#anyway i read a couple other horror books recently so i'll be sharing thoughts on those soon too

[finalgirlminamurray]

last week i finished reading experimental film by gemma files, which i had heard talked up a lot in horror literature circles and was excited to finally read for myself, hoping it wouldn't end up being overhyped.

as soon as i read the summary for a book that mentions the main character having an autistic kid i have to brace myself for the question of "is this book going to make me feel condescended to or outright dehumanized" and i will say i was not feeling good about this one when i started it. i had to push past the parts talking about How Hard It Is living with this child so i could focus on the good parts because most of the book was pretty good. i wasn't expecting, however, for the main character to recall realizing that she fit all the diagnostic criteria for what they were then calling "asperger's syndrome" but was never diagnosed and her parents didn't believe her son's diagnosis had anything in common with her. i was struck by that because i was suspecting that lois was at least partly based on the author herself - not a direct self-insert but just a character who had a lot in common - and decided to read the book assuming the main character was also autistic.

that did make me view it in a different light than i would have otherwise. i really liked lois as a protagonist; i liked that she was often not written to be "likable" and made decisions that female characters so rarely get to make without being excoriated by audiences (she very much does prioritize her work and her pursuit of the central mystery above her family and i love that sorry. and she does openly admit to herself that she finds herself resenting her own child which made me think about what i really like about the babadook.) i think there was something very interesting there about how autistic people labeled as "high-functioning" will consciously or not look down on those labeled as "low-functioning" - as a kid i was diagnosed with "asperger's" back when that was a thing and i sometimes felt like i had to distinguish myself from the kids in the "special ed" classes; no, it's fine, i'm still normal, i'm not like them. and we do have to reckon with this. almost wish the book leaned into it more but i guess i wouldn't want it spelling too much out for us...right?

i think ultimately i just don't really like it when child characters in fiction aren't really characters so much as plot elements or props in the adult characters' stories. oh the kid is saying he sees things that you can't and he's reciting creepy nursery rhymes he's never heard before? sure. i think it would be really nice to see a book from the perspective of a nonverbal autistic kid - or hell, a nonverbal autistic adult, they exist - actually allowing them to be a full character with interiority and personhood. i don't know if that movie come play is any good. i also think i just wish the majority of autistic representation wasn't still white men and/or children.

this sounds like i didn't like the book but again i mostly did. i think the stuff about the film preservation field is really good, i always love reading something about that kind of niche area where you know the author has spent time in that field and is writing from experience about all the nuances of it, and i'm also fond of stories about people being increasingly drawn into learning more and more about some unsolved historical mystery and it takes a toll on their sanity but they have to keep going to know everything. i think it's also some good folk horror. i think i'd recommend it just with some caveats. as much as it does fall into some cliches of autism representation it's also a novel with an autistic adult woman as the protagonist who actually gets to be a complex character so there's always that - and yes, written by an autistic author.

i checked out gemma files' website after reading this and found this blog post which confirmed what i thought. i know people shouldn't be obligated to disclose all aspects of their identity before writing about characters of marginalized identities but it is nice to find that out you know. she also links to this review from a blog about autism representation in literature which was a good read, seeing another autistic reader's perspective, and another post from her livejournal talking more about her possible diagnosis. i won't directly link that one since it seems more personal but it's there for anyone to see. shoutout to anyone who's been made to doubt themselves because of a narrowly restricted set of criteria that some people think constitutes the only existing autistic traits, i do feel a bit privileged sometimes to have actually gotten diagnosed early in my life because having that sort of negates any questioning you might go through if you're considering whether to call yourself autistic later on.

(like. what do you MEAN autistic people aren't supposed to have an interest in fiction, i've seen a number of posts reminding people on here that special interests that AREN'T fiction-related exist)

also she has a tumblr but hasn't posted in a year. i hope she doesn't find this post hahaha (please don't tag authors in reviews of their work)

[davidmariottecomics]

It's All in the Execution

Hello again! 

Today is the Trans Day of Remembrance. It caps off Trans Awareness Week. It's a somber occasion. And, content warning for gun violence, hate crimes, injury, and death, this year it is particularly somber as we're reeling from the tragedy at Club Q. It is doubtless that these two incidents are connected. And so today we remember Daniel Aston, as well as the others who were killed. We remember the countless other trans lives that've been ended prematurely. This is going out awfully late into the evening, but please take some time to mourn and grieve and hope for peace and justice for those we've lost. 

In terms of practical action, tell a trans person you love them. Maybe send them some money. You can also donate to the Colorado Healing Fund. Or Trans Lifeline. Or the Transgender Law Center. Share this map of informed consent HRT facilities. Follow up with your representatives on any anti-trans legislation in your area. Advocate for your communities and be willing to protect the people in them, by force if necessary. 

To get the other serious matters out of the way up top, there are a few comics creators who could really use your help right now. My friend Jeffrey Veregge was diagnosed with Lupus last year and is still hospitalized and his family needs assistance. Tess Fowler and Chris Gutierrez are currently dealing with their own medical emergency. And those are just the ones directly on my radar. 

And, finally, our attention turns to Owasso, Oklahoma, where a public school library did one of the dumbest things I can remember hearing about in recent memory: at one parent's complaint about one book, Blankets by Craig Thompson, the school pulled ALL the graphic novels from the shelves for two months and are planning on returning them and adding new ones, but only after every single book is examined page-by-page by an adult who can flag any possibility of sexual or other offensive material. I can only hope that Tim Reiland's daughter grows up to be a more thoughtful individual than he is and that the people in charge of this library are reminded of their duty to present challenging material. 

With that all said, I'd also still like to talk a bit about the execution of thematic goals in your work, but if you're too drained, I get it. You can come back later. 

This year, Becca and I have been seeing a lot of horror movies. In college, I started getting more into horror and now it's probably the genre most likely to get me into a theater. So far, the two best horror movies we've seen this year are neck-in-neck: Pearl and Barbarian (with X, the other movie in Ti West and Mia Goth's trilogy landing as a solid 3rd, and TBH, we still haven't seen Nope though that's on the agenda for the coming week). I could and will gush about Pearl and X at some point soon. I'll also throw in a good word for House of the Devil, which I feel is a very closely related movie, also by Ti West. Sorry, getting distracted already! Anyway, the point is that A LOT of the movies we've seen this year have been thematically very similar, including those two. But the other three perfectly illustrate a sort of Goldilocks scale of execution of an idea. 

The Poppa Bear of the group is Men. I know this movie's very divisive. Some people quite like it for reasons I can't explain. Like Poppa Bear's soup which was too hot or his bed which was too hard, Men was an unpleasant experience. The premise is Alex Garland read a couple articles about feminism and decided he should make a movie about how scary men are to women, forgetting that he already made that movie, Ex Machina. A traumatized woman working through a violent incident in her life goes out to a small English town and all the men in town are portrayed by one actor (an actually impressive feat, but not so much so as to outweigh the movie's flaws) and she thinks she's going crazy because they're all one guy and then the last third gets supernatural, but more importantly, super stupid. "Men are scary" is a really simple theme to build a story on and a worthy one because they are (see above). But one of the things that makes men scary is that they are capable of so much in the real world. That's what Men forgets. Sure, it recognizes that men abuse women physically and emotionally, particularly through gaslighting, but one of it's biggest failings is that as the story continues, the horror becomes removed from that reality. Is it gaslighting if all the men look the same because they're actually played by one guy and also are after you personally? What's the deal with the big "horror set piece" of the story being all the men who are the same guy birthing each other out of the mouth and other assorted made-up holes? It's clearly chosen because there're historically strong connections of womanhood and childbearing (reinforced by the ultimate arrival of the pregnant friend), but uhh... other than her friend being pregnant, it has no bearing on the main character's lived experience. It's just seeing a man do a "womanly" thing like giving birth that's "scary". And that's not scary, nor is it particularly smart commentary because it doesn't actually have anything to do with why men are scary. Anyway, do yourself a favor and don't watch Men. It's the pits. You can watch Ex Machina instead. Or maybe you could watch...

The Momma Bear of the group is Don't Worry Darling. Another divisive movie. This one's debatably a "horror", it's more psychological thriller, but I think those're inter-related enough to count. Like Momma Bear's bed, it's not firm enough. The premise is Harry Styles and Florence Pugh live an idyllic 1950s-esque planned community, organized by the mysterious Chris Pine. While Harry, Chris, and the other men go off every day to work on a mysterious project, the women are restricted to the community and to lives as housewives. But all is not what it seems... Spoilers: The men? Slightly scary. Unlike Men (BTW, hate that as a title because it makes talking about other men in the same analysis so hard), rather than turning the systemic oppression of women into a tête-à-tête between one woman and one many-man, it actually explores things on the levels of real communities and the power dynamics that men have both historically exercised and that many men seem to still fantasize about. Genuinely, the highest praise I can give this movie is that the female-gazed horror is a male-power fantasy. It indulges in the reasons why men act the way they do and in doing so actually gives it a reason to be scary. In terms of it not being firm enough, it's a bit unevenly paced and toned, so the stakes don't really feel material for most of the movie--there's too much mystery about what's going on that even when the audience knows something is wrong, they don't feel that the danger is imminent. It's a solid 6.5 or 7 out of 10, but again, you'd probably be better off watching the director's other movie, Booksmart. Or, you could watch... 

Barbarian is a movie you should go into with very little knowledge. The Baby Bear of the group all you need to know is that it is just right. Nah, but like, if you usually check content warnings before horror movies, do that, otherwise, the only description you're getting from me is a woman of color shows up at her AirB&B only to find that it's already occupied by a man claiming he rented it who invites her in to sort things out and from there things happen. And, hey, that premise--already more realistically scary than either of the other two because that's shit that could actually happen. It is a complex movie that manages to actually have something to say--and was written and directed by one of the Whitest Kids U' Know (which I just found out, the twists keep coming with this one!). But, suffice to say, by the end of the movie, you'll get that men are scary and why and have that layered with so much more. It's a masterpiece of filmmaking and of using your story--the location, the cast, the pacing, the plot elements--to tell a cohesive story that not only covers the thematic message you want to convey, but embodies it and grows into something more as it continues. 

This is going awfully long again, so let me conclude with two last things. 

1. The live reenactment of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip by Alec Robbins, Grace Freud, and friends was AMAZING. Some of the funniest comedy I've ever had the pleasure of seeing live. If the TV show had been half as good as this one-off reenactment, I actually think it would've lasted more than a season. I don't know that anyone will ever be able to see it if you weren't there, but it was magical! 

2. Becca's got their last artist's alley of the year on Tuesday. It's NiteNite Night with Biz Baz Club and New Motion Brewery. There'll be artists selling cool stuff just in time for the holidays and karaoke! Becca's going to have some new merch debuting! It'll be a good time! I'll be there too, but only to help Becca. More info in the image! Hope to see you there! 

Pic of the Week #2: As promised with the other post this week, here's a not great picture I took of Tiansheng and I cuddled on the couch when Becca was out of town earlier in the week. He's cute!