#the kind of tradition that would put an American in a coma

[urfriendmidas]

I literally spent 20min in a park at night, running to find a human clit just for some stupid shit for my uni class.

[prairiedust]

The Further Folklore of Supernatural

Here’s a little more folklore meta in light of how season 15 has been playing out if anyone is game. I genuinely thought that Moriah would be the end of the folklore stuff and tossed out “Folk the Author” as an “epilogue,” so this is probably less of an addendum than it is a waymarker as I try to continue to parse these themes into the last seven episodes.

Welp. *waves hands at everything* THIS is not how anyone expected 2020 to go. Things got a little bit big and I stopped thinking about Spn in light of needing that energy elsewhere. But I also don’t want this crapfest to ruin how I fan my favorite show, so here I go again. I will attempt a TL;DR, too!

If you’ve read my old “folklore” analysis here about how I think fairy tales and all their baggage fit into Supernatural season 14, you know that I believe Castiel has stepped into a Sleeping Beauty type story, and that coincidentally a few themes and symbolism from Snow White kept popping up around Dean. (I hold Sam to be a Protagonist in the modern “literary fiction” sense of the word, but emotionally, thematically, and narratively he’s always been a little inaccessible to me. I finally understood him when the death-of-the-author plot surfaced, and I’ll get to Sam eventually here. And Jack, there’s a little Jack in here, too.) 

If you would rather have the TL;DR than read several thousands of words about how folklore and myth *might* be abstractly connected to an American genre show, all I can say is that I tried. The textual support is all in the folklore posts. This is as succinct a summary as I could fabricate. At least I’m not gonna talk about Sam and bricolage and freeplay! This is an almost completely theory-free post! If you don’t want to read or don’t need a refresher and just want to know how this has been working in 15, you can scroll down to “END OF TL;DR”.

So, to catch up, I’m not talking about the folklore and mythology that this show has always relied on for plot and MOTWs. I wasn’t drilling down into urban legends like Hook Man or world folk monsters like shtrigas or pishtacos. By “folklore” I mean the study of storytelling tropes and tale types that have been with us for ages. One of the many subtexts of the end of the series. I’ve been tracking this because I think it’s fun to see how fairy tale imagery and mythology might layer preconscious suggestions into the text of the show. I personally think it was loud enough to be seen easily, but more than likely viewers felt unsettled, felt cheered, or felt like they knew what was coming? I’m curious to know. Anyway.

When we found out that Kelly Kline was going to name her baby “Jack” waaaaay back in season 12, things started chiming. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack the Giant Killer. Jack Tales. Jack is a powerful Western character, sort of a cross between a noble hero and a trickster, featuring in stories that often blur lines and boundaries. He is both the poor man’s youngest son and the equal to King Arthur’s heir. Jack is both everyman and extraordinary. Jack is so cool, I wish I had more time to parse that but his qualities are not subtle in the text/subtext, anyway.

But back to my half-crack reading of seasons 14 and 15. 

Once upon a time in Supernatural, there were two fairy tales being told. Both fairy tales are found all over the world and in many forms, but they all can be grouped together because they all contain shared elements of the same basic plot or shared themes, and these two in particular are sister stories. So when I mention “Sleeping Beauty,” I’m talking about lots of different versions of the folk tale, and the same for “Snow White,” which can be found in one form or another in storytelling traditions all over the place. It is both helpful and irritating that these are both Disney movies, too.

Jack makes an allusion to Sleeping Beauty in 14x03 The Scar while talking to Castiel-- it’s the kind of subtextual flash that in and of itself means little and proves nothing, but then beginning with The Scar we got three stories in a row that dealt with “sleepers” of some sort-- Lora in 14x03 doomed to die because of a witch’s spell, Stuart in 14x04 Mint Condition in a coma because of a ghost attack, and Sasha’s father in 14x05 Nightmare Logic under the spell of a clever djinn. It’s powerful subtext, like a soft light that bathes these episodes in the color of fairy tale and makes Jack’s Dramatic Swoon at the end of Optimism all the more Dramatic-- subtext amplifying the plot. Jack goes to Heaven, but is eventually cornered by the Shadow, who wants him in the Empty where he will sleep forever-- the Shadow being an entity who has claimed the husks of dead angels since their inception and thus implies a “curse” laid on Jack from the moment he came into being-- but Castiel, who is ever a thief in oh so many ways, makes a bargain with the Shadow and essentially takes over the consequences of Jack’s Sleeping Beauty story (hence my rarely used but hilarious tag “Castiel Thief of Endings.”)

Now that we know from 14x20 Moriah that the Shadow and Billie the Reaper are, if not allies, at least working together when Jack is awakened in the Empty, does that mean that Castiel’s deal is still on the table, or has that fate been thwarted? *pounds table* Was Jack’s death and Chuck’s rise as a “greater threat” in 14x20 enough to shift Castiel’s ending? It’s the kind of subtextual question that lends tension to the narrative and it’s what I am here for. 

Well, speaking of thwarted expectations, Dean’s arc was being shadowed by a Snow White tale type. We all know Snow White but why don’t I sum it up anyway, since Disney messed up the folktale ending lol. Snow White is cast out of her home by her jealous stepmother (and echoes of the stepmother’s magic mirror show up in 15x02 Gods and Monsters) who sends her huntsman to kill her; the dude can’t do it and turns the girl loose in the forest instead. Snow White joins a band of outsiders who live in the forest-- in the Disney movie and the Grimms’ tale they are dwarfs, in some versions she happens upon a band of robbers-- and they love her very much and we presume she’s safe for the rest of her life; Michael mysteriously turns Dean loose to join Sam’s gathering of hunters, however we know, like Stepmom, Michael is still out there. The stepmother finds out that Snow White is actually alive and contrives to kill her herself. Eventually succeeding, Snow White appears to die and is usually laid to rest in a crystal casket/glass coffin. Her stepmother’s machinations have _stolen her agency_ (further paralleling Dean’s possession by AU!Michael.) A Handsome Prince stumbles upon Snow White, is besmitten with her, and he asks her protectors if he can have her, as one does. Leaving the Disney adaptation aside, Snow White awakens when whatever item that has caused her death-like state is dislodged (piece of apple in her throat) or removed (magic corset) or withdrawn (poisoned hairpin) by her protectors. Snow White is a story about the community of the dwarves of band of robbers or adopted family caring deeply for her, and when Dean starts making his own crystal casket, the ma’lak box, in which he will ride out eternity in tormented symbiosis with Apocalypse Michael, he has to rely on his family to help him see the plan through. However, here’s where Jack-- who is as much a chaos engine as his surrogate father Castiel if not more so-- steps in and ruins the ending. Jack smites Michael. Dean Winchester is saved. Again. To put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, Jack later destroys the ma’lek box entirely. 

That was quite the surprise ending… for one of the stories.

Was the end of season 14 the end of the Sleeping Beauty theme, also?

END OF TL;DR

I quit writing about “folklore” for a while, but that doesn’t mean it stopped being a theme. It just stopped being fun to write about as the story got more and more dark, and when it transmuted into two parallel themes of “folklore” or storytelling by the people versus Death of the Author--or storytelling by a lauded authority-- and there was so much angst about the boundaries of Chuck’s powers, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy that. I did distill my thoughts about Sam’s new arc in the DotA plot, which I thought would subsume the folktale themes but hey, we still have folktales around, too. I mean, we have Sam and we have Dean, and we have two “literary” subtexts, or maybe rather two subjects about the nature of story, something that I thought was a little bit of a surprise.

Storytelling was a Feature of 15x07 Last Call, both in the sense that Lee and Dean swap new stories and tell old tales of their adventures together as they catch up, but also in the sense that we got additional “text”-- hints of a backstory where John and Dean hunted with Lee in that swampy long-ago “Stanford era,” and again we get storytelling when _Lee recounts how he ended up keeping a marid in his basement_. There is also an allusion to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights in that episode that I yelled about in a meta that I never put on the interwebs, but the “marid” is in a specific tale in many editions of that collection, and thus calls in not only a different folktale tradition but the concept of a framed/nested narrative, which I believe will be important to understanding the last episodes of the series, but that’s an aside. In 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t In Heaven, Castiel _tells Michael the story_ of how everyone ended up where they are now to convince him to help. And Michael and Adam’s allyship, if not friendship, was probably the best subversion of any “storytelling” expectation we’ve ever had on this show. Belphagor set us up for “room full of crazy” or something, but, no. We got symbiosis. 

That almost sums up how I’ve been viewing the last “era” of spn. This wasn’t in the master post, but I shouted a lot about underworlds before 15x09 Purgatory 2: Return to Purgatory, and then stopped shouting because I had to ferment for a while. Also, as has been mentioned, the world turned to crap. But talking to other meta writers during the ramp up to the resumption of the season helped me realize just why this reading of myth to folktales to literature feels so right.

Underworlds and Otherworlds…. Everybody has crossed into an “underworld” or three in Supernatural, it’s really nbd. It was actually surface-level plot in season 13. By the time 15x09 rolled around, our heroes are just, like, strolling in and out of “sealed off” Hell after doing a level one spell and chilling with Billie in the Empty and even that Purgatory trip didn’t have the same feeling of danger that, say, crossing into the AU did. But also, we’re at the point where subtext is leading us to a _satisfactory_ ending. Where before we had serial text, like a cumulative tale type-- “The House that Jack Built”-- which just kept adding more and more plot, we’re hurtling o’er the apex of Freytag’s pyramid now and things are getting loud.

But they’re also getting very shifty.

I wrote a little bit about Sam Winchester successfully reviving Eileen in 15x06 Golden Time and the “Orpheus and Eurydice” symbolism of him keeping his back to her. (I’m not linking it because it’s so, so rough.) But because Sam is not an underworld hero, not completely-- I see him as a modern Protagonist coming to terms in a psychoanalytical model with things like mortality, fallibility, and mastery-- maybe bildungsroman, even -- he was able to subvert the tragic ending of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice because it is not “his” story. But if I were pressed to find a mythic or folk tale type to measure Sam against, I could. I would probably sideye “the sorcerer’s apprentice” trope (ATU 325-The Magician and his Pupil :D ) which began as a poem that entered European folklore on different fronts. (and weirdly, that story was also Disnified in Fantasia. That’s probably more my own limitation as a gen x american lol than anything coming from the writer’s room.)

Dean got his moment in Purgatory where he was able to finally come to grips with his anger and heal the rift between himself and Castiel because Purgatory is a different kind of underworld. Dean is a successful threshold-crosser, having crossed that boundary out of Purgatory before, but in 15x09, his prayer to Castiel is all a subtextual evocation of doing the emotional and mental work of therapy, which Sam, as a modern protagonist, is usually caught up in. The mythic hero also deals with mortality, failibilty, and mastery, but in different terms. I hope I’m doing an okay job peeling apart these nuances that I’m seeing.

Since Castiel accompanied Dean to Purgatory, and in the past made his own wildly successful incursion into and out of Hell with Dean’s soul, and was the one in The Trap who actually retrieved the Leviathan blossom, Castiel counts as an underworld hero, too, but you can pull the lever and send the tumblers spinning again and make him a fairy tale character in that he has made this Bargain with the Empty which is both in the “modern” tradition of subverting a fairy tale, and the tale type “deal with the devil.” Or he could be seen as a modern protagonist in that he’s lowkey grappling with questions of selfhood and identification. “I am an angel of the lord.” “I am no one.” “It’s Steve, now.” “You are nothing.” “I am an angel.”

We even got an episode that playfully explored the concept of “hero” by subverting our expectations (Sam and Dean were rescued by, of all people, an upgraded Garth.) It was called The Hero’s Journey, after the Joseph Campbell book about mythic heroes.... !!! Like, what??? !!!! I didn’t even have anything to say about that episode, it just rocked. The “meta” was just all out there in plot, like the olives and boiled eggs in a 1950’s gelatin recipe. 

Some of this slipperiness in the subtext points right at the study of folklore and the (admittedly Eurocentric at first) efforts to transform a “soft science” into something approaching scientific rigor. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale index is today a codifying or cataloguing tool, with which anthropologists and literature scholars can line up stories based on the motifs found within them-- it is useful for cataloguing tales, making comparative studies, and for trying to trace these stories back through human history to find the One First Story of that type, for instance the ur-story that led to Snow White. When did people first start telling that tale, where, how did it spread, and why are we still telling it today? The danger in using the ATU index is that by stripping a story down to it’s bones, we lose the story, if that makes sense. The beauty of using the ATU index is that you find many, many more interconnected stories. It’s sort of a paradox. Some scholars criticize the ATU, claiming that one could take a random selection of these motifs and shuffle them to create a story and, you sort of could? That’s the beauty of the system. 

So that brings us to Jack. I feel like Jack, as in Jack of all Trades, is anything that the narrative needs him to be. As far as I can find, “Jack” is not a “tale type.” He shows up alongside any number of them-- sometimes as a trickster, sometimes as a hero, almost always as a kind of slippery character. In the first folklore post, I invested many words in exploring Dabb’s obsession with threes-- AU Michael asks three beings what they desire, asks his human victim to guess his name three times, then we follow three sleeper stories, and so on. The original TFW was three people. But Jack makes four. 

What is Jack’s story going to be?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And speaking for a sec about the origins of myth and folklore-- what about ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE in the world? Are they lowkey churning the matrix of reality on their own and generating their own content, like Becky and her AO3 stories and mackettes? 

*¯\_(ツ)_/¯ intensifies*

It all just feels so good at this point, even the peril that I feel surrounding Castiel.

I *think* this will be the last of the longform metas before the end of the series. I mean, I can only hope so. I’ll drop some stuff about individual episodes that might be applicable as I rewatch, and I might clean up my post about Last Call and drop it on here, but I just wanted to kind of hold this up as a mile marker before the Final Seven air.

[theparanormalperiodical]

The True Story Behind An American Werewolf In London (1981), And The 9 REAL Werewolves That You Might Bump Into This Full Moon

What makes a horror film a cult classic?

Is it a suspenseful and seriously-addictive plot? Is it iconic characters with quick-witted one liners? Or is it the way the director throws out the old rule book and redefines the genre forever?

An American Werewolf in London (1981) doesn’t score so highly on any of those questions, but despite hitting the big screen amongst a herd of werewolf-inspired movies, it is officially a cult classic.

But why? 

With CGI so bad it’ll rival a low-budget episode of Buffy, and with sex scenes so bad it’ll rival a high-budget episode of Buffy, this Yankee doggo wouldn’t need a silver bullet to be floored at the box office these days.

However, when the hum of the theatre-goers melted away into a hush as the opening shot of the Yorkshire Moors back in ‘81, this film was set to terrify the audience.

Jump-scares worthy of Annabelle 36: Yes, This Doll Still Ain’t Dead redefined the genre, with the shockingly realistic transformation scene taking centre stage.

Back in the 1980s, you didn’t see stuff like this. 

That’s why to the previous generation An American Werewolf In London is considered one of the most terrifying movies to date. But to me, the real terror doesn’t lie in the engorging snout of the American tourist, nor his every-decaying gap-year bestie. 

It’s how realistic this movie is to real werewolves.

Today’s post is all about how accurate the film’s portrayal of the werewolf is to the legends of the beast, and the roll-call of the 9 most famous real werewolves.

Let’s get spooky!

First, Let’s Recap Of An American Werewolf In London (1981)

The horror genre is infamous for many things.

The grotesque violence against women, female characters with less complexity than a box of condoms, and plots thinner than the women cast as final girls.

This film is no different, but it's the latter point that really matters here. 

The story starts with two American tourists who decided to spend their Gap Year in England. 

Yeah, me neither.

But instead of having an emotional connection with an elephant in India, they stumble into a cosy little pub named The Slaughtered Lamb. Chockful of secretive villagers and satanic imagery - oh, and a vague warning about the full moon - our scene is set. 

Basics, they tell ‘em: “Teach english to the primitive villagers all you want, just don’t go on the moors or you will get pregnant and die” 

Guess who gets lost and ends up on the moors. What’s that I hear? Mysterious howling that is getting closer to them? 

One of the pair - Jack - is attacked first, and is mauled by the wolf-like being. David is attacked too, but the pub-goers shoot it before it has a chance to rip his throat out.

But moments before he passes out from the pain, he does not see a creature. He sees a naked man, instead. 

(Dun dun duh)

David wakes up 3 weeks later in a London hospital with no recollection of the attacks, but a policeman fills him in, claiming he was attacked by a lunatic. David’s dead pal Jack then makes the first of his appearances in a kind of ghostly-corpsy form. He lets him know that what attacked them was a werewolf, and that David is now one. 

Jack urges David to commit suicide to prevent an attack he cannot control, and to end the curse that makes Jack appear as a ghost that will continue with the existence of the bloodline. During his stint in hospital, he falls for a nurse who he shacks up with when he leaves hospital.

During his first full moon, he stalks the streets of London, slaughtering several in the process. He wakes up in a wolf enclosure at the London Zoo, unharmed by the creatures and with no memory of last night.

Eventually, he begins to piece together the reality of his, uh, werewolf-ness, and attempts to prevent another massacre by getting himself arrested, but he fails. He is drawn into an Adult Cinema by Jack, and meets the ghosts of his other victims who helpfully suggest suicide methods for him to try. 

David transforms for the last time, and continues his attack into central London until he is cornered in an alley. His nurse-lover rocks up, and attempts to calm him. For a moment this seems to work, but he is then shot by police and dies. 

A sequel did follow up this film, and and sees a similar story set in Paris. The setting isn’t the only difference, however; this time we see an underground werewolf society that’s looking for ways to control the, uh, werewolfness using drugs. 

How Accurate Is This To The Legend Of The Werewolf?

Haunted houses, mass murderers, and the creepy details of infamous court cases - it doesn’t take much to justify typing ‘based on a true story’ onto a movie poster.

But the original inspiration behind this film doesn’t just follow one vague story about a vague ghost doing vague ghost things like taking that 10 quid out of your coat pocket even though you spent it on that candle from TK Maxx and are officially in denial that you have a problem it’s not a problem mum it just really rare to find that candle okay these are american imports.

The writer-director, Max Landis, wanted to focus his film on something real, on “something where you really [didn’t] have to suspend disbelief”.

To Landis, Werewolves are an “international” monster, with each individual culture having some man-beast supposedly roam their lands and ravage their communities. He even cited historical cases like in France or in Wales where people were burnt to death for their afflictions, cases that will get their attention later in this post.

So if this film was directly based on the legend of the werewolf, what was the legend of the werewolf?

*Inhale*

A werewolf is a human that can shapeshift into a wolf having been cursed by another, or by an affliction from another werewolf during the night of the full moon. 

Then again, tales tell of drinking water from the puddle created by a wolf’s footprint or wearing a fur belt too much that can cause one to become a ‘wolf-man’.

Scientists have debunked claims stretching back as far as 27 AD with a variety of medical causes unexplained in years gone by, from Lycanthropy (a disorder from which one believes they can transform into a wolf) to Werewolf Syndrome (medical conditions which involve excessive hair growth), to Poryphoria which coincidentally is also used to debunk rumours of vampirism. But the widespread belief that once dominated the world suggests supernatural forces could have been at play, too.

In fact, only in the 18th century did official court cases stop referencing werewolves in Bavaria and Austria.

Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped myths and mysterious stories from still cropping up today. 

Historically, werewolves and witches were often closely aligned, whether the wolves were used by witches for their own purposes, or they were ridden by them. Therefore, a link was forged between witchcraft trials and the hunts for the man-wolves.  

That being said, it wasn’t just witches they were closely allied with: Germanic tradition might have focused on the former associations, but the Slavic countries considered them closely allied with vampires. This belief in werewolves in Europe - the epicentre of the beastly action - emerged in the 14th century, and peaked in 16th century france. 

This is where the first link between the historical cases of wolf-men and the movie emerge. If the number of werewolf cases grew during one era, this can point to 2 things: that rumours of werewolves fuelled more rumours, or that werewolves were real and thus spreading the curse.

So, when Jack appears as a corpsey-ghosty-being-thing and tells him that the werewolf bloodline needs to end with him, the film conforms to werewolf legends.

Specifically, werewolves were considered to have a variety of give-away traits whether transformed or as a human: unibrows, curled fingernails, low-set ears, and a certain swagger were dead giveaways for werewolves in their human guise. 

Or, when in wolf form, it will bear characteristics such as not having a tail, bearing human eyes and speaking with a human voice. So yes, that scene in Twilight is an accurate depiction of a werewolf. 

But aside from David looking like a wolf during his transformation, one of the key similarities between historic cases and the film is the post-transformation effects:

Having returned to human form, werewolves are often weak and completely debilitated. In fact, severe depressions are often mentioned, too, something that must become pretty annoying if its every 4 weeks. 

Remember when David was in that coma for 3 weeks?

Remember when the ghosts lectured him on suicide methods?

Speaking of folklore mirroring the film, remember the totally-not-creepily-named pub? Ah yes, The Slaughtered Lamb:

The five-pointed star was enough satanic imagery to suggest a divine link to the werewolf that isn’t explored in the movie, but historically curses from gods, saints, and the devil are mentioned. The latter is specifically true for Russia, suggesting this werewolf might be fresh from Mother Russia. 

Oh, and of course, witches supposedly did deals with the devil, suggesting a witchy-satany-link that explains the decor of the pub. 

Given their warnings of a full moon and a desire to protect the young men from their original forays onto the moors, it suggests the decor was put in place as a protection against the supernatural forces haunting the area, or maybe even a deal with the forces to protect the pub or village itself. 

The penultimate parallel is the OG attack itself.

The policeman claims David and Jack were attacked by a lunatic. And if you check out this post on the full moon, you’ll know how well this fits the concept of the werewolf. 

The final key similarity is this: 

The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the power of exhaustion to cure people of werewolf, uh, -ism. The captured victims would be subjected to unruly levels of physical exertion in the hope that it would drive the beast from the body. 

We discover in the second film that the actual ‘cure’ is adrenaline. By engaging in activities which encourage enough adrenaline to rush through the body, the beast can be kept at bay.

This is confirmed by the concept of killing a werewolf in the first film: when the werewolves are shot, they immediately return to human form. 

Quick flashback to GCSE biology, ‘couple dots connected, and here we are.

The 9 Real Werewolves That Have Existed Throughout History And Might Still Exist Today

So - we know that An American Werewolf In London is pretty-gosh-darn-accurate to the legend of the mythical beast that is the werewolf.

But it’s not like werewolves actually exist, do they?

Do they?!

#1 - Pierre Burgot (1502)

The 16th century was a pretty shite time to be alive. If you weren’t dying in childbirth, you were being beheaded for adultery, you dirty b*tch.

Pierre Burgot was facing such a predicament, but his was slightly more furry. Whilst tending his sheep like most french farmers, three men on horseback rocked up and asked him if he’d like to renounce god and follow them, instead. With the promise of protected sheep, he accepted, and was later turned into a wolf as a part of the contract.

Then, in true devil-worshipper-werewolf fashion they terrorised the region, willingly becoming wolves to kill, pillage, and eat innocent civilians. 

When Burgot was eventually attacked during a quick snack, he was discovered in human form, mirroring the movie titling this post.

#2 - Giles Garnier (1573)

A hermit concealed in the woods who may or may not turn into a wolf is a pretty common tale still cropping up today, but back in the 16th century, this was more popular than ever. 

With a taste for childrens, he began to pick off and partially devour young locals. The villagers’ proof of his attacks, however, did not simply come from pinning the attacks on a recluse:

They saw a wolf maul a young boy and followed it to see it transform back into a human form - the human form of Giles Garnier.

Garnier even confessed to his shapeshifting-situation. 

#3 - Perrenette Gandillon (1598)

A 15 year old boy was livin’ his best Middle Ages life when he saw a wolf lunge at his sister. With its human hands it grabbed her and killed her, then switching its attention to him. 

It might have left deep wounds, and he might have died days later, but the boy had just enough time left to cough up a brief description of the hairy hands he saw grab his younger sister - and the scar gracing the wolf’s body.

From here the villagers led a mob to the house of Perrenette Gandillon, a woman who bore the same scar. This was actually a very common way to deduce a werewolf back to its human form. The thing is, they then worked out that it wasn’t just her who was getting wolfy.

Her whole family had actually been spotted in beast-mode, something they later each confessed to. 

(They were even believed to pace on all fours in their prison cells.)

#4 - Jacques Roulet (1598)

This is the ultimate werewolf story, bringing together an ostracised member of a community and family relations that would make Christmas dinner more awkward than my UKIP aunt naming dropping Jacob Rees-Mogg.

When a young boy was found mutilated and two wolves seen, they were hunted down until a man dressed in rags and in a daze emerged from the darkness.

Jacques Roulet was his name; slaughtering innocent children was his game.

It is believed that he and his amigos had been given their powers by the devil himself, and the eventual confession of these amigos supported this claim.

#5 - Peter Stubbe (1582)

Whispers of werewolves have littered court records and conjured up local legends for centuries, but there are some people that stand out from the crowd - this is one of those werewolves.

Peter Stubbe was a well-off farmer who made his name in the community. Unfortunately, how we remember him is different to his community. Supposedly, Stubbe made a pact with the devil, requesting that “at his pleasure he might work his malice on men, women, and children, in the shape of some beast”.

His pact resulted in a murder spree spanning 25 years. By the time he was supposedly discovered as the culprit of the murders haunting Bedburg, he was described as devoid of humanity during his time as a wolf, and he had no memory of his actions once returned to his human form. 

#6 - The Beast of Gevaudan (1764)

Our story starts in 1764, when the residents of Gévaudan started noticing people were dying. Sure, it’s nothing new for 250 years ago, but when their throats were consistently being ripped out, concerns were raised.

With 210 attacks being blamed on these legendary man-eating animals or wolf-dog hybrid, this became a myth all too real for the inhabitants of the area. Lone men, women and children near livestock were the victims of these attacks, suggesting a totally normal beast attack, right?

But when they discovered that only the necks were being targeted, this pointed to much more mythical roots, explaining why we consider this one of the most prominent potential sightings of a werewolf to date.

#7 - The Livonian Werewolf (17th century)

You’d think werewolves would be mysterious marvels of nature, rarely divulging the realities of their lives, right? This guy bucked the trend.

Thiess of Kaltenbrun was a typical Swedish bloke who spent his time practicing folk magic, wearing fur pelts, and becoming a wolf. Widely known to be a werewolf - despite being in his 80s - the authorities brought him in for questioning on an unrelated matter. From there he spilled on his specialist lifestyle.

He claimed he and others of his kind would only change on certain days like Pentecost or Midsummer Night by throwing on a wolf pelt, a common method of becoming the mystical being.

He also claimed that they would kill and ‘gather’ meat in wolfy form, but cook it in human terms. 

Yet the most peculiar point he made was that werewolves were not demonic creatures, but were agents of god. Werewolves would spend their free time travelling to hell to battle the devil and the witches, and bring back the livestock they had stolen, contradicting all other tales we have seen so far.

#8 - The Southend Werewolf (1952)

William Ramsay was only 9 years old when it first happened. One day, he suddenly felt an icy shiver take over his body, a smell like rotting meat float around him, and an aggression overcome his mind. He was shivering, he was growling, he was in-tune to his senses.

He had - or so he claimed - become a werewolf. 

He then finished up his transformation by ripping a fence post out of his garden. Super-human strength was often reported whenever this would overcome him, confirming that all these signs bear a similarity to cases of demonic possession. 

Other events of turning into a werewolf bear similar resemblance, including him attempting to attack and kidnap a prostitute and biting doctors attempting to restrain him. After every event, Ramsay would fail to remember the attacks. 

He even checked himself into a mental hospital in an attempt to get to the bottom of his affliction in the 1980s. They found no explanation for these events.

And it was following these similar cases of him ‘turning’ - including one that involved the police and splashed his story across the papers - that the Warrens decided to pay him a visit whilst in London. They deduced that this was a Demon Animal Spirit. Having been suspicious of his claims prior to their investigation, they then claimed an exorcism was required. So, Ramsay was flown out to the USA, and an exorcism performed by Bishop McKenna occurred. 

At first, the exorcism did fuck all. But it was only when the bishop touched his forward and asked the demon to reveal itself that Ramsay once again began to turn. That was the final time that Ramsay ever became a werewolf.

#9 - A Mysterious Beast Is Killed In Montana (2018)

Strange and unknown creatures are always being killed, captured, and caught on camera. But with the ‘hoax’ label stamped firmly on most of these cases, they often go disregarded. This is not one of the cases.

In May 2018, deep in rural Montana, a creature was shot dead by a rancher. Cloaked in long, grey fur, bearing huge claws and an oversized head, this was no ratified beast.

The authorities had no clue what it was. 

The teeth and paws were too short to belong to a wolf, and the floppy ears and fur did not point to a doggo, either. 

Do You Think Werewolves Exist?

If you liked hearing ‘bout werewolves, I’m sure you’ll love to hear a new ghost story everyday, right?

Tap follow to see a new one in your feed on-the-daily!

[bbrandy2002]

The Diary of Riley Brooks

Entry Two

Wacky Drabble #8: Help me with this, would you?

Coincides with TRH Chapter 13

Some strong Language

Characters belong to Pixelberry

Drabbler Tags: @emceesynonymroll @burnsoslow @sirbeepsalot @jovialyouthmusic @romanticatheart-posts @stopforamoment @dcbbw @jessiembruno @katedrakeohd

Additional tags; I have no idea who is on my permanent tags list anymore😬 I didnt exactly keep up with it 😭 I'll do better. So please let me know so I can get that sorted out.

@ao719 @hopefulmoonobject

September 7

I'm having a baby!

As I sit here trying to let that statement fully sink in, I think about where I was just one year ago today.

I had always dreamt of meeting my Prince Charming, never really expecting to find him. Liam made me realize that fairy tales do exist and sometimes wishes do come true. That sounds so cliche, yet, I don't know any other way to describe what we share together.

He is my heartbeat, my every breath, my reason for existing. Our love is built on passion and longing, his touch excites me and his very presence heats my core. Our bodies joined together, whether fierce or gentle, is pure, unadulterated magic. Liam is my warmth and sincerity, my goodness and truth.

In the depths of my belly, I am carrying the greatest symbol of that love, a part of him and a part of me, a tiny creature that will forever bring us joy.

I spent much of the reception, anxious to find out if I was indeed pregnant. As I wrote yesterday, Savannah admitted to taking a pregnancy test, as well. For whatever reason, possibly one I don't want to ever know, she placed her negative test in the bathroom drawer. Due to Madeleine's incompetence and unwanted presence for this event, she, too, put my test in the drawer. Is there some kind of weird Cordonian tradition I am unaware of that says these test work better in drawers? And why did Savannah leave hers in there? The damn thing was negative. In light of his objection, I have a strong feeling, Mr. Chuck knows more than he is letting on.

Freaked the hell out by Savannah, I knew then, I was the one who was pregnant. I needed air and a moment to think, far away from all the yee-haw bullshit. I sent Liam a text, asking him to meet me in a clearing by the house, I had a surprise for him. Within seconds, he approaches me with a flirtatious smile, looking as if he was ready to fuck me six ways from Sunday. I love that man and I'm always more than willing to participate in his freakish, outdoor sex fetish, but, this wasn't what I had in mind.

After I tell him we are a having a baby, he sweeps me up in his arms, gently placing me back to the ground. His happiness was written all over his face, until it wasn't. He went into Liam mode, panicking about the need to baby proof every room at the Palace and Valtoria. As much as I loved his cute response, I wanted tears dammit. I wanted him on his knees, crying his eyes out, unable to talk, worshipping my stomach. Mick Jagger said you can't always get what you want, but, sometimes you get what you need....well, I needed a sobbing, shaking Liam, is that too much to ask?

We discuss when to tell our friends and because I'm a petty, evil bitch, I decide we should tell them right in the middle of Savannah and Bertrand's reception. You propose at my wedding, I announce the equivalent of the second coming, in the form of my sacred child, at yours. I couldn't care less for the rest of the wedding attendees, but, seeing Hana, Drake, Maxwell and Bertrand delight in our news was exciting.

Afterwards, Liam wants to celebrate in private, which means, we might talk some, but, he still has every intention of getting off tonight. We head upstairs and I was correct in my assumption, he wants to celebrate making the baby by doing what we did to make it. He is a wet panty dropper for sure. And while some ride Harley's and horses, I propped my little pregnant ass on my own stallion and rode him hard. If Barthelemy weren't already out of his coma, me screaming Liam's name when I climaxed, would have awakened the old coot for sure.

If my panties weren't already off, after he sang a lullaby to our baby, that for sure would have melted them away. If he keeps this up, we'll have our own 20 Kids and Counting reality show.

I should have stayed in fucking bed this morning. At breakfast, Bertrand greeted us in kind, while Stick-It-In-A-Drawer Savannah, reminded us all that we are not at court. Why is she still here and not on her honeymoon? Then Leona tells me I can't have a cup of coffee....bitch, I was downing shots like no tomorrow just three days ago with Liv and Hana in Auvernal. This queen will drink a cup of coffee if she damn well pleases. My baby is probably going to come out with two heads.

Like the lovable, little genius he is, Maxwell suggests everyone buys the baby a gift. Guess who further suggested we get these gifts from the local country general store? The same damn place that was using a priceless saddle as a fucking hat holder. I can't even write her name anymore. I have to wonder, why I have been playing second fiddle on Hee-Haw Hell to her during this trip.

So the gang and I pack into our vehicle and head back to said store, where I can share with all of Cordonia that the royal crib was purchased at Wild Chester's Gear and Steer on Bootleg Road. I watched Maxwell fawn over socks, Hana recreated painful memories of lonely tea parties, and Drake...well, Drake's little wooden horse was quite adorable.

I get a call from Olivia, who somehow managed to escape earlier from this shithole than I did. I thought we were amigas now Liv? She actually cried when I told her Liam and I were expecting. I don't know what the hell she is doing in my bedroom, but, if Livvie needs something there, I'm more than happy to help a girl out. She asked me for the most valuable thing in my room, I lied to her and told her it was the royal sceptre. If she only knew the value of the dildo I had in my nightstand....that better be exactly where I left it when I get back.

Back at the ranch, Liam says the five most beautiful, glorious words I have been waiting to here for weeks.....We're almost ready to go....Hot Damn!

Bianca asked me if I thought I could get away without saying goodbye...I already knew the answer was, no. If she only knew how hard I tried about twenty times since arriving to cut tail and run. And damn that heartless, nazi, Leona, she for real dissed my husband! Bitch, I will snap you in half over Liam.

Just when I think I'm finally in the clear, who in the blue fuck put me on a plane for the next 10 hours with Frick, Frack and Kiara?

Liam, I love you, but, damn you! I'm nauseous, tired, moody, and pissing buckets every 10 minutes, carrying your child, and you thought this was a good idea.

I blame pregnancy brain for my decision to tell these three our big news. I'm not the greatest at charades, Im not even the smartest person in the world, but, I swear to God, these three may quite possibly be the dumbest morons I have ever met. They guessed I was full, I was bloated, gluttony.....fucking gluttony???? Yes Penelope, the big news I wanted to share with you is I'm a glutton. Maybe a glutton for punishment, deciding to interact with you three. More guesses included, American Football, and a common pirate jig....one of these women is an ambassador and the other my communications director. I'm a waitress from Brooklyn, and my word, I'm truly baffled by the sheer stupididy I had just witnessed. I turned to Liam, pleading with my eyes, help me with this, would you?

As bad as those three were, out of no where, the most incompetant, security guard on this planet, appears right before me. I didn't have time to worry about her, because apparently, the bane of my existence just scheduled a press conference to announce my pregnancy. I haven't seen a doctor to even confirm yet, what the hell Madeleine. One of these days, I am gonna beat that green goblin's ass down.

Cordonia, I'm on my way and can't be there soon enough.

Riley

[persephoneiam]

Snow White: What Everyone Gets Wrong

This is my very first post in my “What Everyone Gets Wrong about [insert Disney movie]” series.  Though some facts are sprinkled into this post for context, most of this is an opinion. Nothing in this text is meant to be insulting or offensive. Thank you.

To start off here is some background for those of us who need a refresher:

This was the world's first full-length animated feature

It was released in 1937

The film is only 1.5 hours long

4.5 years of work went into making it

The film was completed 2.5 weeks before its premiere

Now that we know the basic facts, let’s talk about the things that everyone gets wrong/ that tick me off.

Number 1: Necrophilia

Now, I get that memes are supposed to be funny, but the random corpse thing just doesn’t make sense. Firstly, she’s in a coma, not dead. Secondly, this kiss isn’t sexual in nature; its a goodbye. He really liked her (as seen in the first few minutes of the movie) and now she’s gone. She’s a fourteen-year-old that left too soon. It's sad with no sexual motivations involved. That said, a person can interpret this however they want. Which brings me to my third point: the timing of the film. As I stated earlier, this film was completed 2.5 weeks before it’s premiere. There was a huge time (and budget) crunch for this film. In the Brothers Grimm telling of this story (which Walt Disney decided to base this film on), Snow White awakens from the apple-induced coma when the dwarfs are carrying her coffin to the prince’s castle so she can be buried in the family crypt for whatever reason, and a dwarf trips, causing the apple piece that had been stuck in her throat to dislodge and fly out of her mouth, allowing her to wake up without the kiss. Having such little time and budget, I doubt the animators could have put what would have equaled an extra half hour (the coffin carrying and wedding where the evil queen would dance to her death) of animation for the film. That’s not even including the cursed corset or poisoned comb that were taken out of the story. Not to mention each frame was hand drawn, making even the smallest scene a time-consuming piece of work. Who wants to draw all the extra stuff involved to take the coffin to a castle somewhere far off? It’s much easier to draw a kiss and be done with it. Why else do you think they cut out a bunch of animation backstory by including the written story in the middle of the film (as seen below)?

Number 2: She’s Not Feminist Enough/ All She Does is Cook and Clean

What the actual heck is it with this argument? I get that we want our children to be strong, independent people who realize there is more to life than being with a man/woman/significant other, but why should strength and independence only mean going into the workforce? My dad lost his job, so he was a stay-at-home dad with me and my little sister for a couple years. It was awesome! Not to mention his value as a human being didn’t diminish every time he touched a mop or dusted. He taught his children how to keep a home tidy and guess what? I didn’t have to pay anyone to do my laundry when I got to college. I was a better-adjusted adult because I knew how to keep a home, and I was healthy to boot because I know how to cook. 

Feminism is about the equality of the sexes, so its really easy to bash Snow White because she cooks and cleans and takes on traditional gender roles. But the thing everyone seems to forget is the fact that this movie was made during the Great Depression and premiered two years before World War II. As large as the Disney empire has become, there is no way it could have possibly seen the future and made a film that was more in line with today’s feminism standards. 

Furthermore, this movie is set in 16th century (1500s) Germany and made in 1937. It’s history. As in, an amazing, revolutionary work of art that changed film forever. Yes, it is very traditional in its approach to what Snow White does/ doesn’t do, but she’s a fourteen-year-old fugitive in 16th century Germany! She doesn’t have a lot of options. Keeping house in exchange for food and shelter is not a bad choice considering the only other option is prostituting herself. Also, the way she takes charge of the house is pretty awesome. She doesn’t take any sh*t from the dwarfs (as seen by her “go outside and wash” speech). She may only be fourteen, but she’s managing things like she’s the next CEO of Disney.

History aside, it seems like all the parents I meet that don’t like/ don’t show the film only do so because they don’t want to encourage gender roles. I get it, but telling kids that cleaning and cooking aren’t useful or that you can’t be strong and independent if you like/subscribe to traditional gender roles is kinda backward. Afterall, isn’t feminism about the right to choose? If I want to be a stay-at-home mom and my sister wants to be the next Steve Jobs, aren’t we both entitled to go for it?

Number 3: Saved By a Man

This is just a continuation of my above point. Snow White is fourteen. The prince (who is credited as ‘The Prince’ because Snow White and the Dwarfs are the only characters with names) is only seventeen. Now in Europe in 1500, a girl as young as twelve could get married no problem. Most girls did. Or they became nuns. All of that doesn’t really matter when your audience is Americans in 1937. What matters is that a studio just completed the first, full-length entirely cel-animated feature. When Walt Disney started this project, he wanted to focus on the dwarfs. He gave them names and personalities. By the end of the film, however, the focus had turned to the relationship between Snow White and her stepmother. All really good things. That said, the plot changed a bit from the start to the finish. The original storyboard was much more comical and very different from the storyline we know today. With all these changes, it makes sense that the one element that stayed the same through production was the happy ending where Snow White and her prince marry. It’s a classic ending, and there is no reason that true love shouldn’t win out in the end. Of course, the true love argument becomes problematic considering they’ve only met once before the coma, but considering the film is only an hour and twenty-eight minutes, I think we can forgive the quick progression of their relationship. 

Also, it’s not so much Snow White’s beauty that makes the queen jealous, it's her youth. Snow White is young and growing into her body whereas the queen is aging. But that’s a whole discussion for theorists that I don’t want to get into.

In conclusion, Snow White is a classic film that doesn’t deserve to be hated on as much as it is. Because of its success, it paved the way for many of my childhood favorites, and I am thankful for that. She may not wield a sword and shield, but Snow White is still a bada** princess who teaches the value in being kind and making the best of a terrible situation. I for one think that those are still relevant lessons no matter what time period you are watching it in.

This has been a rant. Thank you.

[memnonofarcadia]

Shepherds of Chicago

The riot was well underway by that point, the peaceful protest line all but abandoned in favor of the violence. It wasn’t like the appeal was all that mysterious. Young, hot-blooded Americans only need an excuse to get out on the street and raise hell, whether it be for worker’s rights or some other cause. This one had been something to do with unions for a major retailer, but the details hardly seemed important once the fighting had started. Who struck first will always be a subject of heated debate, right up until next year’s riot. Either way it had the same effect, that being the complete annihilation of any progress The Movement had hoped to make that day. What cause was it for again? Oh who remembers, it wasn’t what this was about. This was simple revenge. The batons were flying up above people’s heads, the air was thick red with pepper spray, youngsters ran in all directions, some covering their faces some not, blood was spilt, tears were shed, and an alarming number of liquor stores became sold out in a matter of minutes right around the same time. Through the madness a rare moment of tranquility might be acquired when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a police officer’s shield, blood trickling down from the top of your forehead and a smirk of revolutionary pride across your face, right up until that officer in question decides that enough is enough and beats you into a coma. It’s happened a few times, but that’s how it goes. They knew the stakes when they came, that a riot might very well occur. Of course they knew, it happens every year at one time or another. Marching through the streets of Chicago only to get sucked into a street-war with local law enforcement. It’s nearly a tradition. This year in question turned out to be much worse than usual, plagued by infighting from all sides on account of the yuppie college students that had decided to join in on the party. They all had futures, a nice warm bed with a trust fund tucked away neatly under their pillow. They weren’t out bleeding on the streets because they had to be, they just thought it was fun. The true-believers didn’t take too kindly to this, naturally, and once the “party” started they made sure the rich kids knew. Every other EMT carrying a stretcher that had someone on it was wearing a sweater-vest, loafers, a tie, or, worse, a school uniform. Tuition meant stitches, so says the riot. Maybe they won’t join in next year, some say. Maybe they’ll pay someone to do it for them, others quip. Blue blood falls like anyone else’s, but not in Chicago it don’t. Not anymore. So the yuppies went back home or to their dorms, the cops back to their precincts, workers back to their jobs, and the rest… well, let’s talk about “the rest.” Numbers in a public gathering of this kind can swell and fluctuate quite rapidly, but considering the spirit of the activity it isn’t as if any sort of reasoned census can be taken of the participants. Indeed, unless it was for the purposes of provoking more brutality, it simply isn’t worth it. Hence why the trick is to know who you’re with before the riot starts, before the protest even. Somehow or another you’ll always find each other in the chaos, whatever gang of vagabonds you’ve joined for that particular outing. All you need is a cause, an excuse, and the angry young people will come to you. They all have their reasons. However it started it ended in disaster, as previously mentioned, but once the real meat of the action was out of the way the thing to do is to pick yourself up, spit out whatever teeth you lost that day, then go find everyone else. That year in Chicago a rather large percentage of the auxiliary protesters (that is to say the non-workers, non-rich kids of the crowd) were organized in the same circles, that being the bohemian-underground variety of grassroots campaigning. The hippies. Their leader was a woman called Maria, though plenty of decisions were made by committee. They flowed out of the aftermath like dust swept up and away by some invisible broom, quickly, so that they don’t lose their freedom, not more than they had to. Some weren’t so lucky, but their fates are about what you’d expect: a good beating followed by a long night in a cell with six or seven or eight of the meanest people you’ve never met. They would live, just, but the ones that managed to flee would either go back to their respective haunts or go join Maria at her group’s own. It had a semi-open door policy about it, the core members being permanent residents. How did you come to live there? It just sort of happened. You had to know someone, not a friend of a friend but actually know someone on the inside before they’d even consider making room for you, and even then your contributions to the set up were weighed heavily above all else. Plenty of nice folks came through, few were able to give anything back in the long run. Such is life on the street, which Maria understood, hence the policy. After the riots they would have dinner, patch up whoever was there as best they could, and that was it, on to the next one. All told it is a rather queer scene once you’re in there. It’s not the cliché depiction of an urban tribe existing out of view, moreso a bunker-esque arrangement is how it felt. There were watchmen for the door, guards outside it, and layers of either up till you reached the surface: the street. The exact location is not important, and even if there were detailed instructions laminated and sent to your inbox there is little doubt amongst those in the know that you wouldn’t find it anyway. It is genuinely underground, deep below the asphalt in a place even the law doesn’t reach. Often. Raids were common when they started, Maria will wearily tell anyone who asks, but once the cops figured out there really weren’t any drugs down there they left it alone. “There are, of course. I mean we have to keep the lights on with something,” she will say as she strolls through her weed-garden. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all down here. There are rules,” Quite. Rules that preclude judgement and instead encourage the arts, the incorporeal. There wasn’t much besides the furniture and the food down there, but they kept it clean. Girls and boys with guitars, beads, jewelry, painting… things seemed simpler down there, if a bit distant. But how long can it last? It’s been around for years at this point, but that’s neither here nor there. All it would take is one bad night, Maria understood, for it all to go up in flames, smoke billowing out of the sewer drains in the Windy City for weeks to come afterward. But that’s fantasy, at least for now. More pressing matters were at hand, like how to get the next day’s meal, are there enough beds, enough room, the lights and the water, the heat, etc. Closer to a war than a struggle. Closer to a bunker than a hideout. Closer to heaven than hell. Right? Maria herself is on several lists. You don’t become the leader of a literal underground and avoid it. She is both respected and feared by all who follow her, if for no other reason than if she turns on them then they really will have nowhere left to go. Her’s is the last stop before total destitution, or so she would have you believe. Whether or not it’s true she is in control, pushing up the numbers in every protest she deems worthy of her resources. She is, to put it lightly, a dangerous woman. “But very hospitable,” she says. The exit is the same as where you come in, a secret within a secret, like all the best ones are. “Don’t come back for a while,” she says without even a trace of hostility. It’s not personal, it’s for the good of everyone. The surface is a strange place to walk around once you’ve seen the other side, too. There’s a nagging feeling after the initial exposure that no one upstairs has any idea what the hell’s going on, both below and above them. Every day there are cars and meals being thrown around the city, randomness the principle guiding factor, and that’s life. At least, until you start checking sewer drains as you walk past for a pair of watchful eyes, see homeless people running down alleys and jumping down manholes, watch rich kids in riots… …and witness a paradise you’ll never know again.

[psy598]

Module Three

Part 1: Reflections on individual differences

1a. My growth edge this week places emphasis on the learning of why. In the last module, we learned about the how. How minority groups are overlooked within psychology, how privilege impacts race, and how to be more mindful of our impact on others. This week’s modules gave us an insight into why and what continues to happen that cause minority groups and their inequalities to be overlooked in psychology. We also looked into why we identify with “our people” and then what social categories we also identify with.

1b. After listening to “The Power of Categories,” I realize “my people” are my tribe, they are like me, we share the same goals, and we like doing similar activities. My people are those that are spiritual, love traveling and trying new foods, and are dedicated and determined to change the world positively. I think others would categorize me as a black woman who is calm, kind, truthful, and very caring of people. I have been in situations where these labels have been too constriction. For example, people see me as soft, kind, and quiet. When faced with injustice people assume, I am acting out of character because I assert myself and get loud. These labels that people see don’t always fit me.

1c. When thinking about culture as a protective factor, I thought back to the text where Ayunerak et al. (2014), mentions how the Yup’ik culture believed that sickness, injury, bad luck, and misfortune have a spirit. The text goes on to mention how the spirit of suicide visited their tribe and they were able to overcome it by having the elders protect their young, in the same way musk ox's encircle their young. This gathering of the community with the same goal in mind saved many lives and brought the people in the community together. I’ve always believed we are stronger in numbers. My culture has empowered me many times throughout my life. It never lets me forget that I am a strong black woman who can do anything that I put my mind to and that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. My culture brings us together in times of need, similar to the Yup’ik tribe when the spirit of suicide visited them. My culture, at times, has been a hindrance. There have been things that I’ve done that are outside my cultural norm that has led people to look down on my actions.

1d. After reading the chapter by Bryant-Davis and Comas-Diaz (2006), I’ve determined that I don’t meet all the criteria for being a womanist. I do identify with love, spirituality, and strength as seen in womanists. I celebrate life through my arts, as I create art in many forms and through dance, as I’ve been a professional dance throughout my life. I am community orientated and my goals in life are always to unite people. I do want the wholeness and survival of the entire people but with that comes the issue of racism. I agree that the fights against racism and sexism are necessary and central, but I do feel at this time the fight against racism should be higher on the hierarchy. At this time in the world, black men and black women are being killed unreasonably, after fixing this issue we can then move onto the issues between man and woman.

Part 2: What are we not seeing?

2a. Whiteness is the result of having a Euro-American worldview and allowing this narrow perspective to shape lives. Whiteness is put on a pedestal and seen as the default standard. Whiteness is invisible because it adopts the denial of differences as seen in the study of color blindness (Sue, 2004). This prevents the discernment of discrimination and inequalities experienced by people of color. People are conditioned to attribute whiteness to the standard of which everyone should reach. People are even rewarded for remaining unaware and oblivious of their Euro-cultural beliefs. They also continue to lack the knowledge and empathy of how their actions may unfairly oppress people of color.

2b. My reaction to Sue’s (2004) statement was a lightbulb coming on in my head, suddenly dots had connected in my brain. I’ve personally wondered why white people denied their advantages associated with being White”, I now realize that one reason is due to the negativity associated with this. Sue mentions that white people live the illusion of fairness. This is the belief that everything is fair and just, and that people reach the top based on their merit and perseverance. They don’t have to think about their race and the system works for them. This claim affects people of other cultures because they are then viewed based on the Euro-American cultural standard. This assurance of being the superior group results in the group being unable to see, understand, and empathize with the experiences and viewpoints faced by those in the out-groups. This also leads to the lack of change for those who cannot experience the same privileges as those of the white race.

The invisibility of Whiteness has impacted my life as I often time have to code-switch. I think to myself that this type of behavior or speech is too black for this environment or group of people that I’m talking to. My culture is not accepted due to whiteness as seen as the standard of America. There are also times where I experience a lack of empathy, for instance, at work. Currently, protests are going on around the world concerning the death of George Floyd, my white co-workers don’t understand why these protests are happening and lack the empathy to understand why my mental health is negatively affected by this.

References

Ayunerak, P., Alstrom, D., Moses, C., Charlie, J., & Rasmus, S. M. (2014). Yupik Culture and Context in Southwest Alaska: Community Member Perspectives of Tradition, Social Change, and Prevention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 54(1-2), 91–99. doi: 10.1007/s10464-014-9652-4

Bryant-Davis, T., & Comas-Diaz, L. (Eds.). (2016). Womanist and mujerista psychologies: voices of fire, acts of courage. Washington, District of Columbia: American Psychological Association.

Spiegel, A., & Miller, L. (2015, February 6). The Power Of Categories. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/384065938/the-power-of-categories

Sue, D. (2004). Whiteness and Ethnocentric Monoculturalism: Making the "Invisible" Visible. American Psychologist, 760–769. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.8.761

[kevrocksicehouse]

The Big Sick

D: Michael Showalter

If every happy couple thinks their story would make a great romantic comedy but Kumail Nanjani and Emily V. Gordon are, so far, the only ones to be right. Nanjani and Gordon wrote the screenplay for “The Big Sick” based on their own courtship which followed a standard romantic trope: Boy gets girl, girl finds out boy’s parents are arranging a marriage for him, boy loses girl, boy bonds with girls parents after she is put in a medical coma. Standard stuff. Playing a fictionalized version of himself – a young Pakistani-American caught between his first-generation family’s traditions and his own ambitions (in standup comedy). Nanjani makes use of the acerbic wit he displayed on Silicon Valley (during an argument with his brother they stop to tell the restaurant “It’s okay, we hate terrorism.”) but leavens it with warmth. As Emily, Zoe Kazan makes such an appealing costar, vivacious and just a little flinty, that you still feel her presence when she is an unconscious body for half the movie.  And as Emily’s parents Holly Hunter and Ray Romano are at the top of their game, her pit-bull protectiveness bouncing off of his depressive geniality. Suspicious of Nanjani at first – he is the guy who broke their daughter’s heart – they form a tentative alliance to try to negotiate the confusing and uncertain bureaucracy of high stakes medicine. Showalter nails the sterility of hospital waiting rooms, as well as the paranoid one-upsmanship of comedy clubs (probably with an assist from producer Judd Apatow) and the argumentative closeness of immigrant families (Anupam Kherand and Zenobia Shroff as Kumail’s parents humanize what might easily  have been stereotypes). That humanity is what keeps “The Big Sick” from the kind of lachrymose sentimentality of other “You’ll laugh/You’ll cry movies. Nanjani and Gordon had a good story to tell. They told it well. See it.

[scenechase-blog]

“Understanding Negan”     Background Theories

Before we get started this is a TV Show interpretation and (almost completely) omitting the graphic novel interpretation. What I’m analyzing are subtleties, references the actor is potentially using to interpret the character and looking at where would a character would go moving forward or the impact he will have on it’s “peers”.

Let’s eliminate the obvious, Negan has “hollywood” psychological issues, but what kind of issues? Is he a zombie-apocalypse version of Heath Ledger's Joker  as Rick Grimes nemesis or Christian Bale’s American Psycho where he “affections” the idea of planned gruesome murder fantasies as he’s submerged in the lack of social construct?

In other words, can we label Negan as hollywood’s versions of a sociopath or psychopath?

The answer is not really, although the creators do borough traits more or less as tools for his portrayal or for him literally. I like to see Negan as a repressed early Generation X-er or a late Boomer that imploded and reset in the worse possible way during the zombie apocalypse.

Here’s a few theory elements to help understand Rick Grimes’s latest (televised) nemesis:

The Greaser Look

This is really where the pieces kind of come together for me. We know he was a gym teacher before and year after year of seeing the cool kids in class, he would take advantage of the new world and make sure he became the cool kid. As the zombie apocalypse unfolds he would confront and meet other men hence becoming the alpha male and form the Survivors (which sounds like a greaser gang name).

Ambiguous Misogyny 

He has multiples wifes, emphasis on the word wifes. He uses his social stature and power to marry women. He takes them. Yet we discover boundaries as he says “we don’t rape”...

Where there’s a construct , there are flaws. These inconsistencies and irrationalities to Negan’s normality won’t be to the detriment of the “construct” rather practicalities for his reign.

Lucille and the “Not-Monsters”

Lucille was Negan’s wife that passed away from cancer and turned into a zombie. Negan had a mistress and Lucille knew. When Negan knew she had cancer he ceased the relationship with his mistress.  

I had my own theory before knowing the origin of Lucille’s “homage”. I liked the idea of Negan having an abusive father that made him kill his dog named Lucille with the same baseball bat after the dog attacked his father protecting Negan from an abuse.

Negan always kept the artefact as a reminder of his beloved and loyal dog and the monster he would never become; a very specific kind of monster. I also loved the idea of his relationship with a dog (the animal) that reminded me of another TV villain: Ramsay in Game of Thrones.

To name a belonging also feels like the 60-70s where the guys would name their cars with female names hence showing us again his relationship with that era or the “traditional” american way of life that was repressed in his past and now being projected.

Carl

Negan has a special relationship with Carl and the picture gets paint close to the relationship one would have with a son he never had but it feels more like Negan is playing the cool uncle with him.

I see the cool uncle or it could be the cool kid before becoming a bully seeing a new asset for his motley crew; he’s using schoolyard peer pressure tactics and even wisdom to a certain degree. Negan seems insecure with Carl almost as if he’s seeing Rick in him yet Carl is perceived as a more vulnerable version of Rick. He needs to impress him or subconsciously to impress Rick to an extent in a “look at what I have in material and social stature” kind of way.

I think he needs to see Rick as a righteous and superior figure to look up to (least to his perception) as a source of validation. If not, how would he get off putting the Grimes to their knees?  And I think this is why he will never be able to kill Rick and that’s why he was going to swing for Carl at the last episode.

Finally...

Unpredictability Driven by Boredom

Everything was somewhat in place since the Survivors foundation until they stumbled upon the Alexandrians. Negan got bored and will become more and more unpredictable as the war will unfold. As he became his alter-ego from a suppressed Boomer lifestyle, he got back to a sedentarian lifestyle and way of governing “structure” as opposed to when he was a nomad like Rick (actually even before he woke up from his coma) during the timespan in the zombie apocalypse.

I feel like Negan is most violent when he is most bored and this is when he got creative and got this twisted showmanship for his demonstrations or his punishment sessions. 

Imagining Negan in a war situation will most probably make him spiral in psychotic behaviors as he may be brought to break his own rules.

[prairiedust]

The Folklore of Supernatural

Part two of a series I started with this post.

I’m reposting this as the second installment of my midseason hiatus “The Folklore of Supernatural” series, even though it was originally written as kind of a long cracky way of looking at the “sleeping beauty trilogy” of episodes in season 14 (The Scar, Mint Condition, and Nightmare Logic.) The original question I was tagged into was “Is Dean actually dreaming?” and I can not find the original post about this, so I won’t tag anyone in particular (you know who you are and I love you because this was fun to write.) I posted it once in the dead of night with no tags, but I’m republishing it as part of my larger take on folklore as a theme in season 14 of Supernatural. Bear in mind that this was written before Optimism, when it became clear that these were not part of an extended dream-sequence, BUT ALSO before The Spear when it was revealed that Michael could repossess Dean. (I’m going to talk a little bit about timing and writing meta, further on.)

I want to say a couple of things before the cut, too. This is a big old Sleeping Beauty post. I know there’s a lot of SB ideas out there in the metasphere but I’ve deliberately avoided them because I wanted to get my thoughts out here and I am Very Slow. Feel free to tag me into other posts, send me asks, whatever, because I think it’s fun to talk about. However, just because this is a “sleeping beauty” meta does not mean I want to go all the way to the end of that metaphor in this series. This particular post is general audience meta. I can’t tell anyone who might read this that no, you aren’t allowed to see a DeanCas parallel in a meta which relies heavily on a romantic fairy tale and one that was a destiel fandom in-joke after Cas died, at that. I will say, though, that I see it, so if you want to duck out now because I’m a lowkey shipper feel free. Also, I can’t endorse predictions based on meta, either, even my own, even when I think there is a big neon “Texan Star” sign saying “destiel goes here;” there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone involved in the show from making a hard left when the signs said we were going right. So rather than seeing this as a defense of DeanCas subtext, let’s call it an experiment in close reading. If nothing else, it will be fun. (Bear in mind that I am a massive dork so my definition of fun involves Charles Dickens.)

Aaand... here we go.

Is Dean asleep, and have the last three episodes (The Scar, Mint Condition, and Nightmare Logic) been a dream? How can we possibly “answer” that question at this point in the show?

We’re trying to speculate about a text that is a constantly moving target. If, for instance, you start to read the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and you know from a blurb on the back of the book that she was an anthropologist who collected African-American and Caribbean folklore, and you get to the place where the protagonist Janie’s second [redacted] ends, but there are a lot of pages left ahead of you, and you think, wow if this happens a third time, I have a theory that the third [redacted, go read this book] would be special based on what I know about folklore and the “rule of three,” well by the end of the book you will know whether or not you were right. Janie either finds a third [redacted], or she doesn’t, and it’s either special, or it’s not.

Supernatural has not ended, so there is no way of saying “Oh, the main theme we are supposed to take away from this show is ____.” I mean, we can put big money on “family” but still. With a television show, it’s hard to even say, “The over-arching themes in this season are____” until the season finale, because it is a text that is being written, filmed, and published serially. The fluid nature of subtext in serial literature was something I studied under a Brit Lit professor– she said, when we set out to read David Copperfield, that sometimes themes in Dickens concluded early or evolved late, or didn’t pan out, because Dickens changed his mind or was pressured by readers to maintain a character that he hadn’t planned to keep around (I think that character was Micawber but I can not find a shred of evidence anywhere, even in my notes from my Brit Lit class, because she kind of mentioned it in passing and I didn’t like Dickens very much when I was younger, so obviously I didn’t learn it well.) And even when you get to the end of a Dickens serial, you still might not get closure– he totally rewrote the conclusion of Great Expectations because his friends wanted angst with a happy(ish) ending.

But this particular “sleeping” symbolism that has been pointed out is really, really structurally sound and can be very well supported. What it means is (shrug emoji)

Going back to the first post in this series, the support for this reading comes from an understanding of folk tales. I’ll be primarily using European Sleeping Beauty stories, as that is what is most accessible to an American/Western audience. And, it was deliberately alluded to in the text of the show. But first let’s talk about formula tales in more depth because that is what sets this theme up in the very first episode of season 14.

Michael met with three different beings in the season opener Stranger in a Strange Land and asked each of them “What do you want?” This is in no uncertain terms a formula tale found in folklore all over the world, and you know about the rule of three even if you’ve never actually acknowledged it. In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for instance, Goldilocks tries two bowls of porridge before finding one to her liking. She tries two chairs before settling on Baby Bear’s chair. She tries two beds before falling asleep in the one that was “just right.” There were three challenges, two of which failed and one that satisfied her. Goldilocks is an original work (and please read the Wikipedia article, it is fascinating how many revisions this story has gone through, and in fact “Goldilocks” wasn’t even the original main character) but it was based on a folk formula and has entered American oral tradition. Similarly, in the German folk tale The Three Little Pigs, the first pig’s house is destroyed because it was made of straw, the second house failed because it was made of sticks, but the third house was made of brick and withstood the huffing and puffing of the wolf. So the pattern in the rule of three is often two challenges that fail or are flawed and one that finally succeeds or satisfies the necessary conditions. For short, I’m going to call this grouping 2/1. In the Michael story, 2/1 is human, who fails, then angel, who fails, then monster, who Mikey likes. In addition, there is a primer to the rule of three in that first scene, just to make absolutely certain that the audience notices it-- Michael has Jamel guess his identity three times.

This 2/1 formula could be just something Dabb did because he wanted to do it. It’s ancient, and Michael is an ancient being. But. Can it also mean that “folktales” is a theme on the show now?

As the saying goes, “Once is an occurrence, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.” Folklore continues into the season in many different ways.

In Gods and Monsters, the scene where Dean shakes loose and punches the mirror probably lit up everyone who saw it with “mirror mirror on the wall” vibes, from the story of Snow White. The enchanted mirror is such a common “trope” in folklore that it has an index number that folklorists and others use to refer to it in their scholarship– it’s Aarne-Thompson index number D1163. So, another solid subtextual reference to folk tales. There is so much more in that episode about storytelling and retelling and  the concept of sequels, but that’s for another discussion.

We get to The Scar and Jack mentions Sleeping Beauty and no lie I ascended for a full minute. “Sleeping Beauty” is Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk Tales number 410 because this is another story that is found freaking everywhere. (I have to make an aside about the use of the term “folk tale” just because it is in my nature not to leave things like this ambiguous– it isn’t completely certain that the Sleeping Beauty we know of Brothers Grimm and Disney fame is 100% for shore an oral tale, or at least isn’t a tale that got a little finessed when it was first written down. See, a guy in pre-Renaissance Naples named Giambattista Basile included a version of it in a collection of child’s tales hundreds of years ago (it’s horrifying btw, cw for non-con at the very least if you go looking for it) then Charles Perrault (of Puss in Boots fame) got hold of it and rewrote it in French, and folklorists are pretty certain that the story of “Briar Rose in the Forest” that the Grimm brothers collected was the Perrault story that had made its way back into oral tradition in Germany. And, like, it’s not a huge reach to say that the history of the Sleeping Beauty story that is explicitly mentioned in the show’s dialogue by Jack is more subtext about how stories are transmitted, how they are told, what happens when they get loose in the wild, etc. That’s how allusions work, and that’s coming up in my third post.)

So, three times means green light to consider “folk tales” an official thing this season, at least for a while. And the cherry on top is that Sleeping Beauty was the third story referenced. It’s neat.

But NOW. On to THE question the OP posed:

Have the last three episodes been Dean’s dream?

I’m going to pass up surface mentions of dream states and solely focus on the actual “sleepers” in these episodes in order to get at the allusion’s architecture.

In Nightmare Logic, the sleeping beauty OP has identified is Sasha’s father, who is locked in a dream-state by a djinn. In Mint Condition, the sleeping beauty is Stuart, who is in a mysterious coma-like sleep after an attack by a possessed chain-saw. In The Scar, Lora is in a sleep-adjacent death-state after being hexed by a witch. (I saw that her name on the iTunes subtitles is “Lora” which is a variation of Laura but spelled this way evokes “of lore” and that was pretty neat. Another tiny detail that bolsters the theme.)

Is Lora really a sleeping beauty, though, and why is that important?

Remember our rule of three pattern that we were given in the premiere– 2/1. Two people in this group will be more similar to each other than to the third. Both Stuart and Sasha’s father are alive, while Lora is technically all the way dead when she is in the sleep-like state. Superficially, Stuart and Sasha’s father are men, whereas Lora is a woman. Just throwing that out there. If I were writing this post for a grade, that right there is called “padding for word count.” But it is also a valid point, so we’re going to use it. Neither Stuart nor Sasha’s father are shown to resume consciousness by the end of their episodes– Stuart not at all, and Mr. Rawlings only stirs fitfully. Lora is revived when Jack breaks the spell. On the other hand, Stuart is never in continued danger in Mint Condition after his “touch and go” operation (he’s presumably safe inside the salt circle) and is expected to recover naturally, whereas both Mr. R and Lora will die/stay dead if the threat against them isn’t neutralized. Mr. Rawlings is similar to Lora because they are both under “medical care”– Mr.R is ostensibly in hospice and Lora is in the Bunker’s sick bay, and to top things off Stuart is the only one who was treated by an actual doctor: Mr. R‘s nurse was a djinn and Cas is not a doctor he just played one on TV.

The thing about close readings is that anything you can argue is probably valid, but one thesis might be better supported than another. I’m really really tired and there might be more differences and similarities that I am missing. But when you’re gathering the evidence to support a theory about a text, you can end up going a bridge too far and you’ll find yourself staring into the void, completely unable to make any progress, so at some point you just have to stake out your foundations and start digging. (Yeah, I mixed metaphors, I mixed three of them, it’s awesome, get off me.)

So. There is more evidence that Stuart and Mr. R are more similar to each other than either one is to Lora. If we apply the 2/1 template, Lora is the character who satisfies the parameter of being “odd man out.” That still might not make her a sleeping beauty for the purposes of answering the “Is this Dean’s dream” question, and here’s why.

(This is the speculation part. I love this stuff, but again I offer the caveat that using subtext to make plot predictions in Supernatural is like trying to write on a cloud with smoke. Anyway.)

If she’s the sleeping beauty, the subtextual message is that Dean might actually be dead (or might have to die to satisfy the condition that Michael is destroyed.) That possibility was brought up in both 14x01 and 14x02, before Dean came back. And eugh no one wants that. It also means that we had to have read these three episodes backwards to find the character that fits the template, because if Lora is a sleeping beauty, and if she is “the” sleeping beauty for subtextual purposes, she actually came first in the series, and you have to run the episodes backwards to get to the 1. That is subverting the trope. However, if you get the thing you want the first time why go on to the other two challenges? There is a lot in this season about calling back to earlier parts of the narrative to contextualize the present– for instance, in Gods and Monsters, Michael says to the werewolf, “You think you were picking me up in that bar?” or something to that effect and then revealed that he was, in fact, the one stalking her. In Mint Condition, we are introduced to the Janitor Victim as a Dean mirror, but we do not know for certain yet that Hatchet Man is a post-Azazel John Winchester mirror, so that scene is given greater meaning by information that is revealed later in the episode. Structurally speaking, it would be fair to say that the information we have now, that Lora the dead girl is “the” sleeping beauty, based on having seen the other two candidates, means a dead Dean reveal has been primed by the subtext. And like, no thank you?

The other possibility is that Lora, since she was dead and not unconscious, is not “the” sleeping beauty. The third “sleeping beauty” (IF there is one) would show up in 14x06 Optimism. (That title is really stressing me out.) Why would that be Dean and not some other random character? Because if we exclude Laura, the pattern resets from 1/2 to 2/1 beginning with Stuart. Stuart is a Castiel mirror, though, which is not quite right. Mr. R is a John mirror (although that episode is a lot murkier and I’ve said before if someone wants to say he’s a Dean mirror because of the djinn connection I’d agree, in which case BLAM we already have a winner.) [editor’s note, I only left Jack out because we already knew he was dying and thought this subtext was priming a twist, more at ten, this aside has been brought to you by the letters LOL.]

But then, where have the last three episodes come from? If he is dreaming, it could be one reason why the djinn couldn’t wring a nightmare out of him, and that the moment before he killed the monster with a bookend was his subconscious trying to signal to him that something is wrong…

I have said a couple of times that subtext isn’t always predictive. Some authors will have multiple subtexts or will use subtext to straight-up fool you (*waves to thriller writers.*) But the exception proves the rule here– we as readers/viewers rely on subtext to prepare us for what might be coming next. Subtext helps provide that slow build to climax that makes, say, Neville Longbottom’s absolutely stunning house cup win in The Sorcerer’s Stone such a stand-up-and-cheer moment, or that makes Harry Potter’s realization that it is his patronus, not his father’s, that saves his past self in the Prisoner of Azkaban so satisfying. Lack of subtext is the reason there is so much grumping over Mary/Bobby. I mean, they what? Had a walk in the woods together? She called him “old man” once, is that even a term of endearment??? [full disclosure I never liked those two together until after Nightmare Logic.]

And scene!

That up there is where I stopped, and now it’s clear that the person who all this was pointing at was Jack, who fell into a dramatic swoon at the end of Optimism. There were two “sleeping beauties” in that episode, too in the 2/1 pattern of the folktales we’ve discussed– the zombie, who is in sort of a dream state, and Charlie, who is knocked out by fly guy. (Again, fully dead is a red herring and doesn’t count. That’s some positive subtext.) That was basically a lot of words to be able to summarize that, yes, sleeping beauty and dreamstates is a thing so far, but where it was going was hard to predict.

There is something really important that can be taken out of this close reading, though, that is carrying throughout the season.

Jack was the character who actually said the words “Sleeping Beauty.” Jack sort of volunteered himself as tribute. Another theme this season that was made explicit by Subtext Primer aka Mint Condition is that the words characters are saying are more important than they ever have been.

AND ONE MORE THING! The above was written before Unhuman Nature and Byzantium and The Spear! Dean has been put back to bed by Michael! But but Castiel stepped into the Sleeping Beauty deal! Where are we going! There’s no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going…

Anyway in the next installment of this really long meta that will probably never end I want to explore what the history of the Amero-European Sleeping Beauty brings to bear on this season.

[gingerjanie-blog]

Chris Christie will get a second term

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[preserving-ferretbrain]

It's A Gay Old Life

by Viorica

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Viorica has some issues with the first season of "Queer as Folk"~

America has this horrible habit of remaking British television and movies, presumably in order to a) cash in on franchises that have proven themselves popular, and b) make sure that their citizens are watching American-produced TV instead of putting their money into another country's market. It was done to

Life on Mars

, it's being done to

Death at a Funeral

, and it was done to

The Office

. These remakes tend to provoke varying reactions - some, like

The Office

succeed, and some, like ABC's ill-fated

Life on Mars

, fall flat. One of the cross-Atlantic success stories was

Queer as Folk

, adapted from Russell T. Davies's drama of the same name. It ran for five years on Showtime, garnered quite a bit of praise, and has a fairly substantial fanbase. I took the DVD of the first season out of the local library, figuring that since more than one person had recommended it to me, it had to be at least entertaining. The verdict? Well, it is and it isn't.

The show is set in Pittsburgh (which I have no comment on, seeing as I've never been there) and follows a group of gay men (with a couple of token lesbians) who live . . . well, like most evangelical right-wing preachers imagine gay men to live. They go out clubbing every night, engage in frequent anonymous sex in the club's bathroom, and take drugs like there's no tomorrow. The whole thing is rather disconcerting- if you're going to make a TV show that purports to be about the lives of gay men, why would you utilise all of the negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with the gay community? I can understand why a party-hard lifestyle would be the most dramatically convenient - after all, it's more interesting to watch a bunch of hot men dance around shirtless than it is to watch them argue about whether they should get pizza or Chinese for dinner - but all the same, having your characters behave in willfully destructive ways doesn't exactly assay the commonplace prejudices that people hold. Obviously it's not the show's responsibility to explain Why Being Gay Is Not Destructive - it's a soap opera, not an educational program - but the way it portrays the "gay lifestyle" leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

Of course, if the characters were intelligent, likeable people, their self-destructive behaviour wouldn't look quite as bad as it does. But they really, really aren't. Take, for example, our lead: Brian Kinney, a douchebag of the first order who fucks his way through five people a night, then picks up a seventeen-year-old jailbait virgin and sleeps with him. Now, part of the program's central conceit is that Brian

is

a douchebag and proud of it, but his friends and lovers don't fare much better. There's the aforementioned jailbait (Justin) who, after sleeping with Brian a few times, steals his credit card and runs away to New York; Emmett, the campiest of campy gays, who never really gets any kind of serious plot; Ted, a certified accountant and certifiable moron, who falls into a drug-induced coma after taking GHB offered to him by the complete stranger he brought home for sex; and Michael, the only remotely levelheaded one of the group. There's also secondary characters, like Melanie and Lindsey, the lesbian couple who are raising a baby together (a baby created using Brian's sperm - for some unfathomable reason, they wanted their child to share his genetic material) only to break up midway through season one. There's no real reason for their breakup - they suddenly started fighting, then Melanie went out and slept with someone else, and then she moved out. Of course, they get back together by the time the season ends, but thanks to spoilers, I already know that they repeat the make-up/break-up cycle several more times before the series is through. What exactly does it say about these characters (and the community they're supposed to be representing) when the one supposedly stable couple are in a state of perpetual warfare? Then there's Michael's mother and uncle, probably the only sane characters on the show, who exist mostly to dispense advice; Justin's mother, who is initially shocked by her son's coming-out but grows to accept him; and various love interests who drift in and out as the plot requires. Again, the main characters all behave in ways that makes the viewer want to yell "What the fuck are you DOING, you morons?" at the screen, whilst the secondary ones have their heads screwed on right. The fact that the sane characters all seem to be the straight ones (with the exception of Michael's uncle) probably owes more to the fact that their actions don't drive the plot; but all the same, having your gay characters behave stupidly while their straight friends advise them seems more than a little hinky.

The storyline that fans of the series seem to be the most invested in is Brian and Justin's tumultous relationship, which I find slightly squicky. When it begins, Justin is all of seventeen, and while a lot of seventeen-year-olds are sexually active, they hopefully aren't out losing their virginity to a twenty-nine-year-old stranger who picked them up off a street corner. While Justin's certainly willing to sleep with Brian, and repeatedly instigates meetings between them, I can't be the only one who finds the age gap slightly icky. I mean, Brian

drives him to school

for fuck's sake. That's what parents do, not boyfriends. Of course, Justin's father objects, and while his objection is rooted in homophobia rather than parental concern, I have to agree with him a bit. Note to any teenagers reading this: the older guy (or girl) who picked you up for sex does not love you.You are not going to embark on a life-changing relationship with you. They are going to fuck you, and dump you, and you're just lucky if you don't get any souveniers in the form of STDs. And that goes for both straight and gay encounters.

If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned any

bisexual characters

, that's because there aren't any. Or rather, there aren't any who identify as such- there are several who

could

be considered bi, but they all ID as gay. In fact, the word "bisexual" is never uttered at all. I'm not accusing the writers of deliberate biphobia so much as thoughtlessness. "Of

course

there are no bisexual men; why whould there be?" Never mind the episode where Justin sleeps with his female friend in a plotline of epic stupidity (she decides that she wants to lose her virginity, so she asks him to do it) or the storyline in a later season where Lindsey (the femmier woman, because naturally she's more likely to sleep with men *sigh*) has sex with a man - they're all gay, gay, gay, with no exceptions. The only possible *canon* bisexual character - and he only gets that honour because his sexuality is never defined - is Justin's homophobic classmate, who sleeps with multiple girls, but also allows Justin to give him a handjob. But since the season ends with him cracking Justin over the head with a baseball bat and sending him to the ER, I'd really rather not think about the implications there. Never mind that, as previously discussed, they have the opportunity to show the full spectrum of sexuality here; there are NO BISEXUALS on this show. Case closed. Now let's get back to our not-at-all-stereotypical gay men!

And now I'm going to take off my Cranky Bisexual hat and put on my Cranky Feminist one. The premise is the series lends itself to being a bit of a sausage-fest, so it's to the creator's credit that female characters are included. Unfortunately, they aren't handled very well at all. There's the aforementioned Lindsey and Melanie, who are meant to be something of a stabilising influence on the men (Lindsey is an old friend of Brian's.) They don't share in the hard partying or drug using; they've settled down in a nice house with their baby. As a result, they don't really get many storylines outside of their domestic troubles. The stuff that happens to them tends to be more serious and related to the struggles faced by gay couples - Melanie not being allowed to see her son when he's in the hospital with a fever, for example. They're extremely bound up in their motherhood, to the point where they're practically defined by it. Not only that, but they fall into the traditional butch/femme dichotomy - Melanie, the "less feminine" (she has short hair and wears pants) is the breadwinner, while Lindsey (long hair, skirts, makeup) gives birth and stays home to raise the kid. While the show isn't all that great at portraying anyone, you'd think they would make some effort with the only lesbians on the show. Of course, the non-lesbian women don't fare much better. There's Michael's aforementioned mother, Debbie, who is probably the most awesome character on the show. She exists primarily to hand out advice, and take care of everyone- Justin moves in with her after his parents (and Brian) kick him out, and her HIV-positive brother lives with her as well. Because of this, she never really gets to have her own identity. She's so bound up in her son's life, and the lives of his friends, that she isn't a real person- just a prop for the men to lean on. Then there's Justin's friend Daphne, who stays relatively sane for most of the season only to fall apart when she loses her virginity to Justin (which is just weird in and of itself - how many women think "Hmm, I want to have sex - I'll go ask my gay friend if he'll help!") and promptly starts crushing on him, complete with a patronizing speech from Lindsey and Melanie explaining that women are incapable of separating emotion from sex. No, really. No,

really

. Lastly, there's Justin's mother, who spends most of the season being tugged between her husband and her son. That's four female characters, and not one gets to have an identity that isn't defined (or at least heavily influenced) by the men in her life. I know this show is about gay men, not women, but they could've at least made an effort.

I rag on this show a lot, but it's entertaining despite (or perhaps because of) its flaws. By the time the season had ended, I was genuinely invested in what happened to the characters, even though they do seem to bring a lot of their problems on themselves. I was even somewhat charmed by Brian and Justin, though I remain squicked at the age gap (he went to his

prom

. Eurgh, eurgh, eurgh.) I am now anxiously awaiting the second season from the library, which will no doubt be similarily filled with recklessness, stupdity, and stereotypes. It's a bumpy ride to be sure, but damn if it isn't a fun one.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Minority Warrior

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Andy G

at 14:44 on 2009-12-17

They go out clubbing every night, engage in frequent anonymous sex in the club's bathroom, and take drugs like there's no tomorrow. The whole thing is rather disconcerting- if you're going to make a TV show that purports to be about the lives of gay men, why would you utilise all of the negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with the gay community?

The negative stereotyping has two components: the first is to assert that all gay men behave in a certain way, the second is to characterise that behaviour as negative. It's important to challenge the first by showing that most gay men live very different lives. But if you only do that, you haven't challenged the assumption that gay men who DO behave in that way are doing something bad - you're only defending people who conform more closely to what right-wing preachers consider acceptable.

There ARE lots of gay men who engage in frequent anonymous sex, take drugs, go clubbing and have relationships with large age gaps, and while I don't live like that myself, it is a way people really do live that deserves dramatic representation. It's not clear to me in advance that the values and assumptions it entails can just be dismissed out of hand.

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Sister Magpie

at 14:46 on 2009-12-17

Because of this, she never really gets to have her own identity. She's so bound up in her son's life, and the lives of his friends, that she isn't a real person- just a prop for the men to lean on.

It's been a while since I've seen this show and don't seem to remember it much (which probably doesn't say much about either it or me), but I do remember this about Debbie, and that it was one reason I definitely never saw her as the awesome character on the show. I seem to remember finding her insufferably annoying by the end of the series. And I remember thinking Emmett was the best person on it. Did he take drugs? I seem to remember him specifically not doing that.

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Melissa G.

at 15:57 on 2009-12-17

Did he take drugs?

Well...once. But that was during Ted's addict stage, and he was very against it but kind of gave in to try and make Addict!Ted happy and afterward clearly regretted doing it.

I've seen all but the last season of Queer as Folk, and if you think about it too much, it does make you want to pull your hair out at their behavior. Mostly I feel like you have to take it as a rather crack soap opera that gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on.

I can't be the only one who finds the age gap slightly icky.

You definitely aren't! I always found their relationship somewhat icky. I much preferred Michael and Ben's relationship to Brian and Justin's. Even though Ben/Michael have their own crazy. I even liked Justin and the violin player he dated for a while during the time he and Brian were broken up. They seemed like a much better couple...until said violin player basically screwed up.

I agree with pretty much all the problems you had with the show. I had the same thoughts. I also found the lesbian relationship poor represented. And, it is odd that there are no bisexuals on the show. Part of me wonders if the show is so over the top because of how it came about. From what I understand, someone basically said, "Well, that show [Queer as Folk] would never be able to be made in America!" and the creator of American QaF said, "Oh, yeah?!"

Actually, I found on youtube some time ago clips of the British show followed by the same scene in the American show, and it's rather telling. The American version is much more sexualized and visually provocative while the British version seemed rather more down-to-earth (please correct me if I'm wrong on this - I haven't seen the British version fully).

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Sister Magpie

at 18:03 on 2009-12-17I remember when The L Word started I thought, "Why am I watching this, since the lesbian characters on QaF were the most boring?" But then I got sucked into it--even though that show had its own brand of craziness.

I thought the weirdest thing about QaF was the end of the Brian/Justin storyline--or Brian's storyline in general.

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Viorica

at 20:28 on 2009-12-17

But if you only do that, you haven't challenged the assumption that gay men who DO behave in that way are doing something bad

At the risk of starting a completely off-topic discussion, isn't taking drugs (drugs like ecstacy and crystal meth, that is) kind of always a bad thing?

Did he take drugs?

There's a mention of him taking some sort of drug with him when they all went to New York- some kind of stimulant? I think he snorted it.

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Andy G

at 22:42 on 2009-12-17

At the risk of starting a completely off-topic discussion, isn't taking drugs (drugs like ecstacy and crystal meth, that is) kind of always a bad thing?

Well, ecstasy is considerably less harmful than crystal meth for a start. But I think the question of whether drugs ARE bad is slightly irrelevant. A sympathetic portrayal of people in good literature or film involves doing due justice to what is positive and legitimate about their choices and values, without necessarily heavy-handedly endorsing them but certainly without making didactic judgements. Drug use is a part of many hedonistic lifestyles and there are stories to be told about those people that don't involve their lives being irrevocably ruined by drugs.

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Arthur B

at 23:19 on 2009-12-17

A sympathetic portrayal of people in good literature or film involves doing due justice to what is positive and legitimate about their choices and values, without necessarily heavy-handedly endorsing them but certainly without making didactic judgements.

But doesn't this also entail being honest about the downsides to their choices? I have not seen either the US or the British version of

Queer As Folk

, but if either of them actually

do

present crystal meth use as a big lark which doesn't have damaging consequences for anyone involved I find that more than a little alarming. (I'm pretty confident that Russell T Davies wouldn't write such a thing, actually, but I don't completely trust American TV writers to do the same.) Crystal meth is a fucking menace, and presenting it on a par with ecstasy is downright irresponsible, whether it entails overhyping the risks of ecstasy or downplaying the risks of crystal meth.

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Melissa G.

at 23:49 on 2009-12-17

if either of them actually do present crystal meth use as a big lark which doesn't have damaging consequences for anyone involved I find that more than a little alarming.

There was a long arc about Ted getting addicted to crystal, and it showed how incredibly destructive that addiction was. He lost everything due to his addiction and had to work very hard to get over it and regain the trust of his friends - in particular Emmett, who was the most hurt by his addiction. And in the first season, he does OD and almost die, and everyone made a big deal of that.

I did get the feeling from the series however, that drugs are okay if you use them responsibly - including things like ecstasy. Which I'm not sure I can totally feel okay about. There is a lot of danger in using ecstasy too. It may not be quite as destructive as crystal, but it sure as hell isn't a safe practice. And it's irresponsible to show it as such, in my opinion.

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Arthur B

at 00:10 on 2009-12-18Yeah, the problem with saying "drugs are OK if you use them responsibly" is that it's a statement which is completely true, but also completely unhelpful. The "responsible" way to use some drugs might to be

not to use them at all

. And I'm sure most people, when they start using drugs

think

they're being responsible. They may or may not be correct, but if they're not correct, by the time they realise it might be too late to avoid addiction.

I am pleased that Queer As Folk US is disapproving of meth though.

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Andy G

at 00:20 on 2009-12-18

But doesn't this also entail being honest about the downsides to their choices?

In the words of Peep Show, I think you need to be honest but not necessarily brutally honest. As neither of us have seen the show, it's pretty hard to tell if it gets it right, but I do think in principle a show can feature (dangerous) drug use without having to punish the characters with consequences.

The kind of thing I have in mind for instance: it's OK to show characters in a 1940s period piece smoking and looking a bit glamorous, and not necessarily getting lung cancer. Or a film about hedonistic 70s rock stars which made reference to their drug use as part of the portrayal of their lives, but didn't show any of them getting addicted or hurt.

As it happens, I think someone actually dies of a drug overdose in the British version. I believe in the American show he doesn't die but it's still a traumatic event. So the consequences are in fact shown. I guess even sympathetic portrayals need to show downsides to the lives/choices/values in any case, otherwise there'd be a distinct lack of drama and plot.

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Melissa G.

at 01:02 on 2009-12-18

I am pleased that Queer As Folk US is disapproving of meth though.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure the recreational drug use really subsided after Season 1. (Maybe as a reaction to Ted's OD?) If I remember correctly, Brian (and maybe Justin sometimes) were the only recreational drug users in the later seasons. And even those instances seemed few and far between. But it's been a while since I saw the series so maybe I just deluded myself into thinking this...

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Andy G

at 02:06 on 2009-12-18I always had the impression that ecstasy was pretty harmless for the vast majority of people taking it. Though that's slightly beside the point - I think there has to be a certain degree of leeway for people things in fiction getting away with things that might not be possible or advisable in real life.

It's all slightly beside the point which I was originally trying to make - I don't think that just because gay men are shown using drugs, this automaticaly qualifies it as a portrayal of a negative image of them. Even if on balance they'd probably be better off not doing drugs.

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Melissa G.

at 02:21 on 2009-12-18

I always had the impression that ecstasy was pretty harmless for the vast majority of people taking it.

For the vast majority maybe, but there are people who have died from their first ever hit of ecstasy because they bought it from people who didn't make properly/added something to it that they shouldn't have. (This is speaking from internet research rather than personal experience).

While I agree that it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative portrayal, I feel like you'd be hard pressed to find drug-users (and I mean those who use harder drugs like ecstasy/heroin/coke/meth) who will tell you how much drug use enhanced and enriched their lives. Most of the time drug use leads to badness, and that's why people quit. So it seems like if you're going to have drug users in literature/media, they should at some point either suffer from the usage or mature out of it somehow. But perhaps this is just my straight-edge-ness talking.

Erg, sorry for the off-topicness.

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Sister Magpie

at 03:52 on 2009-12-18

Yeah, the problem with saying "drugs are OK if you use them responsibly" is that it's a statement which is completely true, but also completely unhelpful. The "responsible" way to use some drugs might to be not to use them at all. And I'm sure most people, when they start using drugs think they're being responsible. They may or may not be correct, but if they're not correct, by the time they realise it might be too late to avoid addiction

I often think about something like this, the best way to present it. Because I often feel like the way TV usually shows drugs is just as unhelpful. Like where someone tries pot, and by sweeps they're out of control, but in a still-attractive way, and their friends are all concerned (but not angry or fed up the way you can quickly get with an addict). Mackenzie Phillips guest stars as a therapist and then he goes into rehab for a special ep and he's okay.

Because the problem with the idea that doing a single hit of anything makes you an addict is if a kid tries something and that doesn't happen they're navigating the reality on their own. The reality is more complicated--there are people who have done drugs at times but don't become addicted--but addiction is real and everyone should seriously fear it. Unfortunately it's also bad in a way that a lot of TV doesn't want to do too realistically because it makes characters unlikable. (Note: Certain drugs can't really be recreational. If you're doing crystal meth, for instance, you're in trouble, period.)

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Andy G

at 11:48 on 2009-12-18Let's put this another way: I take it as a given that violence is, in general, both morally bad and unhelpful as a solution. But I wouldn't want to say that a "glamorous" depiction of violence in film or TV is necessarily bad - I think that would be overly simplistic and would lead to some very dull films.

I would like to distinguish between two things though:

a) A positive portrayal of people who use drugs. It is possible to honestly show that these people use drugs without that necessarily equating to a negative portrayal of those people.

b) A positive or negative portrayal of their drug use.

The objection I had to the article was that it assumed (a) was impossible and that presenting the mere true fact that a certain subculture of gay men have anonymous sex, use drugs etc. amounted to a negative portrayal of them.

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Andy G

at 11:59 on 2009-12-18Incidentally:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-big-question-how-dangerous-is-ecstasy-and-is-there-a-case-to-review-its-legal-status-767817.html

Not that I would or do use ecstasy. I don't even drink alcohol. But I really don't think it can be categorised alongside crystal meth.

I've just remembered the Oxford LGBT Soc was accused in one of the student papers of being a sordid den of crystal meth addicts.

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Wardog

at 13:21 on 2009-12-18

I've just remembered the Oxford LGBT Soc was accused in one of the student papers of being a sordid den of crystal meth addicts.

Oh I remember this - I was most annoyed, not least because not only was I NEVER offered crystal meth while at LGBT (or rather LGB as it was in my day) events but I didn't even get laid =P

I was quite intrigued by this article actually as I've only seen the British version - which I remember rather enjoying, as soapy fun anyway.

The objection I had to the article was that it assumed (a) was impossible and that presenting the mere true fact that a certain subculture of gay men have anonymous sex, use drugs etc. amounted to a negative portrayal of them.

This snags at me slightly - in an interested way, I mean, not a critical one. I suppose, perhaps, it depends on who we establish as the target audience of QaF. I mean, yes, possibly a straight person would watch it and read out of it a confirmation of their worst 'fears' about the so-called homosexual lifestyle. But presumably it's *also* perfectly possible to read it as nothing more than sexy hyperbole - I mean there's nothing *inherently* wrong with taking drugs and having anonymous sex, is there? And I think it's an aspect of the culture that we've all brushed up against, maybe even partially participated in at certain times of our life ... again I'm talking about the British version here but actually it's both fun and meaningful to see its excesses explored 'safely' on TV.

To be more specific, like Sister Magpie I *really* enjoy The L Word. I think I even I wrote an article to the effect that it's a *terrible* portrayal of lesbian relationships and I think it's also fairly easy to argue the target audience of it is straight men BUT actually I do find it rather titillating. It's about hot women behaving badly, having lots of sex, and living a super fantasy lesbian lifestyle that does actually appeal - even if we know it's not necessarily 'realistic' - to a lot of gay women.

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Andy G

at 13:48 on 2009-12-18

But presumably it's *also* perfectly possible to read it as nothing more than sexy hyperbole - I mean there's nothing *inherently* wrong with taking drugs and having anonymous sex, is there? And I think it's an aspect of the culture that we've all brushed up against, maybe even partially participated in at certain times of our life ... again I'm talking about the British version here but actually it's both fun and meaningful to see its excesses explored 'safely' on TV.

Yes! That's exactly it.

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Arthur B

at 15:53 on 2009-12-18It should also be remembered that drugs and anonymous sex are not exactly foreign to certain quarters of the heterosexual experience either, and I'm sure we can all think of shows which depict a fantasy heterosexual lifestyle involving plenty of both.

On the one hand, obviously the portrayal of gay people (or any minority) on TV has to be dealt with sensitively, because it is very easy to mistake a statement about a gay character or a set of gay characters for a statement about homosexuality in general, whereas there are a vast plethora of different portrayals of straight people on TV so one particular take on the straight clubbing scene carries less baggage with it. On the other hand, people like watching shows about young sexy party people doing young sexy party things. Anyone who objects to depictions of gay people doing that sort of thing either a) is the sort of person who just plain objects to that sort of thing in the first place, in which case they're just prudish or b) simply doesn't like gay people, in which case they're bigoted. I don't think any TV show ever stopped people being prudish or bigoted, and I don't think the Queer as Folk or L Word writers have a special responsibility to worry about how genuinely hostile people would view their shows, because people who want to find things to object to will find things to object to.

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Andy G

at 16:36 on 2009-12-18

On the one hand, obviously the portrayal of gay people (or any minority) on TV has to be dealt with sensitively

As long as that doesn't mean timidly.

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Arthur B

at 17:18 on 2009-12-18Oh, absolutely. There's a difference between due care and needless cowardice.

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Melissa G.

at 17:20 on 2009-12-18

But I really don't think it can be categorised alongside crystal meth.

Here's the problem with ecstasy, and this is the last I'll say about it. What most people buy as "ecstasy" is not pure ecstasy, that is the say the chemical compound of MDMA, which in itself is not very dangerous. MDMA is very difficult to find/make, so many ecstasy sellers are actually giving you either a) a little MDMA mixed with things like amphetamine, methamphetamine, ephedrine, caffeine or b) something with no MDMA in it at all. Caffeine might not be dangerous to you but amphetamines and methamphetamines certainly are.

As for whether a drug user can be portrayed positive or negatively, Andy G., I actually agree with what you said here:

The objection I had to the article was that it assumed (a) was impossible and that presenting the mere true fact that a certain subculture of gay men have anonymous sex, use drugs etc. amounted to a negative portrayal of them.

I do think it's possible to have a character who does drugs and isn't portrayed negatively, but I would be a little nervous if his "drug use" wasn't portrayed negatively. Though this would also relate to how hard of a user he is, what kinds of drugs he uses, etc. Like, I have no problem with a bunch of high school slackers being shown to use pot. It's realistic and not very dangerous. But if someone starts taking pills or snorting something up his/her nose, I think you have to be more careful.

As far as QaF goes, the drug use bothered me in the beginning, and then it seemed to become less of an overwhelming factor in their behavior so I kind of ignored the few references to it.

Sorry if this all sounds rambling; I may have a fever....

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Rami

at 18:50 on 2009-12-18

MDMA is very difficult to find/make, so many ecstasy sellers are actually giving you either a) a little MDMA mixed with things like amphetamine, methamphetamine, ephedrine, caffeine or b) something with no MDMA in it at all

Is it? I'd thought it was relatively simple -- I've read that crystal meth is relatively easy to 'cook' up, for instance.

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Melissa G.

at 19:44 on 2009-12-18MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine)is a type of methamphetamine, but I think it's different to what makes up crystal meth.

Unfortunately, I'm definitely not a scientist so I can't totally understand the difference in the chemical compounds that make up the two. If someone else has a better grip on it, I'd love to hear it explained in layman's terms. I think it has something to do with the fact that ecstasy requires "safrole" (sassafras extract) and that the safrole has to be manipulated to make MDMA by using piperonyl acetone. I don't really know what all that means, personally, but it's apparently difficult to do or at least it's difficult to obtain the materials needed to create MDMA. A quick skim of the internet tells me that there are a lot of stories about failures to make it. Maybe it's not so much that it's difficult to make, but that it's difficult to make for someone who's not a good chemist. All I do know for sure is that what most people are buying on the street is not going to be pure ecstasy.

Here's

a link to the wiki article about MDMA

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Rami

at 20:05 on 2009-12-18The internets say it's 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, and from what little chemistry I know, that 3,4 is actually significant ;-) So I'd guess it's quite easy to make substances that are very very close but don't quite work? In any case, we're digressing...

I'm impressed to see that we've all been well-educated by the "It's cool to say NO to drugs" campaigns, though :-)

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Melissa G.

at 20:09 on 2009-12-18

that 3,4 is actually significant

Ah, I wondered whether to include that or not. Shows how little I remember of my chemistry, lol.

And yes, we're digressing...sorry about that, everyone.

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Arthur B

at 22:19 on 2009-12-18The difference between methamphetamine and MDMA is thus: methamphetamine is methamphetamine, plain and simple, nothing fancy added to the structure, as seen

here

. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine is methamphetaine with extra stuff added to the chemical structure (the "methylenedioxy" bit). The "3,4" indicates that the methylenedioxy unit is bonded to the methamphetamine ring at a specific position on amphetamine's ring structure.

So, making methamphetamine is fairly simple, as far as chemical synthesis goes; you have several options for starting materials and the ways you can go about it. But MDMA is more complex, so your options are more limited.

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 05:43 on 2009-12-19It seems to me that whenever a bigot says in an accusatory way "group X are Y" there are at least two responses sensible people will want to make namely, "are not!" and "so what?"

This is what makes bigots so frustrating to debate against, because in a sound-bite confrontation it's almost impossible to reject one without appearing to accept the other.

In fiction though, it seems perfectly sufficient to rebut one or the other in a given story. So I think there's probably a place in the world for a story that gave a poignat and sympathetic portrayal of crowd of stereotypical swingin' hard-partyin' musical-theatre-lovin' fashion-conscious gay guys. Besides being entertaining and ideally a reasonable portrayal of a subculture of the gay community, it might convince one or two people that gay men aren't really that bad.

It sounds like this isn't that show, especially as destructive and unlikable as the characters sound, and with the writing apparently uneven, but I don't think making a story about stereotypical gay men is necessarily negative. (Though it should still have female characters).

The easiest way to pull it off would be for your hard-partiers to be lovable rogues of the dashing, rascally sort that gets a pass in fiction for plenty of ill-advised heterosexual adventures. There is, admittedly, a risk of lapsing into a kind of gaysploitation--if one glamorized the association of drugs and queerness, for instance, I imagine that would be as offensive as similar tactics in blaxploitation.

That said, blaxploitation is (and here I risk major racefail by opining on something I know little about) especially problematic because one audiences "celebrate" aspects of black life that aren't necessarily chosen by black people as good in themselves, but rather a consequence of the poverty and systematic discrimination that many black people suffer. I'm not aware of similar issues with gay stereotypes (though I'm sure they exist). To the extent that, say, gay men really do become designers and hardressers, for instance, (I assume much less than the stereotypical, but more than the general population), it's not because they were historically forced out of other industries.

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Andy G

at 12:13 on 2009-12-19

It sounds like this isn't that show, especially as destructive and unlikable as the characters sound

One thing to remember about QaF is that it is written from within a gay perspective for a gay audience to celebrate (a certain aspect of) gay life. I think that's an important distinction from the way that other shows appropriated images of black or gay people.

If anything, one of the problems I had with the British QaF was that it just didn't engage with homophobia - all of the homophobes were cardboard cut-outs with transparently bigoted views. But possibly it's because the aim was to create a fantasy world into which those kind of views couldn't get admittance.

I'm not sure I found the characters destructive and unlikable, though it's hard to tell how much that applies to the American version. I think the fact that it wasn't concerned to pander to homophobes made it defiant and unapologetic, which perhaps means there isn't much of a "way in" if you disapprove of certain aspects of what's going on (e.g. drug-taking).

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Viorica

at 15:30 on 2009-12-19

it's a *terrible* portrayal of lesbian relationships and I think it's also fairly easy to argue the target audience of it is straight men BUT actually I do find it rather titillating. It's about hot women behaving badly, having lots of sex, and living a super fantasy lesbian lifestyle that does actually appeal

Switch the pronouns, and that's a pretty accurate description of QAF. Which is my main issue with it- even leaving out the stereotypes, it's a dreadful portrayal of gay men and their lives. That, and there's nothing to balance the characters who act in extremely destructive ways (BRIAN); there isn't anyone who manages to have any kind of stable life, except

maybe

Michael. And without any stable characters, it kind of fails on the representation front.

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Wardog

at 16:36 on 2009-12-19

Switch the pronouns, and that's a pretty accurate description of QAF. Which is my main issue with it- even leaving out the stereotypes, it's a dreadful portrayal of gay men and their lives.

Not to put words in anybody's mouth or anything but I think that's Andy's point - it's probably a terrible portrayal of gay men and their lives to a bisexual woman but that judgement comes from being *way outside* the target audience.

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Andy G

at 17:27 on 2009-12-19

Not to put words in anybody's mouth or anything but I think that's Andy's point - it's probably a terrible portrayal of gay men and their lives to a bisexual woman but that judgement comes from being *way outside* the target audience.

Feel free to put words in my mouth! You generally manage to say what I want to say far more eloquently and less pompously.

I guess QaF is just not trying to *justify* the type of lifestyle it portrays to people for whom that justification might not be obvious - it takes the fact of the existence of a certain kind of gay lifestyle as a starting point, as a world in which certain behaviours and assumptions are naturalised. It isn't making an argument for those assumptions but presenting a confident picture of that world to assert an identity.

Of course, I haven't seen the American version of QaF, so all I have to go on is what you said in your article. I'm not really sure how much more I can say that isn't vacuously hypothetical!

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Melissa G.

at 17:57 on 2009-12-19For what it's worth, my gay male friends all seem to love American QaF. But I never really talked with them at length about how they felt concerning the stereotypes and portrayals. When I watched the show together with them, it didn't really come up, but that doesn't mean they didn't notice or think about it.

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Viorica

at 20:33 on 2009-12-19

comes from being *way outside* the target audience.

Very true, and I do freely admit to coming to the show with some- privilege, I guess I'd call it?- since I'm not actually a gay man. It just feels kind of uncomfortable for a show what purports to be a representation of gay men and their lives to have those lives be frequently messed up. It's sort of like what I feel (to a far greater extent, seeing as how QAF is fictional and dosn't try to claim otherwise) about Tila Tequila. But I am sorry if I've offended anyone.

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Andy G

at 21:31 on 2009-12-19I'm not offended in the slightest, I just wanted to highlight a few points where I think we differ. But I don't think I have anything more to add, so I'll shut up now.

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Wardog

at 22:27 on 2009-12-19I wasn't offended either (not that I had any right to be anyway =P), I was just interested - I didn't mean to suggest your criticisms were inappropriate or invalid, or anything like that.

I guess there are similar issues with The L Word - in that a show that's supposed to be about the lives of gay women, you think they'd be less PSYCHO about everything.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:16 on 2009-12-19Like Kyra, I found it interesting to read this article and reach back to my rather vague memories of the British series. Pretty much every plot development you mention rings a bell, so I guess that's stayed similar.

Interestingly, I really don't remember drugs featuring to any significant extent in the British version. Now let's bear in mind it's been, what, at least ten years since I watched it, so there may have been drugs, but the fact that I've completely forgotten any such element suggests to me that I didn't register drug-use as an important part of their portrayal of the gay 'scene' in Manchester in the late '90s.

I also don't remember the lesbian couple breaking up; but on the other hand they were, as in the US series, utterly peripheral and so it's quite possible that they did and I just don't remember because it didn't matter to the plot. Nor, though perhaps for just the same reason, do I really remember one being noticeably more masculine than the other. But I do have a sort of recollection that one of the two was portrayed as a very stable and down-to-earth character who disapproved of Brian's (if that was his name in the British version also - at any rate the one played by the dark-haired chap who later played the Irish politician in

The wire

) behaviour.

I definitely don't remember Justin and Daphne (again I can't remember whether the names were the same in the British version) sleeping together, and I'll go so far as to say that I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. That just sounds bizarre.

My recollection of the end of the series (er,

spoilers

, if we haven't already passed that stage long ago) is that Brian is eventually persuaded that his relationship with Justin isn't healthy and redeems himself a bit by deliberately showing himself to Justin as a bit pathetic and past-it, which empowers Justin to get over him and make his own way as a more self-confident 'out' young gay man. I don't really know whether that's a good message or not. In a way it's a bit of a cop-out: it does acknowledge their relationship as problematic, but it also shows it as a positive thing in as much as it ends in Brian becoming a better person and Justin being empowered. Hmm.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:17 on 2009-12-19PS: What on earth do people in North America make of the title? It must seem completely nonsensical, surely?

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Andy G

at 23:31 on 2009-12-19The British version was much shorter, so there are lots more plot developments in the American show.

Stuart (Brian in the American version) isn't in a relationship with Nathan (Justin) at the end, but Nathan has a crush on Stuart that's holding him back, so in a weirdly altruistic act he finally agrees to sleep with Nathan and pretends to be pathetic and past-it.

Weird fact: Stuart (Justin) is played by Aidan Gillen, a.k.a. Tommy Carcetti in The Wire!

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Melissa G.

at 23:34 on 2009-12-19I don't remember thinking much of the title at all, but someone told me it came off of "Queer as Fuck", but I'm not sure where that came from either....

I'm pretty sure the British and American shows veer off from each other quite a bit. There might be some plot lines in the first season/series that match up, but like the American version of The Office, it becomes its own show after that. Brian and Justin's relationship is not really treated the same, it sounds like.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:35 on 2009-12-19

The title is a pun off of the phrase "Queer as Fuck" is it not? That's the explanation I was given, I think.

Gosh, no. There's an old phrase from Northern England, originating before the 'gay' connotation of 'queer', that runs 'There's nowt as queer as folk' ('There's nothing as strange as people', i.e. 'People are strange'). It's the sort of thing you'd say at the end of a gossipy conversation about your odd friends or neighbours.

My school-friends and I used to call the TV series 'Half a Yorkshire phrase'. I dare say we thought that was rather witty, but I guess really we were embarrassed to say 'queer' frequently in conversation when we chatted about each weeks' episode.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:36 on 2009-12-19Corrigendum:

weeks'

->

week's

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Melissa G.

at 23:37 on 2009-12-19

Gosh, no. There's an old phrase from Northern England, originating before the 'gay' connotation of 'queer', that runs 'There's nowt as queer as folk'

Haha, yeah, so whoever told me that was majorly confused. Though apparently "Queer as Fuck" (according to the internets) was the original idea for a title to the show so maybe that's where the confusion came from.

Sorry, I reposted that comment to edit it...

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Melissa G.

at 23:41 on 2009-12-19Sorry, not "the original title", just something they referred to it as in pre-production. Damn it, Melissa, read more carefully!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 00:35 on 2009-12-20Speaking as a North American, I know I've heard "queer as folk" before, but I admit I generally assumed that "queer as fuck" was the effect they were going for.

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Sister Magpie

at 00:40 on 2009-12-20Speaking as yet another North American, I think I knew it was a slang phrase. I distinctly remember knowing that it was short for "there's nowt queer as folk" but I don't know where I ever heard that phrase.

The Stuart/Nathan line definitely ended differently. The ending of Brian is one of the oddest things I could imagine. He basically seemed to have gotten to the point where he was ready to bow out gracefully and then his friends convinced him that no, he could be Brian forever! Except that of course he couldn't. So it was like it ended with him becoming pathetic because of peer pressure. Very bizarre.

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Andy G

at 00:55 on 2009-12-20I have been inspired to rewatch the British version. Stuart does indeed take "ecstasy" in the first episode, and it turns out to be dodgy. It is played for laughs though.

The entire series is on 4oD for anyone else who wishes to procrastinate!

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Melissa G.

at 01:49 on 2009-12-20

Here's

a YouTube video that shows scenes of the British and American versions back to back. It's pretty interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't find the one that contrasted the Brian/Justin seduction scene with the Stuart/Nathan one...

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Melissa G.

at 01:53 on 2009-12-20Oh! I lie.

Here

it is.

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Viorica

at 04:45 on 2009-12-20Wow, the comments exposded while I was away. :D

I didn't mean to suggest your criticisms were inappropriate or invalid, or anything like that.

Oh, I didn't think you were- I just figured that talking about Why This Is Bad when the show isn't aimed at me/my demographic could potentially annoy someone.

Re: Brian and Justin. They do eventually end up together, no? As I recall (from spoilers, as I haven't gotten to season five yet) they decide not to get married, but to stay together as a couple.

What on earth do people in North America make of the title?

Honestly, I'm not sure. Most people probably figure that the point of the title is to have "queer" in there and just leave it at that.

one of the two was portrayed as a very stable and down-to-earth character who disapproved of Brian's behaviour.

Yep, that's Melanie. The butch/femme dynamic between them is relatively subtle- they haven't got one of them as a drag king or anything- but Melanie's got short hair and dresses sensibly while Lindsey had long hair, and is a bit dressier.

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Andy G

at 02:12 on 2009-12-22Don't want to re-open this discussion, but just finished re-watching the rather fab British series and just wanted to flag up the way drug issues are handled in the series:

******Spoilers********

Epsiode 1: Stuart takes "ecstasy" and it is spiked. He wrecks his flat (to comic effect admittedly).

Episode 3: Stuart and Vince take coke. Phil takes coke and dies.

Episode 4: Phil's mother delivers stinging comments about drug use in the gay community at his funeral.

I think that gives a rather fair portrayal of the consequences of drug use without being too preachy or didactic, and without condemning the people who use it (while still being critical). I don't know how this compares to the US series.

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Viorica

at 00:36 on 2010-01-03I got the second season out of the library (what can I say? It's addictive) and 2x03 actually has an episode where they invent a gay-themed show called "Gay as Blazes" which Brian mocks for being an overly sedate and non-sexualised portrayal of gay people. I really have to admire their sheer ballsiness. Either that, or they're just being wanky.

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Viorica

at 00:43 on 2010-01-03Oh! And the episode also features a gay author who editorializes about the creepy age gap in Brian and Justin's relationship. Somehow, I get this feeling that they recieved some criticism. :P

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Wardog

at 15:39 on 2010-01-19Hehe, sorry to drag this up *again* but it's interesting - I've just started re-watching the British version which, as Andy says, is indeed rather fab. I have to say I, err, I err, find Stuart / Nathan ... non-squicky

Maybe I'm just completely tasteless and missing the point but I actually think the portrayal of the sex and the relationship (such as it is) is pretty balanced between the positive and the negative. I see it neither has overly fantastic, nor overly condemnatory if that makes sense - I mean, yes, there's an element of fantasy there but it's largely the fantasy of the two involved parties - Stuart gets off on it because it helps him re-affirm both his youth and transgressiveness, especially after the birth of his son (notice he only gets 'properly' into Justin after he learns his age) - and for Nathan you *bet* it's a fantasy - he loses his virginity to a hot, 'sophistcated' older man. Even the dropping him off at school sequence feeds into this - it's still part of the joint fantasy.

I know they are, to an extent, exploiting each other but that mutuality, to me, it what de-squicks it.

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Arthur B

at 15:52 on 2010-01-19Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but didn't the original series come out before the age of consent for homosexual men was lowered to 16 (in line with the heterosexual age of consent in the UK), or at least very, very shortly after it? If that's the case (and if Nathan is 16ish in the show) then RTD may have been very specifically trying to address that issue through the show.

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Wardog

at 16:02 on 2010-01-19He's pretty definitely 15... and I'm not arguing it's, y'know, a positive portrayal of underage homosexual sex but I think what it does depict very nicely is that it's *complex*.

[christophertheodore-org]

Donald Trump and the Ghost of Totalitarianism

By Henry Giroux

 In the current historical moment in the United States, the emptying out of language is nourished by the assault on the civic imagination.  One example of this can be found in the rise of Donald Trump on the political scene. Donald Trump’s popular appeal speaks to not just the boldness of what he says and the shock it provokes, but the inability to respond to shock with informed judgement rather than titillation. Marie Luise Knott is right in noting that “We live our lives with the help of the concepts we form of the world. They enable an author to make the transition from shock to observation to finally creating space for action—for writing and speaking. Just as laws guarantee a public space for political action, conceptual thought ensures the existence of the four walls within which judgment operates.”[1] The concepts that now guide our understanding of American society are dominated by a corporate induced linguistic and authoritarian model that brings ruin to language, politics and democracy itself.

Missing from the commentaries by most of the mainstream media regarding the current rise of Trumpism is any historical context that would offer a critical account of the ideological and political disorder plaguing the American society—personified by Trump’s popularity. A resurrection of historical memory in this moment could provide important lessons regarding the present crisis, particularly the long tradition of racism, white supremacy, exceptionalism, war mongering, and extended wars on youth, women, and immigrants. Calling Trump a fascist is not enough. What is necessary are analyses in which the seeds of totalitarianism are made visible in Trump’s discourse and policy measures. One example can be found in Steve Weissman’s commentary on Trump in which he draws a relationship between Trump’s casual racism and the neo-fascist movements across Europe who “are growing strong by hating others for their skin color, religious origin, or immigrant status.”[2]  

Few journalists have acknowledged the presence of white militia and white supremacists groups at his rallies and almost none have acknowledged the chanting of “white power” at some of his rallies which would surely signal not only Trump’s connections to a racist past but also to the formative Nazi culture that gave rise to genocide.[3]  Another example can be found in Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of the mainstream media’s treatment of Trump’s attack on Jorge Ramos, an influential anchor of Univision.[4] When Ramos stood up to question Trump’s views on immigration, Trump refused not only to call on him, but insulted him by telling him to go back to Univision. Instead of focusing on this particular lack of civility, Greenwald takes up the way many journalists scolded Ramos because he had a point of view and was committed to a political narrative. Greenwald saw this not just as a disingenuous act on the part of such reporters but as a weakness that furthers the march of an authoritarian regime that does not have to be accountable to the press. Trump may be bold in his willingness to flaunt his racism and make clear that money drives politics, but this is not new and should surprise no one who is historically and civically literate.  

What is clear in this case is that a widespread avoidance of the past has become not only a sign of the appalling lack of historical consciousness in contemporary American culture, but a deliberate political weapon used by the powerful to keep people passive and blind to the truth, if not reduced to a discourse drawn from the empty realm of celebrity culture. This is a discourse in which totalitarian images of the hero, fearless leader, and bold politicians get lost in the affective and ideological registers of what Hannah Arendt once called “the ruin of our categories of thought and standards of judgment.”[5]  Of course, there are many factors currently contributing to this production of ignorance and the lobotomizing of individual and collective agency. The forces promoting a deep seated culture of authoritarianism run deep in American society.

Such factors extend from the idiocy of celebrity and popular culture and the dumbing down of American schools to the transformation of the mainstream media into a deadly mix of propaganda and entertainment.  The latter is particularly crucial as the collapse of journalistic standards that could inform the onslaught of information finds its counterpart in a government wedded to state secrecy and the aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers,[6]  the expanding use of state secrecy, the corruption of political language,[7] the disregard for truth, all of which have contributed to growing culture of political and civic illiteracy.[8]  The knowledge and value deficits that produce such detrimental forms of ignorance not only crush the critical and ethical imagination, critical modes of social interaction, and political dissent, but also destroy those public spheres and spaces that promote thoughtfulness, thinking, critical dialogue, and serve as “guardians of truths as facts,” as Arendt once put it.[9]

Under the reign of neoliberalism, space, time, and even language have been subject to the forces of privatization and commodification. Public space has been replaced by malls and a host of commercial institutions. Commodified and privatized, public space is now regulated through exchange values rather than public values just as communal values are replaced by atomizing and survival-of-the fittest market values.  Time is no longer connected to long term investments, the development of social capital, and goals that benefit young people and the public good. On the contrary, time is now connected to short-term investments and quick financial gains.

More broadly, time is now defined by “the non-stop operation of global exchange and circulation”[10] and the frenetic reproduction and perpetuation of an impoverished celebrity and consumer culture that both depoliticizes people and narrows their potential for critical thought, agency, and social relations to an investment in shopping, and other market-related activities.  Under neoliberalism, time presents itself as a form tyranny, an unquestioned necessity,  and in speeding up the flows of work, leisure, knowledge, and everyday life it spawns a new kind of violence in which the flow of capital replaces the flow of thoughtfulness, atomization replaces a notion of shared solidarity, the spectacle undermines historical memory, privatization seeks to erase all notions of the public good, and manufactured precarity replaces any sense of security and long-term planning.

In the age of casino capitalism, time itself has become a burden more than a condition for contemplation, self-reflection, and the cultivation of thoughtful and compassionate social relations. The extended arc of temporal relations in which one could imagine long-term investments in the common good has given way to a notion of time in which the horizon of time is contained within the fluctuating short-term investments of the financial elite and their militant drive for profits at any price. What is lost in this merging of time and the dictates of neoliberal capital are the most basic elements of being human along with the formative culture and institutions necessary to develop a real, substantive democracy. As Christian Marazzi observes:

Taking time means giving each other the means of inventing one’s future, freeing it from the anxiety of immediate profit. It means caring for oneself and the environment in which one lives, it means growing up in a socially responsible way. [Taking time means] questioning the meaning of consumption, production, and investment [so as to not] reproduce the preconditions of financial capitalism, the violence of its ups and downs, the philosophy according to which ‘time is everything, man is nothing.’ For man (sic) to be everything, we need to reclaim the time of his existence. [11] Civic death and disposability are the new signposts or a society in which historical memory is diminished and ethical evaluations become derided as figments of liberal past.  Dispossession and depoliticization are central to the discourse of neoliberalism in which language is central to moulding identities, desires, values, and social relationships. As Doreen Massey observes, under neoliberalism the public is urged to become consumers, customers, and highly competitive while taught that that the only interest that matters are individual interests, almost always measured by monetary considerations.[12] Under such circumstances, social and communal bonds have been shredded, important modes of solidarity attacked, and a war has been waged against any institution that embraces the values, practices, and social relations endemic to a democracy.

This retreat into private silos has resulted in the inability of individuals to connect their personal suffering with larger public issues. Thus detached from any concept of the common good or viable vestige of the public realm, they are left to face alone a world of increasing precarity and uncertainty in which it becomes difficult to imagine anything other than how to survive. Under such circumstances, there is little room for thinking critically and acting collectively in ways that are imaginative and courageous.

Surely, the celebration and widespread prevalence of ignorance in American culture does more than merely testify “to human backwardness or stupidity”; it also “indicates human weakness and the fear that it is unbearably difficult to live beset by continuous doubts.”[13] Yet, what is often missed in analysis of political and civic illiteracy as the new normal is the degree to which these new forms of illiteracy not only result in an unconscious flight from politics, but also produce a moral coma that supports modern systems of terror and authoritarianism. Civic illiteracy is about more than the glorification and manufacture of ignorance on an individual scale: it is producing a nation-wide crisis of agency, memory, and thinking itself.

How else to explain, for instance, the mainstream media’s willingness to provide a platform for Donald Trump whose  views  express an unchecked hatred of immigrants, women, the welfare state, and any viable notion of the public good.  As Richard Hofstadter, Noam Chomsky, and Susan Jacoby have made clear ignorance is not simply about the absence of knowledge, it is a kind of ideological sandstorm in which reason gives way to emotion, and a willful stupidity spreads through the culture as part of a political project that both infantilizes and depoliticizes the general public.[14]

Trump is simply the most visible embodiment of a society that is not merely suspicious of critical thought but disdains it. Trump is the quintessential symbol of the merging of a war-like arrogance, a militant certainty, and as self-absorbed unworldliness in which he is removed from problems of the real world.  The clueless Trump is far from a kind of clownish fiction some writers have described him to be. And while liberals such as Michal Tomasky have pointed to his appeal to racial resentment, a gladiatorial style, and his ability to combine a war like discourse and elements of conservative fundamentalism with a flair for entertainment,[15]  this type of analysis shies away from talking about Trump represents the challenge of understanding how totalitarianism now confronts Americans in new forms.[16]

He is the embodiment of a political party and casino driven social order in which informed judgments, moral responsibility, and collective action disappear from the world of politics.  Trump’s often insulting, humiliating, misogynist, and racist remarks signify more than the rantings an antediluvian, privileged white man who is both savvy in the world of public relations and delusional in the world of politics.  Trump represents the new face of what Hannah Arendt once called the “banality of evil.”[17]   Unapologetic about the racist nature of his remarks, unreflective about an savage economic system that is destroying the planet and the lives of most of its inhabitants, and unaware of his own “criminal” participation in furthering a culture of fear and cruelty, he is typical of an expanding mass of pundits, anti-public intellectuals, and right-wing fundamentalists who live in a historical void and for whom emotion overtakes reason.

     Clearly, the attack on reason, evidence, science, and critical thought has reached perilous proportions in the United States. A number of political, economic, social, and technological forces now work to distort reality and keep people passive, unthinking, and unable to act in a critically engaged manner. Politicians, right-wing pundits, and large swaths of the American public embrace positions that support Creationism, capital punishment, torture,  and the denial of human-engineered climate change, any one of which not only defies human reason but stands in stark opposition to evidence-based scientific arguments. Reason now collapses into opinion, as thinking itself appears to be both dangerous and antithetical to understanding ourselves, our relations to others, and the larger state of world affairs. Under such circumstances, literacy disappears not just as the practice of learning skills, but also as the foundation for taking informed action. Divorced from any sense of critical understanding and agency, the meaning of literacy is narrowed to completing basic reading, writing, and numeracy tasks assigned in schools. Literacy education is similarly reduced to strictly methodological considerations and standardized assessment, rooted in test taking and deadening forms of memorization, and becomes far removed from forms of literacy that would impart an ability to raise questions about historical and social contexts.

     For Arendt the inability to think, to be thoughtful, and assume responsibility for one’s actions spoke not just to a regrettable type of civic and political illiteracy, but was crucial for creating the formative cultures that produced totalitarian regimes. Absent any residue of moral responsibility, political indignation, and collective resistance, crimes committed in a systemic way now emerge, in part, from a society in which thinking had become dangerous and non-thinking normalized.  Of course, thinking critically is largely produced in public spheres that instill convictions rather than destroy them, encourage critical capacities rather than shut them down, invest in public spheres rather than eliminate them by turning them over to private interests.  

What Donald Trump represents is rarely talked about in the media. He is the most current egregious highly visible symbol of a terrifying  stage in American society haunted by the protean elements of a new totalitarianism. Totalitarian forms are still with us but they no longer find expression in the rounding up and killing of Jews, gays, and intellectuals or in the spectacles of militarism with the heightened show of armies of thugs dressed in military uniforms and black boots. The new totalitarianism is echoed in the resurgence of religious bigotry that runs through the current like an electric current and personified in the media celebration of bigots such as Kentucky clerk Kim Davis who believes that her religion gives her the right to both deny marriage license to gays and the disavow the separation of church and state.  Unfortunately, Davis is more than an embarrassment politically and ethically, she reflects a sizable number of religious fundamentalists who have the backing of Republican Party and presidential candidates such as Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee.

Totalitarianism throws together authoritarian and anti-democratic forms that represent a new historical moment in American history. Economic fundamentalism now governs all of society rather than just the market and in doing so drives politics and sets polices that promote massive inequalities in wealth and power, produce huge amounts of suffering, and appear to delight in a culture of cruelty. Military fundamentalism points to a society that now militarizes everything from knowledge to schools. In this scenario, an increasing number of behaviors are criminalized, militarism feeds the punishing and incarceration state, and a kind of hyper masculinity now parades as the new model for legitimating aggression and violence in multiple spheres and against an increasing range of populations extending from women and black youth to Mexican immigrants.

One of the most deadly fundamentalisms is education. We now live in a world in which illiteracy has replaced literacy and civic values have gone the way of the typewriter.  As the orbits of privatization increase furthering what has been called by Mark Fisher the “empire of the self,” knowledge is transformed into the flow of non-stop information just as education collapses into training. Students are now defined as test-takers and celebrity culture has overtaken any viable notion of a critical, questioning, and informed culture.  Trump’s rise in the polls is tantamount to the collapse of civic literacy and the public spheres that support it.

Totalitarianism’s curse finds public and political support for a mode of non-thinking in which rails against any attempt to ask what it might mean to use knowledge and theory as a resource to address social problems and events in ways that are meaningful and expand democratic relations.  This this is a form of illiteracy marked by the inability to see outside of the realm of the privatized self, an illiteracy in which the act of translation withers, reduced to a relic of another age. The United States has become a country in which a chron­ic and deadly form of civic illiteracy finds its most visible expression in a disimagination machine that celebrates the Donald Trumps of the world.

The world of politics is far from clownish and in fact points to a poisonous future at a time in which  the educational force of the culture is being used  to promote the a form of civic illiteracy. Donald Trump is not the singular clown who has injected the color and idiocy into American politics, he is the canary in the mineshaft warning us that totalitarianism relies on mass support and feeds on hate, moral panics, and “the frenzied lawlessness or ideological certitude.”[18]  As American society moves from a culture of questioning to a culture of shouting, it has restaged politics and power in ways that are truly unproductive, frightening, and anti-democratic.

Jerome Kohn in writing about Arendt’s notion of totalitarianism provided a commentary that contains a message for the present age, one that points the possibility of hope triumphing over despair—a lesson that needs to be embraced at the present moment. He writes that for Arendt “what matters is not to give oneself over to the despair of the past or the utopian hope of the future, but ‘to remain wholly in the present.’ Totalitarianism is the crisis of our times insofar as its demise becomes a turning point for the present world, presenting us with an entirely new opportunity to realize a common world, a world that Arendt called a ‘human artifice,’ a place fit for habitation by all human beings.”[19]  

And if Trump represents a symbol of a threatening totalitarianism, the legacy of individual and collective struggle now on the horizon in the struggles emerging among the Black Lives Matter Movement, fast food workers, environmentalists, and a range of other groups point to a different future in which the ideological stupidity and the unbridled braggadocio of the loud mouth authoritarians will be challenged and overcome by the urgency of hope in the face of despair.  Rather than view Trump as an eccentric clown maybe it is time to portray him symbolic of the legacy of a totalitarian post whose story needs to be told again. And in making such connections, there is not only the power of resistance but a call to civic action to prevent such horrible narrative from appearing once again.

I want to conclude by arguing that inherent in Arendt’s notion of the banality is view of education as central to politics. That is, for her the educative nature of politics is dialectical in that it is central to both creating the formative cultures of thoughtlessness and Nazi pedagogy and in creating those modes of politics in which matters of critique, desire, and agency are central to constructing critical and socially responsible citizens alive to the demands of economic, racial, and political justice. For those of us who believe that education is more than an extension of the business world, it is crucial to address a number of issues that connect the stress the educative nature of politics as part of a broader effort to create a critical culture, democratic public spheres, and a collective movement that supports the connection between critique and action and redefines agency in the service of the practice of freedom and justice.  Let me mention just a few.

First, educators, artists and others can address and make clear the relationship between the attack on the social state and the transformation of a range of democratic public spheres into adjuncts of corporate power. The neoliberal attacks on the welfare state, social provisions, public servants, and the public good must be understood and addressed as not simply an agenda to solidify class power but as an attack on democracy itself. . Nor can it be understood outside of the production of the atomized neoliberal subject who is taught to believe in a form of possessive individualism that disdains matters of compassion, solidarity, and the type of sociality crucial to a democratic society. In a society in which  the “social self’ has been transformed into the “disembedded individual,” any viable notion of the  public good is now repudiated by the privatizing and atomistic values at the heart of a hyper-market driven society. [20]

As I have mentioned earlier in this essay, militarism has a deadly grip on Ameican society as both an ideology with its celebration of the ideals of war, violence, and military heroism and as a policy that fuels the arms race, invests billions in military weapons, and spends more on the tools of surveillance, war, and state violence than on schools, health care, and the welfare state. Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies has done extensive research on military spending and the costs of war and states that as a result of the Iraqi War alone “American taxpayers will ultimately spend roughly $2.2 trillion on the war, but because the U.S. government borrowed to finance the conflict, interest payments through the year 2053 means that the total bill could reach nearly $4 trillion.”[21] At the very least, any viable form of resistance against the onslaught of totalitarianism will have to develop as Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun has pointed out a Marshall Plan in which funding is sufficient to make all levels of education free, while also providing enough social support to eliminate poverty, hunger, inadequate health care, and the destruction of the environment.[22] There is nothing utopian about the demand to redirect money away from the military, powerful corporations, and the upper 1 percent.

Second, progressives need to develop a new radical democratic imaginary that challenges the notion that a market economy is synonymous with democracy. Capitalism and democracy are antithetical and the ways in which democracy is undermined by casino capitalism needs to be endlessly addressed as part of the pedagogical and political task of rupturing what might be called neoliberal commonsense, especially regarding the assumption that the market should govern all of social life. The greatest threat posed by authoritarian politics is that it makes power invisible and hence defines itself in universal and commonsense terms, as if it is beyond critique and dissent.

Moreover, disposability has become the new measure of a savage form of casino capitalism in which the only value that matters is exchange value. Coupled with making the machinery of neoliberal power visible is the need to overcome the fragmentation of the left while not denying the various modes of oppression at work in the United States. Put differently, there is a need young people, workers, educators, artists, and others to become part of a broader social movement aimed at dismantling the repressive institutions that are moving the United States into a new authoritarian age. This is especially true with regards to addressing the mass incarceration state, which drains billions of dollars in funds to put people in jail when such resources could be used to fund health care, free higher education, much needed infrastructure, a social wage, free day care, and so it goes.

What I am suggesting here is that progressives need to develop a more comprehensive view of society and the mutually informing registers of politics, oppression, and political struggle. There is a noble and informing example of this type of analysis in the work of theorists such as Stanley Aronowitz, Angela Davis, Michael Lerner and the late Martin Luther King, Jr., who drew connections between militarism, racism and capitalism as part of a call not for reform but for a radical restructuring of American society.

Third, against the new thoughtlessness that drapes the American public in the abyss of ignorance, infantilism, consumerism, militarism, and environmental stupidity, there is a need to create those pedagogical spaces in which shared faith in justice replaces the shared fears of precarity, hatred of the other, and a fear of the demands of justice.  Against the savage brutalism of the new totalitarianism, there is a need to develop new discourses, vocabularies, values, desires, and a sense of spirituality that brings people together around a need for critique, passion for justice, and a desire for new modes of collective resistance and struggle.  We may be in the midst of “dark times” but the light of hope is never far off and while it offers no guarantees, it posits the possibility of a future that will not mimic the horrors of the present.

[1] Marie Luise Knott, Unlearning With Hannah Arendt, trans. by David Dollenmayer, (Other Press: New York, NY. 2011, 2013), p. 47. [2] Steve Weissman, “Bashing Blacks, Latinos, Jews, and Muslims: Never Again!,” Reader Supported News, (September 2011). Online at: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32150-focus-bashing-blacks-latinos-jews-and-muslims-never-again [3] See, for example, Randy Blazak, “Donald Trump is the New Face of White Supremacy,” Counter Punch, (August 28, 2015). Online at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/28/donald-trump-is-the-new-face-of-white-supremacy/ [4] Glenn Greenwald, “Jorge Ramos Commits Journalism, Gets Immediately Attacked by Journalists,” The Intercept, (August 27, 2015). Online at: https://theintercept.com/2015/08/26/jorge-ramos-commits-journalism-gets-immediately-attacked-journalists/ [5] Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, (Brooklyn, NY. : Melville House Publishing, 2013) [6] Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide (New York: Metropolitan, 2014). [7] Charles Lewis, 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity (New York: Public Affairs, 2014). [8] Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason (New York: Pantheon, 2008); Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, eds. Agnotology: the Making and Unmaking of Ignorance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).  The classic text here is Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in America Life (New York: Knopf, 1963). [9] Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2013), p. 31. [10] Jonathan Crary,  24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, (Verso,  2013) (Brooklyn, NY: Verso Press, 2013), p. 5. [11] Christian Marazzi, The Violence of  Financial Capitalism (New York: Semiotext(e) 2011), p. 96. [12] Doreen Massey, “Vocabularies of the economy,” Soundings, (2013) http://lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/pdfs/Vocabularies%20of%20the%20economy.pdf [13] Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013), p. 7. [14] Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 2002); Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason (New York: Pantheon, 2008) and Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in America Life (New York: Knopf, 1963). [15] Michael Tomasky, “Trump,” New York Review of Books (September 24, 2015). Online: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/trump/ [16] See, for instance, Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Destinies of Totalitarianism,” Salmagundi, No. 60, (Spring -Summer, 1983), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40547754 [17] Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 2006). [18] Bill Dixon, “Totalitarianism and the Sand Storm,” Hannah Arendt Center (February 3, 2014). Online: http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=12466 [19] Jerome Kohn, “Totalitarianism: The Inversion of Politics,” The Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress Essays and lectures—"On the Nature of Totalitarianism: An Essay in Understanding” (Series: Speeches and Writings File, 1923-1975, n.d.) Online at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/essayb1.html [20] These two terms are taken from Stefan Collini, “Response to Book Review Symposium: Stefan Collini, What are Universities For,” Sociology 1-2 (February 5, 2014), Online: http://soc.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/02/14/0038038513518852 [21] Ben Armbruster,”Study: Iraq War Cost U.S. $2.2 Trillion, Claimed Nearly 200,000 Lives,” ThinkProgress (March 14, 2013). Online: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/14/1721961/study-iraq-war-cost-2-triillion/ The publication by the Watson Institute of the March 14, 2013 ‘Costs of War’ Project, “Iraq War: 190,000 lives, $2.2 trillion,” can be found online at http://news.brown.edu/articles/2013/03/warcosts [22] For Tikkun’s Marshall Plan, see http://spiritualprogressives.org/newsite/?page_id=114

[culinaryinquisitor-blog]

How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

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How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

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Having company for breakfast can be nerve-wracking. It usually takes some finagling to get the timing right, and there’s no room for do-overs at the crack of dawn. And when you’re a baker by trade, especially one who’s recipe testing for her first cookbook, you feel a certain pressure to live up to your guest’s expectations—especially when that guest happens to be The Food Lab creator, Kenji López-Alt.

That’s what went down four years ago, when Kenji crashed at my place during a cross-country taco crawl. Unfortunately, the only thing I had to serve for breakfast was an experimental batch of caramel sticky buns. As I pulled them from the oven, I knew I had a failure on my hands. Rather than a light saucing, the buns were so saturated with caramel that the dough itself had started caramelizing, and their bottoms had the sort of squishy richness I associate with pan pizza.

As I panicked over my failure, Kenji just waltzed into the kitchen in his pjs, raided the fridge, availed himself of a cast iron skillet, and whipped up a new recipe on the spot: a deliciously savory sweet potato hash with baked eggs. I cracked a joke about the perils of recipe testing, shoved the sticky buns off to one side, and hoped that Kenji would ignore them in favor of his clearly amazing contribution to breakfast.

When he recounted the meal on Serious Eats a few days later, I assumed he filtered the story through a lens of kindness, unwilling to critique my candied sticky buns in public.

I packed the memory of those caramel buns into a dark corner of my mind and forgot about them entirely until Kenji recently mentioned them on Twitter. It was immediately clear that we had two very different recollections of how things went down, with Kenji managing to convince everyone they’d been great. Great?

The exchange left me to wonder whether I’d been too anxious and self-critical to appreciate that, while they weren’t the super traditional sticky buns I’d been aiming for, perhaps they had a charm of their own.

So I dug out my notes and set out to recreate the recipe—with a few crucial changes. The day Kenji came over, caramel sauce had bubbled from the pan to pool (and burn) on my oven floor, and the buns themselves were large enough to feed a Wookie. A single bun left me in a caramelized carb coma about halfway through, with a huge mess in my oven to clean up. I’ve since adjusted the recipe for smaller buns and a little less sauce.

Otherwise, it’s a reasonably straightforward variation of my classic cinnamon rolls. The dough and filling is virtually identical, except toasted sugar or Belgian cassonade* are used in place of the white and brown sugar in the cinnamon roll recipe. The choice between the two sugars won’t make a difference in flavor—it’s strictly a matter of whether or not you want to order a specialty product for delivery or spend four to six hours toasting sugar at home. In either case, those sugars layer caramel flavor into the dough itself, and trade the tangy, molasses-centric flavor of brown sugar in the filling for the toasty, bittersweet depth of caramel.

*Belgian cassonade (also called candi sugar) is made from white sugar mixed with caramel, so it tastes like toasted sugar, unlike American brown sugar. Look for it wherever home-brew supplies are sold, or from companies like Brewers Best online.

What truly sets this recipe apart is the sticky caramel topping. Where cinnamon rolls are baked and served plain or with frosting, sticky buns get their name from the self-saucing pool of butter and brown sugar they’re baked in. My recipe switches things up by baking those sticky buns in a pan of cream and cassonade or toasted sugar. The cream provides more water and lactose than butter, helping the caramel-sugar dissolve into a richer, silkier, more flavorful sauce. If you ever make a batch of Sohla’s toasted cream, it’s a fantastic upgrade for the buns.

I mix the caramel topping together straight in the baking pan, no stovetop cooking or extra equipment required.

From there, the recipe carries on much like a classic cinnamon roll: I arrange the filled, shaped, and sliced buns on top of the prepared sauce.

Whether you opt for a single nine- by 13-inch aluminum pan or a pair of eight-inch aluminum rounds, it’s a reasonably snug fit, which keeps the buns nice and thick.

The final step is to cover the pan(s) with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight. This long, slow proof ensures that the buns will be flavorful and ready to bake first thing in the morning. I leave the foil in place for most of their time in the oven in order to prevent the cold dough from drying out as it warms and bakes; when the buns are almost ready, I pull the foil off so they can continue browning on top. Er….on the bottom? Like an upside-down cake, the top of the buns will become the bottom when the pan is inverted, putting that gooey layer of caramel on top.

As the sticky buns bake, the toasted sugar/cream layer will continue to bubble and brown, deepening the caramel flavor along the way. If you prefer a lighter caramel flavor, simply use a lighter shade of toasted sugar to start.

The finished product isn’t like any sticky bun you’ve had before, but I’ve come to accept that that isn’t a bad thing. Caramel gives these sticky buns a mellow sweetness and complexity that’s really lovely, and soaks into the dough so the buns bake up rich and tender, too. Perhaps something worthy of serving to company after all.

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[tebbyclinic11]

How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

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How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

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[Photographs: Vicky Wasik]

Having company for breakfast can be nerve-wracking. It usually takes some finagling to get the timing right, and there’s no room for do-overs at the crack of dawn. And when you’re a baker by trade, especially one who’s recipe testing for her first cookbook, you feel a certain pressure to live up to your guest’s expectations—especially when that guest happens to be The Food Lab creator, Kenji López-Alt.

That’s what went down four years ago, when Kenji crashed at my place during a cross-country taco crawl. Unfortunately, the only thing I had to serve for breakfast was an experimental batch of caramel sticky buns. As I pulled them from the oven, I knew I had a failure on my hands. Rather than a light saucing, the buns were so saturated with caramel that the dough itself had started caramelizing, and their bottoms had the sort of squishy richness I associate with pan pizza.

As I panicked over my failure, Kenji just waltzed into the kitchen in his pjs, raided the fridge, availed himself of a cast iron skillet, and whipped up a new recipe on the spot: a deliciously savory sweet potato hash with baked eggs. I cracked a joke about the perils of recipe testing, shoved the sticky buns off to one side, and hoped that Kenji would ignore them in favor of his clearly amazing contribution to breakfast.

When he recounted the meal on Serious Eats a few days later, I assumed he filtered the story through a lens of kindness, unwilling to critique my candied sticky buns in public.

I packed the memory of those caramel buns into a dark corner of my mind and forgot about them entirely until Kenji recently mentioned them on Twitter. It was immediately clear that we had two very different recollections of how things went down, with Kenji managing to convince everyone they’d been great. Great?

The exchange left me to wonder whether I’d been too anxious and self-critical to appreciate that, while they weren’t the super traditional sticky buns I’d been aiming for, perhaps they had a charm of their own.

So I dug out my notes and set out to recreate the recipe—with a few crucial changes. The day Kenji came over, caramel sauce had bubbled from the pan to pool (and burn) on my oven floor, and the buns themselves were large enough to feed a Wookie. A single bun left me in a caramelized carb coma about halfway through, with a huge mess in my oven to clean up. I’ve since adjusted the recipe for smaller buns and a little less sauce.

Otherwise, it’s a reasonably straightforward variation of my classic cinnamon rolls. The dough and filling is virtually identical, except toasted sugar or Belgian cassonade* are used in place of the white and brown sugar in the cinnamon roll recipe. The choice between the two sugars won’t make a difference in flavor—it’s strictly a matter of whether or not you want to order a specialty product for delivery or spend four to six hours toasting sugar at home. In either case, those sugars layer caramel flavor into the dough itself, and trade the tangy, molasses-centric flavor of brown sugar in the filling for the toasty, bittersweet depth of caramel.

*Belgian cassonade (also called candi sugar) is made from white sugar mixed with caramel, so it tastes like toasted sugar, unlike American brown sugar. Look for it wherever home-brew supplies are sold, or from companies like Brewers Best online.

What truly sets this recipe apart is the sticky caramel topping. Where cinnamon rolls are baked and served plain or with frosting, sticky buns get their name from the self-saucing pool of butter and brown sugar they’re baked in. My recipe switches things up by baking those sticky buns in a pan of cream and cassonade or toasted sugar. The cream provides more water and lactose than butter, helping the caramel-sugar dissolve into a richer, silkier, more flavorful sauce. If you ever make a batch of Sohla’s toasted cream, it’s a fantastic upgrade for the buns.

I mix the caramel topping together straight in the baking pan, no stovetop cooking or extra equipment required.

From there, the recipe carries on much like a classic cinnamon roll: I arrange the filled, shaped, and sliced buns on top of the prepared sauce.

Whether you opt for a single nine- by 13-inch aluminum pan or a pair of eight-inch aluminum rounds, it’s a reasonably snug fit, which keeps the buns nice and thick.

The final step is to cover the pan(s) with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight. This long, slow proof ensures that the buns will be flavorful and ready to bake first thing in the morning. I leave the foil in place for most of their time in the oven in order to prevent the cold dough from drying out as it warms and bakes; when the buns are almost ready, I pull the foil off so they can continue browning on top. Er….on the bottom? Like an upside-down cake, the top of the buns will become the bottom when the pan is inverted, putting that gooey layer of caramel on top.

As the sticky buns bake, the toasted sugar/cream layer will continue to bubble and brown, deepening the caramel flavor along the way. If you prefer a lighter caramel flavor, simply use a lighter shade of toasted sugar to start.

The finished product isn’t like any sticky bun you’ve had before, but I’ve come to accept that that isn’t a bad thing. Caramel gives these sticky buns a mellow sweetness and complexity that’s really lovely, and soaks into the dough so the buns bake up rich and tender, too. Perhaps something worthy of serving to company after all.

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[cucinacarmela-blog]

How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

New Post has been published on https://cucinacarmela.com/how-to-make-old-school-sticky-buns-with-a-caramel/

How to Make Old-School Sticky Buns With a Caramel ...

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[Photographs: Vicky Wasik]

Having company for breakfast can be nerve-wracking. It usually takes some finagling to get the timing right, and there’s no room for do-overs at the crack of dawn. And when you’re a baker by trade, especially one who’s recipe testing for her first cookbook, you feel a certain pressure to live up to your guest’s expectations—especially when that guest happens to be The Food Lab creator, Kenji López-Alt.

That’s what went down four years ago, when Kenji crashed at my place during a cross-country taco crawl. Unfortunately, the only thing I had to serve for breakfast was an experimental batch of caramel sticky buns. As I pulled them from the oven, I knew I had a failure on my hands. Rather than a light saucing, the buns were so saturated with caramel that the dough itself had started caramelizing, and their bottoms had the sort of squishy richness I associate with pan pizza.

As I panicked over my failure, Kenji just waltzed into the kitchen in his pjs, raided the fridge, availed himself of a cast iron skillet, and whipped up a new recipe on the spot: a deliciously savory sweet potato hash with baked eggs. I cracked a joke about the perils of recipe testing, shoved the sticky buns off to one side, and hoped that Kenji would ignore them in favor of his clearly amazing contribution to breakfast.

When he recounted the meal on Serious Eats a few days later, I assumed he filtered the story through a lens of kindness, unwilling to critique my candied sticky buns in public.

I packed the memory of those caramel buns into a dark corner of my mind and forgot about them entirely until Kenji recently mentioned them on Twitter. It was immediately clear that we had two very different recollections of how things went down, with Kenji managing to convince everyone they’d been great. Great?

The exchange left me to wonder whether I’d been too anxious and self-critical to appreciate that, while they weren’t the super traditional sticky buns I’d been aiming for, perhaps they had a charm of their own.

So I dug out my notes and set out to recreate the recipe—with a few crucial changes. The day Kenji came over, caramel sauce had bubbled from the pan to pool (and burn) on my oven floor, and the buns themselves were large enough to feed a Wookie. A single bun left me in a caramelized carb coma about halfway through, with a huge mess in my oven to clean up. I’ve since adjusted the recipe for smaller buns and a little less sauce.

Otherwise, it’s a reasonably straightforward variation of my classic cinnamon rolls. The dough and filling is virtually identical, except toasted sugar or Belgian cassonade* are used in place of the white and brown sugar in the cinnamon roll recipe. The choice between the two sugars won’t make a difference in flavor—it’s strictly a matter of whether or not you want to order a specialty product for delivery or spend four to six hours toasting sugar at home. In either case, those sugars layer caramel flavor into the dough itself, and trade the tangy, molasses-centric flavor of brown sugar in the filling for the toasty, bittersweet depth of caramel.

*Belgian cassonade (also called candi sugar) is made from white sugar mixed with caramel, so it tastes like toasted sugar, unlike American brown sugar. Look for it wherever home-brew supplies are sold, or from companies like Brewers Best online.

What truly sets this recipe apart is the sticky caramel topping. Where cinnamon rolls are baked and served plain or with frosting, sticky buns get their name from the self-saucing pool of butter and brown sugar they’re baked in. My recipe switches things up by baking those sticky buns in a pan of cream and cassonade or toasted sugar. The cream provides more water and lactose than butter, helping the caramel-sugar dissolve into a richer, silkier, more flavorful sauce. If you ever make a batch of Sohla’s toasted cream, it’s a fantastic upgrade for the buns.

I mix the caramel topping together straight in the baking pan, no stovetop cooking or extra equipment required.

From there, the recipe carries on much like a classic cinnamon roll: I arrange the filled, shaped, and sliced buns on top of the prepared sauce.

Whether you opt for a single nine- by 13-inch aluminum pan or a pair of eight-inch aluminum rounds, it’s a reasonably snug fit, which keeps the buns nice and thick.

The final step is to cover the pan(s) with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight. This long, slow proof ensures that the buns will be flavorful and ready to bake first thing in the morning. I leave the foil in place for most of their time in the oven in order to prevent the cold dough from drying out as it warms and bakes; when the buns are almost ready, I pull the foil off so they can continue browning on top. Er….on the bottom? Like an upside-down cake, the top of the buns will become the bottom when the pan is inverted, putting that gooey layer of caramel on top.

As the sticky buns bake, the toasted sugar/cream layer will continue to bubble and brown, deepening the caramel flavor along the way. If you prefer a lighter caramel flavor, simply use a lighter shade of toasted sugar to start.

The finished product isn’t like any sticky bun you’ve had before, but I’ve come to accept that that isn’t a bad thing. Caramel gives these sticky buns a mellow sweetness and complexity that’s really lovely, and soaks into the dough so the buns bake up rich and tender, too. Perhaps something worthy of serving to company after all.

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