#and must supplant all biological relationships

[anghraine]

Occasionally someone in my RL social circle will say something about my, uh, inner psychological motives??? that is so breathtakingly wrong that I just have to contemplate it for a few days. In this case, it was in the context of writing advice that was broadly helpful—a friend identifying which of two original story ideas I'm considering is more compelling at the moment. Both kind of flow outwards from actual experiences I've had but displaced onto a speculative context, and my friend was suggesting that the one that draws more on religious trauma has more connection to my experiences than the one that draws on parental abandonment as a toddler because the latter was a tiny part of my life that hasn't influenced me much.

me: ...

friend: it's not like you actually spent much time with him growing up, he wasn't present in your life

me: um

friend: and you had a real father who was there, it's not like you didn't have a paternal figure at the same time, and you see that relationship a lot more positively

me: I do, but ... uh ...

friend: So your bio dad just hasn't had that much of an impact compared to the church nightmare.

me: ...................................................

This isn't to deny the very profound and omnipresent impact of growing up Mormon as a lesbian and just how awful that was, but my marked similarities to my bio father in appearance and temperament and the way he himself would remark on how similar I was to him when he remembered I existed was hugely formative, wtf. The fact that I'm very much closer to my adoptive father, who is a vastly superior human being I love much more, has very little bearing on my hang-ups around my bio dad and my relationship with him.

Meanwhile I have other friends who see my bio dad as far more of a parent to me than my father, which is patently untrue also. It's weird when people stubbornly refer to my adoptive father as my "stepfather," despite him stepping up to the plate when I was a toddler, despite it being no secret that I was ritually adopted by him over 30 years ago and have called him my father/Dad ever since, and despite the fact that I only ever refer to him as my stepfather in contexts where people are confused, which he and I have long ago talked about it as an accommodation of Normies Who Don't Get It and not the reality of our relationship. We have a long-standing joke about how we have such a strong rapport (in many ways stronger than w/ either of my biological parents) that it sometimes seems like I must have sprung out of his head like Athena despite zero blood connection.

anyway people who have no direct experience of adoption are free to stop talking about my relationships w/ my fathers forever

[disneyat34]

One Hundred and One Dalmatians at 34

A review by Adam D. Jaspering

Dalmatians are one of the most easily recognized breed of dogs. Most dog breeds are classified by their size, and the length of their snout, ears, and legs. Dalmatians are instantly identifiable by their spotted coats. Even from a distance, the dynamic contrast between white fur and black spots make Dalmatians a stand-out. The style is not only eye-catching, but wholly unique in the canine family.

In short, the Dalmatian breed is typified by its contrast. It’s absolutely appropriate a film about Dalmatians would feature contrasts in its ambition and its indulgence in shortcuts.

Disney productions up to this point used traditional ink and paint techniques. An animator would first draw a preliminary sketch. Another artist would ink a final version of that sketch onto a piece of celluloid. The celluloid would be painted, and then photographed against a backdrop. Each cel would be a single frame of the final film.

By the 1960s, Disney was no longer a mere animation studio. The company had expanded into live-action productions, nature films, television, theme parks, and other innovations. Walt Disney himself stepped down as company chairman, focusing instead on creative expansions.

Sleeping Beauty had financially burdened the company. As such, Disney Animation Studios received a massive shake-up. Costs needed to be cut, and processes streamlined. The most prominent method of doing so involved adoption of the xerography technique.

Xerography is a form of photocopying. The relatively new technology was a timesaver in the world of animation. Using xerography, the initial animator’s sketch could be transferred directly from paper to celluloid. The inking process was bypassed altogether.

Inking results in a clean and bold character outline. Colors could influence saturation and tone. Without inked lines, characters and objects looked much sketchier and rough. Everything is outlined in the same black stroke. It gives the animation a relaxed, rugged look as opposed to the carefully curated and polished appearance Disney had been known for.

The process was also used for backgrounds, but in a much different execution. Rather than painting the backgrounds directly, the background line art was placed over a formless color painting. The intention was to create an impressionist tableau. A general feeling of an area could be described with color, and it need not be precise. In nearly every scene, there are instances of colors running outside their lines.

This was a stylistic choice, not one of low-effort. Irrelevant items are often the same colors as the walls they’re set against. Windows, hanging photographs, wainscotting, and anything in the shadows are all painted “wrong.” Attention is supposed to be on the characters and their actions, not the backgrounds. The emphasis on light and mood turns the background into a serving tray. It enhances the characters in the foreground. And considering the black-and-white dogs are the heroes of the film, the disparity between colorful chaos and grayscale form works all the better.

Xerography also allowed animators to reuse their drawings, recycling assets in different areas. Animation of puppies descending a staircase is reused later in the film as puppies descending a snowbank. It’s a tremendous timesaver. The animation staff, recovering from downsizing and budget cuts, were eager to exploit such a shortcut.

Sometimes, assets are reused in a single scene. During crowd shots overflowing with Dalmatian puppies, you can spot one dog in different places. This is the serendipitous fortune of featuring Dalmatians over other dog breeds. Whereas other dogs all look the same, Dalmatians have unique spot patterns. Drawings of the same dog could be cloned four or five times onto the same cel. As long as the spot pattern was different, they automatically became different dogs.

Grand sights have been seen in Disney animation already. It takes one set of skills to draw Monstro the Whale breaching ocean waves. It takes one set of skills to morph Cinderella’s tattered rags into an elegant ballgown. It takes another set of skills to draw a puppy dozens and dozens of times in succession. There’s a level of irony how the animators of a movie called One Hundred and One Dalmatians didn’t want to animate one hundred and one Dalmatians.

One hundred and one was a number selected in that its a ludicrous high number of dogs, but still plausible. With so many dogs featured onscreen, the overwhelming majority of puppies are little more than extras. They round out the environment, but are indistinct and interchangeable. This is further enforced, as the aforementioned shortcuts make these puppies literal clones of each other.

The two adults, Pongo and Perdita, are the only Dalmatians to be actual characters. In the first act, they parent fifteen biological children. Only six of these puppies have names (Lucky, Rolly, Patch, Penny, Pepper, and Freckles.) We’re already overtaxed with characters, of course they won’t have individual traits. They’re not characters, they’re the first installment of an oncoming hoard.

Among the six named children, only two have any specific personalities, and then only for comedic effect. The first is Rolly, whose entire character is being fat and liking food. The second is Lucky, who likes to watch television and complains when he’s cold. There’s not a lot of character work concerning the dogs. They make characters such as “Sneezy” and “Bashful” seem outright Dickensian by comparison.

Instead, it’s the villains who drive and develop the story. The two henchmen, Jasper and Horace, epitomize a traditional comedy duo. They differ wildly in personality, demeanor, and physical stature. Being polar opposites, the two repeatedly bounce off each other in substantial ways. Almost out of necessity. They must abuse each other because they certainly can’t abuse a dog onscreen. Even though they’re villains, this is still a G-Rated movie.

Jasper is tall, gaunt, angry, irritable, and violent. He’s undone by underestimating the surprising resourcefulness of the Dalmatians. Horace is short, overweight, lazy, meek, and slow-witted. He’s frequently the object of scorn, passively accepting his inferiority. In a twist, he accurately recognizes every time the dogs display an act of cunning or guile. These dogs are indeed smarter than an average house pet. In any instance besides a talking animal movie, he would be rightly lambasted as being an idiot. Instead, he’s genre savvy.

Of course, these two are only henchmen. The true villain of the picture is Cruella De Vil. Cruella, aside from having one of the most on-the-nose names in all of fiction, orchestrates the dogs’ kidnapping. She wants the dogs for herself. She wants them not as pets, but killed, flayed, and processed into a fur coat.

Cruella is an old friend and classmate of Anita. Their relationship and history is never explained beyond that. With their vastly different lifestyles, how well could Cruella and Anita know each other? Why were they ever friends with such differing personalities? Why would Anita mention the newborn puppies to someone she barely tolerates? Cruella invites herself over to examine the puppies, already planning to skin them. Anita, unknowing of her friend’s malice, is too awkward and polite to refuse. She’s forced to entertain her toxic friend by societal expectations.

In the 1996 live-action remake, Cruella is more than a gadabout of vague origins. She’s a successful and acclaimed fashion designer. Cruella is Anita’s boss, supplanting the ill-defined friendship with a power dynamic. It also better justifies Cruella’s relentless pursuit of one single coat. It’s one of the few areas where the remake surpasses the original.

Assuming she’s done her math correctly, Cruella’s coat requires 99 Dalmatian pelts. Somehow, she obtains 84 purebred Dalmatian puppies through completely legal channels. The remaining 15, Pongo and Perdita’s litter, she can’t buy. She resorts to kidnapping them instead. These fifteen evidently are the last Dalmatians in the greater London area.

Why else would she buy 84, then risk everything by kidnapping the final batch? One would think Cruella would amend the design to accommodate 84 puppies instead. That, or breed the puppies herself, giving her all the pelts she would ever need. She could have a matching scarf and hat. She hired minions to kidnap the dogs, she could hire minions to operate her puppy mill.

Why would Cruella De Vil resort to kidnapping for such a small quarry? Consider Cruella’s true nature beyond being a merciless fashionista who likes yelling. We don’t learn much about her lifestyle or community standing, but there are clues.

She is able to purchase the 84 purebred puppies, so she has certain monetary power, or at least good credit. Likewise, she was initially willing to buy the puppies from Roger and Anita. She not only likes spending money, she likes being seen spending money. In the same visit to Anita’s, she degrades Roger and his financial struggles. She has no respect for the working class. Cruella is not only wealthy, she’s been wealthy her whole life. This is confirmed when it’s revealed she has a large stately manor in Suffolk.

Unfortunately, the old De Vil place is in a state of disrepair. It’s been long abandoned, growing more derelict with each passing month. Cruella doesn’t need this house, but also doesn’t sell it. It’s either too ravaged to find a buyer, or it’s owned by the bank. This is our biggest clue towards Cruella’s true character.

Cruella may be an heiress, but her lavish lifestyle has ravaged her once proud fortune. She can’t afford to repair her family’s manor, so it sits abandoned, most likely mortgaged. She can’t afford a new car, so she drives an antiquated 1930s roadster (either a Bugatti or Dusenberg). She can’t buy her way into the social circles she wants, so she lords her artificial status over a working-class friend from childhood.

Without money, Cruella must actively maintain the illusion of her social class. She can only stand among the elite class by surpassing them in the fashion scene. She needs to establish her own trends, wearing the most exotic coat anybody had even seen. And without money, she has to make it herself. She can cough up money for the raw materials, a necessary investment, but must cut corners everywhere else. She can’t even hire decent henchmen to kidnap the dogs.

Cruella wants one coat for herself. True haute couture, as nobody else in London will have a spotted coat, and especially not one made of such soft fur. The flagrant act of conspicuous consumption and vanity is what drives Cruella to such incredible lengths. Greed, pride, and envy culminating in wrath.

What does this say about society in 101 Dalmatians? This world makes Cruella a villain because she has no money. Roger and Anita also have no money, but are content with their meager lifestyle. Their meager lifestyle, where they own a townhouse in London, have a live-in maid, and can readily care for seventeen dogs. The animators weren’t the only ones taking shortcuts; the writers did it too.

Roger is a struggling songwriter, and Anita’s profession is never mentioned. She is presumably employed before her marriage, and maintains the position afterwards. The pair and their dogs live on the meager income, but dream of bigger success. 

This world is ensconced in media and commercialism. Even newborn puppies are transfixed by a dog food commercial. 

The only way to escape poverty is to feed the machine. Cruella needs to kill puppies to remain an aristocrat. In an extended gag, criminals are trotted out on a parody version of What’s My Line. They’re promised fantastic vacations in exchange for being belittled on television. At the film’s end, Roger writes a novelty song, making himself rich. A novelty song, mocking Cruella De Vil. Money and status can only be earned at the expense of others.

It’s the dogs, instead, who find happiness outside London. On their journey to rescue the puppies, Pongo and Perdita encounter a string of helpful animals. A tabby cat who risks his own skin to rescue the puppies from Jasper and Horace. A barnful of cows willing to share milk with the starving puppies. Most impressive, an entire network of dogs team together to search for the missing puppies.

The Twilight Bark is a sort of phone tree alert system, known by dogs throughout England. Pongo and Perdita send out an alert, unsure it will help. To their surprise, every dog in London and its surrounding area relays the message. Sure enough, the missing puppies are found in a few hours.

There’s no promise of reward or obligation. The dogs volunteer their assistance because it’s the right thing to do. London brings out the worst in humans. But when financial desperation is removed, the animals show a functioning, healthy society. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, they do what they can, where they are, with what they have.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. Smith chose Dalmatians specifically based on her own childhood pet. Dalmatians are notorious for being highly energetic working dogs. They require lots of exercise, and thus would be a poor choice for Roger and Anita.

(On a side note, Dalmatians are one of the more popular purebred dogs, and 101 Dalmatians is partly to blame. The high demand leads to overbreeding and puppy mills, producing unhealthy, inbred, abused pets. Families adopt Dalmatians purely on appearance, without concern of temperament or exercise requirements. When the dogs become too large a responsibility, shelters and pounds become overburdened with the unwanted dogs. Please do not buy a pet from a breeder without proper research and commitment. Also, consider adoptions and rescues of mixed-breed pets as an ethical alternative.)

Unlike other Disney films, One Hundred and One Dalmatians is surprisingly lax in terms of music. The movie features only three original songs, one of them being a jingle for dog food. It’s easy to see the lack of music as another cost-cutting measure. However, consider one of the main characters is a songwriter. It seems like a missed opportunity to embrace the musical stylings of the era.

While not the first Disney film to use a modern setting, 101 Dalmatians was the first to use the modern setting as an element of the story. Dumbo and Bambi had a timeless quality and could be set in any era. 101 Dalmatians has style and attitude that could only happen in the late 50s and early 60s. The jazz music, the sprawling cityscape, the cars, the omnipresence of television, and the consumer culture all reflect a very specific point on the timeline.

The biggest question of 101 Dalmatians is what kind of movie is it? It’s not a fairy tale, it’s not a morality tale, it’s not a saga. There are moments of peril, but it’s not an adventure. There are moments of humor, but it’s not a comedy. It’s a little bit of everything. 101 Dalmatians, and a 101 story elements.

The movie flips back and forth between what helps it at any given point. There is a scene where the Dalmatians are hiding for their lives inside a coal storage shed. Jasper and Horace search around outside, blunt weapons in hand, ready to smash the skulls of any dog they find. This is immediately followed by a happy rollick through a pile of soot as the dogs disguise themselves as chocolate Labradors.

One particularly jarring moment happens early on, during the puppies’ birth. Everybody in the house is ecstatic at the prospect of 15 puppies. Roger and Pongo literally dance in joy. The revelry is short-lived, as they’re informed one of the fifteen puppies didn’t survive. Roger sits there, holding the stillbirth in his hand. Disney Magic miraculously brings the puppy back to life, but it’s still a shock. In the first act of what has so far been a delightful cartoon romp, Fading Puppy Syndrome is depicted onscreen.

Everything about 101 Dalmatians is a clashing contrast. The animation combines advanced coloring style and shameless shortcuts. The tone is equal parts cheer and gloom. The villains are overdeveloped while the heroes are blank slates. Mistakes cancel each other out. The movie has so many things working against it, it’s a good movie almost by accident. All the cut corners are a foreboding omen to Disney Studios’ impending future.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was the first film produced after the golden age of the 1950s. The grand, epic animation was replaced with frugal techniques and a smaller story. To compensate, the movie does a little bit of everything well, while not exceling in any specific area. 101 Dalmatians are depicted onscreen, and it’s a distinct case of quantity over quality.

Fantasia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Cinderella Alice in Wonderland Sleeping Beauty Pinocchio Bambi 101 Dalmatians The Three Caballeros Lady and the Tramp Peter Pan Dumbo Melody Time Saludos Amigos The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad Fun and Fancy Free Make Mine Music

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

“Are the MCU Spidey films good Spider-Man movies?”

If you mean are they good adaptations, as in good stories respecting the spirit of the character, the kind of stories that you could easily imagine happening in the comics themselves and are in line with the core values and concepts from those comics...then no absolutely not.

 “Spider-Man was established as a secondary character in someone else’s story before we followed him on any adventures of his own”

And that’s fine if not for the fact that he remained subservient to that other character’s story. He was deliberately constructed in Homecoming and Far From Home to revolve around his relationship with Tony both to provide further development for Tony and fuel for his later arc in IW and Endgame but also to provide and epilogue and lasting legacy for him.

 Even if Peter was the lead in his solo films he still existed within the shadow of Tony, he was still effectively to Tony what Robin was to Batman. Batman fundamentally contextualizes Robin to such a degree that everything Robin does, even subtextually, either stems from or comments upon Batman.

 Even his transition into Nightwing, into being his own man and leader of the Titans did this because that was understood as him BREAKING AWAY from Batman’s shadow. But on a metatextual level he never truly can. A similar thing happened with Peter in FFH. Even if Tony was dead his legacy hung over FFH and Peter, his legacy conextualized part of the intended arc for his character in that film (as poorly handled as it was regardless).

 And this...is what is unacceptable about MCU Spider-Man in terms of being an adaptation. It’s not simply that existing in Iron Man’s shadow or being contextualized by him wasn’t a factor for his character (thought that’d be justification enough to call out). It’s that Spider-Man was so particularly DESIGEND by Lee and Ditko to NOT be like that at all to NOT live in the shadow of another hero but be independent and more importantly for the driving force behind everything he does as a hero to be the death of his father which he was indirectly responsible for.

 “The spider bite and death of Uncle Ben is stuff that’s in the past and has happened”

 Has it though?

 There is no evidence of that in the film, not even circumstantial.

 I’m all for not showing it for a third time but neither Peter nor May act like they’ve recently lost a loved one or are grieving at all. We’ve seen Peter more affected by the death of Iron man than of Uncle Ben.

 The only reason anyone can even float the idea that Spider-Man’s origin happened at all is that we all simply know that origin. But you still need to acknowledge in some way it happened which the MCu has absolutely never done. As far as the MCU is concerned the closest thing we have to even acknowledging Uncle Ben existed in the first place is a suitcase with presumably his initials on it.

 But for all we know Peter fished that out of a dumpster. For all we know Uncle Ben might never have existed, May might be his biological aunt and Ben her deadbeat husband who ran off with someone else.

 Simply saying referring to all May has been through recently isn’t enough because it implies she’s been through  something serious recently, but that could be anything not necessarily a bereavement. More poignantly it doesn’t imply PETER has been through anything when that’s way more important because being sad about Ben’s death is the book of Genesis for Spider-Man. You NEED to have that pain, that grief in there somewhere.

 Him saying giving the great responsibility speech isn’t enough because the film never clearly conveys that he learned this lesson from someone close to him dying. It’s just something he takes very seriously (in Civil War but apparently not much in Far From Home!) and for all we know always has.

 Peter’s dialogue in Civil War DOES NOT imply Peter learnt this lesson from something that WAS his fault. It COULD mean that, but in context it COULD just be something he learned third hand.

 More importantly even if we were to say the dialogue DOES spell out his origin that’s not really the point. Because Ben’s presence in the film still needs to be acknowledged. A picture, his name being uttered, a gravestone, a long look at an empty chair at the breakfast table something. But there is absolutely NOTHING besides a suitcase. And more egregiously what he represents has been wholly supplanted by Tony.

 “Peter likes tech. Tony likes tech. Tony would naturally be a huge inspiration going forward”

Not really. Just because you love basketball doesn’t mean Michael Jordan is definitely going to be your inspiration. In the comics Reed Richards wasn’t Spider-Man’s idol or anything. And his desire to impress him in the comics at best didn’t manifest itself the way he wanted to suck up to Tony in the MCU.

 And again, this misses the point. There are LOTS of things that would technically be organic in the MCU but it’s about finding a balance between something organic that is also respectful of the core concept and spirit of the characters. Case in point. Having T’Challa’s origin tied into Civil War is very organic and different from the comics but it doesn’t disrespect the spirit of his character because his Dad still dies and passes on the mantle of King and Black Panther to him and still provides fuel for him to live up to his father’s memory.

 It’d totally organic Black Widow to be a former HYDRA operative based upon the established world building of the MCU, have the Black Widow program be something set up by the Red Skull even. It’d even make sense given the colour coding involved. But it’d be disrespectful to the spirit of Black Widow’s character as a RUSSIAN convert.

 “If he wants to live up to Ben he’d want to be the best superhero he could possibly be”

Sure...but that doesn’t mean becoming an Avenger. Again, comic book Spider-Man never regarded being a big name hero as neccesarry for being a good hero or the best he could be. That’s an elitist way of looking at it.

 In particular it omits the good he does for the little guy which is his driving motivation. He doesn’t do this to save the world he does this to save individual people. His ‘original sin’ as it were stemmed from an incredibly small scale individual crime.

 So accepting Tony’s help when he wants to make him the next Avenger wouldn’t be in line with the SPIRIT of the character.

 We could argue that logically this could happen and therefore it MUST happen but at the end of the day it was just that the writers WANTED Peter to be a fanboy and nothing more than that. They didn’t HAVE to write him that way. They could’ve had him have doubts about Tony, have his idealized visage of Tony crack as he grew to learn about the real man.

 And if we’re going to use the argument that this HAS to happen and we have no choice to write it that way because logic dictates it then...why haven’t the MCu heroes resolved any number of things logically they absolutely could. Tony can’t fix global warming? Wakanda can’t? Or to switch over to DC Superman can’t end how many disasters or problems in the world?

 At the end of the day logic exists within superhero stories but it is always tempered by the genre conventions and spirit of the characters.

 I know this channel loves Doctor Who, who is arguably a kind of superhero anyway, so I will draw upon an example from Dr. Who. I forget who it was, possibly Russel T. Davies, but in a commentary track for an episode of Doctor Who in 2008-2009 someone said something very smart regarding a fundamental of the lore. They said that really the Doctor could fix the chameleon circuit of his TARDIS so it need not always look like a police box...but that it was ‘right’ that he didn’t. In other words logically the Doctor COULD do something and indeed it would be very beneficial but it’d go against the spirit of his character, the show and the internal mechanics of the series for them to do that.

 The same applies here. If you have a Spider-Man who’s got a rich high tech superhero sugar daddy you have broken Spider-Man, he doesn’t work properly creatively speaking.

 “A large part of Peter’s story in Homecomign is being told when to stay out of it”

 Again this goes against the spirit of the character because hello...his whole origin is about that one time he did stay out of it and it broke his family.

 For a Spider-Man story to basically repeatedly enforce the message that Spider-Man NOT acting and Spider-Man being passive is the right thing to do is to do a story which misunderstands the character fundamentally.

 It gets worse when you consider his actions actively make things worse 90% of the time in that film and the message is muddled anyway as Iron Man was only in a position to stop Vulture because Spider-Man wasn’t passive.

 “There are some things Peter isn’t qualified to take on”

Low rent thugs with high tech weapons is something he isn’t qualified for?

 How many versions of early days Spider-Man dealt with that and worse entirely competently?

 “Throughout all of this like a father figure Tony Stark is looking out for Peter”

First of all no he’s really not, he’s absent a lot of the time.

Second of all the mere FACT that Tony Stark is Peter’s father figure at all is part and parcel of WHY these are bad Spider-Man movies.

Tony Stark being Spider-Man’s father figure is as broken as a Dick Grayson origin movie where Batman ISN’T his father figure or indeed wholly absent. You are severely MISSING THE POINT if you do that.

“If Uncle Ben were important then when Tony took away his suit he’d leave it to other people instead of getting involved himself”

That logic doesn’t follow.

To begin with the entire movie repeatedly made it clear Peter was willing to disobey Tony and get involved so him continuing to do so is consistent, it doesn’t have anything to do with Uncle Ben’s importance or lack thereof.

Secondly as stated above this is all built upon the PRESUMPTION Ben existed and Spider-Man’s origin played out in a similar way it always does but there is 0% in-movie evidence for this happening. We simply know Peter lives by a philosophy the same as the philosophy he had in other movies but we don’t know in this universe how he came to believe in that philosophy.

He certainly doesn’t seem like it was through the loss of a loved one because he doesn’t mention, reference or think about Ben in the slightest and doesn’t act as anyone who’s lost someone they loved a lot very recently, certainly not other versions of Spider-Man who went through that.

“The red and blue home made suit represents a spider-Man who does what he does not because Tony Stark got involved”

But again there is no evidence in the movies that he does what he does because of Uncle Ben because Uncle Ben isn’t even implied in-story.

More importantly this isn’t the main critique of the MCU Spider-Man. the main critique is that Tony is incredibly important and defining to this version of Peter even if he was active before Tony showed up. The entire arc of Homecoming rests upon the motivation of Peter wanting to be an Avenger.

That’s not even my interpretation either, Tom Holland SAID that himself. The villain is an evil Tony Stark who became villain because of Tony Stark and who’s goal is Tony’s stuff. Peter’s self-actualization as a character happened when he was spurred on by Tony Stark.

Tony is BAKED IN to the foundations of this version of Spider-Man in a way that’s vitally more important than Uncle Ben because everything revolves around Tony. And again it SHOULDN’T, it shouldn’t anymore than Robin should NOT revolve around his relationship with Batman.

“That isn’t Peter saying he wants to be the next Iron Man”

Not in Homecoming perhaps but that’s clearly the direction the film Pushes Peter in in FFH.

“Just because Uncle Ben existed doesn’t mean Tony will fall on deaf ears”

Again not the point, the point is Tony is more present and impactful than Ben.

Put it like this. Aunt May clearly EXISTS in the MCU...but based upon the character arc and defining features of MCU Peter is she really as if not more important than Tony?

No she’s not, you could tweak the movies to exorcise her and they wouldn’t be that different.

“It’s a representation of this kid fighting for his uncle...it represents even before he met Tony he would’ve battled a villain who is concerned with Tony Stark“

Again...the uncle that the movies do not confirm even existed.

Again...the mere FACT that Tony is so integral to the fabric of so much stuff in this version of Spider-Man like Mysterio is against the concept and spirit of Spider-Man.

And even if we ignore all of that...Spider-man only beats Mysterio when he uses Tony’s tech to build a costume like Tony did set to Tony’s soundtrack so like...is the film actually affirming Tony’s presence is irrelvent to his heroic journey?

“Do you really think the hooded suit was put in for the sake of fanservice?”

I mean...it’s far from impossible we got like 5 different number plates that acted as fanservice. Chris Evans appeared in Thor: the Dark World for fanservice. The fact we got a giant Mysterio hand was nothing but fanservice.

“That hooded Spider-man IS Uncle Ben”

...then why....isn’t...he...mentioned!

It’s for a similar reason Aunt May is nothing more than Iron Man’s friend’s new girlfriend.

“You don’t keep everything associated with someone when they die”

This is a case of writing the movie for Marvel at this point.

Yes hypothetically it’s possible that there are other possessions associated with Uncle Ben which mean more to Peter than his suitcase.

But what are they?

Do they even exist?

We don’t know because again the suitcase is the closest thing we have to proof that Uncle Ben even EXISTED in these movies.

“The Stark suit was in the suitcase that got destroyed”

How does this disprove that Tony was more important than Ben?

Because Peter was at least sad about Tony’s death and there is no confirmation Peter was sad about Ben’s death nor even that Ben existed.

“This doesn’t show a good understanding of grief”

This whole movie didn’t show a good understanding of grief!

Peter is more concerned about hooking up with MJ than grieving Tony. It’s not denial or running away it’s inconsistent writing and characterization.

“Peter wanting a holiday is believable”

Sure...but like was Tony even that close to Peter?

They shared exactly six scenes together in person.

“People expect Spider-Man to act in the movies the way he does in that meme”

Half the critics of FFH aren’t saying that and the other half...are kinda right. In character Spider-Man is wracked with pain over remembering Ben. Not because his Dad simply died or even died when he was young but that he died violently and it was HIS FAULT!

“The subject of grief is present in the MCu version of Spider-Man”

Yes...but not over Uncle Ben, over Tony.

“Both with Tony and Ben”

What scene ever clearly shows us Peter grieving Ben’s death. Because the bedroom scene in Civil War doesn’t do that, we the audience project onto that scene that he is probably talking about Ben and he’s probably sad about it but there is no evidence in the movie even implying that to be the case.

The PS4 game at least had a picture.

“It’s handled in a very, very, very subtle way”

No it’s handled in a way that omits and covers him up in order to build up Tony and avoid repetition from the older movies.

It’s not subtle because the MCU by and large is not subtle and that includes Civil War. Tony and Pepper’s break up isn’t even all that subtle in the movie.

This isn’t written to be subtle it’s written to be plausible deniability.

“Just because Ben started Spider-Man and is the essence of him doesn’t mean other people aren’t going to have some kind of influence on him”

Sure...but it should never have been Tony stark.

Because Peter Parker shouldn’t be fanboying over anyone, it goes against his core concept.

“It’s unfair to project one interpretation of grief on every Spider-Man”

Sure. Peter and Miles and Mayday and Gwen and Cindy and Anya won’t all react to grief in the same way.

But if you are doing a version of PETER PARKER and you are having him react to grief in a way that is not broadly consistent with PETER PARKER then you are not doing your job.

He’s supposed to be in spirit a version of Peter Parker and a version of Peter Parker would not react to grief by never even mentioning or thinking about Uncle Ben.

“This was never an origin story for Spider-Man”

Nor was Spider-Man 2 and yet you know...Uncle Ben and the grief over his death was till present in that.

“You can cite the Raimi movies and bring it over to the new lore”

...that...that isn’t how any of this works. The Raimi films aren’t canon to the MCU unless the MCU acknowledges them as such.

“It may be a different Peter Parker but the story is still the same”

If the story is still the same then where are Harry, Mary Jane and Norman Osborn?

Why is Spider-Man not living in the suburbs?

Why is Peer 15 instead of 18?

Even if you take that statement to mean the GIST of the story is the same it creates problems because why would Peter ever say “I’m nothing without this suit Tony” in HC when he knows he definitely isn’t because he knows he can make a difference with or without the suit because of Ben’s death proving that point.

It’s not canon to the MCU unless there is EVIDENCE proving that to be the case.

As of right now Ben might not even exist in the MCU.

More importantly the FACT THAT HE’S NOT MENTIONED is you doing Spider-Man wrong full stop.

[red-diaper-babies]

Reclaiming Red Pill

Online, a person who has “accepted” certain traditionalist myths about men and women and the roles they ought to play in society is said to have “take the red pill” or are “redpilled” (a reference to that scene from The Matrix). The Red Pill presents itself as a complex philosophy that is brutally honest about the nature of sexual relationships between men and women and the countless dangers of feminism which have conspired in scores of unhappy men and women. Most of it is just rehashed biological essentialism, with perhaps a touch of postmodern nihilism.

Thanks to my morbid curiosity, I’ve been exposure to this ugly, misogynistic subculture through it’s now “quarantined” home on Reddit and the several watchdog/satire subreddits, such as r/thebluepill, that keep an eye on it and the several related internet subcultures it has spawned (incels, Men Going Their Own Way, etc.). These online communities are known collectively as “the manosphere.”

Red Pill evangelicals insist that their movement is about male self-improvement, which is a fascinating angle for a women-hating philosophy to adopt, but upon further inspection it makes perfect sense that they lead with this. Proto- and Crypto-Fascist ideologies (and The Red Pill absolutely is one of these) are extremely opportunistic; they seize upon important and emerging fissures in society and supplant a critical materialist explanation with reactionary dogma and, as always, use this dogma to prescribe as a fix both wanton cruelty and a return to a Golden Past that is distorted or nonexistent. They sell a vision of a time when a man could sit comfortably on a couch in a clean house after a hard day of work, well behaved children out of earshot, homemade meal in his stomach, and awaiting the delivery of a cold beer from his grateful wife, and feel like he deserved this, that he'd earned it. They sell a fantasy.

Why does the fantasy appeal to so many heterosexual, cis-men? What fissure has this ideology grown out of? Men in Western society, and perhaps particularly in America, find themselves in a crisis of identity. The roots of this crisis are primarily economic, and as complex as they are, can be simplified in this way: as the rate of profit has steadily fallen in the postwar era, more and more social labor is required from families (or per individual), and less and less net pay it making its way into the family's checking account. By social labor, we mean labor done outside the home that is traded for wages. As we know, real wages are stagnant and prices are rising; preserving a standard of living requires bringing in more income. The natural consequence is that dual income households have become more common (and necessary), from the working poor all the way through the upper-middle class, for the last five decades. A notable side effect is that, as the presence of women in professional careers has been normalized, women are more often finding themselves the primary breadwinner in the family, supplanting a host of traditional expectations about familial roles. Fifteen years ago this tension was a favorite source of material for stand-up comics and sitcoms; now it's passe to even comment on, but the insecurities and dislocation persist.

Heterosexual, cis-men's traditional and patriarchal role in the family, which was often imbued with the power to unilaterally direct the family's resources, was tightly interwoven with their prescribed role as "provider." The social order of the day was at the time tasked with preserving this status quo; putting up glass ceilings, limiting access to higher education, permitting rampant sexual harassment/assault, legalized discrimination, on and on. This is not to say that women haven't always worked, especially in the working class, but by and large they had access only to a few professions and were otherwise capped at lower wages and lower ranks. 

To whatever extent this role was actually realized by men of previous generations, it seems this has been turned upside down. This has been very disorienting for many men, not least of all because they are also finding themselves expected to do more and more of the "reproductive labor" that used to be taken care of by a stay-at-home spouse (or servant) just a generation or two ago. By reproductive labor, we mean the labor that maintains the workers themselves and provides for the nurturance of the next generation of workers. Reproductive labor is often referred to as household labor.

It will come as no surprise to many women that, as their share of social labor has increased, they nonetheless continue to perform the majority of reproductive labor, both globally and domestically. Those figures get even more stark if you factor in emotional labor and the facilitation and managerial tasks we've come to call "mental load." This strip by French cartoonist Emma demonstrates the significant weight of mental load, and the repercussions it's inequitable distribution has had on women and Heterosexual marriages. 

Indeed, Red Pillers acknowledge this inequity right off the bat. They gleefully ridicule other heterosexual cis-men for being irresponsible, lazy, selfish, gluttonous, and unattractive. They see it as an unfortunate norm that fathers are directed by wives on where to go, what to do, what to wear, or are altogether left out as the woman goes about the business of running a family while simultaneously pulling a full-time job. They bemoan the "Homer Simpson-ification" of the western man, who has, we're to believe, been transformed by feminism and mainstream media into an extra child that the wife/mother must care for, instead of the "captain" that she needs and truely desires (the Nazi's promised each man would be the "Fuhrer" of their household). Their diagnosis is based on biological essentialist dogma; their prescription is based on an idealist return to a time that never really existed; but the problem they identify is a real one. Men by and large struggle with relating to their families in positive ways, particularly as their role has shifted, and we on the Left, particularly we cis-men in Heterosexual relationships, must address this problem ideologically, through our political work, and in our own lives.

Wolfgang Willrich, The Aryan Family (1930)

The answer, of course, lies not in moving society backwards, but forwards. An inequitable division of labor, particularly founded on the oppression of women, is unacceptable. So to is a world that enforces strict gender role conformity and uses a division of labor to drive a wedge between men and women. In everything we do, we must assert the scientific truth: all major differences between men and women in ideology, ability, and behavior are acculturated or perceived, not biologically determined. We must be self-critical about the assumptions we make about who should do what and how much/how often. We should promote a vision of fatherhood and parenthood which is dedicated, affectionate, nurturing, disciplined, collaborative, and as communal as our society allows. We should invest our mental and emotional energy and time as dutifully at home as we do at work. We should hold each other accountable (gracefully and supportively). And we must do this as much for our activist spaces as well as our social and work spaces.

I’ve always been salty that the right has appropriated “red” in this instance. Red should belong to us. The real Red Pill reveals a world full of ideological justifications for the exploitation of women and the infantilism of men, and once you see it, it's impossible to unsee. Women really can do it all, perhaps not all the time or forever, but they do it everyday; the question is, who does this benefit? Men's discomfort with their changing role in the world suggests that we are beginning to see the danger in our own dependency (as opposed to interdependency) and increasing irrelevance, all because we lack the imagination necessary to break out of the outdated patterns and expectations and weave new kinds of bonds with our wives and children. 

So whatever the color, it’s time for men to swallow whatever pill is necessary to see our responsibilities towards domestic life for what it is, and what it could be. This is not about making men “men,” again, but about being an adult. Are we full, equal, responsible participants in the managing of our homes and the rearing of our children? The order of the day is partnership, and this is a good thing, for the liberation of women and the formulation of a new, positive identity for men. 

[bananamedical]

Another word for things found in nature

The apparition of the word translating the idea of “nature” has been traced back by linguists in many languages: at least Latin (Pellicer, 1966 Rolston, 1997), ancient Greek (Benveniste, 1948) and Chinese (Zhang, 2011), but also some less widespread languages such as Finnish (Jämsä, 1999). As a conslusion, we compare the semantic clusters stemming from these analyses with the contemporary scientific vision of nature in conservation science, in order to see how this semantic diversity can be an obstacle or a chance for the global conservation of ��nature”. Such ambiguity may constitute the very source of many raging debates among ecologists, such as the “balance of nature” debate (Simberloff, 2014) and many others. In this study, we analyze the origins and evolution of the word “nature” in European languages, from its ancient Greek equivalent to Latin and then to modern meanings, showing that this word, already deemed vague and ambiguous since its most ancient uses, overwhelmingly changed in meaning several times in its history, which is at the basis of its current vagueness and ambiguity. Moreover, some punctual studies showed that, as for “wilderness” (Callicott, 2000), the word “nature” does not always have a translation in other languages (Philippe Descola, 2005), or can embody different meanings within a language. Nevertheless, these works have already stressed out that the word “nature” is very difficult to define, and has gone through many changes of meaning during its history (Lenoble, 1969). Hence, studying the concept of “nature” itself and its relationship with practical objects and social projects is crucial for conservation sciences and derived policies: many linguists, philosophers, and historians have already shown that its meaning is far from being unified or self-evident (Larrère and Larrère, 2015), but such works have had little popularization in biological sciences so far. However, “nature” is not such an easy word, and it actually fits the definition of an abstract concept, hence a mental construction rather than a concrete notion, which is situated both historically and geographically, and needs definition in context (Ellen, 1996), just like what has been done about “wilderness” (Rolston III, 1997, Callicott & Nelson, 1998, Callicott, 2008a) or more recently about the idea of a “balance ” (Simberloff, 2014). Many close and successful new technical words have been born in the same lexical field, such as “ecosystem”, “biodiversity”, “biosphere”, and even “Gaia”, but none of them ever really supplanted “nature”, even in scientific literature, and it is still the title of one of the most important scientific journals. As scientific knowledge of nature is (and will always remain) incomplete, scientists have to rely on mental representations and theoretical concepts, but these must be identified as such, and clearly defined (Demeritt, 2002). However, the appealing concept of “nature” has never been really theorized during all this time, and has been used to name more and more diverse things, as well as their opposite, at the risk of becoming another meaningless panchreston (Simberloff, 2014). Intense debates, significant thinkers and prominent scientific advances have made this field one of the most important socially in contemporary science, having a strong influence on national and international politics. Since early whistle-blowers such as John Muir or Rachel Carson to the theorization of a whole scientific discipline coined as “conservation biology” (Soulé, 1985), the conservation of nature has reached both wide popular concern and scientific maturity. Since at least the 1970s, a wide scientific, political, and public consensus has emerged about the crucial necessity of “protecting nature” (Worster, 1994). Nature preservation ought to take into account this semantic diversity when proposing policies, integrating the relativity and potential inaccuracy of the currently dominating occidental definition. One of the main present occidental meanings of “nature”, designating what is opposed to humans, currently used in public policies, conservation science, or environmental ethics, hence appears rare and recent, and contradictory with most other visions of nature, including former European representations and contemporary foreign ones. It appears that this word aggregated successively different and sometimes conflicting meanings throughout its history. We examine here the origins, etymology, and historical semantics of this word and its different meanings in contemporary European languages. However, while nature preservation has become a major social concern, the idea of nature remains elusive. The idea of ‘nature’ is at the very core of science, considered as its flagship and deepest link with human societies.

[djgblogger-blog]

Will whoever controls gene editing control historical memory?

http://bit.ly/2wngc44

Harvard's recent CRISPR experiment isn't just a new frontier for science -- it's also a new take on how we conceive of human history. gopixa/Shutterstock.com

In July, Harvard scientists used a gene-editing technology first developed in 2013 to programme bacteria to do something astounding: play back an animation of a galloping horse.

The GIF animation was generated from an iconic image series created in 1878 by the motion-picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge.

The breakthrough involved the scientists translating image pixels into genetic code, which they fed to the cells one frame at a time. The bacteria incorporated and reproduced the sequence in their DNA, demonstrating the possibility of using living cells as information recording and storage devices.

The tech world was, predictably, agog. But beyond the hype, scientists’ goal of applying the technique to human cells has deep philosophical implications.

A future in which our bodies are used as hard drives could, in effect, change the entire way we conceive of human history and perceive life.

My body, myself. Micah Baldwin, CC BY-SA

The origins of history

Today, it is impossible to imagine a world without history: from the vast array of chronicles housed in the world’s libraries to the countless traces of the past accumulating in the data farms that support the digital cloud, history surrounds us.

But it wasn’t always this way. Starting around 4000 BCE, the rise and spread of city-states, from Mesopotamia to Ancient Greece, radically changed the relationship between humans and our physical world.

New patterns of governance and information technology produced what’s now called “historical time”, a regime of truth based on evidence and analysis that’s codified in written documents and housed within the walls of archives. These new systems of authority gradually supplanted the sense of time that had previously defined the reality of ancient peoples: the seasons, oral traditions, myths and rituals.

With the onset of historical time, change no longer appeared cyclical. The concept of progress emerged, establishing a vision of humankind moving forward, shaping the world, building knowledge and recording evidence of this journey.

The city-state era ushered in a new era of timekeeping. Public domain

But, of course, the whole notion of progress depends on power. Someone (or more likely a certain subset of people) must select the perspectives that count as knowledge. Which events are memorialised and which disappear from history?

Thus history is far from neutral. From antiquity onward, those controlling history were a privileged few, nearly always men of political power or professional status. Access required literacy and social mobility.

With the Age of Reason came a broad-based questioning of this power. In his 1784 essay “What is Enlightenment?”, Immanuel Kant argued the importance of challenging the authority and legitimacy of practices and norms that restrict the power to reason for oneself.

Soon after, in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Her argument for the education and representation of women in civic life signalled the absence of female voices from history.

In the 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft pointed out that history as the world knew it was the history of men, not women.

The book’s emancipatory message was, however, soon subsumed by new forces. The power to systematise reality expanded dramatically in the 19th century, with industrialisation, technological developments and the spread of the scientific method.

Photography brought a seeming realism to the documenting of history. Charles Darwin transformed our concept of the origins and timelines of the species and Sigmund Freud described how an individual’s past shapes their psyche.

These spectacular developments continued in the 20th century. Enabled by modern computing, scientists explored time at a cosmic scale (the theory of relativity) and explained life at a molecular level (the discovery of DNA).

In this great tide of change, some 180 years after Kant and Wollstonecraft, a wave of critical movements finally took history to task.

Among these critiques was Michel Foucault’s analysis of systems that regulate our physical body and mental states. From The Birth of the Clinic, his 1963 work on the rising authority of medical knowledge, to his 1975 publication on institutions that discipline society, Foucault studied the Western desire for total oversight, famously citing the Panopticon prison model.

From the critical vantage point, the impact of power – and of the technologies it employs to represent, monitor and control individuals and populations – becomes clear. Feminists spoke of the male gaze. Postcolonial theorists pointed to orientalism. And environmentalists have shown how human progress is destroying the physical world.

Hence the risks of this recent application of CRISPR: envisaging history as a biological resource rather than a space of social memory is a dramatic shift that leaves history open to radical new forms of exclusion and control.

Fusing technology and biology

The scientists’ interest in “molecular recording” in humans and the production of “cell historians” promises to take the management of life, time and the visual arena to new levels. In doing so, they raise the prospect of a Panopticon within.

Today, progress is increasingly defined by the power of digital technologies to integrate different aspects of human life and abolish the gaps between us. We’re told that social networks, big data and the digital world make us safer, more productive and connected.

The advent of gene-editing raises philosophical questions about the Network Age. von_boot/Flickr, CC BY-SA

But not everyone agrees. The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues that globalisation and the information economy makes for a liquid reality that fragments our attention span, dissolves relationships and produces cultural amnesia.

The Harvard team proposes an image of history that is not a record of culture – the ensemble of ways of living, transmitted across generations – but a sum of the material states of humans. This removes the record of social life that conditions how bodies live.

The scientists emphasise the technique’s use in modelling diseases and creating therapies. Those benefits may be real, but so too is what Foucault describes as biopower: the use of wide-ranging technologies to administer and dominate human life.

If scientists can embed information in living human cells and extract data, behaviour can be regulated at the deepest levels. Who will decide how the power of molecular recording is wielded, and who has access to the information?

The ways in which history is made, shared and accessed determine how its power operates and reality is produced. As we both subscribe to and are uploaded into the net of digital reality, the issue of control over data raises new questions of agency.

The fact that political and market interests drive the application of science in technology – with their stealthy logic of monitoring, expansion and profit – exacerbates questions of control.

As the Harvard team’s use of bacteria shows, we’ve come a long way since the single-cell, bacterium-like form that in all likelihood spawned the wonder of life on the planet today. Their gene-editing project demonstrates technology’s capacity to systematise time in new ways.

It epitomises the conditions of the Network Ages: the compression, acceleration and dispersion of life.

But as the richness of life and historical memory demonstrate, culture is more than information, and the diversity of life exceeds technological measure. Can we trust that scientific leaps will produce a future where diversity is supported and divergence is possible?

To answer that question, we must do more than simply laud new technologies like CRISPR. We must examine how power can function commensurate with these techniques’ newly expanded reach.

Julie Louise Bacon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.