Project 880 vs Avatar

The Avatar That Almost Was.

I've just finished the author's repeat of the original scriptment. And it's still got elements of 'What These People Need Is A Honkey'. But elements vs the WHOLE DAMN THING, is a very odd perspective.


For me, the fact that the Na'vi are actively resisting by the time Sully's character arrives and it's due to human privilege and hubris and OTHERING (right down to killing animals for fun which just make me think of Zebras in Africa and Buffalo in the US) seriously makes me wonder at the INSERTS of stupid racial tropes.

The fact that those controlling avatars going native, has happened before and has facets of individuals from a ruined earth falling in love with something that doesn't look at all like over industrialized earth and facets of falling in love with a way of life that reveres trees and growth and green - rather than 'the white men want to live the nobler, simpler life' is just so - blink blink blink.

And I guess for me, the ugliness of Research & Devleopment and certain military characters is so damn true - in a way I've rarely seen in mainstream media (which might explain why it didn't make it) - but for example, certain individuals wanting to bomb the Na'vi's home, not to obtain the unobtainable, but to send a message planet wise that humans will fuck up all those who don't bow to their imperialistic boot? Let me know if that's been stated plainly before - and give references. It might be something I'll enjoy watching/reading.

There are apparently nods to deeper concepts of what is self, who has the right to oppress self, what would it mean to be a blended entity, etc. And Sully doesn't end up the new leader of the Na'vi, but the new leader of the blended Avatars - which makes FAR MORE SENSE.

--

Am I more furious over Avatar, that not unlike Texas School Board Approved Books, American Exceptionalism got promoted in the final work, vs 'historical accuracy'?

Possibly.

I think what it does, however, is make me even more distrustful of Hollywood and all Hollywood is beholden to. The Hollywood machine knows very well what pap the public will swallow and they won't deviate from that, it's not in their best interests.

And given that there will be individuals growing up with a less accurate understanding of science and history - there will be even less for Hollywood to worry about accidentally challenging in the future.

I can't help but be reminded of this post, claimed to be done anonymously by a woman in Afghan. She talks about the difference between her father and her brothers. Her brothers grew up in Taliban enforced times and picked up their attitudes towards women. Despite how a prior member of their household felt, a respected member, their father - how the Taliban revised history and reshaped the world was what made an impression on them.

Each history book, and movie that reshapes and revises so that there's stress on American Exceptionalism but without mention of the slavery and indentured servitude, racism and second class statutes that allowed that bubble moment of glory and fortune, is renewed oppression.

Avatar vs Project 880 (according to Devin Faraci at CHUD) looks like a microcosm of that kind of revisioning.

Jumping Right In

The Detective Chen Series by Liz Williams?

Are there two editions? One British the other American?

If so, has the American version removed Chinese names for people, institutions, instruments and tools thus leaving a book full of Chinese Dressing and little else?

In Snake Agent? Are the human components signing up to earn money for university fees or bridal dowries?

Does Zhu have a Katana or more properly a Jian?

Are there mentions of Kale, Swat Teams & Other Americanisms?

Is there an American version that turns the writing to seeming steaming piles of cultural appropriation and less palatable, perhaps less good writing?

Is this a case of an entire series getting the Sorcerer's Stone treatment? Y'know, Harry Potter, where people who knew what the hell a Philospher's Stone was (like me) ended up thinking a Sorcerer's Stone was some made up contraption out of Rowling's imagination and who ended up going 'WTF' upon realizing that Philospher's Stone would have made the things make sense much MUCH earlier?

Has anyone else had this experience of American versions of books, dumbing down and lowering the reading level and perhaps even the writing level?

Which books? Which authors? How often?

Someone told me New Year's Day that Britsh YA is sold as adult fiction when it crosses the pond - that that is the state of American Literary Analysis; it points down and keeps plunging.

The statement was a huge shock.

Then.

Right now as I ponder how necessary acquiescence to American Publishing demands might be resulting in sub-par product and possibly wronged/wrongly perceived authors (eta: never published authors?) - I'm no longer in shock. I'm just pissed off and disgusted.

Is the Dumbing Of America along with a Big Ego and Demand For Cultural Dominance preventing me from being able to have THE CONVERSATION(s) I WANT TO HAVE? Is it stifling things at the seeming SOURCE?

Because I admit, this is not a perspective I previously explored.

[Comments On]

Manga: Love @ First Sight

What am I missing?

I must be missing something, something cultural when it comes to Manga and Falling In Love and Confessions. I keep rolling my eyes and feeling ancient as I overflow with disbelief over all this 'fall in love at first sight / first look'.

I keep wondering: Do they mean 'OMG I'm finding someone physically attractive this is a big deal!!!' ? And if so, why is it a big deal? Of course my questioning / this interpretation assumes that there's something subtle in the kanji, maybe something different between the way a word is used generally and how it is understood when spoken and what it means when written or SOMETHING.

Because how superficial is it to have all these romances running on a plotline of 'My attraction to someone's physical appearance equals falling in love'.

Is it an age gap thing? Did I just miss the bus where physical attraction and sexual stirrings became, a close feeling of bonding or ties to another individual wherein their happiness is equal to your happiness? Does someone have the moment that changed happened captured for posterity on film or something?

I've finally caught a clue that kissing is or at least is accepted culturally to be a big deal in Japan (and possibly the other nations in that region), especially one's first kiss - far more so than what I'd observed about American culture. Or at least American culture when I was growing up. These days it seems the big deal is about 'pedophile bait's first blow job'. But y'know, I'm not about to get into the sexualization of childhood right now. That's a rant of a different colour for another day.

But I will pause to say: { Apparently WHITE TEENAGERS ARE SOLD CAUSAL SEXUALITY as relevant to their lives. It's just the white teenagers are all sold that lifestyle as the thing to do among trust fund babies. Having not read the books, I don't know if any penis veins were involved. I also don't know what if any agency the female characters have when it comes to sex or whether or not they face sexual abuse.}

But, moving past that - or wait, are these things connected? Superficial declarations of love based on physical appearance tied with hypersexualized marketing techniques creating a hypersexualized world?

When a character in a manga claims to have fallen in love with another character, at first sight, is that 'fallen in love with' equal to when people claim love of objects? As in "The moment I saw that sweater/jeans/jewelry/commodity I absolutely fell in love with it and had to have it."

In which case, can someone clue me in on the manga where girls do this and boys become the objects? Because what I've seen so far is what I'd called crushes on teachers or senpai's (older students) with suggestions the girl in question has been watching the individual for a while so presumably there is some attraction to the personality being presented and the girl's nerves stem from confessing interest in more than friendship - breaking the polite established status quo.

Which by the way seems normal, even when it's phrased as a confession, because I guess it is a confession of harbouring more than aquaintence or friend type feelings.

But let's jump back a bit. Because confession of feelings needs the feelings themselves to form in the first place. And again I'm seeing an awful lot of male characters say things like:

• "From the moment I saw you..."


• "You were the girl on the corner/on the tv/in the library/ who never smiled and I have loved you since..."


• "I'm in trouble. I met a girl today and now I'm in love..."

What cultural cues am I missing here? Am I supposed to be reading that as lust no matter what a translator or scanlator says? Am I missing cultural societal cues that would reinforce the concept of a love based on physical attraction? Thus setting up social standards that girls are passive and pretty and if they're passive and pretty/cute enough boys will come to them based on physical attraction?

Which might be a little different from Americanized (Westernized?) thin and sexy - but not by much.

Are there many different words in Japan that mean love? With variations and gradations based on object or person and how much? If so, why isn't that notated? Do translators think it's somehow romantic to have someone looking shallow and arousal focused?

This will be the oddest reason ever for me to attempt to learn Japanese - especially given my own personal frustration with languages.

[Comments On]

"Do you like making me mad? I think you do. I think you like making me angry."

I'm in the midst of replying via my personal journal to a post I found discussing DC's: The Great Ten.

I'm mind blown at the racial stereotyping. I mean fu-dogs and there's a woman whose special power is giving birth to a LITTER (they call it a fricking LITTER) of 25 Supersoldiers ever 3 days.

That's spitting in the eyes of Asians and punching women in the chest. At once.

I'd c/p my comments, but I'm too irate and SAD. I'm so fucking sad.

Also I don't want to sic any of the peanut butter jar solo f*ck heads who've been trolling here onto a friend. Even though I know she could dice them, slice them and then serve them to rats as gourmet entree.

When I'm less 'OMG WTF', maybe I'll post more. Right now I'm going to comfort myself with webcomics and try to reconcile my want of comics with how much beatings I feel I've been taken.

The Comics Industry as pseudo abusive-as-all-get-out domestic partner.

---

PS:Tom Foss discusses the possibility that treated well, and written in depth none of the above characters might remain stereotypes. And he's right. A Stereotype can be just a short hand introduction and then the meat of things is gotten to. And I would enjoy seeing how individual characters react against the expectations of a government into who they are and how they perform and what they do.

However, Tom Foss isn't writing them. And no one writer likely will continue to write them for their entire existence. And there's quite a lot of writers out there who simply aren't trust worthy with tasks like this. They can barely handle White Women in their work, far less a minority character who's initial foundation is rooted in a stereotype.

And let us not forget the artists for both interior and covers. Blank stares, lego-bricks make up of women, appealing to stereotypes and the lowest common denominator because it's been shown to work.

And what about the executives and what they want and their suggestions and input and how all that factors a story? Some of them haven't been proven trust worthy either.

Face it. If Neil Gaiman or Octavia Butler (bless her soul) had put out on a website that their next series would cover these particular modeled characters - I know I for one would be intrigued and curious as to where they would take them and how they would form them. And the seeming stereotype would seem like the precursor to a twist.

Comics aren't single novels, written by a single artist. They're not even novels written by ghostwriters or various other writers where things are based on a bible so that even if character quality and depth varied from writer to writer at there was the chance that something new could be added to the bible and/or despite what the covers looked like, such and such a writer would be known to do 3 books a year in that universe.

Comics are collaborative in an invasive way and are currently controlled by people withim I and many others have no consistent vote of confidence. That to me is what helps make this all so much more outrageous and makes me so incredibly sad.

-Insert Flashy Pretty Stamp Here-

Dear Kalinara,

Why does The New Captain America look so much like Kurt Busiek's Silver Agent ? And not in that whole, Cap was first, Silver Agent was nth way.

Also since you know these things, is Patriot too young to have stepped into Cap's shoes should there be a need for a Captain America? Or is he solidly in his own persona?

-Willow

Take One

Halloween's a coming.

It's a time for little boys and girls and not so little boys and girls to dress up as their favourite heroes. A time for them to stride around pretending to zoom through the air, or hack helpless citizens to pieces all in performance for candy (or someone's house gets egged and tp-ed). A time for little girls to ...

[SCREETCH]

Ok so she's not a little girl. But a young woman, a teenager could presumably, maybe want to dress up like Wonder Woman - oh excuse me, Wonder hero. Random chick with white stars on blue bottom, gold thingies 'round her breasts and a red star.

I don't know if I'm glad they're not calling it Wonder Woman, curious if they thought they might get sued, or pissed at the flimsy skirt and wondering where the hell that cape came from. I'm pretty sure those boots aren't included.

Got the name.