#in opposition to the smart and enlightened protagonist

[fanaiceach]

I honestly think Geoffrey is a nerd by birth and is only a jock by circumstance:

The vampire panic room at the Pembroke. I know it's not canon that he had any involvement in its development but like... come on. He knows exactly how it works. Maybe you could argue that he beat the info out of Edgar in the time before Jonathan got to the hospital, but why would he have bothered asking about the technical specs and not just basic operation instructions? At the very least, at some point he had a very in depth conversation with Edgar about all the details -- but I maintain that the only way he could be so familiar with that room is if he helped design and build it

He says that the room functions via "ultraviolet curtains and Orichalum powder," the latter of which is either a fictitious metal referenced ancient stories or an ancient but real metal alloy, or is just a magical substance in a lot of fantasy / fiction. Either way its existence isn't exactly common knowledge, and considering Geoffrey has initial confidence that it'll work, I think that indicates that he's more than passingly familiar with it.

He does however immediately drop the "so much for modern technology" line the minute the room stops working and then resorts to 1v1ing Jonathan ("the tried and true") so again... he's a jock by necessity, but his first inclination is still to try the nerd way.

His interest in new technology and methodology is reflected in his writing too: "We can learn many things from the war in France: new strategy, new equipment, and new weaponry. Grenades, white phosphorus, ultraviolet light, bulletproof vests, and flamethrowers: it is time for the Guard to embrace the twentieth century."

Also in line with the first point: he's on friendly enough terms with Edgar to joke about giving him a head start if he ever turned, and clearly feels comfortable enough to show up in his office to talk about the current state of London. Even if their relationship and background is purely headcanon, that vaguely hinted alliance alone is a huge departure from how Geoffrey's predecessors talk about the Brotherhood. The schism between the groups is something both sides still reference with each thinking the other is stupid, and yet Geoffrey seeks Edgar out in a time of crisis -- in addition to whatever background the two of them might have. Geoffrey clearly sees value in the Brotherhood's knowledge and doesn't dismiss it as dangerous or useless like everyone else in Priwen seems to.

Again, much like with the anti vampire room, he does later shit on the Brotherhood and calls them cowards. Unfortunately life just keeps proving to him that knowledge can't compete with simply hitting things until they stop moving <3

The way he talks is also just very nerd coded to me. I don't necessarily think that language correlates with intelligence, but the game lets other working class characters speak in a way that Geoffrey really. Doesn't. "I've a good nose for machinations" and "you've set the table for a snake and wonder why there's venom in your food" and "it's within me to take your words as truth" are almost annoyingly verbose lines for a character that everyone else views as a brute force dumbass. I think it gives him a very guy who reads a lot and therefore has great vocabulary energy.

[astudyinfreewill]

What do you think of Blue? I actually dislike her but thats cool if you dont!

i actually quite like blue!!

but i should qualify that it’s not uncritical and unconditional: yes, i like blue as a character, while having problems with her character arc; and i like blue as a “person”, but i have issues with some of the iffy stuff she does.

i just feel like the key word for blue, ironically, is “potential”. the blue we meet in trb had a lot of promise... that isn’t necessarily followed through on in the other books.

some of the problems i have with blue’s character arc: 

first of all... what character arc?

no, seriously. we are told from the start that she wants something different, something special, something more. but... does she get it?

blue is set up to be the “protagonist” of trb, but she gets quickly sidelined in favour of characters with more active storylines (ronan and adam both have plot-heavy story arcs, but even gansey arguably gets more development than her, even if it’s just dying and being reborn)

which is... bitterly ironic for a character whose main magical power is to support others’ powers (there’s nothing wrong with supporting others, but there’s something very annoying when the only female character in the group is stuck with a magical version of ~emotional support~ for the male characters around her)

i had high hopes for her -- and i mean, buzzing-with-excitement high hopes -- when gwenllian introduced the whole “mirrors are witches” plot thread... which went absolutely nowhere (but i know that stiefvater was struggling with serious health issues while writing the raven king, so... i’m gonna give it a pass).

we find out that she is literally half-tree... and nothing else gets done with that. like, that’s why she loves trees... i guess...?

even her more “ordinary” dreams, like going to college and studying conservation/ecology, are kind of nixed by the end? she basically gets told by the narrative, “yeah but you have two rich boyfriends now, you can just travel with them”. and while i’m all for blue spending the shit out of gansey’s republican money, that’s not quite satisfying from a narrative point of view.

in short, blue has a ton of untapped potential -- she is truly the page of cups -- and in another world, we get a book where she’s free to explore her tir e e’lintes heritage, to discover her actual powers as a witch, and to follow her dreams. in this world, that’s not the book we got, and at this point i’m kind of beyond caring, because both ronan and adam have been given far more compelling story arcs that i am actually invested in.

now, as for blue as a “person”, or rather as a character, irrespective of story arc... blue is far from perfect. that’s actually not a problem for me - she’s not always a great person, which makes her a great character. blue is brave, generous, kind, accepting, resourceful, smart, curious; but blue is also hypocritical, dishonest, impulsive, and opportunistic. 

the negatives don’t erase the positives: humans are flawed, and a flawed character is realistic. but i feel like the problem with this fandom is that often it does the opposite -- it erases the negatives to only focus on blue’s positives, which essentially turns her into a manic pixie dream girl, and even more of an accessory to the boys’ development. 

see, i don’t want blue’s negative traits to magically disappear; it would be nice if she could grow and improve on some of them, but since personal growth is a gruelling, time-consuming process, i would have settled for her reaching self-awareness of her mistakes and taking accountability for them... which unfortunately the narrative never gives us (again, lots of stuff happening in the raven king, written and re-written in difficult circumstances -- i have accepted it; it’s just still kind of disappointing, is all).

some of the problems i have with blue’s character:

blue’s feminism is performative at best and damaging at worst, as i have discussed at length in this post. please note: this is not uncommon or unrealistic for a teenage girl. but i wish she had been given a chance to work on it, by bonding with one - one - female character she’s not related to. hell, even orla would be a start.

blue has a lot of internalised classism -- which, again, is realistic; adam has a lot too. the difference is he gets to acknowledge and analyse it, even though he clearly hasn’t overcome it yet. we see blue have a lot of resentment for rich people while at the same time subconsciously looking down on the “wrong kind” of poverty (adam’s) and she never reflects on that bias. we have so many discussions in adam’s pov of how he both envies and resents rich boys, yet in the end he comes to realise that even though he thought he wanted to be one of them, in reality he doesn’t want the kind of superficial, oppressive, entitled life they live.

meanwhile, the only “enlightenment” blue reaches in the final book is  that oh hey, she actually kind of likes rich people (the same begrudging awareness adam had pre-series and then outgrew) and in fact she’s fine with hanging out with them. blue, babe, i hate to break it to you, but you have been hanging out with them for 4 books and loving it... how is this a revelation?!

and last but not least, the hot topic: blue’s treatment of adam. blue refused over and over to be honest with him about the curse; actively cheated on him -- both emotionally, with gansey, and literally, with noah -- yet refused to break up with him; and when he finally confronted her, reacted not with honesty but by getting angry and trying to turn the issue around on him and how much he liked gansey (see above: hypocrisy)

now, again: this is not unrealistic or ooc. it’s bad behaviour, but it doesn’t make blue a bad character, nor overall a bad person. it’s something that could have happened and she could have moved on from... the issue, again, is that she never reflects on this. her immediate reaction is to start seeing gansey behind adam’s back, and neither of them tell adam the truth until they are basically forced to

essentially, blue runs into the same issue that gansey does: they’re good, but flawed, people, who are very bad at self-reflection, and so never quite understand why they’re hurting the people around them. i can buy that. i can love a character in spite of it. my issue is that the narrative lets them get away with it. and perhaps that’s just due to time-constraints and the fact that there is more of a focus on adam and ronan’s growth -- but it leaves gansey and blue as characters who never fulfill their potential. and while that doesn’t mean i dislike them, it means that unfortunately i just don’t care as much.

[thedogsled]

You seem to be having a not a great day today, so here's a light-hearted ask. I'm having a good day, curled up in pjs with cuddly pets watching Leverage with my sister. Leverage is one of my favorite shows, because it's smart and fun and has great characters that grow over the seasons. Besides Supernatural, what's a show you really enjoy and why?

Thank you so much for the ask! I’m sorry I didn’t reply to it sooner, I’ve come down with a head cold and this is really the first day in several I’ve been able to compose more than a tweet about how much it sucks (swallowing = a knife jammed right into my inner ear, it’s super fun). But I did want to answer your question so I’ve been musing on it since your ask came in.

If it was just “what’s your favorite show right now” it’d be an easy answer: The Boys. The Boys, back to front, front to back, upside down and inside out. The first season was fantastic, and it felt like it woke me up to being excited about TV again after my interest in The Walking Dead waned mid-season. Everything new has seemed very plastic recently, and even The Mandalorian, which is super cool, is kind of like the Cartoon Network dub of Dragonball Z, so Disneyfied in its bloodlessness that although I’m enjoying it it feels even more synthetic as a result. The Boys was the opposite of that, and also just whoever invented Karl Urban, period, just deserves a nobel prize for that masterpiece. He pronounces twat wrong (okay okay it’s a dialect thing) but you can’t have everything =D

So instead (and because it’s cheating that I can pimp The Boys and wax lyrical about loves of old) I interpret your question as sort of like “Which show is your comfort food?” Which show do I go back to when I’m feeling like TV needs to give me a cuddle. I had a good think about it, because there’s a few…

(aside: I shouldn’t have put that gif in before I started writing. ahem.)

There’s been a few over the years, for sure. As a thirteen year old I used to watch and rewatch Buffy episodes, mostly season 2 (baby Spike!). At eighteen, it was old VHS of Deep Space Nine, my favorite ep was “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night” which I watched repeatedly and think about constantly even today. 

But the show I keep coming back to is due South.

This post is a long post, it also deals with discourse (because my relationship to entertainment is so often mired in it, so please don’t proceed if you’re rather avoid it) and this is where it begins:

Okay, so fun fact: I watched due South the first time it aired with my parents (I was about 9) and then when it was on TV again as a repeat, I recorded it on VHS by RUSHING home every single day from school with nothing else on my mind but sitting on the floor two feet from the telly to watch it. Quantum Leap was on right after, and I had an entire different set of VHS tapes to record that on, so had to quickly switch between them. I’d stop recording at every break so that I could get more episodes on a tape. It’s not unsurprising to me now that both shows vibed with me as a young person who hadn’t yet really accepted that she was queer; due South’s main character is coded as Other both to the Americans whom he lives with, and his fellow Canadians, while Quantum Leap explores a straight white man jumping into the lives of Others, and living through them some of the hardest moments in their lives. Even though both keep it exceedingly, textually hetero, one has two men riding off into the snowy sunset together (leaving behind a straight lover to do so) and the other features a love between two men that in the original framing of the finale would have seen God/fate reconnecting the two of them even though one was lost in time, and the partner’s wife begging him to go.)

Of course young me didn’t give a shit about that, or didn’t realize that’s what she cared about. Young me loved the buddy-cop partnership of both shows. Young me liked the half-wolf, and the episodes where they ride horses, and honestly just waiting with bated breath to find out where Sam would jump to this time. “Oh boy!” Retrospectively, these shows (especially QL) are a lot more oh boy in a yikes context now than they used to be, but it’s good that shows age into yikes territory because it means that society is steadily advancing. Particularly, pointing out that these shows both feature white straight guys like…welcome to the nineties.

I was introduced to queer coding in part by watching due South. The show is laden with it. With writers, actors, and ultimately an executive producer who was all three, it makes you wonder if they would have gone there if they could; certainly the ending reads that way. They couldn’t, of course, because it was the nineties (and it was CBS that revived it after enormous international fan demand). Still, there was just nothing else analogous to what we have now that was going there on TV at the time. If you were queer (or discovering your queerness) then watching the show meant everything, as it did to me. So I snuggle up on the couch often these days and go back to that, because it gave me such joy, and because I was left with the opportunity to decide for myself how deep the relationship was. There was no promise of anything, because the context at the time was of course you can’t go there, nobody can go there. Queerbaiting was a word that simply hadn’t been breathed. There was no intent, no companies behind the curtain pulling strings going “Yes, make it more gay, we want those queer dollars”, just invested people slipping what they could past the studio censors.

Like this:

Sigh. A less enlightened time. =P (Incidentally fun meta here but this was after a conversation where Ray suggested that communication in a relationship should be intuitive, like breathing.)

So I guess in part I escape back there because none of that representation was ever as loaded as it is today. It doesn’t require me to judge it, or weigh it against the harm it does - because the politics of the time meant I thought it was doing good (retrospectively, and only through the lens of someone who had nothing to lose). It seemed to scream out into an unyielding universe to force it to move. It did a fraction of that, because of course it did. It was the nineties. It stole indigenous narratives and romanticized colonialism just as much as it beat the drum of environmentalism and kicked at the doors of corporate greed and racism. Old shows are inherently problematic. Today’s shows are too. Being able to examine them doesn’t mean not loving them, but it lets you say “Okay, so what do I expect from the things I watch today? What do I expect from the things I watch in five years time?”

All that aside, the show is just damn good. It’s watchable and rewatchable. It struggles to age because it was already so out of pace with the age it was made in–despite its flaws in representation, it was better than other shows at the time that demonized, tokenized, or outright killed minorities to push white narratives on their own shows (Kendra being murdered on Buffy, for example). It’s standalone enough that you can go back and watch any episode you like because overarching story arcs were way less of a staple as they are today.  It’s witty, fast paced, full of action and moral dilemma, do gooding and the consequences of it. Although still severely unbalanced, and very, very white, it did still have indigenous actors playing indigenous characters, and minorities portrayed in stories about them. There’s a dog. There’s classic cars. And it’s all put to the soundtrack of Canadian bands and singers. 

tl;dr ahead for rambling about subtext and being a disaster queer, but please scroll past for more gifs.

Queer me needed this show, in a world where I’d been taught to look and see myself in straight white male protagonists, it felt like A Lot to see all this on screen. It wasn’t, but it was all I got when I was growing up. I envy the good fortune of kids who can see themselves on screen these days while they try and figure themselves out (and hopefully more so in the future) with far less of having to negotiate through the confusion of looking at it through confusing fractals of different lenses and instead just see someone who looks like them showing them that their POV is normal, heroic and wonderful. Those lenses fucked me up big time. Like I’m not even sure right now what flavor of queer I am. I cling to bi like a lifeline of sense in my life, but it is complicated because I overwhelmingly desire the company of women way way more. But also I was was taught to look through the lens of a white dude in order to see myself universally, taught to be both desirous of the female body and humiliated by it, ashamed by sex, taught men were awful, and taught that I was supposed to marry one anyway. I look at my sexuality/romanticism like it’s a meta puzzle that I haven’t figured out yet, wondering how to put it on paper, how to break apart the different influences I experienced as a youngling and as an adult to try and negotiate if I’m misreading my own impulses. How I was brought up, who I’ve known, the relationships I’ve experienced and seen in real life and on TV. I’m 34 and I’m still no more certain. Subtext is both my friend and my enemy. I hate it, and I owe everything to it.

So when I need a rest from giving a shit about any of that noise, I go back to my comfort food. I go right back to subtext, which gave me the tools I needed to desire romance that wasn’t heterosexual, that somehow was more intimate because it relied on longing stares and never stepping foot out of the closet, that was just someone liking another person without any expectation of sex just because they have opposing genitals, and their colleagues hassle them a lot. There’s nothing wrong with the sex, I write a lot of consommation of the feelings that I see bubbling under the surface. I have even grown to appreciate het romance when it’s done in a way that doesn’t reduce the woman to a love interest–I was thrilled when Simon Baker’s Patrick Jane got together with Teresa Lisbon in The Mentalist. Their relationship was filled with subtext too. Subtext isn’t a queer thing, it has a role in all well written romance. Hell, it has a role in terriblebad tropey misogynistic romance, too. And just you know basically all storytelling (and more). 

Queer romance existing only in the subtext, though? It’s heartbreaking explicitly because it feels like a story that isn’t finished, and that’s where subtext reliant shows can hand off the story to be finished by fandom itself. In due South, as I mentioned before, Ray and Fraser jump into a dogsled and ride off over the snowy horizon to “Find the hand of Franklin, reaching for the Beaufort sea”. It’s where I chose my meta name, as I’ve mentioned before, because that ending - that ending - handed us all the subtext so far and said “Here, take it, it’s yours now. Do with it what you like”–and we did. But that was twenty years ago. I loved that ending (I still think it was a very elegant solution) and it was expected and appropriate for a show that in itself is a “Faves Are Problematic” show, but that’s also why I get so passionate about discussing the subtext in Supernatural.

It’s younger than due South. While it may have begun back when Willow from Buffy had her first girlfriend, it is ending now, not at the turn of the century where a dogsled was still good enough to get the point across and none of us had Twitter. My own experiences, my lifelong queer confusion make it so I feel pretty damn bad for people trying to use Supernatural as a medium for their own self-exploration, using characters from SPN as their lenses. A show these days that makes bank on those tropes and doesn’t inform its audience (positively or negatively) is doing so irresponsibly because of the modern context in which the show presently (not historically) sits, and the increasing awareness of the issues surrounding it. Networks, then, are ultimately responsible for that, but they are in a way which is entirely different and far more directly culpable than they were 20 years ago, because people are out there making money out of those intentional subtextual devices. They chose to do it; took a deep breath and backed right up away from Gamble’s problematic queerbashing tropes, chewed it over, then hired gay writers and dived right back in with more grown up, progressive, and less shitty subtext–but still subtext. 

This show that ended 20 years ago was able to cross way more lines with subtext in one episode than Supernatural has done sometimes in an entire season. It did so despite and because of it’s international audience, on a conservative network that would late purchase Paramount, and Star Trek, and ended with a powerfully subtextual ending. Supernatural, of course, is under a far more powerful microscope from the bigots than those oblivious to subtext back in the 90s could have ever produced. due South, like SPN was just “wholesome family entertainment” to a conservative audience that was completely oblivious by all accounts, yet was laden heavily with queer innuendo. It was also blissfully short, and existed in a social media world which consisted of Yahoo groups and not much else. 

In modern context, Supernatural gets a fox in the henhouse treatment from that same audience, and acts accordingly (when it’s not using that same subtext to deliver earnest Fuck You’s to that audience). While I expect Supernatural to bravely - even considering this scrutiny - deliver a dogsled subtextual ending on a good day, there are bad days, too, because the queer subtext has been underlined so loudly that everyone can see it, because it’s “practically text”, because the bottom line is increasingly more concerned with satisfying those bigots (even while they mock them), and because queer fans are “too loud” about what they want. How dare they. /s The pushback caused by being loud about things you care about, the bigots actually seeing subtext in front of their noses, isn’t bad because now they know what we’ve been doing all along, and we won’t be able to get away with it any more; it means they’re becoming more aware of narratives other than their own. Yes, some people will push back, but “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”, and they can shove it right up their asses.

All I ever ask of myself when I interrogate my present day viewing experience, is this: when I sat as a youngster watching due South thinking “This subtextual ending is enough for me”, did I truly believe it was okay to be watching a show about two white guys with a subtextual ending 20 years later? Was that the future I dreamed of and aspired to? Would I be disappointed? The answer is yes, I am disappointed. No matter the whys, the fundamental and societal reasons–I am disappointed. I still love the show probably more than I should, but I am disappointed in the society it sits in - which is increasingly capitulating to far more powerful global financial powers than a couple of red state homophobes - and I’m disappointed in the way we’re treating each other for even caring, and I’m disappointed in myself, too, for being naive and imagining we would be much further down this road now than we are. But we are a capitalistic society, and being both the commodity and the customer should be a surprise to literally nobody at this point. It doesn’t mean you have to like it.

And if you don’t feel that way, that’s okay. We all come from different places. We have different perspectives. We need and want different things, for different reasons, and find joy in different things for different reasons. Variety of opinion is as much a wonderful thing as it is completely terrifying.

I’ve wandered somewhat off topic, so I’m going to go back to the show I love, my chocolate pudding and custard comfort food TV show, and the long stares and the beautiful uncomplicated subtext.

And sign off with half a dozen gifs.

Eye fucking:

Conversations in closets and bathrooms:

Going down with the ship

Intuitively understanding each other without a word spoken

His hobbies humiliate me in public

“Do you find me attractive?”

Sulking in the corridor while you reunite with your ex

This whole ep with original Ray:

And his wolf approving of both

Not pictured “I love you” “And I you”, “Get out of the closet”, actual hand holding when it’s unnecessary, formally handcuffing your buddy, getting stuck in an ice crevasse and a mini submarine together–and so so much more. I invite you to watch the show if you can find it (I have it on a really nice set of DVDs, but there’s some dodgy ones out there that look like they recorded the DVD straight off a VHS, so do check reviews) or else try and find it online. There was a Canada promoting YouTube channel which published both due South and shows like Slings and Arrows, which I recommend as well (It’s not actually bury your gays if the ghost of your gay best friend haunts you, right?) so you should be able to poke around and find a legit copy somewhere. I’ve bigged it up and talked it down, and wandered a long way off topic (that describes my relationship with every show, but especially when I recommend them) but I hope somewhere along the line I also answered the question. The way I hear it Leverage is a similar sort of comfort food, though I haven’t seen it. Sounds like I should put it on my To Watch list.

[dweemeister]

Imitation of Life (1934)

Black stories in American films could mostly be found in independently-financed “race films” that could not inspire wider distributions. Every now and then, blacks might figure prominently in a film from a major Hollywood studio, including John M. Stahl’s Imitation of Life. These major studio films including black main characters most often framed those characters through the perspectives of white protagonists (as Mammy, Hattie McDaniel is probably the only one in 1939′s Gone with the Wind smart enough to see through everyone’s pretensions); when the opposite occurred, blacks were still heavily stereotyped (see: 1936′s The Green Pastures). Both approaches are deemed unacceptable from absolutists, but I contend that these framing methods, especially the latter, carried financial and sociopolitical risks for those involved in these movies.

Imitation of Life - based on the Fannie Hurst (a white Jewish author) novel of the same name and better known for Douglas Sirk’s 1959 Technicolor remake; both films released by Universal – pivots towards its white protagonists. Yet the questions this adaptation pushes of racial identity remain relevant, now less controversial than upon the film’s release. This Imitation of Life could not have addressed racial segregation directly lest the film be subjected to bigoted outrage in the United States, so the film makes its stance clear in scenes devoid of overtly political language, yet championing racial equality, black pridefulness. With an imperfect message and imperfect characterization, this 1934 Imitation of Life is a milestone of depicting black women on-screen.

The opening scene sees widower Bea Pullman (Claudette Colbert) playing with daughter Jessie (Juanita Quigley as 3-year old Jessie; Marilyn Knowlden at age 8; Rochelle Hudson at age 18) in the bathtub. Just outside, Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers) and mixed-race daughter Peola (unseen in these introductory minutes; Sebie Hendricks as 9-year old Peola; Fredi Washington at age 19) have run into car trouble. Bea, seeing how well Jessie gets along with Delilah, asks Delilah if she would like to be employed as her housekeeper– room and board included. Delilah accepts, and these two women and their daughters grow alongside each other. Several years later, Bea creates a company making use of Delilah’s pancake recipe (Delilah has consented to the company’s creation and the use of her likeness a la Aunt Jemima). Meanwhile, as their girls grow, so do their problems. Jessie is a slacker, using her flirtatiousness or innocence to get her way. For Peola, the dilemma is existential: she passes for white, repudiates her blackness (early in the film, Jessie is the first person to call Peola “black” out of cruelty), and refusing to consider her mother’s words to cherish that blackness.

Imitation of Life wants to be seen as Bea’s movie, with Claudette Colbert (who performs well) the top-of-the-bill star. Jessie’s lack of work ethic is certainly a problem. But their situations – then and now – are overshadowed by the tragic melodrama of Delilah and Peola, a mother-and-daughter relationship shredded by the expectations of those outside the household. This breakdown happens not because Delilah is a suffocating mother or that Peola is an overall terrible person. Delilah has little, but has much to live for. Success in making pancakes means little if her only child is suffering. Delilah enjoys the business she has with Bea, but she has poured all the fibers of her being into loving Peola. It is love that accepts Peola for what she always will be: mixed-race, which includes her blackness.

Peola, from an early age, overhears and sees how blacks are treated in the community, how white is the default. She is also aghast at her mother’s acceptance of her smiling subservience to Bea (Stahl’s Imitation of Life never makes Delilah and Bea social and, in an unconventional way, familial equals). In one of the most heartbreaking scenes, in a pre-Brown v. Board America, Delilah comes to Peola’s school as Peola had forgotten her raincoat. There must be a mistake, says the teacher, there are no colored children in this classroom. Delilah sees Peola hiding her face behind a book and asks the teacher: “Has she been passing?” Were those words, written by screenwriter William J. Hurlbut (1935′s Bride of Frankenstein), meant to be taken at face value? Regardless of what you think, that scene might have introduced many white moviegoers to how painful racial passing is. It is a denial of belonging, a rejection of self that disallows comfort in one’s holistic identity, and reinforced by racial supremacist practices that can be presented as beneficial for all. One only has to witness Peola’s plight to understand the injustice behind those lies.

Certainly, these are bold topics to be covering in a 1930s film. Where it falls short of Sirk’s remake is that this Imitation of Life – probably due to political circumstances in the country – covers less ground, concentrates more on its white characters, never even suggests the violent realities of being black and female in the U.S., and never quite adopts Peola’s point of view. Her struggles with identity are seen through her mother’s eyes, never the other way around. The Sirk Imitation of Life includes one of the earliest instances of black code-switching (alternating between different dialects or languages depending on the setting and those one is having a conversation with) in a major Hollywood studio movie. By showing this, Sirk’s remake enlightens the viewers to what extent Sarah Jane – the Peola character – hides an essential part of who she is.

Melodrama is more susceptible than most film genres or subgenres to mediocre acting. Colbert and Beavers form an interracial partnership that stoked controversy especially in the South (for these critics, the idea of a white woman entering into business with her black maid was unconscionable). Their friendliness, even outside the bounds of business and Beavers’ domestic subservience, always feels natural. Their intimacy is established early, providing for each other emotionally and spiritually. For Beavers, she despised cooking and the kitchen-centric roles that she played throughout her Hollywood career (liberal commentators in 1934 were already decrying her character as a jolly mammy-like stereotype). Yet for this one time, Beavers is allowed to give this obsolete racialized figure the dimensions they were not afforded by any previous movie. It is the performance of Beavers’ lifetime, and American cinema impoverished because of the refusal to give black actors like Beavers roles beyond a white producer, screenwriter, or casting director’s imagination.

Cast as the older Peola is not a white actor playing a white-passing mixed-race child, but Fredi Washington – who had African-American and European ancestors, and, when asked if she ever wanted to pass as white, she responded: “I have never tried to pass for white and never had any desire, I am proud of my race. In ‘Imitation of Life���, I was showing how a girl might feel under the circumstances but I am not showing how I felt.” For Washington (and Sebie Hendricks), her bottled, understandable rage in real life explodes on-camera. Even today, biracial or mixed-race dialectics not just in American films, but films across the world, are almost unheard of. So unsettling was Washington’s performance and these themes that her character embodies that the Hays Office – which, under Joseph Breen, began to more stringently enforce the Motion Picture Production Code – marked Hurlbut’s first screenplay draft for miscegenation. Cut from that first draft and never appearing in the film are racial epithets and a scene where a black boy is almost lynched after being accused of wooing a white woman. Breen only backed down from his constant opposition to the revised screenplay after learning the film was already too far into production to be changed.

Both the Stahl and Sirk adaptations of Imitation of Life might be dismissed for peddling in racial stereotypes in a narrative that earnestly presses questions about racial passing, identity, and female friendship. Yet, in this 1934 original version – without the infrastructure and language of civil rights activism that would emerge later in the twentieth century – it carries bonds and burdens that reflected the lives of those without much cultural or political power. Imitation of Life retains its emotional impact today, never purporting to answer its most difficult discourses. The white protagonists within know not how to address those discourses, as they are not armed with the vocabulary to soothe the wounds in Delilah and Peola’s hearts. In that sense, little has changed since the 1930s. To make an honest attempt for healing is never in vain, as long as those efforts involve understanding societal and one’s personal contributions to the anguish that exists.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[thoughts-on-musicals]

The SpongeBob musical

Before I started to even listen to this I had the worst expectations, and those low expectations weren't even met. The SpongeBob musical isn't nearly beyond words, but the words that do stick out to me whenever I think of it is uncreative, confused, and boring. I heard one of the songs for the first time a few months ago and hated it from the get-go. This was a bad idea and I knew it. I saw it was nominated for Tony and was very disappointed. And the second song I heard from it was at the Tony's. I was less than thrilled. I decided I can't have a proper negative opinion about something before I've listened to it. So without seeing the stage show, I'm giving my review on the SpongeBob musical. I do acknowledge that some people really like this, and if you do, please enlighten me on the aspects that make you such a big fan, because I think there's only one song I "like" in the whole musical. Nonetheless, I went through this catastrophe and reviewed song by song, what I kinda liked and what I didn't. So without further Ado, my review of the SpongeBob musical. (I feel like that one sentence made more sense of the show. )

Here's a quick synopsis. So SpongeBob is having a nice day in Bikini Bottom, going to work etc. He meets all his friends along the way and themes the discovery of volcano is going to happen and that everyone is going to die if they don't fix it. So they stop the volcano and everything is happy. The end. Fun story right? (I thought it was stupid, frankly? So volcanos erupt underwater, I know that, but wouldn't the water immediately cool the lava down? That's how islands are made? The sea creatures shouldn't have a fear of lava, more of getting boiled alive. They could just... Swim away, but that's... Kinda addressed in the musical? Anyway. Onto it. )

"Prologue"

I really did forget the announcer was French. Kudos to them for finding a fake French accent.

"Bikini Bottom day"

So the singers in this musical aren't bad. I genuinely like all of the actors' voices. I think they're all very talented, but the stupid cartoon voices they put on made my head hurt. The rhymes are uncreative a messy. Lyrics Always balance the thin, thin line of being creative or random. SpongeBob the musical bounces back and forth between either, and the good creative parts are few and far between. The uncreative Rhymes are accompanied with an uncreative score. This song did make me laugh once or twice though. Good for that. I got some enjoyment. I do wish they could have spiced things up more in this first number. Like SpongeBob having the Bikini Bottom day little theme. What would have made it a little better for me is if the characters all had themes? Like Patrick has some Bongos in a cute little rhythm, maybe Squidward has some classical music nods, they did Sandy good with the banjo, which I liked. I wish they did more of that through the whole thing? I think it would make it better. We see excellent examples of those types of things in some amazing musicals like Les Miserables, Wicked, Into the Woods, Company, and more!! Anyway. It's excited poorly. Plankton and Squidward's voice is super, though. Like WOW. I do hate how Mr. Crabs has... Such a light voice. I wish they got a deeper one, honestly. It really sets the tone of a money grabbing crab man FOR SURE! I really cannot get over Squidward’s voice WOW. He’s too good for this musical. I give it this- it can be kinda fun. I see it too.  Plankton’s voice is good too, but. He works pretty good as a bad guy. Can I have Spongebob’s little monologue on a plaque? This is way, way too silly. And apparently, the sun shines down, because they say it ten times, but I digress. 

“ No Control “

Honestly, I kinda like this one. Like, it's nice. I like how menacing it is. Like, the protagonists' parts, and that’s the parts I don’t really like. PLANKTON IS SO GOOD THOUGH!  The little rounds at the end are something I dig too. I do think that its a good set up for the main plot too. I also like the no control emphasis it has. I didn’t know that this musical was smart enough to do that. I just really like this song, though. That’s going to be a first and last. 

“BFF”

It sounds like a song that a camp leader would make that all this four-year-olds want to shoot themselves over. The talent is good, though. Got good singers. I do think it’s not very creative. This song can’t get more repetitive. That is also a common theme for this musical. Repeating things so you get bored enough to listen to the poorly crafted different parts. It makes you think the differences are important and interesting when it’s just the opposite. I feel like this musical is treating me like I don’t know anything. I know this was most likely aimed at children, but kids have brains and can listen to a good musical. This song is just stupid. Again, an occurring thing 

“When the Going Gets Tough “

Plankton rapping makes me laugh. The first time I listened to this was at 3am and I was laughing like an idiot when this came on. It was insane. I didn’t see it coming. That’s another thing. This musical doesn’t know what I want to be. It has so many different things. It’s trying to be diverse and has an interesting score, but I feel like it should have a coherent theme. Like I said about “Bikini Bottom Day”. There should be themes to tie things together. It’s weird how they try and give up at the same time. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the writing room to see what was going on all these peoples’ who wrote this minds, But I do like this song.  I REALLY LIKE IT. But the “It’s time to get lost” part is bad. they should have thought about that a little more. These things rapping unironically is good though wow. 

“ [Just a] Simple Sponge “

I like the guitar riff. I can tell in the first five seconds I know this song is so stupid. Chorus you’re about to hear a trillion times. The score is OK? It sounds nothing like the rest of the musical. (Ahem. have a solid theme ahem). This is really stupid and not good. Jesus Christ. It’s the least motivational motivation song I’ve ever heard. RAP AGAIN THAT WAS GOOD AND WOULD FIT TALKING AROUND HIS FRIENDS AND TIE INNN THE MUUUUSICCCCAAAALLLLLLL!

“ Daddy Knows Best “

This was the first song I heard before I actually sat down and listened to the soundtrack. I hate the song, but the tune is way too catchy. I was looking through the youtube comments while I was listening to this and the second one was “ the shit dad trope meets the capitalist agenda “ and I thought it summed up the song. also boring. It’s uncreative lyric wise and score-wise.  I want it to get  0.5 seconds faster every time it says money. 

“ Hero is My Middle Name “

It’s pretty upbeat, but it needs to be more hopeful score-wise. Sandy is amazing though. Her voice and her jokes. Talent is amazing in here, REALLY! I do love the voices! The chorus is annoyingly repetitive. I want more energy to this. It’s too slow paced, but it’s an okay song. 

“Super Sea Star Savior” 

This sounds like a gospel chorus, which I think they’re trying to go for? I guess Patrick is Jesus? The beat is... okay? It feels very generic. I expected more from this musical this “diverse”.  This is another pointless song that doesn’t really advance the plot. The talking voice of Patrick is different than the singing one, that really bothers me. Don’t like it. 

“Tomorrow Is” 

I’m kinda ready for the musical to be over after that song, maybe one more song and then it being over.  Too bad that it seems we’ve not really even gotten into act two yet. This sounds like an end of act one song. If this weren’t about SpongeBob, it might be a bit better and worse. I don’t like how ambiguously “I only have tomorrow to succeed “ thing the first verse is. Squidward is singing in the second verse and I more than love his voice. I haven't seen any of the actual stage play, and do not intend to, but I like to think Squidward is having a little epic about himself trying to be a famous clarinet player, but it not working out. PLANKTON IS BACK I LOVE. It’s too happy. It's supposed to be more depressing, come on. I thought the music was going to change for a second, but it’s just that same tune over and over and over. I like this nice, little, last part, though. 

“Poor Pirates” 

Okay, I love this song. it’s good and amazing and has no flaw. I’m assuming that this is the beginning of act two! it’s halfway done!! I do like how self where this thing is.  It’s a good catchy and I wish the rest of the musical had this theme. It’s funny and clever and a good thing to listen to and kinda stupid, like SpongeBob. it’s good and I want the musical to be like this. 

“Bikini Bottom Boogie” 

I hate this song. the little electric guitar is fine and kinda cool to listen too, but really. Didn’t the Plain White T’s write this? Where’s David Hasselhoff? That was the good part about the first SpongeBob movie. I don’t want to talk about the rest of them. it’s stupid and repetitive in the wrong ways and doesn't match the rest of the musical. Diverse, not randomness. COME ON PEOPLE. 

“Chop to the Top” 

Sandy is my baby. I lover her. I remember this chorus was annoying, and it is. I like that usually when Sandy sings there’s a banjo. It’s good, that’s one of the only things I like about this song. I don’t like how literal it is with how scared SpongeBob was climbing up the mountain. This thing has no subtly. 

“[I Guess I] Miss You”

Is the little SpongeBob Patrick makeup. This song is annoying. I hate the pacing and the words and everything. this song really reminds me of the Bully Sized Hole song in Phineas and Ferb song. It’s stupid and can’t end too soon. 

“I’m Not a Loser” 

This was one of the first songs that I heard from the Tony’s and I don’t like it at all.  I’m just going to skip this one because I don’t want to mess up the amazingness of Gavin Lee’s voice. 

“Best Day Ever” 

Okay, I think this is the song from the first movie, but Tom Kenny isn’t singing so it isn’t going to be half as good. I’ve been pretty bored since the beginning of this. Maybe that’s why I like poor pirates so much? at least it’s not boring.  Also, this song fooled me at the start. I was thinking it was a new, cool song because it doesn’t sound too bad, but then it goes into the actual song. Sure, it puts a more sad tone to it, like a more optimistic thing to it-or reason for optimism. I appreciate that. It’s still a boring song, but still. 

“Finale: Bikini Bottom Day Reprise” 

I hated the first one and don’t need a second one. Won’t this ever end? Thanks for the recap of everything we just witnessed. It’s not like we just watched it.  I sat for over an hour and I know what’s happening. I’m not five... But I guess that's who you’re pandering to. 

Okay. I didn’t like it all and it was a waste of time. I have two catchy songs that didn’t go to the point of annoying. It’s clearly just another way to make more money for Nickelodeon. I don’t like it and it was a waste of time. I don’t see how anyone would pay to see this. No one should spend money on that, but that’s just me? IT’S CRAP. 

THE END YOU’RE WELCOME 

[irinapaleolog]

How the Devil Became a Dreamboat: Exploring the Byronic Hero with Kylo Ren

As it turns out, the popular problematic favorite and the OG problematic favorite are basically the same person.

Welcome to Elements of Story, a biweekly column about narrative tropes, what they mean, and why they just won’t go away.

For the inaugural installment of Elements of Story, and just in time for Valentine’s day, I’m going to dissect an archetype that has been causing a stir and setting hearts aflutter for centuries: the Byronic hero. 

Definitions of the Byronic hero vary by source, but the basic gist is that he’s an arrogant yet emotionally sensitive rebel who rages against societal norms, is usually haunted by a dark and mysterious past, and has been a staple of romantic storylines for hundreds of years. You could literally write a book about the history of the Byronic Hero—indeed, multiple people already have—so for the sake of concision and also my continued sanity, we’re going to investigate the Byronic hero through the specific example of one of his most recent appearances: Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). 

Ever since The Force Awakens first premiered, Darth Vader’s grandson and #1 fan has been a point of contention within the Star Wars fandom, particularly with regards to his dynamic with protagonist Rey (Daisy Ridley). While things have calmed down somewhat following the underwhelming finale that was The Rise of Skywalker, if you want to start a fight online about a galaxy far, far away, mention “Reylo” and see what happens. 

One of the most genuinely befuddling things about the discourse surrounding Reylo is the frequently held opinion that its allure is anyway inexplicable or unforeseeable. Similarly, the common, lazy narrative that its popularity can be explained away as Adam Driver’s thirst-club projecting their desire onto the Star Wars universe reeks of ignorance. Whether borne of conscious intent or sheer coincidence, Kylo Ren is a villain who also fits a centuries-old romantic archetype like a glove in ways that are hinted towards in The Force Awakens and laid increasingly bare in each subsequent installment. That some viewers picked up on the Byronic subtext early while others did not simply speaks to the variance in media consumption habits and tastes between audience members. If you’re familiar with an archetype, you’re going to spot its likeness, and view said likeness through the lens of the implications baked in with that lineage. If you’re not, you won’t. 

So, who is this Byronic Hero guy, anyway? Well, the tl;dr version is that he’s basically Satan and his origins predate Lord Byron by at least a few hundred years. 

In truth, the Byronic Hero is so old that tracing his origins gets quite speculative. There’s not a singular definitive answer so much as a collection of theories. To give a relatively cohesive explanation of who this guy is and how he got here without writing a novel, I’m going to things down into two key questions: 

What makes the Byronic hero satanic?

How did Satan become romanticized? 

To address the first question, let’s start by talking about the Devil. I’m not going to say that John Milton was the first storyteller to make Satan cool, but he sure did make such a characterization mainstream with Paradise Lost. The most beautiful of God’s angels, Lucifer chafes at God’s omnipotence, convinces a number of his brethren to join him in a rebellion that ultimately fails, is banished to Hell and eternally damned, but stubbornly stands by his choices because, “better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” Milton’s Satan was, to use modern parlance, a beautiful trash fire—a handsome, passionate dreamer whose quick-tempered fervor proves self-destructive in spite of his considerable intellect.  He is, in other words, smart enough to know that his hubris will be his downfall, but too in thrall to his passions for that knowledge to save himself from such a fate. He is a tragic hero as defined by Aristotle, an inherently sympathetic figure not as much in spite of his flaws as because of them. 

not as much in spite of his flaws as because of them. 

Let’s stop for a second so I can convince you Kylo Ren fits this pattern, in case you aren’t convinced already. With his journey from Ben “too much Vader in him” Solo to Kylo Ren, his rejection of his heritage and violent rebellion against Luke Skywalker, he follows the same basic trajectory of Milton’s Lucifer. And as far as personality is concerned, Ben didn’t gel well with the “there is no passion” Jedi code, and unlike Anakin Skywalker, it didn’t even take the development of a particular relationship for things to reach a breaking point. 

Now, as far as how Satan became a romantic figure, we need to make a stopover with the Romantics because the journey from Romantic to romantic is really just semantics. Romanticism was a prominent intellectual and artistic movement in Western culture that took place in the late 18th and 19th centuries and encompassed everything from literature and painting to architecture and music. It emphasized emotion, spontaneity, irrationality, and the individual with a particular focus on subjectivity, and is generally regarded as a reactionary movement—a rebuttal against the rationalism that defined the Enlightenment.

Romantics loved Milton’s Satan. “My favorite hero, Milton’s Satan,” Robert Burns gushed, lauding Satan’s “intrepid, unyielding independence,” “desperate daring,” and “noble defiance of hardship.” That Byron, one of his contemporaries, would channel his admiration for the same figure into a series of mercurial protagonists that would codify an archetype is hardly surprising. While crediting Byron with inventing the Byronic hero is a significant stretch considering the archetype is really just Satan rebranded, there is one key component of this character that Byron did add to the equation, and that is a particular kind of longing that a number of commentators have likened to homesickness. “Love is homesickness,” Sigmund Freud wrote in his seminal essay on the Uncanny. In terms of understanding the human mind, Freud is one small step above total quack, but as far as narrative theory is concerned he made some compelling arguments, this being one of them. As Deborah Lutz says in her essay “Love as Homesickness: Longing for a Transcendental Home in Byron and the Dangerous Lover Narrative,” “the Byronic hero often[…] is a criminal, an outlaw who is not only self-exiled, but actively, hatefully, works against society as a murderous pirate,” yet also often feels, “pains of remorse, not only for his crime but also for his self-inflicted homelessness.” Kylo Ren, with his laments of “I’m being torn apart,” and “let the past die, kill it if you have to” rhetoric interspersed with explosive bouts of self-loathing, could not be more emblematic of this facet of the Byronic hero if he tried. 

All of this helps explain what makes this archetype emotionally engaging, but not how “self-hating emotional clusterfuck” became sexy. In order to get to the bottom of that, we actually need to go back quite a bit. In Western culture, sexuality, death, and evil have been birds of a feather since the nascence of Christianity, which took vague correlations between these concepts already present in several Greek mythological figures and ran with them. While the Devil is often depicted as a hideous beast, the concept that he might also take the form of a man—specifically, an attractive one—dates back centuries (Lucifer was the prettiest, remember), and is apparent in a number of surviving records of witch trial confessions detailing demonic encounters. But taking on a handsome face is not the only attribute frequently bestowed upon Satan and his kin. As Toni Reed writes in her book Demon Lovers and their Victims in British Fiction, “identifying Satan and other demons with sexuality, especially with huge phalluses, may well trace back to Greek mythology.”

That’s right. Satan has serious BDE. Do with that information what you will.

It’s worth noting that the Byronic hero is ultimately a beloved romantic fantasy not because it represents something many people want in real life, but precisely the opposite, much like0 how enjoying seeing the lions at the zoo doesn’t mean you want one in your house. He’s a darkly tempting, narratively intriguing prospect that is enjoyable to experience vicariously through fiction, a Pandora’s box that can be opened and then closed again without repercussion. Times and tastes change and the Byronic hero evolves to suit them—devil, tempestuous gentleman, wannabe Sith—but his defining characteristics and their guilty pleasure appeal are eternal.

[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Essay代写：BoJack Horseman

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- BoJack Horseman，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了《马男波杰克》。《马男波杰克》以喜剧为标签，但同时具备着许多致郁性元素，是一部有着悲剧内核的喜剧。该剧设定在普通人类和拟人化动物共同生活的世界，主角波杰克是一个被拟人化了的、被许多问题所困扰的好莱坞过气名马。《马男波杰克》不仅仅是围绕着马男波杰克，他的朋友们也都有各自的人生问题，把人生中所遭遇的困境挫折、个人自身的动摇与危机，全都撕开了展示给观众，每个观众总能在其中看到自己���影子，看到自己的生活困境和挣扎着改变的样子。

BoJack Horseman was released by NetFlix in 2014, and now has five seasons with 60 episodes and one Christmas special. Season 6 will return in September 2019. The play is labeled with comedy, but at the same time has many elements of melancholy, is a comedy with a tragic core. The show has been well received by the audience and media since its debut. The freshness of the second and third seasons on rotten tomatoes is 100%, and the rating of the fifth season on douban is above 9. On weibo, WeChat and other media platforms, you can see a large number of articles and pictures related to this play, which are widely spread among the contemporary youth groups. It is the most popular and most tragic comedy.

The show is set in the common human and anthropomorphic animals live together in the world, the main character bojack is a anthropomorphic, is troubled by many problems Hollywood famous horse; His human partner Todd lives in his home and is an asexual; Bojack's manager and ex-girlfriend princess Caroline is a pink cat image, she is crazy about work and at the same time eager to have a child to save her life; Diane, the woman who wrote bojack's autobiography, is smart, talented and thoughtful, but she also has a deep loss like bojack. The play is not only around the male wave jack ma, his these friends also have their own problems in life, the writers to the difficulties encountered by a setback in life, the individual's own shake and crisis, tear all the show to the audience, each audience can see his shadow, see their life and struggle to change.

This series by portraying the character, the plot of the story narration expresses the human uniqueness, and to tell the audience, the life is not equal to idea, met with setbacks, or even just simply not happy, it's not your fault, this is will happen to everyone, and you are you, do not escape, don't make more trouble for yourself, to face it. The drama also USES the value of communication to complete the transformation from "zhiyu" drama to "cure" drama.

Postmodernism is a trend of thought in art, social culture and philosophy that took place in Europe and America in the 1960s and became popular in the west in the 1970s and 1980s. Its essence lies in abandoning the basic premise of modernity and its normative content. Habermas pointed out: "the modern view of man changes with different beliefs. This belief is driven by science, which believes in the infinite progress of knowledge, society and improvement." The key feature of modernity, in berman's view, is its double-edged nature: the change that disrupts tradition is exciting, but the loss of certainty of the old is frightening. Modern people for the uncertainty of panic, in their presence, the meaning is not clear in funeral culture, philosopher Charles Taylor is put forward in the origins of the self, is the most typical ethical dilemma of modern significance of the loss of feeling, or feel that life is meaningless, without direction, there is no certainty.

"Postmodern" is a new development of "modern". Hegel's enlightenment grand narrative was subverted in the post-modern era, and "the death of the subject" became a very popular concept, with de-centralization, loss of subjectivity and subversion of reason. The self - confident, rational individual knows within the vast system that he is an insignificant individual. Cultural plane, industrialization, vulgarization, fast food, fragmentation, the post-modern literature and art in the modernist literature and art of the anti-rational, to show the individual's inferiority, loneliness, rebellion and wild tendency, further play, and add anti-depth, anti-elite culture, anti-aesthetic, anti-form and other new content.

In the postmodern state, lyotard pointed out that the post-modern society is a society based on the computer industry. Knowledge, as a productive force, is embodied as a symbol of power. This leads to the basic social contradictions into contradictions between people, people and their own contradictions. With the extensive penetration of culture into all areas of commodities, consumer culture emerged, which reduced the status of spiritual products from the noble to the status of ordinary commodities, and spiritual production became commodity production. In order to adapt to the supply and demand relationship of commodities, these cultural products need to constantly change forms to meet the needs of mass consumption. The reason why the American TV series BoJack Horseman can attract wide attention and spread is precisely because the banter and dissolution of the weak resistance of individuals to the background of the era reflected in the TV series.

Foucault in the order of things, put forward the "death of man", the "death of man" is here as a knowledge form and ideology of their deaths, foucault believes that the disappearance of the submission for the god of death are synonymous, god and man could have been conditions are explained, and god is god, and man is god overlooking, god is dead, "death". The death of people makes human beings more unable to find a clear and meaningful sense of existence, which is also a feature of the culture of mourning. This feature is expressed through the anthropomorphic treatment of the characters in this American TV series.

BoJack Horseman's world assumes that human beings live together with anthropomorphic human beings, and the differences between species in different images are not as strict as the natural laws in the real objective world. The characters in the play can be divided into human images and non-human images. However, the establishment of such different characters shows no opposition of any species in the play. For example, natural enemies such as cats and mice not only get along peacefully in the play, but also fall in love. In the world setting of "horse man", the characters, whether animal images or human images, are all essentially human after being anthropomorphic. However, this "person" is not an ideological person's idea, but an individual with difference and diversity. For example, the image of this character is a dog, and he will have an unquenchable interest in picking up bones and balls. However, he is just an independent individual with a hobby, and his image is the embodiment of his uniqueness. So in the show, the animal world, the laws of nature are not universal, such as princess Caroline is a cat, her boyfriend is a mouse, a cat and a mouse to want to have a belong to his two baby, but the main problem is not the problem of different species, but because of who I am, Caroline was an older woman, her body is difficult to give birth to, this is just to express the plight of contemporary older women through Caroline, different animal image is a symbol of individual uniqueness.

Postmodernism believes that there is no eternal and universal value, and gives up the pursuit of "ultimate truth". In the post-modernism view, it is wrong to generalize the living world with logic. Language plays a role in shaping realistic ideas, and derrida believes that language should be reconstructed. Foucault believed that the function of theory no longer discusses the truth, but only criticizes the phenomenon and thinks that theory is just a game of language. Postmodernism regards the dissolution of the center and essence as its main task, and the dissolution of all things is also the dissolution of the legitimacy of all authority. BoJack Horseman's "dispelled golden sentence" is everywhere. The protagonist BoJack doubts everything. In love, BoJack thinks that "the outcome of love is not to hurt others or be hurt, so why love". When it comes to marriage, bojack says, "how do you know what you're going to do when you give the rest of your life to someone else?" Even bojack's philosophy of life is "life is to hit a wall everywhere", "life is just to kick your urethra" and so on, "a lot of such" toxic chicken soup "in the play is actually the banter and digestion of mainstream views in the post-modern context.

In the post-modern era, culture expands unprecedently, and the generalization or popularization of culture makes art have no boundary, which yi hassan calls "intertextual text". This kind of beyond the boundaries of various arts, beyond the boundaries of art and reality, resulting in the disappearance of the opposition between art and non-art, high culture and popular culture. BoJack Horseman has a large number of crossover interludes of other arts in the real world, and the intertexturality is not only reflected in film and television works, film and television characters, film posters and other fields, but also in popular culture, world famous paintings and even social and political satire. Films such as "a generation of proud horse", "war horse", "black hawk down", "three clients in gold", the film and television characters such as director Alfred Hitchcock, Steven spielberg, quentin, actor Daniel, margarita, Andrew, Kate, moreover is the emergence of the painting, Andy warhol and Keith haring pop art, fauvism Matisse's "dance", the German expressionism Franz marek's "blue horse no. 1", David hockney's portrait of the artist ", etc. All kinds of art in BoJack Horseman go beyond boundaries, which further illustrates that art is no longer a static text, but a process of action.

Baudrillard believes that postmodernism is the era of nihilism, which holds that the world, life and human existence have no objective significance, purpose value or internal order. The antonym of nihilism is existence. The content of existentialism lies in overcoming nihilism, trying to solve the problem of human living condition revealed by nihilism, and finding human value beyond reason. That's what BoJack Horseman's show is all about. If life is meaningless, what should we do?

Most of the characters in BoJack Horseman live in the pain of existential nothingness, living in a meaningless world. We can have the meaning and value of existence, but this value must be created and maintained by ourselves. This creation can be done through the free choice of things, but the choice is also painful. Bojack is always in a desperate mood, he is desperate to have no choice or too many choices to decide, he is desperate to explore who I am, and he is desperate not to be his expected image. It's not just bojack, but every character in the show has this desperation, and Todd is constantly exploring his sexuality, even as he confirms that he's asexual, while still searching for meaning. Princess Caroline has always worked feverish hours to escape anxiety and create her own value by becoming a mother. Kierkegaard believed that the anxiety of choice comes from the uncertainty after each choice. We are free to take responsibility for our choice, and such responsibility brings anxiety. Bojack said, "I'm responsible for my own happiness? I can't even be responsible for my own breakfast." To express anxiety. The way to solve this anxiety is to accept the absurdity of reality. Camus believed that the universe was meaningless, and it was an absurd contradiction for humans to find meaning and reason in it. Existentialism is a way of accepting the absurdity of reality, coping with the meaningless universe with the meaning created by oneself, and trying to be a meaningful existence in the meaningless world. True heroism, after all, is to love life after seeing it for what it is.

If modern art works can still bring some comfort and pleasure to the audience in a consistent form, then post-modern art works no longer take comfort from perfect forms and share the same taste collectively. BoJack Horseman breaks through the old forms with his unique style. He does not tell the so-called grand narrative, but reflects on his own social psychology, discusses the contradiction between man and himself in the post-modern context, and still provides meaning and hope in the context of existential nihilism.

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The Best Books to Read to Inspire your Travels

The Best Books to Read to Inspire your Travels

Books allow you to escape into a world of adventure and excitement, but for most readers, they then have to go back to their mundane livesLuckily for gap year students you have the chance to have an adventure for yourself, discovering what freedom really is. However, if your still not quite sure that being away from home is your thing, or you just don't know where to go look no further because here is a list of some of the best, award-winning, books that will definitely inspire you to pack your bags and go on an adventure for yourself.

1. On the Road- Jack Kerouac (1957)

On The Road is famous for its ground-breaking style and rapid pace, portraying a world of defying convention. This semi-biographical novel takes its readers on the wacky, energetic, dangerous road trip of a lifetime through 1950's America. Sal Paradise documents the places, people and stories him and his hell-raiser friend, Dean Moriaty, pick up along the way. Obsessed with drugs, alcohol and women, this novel epitomises the meaning of freedom Although I wouldn't quite recommend taking travel ideas from this book, it will certainly make you want to get out and explore the world

QUOTE: the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing.. but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night

2. The Beach- Alex Garland (1996)

Garland's novel is about a few backpackers in Thailand, who, through strange events, come across an Asian Utopia. On this beautiful island lives a self-sufficient community. Although at first this seems like the ideal existence for our freedom seeking protagonist, this garden of Eden idea doesn't last long. The Beach is one of the most captivating books around-backpacking to the extreme! And although it does get a bit dark towards the end, the authors descriptions of South East Asia are simply gorgeous Still not convinced? Watch the trailer of the great film adaptation (and who doesn't want to see Leonardo di Caprio at his finest)

QUOTE: And me? I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it's not some place you can look for. Because it's not where you go. It's how you feel for a moment in your life when you're a part of something. And if you find that moment It lasts forever.

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3. Into the wild Jon Krakauer (1996)

Possibly one of the most captivating books on the list, Into the Wild is about a boy who has had enough of his seemingly perfect 'American dream' life, and decides to hitchhike to Alaska. Once in Alaska he treks into the wilderness north of Mt McKinley I won't give away the rest, but be assured it is deeply moving. His search for enlightenment, through solitude and contact with nature, is something that will make you want to drop everything and escapeone of the best books around.

QUOTE: The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.

4. Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure Sarah Macdonald (2002)

Sarah Macdonald's 'Holy Cow' captures, in an incredibly humorous tone, the unfortunate trip of a journalist to India. Finding it hot, poverty stricken and unpleasant, she swears never to return. It is only several years later when she follows a lover out again that she realised its spectacular beauty and individualism. This book will definitely make you want to explore the culture-filled lands of India probably more enjoyable for the females out there

QUOTE: India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is also true. It's rich and poor, spiritual and material, cruel and kind, angry but peaceful, ugly and beautiful, and smart but stupid. It's all the extremes.

5. A cook's Tour: global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines- Anthony Bordain (2001)

This book explores the world whilst looking for the beast meals each place has to offer, so if you're a fan of foodlike so many of us are, this book is a must read. It steers away from the expensive food so is also great have for a reference if you find yourself in one of these countries. Its meals and recipes are too delicious to be read on an empty stomach.

QUOTE: They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forget that the Russians any Russian can drink you under the table. What is love? Love is eating twenty-four ounces of raw fish at four o'clock in the morning.

6. The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia Paul Theroux (1988)

The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his intrepid journey by train through Asia. He recounts the epic routes he went on, people he met and stories he heard. He describes the dangerous positions he found himself in, as well as the idyllic landscape he came across. This book will definitely encourage the inter-railer in you to blossom.

QUOTE: Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.

7. The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway (1926)

This all-time classic, The Sun Also Rises, is sure to make you want to run with the bulls in Pamplona. The book is based on a group of British expatriates living in France. They decide to leave their wild, hedonistic nightlife, to travel to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermn. Here they witness the running of bulls and bull fights, and the moral dissolution that comes with them. Hemingway captures the essence of the post-World War 1 generation in this powerful and beautifully written book.

QUOTE: Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.

The places, people and journey's all of these authors create for their characters has made for a deeply inspiring list of books However, if you're still looking for inspiration and don't have enough time to read ALL of these, head over to our Gap Advice blog about the best films to watch that will inspire your travels.

The post The Best Books to Read to Inspire your Travels appeared first on .

[ismael37olson]

Life is What You Do

I discovered the cast recording of Zorba in college and have been in love with it ever since. But I honestly never thought I would ever even see it onstage, much less get to work on it. Every time I mentioned it to my musical theatre friends, at least one person would say, "It's so depressing!" Well, it's not. In fact, it's the opposite of depressing; sure, it's dark, but it's genuinely life-affirming. Now maybe in clumsy directors' or actors' hands this story can get bogged down in the darkness and miss all the light. But as written, as conceived, it is not depressing. And our audiences during the first half of our run confirm that every night. The word I hear most after performances is "wonderful." People are really overwhelmed at the fun and the powerful emotions of this show. As usual, our reviews have been incredibly positive. Here's just a taste of what the critics have said... "Filled with passion and genuine exuberance." – Tina Farmer, KDHX "A real revelation… a genuine must see.” – Chris Gibson, BroadwayWorld "Another home run for New Line." – Kevin Brackett, ReviewSTL “A lived-in marvel of beauty and honesty.” – Paul Friswold, The Riverfront Times "Intriguing and intoxicating. . . Zorba the musical will lift your spirits with its wisdom and its zest and make you appreciate what you have all the more." – Mark Bretz, Ladue News Not bad, huh? Though oddly, a couple reviews have complained that there's not much plot, that it's just a series of episodes. But that's only true if you think Zorba is the protagonist. He's not. Nikos is the protagonist, the one who learns and grows and changes. Zorba is a Wise Wizard figure, like Obi-Wan Kenobi or Jiminy Cricket. If you understand that Nikos is our hero, then it's a very straight, linear path from incident to incident, as Nikos learns something from each episode, each encounter, and slowly accesses more and more of his emotions and his "animal" nature, leading to his eventual enlightenment. He follows a classic hero myth trajectory. I wish reviewers would learn to admit they don't understand a show rather than blaming the show for their shortcomings... It has been a massive privilege to work on this beautiful show, to unlock its complexities and ambiguities, to lead this smart, insightful, talented, fearless cast. This whole cast is really, really strong, but I have to give a special shout-out to Kent Coffel, who is giving an extraordinary, utterly fearless performance in the title role, and the whole damn show rests on his shoulders, so...

But there's one thing that delights me more than the rest. The first lyric of the show, "Life is what you do while you're waiting to die," is pretty intense, and it always draws a few uncomfortable laughs. What kind of musical is this? (They softened that lyric for the 1980s revival, though lyricist Fred Ebb hated the new version.) But when that same line comes back at the end of the show in the short epilogue, suddenly those words don't seem harsh or pessimistic anymore; now, with the whole show as backdrop, with Zorba's unique philosophy underscoring everything, now those words just sound right. I see people nodding at this point every night. Of course that's what life is, and we should celebrate that! Life is just time, and what we do with that time is up to us. Talk about freedom! If you haven't seen Zorba yet, come join us this weekend or next. I promise you will love it. The adventure continues... Long Live the Musical! Scott from The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre http://newlinetheatre.blogspot.com/2017/03/life-is-what-you-do.html