cooli_stylite (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cooli_stylite) wrote,@ 2008-12-01 10:00:00 |
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Turkey died for your sins
Well, the Thanksgiving trip to my dad's house is complete... Dear god I lived through it, somehow, and in the end I'm left wondering why?
On to the real point of this week's rant. I finished reading (listening) to the audiobook version of "Oryx and Crake," a great little science fiction novel which came out a few years ago from the same author of "The Handmaiden's tale." I think the book has real Sci-fi classics potential, but like a fool I went to the internet to try and get people's take on it (you know, see if people saw it from a unique angle that maybe would shed more light on certain themes in the book), big mistake. Many of the reviews I read (and these were professional reviews, not "dramatic-pause, youtube screamy guy" reviews, seemed to have A) decided what the themes being explored were more on what they felt this type of story should be about, even if they could only be made to apply in the most shoe-horned way of looking at the material (Ex: alot of claims of Adam and Eve symbolism that wasn't there and that I feel was only being proposed because it was one of the few cultural symbols that come close to the themes being explored) then B) would complain that those themes weren't used very well, hence the book was poor!
Now this wouldn't have bugged me so much, I mean everyone's allowed a lousy opinion every so often, but I think having watched "Enchanted" the night before reading the reviews really struck me on a line of thought. The movie itself wasn't bad (A bit of family fun with a couple of laughs but ultimately no bite or deep thought), yet it's one in a line of "Aren't fairy tales simple and stupid, and aren't we all smarter that their cliche's" style movies (Happily n'ever after, Hoodwinked, etc...(I don't include "Shrek" in these because it did kind of do some, if not new things, at least some clever things with the material)). These movies actually kinda piss me off, I mean first off they don't even really know their source materials they're parodying, and instead grab the most basic, thread bare trends in that type of story telling, claim it's the extent of that type of story telling, and then ridicule how simple and trite those stories are. Besides feeling like kind of a kangaroo court trial, it seems to convey an element of cultural malaise. The idea that, at least as an audience, we are retreating from the new into simpler worlds we convince ourselves are the extent of human lit that we can feel comfortable heaping contempt upon and feeling superior too without being challenged or moved in any way. It really seems to push the entire "All ideas have been done, so why bother" approach to writing (or not-writing in some cases), and it drives me nuts
Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this, It just seems like if it is the case, it's a problem that likely extends beyond what we'll watch on TV.
Well, the Thanksgiving trip to my dad's house is complete... Dear god I lived through it, somehow, and in the end I'm left wondering why?
On to the real point of this week's rant. I finished reading (listening) to the audiobook version of "Oryx and Crake," a great little science fiction novel which came out a few years ago from the same author of "The Handmaiden's tale." I think the book has real Sci-fi classics potential, but like a fool I went to the internet to try and get people's take on it (you know, see if people saw it from a unique angle that maybe would shed more light on certain themes in the book), big mistake. Many of the reviews I read (and these were professional reviews, not "dramatic-pause, youtube screamy guy" reviews, seemed to have A) decided what the themes being explored were more on what they felt this type of story should be about, even if they could only be made to apply in the most shoe-horned way of looking at the material (Ex: alot of claims of Adam and Eve symbolism that wasn't there and that I feel was only being proposed because it was one of the few cultural symbols that come close to the themes being explored) then B) would complain that those themes weren't used very well, hence the book was poor!
Now this wouldn't have bugged me so much, I mean everyone's allowed a lousy opinion every so often, but I think having watched "Enchanted" the night before reading the reviews really struck me on a line of thought. The movie itself wasn't bad (A bit of family fun with a couple of laughs but ultimately no bite or deep thought), yet it's one in a line of "Aren't fairy tales simple and stupid, and aren't we all smarter that their cliche's" style movies (Happily n'ever after, Hoodwinked, etc...(I don't include "Shrek" in these because it did kind of do some, if not new things, at least some clever things with the material)). These movies actually kinda piss me off, I mean first off they don't even really know their source materials they're parodying, and instead grab the most basic, thread bare trends in that type of story telling, claim it's the extent of that type of story telling, and then ridicule how simple and trite those stories are. Besides feeling like kind of a kangaroo court trial, it seems to convey an element of cultural malaise. The idea that, at least as an audience, we are retreating from the new into simpler worlds we convince ourselves are the extent of human lit that we can feel comfortable heaping contempt upon and feeling superior too without being challenged or moved in any way. It really seems to push the entire "All ideas have been done, so why bother" approach to writing (or not-writing in some cases), and it drives me nuts
Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this, It just seems like if it is the case, it's a problem that likely extends beyond what we'll watch on TV.
