#i’ll never forget how you were friends with alan turing

[wizard0rb]

this is the gay video games website so it’s honestly such a shock that i never see people talk about the metal gear character who’s entire personality is being a butch lesbian

[annashipper]

Showsie Submission

Hey Anna! Just thought I'd submit on recent events. Although I have not been vocal lately, I have still been paying attention to the land of shamwow. So...Ben goes to a concert in NYC? We get some pics of him solo, and a delightful lack of fuckery to accompany them. We also get some nice, high quality pics of IW filming...accompanied by some Fail articles that focus on his work, sans any fetch attempts from she who shall remain fetchless. I have to say, I find these recent events encouraging...not from any shamwow point of view...but from a good PR point of view. I'm with Ballsy...cookies where they are deserved, really. Granted...I've become so inured to the previous poor efforts of team BC in this respect that the bar of my expectations in this matter has been set quite low as a result...but kudos are given for this week's efforts regardless. I think I'm finally seeing the result of some sensible and grown-up PR strategy here, and I really hope it continues. I also wanted to address JT Anon's comments on the nan factor as pertains to PR strategy. I do think that you find groups like the nans in any fandom...they just happen to be more vehement and vocal in this one. I do believe that pandering to such a group is not a particularly good idea when it comes to a risk/benefit analysis, and that no effective or capable PR would do so, if they could possibly avoid it. But, I don't think that a capable PR is what we have here, given previous form. I think they use the nans for clicks, but without any thought as to the consequences. I've also seen people mentioning the Beatlemania type promo that was used in that Hollywood Reporter article in 2014. In my opinion...that was poor form. I'm sure the nans saw it as validation for their behaviour, but I just saw it as mocking, disrespectful and not good at all. Which brings me to my main point...I've often said that Ben's team have failed to understand his fandom. Let me clarify this point for you now (just in case the intern that is tasked with reading these blogs is paying attention). If I were in charge of Ben's image from the start...I would have aggressively marketed him as the 'thinking women's crumpet' from the start. Because I think my job as PR would have been to determine what demographic my client was most likely to appeal to, and to build a business plan in that direction. I think they had made some good steps in that direction...up until mid 2014...and then the wheels came off that particular train, for whatever reason (which I'm sure we'll never know the truth of), and we ended up with the mish-mash of contradictory messages we have now. Team BC have failed to appreciate the demographic they should have been aiming for. Ben was never going to be the classical Hollywood heartthrob material. He doesn't have the right look for that. Don't get me wrong...I still think he is pretty, in a striking and unusual way, but he's not got the archetypal good looks for such a thing. Instead of the Internet's Boyfriend with a bunch of squealing fans designed to appeal to the barely post-pubescent, they should have been aiming for slightly more mature woman as their target audience for this man. This is the audience I think a man like Ben would appeal to. Someone who isn't about the hype, and is looking for substance over style. And it would have had the added bonus of being directly aimed at where the money is. Because people forget...free thinking and more mature women are more likely to be professionals, established in their careers, with a considerable amount of disposable income to spend on movie tickets and the like. And such women don't require hearing awkward shoehorning and stuttering (and, quite frankly, unconvincing) affirmations about a personal life that should have been kept private, to spend money on their fave. They would have been more impressed by someone showing enough respect for their wife and children to not put it up for sale to the highest bidder in an attempt at generating cheap publicity. This is a vast and untapped market that they have failed to capitalise on, had they recognised it earlier. But...I do feel they have finally cottoned on to this, because we are now seeing a strategy from Team BC that accommodates this view of celebrity. Let's hope they continue their current good form and that they won't disappoint us in the future. Fingers crossed! Hugs to you, Anna

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ben is definitely standing his ground, I’ll give him that.  And yes, I’m quite optimistic about where this seems to be going.  Cookies for PR though?  I’m withholding those until after Wimbledon (and I think everyone reading this blog knows the reasons why)

As far as Ben’s image is concerned, that’s something I’ve found fascinating since before I even became a fan of his.

I still remember reading through Empire and seeing he’d gotten their Sexiest Man Alive title for 2013 which, I have to be honest, baffled me at the time (but in my defence I hadn’t watched a single episode of Sherlock yet).  

I remember reading article upon article about him back then, all of them talking about legions of Cumberbitches, about him being the thinking woman’s crumpet and definitely seeing the potential for him to make it big in the industry.

When I finally watched Sherlock and couldn’t shut up about this magnificent actor everyone around me had to see in action, one of my colleagues even had a mug made for me that read “Proud Cumberbitch” with a screenshot of Sherlock in the sheet at Buckingham Palace, which I thought was hilarious and kept using at the office (because apparently I have no shame).

So yeah, as long as Ben was being adorable on red carpets, verbose and funny in interviews and wasn’t playing the same game everyone in Hollywood seems to be playing, I had no problem with the Cumberbitch title. ��It was just a silly thing that I could find humour in.

Fast forward to the fall of 2014: There was certainly a shift in the way he was portrayed in the press during TIG promo, and they seemed to want to hold on to both aspects of his image at that point.  Having him give long winded interviews about Alan Turing and the way he was slighted by the system, while also having him do that cringe worthy photoshoot for Hollywood Reporter.  

To make matters worse, they kept jabbing at his fans with not only Beatlemania references, but also building him up like this bigger than life movie star who couldn’t run fast enough away from his screaming fans, as well as the paparazzi.

That would have been all fine and dandy, had Ben accustomed the world at large to such behaviour.  BUT, although anyone paying attention knew that lots of his fans were overly enthusiastic (a great number of them willing to go to great lengths to breathe the same air as he does for 5 seconds) and ready to throw themselves into battle to defend him against his critics, they also knew that he was a man who’d been in the industry for close to 20 years already and had managed to always guard his private life.

Therefore, when he kept talking about how fiercely private he was while obviously doing staged pap walks ... globally, he started looking disingenuous.  Something that was amplified by the fact that he kept talking about being happy to find love with Sophie Hunter, a woman who 9 out of 10 people think trapped him into marriage with a pregnancy, while he started looking more and more frustrated around her, the more we saw them together.

Let’s get one thing straight:  No one likes a liar.  No one thinks a liar is the thinking woman’s crumpet.  No one thinks a liar is adorable.

In order for Ben to turn his image around and go back to presenting himself the way that he has worked so long and hard to be regarded, I believe he has to stop lying.  Because let’s face it, he may be a gifted actor, but the poor guy can’t lie his way out of a paper bag.  Not about anything that matters at least...

When he stops lying, I’m prepared to bake heaps of cookies for everyone.  His PR, the poor intern who has to keep reading our ramblings to report back to Karon who then reports back to Ben, the people in Ben’s life who’ve stood by him through all of this adversity, the Skeptics, the Nans, even random people in the streets.  The only people not getting cookies will be the trolls who are posing as skeptics, as well as Shitty and her friends.  And let me tell you Ms Showsie, I make a mean cookie  :P

[litsporation]

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

Rating:

Please excuse my graphics. I forgot to make them at work with Photoshop, so I had to quickly throw these together with Pixlr. 

There is so much to discuss about this book, but I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone else who wants to read it. So, I’ll break this post down into two parts. One that is kind of vague but gives a general idea of how I feel about the book. The other part I’ll clearly label, and then if you continue to read from there, it may contain spoilers. I also don’t generally give summaries of books, because you can just google that. 

This book deserves nothing less that five stars, even though it has been the hardest book I have ever read. Not because it is boring or convoluted, not because it is filled with difficult concepts, but because it was emotionally devastating. It managed to break my heart many times over, but always repair it just enough to make it feel hopeful that everything would work out ok. 

I first picked this book up in June 2015, read the first 200 pages, and then got distracted by other books. I had things to read for book club, things to read that I wanted to teach in school, and just things I wanted to read in general for myself. Eventually it got to the point where I didn’t feel like I remembered the book clearly enough to just go back to page 200. At the tail end of last year, right around Christmas, I decided I would pick it back up again and start from the beginning. I remembered things far more vividly that I thought I would be able to - Hanya Yanagihara paints things in such strong colors, that I think this book will be hard to forget. I did pace myself, and I took occasional breaks while reading to read something else. This book hits hard.

I’m not a huge crier. I don’t generally cry over movies, never over books. There are three times I have cried over these things: 

1. An episode of the Wonder Years in which Kevin’s teacher dies. I think it was his math teacher. 

2. An episode of Dr. Who, the one with Donna’s father, where the Dr. saves him at his own risk. I have a soft spot for lovable fathers and for David Tenant. It was a recipe for a solid bawl.

3. The first ten minutes of Up, like every other human.

“A Little Life” is the first book that has made me cry, and not just a couple pretty tears drifting down my cheek like Cyndi Lauper in her “Time After Time” music video. This was a solid ugly cry while curled up on my couch. I have never had a book make me feel so many things, and feel them so completely. 

All right, so now here are when things are going to get spoilery. Read at your own risk. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about this book. It was on my mind constantly. Here are some of the things I thought about more frequently than others:

1. Alan Turing. This came about because around the same time I read the part where Willem was going to play Alan, I watched “The Imitation Game” on Netflix without realizing the obvious connection. Mentally, I started to compare Alan and Jude, both having childhoods that were fractured by the cruelty of others, both ill-equipped to properly deal with friendships, and both who eventually died due to their internal struggles. Alan’s was more forced on him by society, and Jude’s was internal, but there was still a tangible connection that I could draw between the two.

2. Malcolm. Malcolm had a stronger presence in the beginning of the novel, and then he fades out of the picture more than any of the other three. The novel is Jude centered, and so I understand that the focus is on him. Willem is a large part of Jude’s life, so I also understand the focus on Willem as well. We even get a section about JB in the novel, but Malcolm we get more in snippets.  I like how Malcolm is the architect, and he constantly builds physical foundations for where Jude and Willem set up their lives. Or, if he doesn’t build them, he at least has some hand in designing them. I spent a lot of time trying to figure Malcolm out, his role, what would come of him as the novel progressed, and I was shocked when he too was killed in the car crash. Of course, his death didn’t resonate as strongly as Willem’s, and I felt bad about that. I still don’t really know what to make of Malcolm. I’m trying to figure him out. 3. JB. JB made far more sense to me, if only as a contrast to Jude. I think JB would have loved to have had a more tormented past, I doubt as truly dreadful as Jude’s was, but I think he wanted something. He enjoyed the drama, and he enjoyed playing up his life as if it were worse than it actually was. I think when the novel turned to the section about JB, it showed how he was seeking to damage himself through drugs, where Jude had his own mental damage that displayed in his bouts of cutting. Both of them were self-harming, but JB’s motives were different. I also found it ironic that the only one of the four who didn’t die a tragic death was JB. He probably would have romanticized the idea of it, of how his works would live on after he was gone. The art shows that would have his work as a tribute, the unfinished pieces that people would speculate over. And yet, he was the one left living. I’m also curious as to how he’ll document the end of his friend’s lives, since he documented so much of it while they were living.

4. Of course I spent time thinking about Jude and Willem, but a lot of it was spent rooting for the two of them to find happiness with each other, which they did. After Willem had died, I spent the rest of the book waiting for Jude to follow. I felt that his living on after was brutally painful, and in a way, I felt it was selfish for Harold to keep asking him to hang on. I actually found myself pondering my own morals in regards to this situation. I never want anyone to kill themselves. I always feel that there is happiness out there, and yet in this situation, I wasn’t sure Jude would have the ability to find it without Willem. It’s still not something I am 100% comfortable picking one side or the other on. 

This book is so damn good - for all the ways it made me feel, for breaking my heart so completely, and for all the questions it made me have. I would strongly recommend it, but not without a warning for you to brace yourself.