#also the fans of that expansion are the worst people in this fandom. shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up

[budugaapologist]

honestly i dont care anymore im blocking the tag

[bigskydreaming]

Okay but a question from Dumbass Station Population Me, what is actually the difference between being censured and censored?

The thing about censorship is it requires actual POWER behind it, that frankly, online discoursers just don’t have. On any side of any argument. Its institutional, its something that draws upon existing power bases to use that power to suppress actual ideas or speech with real consequences or even just the threat of very real consequences.

Censureship, by contrast, is like, just being viewed negatively in the court of public opinion. Its people, as individuals or even in large groups, saying in response to things that are said or written or whatever, like....hey, we think what you said is dumb. We’re judging you super hard right now. Reap the social consequences of we, other members of society, pointing to what you just said and saying hey this is very dumb and you should feel bad. Loser.

Censorship doesn’t HAVE to just be a matter of legal power, like its not like only the government can actively censor people....like I said, its institutional, its systemic, so it can draw upon any institution....whether that’s religious and thus using the weight and social influence of religious institutions to silence people, or whether its something like white supremacy itself, racism as an institution....using the power and threat of retaliation from white supremacists who are INVESTED in maintaining their rhetoric against anyone trying to speak over it with like, actual logic.

The key difference though, is censorship HAS to come with actual consequences, or at least the potential for them.

Censureship, in contrast, doesn’t require any followup, it exists on its own merits as simply an opinion upon an opinion. Someone censuring you for something you said or did that they view negatively like....that’s all there is to it, there’s no And Then. The point of the censureship was to say “I heard what you had to say and in response I say hey that sucks and you should not say it.” The point of censorship is to say “I heard what you had to say and I am going to invest actual resources into silencing you so that no one else will hear what you have to say.”

A loooooooooooot of people in fandom cry censorship, when really all that was expressed was censureship. And ironically, this in itself is just censureship TRYING to be censorship, as its usually the last word in an argument as the people yelling most about censorship are the ones often trying to just flat out silence their opposition, while the people who were only interested in expressing censureship in the first place are often like yeah cool whatever, because.....follow-up engagement was never a necessity for saying what they wanted to say, which is “here is a thing that I personally think is bad.”

Always always ALWAYS in internet discourse, try to look past the buzzwords being thrown around and look at the argument taking place and figure out....which one is trying to raise points for consideration, even if those points are critical and negative....vs which one is trying to just end the conversation by any means necessary, without actually engaging with any discussion points. Its expansion of conversation/thought vs the shutting down of conversation/thought that’s usually the real indicator of which argument is TRULY the more progressive one, NOT just which one is most convincingly arguing “puritanical puritans are being puritanical and OPPRESSIVE again!”

Actual progressive arguments can stand up to criticism. They can look at what’s been raised as an issue, and either point to other things that the criticism might have failed to take into account and which changes the overall picture, or they can look at the criticism as an opportunity to improve upon what’s there, and incorporate it into what they do or argue in the future so it now contains additional insights/angles of thought that they previously did not arrive at on their own.

But yeah, lots of people online need to get that somebody saying your opinion sucks isn’t the thought police kicking down your door if you ever utter that foul thought again. Sometimes, its just someone saying hey I think your idea is bad.

Criticism is not consequence. It can LEAD to consequences, but it is not, in and of itself, a consequence that should be as feared as fandoms have made criticism out to be.

People need to start looking more critically at how any environment that claims to be socially progressive can do so while so often attempting to drown out or dismiss criticism....when criticism is like, the single most essential ingredient for progress in the history of humanity.

There’s way too many people, like, just fucking CONTENT with the idea that there’s nothing weird, or backwards, or REGRESSIVE about perpetuating the idea that the only valid criticism is of criticism itself. That the worst thing someone can do in fandom is tell another fan that they think something they said or wrote was toxic or racist or harmful or otherwise steeped in ideas that actively do and spread harm throughout society.

Like, there really are a ton of people who think “I should be able to say anything I want without consequence or restriction, no matter how negatively it might impact others, and nobody should be allowed to say or do anything negative in response, BECAUSE I HAVE THE RIGHT TO MY IDEAS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, STOP OPPRESSING ME.”

Because its like, yeah, you do have that right....and every one around you has the right to also express their own idea, which is that yours sucks for whatever reason.

Quid pro shut the fuck up, y’know?

Its a two-way street but lots of people try to make it one way while using the boogeyman specter of censorship to shame people into not saying anything that might shame them instead, and the irony. It abounds.

Nobody is entitled to the freedom to act upon others without being acted upon in turn. You can speak your mind, sure, but you can also live with the consequences, especially when the only consequences are other people saying mmmm, didn’t love that.

The bottom line I wish for more fandoms to take away from these kinds of conversations is that if your convictions are truly solid, they can stand up to scrutiny and even criticism, with honesty, without trying to shy away from the things actually being said or claimed and just meeting them head on, looking at the convictions that are ‘under fire’ and examining whether or not the holes other people seem to see in them are truly there or not.

If your convictions AREN’T solid, and what people are saying IS drawing your attention to holes in them you didn’t see previously, and making your faith in the stability of that conviction waver......like, that’s a problem, but that’s a you problem. That was not a problem that was created by the criticism that exposed those flaws to you. The problem was those flaws or those holes in your convictions existing in the first place, as they were always going to be there then, whether they were pointed out by others or not.

Address THOSE, not the criticism that’s often no more than people just saying “hey, there’s a hole in that wall, sure hope someone shores that up with something actually solid before someone puts a little bit of pressure on it and the whole thing comes crumbling down instead.”

[snicketsleuth]

Slackin’ with the Sleuth: reviewing Netflix’s “The Vile Village”

After two sluggish double-episodes, we are now headed to the three best two-parters of the second season, nay, of the entire show until now. Today, we’re going to talk about direction. “A Series of Unfortunate Events” has suffered not only from being overwritten, but also from being under-directed.  Not an unfortunate consequence of the original writer being involved in the production of the television series, but rather of the other writers not controlling him enough. Episodes written by Daniel Handler get a bad rep amongst the fandom, but from their structure it’s pretty clear that he was more than willing to change his own outlines and listen to the contributions of other people. That being said, it’s hard to criticize the guy who came up with the work you’re supposed to adapt. Which is why episodes written by other people and peer-reviewed by Handler tend to fare better, as his role is to remind everyone of what made the story so successful in the first place.

We’ll see how this contributed to the improvement in direction in the latter half of Season 2. Most of it comes from the production team finally treating the series not only as an adaptation, but also as its own cinematic work. Let’s determine why below the cut.

DISCLAIMER (NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REVIEW):

I missed you guys, it’s been a while.

I apologize for abandoning the blog for so long, to the point that some of you people started worrying about me. I do appreciate the concern, so thank you. Most of my absence can simply be explained away by the many hours I’ve had to put into my day job. This has led to difficult choices regarding my hobbies and extra-work activities, writing for this blog being one of them. Truth be told, I don’t feel this blog fulfils as interesting a purpose as it did before. I’ve already talked about most book theories I cared about, and the books have been discussed to death at that point. As to other types of analyses, there are plenty of talented people on Tumblr who do it as well as me, so I didn’t feel the need to add much to the debate. But I’ve had time to think about plenty of Snicket-related topics during my absence, so no, the blog isn’t dead, just… much less active as it was a few years back. Stay tuned for more, my love for the books and their associated material is very much alive and kicking.

With all due respect (and affection) for our community, your duly devoted Sleuth.

This is the most atmospheric episode to date, and a beautiful one at that. While episodes of the first season certainly had their ambiance, most of it came from the introduction of new musical themes. The second season tries to bring the direction to the next level by fashioning each double-episode after a certain genre, which influences the entire aesthetic of the piece from its writing, colors and camera work. This is perfectly in line with the tone of the original series: each book focuses on a vivid and peculiar location which becomes a character in and of itself, and also parodies specific literary tropes. In keeping with this tradition, the televised version of  “The Austere Academy” mocks coming-of-age teen movies, “The Erstaz Elevator” has shades of musical romantic comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, “The Vile Village” pays homage to Westerns, “The Hostile Hospital” is a straight-up horror exploitation flick and “The Carnivorous Carnival” is a neo-expressionist drama. Or rather that’s what we were supposed to infer. In reality, “The Austere Academy” and “The Erstaz Elevator” don’t have anything special in terms of direction to truly allude to their models, and while “The Carnivorous Carnivale” is a blatant remake of “Freaks”, so was the book in the first place. Only with “The Vile Village” and “The Hostile Hospital” do we see the direction add a substantial commentary on the original aesthetic of their respective book. So while the intention is laudable, the execution is somewhat lacking as far as the entire season is concerned. More on that in the next review.

But for now let’s just gush over the gorgeous visuals of “The Vile Village”. Westerns describe the struggle of civilization in a lawless territory, a perfect setting for the crux of a book concerned with legality and mob psychology. While the introduction of the Nevermore tree leaves something to be desired, we do eventually get some fantastic shots. The integration of the CGI and the digital matte paintings significantly improves from this episode on, although whether the artificiality of previous episodes was an intentional choice from the directors is anyone’s guess. The scene of Hector’s first flight aboard the self-sustaining mobile home is a work of beauty. One must regret his line about crows being too “scary”, though. Not only is this an unnecessary change to his character (he is fascinated by the crows in the book), it doesn’t even make sense as the adaptation does not portray Hector as being scared of crows in any shape or form otherwise. He actually has a line about admiring them in the first part of the episode! What on Earth were the writers thinking?

The feels of Western movies is well-rendered, with an impressive focus or lighting. What the director seems to have forgotten is how dusty the Village of Fowl Devotees should look. This is pretty unforgivable given that the book insists on the unbearable feeling of dirtiness which permeates the town. There’s an egregious continuity error where the Baudelaire orphans escape from prison in a massive cloud of debris… then come into the next shot with immaculate clothing. This is a major sin as far as immersion goes.

Another blatant directorial choice is the tendency to film scenes across a two-dimensional space, with characters moving from one side of the screen to the next. This ever-present horizontal axis gives the series a somewhat stiff aspect, with characters not being able to express themselves in a dynamic body language in action scene. There are two possible reasons for this camerawork. Firstly, it makes certain scenes easier to follow (we must not forget that the series is expected to remain watchable for small children), although a little boring on the visual side. Secondly, it does imitate the format of a theater stage, and the theater world plays an important role in Snicket’s world, from “The Marvelous Marriage” to “La Forza del Destino”. I do think the showrunners went a little too far in this direction, though. If they’re so deadest on reproducing the feel of a theater production, maybe they should just pitch the series as a Broadway show rather than a television series. The chase sequences in this double-episode look more like a Street Fighter screen than a cinematic production.

But by far the greatest contribution of this episode is the merciful introduction of SILENCE. What a relief to hear the godforsaken concertina shut up for one minute and let us enjoy the dialogue! The heart of the double-episode comes from the back-and-forth dynamic between Jacques and Olaf (or, to a lesser extent, Esmé and Olivia). Truly a battle between blind, hopeful idealism and cynical nihilism. Major props to Nathan Fillion, who remains possibly the best actor in the entire series, and Neil Patrick Harris who should ruin the seriousness of the scenes with his constant bebopping but somehow doesn’t.

This however comes as the expanse of the Baudelaire orphans themselves, whose presence is somewhat secondary in this episode. The symbolism of them escaping the town in a fire truck is a strike of genius… but the Isadora couplet subplot is drastically skipped over and the unnecessary introduction of Mr Poe drastically reduces their screentime. It’s more forgivable than in “The Erstaz Elevator” as most scenes between the adult characters do help move the plot forward and provide interesting information, but it’s still one of our major criticisms for this season. The writers are clearly infatuated with the adult actors, which hurts the pacing of the story. It’s a shame as the child actors’ acting shows major improvements in the second season. Louis Hynes comes into his own in the prison scene, but the breakneck speed of the scene’s direction does not leave him enough room to grow. We will however concede that Jacquelyn and Larry don’t overstay their welcome in this episode, and that Jacques and Olivia’s romance is sweet to look at. While we disagree with the changes made to Olivia’s character on the whole (we’ll get to that in my review of “The Carnivorous Carnival”), it did produce some well-written, well-acted scenes. Less appreciated is the unnecessary and overstated introduction of a Violet/Duncan romance subplot… this is what happens when you base 90% of an adaptation on what admittedly amounts to fan-pandering. It’s sweet, then it’s sweeter, then you’ve got diabetes.

As far as character development goes, it’s pretty hit-or-miss. Esmé is as usual fantastic. The writers have managed to attain a difficult equilibrium regarding her character dynamic: she obeys enough not to overshadow him, but she also acts as her own antagonist, pursuing her own goals and betraying him if the need arises. The rest of the troupe also has an interesting dynamic with her and her integration in the crime family feels pretty seamless.

But so far we’ve saved the worst for the last paragraph, and as you’ve probably guessed, we’re going to have to speak about Hector. Gods almighty, what a waste of a perfectly good character. Josephine’s death was shot in a very disrespectful manner, but at least her character remained mostly the same. Here the Hector from the books, a tragic and heartbreaking portrayal of peer pressure and social anxiety, is reduced to a joke. To add insult to injury, it’s not even a funny joke: his constant fainting gets tedious quickly. And the ultimate twist about his mom’s fate not being the source of his trauma after all basically reduces his arc to a complete waste of the viewer’s time. If the writers hated him so much, why not just cut his screen time instead of demeaning his entire existence? This does not bode well for a potential adaptation of “All The Wrong Questions”, as Hector’s outlook on family loyalty and peer pressure is somewhat of a plot point in this series. I truly cannot begin to understand these choices as Hector plays a similar role to Hal, Charles and Jerome, who also have likewise personalities… but the writers have adapted Hal, Charles and Jerome faithfully and cleverly, so what gives?