“He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool.”
-Brigham Young
***
Much has already been said regarding Gawker’s decision (or more to be accurate editor Adrian Chen’s decision), to out Michael Brutsch aka violentacrez, the now infamous internet troll and moderator of some of Reddit’s most offensive threaded discussions. For those unfamiliar with the social media juggernaut, Reddit is a content aggregator, a portal for news, memes and links shared by the community who vote on the strength of each article. The strongest find their way to Reddit’s home page where it is seen by millions of Reddit’s hopelessly addicted patrons. Brutsch stock in trade was underage girls, sharing hundreds of questionably obtained photographs of teenagers gleaned from Facebook profiles and other social networks. His most famous subreddit, Jailbait, established a forum for thousands of pedophiles around the world to safely discuss their obsession in an open and legalenvironment. I stress legal for a very important reason: according to every article I’ve read on the subject, Brutsch never broke the law.
Did he mock the spirit of child protection laws by exploiting its loopholes? Yes. Was his behavior abhorable? Yes.
Does it have any place in a civilized society?
My answer? Yes, until we, as a society, say enough. We live in a nation of laws and if those laws fail to meet societal standards, we have a responsibility to avail ourselves of the legislative process. Also bear in mind these conversations took place on a privately held website. If the law failed us, surely the market would not. Pressure could have been brought to bear against Reddit to enforce their codes of conduct more strictly. As a journalist, Chen had every right to report on Brutsch’s behavior and influence and advocate for such action. I fail though, to see the logic in exposing the man himself. What did Chen hope to accomplish by exposing Brutsch? To avenge the exploited? To protect them? Or was it merely to make an example of Brutsch in hope that his successors think twice about being so bold and successful in their actions as he was? Why expose a potential source he could have used to further investigate Reddit, pedophilia and how they benefit one another? Why make Brutsch an internet celebrity and take away the one bit of leverage (his job) one could have used to control his posting behavior? What’s to stop him from picking up right where he left off? Whatever his motivation, the simple truth is Chen blew an enormous opportunity to educate his readership about the kind of people who flock to Brutsch and Reddit both.
You see, when I was a teenager, the USENET was the source for illegal or illicit material. Pedophiles would post photos of sex acts with children to the newsgroups with impunity. Accessing this material was as easy as signing onto America Online and typing in a couple of searches. There was just not enough awareness of what was transpiring online. It took years before comprehensive child internet security became a legislative priority. And what did it ultimately accomplish? Pedophiles became more sophisticated in their networking, taking their obsessions deeper into the dark corners of the Internet. In his attempts to weasel out of being exposed, Brutsch offered to aid Chen in future investigations as an inside source. As a moderator, Brutsch was responsible for keeping the illegal material off Reddit. Think of all the actual, law-breaking pedophiles he could have helped expose? What could we have learned about the mind of the pedophile in its natural habitat that we could have been used to protect children in the future?
Chen doesn’t seem to care about any of this. This was a troll hunt, make no mistake (and a highly successful one at that if you go by the pageviews). For those unfamiliar with the lingo, an internet troll is someone who deliberately provokes an argument online with the intention of disrupting a conversation or ruining the experience of other users. That Brutsch was one of the worst examples of this kind of person is indisputable. His digital footprint is rife with anti-semitic, racist and misogynistic rants tailored for maximum offense. But what makes Brutsch the worst of the lot? What of the 20,000 or so people who participated in the underage risque photo-sharing he moderated? Was Brutsch more guilty than his fellow trolls simply because his words were more offensive? Because he posted more of them? Because he carried some measure of influence? Where do you draw the line? If you’re gonna go after Brutsch you might as well go after every single troll on the Internet or the standard is arbitrary.
And to be fair: Gawker is not an innocent in the exploitation game either. Neither is TMZ, Perez Hilton, WWTDD or any of the major news networks. They’re all showing the celebrity bikini pics, the up-skirt shots, the invasive photographs taken from perches looking down into backyards, the aging starlet, the burgeoning once-was-thin. It’s all worthless tabloid fodder. Nobody cares if the celebrity is offended though. They’re rich! That’s the price you pay. I’ve heard this argument time and again about Brutsch. “You reap what you sow.” “He got what he deserved.” People said the same thing about Larry Flynt when an assassin’s bullet rendered him disabled from the waist down.
The definition of universally offensive is usually never universal. Larry Flynt, by the way, won a Supreme Court decision defending his right to be outrageous and controversial for that very reason. This is the fundamental truth of free speech. People who test its limits inevitably offend. Learning how to deal with being offended is a social skill we’ve been slowly losing over the last 20 yrs or so and the danger of losing it completely is greater than any posed by controversial speech. If the internet is truly a reflection of mankind, then surely the negative, the immature, and the hateful have the right to coexist with the hopeful, mature and loving online as they do in the real world.How well we, as a society, process indignation and channel it constructively will determine the fate of free speech in this country.
The Dark Knight Rises marks the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy. The plot is fairly straightforward. Following the events of The Dark Knight, the powers-that-be in Gotham pass the Dent Act, a comprehensive strategy that co-opts the tragedy of Dent’s “wrongful death” to fight crime that includes the denial of parole for those involved in organized crime. Of course the law is built on lies, as Dent fell to madness following the death of Rachel Dawes and went on a killing spree that almost resulted in the death of Commissioner Jim Gordon’s only son. The law proves so successful that the city no longer needs its masked hero, and the movie begins eight years since Bruce Wayne last donned the cape and cowl. He has become a recluse held up in his mansion on the hill to nurse his injuries and wallow in his feelings of guilt and loss over the death of his one true love.
As the saying goes, “The best way to get over your ex is to move on to your next”, which is exactly what happens when Bruce discovers master thief Selena Kyle aka Catwoman successfully making off with mother’s pearls. Interest piqued, the world’s greatest detective begins to court this fascinating creature, unaware of her involvement in a nefarious scheme that will bring Gotham to its knees.
If all of this sounds a little familiar, its because it is. The Dark Knight Rises is as unoriginal as it is ridiculous. It is a colossal failure, the sting of disappointment made all the more unbearable considering the inspired work that preceded it. It has joined the ranks of the worst comic book films of all time, an epic of stupidity so profoundly unbearable I found myself viscerally angry leaving the theater.
It’s been some days since the screening, and I’ve taken that time to really process my feelings about the film, including the controversy surrounding angry fans and negative reviews and the tragedy in Colorado. I owe Nolan that much in deference to his superb work on the previous two films and his body of work in general. My feelings have remained the same. This isn’t a case of expectations set too high. No, this is a reaction to an incredibly talented filmmaker who dropped the ball on what could have been a spectacular comic book movie that could have used the genre to make some rather poignant and relevant observations about society which is, after all, the purpose of any good comic book. What we got instead was a half-baked jab at social inequality and a ticking clock.
The villain du jour is Bane, a muscle-bound badass who kills wantonly and menaces his victims behind a mask that obscures his face. I have long considered Bane one of the best villains in the Batman universe. He’s really the only villain who could match the Batman’s strength, fighting skill and intellect. He is, essentially, the perfect nemesis and Nolan was wise to choose him to wrap up his trilogy.
By now I’m sure you’ve read any number of reviews criticizing Bane’s voice or the limiting nature of the mask. I could honestly care less about either. I was able to understand everything he was saying and actor Tom Hardy was able to embody the character’s physical presence with his usual aplomb. My primary gripe is Bane’s plan. In the first film, we are introduced to the League of Shadows, a covert group whose primary mission is to destroy cities riddled with crime and corruption too far gone to be saved, sort of like formatting an infected hard drive. Initially, Bane attempts to make a case to the people of Gotham that their elite have, in the word of Selena Kyle, “lived too large and left too little for the rest of us”. Bane accomplishes this by severing Gotham from the rest of the world and holding it hostage by threat of nuclear devastation should the outside world interfere. He then holds a series of kangaroo courts sentencing government officials and the rich to death for crimes against the people.
Considering the recent protests against social inequality and the uprisings in the middle east, the idea of a man leading the charge against an oppressive system has a romantic quality to it. Problem is, this was never Bane’s plan, as he intended to blow up the city anyway, killing the same people he was supposedly “fighting” for. This makes the entire final act of the film utterly pointless.
I could nitpick a thousand different things in this movie: the pointless prison scenes, the second villain reveal, the suspension of logic throughout the film, but the plan is the crux of it. The ferry scene in the Dark Knight had a very important purpose. The joker wanted to make a point that under the right circumstances, normal people could do terrible things. It was, as he saw it, a justification for his own madness. But Bane’s plan, it has no purpose. If he wanted to nuke Gotham, he could have just nuked Gotham from the beginning. If he wanted to use the kangaroo courts as a way of warning other cities to get their act in order, the most obvious truth remains: You can’t change human nature. Corruption, greed, anger, power…these are things you can’t cleanse with a nuclear bomb. It’s why the entire mission of the League of Shadows is doomed to failure.
Nolan had a unique opportunity here to speak to some real issues. If this was about social inequality, what better comic book hero to choose than Batman, a member of the super-rich elite who secretly fights for the common man? Consider the implications if Bane was simply a man fighting to destroy the status quo, to eliminate social injustice through violence and murder, to murder the elite, forcing Batman to defend the elite. What if the people of Gotham, poor and downtrodden, began to sympathize with Bane’s mission. What if they turned on Batman and how would he feel if all he fought for was taken away from him?
The Dark Knight Rises is a muddled mess of a film. Nolan was really the first director to present the Batman, or any comic book hero for that matter, in such a way as to make the story realistically plausible. It inspired people, good and evil, in such a profound way. If he had just stuck to those principles, The Dark Knight Rises could have been something really special instead of an exercise in tired action movie tropes.
In the 1930s, a man named Duncan Hines sent a list of 167 restaurants he had discovered criss-crossing the nation as a travelling salesman to his friends as a Christmas present. The response was positive so Hines decided to self-publish an expanded list entitled “Adventures in Good Eating”. The expanded list was so popular that Hines quit his job as a salesman to pursue a career in travel guide publishing and restaurant reviews. He was extraordinarily successful at it, so much so that his imprimatur ”Recommended by Duncan Hines” become a highly coveted honor by establishments nationwide.
Six years before his death, Hines sold the rights to his name to the Hines-Park Food company, who developed a line of cake mixes that persist to this day. 80 years later, the Duncan Hines brand has become synonymous with easy-to-prepare cake mixes and straight-out-the can frosting. The recipe has, of course, changed over the years to satisfy the needs of supermarkets and their customers demanding longer shelf-lives and sweeter desserts. A glance at the ingredients should leave many wondering if the modern incarnation of the Duncan Hines cake would meet the high standards of approval its namesake was famous for.
Cake Mix
Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Propylene Glycol Mono- and Diesters Of Fats, Mono and Diglycerides), Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate). Contains 2% Or Less Of: Wheat Starch, Salt, Dextrose, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fatty Acids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Cellulose Gum, Artificial Flavors, Xanthan Gum, Maltodextrin, Modified Cornstarch, Colored with (Yellow 5 Lake, Red 40 Lake).
Chocolate Frosting
Sugar, Water, Vegetable(s) Shortening (Soybean(s) Oil Partially Hydrogenated and Cottonseed Oil, Mono and Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60), Cocoa Powder Processed with Alkali, Corn Syrup Contains 2% or less of the Following: ( Corn Starch, Salt, Flavor(s) Natural and Artificial Chocolate, Sugar Invert, Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate
For the sake of comparison, here are the ingredients for a standard yellow cake with chocolate frosting made from scratch.
Cake Mix
butter, white sugar, egg yolks, milk, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, salt
This is not an implication that cakes made from scratch are healthier alternatives to their ready-made doppelgangers. So why list them?
The other day I attended a barbecue that served the very same combination of Duncan Hines cake and frosting listed above. Knowing the ingredients I naturally abstained, but I did take the opportunity to observe the reactions of my fellow guests. One struck me in particular, that of a man in his mid 60s who couldn’t help but repeat how delicious he found it. It got me thinking. “Compared to what?” I wondered?
The presentation of baked goods is de rigueur at social events. There is even a subtle but notable behavioral reward associated with that presentation. Baking a cake carries the subtext of an investment in time and in a country where people hold time a precious commodity, that investment is considered a generous act, but there is no gradation in gratitude regarding how much time is invested. The qualitative difference between cakes from scratch and box cakes are significant. Cakes made from scratch are considerably lighter, less sweet and have a flavor profile that is noticeably less artificial. What I found interesting is nobody seems to care. When I brought this topic up on Twitter, I received considerable pushback. Here are some actual tweets:
Cake is cake. It really doesn’t matter where it came from, you’re gonna eat it anyway.
People don’t have the time or money for scratch baking.
I understand that you are a food snob, but not all of us have the time, money, or need for high-end baking.
It’s cheap. it’s easy. people like it. Reminds you of home.
I don’t know when Americans lost its passion for baking. In Europe, presenting a box cake at a party is committing social suicide. But that’s besides the point. Americans have been consuming literally the same chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for over half a century with seemingly no end in sight. Why? How much time and money are we really saving by cooking cake from a box? Why do we settle for one kind of cake when there are thousands of cake recipes to choose from? Is the need to maximize every sensory experience a symptom of snobbery?
To be fair, baking is hard. It requires precise measurements and strict attention to detail and even then success is not guaranteed, a truth I’ve come to accept after many failed attempts at baking my own bread. But there is an incredible feeling of satisfaction when you get it right. Americans love their carbohydrates but they’re not particularly a fan of preparing them from scratch and that’s a shame. In a previous blog I discussed the food revolution that’s sweeping this country. One of its core principles is restoring our connection to the food, a value that has been lost to decades of convenient mass production. The transformation of starch to consumable and transportable baked goods is one of our greatest culinary achievements dating back thousands of years, predating civilization itself. What better way to restoring that connection than re-introducing baking from scratch to the kitchens of America?
skip to 1:23 if you don’t want to watch the entire clip
Not enough homage is paid, I think, to the prescience of ”Revenge of the Nerds”. It is an important film in that it is one of the first to document the rise of the geek in American culture. “Revenge of the Nerds” foretold the paradigm shift in power from the Luddite to the technologically savvy that continues to evolve to the present day.
Growing up a child of the 80s with a passion for computing wasn’t easy. Society still valued the altruism and nobility of hard labor. We still built things with our hands, tangible things, with the blood and the sweat and the tears and what not. There is nothing more scary than irrelevance, and we represented a changing world that many feared they were incapable of adapting to. So society assimilated us the only way it knows how: marginalization. They labeled us geek and nerd. We became outcasts, that is, until the world caught up with us.
I’ve been a nerd as long as I can remember. I owned my first computer at the age of 10, an Apple IIc. Around the same time my father purchased for me my first modem, a whopping 2400 baud. I don’t know what compelled him to spend that much money ($2000 if memory serves) on what was essentially just a hobby for me at the time, but I am eternally grateful he did. His generation witnessed the decline of the industrial revolution and the rise of technology but even though the future was uncertain my father was keen enough to sense the things to come. While he may or may not have foreseen my generation becoming the stewards of age of the personal computer, that expensive piece of hardware afforded me an opportunity his father couldn’t possibly dream of. Every parent wants to give the world to their children, but my father gave me the closest thing possible: a gateway to the world.
Around the world, the Internet continues to realize the promise of a generation. Dictatorships are toppled, corporations are held responsible for their actions and politicians can no longer spread falsehoods with impunity. While some may consider that assessment naive, I remind them that no system is perfect and because the Internet is still a free exchange of ideas not all the ideas are good. This is certainly the case in this country where the erosion of the virtues of free speech has become inimical and pervasive. Like anything free you get what you pay for.
It comes with no small sense of irony that the same people who ruthlessly mocked us for our love of computing are users themselves. It also comes with no small sense of satisfaction that those same nerds are now the founders of most profitable and powerful corporations in world history. It seems the nerds truly earned their revenge. Funny thing happened though when we legitimized this technology for all: the assholes gained access to the same global communications network as the rest of us
The aforementioned articles represent a thoughtful effort to raise awareness of the increasingly caustic and often times misogynistic rhetoric found in website comment threads. Ahh yes, the comment thread, the Mos Eisley spaceport of intellectual debate. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just scroll to the bottom of your favorite news site to see the random brainfarts of the uncleaned masses. While I hardly consider toxic online conversation a new phenomenon, there is a growing consensus that it has reached its saturation point. This is, after all, the first time in our history where criticism is global, instantaneous and archived.
While I agree the problem exists and needs to be addressed, I do not agree on who is to blame. People are so quick to blame geeks and nerds for this behavior. Devin Faraci of Bad Ass Digest even went as far to say “Nerds are the new jocks: racist, sexist and afraid of change”. The question of who is to blame is considerably more complicated, considering there are no geeks and nerds, not anymore. We are all geeks and nerds now. Soccer moms are sharing videos of their children playing on the field. Grandparents are talking to their grandchildren around the world over their mobile phones. Presidents are communicating with their citizenry through social networks. A television show about zombies is one of the most popular series in the country and we’re about to spend millions of dollars on tickets to see a movie about a group of comic book superheroes that’s been in print for over 50 years. Nobody holds rightful claim to that title anymore.
Every hurtful, sexist, racist comment spewed on the internet is mark against us all. We don’t know how to speak to one another; maybe we never did. I am certainly not innocent in the charges levied here. I’ve said some hurtful things online, I’ll be the first to admit it. A lot of it comes from my own fear of irrelevance. The world is changing so quickly its hard to keep up sometimes and I can’t see as clearly into the future as my father once did. But my eyes are open now and I’m trying to make good choices. I only hope this sentiment goes viral before we go too far to see a way back.
Following news of the death of a third horse during the production of the HBO series “Luck”, I found myself caught up in what I considered at the time to be a clever meme mocking the network’s failure in keeping these animals from harm. As the meme went viral, I did a little soul-searching in an attempt to gauge my feelings on whether or not it was moral to use this tragedy for comedic purposes. Maybe mockery and word play is just how indignation manifests nowadays in the Twitterverse. Perhaps the loss of animal life simply doesn’t register on an emotional level for most people. Hell, maybe its just fun for some people to shit on the mistakes of others. I don’t have the answer. I do, however believe it is our duty as a civilized society who uses animals in entertainment to periodically take stock in how we are treating and portraying the creatures we share this earth with.
Hollywood is no stranger to controversy surrounding the use of animals in entertainment, although it has made admirable strides to ensure their safety and well-being during production. Then again, its had a long time to learn from its mistakes. Animals have been a part of movies since its inception. Our insatiable curiosity about the natural world continues to inspire filmmakers. Telling their story is a solemn responsibility, one many filmmakers unfortunately fail to respect, sometimes to the detriment of the species. Outside of nature documentaries, the risk for doing harm to the animal and its ecosystem compounds. Once the filmmaker co-opts the animal for the purpose of narrative, it is impossible to anticipate its effect on people and the resulting consequences.
Consider the work of Ric O’ Barry, former dolphin trainer turned activist. In the documentary, “The Cove”, O’Barry discusses his history of dolphin training for the hit television series, “Flipper” and its direct effect on people and the dolphin population. Fans wanted to see a dolphin up close and personal, perhaps even swim with one. Aquariums and resorts around the world responded to meet the demand, buying up wild dolphins plucked from pods around the world by the hundreds. Many dolphins live today in small, poorly maintained pools under considerable stress. This is an example of an unintended consequence. Here’s another.
Following the 2003 release of Finding Nemo, pet stores around the world fell over backwards trying to meet the demand of thousands of children who wanted their very own Nemo (species: clownfish) and Dory (species: regal/hippo tang). Both saltwater species require precise water chemistry,specific diets and pristine tank conditions to survive. The regal tang in particular needs a large, wide tank to swim and reduce the stress of captivity. It is also notoriously difficult to care for even for the experienced saltwater enthusiast. (Trust me, I know.) Parents with little or no knowledge of saltwater aquariums purchased starter kits based on rather cursory advice from their local pet store. Wild populations of both species plummeted to meet demand while many of these fish perished due to inexperience. The trend continues to this day.
A couple of weeks before the release of Joe Carnahan’s latest film, “The Grey”, zoologists, biologists and wolf advocates raised their voice in resounding protest over the inaccurate depiction of wolves in the film. Citing statistically insignificant evidence of wolf attacks on human beings, they derided the film as an irresponsible depiction of the wolf as a savage and aggressive man-killer. Wolves, by and large, are timid around man and will usually retreat upon first sight. They have, however, no qualms with going after their prey…to the dissatisfaction of hunters and livestock owners who charged their representatives in government with their eradication. They compared the film to Jaws and its inaccurate depiction of sharks. The issue here is the implication made by these movies that these animals kill with some kind of personified intent, which is absolutely not the case. You might recall a movie in the late 70s called “Orca”, about a killer whale who hunted down a whaler for killing its mate. The notion is absolutely absurd, but for those who don’t understand animal nature, this could be interpreted as fact. That’s the suggestive power of movies. Whether or not the Grey will contribute to an uptick in wolves being shot is irrelevant. The damage is done before the first shot is fired. Wolves are scary and kill people. Sharks are scary and kill people. Orcas are scary and kill people. They become objects of horror in the minds of the audience, indistinguishable for some from your standard axe-wielding serial killer.
With the exception of the dog, I can’t think of an animal more prevalent in film than the horse. In regards to “Luck”, its sad that three horses had to die to tell the story of horse racing in this country, but maybe that’s the most important lesson to take away from this sad turn of events. Thousands of horses around the world are put down each year from injuries sustained during racing, practice, transport and insurance fraud. This doesn’t even include the horses that die from neglect or being sold to slaughterhouses. It raises some interesting questions. What do we owe the horse for thousands of years of loyal service? What is a horse to a man outside of professional racing in an age where technology has rendered the horse as a work animal obsolete? I may live in an urban part of the country, but a man on a horse to me seems anachronistic.
Look, I’m a realist. I don’t expect anyone in the film industry to adopt a “live and let live” policy towards animals. I think a more reasonable request of filmmakers would be take a moment and consider if you’re doing more harm than good. Engage yourself with the facts. Consult the scientific authorities. Most of all, be honest.
I leave you with two quotes from movies with animals in them that I think are both poignant and relevant.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Jeff Goldblum – Jurassic Park
“If we are to assume that these whales are ours to do with as we please, we would be as guilty as those who caused their extinction.”
Leonard Nimoy – Star Trek IV
Something strange happened when the writing team of “The Walking Dead” made a conscious decision to diverge from the source material, something I can confidently say I’ve personally never seen in a live action adaptation before: the role of main protagonist shifting to another character…unintentionally.
It’s been my experience that television pilots generally introduce the principal in the first scene, with notable exceptions like police procedurals where the opening sequence is a storytelling device used throughout the run of the series. Fans of the zombie genre no doubt noticed the similarities between the opening scene of “The Walking Dead” and the movie “28 Days Later.” Both stories feature the main protagonist awakening in a deserted hospital, confused with no memory of how they got there only to discover the world as they knew it was gone, replaced with one plagued by the undead. As a graphic novel, “The Walking Dead” enjoyed the ancillary benefits of being unencumbered by a production budget and run-time restrictions, affording it a rather unique opportunity to explore the zombie genre in an episodic fashion. The fans were delighted, so came the television adaptation.
This is where things got interesting. At some point during the development of the tv adaptation, the production team came to the conclusion that following the plot points of the source material would not be in the best interest of the series. Where or not the decision was motivated by budgetary or creative concerns I am not sure. A cursory google search for answers was less than forthcoming. The fact remains that the television series tells a dramatically different story, using the graphic novel only as a framework. The series introduced a handful of new characters, rearranged pivotal moments and invented new ones entirely. The result was a mixed bag of tedious filler and dismal exposition peppered with a handful of action/gore scenes. The character that suffered most from this chaos was the main protagonist, Rick.
In the graphic novel, Rick is portrayed as a capable leader. Galvanized by failure and tragedy, Rick was able to soldier on and do the job that needed to be done. He was far from perfect, but there was always a sense that he knew what he was doing, that the aggregate effect of his choices kept people safe. He was, by any measure, a hero.
In the tv series, Rick is a remarkably different man. His decisions are impulsive, poorly conceived and executed haphazardly. He is often fraught with indecision, failing to anticipate the obvious consequences. Whether or not this is more in-line with reality is debatable. The unfortunate side effect of this artistic decision is a man who’s ability to lead is justifiably questioned by both fans of the series and the characters in the story.
How did we come to this? The answer is Shane.
Shane is Rick’s best friend. When the zombie apocalypse was released on the earth, Shane presumed Rick was dead and took care of his family. Eventually he came to assume the mantle of husband to Rick’s wife and father to his son. In the book, Rick’s return drove Shane crazy, having settled into his new role only to be ripped from his new family. Possessed with jealousy and rage, Shane attempts to take Rick’s life and is, in turn, killed by Rick’s son. This happens very early on in the book. In the television series, Shane is still very much alive, attributed with most the qualities I respected about graphic novel Rick. He is the most human and by far the most compelling character on the show, one of a handful who actually seem to recognize and be affected by the horrific nature of this new world. He has, IMHO, become the dominant voice in the group of survivors.
The writers are clearly waging a campaign to destroy Shane’s integrity and return the focus to Rick. Whether its the attempted rape of Lori, the murder of Otis or the slaughter of the zombie horde locked in the barn, nothing they have come up has succeeded in curtailing Shane’s skyrocketing popularity. Why? Well, for one, Rick is a bore. Shane is a man of action, even if those actions are often times reprehensible. Keep in mind Shane lives in a world of nightmares where a horrific death is a daily possibility. Let’s also not forget Shane’s connection to Lori. How would you react if your lover for whom you risked your life to protect suddenly withdrew her affections, forcing you to watch her every day with another man? Shane’s behavior is within the boundaries of an average person’s reaction to a world of nightmares and the loss of his adopted family and even though you may consider his actions abhorrent, he is still more capable and heroic than TV Rick. It should have been Rick who went with Otis to recover the respirator for his son. And how would Rick have handled the situation with fat Otis slowing everyone down? No doubt he would have tried to save him resulting in both of their deaths. During the Holocaust, many Jews became Nazi cooperators to avoid death even if it meant the death of other Jews, strangers and family. Why? The reason is simple: life is precious and any action is justifiable in the course of ones survival and who are we to question otherwise? It’s easy to judge Shane until we start to think about how we would react ourselves given the circumstances.
In the lastest episode, Dale and Andrea have a debate about Shane. Dale considers him dangerous. Andrea simply replies, “Shane has done more to keep us safe than Rick has ever done.” They HAD to write that line, think about that. Shane even said it himself. “Rick is not made for this world.” The fact that it’s coming out of his mouth doesn’t mean its not true. It was Rick who handcuffed Merle to a pipe only to regret that decision and risk lives to free him. It was Rick who lead them to that Resident Evil ripoff of a CDC building. The mistakes keep piling up, leaving the audience and the characters wondering why this guy is still in charge. I’m not sure what happened, but when they messed with the DNA of “The Walking Dead” a mutation in writing occurred. All the moments in the book that defined Rick as “the man” were gone, leaving a vacuum of leadership. Shane assumed the role, both in the minds of the audience and the characters, and the writers have been fighting to change that ever since. The only way they can Stop Shane’s rise is to kill him off as a character, which at this point would be a disappointment to the many fans of Shane who consider him the only reason to watch the show anymore.
As Superbowl Sunday fast approaches and I prepare for my yearly tradition of not watching it and scrolling through hundreds of banal, 1-3 word sport tweets in aggravation, I felt now would be an apropos time to discuss the dichotomy of sports as brilliantly illustrated in the movie “Moneyball”. Before I begin, I feel its important to admit my own personal bias. I have held a sour disposition on sports my entire life. I come from a family of sports fanatics, which makes me something of an aberration as I have never understood the mindset of the huddled masses and their love of the games. To clarify, it’s not that dislike playing sports, because I do enjoy the activity when its on my own terms. I just can’t stomach watching them or the conversations that surround them.
Lords knows I wish I could. A distaste for professional sports is anathema to most people in this sports-obsessed country. I’ve become something of a social pariah among my fanatical friends when the subject is broached, mocked and dismissed as a homosexual effeminate. So unpleasant is my self-imposed isolation that I’ve gone as far as to feign an understanding of the game with clients and strangers to avoid the stigma, the result sounding not unlike Eddie Murphy in this scene from Coming to America. But like so many things in this life, a love of sports is intrinsic, and I just don’t have it.
With that in mind, I can understand why you may find my fondness for Moneyball rather perplexing. The film has been described by many as a sports film for everyone and for good reason. This isn’t the story of your conventional underdog. Moneyball is an exploration of the dichotomy of sports between romance and the cold reality of statistics. The story follows Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, as he attempts to redefine the conventional wisdom regarding athletes and their inherent value while simultaneously reflecting on his own. For the fanatic, sports is a lifestyle, but for the professional, it is a business and like any business winning is the only barometer for success. For years, scouts and the managing staff of professional sports teams have built franchises by throwing huge sums of money at individual athletes based on rather superficial metrics with the intention being the aggregate effect would result in a winning team. Money was the all important factor in success, creating an unfair advantage for franchises with huge cash resources. Billy himself was recruited using those standards and having experienced personal failure both as an athlete and a general manager, he became obsessed with changing that paradigm. Enter Peter Brand, a young Yale economics graduate who schools him in the ways of sabermetrics, an analysis methodology that measures the value of a player not as an individual but as a component in the process of achieving team objectives. In the context of baseball that means getting on base and scoring runs. With saberemetrics it became possible to put together a winning team for relatively little money, a possibility that appealed very much to the cash-strapped Oakland general manager.
So began an audacious experiment in baseball that changed the game forever. While the Oakland Athletics ultimately failed to win the championship, they did break the American League record for consecutive winning games on a payroll nearly half that of the New York Yankees. As to the efficacy of sabermetrics, Moneyball has no answers, but it did raise a number of profound questions., not only about sports, but humanity in general. What is the value of a person? Is winning and losing merely an equation we have yet to solve? How much of our seemingly random world can be controlled by leveraging mathematical theory? Mathematicians have been trying to produce a theory of everything to explain the mysteries of the universe for years. Is sabermetrics merely an extension of this theory?
What I found most compelling is the character of Billy Beane himself. The movie presents the character as obsessed with the validation of victory, detached from the game to the point where he refused to even watch them. Through the prism of sabermetrics, Beane not only sees the game with refreshed perspective, but is able to reconnect with his players as well. Consider that for a moment. Through the power of mathematics, an athlete learns to better appreciate sports. Think of the applications of that consequence in areas like education and mental health. The possibilities are engaging.
I hope that explains how someone who doesn’t enjoy professional sports could find pleasure in a movie about professional sports. The notion that any subject matter can be made accessible and engrossing in the hands of a competent storyteller is what I love about the movies. Admittedly, even I felt a connection to the huddled masses who have long shunned me, however fleeting. I’m sure I’ll be back to myself in no time come Sunday.
This was posted in the comments thread of @filmcrithulk article on the Batman entitled “What the f is it about the Batman“. I really enjoyed writing it and felt it was important enough to me to re-post here.
You touched on the cultural shift from mortality to crime that inspired Frank Miller’s reboot of the character and that’s important. The iconography of the character was completely different. It was more noir, playing up the cape and the shadow play like a stage actor. The dippy television series of the 60s erased all of the threatening aspects of the character, broadening his appeal but erasing the most compelling facets of the mythology. The Miller reboot represented the same rejection of that interpretation of Batman that fueled the scathing response to the Schumacher films. It explored the psychology of Batman, the deeply rooted pathos, using dark and Gothic imagery.
You were wise to raise the question, “why do you want to be the Joker?” From what I can infer from you’re writing, you’re also implicitly asking, “Why would you want to be the Batman?”. I agree with the sentiment. After Miller, the character became a template for substantially darker and psychologically more complex storytelling…and the character knew success it had NEVER seen before…but few stopped to ask why. If you look at his vigilantism as a metaphor for self-destructive and addictive behavior, would the character be as attractive still if he was, say, a junkie? Or an alcoholic? I mean, that’s how it manifests in the real world. Pain, loss, financial isolation…reality shows us this is not the building blocks of heroism…quite the contrary in fact.
I don’t want to know the Batman. I am, in many ways, Bruce Wayne….with a significantly smaller portfolio and muscles. I have felt loss, I know pain, anguish. I have pushed people away from me in the selfish, self indulgent pursuit of forced isolation. Few people want to be around someone like that. I don’t think most of the Batman’s fans could stand spending a day with the guy.
As to the question posed by @filmcritHulk, “What the f is it about Batman? Why do we like him?”, I guess I can only answer for myself. I find exploring the Batman character to be an meaningful opportunity to discover something psychologically revelatory. It is CRITICAL to understand, however, that this discovery comes from insight into the writer’s intent and not the character itself. In other words. In other words, the writer is teaching us these truths, not the Batman…and it is to him we should be grateful. Unfortunately nobody makes Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo costumes.
One of my favorite “Batman” yarns doesn’t really involve Batman at all (an excellent point you raised in your article regarding that which is most compelling in his universe seems to be in orbit around Batman but not Batman himself). It was written by Neil Gaiman for Secret Origins series. A TV crew is interviewing the Riddler, who amid a nostalgic look back over his relatively innocuous criminal career, pauses and says “What happened to us? The Joker is killing people, for God’s sake!”
Everyone invested in the #OccupyWallStreet movement, either for or against, seems to be discussing Adam Carolla’s latest rant on his podcast regarding said movement. Conservatives have been desperate to find articulate voices to buttress their arguments against a tidal wave of progressive talking points that are clearly resonating with the American people in a positive way. Carolla, with his blue-collar bonafides and that “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” life philosophy that Conservatives would pour over their morning breakfast cereal and drink the bowl if they could. Finally, it seems, a celebrity has arrived to defend their indefensible and selfish positions on issues like income disparity, corporate greed and joblessness.
For many on both sides, Carolla’s honesty is a welcome and refreshing voice in a debate mired in racism, ignorance and stupidity. Even if its dismissed as intentionally provocative, which it is, the fact that a podcast can generate this much controversy is really exciting and should lend some confidence to other podcasters who have prayed for some viability to be injected into their broadcast medium of choice. After all, the podcast seems to be the last, safe place a man like Carolla can bear his soul without the specter of consequence hanging over him, and Carolla is no stranger to controversy. You might remember the sex-advice show “LoveLine” or the Man Show, that overtly homosexual homage to male chauvinism that paved the way for pathetic male-centric marketing like the Spike Network and Man Cave. The last controversy involving his podcast regarded the use of transgender slurs for which he later apologized.
His latest dismissive condemnation disparages such a wide swath of people it’s absurd on its face. He begins with a common argument among working conservatives.
“I just heard today that, in California – before the economy fell apart – I think it was the top 1% of taxpayers paid for 50% of the taxes that came in here, in California. That’s 1% paying for 50%. Not good enough? Not good enough?”
What Carolla fails to understand is members of the #OccupyWallStreet movement neither want or need the 1% to pay their taxes. That 50% of the tax burden represents untold billions in financial resources hoarded and squandered by a select minority who through considerable political influence in the form of campaign contributions bought themselves a political system that not only allows them to hold on to that money but further leach from an already distressed financial system. To avoid speaking in baseless generalities, here’s a couple of examples:
The Californian direct democracy system allows any resident to collect the requisite number of signatures to place an policy initiatives on the ballot to be voted on in the general election. This signature collection process is extremely resource intensive, both in time and money, placing it well outside the capabilities of the average system. Corporations, like Amazon.Com however, are using this process to avoid paying state sales tax under the guise of interstate commerce freedoms.
In 2007, California had the second highest foreclosure rate in the county, losing billions in economic growth from the economic meltdown caused in no small part by the banks and the financial services industry who engaged in a coordinated strategy of predatory mortgage lending and over-leveraging of worthless mortgage securities without government oversight.
“I understand some people have more than others. That’s always gonna be there. Even…Y’know, we started off, this evening, talking about the auto show and about how the crazy competition just led to these crazy crazy cars. And I know, sometimes, it goes astray but, for the most part, it’s the best system we have. And, trying to get the top 1% to pay for the top…bottom 55% – or to pay-in 55% – that’s not the angle that’s used. The angle’s: worrying about what the fuck the other 50% are doing, not what the top – who is already paying *way* more than their fair share – is doing.”
Notice how he glosses over the critical observation in bold. #OWS would argue the term “astray” is woefully inadequate, that through years of deregulation and political manipulation the rich have rigged the “best system we have” to benefit themselves. Consider Mitt Romney, potential GOP presidential candidate, who through his financial management company Bain Capital leeched hundreds of millions of dollars from companies all over the country while thousands lost their jobs and watched their stock values plummet, all perfectly legal. How about the illegal? Check out this interesting report from the FBI regarding financial crimes over the last five years.
CORPORATE FRAUD PENDING CASES
It is clearly evident that greed, criminal or otherwise is becoming more and more prevalent among those who know how to play the system. Check out this graph-heavy article by Mother Jones to see income disparity trends over the last 40 years. This is not heresay or opinion. This is fact. The middle class is deflating while the upper class is prospering, now more than ever. #OccupyWallStreet understands this and is fighting this trend before its too late to do anything about it.
“There’s something that’s come up in this country, that didn’t used to exist, which is: envy. And it’s a big issue. And it *was* understood, back in the day, and we are empowering…we now are now dealing with the first wave of participation trophy – “my own fecal matter doesn’t stink”, “empowered”, “I feel so fucking good about myself”, “everybody’s a winner, there’s no losers” – we’re dealing with the first wave of those fucking assholes. That’s who we’re dealing with now. ‘Cause this has been going on for about 25 years, and we’re just starting to get – maybe 20 years – and those kids were 8 or 9 years old, and we’re getting the first…”
This is where Carolla’s argument begins to really fall off the rails. One of the most prevalent misunderstandings of the #OWS movement is its demographics. If you watch Fox News, you are probably operating under the false assumption that this is a movement of twenty-something disenfranchised potheads who lack the guiding principles of hard work and discipline. This could not be further from the truth. #OccupyWallStreet is a movement that spans generations, from seniors looking for a fair deal on health care and retirement to college graduates looking for work in an evaporating job market caused by a shrinking economy and exportation of American jobs to countries with cheaper labor. Few would deny narcissism is a plague on our society, but one can argue narcissism increases in direct proportion with ones financial holdings. The more you have, the more superior you feel towards your fellow man and the less inclined you are to share your good fortune. As the #OWS clearly demonstrates, there have been very few winners and many many losers over the last couple of years.
“Carolla: So what we have – I haven’t really broken this down but I’m going to try now – we created a bunch of fuckin’ self-entitled monsters. And this has become the pursuit of my life, where people are so far out of it, and what they expect, and what they think’realistic’ is, and what…the set of rules that pertains to them versus the other guys, cause *that’s* what the bottom line is.”
Who is the “we” Carolla is referring to? The baby boomers? Yuppies? GenX? It’s not uncommon for frustrated, middle aged men to employ nebulous antagonists in support of their argument. They use phrasing like “let me break it down for you” and “bottom line”. This is a multi-faceted and intellectually complex issue that cannot be distilled into one neat point of view. You’re talking decades of American political history fueled by hundreds of years of social evolution. It was only a relatively short time ago we were subjects of the kingdom of England, bound to his will and crushed under thumb to the point of revolution. It has only been around seventy years years since the Great Depression crippled the American economy and the New Deal assisted in its recovery. It’s only been three years since the mortgage crisis and we’re only beginning to see the effects and that which drives people of all ages to protest, not some ridiculous notion of entitlement. And what are these unrealistic expectations they’re fighting for? Affordable health care? The dignity of a good paying job and the means to support ones family? The ability to negotiate for better terms with ones employer? For the government to follow its mandate and protect their financial futures from bankers looking for risky short term gains?
“Alison Rosen: Is that the “millennials”. I think that’s the name to be used…
Carolla: I call them the ass douches.
Rosen: Colloquially, they’re known as the ass douches?”
While Carolla may consider this hardy har har, let’s not forget these “ass douches” are standing peacefully at the front line, taking tear gas, pepper spray, batons to the stomach and losing their freedoms for a cause they believe in. Besides, if there’s any reason not to take him seriously, it’s his use of dated mid-90s put downs.
And then everyone gets involved and then everyone gives everyone a participation trophy, and then everyone feels good about themselves. But not *based* on anything. You should feel good about yourself *because* of your *accomplishments*. Not because somebody yelled at you to feel good about yourself and you got a fuckin’ fake piece of plastic that was sprayed gold and had your name on a plaque at the bottom of it. And, when these folks become adults, and enter the work force, and we – they’ve done stories about this. “
This is a rather Californian point of view. As a mecca for pseudo-psychology and snake oil phrenology, California has developed quite the reputation as a nanny state, with public policy bordering the absurd. Carolla’s father was a psychologist. I can’t speak to their relationship, but one can imagine this as the source for his disdain for the profession. What this has anything to do with #OccupyWallStreet is beyond understanding. People didn’t lose their jobs, savings, investments and homes from some nonsensical and systemic weakness of character. “There goes Mr. Jenkins. Look up to him. That guy works hard. That guy built a company. That guy built an empire. Now look at him. He’s got his Rolls Royce. He’s drivin’ up the hill.”
But what do we do *now*? Now it’s like: “Oh, look at him. Look at him. Does he need that car? Why’s he need that car? I’m drivin’ a fuckin’ Chevette! Why’s *he* get to drive that fuckin’ car, you know? Let’s go up there and throw a rock at it.” “That ain’t gonna help you get out of the Chevette, ass douche.”
Is Carolla actually suggesting people were not covetous prior to whatever generation bred this army of narcissists? Again, another assertion that the guiding principle of #OccupyWallStreet is envy, which its not.
“Carolla: We started, you know, we have these weird swings in raising kids, and they’re not very good. I mean, I grew up in the sort of 70′s, “just free to be me, you and me”, “Hey man, if he doesn’t want to learn to read he doesn’t have to learn to read”…yeah, just “run wild”, you know, “free range”, “do your own thing, man” – that whole hippee “do your own thing” – never fuckin’ panned out. And – the super self-esteem building, and just all this bullshit where we have to knock down a Christmas celebration and call it a “Holiday Celebration” so we don’t offend the one kid whose parents are litigious, or whatever – we fucked our society up royally; basically, take that one kid and empowered him, and we’ve gotta stop, ’cause that’s what all this is.”
Carolla continues to conflate his gripes with a indisputably irrelevant attack on secularism. While it is not germane to the topic at hand, its important to point out growing sensitives to non-Christian religions is a good thing. When our government spends tax dollars celebrating one religious holiday over another, it debases people. There is nothing wrong with a little tolerance, a little understanding when it comes to sensitive issues like this. Parents are fully capable of educating their child about Christmas and celebrating their holiday in the privacy of their own home without imposing it on Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and the many other religions in this melting pot of a country.
It used to be that you’d look – I’m not saying you took random rich guys and worshipped at their alter – but you took guys who built something, and you said “There’s a guy who’s accomplished something”, not “Well why isn’t he paying his fair share?”. I mean, when did that ever fuckin’ come about? “That guy paid-in millions of dollars last year. You paid in shit, and you’re pissed at *him*?”. Obviously it doesn’t make sense. Obviously it’s not a *rational* thought. It’s *shame* driven.
This is another illustration of a feeling not backed up by fact. This kind of speech lacks any kind of critical thought whatsoever. It’s the same manner in which people speak of black people whenever they see black crime on television, the ubiquitous ”They’re all like that”. See the commonalities in phrasing? “It used to be”, “back in the day”, “I remember”….all anecdotal, all based on personal experience. When Steve Jobs died, a nation celebrated his accomplishments. Where was the derision? When #OWS speaks of the 1% “paying their fair share”, they’re directing that message at companies like GE who paid no corporate income taxes due to loopholes or the Bush Tax cuts which largely benefited the rich. Even now, the Republicans are opposing the extension of payroll tax cuts because they do not benefit the wealthy, who for the most part do not collect a paycheck and live off of their investments.
“And – you want to extrapolate this – this is essentially what the terrorists do with us. They see us over here in our hot tubs, driving our big cars around, havin’ our parties, turnin’ on…”
Ugh. An almost Herman Cainian understanding of the middle east. That’s why they hate us? Because we’re the only rich country in the word strutting about? Not because of our history of meddling in their affairs, including the backing the Jews in the creation of a state right in an area of incredible religious significance to them and the countless wars that followed?
It’s difficult to tell if Carolla was being serious. He is, after all, an entertainer first. Unfortunately, the right has no qualms with co-opting his views in their campaign to shut down #OWS. Not that it matters. It will take a lot more than the tongue-lashing of a comedian to turn the tide of public opinion.
This is one of my favorite scene from the West Wing.
We see Josh Lyman, head bowed in humbled supplication. We meet Toby Zeigler, who knowing full well the abject nature of this meeting, begrudgingly tables his resentment for the sake of the team. We meet Mary Marsh, christian political hitman, oozing smug contempt and making egregious demands as compensation for a rather flippant remark Josh made about her faith earlier in the episode. We meet The President, who after entering the fray right at the conflict’s crescendo, reads the room, diffuses the tension with charm and subverts his opponents arguments with frankness and their own faith. You see Mary squeak a rather unwise and haughty snark to the President, who responds in calm and aggressively assertive manner that instantly conveys to all who bear witness who is in charge here. “I am the Lord your God”, and so forth.
Television is not an easy medium. Unlike movies, where the audience is an active and economically invested consumer focused on entertainment at hand (to varying degrees, depending on your theater), television has to compete with all sorts of everyday life distractions…the kids, the telephone, work, dinner, dogs, and so on.
Aaron Sorkin understands television. (Not to discount his feature film work by any means but it isn’t relevant to the focus of this article.) I admire his scripts for two reasons: consistency and economy. He understands there is a short window in which a tv show can capture audience attention and retain it long enough to generate interest. Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of the West Wing, you can glean more information about the characters, interpersonal dynamics and general artistic aesthetic of the show from that six minute clip than you can from the entire nine episode run (so far) of The Walking Dead.
Hand me the remote, this show is terrible.
To be honest, I was never a fan of the zombie genre to begin with. We have an unhealthy obsession with apocalyptic visions of the future in this country. I don’t know why. It’s almost as if we want society to fail. Zombies were always something of an allegorical condemnation of modern society, the notion that we are all mindless sheep wandering through life without purpose, decaying with age. The original Zombies used to eat brains, as if to suggest we can no longer think for ourselves. This manner of thinking is rather pervasive among the downtrodden and depressed and in my opinion complete horseshit. People live like zombies because they choose to. Happiness is a choice. Surviving is a choice. This is the central theme of the Walking Dead graphic novel and why I truly enjoy reading it.
The graphic novel of “The Walking Dead” is something of an aberration in the zombie genre, a fresh perspective. Unlike other zombie yarns where the objective was escape or victory, The Walking Dead focused on the practical reality of living in a world fraught with mortal danger and no hope of relief. It stripped the characters of creature comforts, leaving them only with their wits to scavenge a life out of nightmare. That the story was set in a zombie apocalypse is immaterial. Evidence of the tremendous human capacity for surviving horror is found throughout our own history. Whether its the Jewish Holocaust of WWII or the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, people find a way to live in the worst of circumstances. There is a tremendous courage in surviving. The Walking Dead understands this, and I found the message as inspiring as it was, at times, heartbreaking.
The television version lacks that substance. For nine episodes now I’ve been watching clumsy, boring people knock about like pin balls in a machine, making one stupid decision after another. I have seen every episode, comparing plot points with the graphic novel, trying to understand the thought process behind some character arc decisions. Mostly I’ve just been suffering from the banality of it all: the tedious exchanges between Rick and Lori, the lack of action in general, the redundant speeches and incongruous character behaviors. I find myself waiting to feel the same trust I had with the comic book so I can just sit back and enjoy the show but it never comes. It’s like a meditation on inanity punctuated by moments of gratuitous gore. For example, why were so many people impressed by the well zombie? WTF? Consider how much time was invested in the pointless exercise of its extraction and the inevitable FX shot of its evisceration. What the hell was the point of ALL of it? To demonstrate how stupid these people are? Would you drink from that well if the zombie was removed successfully? Clearly it was just an opportunity to gross people out because everything else in that episode was fucking worthless.
I don’t like investing my time in a television show that eventually peters out under the weight of its premise…shows like Heroes that left me feeling cheated and disappointed at a potential unrealized. That the television version of the show is wildly popular is not news. That it completely diverged from the established graphic novel story-line may very well be. I’m not sure how popular the graphic novel is, but there’s no way its driving the kind of ratings I’m seeing every week. That it shares a network with the likes of “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” doesn’t hurt I’m sure. They need to take a page from Sorkin. Every scene must matter;this lack of a cohesive narrative is fucking killing me. I want to love this show because I know the story its capable of telling. I need forward momentum. I needs menace. I need a reason to watch…and that window I was talking about earlier? It’s closing…fast.
Hand me the remote, this show is terrible.
A call for civility on the geeks of the world
Apr 30
Posted by YoureSoShain
Before you read this article, I invite you to check out these editorials as a primer for what I am about to discuss:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/female-reviewer-gets-attacked-for-avengers-review
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/04/silicon-valley-brogrammer-culture-sexist-sxsw
http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/18/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-the-girls-criticism/
http://teahousecomic.tumblr.com/post/21902237896/the-saddest-piece-of-advice-youll-ever-get-about-doing
skip to 1:23 if you don’t want to watch the entire clip
Not enough homage is paid, I think, to the prescience of ”Revenge of the Nerds”. It is an important film in that it is one of the first to document the rise of the geek in American culture. “Revenge of the Nerds” foretold the paradigm shift in power from the Luddite to the technologically savvy that continues to evolve to the present day.
Growing up a child of the 80s with a passion for computing wasn’t easy. Society still valued the altruism and nobility of hard labor. We still built things with our hands, tangible things, with the blood and the sweat and the tears and what not. There is nothing more scary than irrelevance, and we represented a changing world that many feared they were incapable of adapting to. So society assimilated us the only way it knows how: marginalization. They labeled us geek and nerd. We became outcasts, that is, until the world caught up with us.
I’ve been a nerd as long as I can remember. I owned my first computer at the age of 10, an Apple IIc. Around the same time my father purchased for me my first modem, a whopping 2400 baud. I don’t know what compelled him to spend that much money ($2000 if memory serves) on what was essentially just a hobby for me at the time, but I am eternally grateful he did. His generation witnessed the decline of the industrial revolution and the rise of technology but even though the future was uncertain my father was keen enough to sense the things to come. While he may or may not have foreseen my generation becoming the stewards of age of the personal computer, that expensive piece of hardware afforded me an opportunity his father couldn’t possibly dream of. Every parent wants to give the world to their children, but my father gave me the closest thing possible: a gateway to the world.
Around the world, the Internet continues to realize the promise of a generation. Dictatorships are toppled, corporations are held responsible for their actions and politicians can no longer spread falsehoods with impunity. While some may consider that assessment naive, I remind them that no system is perfect and because the Internet is still a free exchange of ideas not all the ideas are good. This is certainly the case in this country where the erosion of the virtues of free speech has become inimical and pervasive. Like anything free you get what you pay for.
It comes with no small sense of irony that the same people who ruthlessly mocked us for our love of computing are users themselves. It also comes with no small sense of satisfaction that those same nerds are now the founders of most profitable and powerful corporations in world history. It seems the nerds truly earned their revenge. Funny thing happened though when we legitimized this technology for all: the assholes gained access to the same global communications network as the rest of us
The aforementioned articles represent a thoughtful effort to raise awareness of the increasingly caustic and often times misogynistic rhetoric found in website comment threads. Ahh yes, the comment thread, the Mos Eisley spaceport of intellectual debate. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just scroll to the bottom of your favorite news site to see the random brainfarts of the uncleaned masses. While I hardly consider toxic online conversation a new phenomenon, there is a growing consensus that it has reached its saturation point. This is, after all, the first time in our history where criticism is global, instantaneous and archived.
While I agree the problem exists and needs to be addressed, I do not agree on who is to blame. People are so quick to blame geeks and nerds for this behavior. Devin Faraci of Bad Ass Digest even went as far to say “Nerds are the new jocks: racist, sexist and afraid of change”. The question of who is to blame is considerably more complicated, considering there are no geeks and nerds, not anymore. We are all geeks and nerds now. Soccer moms are sharing videos of their children playing on the field. Grandparents are talking to their grandchildren around the world over their mobile phones. Presidents are communicating with their citizenry through social networks. A television show about zombies is one of the most popular series in the country and we’re about to spend millions of dollars on tickets to see a movie about a group of comic book superheroes that’s been in print for over 50 years. Nobody holds rightful claim to that title anymore.
Every hurtful, sexist, racist comment spewed on the internet is mark against us all. We don’t know how to speak to one another; maybe we never did. I am certainly not innocent in the charges levied here. I’ve said some hurtful things online, I’ll be the first to admit it. A lot of it comes from my own fear of irrelevance. The world is changing so quickly its hard to keep up sometimes and I can’t see as clearly into the future as my father once did. But my eyes are open now and I’m trying to make good choices. I only hope this sentiment goes viral before we go too far to see a way back.
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Posted in essay
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Tags: civility, comment threads, geeks, nerds