Harry Potter's Life is Freaking Sad

I decided to have a Harry Potter marathon this weekend, and watched all the films one after another. I had read the books very sporadically, and I saw the movies when they ended up on HBO (except the Half Blood Prince, which I saw in the theater). I am surprised at what the story looks like when you see it all in a row. It's a dark and brooding story, but I never realized how deeply depressing it is.


Spoilers for the Deathly Hallows book may be ahead...


Many of you have probably heard of Harry Potter. I'm not sure how many of you are fans and have seen the films, but even if you haven't, you probably know it's about wizards and witches and a school for wizard kids. Most of the cutesy fantasy stuff gets into the trailers and commercials. Stuff like the candles that float all by themselves, lighting the great hall of this beautiful boarding school:

Or the fun magical charms and curses that the students learn

Or the silly fun that's made of goofy students whose spells don't work right

There are hints of the darkness in the story early on in the form of school bullies like Draco Malfoy

And mean teachers like Severus Snape

But let's get real, folks, this story is about complete and utter tragedy and sadness. Like, from beginning to end!

The Tragedy of Harry Potter

Not only are Harry's parents killed when he is a baby, but they basically die defending him from an evil sorcerer who is still at large. As an orphan he is given to his uncle's family (the Dursley's) to be raised as basically a prisoner. He's not considered part of the family, he is often pad locked into his bedroom, and they treat their own son so preferentially that he is the only one in family photos.


Once he gets the intel about who his parents were and how they died (the Dursley's didn't tell him), he gets to go to wizard school at Hogwarts, where he finds a couple friends (Hermoine and Ron) and at least one enemy in Draco Malfoy. And of course there's the big enemy in Voldemort, the guy that killed his parents.

Over the course of the movies (the movie stories are most recent in my memory), he at first has to grapple with the huge mind-shift that must happen when you find out that a) your parents were killed and didn't die in a car accident like you've been told, b) they were magical wizards which are real and you are too, c) an evil magical wizard killed them and is currently unaccounted for, and d) you are eleven years old. Christ.

Then he has to fight this super-strong murderous wizard for like 7 years. Each year he is basically tortured from afar by this guy. He has awful nightmares, the scar that Voldemort gave him as a baby hurts sometimes, he is put through a series of deadly tests that are all sabotaged in some way.  His story is front-page news and everyone refers to him as "The Boy Who Lived," which sucks in a million ways. To be remembered simply for surviving and to be thought of as either a huge hope for the future (pressure) or the sad remains of a loved wizard family (pressure!). He gets treated like a special kid in the worst way.

The adults who have information about his past, present, and future are really REALLY vague about it and sometimes don't tell him things that he needs to know to stay alive. The only adult men in his life that he builds close ties to (Dumbledore and Sirius Black) die before the series end. He loses like 3 father/father figures in the course of the story!

You can write an epilogue that tells me he marries Ginny Weasley all you want, but I think that guy is effed up forever. He should totally have been Severus Snape by the end of the story, burdened by a fate and a past he had little control over.

I found that by the end of the Order of the Phoenix, I was so deeply sad about his story (knowing, of course how it ends) that it took me a day long break to get back to it. And this story has a supposedly happy ending!

The best thing this series did for me was introduce Hermoine Granger, one of the best female characters ever. I heart her nerdy lovely overcompensating little heart. I can't even say I see myself in her too much because she's so much more A+ than I ever was. But the nerdyness, the love of information, the desire to always have the right answer and being kind of pissy when you don't have it, that's totally me. I love how fierce she is about the downtrodden and how she fights back when cornered. She threw an amazing punch that landed on Draco's jaw in Prisoner of Azkaban that made me think the books shoulda put her at the center. Hermoine Granger rules forever into all time.  And eventually she works for the liberation and fair treatment of house elves.

And seriously, I think that it is simply inconceivable to me that Hermoine would be interested in Ron Weasley. He's totally the worst Weasley. And there are a lot of them! He's a blubbering idiot who, for a person raised in a wizarding family of 9 people, has little understanding of body language or subtext in a conversation. Or even the literal interpretation of a conversation. He is brave on occasion, but damn if he isn't going to be a lifelong project for our lovely Hermoine, who will be fixing things he's broken and reminding him of basic information forever.  I just can't see her being into someone so not smart or good at spells. I never got that. Does she respect Ron? Really? He's loyal and willing to stick up for his friends, but is that all you need in a partner? Is she so insecure about her abilities that she needs someone less smart around to feel better about herself? That would make for a sad story. I would have liked to see Hermoine with Harry, because they seem to both be burdened by the expectations and assumptions of their family line and yet fight hard to make things right for themselves on their own terms. But even more, I would have liked her to find her own guy, separate from the trio. But maybe I'm just super hard on Ron.

I obviously love the story, and am kind of amazed that little kids got into it on such a large scale. I know people had problems with the witchcraft and stuff, but those are crazy people. What I'd be interested to know is if people would be cool with their kids reading such a dark story, if they had known how it was going to turn out and what horrible trials Harry and his friends would endure. I like dark stories and I'd probably let my kids watch whatever they wanted, but when you look at the stories altogether, damn if it isn't some depressing shit.

Side note: While typing this, M. who is a smart and curious guy, but who hates Harry Potter movies, asked me what I was blogging about and this is how our conversation went:

M: What are you blogging about? Are you blogging about me?  (He always asks this and it's never him)
Sweet Lady: Harry Potter
M: Are you blogging about how you're in loooove with Harry Potter?
Sweet Lady: No, I'm actually not attracted to Harry in the series.
M: Who are you attracted to?
Sweet Lady: Guess which one I would be attracted to. (At this point I'm clearly thinking it's obvious, but I'm also realizing he has no clue because he hates all things magical and has never seen the movies)
M: Gargamel?
Sweet Lady: Seriously? Gargamel from The Smurfs?!
M: Well I don't f*%$ing know!
Sweet Lady: Severus Snape (showing him my Google Image search of Severus in his many stern poses)
M: The old guy!?
Sweet Lady: But...
M: All I have to say is: old balls.
Sweet Lady: Sigh

And I talk shit about Hermoine's choices.

Summer of Kevin Smith

Something happened to me in the past year. I became intensely fascinated by Kevin Smith. This wasn't too surprising, since I have always thought he was a great interview and he's a super nerd. But I'm kind of not really into stories from a male perspective. My favorite stories are for, by, and/or about strong powerful chicks. But in the past couple of years, Smith's been more available via his podcast, aptly named Smodcast, with longtime producing partner Scott Mosier. And I've found it interesting to an alarming degree!

Capitalizing on the popularity of his commentaries, Q&A sessions, and other instances where he tells stories about working in Hollywood, he decided to start podcasting. A podcast, for the uninitiated, is like a radio show on the interwebs. Usually you can get access to podcasts, which are pre-recorded audio (and sometimes video) files, on iTunes, but you can also live stream from various websites. You don't have to go through iTunes to have a podcast, but it helps, because it is a giant catalog of free information by interesting folks. That's right, most of them are free. Smith's are all free. You can even see him live at the only podcasting theater in existence, the Smodcastle. But that will cost you. This summer he toured the nation on a deluxe bus recording podcasts in front of paying audiences, all of whom not only are followers of his films and comics collaborations, but his 130+ podcasts. They paid to see him talk to his friend and record it.

How did this start? I saw Clerks when it came out in the mid-90s. I know, that's totally crazy because it did so poorly, but it's true. I remember referencing the film with friends all the time. I have always been a fan of dude humor that revolves around dick jokes, and this seemed like the kind of movie that understood you don't have to be stupid to make those jokes. You just need to be totally immature, or at least allow yourself to be.  I liked Mallrats a lot, Chasing Amy less so, and Dogma a little more.  I always appreciated a lot of his humor. It's been given poor adjectives like puerile, juvenile, childish, homophobic, sexist, and other awful things. Some of that stuff is true. Some of it has its place in the world and shouldn't be necessarily a mark of awful story-telling.

So, that initial interest in Smith's oeuvre resulted in my decision to rent An Evening with Kevin Smith, which is sort of a stand-up film which cobbles together various Q&A events at colleges in the early 2000s. He was hysterically funny. There is a sequel, so I rented that too. There is all kinds of YouTubery of him at ComiCons and other events telling amazing stories. Like the one where he was hired to create a movie for Prince and got to go to Paisley Palace and entertain the wild notions of a loon. Or the one where he talks about the controversy surrounding his film Dogma and how he went to a protest of the film at a theater in New Jersey. A live news reporter spotted him but didn't recognize him and asked him (as an anonymous bystander) what he thought of the protest. And he dishes about celebrities. I love celebrity dirt. Especially when it's about people who act outrageously, because those people are mistreating personal assistants and valets and nobody knows about it until someone like Smith gives it up. That was the initial draw. His podcast is about celebrity dirt, but it's about much more.

It's his view of current events, his relationship with his friends and family, a good repoire comedically with Scott Mosier, and insight into guys. That perhaps is why I go back each week. Hearing men talk seemingly without filter. About anything. About how to deal with relationship issues, about how Harry Potter should have ended, about why Kirk Cameron is a total asshole. I have always wanted unfettered access to decent guy conversation. Guys who have interests and are passionate and not racist jerks who are afraid to show or talk about emotions.

The central quality that draws me is Smith's ability to reveal so much of himself. The stuff that people keep hidden for fear of being ostracized, the feelings and ideas that might get him called "queer" or "freak" are all on display. In fact, not only does he reveal all that stuff, he makes fun of himself,  jokes about the standard "dude" response, and rounds it out with a good bit of cursing. He is not afraid to tell his friends he cares about them. In fact, he seems to be amazingly loyal and warm-hearted.  All of his friends from New Jersey are still part of his life, some have joined him on the podcast (yes, I listen to Tell 'Em Steve-Dave, the Walt and Bryan podcast too).

Lothario Brian Quinn, Layabout Bryan Johnson, and Comedic Super Dad Walt Flanagan from Tell 'Em Steve-Dave

The success of his podcast has resulted in what could be called a podcast empire.

Jason Mewes joins him for Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, which has been the number one podcast in the world for the past 3 installations.

Ralph Garman from KROQ radio's Kevin & Bean morning show joins Smith for Hollywood Babble-On,  Malcolm Ingram, gay filmmaker of Small Town Gay Bar fame, joins him for Blow Hard, and he still does Smodcast with Scott Mosier!

Of course there are problematic elements of Smith's shows, and most of them are complex rather than simple "reasons why not," at least for me. I won't argue that there are some gay jokes that seem to associate gayness with negative qualities or qualities that make you not a "real" man, but they seem almost out of place against all the jokes that celebrate queer life, make fun of homophobes and turn the notion of masculinity on its head.  Smith seems to really enjoy pointing out sexual double-entendres (my favorite thing ever) and finding a way to turn almost anything into a joke about men fellating one another. I think a lot of the jokes acknowledge that sexual desire is complex and that he is open about being fascinated about sexuality in all its forms. Many hetero guys have a hard time even acknowledging gay sex exists, but Smith asks questions about it and wants to know more. He loves, for instance, that bears find him sexy. Lesbian issues he's not so clear on. He's a man's man, and knows a lot about male culture across the straight/gay divide, but he's not as well versed in women's issues. His podcast is sponsored by Fleshlight, which makes a masturbatory device that proves objectification can be disturbing and weird. But that's another post.

At the same time, he is often one to point out the lack of great women's roles in film, especially in comic-related projects. He made God a woman in his Dogma movie, and she wasn't a bitch or a whore. The women in his films run the gamut from temptress to nerd to intellectual to confusing three-nippled fortune teller. Though he admits that as a straight guy he was perhaps not the best person to write a story with a lesbian central character, he also points out that the criticism he received in that regard was valid, and made him think twice about doing so again. He uses the word "mysogynist" and knows what it means. His young daughter put into perspective how difficult the world is for young girls. At a recent ComiCon he is quoted as saying:

“That’s what I love about a comic book convention. People will come to a convention, stand there in a Spock costume, look at someone in a Chewie costume, and say, ‘Look at that fuckin’ geek.' How dare you pass judgment on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires!”



The only thing that makes me sad/mad about listening to his podcasts is the real self-hatred he has, especially regarding his weight. He admits that he doesn't shower with the lights on because he doesn't want to see his naked body. He thinks of himself as undeserving of sexual attraction, and reveals that his eager-to-please attitude is all rooted in being overweight. He makes disparaging comments about his weight almost reflexively, as a way to say it first before someone else does. Knowing this from his podcasts, it was heartbreaking to learn he'd been kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being "too fat" even though he fit into his seat and was belted in with no problems.

Bringing fat issues to the forefront isn't something he had particularly championed, but after that incident, he brought to light the serious disadvantage that people of size deal with on a daily basis. Not only did Southwest seem to not see the problem with the incident, the joke that it became in the press made the situation worse. I loved him a little more after he talked about it in the podcast. He could have easily gone into hiding for a month, but he spoke bravely (and, admittedly at great length) about it.

His humor is not for everyone. But I have been reveling in it for the past 4 months. I've probably listened to every podcast,  even the tangential ones his friends do without him. Even as I'm explaining it here, I can't understand why I, a feminist pop culture professor with degrees in cultural studies, am so taken by this guy, but I am.  He seems like a loving, soft-hearted, loyal guy, who tries to understand the world around him. Sure, sometimes he does so using only information gleaned from movies and television, but his thirst for knowledge is real!

Who knows what my next obsession will be, right?

News

I knew this time of year would get hectic, but along with the bad there's been tons of good stuff!

Big thanks to the folks at Feminist Review for cross-posting my Kick-Ass movie review! Check them out if you get a chance.

I am working on bring Sweet Lady Shop to life, and it's really going to happen! I'm going to start selling my wares in July/August. The unveiling will be broadcast here, of course, so keep your eyes peeled. Those sites are works in progress. I'll let you know when they are complete.

M and I spent the weekend in San Francisco and it was totally rejuvenating. I love when vacations are everything you wanted them to be and more. Great weather, great times, and great friends came out to see us! For a visual history of our visit, check out my Flickr site! Tons of pics of Alcatraz for those that have never been.

Kick-Ass Review

Kick-Ass, the movie, ruled. And though I thought the central character's quest/journey was an interesting one, by far the movie appealed to me because of 11 year-old Hit Girl.

I had a big plan to dissect the movie here, but then this gal over at Jezebel totally stole my brain and wrote the most eloquent review ever. I'll get to that in a minute.

In a nutshell, this movie made me cringe, laugh, turn my head away from the screen in horror and many times I thought "I'm really uncomfortable with that," and then followed it with, "I think. Am I?" For an action movie that originated in comic form, that's saying something. I usually have clear and distinct opinions about things, and use my mental arsenal of academic blatherings to back it all up.

At the end of this film I knew two things for sure:

1)I liked it. It made me think. About violence, gender, and heroes.

2) I disliked intensely the parents who brought their kids (some of whom were as young as 6) to this film. They didn't even seem distressed walking out of the theater. It was like no big deal that their young kids had watched a man put into a giant microwave and exploded into bits. And now I had to feel shitty for vocalizing my love for gratuitous violence and vengeance fueled murder because I just endorsed that ideology in front of kindergarteners. So THANKS.

Anywayz.

I like super-violent films, I love comics, I love female characters, and so I tolerate a lot of crap movies and am willing to suspend a certain measure of disbelief and accept that some jerk-off was hired to "punch up" a script to sell the movie to a teen male demographic. And I know that if this movie got greenlit primarily because you managed to get Halle Barry to play the female lead, you probably aren't gonna try to butch her up and have her wear something that would be more realistic for running after bad guys. I get that it's a business run by dudes, for dudes, and that it primarily showcases the fantasies of dudes. But for a small shining moment, we got Hit-Girl. And I am all for a sequel based totally on her.


In Defense of Hit Girl over at Jezebel should be read even if you never plan on seeing the movie. It's a great defense of the action genre by a feminist and not the "it's just entertainment"/"it's not a movie you should spend time thinking too much about" defense.

And for the record, I'm a pacifist and a scaredy-cat. I've never been in a fight, nor do I plan to, but I heart violent cinema, especially warrior women characters. It's a thing.


I'm thinking this will make for an awesome Halloween costume, btw.

Greed

Thought I wasn't gonna make it today, didn't you? Well, cocktail in hand (because it's Friday) I am here to bring forth another deadly sin. P.S. I might get saucy on account of the vodka.

Greed - A desire for material wealth so strong that it gets in the way of spiritual growth; a desire for more than one needs or deserves.

Punishment in Hell: taking a swim in cauldrons of boiling oil, which is A-OK with me.


Greed is really one of the more horrible sins. I mean, not only is it about not sharing, which is totally uncool, but it's about hoarding stuff that you may never use. As previously mentioned, UNCOOL.

I encounter greed all the time, and greedy people are hard not to notice, but I try really hard not to be greedy myself. I actually have the opposite problem most of the time, I usually feel like I don't deserve stuff. M is trying to break me of that, because it really upsets your mojo at the roulette wheel or the slots. I mean, you have to believe! You can't put Debbie-Downer energy out there before you set your chips down or you're sunk. Am I right?

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." - Gordon Gekko, Wall Street, 1987

Capitalism depends on greedy fuckers like this, or at least unrestrained capitalism does. Today, we all benefit from these greedy fuckers. We get cheap clothes and shoes, affordable heirloom tomatoes, and clean hotel rooms. The kinds of labor involved in the service, farming, and outsourced factory work that fuels our economy is all about corporate greed. If corporations really believed in their Workers Rights documents (they've all got 'em), they would have the same ethical standard no matter who is working for them or where they work. We are the most "unequal nation in the developed world," according to Too Much Online, a web-zine that put out a top 10 list of America's Greediest a few months ago. They are as follows:

10. Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Airlines

Despite a loss of profits, Delta seems to continually reward Anderson with raises, shares, and a bunch of perks while they lower seating capacity on planes, raise prices for tickets, and charge up to $30 for you to check a bag! Meanwhile, it's not even Anderson's only gig. He's a director of a medical technology board that awards him $188k a year.

9. George David & Marie Douglas-David

George is CEO of a company involved in defense contracting, which has had just the peachiest time since 9/11, earning him the top perch on the list of best paid defense technology executives. He and his wife just went through a messy divorce, in which she asked for more than their pre-nup designated in alimony. She aruged that to cover her "basic expenses" she would need not the $20,000 a week agreed upon, but $53,000 a week. "Among those basics: “$4,500 a week for clothes, $8,000 for travel, and $1,500 for eating out.” A WEEK! And what does she even eat? She's approx. 98 lbs!

8. Steve Wynn

A Las Vegas pioneer, Steve Wynn has enough money that he can put an elbow right through a Picasso and be like all, "bummer," and go on with his day. True story. He's in the top 200 of Forbes top 500 richest people. He's ridiculously rich in a town full of excess. Despite his $900 million fortune, Wynn gave out the requisite demotions and job cuts in February of last year, saving his company $80 million. But "in November Wynn Resorts announced a special $4-per-share dividend. Total cost of the dividend payout to Wynn Resorts: $492 million. Total dividend check that will go to Steve Wynn: $88 million." Nice.

7. Robert Rubin, US Treasury-Secretary, Citigroup senior strategist

This guy had a big hand in the economic downturn during hist stint as Treasury Secretary by helping roll back New Deal reforms that prevented some of the greedy bullshit that went on during the Bush2 administration, and as Citigroup's senior strategist, he managed to be around for their disgraceful $65 billion loss. He managed to rake in $126 million plus perks from his tenure there.

6. Andrew Hall

I'm not even gonna shorten the Too Much review of Hall, you should know all of this:
"If you happen to be Andrew Hall, the world’s most celebrated commodity trader, you don’t care what other people think. Hall waged a four-year battle — against his neighbors in the posh Connecticut town of Southport — to keep a 80-foot-long concrete sculpture on his lawn.

The neighbors won, and Hall had to remove the concrete eyesore. He promptly replaced it with two garishly painted "cartoon-like” sculptures of cars.

Hall can afford plenty of sculptures. He took home $100 million betting on oil futures and other commodities in 2008 — after picking up a quarter-billion over the previous five years — and stood to receive another $100 million this year.

But his employer, Citigroup, balked. Citi, by that time, was sitting on $45 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, and handing $100 million to Hall, the honcho of Citi’s commodity-trading subsidiary, would have created a PR disaster for the bank — and the Obama administration as well.

Hall didn’t care. He demanded his trading fee. Citi ended up having to sell off Hall’s subsidiary, at a bargain basement price, to end the Hall headache.

Our story, to be sure, does have a happy ending — for Hall, Citi, and federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. Hall will get his $100 million, but not until next year. That deferral let Citi claim a zero pay expense for Hall in 2009, and Citi’s pay outlays for the year now show up about $100 million less than last year.

This accounting razzmatazz helped skew the 2009 executive pay totals for the seven biggest bailout basket cases and enabled pay czar Feinberg to claim that pressure from his office had, “on average” reduced executive cash comp at the seven by an impressive — and thoroughly misleading — 90 percent."

5. John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, the internet network company

Despite laying off workers, Chambers of course continues to rake in millions. His company invented a fake version of bonuses called "discretionary" so that the top execs could get their bonuses in a down economy. Apparently, they still wanted them despite not earning them. Over the past 5 years he's made $127 million.

4. Rupert Murdoch, media mogul, owner of Fox

Rupert isn't American, so I don't know why he's on this list, but he's for sure a greedy mofo. He's one of those people that makes so much money that they don't really exist in the real world. They exist in this fake ether-world of the super-rich, where shit just doesn't matter. Seriously, your tears? They mean nothing. I mean, if you can channel them into a box-office smash and promote the shit out of your tears to the extent you are contractually obligated to, well, cry away, but otherwise, WTF? We're trying to eat our $1000 chocolate mousse with real gold flakes. Stop with the noise.

Despite his gajillions of dollars, he wants to charge you, yes YOU for reading news on the internet. NEWS. On the Internet. Place of all things free. I'm telling you, he doesn't really live here with the rest of us.

3. Mark Herd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Ever wonder why printer ink costs so damn much money? I mean, the printer itself costs about the price of like 3 printer cartridges. How is that effing possible? Well, thank Mark Herd, who is milking cartridges that cost $3 to make. He cut 6,000 workers last year and gave people demotions (some up to 15%, which makes me, a lowly adjunct at a Cal State feel bad for them, because I'm only at 10% cut.), Raising his douche quotient even more? He took a pay cut of 20% in "solidarity" but made that tidy sum up in new stock awards.

2. Richard Scott, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. CEO


A quote from Scott,

“Do we have an obligation to provide health care for everybody? Where do we draw the line? Is any fast-food restaurant obligated to feed everyone who shows up?”

Just fuck this guy, is all I have to say.

But Too Much has more:

"The federal government went on to indict key Columbia/HCA personnel for “bilking Medicare while simultaneously handing over kickbacks and perks to physicians who steered patients to its hospitals.” The company ended up pleading guilty to 14 felonies and paying $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines.

The board of Columbia/HCA, then the nation’s biggest for-profit hospital chain, would go on to ease Scott out the door, but ever so gently. He left with a $10 million severance package and stock worth $300 million.

See, fuck this guy.

1. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle business software

He apparently buys up companies, fires everyone and then gobbles up their customers. After laying off tons of people, he buys yachts and sales them in rich guy yacht races. He also ranks as a total jerk because he pledged $115 million to Harvard but then didn't pay because it was all based on Harvard president Lawrence Summers. Not that Harvard needed the money, but still. It's shady.

Summers, as a side note, is famous for his feud with Cornell West, who totally rules, and for giving a rousing speech at a conference about how women don't make it in academia in the sciences not due to discrimination, but due to biology. He claims that socialization or cultural reasons are negligible. Dude! Really? Not surprisingly, 88% of tenured faculty during his presidency were men. This is the kind of loyalty Ellison has, to dudes who suck at an exponential level. Looks like my chances at Harvard have just been tossed out the window....

There's actually a joke about Ellison:

“What’s the difference between God and Larry Ellison? Answer: God doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison.”

He supports the push for mandatory national ID cards, has had his fair share of insider trading lawsuits that he's wiggled out of, and manages to donate only 1% of his staggering income each year to charity. A winner! #1


Vampires aren't particularly associated with greed, but as greed and vampires both become important cultural narrative themes, they are bound to intersect. The painting above that shows greed via George W. Bush and our Lady Liberty was painted by comic artist Alex Ross and rules!

I have yet to see Daybreakers, but I hear it has its share of corporate America greed symbolism. When I see it, I'll be sure to publish an in-depth review.

Sure, vampires are greedy for blood, and if I remember in Blade III/Blade Trinity, there was a plan by the baddie to use the homeless as blood farms, which is super greedy, but overwhelmingly, the other sins seem to come forward in vampire lore. The only time they overlap is when the vampire has an aristocratic legacy and feels he or she deserves more, or there is a clear element of hierarchy in vampire culture which is a result of old vampires hanging on to outdated traditons. The Sookie Stackhouse books and True Blood explore the vampire kings and queens, all of whom do the same stuff the super-rich and royal do, namely exploit, dabble in narcissism, and give less than two shits about anyone else.

Anyone want to add to my greedy jerks list? Do so in the comments!

Whip It & Spring Breakdown

I am a fan of movies. Obviously, as a professor who teaches courses on popular culture I’m expected to care about movies and to think about them, but I genuinely love them. I love a lot of different kinds of movies, from avant garde stuff to the basest of comedies. I have a previously mentioned soft spot for gangster films and the paranormal/action genres, both heavily laden with male protagonists. If you were to look at my film collection, you might think I’m a guy who has a few chick movies lying around just to impress the ladies. Two genres that have become incredibly huge both in popularity and in box-office returns are buddy comedies and underdog sports films.

Judd Apatow has been having his Hollywood moment for the past few years with films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express, and Funny People. All films that deal with male friendship. Now, I like most of those films and found them very funny, but most of them also feature shrew-like female characters who exist to either emasculate or comedically seduce these schlubby guys, who then grapple with the seemingly unknowable beast that is the female psyche. It kind of freaks me out that he likes to cast his wife, actress Leslie Mann as an incredibly mean and selfish woman, who by virtue of being “hot” is allowed to act as if not being obeyed is a cardinal sin.

That her characters tame or dismiss her partners in these films is not really a bravo moment for me as a feminist viewer. I think the scene in Knocked Up when her character breaks down after finding out her husband has been sneaking out to play fantasy baseball (and sometimes see a movie by himself) is the most telling. She gets mad at him because he has his own hobby that has nothing to do with her. It doesn’t turn into an argument about how she doesn’t really get to have any solo personal time (which would make her seem less like a shrew and more like a real woman and mother), it becomes about how his personal time should be hers. You know, because they are married. Which is how I would I would probably portray that argument if I was a man who was more interested in writing relatable, real, male characters than real female characters. I would love to see what Amy Poehler would have done to punch up that script.

This is the thing about the male gaze. Male gaze is the term feminist filmmakers and theorists have used to describe the assumed perspective of the movie audience. The default perspective, the ideal/assumed viewer is supposed to be a heterosexual man. And if you aren’t a heterosexual man, you have two choices: feel really left out and very confused during the movie watching experience, or learn how men think so you can go to the movies, like ever. It basically assumes the hetero (and,I forgot to mention, white) male perspective is the “normal” perspective, and everything else is not just different, but secondary. Thus women begin to train themselves to see things as men see them, and eventually look at themselves and criticize themselves based on the desires and needs of men. It reduces women to objects, people to be looked at, not people doing the looking.

These films about guy friendships are also about men transforming themselves into people who can be loving partners, good dads, better people, but they are never about how they need makeovers to feel sexy or attractive. And yet, there aren’t a lot of films about female transformation that don’t include physical transformation as a key element in the success of the central character. There are also not a lot of female buddy films based in crude, relentless, feminist-tinged comedy in the vein of films like Grandma's Boy or Superbad. I think there may be only one. It’s called Spring Breakdown, ladies, and not surprisingly, it went straight to video. Once the stars realized that the film would not get a wide release, it did get shown at Sundance, so if you are trying to sell the idea of renting this one, you might want to use that as your validation.


Spring Breakdown

First of all, the lead actresses are Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and Parker Posey. Enough said, right?

They play ladies who have been friends since college. Their college flashbacks indicate they were big ol’ geeks who got laughed out of the talent competition (what college is this?) because they chose to perform a silly version of Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On” (which I could sing by heart, btw). The winners? A scantily clad dance troupe gyrating to Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations.” Cut to the present day and these three ladies are now...well, still geeks! Like, severe geeks. They are introduced as having kind of tragic lives. One’s primary relationship is with her cat, another is oblivious to the fact that she’s engaged to a gay man, and the third is a seeing-eye dog instructor who can’t even get a date with a blind guy. They go on a yearly vacation in the spring, and hope this year’s will get them out of their respective ruts, but their plans get hijacked.


Parker Posey’s character works for a powerful Republican Senator, played by Jane Lynch, who makes her go to South Padre Island to keep her college-aged daughter in line during spring break. She hopes to avoid a PR scandal that might result from the shenanigans a college gal might get into because she remembers her own crazy spring break days. However, her daughter, unbeknownst to her, is not a popular girl. She’s more “renaissance faire” than “party girl.” Her boyfriend has just left her for the campus hottie, and she’s only going to South Padre (with her friends in tow) to try to win him back. Meanwhile, the older ladies have a chance to revisit college and do what they never did, get wild on spring break.


These, you may have guessed, are stock teen comedy characters. But the movie goes to interesting places and follows these ladies as they learn about themselves. They don’t go through a makeover process, they don’t win back any hearts, they ultimately have just as many cool points as they had before, which is to say none. The film is ultimately about not fitting in being just another way to be, rather than bad or good. And not in a “fuck you I don’t want to fit in” kind of way. It’s not snotty or full of vengeance. It’s mostly about figuring out how to not let people make you feel small. It’s a little fluffy comedy written by women for women. And it stars women over 30 who are playing women over 30. And it doesn’t apologize for their love of pizza parties and womens music festivals. Say what you will, I heart this movie. Thanks to Rachel Dratch for writing it.

Fun bits?
-Amy Poehler’s adoption by the popular girls takes her and her wardrobe to amazing places.
-The things that would normally objectify women in a spring break comedy, like lady wrestling on the beach, looked really really gross.
-The extras at the hotel and beach scenes were a variety of sizes and shapes.
-Plenty of gross out gags and dirty one liners from a female perspective. My favorite (and one that gets repeated a bunch around my house by both of us: “I wanna see some BALLS!”)
-Rachel Dratch’s “affair” on South Padre Island.
-The fact that Poehler related to Bust magazine that she threw in a line about the male gaze but it was rejected because people though she was saying "male gays."

Not so fun bits?
-The gay fiance.
-The fact that almost every review of this movie written by men is negative.
-Also the fact that said reviewers mention the best thing about this “horrible” “unfunny” movie is the gay fiance character and the sexy foam party where Australian pop star Sophie Monk tries to use a southern accent.

If you love those shitty teen movies about guys trying to get laid/see the rock band/get alcohol/be accepted by cool people, and you are an adult woman (and I know, this is a very select group here), this movie will be fun to watch.

TomatoMeter Rating at Rotten Tomatoes?
56%

Whip It

For those of you who are just not into crude humor or sillyness, Whip It , based on the novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross and directed by Drew Barrymore of all people, is a great film about female friendship. It’s a great film about underdog sports as well, and about how athleticism and the friendships that team sports engender are life-changing. It’s a film that cares about its characters. What I mean by that is, each character plays an important role in moving the story forward, but all of them are complex enough to be portrayed as more than obstacles or allies of the protagonist. It goes against the idea that peripheral characters need to be simple so that the story can progress. It’s about roller derby, and yet it never goes into the “male gaze” territory of ogling the participants.

Seventeen year-old Bliss Cavendar (played by Ellen Paige, of Juno fame) is a gal living in a small town in Texas who is struggling with the fact that her mother likes beauty pageants and she, well, seems to have grown out of them. She sneaks out to Austin to join a roller derby team, and though she’s a tiny slip of a girl, she’s super fast and feisty when tested. Her goal to become less timid and more ruthless in the rink is the impetus for her nickname, Babe Ruthless.

Surrounding her are her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat), who wants to get the hell out of their small town as soon as possible, the roller derby teammates, played by Drew Barrymore “Smashley Simpson”, Eve “Rosa Sparks”, and Kristin Wigg “Maggy Mayhem.” And then there is Juliette Lewis, who plays a pretty damn badass opposing derby girl, Iron Maven. 


It isn’t a teen movie about having to blow off your parents and do your own thing. It’s respectful of representing a real, and quite tough mother-daughter relationship. One that isn’t easily returned to equilibrium by the end of the movie, but nonetheless allows us to see the good and bad aspects of both characters. There is a boy love interest for Bliss, which goes in an unexpected direction as well. And the friendship between Bliss and Pash is really just beautiful. I’m glad to know the actresses are friends in real life.

A cursory glance at the reviews of this movie are cringeworthy:


“Takes girl power to the extreme”
“Kansas City Bomber crossed with Gidget”
“They own their own odd sexiness” (wtf? In what universe is Eve in short shorts an odd sexiness?)

Most dudes weren’t really into it, I guess. They gave it more favorable reviews than Spring Breakdown, don’t get me wrong, but I think they were put off by a young female character whose primary goal was to be “most awesome roller derby player” and not “get a boyfriend.” One reviewer called Page’s character “not believable.” The only scene where she makes a declaration of love is during a fight with her parents about roller derby. She says “I’m in love with this thing.” And that felt totally believable to me. It was a rare moment in movie watching for me, the ever vigilant analyst, where I was watching what I thought was a person, not a character. It explained the love of sports for me too, which I didn't really get before.

Reviewers seemed to dig the “sports scenes” or derby bouts. Those got rave reviews across the board. Even Peter effing Travers, who I usually find insightful, gave a rather short, negative review in which he used the word “cuteness” and reduced the film to the equivalent of a chick flick about roller skates.

Interestingly, Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer called it “heaven on wheels.”

TomatoMeter Rating at Rotten Tomatoes?
83%!

You should just see it, OK?

Dracula's Lament - Live

I kind of love Jason Segel and his interpretation of Dracula's sadness/committment to puppetry. This is from the Craig Ferguson show, and I'm not sure what the context is for the alligator. I find that part rather off-putting actually. But get past it because what comes next is fun.

Vampax!

Twilight Cycles from Brandon Routh

New Moon Review

This Twilight thing keeps on keepin' on. I have to say, as unhappy as I was with the books, I'm still a vampire geek, and must see the films. I'm invested. And I don't go into them thinking, "oh god, this crap is going to be torture." I don't even go into them too snarkily. But it was an interesting movie, for a number of reasons. For one thing, the special effects were better, and Bella's character got to experience a wider range of emotions.

This is the film where we figure out that Jacob is a werewolf, and that his werewolf pack hunts vampires. They are pretty bad at it, so far, but they are new. I thought it was bad form to show them in the trailer, because in the book, Jake's behavior and that of his friends was such a mystery, and when you found out (even though you totally knew because, hello, vampires always have werewolves hanging about), it was an emotional and exciting moment. Way to spoil it, movie.

Now, say you're a gal who just realized vampires exist, and that you're dating one. After he broke up with you, you were bummed, but you started to hang out with this other guy. And all of the sudden, this new guy tries to break it off with you. So you confront him and he turns into a werewolf. My first reaction would be something like, "Are you freaking serious??! You've got to be kidding me!" But nothing like that happens here. No snarky Buffy moments, even when they are sooo ripe for the picking. It was a bit sad. Some humor here and there would have been nice. Bella does have one joke, wherein she tells Edward that he's too old for her and it's "gross." Only one chuckle the whole movie!

I did love Dakota Fanning in this movie. She's in it for maybe 5 minutes, as one of the Volturi, and I absolutely loved her take on it. She has grown some since I last saw in her in anything, which works great for the role, since she's supposed to be an old vampire in a child's body. She's got kid face still, but with the makeup, she's freaky mature. Child vampires are always creepy, and are pretty much used in every epic vampire tale. Anne Rice of course created Claudia, and the Anita Blake books had a freaky girl-vamp named Nikolaos. I hope the next movie goes into the Dakota Fanning character more. Her ability to inflict pain with her thoughts is scary.

The other Volturi were....how can I put this. LAME. What is it about vampire movies that make vampire councils so out of time/place. I get that old vampires would have trouble adjusting to modern times, but I just can't imagine someone surviving very long if they look like these dudes. Someone's gonna figure it out, fools. Get a spray tan and watch some TV. Get yourself acclimated. Damn.


Vampire Mythology:
In this film we learn some things about Twilight vampire myth. We already know these vampires aren't sun-phobic, and they don't have fangs (which is such a huge thumbs down for me, btw). They don't need to be invited into your house. Garlic is a non-issue. Stephanie Meyer claims she never read any vampire books. It shows. Apparently, these vamps are very hard to kill. No stake through the heart. Edward complains that he couldn't kill himself if he wanted to. I think you can decapitate them, but it's tough to actually do it. Most things don't survive decapitation, so that makes sense.

The younger vamps have the hardest time being around blood. Jasper sees Bella's paper cut and goes apeshit, leading Edward to dramatically make everyone leave town and abandon Bella, which makes little sense, given that Jasper goes to high school, where presumably all kinds of scrapes, cuts, and menstruation are happening around him all the time. WTF movie?

They aren't very vampirey, other than that they are super fast and pale. Could we at least see how they eat? What they do for food? If they have such beautiful outfits on all the time, and they don't have fangs, and they need blood---what do they do? Drain animals/humans and store the blood in something sanitary? Sip from glasses?

Bella is, well, just like the books in that she has no personality. Her only concern is her boyfriend. And when she talks to him, we don't get the sense that she asks much of him. I'd be doing a big giant interview about what it's like to be a vampire, you know? And I'd sure as hell ask some more questions before deciding to become one. When he leaves her, she stops existing. She sits in her room, becomes deeply depressed, has hallucinations about Edward that only appear when she's doing something dangerous. She of course, tries to encounter danger so that these apparitions return. She is an incredibly weak female character, and in a movie that is mostly talk, she asks few questions and makes almost no demands. She gets sad, not angry. Does she have likes? Dislikes? Opinions on stuff? I read four huge giant books and I don't think I retained any of those things about her. This is sad, but it also makes a great deal of sense, if you think about it.

I get why teenage girls love this story, even though it makes me sad that they do. Most stories provide a function beyond entertainment. This one is no different. It says a lot about teen girls and the intensity of romance during adolescence.

Bella's absence of a personality, of things that make her an individual, make it very easy to identify with the character and think of yourself as her. There's no there there, so you can easily fill it with you. Bella is a girl who seems to think she's boring, not special, not important. Every teenager feels that way. Hell, I'm 32 and I feel that way most days! And lo and behold, this very boring, non-special girl is the object of a very special guy's attention. A guy who is very beautiful and has seen a lot of pretty ladies in his day. This guy is fascinated with her like she's the most unique thing in the universe. That's a fantasy we all have, to be thought of as irreplaceable, unbelievably precious and admired. Especially during the teen years, when you really don't know who you are yet. And this guy's attraction is not about sexual conquest.

Edward never makes sexual demands of her, and in fact, refuses her often. Imagine having a super chivalrous, protective, strong, gorgeous guy who likes you for-get this-you. Girls are so often expected to be enforcers of purity in this culture. If you "let" intimacy occur, you are the slut, he's the stud. It's something we learn very early. So even though girls have real sexual desire, it's all too often complicated by expectation (on the one hand) to be sexually available enough to be considered attractive to guys, and (on the other) not to be too sexually available so as to be respectable to everyone else. That's totally hellish for most girls. Here we have a guy who doesn't put her in the position of being the enforcer, of drawing that line. As an adult (and a feminist) it bothers me that he takes that choice away from her, but I can see how liberating it might feel for a girl to have a guy who voices her fears back to her of the dangers sex might bring to a young relationship. This is also why the film stays so dramatic and intense, and never goes into the sarcastic place that most teen films go. It's on the same emotional level as many teens, and to snark it up would be to undercut the sincerity of those feelings.

What its popularity says to me is that young girls need feminism, because this guy Edward is so popular because he doesn't exist. He can't exist in this world. He wouldn't be rewarded for existing, anyway. You'd pretty much have to go to high school a few times to do it with Edward's attitude (which, given that he's 109, is probably the case). And I don't even want him to exist. He makes choices for Bella because he feels he knows what's best, and she's too afraid of him leaving to make a peep about them.

Are these the choices young women have? Behind door number one, the guy who wants you for your body, fears perceptions of weakness by other men and thus shuns any kind of emotional intimacy. This is the guy who is most often presented as being "normal" in popular culture. A very rigid and unsatisfying definition of manhood, if you ask me. Behind door number two, the sensitive guy with feelings who loves you so much he's afraid to ruin you (in Edward's case, kill you) by sleeping with you. There is a place between overbearing chivalry and objectifying misogyny, you know. It would be cool if real people went to that place. I'd at least like my vampire romances to go there.

Next Year

Next year I'm going to SD Comic Con. It's a reality. I'm saving right now. Ok, I have nothing to save right now, but I will! I didn't have the cash or the info that you have to buy tickets months in advance. Whatevs. I'm missing awesome things this year. Johnny Depp at the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland panel, the True Blood panel (ps, they are selling a real blood orange soda drink in True Blood bottles, for real at HBO), a panel with Eliza Dushku and other ladies about women superheroes. Sigh. Anyway, I thought this picture from yesterday was funny:


Why does she always pose like that? It's like she constantly needs to pee. I feel for her and her obvious discomfort at all things publicity related. Kristen Stewart is currently filming the Runaways movie and she plays Joan Jett, so her hair is what it is for a reason. But why the matching outfits on the guys? And have you ever tied your medium t-shirt like that? By the way, the guy who plays Jacob really bulked up. Mad props to him for begging to keep the role.

photoshop is fun

Found it online.

Half Breed

"Both sides were against me since the day I was born."
- Cher, "Half Breed," 1973

It's all about half-breeds when it comes to vampire movies. Other action adventure movies have halfies, too. People who live in two worlds (half-human half-whatever else). Harry Potter's world (the Potterverse) had half-bloods. But when it comes to vamps, the heroes are often not completely human and not completely vampire. Blade, the Underworld series, Even Buffy was magically different, if not half-vampire. It stems in part from the ancient folk tales of vampires in eastern Europe.

Vampires were often scapegoats for small pre-Christian communities. If someone committed suicide, (which could be interpreted as a mark upon the community in some way) they would often be dug up and decapitated days after the burial. Sometimes the build up to the decapitation would include tales of sounds and whispers at night, walking on the roof, and other ghostly stuff. Very reminiscent of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. It was a way to put to rest personal guilt with an albeit grisly communal ritual. Similarly, there were tales of women who managed to get pregnant immediately after a husband's death. The curious situation of a child born 10 or 11 months after the husband's death was deemed a result of the husband, who had now become a vampire. So he was dug up and staked or decapitated and the community could put this little incident to rest. The child would be considered "different" and possibly magically able to spot vampires due to his or her lineage. Doesn't it make youthink of how differently the Virgin Mary's life would have been had she been living in Romania instead of Israel? Sometimes half-vampires are called "dhampirs."

It's also a useful narrative device, as storytellers want to revel in the brutal and violent aspect of vampires, but find it difficult to get viewers to identify with someone too bloodthirsty. Well, some viewers anyway. With a half-blood, you have a vampire that probably doesn't mind killing other vampires and who wishes for full humanity. Being torn between two aspects of your identity is something many people can identify with as well, so it makes sense for lots of different reasons. In my Axis of Ava comic, my central character is a half-breed, but not by birth. She's the result of a scientific experiment that didn't work out too well. Mostly because I wanted to address the idea that the government has known about vampires for a long time, but it does allow for a more complicated and more interesting character. For the record, Ava probably wishes she was more vampire than human, but she's a contrary Mary.


So not surprisingly, this movie, Blood the Last Vampire features a gal who is a half-breed vampire hunter (huntress?). She exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill bloodsuckers. It's based on an anime film from 2000 of the same name. It looks pretty damn cool! Check out the trailer.

Blood The Last Vampire

New Moon Trailer

For those Twilighters out there, here's a preview of New Moon. Watch it for the cheeseball shifting effect!! Way to totally spoil the werewolf thing in the trailer. I thought it took most of the book for that to be revealed? Am I misremembering?

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer

Twilight - New Moon

Promotional material for the new Twilight movie, New Moon has been released.

The wolf pack looks cool, in a Thunder from Down Under kind of way. But maybe I spent too much time at Pride this weekend.


This one is my favorite one

Edward, sulky and shirtless in Italy

Bella on the brink


I didn't like the first movie, but I'm probably still going to see the second one. Nonetheless, a vampire without fangs is no vampire at all.