Foster on Film

Back now from Contraflow in New Orleans—a three day mostly-literary convention.

New Orleans is a bit of a drive, but I only went as far as Alabama where I was given a lift the rest of the way. That is a much better way to travel as we had quite the spirited conversation in the van on lit and science and a bit on politics—but lit and science are always better.

Contraflow was (and no doubt will be) a really well run and pleasant little con. It didn’t have that normal small-con feeling that at times no one is around. It was always busy with fans everywhere and something of interest happening at all times. Ben Bova was the guest of honor, yet somehow I ended up missing all of his panels. There was an art show, video room, gaming room, con suite, venders room, signing tables—all the norms, but it all seemed to function a bit better than normal.

I was on four film panels. Two dealt with fan films and were a good time, though the first was sparsely attended. The second focused on legality and the future which I think was of more interest to people (plus I shared the panel with a lawyer). I also did one, on my own, of the most important science fiction films. I had assumed this one wouldn’t have much of an audience but I had a good and attentive crowd and it was my favorite panel to be on of the weekend. I dug into the films that changed cinema and literature and apparently came up with quite a bit that others were not familiar with. Finally I was on a panel on film narrative. With such a general subject I didn’t expect we’d do much with it, but it became a very interesting discussion and again, had a good audience.

I attended what panels I could, including a few on fandom and one on the future of comics and another on the DC cinematic universe. The consensus, which matched my own, was that DC is a mess. Panels that I enjoyed the most were not on lit or pop culture but on science. They’d pulled in several NASA scientists who were fascinating. The panel on colonizing Mars was solid but I was really captured by the exo-planet panel. Being behind a bit, I hadn’t realized just how many planets have been discovered around other stars in the tiny area we have so far searched. Great stuff.

I spent some time hanging with friends—one of whom had brilliantly made the plaque and pins for the Eugie Award—which is always the thing to do. The artist was kind enough to put me up for the night. Yay! I was also introduced to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day which is a fantastic film I somehow had missed. I highly recommend it. Really, As in, if you haven’t seen it, go do so now.

Keeping the Conversation Going With L. Jagi Lamplighter (Having only written her name—usually with FB filling it in—I really need to ask L. Jagi Lamplighter what I should call her that involves fewer names.)

Ms Lamplighter attempts to answer what Sad and Rabid pups are objecting to (The Bifrost Between Calico and Gingham). Her answer is different than I would give. Well, I’ll go further than different. She gives an answer that is right for her, but I think has very little to do with the Pups in practice. In specific, I think she shifts what it is that is poking them in the eye, and that is an essential element to the entire discussion. On top of that, she looks at the Pups as engaging in an artistic-political disagreement as opposed to a political-regressive one.

And I don’t think we can do that. Ken Burnside, a firm Pup by my standards and one of the Pups’ 2015 nominees, put it well in his after-Hugo essay, which was mainly pro-Pup, when he pointed out that the basis of the Sad Pups was undermined by Brad’s first post for SP3, when he cut away from talking about good, exciting stories like the ones that used to win, and began talking about a culture war and “victim class check box fiction.” That is, this has little to do with taste and a whole lot to do with misplaced anger.

I’ve seen this play out as rank and file Pups (major Pups avoid specifics) will exclaim their hatred from stories that by the Pup early standards, and by Ms Lamplighter’s explanation, they should love, and seen them love stories that likewise they should hate simply because the author was on the “right” side.

If Brad (and Larry before him) hadn’t gone full-on “the enemy is all around us” then we would be having a very different conversation, like what Ms Lamplighter suggests. It would be a very ‘60s conversation, but it would be different, and preferable.

But OK, let me for a moment take her path, and pretend that this fight is about artistic and entertainment preferences. She uses as an example “Cat Pictures Please,” but I am afraid that is a bad example. Yes, it won the Hugo, but not as the best short story of 2016, but as the ONLY short story of 2016. Publically many Pups will declare the last few years of Hugo nominations were reasonable and non-Pups will declare that the end votes were reasonable, but privately I’ve seldom heard that. I would be surprised if many people are fooling themselves. The noms have been totally about the Pups winning and the final vote has been about stopping them winning. Quality has been meaningless for at least two years.

The Pups left only one legitimate nom: “Cat Pictures Please.” I’d suggest using as an example, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong as it won the Nebula award (which has managed to avoid Puppy juggling) and it would have made the Hugo ballot had Vox, with some help from the Sads, not kept it off in favor of “Space Raptor Butt Invasion.”

Besides it winning an unmarred award, I’d suggest that switch because “Cat Pictures Please” is a bit too clear on its theme and thus an outlier. It was not a favorite of mine for that reason, and it does bring politics to the front. Not that I cannot jump into less-than-subtle works. “Harrison Bergeron” is nothing but screaming social politics and it is a favorite of mine (that includes me liking its theme). I doubt if there has ever been a heavier dose of message fic than “Harrison Bergeron.” Really, it is all sledgehammer.

“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” on the other hand, is more subtle. Not exactly secretive, but it carries no hammer. And yes, I would discuss it with “Scanners Live In Vain” or “Flowers For Algernon” or “Nine billion names of God.”

Now “Hungry Daughters” has a gay main character. Well, I assume she is gay. Maybe she isn’t. She certainly is so symbolically. And the story, the theme, is one that speaks to homosexual individuals. It also speaks to anyone in a marginalized group. And it does a pretty good job of speaking to everyone, assuming you are willing to listen. If you are not a careful reader, however, it can still work for you as a cool horror story about a girl who feeds on the troubling thoughts of others. Its message shouldn’t poke anyone in the eye unless the mere existence of anyone who might be gay is a poke in the eye (and if that is the case…well, I believe that is exactly the case, but let’s hold on that for a moment.)

“Hungry Daughters” is also beautifully written, far better than many of those stories of old that Pups love to praise. The Golden Age of Science Fiction was not exactly the Golden Age of Excellent Writing.

Now Ms Lamplighter takes the Pups at their word (ignoring all those words about enemies and how we have to defeat the secret cabal against us)—their literary word. That they just want good stories, but that good stories include awesome science fiction concepts.

Pups, according to her, are willing to put up with a lot for awesome science fiction concepts, but don’t like getting poked in the eye, same as non-Pups. Strong politics that disagree with one’s world view is a poke in the eye.

And I agree with that. Though it does make for some pretty delicate readers, both Pup and non-Pup. After all, I am a fan of The Weapon Shops books while I find their theme as dumb as a box of rocks. (So yes, I want my kudos now. Though I much preferred “The Seesaw” to either novel. I find van Vogt a fantastic short story writer, but only a so-so novelist.) But if there is one truth to The Pup Mess, it is that most everyone is extremely sensitive and easily offended. I’ve found the Pups to be extraordinarily easy to offend, but I fear they are correct in asserting that those they oppose are quite easy as well.

So, poking in the eye is bad. Stories that counter one’s world view are a poke in the eye. Yup. I buy that. I think Ms Lamplighter is correct. It is sad, but still, I think she is correct.

Here is where we divide, at least in part, and what I find fundamental: What is a poke in the eye? She states it has nothing to do with racism or homophobia, but is a matter of things agreeing or disagreeing with ones world view. Yes, but I think we should not take racism or homophobia or sexism, etc, off the table, as those are the world views that are behind much of this. Yes, “Abortion is a woman’s choice” could be in there (though for the life of me I can’t think of any abortion spec fic stories—and no, finding one or two does not make a difference).

For the Pups, a whole lot of things poke them in the eye. It isn’t themes that promote other world views (well, it is, but that’s a small part), but simply being reminded that reality isn’t as they insist it is.

“Gays are great,” is a theme, but Pups more often object not to that, but rather to, “Gays exist.” To so many Pups, if a story has a few Black characters, then the story is about being Black, which is hammering diversity at them, which is a poke in the eye. To a Black author, having Black characters is pretty normal—to life though not literature—but to Pups it is weird. Same as gay characters. Same as Asian characters.

No, Pups don’t think: “Blacks are bad. I don’t like them. Don’t put them in stories because I don’t like them.” It is more built in to that world view. Old stories from the Golden Age don’t mention Black characters, so when they see any, it stands out, and that’s odd—it doesn’t fit. (And that, by the way, is the racism normally discussed about the Pups, not anything about disliking a race or racial superiority, but simply sticking with what they assume is a status quo, which they don’t even realize is a White status quo.)

Pups often talk about the glories of the Golden Age, of Campbellian SF and the pulp fic that came before that. Of those space stories with rocket ships and ray guns. But those stories, all of them, were White Americans in space. Every single one. That’s all we were fed. Some are good. Some are bad. But they all have the same perspective. They are all written with the same outlook, and more often than not, with the same style. Even as we get later, it is still the same. I love Dune, but for all its nobles and flashy tech, it is White Americans in space. (In that case, overwhelmingly so as that’s the theme.) Much of my artistic problem with Pup-recommended stories is that they have no voice, or more accurately, they have the same voice. With a few exceptions (such as John C. Wright) all those stories could have been written by the same person. They feel the same. The sentences are the same. The world is the same. It’s copies of copies and I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’d want to read a second rate copy of Heinlein when I can just read Heinlein.

Much of the history of science fiction is one voice, with one perspective, saying the same thing in the same way.

And to the Pups, this is normal. They copy it. They study it. They eulogize it. This same world view. “It isn’t,” they say, “White America because it is in space far beyond Caucasians and the USA.” They don’t even see it. They don’t notice all that’s changed are a few bits of background. They miss that it is the same old White guys because that’s what they are used to seeing. That’s what they expect. That’s what’s normal.

And if it is normal, then anything else is abnormal.

So if the bridge of a ship is filled with Asian women, then that isn’t diverse fiction, but it is fiction about diversity. It must be making a point about Asians and women and that’s poking me in the eye. If on an alien planet the culture has gay males, then that isn’t diverse, but again, must be making a point about diversity and poking me in the eye. The person who drains the dark thoughts of others is a woman, an Asian, and seemingly homosexual—that’s poking me in the eye.

Reality pokes them in the eye. They want a past that never was, of White Americans in space as written by Heinlein and Asimov and Herbert. But new authors don’t have the same background. They write from their own background, and the mere existence of that pokes Pups in the eye. And some White male authors now acknowledge that the world is more than White Americans in space, and that pokes Pups in the eye. And the very occasional non-White, or less often, non-American, in a Pup story does more to demonstrate this than contradict it. (Though truthfully, I’ve never seen a character without an American point of view in a Pup story.)

I had this discussion with Brad, and he was utter incapable of seeing the difference between spec fic becoming more diverse, and stories having the theme of diversity. Sure, some stories do have a theme of diversity (and sadly, that seems to poke Pups in the eye), but many more just are about a larger world, and Pups don’t want to see that world.

Of course this makes it seem that all the sore eyes are on the Pup side. One thing I have to give to the Pups, when it comes to message fiction, no one does it louder. The Pups talk as if what they love are meaningless exciting tales of engineers in space solving tricky SF puzzles, and Ms Lamplighter assumes the same with her comment on “the science fiction is so awesome.”

But that isn’t what Pups write. They write politics. They write messages fic. Generally they write slow message fic. Brad writes about a man dwelling on the need for religion. Sure, there’s a battle around him, but that’s secondary. The point is the need for religion. John C. Wright and Vox also fill their stories with religious themes. Tom Kratman is just a huge mass of right wing political messages. Steven Diamond: message fic. Steve Rzasa: message fic. Lou Antonelli: message fic. Larry advertises his story based on message (“I made FDR the bad guy and that will drive libtards crazy?”) Now it turns out, I am fine with message fiction. I like it a bit more subtle generally, but since fiction is pointless without a message, I’m glad the Pups in truth are big time message writers.

So it isn’t that the Pups care so much about awesome SF ideas, but simply they don’t like getting poked in the eye and are happy to poke others in the eye with the messages which are the heart of their fiction. That’s fair. I have no problem with that. It is just that awesome SF means no more, and no less, to Pups than to non-Pups. This is about message, and the Pups like their messages, which, as I said, is fair. (Taking over an award and causing a huge fight in fandom because they like their message better–that’s not so fair.)

So, ignoring “we must defeat our enemies” and “awesome SF” I agree with Ms Lamplighter. People don’t like being poked in the eye, so Pups don’t like being poked in the eye.

So now what?

As I’ve said before, now nothing. But I’ll pretend that there is a solution. What, besides people being less sensitive? I’ll grant non-Pups could use some work in that area. A lot of work. As for Pups, they are sensitive not only to other themes of other world views, but of reality, of any change, and of the existence of other people.

There is a kind of answer: read.

Non-Pups, at least of the type that discuss SF in geekish glee don’t have homework do to, because we’ve read the Pups’ world view. If you talk SF with even minor authority, then you’ve read their world. I’ve read Anderson, Asimov, Blish, Brown, Card, Herbert, Heinlein, Pohl, Simak, Sturgeon, van Vogt. I’ve read a whole lot more. I know their world. I’ve done my homework. They haven’t done theirs.

The Pups need to expand out from that. They need to read not a few stories that pop up on nomination ballots, but hundreds of things that are not the same old thing, till the same old thing stops being the definition of normal. And sure, if they decide what they like is the same old thing, fine. But they need to understand that there is more out there, and believe that other people like other things. And they need to feel that the mere existence of other things shouldn’t be a poke in the eye.

Until then, there’s a problem, because the other world views that poke them in the eye aren’t just conservative political or religious views, but the mere existance of others. It is racist and homophobic and a whole lot of other things that they don’t like being accused of. But that is the world view of The Golden Age, where nothing existed by one view and Heinlein putting in one South American character is a big deal worthy of discussion. That is White Americans in space. That is their normal. And it shouldn’t be.

So, the first Ghostbusters Reboot reviews are in, and they are…odd. Mostly I’ve seen five stars reviews and zero star ones. This is either the best or worst movie ever. I find both unlikely, and while I’m betting it is closer to the bottom than the top, I suspect even in genre films, it will be sitting on top of many worse films—after all, this is the year of Batman v Superman. It is hard to take any of these extreme reviews seriously and I suspect more than the quality of the film is in play.

The problem with Ghostbusters is that no matter what happens, the results will be bad. That’s because films affect other films. The success or failure of any big budget films is often more important for what it does to other films than for its own quality. One film can crush a career, kill a studio, star a trend, or kill an idea for years to come. Everyone remember Michael Myers? He was on top of the Hollywood pile. Then The Love Guru came along. Notice multiple studios spending tons of time, effort and money to create shared universes? That’s The Avengers effect. After The Road Warrior we had a decade of wild men in the desert flicks. Alien was followed by over a hundred bug in a bottle films. The music in Pirates of the Caribbean has meant since then that no amount of bombast is too much. Harry Potter split its final movie, and we got extra Twilight and extra Hunger Games films. Batman Begins gave us a pair of depressing Superman movies, and the Fantastic 4, along with other depressing superhero flicks. Let’s not even think about the sludge pit The Blair Witch Project left in its wake. And that’s a minor rundown.

Hollywood is as filled with prejudices as any place else, but the main one is money. Hollywood likes it. And they learn lessons very quickly on how not to lose it and what’s the best way to make more, and those lessons are always of the form “do that thing that made money and don’t do that thing that lost money.”

Which brings me back to Ghostbusters, something that could only cause harm. It’s just about out, and those reviews leave it up in the air what will happen. But lets look at the extremes.

If Ghostbusters fails, then MRAs will claim victory. They are already working on hiding good reviews on Redit. There is no time when MRAs claiming victory is a good thing. Culturally, that’s a mess. But sticking with film, that will make money-men less likely than they already are to invest in female-led movies. Any movement in the direction of actual female representation in film that has been happening (and it hasn’t been much), will be slowed even more, and if another flop comes along, we could see years of before anyone starts moving in the right direction again.

On the other hand, what if it is a success? Well, then things are bad as well. Many original ideas never make it to the screen because the money men won’t take a chance when they could instead fund a reboot or a sequel. It’s a painful ride through cinema history to see how many times a director will explain that the reason he made the crap movie he made was because no one would back his real project. And with the huge sums going to big films now, this is getting worse. For quite a few years, reboots and sequels meant money, so that’s what we got. But lately we’ve gotten a string of big budget sequel and reboot flops or underperformers: Alice Through the Looking Glass, Zoolander 2, Independence Day: Resurgence, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, The Divergent Series: Allegiant, The Huntsman: Winter’s War. And this is having an effect. The talk in Hollywood is they may have overplayed the sequel and reboot hand—with things like the MCU being a special case. There has been serious movement as money began looking for the next big thing. But it’s only started, and one success—one success that has everyone’s eyes on it, could kill that, and stick us back in the muck. And few films have more eyes on it than Ghostbusters. So, even if it is a great film (and my guess is…no), it will be an artistic disaster if Ghostbusters is a success.

There’s also the issue of a success meaning that Melissa McCarthy’s career will grow, instead of implode—the second being my choice as she is spectacularly unfunny, but that’s a minor issue.

Will the reverse positive effects come into play as well? That is, will its success lead to greater representation for women and will its failure put a nail in sequels and reboots? I doubt it. It may have a minor inpact in those areas, but only very minor. My guess is the only women who will show up more in movies if this is a success are Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. And if it fails, the train is already on the tracks to pull back on sequel/reboots, thanks to Alice and the others just keeping it on track. Ghostbusters could derail it, but probably add little fuel.

Think that a movie can’t have that much effect? Well, we’ll see when we get Kristen Wiig in Scarface and Justin Bieber in Full Metal Jacket. Now if you don’t worry about film as art, but only as entertainment like a rollercoaster, then how much Ghostbusters is going to screw up artistry and representation may not mean much to you. But then I’m not sure why you are paying attention. But for those of us that do care about film as art, this is, unfortunately, a big deal. Ghostbusters is far from the only film that could screw things up—I’ve already spoken a good deal about BvS and the failure of The Neon Demon is in no one’s best interest—but it is the film of the moment.

Ummmm. He’s the good guy…

In my quest for distraction, I started re-watching old Hammer Horror films. They are lush, know how to use color (which many have forgotten—looking at you BvS) and have a sensual tone. So yeah, some light fun. But I’ve never been a big fan. The scripts are…scant, to put it politely. There’s normally more holes than plot. Characters behave in whatever way the pseudo plot requires, FX is painfully bad (they bought the bats in one case at the local five and dime store), and no one at the company owns a map (work out the travel in The Horror of Dracula some time—try it). Plus there is the whole criminal misuse of Christopher Lee. But I can deal with those for some light fun.

But my God I’d forgotten the miserable morality. and that I can’t just forget. Hammer has the most backward, conservative to reactionary philosophy I recall at any major studio. Universal’s fright flicks were substantially more progressive thirty years earlier and RKO was epochs removed. First, there’s the view on sex. Sex is bad. Sex is very bad. Only bad people are interested in sex and they should, and generally are, punished for it. Now unfortunately that’s a common trope in horror cinema, but no one goes at it with just gusto. Why that stands out is the hypocrisy. Don’t sell your films on sex if you say sex is bad. Keep out those heaving bosoms. It gets worse with lesbianism. The Karnstein Trilogy is essentially a three film lecture on how lesbians suck (pun intended). Where there is girl-on-girl interest, much less action, there is pain and suffering and evil. Get that girl back into the arms of a man, and all is well—which they do literally in The Vampires Lovers. And like sex in general, the trilogy was sold on seeing girls with girls.

I don’t even know where to go with the puritan witch burners in Twins of Evil. They burn innocent girls, but hey, they mean well, and are godly, so realizing they may have stepped a bit over the line is sufficient. Sometimes you just burn innocent girls. It happens. No big deal as long as you kinda sorta regret it later. That slides into the strong religious feelings of Hammer. Again, film horror tends toward the conservative Christian in general, but Hammer takes it up a notch by having a film where the focus is that atheists are doomed.

I’m not even getting into their roles for women, except to say that apparently women are incapable of taking any action.

But perhaps the worst is lost on American audiences. Hammer has a huge affection for the old British class system. The rich are just better. Peasants don’t really count. Sure, all the big evil comes from the upper class but so does the great good. This is because anything that matters comes from the upper classes. Ah, but their films were about ye olden times, and that’s how things were. No, that’s how Britain romanticized things to be. And during WWII, the pop arts, with the government’s suggestion, went to work dismantling that, because it is hard to all “be in this together” if we’re not all equal. English cinema kept this up after the war, with that being the basis for most every Ealing comedy. So while everyone else was saying, “Class hierarchy is a thing of the past,” Hammer was saying, “Let’s get back to that past.” One could think it was just laziness, and partly it was. It is easier to just go with the class/religious hierarchy in horror films displaced in time. But it isn’t that much easier, and this isn’t something they could have missed. It was too important to Britain at the time. Artists, particularly film makers, were dwelling on a new social order. Hammer could not have been unaware. It was way too visible. But they shrugged and went, “You know, peasants are kinda dirty and stupid and do a rotten job of cleaning my car, and girls are scary and really shouldn’t talk or do anything but heave now and then, and anyone who isn’t an ultra conservative Christian should be kept out of polite society, and lesbians are icky—fun to look at for a moment, but icky.”

So yeah. Not a fan of Hammer Horror. Maybe some James Whale will help.

After a year and a half, I still hate grocery shopping. Nothing destroys me like grocery shopping. I’m sure other things could, but I do not do those other things.

Partly it is reminders. Shopping for food is filled with reminders. There is something Eugie would have enjoyed. That was a favorite snack of hers. Oh, I always skipped that because she didn’t like it. I used to buy two of those, but now I buy one. Yes, far too many reminders.

But more it is because it gives me time to think, and thinking is very bad. My mind wanders, and there is nowhere good that it will go. Other activities give me a chance to think as well. Driving is good at that. Any waiting or traveling excels in allowing my thoughts to flicker about. Which makes those things to avoid.

If I could cease thinking, that would be a gift. And at home I do a good job of just that. I am a master of self-distraction. I can take my mind on a thousand trivial journeys. Books and movies are good for that, as long as I choose carefully. The Internet is better. Ah, the Internet is a gem. Facebook alone is a giant gapping hole I can get lost in. All those angry people. All that rage. All the claims of offense and the far vaster number of pointless insults. All the politics that everyone finds so very, very important. Little of it is important to me. Little of life is, so it is a given, but that truth shines a bit brighter online. I never get angry in the midst of all that anger (although many have ascribed to me that emotion). I am an observer. Rage is left for those who care, and in any case, anger to me was always a personal matter. You don’t find rage in a thousand deaths—those numbers are statistics and you calmly find a way to fix the problem. No, rage comes with one death. One pain. Anger is always singular, and in the first person.

I don’t laugh at what I see either. That’s not the way of observers. And I don’t want to laugh. I have no interest in emotions of any kind, since emotions tend to grow, and when they become strong, they always go to the same place for me. And that defeats the point. The point is distraction. The point is to take me away from feeling. And as I said, I’m good at that.

I have to be good at that. In a year and a half, nothing has changed. People like to lie. They like to lie to me which I suspect allows them to lie to themselves: That things will get better. It is an absurdity. Why would things get better? By…forgetting? By abandoning what was? No, things getting better or worse here depend on actual, real things, and nothing actual, real, is going to change. Without a handy resurrection spell, things will not get better. And like anger and laughter, I have no particular interest in things getting better. People in recent years have adopted the philosophy that life is about happiness. That the goal of life is to be happy. This is a very new occurrence, but so many cling to it as if it has always been the case and it is natural and ordained by the universe. It is not. Far more people in the history of the world have spent their lives trying to “be good” or “be honorable” or any number of other things. Happiness is not the meaning of life, and while I have been happy most of my life, far more than most people I know, it is not my goal. It is a thing, like other things.

And some who see anyone not happy, or see themselves not happy, want to start giving their advice on depression. It must be clinical depression. There must be therapies and drugs to kick this sickness. But I was married for twenty-six years to a psychologist. I’m not allowed such self-deception. Depression is a mental illness. It has meaning. It has effects. It is not simply equivalent to a lack of happiness. Some people need the crutch of calling themselves sick, or more often, need for others to be sick. I do not need that. Depressed is not depression. Pain is not depression. Don’t mix them up. It is not fair to those who are sick.

Which leads me back to, I went grocery shopping today. And I hate that. And no, I do not intend to come up with some method to avoid that chore. I plan to distract myself again. Because that is what I can do. Hell, that is what most people do whenever they watch a game or go out to a bar or fiddle with a hobby—distract themselves from lives that are not what they wish they were. I didn’t do that. I didn’t need distractions. And now I do.

Time to read Facebook…