenage heckler is common-place, with shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, or with the stereo-type (the stand-up comedic trope) of the African-American in a theatre (I couldn’t find any references for this, so if you have any, please let me know. I know I’ve heard comedians talk about this, I just don’t know exactly where) – are we to consider these products of a non-literate culture, or are we now part of a new designation of informational society? I’d lean towards the latter (and I think McLuhan would agree with that).

This leads us to why McLuhan says film is the next evolutionary step in print: In order to understand movies, you need to be able to think sequentiality is rational – book culture allows us to do this. When we read, we are able to make sense of the symbols because they are ordered and linear – we require that kind of thinking to transcend the magic of movies.

“A literate audience [. . .] accustomed to following printed imagery line by line without questioning the logic of lineality, will accept film sequence without protest,” (285 – 286).

Further down the page, he notes “the close relation, then, between the reel world of film and the private fantasy experience of the printed word is indispensable to our Western acceptance of the film form,” (286).

I was thinking this may be one reason why Hollywood is so leery of the “original screen-play.” Adaptations of novels are automatically situated in the comfort level of the literate man. Also, look at all the remakes Hollywood uses: Psycho, The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven, Shaft, and even this year’s Best Picture, The Departed, which is a remake of the Chinese film, Infernal Affairs - obviously there is marketing involved here, but that marketing is directed at producing movies that people are known to like – we like the fantasy, but we also like a connection to that fantasy (so that it is, in part, our dream – at least before and afterwards). Also, remember, that it is not the content here that is important, but the medium – we praise “clever” movies, but the big box offices go to the tried and true “formulaic movies.”

The last point I wanted to mention about this correlation between film and book is this: “The film viewer sits in psychological solitude like the silent book reader,” (292).

Part of the problem with this chapter is clearly the fact that it was written almost 50 years ago. McLuhan was able to see the birth, or at least the adolescent stages of movies, but he is limited in his view of how the movie could evolve. For example, I’ve mentioned surround sound. His was the age of Technicolor, and not actual, “realistic,” color film.

He talks about “the film medium as a monster ad for consumer goods,” but then says “In America this major aspect of film is merely subliminal” (294). Anyone who has seen Wayne’s World and the scene about product placement will realize that films are overtly superliminal (to steal a Simpson’s quote):



Think of the new James Bonds movies, and what kind of phone he uses, what kind of car he drives, and so on.

But of course he has his Nostradamus moment as well, when he starts talking about film as means of information-storage:

“At the present time, film is still in its manuscript phase, as it were; shortly it will, under TV pressure, go into its portable, accessible, printed-book phase. Soon everyone will be able to have a small, inexpensive film projector that plays an 8-mm sound cartridge as if on a TV screen.” (291)

I give you the portable dvd player, the PSP and of course, the iPod.

Which leads us to Radio.

It is odd that radio is “hot,” because there is the paradoxical unifying effect of radio: it is a retribalizing media (it creates communities, or at least the sense of community).

However, it is hot in the same way that movies are: Although you can listen with other people, you must listen individually - you can’t interact with others because you would mask the sound, and prevent access to the information (radio is almost more hot than movies in this regard – it is truly a singular sensory experience).

One issue that bothers me is how he says radio rejects cool personalities, by positioning it against that of TV, saying: “TV is a cool medium. It rejects hot figures and hot issues and people from the hot press media,” (299).

He uses Hitler as an example, saying that “Had TV come first there would have been no Hitler at all,” (299). I find that hard to believe, because Hitler was having success orating (a cool medium), before he turned to the radio for mass dissemination. Hitler was strangely charismatic, and that might have worked even better on television. On the flip-side, McLuhan might be saying that since radio didn’t allow for interaction and participation, that people were willing to take him at “face-value” (an oddly visual term for this auditory medium) without questioning him.

This idea is perhaps backed-up when McLuhan writes “That is the immediate aspect of radio. A private experience,” (299). Combine that with the ability to retribalize, and maybe that adds to Hitler (and others like him), gaining a following. You can also consider the aspect of sound we’ve talked about: evanescence and dying immediately:

The message is no longer primary, but rather tone and force become what’s important. You remember catchy phrases, not the entire content.

This is much like a pop-song – to most, it is not the lyrics that make people enjoy the song, it is the melody, the harmony, the hook. That’s what makes us dance, what catches our attention. Radio is pop music in mechanical form.

“That Hitler came into political existence at all is directly owning to radio and public-address systems. This is not to say that these media relayed his thoughts effectively to the German people. His thoughts were of little consequence,” (300).

Replace “Hitler” with “Britney Spears,” and “German people” with “anyone,” and you get an idea of what I’m getting at (I would like to note that I do not think that Britney is a genocidal maniac. I also need to confess that I enjoy perhaps too much Britney Spears music, especially her “earlier” work).

Some interesting aspects that I see with radio:

He notes that “One of the many effects of television on radio has been tom shift radio from an entertaining medium into a kind of nervous information system. News bulletins, time signals, traffic data, and above all, weather reports now serve to enhance the native power of radio to involve people in one another. Weather is that medium that involves all people equally,” (298).

Here he seems to be saying that it creates unity by providing universal information. In this case he’s referring to news, but today you can see the same thing with the way Clear Channel and other companies own radio stations across the country. Every major city now has their Z100, filled with cookie-cutter music, and morning shows. Radio, if anything, has become even more homogenized, creating a singular national experience.

I would suggest that satellite radio might reverse this trend, but a combination of smaller subscription holders and the fact that the two companies, XM and Sirius, are merging seem to be pointing to the decline of spontaneous radio.

Also, think of this: If we didn’t have private cars, would radio survive? Is radio now simply filler, and occasional provider of traffic and weather, on the eights? As cars added 8 tracks, cassette decks, then cd players, multi-disk cd players, mp3 cd players, mp3 input jacks, and Bluetooth mp3 connection, is it merely being “called” a radio now for traditions sake?

The “single” is an iTunes download, not a song a radio DJ plays. No longer do people listen for long periods of time, knowing that eventually the DJ will play their favorite song. Indeed, radio has even recognized this, eliminating the DJ with stations like Jack FM (which in New York tellingly took over the “oldies” station), a station without DJ, without “genre” (although it’s basically just rock in a variety of formats and some 90s party-rap).

That’s pretty much it. Hope you enjoyed it. Although I might worry about those of you who did enjoy it.

Peace.