#i am a one-word at a time kind of pal. can only have One descriptor at a time. that descriptor is Image

[keeps-ache]

[uses the word 'image' five hundred thousand times]

[buzzdixonwriter]

Sci-Fi And The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

I know many of you prefer “science fiction” or “science fantasy” or “speculative fiction” or “sf” or even “stf” for short, but I ain’t that guy…

I’m a sci-fi kinda guy.

I prefer sci-fi because to me it evokes the nerdy playfulness the genre should embrace at some level (and, no we’re not gonna debate geek vs nerd as a descriptor; “geeky” implies biting heads off chickens no matter how benign and respectable the root has become).

. . .

A brief history of sci-fi films -- a very brief history.

Georges Melies’ 1898 short A Trip to The Moon is one of the earliest examples of the genre, and it arrived full blown at the dawn of cinema via its literary predecessors in Verne and Wells.

There were a lot of bona fide sci-fi films before WWII -- the Danes made a surprisingly large number in the silent era, Fritz Lang gave us Metropolis and Frau Im Mond, we saw the goofiness of Just Imagine and the spectacle of Things To Come and the space opera appeal of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

And that’s not counting hundreds of other productions -- comedies and contemporary thrillers and westerns -- where a super-science mcguffin played a key part.

That came to a screeching halt in WWII primarily due to budget considerations and real world science easily overtaking screen fantasy.  Still, there were a few bona fide sci-fi films and serials during the war and immediately thereafter, but it wasn’t until the flying saucer scare of the late forties that sci-fi became a popular movie genre again (and on TV as well).

Ground zero for 1950s sci-fi was George Pal’s Destination Moon, which was an attempt to show a plausible flight to the moon (it was actually beaten to the screens by a couple of other low budget movies that rushed into production to catch Pal’s PR wave for his film).

This led to the first 1950s sci-fi boom that lasted from 1949 to 1954, followed by a brief fallow period, then a larger but far less innovative second boom in the late 1950s to early 1960s.

BTW, let me heartily recommend the late Bill Warren’s magnificent overview of sci-fi films of that era, Keep Watching The Skies, a must have in any sci-fi film fan’s library.

Seriously, go get it.

Bill and I frequently discussed films of that and subsequent eras, and Bill agreed with my assessment of the difference between 1950s sci-fi and 1960s sci-fi:  1950s sci-fi most typically ends with the old order restored, while 1960s sci-fi typically ends with the realization things have changed irrevocably.

In other words, “What now, puny human?”

I judge the 1960s sci-fi boom to have started in 1963 (at least for the US and western Europe; behind the Iron Curtain they were already ahead of us) with the Outer Limits TV show, followed in 1964 by the films The Last Man On Earth (based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend), Robinson Crusoe On Mars, and The Time Travelers.

But what really triggered the 1960s sci-fi boom was Planet Of The Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The former was shopped around every major Hollywood studio starting in 1963 until it finally found a home at 20th Century Fox (whose market research indicated there was an audience for well-made serious sci-fi film and hence put Fantastic Voyage into production).  Kubrick, fresh off Lolita and Dr. Srangelove (another sci-fi film tho not presented as such), carried an enormous cache in Hollywood of that era, and if MGM was going to bankroll his big budget space movie, hey, maybe there was something to this genre after all.

From 1965 forward, the cinematic space race was on, with 1968 being a banner year for groundbreaking sci-fi movies:  2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, Charly, Planet Of The Apes, The Power, Project X, and Wild In The Streets.  (Star Trek premiering on TV in 1967 didn’t hurt, either.)

And, yeah, there were a number of duds and more than a few old school throwbacks during this era, but the point is the most interesting films were the most innovative ones.

Here’s a partial list of the most innovative sci-fi films from 1969 to 1977, nine-year period with some of the most original ideas ever presented in sci-fi films.  Not all of these were box office successes, but damn, they got people’s attention in both the film making and sci-fi fandom communities.

=1969=

The Bed Sitting Room

Doppelganger (US title:  Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun)

The Gladiators

The Monitors 

Stereo 

=1970=

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes [a]

Colossus: The Forbin Project 

Crimes Of The Future 

Gas-s-s-s

The Mind Of Mr. Soames 

No Blade Of Grass 

=1971= 

The Andromeda Strain 

A Clockwork Orange 

Glen And Randa 

The Hellstrom Chronicle 

THX 1138 

=1972=

Silent Running 

Slaughterhouse Five 

Solaris [b] 

Z.P.G.

=1973=

Day Of The Dolphin

Fantastic Planet 

The Final Programme (US title: The Last Days Of Man On Earth)

Idaho Transfer 

=1974=

Dark Star 

Phase IV 

Space Is The Place 

Zardoz 

=1975= 

A Boy And His Dog 

Black Moon 

Death Race 2000

Rollerball

Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within and The Parasite Murders)  [c]

The Stepford Wives 

=1976= 

God Told Me To [a.k.a. Demon]

The Man Who Fell To Earth 

=1977=

Wizards

[a]  I include Beneath The Planet Of The Apes because it is the single most nihilistic major studio film released, a movie that posits Charlton Heston blowing up the entire planet is A Damn Good Idea; follow up films in the series took a far more conventional approach to the material.  While successful, neither the studio nor mainstream audiences knew what to make of this film, so 20th Century Fox re-released it in a double bill with another problematic production, Russ Meyer’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, and holy cow, if ever there was a more bugfuck double feature from a major studio I challenge you to name it.

[b]  Other than Karel Zemen’s delightful animated films, Iron Curtain sci-fi films rarely screened in the US, with the exception of special effects stock shots strip mined to add production values to cheapjack American productions (looking at you, Roger Corman).  Solaris is the exception.

[c]  David Cronenberg made several other films in this time frame, but most of them were variations on the themes he used in Shivers, including his big break out, Scanners.  Realizing he was repeating himself, Cronenberg reevaluated his goals and started making films with greater variety of theme and subject matter.

. . .

The astute reader will notice I bring my list to an end in 1977, a mere nine-year span instead of a full decade.

That’s because 1977 also saw the release of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Star Wars.

The effect was immediate, with knock-off films being released the same year.

1978 saw Dawn Of The Dead, a sequel to 1968’s Night Of The Living Dead, and Superman, the first non-campy superhero movie aimed at non-juvenile audiences.  

1979 gave us Alien, Mad Max, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

These films were not just successful, they were blockbusters.

And none of them were original.

Close Encounters served as an excuse to do a Kubrick-style light show; plot and theme are about as deep as a Dixie cup, and of all the blockbusters of that era, it’s the one with no legs.

Alien’s pedigree can be traced back to It! Terror From Beyond Space (and It’s pedigree goes back to A.E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” and “Discord In Scarlet” in the old Astounding Stories) and Demon Planet (US title: Planet Of The Vampires) by way of Dark Star (Dan O’Bannon writing the original screenplays for that film and Alien as well).

Mad Max, like 1981’s Escape From New York, differs from earlier post-apocalypse movies only insofar as their apocalypses of a social / cultural / political nature, not nuclear or biological weapons.  Mad Max, in fact, can trace its lineage back to No Blade Of Grass, which featured it own caravan of refugees attacked by modern day visigoths on motorcycles, and the original Death Race 2000, as well as an odd little Australian non-sci-fi film, The Cars That Ate Paris.

Not only was Dawn Of The Dead a sequel, but it kickstarted a worldwide tsunami of zombie movies that continues to this day (no surprise as zombie films are easy to produce compared to other films listed here, and while there are a few big budget examples of the genre, the typical zombie movie is just actors in ragged clothes and crappy make-up).

Superman was…well…Superman.  And Star Trek was Star Trek.

And the granddaddy of them all, Star Wars, was a cinematic throwback that threw so far back it made the old seem new again.

Not begrudging any of those films their success: They were well made and entertaining.

But while there had been plenty of sequels and remakes and plain ol’ knockoffs of successful sci-fi movies in the past, after these seven there was precious little room for anything really different or innovative.

1982’s E.T. was Spielberg’s unofficial follow-up to Close Encounters.

1984’s Terminator consciously harkened back to Harlan Elison’s Outer Limits episodes “Demon With A Glass Hand” and “Soldier” (not to mention 1966’s Cyborg 2087 which looks like a first draft of Cameron’s film)

All innovative movies are risky, and the mammoth success of the films cited above did little to encourage new ideas in sci-fi films but rather attempts to shoehorn material into one of several pre-existing genres.

Star Wars = space opera of the splashy Flash Gordon variety

Star Trek = crew on a mission (Star Trek: The Next Generation [+ 5 other series], Andromeda, Battlestar: Galactica [4 series], Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Farscape, Firefly [+ movie], The Orville, Space Academy, Space Rangers, Space: Above And Beyond, plus more anime and syndicated shows than you can shake a stick at)

Superman = superheroes (nuff’ sed!)

Close Encounters / E.T. = cute aliens

Alien = not-so-cute aliens

Terminator = robots vs humans (and, yes, The Matrix movies fall into this category)

Escape From New York = urban post-apocalypse

Mad Max = vehicular post-apocalypse 

Dawn Of The Dead = zombies

Mix and match ‘em and you’ve got a nearly limitless number of variations you know are based on proven popular concepts, none of that risky original stuff.

Small wonder that despite the huge number of new sci-fi films and programs available, little of it is memorable.

. . .

It shouldn’t be like this.

With ultra-cheap film making tools (there are theatrically released films shot on iPhones so there’s literally no barrier to entry) and copious venues for ultra-low / no-budget film makers to show their work (YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Prime, etc.), there’s no excuse for there not to be a near limitless number of innovative films in all genres.

But there isn’t.

I watch a lot of independent features and short films on various channels and streaming services.

They’re either direct knock-offs of current big budget blockbusters (because often the film makers are hoping to impress the big studios into giving them lots of money to make one of their movies), or worse still, deliberately “bad” imitations of 1950s B-movies (and I get why there’s an appeal to do a bad version of a B-movie; if you screw up you can always say you did it deliberately).

Look, I understand the appeal of fan fic, written or filmed.

And I get it that sometimes it’s easier to do a knock-off where the conventions of the genre help with the final execution.

But let’s not make deliberate crap, okay?

Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” but he was quoting somebody else, and that wasn’t the whole original quote.

Wilde was quoting Charles Caleb Colton, a dissolute English clergyman with a passion for gambling and a talent for bon mots.

Colton’s full quote:   “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

Don’t be mediocre.

Be great.

   © Buzz Dixon

[virginiamurrayblog]

When You Call Yourself Fat, You’re Not Only Insulting Yourself

(Photo: iStock)

Last year, I embarked on a girls’ weekend with a close friend and some new pals. The idea was to spend some time getting to know each other better while exploring a fun new city. But things got a little tense one night as we were getting ready to go out. Two of the women in our group started talking casually about feeling insecure in their bodies, and the word “fat” was thrown out. I looked across the room at one of the other women who, unlike the two talking, wears plus sizes like me. She looked gutted.

On our way out, I whispered to the friend I was closer with that it wasn’t a great idea to be so cavalier with that word within this particular group. She understood immediately, thanked me and we moved on with our night. But a few months later, the other person involved in the conversation took me to task. It came up after I posted the following note on Facebook, which was not spurred by any one particular person, but a number of incidents:

“Friends, please try to be a little bit more self-aware when talking negatively about your body (including the reasons why you need to diet ASAP/work out for summer/can’t eat a cookie because of extra calories) in front of your fat friends. I’m not asking you to change your own fitness or eating habits; you do you! I’m just asking you to read the room first and consider who’s listening. I’m a badass, but that shit still gets to me. (That being said: If you want to talk about your insecurities and how we can work on building up your self-esteem, I am here for you.)”

The mutual friend from the girls’ trip posted in the comments that I couldn’t possibly call myself body-positive if I didn’t think it was OK for her to speak freely about her body in front of me. She also questioned how big a person needs to be before they have the right to discuss being fat.

Look, it would be super ignorant for me to not understand that people who aren’t fat so often feel like they are. So many women—and men—regardless of our actual size, have complexes about our bellies, thighs, muscle definition, etc. And this topic gets even more complicated when we try to define what size classifies someone as being fat. But there is a way for us to talk about these things without making other people feel worse.

Related: How Plus-Size Clothing Swaps Create Community and Make Fashion Political

Before I go any further, let me also admit that I have one-hundo p. engaged in this kind of toxic conversation before. It’s so easy to fall into. When I was in high school, lunchtime chats with friends touched on dieting at *least* once a week. I can recall a time when a bunch of us were discussing how badly we needed to lose weight in front of a girl named Ashley*, who was much bigger than the rest of us. I noticed her expression completely change when the topic came up; she looked surprised and then disappointed, avoiding eye contact for the rest of the meal. I realized then that although we were having what we thought of as “normal girl talk,” we really hurt Ashley deeply.

Part of the problem with the way these conversations tend to go is that we talk about feeling fat, not recognizing the difference between actually being fat. On the Plus Side blogger and designer Alysse Dalessandro put it perfectly when she wrote, “Fat is not a feeling you get to try on when you want sympathy and then disregard it when it doesn’t suit you. I don’t get to choose when I identify as fat. I am fat all the time. How do I know I am fat? People remind me all the time.”

Like Dalessandro, I am fat 24/7. I have to deal with clothing not fitting properly, rude comments from strangers (“You’re pretty for a big girl!”) and constant fat-shaming from the media (like Netflix’s new show Insatiable). That’s why it can feel so disheartening to overhear a slimmer friend claim they’re going to “feel so fat later” in the middle of sharing dessert: They might feel bloated, stuffed, like they had too much to eat, that they didn’t drink enough water—but they won’t actually know what it feels like to live in my body after having that one extra bite of cake.

When we hear our slimmer pals talk about feeling fat in front of us, the first place we often go in our minds is: “If they think that about themselves, WTF do they think of me?!” That’s a response that has come to me constantly in the past, and I’ve had to put in a lot of work—reading books by body-positive writers, curating a super-inspiring Insta feed and having lots of honest conversations with friends—to remember that other people’s judgements of their own bodies have nothing to do with me.

And I still have to work on picking my own words carefully. I’ve chosen to reclaim the word fat for myself and use it as a descriptor for my body often, but I know a lot of other plus-size folks who hate the word and probably always will. I’m learning and trying to broaden my understanding of the people I love and their boundaries.

As I was writing this article, another friend pointed out to me that he just feels it’s more attractive to say “I feel fat” than “I’m so bloated,” which led to another discussion about who gets to use that word. We got real with each other, had some laughs and in the end, he said he’d make an effort to just say bloated, or at least another non-offensive alternative. And that’s all I can really ask for: that we all just consider each others’ feelings and think about the impact of our words.

*Name has been changed.

Related:

Why Is Plus-Size Shopping in Canada the Actual Worst? As a Plus-Size Woman, It Was Hard to Ignore the Ugliness of I Feel Pretty Newsflash: You Don’t Have to Be a Certain Size to Slay the Lingerie-for-Day Trend

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