I hate everyone. But it's not that simple. I'm a complicated man (like John Shaft) so there are plenty of people for whom my emotions are more nuanced and detailed than just mere hate. I may love them too. Love and hate are not actually mutually exclusive. They often go hand in hand.
There's two kinds of reactions one gets when they say they hate everyone:
1. A shocked, hurt look. "Why... why do you hate me???" Obviously, I hate you because you ask dumb fucking questions like that. Okay? Now go slink into your sulk-hole and leave me alone.
2. A broad grin, possibly a thumbs up. "Oh, me too, me too! People fucking suck!" Me and this second stripe tend to get along famously. It's easier to love people that hate people. Is that irony, Alanis? You fucking moron?
The thing about hating everyone is that it's pure, and fair. Most people are very limited in their hate. They hate people of a different race, or a different sexual orientation. They hate people from different countries, or people who cheer for different sports franchises. They hate people with different politics or different religions. What a bunch of assholes. Hating everyone, on the other hand, is mathematically equivalent to loving everyone, and a fuck of lot easier to accomplish.
Loving everyone? Now that's hard. Because most people are stupid and annoying and entitled and helpless and rude and inconsiderate and thoughtless. If you can actually manage it, you might be an evolved soul like Jesus. Who was brutally killed. By people.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Batmans and Robins and Rankings
Dick Grayson might not have been the best Batman. Damien Wayne might not have been the best Robin. But, Dick and Damien together were the best Batman and Robin, with the Bruce Wayne/Tim Drake pairing as the second best Dynamic Duo. Number three, Batman One Million and Robin the Toy Wonder. The Bruce/Dick partnership, as classic as it was, pulls in at number four. Number five might be Bruce and Damien, or maybe Bruce and Carrie Kelley.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Earth Hater Heart
I've come to you today to preach the gospel of hate. Hate gets a very bad rap, doesn't it? It's about the one thing everyone can agree on, that hate is bad. Bad, bad, bad, so very bad indeed. Not like love, noooo. Love good! Hate, BAD!!!
Is hate a bad thing? So much of today's hatred is fueled by ignorance and pre-conception and clinging to old ways and beliefs, that it certainly seems unarguable that hate is bad. Racism, homophobia, sexism. Ignorant hate is terrible.
But not because it is hate. Because it is ignorant. Hate itself is a powerful motivator for change and it always has been, and presumably always will be.
We created medicines because we hate being sick.
We created vehicles because we hate walking everywhere.
We created society because we hate being alone.
Love? Love doesn't change a thing. Love accepts everything, just the way it is. If love had its way we would still be protoplasm floating without meaning in the primoridal soup. It's because of hate that change exists.
I don't know any of you, but I hate you all. And it's wonderful.
Is hate a bad thing? So much of today's hatred is fueled by ignorance and pre-conception and clinging to old ways and beliefs, that it certainly seems unarguable that hate is bad. Racism, homophobia, sexism. Ignorant hate is terrible.
But not because it is hate. Because it is ignorant. Hate itself is a powerful motivator for change and it always has been, and presumably always will be.
We created medicines because we hate being sick.
We created vehicles because we hate walking everywhere.
We created society because we hate being alone.
Love? Love doesn't change a thing. Love accepts everything, just the way it is. If love had its way we would still be protoplasm floating without meaning in the primoridal soup. It's because of hate that change exists.
I don't know any of you, but I hate you all. And it's wonderful.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Maleficent trends
The movie Maleficent which opened recently seems to be an interesting confluence of a few recent unfortunate trends in modern pop culture storytelling. I'm thinking about it right now, so I will record these thoughts. The two trends in particular are the "dark re-imagining" of fairy tales, and the perceived need to explain villains away. Let's explore, shall we?
The DARK RE-IMAGINING of a CLASSIC FAIRY TALE
Alice In Wonderland got it. Little Red Riding Hood got it. Snow White got it TWICE in one year. Now it's Sleeping Beauty's turn. The DARK, GRITTY "re-imagining" of a fairy tale Disney property. This one is so ironic it is practically a cure for anemia. Because if you spend like five minutes doing the knowledge, you find out that fairy tales were FUCKED UP. Dark? That's not even the half of it. Read some of the original works sometime. Does the wolf eat Red Riding Hood in the end? Yes! Does Sleeping Beauty get raped? Yes! These were the prevailing myths of their era, and like any era's myths, reflective of the time they came from. And that time was FUCKED the FUCK UP to the FUCKED DEGREE.
And then, in the last century, Disney cleaned up all these gruesome, grisly, quite frankly disturbing stories into something that was "suitable for children" -- so out went all the violence, and the rape, and the murders, and the fucked up unhappily ever after endings, and the entire story of Bluebeard (because just TRY fitting THAT into the Disney formula) and in came the bright colors, and the catchy sing-songs, and the cute comic relief characters. And to entire generations who couldn't be bothered doing the five minutes of knowledge mentioned above, those ARE what fairy tales are. Not gruesome time capsules of a far less civilized era. Cutesy, and magical, and princess-erific.
Now, in this century, with the culture's obsession with DARK and GRITTY, those cutesy colorful sanitized sing-along stories have no place. They seem strangely irrelevant. So instead we now have the wholly modern "dark re-imagining" that is entirely ignorant of how very dark the originals' imagining could be in the first place. Maleficent falls squarely into this trend. Go back and read Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty. Then watch Angelina Jolie ham it up with enhanced cheekbones against a green screen. I'm just saying.
The SAD BACKSTORY of a CLASSIC VILLAIN
Ah, villains. They don't make them like they used to. Time was, you could just be deliciously evil and chew up scenery for the sake of being deliciously evil and chewing up scenery. Now every villain has to have a thoroughly dumb origin story that EXPLAINS why they're so deliciously evil and prone to chewing scenery. Darth Vader is sad because he misses his mommy. Hannibal Lecter is sad because Nazis ate his little sister. Boba Fett is sad because his dad got his head cut off. Dracula is sad because his wife is dead. The Wicked Witch Of The West is sad because... I don't remember, actually. It's been a long time since I read that book. My point is, everyone is sad, sad, sad. So sad! Maleficent is just the latest victim of the "needs an explanation for the evulz" trend.
Now, I'm not against villains with well-rounded, fully-sketched out characters and a clear motivation for their villainy. Magneto, for example, is a villain who cannot survive without his ties to the Holocaust, and specifically being sad because of said Holocaust. Frankenstein's Monster was always infused with tragic motivations for his monstrous deeds. But Darth Vader, man? Hannibal Lecter? Come on! Can't evil just be evil for the sake of being evil? Especially in stories that aren't meant to be realistic psychological studies of human nature but are intended as pure escapism? Just let them chew the damn scenery already! And now we have poor Maleficent, seemingly the last of the classic melodramatic evil mold, given a backstory that explains why she too is sad, so very sad indeed.
On second thought, it's just as well Bluebeard has been utterly forgotten. Because otherwise he'd probably be next in line with a dark re-imagining that explains why he, like his beard, is so blue.
The DARK RE-IMAGINING of a CLASSIC FAIRY TALE
Alice In Wonderland got it. Little Red Riding Hood got it. Snow White got it TWICE in one year. Now it's Sleeping Beauty's turn. The DARK, GRITTY "re-imagining" of a fairy tale Disney property. This one is so ironic it is practically a cure for anemia. Because if you spend like five minutes doing the knowledge, you find out that fairy tales were FUCKED UP. Dark? That's not even the half of it. Read some of the original works sometime. Does the wolf eat Red Riding Hood in the end? Yes! Does Sleeping Beauty get raped? Yes! These were the prevailing myths of their era, and like any era's myths, reflective of the time they came from. And that time was FUCKED the FUCK UP to the FUCKED DEGREE.
And then, in the last century, Disney cleaned up all these gruesome, grisly, quite frankly disturbing stories into something that was "suitable for children" -- so out went all the violence, and the rape, and the murders, and the fucked up unhappily ever after endings, and the entire story of Bluebeard (because just TRY fitting THAT into the Disney formula) and in came the bright colors, and the catchy sing-songs, and the cute comic relief characters. And to entire generations who couldn't be bothered doing the five minutes of knowledge mentioned above, those ARE what fairy tales are. Not gruesome time capsules of a far less civilized era. Cutesy, and magical, and princess-erific.
Now, in this century, with the culture's obsession with DARK and GRITTY, those cutesy colorful sanitized sing-along stories have no place. They seem strangely irrelevant. So instead we now have the wholly modern "dark re-imagining" that is entirely ignorant of how very dark the originals' imagining could be in the first place. Maleficent falls squarely into this trend. Go back and read Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty. Then watch Angelina Jolie ham it up with enhanced cheekbones against a green screen. I'm just saying.
The SAD BACKSTORY of a CLASSIC VILLAIN
Ah, villains. They don't make them like they used to. Time was, you could just be deliciously evil and chew up scenery for the sake of being deliciously evil and chewing up scenery. Now every villain has to have a thoroughly dumb origin story that EXPLAINS why they're so deliciously evil and prone to chewing scenery. Darth Vader is sad because he misses his mommy. Hannibal Lecter is sad because Nazis ate his little sister. Boba Fett is sad because his dad got his head cut off. Dracula is sad because his wife is dead. The Wicked Witch Of The West is sad because... I don't remember, actually. It's been a long time since I read that book. My point is, everyone is sad, sad, sad. So sad! Maleficent is just the latest victim of the "needs an explanation for the evulz" trend.
Now, I'm not against villains with well-rounded, fully-sketched out characters and a clear motivation for their villainy. Magneto, for example, is a villain who cannot survive without his ties to the Holocaust, and specifically being sad because of said Holocaust. Frankenstein's Monster was always infused with tragic motivations for his monstrous deeds. But Darth Vader, man? Hannibal Lecter? Come on! Can't evil just be evil for the sake of being evil? Especially in stories that aren't meant to be realistic psychological studies of human nature but are intended as pure escapism? Just let them chew the damn scenery already! And now we have poor Maleficent, seemingly the last of the classic melodramatic evil mold, given a backstory that explains why she too is sad, so very sad indeed.
On second thought, it's just as well Bluebeard has been utterly forgotten. Because otherwise he'd probably be next in line with a dark re-imagining that explains why he, like his beard, is so blue.
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