Origins

Four years ago, I got back into Magic: The Gathering. It's a game I loved as a teenager, and I kept playing it for years after it stopped being a fad at my middle school. As time went on, my hobby increasingly met with eye rolls form my classmates, and I also became hyperaware of the many things that made me "different" from the people around me. I started hating my interest in video games, Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic, and I convinced myself that there must be something wrong with me because I didn't look or act like the popular kids. After my best friend and go-to game buddy abandoned Magic for football and girls, I shoved my cards in a shoebox in my closet, made new friends, and tried to get into surfing, guitar, or any of the other hobbies that were popular at my high school. None of it made me happy.

Magic's latest release, Magic Origins, also focuses on turbulent teenage years. Card art, flavor text, and supplementary materials recount the stories of how several characters grew from fledgling youths to powerful wizards. Each of these wayward teenagers struggles against their environment until arriving at a climactic moment when an inner "spark" is ignited and the character's full powers are released. Many of the set's cards depict events from these stories, and each character has its own special card that can be flipped over to demonstrate the important transformation.

Character-driven storytelling represents a major change from the early days of the game when plot elements occasionally appeared in evocative flavor text printed at the bottom of cards. That hands-off approach created atmosphere without detailing a linear narrative, and this was often a good thing. The game's world felt rich and expansive, as it was bound more by the imagination of the players than by carefully calculated marketing materials.

Indeed, canonizing a specific storyline makes the world feel smaller and the characters less interesting. Nowhere is this more evident than in the series of short stories published to guide players through each Origins character's journey. Although the stories fit into a familiar and well-tested coming-of-age archetype, the resulting fiction too often feels both overladen with details and incapable of creating believable characters and situations.

In "Fire Logic", Chandra's parents give her a job as a black market courier, and on her very first mission she decides to take a shortcut by trespassing through a heavily policed neighborhood, resulting in a series of tedious combat sequences. In "Kytheon Iora of Akros", the title character surreptitiously tries to kill the god of death. These plot points make it hard to relate to the characters, who are defined by their unpredictable and illogical decisions. Scenes like these likely exist for the sole purpose of creating action that can be portrayed in card illustrations.

The stories also make curious departures from established genre norms. "Home" begins with Nissa receiving a prophetic vision of her journey across the world to confront a malignant force that poisons the land. A glittering path appears before her, and she follows it through an escalating series of perils until finally reaching the foretold confrontation. At this moment, she suddenly teleports to a new world with an unrelated and hastily resolved plot. Readers are right to feel cheated. Similarly, "Absent Minds" casts Jace as a troubled youth who is scorned for his special powers. He is taken in by a benevolent mentor, who teaches Jace to control his mind magic while working to end the civil war that has engulfed their world. In a bewildering twist, Jace discovers that his mentor is an evil war profiteer, challenges him to mind battle, and then somehow kills him by erasing his own memory. The story ends with an amnesiac Jace entering a new city and meeting a beautiful woman.

These plots seem to be constructed with the belief that unexpected surprises represent the pinnacle of storytelling. Subverting audience expectations can be a powerful tool, but there's a difference between a story arc that takes an unexpected trajectory and one that abruptly flatlines. These twists and deviations are all the more puzzling because the stories are designed to appeal to a mass audience, and this goal is most easily accomplished by adhering to universal archetypes; if the fantasy coming-of-age story structure worked in The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Harry Potter, there's no need to reinvent the wheel for a disposable piece of marketing material.

Origins gets it right at least once. In "The Fourth Pact", Liliana turns to dark magic in an attempt to save her brother's life. When her decision dooms him instead, she becomes obsessed with gaining control over death and sells her soul to achieve immortality. The story is straightforward but compelling; we know from the beginning that Liliana is headed down a dark path, but we stick along for the ride because we want to see how it plays out. Furthermore, Liliana remains a dynamic and relatable character because she is confronted with difficult choices when the stakes are high. Deciding to use forbidden methods in order to save a loved one is much more emotionally resonant than trying to kill a god just because.

Dilemmas necessarily lead to meaningful decisions, and this is as true in life as it is in fiction. I quit Magic when I was fifteen because I thought that having cooler hobbies and friends would make me happy. When my high school crush finally got drunk enough to allow himself to make a pass at me, I turned him down. Last month, I left my job because I decided unemployment would be better than remaining in a toxic work environment. Like any character, I'm defined by the choices I've made, and I now realize that choosing what feels right is much more important than trying to adhere to abstract notions of what a good life is supposed to look like. Playing games makes me happy, and that's a good thing. I only wish Magic's writers had the same faith in the imagination and individuality of the game's players.

THE GATHERING: Special Treatment

Last week, Star City Games published an article by Meghan Wolff, "Women in Magic: The Gathering". Wolff's article outlines some of the reasons why women rarely attend competitive Magic tournaments. Among other things, Wolff calls for content publishers and tournament organizers to take active steps to increase the visibility of female Magic players. She also describes the sexual objectification and other forms of intimidation that women often face when they attend events. I recommend reading the whole thing. (This same topic has been discussed by other female writers in several recent articles.)

At the end of the week, Star City followed up with a response article by Jim Davis, "Women and Magic". Davis says he also wants to see more women in competitive Magic, but he critiques Wolff's approach as one that would create inequality by giving special treatment to women. He contends that players should be courteous to each other, that women should speak up if they are being disrespected, and that female players need to accomplish more in order to earn the respect of the community.

Via Twitter's @CorvusE

I wasn't following this while it was happening, but it appears that a shitstorm ensued, and Star City ended up retracting Davis's article and apologizing for it. The apology has a public comments section that is littered with comments lambasting feminists for being unreasonable, overly sensitive, and opposed to equality. I'm trying to understand the worldview of Davis's defenders, as I find their rhetoric toxic and utterly devoid of empathy. However, I'm willing to bet they feel similarly about my perspective, and I would like to develop a strategy for how to be a good ally to female gamers on this issue.

I cannot ever know exactly how Wolff and other women feel, but I can relate to their description of the unwelcoming atmosphere at Magic tournaments. About four years ago, I had just started playing the game for the first time, and I went to one of my first competitive events: a sealed Innistrad grand prix trial. I was nervous and giddy, and I woke up early to drive east over unfamiliar roads to a small card shop in San Gabriel. I was in unfamiliar territory, but I knew the cards and was excited to attend the upcoming grand prix tournament in San Diego. Sadly, my enthusiasm didn't last long, as it wasn't long before I heard the store regulars cursing each other with homophobic taunts. It was clear that I didn't belong there. Even worse, I felt unsafe. I had trouble focusing on my games. I played poorly and dragged myself home. I never returned to that store, and I never made it to the grand prix.

This isn't the only time this has happened. At my regular store, I've called out other players for making anti-gay or misogynist comments. They have either dismissed my concerns or defiantly defended their words. Similarly, I've met with sarcasm and disdain when I talk to other players about the misogynist language they are using. These interactions have left me feeling angry and rejected, and it also makes me not want to attend other events.

To their credit, the people at Wizards of the Coast have been making positive steps towards creating a more supportive play environment. Starting in Theros block, the creative content and art direction have more consistently featured strong, non-sexualized women, as well as people of color and LGBTQ characters. There is still room for growth; Magic 2015 featured fifteen cards created by guest designers, none of whom were female. I remarked on this to a male friend, who claimed this was because women don't make games. When I hesitated to provide a counter example, he said that I had just proven his point. I'm embarrassed by my stumble, but this certainly doesn't invalidate the excellent work of women game designers in an industry dominated by men. If anything, this example proves the point being made by Wolff and others who have called for increased visibility of women in games.

To bring my own story full circle, I recently registered for this year's upcoming grand prix in San Diego. I'm hoping I will make it this time, and that it will be a good experience, but I would be lying if I said I weren't already steeling myself against unapologetically hurtful comments. The nervousness I (and others) feel before an event should come from excitement and not anxiety or fear. I look forward to the day when this isn't considered a form of special treatment.

Abusive Video Game Lovers: Sabin Figaro

He's careless with his beauty. He's a show-off that wants everyone to know that he's strong and in control. He takes up a lot of space in the locker room, and I'm not just talking about his muscles.

There's a reason why he keeps his eyes focused on the mirror while he's lifting his weights. He wants you to think he's impervious. He wants himself to believe it, too. So he acts like he doesn't need anyone else. Just his weight room. His sports field. His yoga mat.

He dresses casually and comfortably but always shows some skin. His simple jewelry and accessories suggest individuality and nonchalance, and he's convinced himself that his spartan aesthetic makes him purer and less artificial than all the other guys. In reality, he's afraid of committing to a more defined style, so he hides behind the mask of not caring.

Don't be fooled: he still wants you to look at him. He wants everyone to look at him. He just acts like a tough guy because he's afraid of what would happen if someone got close and saw all of his insecurities. After all, he is a tourist. He grew up in the lap of luxury and likes to think that he's a bigger man because he's walked away from it, but his family money will always be there for him when times get tough. This truth makes him feel small and weak, and this is why he won't stop running away from his past.

If you press his buttons just right, he'll put on a great show, but as soon as you get tired or make the slightest misstep, he shuts down and refuses to respond. He makes you feel like it's your fault, but he's terrified that he's the one disappointing you. So he doesn't call. He pretends like it never happened. He hits the weight room and keeps hoping that a big, strong man will catch him when he's about to crumble under the weight of the world.

Watching him is excruciating. His muscles pressing against his tank top. The winning smile he flashes his teammates. The tenderness in his eyes that makes you want to take him in your arms, hold him tight, and tell him he's perfect just the way he is. That sinking feeling when you realize that you never will.

Homophobia is Child's Play in Toy Story 3 (2010)

I'll admit it: I am a huge Pixar fan. In fact, I often defend the studio as being the last great bastion of cinematic creativity in Hollywood today. Pixar films regularly feature smart, character-driven humor, strong visual storytelling that has obviously been crafted in the studio as opposed to the boardroom, and a bittersweet mixture of joy and pathos that never fails to make me weak in the knees. Even though I generally boycott the Los Angeles movie theater experience, I giddily make an annual exception for the latest Pixar release. Their films are so damn good that even at their worst (i.e. Cars), they still manage to outshine nearly every computer animated film ever released by the competition. Needless to say, I found myself powerless to resist the lure of seeing Toy Story 3 on its opening weekend.

Unsurprisingly, the film was charming, cinematic, and emotionally stirring. A few sequences felt a little visually overwhelming, some of the more delightful characters didn't seem to receive the screen time they merited (including newcomers Mr. Pricklepants, Chuckles the Clown, and Trixie the Triceratops), and several minor plot points made little sense without some familiarity with the film's predecessors (this is a cardinal sin amongst sequels). These small flaws notwithstanding, Toy Story 3 was a masterfully executed film.

But still, I was disappointed, disheartened, and more than a little disgusted by the picture's brazen homophobia. The film portrays one of its new characters, a Ken doll named Ken, as a flighty, narcissistic dandy whose effeminate behavior transforms him into a walking punchline. Time and again, his appearance, demeanor, and mannerisms are mocked by the other characters, and the film thus projects the insidious message that men who violate societal standards of masculine gender behavior are worthy of ridicule.

In one particularly abhorrent scene, several characters tease Ken for being a girl's toy. His hasty, emotional denial indicates that this is a taunt he has deflected many times before and which has caused him a great deal of torment. His bitter self-hatred, tragically familiar to many bullied gays, is nonetheless presented as laughable. In another scene, several characters receive a letter written with pink, glittery ink and declare that Barbie has beautiful handwriting before suddenly realizing that Ken is the note's author. They react with bemused surprise, suggesting that there's something bizarre, unnatural, and comical about men who display feminine behavior.

The film also repeatedly belittles Ken for cross-dressing (or purportedly doing so). In one scene, a ticked off Barbie angrily demands that Ken stop wearing her scarf. In another, Barbie disguises herself in Ken's full body spacesuit and almost gives herself away when she forgets to change out of her high heels. Luckily, this mistake is simply viewed as confirmation that Ken likes to wear women's clothes under his outfit, and Barbie manages to escape, though not without suffering a sigh of reproach. This implies that effeminate men like Ken can reasonably be expected to secretly wear women's clothes, and also that transvestism is shameful and needs to be hidden.

Although the film ostensibly suggests that Ken has heterosexual feelings for Barbie, this rarely serves as more than window-dressing for his much greater interest in his own good looks. When he and Barbie go on a date, he spends the entire time modeling different outfits. Furthermore, his fashion sense is portrayed as campy and out of touch. "Love your leg warmers," he tells Barbie without a hint of irony. His own wardrobe is an explosion of the worst excesses of disco, and he squeals in panic when his treasured Nehru jacket is threatened. We can't help but feel that Ken's sequin-studded blazer isn't the only thing he keeps in the closet. Furthermore, his ultra-tacky taste reinforces the stereotype that gay men choose to dress like freaks instead of adopting the sensible, quieter mores of masculine, socially acceptable heterosexuals.

The film also delights in casting Ken as a laughable sissy villain. Even though he serves as a prominent figure among the cabal of evil toys, he lacks the physical prowess of his cohorts and must rely on their strength and cunning to incapacitate his foes. His own attempts at leadership and interrogation are ridiculed by the organization's ringleader, to whom Ken remains a subservient sidekick. He is also easily distracted and ambushed (due to his excessive fondness for showing off his clothes), and he sells out his friends in order to save his designer threads. He eventually redeems himself, but even his moment of courage can hardly be taken seriously as he spends the entire scene wearing nothing more than heart-speckled underpants.

In the end, Toy Story 3 presents Ken as a silly fop who deserves to be humiliated for his unnatural, shameful, and utterly despicable gender-defying behavior. Furthermore, the film compels us to always laugh at Ken and never with him. Casting Ken as a bad guy, the film gives us little reason to empathize with him and even suggests that he deserves to be bullied by those around him because of his effeminate nature.

Sadly, these kinds of portrayals are rampant in popular culture. When LGBT people aren't ignored entirely, we're presented as demeaning and outrageous stereotypes. What results is a vicious cycle in which we hunger for representation in the media but often end up feeling kicked to the curb when we are portrayed in cruel and humiliating ways.

In many cases, we have only found expression through happy accidents. Back in the early 1990's, Mattel released a revamped Ken doll as part of the Earring Magic series. Earring Magic Ken sports tight black pants, a mesh shirt, and a lavender vest, as well as blond highlights and a single earring. He also appears to be wearing a cock ring on a chain around his neck. The doll became an instant must-have item in the gay community, and a horrified Mattel recalled the product. Their belief seemed to be that it would be disastrous to have their product associated with homosexuality. Despite the recall, Earring Magic Ken became the best-selling Ken of all time. Commentators claimed that the doll's popularity derived from its kitsch factor, and while this may be partially true, I think it also touched on something deeper: a desire to be seen and represented as a part of the fabric of everyday America. This yearning certainly hasn't gone away, and as long as Earring Magic Ken is kept off the shelves and Toy Story 3's sickeningly offensive Ken remains on the screen, we still have a long way to go.

How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There's a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

The Living End (1992)

The Living End is a brutal film. Conventional audiences will find it nearly unwatchable because of its paper-thin plot, agonizingly static characters, and ludicrous dialogue, not to mention its penchant for eroticized violence and painful gay sex. But The Living End wasn't made for conventional audiences; director Gregg Araki seems more focused on using his film to broadcast a deafening "fuck you" to puritanical America, the Hollywood establishment, and anyone else who can hear his scream of rage.

Much of the film's anger derives from the AIDS activist culture that was boiling over when The Living End first emerged in 1992. The story follows Jon, an unassuming movie critic struggling to find meaning after being diagnosed with HIV. A chance meeting introduces him to Luke, a hard-drinking, HIV-positive pretty boy who finds himself on the run after murdering a cadre of gay bashers. The two escape on a road trip, deciding that the death sentence imposed by their HIV status gives them ample justification to do anything and everything they want. An orgy of sex, violence, and really awesome industrial music ensues.

The film ultimately serves to create a dark fantasy escape from the cruel apathy that greeted the AIDS epidemic. Jon personifies the effete HIV-positive gay man who finds himself marginalized and wished out of existence by the world around him. He fulfills his desires through Luke, a beautiful stranger who ignores all the rules, murders the homophobes who attack him, and provides an easy escape from an imperfect world. Together, the two transgress the barriers of the society that has rejected them and craft new lives for themselves beyond the boundaries of their mundane world.

The Living End continues on its rage bender for as long as it can manage, but like all joy rides, it must eventually come crashing back to reality. The characters burn out and rail against each other and their environment, but the film seems eager to cast aside these tender moments and delve back into chaos. Even with these flashes of lucidity, the film remains raw, deviant, and often without any overriding sense of direction or clarity.

But is it worth it? Maybe, but it sure leaves one hell of a hangover.

The Rules of Attraction (2002)

Was I the only one whose college experience wasn't some sort of drug-fueled orgy? Where were the amazingly good-looking angsty Bohemian dreamers while I was sitting in my dorm room, waiting for my own End of the Universe? It probably has something to do with the upper-crusty conservative college I went to. Or maybe it was just the wrong decade.

Bret Easton Ellis published The Rules of Attraction in 1987, shortly after graduating from a small New England liberal arts college much like the one that he describes in his novel. The fictional school, Camden, is populated by apathetic proto-hipsters who spend their time snidely criticizing each other, aimlessly changing their majors, half-heartedly dabbling in the arts, and fucking like rabbits.

The film version of The Rules of Attraction repositions itself in the 2000's and updates various aspects of the book accordingly. It also takes several liberties with the characters and their stories, though in a way that remains faithful to the emotional tenor of Ellis's writing, even if several items have been sanitized for the screen (most of the gay content has been excised and one of the characters is a proud virgin, whereas everyone in the book is a total sexaholic). Perhaps somewhat cynically, the film was marketed as a college comedy, and while it possesses the requisite scenes of dorm parties and casual hook-ups, its humor is much darker than typical frat fare, as it ultimately presents a dark fantasy of sexually vampiric deviants who always ruin themselves by falling in love with the wrong people.

I don't think I ever thought I would find myself saying this, but James Van Der Beek is kind of amazing in this film. He plays Sean, the nihilistic drug-dealing partyboy who fails his classes for fun, screws anything that moves, and never quite understands how he makes himself miserable. Like all the film's characters, he hopelessly chases after the one person he can never have- in his case, it's the crafty, Bohemian Lauren, who still holds out hope for a lost boyfriend. Sean meanwhile finds himself pursued by Paul, who cooly mocks his classmates' behavior while struggling to conceal his own insecurities. It's pathetic and tragic enough to be hilarious, especially because it so successfully transforms the most superficial elements of the college film into something so different and refreshing.

The Rules of Attraction earns extra points for being one of the first major features to be cut on Final Cut Pro. The film has a certain simplicity and crispness representative of the best of digital editing systems, and it also bravely includes an entire four minute episode shot entirely on consumer DV camera. This section, which follows Kip Pardue's character as he travels around Europe in a drug-and-sex-induced stupor, is perhaps the strongest and most honest chapter in the entire film, and it demonstrates the great promise of multi-format editing that has become available to filmmakers working in the digital world.

Also, amazingly, the commentary track is by Carrot Top, who had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. He is also apparently watching it for the first time while delivering his comments. This is brilliant, hilarious, and morbid all at once. Just like the film itself.

1988

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

I first saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away during my senior year of high school. It was a weekend night shortly before I graduated, and I was tired of chasing after my friends as they partied up and down the coast, so I cozied up at my dad's house, burned some Nag Champa, and popped Princess Mononoke into my PS2. I remember being amazed, but in a quiet way that I've since experienced with Miyazaki's other works as well. Mononoke energized the eighteen year-old me with its moments of raw emotion and beautifully-rendered violence, plus no teenage boy can resist badass lines like: "Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god. A god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him."

However, beyond its adolescent-approved coolness, Princess Mononoke won me over with its strong mythic themes, universal characters, and emotional impact. It's a film filled with equal parts intensity and thoughtfulness, and these are the qualities that have caused me to have equally strong memories of my first viewings of Miyazaki's other films. Few other filmmakers produce work that leaves me both slightly sleepy and completely satisfied by the time I finish watching. And I definitely mean that in a good way.

I had avoided Kiki's Delivery Service for years because it seemed so childish, especially when compared to war epics like Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke. Much of this is no doubt due to Disney's horrid American marketing campaign, though, to be fair, the film is definitely friendlier than some of Miyazaki's others (no decapitations or bloodthirsty demons). My aversion of the film is unfortunate, as it shows the extent to which I have bought into that bad American prejudice that animated films must necessarily be children's fare unless they contain sex and violence.

Kiki is a thirteen year-old witch who leaves home in order to hone her magical skills in a new town. She settles in a sleepy port town that seems to mix facets of sparkling 1950's exuberance with quaint European charm, and from here she establishes a delivery business so that she can put her broomstick-flying skills to good use. The film maintains a domestic focus and revolves around preparing food, running errands, and going to parties. This is a world run by women, as the film features plenty full of strong female characters, while the only men all end up as lovable doofuses. The only prominent, multi-faceted male character is Kiki's cat, Jiji, who also happens to be the only character to possess any kind of sexual impulse. Even the pregnant Osono barely seems to acknowledge her husband/creepy male companion.

On the one hand, I think it's great that Miyazaki has crafted a world with such strong female characters. However, it's also a little disappointing that their lives seem to revolve entirely around cooking, cleaning, and throwing parties. Even though Kiki is an adventurous misfit, her rebellious desires center around finding a home, saving enough money to afford beautiful clothes, and performing household chores to gain the good graces of others. The film therefore exists at a curious crossroads as it simultaneously reinforces traditional female domesticity while empowering its women as active, hard-working agents of change.

Unlike many of Miyazaki's other films, Kiki's characters also primarily occupy themselves with the mundane problems of the real world. Kiki struggles to keep appointments, balance her work load, and overcome her own self-doubts. The film's climactic episode sees her working against an accident that has resulted from poor municipal planning. In a sense, Miyazaki might be too in love with the charming little world he has created, as he never creates any threats or challenges that might fundamentally upend the town's permanent order. This sets Kiki apart from other Miyazaki works, in which characters must regularly confront altogether calamitous situations. The result is that Kiki feels sleepier, cozier, and less philosophical than other films like Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it would have been nice to see Kiki's characters confront problems with a bit more weight than figuring out how long to keep a pie in the oven.

Also, beware: the American DVD is set by default to play a Disney-recorded English language voice-over. Not only is this really annoying, but it will also cause you to miss the film's really amazing Japanese retro 50's pop opening song.

And the Losers Are... (#2: Shorts, Documentaries, and Animations)

Curiously, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not choose to present any award for Best Feature Length Film. Or for Best-Live Action Film (i.e. non-animated). Or for Best Narrative Film Based Upon a Screenplay. Why? Because it's pretty much taken for granted that the film that wins Best Picture must necessarily be a feature length, live-action narrative fiction film. Any film that does not posses these characteristics is instead labeled as "special", which of course really means not special enough to be the best film of the year. Handing out awards in these special categories allows the Academy to pretend like it cares about film diversity, but the Hollywood elite who run the Oscars are actually more concerned with manipulating viewers into believing that the major studios' stale, overwrought dramas are categorically superior to films produced outside of the Hollywood power structure.

To date, there has never been a short, animated, or documentary film to win Best Picture. Short films are relegated to their own categories, with separate divisions existing for live-action, documentary, and animated shorts. This all contributes to one the Oscars' great unspoken messages: short films are not as good as their feature-length counterparts. There's no good reason to blindly assume that any film running under 60 minutes must necessarily be inferior quality to a film that is over an hour long. However, for Academy voters, this is a golden nugget of truth, and this bias speaks volumes about the Academy's business-based values. Feature-length films generate immense profits, whereas shorts are neglected by the major studios and tend to find find receptive audiences only at specialized film festivals. The profitability of longer films therefore confirms their "greatness", while short films are seen as junior projects made by silly people who foolishly care about things other than making millions of dollars. The Academy places these films to a separate category, claiming that doing so honors up and coming filmmakers. In reality, however, these categories exist for the Academy to belittle filmmakers who choose to work outside of the Hollywood business paradigm.

This relegation of short films ties into another unrelenting trend that has developed in Oscar voting: length bias. Most Best Picture nominees extend well beyond the 2 hour mark, which effectively broadcasts the message that "epic length" is the same as "epic quality". In fact, no Best Picture winner from the past two decades has dipped below 110 minutes, and films running over 150 minutes have made off with the top prize eight times during the same period. Ironically, this trend cuts against one of the greatest strengths of traditional Hollywood storytelling, as rewarding "epic" pictures often favors bloated, poorly edited films over those crafted with narrative conciseness.

The Academy likewise marginalizes animated films, labeling them as specialty kiddy projects that have little to do with serious cinema. Disney's Beauty and the Beast was lucky enough to secure a Best Picture nomination in 1991, but it remains the only animated film to make it this far. To add insult to injury, no animated film has ever received an Oscar nomination for Best Director, Best Editing, or any of the acting awards (for that matter, no voice-over artist has ever been thus honored). The Academy's 2001 introduction of an award for Best Animated Feature seems to have more firmly pushed this door closed, as the creation of a specialty category sends a strong message to voters that animated films should not be confused with Best Picture caliber films. After all, cartoons are for kids and therefore cannot be taken seriously. How else to explain the fact that no film rated higher than PG has ever won Best Animated Feature, while no film rated higher than PG-13 has ever even been nominated?

Even animated films which have received commercial and critical acclaim (two things the Academy loves), as well as artistic and academic praise (two things the Academy pretends to care about) seem to have zero chance of breaking into the Best Picture bracket. Such was the case of Spirited Away and The Incredibles, both of which claimed the Animated Feature prize but weren't allowed to compete against quickly forgotten Best Pictures like Chicago and Million Dollar Baby. It would appear that the bias against animated films has become so strong that even popular, prominent, and financially lucrative films remain segregated from the Academy's high profile awards.

And documentaries are just shit out of luck, relegated to the "otherness" of the Oscar's two doc categories. No documentary film has ever received a nomination for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, or Best Screenplay (and yes, many documentaries do have screenplays or their equivalents). In fact, no documentary film has ever been nominated in any non-documentary specific category, suggesting that somehow documentaries are less thoughtfully or painstakingly constructed than their fictive cousins.

This slap in the face is perhaps strongest felt by documentary editors, whose work remains perpetually under-appreciated by the Academy. Hollywood has long refused to view editing as a creative position on par with directing or writing, as top studio bosses seem to naively believe that editors simply glue all the necessary pieces of a film together in the right order. Nothing could be further from the truth, though this is especially true in the world of documentary filmmaking. Whereas editors working in narrative fiction have the benefit of working from a carefully planned screenplay, documentary editors typically find themselves without any such guides and must must wade through hundreds of hours of footage to construct their scenes. Doc editors nonetheless receive neither technical nor creative recognition for their work. To make matters worse, the films that snag the Best Editing Oscar each year are invariably big-budget, detail-oriented Hollywood productions in which the editor is handed such meticulously shot scenes that he or she can be asleep at the wheel and still produce an entirely watchable cut. It is in this way that the industry's hardest working editors lose out every year to those who have little need to imbue their work with innovation or creativity.

By relegating short, animated, and documentary films to separate categories and denying them access to the high profile awards, the Academy essentially declares that these films are necessarily inferior to feature-length, live-action, narrative fiction films. This is hardly surprising, seeing as the Academy is made up of powerful Hollywood insiders, most of whom have never worked outside the world of "major motion pictures", and who therefore have a vested interest in deifying over-produced big-budget epics while backhandedly tearing down any other film format that might threaten their control over the entertainment industry.

And the Losers Are... (#1: Women)

Two weekends ago, I caught about a half hour of the Academy Awards telecast when I was eating dinner at my father's house. My stepmom, who is a big Oscar fan, was cooing over the show's every little flourish. My father was watching because he didn't really have anything else to do, and I was spending most of the time trying to keep myself from vomiting.

You see, I hate the Oscars. Back when I was a kid, I used to think that the Academy Awards show was one of the greatest things on television (and hence the world), but my fascination gradually transformed into boredom and then disgust with the bloated, self-congratulatory ceremony. At first, I mostly fumed at the show because crappy movies always seemed to beat less crappy ones. The more I've thought about it, though, the more I've come to realize that the show's awfulness involves much more than bad movies hauling home piles of gold statues. At its essence, the Academy Awards is a sham ceremony designed to validate the most conservative elements of Hollywood cinema by exaggerating the greatness of bland films and marginalizing, ignoring, or backhandedly attacking any threats to the establishment. The many sins of the Oscars could easily fill a book (and one day I might make that happen), but for now I plan on dedicating a few posts to some of the Academy Awards' most egregious problems. First up: rampant bias against women.

There is no award for Best Screenplay Written by a Woman, or for Best Score by a Female Composer, or for Best Director with Ovaries. However, oddly enough, the Academy still separates out male and female actors as if to suggest that there is something fundamentally different between the two. Male actors and female actors do the exact same job. Drama students aren't segregated by gender in order to teach the men "male-acting" and the women "lady-acting". Drama is drama, comedy is comedy, and masterful acting remains masterful regardless of the genitalia of the person delivering the performance.

Some people argue that it's appropriate to have separate award categories because different roles are written for men than for women. However, different roles are also written for blacks and whites, young and old, skinny and fat. Nonetheless, there is no Oscar presented for the Best Performance by a Mexican or for the Best Performance by a Tall Person in a Supporting Role. Furthermore, despite its ultra-liberal reputation, the Academy has yet to create separate categories for transgender or intersex actors.

In actuality, the segregated acting awards function as a smokescreen to keep people from noticing that women rarely win Oscars in categories that require them to compete with men. To date, no woman has ever won an Oscar for Best Director (only three have even been nominated) or for Best Cinematography (none have ever been nominated). Only two women have won awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and only six female producers have taken home trophies for Best Picture, though all of these were shared with men. Even editing, one of the few high profile jobs that has historically been open to women, has only produced a scant ten female Oscar winners.

If the acting categories were to become gender-nonspecific, women would undoubtedly lose out there, too. Many female actors struggle to find good roles, as so few are written for them. Big studio scripts, which are predominately penned by men, tend to feature dynamic male characters full of complexity and nuance. However, these fascinating men stand side by side with cookie-cutter females who either fill stock roles or function primarily as eye candy. As some have pointed out, these two trends- the preponderance of sex kittens and the dearth of good female roles- are not unrelated: because Hollywood so strongly prefers its leading ladies to be sexy and young, American films feature few complicated, older female characters with rich and compelling life stories. The result is that Tinseltown's' most experienced female actors (those old crones who have made it past 30) have nearly zero chance of appearing in major productions.

To this end, the actress awards serve as a form of affirmative action guaranteeing that at least two women walk home with Oscars every year, but this is just a device designed to create the illusion that men and women exist on equal footing. The rest of the show, meanwhile, constantly reinforces the Academy's unspoken mantra that women who excel at filmmaking do so with much less consistency than their male counterparts.

It's not like women don't make movies, either. Women have made some of the most powerful contributions to the cinematic arts. However, they have often been excluded from the Hollywood power structure, which means that many of the best female filmmakers (e.g. Maya Deren, Sadie Benning, Su Friedrich, Peggy Ahwesh, et al.) have worked entirely outside the realm of mainstream Hollywood cinema. To Academy voters, the work these women produce is "too independent" to be recognized at the Oscars. However, female filmmakers seldom "choose" to make indy films instead of big budget Hollywood ones. In fact, they have no choice in the matter whatsoever, as their double X-chromosomes exclude them from the Hollywood boys' club. Or, to put it another way, women don't win Oscars because they're simply not allowed to make Oscar-winning films.

Fire Diamonds

The last time I was in San Diego, I went with my mom and my brother to the jewelry store next to our local soon-to-be-closed Circuit City. The jeweler, who seemed to already know my brother well, showed us several different styles of rings, describing various models as "classic" or "stylish" or "elegant". I thought they all looked the same, but I've never been one to care much about rings (except for the mythic and magical kinds, of course). When my brother had finally settled on a design, my mother pulled a small, grey pouch out of her handbag and handed it to the jeweler. He carefully emptied the contents into his hand. "These are excellent diamonds," he said. "They'll make for a beautiful engagement ring".

These diamonds were pretty much the only thing to survive the fire that destroyed my mother's house two years ago. A congregation from one of the local churches showed up and helped my parents sift through the rubble on the charred lot where the house used to stand. At the end of the day, the Christians left my parents with the diamonds, a slab of melted silver, and a brand new bible with golden-edged pages. For a few days, it was the only book they owned.

My brother's girlfriend—it still feels strange to say fiancée—had been there with us when we were dealing with all of that, too. She was also there with my brother and me when we decorated our parents' new house for Christmas while they were away on vacation. She came over with a bag full of knickknacks from the home decor store where her mother works, and later she brought us a holiday cake and a plate of cookies. I like her a lot.

It still weirds me out a little that my brother is now (as of this past weekend) engaged. I'm opposed to people getting married before thirty, if for no other reason than it's totally fucking creepy. I also find it weird, not to mention totally medieval, that my brother asked her father's permission before proposing marriage. It's not like he owns her. This is one of the many aspects of marriage that sours the whole institution for me. Maybe I'm just jealous that my brother has found love even though he's younger than I am. Or maybe it's because I know I'll never have a storybook romance, white wedding, or archaic ritual of my own.

There was a bowl of candy on the counter at the jewelry store. I asked the jeweler if chocolates came bundled with every gemstone purchase. He hurriedly assured me that they were free for the taking, and then he joked that I would probably be needing his services someday soon. "That depends on whether or not the good people of California decide to let me," I said. "Ah, politics," he replied nervously, before finding something with which to busy himself behind the counter.

My mom took us to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen afterward. "I know you probably won't ever need an engagement ring," she told me while we were waiting for our food. "So I hope you don't mind that your brother got the diamonds". I actually hadn't given it much thought, but when she mentioned this, I started to realize that I had been assigned a destiny somewhere outside the myth of our American family. "It's important that I be fair," my mother continued. "So just remember that I owe you something big—like a down payment on a house."

This sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me. After all, a house seems way more appealing than some shiny rocks that I would have to give away to someone else. Nonetheless, I can't help but be swayed by the romantic idea of these fire diamonds that now adorn my soon-to-be sister-in-law's finger. I don't mean romantic in the cheesy Valentine's Day way, but in the sense of the high Romance that constitutes the saga of our lives—the mythic quest from womb to tomb. My brother's journey seems resolute because he has familiar guideposts to help him on his way, but my path appears much less certain. I suppose my Romance is that of the Stranger who wanders in the dark, stumbling upon hidden treasures and writing his own unique story. My promethean soul wants to reaffirm that this is the better life, but I'm not without my doubts. I feel the temptation of a world in which the key moments have all been charted out in advance. But I know that this fantasy is deceptive, for no fire diamonds exist to guide me on my path.

I'm standing on the edge of a pool that stretches out into a dense fog. The water is thick and velvety, and I can't see the bottom. The air grows colder. The fog thickens. I dive into the darkness.

New Year's Day

...was about four weeks ago. I spent it in San Francisco with my awesome friend Tesla, who blogs about world music and sci-fi, fantasy, and action films at This Mortal Coil (one of the single best blogs on the internets).

I hadn't been to San Francisco since I visited with my father and my brother in the mid 1990's. We did all the textbook tourist stuff then: Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghiradelli Square, and, of course, illegally riding on the cable cars (for a conservative businessman type, my dad is kind of a badass). This happened back during those strange and darkly wondrous years after my parents' divorce but before my father's marriage to his current wife. My brother and I traveled back and forth between our parents homes back then- joint custody meant that we spent a week at one house before being ferried back to the other (it was kind of like Persephone's journey between Olympus and Hell, only cycling much more frequently).

During this time, my father planned many vacations for us to see the iconic sites and cities of the American landscape: there was a desert adventure to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon, a road trip through the New England of his childhood, with stops in busy New York City and Boston Harbor, but also sleepy Vermont and Maine, and journeys through the grandeur and beauty of California, like Mammoth Lakes during the winter or the orchards of Julien on lazy weekends during the school year. However, San Francisco ranks as the most magical of the these vacations, and my most recent visit reaffirms my belief that it is one of the great American cities.

Tesla and her boyfriend treated me to an orgy of delight while I was in town, and highlights include the De Young Museum, Joust, Amoeba Records, Dengue Fever, Yves Saint Laurent, Bomberman, and so much more. My favorite thing was probably on New Year's Day, when Tesla took me on a tour of her neighborhood, the Mission District, to check out all of the cool street art/wall murals/grafitti. Visual evidence is located here.

During the day, I had time to make myself several New Year's resolutions for 2009. Chief among them: move to San Francisco.

Coming Attractions

Attention Faithful Readers (Both of You):

My apologies that The New Macabre has not been updated in a long while (like, longer than usual even). I am currently without internet in my domicile (long, potentially amusing story). I am looking to remedy this problem (longer, less amusing story). In the meanwhile, I will have to leave you with some tantalizing snippets of posts that may be coming to this very blog quite soon. Possibilities include:

-A tour of San Francisco graffiti and street murals
-Further reflections on favorite childhood TV shows (Which was the gay Ninja Turtle?)
-Post Apocalyptic Possibilities: Cyborgs, Mutants, Zombies, and Survivors
-Battlestar Galactica
-Why I Hack (And Why You Should, Too)

Please alert the management if any of these sound particularly good (try not to flood the comments section all at once).

Ken Park (2002)

This movie hasn't been officially screened or released in the US, except for its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. There are a few PAL DVD's floating around out there, but North Americans are pretty much shit out of luck. And we aren't the only ones who have trouble getting a copy of the film, as it's been banned in countries like Australia and Singapore (anything banned in Singapore is almost always worth doing).

Ken Park presents a group of scrappy but mostly likable California skater punks, who, like any good teenagers, find themselves struggling with their abusive/crazy/absent/disconnected parents. Each of the four main characters has his or her own story, and the narrative progresses through a series of parallel episodes as directors/cinematographers Larry Clark and Ed Lachman jump back and forth among the lives of their various protagonists, much as Clark does in his other films like Bully and the seminal Kids.

And just like with Kids, Clark turned to Harmony Korine to pen the script for Ken Park. This is probably the film's greatest strength, as Korine imbues his characters with an instantly palpable sense of sincerity and mundane beauty. These characters feel most authentic in their moments of embarrassing normalcy, like when one boy trims his pregnant mother's toenails, or when a sullen teenager plays jumprope with a group of neighborhood girls. Particularly poignant are the scenes at the beginning of the film in which the teens introduce introduce each other through a series of personal anecdotes and still photographs.

So why exactly did people make such a big fuss about this film? It's chock full of murder, suicide, drug use, and curse words, but there's plenty of that in R-rated movies already, so I'm gonna figure it's the many scenes hot adolescent sex that prevented this film from being released in so many countries (though it couldn't have helped that Clark punched one of his distributors in the face at a party). Of course, there's plenty of lovemaking in other movies, too, but the sex in Ken Park seems to have freaked people out because it 1.) involves characters who are underage (the actors are not), and 2.) is obviously real. That's real, as in real penises going into real vaginas (good heavens!). Of course, this kind of thing immediately prompts cries of pornography, and this reaction alone is a big part of what makes the film's "unsimulated" sex so interesting.

Movie sex scenes have become almost painfully cliché, as filmmakers rely on the same tame and overused shots whenever portraying any kind of erotic content. In order to avoid the kiss of death that is an NC-17 rating (such films cannot show in major theater chains and will not be carried by big box retailers), many otherwise brilliant directors find themselves relying on visual techniques that the MPAA star chamber has traditionally awarded R ratings. While any imaginable form of violence qualifies a film for an R, a single flash of pubic hair is often all it takes to merit a financially disastrous NC-17. Clark and Lachman's sex scenes are therefore extremely powerful not only because they're hot (which they often are), but also because they so boldly and shamelessly dare to buck the societal hysteria over sex, pornography, and the seldom discussed difference between the two.

Despite these forays into the realm of cultural and cinematic taboo, Ken Park nonetheless utilizes a fairly conservative aesthetic. With few exceptions, the narrative remains clean and straightforward, and most of the characters never achieve the depth or nuance hinted at in the film's opening sequences. The adults feel particularly stilted, and few of them come across as more than caricatures of various types of bad parents. The film's narrative likewise fails to live up to its potential, as Ken Park's disparate episodes never come together in any satisfactory manner. Furthermore, the end of the film features perhaps one atrocity too many. I don't consider myself squeamish, but I found the film's authenticity began to wane as it lined up successive scenes of autoerotic asphyxiation, incestuous sexual assault, parricide, and a parent-child wedding ceremony. The earliest of these events pack quite a wallop, but Clark and Lachman allow for such little breathing room in between their sensationalist outbursts that the routine quickly becomes stale. I'm left to wonder if Clark made the right move in rewriting the end of Korine's script.

I would like to be able to further discuss Ken Park's strengths and weaknesses with my friends (and readers), but the film's "pornographic" nature and resultant lack of distribution have made this extremely problematic, if not impossible. Tracking down a copy of the film has actually become more difficult than buying a copy of just about any flesh flick. As it is, I can't even effectively debate Ken Park's merits or its status in relation to "pornography", as the film remains unavailable in most countries, including the one in which it was produced. That's some pretty fucked up shit right there.

Things I Only Now Realize About Television Shows I Enjoyed as a Child

While I was home for Thanksgiving, my father presented me with the amazing discovery he had recently unearthed in our garage: a (mostly) functional Panasonic AG-170 VHS video camera. He had actually been planning on throwing it away, and I'm so happy that he didn't. We unpacked it from its carrying case (a thick plastic valise), plugged it in, and managed to coax it back to life. And it turned out to be pretty damn awesome.

My father pulled out a few old video tapes to see if we could get them to play back, and they ended up being full of footage of me and my brother growing up (which is kind of funny, seeing as I don't remember my parents ever using the video camera). We started going through all of our VHS tapes, and one of the first ones we put in was of me as a newborn with my grandmother shortly before she died. I don't have any memories of her, so it was really a wonderful discovery.

I borrowed my dad's VCR and went through the rest of our unmarked tapes. I found a bunch of these old home movies, and I've been working on digitizing them so I can create DVD's for my parents. I figure they'll make good Christmas gifts.

However, most of the tapes were of TV shows that my brother and I had recorded at some point. It was strange for me to scan through all these old shows and remember a time in my life when I regularly watched television (I haven't had cable since I graduated high school). Scanning through excerpts from these shows, I found myself remembering the reasons why I had found them so enchanting when I was younger, but I also discovered tons of stuff that I never noticed when I was a kid. For example:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
This 1964 TV special is more or less entirely based on the Christmas jingle of the same name. I know, eww, right? It's also a musical. However, coming in on the awesome side is that it's done with stop-motion animation, and it features an waistcoat-wearing snowman storyteller, a murdrous yeti, and a place called The Island of Misfit Toys ruled by a lion king. For some reason, most of my punk rock high school friends had never heard of this show before. Did we grow up in parallel universes? Or was it because they were almost all Jewish?

What I Only Now Realize: This show is apparently from the 1960's. When I was young I had absolutely no concept of time or way of telling the difference between shows that were brand new and those that were decades old, especially when they were cartoons. This is probably why Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo can play on TV forever and still seem fresh to the latest crop of American children. Nowadays it's just the opposite: I freak out if I watch an old movie and am off by more than one when I guess the year (something my boss teased me about this week when we were going through archival materials for our documentary). This goes to show that advances in special effects mean nothing if the story isn't any good.

Still Enjoyable Today? Mostly. It's cheesy in just the right ways, and even though the song numbers are a little grating, the stop motion animation is totally fucking charming. Plus it's full of unironic sexism (the young bucks all train to fly for Santa while the does watch and daintily flutter their eyelashes) and incidental violence (an elf revenges himself on a yeti by yanking its teeth out) that would never fly on today's children's programming. The Island of Misfit Toys is pretty damn wonderful, too (like, I kinda want to move there).

How would it have voted on Prop 8? Definite no. Maybe I'm just turning into a queer media studies douchebag, but I couldn't help but find gay subtext in most of these shows from my childhood. Seeing as this one is all about outsiders who get rejected from society for being different, but whose differences actually serve to make that society stronger, I'm going to give it a big gay thumbs up. Plus most of the main characters are clear stand-ins for homos: the overly sensitive blond elf and the rugged but friendly mountain man look like regulars from any queer watering hole.


Nick Arcade
Between the ages of 6 and 16, I was more or less completely obsessed with video games. They had a certain pop-culture cachet of cool in the late 80's and early 90's, resulting in TV shows based on Mario, Zelda, and Sonic the Hedgehog, and movies like The Wizard (which I used to watch religiously). Another offshoot was the game show Nick Arcade, which rewarded teenagers for being good at video games and knowing trivia. It also allowed its contestants a chance to go inside a video game (via some surprisingly convincing green screen).

What I Only Now Realize: This show was apparently made by lunatic crack addicts. The host looks like he's anxious to get the hell off the set and can barely read the cue cards. Based on his in-your-face dance moves and barely hidden contempt for the contestants, he really, really wishes he were a VJ instead of some guy who gets paid to watch teenagers lose at video games. The challenges involve backwards-playing videos and acid-trippy "robot vision" puzzles that seem to reinforce the notion that drugs and video games were meant to be consumed together.

Still Enjoyable Today? Not really . Except maybe the parts where the contestants lose at video games (I'm such an asshole).

How would it have voted on Prop 8? Yes. Marriage should only be awarded to homosexuals if they can touch all three power crystals before time runs out (read: never).



Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
OK, so this is probably the only uber-fad I ever really got into. I can even remember playing Power Rangers outside of an Oscars (before it was Pat & Oscars) with friends and having to be the pink ranger because all the boy rangers had been taken already (I sign of things to come?). I also remember calling 911 from the pay phone in front of the restaurant for no apparent reason. In conclusion, I did a lot of crazy shit I didn't really understand when I was 8.

What I Only Now Realize: This show is apparently Japanese. Was this point completely lost on the rest of America? The show had been on in Japan for years, and all the action scenes were taken straight from the Japanese production. The Japanese rangers (who fly away to heaven at the end of the series) were replaced by a multicultural cast of American teenagers, and the whole thing was repackaged for an English-speaking audience. The really weird part is that the American version ended up being more popular in Japan than the Japanese version.

Still Enjoyable Today? Hardly.

How would it have voted on Prop 8? Yes. I only scanned through a few episodes, but sample plot points included how gross and silly it is when a boy accidentally kisses another boy, how the hunky boy wants to go on a date with the cute girl, and how awful it is when a man becomes trapped in a woman's body.



The Adventures of Brisco County Jr
This show was about bounty hunters, time-travel, cowboys, robots, and a magical orb. Basically, it was every 9 year old's dream come true (there were even ninjas in one episode). Plus, it stars Bruce Campbell as the titular badass. However, it only managed to last for one season before mysteriously disappearing.

What I Only Now Realize: This show is apparently much less enjoyable for me as an adult than it was for me as a boy (sad!!!). The jokes feel cornier, the twists much more predictable, and the action more hackneyed. All in all, the whole series comes across as a great idea that had been watered down to make it more family friendly. Ugh, do I officially not have a soul anymore?

Still Enjoyable Today? Sometimes. Despite the flaws listed above, it still has some nice moments, especially between Brisco and his con-artist pseudo-girlfriend, Dixie Cousins. There are some nice instances of future technology combined with wild west cowboy action, and the shows strongest thematic moments come in its extremely self-conscious reflections on what it means to live in an era of dynamic change.

How would it have voted on Prop 8? No. This show was way too forward thinking and ahead of its time to settle for the shitty status quo.



X-Men
I regularly sat through several hours of Saturday morning cartoons that I actually kind of hated just because X-Men was part of the lineup. Words can't describe how badly I wanted to be an X-Man growing up. Probably because I got him in in my first pack of X-Men trading cards, my favorite was Cyclops. It was fitting, though, because he was such a straight arrow boy blue prepster type. It's who I wanted to be when I was a kid, but since then I think I've become more of a Gambit type.

What I Only Now Realize: This show is apparently actually a soap opera disguised as a superhero cartoon. So much of the action revolves around love triangles, hidden agendas, and complex webs of secrets and lies. Yeah there are super powers too, but those end up serving mostly as filler in between the diabolical plot twists.

Still Enjoyable Today? The soap opera parts definitely. The action not so much.

How would it have voted on Prop 8? A resounding no. As Bryan Singer showed so well in X2, the mutant struggle bears striking similarities to the LGBT rights movements: mutants, like gays, are special members of the population whose true nature manifests itself during adolescence and who are persecuted by civic and religious figures because of their innate identities. The core theme of the show- outsiders finding power in their special status- speaks to a much broader human experience, which is probably one of the reason why the X-Men have remained so popular over the past 40 years.



Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (& also Xena, duh)
This is one of the only TV shows I ever used to watch regularly with my dad. Like most of the other genre-busting shows I enjoyed, it managed to feature all kinds of crazy shit like vampires, deities, and wizards all packaged into one delectable program. I seem to remember that the Xena spinoff was actually better than Hercules, especially during Herc's later years, though I might have been swayed because Lucy Lawless was such a badass.

What I Only Now Realize: These shows were apparently made by porn stars. The women are all ridiculously hot, and Xena spends most of her time in a bondage outfit. Looking back, I can remember feeling extremely uncomfortable when my middle school gym teacher would tell us that he wanted us to keep doing situps until we looked as good as she did.

Still Enjoyable Today? Surprisingly, yes. I guess gods and monsters and warlords and moral dilemmas still manage to hold my attention (I'm kind of a sucker for mythology). The special effects are totally ridiculous and shitty looking, but both shows have a really nice, clean 35mm look and a spot-on blend of action, romance, comedy, and pulpy goodness. (Tesla, if you're reading this, I think we should invest in some VHS copies of these series if I ever move up to San Francisco.)

How would it have voted on Prop 8? Most likely yes. This is supposed to be ancient Greece- where are all the homos hiding? And Xena and Gabrielle remain trapped in the closet for six fucking seasons?? Still, the show wins points for having gay subtext long before it was in vogue to have a token transgender character on your weekly drama.

The Day After the Revolution

Attention Heterosexuals

I see you've been celebrating today. It appears that your marriages are safe once again. But you also seem to be worried about what the gays are going to do next.

It turns out your fears are well founded. Just as you had anticipated, we are coming for your children. We will convert them. We will recruit them. And we will teach them to love.

You have the tiger by the tail, bitches.

Hugz + Kisses,
-The Queers

Death by Stiletto

Chère Dominique,

I found myself thinking about 11th grade French the other day. "Thinking about" might not be the best way to describe it, though. It was more like I was struck by an uncontrollable torrent of memories that suddenly and uninvitedly came flooding over me. The deluge was heavy with the detritus from that time in my life I spent so many years trying to erase. But by that point, I had taken to writing in pen, which could be crossed out but never deleted. No matter what, there was always something left underneath, muted as it might have been. It was forever etched in thin lines of ink that flowed from the expensive pens I would buy with my parents' money at the office supplies store. I often chose black ink because I thought it fit my temperament, but sometimes I used blue because Monsieur permitted it and I was eager to take advantage of any flourish or excess that was allotted to me.

We shared stick figure cartoons between the two of us back then. The stick figures carried knives or guns or sex toys and flew with angels' wings or crawled on the ground or erupted in flames. We would challenge each other to put order to these random acts of salvation and despair. The figures were given voice bubbles or thought bubbles- the trickier ones were already partially filled in with words or phrases or stray punctuation marks. Perhaps a stick woman shackled to a dungeon wall would be saying something that contains "World Trade Center" and ends in a question mark. Nearby, a stick vampire would be beginning his thought with "Banana pudding...".

I can't remember for sure, but maybe there was one particularly cocksure stick figure with spiky hair. If so, I wonder what mad twists of fate we threw in his path. Did we heap misfortunes and embarrassments on him before consigning him to the cannibals or the serial killers or the hyenas? Or perhaps he made it through unscathed, despite our attempts to rid ourselves of him. He would have been skilled in this regard.

We shared other things as well: make believe crushes, suburban misadventures, and industrial gothic battle cries (the kind that get banned from the so-called Free Speech Wall at the library). We would occasionally trade short stories back and forth, to be completed in alternating bursts as quasi-exquisite corpses. I remember one involving a thief traipsing through a moonlit glen before arriving at a well-preserved manor. Inside, things turned sinister and culminated in death by stiletto heel- this was definitely your touch, as it was the first time I had ever encountered the word, "stiletto".

There were poems, too. These were the kind that were often doomed to be ignored by the faculty-endorsed literary clique. Ours were too full of passion and energy and rage, and they lacked the slowness and rhythm and nature imagery that was required for publication in the literary journal.

Passing these X-rated missives could be hazardous, as Monsieur had keen eyes that were full of doubt and judgment. Exchanging bits of paper under our desks would have been obvious and therefore foolish, so we would instead loan each other binders, having tucked the latest edition of whatever story or cartoon safely behind their laminated covers. I remember one crisp winter morning when you passed me your thin black binder right at the beginning of class. I removed a sheet of lined paper that had been torn from the inside of a spiral notebook. It featured several short, neat rows of confident and precise words. It was obviously a poem you had copied- perhaps from memory- and you had included a short note near the top of the page: "This is the only one I ever wrote."

There was no need to ask what the subject was. Even before reading the hallowed words that followed, I knew there was only one thing that would merit having a single and most serious poem composed in its honor. Volumes more could have been written, but too much ink had already been spilt in my journal- probably in yours as well, if you kept one. And after all of the things that you had explained and I had left unsaid, there was precious little left to be discussed. As it was, we both knew that there was so much that we couldn't explain or understand, and so we ventured no further than that solitary poem.

Time is supposed to do a lot of things, but it certainly hasn't healed my wounds or shed any light on the situation. I find myself turning to distorted memories when I try to piece together what might have been really going on with the three of us, and I'd like to search for any clues that I might have left in my high school journal, but that burned last year in the fire. At first this loss infuriated me, but I've come to appreciate the freedom with which I am now able to romanticize the journal's contents. Instead of pages of bad poetry, sullen diatribes, and furtive attempts to explain away my desires, I can imagine an epic journey filled with melancholy beauty. Moments of darkness and banality can be replaced with the unspeakable fantasies I was too afraid to commit to words. If I try hard enough, I might even be able to give it a happy ending.

How deceitful I've become.

Amitiés,
-G

Mysterious Skin (2004)

Greg Arraki's Mysterious Skin hovers over those bittersweet and languid teenage years- that time when life seems ruled by a complicated matrix of desire, ambition, and boredom. It's a world where the everyday comfort of mom's apple pie meets the mundane pleasures of the jaded, adolescent prostitute. Arraki's misfit teens long to escape from these small-town banalities, but even in their moments of triumph, they find themselves drawn back to the meandering joys and sorrows of their suburban upbringing.

At the heart of the film lies the troubling decade-old legacy of sexual abuse secretly inflicted on several young boys by their little league baseball coach. For sullen Neal, these events served as a sexual awakening, and he eventually finds himself working as a hustler- partially as a big "fuck you" to society, but also as a mechanism through which he attempts to reconcile his conflicted feelings about the unspeakable bond he shared with his coach. Prone to nihilistic angst and random acts of self-destruction, his devil-may-care attitude nonetheless endears him to his fellow teenage outcasts, a motley crew who hopelessly lust after the affections that Neal is only able to share with older men.

Meanwhile, geeky Brian leads a sheltered life at home as he prepares for community college. His seemingly quiet demeanor hides a roiling psyche, for his dreams abound with haunting visions of the sinister moments of darkness that he has repressed from his childhood memories. After watching a television special about UFO's, he becomes convinced that he has been abducted by extraterrestrials, and he sets out in search of the truth that only Neal can help him discover.

The film's exploration of child abuse is terrifyingly powerful, and Arraki boldly chooses to present this subject without the shrill menace that dominates more traditional after-school-special approach to such issues. Instead, he coats his scenes in a glossy, almost romantic sheen, and the result feels much more true to the nightmarish fantasy world into which young Neal and Brian have been shepherded.

The film abounds with such darkly romanticized imagery, and Arraki uses these moments of to construct a mythic cycle of boredom and cruelty that fuels the American youth's Promethean yearning: a young boy is left without a ride home after his little league baseball game is cut short by a massive downpour; trick-or-treaters kidnap and torment a developmentally disabled child; two teen boys kiss in order to antagonize the grizzled truck driver sitting next to them at a stoplight. Through episodes like these, Mysterious Skin transforms suburban America's treasured icons into sinister pressures that compel the adolescent outsider to abandon his small-town roots in order to construct a more desirable identity. However, such efforts at cultural betrayal are doomed to fail, and Arraki's characters must eventually abandon their fantasies and confront the internal forces that have shaped their troubled worldviews.

At times, the film's dialogue and scenario begin to feel a little hokey, but Arraki manages to get away with it because this kind of melodrama makes sense in a world framed by teenage insecurities. The mostly age-appropriate actors are fittingly awkward, and their moments of unabashed rage and desire feel true to life. Or at least they did for me. Watching Mysterious Skin, I found myself drifting back to those pointless teenage years, that first time getting drunk, those gothy posters in the attic hangout, and that desperation to become somebody else. I can only hope I haven't been too successful.