My fandom of HP Lovecraft is a strange thing. I've read three collections of short works and enjoyed them all to varying degrees while recognizing several flaws in his writing. The most obvious one, to me, is the blatant repetition. There is a definite similarity to most of his stories and a clear formulaic arc. Almost all of the stories are first person accounts of someone, frequently psychologically disturbed, who has survived a brush with some indescribable horror. The character usually has gone at least partially insane from what he has seen or has found that his lineage has been tainted by some kind of outside monstrous influence. Some have seen this as a clear parable for miscegenation and I can't really argue with that. The writing is also very much of its time, light on dialogue and slowly paced. This isn't something specific to Lovecraft but is a feature of turn of the century writing and I find it contrary to my tastes most times.
So why do I love this racist, repetitive, poorly paced writing? There are a couple of reasons, the first owing to the actual writing and the second being more of my own creation. HP Lovecraft, much like I see myself, is an idea man. The writing is not so much about character or plot or insight on the human condition (though it frequently does these things well enough) but is about ideas. Big ideas and big themes. Space gods, mutation, body horror and the unknowable unknown are his stock in trade. With him we are firmly out of the realm of the plausible (no serial killers here) and all the better for it. Lovecraft is a horror writer but his brand of horror is quite different than other writers such as Stephen King. One difference is that often the antagonists are not malevolent per se. The elder gods that are featured in his stories are often dismissive of humanity rather than actively trying to harm it and, to me, that is scarier. The creatures are more force of nature than villain and are totally alien in thinking. They can not be reasoned with or even understood or sometimes even viewed safely as the non Euclidian geometry of their forms tends to break the minds of their viewers.
It's this last aspect that I want to talk about. For years I have been fascinated by the idea of something being so big that it drives one insane. In the works of HP Lovecraft this is represented by gigantic tenticled beings or the realization that your ancestors had sex with fish men. In these stories this knowledge frequently breaks ones mind. It seems farfetched but in reality it is not. We regularly cope with realities equally horrible. The human mind possesses a quality where it frequently simultaneously knows something and is practically ignorant of it. Take the old rhetoric standby, the holocaust. This event, much like an elder space god, is simply too big to practically understand. Most people know about the holocaust, know the numbers involved, and the means, but those things lack an emotional impact in all but those directly or indirectly involved or those exceptionally empathetic few. In my day to day life I never think about the holocaust. How could I, really? Evil on that scale is unknowable.
One could argue that it's the literal size, ie the numbers, involved in this that make it so abstract. This is reasonable. No one knows as many people as have died in the holocaust. It becomes a statistic. However, even when you look at events on a smaller scale you can frequently find things that match the level of horror. I have been told, and I don't have the source for this, that there have been rumors in some parts of Africa that the only way to cure AIDS is to have sex with a virgin. Some men have ascribed to these rumors and have taken to rape in an attempt to cure themselves. Other things are better documented. Genital mutilation is a well known practice in the middle east. After the Chernobyl meltdown, the government sent in clean up workers wearing faulty and inadequate protective gear. I feel it is safe to say that at any given moment, someone, somewhere, is being skinned alive or set on fire. One can know all of these things and simultaneously have a bad day at work because a Mounds bar did not deploy from a vending machine.
Humanity's capacity for evil is not news. What I'm saying is interesting is our ability to ignore that capacity. And presumably, some people lack that ability. I remember reading about the beltway snipers a few back and in an interview with the principle shooter, he cited the overwhelming horribleness of the world as a contributing factor in what made it seem ok for him to go out and randomly start shooting people. I do not sympathize with the snipers or condone their actions but this logic, or lack thereof, makes a kind of sense to me. The idea echoes Lovecraft and there is an interesting parallel to me in seeing Chthulhu and spending the rest of your days in a New England asylum and in fully realizing the dire state of the world and going on a shooting spree. Luckily most peoples minds contain this quality (for lack of a better word, let's call it The Gary Factor) and few people go crazy and start a war on human decency.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
I SHALL RECOMMEND READING!
A recommendation.
I have recently purchased the second collection of comics by Fletcher Hanks entitled "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!" The first volume was called "I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!" just to give you an idea of what we're working with here. I heartily recommend either of these books to anyone who is interested in comics, especially if they are at all interested in the psychology behind the creations.
Fletcher Hanks is an undeniably a fascinating character. Born in 1887 he grew up interested in art and in being a drunken bastard, in seemingly equal parts. In the introduction for You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! Paul Karasik (the editor of both books) relays a story of a weeklong bender gone awry. It seems that Hanks and his friends bought a barrel of whiskey to take to the woods for a bachanalean nightmare. While drunkenly refereeing a wrestling match between two friends, Hanks stood by while one fellow broke the others neck. Whoops! And things got worse from there as Hanks grew older, took a wife, and had children. At the end of the introduction of this volume, Karasik writes that the reader should keep in mind, while reading the technicolor dreamscapes Hanks has created, that this is a man who has kicked his four year old son down the stairs.
Taking this advice and keeping that fact in mind while reading reveals a pretty fascinating mind behind these seemingly disposable pop artifacts. Hanks stories, like many of the time, feature men doing evil for the sake of doing evil and authorities powerless to stop it. The difference being that Hanks protagonists are often unreasonably ruthless in meting out punishments. Stardust the Super Wizard, the primary super hero in these stories, is practically an omnipotent being and has a "ray" for ever purpose. Rather that taking gangsters to the police or leaving them webbed up like Spider Man, Stardust will deposit a criminal on an uninhabited planet and super charge the environment with a "vitamin ray" so that the criminal will never die. These villains are often literally punished for eternity, making Stardust much more like a vengeful god sentencing a sinner to hell than a standard super hero.
There's a pretty interesting psychology somewhere in there. A man who, by all accounts, was a total bastard creating worlds where human authority figures are totally impotent and violent men are severely and creatively punished. Is it too much to think that maybe Hanks thinks he should be punished in such a way, at least on some level? (He froze to death on a parkbench, drunk, old and unloved, by the way). There is a dark misanthropy prevalent in these comics that is impossible to miss and is hard to think of as a coincidence. The villains here are often grotesquely exaggerated figures with prominent underbites and simian brows. Another signature character, Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle transforms into an invincible avatar to fight poachers and such. This is visually represented by her face changing to a skull with a hideous rictus grin but she retains her long blond hair and shapely figure. The effect is off putting.
And yet, I find it hard to be entirely unsympathetic to the man, not as a person, but as a creator. These stories burst with batshit crazy ideas and I love that about it. In the first story of the second volume, some criminals, attempting to start a world war for no stated reason, attempt to trap Stardust in a whirlwind that will send him into a giant glue pit. In a story in the first volume, a criminal who kidnaps heads of state gets his torso and legs removed and is reduced to being a head that walks around on two feet. There is something irresistible to me about this kind of ideacraft. Karasik mentions that Fletcher Hanks was one of the few comic creators at the time who did everything start to finish, the story, script, penciling, inking, colors, lettering and layout. I have always been interested in the creative possibilities of working within boundaries and that certainly applies here. Unable to over think or over render anything, Hanks work is almost stream of conscious and that conscious seems haunted and complex.
I guess the point here, other than just to recommend the books, is that this is a very clear case of art reflecting the artist in interesting ways. Karasik draws the parallels better than I do but it's something I wanted to pass along. Buy these books!
I have recently purchased the second collection of comics by Fletcher Hanks entitled "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!" The first volume was called "I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!" just to give you an idea of what we're working with here. I heartily recommend either of these books to anyone who is interested in comics, especially if they are at all interested in the psychology behind the creations.
Fletcher Hanks is an undeniably a fascinating character. Born in 1887 he grew up interested in art and in being a drunken bastard, in seemingly equal parts. In the introduction for You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! Paul Karasik (the editor of both books) relays a story of a weeklong bender gone awry. It seems that Hanks and his friends bought a barrel of whiskey to take to the woods for a bachanalean nightmare. While drunkenly refereeing a wrestling match between two friends, Hanks stood by while one fellow broke the others neck. Whoops! And things got worse from there as Hanks grew older, took a wife, and had children. At the end of the introduction of this volume, Karasik writes that the reader should keep in mind, while reading the technicolor dreamscapes Hanks has created, that this is a man who has kicked his four year old son down the stairs.
Taking this advice and keeping that fact in mind while reading reveals a pretty fascinating mind behind these seemingly disposable pop artifacts. Hanks stories, like many of the time, feature men doing evil for the sake of doing evil and authorities powerless to stop it. The difference being that Hanks protagonists are often unreasonably ruthless in meting out punishments. Stardust the Super Wizard, the primary super hero in these stories, is practically an omnipotent being and has a "ray" for ever purpose. Rather that taking gangsters to the police or leaving them webbed up like Spider Man, Stardust will deposit a criminal on an uninhabited planet and super charge the environment with a "vitamin ray" so that the criminal will never die. These villains are often literally punished for eternity, making Stardust much more like a vengeful god sentencing a sinner to hell than a standard super hero.
There's a pretty interesting psychology somewhere in there. A man who, by all accounts, was a total bastard creating worlds where human authority figures are totally impotent and violent men are severely and creatively punished. Is it too much to think that maybe Hanks thinks he should be punished in such a way, at least on some level? (He froze to death on a parkbench, drunk, old and unloved, by the way). There is a dark misanthropy prevalent in these comics that is impossible to miss and is hard to think of as a coincidence. The villains here are often grotesquely exaggerated figures with prominent underbites and simian brows. Another signature character, Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle transforms into an invincible avatar to fight poachers and such. This is visually represented by her face changing to a skull with a hideous rictus grin but she retains her long blond hair and shapely figure. The effect is off putting.
And yet, I find it hard to be entirely unsympathetic to the man, not as a person, but as a creator. These stories burst with batshit crazy ideas and I love that about it. In the first story of the second volume, some criminals, attempting to start a world war for no stated reason, attempt to trap Stardust in a whirlwind that will send him into a giant glue pit. In a story in the first volume, a criminal who kidnaps heads of state gets his torso and legs removed and is reduced to being a head that walks around on two feet. There is something irresistible to me about this kind of ideacraft. Karasik mentions that Fletcher Hanks was one of the few comic creators at the time who did everything start to finish, the story, script, penciling, inking, colors, lettering and layout. I have always been interested in the creative possibilities of working within boundaries and that certainly applies here. Unable to over think or over render anything, Hanks work is almost stream of conscious and that conscious seems haunted and complex.
I guess the point here, other than just to recommend the books, is that this is a very clear case of art reflecting the artist in interesting ways. Karasik draws the parallels better than I do but it's something I wanted to pass along. Buy these books!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Magic Slippery Umbrella of Dorkom
Is there even such a thing as a nerd any longer? What is a nerd?
In my previous post I wrote about defining ones self by ones interests. That post was mostly about how this can cut you off from potentially enriching works of art. Defining our selves by our interests accomplishes a few things. One, so many things about ourselves are vague and subjective and indefinable. I can think that I'm compassionate but what does that really mean? Am I really? How compassionate am I? Seven? A grade B-? I walk by homeless people every day on my way to work and wear headphones so I don't have to be panhandled to. Does that dock me 15%? It's almost impossible to nail down these things in terms we can actually understand and parse out. What we can do is measure them by the thoughts of others. I can't for sure say that I am any nebulous quality. I can't say I'm nice or funny or smart. If enough other people tell me I am, I can start to build that identity out of the opinions of others.
Some identifying building blocks I can put in place myself are those that come from interest and preference. Though I can't say for sure that I'm creative, I can say for sure that I like old video game music or that I enjoy Wes Anderson movies. This is comforting to me, as well as to people in general, I think. In the last few years, social networking sites like friendster and myspace and facebook have become ubiquitous. One of the defining characteristics of these sites is the ability to create a profile, which often is just a list of demographic information as well as media preferences. People will put a lot of effort and care into these exhaustive lists of what's little more than "I like this" statements.
This serves two purposes, the first being that they want other people to know they like these things in order to seek out common interests. If I like the music of The Magnetic Fields and you like the music of The Magnetic Fields and we're in an elevator, we will have something to talk about. The second thing, however, is the idea that what we like says something about ourselves. I used to be a firm believer in this but now I'm not so sure. Though most people I am compatible with are also people I have common interests, it doesn't account for the contradictions in this. I have several friends who I have very little in common with and there are people out there who like the things I like that send shivers down my spine. I wouldn't say that our interests say nothing about us but perhaps they say less than we think.
When someone defines someone else as a nerd or a dork, it generally comes down to what they're interested in. Videogames, Dungeons and Dragons, Comics, Pokemon, the Cthulhu Mythos, all of these things are considered nerdy interests. However, some of these things, or at least aspects of them, are becoming more mainstream all the time, to varying degrees, specifically the nerdy interests that are mediums in and of themselves. I would argue that video games have almost entirely made their way into the mainstream. With the success of the wii, the rise of casual computer games such as Peggle and party games like Rock Band, a large number of people play video games in some way or another. Comics are also becoming more mainstream. The summer blockbuster has almost become synonymous with the comic book movie. And indirectly, comic book style story telling elements have crept into other mediums in the case of television shows like Lost.
Right now, it's silly to ask if someone likes music or likes movies as it's assumed everyone does. I believe that some day the same will be said of comics and videogames. Stodgy defenders of the idea of old media or standard media may rankle at this idea but I think that's a little foolish. Think of those who argued that movies would never rise to the same level as books or stage plays. In the seventies, owning a computer was nerdy and involved spending time at college mainframes and organizing punch cards. Now, not having a computer is almost like not having a refrigerator.
If previously subjugated interests are moving into the mainstream, can they still be considered nerdy? Can you even define a nerd by their interests? Part of what defines a nerd is the depth of their interest. Having a passing interest in video games is considered more acceptable than having it be your principle hobby. Could you apply that standard to interests that are not traditionally considered under the umbrella of dorkdom? What of sports? Consider the casual video game fan who enjoys playing first person shooters on his computer. He maybe plays for an average of 2 hours a day. Is this person more nerdy than the guy who shows up at a football game shirtless and painted in the team colors? Is he nerdier than the fantasy baseball fanatic who spends hours agonizing over stats? Of course not. What of the military history enthusiast who spends weekends dressing up as a long dead soldier only to pretend to die over and over again? I don't think so. I read somewhere that you should never judge something by the worst of it’s fans.
And if the litmus for deciding what is considered dorkery is the level of interest, rather than the interest, I contend that dorkery is not a bad thing. That kind of fanatical interest in something that is ultimately inconsequential is a unique and pleasant feeling. When there is a dvd or comic coming out that I'm interested in and I can feel genuinely excited about it, it reminds me of the feeling of being a kid on christmas eve. Pure dumb excitement. There is an attitude that one must distance themselves from unimportant things, that it is more mature or cool to express only a vague interest in things for fear of...what? Appearing to be interested? I would say that dorkery is to be embraced as hard as you can, especially as the definition widens. It would be a better world if self described architecture geeks or sports nuts would see the similarity between themselves and LARPers or X-men fans. It's all ultimately inconsequential but none of these things are inherently low quality, none of the people who are interested in them are inherently low quality and there is plenty of room in life for inconsequential things. In fact, they're often my favorite things. I like pizza but I don't get excited about pizza the way I did about Fallout 3.
If this seems like a lot of words to just simply say people shouldn't judge based on interest, it pretty much is. That's not to say I don't believe in good or bad taste, because I do. It's just to say that the medium is not an indicator of this and we should be allowed our bad tastes.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Random thoughts about art and genre and Snow Dogs and Sandra Bullock
I've had this thing on my mind lately and I'm sure how exactly to parse it out or organize it, so I apologize if this comes off as rambling or disjointed. I'll be surprised if it doesn't.
Something I've been thinking of lately is the way we define our tastes in media and therefore define ourselves. As modern people, we're exposed to a colossally overwhelming number of works of art in our lives. These can, in most cases, be broken down in different categorizations or genres. Though many, if not most, works defy simple sorting, it's a method by which we can save time and organize things. We're all familiar with different genres as they apply to things like books and movies (Romance, Sci Fi, Drama, comedy, fantasy, etc) and as they apply to music (rap, rock and roll, techno, country, etc) and most of us have preferences that mostly occlude one of these categories en masse. For example, I'm generally not one for romance and there is very little in the way of rap or country music that I enjoy. Forming these opinions helps us to solidify our personalities and serve as a useful method of triage when we're exposed to art.
However, lately I have been thinking that these kinds of definitions are, though necessary, perhaps harmful. The reason being that none of these distinctions can be a surefire indicator of quality and in a perfect world, quality would be the only litmus we would judge works by. By giving yourself rigid definition in this regard, you are shutting yourself off to countless works of enriching art. A good example, and one that I think would broadly apply would be the movie Annie Hall. Annie Hall is undeniably a romantic comedy and contains several of the common tropes of the genre. The quality of this movie is high enough that it easily surpasses movies like Four Thousand Jealous Bridesmaids, Sandra Bullock Fall Down and A Family Engagement (I made those up.) Though I don't care for romantic comedies, I wouldn't usually go see something like Annie Hall. However, due to good word of mouth I did and am glad I did so because it's a great movie. One could say I could be forgiven for thinking it would be terrible based on the track record of romantic comedies because 99% of romantic comedies are garbage.
Consider this: isn't that true of every genre, more or less? Can you think of a genre distinction that even comes close to guaranteeing quality? Are most rap songs good? Are most dramas worth watching? When you consider the whole of human output, can you say even that 25% of rap songs are good? I would say no. So if a genre can't speak to a works quality, what is the point of having such preferences? If there is a difference in the batting average genre to genre, I would guess that it's negligible. If say, 90% of dramas are trash and 92% of sci fi works are trash, is that really a difference worth paying attention to?
It seems silly, a little, in light of this to make such hard line decisions about your preferences. My wife put it well to me when I considered calling off drinking entirely. I'm not a drinker and generally don't enjoy it much or enjoy being around the drunk and had declared that I was considering saying I "don't drink." My wife rightly pointed out that this was stupid because I could just as easily not make any kind of proclamations and just drink if I wanted to and not if I didn't.
Of course, humans don't think this way. We're attracted to things other than quality. This falls under the idea of what interests us and who can say why we're interested in things? If we were motivated to consume primarily by quality, there wouldn't be movies like Transformers 2 or Reindeer Games or Sandra Bullock is Uncomfortable in Heels 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold. To me these things speak more to interest than quality.
This does bring up the subjective/objective issue and I've been accused, angrily by some, of not knowing the difference. This seems like balderdash to me because by accepting the idea that there is no such thing as objectively good or objectively bad you have to accept that the movie Snow Dogs is not a bad movie. Of course its' a bad movie. It's terrible and I can tell you why. It's cheap and cliche and the humor is watered down to the point of being water and the story stretches credibility to the breaking point and it attempts to be funny and heart warming but the jokes are bad and the sentiment is cheap and it just sucks sucks sucks sucks. There is no world in which this is a good movie. Some may think it good but they are wrong.
And that's all right. Subjectivism means no one is wrong about something being good or bad which is silly to me. We're here to be wrong. We're wrong about things all the time. People thought the earth was flat at one point. Some still do. It's ok for them to be wrong. Furthermore, it's ok to like something that is bad. Some feel it is unacceptable to accept this seeming contradiction but it happens all the time and if more people would accept that, I wouldn't get into so many arguments about this sort of thing.
If you can accept that, it puts to rest a portion of the what is art debate. Is Snow Dogs art? Sure, it's just shitty art. To me, that's a lot easier to swallow than some of the other solutions to this problem that are put forth such as there being a difference between art and escapism. I can't, at least at this moment, articulate why the art/escapism axis rankles me other than that it seems to dismiss a lot of works that I love and I believe have a lot to offer. Some could say my good art shitty art axis dismisses Snow Dogs too but I'm not saying it's not art. Saying something is not art seems more damning to me than saying it's not good.
I'm of mixed minds on that too, though. A year or two ago I got into a long debate with my friends Rob and Ryan regarding the act of recontextualizing as art. I won't recap the entire thing here but it frustrated me to no end, the idea of simply moving something to a new place or calling attention to it could make it then art. Ultimately, one of the ideas that came from this (and I'm certainly not suggesting we were the first to come up with it) was that something becomes art simply by calling it art. If someone wanted to consider their morning commute an art piece, how can you argue with it? It seems unreasonable but the idea of art is old enough to get well into unreasonable territory.
The reason I resisted this idea so much is because I wanted art to have inherent value. I believed that simply calling something art gave it a certain stature or value. I now believe this to be incorrect. I could ague with someone all day as to if Snow Dogs was art, and if they convinced me that it was, what did it change? Nothing, it's still the same piece of shit. The question I would have to ask now in response to someone calling something art would be, "So what?" or "Is it any good?"
And if all these things are art, of course calling something art doesn't ascribe it any value because 90% of everything is trash. It's trash that people like but it's still trash. Look at a list of all the movies that are released in a year sometime and tell me that a significant number are good.
Getting back to my first point, I'm not suggesting that we not define ourselves by our preferences for certain genres or categories because the alternative is to spend every waking minute of your life consuming in hopes of experiencing 5% of what the world has to offer. This would drive one insane. This is an issue of the human condition and it's one that has gotten worse with time, primarily through globalization. Kurt Vonnegut has an idea he comes back to again and again about art that goes something like this; when we used to live in small villages our options for entertainment were limited. Each village would have 2 or 3 storytellers, a few musicians, etc etc. As time went on and we could be exposed to the artwork of different villages, we needed to start making choices. The end result is we have Stephen King tell all our stories and U2 write all our rock songs. Vonnegut's point is this was to illustrate the problem of why it's so hard to make it as an artist (a subject for another blog) but it also applies to this. We come up with a lot of sorting mechanisms on our own that result in what I would call safer bets. It's still worth following these instincts but you can't expect them to steer you right a significant amount of the time and you can expect them to result in you missing out on enriching, excellent art. It's just a sacrifice we have to make.
Something I've been thinking of lately is the way we define our tastes in media and therefore define ourselves. As modern people, we're exposed to a colossally overwhelming number of works of art in our lives. These can, in most cases, be broken down in different categorizations or genres. Though many, if not most, works defy simple sorting, it's a method by which we can save time and organize things. We're all familiar with different genres as they apply to things like books and movies (Romance, Sci Fi, Drama, comedy, fantasy, etc) and as they apply to music (rap, rock and roll, techno, country, etc) and most of us have preferences that mostly occlude one of these categories en masse. For example, I'm generally not one for romance and there is very little in the way of rap or country music that I enjoy. Forming these opinions helps us to solidify our personalities and serve as a useful method of triage when we're exposed to art.
However, lately I have been thinking that these kinds of definitions are, though necessary, perhaps harmful. The reason being that none of these distinctions can be a surefire indicator of quality and in a perfect world, quality would be the only litmus we would judge works by. By giving yourself rigid definition in this regard, you are shutting yourself off to countless works of enriching art. A good example, and one that I think would broadly apply would be the movie Annie Hall. Annie Hall is undeniably a romantic comedy and contains several of the common tropes of the genre. The quality of this movie is high enough that it easily surpasses movies like Four Thousand Jealous Bridesmaids, Sandra Bullock Fall Down and A Family Engagement (I made those up.) Though I don't care for romantic comedies, I wouldn't usually go see something like Annie Hall. However, due to good word of mouth I did and am glad I did so because it's a great movie. One could say I could be forgiven for thinking it would be terrible based on the track record of romantic comedies because 99% of romantic comedies are garbage.
Consider this: isn't that true of every genre, more or less? Can you think of a genre distinction that even comes close to guaranteeing quality? Are most rap songs good? Are most dramas worth watching? When you consider the whole of human output, can you say even that 25% of rap songs are good? I would say no. So if a genre can't speak to a works quality, what is the point of having such preferences? If there is a difference in the batting average genre to genre, I would guess that it's negligible. If say, 90% of dramas are trash and 92% of sci fi works are trash, is that really a difference worth paying attention to?
It seems silly, a little, in light of this to make such hard line decisions about your preferences. My wife put it well to me when I considered calling off drinking entirely. I'm not a drinker and generally don't enjoy it much or enjoy being around the drunk and had declared that I was considering saying I "don't drink." My wife rightly pointed out that this was stupid because I could just as easily not make any kind of proclamations and just drink if I wanted to and not if I didn't.
Of course, humans don't think this way. We're attracted to things other than quality. This falls under the idea of what interests us and who can say why we're interested in things? If we were motivated to consume primarily by quality, there wouldn't be movies like Transformers 2 or Reindeer Games or Sandra Bullock is Uncomfortable in Heels 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold. To me these things speak more to interest than quality.
This does bring up the subjective/objective issue and I've been accused, angrily by some, of not knowing the difference. This seems like balderdash to me because by accepting the idea that there is no such thing as objectively good or objectively bad you have to accept that the movie Snow Dogs is not a bad movie. Of course its' a bad movie. It's terrible and I can tell you why. It's cheap and cliche and the humor is watered down to the point of being water and the story stretches credibility to the breaking point and it attempts to be funny and heart warming but the jokes are bad and the sentiment is cheap and it just sucks sucks sucks sucks. There is no world in which this is a good movie. Some may think it good but they are wrong.
And that's all right. Subjectivism means no one is wrong about something being good or bad which is silly to me. We're here to be wrong. We're wrong about things all the time. People thought the earth was flat at one point. Some still do. It's ok for them to be wrong. Furthermore, it's ok to like something that is bad. Some feel it is unacceptable to accept this seeming contradiction but it happens all the time and if more people would accept that, I wouldn't get into so many arguments about this sort of thing.
If you can accept that, it puts to rest a portion of the what is art debate. Is Snow Dogs art? Sure, it's just shitty art. To me, that's a lot easier to swallow than some of the other solutions to this problem that are put forth such as there being a difference between art and escapism. I can't, at least at this moment, articulate why the art/escapism axis rankles me other than that it seems to dismiss a lot of works that I love and I believe have a lot to offer. Some could say my good art shitty art axis dismisses Snow Dogs too but I'm not saying it's not art. Saying something is not art seems more damning to me than saying it's not good.
I'm of mixed minds on that too, though. A year or two ago I got into a long debate with my friends Rob and Ryan regarding the act of recontextualizing as art. I won't recap the entire thing here but it frustrated me to no end, the idea of simply moving something to a new place or calling attention to it could make it then art. Ultimately, one of the ideas that came from this (and I'm certainly not suggesting we were the first to come up with it) was that something becomes art simply by calling it art. If someone wanted to consider their morning commute an art piece, how can you argue with it? It seems unreasonable but the idea of art is old enough to get well into unreasonable territory.
The reason I resisted this idea so much is because I wanted art to have inherent value. I believed that simply calling something art gave it a certain stature or value. I now believe this to be incorrect. I could ague with someone all day as to if Snow Dogs was art, and if they convinced me that it was, what did it change? Nothing, it's still the same piece of shit. The question I would have to ask now in response to someone calling something art would be, "So what?" or "Is it any good?"
And if all these things are art, of course calling something art doesn't ascribe it any value because 90% of everything is trash. It's trash that people like but it's still trash. Look at a list of all the movies that are released in a year sometime and tell me that a significant number are good.
Getting back to my first point, I'm not suggesting that we not define ourselves by our preferences for certain genres or categories because the alternative is to spend every waking minute of your life consuming in hopes of experiencing 5% of what the world has to offer. This would drive one insane. This is an issue of the human condition and it's one that has gotten worse with time, primarily through globalization. Kurt Vonnegut has an idea he comes back to again and again about art that goes something like this; when we used to live in small villages our options for entertainment were limited. Each village would have 2 or 3 storytellers, a few musicians, etc etc. As time went on and we could be exposed to the artwork of different villages, we needed to start making choices. The end result is we have Stephen King tell all our stories and U2 write all our rock songs. Vonnegut's point is this was to illustrate the problem of why it's so hard to make it as an artist (a subject for another blog) but it also applies to this. We come up with a lot of sorting mechanisms on our own that result in what I would call safer bets. It's still worth following these instincts but you can't expect them to steer you right a significant amount of the time and you can expect them to result in you missing out on enriching, excellent art. It's just a sacrifice we have to make.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Some brief thoughts about Judd Apatow movies
I'm a big fan of Judd Apatow movies in general and, in the past, was somewhat rankled by accusations of sexism. I understand that some took issue with the fact that the female characters in his movies were little more than ultra hotties to be utilized in the self actualization of goofy looking manchildren but I always took this with a grain of salt. I can't really fault the man for not focusing on the women in his movies. He's writing comedies about goofy stoner dudes and I get the sense that that is what he knows best. If he were to force the inclusion of such women I don't think he could pull it off and the movies on a whole would suffer. When Katherine Heigel turns into a shrill banshee in Knocked Up, some felt this was a sexist portrayal. I felt there was nothing wrong with her being written that way. Some women are shrill banshees the way that some men are Vince Vaughn. However, most times when this criticism is leveled, the main point of contention is that these movies are a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy where these insanely hot women throw themselves at ugly looking fat guys simply because the guys are funny. This is somewhat unrealistic but I never thought much about it.
However, after seeing his most recent movie, Funny People, I had a change of heart to a degree and thought about it in a way I hadn't before. Everyone is asking why these women are interested in these men but to me, that part seems obvious. Women being attracted to men for their personalities or because they are smart or funny is a good thing. The question that I found myself asking after Funny People is: what do these men find in these women? I mean, other than their boobosity and vaginitude? This is no fault of the actresses and certainly says nothing about women in real life, but in these movies the women are generally shallow or shrill or at the very least are simply there to be entertained. Thinking about it this way was what allowed me to really see where people are coming from when they criticize the gender politics in these movies. I tend to notice when, in fiction, I'm asked to believe in a relationship that is no way believable. I also recently saw Away We Go and initially I had this problem then as well. For the first third of the movie it seemed to me as if Maya Rudolph's character had no affection for John Krasinski's character at all. Eventually I was sold on the idea but initially was very jarring.
Taking the basic premise of most of these movies (and when I say Judd Apatow movies I pretty much his entire stable of cohorts as well), there are at least two different angles I'd like to see explored. If we have the fat, schlubby, funny guy and the vapid attractive woman set up we already know what reason the woman has to be interested in the man. Some women are very attracted to funny guys, regardless of if they look like Jonah Hill. I'd like to see an exploration of the man being interested in the woman because she finds him entertaining. I see this in my friends as well, from time to time. Some people have very little need to be entertained by people but a significant need to be entertaining to others. I have known friends who have friends who are their friends only because they laugh at their jokes. This is one reason I could see, theoretically, while the male characters in these movies could be interested in the female characters, other than their supposed ultra hotness.
Closely tied into this is the idea of being interested only because you are not used to any attention at all from the opposite sex. I know that when I was younger I had this problem in full force. My first relationship was 100% ridiculous and was with a girl who couldn't be more wrong for me but I convinced myself it was love because I was overcome with the feeling that came from being appreciated in a romantic sense. Several people I know have also had similar situations. When you are a lonely loser guy growing up the idea of a girl even talking to let alone wanting to drive you to ejacucuming is intoxicating to the extreme. This would also be an interesting angle to take.
And just tangentially, and because I don't feel like organizing this blog post any better, another interesting thing that occurred to me about these movies is that, in these universes, finding love is about giving up something about yourself. The most direct case is in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where Steve Carell suddenly stops liking every single thing he has ever liked, sells all his toys and collectibles and such in order to be with whats her name and open up a business. Seth Rogan moves away from his friends and into a tiny apartment in Knocked Up. Though in that case it's justified somewhat because he is to be a father, it is still suggested it is a positive move and that he is partially doing it because of Katherine Heigel. In Funny People, the main reason why (SPOILARS) Leslie Mann ultimately doesn't take Adam Sandler back is because he's still interested in his career and, most ridiculously, because he's not moved by her daughters high school musical performance. Duh, Leslie Mann, she's not his kid, you damn idiot. In all of these movies, finding a girl is about giving up part of your identity.
An exception is found in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, written by Jason Seigal. This movie subverts the formula as Jason Seigal starts the movie in a relationship with the titular Sarah Marshall who is very much the typical Apatow love interest. As he goes about the business of forgetting her, he finds another girl who is the opposite in that she encourages him to be himself in ways he could not with his ex. She's still not a particularly well developed character but she is at least encouraging and she is not trying to change him fundamentally.
I don't really have anything to say about that and I don't really feel it unrealistic or anything as many people do give up a part of themselves when they enter in to a long term relationship. It does, however, make me wonder what Apatow has given up to be with his wife.
However, after seeing his most recent movie, Funny People, I had a change of heart to a degree and thought about it in a way I hadn't before. Everyone is asking why these women are interested in these men but to me, that part seems obvious. Women being attracted to men for their personalities or because they are smart or funny is a good thing. The question that I found myself asking after Funny People is: what do these men find in these women? I mean, other than their boobosity and vaginitude? This is no fault of the actresses and certainly says nothing about women in real life, but in these movies the women are generally shallow or shrill or at the very least are simply there to be entertained. Thinking about it this way was what allowed me to really see where people are coming from when they criticize the gender politics in these movies. I tend to notice when, in fiction, I'm asked to believe in a relationship that is no way believable. I also recently saw Away We Go and initially I had this problem then as well. For the first third of the movie it seemed to me as if Maya Rudolph's character had no affection for John Krasinski's character at all. Eventually I was sold on the idea but initially was very jarring.
Taking the basic premise of most of these movies (and when I say Judd Apatow movies I pretty much his entire stable of cohorts as well), there are at least two different angles I'd like to see explored. If we have the fat, schlubby, funny guy and the vapid attractive woman set up we already know what reason the woman has to be interested in the man. Some women are very attracted to funny guys, regardless of if they look like Jonah Hill. I'd like to see an exploration of the man being interested in the woman because she finds him entertaining. I see this in my friends as well, from time to time. Some people have very little need to be entertained by people but a significant need to be entertaining to others. I have known friends who have friends who are their friends only because they laugh at their jokes. This is one reason I could see, theoretically, while the male characters in these movies could be interested in the female characters, other than their supposed ultra hotness.
Closely tied into this is the idea of being interested only because you are not used to any attention at all from the opposite sex. I know that when I was younger I had this problem in full force. My first relationship was 100% ridiculous and was with a girl who couldn't be more wrong for me but I convinced myself it was love because I was overcome with the feeling that came from being appreciated in a romantic sense. Several people I know have also had similar situations. When you are a lonely loser guy growing up the idea of a girl even talking to let alone wanting to drive you to ejacucuming is intoxicating to the extreme. This would also be an interesting angle to take.
And just tangentially, and because I don't feel like organizing this blog post any better, another interesting thing that occurred to me about these movies is that, in these universes, finding love is about giving up something about yourself. The most direct case is in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where Steve Carell suddenly stops liking every single thing he has ever liked, sells all his toys and collectibles and such in order to be with whats her name and open up a business. Seth Rogan moves away from his friends and into a tiny apartment in Knocked Up. Though in that case it's justified somewhat because he is to be a father, it is still suggested it is a positive move and that he is partially doing it because of Katherine Heigel. In Funny People, the main reason why (SPOILARS) Leslie Mann ultimately doesn't take Adam Sandler back is because he's still interested in his career and, most ridiculously, because he's not moved by her daughters high school musical performance. Duh, Leslie Mann, she's not his kid, you damn idiot. In all of these movies, finding a girl is about giving up part of your identity.
An exception is found in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, written by Jason Seigal. This movie subverts the formula as Jason Seigal starts the movie in a relationship with the titular Sarah Marshall who is very much the typical Apatow love interest. As he goes about the business of forgetting her, he finds another girl who is the opposite in that she encourages him to be himself in ways he could not with his ex. She's still not a particularly well developed character but she is at least encouraging and she is not trying to change him fundamentally.
I don't really have anything to say about that and I don't really feel it unrealistic or anything as many people do give up a part of themselves when they enter in to a long term relationship. It does, however, make me wonder what Apatow has given up to be with his wife.
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