Happy Media

Essentially a random thoughts post, but mostly about film and TV.

• So Big Hollywood's talking about the Oscar nominees, and, uh, 'parently, "Black Swan" just took an anime dream sequence and stretched it out to feature length. Complete with yuri scenes!
  
  Also, some idiot talking about The King's Speech was saying that a King of England is an inherently unsympathetic character. Not only did this idiot seem to think kings are rich (which hasn't been the case since the Reformation), but he also chants his tribal dogmas about not judging people by their ancestry (which isn't even how monarchies work). Leaving to one side that the current English dynasty's ancestry isn't prestigious at all—the Hanoverians were a bunch of halfwit German squires brought in because they'd take orders—the inherently Stalinist nature of all ideology, even classical liberalism, reared its ugly head. It's the same mentality that lets columnists jeer at Nicholas II, when they'd trip over themselves to heap praise on any other murder victim whose last days were marked by such saintly serenity (and whose worst flaw was being a bit of a ditz). But they can't do that; they have to hate him just for being a king. At the mere sight of a crown, they transform into Che Guevara, keeping their hatred alive and fanning it to paroxysms.
  
  What's really horrible is, their unintelligent, kneejerk demagoguery has forced me to defend the Hanoverian kings of England, a bad dynasty of a worse country.


• On a related note, I've read four or five conservative columnists who say that Jeb Bush would be an excellent candidate, but they won't nominate him because they don't want to be founding any dynasties. Leaving to one side that it hasn't exactly stopped the Kennedies, and whether you think Jeb would be any good or not (or would have a chance), that's completely retarded. There's a name for the thought process involved—we have a good option but we can't follow it because of something irrational—and it's called a taboo. It's mostly associated with people who believe drowning can only be caused by witches.


• Back on track, Star Driver has, I think, the best protagonist in anything. Despite his borderline harem situation, and his showy mannerisms, Takuto actually has reactions to girls other than "dumb horny monkey", but also manages to avoid Tenchi's "generic nice guy"-ness. I was not aware one could write a character that believable.
  
  Pro tip, watch it again after you get partway through, and it'll make a lot more sense.


• So there's a series called "Houkago no Pleiades", which is a magical girl show...licensed by Subaru (which is the Japanese name for the Pleiades).
  
  Is that weird to anyone else?


• The Pleiades is known as the Hard Flint Boys in Navajo; apparently anime is quite popular on the rez. So you gotta wonder, how do they—for whom incest is identical with Satanism—react to little-sister moe?


• I recently watched the beginning of Johnny Mnemonic, which is apparently mainly enjoyed as a "So Bad It's Good"/"good-bad"/"differently good" movie. Is it just me, or is that opening scroll just about the most overwrought thing ever written? And the paragraph about the disease really breaks up the flow of ideas; it's just awful.
  
  Also, that "They'll negotiate, they're corporate", "So are the yakuza", exchange? Was that supposed to be meaningful? 'Cause the yakuza really will negotiate, they're downright reasonable as organized crime groups go.
  
  Have any of those Asian-American groups ever noticed the absolute grotesquery of Orientalism that is cyberpunk? 'Cause even in the books the bad movies are based on, that stuff is all over the place.


• Another example of how William Gibson is a waste of space would be his essay on Singapore, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty". Basically, he's correct that Singapore is excessively controlled and organized, but then he goes too far. A lack of bohemianism or slums is not a bad thing, Gibson, and neither is the Kowloon slum of Hong Kong preferable to Singapore in any way.
  
  One suspects a false dichotomy is at work here: excess of order is bad, therefore I'll prefer anarchy and squalor. No, no, no. Failure can occur either by excess or by defect; too little order and control is just as bad as too much.
  
  I am continuously brought to tears by people's ignorance of the obvious.