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rutilation · 5 years ago

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Listen, they’re not evil. They just lack empathy, and go into a dissociative state and commit atrocities.

As much as it pains me to do so, I’m going to start off by talking about the bastard himself. I must say, believing that rage and misery is the inevitable endpoint of a person’s life is an awfully convenient belief for Aechmea to hold when his plan would end all sentient life as collateral damage. If all your victims are better off dead anyway, then your actions don’t warrant any guilt!

There’s a little moment in chapter 67 that has always stuck out to me as being representative of Aechmea’s character, and I think it’s especially relevant to this chapter. It’s the part in which Cairngorm is trying to argue that it’s in Aechmea’s best interest to keep Phos as mentally stable as possible since they’re his staunchest ally amongst the gems. My reaction upon reading that line was that their appraisal of Aechmea’s intentions was very naïve. To the contrary, the more unstable Phos becomes, the easier it is for Aechmea to manipulate them. At this point in the narrative, Phos is no longer carefully treading through negotiations with Aechmea, as they were in volume eight and the beginning of volume nine; they’re now doing exactly what he wants, with gusto, and no thought to the long term consequences. This is entirely deliberate on Aechmea’s part, and indeed, in the very same chapter that Cairngorm brought this up, Aechmea pulled the same trick on them. He made Cairn feel cornered and desperate, presented himself as the sole solution to their problem, and thus Cairn went from being deeply suspicious of Aechmea to…still being deeply suspicious of Aechmea, tbh, but burying it under an ironclad sense of denial. This chapter even contains a callback to chapter 67: Both here and there, Phos/Cairn is broken and despondent, Aechmea is looming over them, and they reach out to weakly cling to his hand.

He asks Barbata to “handle” Phos’s memories of the past two hundred years. That’s an ambiguous line if I’ve ever heard one. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Phos shouldn’t have memories of the past two hundred years, right? I’m not sure if this is implying that he wants Barbata to implant false memories within Phos of the past two hundred twenty years, or—heaven forbid—if he’s implying that Phos actually has memories of the timeskip, and that he wants Barbata to make sure Phos doesn’t lose any of them. If it’s the latter, that would suggest that Phos has, somehow, been conscious this whole time (holy shit,) and that Aechmea doesn’t want Phos to be able to move past those memories. Regardless of what he’s referring to though, the sentiment behind his cryptic order is clear: now that he’s molded Phos into something he can easily control, he’s taking pains to ensure that they’re stuck in their current incarnation, so that they don’t evolve ever again. It brings to my mind this scene in chapter 54, in which Aechmea all but fetishizes Phos’s capacity for change. It was already pretty creepy, but knowing that this is what he intended for Phos to change into adds another layer of wrongness to that exchange.

It’s interesting that just a couple chapters ago, Phos was screaming at Kongou “If only you weren’t here!” But here, the sentiment has completely inverted, and Phos is weeping as they say that Kongou is the only one who still cares for them, and that it’s the gems who shouldn’t be here. In only a few short hours, they’ve gone from directing all their hatred at Kongou, to directing it at everyone except him. Their rage is unformed and all over the place. Good thing Aechmea’s here to refine it to his own ends!

Aechmea says that he’ll answer Cairngorm’s question “when this is all over.” That could imply a couple of different things, depending on what he means by that. If he means he’ll tell Cairn after he’s finished dealing with Phos for this chapter, then that’s one thing. But, if by ‘all over’ he means that he’s not going to say anything until Kongou successfully prays, and his victory is assured--as with the previous secret he was keeping from Cairngorm, then that implies that whatever he was alluding to when he said he had loved Cairngorm since before they came to the moon, it’s probably something awful.

If you’ve been following my essays for a while, you’ll know that I’ve long suspected that some sort of Cairn-related plot twist will rear its ugly head at some point in the near future, and that mind-control eyeballs were perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. Well, after nearly a year of deliberation, I’ve settled on my personal theory of what this plot twist could be, but it’s far outside the scope of an essay focused on a single chapter, so I’m going to post my thoughts on that in another essay sometime in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for it if you want to see me go fully and embarrassingly tinfoil hat. (With my luck, chapter 83 is going to reveal what Aechmea meant by his cryptic statement before I get that essay done, and it’s going to be something banal, thus ruining my precious conspiracy theory.)

But enough about cornmeal and acne man, let’s talk about the trajectory Phos seems to be on, and also about Cinnabar.

For quite a while now, it’s been a pretty popular theory that Cinnabar will eventually kill Phos with their mercury, and it does feel like things could head in that direction. Phos is so far gone that they’re willing to kill anyone in their path, and in so much pain that their death could be construed as a mercy. And since they can best Bort in a fight, it would seem that Cinnabar’s mercury is the only thing that could actually stop them, especially since it could chemically bind to their alloy and poison Phos from the inside out. To be perfectly honest though, something about this potential course of events has always rubbed me the wrong way, but until this chapter, I hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what it was I didn’t like.

The whole story was started because Phos thought Cinnabar deserved better than their miserable lot in life. At no point did Phos, or the narrative for that matter, ever suggest that it would be for the best if Cinnabar were simply put out of their misery. Their plight warranted not just a release from pain, but a better life to replace it. And as they are now, Cinnabar probably doesn’t want to die anymore, and I imagine they’re glad they didn’t go through with their passive attempt at suicide. (Come to think of it, I think they’re the sole character who’s moved away from being suicidally depressed over the course of the story, instead of gradually succumbing to it.) So, now that the shoe is thoroughly on the other foot, and Phos is the one at rock bottom, it would leave a really bad taste in my mouth if Cinnabar’s response to Phos’s pain ends up being: “Yeah, you should die.”

So, although the plot is probably going maneuver Cinnabar into a situation in which they have to decide whether or not to kill Phos, I hope that it’s ultimately in service of that not coming to pass.

Speaking of Cinnabar, I really hope we finally get more insight into them in these coming chapters. Broadly speaking, more stuff has happened with them the past twenty or so chapters than most of the rest of the series. Their whole life was upended, they (seemingly) made a friend in Bort, and they’re finally making choices that affect the plot, which hasn’t really happened since volume two. But, despite all this, we don’t really know what they’re actually thinking, of what emotions they’ve been going through. You can make some inferences, but that’s not really as affecting as experiencing their perspective firsthand, and I think that’s why people get the impression that they’ve been made irrelevant to the story, despite the fact that they’ve been contributing to the plot lately. So, hopefully we’ll finally get some further elaboration on them in the near future; I think it would remedy the issue quite a bit.

I’ve been thinking lately that what Cinnabar did to Phos in this arc is kind of a grim mirror of how Phos’s desire to help Cinnabar became muddied over the course of the story. I don’t believe that Cinnabar was acting out of malice in chapter 78 when they suggested burying Phos in pieces. If they genuinely wanted Phos dead, they could have encouraged the earth gems to go along with Rutile’s murderous impulses, instead of coming up with a plan in which Phos might come back eventually—certainly no one else in that scene, sans Euclase, voiced any objection to Rutile’s idea, and if Cinnabar hadn’t spoken up, they all might have gone along with it. I think it’s quite possible that they were attempting to protect Phos by trying to appease the other gems’ enmity in a way that wouldn’t bring Phos permanent harm.

But, just like how Phos’s ever-shifting goalposts pushed Cinnabar to the back of their mind over the course of the story, it’s possible that their new life among the gems had the same effect on Cinnabar. Thus, in their mind, Phos was relegated to an important but altogether distant obligation that they’d deal with later, when the time was right. But since these are gems we’re talking about, the time is never right, and complicated problems like these never get dealt with. And just like how it was cruel and thoughtless when Phos put Cinnabar on the backburner, it’s cruel here too—especially if, as I speculated earlier, Phos was somehow awake this whole time.

Because I am a sentimental sap who still has a little bit of hope for a bittersweet ending instead of a complete tragedy, I think that Cinnabar might actually be a wild card in this situation, one who has the potential to save Phos from themselves. (I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. My mind is stuck in power-of-friendship mode, and it’ll probably stay there until Ichikawa beats the idealism out of me, just like she beat it out of Phos.) Keeping in mind what things Aechmea has been able to deduce either through direct observation through Phos’s eye, or what might have been reported to him from any Lunarians returning from an attack on earth, he doesn’t have enough information to figure out that Phos had a strong connection to Cinnabar. Although he’s confident now that Phos has no ties to anything they once loved, and is wholly dependent on him, the previous chapter shows that Cinnabar still means something to Phos, even in this state. Since all of this exists in a blind spot for Aechmea, I think it has the potential to muck up his plans—if Ichikawa deigns it to be so, of course.

Now let’s talk about symbolism, because there’s a lot of it. First off, I want to talk about a pattern I noticed regarding Phos’s changes, one which I discussed in the very first meta I wrote for the series. At the time, I speculated that the title of the art book, Pseudomorph of Love, was hinting at this pattern, but when the artbook was translated later courtesy of @red-dia, it turns out that said title was alluding to something totally different. Nevertheless, I think I may have inadvertently stumbled onto a method regarding Phos’s changes that seems too consistent to not be deliberate, and I’ll reiterate it here: With the very notable exception of the pearl eye, down to even the most minor of losses, every permanent loss and addition to Phos’s body has been tied to an attempted act of kindness. Specifically, Phos loses parts when trying to do something altruistic, and they are given new parts out of kindness on another characters part.

They had to have contaminated parts of their body scraped away after trying to save Cinnabar from falling.

They lost their legs while trying to help Ventricosus return home, and gained the new legs because of an act of kindness on her part.

Although the ice flows initially tried tempting Phos into giving up their arms by reflecting their self-loathing, it was only when they frightened Phos with the idea that Cinnabar might kill themselves if Phos doesn’t change quickly enough that they accidentally-on-purpose lost their arms. While Antarc initially dismissed the gold they ended up giving to Phos as useless, they changed their tune when they noticed Phos projecting their own low self-esteem onto the gold. To me, it seems like the act of giving Phos the gold was their way of telling Phos that they’re not worthless.

They lost a bunch of small pieces while trying to save Antarcticite

They lost their head while trying to save Cairn’s arm. And then Cairn... uh… Let’s put a pin in that for now, and come back to it when their character arc has progressed a bit further. The element of mind control eyeballs that may or may not even be real makes the situation a bit more fraught than I care to get into right this very second.

They lost Lapis’s hair while shielding Morga and Goshe from the Lunarians.

They gave away a piece of their leg so the Admirabilis would know they weren’t holding a grudge against Ventricosus

With that established, let’s talk about the pearl eye. The moment they received it was practically an inverse of the established pattern. It was a transformation motivated by spite on Phos’s part, and for Aechmea, it was an opportunity to exert control over them. Even the act of receiving the pearl eye made them sick, mysterious human particles notwithstanding. The ensuing chapters after they received the pearl eye are, as I’m sure you’re all aware, a whole lot darker and meaner than what the story had been up to that point. If I had to draw a dividing line between the part of hnk that is simply melancholy, and the part that makes the reader feel like a frog in boiling water, I’d use Phos’s first trip to the moon to demarcate these two tones—and the symbol that heralded this descent into hell was the introduction of an unkind addition to Phos’s body.

That brings us to the matter of their most recent loss. Since it’s now apparent that they won’t be getting their other parts back, we can look back on the moment they lost those parts for good and see if it fits the previous pattern, and in my opinion, it does. The reason Phos was in that situation was because they were making a last ditch effort to do right by everyone else, and take responsibility for their mistakes. It was at this point that they mustered up the last bit of kindness and courage they still had in their heart.

But the loss of a given part is only one half of the equation, which begs the question: with what sentiment will Barbata give Phos their replacements? Barbata has subtly given off the impression that he feels guilty about his role in the various atrocities the Lunarians have undertaken, and is disillusioned with Aechmea, but is as of yet unwilling to actually go against him. If there’s ever going to be a point in the story in which he decides to do the right thing instead of just following orders, it’s now or never. I’m counting on you, pasta man. Follow your conscience for once! Either way, whether Phos’s reconstruction ends up being an act of kindness on Barbata’s part, or simply another expression of Aechmea’s corruption is, in my opinion, a crucial distinction that will have ramifications for the future of Phos’s character arc. Speaking of which, it now seems like Red Diamond is the most likely candidate for a replacement, since Padparadscha is busy being asleep on earth.

I’ve talked about how a character’s eyeballs and where they got them from symbolizes their worldview, broadly speaking. This chapter seems to be a continuation of that. Kongou shaped the gems’ worldview, which is symbolized by him giving them their eyes, Cairngorm’s devotion to Aechmea is accompanied by them adopting eyes that Aechmea made for them, during the time that Phos was trying to balance the needs of both the gems and the Lunarians, they had an eye from both Kongou and Aechmea, and now that Phos only has the single pearl eye left, they’re thinking with a one-track mind from a distinctly Lunarian perspective: that everything that gets in the way of their salvation needs to die.

I also find it interesting that Phos’s original material is mostly intact, and what they’ve lost are chunks of their legs and head. It probably symbolizes something, but my brain is starting to leak out of my ears at this point, so I’m just going to remember it for later and see if the meaning becomes clearer in retrospect.

Regarding Phos’s alloy shaping itself into a lotus’s seedpod, my first reaction was that it was a rather ambivalent symbol to use in the context of Phos’s downfall. On one hand, the seedpod only appears when the highly symbolic flower dies, but on the other hand, while the flower is the part of the plant to which a number of cultures have ascribed auspicious meanings like purity and renewal, it is the humble, unsightly seedpod that goes about the actual business of rebirth.

But, as @rinboz pointed out in a post on the subject, it appears to be specifically evoking the image of an empty seedpod. If that’s what Ichikawa is going for, then the meaning is unambiguously ominous, to put it mildly.

Lastly, I brought up in my previous essay that it was highly convenient that Phos happened to trip off the table at the last possible second, and in a manner so noisy that it woke the other gems, no less. In this chapter, Phos lays the blame for their failure on the earth gems interfering… but that only happened because Phos made a racket. I speculated that they may have subconsciously sabotaged themselves—it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. I don’t know how likely that possibility is, but I think it’s one worth keeping in mind.

Well, that was heavy. But on a lighter note, I think it may be time for me to update the only good meta I’ve ever written, birdseki no kuni. What should Phos 4.0 be? I think this feral demigod of vengeance ought to be represented by a real apeshit bird, like an Australian magpie, or something. This will require further deliberation.

#houseki no kuni #finally got this done #i haven't checked if the leaks are out yet #but if they are i hope they don't invalidate half this post #land of the lustrous

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corey-067 · 6 years ago

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Meet the OC’s: Corey Black SWTOR era Corey Black is my main OC. He’s a Mandalorian Warrior with so many AU offshoots that I can’t even remember them all without going and checking them individually. I suppose that the main ones are the typical SWTOR ‘verse, wherein he is the Outlander, and his story follows the one of the game. I don’t play that one very often, he’s a capable commander, but he’s not one that enjoys being the center of attention, so he’s very happy to play a supporting role, working alongside Lana and Theron to see that the Alliance survives, when he joins. In every AU that has allowed canon romances, Corey has been tied to Lana, in this ‘verse, he was originally married to Mako, but there’s something rather compelling about a beautiful woman who seemed to be willing to move planets to ensure he was alive, and succeeded, where Mako left him behind, in a relatively understandable fashion, given what happens. He wishes her every happiness though.

RP!Verse Corey’s storyline doesn’t follow much of the Bounty Hunter storyline at all. He lost his mother while she was defending him from a rogue Jedi, who wanted to take him for training. His father found solace at the bottom of every available bottle he could find, and the young Mandalorian found himself grieving for his mother while also taking care of his father. His Force Sensitivity was something that he utilized in his training, his skillset leaning very strongly towards that of a Force Hunter. When he couldn’t take any more of his father’s refusal to help himself, he enrolled himself in a school which specialized in gladiatorial training, something which he found he was rather adept at, particularly given the amount of training with melee weapons he’d performed in the previous few years. He kept his ability to use the Force hidden from the galaxy at large, knowing that the Empire actively pursued anyone with such talent to be taken to one of the Sith academies, as had happened to his cousin, Kelareth. His crowning achievement was being one of only two survivors in a gladiatorial bout with forty gladiators facing a Geonosian Hydra, in one of the arenas of Geonosis. He injured himself ensuring that the other warrior got to safety, but between the two of them, they managed to finish the Hydra off.

His success caught the attention of the Imperial armed forces, and he was quickly recruited, quickly proving himself a capable soldier and tactician, finding himself quickly rising through the ranks, eventually reaching the rank of Commander. The vast majority of his work was doing black ops for the Empire, though he eventually shifted into Emergency Response at his own request. During this time he was scouted by the Sphere of Biotic Science, and inducted willingly at first, into a program designed to create supersoldiers, individuals who could go where an army could not, and do things that a full squad would’ve been too noticeable for. The experiments quickly became torturous, and it was all Black could do not to break, let alone hide his presence in the Force who seemed to be present, always seemingly searching for his breaking point. He was Mandalorian, however, and used the training he’d received to its fullest extent, refusing to break, simply working from one breath to the next. The variety of his mental disciplines meant that the chemical conditioning performed to ensure his complete obedience and loyalty to the Empire did not hold.

After some time working with Special Forces and occasionally Imperial Intelligence, he left the service, fighting alongside others of his kind against the Revanite threat, and later the armies of Zakuul, his training and tactical ability coming together to create a formidable opponent for the Zaks, though that did not stop him suffering a number of devastating losses.

Faction: Mandalorian/Neutral/Freelance - Currently working for Universal Investigations. Force Alignment: Neutral/Light Side.

DMverse/SWTOR AU(s) The bulk of the stories I’ll be writing for him will take place in or near @Keldae ‘s DMverse (Drastic Measures) And so most often the Outlander in those stories will be her character, Xaja Taerich. The formative basis for Corey’s character still remains the same, with a few small, though important changes.

In both ‘verses, Corey’s father recovers and goes on to re-establish himself as a premier supplier of Mandalorian weapons and armor. In the DM/Ficverse that I’m currently working in, 5-7 years prior to the Revanite Crisis, Corey is scouted for Imperial Intelligence by Lana Beniko and Watcher Two, after having his services offered by the apprentice of Darth Baras, wherein he would work in a role that would serve both groups. The Mandalorian accepted the role, disliking both Baras and Maglion to a far greater degree than even the majority of Sith. The Mandalorian undertook additional training, before later becoming Cipher Sixty-Seven. He and Beniko worked closely together, and their relationship developed outside of the confines of their work, becoming close friends, the relationship evolving to that of lovers. They were careful to maintain a facade wherein Black acted as a bodyguard, coworker, and as an underling to the Sith, someone she simply used for whatever purpose she required, wherein reality their lives had become intertwined far beyond what either of them had imagined possible.

Up until the Revanite crisis he remained at her side, until she was declared a traitor to the Empire, at which point he publicly denounced her per her instructions, allowing him to remain within the Empire, working under Darth Marr while passing information to Beniko and her unlikely allies, a mutual respect held between the Dark Lord and Mandalorian, both for their prowess and pragmatic leadership. Black and Beniko had investigated attempts on Marr’s life during their time prior to the Sith becoming the advisor to Darth Arkous, with the pair successfully rooting out and eliminating the threat, albeit not entirely in accordance with Marr’s wishes, it created a powerful statement to any who would challenge Marr, nonetheless. After the crisis with Revan had been resolved, Lana and Corey both knew that the galaxy wouldn’t be the same, the looming threat of the Sith Emperor only driving them to express their love, though privately, with a brief, quiet marriage ceremony kept secret from virtually the entire galaxy, with no outward token of their affections being displayed, prior to the new leader of Sith Intelligence transferring to Ziost, where the Mandalorian would join her once more.

In DMverse, the Outlander was within carbonite for only two years, rather than the game’s five, and so Corey had not yet joined Lana’s efforts within the resistance, despite being close with a number of its members, including its leader. The death of Marr was something that Corey had not taken overly well, and while both he and Lana left the Empire when Acina rose to power, he returned home to fight alongside Mandalore, promising that he would return to Lana’s side when he could. He fed her, and subsequently the resistance any information that he could get his hands on regarding Zakuul and its activities, but did not get involved in the resistance directly until after the Outlander was thawed from carbon-freeze. After the Mandalorians were driven back, and Corey lost a number of the more senior members of his clan to a Zakuulan orbital bombardment - including his father, he took leadership of the clan and proceeded to turn a salvaged Kandosii-type dreadnought into a mobile home for the clan, focusing on helping survivors from the clans, many of whom were adopted in, swelling the ranks, and as many refugees as they could, relocating them across planet or off-world if they had no desire to stay, where possible.

Corey joined the resistance fully after a disastrous mission to the planet Corulag, a mission which cost him more than two-thirds of his core fighting force, leaving him with less than a dozen beings and a handful of Jedi to protect a group of younglings who had been sheltered on the planet, a retaliatory strike being ordered to teach the rest of the planet a lesson, when the last Jedi named Barsen’thor, Jakar Forseti reached out to the resistance, and Corey utilized the telepathic bond he shared with Beniko to ask for his wife’s help. They were rescued, and seeing Lana again reminded the Mandalorian that his place was at her side, and agreed to join their fight, the unity he saw and felt among members of the formerly warring factions giving him hope, that he had not felt since Zakuul struck at his home. There he has remained, and though things have been rather frenetic, and not always altogether positive, the bond between the pair remains strong, as does the Mandalorian’s loyalty. A most recent development is sure to bring joy for the couple, albeit with an entirely new aspect of responsibility.

Faction: Alliance/Mandalorian. Force Alignment: Neutral - Trained in both light and dark aspects, viewing the Force as a utility.

#Corey Black #Lana Beniko #swtor #swtor au #Outlander

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iambraiden-blog · 7 years ago

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DCEU v Masculinity

EDIT: This post was originally published on Creators.co on June 12th, 2017 - since then the site has now closed down.

The DCEU films to me - Man of Steel, Batman v Superman AND Wonder Woman - are actually everything that's right with the DCEU. Its narrative. How it's told, both visually and in story. It wasn't until I experienced Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman, however, that I truly came to understand Snyder's intentions of the DC Extended Universe at large, beginning with Man of Steel (2013) and culminating with the anticipated Justice League (2017).

Have you ever wondered why Warner Bros - the same studio that gave us Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) not too long ago - placed Wonder Woman where it is in the DCEU slate, why it followed BvS and came before Justice League? Have you ever thought to realise that hiring a female director for Wonder Woman was intended from the moment Snyder laid the groundwork for the DCEU? What does 'dawn of justice' actually mean?

All the DCEU films are intricately linked and connected by masculinity, in more ways than one. And I don't refer to just male masculinity but female as well; not just white, but black; American and non-American (read: Atlantean); and human and non-human (read: Kryptonian). Even Rick Famuyiwa’s The Flash could have explored young masculinity, race and societal expectations in a culturally relevant piece of cinema.

Like what George Miller managed and succeeded with in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), it is my belief that Zack Snyder is using the DC characters to deconstruct and challenge cinematic masculinity within the action genre, to draw attention to the consequences of unchecked toxic masculinity / traditional white [hyper]masculinity, and address the importance and power of women - mothers, wives, sisters, friends, daughters - in our world and in the lives of the men they walk.

There is no "trilogy" in the DCEU. There is, however, an interconnected transition from male masculinity to female masculinity and leadership throughout the four films and an increasing focus on the power of emotion and love, passion and compassion, diversity and, well, humanness and human kindness. All traits that, as Diana (Gal Gadot) states, are worth cherishing.

"I used to want to save the world. This beautiful place. But I knew so little then. Because a land of magic and wonder is worth cherishing in every way. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness simmering within. And mankind? Mankind is another story altogether."

To arrive at a destination we must first make the journey. We must make the hero's journey ourselves. We needed the darkness - needed to literally fight our way through it - to get to the light. We needed to be divided to understand what it meant to stand together. Diana says that the Amazons "are the bridge of a greater understanding between all men. Snyder, through Patty Jenkins's direction and Allan Heinberg's screenplay, implies that Wonder Woman herself - a representation of the female body - is that bridge for men in the Hollywood industry, for men in pop culture, for men in today's society and across the globe. Wonder Woman's success is a win for all - it's a win against traditional masculinity and patriarchy and it's a win for women and the marginalised of our society. Wonder Woman is not just an origin for Diana but so much more!

I intend to illustrate how my claim is supported with evidence from the literature pertaining to action cinema and the hard bodies of Hollywood from the 1970s and the Reagan Era (it's going to get very political!), followed by a discussion of how masculinity is portrayed and deconstructed throughout the DCEU films (these films are far more political than people have given them credit for!), and concluding with how this could all play out in Justice League.

Tonally, the DCEU films are right. As George Miller asks but not explicitly states in Fury Road, "Who killed the world?" we understand the answer is, "MEN!" However, Zack Snyder takes it a step further: we perceive the destructible, bleak world of men, a world without much love, without much hope. It is why on all the promotional posters, the Justice League above and the Trinity further below, it is why there's a light behind Wonder Woman (edit: although with Justice League post-Snyder marketing probably had no idea). It is why, in Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins opens the film on Themyscira, a land so different, lush, thriving, surrounded by glistening water and built on stone. We open on planet Earth, an object we could hold in our hands like a snow globe and we hear Diana's voice.

Bare with me here: before we can get to Wonder Woman we have to discuss how Zack Snyder and Patty Jenkins have addressed masculinity within the DCEU, and to do so you, the reader, must first have an understanding of how Hollywood has handled masculinity in the past and its relationship with American politics. (Prior to my research, I have never been more fascinated with US politics.)

The 1980s saw action film after action film being produced by Hollywood, with movies such as First Blood (Kotcheff, 1982), Terminator (Cameron, 1984) and Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988) showcasing a complex interaction between narrative and spectacle while addressing societal concerns of masculinity (Ayers, 2008). These films were largely based on visual attractions, with an emphasis placed on the bodies of the white male heroes and their weapons and vehicles as much as, if not more than, the dramatic violence and hyperbolic action sequences (Gjelsvik, 2013). According to Gjelsvik, the foregrounding of the male protagonist’s hard and sculpted muscularity represented the hero’s “almost invulnerability” and their capacity to cope and overcome any obstacle or challenge they're faced with. This was your typical action hero.

It is not surprising then that this hyper-masculine heroic depiction is associated with what continues to be described as “traditional masculinity”, an ideology that found prominence in the 1970s requiring a man to be capable of withstanding dangerous situations and be resistant to weakness (Beasley, 2009). To achieve this masculinity, men also needed to be powerful and authoritative, aggressive, and willing to take physical risks where violence is involved or necessary. This traditional masculinity influenced the films Hollywood produced and the heroes they presented, reflecting and representing an ideal American hero and nation.

Action films have found popularity leading into the 1990s and remain a drawcard for cinema-goers today, however it is important to consider when this body of film started, and more precisely, why.

The 1970s, from the Vietnam War’s eventual cessation in 1975 after twenty years of conflict to the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979 that lasted for four-hundred and forty-four days, saw the threat of death loom over the American people and negatively affect their way of life (O’Brien, 2012). A fear, hatred and aggression rippled across patriotic America following these traumatic ordeals. The then President was Jimmy Carter, elected for being a figure outside the mainstream landscape of American politics. He was optimistic, hopeful and untainted by the Vietnam War or the Nixon-involved Watergate scandal. Despite cultivating the image of the everyman and a set of strong values, Carter grappled with the complexities of the world and the country he was expected to lead and defend. His presidency was ultimately undermined by the hostage takeover, which headlined the news and media and subsequently influenced the American people to perceive his administration as weak, negligent and incapable of leading the nation (Priest, 2009).

With the turn of the decade, however, O’Brien suggests the threat of death moved on from American society to the actual body, and according to Susan Jeffords, this move was in part propelled by the ideals and policies of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

In her seminal work on cinematic masculinity, Jeffords (1994) asserts that there is a strong relationship between the representations of masculinity in Hollywood and Reagan’s America, a reflection of the cultural zeitgeist of the 1980s. Jeffords posits that the male bodies of Reagan’s idealistic self-projection and Hollywood’s “hard bodied action heroes forged an interdependence between actions of the nation and those of the individual” - a nationalistic crisis evolved into a crisis of masculinity and male identity.

Therefore, many people were effectively excluded from the national body by characterising them as part of the “soft body”, which included women, people of colour, homosexuals, children, refugees and academics. According to Carrier (2015), women were targeted as the cause and benefactors of the anxieties and fears experienced by American men due to their lost privileges, which were in fact more broadly caused by globalization and capitalism. Jeffords suggests that, like President Carter, these marginalised and often underprivileged sections of society were perceived by white nationalists as an internal threat to the well-being and autonomy of America, whereas the Iranian students taking control of the United States embassy in Tehran, and even Vietnamese and Soviet enemies during the war, were foreign entities who have terrorized American citizens and the nation from outside its borders.

Ronald Reagan became the hero for traditional, white America; he self-projected himself as being like the hard body heroes of the Hollywood action films, a paternalistic figure who defended and separated America’s vulnerable and voiceless from foreign, non-white bodies. The characteristics of traditional masculinity and the hyper-masculine action hero - aggressiveness, authoritativeness, a resistance to weakness, lack of emotion, individuality - were inextricably linked with Reagan’s values, presenting Reagan’s body and administration, and therefore the entirety of the American national body, as invulnerable as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hard bodied and determined Terminator (Beasley, 2009; Carrier, 2015; Jeffords, 1994).

This invulnerability of the national body had been explored to a degree in action films involving the Vietnam War. Hard bodied heroes like Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo and Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979) became representations and reflections of the 'true' American heroes of the Vietnam War, as claimed by Jeffords (1994). Through cinema, Americans were finally allowed to achieve the victory and strength that was unobtainable because of the weak and ineffective government administrations prior to the Reagan era. Jeffords points out that Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood involves a dire reclamation of the masculine body by rejecting the soft, overweight body as presented by Rambo’s judge and opponent within the film. Both films mentioned involve an excessive amount of violence too; Neale (1983) expresses that male audiences repress erotic desires for the masculine male hard body by displacing the eroticised gaze upon the weapons, vehicles and choreographed scenes that create the spectacle nature of this genre. Neale further specifies that these desires are not marked by an inclination towards violence and pain, but rather a want for violent acts to be unleashed on the enemies out of hatred and fear. Additionally, the pain experienced by the protagonists, self-inflicted through training or enemy-inflicted through torture, are a means by which male viewers can distance themselves from the male body and remain traditionally masculine, keeping homoeroticism at bay (Ayers, 2008). Most importantly, however, the heroes of these films, strong and capable like Reagan’s administration and America, would rather confront and oppose enemy states and fascist empires than submit and allow them to invade and take over (Jeffords, 1994).

Action films of the science fiction genre have used invasion narratives not only as a means of entertainment but to speak about both internal and external threats towards the American way of life and autonomy. The science fiction genre has often sought to ask what it is to be human (Kac-Vergne, 2012), and like the action hard body films, this fight to stay human (or alive) can be reconsidered as a fight to retain or reclaim masculinity, specifically to answer what it means to be a “man”. This genre treats obvious fictions as existing realities to support what Combe and Boyle (2013) describe as a social normal, with the abnormal represented by the monsters, the zombies, the robots and aliens in these films. Kac-Vergne acknowledges that the genre had become a mode for hypermasculinity in Hollywood, a vehicle for addressing what’s acceptable and normal. Tasker (1993) refers to alien invasion films, The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) and Predator (McTiernan, 1987), as being part of a hybrid genre - while engaging with science fiction conventions these films balance the tropes of action cinema, which emphasise masculinity and spectacle (Johnston, 2013). Moreover, in science fiction cinema femininity remains marginalised and not “real” (Beasley, 2009); the same can be more broadly said for action cinema.

If I broke this literature down for you straight to its relevancy to the DCEU's heroes it would go like this:

In Man of Steel, Kal-El (a Superman-becoming) represents the everyman, who struggles with the power he has (and a power he even struggles to use), and this continues into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - politically, his ideals and character is like President Carter.

Throughout most of BvS, Bruce Wayne/Batman is essentially the traditional hypermasculine hero, a man charged by fear and anxiety due to internal/external threats on his way of life and on the lives of the vulnerable and defenceless he has promised to protect and watch over - he embodies President Reagan's hard bodies.

Wonder Woman and the 'others', as she calls them at the end of BvS - Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash - non-male, non-American, non-white, and non-masculine (or is that highly intelligent?), represent the supposed 'soft bodies', as dictated by traditional masculinity.

Now that the background around Hollywood, action cinema and their treatment of masculinity and of any non-white, non-male, non-American or "effeminate" person (with some exceptions such as Sarah Connor or Ripley, and more recently Furiosa) has been laid out, it's time to enter the DCEU and discuss Snyder's/Jenkins's fight against traditional [hyper]masculinity and the push for more women and diversity on screen at length.

You can bet that any criticism Snyder and Warner Bros. have received about Man of Steel or Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice about character portrayals or spectacle, as well as the reviews of Wonder Woman by mostly white, straight men who've objectified and exotified Gal Gadot's appearances, has played into the DCEU's deconstruction and expression of masculinity as well as society's expectations and perceptions of masculinity and the action genre. The DCEU acts like a social experiment, an attitude measurement test, and audiences (and critics!) don't realise they're being experimented on. (Having previously studied psychology before film, this makes me as intrigued in the audience's attitudes as I am appalled at the behaviours of male critics.)

Masculinity in the DCEU

"I will honour the man you once were, Zod, not this monster you've become."

In the opening five minutes of Man of Steel we see the dichotomy of man. Russel Crowe's Jor-El, alone in front of the Council and armour-less, peacefully argues that although Krypton is doomed there is still hope, that he has held that hope in his hands (i.e. Kal-El, a child born by love and not by the machinations of a society). General Zod (Michael Shannon), on the other hand, storms in geared with guns and soldiers. He shoots the woman in power who questioned his male authority and claims that he can save the Kryptonian race by making them stronger, more assertive, by extinguishing the weak, internal degenerates that have threatened their planet.

After Zod's unchecked toxic masculinity destroys Krypton we cut to Kal (Henry Cavill), who, as an adult named Clark Kent, is a tough-looking, blue-collared everyman. Almost immediately Snyder captures Clark's selflessness on the fishing trawler - Clark doesn't watch out for himself. His masculinity, his manliness is questioned by the fisherman who keeps him from being "crushed" by a falling basket. And then when the trawler heads to the exploding oil rig, Clark has an opportunity to reclaim his masculinity. Reminiscent of the hard body action films of the 1980s Clark's body is bared. As he holds the rig to allow the chopper to escape, the camera pans down briefly to highlight Cavill's muscular body.

In a flashback to a younger Clark (Cooper Timberline), Clark's Kryptonian 'powers' suddenly dominate his senses; his X-ray vision forces his young male self to perceive his female teacher and classmate as bodies to fear, and this fear of his powers represents a fear of a hardening masculinity. This male emasculation, this emotional vulnerability even at such a young age, causes him to be othered by his peers. And when he is bullied as a teenager (Dylan Sprayberry) in front of Lana Lang, a girl he likes, she is the first to notice Clark after he saves the school bus. This approval by Lana propels him to save his bully Pete.

"There's more at stake here than just our lives, Clark; there are the lives of the people around us. When the world finds out what you can do, it's going to change everything: our beliefs, our notions, what it means to be human, everything."

Of course, Jonathan Kent is concerned about Clark's powers being known, but it more importantly connotes a form of masculinity that will be feared. Pete's mother's anxieties may be religiously motivated, but it's a fear of a potentially uncontrollable and destructive masculinity that will threaten her way of life, conservative or not. The "choice" Clark must make is not whether he should use his powers to save the human race or not, it's whether he should remain pure of heart, represent the goodness of humanity or let the hate and anger, the violence inherent in man consume him.

Man of Steel not only addresses traditional masculinity's harmful behaviour towards women, but the effects it has towards other men. In the pub Clark calls out a man for his inappropriate behaviour towards a waitress. The man, lacking Clark's stature, resorts to physical and verbal intimidation. His behaviour is approved by the other men - even the army men smile, remaining silent. The waitress steps in, keeping Clark's masculinity in check, and rather than resorting to violence Clark walks away. Instead Clark pummels and destroys a vehicle - the truck - that has played a significant part in shaping the aggressor's male identity, representative of a culture with toxic attitudes towards women. Clark, as a teenager and as an adult, is criticised for not living up to the traditional ideals of being a "real" man - authoritative and dominant, resistant to weakness and emotion, assertive and... violent.

When audiences call out Clark for being "mopey" and too emotional, they are in fact calling him out for being too feminine and not masculine enough. When Clark dons the Superman garb, it is still just a costume, nothing more. Clark understands that it is not how he is perceived that makes him a man or a hero, but how he behaves and what he uses the image of Superman for. Clark didn't give himself the name "Superman"; it was the media and the people who did. It was the people who claimed him as their hero, as their Superman, in much the same way that America elects and chooses their President.

Superman has shaped young boys' concepts of masculinity for decades, in both film and in the comics: what is ideal and what isn't. So when a cinematic portrayal of the man of steel is presented as being conflicted, unable to handle the complexities of the world he has been "called" to save against an external threat (similar to President Carter during the Iranian Hostage Crisis) then he is not their Superman, then Snyder doesn't understand - and will never - understand Superman.

This attitude is wrong.

"Be their hero, Clark. Be their angel, be their monument, be anything they need you to be... or be none of it. You don't owe this world a thing. You never did."

Superman is not a person. It is an image, a representation of something better, of what makes us good, of what makes us human. Snyder's portrayal of Superman is one of a masculinity kept in check - respectable yet respected, able to express love and yet be loved, able to be an emotional man yet be an assertive one, using his "hard body" for the right reasons, to make a change, to make a positive impact on the world. Holding onto a past Superman because of nostalgia is to be a sponsor for traditional masculinity and all that is wrong with today's conservative patriarchy. Cavill's Superman doesn't replace Reeve's Superman, he just enhances a character that has remained stagnant with old beliefs and ways of expressing. He is the Man of Tomorrow, not the Man of Yesterday.

Clark is not Superman in name alone. His suit is also apart of the Superman image. For Clark, though, that suit is associated with his Kryptonian ancestry, a demeaning representation of masculinity. For him to smile as Superman, teeth glistening, would be a fake display of happiness. The smile he produces as he saves people is one in which he must pretend to be assertive, dominant - a leader. By contrast, Clark shows his teeth when he's out of the suit, when he's just Clark Kent and in the company of Martha or Lois. There's a genuineness. Clark doesn't need to look like a leader in these moments, e.g. when Clark returns home to Martha in Man of Steel or when Clark arrives home with a bouquet of tulips for Lois (and then Lois brings up Superman and the smile fades).

Even for Trump teeth are not so freely given, as suggested by a psychologist earlier this year: “Although Trump instinctively recognises the demeaning potential of smiling, there are occasions when he is prepared to throw caution to the wind and give a full-blown smile, with his teeth on display and wrinkles around the corners of the eyes - the latter being the feature that defines a genuine as opposed to a fake display of happiness. Trump tends to produce these beaming smiles when he is in a convivial setting and when he doesn’t feel the need to look like a leader, or when he is with people whose company he enjoys.”

Don't misconstrue my intentions. I'm not insinuating that Trump is a hero or even a leader, nor do I believe Superman shares the ideals of Trump. But there's a difference between smiling with sincerity out of love and comfort and being forced to give an artificial smile because people demand it of you or because you think you're worthy of respect.

Holding onto a past Superman because of nostalgia is to be a sponsor for traditional masculinity and all that is wrong with today's conservative patriarchy.

MacInnes’s (1998) statement about masculinity as a concept is equally as relevant to Superman (and Batman and Wonder Woman etc.), that they are “shaped and expressed differently at different times in different circumstances in different places by individuals and groups”.

I jumped ahead earlier: The entire first half of Man of Steel is Clark discovering what he was sent to Earth for, learning that he's a force for change, for good. When Clark wears his suit and discovers his powers of flight, it's a self-affirmation or -confirmation that he has become someone good, not just as a man but as someone who could be a hero.

Clark then learns that Zod probed inside Lois's mind and then finds Zod threatening Martha shortly after - two women most important to Clark, two people who keep him human - Clark uses his strength against Zod. The destruction of Smallville, and then Metropolis, in the latter half of Man of Steel challenges Clark's masculinity.

When Zod's suit is damaged and becomes susceptible to Earth's atmosphere, he is disoriented. Seeing through his own armour and muscles, seeing the bones that make up his body, Zod is forced to question his invulnerability and mortality. "What have you done to me?" he asks. "My parents taught me to hone my senses," replies Clark.

There's no denying that there is A LOT of destruction, but it is caused by uncontrolled masculinity - there's no thought for anything other than the opponent. What made Zod feel powerful and assertive was having Kryptonians obey his orders. That's what made him masculine. In the end, Zod forces Clark to give in to the ultimate form of violence, the darkest act of humanity: killing. Yes, it meant saving Earth, saving the vulnerable family in that station, but to Clark it meant so much more.

With Lois there, however, Clark's violent act was justified. Lois's love, her empathy, her acceptance subsequently allowed Clark to reclaim his humanity, his individuality, the good masculine ideals instilled in him by Martha and Jonathan Kent, a final push against the toxic, immoral masculine ideals projected by Zod that would continue to consume him. Only one could survive and it was the choice Clark was meant to ultimately make.

Finally, in Clark becoming a journalist at the Daily Planet by the film's end, it provides Clark an opportunity to use words (not fists) to make the world better. He wasn't able to use words with Zod; Zod knew only violence and aggression. Like Jor-El at the beginning of Man of Steel Clark would attempt to reason through words, verbal and written, well into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Recently I’ve been reading a book by Bryan Doerries, The Theatre of War (2015), about what ancient Greek tragedies can teach us today and the relationship between story and human experience. It has also brought up many significant points for how relevant Batman v Superman is and how it is a tragedy like these Greek plays in it’s own right. But he brought up President Jimmy Carter who, in 1977, became the first American president to acknowledge that the nation’s resources and capacities had its limits. Carter said: “We have learned that ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better’, that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems ... we must simply do our best.” A couple years later, Carter stated that the nation’s problems were due to a crisis of confidence due to tragedies and events, damaging the national spirit.

Argo (2012), an adaptation about the hostage takeover in Tehran, was written by Chris Terrio, so it's no surprise that he came on to rework David S. Goyer's initial draft of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and with Snyder they further explored the dichotomy of masculinity as started in Man of Steel.

Clark's embodiment of masculinity, as expressed through his actions and ideals as Superman, continue to threaten the men of his world. The media, the people, government bodies and even Batman question his existence and "otherness" - who he is, who he should be, and what he should stand for (in other words, an image homogenous with the President).

Clark maintains his belief in words through the Daily Planet. Instead of confronting Batman head on about his uncontrolled behaviours as Superman, Clark intends to do it in a civil manner through the power of the press. And when he is called upon by Senator June Finch (Holly Hunter), to question him on the validity of his actions, Clark walks in civilly, hands together in front of him - unlike in Man of Steel he marches alone and not handcuffed by the military. He intends to talk, which is reflective of Jor-El before the Council at the beginning of Man of Steel. The same can be said for when he confronts Batman after learning that Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) has manipulated them both - Clark wants to reason, to talk. But Bruce is far too gone....

Backtrack: After witnessing the Superman/Zod fight from the streets of Metropolis, Bruce Wayne becomes fearful about the threat Superman imposes on his way of life and the lives of the vulnerable and defenceless he has promised to protect and watch over. Although he resides in Gotham, Metropolis and its citizens are as equally as important to him, to his business, to the business his father built. Wayne Enterprises and the wealth it has generated have played a hand in Bruce's masculine identity, particularly in his identity as Batman.

Bruce/Batman, like the hard bodied and tough, hypermasculine action heroes of the 1980s, embodies Reagan's ideals. As shown in the early moments of the film, Bruce is seen as paternalistic, helping school children across the rubble and then comforting a young girl whose mother was in the Wayne Enterprises building. And so, throughout BvS, with twenty years of crime-fighting in Gotham behind him and as a witness to plenty of familial losses (his parents and Jason Todd to name a few), Bruce exerts the traditional characteristics of masculinity - aggressiveness, authoritativeness, a resistance to weakness, lack of emotion, individuality. He acts alone; his losses have hardened him and his violence knows no bounds from here on out. These traits are not only seen in his branding of criminals (internal threats) but in his attitudes towards Superman (a foreign, external threat [i.e., powerful immigrant]). Bruce believes he, himself, represents the human population and that it is only him - a man with power, status, strength, weapons and experience - who can bring down the Kryptonian.

If you think about the action films of the 1980s you would have seen Rambo and Captain Willard bleed, feel pain, stitch themselves up again but not falter, keep going, keep persisting to their goal. In just three words - "Do you bleed?" - Snyder and Terrio (and I guess Goyer) interrogate hypermasculinity. Batman, in his powered exoskeleton armour (a means to make himself more formidable), questions Superman's ability to bleed because, well, he never seems to bleed (and yet a 'nationalistic hero' like Rambo bled). Bruce defends his masculinity by attempting to oppress a figure who seemed far too masculine - Bruce wants to know if Superman is weak, if he feels pain, if he has felt pain to the degree Bruce has.

"Breathe it in. That's fear. You're not brave. Men are brave. You say that you want to help people, but you can't feel their pain... their mortality... It's time you learn what it means to be a man."

To Bruce, Superman is a fake embodiment of masculine heroic ideals, much in the same way that patriarchal, white America perceived President Carter as being. Bruce has let toxic masculinity and traditional ideals blind his world view and his perception of Superman. Masculinity to Bruce became entirely about the exterior; his inner emotional weakness suppressed deep beneath the hard body - the suit and the weapons - he has forged.

That is until Bruce connects with not Superman, the image of a [masculine] "hero" mythologised and perpetuated by the media, no, but with Clark, a person who has also experienced loss and who is about to again, someone who has been displaced, someone who demonstrates selflessness even when he is dying. It was a connection beyond the superficial, on a level Bruce never knew was possible. Bruce is reminded of who he has lost, who he loved, of someone he almost forgot because of a masculinity he hadn't controlled. In killing Superman, Bruce would have given into the darkness, the rage, consumed by a toxic masculinity as defined by a traditional world view and conservative ideals. Therefore, to find reconciliation and with the approval of a purer man - Clark (as Lois had with Clark in Man of Steel) - Bruce gets to reclaim his identity, his masculinity by rescuing Martha Kent.

Lex is unlike Clark or Bruce. He is a male wanting entitlement, power and authority, wanting to feel masculine despite his scrawny appearance (his "daddy's fists" made him emasculated). He tries to be assertive. He attempts to be authoritative. He's a person with no moral code. Senator June Finch, as well as the metahumans, are a threat to his manliness, his masculinity, so he disposes of them the only way he knows how: manipulation. The manipulation of Wallace Keefe, a man who even himself has been emasculated ("I can't even piss standing up"), to wreak havoc at the Capitol and the manipulation of Zod's body, failed masculinity, to birth Doomsday - these are the consequences of when toxic masculinity goes unchecked.

Although Man of Steel indicated that one type of man (masculinity) must die for the other to live, in BvS Superman sacrifices himself to kill Doomsday because he has learnt that there are people that love him (Lois, Martha, and men who approve of him, like Bruce) and to truly destroy the consequence of unchecked masculinity he must push through the pain, his ultimate weakness (the Kryptonite) - to bring hope, light and be reborn. But when that toxicity kills a man pure of heart, when Doomsday pumps his black blood into Superman, will Superman return in Justice League as himself, guided by ideals nurtured by the Kents and Lois, or as a Kryptonian bound by blood, as Zod said he would.

Will his good nature and ideals win out? His humanity? Or will his body determine what sort of man he becomes? His blood?

It harks back to the scene in Man of Steel with Clark and Jonathan arguing, Martha in the back seat of the car observing:

Clark: ... I just want to do something useful with my life. Jonathan: So farming and feeding people, that's not useful? Clark: I didn't say that! Jonathan: Our family's been farming for five generations, Clark -- Clark: Your family, not mine. I don't even know why I'm even listening to you. You're not my Dad. You're just some guy who found me in a field.

As much as I like to see traditional masculinity attacked in film, it's also extremely powerful and heart-rendering to see female masculinity grace the screen as well, with a strength or set of powers and character that have been attributed to traditional masculinity, or in the least not seem less feminine simply because they're taking on or adopting traditional societal norms of men. We have experienced a powerful woman before in Man of Steel, but while Faora was produced through the machinations of Krypton to serve for war, Diana was created by Zeus to defend mankind against war.

From Diana's heart-pumping introduction as Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman to her gladiatorial combat in the mid-point of her origin film with No Man's Land, she exerts her strength as a warrior and her determination as a person, never showing weakness - she was taught to be all these things on Themyscira. To speak to today's gender norms around "male" sports, activities or expressions, Hippolyta only doesn't want to lose her daughter, but she fears that her daughter will be unable to remain pure of heart if Diana becomes "masculine" and susceptible to the corrupted hearts of men. When Diana discovers some of her power for the first time when battling Antiope, Hippolyta isn't fearful of the powers; she's fearful that Ares will learn Diana has powers and a strength that only Ares believes is inherent in the gods - men - but that she still holds onto the values of love and compassion, duty and equality that have forged her as an Amazon, the true powers of women. What No Man's Land and the second act of Wonder Woman shows is that Diana can be both: she could be naive yet be strong, she can love and be compassionate yet express fury, she could be a warrior and show emotion.

In these moments I cried. My gender doesn't come into play, nor does my sexuality; rather it's seeing a reflection of my sisters, of my mother on the screen. I saw myself in Wonder Woman as much as I have seen myself in Superman.

Like Furiosa to Max, Wonder Woman is more experienced in combat and war than Batman and especially Superman, but she fights alongside them as an equal. The final fight shows that for society to break down social gender norms and traditional masculinity there will only be success if we work together, and that mankind (men and women) will need to sacrifice what makes them masculine but also use that masculinity to show true humanity and make the world better (Superman, Antiope and Steve Trevor present this physically). It's why Wonder Woman leaps at the end of her film - in her life Steve was the only man who showed that... until Superman. She departs the plane in BvS because men cannot defeat what they have created.

As the more feminine Diana Prince in BvS, she threatens Bruce's manliness, in much the same way Finch threatens Lex's. "Oh, I don't think you've ever known a woman like me." Bruce's assertiveness and dominance doesn't concern her; she's fought against the same toxic behaviour and traditional masculinity with Ares, the same kind Finch has most likely come up against in her own career.

But even then, people have complained about how Diana dresses as Wonder Woman. Why can't women be able to express their femininity yet wield masculine traits? Why can't she be beautiful and assertive? Why can't she bare skin, such as her thighs when men's hard bodied musculature bodies have dominated action cinema? To these people, Diana is not being traditionally female, much in the same way that Clark as Superman has been called out for not being traditionally male.

Masculinity is not only attributable to men, but women, too. As is femininity.

In Wonder Woman, Steve and his band of misfits, comprising of Sameer, Charlie and the Chief, all struggle with the masculinity they've traditionally meant to express. Charlie, for example, is haunted by ghosts when he sleeps, and when Diana goes to comfort him he pushes her away and storms off with his gun. It is after they experience Diana's strength and power, do they share their feminine traits: Charlie sits at the piano and sings, Sameer shares his desire to be an actor, the Chief denies the offerings by the Veld townspeople... and Steve learns to love.

I could have distilled all of the above, but I needed to address everything. I'm most likely forgetting about a number of other ways that masculinity is challenged in the DCEU - such as, which I will discuss below in regards to the importance of women in these films, following Jonathan's death and Clark's becoming of Superman, it was up to Martha to care for the farm, it was up to Martha to fulfill both motherly and fatherly roles for Clark. Even within Suicide Squad, masculinity is addressed by the characters of Amanda Waller and El Diablo, for example.

The Importance of Women in the DCEU

The DCEU's fight against traditional masculinity begins on Krypton with not Jor-El, but Lara (Ayalet Zurer). Man of Steel opens with her face, giving birth to a child that will become all that is good. It is Lara who becomes the bridge to a greater understanding between men, launching the pod. When Zod is ordered to spend eternity in the Phantom Zone it is to Lara, standing with the Council, that he yells, "I will reclaim what you have taken from us", in other words, reclaiming masculinity. In hard body terms, if Krypton is the national body, then Kal is the individual body who was to save them.

Lara's final words before the consequences of unchecked masculinity implode Krypton: "Make a better world than ours, Kal."

Jumping to nine-year-old Clark at middle school who's fearing his powers (and therefore his masculinity), it is his human mother Martha Kent who helps him understand that if he ever gets caught up in the perceptions of the world, in a society dictating how he should feel or act, that who he is is more important to those who love him. Martha is that person who will guide him to being a better self. Interestingly, as Clark became a teenager the advice came from Jonathan; yet following his death, and then well into BvS, it is Martha who advises Clark on what to do.

Although Martha remains the compass of Clark's journey into selfhood and manhood, it is Lois throughout Man of Steel that wants his identity, his type of masculinity to be known. Lois becomes Clark's guide for how to express his masculinity as an adult. Both Lois and Martha are the only two people who keep Clark from giving into the darker side of man, into the toxic masculine ideals forced upon him by Zod. It is these two people that he shares his genuine smile with.

There have been complaints about Lois's role in Man of Steel. For example, why does Lois board the scout ship when ordered by Faora on behalf of Zod? I used to think it was for plot convenience, to fulfill the screenplay's beats, but now I believe it's because Zod wanted to learn what it is to be human from someone connected to Kal, so that Zod can crack Kal's resistance to the Kryptonian way of life - the dominant way of man. Lois keeps Kal from giving into his Kryptonian blood, from a potentially destructive side simmering within. Jor-El understands this as well; when Lois's pod is damaged and hurtles for Earth, Jor-El says to Kal: "You can save her, Kal. You can save them all." Lois is as much apart of Clark's masculinity as Martha is, and it is them in which hope will shine through, not the man himself.

There have also been complaints that Lois and Martha as being convenient to Clark's narrative or that they're always portrayed as damsels-in-distress. But in the context of masculinity, in a world dominated by men and in a world being destroyed by men, Lois and Martha do the best they possibly can with what they have available to them - which is their love, their peacefulness, their use of words. When Lois is persuading Perry to allow her to investigate the bullet she looks at Clark who catches himself from speaking for her, but Lois manages to finish herself - she was her own white knight. Neither Martha nor Lois are threatened by men - Martha did not feel threatened by Zod nor was she in distress with Anatoli Kynazev (she doesn't scream, which is why Clark would be unable to hear her voice). It is the consequences of unchecked masculinity that stop them from doing what they've set out to do and accomplish: Lois's quest to help Clark prove his innocence or Martha wanting to raise a morally good son regardless of his power. To elaborate, Lois puts herself in danger and 'enters' the domains claimed by men (e.g., travelling to Nairomi to interview a terrorist) so that she can alleviate the public's fears back in Metropolis around Superman - even the CIA don't trust her relationship with Superman by sending a male in 'James'. Lois constantly puts herself in "man's world", such as the men's bathroom to speak to Swanwick; when Swanwick's authority and the state's actions are questioned by Lois, Swanwick resorts to questioning her reliability as a woman and her relations with Superman. Lois is willing to risk her job to discover the truth; Swanwick would rather keep his position of power. When she reaches the Capitol or goes to retrieve the spear, it is the consequences of Lex's uncontrolled actions that obstruct her goals, first the explosion and then secondly Doomsday.

Since his parents' deaths, Bruce has always lacked a stable female figure in his life - he insistently talks about his father yet can only dream about his mother. Bruce had a fatherly role model as he came of age in Alfred, but never a motherly one. His father's ideals - assertiveness, aggression (as seen just before Thomas is shot or the fact that his ancestors were hunters) - feeds into Bruce's masculinity. Unlike Clark, Bruce only matured with the male masculine. He sleeps with women and forgets about them. He even tries his ways with Diana but his attempts are ignored by her.

Diana, on the other hand, is more balanced than either of them - she came from an island of women who demonstrated both feminine and masculine traits. What Themyscira shows is the harm social gender norms play in the shaping of our ideals as humans, and that within a patriarchal world of traditional values it is women who will pave the way forward to a brighter, more balanced future.

On a related note, it was revealed by the Hollywood Reporter towards the end of May that Zack would be stepping down from finishing Justice League following the death of his daughter, Autumn, in March.

If Martha and Lois mean to Clark what Deborah and Autumn mean to Zack, then...

Zack believed he could overcome the despair, the loss of his daughter, in his work. Yet the pressures of his job as a director and producer, as a leader, got the better of him. With his films showcasing the importance of women in the men's lives and the love and comfort they bring, it would have been impossible for Zack to ignore the very messages he has been conveying. He almost gave in to the traditional masculine ideals he worked hard to break. Toughness. Resistance to weakness. Lack of emotion. Endurance and strength.

So like with Clark, it is Zack's family - Deborah and his children - that give him the strength to continue making these films, even through all the criticism and all the hate.

Zack has become my Superman as much as Patty is my Wonder Woman and Patty is my Superman as much as Zack is my Wonder Woman.

The DCEU films matter to me. These characters matter to me. Zack and Patty's tireless work matters to me. They matter to who I am; I may not believe, even still at 24, that I'm masculine physically (I've never been physically aggressive or assertive; I've never acquired masculine confidence because I've never received approval for my masculinity from other men; I'm not muscular, not tall, have short legs and wears glasses; I read, I write, love theatre, have danced, hate the gym) but these films have taught me it's how I act, how I behave, how I am towards others that define my masculinity, not as a man but as a human being.

These films have highlighted the importance of my mother and sisters in my life. BvS made me think about my mum and Wonder Woman made me think about my sisters - I cried during both. And although I may have matured without a stable male role model, I've become who I am today because of these women, not because of some traditional social ideals.

We have a Batgirl film in development, as well as Gotham City Sirens and a sequel for Wonder Woman, but what could we expect from Justice League if all the above is true?

Mad Max: Fury Road barely broke $400 USD million worldwide. Yet it was still successful because of what it held. For Miller to go from producing a little independent Australian film with unknowns in the '70s to a modern Hollywood masterclass in masculinity and action cinema, do you really think Warner Bros. is concerned only about how female characters perform at the box office? It's a good incentive alright and definitely an achievement - as I write this, Wonder Woman is tracking well better than Fury Road did overall in just its second weekend - but a film's worth, its messages and who it inspires, are far more important than the worth it accumulates.

What does this mean for Justice League?

Man of Steel gave us a glimpse of what may happen if Kal lets his Kryptonian blood take hold. Zod showed him that.

In Batman v Superman the Knightmare sequence shows us a post-apocalyptic future if Superman became what Zod wanted him to be. It's a possible future of Kal giving into the blood and rage because of the loss of Lois, who is his hold on humanity. Even at the end of BvS, even after Clark dies, he is fighting to hold onto that humanity. Lois is the last person to throw dirt on his coffin, which then rises.

I don't believe we'll see much of the black suit in Justice League, but what there may be is a final push for Clark against the dominant masculinity as dictated by the Kryptonian blood flowing within him. However, Lois may not be the only person who will help him - Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman will fight for him and believe that he can change. These other 'heroes' are individuals who represent sections of people in society that have been oppressed or othered by a patriarchy and would understand Superman's plight - displacement, isolation, loss - as if it were their own (edit: in Justice League Kal El uses his heat vision, which harks back to young Clark at school unable to control his abilities). It is they who will finally make Clark feel like a leader. For so long he was ostracised for what made him different, but to then have others who are also different but ultimately remained good would make Clark feel like he finally belonged. He will then smile, teeth glistening.

To add to this, in the official Justice League trailer and even the first look presented at San Diego Comic Con last year it is Bruce who goes and recruits Arthur Curry and Barry Allen. Bruce lets Arthur use his dominant, threatening display of masculinity and it is through words - "I hear you can talk to fish" - instead of strength that may make Arthur come on board. With Barry, on the other hand, Bruce uses his money and gadgets to compel Barry to join. In the comic con footage it seems that, although Bruce brings the league together, it is actually Diana that orchestrates it all. As for Victor Stone, I believe Diana will be the one to convince him, using her compassion and love.

If we bring Hippolyta's (Connie Nielsen) tale of the war of the Gods from Wonder Woman into play it is pretty much a representation of the invasion to come - it actually is the tale of the first invasion as she then goes on to tell Diana that it was just a story (edit: Ares was not “bad” at first and it was he who had the final blow on Steppenwolf, but was then used as a pawn and someone to fear by Zeus to protect the Mother Box).

Therefore, looking at the broader picture of the DCEU, Diana will lead the 'others' - Batman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg - against the invasion of Darkseid's parademon army in Justice League and to stop Clark/Kal from losing what makes him human and compassionate and good. This is why Wonder Woman is not just an origin for Diana.

It's why the only word Zack Snyder could say about her success is 'proud' (source). His true intentions of the DCEU became its success. Audiences will come to see Diana in a ground-breaking turn as the leader of the #JusticeLeague.

I'm gonna bet there'll be many great female-driven moments in Justice League and Wonder Woman has already had white, straight men complaining. If this understanding of Zack Snyder's magnum opi (with powerful work by Patty Jenkins) is any indication to go by, a heck of a lot of damage is going to be done to the patriarchy come November. Justice League will be a superhero, action film for the ages - a film for everyone.

References

Ayers, D. (2008). Bodies, bullets, and bad guys: Elements of the hardbody film. Film Criticism, 32(3), 41-67.

Beasley, C. (2009). Male bodies at the edge of the world: Re-thinking hegemonic and â€œotherâ€ masculinities in Australian cinema. In S. Fouz-Hernandez (Ed.) Mysterious skin: Male bodies in contemporary cinema, (pp. 57-76). London: Palgrave, Macmillan.

Carrier, M. B. (2015). Men and the movies: Labour, masculinity, and shifting gender relations in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Retrieved from Ohio University Thesis and Dissertation Services, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ohiou1430322393&disposition=inline

Combe, K. & Boyle, B. (2013). Introduction: Of masculine, monstrous, and me. Masculinity and monstrosity in contemporary Hollywood films (pp. 1-26). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Deakin, P. (2012). Masculine identity in crisis in Hollywoodâ€™s fin de millennium cinema. Retrieved from Manchester eScholar Services, https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/item/?pid=uk-ac-man-scw:172532

Gjelsvik, A. (2013). From hard bodies to soft daddies: Action aesthetics and masculine values in contemporary American action films. In K. Aukrust (Ed.) Assigning cultural values (pp. 91-106). New York, NY: Peter Lang AG.

Jeffords, S. (1994). Hard bodies: The Readgan heroes. Hard bodies: Hollywood masculinity in the Reagan era. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Johnston, K. M. (2013). Science fiction film: A critical introduction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Kac-Vergne, M. (2012). Losing visibility? The rise and fall of hypermasculinity in science fiction films. InMedia, 2, 1-15.

MacInnes, J. (1998). The end of masculinity: The confusion of sexual genesis and sexual difference in modern society. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

Neale, S. (1983). Masculinity as spectacle: Reflections on men and mainstream cinema. Screen, 24(6), 2-17.

Oâ€™Brien, H. (2012). Action movies: The cinema of striking back. London: Wallflower.

Priest, A. (2009). From Saigon to Baghdad: The Vietnam syndrome, the Iraq war and American foreign policy. Intelligence and National Security, 24(1), 139-171.

Tasker, Y. (1993). Masculinity, politics and national identity. Spectacular bodies: Gender, genre and the action cinema (pp. 91-108). New York, NY: Routledge.

Film References

Berg, J., Johns, G., Roven, C., & Snyder, D. (Producers), & Snyder, Z. (Director). (2017). Justice League [Motion picture]. USA; Warner Bros. Pictures.

Coppola, F., & Aubry, K. (Producers), & Coppola, F. (Director). (1979). Apocalypse Now [Motion picture]. USA: United Artists.

Feitshans, B, (Producer), & Kotcheff, T. (Director). (1982). First Blood [Motion picture]. USA: Orion Pictures.

Foster, D., & Turman, L. (Producers), & Carpenter, J. (1982). The Thing [Motion picture]. USA: Universal Pictures.

Gordon, C., & Silver, J. (Producers), & McTiernan, J. (Director). (1988). Die Hard [Motion picture]. USA: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Hurd, G. A. (Producer), & Cameron, J. (Director). (1984). The Terminator [Motion picture]. USA: Orion Pictures.

Kennedy, B. (Producer), & Miller, G. (Director). (1979). Mad Max [Motion picture]. Australia: Roadshow Film Distributors.

Kennedy, K., & Wilson, C. (Producers), & Spielberg, S. (Director). (2005). War of the Worlds [Motion picture]. USA: Paramount Pictures.

Miller, G., Mitchell, D., & Voeten, P. J. (Producers), & Miller, G. (Director). (2015). Mad Max: Fury Road [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Roven, C., & Snyder, D. (Producers), & Snyder, Z. (Director). (2016). Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Roven, C., Snyder, D., Snyder, Z., & Suckle, R. (Producers), &. Jenkins, P. (Director). (2017). Wonder Woman [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Roven, C., & Suckler, R. (Producers), & Ayer, D. (Director). (2016). Suicide Squad [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.

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alluring-skull · 7 years ago

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ancient scapes

I just got back from Seattle, after watching the Valve Dota 2 tournament The International all week. I don’t talk about it too much beyond random tweets while watching other events at work (and so on) but I’ve played the game for a super long time (albeit somewhat sporadically overall) and definitely have a lot of attachment to it. I wanted to talk about some of the things that have really appealed to me over time, what it’s been like watching the evolution of a game that’s been alive, changing and competitive for longer than almost any other i can think of, a bit about the big event itself, and hopefully some stuff that will give other people an appreciation for what it’s like seeing a game that’s so much the same yet so different from one i played so much as a teenager. This isn’t the most complete, knowledgeable (I really have no familiarity with the pro scene before TI1 in particular), or accurate history you can probably find, but it’s mine, and I hope some people enjoy it. With all that in mind this first post is background (I’m giving this topic...probably 3-4, at least. I have a lot to talk about.)

In 2000 or so a distant, much older cousin introduced my younger brother and I to Starcraft. I think that was about the last time I ever talked to him. (It was extremely unrelated, but I have no desire to return to Texas at any rate.) At some point, probably about a year later, we found a copy for like $10 at a Toys R Us and instantly bought it. We didn’t have a home internet connection that was really usable to play online at the time (dial-up...) so we mostly played single-player, both vs AI and the campaigns. (Brood War didn’t have a key, so we totally just burned a copy of the CD we got from the library.) I played a bit with the map editor, but I couldn’t think of anything interesting to do with it, and making Starcraft maps kinda sucked anyway because the kind of symmetry you have to work with is really limited anyway due to the isometric view.

When Warcraft 3 came out, my older brothers’ friends (I think...) convinced him to get it since he was in college at the time. He got really into it, and my other brother and I played some as well. Eventually he moved home and the expansion came out, so my other brother and I got to start playing a lot. I again messed with the map editor, though I didn’t have any programming experience to touch the more advanced parts. I loved all the terrain construction and deforming (I was a huge, huge fan of Simcity 2000 and especially 3000 before this), but placing trees was kind of tedious and I never really finished anything still. Maybe if I’d had a better concept of “starting small” I could’ve gotten somewhere with things, but that took me a long time to learn. I’m saying this obviously not to be like “oh, I could’ve been Icefrog” (or even Guinsoo) but to emphasize how interesting the UMS map scene (”Use Map Settings,” the common Blizzard RTS community term to refer to these; now most people just use “mod”) was to me from the start.

DotA Allstars, as it was called during the 5.5x era when we started playing, was not the first map to use the general concept that’s become defined as its own genre, with a bunch of predecessors generally named things along the lines of “Aeon of Strife,” dating-I’ve heard, since I wasn’t around much on battle.net then, as I mentioned-back to Starcraft. (The name is a reference to the Starcraft backstory, I guess, so it’s not very hard to believe.) I did eventually find a couple, years later, and messed with them a bit, but the limitations of the design system in that game really don’t work well with the concept, even ignoring the maximalist design elements that are to some extent highlighted in dota’s enormous pool of heroes and items. (These elements are highlighted even more in the popular “Evolves” game type, where, for example, at some point in the game you lose a very good unit because it’s replaced with horrifically clumsy Protoss Dragoons, who have slightly better stats and extremely poor interactions with the engine’s pathing systems)

The newer AOS maps weren’t very good either, but the inherent leveling mechanic in Warcraft 3 made it a little easier to keep some semblance of consistent progression, and the amount of unit types you could set was much higher (I don’t know if there is a limit, but for Starcraft you can generally only create 1-2 different versions of any given unit, depending on if they have a “Hero” counterpart with a different name to tweak). Broadly speaking, most custom maps focused on hero play fell into what I can only describe as the “tome trap,” where you could buy items (consumable tomes) which didn’t take inventory space and permanently buffed stats. There’s three kinds of heroes in Warcraft, correlating roughly to the “Warrior Rogue Mage” thing, and each benefits most from a specific stat. That stat increases attack damage, and each stat has benefits for all heroes as well, with Strength giving health, Agility giving armor and attack speed, and Intellect giving extra mana pool and regeneration. But spells have cooldowns, so the tome items quickly become relatively useless for Int heroes, while Str heroes see slightly better scaling. But Agility gives attack damage and speed to Agility heroes, creating a compounding effect that becomes increasingly absurd the more you feed into it. Although, it did cause the animations to break in all sorts of hilarious ways, with certain breakpoints making the attack animations stop altogether or even go in reverse, so I still consider that a huge plus.

There was a bigger issue with pretty much all maps, due to the way that the map editor exported maps in a format that was, essentially, open-source. It was therefore very easy for people to make small tweaks to a map which would specifically benefit a certain player spot or character, save it under the same name, then host a rigged version of the game for other players. (There were a couple ways to tell if this was probably what was happening, but even so, it made looking for games very frustrating.) As it turned out, there was a workaround for this, by which you could make the editor unable to read the customized script data. The map still worked in game, but other players wouldn’t be able to make slightly altered copies; they would lose all of that code by trying to tweak anything and save a new version of the file. Essentially, it was copy-protection, and few mapmakers used it, probably since most AOS games, Tower Defense maps, and other styles didn’t really use any sophisticated scripting anyway.

Dota Allstars used the copy protection, though it had had relatively few unique abilities at the time we began playing it (I was familiar with another map with far more custom effects, Elil’s “Vale of Nightmares”). Perhaps the most well-known was the Crystal Maiden’s “Freezing Field” ultimate ability, still represented in the game to this day. But most characters simply had weird mixtures of default Warcraft 3 abilities, tweaked with different stats and so on, and strangely, the most egregious example of all (the Brewmaster, who pretty much just had the original Pandaren Brewmaster abilities from the game’s regular RTS mode) still just has the same stuff as ever. I think it’s fair to say that Allstars was never the most original game, and some things that have survived to this day (Lina Inverse is still called Lina!! What is that???) are still incredibly obvious ripoffs of stuff from Blizzard games, other video games, and anime. I understand the “Allstars” name came from this version being a patchwork of characters from different maps, though I’m not sure how true that is. It might explain some of the worst 5.5 era heroes, like “God” (a nigh-unkillable wisp with no offensive skills, who was removed for .52 and has never returned), and “Conjurer” (an outrageously busted magician on a horse, who could push to win the game in as little as 20 minutes with chain-stunning golems, even in a era where player micro was relatively poor), but it became very difficult to find other AoS type games at all once 5.52 and 5.54 locked in as extremely popular maps across the server. Both enjoyed popularity at once, as I recall; it seemed many people simply preferred one or the other and would gravitate toward that choice, making both open all the time. But the release of 5.55 was a huge paradigm shift, with complete overhauls for many heroes and numerous bug fixes and tweaks. Its release signaled the future of the game, in a sense.

Well, I don’t know. That might be giving too much credit to a version of the game which, as I recall, was the newest for approximately one hour.

(Part 2)

(Part 3)

(Part 4)

#dota 2 #valve #defense of the ancients #warcraft 3 #starcraft

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twfilms · 7 years ago

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Way Overdue Review: Song To Song (2017)

Song to Song (2017) Directed by Terrence Malick | Starring Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman Rated R I Available on Blu-ray/DVD, VOD

It used to be that a new Terrence Malick film release was a rare and monumental occasion. After all, between 1974 and 2011, Malick released a grand total of five films, all of which were met with critical acclaim, even as the director’s work became progressively more abstract and philosophical in nature. Since the release of his magnum opus, The Tree of Life, in 2011, however, Malick has apparently hit a creative spurt, releasing two separate versions of a documentary film about the origins of the universe and a trilogy of extremely experimental, personal narrative films since 2012: To The Wonder (2012), Knight of Cups (2016) and Song to Song (2017). The final film in that trilogy, Song To Song, features a more cohesive plot than its two counterparts - which may come as a relief to those who found themselves scratching their heads at To The Wonder and Knight of Cups’ complete lacks of narratives - but it is also the weakest of the three films, thanks in large part to a heavy-handedness that had previously been expertly avoided in all of Malick’s other films. Thankfully, the film is kept afloat by the performances of a simply stunning ensemble cast and the always remarkable cinematography of multi-Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, as well as a strong first act, but it’s hard to deny that Song to Song is otherwise the weakest showing in Malick’s esteemed career.

The film takes place in the Austin, Texas music scene, following a love triangle between aspiring singer-songwriter Faye (Rooney Mara), burgeoning talent BV (Ryan Gosling) and record executive Cook (Michael Fassbender), who becomes ensnarled not just in the personal lives, but also the professional lives of the talented, but struggling, couple. Eventually Cook meets and weds a young waitress (Natalie Portman), who is entranced by the danger and excess of his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, and tragedy ensues, while Faye and BV balance their relationship with their aspirations of making it big in the independent music scene.

It’s pretty clear that Song to Song’s greatest success lies in the performances of its cast, which is packed full of Oscar nominees and winners. Joining Mara, Gosling, Fassbender and Portman are the always incredible Cate Blanchett, as well as Val Kilmer and Holly Hunter, which allows this film to claim perhaps the greatest ensemble cast of the year, featuring no fewer than four of the greatest actors and actresses of their generation. And as one might expect, they deliver top-notch performances across the board: Gosling and Mara light the screen with their chemistry, and the toxicity of Fassbender and Portman’s relationship is palpable, thanks to mostly silent performances full of emotion and tension. The only complaint would be that Blanchett is almost criminally underused in the film, but given Malick’s track record of cutting lead actors out of his films altogether, one can’t help but be thankful that she appears at all.

The other area in which Song to Song is an unmitigated success is, of course, the cinematography, as the partnership between Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki continues to deliver stunning results. There’s little question now that Lubezki is perhaps the greatest cinematographer currently working in his field, so it seems almost unnecessary to even mention the quality of his work. It’s just a given; as long as Malick and Lubezki continue to make films together, they will continue to be visually spectacular. Period.

Where Song to Song really begins to falter, however, is in areas in which Malick has proven himself so adept over the years. While the first act of the film, which largely takes place on-stage and behind the scenes of the Austin music scene and features musings from musical personalities such as Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is engaging and thought-provoking (in fact, one may be reminded of some of the films of Jim Jarmusch and Richard Linklater in its rambling, philosophical episodes), the rest of the film becomes mired in the personal relationships of the characters, which prove to be far less interesting in comparison. It’s also difficult to deal with the crushing cynicism present throughout the film; while it may be true that Knight of Cups was a scathing indictment of the Hollywood lifestyle, Song to Song brings the negativity to a whole new level, which makes Malick seem less like an objective critic of the excesses of rock ‘n’ roll hedonism and more like a crotchety old man railing against something which he just no longer understands.

The irony, of course, is that Malick has made a career out of making philosophical films that allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the subject matter, a method which he seems to have abandoned completely with his latest offering. There’s no doubt that Malick is a devoutly religious man and that Christian philosophy has always been present in his work, but The Tree of Life is a film that could mean very different things to an atheist and a spiritual person, because while Malick does guide the viewer toward a certain spiritual philosophy, he never outright tells the audience what to think. In Song to Song, however, the religious allegory is painfully obvious and the message is clear: sexual experimentalism and freedom are very bad things and monogamous, heterosexual relationships are the way to go, period.

Overall, Song to Song is not a terrible film, but it simply does not live up to the quality of Malick’s previous films. The film is preachy and heavy-handed in a way that is very uncharacteristic in Malick’s other work, which can’t help but make one wonder if maybe the master filmmaker is becoming a little too prolific in his creative awakening of late. Hopefully as the director continues to evolve his style in the coming years, he’ll return to form and deliver one or two more of the kinds of masterpieces that he has proven he knows how to make.

#song to song #terrence malick #ryan gosling #rooney mara #michael fassbender #natalie portman #cate blanchett #film nerd #film reviews #independent film #film #patti smith

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thefield5 · 6 years ago

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Electric Messages to Instant Messages

In our modern world, there are a lot of things that we take for granted. Especially in the younger generations, instant communication via the internet, such as Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and iMessage are all means of bridging the distance between us, allowing for quick conversation. However, it wasn’t always this easy. The first step towards communication as we know it today was the telegraph, but it wasn’t always an easy road to get there.

In the past, before the dawn of electricity, the main way of instant communication over distances was noise - such as bells or horns, signaling those within hearing distance about attacks or important events. Even with loud noises however, it was hard for any complex messages to travel any great distance. Other forms of communication were primarily relayed by men on horseback or on ships, however, it took anywhere from days to months for those messages to be conveyed, and often they were mis-communicated or even lost. With the recent celebration of the Fourth of July, it brings to mind one of the most famous horseback messengers - Paul Revere, with his iconic cry, “the British are coming!”

As the world and our knowledge of it grew, with it came the need for faster, more complex communications. While it would be a long time before this need was met, a monk did an experiment that paved the way for future researchers. Jean-Antoine Nollet shocked a line of monks holding connecting wires that was about a mild long. This experiment was critical to the development of the telegraph as it showed that in theory, it could be possible to transmit signals with electricity over a great distance, far faster than a rider on horseback or ship could carry them. For more information about the experiment and early electricity, check out this interesting article: "The First Shock of Electricity."

After Nollet’s experiment, the next major development was the optical / visual Telegraph, created by a pair of French inventors named Claude and Rene Chappe. They were some of the many people that failed to capture electricity for the purpose of sending messages. His very early idea was sending different “clang” messages by striking a casserole dish, which could only go about a quarter mile away. They would synchronize their clocks, and based on the timing of the “clang,” a number dictionary and a code book they translated these numbers into letters, words, and phrases. The main problem with this system was the short distance that messages were able to be sent over. On March 2, 1791, using black and white panels, clocks, telescopes and code books they sent a message through town, reaching a building 10 miles away. Later, they created a new design that did not need clocks, consisting of two small rotating arms on the end of a long rotating bar. That bar could be aligned horizontally or vertically and the smaller arms could be rotated in seven different positions, with a total of 98 different combinations. This was the very first Visual Telegraph.

Samuel F.B. Morse And Dr. Charles Jackson, took the next step in developing the telegraph by using the clicking of an electromagnets to send numbers, but this system took nine times longer to send a message. Then he came up with using a bi-signal that involved dots and dashes of what we know today as Morse code. This was then put into electrical signal so it could be translated from dots and dashes back into the original message. To watch and listen to what Morse code telegraphs sounded like, you can watch this video.

It wasn't until 1871 all the Telegraph wires of the United States were connected to a single Morse Key. Eventually, automatic telegraph machines sent messages without operators. David Hughes later invented a keyboard with alternating black and white keys, one for each letter, that was able to print characters a paper tape and it could be operated by anyone. This invention was perfected by Charles Wheatstone and later became the Wheatstone Automatic Transmitter. Later on was the harmonic telegraph invented by Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell. On March 3rd 1876, he succeeded in transmitting speech for the first time, an invention that is now known as the telephone. Four years later, in 1880 there were 30,000 phones in use.

The telegraph was a revolutionary invention that created many new businesses and jobs for people. This boom in jobs and businesses is mirrored by the modern telecommunication industry. Today many telephone companies also offer internet, one of the bigger ones being the AT&T company. Even today the internet redefines the way people work and the way businesses work today. Like any new communication invention there's usually many benefits, not only through the communication aspect, but such inventions were expected to improve education, reduce social isolation and overall enhance communication.

Although other resources were implemented in developing stages, these are the resources that were vital for the final versions of the commercial telegraph and similar technological devices. Many physical resources were needed, including wire for transmission, magnetic needles for human detection of electrical changes, and galvanometers for measuring electrical currents. Earlier devices used other, often more difficult to obtain, supplies, including mercury and silk. The use of such materials in the final products supported the iron industry in terms of finances and demand, as well as other industries that the advancements depended on.

Limitations on knowledge hinder technological development, so the technical information available to the engineers was a critical aspect of these inventions. For example, according to Harvard professor R.Victor Jones, without the knowledge of frequency-division multiplexing, the telegraph technology would have lacked the ability to send more than one message per wire in the same way, using varying frequencies. Additionally, fiber optic transmission eventually allowed for sending thousands of telegraph signals simultaneously down a line using laser light signals through fiber optic cables. Pavel Schilling even implemented the binary system.

Early slang and code was implemented in lists to make communication easier. For example, from The Victorian Internet, “However, one listing of common abbreviations compiled in 1859 includes ‘1 1’ (dot dot, dot dot) for ‘I AM READY’; ‘G A’ (dash dash dot, dot dash) for ‘GO AHEAD’, ‘S F D’ for ‘STOP FOR DINNER’; ‘G M’ for ‘GOOD MORNING.’” However, all of this knowledge was never gained in the first place or rendered useless without outside support. The development process was heavily dependent on public support and funding because without enough interest and financing, projects or versions of projects are hindered or altogether rejected. Francis Ronalds and André-Marie Ampère, both developers of the telegraph around the same time period, experienced this fact when told their creations were not useful. This is not a rare experience even for engineers in the contemporary world, and can be positive or negative in extremes.

The Victorian Internet had many factors that lead to having a positive impact on society. These impacts increased socialization through cultural exchange, education, and romance. Being able to talk through Morse code to another person was much faster than relating a message from a horse. The electronic telegram allows people to speak to one another from around the world. By this new source of communication, it has resulted in an increased of social activity. These activities, explained in the Victorian Internet was where “love across the wires originated” through the romance people had from this form of communication.

From the electronic telegram, new technology evolves and became better. Industries formed and people had a greater increase in socialization. Verizon Wireless was one of those industries that allowed people to have these abilities. The chance to send messages within seconds to someone. Having the capability to talk to someone else across the world. Being able to use the interest such as Facebook to chat with friends, families, and colleagues. Lowell McAdam, Version Chairman and CEO reported, “Explosive demand for mobile data is arguably the biggest driver of growth in the technology industry today. By launching our 4G LTE wireless network, which delivers the speed and capacity required for wireless data and video, and covering 89% of the U.S. population allowed people to have the communication they need within seconds.”

However, even back in the era of the Victorian Internet there was theft and fraud, as stated in a line from The Victorian Internet ��The educated criminal skims the cream from every new invention. The telegraph was no exception. It provided unscrupulous individuals with novel opportunities for fraud, theft, and deception.” (Standage 105). A key example of these mentioned in the book is horse racing. With the results of a winning race, person A could send person B the winning horse, and then person B could then put a surefire bet on the horse, winning money almost every time. This ultimately would have a negative effect on society due to the telegraph being misused for what it was intended for, thus gaining a negative reputation as people would be afraid to use it being afraid of theft or other negative things.

Similarly, to the negative effects of the Victorian Internet on society, the invention of new technologies today also has negative effects. One of the most prevalent issues with technology today is how it is affecting the day to day lives of children. According to: Americans and Technology: The Good and The Bad, American children spend about 40 hours a week using some sort of technological device. If you consider in a child going to school for six hours, sleep for about 8 hours, and then the average 6-8 hours they spend on a device, that takes up about 20-22 hours of their day. It is no wonder American kids and America as a whole are becoming more and more obese, as you can see from the image, America has the most obese children. We spend so much time with technology that doesn’t leave much time to have an active life.

Despite the negatives, there are endless possibilities thanks to our modern technology. Even with all of the progress we’ve made, technology slows no sign of slowing down. Communication is something that connects us all, and the instruments that connect us are still an essential part of our lives. What do you think will come next? And what, like the pony express or telegraph, will be outdated before we know it?

Sources

http://americancensorship.org/americans-technology-good-bad/

https://www.verizon.com/about/sites/default/files/vz_ar_2012.pdf

https://aehistory.wordpress.com/1837/10/08/1837-first-commercial-telegraph/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/4750776/The-first-shock-of-electricity.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWKsgDqa9T8

https://www.famousscientists.org/andre-marie-ampere/

http://uudb.org/articles/francisronalds.html

The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage

#telegraph #moderninternet #research #schoolproject #mediaandcommunication

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