tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66536821245247455782024-02-08T10:21:57.869-08:00Things We Should Darn Well Care AboutK.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-51573955240866896582011-11-21T10:41:00.000-08:002011-11-21T11:02:09.482-08:00The Itch to Read, Part 5: UnderstandingMy previous blog concentrated on reading as the mechanism that transports us to places and times beyond our own experience, worlds in which we may be as strong, clever, witty, brave, or beautiful as we dream of being. But what would persuade us to pick up a book that takes us into a world where we're not even keen to visit, let alone live?<br /><br />Curiosity. The desire to know.<br /><br />Three years ago I decided to read Orwell's <em>1984</em>. I'd somehow gotten through high school and over ten years of college without having to read it, and I knew it for an important political novel, an examination of life (if you can call it that) in a totalitarian state. How do people function when their most fundamental rights of choice are taken from them? I wanted to know, so I read the book. While I certainly can't claim to have enjoyed it as I enjoyed <em>The Lord of the Rings</em> or <em>Watership Down</em>, I came away with a deep admiration for Orwell's direct and vivid writing style and a determination never to vote for a political candidate who has not read and understood <em>1984</em>.<br /><br />It hasn't been easy for me to hold fast to this determination in today's political climate. Populist social conservatives may regard <em>1984</em>, like all fiction, as a waste of time, and may never have bothered to read it. On the other hand, big-government liberals may have read it, but they don't seem to have understood it; they evidently think that with a push here or a tweak there, Big Brother can be turned into a good guy.<br /><br />But here's where matters get sticky: a great novel, play, or poem may be "understood" in different ways by different readers. For me, Orwell's novel illuminates the downward spiral that starts when we feel the choices we make and the responsibilities that go with them are too heavy for our weak and ignorant shoulders to bear, and we want someone else, someone wiser and more powerful, to relieve us of the burden. But not everyone sees it my way. Some readers might see <em>Othello</em> as a cautionary tale of what happens when young people refuse to listen to their parents; others see, instead, a fascinating study of psychological deterioration, or the toxic effects of racism. Some readers might be drawn to <em>The Iliad</em> for its depiction of the relationships between gods and men, while others are more intrigued by its portrayal of the bonds forged between soldiers in wartime. What we find when we explore a good book speaks to who we are as individuals and the values and experiences we bring to the table. Readers and writers are constantly journeying to meet one another in the middle.<br /><br />We learn most, I believe, when we're open to being changed in ways we do not expect, or reminded of some truth we might have forgotten. Curious about the lives women lead in nations where Islamic Law relegates them to the status of slaves, I turned to Azar Nafisi's <em>Reading Lolita</em> <em>in Tehran</em>. What I saw most clearly wasn't the unjust oppression of women (though this was certainly there) but those same women's determination to assert their individuality and their right to learn in a society that attempts to deny them both. Seeking a story of oppression, I got a story of courage, and was reminded of the close connection between the two.<br /><br /><em>1984</em> is fiction. <em>Reading Lolita in Tehran</em> is a memoir. Yet both shed a light on a basic human truth: Imagination is a powerful organ, and it demands exercise, whatever stumbling blocks a government may throw in its path. When we read -- particularly when we read for understanding as well as pleasure -- we are flexing the muscles of liberty.<br /><br />Frederick Douglass is right. Reading is freedom.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-21872663618296279762011-11-19T08:53:00.000-08:002011-11-19T09:27:20.724-08:00The Itch to Read, Part 4: Adventure and EscapeMy students always tell me that one of the chief joys of reading is "escape." For me, escape means the chance to see the world through the eyes of someone different from you -- different in race, background, nationality or ethnicity, maybe even species.<br /><br />I love becoming a dragon. When one is feeling small and insignificant and set upon by the world, what can be more satisfying than imagining oneself as a mighty creature with a thirty-foot wingspan, capable of incinerating enemies with a mere sigh? Often, if I want to become a dragon, I have to change my gender. In children's and even adult fantasy literature, female dragons can be hard to find, unless I want to read Christopher Paolini's <span style="font-style: italic;">Inheritance Cycle</span>, which I don't. (Ugh! I still remember what a dreadful movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Eragon</span> was.) But that's another wonderful thing about reading: for a time, I can even become male, and I can take to the sky as Cressida Crowell's lovable Toothless, or J.R.R. Tolkien's arrogant and deadly Smaug (darned shame about that vulnerable spot) or George R.R. Martin's fierce black Drogon.<br /><br />I do wish I might fly as female, and I'm actively looking for fantasy tales with dragon heroines, largely because I'll soon begin work on such a story myself. A duology by one of my favorite fantasy authors, Robin Hobb -- <span style="font-style: italic;">Dragon Keeper</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Dragon Haven </span>-- beckons me from my bookshelf. Yet I have to say, "Later. When I've finished exploring Elantris and surviving Westeros." After all, I can't read everything at once, though I do try; usually I alternate between four different books.<br /><br />Most of them are fantasy novels, because they offer extreme escape while addressing a basic need we all know, to which we can all relate. The goal of most heroes and heroines in fantasy literature, whether dragon or dwarf, human or hobbit, is to find their power, to discover what is extraordinary in themselves, a strength that will help them thrive. Often this power comes as a surprise. Bilbo Baggins doesn't know he's built for adventure; he is more concerned with being on time for dinner. Yet when a visiting dwarf questions his fitness for the dangerous task at hand, he's all ready to try his hand at adventure, and throughout <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hobbit</span>, his success continues to surprise him. Hermione Granger doesn't know what to do with the massive intellect and the magical gifts she has been given. But when she discovers a race of mythical beings trapped in slavery, she makes up her mind to help them, and persists even when everyone around her, even her friends, is ridiculing her and telling her to stop. As characters like these astonish themselves, we may wonder, however old we are, what surprises might lie waiting in our own hearts and minds. Even as we escape, we're working with longings at the heart of human nature -- longings to be exceptional and to find some path to victory, great or small, in a harsh and inhospitable world.<br /><br />A little while ago, my interest in dragons working upon me, I picked up an intriguing novel by Jo Walton called <span style="font-style: italic;">Tooth and Claw</span>, which is basically a nineteenth-century British novel, with all the conventions and problems typical of nineteenth-century British novels -- patterned specifically after the works of Anthony Trollope -- in which all the characters are dragons. If you're wondering how such a thing could possibly work, trust me, it does. Parsons and servants have their wings bound. Sickly children are devoured by their elders (it's called "consumption") and when an old family patriarch dies, his corpse, along with his gold, is divided among his heirs. Maidens have gold scales, and when they blush pink, it's either a sign of true love or a mark of indiscretion. So as I read this book, my new enthusiasm for fantasy literature intersected with a much older fascination of mine: the realistic past, the worlds inhabited by the likes of Jane Eyre and Ebenezer Scrooge. My standard rule is that the further removed a story's setting from my own place and time, the more keen I will be to read that story.<br /><br />Time travel is still a science fiction thing. The closest we can come to experiencing the past is to pick up a book. My father loves history books; I prefer fiction, either set or (better) written in the past. Not only can I learn about environments different from my own, but here, as in fantasy literature, I can become exceptional in ways where I fall short in the real world. Despite my doughy frame, I can have the strength of Achilles. I can have the sparkling wit and grace of Elizabeth Bennet, the generosity and understanding of Anne Elliot, the dignity of Dorothea Brooke, the raw courage of Marian Halcombe. I seek out heroes and (especially) heroines with at least one outstanding quality I particularly admire, and then I step into their shoes and let them show me around their worlds. Maybe I can pick up a few tips from them.<br /><br />Through the pages I escape my own routines and embark on adventures that might prove too much for me should I meet them in the real world; yet I do get an idea or two on how I might triumph over real adversity. (What would Bilbo Baggins do?) And when I come back to myself and the here and now, I'm always just a little bit different for having seen through their eyes.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-15278779100598718392011-11-14T10:40:00.000-08:002011-11-14T10:56:03.169-08:00The Itch to Read, Part 3: Advice for the Non-ReaderOne of the greatest challenges a reader can face is understanding why some people don't read.<br /><br />After all, aren't there so many good reasons to read? In all the classes I teach, I ask my students who are readers to tell me what they get out of the activity. Almost invariably they mention that reading offers them an escape from real-life stress; this is the first answer I get. Other excellent responses follow: reading improves vocabulary; reading broadens their perspectives on the world and encourages them to relate to situations and people they would never encounter in real life; reading helps them understand problems. From my students' mouths I hear all the reasons why <em>I</em> love to read.<br /><br />Yet if reading offers understanding, adventure, and escape, why do people reject it? Since I often have as many non-readers as readers in my classes, it's my business to find an answer to that question. I've asked my friends and fellow teachers for help, and this is the best we can come up with:<br /><br />Many young people grow up in bookless houses. They never see their parents reading. Excursions to the library are not part of their routine; bedtime stories are unknown. The only place where they encounter books is <em>school</em>. Most of us associate school, at least the part that takes place in the classroom, with work rather than fun. Those who read only at school tend to associate reading with work, something to be abandoned when leisure time presents itself. No matter how good the books they read in school may be, reading is still work in their minds.<br /><br />The key to helping a non-reader become a reader is breaking this association, and connecting reading with fun.<br /><br />This new connection isn't likely to happen if non-readers leap straight to <em>Moby Dick</em> or <em>War and</em> <em>Peace</em> -- unless they're especially interested in marine life or Russian history. Non-readers should begin reading to their interests, those things they already enjoy. Are they interested, for example, in sports? Then instead of getting all their sports news from watching <em>CNN Sports</em> <em>Center</em>, they should try reading <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, a good magazine with articles that go into depth and detail about their subjects. Over time -- this doesn't happen quickly -- as non-readers read about things they enjoy, they start to feel more comfortable with the printed word; they may move on from SI to books by or about sports heroes. They may never read <em>Moby Dick</em>, but at least they start to see what reading has to offer them: deeper understanding and exploration, and even the chance to step into the shoes of people they admire.<br /><br />Then, when they have families of their own, their children will grow up seeing their parents with their noses in books and magazines.<br /><br />And so the race of readers marches forward into new generations, even as prophets of doom continue to bray that print culture is dead.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-9936128021932992972011-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:002011-11-09T11:42:27.498-08:00The Itch to Read, Part 2: The Making of a ReaderOne of the truths I stress in my college Freshman Composition classes is that good readers are made, not born. The ability to read well, to learn from and take joy in the printed word, is not some gift a benevolent fairy bestows on us while we're in our cradle; rather, it is a skill which we develop with time and practice.<br /><br />Naturally, some of my students wonder how I became a reader, what combination of factors helped me to develop the skill. I have to acknowledge that it wasn't a simple, short jump from here to there, and not all (or even most) of the credit goes to me. I did receive one important blessing at my birth: reading parents. Most of the time, reading parents will raise new readers, by example more than by pressure. As my infant awareness sharpened, I saw that my parents often buried their noses in books, and that well-stocked bookshelves lined the walls of our home. So I grew up thinking of reading as a basic, normal activity -- just something people did. It never occurred to me that some people didn't read, until I would visit friends' houses and wonder where all the books were. Though I would try to have a good time, I couldn't wait to get back home where things were normal.<br /><br />In my younger days I never described myself as a reader; reading was "just something I did." I preferred other activities, such as acting out wild, elaborate melodramas with my "Barbie action figures," but I read anyway, because not reading wasn't normal. As Scout Finch puts it in <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em>, "One does not love breathing." As it happens, <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> was one of the first books I took active pleasure in reading, one of several books I read during my middle-school years because I had seen the movie version, loved it, and wanted to know more. I discovered that the books could take me deeper into stories that already intrigued me. I now realize I may have cheated myself a little, because I did not come to these books unspoiled; the images and voices from the movies were already imprinted on my mind. I can't help wondering what my Atticus Finch might have looked like, if I had not seen Gregory Peck first.<br /><br />Around this time, my parents, running out of patience with my "Barbie action figures," started to bring pressure to bear, to get me to read more. From this I learned another important lesson -- to listen to Mom and Dad because they knew what they were talking about. Mom recommended <em>Jane Eyre</em> to me, and I loved it. Dad pointed me toward an abridged (hey, I was only in the eighth grade) edition of <em>Les Miserables</em>, and I loved it. I never knew my parents to steer me wrong, and soon I was asking them to recommend authors as well as books. Mom led me into historical fiction by way of Taylor Caldwell and Anya Seton, while Dad was a guide through Greek mythology. By the end of high school, I was a full-fledged reader, and I spent my college years gobbling up Charles Dickens and getting to know J. R. R. Tolkien.<br /><br />So I admit I had a lot of help becoming a reader. I adopted reading in much the same way we adopt many of our parents' values, out of trust in their wisdom. But at a certain point, as we put those values to the test, they cease to be our parents' values and become our own. My reading preferences today are very different from Mom's or Dad's -- though occasionally I may still take a recommendation from them.<br /><br />But what about those children who do not grow up with reading parents? Next time, The Itch to Read Part 3: Advice for the Non-Reader.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-42005129886871592902011-11-08T06:52:00.000-08:002011-11-08T07:04:29.113-08:00The Itch to Read, Part 1: Frederick DouglassIn his autobiography <span style="font-style: italic;">Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave</span>, one of the most emotionally powerful pieces of 19th century American literature, the great abolitionist leader Douglass describes how he came to understand his position in the world and the injustice of it, and felt the first stirrings of what would become a firmly ingrained determination to be free. As a boy he came into the hands of a Baltimore couple, and the wife, as yet inexperienced in the "art" of slaveholding, started to teach him the alphabet. Her husband commanded her to stop, declaring that if Douglass should learn how to read, "it would forever unfit him to be a slave."<br /><br />"I now understood," Douglass writes, "what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty -- to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man . . . I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read."<br /><br />For Douglass, reading held the key to illuminating the secrets of not only freedom but humanity itself. To read was to understand possibility, potential. True, his autobiography makes clear that the gift of literacy had a dark side; often, he writes, he would have been glad to "get rid of thinking," for a sense of the wideness of the world inevitably brought pain to an intelligent but still enslaved youth. But reading provided the engine that propelled Douglass on his journey toward freedom.<br /><br />Reading was a life-or-death matter.<br /><br />How many of us in the new millennium know first-hand the horror of young Douglass' existence? The closest we free middle-class Americans can come to it is to read his autobiography and experience, for a little while, the world he knew. Many of us turn to books in search of escape, but we gain our best perspective and understanding when, at least on occasion, we let those books take us to places that aren't so pretty.<br /><br />Even those of us who love to read may not quite grasp what reading could mean to someone in Douglass' situation. Here in the USA in 2011, literacy is the norm. We take reading for granted. When we stumble onto someone who cannot read, we're surprised, even shocked. But we have problems of our own. As another great 19th century American writer, Mark Twain, points out, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."<br /><br />To many of us are deliberate illiterates. Books and magazines on every conceivable subject surround us on every side, offering us the chance to deepen our understanding of any area in which we might have an interest, but all too often we leave them alone. What curiosity we might feel proves fleeting, too weak to push past the surface before we're ready to move on to the next thing. What Douglass looked on as empowering and liberating, we see as drudgery and tedium.<br /><br />And so we slip on mental chains -- the chains Douglass was so desperate to throw off -- as easily and casually as we might slip on a T-shirt.<br /><br />By "we," I hasten to say, I mean society as a whole, which is allowing print culture to die a slow death. I'm fully aware that countless individuals still relish an afternoon with a good book. I'm one of them. And so I'm devoting this series of blogs to the pleasures and lessons to be found in reading -- apart from writing, my favorite thing to do.<br /><br />Coming up in Part 2: The making of a reader.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-39235598478219300042011-11-01T07:07:00.000-07:002011-11-01T07:32:40.045-07:00ProhibitionFor a libertarian, the Prohibition years are an especially shameful chapter in American history, a stretch of time when the belief in the power of government to legislate human goodness was enshrined in our Constitution. As a historian interviewed in Ken Burns' three-part documentary <a href="http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/" target="_blank">Prohibition</a> points out, the 18th Amendment was the first Constitutional amendment that limited freedom rather than expanding it.<br /><br />Yet both the documentary and the historical period it details raise complicated questions, which we're still faced with today: how do we find a workable solution to a genuine social problem? Is there ever one hard, fast, one-size-fits-all answer to problems like alcohol and drug abuse, childhood obesity, or widespread divorce?<br /><br />Burns' film makes clear in its first episode, "A Nation of Drunkards," that excessive drinking was widespread throughout the century before Prohibition, and that it gave rise to other evils, most notably domestic violence. The "drunkard culture" accentuated the sharp gender divisions set in place by the notion of "separate spheres," the public and the private world, for men and women. Husbands and wives and courting couples did not drink together, save perhaps for the modest glass of wine at mealtimes. Rather, men gathered in saloons to drink away the pressures of work, while women waited at home; all too often, the men would return home full of fight, ready to pound on their wives and even their children. When advocates of Temperance (a huge number of them women) declared that "alcohol destroys homes," they could point to legions of examples to support their claim, examples that shed a blaring light on the greatest tragedy of addiction: the erosion of the addict's capacity for empathy.<br /><br />The problem of alcohol abuse, then, was real; few could have denied it. The argument lay in what should be done about it. Some -- the wisest, in this libertarian's point of view -- advocated a case-by-case approach, in which churches and private citizens and organizations would take the lead in helping alcoholics hop on the wagon and stay there. Other favored a broader, wide-sweeping approach that took the decision out of individuals' hands. Instead of working to reduce people's demand for alcohol, these Temperance activists advocated cutting off their supply -- the simplest solution on the surface, and so, the solution that eventually won the day.<br /><br />Similar battles rage today, and not only concerning the obvious issue of the <span style="font-style: italic;">War on Drugs</span>. Childhood obesity is a problem, most would agree; as youngsters get less exercise and eat more fattening foods, they're afflicted in increasing numbers with health problems usually associated with adults, such as heart disease and diabetes. No one wants to see unhealthy children. But while some would encourage greater education in nutrition that would empower parents and children to make healthier choices, others favor simply taking vending machines that sell candy bars out of schools and other public places, and banning the use of trans fats in restaurant cooking. And so the old Prohibition story goes on: do we allow individuals to decide for themselves, or do we rush to make decisions for them in the firm conviction that we know what's best?<br /><br />If the history of Prohibition teaches us nothing else, it shows us that where demand exists, supply will follow, whether or not that supply is legal. Freedom is a chaotic thing. Individuals will not always make the best, wisest choices, and they cannot expect the government to step in to protect them from the consequences of their mistakes. Until human nature can be made perfectible by external means -- hint: it never will be -- we must accept that tragedies will occur, and excessive behavior will sometimes destroy lives.<br /><br />Should we try to prevent as many of these tragedies as possible? Of course. But who is best qualified to do so? Nearly always, the closer the person or group is to the problem, the more likely they are to come up with solutions that actually work. Friends and neighbors are often the best resort. Schools can lend a hand, as can churches, private charities, and even local governments. We are our brother's keepers, but our charity is usually most effective when extended to the individual brothers we have seen, rather than an abstract mass of nameless, faceless brothers we have not seen. To abuse an old cliche, elephants are best eaten a bite at a time.<br /><br />We may not think of Alexander Hamilton, the great Federalist leader and champion of strong centralized government, as especially libertarian-friendly, but he does offer the following piece of wisdom dear to this libertarian's heart:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution."<br /></div><br />Mr. Hamilton, the last word is yours.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-1785662250442387272011-07-28T11:39:00.000-07:002011-07-28T12:24:35.928-07:00Nerds in Costume: Corrupting America?In her latest book <span style="font-style: italic;">Of Thee I Zing!</span>, conservative social critic Laura Ingraham takes aim at what passes for popular "culture" here in the U.S., highlighting what she perceives as its most squalid, debasing aspects. Much of the time I can't disagree with her disdain for her targets; reality television, advertisements, and even some branches of popular music <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> squalid and debasing -- nauseatingly so. But I wonder what Ingraham expects us to do about the Snookis and Charlie Sheens and Kim Kardashians of the world. Certainly the last thing any sane person would want is for the government to step up and take charge of TV, movies, books, magazines, commercials, sports, etc. We've seen what that looks like, after all. Germany under Hitler, anyone? The Soviet Union under Stalin? What passes for art and entertainment in countries dominated by Sharia law? I'm guessing we would rather not see that over here.<br /><br />However, I wish to take up a small issue with Ingraham and her tome -- small, but nonetheless irksome to a speculative fiction fan like me. In among the potshots at reality TV and dumbed-down educational standards, she finds time to express her contempt for moviegoers who dress in costumes to attend the premieres of much-anticipated fantasy films (in this case, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter</span> films). She finds standing in line with people clad in Hogwarts regalia troubling enough to include it in her attack on cultural corruption, right alongside the transformation of sex tape stars into celebrities.<br /><br />Confession: I love dressing in costume. Along with books, new costumes are my biggest temptation to spend money. I will leap at any reasonable excuse to clothe myself in my sixteenth- or nineteenth-century finery, so naturally I relish going to places where it's accepted, nay, encouraged for grown folk to play dress-up (e.g. Renaissance Festivals, Dragon Con, Anime Weekend Atlanta). My goal when I don my costumes is the same as when I pick up a fantasy or sci-fi novel: to step out of myself and my own problems and into a character and world of my own imagination, for at least a little while.<br /><br />Am I really contributing to the devolution of our culture?<br /><br />What Ms. Ingraham conspicuously fails to understand is that many of us who occasionally fancy ourselves as students or professors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are actually rebelling against the very pop-culture turgidity she decries in the rest of her book. In immersing ourselves in worlds like Hogwarts, Middle Earth, or Narnia, we're fleeing the moral relativism and casual hedonism that characterize so much of the world we were born into. We're escaping the ugliness, the cheapness, the bad taste. In exchange we're embracing an environment where virtue is not some distant abstract idea but an action, a conscious decision. An environment where courage, loyalty, honor, kindness, and ingenuity may carry the day. An environment where toxic narcissists like Charlie Sheen are the bad guys, not the "heroes" whose public appearances draw crowds. Sure, it's fun to imagine wielding a magic wand or a mighty sword, but on a deeper level, when we take up that wand or that sword, we're engaging in battles that matter. We're taking a stand. Our fantasy lives may teach us the very things we need to know about ourselves.<br /><br />Besides, my long, flowing costume skirts are my own private antidote to the "slut chic" I see on every side. In my fantasy travels I may have to defeat orcs and Death Eaters, but I will never meet a Paris Hilton. There are no Kardashians to be found -- though maybe a few Cardassians, that no one in her right mind would want to keep up with. As long as I'm in Middle Earth, I'm light years away from Jersey Shore.<br /><br />So let us have our costumes, Ms. Ingraham. Under our Hogwarts cloaks, we may have more in common with you than you realize. After all, if you know about the costume parades at the premieres, you must have gone to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter</span>.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-70623719703027682382011-05-17T14:38:00.000-07:002011-05-17T15:26:53.085-07:00Pixar and Women, Part 2 -- Finding Nemo through Toy Story 35. <span style="font-style: italic;">Finding Nemo</span>. Opinion is divided on the success of Dory, the blue tang with short-term memory loss who accompanies sad-sack hero Marlin on his quest to save his captured son Nemo. Some viewers find her an impossible ditz; this is understandable, since every time she manages to do something awesome, she forgets it immediately. But as I see it, the movie makes it clear that short-term memory loss is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> stupidity, as Dory proves helpful at several crucial points. She even gets to utter the film's message, as Marlin laments his inability to protect his son: "If you never let anything happen to him, nothing would ever happen to him."<br /><br />6. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Incredibles</span>. My favorite Pixar film, and an unqualified success on every level, including gender roles. Middle-aged, unwillingly retired superhero Bob Parr might be the film's chief protagonist, but even more than Dot and Atta before them, his wife Helen and daughter Violet, both "super," have growth arcs of their own. Helen, a.k.a Elastigirl, tries to be the ordinary suburban housewife, but finds in time that the role doesn't suit her; to save her family and reconnect with her husband, she must tap into her extraordinary abilities and become Elastigirl again. Violet, a painfully shy and awkward teen, learns even more dramatically to embrace her powers, and in the end generates the force field that saves the entire family. If neither of those characters are one's idea of a heroine, there's always that divine fashion designer for superheroes, Edna Mode, indisuptably the film's funniest character.<br /><br />7. <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars</span>. On paper, Sally Carrera may not look like much: she's the film's conscience, the agent of flawed hero Lightning McQueen's redemption. We've seen this type of heroine so often that it's become rather a thankless role. But thanks to some deft screenwriting and the charisma of Bonnie Hunt, the character becomes smart, classy and funny. The movie's a bit disappointing coming after <span style="font-style: italic;">The Incredibles</span>, in that Sally is its only significant female, the other female roles being miniscule. All the same, while they might have been background noise, at least they were <span style="font-style: italic;">there</span>, which is more than can be said for--<br /><br />8. <span style="font-style: italic;">Ratatouille</span>. Fiery French cook Colette is a wonderful character, funny and temperamental and proud of her work, and kind-hearted enough to see the potential hero in shy loser Linguini. But she is the film's <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> female character. Where are the female rats? The rodent world of protagonist Remy seems so exclusively male (at least, only the males get to speak) that we can be forgiven for wondering just how the little boogers manage to reproduce. I understand why Remy must be a male -- so that we can enjoy Oswald Patton's fine vocal performance. But does the plot demand that Remy's parent be a father, not a mother? (A mother would have been a refreshing change.) Does it demand that his sibling be a brother, not a sister? Despite its other excellences, the movie provides a distressing example of "Male as Default Gender" where animal characters are concerned.<br /><br />9. <span style="font-style: italic;">WALL-E</span>. 2008's most romantic film, largely because it boasts two well-developed protagonists. I would argue that those who claim Pixar has never given us a female protagonist have not looked closely enough at this film, for EVE is just as much a protagonist as WALL-E. WALL-E, bless his little robotic heart, does not really change much in the course of the film; he doesn't need to, since he's all but perfect to begin with. Rather, those who come into contact with him grow and evolve; foremost among them is EVE. She's the one with the growth arc, the originally all-business 'bot who learns not only how to love but how to take joy in life. She and WALL-E save the day together, and in the end, she must save his life. A true heroine. Also, unlike in <span style="font-style: italic;">Ratatouille</span>, we do get an interesting female supporting character here: Mary the human, who finds true love at first touch.<br /><br />10. <span style="font-style: italic;">Up</span>. Such a lovely film in so many ways, but in terms of gender roles, almost as much of a failure as the first <span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story</span>. The movie introduces us to what could have been a strong female character -- tomboyish Ellie, who yearns for adventure and whose vivid imagination comes through in her artwork. Fifteen minutes into the film, however, she is dead, and afterwards, the only voices we hear are male. Kevin the bird, a silent character, turns out to be female, but alas, she's nothing more than a feathered damsel in distress. This one must also be slipping John Lasseter's mind when he claims that the studio has always tried to include very strong female characters in its films. If it isn't, I really do have grounds for worry about Holley Shiftwell's screen time.<br /><br />11. <span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story 3</span>. For this one, I can only point you to my previous blog, from June 2010. A rousing success.<br /><br />So this is Pixar's track record with regard to women -- some hits, some near misses, very few out-and-out fails. What does it say for the hope that a worthwhile heroine might emerge from a "bromance" like <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars 2</span>?<br /><br />It says I'd better go see the darned thing, and find out for myself. I may not be crossing off the days, but I'm keeping an open mind.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-66974117664675667132011-05-14T08:26:00.000-07:002011-05-14T08:54:17.501-07:00Pixar and Women, Part 1 -- Toy Story through Monsters Inc.For the first time in over a decade, I'm not looking forward to the next Pixar release -- and with me, Pixar has always been the big-screen equivalent of "appointment TV."<br /><br />Oh, I'll go to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars 2</span>, and I don't doubt I'll have a pleasant time. Some Pixar works are better than others, but the studio has yet to release an out-and-out bad film. As the Pixar team's take on espionage pictures, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars 2</span> will at the very least be worth seeing. Why, then, am I not crossing off the days till its release?<br /><br />Because when I check out the movie's homepage on the Internet Movie Database, I find that the top fourteen characters and voice actors listed are male. That's right -- you have to scroll past fourteen male names before you reach your first female. Two voices I normally trust, Ain't It Cool blogger Nordling and Pixar head honcho John Lasseter himself, have said that the new girl car character, Holley Shiftwell (voice of Emily Mortimer) is one worth keeping our eye on. But I find myself doubting them when I see that she is billed seventeenth. She isn't even visible on <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars 2</span>'s IMdB homepage; you have to click on the link to "Full Cast and Crew" even to know she's in the film.<br /><br />That shouldn't surprise me, given the route the creators have gone if the trailers are to be believed. Ever since the first Cars, Pixar has revealed itself as the one studio in Hollywood capable of crafting a moving and convincing love story. For my money, 2008's <span style="font-style: italic;">WALL-E</span> ranks as the most romantic film of its decade. But for <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars 2</span>, romance is being set aside in favor of the "bromance" between cocky Lightning McQueen and his tow-truck pal Mater. Sally Carrera, the smart, charming heroine of the first film, has been reduced to a walk-on. (She's billed fifteenth.) This is in keeping with the "bromance" genre: females are superfluous. If they achieve any prominence at all, it's only to cause trouble. (For a recent example, we have Ron Howard's The Dilemma, called by critics "a date movie, if you want to be sure you'll never see your date again.")<br /><br />I want to believe that Nordling and Lasseter are right, that the IMdB billing is all out of whatck, and that Holley Shiftwell will prove an important figure, a heroine worth rooting for rather than a bromance-spoiling femme fatale. Pixar has taken a lot of heat lately because its protagonists have always been male (the studio's release for next year is an attempt to remedy this); last year, on this very blog spot, I had to defend <span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story 3</span> against charges of sexism. In his interview with Nordling, Lasseter states that the studio has always tried to include "very, very strong female characters" in its films. If we're to have any hope for seventeenth-billed Holley Shiftwell, we need to look at Pixar's track record, to see if Lasseter's statement holds water.<br /><br />So let's begin at the beginning:<br />1. <span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story</span>. Pixar's first feature-film release, and a winner out of the gate in every respect except one: porcelain doll Bo Peep, the blandest of all the characters. Even voice actress Annie Potts can't inject humor and vigor into this passive, lifeless creature. Her lack of vivid personality would not be a problem, except that 1) all the characters around her have personality to burn, and 2) she's the movie's <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> prominent female, the others being background figures like Andy's mom and Sid's horrible little sister (noteworthy only for being cruel enough to force poor, confused Buzz Lightyear into a frilly apron and call him Mrs. Nesbitt). The lack of a worthwhile heroine does not stop the movie from being top-grade entertainment, but in proclaiming that the studio's films have always had strong heroines, Lasseter must be forgetting this one.<br /><br />2. <span style="font-style: italic;">A Bug's Life</span>. In the matter of female characters, the studio completely redeems itself here. Most would say it's not as good a movie as Toy Story, but in terms of active, interesting females we have black widow spider Rosie, the dowager Queen Ant, and her two daughters, Dot and Atta. Misfit Flik may be the movie's protagonist, but both Dot and Atta are given a chance to learn and grow in the course of the film, and learning and growth are the stuff of which interesting, strong characters are made. Tomboy Dot learns to use her wings just in time to fly in search of help for her imperiled colony. Early in the film Atta is prissy, narrow-minded and unsympathetic, but by the end she has found her strength, inserting herself between the bruised, fallen Flik and the threatening foot of the villainous Hopper. Far from being background noise, they play crucial roles in saving the day. <br /><br />3. <span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story 2</span>. A mixed success where female roles are concerned. Mrs. Potato Head makes me long for temporary deafness, and Bo Peep has even less personality here than she does in the first film, but Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl is an interesting and believably flawed character with room to grow. At first she is Woody's antagonist, but soon enough they are staunch allies. He does have to rescue her at the end, but Joan Cusack's voice work manages to endow the character with toughness and vigor. She's anything but forgettable.<br /><br />4. <span style="font-style: italic;">Monsters, Inc</span>. As in A Bug's Life, here we have several interesting heroines to choose from. Bonnie Hunt, so appealing in Cars, voices a supporting role here; no matter how small her role, she always sounds smart. Then we have an actress who always sounds dumb, squeaky-voiced Jennifer Tilly, playing ditzy secretary Celia -- a character who then demonstrates an ability to think on her feet and save the heroes from danger. Scratchy-voice bureaucrat Roz is also a lot more than she seems. Then there's the toddling human child Boo, who turns the monsters' world upside down. Though the film's main protagonist, big furry blue monster Sully, tries to protect her, in the end it's Boo herself who fights her demons and emerges triumphant. By this time, Pixar is indeed building up a roster of strong female characters, even though the protagonists are always (so far) male.<br /><br />Next Blog: Pixar and Women, Part 2 -- Finding Nemo through Toy Story 3.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-76441266787368200832011-05-10T14:35:00.000-07:002011-05-10T15:08:01.329-07:00Art and the Consumer, Part 4"Know Your Enemy: Demographics" Continued<br /><br />I'm a full-time demographic loser. I belong to groups whose existence the demographic demons prefer not to acknowledge. On the one hand, I'm one of those "girl geeks" who would rather watch superheroines kick bad-guy butt than watch fashionistas powder their noses while they pine over men; I'd rather see a good adventure than a romantic comedy, and accordingly I can't help wishing female characters played more prominent roles in adventure/action films. Warner Bros./DC Animation's <span style="font-style: italic;">Justice League Unlimited</span> was one of the first good shows to give superheroines a fair share of screen time (though the same company's animated series of <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span> paved the way with their depictions of Batgirl and Supergirl). Accordingly I was a big fan, and I was crushed when the show was cancelled even though it was quite popular.<br /><br />But I went from sad to mad when I learned <span style="font-style: italic;">why</span> the show was cancelled despite its popularity, and realized I belong to yet another group deliberately ignored by demographics-worshippers: adult animation fans.<br /><br />Adult animation fans and comic book lovers enjoyed <span style="font-style: italic;">JLU</span> and were eager to see more. In cancelling it, Cartoon Network couldn't argue that "not enough people were watching," but in their eyes, the <span style="font-style: italic;">wrong</span> people were watching. They wanted an audience of children, so they cancelled <span style="font-style: italic;">JLU</span> and replaced it with more kiddie-friendly fare. The demographics demons do not deem adult animation fans a worthwhile audience to target. According to their dictates, here in America at least, cartoons are strictly for kids, and any cartoon that doesn't appeal specifically to kids is a failure. This wasn't always the case. In the days of classic Hollywood, cartoon shorts accompanied every feature, regardless of the demographic to which that feature appealed, and so, to quote one of the geniuses of the animated short subject, Chuck Jones, the creators of those shorts were "forced to make them for ourselves." But as the animated short died, so did the notion that animated fare might appeal as much to adults as to children, if not more so. In our current demographic-ruled climate, only the creators of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Simpsons</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Family Guy</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">South</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Park</span>, as well as Pixar, with its depiction of middle-aged and elderly protagonists, have challenged the idea of animation as just, or primarily, for kids.<br /><br />Adult animation fans aren't even the hardest hit group; we at least get thrown the occasional bone. The people the demographic demons most assiduously disregard are those over the age of 55.<br /><br />Demographic-based cancellations aren't a rare thing. Matlock and Murder, She Wrote get a lot of ridicule as the shows of choice of elderly viewers, but one can see why seniors would be drawn to those shows: both depict seniors as active, energetic problem-solvers who are important, even valuable, in the worlds they inhabit. Both shows were cancelled while they were still popular, in order to make room for shows that would appeal to younger audiences. Look at television now, and you'll find seniors all but wiped off the map of the airwaves, except as minor supporting characters. On the big screen the picture is similarly bleak: seniors' stories rarely get told, because that hot young demographic supposedly won't flock to movies about old people. Two years ago, however, one movie studio had the cloud to make, then sell, a film with an elderly protagonist, and because the story was told with wit and poignance as well as color and adventure, audiences embraced it. The film? Pixar's <span style="font-style: italic;">Up</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Up</span> -- along with almost all good-to-great films -- concerned itself more with storytelling than with demographics; its creators never assumed that its potential audience was only interested in seeing movies about people identical to themselves. If we want to see film and television that would actually merit the name of <span style="font-style: italic;">art</span>, we have to take on the demon Demographics.<br /><br />The best way to do this is to vote with our wallets, to seek out movies and television shows that don't fit the usual demographic patterns and that actually promise to tell stories that don't turn on stereotypes. Being fortysomething, I'm not far away from that over-55 group that gets ignored. Indeed, mature adult audiences, audiences over thirty, find themselves disregarded at nearly all times of the Movie Year except the fall. We adults need to let the "money men" know that we are here, and that when we throw our support behind a movie, we too can make a hit. Who do the money men imagine turned <span style="font-style: italic;">The King's Speech</span> into a moneymaker? I'll give them a hint: it wasn't teenage boys.<br /><br />The bottom line: we'll get the kind of art we deserve. If we're not satisfied with what we're seeing, we have to demand something better, and make our feelings known with the dollars we spend. If we're not willing to do that, then we'll only prove the government right: consumers can't be trusted to promote worthwhile art.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-47366683862349932462011-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:002011-05-06T14:47:20.903-07:00Art and the Consumer, Part 3<span style="font-style: italic;">Demographics</span> -- the division of a population into specific "target audiences" based on gender, age, race, and social class, in order of importance. A device designed to smooth the paths of marketers and advertisers, and with which Hollywood's "money men," the ones who determine which films and television programs see the light of day, are slavishly concerned. If you want to find the villain in our story of Art and the Consumer, here it is.<br /><br />Looking at the definition, it's not hard to see why concern for demographics stacks the proverbial deck against the creation of powerful, inspiring, and/or edifying films and TV shows. If producers are going to appeal to a "target audience," they must first determine what that audience wants to see -- what they care about, what they hope to become, how they think about themselves and others. An attempt to understand an individual on these bases would make perfect sense, but demographics are not individuals. They are the entertainment industry's version of Groupthink,<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> and accordingly, producers, directors, and writers who make demographics into minor gods will, perhaps without even realizing it, make stereotypical judgments about the desires and values of men or women, young or old, blacks or whites or Asians or Latinos, and then make movies and TV shows based on these judgments. Stereotypes about target audiences all too often lead to stereotyped characters and situations.<br /><br />Men -- more specifically, young men -- are the favored demographic of marketers and advertisers, and so a significant majority of films are made with them in mind. (To be fair, this bias in favor of the young male demographic is less evident on television.) At no time is this more noticeable than during the summer, when 90-95% of the big-budget releases are about men, for men, and in the genres men are reputed to prefer: raunchy comedies which feature boy-men in a long flight from anything resembling responsibility, bonding over beer and cars and complaints about women (who generally fall into two types in these films: available bodies or ball-busting shrews); and rousing actioners starring either superheroes or normal guys who are really good with guns and/or explosives. Occasionally a good movie, one with substance and intelligence, may emerge from these genres, but the stereotypes on which they pivot make it unlikely. For every <span style="font-style: italic;">Dark Knight</span> there's a <span style="font-style: italic;">Spider-Man 3</span>, and for every J.J. Abrams' <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> a <span style="font-style: italic;">Transformers 2</span>.<br /><br />When women are the demographic in question, the emergence of a high-quality film becomes even less likely. The best recent movies about girls and women -- <span style="font-style: italic;">Hanna</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jane Eyre</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">True Grit</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Winter's Bone</span> -- show little concern with demographics at all; they set out to tell a story rather than to please a target audience. (NOTE: this is true of the best films, period, whether the protagonist is male or female, young or old.) Women as Target Audience supposedly worship Oprah, are addicted to <span style="font-style: italic;">The View</span>, loved <span style="font-style: italic;">Mamma Mia!</span> and devour all things <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span>, and in our heart of hearts want nothing more than pretty things and a non-threatening, emasculated girly-man to worship and rescue them. As a demographic we are shallow indeed, and deep films are never made for supposedly shallow audiences.<br /><br />Except that we're not a demographic. We (male, female, young, old) are individuals with complex and often contradictory desires. For my part, I'm indifferent to Oprah, loathe <span style="font-style: italic;">The View</span>, despised <span style="font-style: italic;">Mamma Mia!</span> and find <span style="font-style: italic;">Twilight</span> et. seq. nauseating. In addition, I'd much rather watch <span style="font-style: italic;">Justice League Unlimited</span> than <span style="font-style: italic;">Sex and the City</span>, because in my book, superheroines are far cooler than fashionistas.<br /><br />Alas, movies don't get made for women like me -- not if the producers involve have demographics in mind. All too often, if you don't fit the stereotype behind the demographic, you'll have to wait long and search far to find a movie to enjoy.<br /><br />(Coming Next: a demographic problem worse than gender -- <span style="font-style: italic;">Age</span>.)K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-65585009872775903082011-04-19T15:04:00.000-07:002011-04-19T15:17:03.298-07:00Art and the Consumer, Part 2The question: how can we consumers ensure that the best art -- paintings, music, literature, films, television, dance -- gets created, produced, and enjoyed, without the help of government funding?<br /><br />The answer is obvious: we need to throw our weight behind the best art. We need to vote with our wallets. When we consumers clearly demand high-quality art, supply will not lag far behind.<br /><br />Then we run into the real trouble -- the phrase "high-quality" and its inherent subjectivity. I'm prepared to state without equivocation that certain television shows, namely <span style="font-style: italic;">Keeping Up With</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">the Kardashians</span>, its spinoffs, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Jersey Shore</span>, are just plain bad, and there's precious little room to argue otherwise. But what about <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hangover</span>, or Lady Gaga's music, or the collected works of Tom Clancy or L. Ron Hubbard? These, I have to acknowledge, are simply not to my taste, and I can't judge them as worthless from an objective standpoint.<br /><br />If we the consumers are going to step up and assume responsibility for the arts in this country, one of the first things we have to do is be willing to accept the existence of art we dislike, and even resist the temptation to put quotation marks around that word art. We have to understand that not everyone looks to art for the same things. Some of us seek pure escape, some enlightenment and understanding, and others beauty. In each of these aims we find a heavy measure of the subjective. Some listeners may find more beauty in a Rush song than in a Mozart piano sonata. Many readers have found a great deal of wisdom in Tolkien's <span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Rings</span>, while others dismiss this trilogy, along with all fantasy, as pure escapism.<br /><br />We need to allow room for as great a variety of art, for as great a variety of tastes, as possible; we can't expect all works of the imagination to meet our own personal specifications. If we do, we'll resemble a relative of mine who once dismissed the great Ella Fitzgerald as untalented because she didn't have as good a voice as her favorite opera singer. I wince to think what the arts might be like if this relative had the ordering of them.<br /><br />All the same, while too much control is far from desirable, neither is laissez-faire the best approach. Some books, music, films, and television shows are superior to others, and we don't see quite enough of the good stuff. There is a problem, particularly in the areas of film and television, which needs to be addressed. Many of us might be blithely unaware of what this problem is, and might assume that film and television producers are merely "giving the people what they want" when they present us with dreck like <span style="font-style: italic;">Epic Movie</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Jerry Springer</span>. It's not that simple. A certain factor stacks the deck against substantive, rewarding stories in film and television.<br /><br />It's called <span style="font-style: italic;">demographics</span>.<br /><br />(Watch for Art and the Consumer, Part 3: Know Your Enemy.)K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-34769975551499319652011-04-12T15:05:00.000-07:002011-04-12T15:26:25.674-07:00Art and the Consumer, Part 1I heard this simple observation in a trailer for a documentary called <span style="font-style: italic;">Missinterpretation</span>: "We can't be what we can't see."<br /><br />The possibilities we sense for ourselves come from all we see around us, not only in real life but in <span style="font-style: italic;">art</span> -- books, plays, films, music, dance, painting, photographs. Since art shapes our perceptions of ourselves and the world so crucially, artists have tremendous power. But so do we, the consumers, who determine which works of art succeed or fail and, ultimately, which works of art see the light of day. It's a habit, particularly among conservatives, to rail at artists whose decadent, hedonistic, often nihilistic output shatters rather than mends, degrades rather than uplifts. I've made such complaints myself, and sometimes I have to use force to bring myself around to the truth: we consumers get exactly the kind of art we ask for.<br /><br />As I've grown older and moved from liberal to libertarian, I've had to put aside many of my youthful ideas, including the notion that the government has a responsibility to subsidize art. I used to look on such funding as confirmation of the value and importance of the arts, particularly when I heard arts funding's opponents express a generalized contempt for all works of the imagination as "wastes of time." But I have come around to the belief that art is too crucial for the government to be trusted with it. We, as private citizens, should step up and support great art ourselves rather than asking others to do it for us.<br /><br />Then comes the sticky question: can high-quality art thrive under a free market blown by the winds of ephemeral popularity? Will the public throw its support behind classical music and ballet in a way that enables orchestras and dance companies to flourish, or will the concert halls sit empty while crowds pack the stands to see Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber?<br /><br />Mass consumers are not as predictable as producers and marketers like to think. Sometimes we do the right thing. We made blockbusters out of Peter Jackson's sublime Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the summer of 2010 we flocked to the multiplexes to see the mind-bending Inception, sending the message that we were hungry for a movie that was neither a sequel nor a remake. More recently, we took to our hearts the kind of movie that we usually dismiss as "elitist": a character-driven British period drama called The King's Speech.<br /><br />But we've also made household names out of people whose disgraceful behavior and complete lack of talent, intelligence and honor should fill us with loathing -- classless, charmless, graceless famewhores like Paris Hilton, the sisters Kardashian, and perhaps most repellent of all, "Snooki." When Rutgers University pays this bubble-brain, who has boasted of getting a book published when she hasn't read more than two books in her life, more than award-winning novelist Toni Morrison for a speaking engagement, something is very wrong.<br /><br />Blaming Snooki is a waste of time. She's just doing what comes naturally in a market-driven pop culture: using what she has in order to make money. No, <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> are to blame, when we have said with our dollars and attention that we're willing to buy what this creep is selling.<br /><br />That's the bad news -- we're the problem. But the good news is that if we accept responsibility, we can also be the solution. If we want better art, we have only to demand it. If we can organize and make things happen in the area of politics, surely we can do the same where art is concerned. Art, after all, influences our hearts and minds more directly than politics, and it's in our hearts and minds that the most permanent and meaningful changes take place.<br /><br />(Coming in Part 2: What can and should be done.)K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-47186459957345770512011-03-28T14:33:00.000-07:002011-03-28T15:11:30.631-07:00"Women's History Month"The month of March is nearly over, and at last I sit down to blog. March is "Women's History Month," and as a woman who likes to take note of other women's accomplishments -- not because they do <span style="font-style: italic;">me</span> any credit, but because they enhance my sense of possibility -- I feel obliged to devote my March blog to it.<br /><br />Politically incorrect though it may be, I have found myself wondering on occasion why there should be a Women's History Month at all. Why do we have to set aside a special time, apart from all others, to focus on the marks that various strong, wise, and gifted women have left on history? If their accomplishments are of sufficient substance, surely we would take notice of them at all times of the year, and their names would be spoken, without suspicion of "tokenism," alongside the male statesmen, soldiers, poets, artists, and philosophers who have helped shape our world. Mark Twain famously disliked Jane Austen, but her gift for wry social commentary equals his. Sojourner Truth's cry against injustice, "Ain't I a Woman?" might not be as polished as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," but it reverberates with equal truth. Setting aside a special month to honor women in history strikes me as a bit like setting aside a special Oscar category for Best Animated Feature, so that brilliant and moving animated films don't stand any real chance of winning Best Picture -- it's a way of saying, "You're not good enough to play with the Big Boys."<br /><br />Yet when I asked my mother why we have a Women's History Month, she set me straight, as she so often does.<br />Women's History Month exists to honor women who<span style="font-style: italic;"> aren't</span> Joan of Arc or Elizabeth I or Eleanor Roosevelt, women whose hard work and initiative and intelligence may have gone unnoticed in the storming pageant that is History. Women whose contributions might have fallen through the cracks, not because they weren't important enough but just because we couldn't be bothered to notice. Women like Ada Augusta Lovelace, for instance. I'm able to type this blog on this computer because of the work of Ada Augusta Lovelace, a mathematician who, along with Charles Babbage, created an early 19th century computer prototype. Women like Fanny Hensel and Clara Schumann, who composed music even though their society urged them to be content with performing it, like "proper ladies." Women like Maya Lin, whose design for the Vietnam War Memorial stirred controversy, but whose finished work now stirs hearts.<br /><br />And then there are those women whose names are utterly forgotten, or whose historical identity has been swallowed up by some great man to whom they were connected, so that if we remember them at all, it's as "Wife of ____" or "Daughter of _____". Women's History Month is a time for us to acknowledge that they, too, were thinkers, readers, innovators, and explorers, though they may have chosen a private rather than a public forum for their talents. As we remember them, we understand that the truest, most lasting changes take place not on the battlefield or on the floor of the House or Senate, but in the hearts and minds of a nation's people. These are the changes over which these wise unsung women preside.<br /><br />So yes, Mom, Women's History Month does serve a vital purpose, not just to cast a spotlight on the wide variety of contributions women have made and continue to make in both the public and private arena, but to enhance our understanding of history itself, and all that it encompasses. <br /><br />Yet still, I don't need to set aside a special month to focus on the women in history who have meant the most to me, whose voices have echoed over the centuries to put my own thoughts and feelings into clear, beautiful words.<br />Emily Dickinson:<br />"Much madness is divinest sense<br />To a discerning eye;<br />Much sense the starkest madness is;<br />'Tis the majority."<br />Charlotte Bronte:<br />"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it... Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do."<br /><br />I'll let Jane Eyre have the last word.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-9956995880951703462011-02-25T06:49:00.000-08:002011-02-25T07:19:03.551-08:00Favorite books and authors to teachI have two kinds of favorite books: those I love to read, and those I love to teach.<br /><br />Occasionally they will overlap, but for the most part they are distinguished by their different purposes, one private and the other public. The books I love to read are for me alone. They nourish and nurture my daydreams, which then give rise to the stories I write. I don't talk a great deal about them, unless I'm surrounded by like-minded fantasy geeks at DragonCon or at an Atlanta Radio Theatre Company rehearsal. The books I love to teach, however, demand to be shared.<br /><br />Though I like to discover new "teaching books" almost as much as I enjoy stumbling onto a new author whose works are prime daydream food, I have a few I return to again and again, books and authors with something specific to offer a group of students. They aren't ones I would pick up for a cozy comfort read. They don't offer me the chance to do brave deeds in my imagination. But they hold human nature and society, with their eternal struggle between order and chaos, against a powerful light.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Author: Edgar Allan Poe</span>.<br />When it comes to introducing students to literary analysis, nothing beats Poe. Students new to analyzing literature are tempted to take stories very literally, to accept at face value what the narration tells them. With Poe, bless his twisted heart, you can't do that. Common sense tells us that the events in the last scene of "The Tell-Tale Heart," for example, could not be unfolding precisely as the narrator describes them. Students are forced to see past the veil of his distorted perceptions to discover the real truth. They have to dig past the surface -- the key to literary analysis. Poe's stories, with their characters on the edge of madness or beyond, also give them a compelling look at human psychology, so driven by desire for love and power.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Author: Flannery O'Connor</span>.<br />In the world of fiction, violence is a good thing. Granted, some of the most powerful violence in literature is psychological, but good old physical violence always makes a useful attention-getter. Students are rarely bored by an O'Connor story, in which the air crackles with violence. Here the physical and psychological brutality dovetail, and students discover a disturbing but edifying mental "scorched earth" in which characters are stripped of everything they have known and counted on. It's as scary as anything they might encounter in a slasher film, but here, unlike there, important truths about basic human fallibility are laid bare. One need not ascribe to O'Connor's rigid Catholic doctrine in order to see them.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Play: Othello</span>.<br />One of the most important and inescapable elements of literature is irony, which occurs wherever there's a disconnect between appearance and reality. Life teaches us repeatedly that we can't always trust what we see, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Othello</span>, with the powerful master manipulator Iago at its center, shows the manifold ways in which reality might be bent, as well as the ways our fears and desires shape or perceptions. <span style="font-style: italic;">Othello</span> also offers a harrowing emotional experience, as a sympathetic heroine becomes the victim of Iago's machinations. Since Shakespeare is meant to be seen, not merely read, I like to show my students the DVD of the 1991 Royal Shakespeare Company production, which features Ian McKellen as a frighteningly charismatic Iago and Imogen Stubbs as a plucky and winning Desdemona; you can't help wishing you could leap into the scene and rescue her. Basso profundo Willard White also makes a powerful Othello.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Book: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave</span>.<br />A few nights ago, on Jeopardy's Teen Tournament, the final question asked the young contestants to identify the author of this quote: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; now you will see how a slave was made a man." I did a mental happy dance as each contestant got the name right. I felt like sending their parents and teachers a thank-you note. The name "Frederick Douglass" should not be forgotten for many reasons, not the least of them being his brief but powerful autobiography which details his youthful days as a slave. The Southern slave system might be long gone, but Douglass's book retains its relevance, and the famous quote touches on why: it brings up a question that never goes out of style -- "what shapes our identity? How is an individual consciousness formed and strengthened or thwarted?" In looking at Douglass's battle for control over his identity, students may be led to think about all the ideas and experiences that have gone into making them who they are.<br /><br />Literature both reflects its time and reaches beyond it; from it, students learn simultaneously about the past and the present, about a world removed from their own and the world they move through now. That's why it matters, and why it will continue to matter after new technologies have come and gone and morphed into shapes we can't yet imagine. God bless good stories.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-7562609300938473512011-01-09T10:04:00.000-08:002011-01-09T10:45:22.665-08:00Good movies I've seenI'm a film buff for the same reason I love to read: I love stories. Good stories are food for the imagination; they fuel my own itch to write, and they enhance my understanding of people, places, and things beyond my own experience. Books and movies are by no means interchangeable; the former will always be of the greatest value; but the latter offers its own brand of storytelling, touching certain centers of the imagination, provided the viewer engages the movies <span style="font-style: italic;">actively</span>, instead of choosing the role of mere passive receiver.<br /><br />Every year brings with it new movies to love, though some more than others. This year we suffered through a dreary summer marked by a plethora of sequels, remakes, and rehashes. Among the bright spots were a rare really good sequel (<span style="font-style: italic;">Toy Story 3</span>), an original film (<span style="font-style: italic;">Inception</span>), and some intriguing foreign films (France's <span style="font-style: italic;">Micmacs</span>, Sweden's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Girl With the</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Dragon Tattoo</span> et. seq.) But this fall has offered a wider variety of must-see movies, some "Oscar bait," others with little or no goal beyond being thoroughly entertaining. I have not seen all I wish to see, but I can comment on a few:<br /><br />1) Disney's <span style="font-style: italic;">Tangled</span>. My husband and I took my mother-in-law to see this film, and when she expressed concern about a crowd, he assured her that the film had "played out" and we would most likely have the theater to ourselves. Wrong-o. By the time the movie started, every seat was occupied. Since then, we've still noticed large crowds of both children and adults going in and out of theater screens showing <span style="font-style: italic;">Tangled</span>. This movie has legs, because people are going more than once, and they're telling their friends, "You really need to see this movie! It's so much fun!"<br /><br />And fun it is. In live-action land, Hollywood has apparently lost all ability to make a good romantic comedy. But that's what <span style="font-style: italic;">Tangled</span> is: a good romantic comedy (with music, no less!), complete with lively, witty interaction between a lovable rogue hero and a dreamy, naive, but gutsy heroine. There's also a thoroughly despicable villain who has managed to convince the heroine that she loves her and genuinely has her best interests at heart, when all she cares about is the eternal youth the heroine can provide. This is a villain whose biggest weapons are emotional manipulation and the power to undermine self-esteem; her relationship with the heroine is by far the most interesting hero/villain connection I've seen in an American animated film. Sure, it's a Disney film, and Disney is not the quality powerhouse it once was. But this romantic-comedy confection is surprisingly rich in character and theme. I can't wait to see it again.<br /><br />2) <span style="font-style: italic;">TRON: Legacy</span>. This movie has gotten considerable grief from critics for being "shallow" and relying solely on effects to sell it. I'm not so sure. I only know I got quite caught up in it when I saw it. I got quite caught up in last year's <span style="font-style: italic;">Avatar</span>, too, but after I left the film and had time to think about it, I started to feel ashamed of having bought into it so thoroughly. I have felt no similar buyer's remorse in the wake of <span style="font-style: italic;">TRON: Legacy</span>. Under all the lighting and color effects and high-voltage action there's a pretty weighty theme: the destructive drive toward perfection, and the truth that it's humanity's imperfections that save us. Now I'm about to commit Geek Heresy: I actually preferred this sequel to the original. Both featured Jeff Bridges being awesome, but I liked the sequel's young protagonist, and this time the heroine, played by Olivia Wilde, at least has a personality and some charisma, despite getting knocked out and captured a bit too often. ("The girl," Cindy Morgan, was definitely the weak link in the original's cast.)<br /><br />3) <span style="font-style: italic;">The King's Speech.</span><br />This may well be the best film I have seen in the past three years. I don't speak lightly. I've grown weary of critically-acclaimed Oscar bait which prides itself on being hip, edgy, and emotionally hollow, like the bleak and ice-cold black comedy <span style="font-style: italic;">Up in the Air</span> and even the strong, powerful, but distant war drama <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hurt Locker</span>. What a relief to find that this year, the critics (and the public) are embracing a movie that proves a film with heart can still have something important to say. This movie manages a feat that few dare these days: it makes us care while it makes us think.<br />This movie has just about everything I have a weakness for:<br />1) a period setting -- the 1930s;<br />2) searing, powerful performances, especially by Colin Firth (the man to beat for Best Actor this year) and Geoffrey Rush;<br />3) smart, witty dialogue;<br />4) interesting and, in the end, moving relationships, not only between Firth and Rush as the insecure Royal and the commoner who helps him conquer his stammer, but between Firth and Helena Bonham-Carter, as one of the sweetest and most romantic married couples in recent cinema history.<br /><br />Will it win Best Picture? I'd love to see that happen, but I'm not counting on it. Ten years ago it would have been the movie to beat, but the Academy has changed since then, and is now more inclined to favor hipper, edgier, darker American fare (e.g. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Social Network</span>) over well-told but more traditional stories from foreign shores. But whatever the Academy chooses to do, <span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">King's Speech</span> will hold the foremost place in my heart.<br /><br />Movies I still haven't seen but really want to see:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">True Grit, Never Let Me Go, Winter's Bone, The Kids are All Right, The Illusionist</span> (an animated offering from France that might scotch <span style="font-style: italic;">Tangled's</span> chances at an Oscar nomination), <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fighter</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Let Me In</span><br /><br />Movie I still remember very fondly several months after seeing it:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">How to Train Your Dragon</span>K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-30204837487953061902010-12-09T11:37:00.000-08:002010-12-09T12:28:47.094-08:00RuminationsA few stray observations about apparently unrelated topics:<br /><br />1. I've just completed my semester at North Georgia College and State University, teaching Freshman Composition I and British Literature II. It's been a good semester on the whole, and most of my students have performed quite well. Were I asked what I love most about my teaching job, my first answer would be that it gives me the opportunity to talk at length about the two things I love most in the world: reading and writing. Yet were I asked what the work does for me, I would have to respond that it keeps me connected to the real world, when the temptation to daydream and lose myself in fictional worlds is always so strong. It forces me to look outward.<br /><br />Yet when I grade a set of essays, I run across innumerable mistakes in grammar and usage, many of which make me cringe, and I thought I'd devote a portion of my blog today to talking about one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves: <span style="font-style: italic;">the misuse of apostrophes</span>. Apostrophes have exactly two purposes in English: 1) to make a contraction (to turn "do not" into "don't," "have not" into "haven't," etc.), and 2) to show possession ("George's car" or "Emma's book"). If you're not making a contraction or showing possession, you do not need an apostrophe. Entirely too many of my students -- and not just my students -- think that an apostrophe is needed to make a noun plural. I can't really blame my students too much for this mistake when all around them they see apostrophes being used to pluralize nouns, especially proper nouns, on everything from billboards to mailboxes. Once and for all, friends: a group of individuals from the same family, with the same last name, is "the Marshalls" or "the Stewarts", <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> "the Marshall's" or "the Stewart's"! Billboards and mailboxes, stop setting these bad examples for young people earnestly trying to perform well in Freshman Composition I!<br /><br />2. Actress Helen Mirren was honored recently with a Career Achievement Award at the Power 100 Women in Entertainment Breakfast. When she mounted the podium, she seized the opportunity to blast Hollywood for "[worshiping] at the altar of the 18 to 25 year old male and his penis." What she means, of course, is that too many films are made about, and for, young men, with female characters being relegated to the sidelines, reduced to mere lust objects, or written out altogether.<br /><br />She has a point. I've made this observation myself, quite frequently. If we look at the movies that target male audiences -- comedies like <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hangover</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Due Date</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Hot Tub Time</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Machine</span>, or action pictures like the <span style="font-style: italic;">Transformers</span> films -- we find the characterization of females is paper-thin at best. These movies offer little or nothing for female audiences. Yet they are cranked out by the dozens each year, and no one seems to mind.<br /><br />Yet here's the key: these movies make money. Virtually every critic in America hated <span style="font-style: italic;">Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</span>, yet people flooded theaters to see it. Such movies are critic-proof. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hangover</span> was a hit with both critics and audiences, its misogyny notwithstanding. As much as it pains me to say it, we can hardly fault the movie industry for doing what industries always do: following the money. So if we want someone to blame for the dearth of compelling female characters and female-centered stories in Hollywood, maybe we should start by looking in the mirror.<br /><br />Good female-centered movies <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> out there, but they will remain scarce until we show with our box-office dollars that we actually want to see them. <span style="font-style: italic;">Winter's Bone</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Kids Are All Right </span>garnered some of the best reviews of the year, but audiences didn't seek them out, and Hollywood cares much, much more about opening weekend numbers than it does about DVD rentals and sales. <span style="font-style: italic;">Never Let Me Go</span> has also been reviewed well, but it's not pulling the big numbers. <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Swan</span> has gotten strong pre-release buzz and even talk of an Oscar nomination for its star, Natalie Portman. But we, the potential audience, have to take an interest. Few if any filmmakers make movies for the critics.<br /><br />The responsibility rests with us, the movie-going public. We'll get good movies about girls and women, but only if we're willing to pony up. Hollywood won't wake up until we wake them up. In the meantime, we should take our good news where we can find it: Hermione Granger is kicking butt and taking names (Harry Potter is a wonderful example of a popular success that transcends gender), and <span style="font-style: italic;">Tangled</span> is doing much better business than even its studio (which announced it was jettisoning future fairy-tale related projects) expected. <br /><br />3. Chaos was created on an airplane recently when an elderly passenger let her dog out of its carrier, despite clearly-stated airline rules to the contrary, and the little terrier, doubtless terrified, proceeded to bite a passenger and a flight attendant. No one was seriously hurt, but the plane had to land well before schedule to make sure, causing major inconvenience for everyone involved. Charges will not be filed against the dog's owner -- but a good many people are still mad as all h-e-double-hockey-sticks at her, and with darn good reason. The dog can't be blamed for doing what dogs do when they're frightened, but that woman deserves a good thrashing; one CNN commentator suggested a re-enactment of the scene in <span style="font-style: italic;">Airplane</span> in which passengers line up for their turn to strike one of their number who's creating a disturbance. Not a bad idea.<br /><br />This woman earns our wrath as the latest carrier of the Entitlement Virus, the attitude that "I'm too good/smart/cool for rules; rules are for 'the little people;' they don't apply to someone as special as I am." She is Leona Helmsley writ small. She's eighty-nine years old, but there's no conclusive proof that this is the source of her sense of entitlement. We'll probably never find out for sure. But her actions tell us what we really need to know.<br /><br />I'm not normally an advocate of lawsuits, but people whose Entitlement Virus causes inconvenience and/or injury to others should become Lawyer Food.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-67501841959461163622010-11-22T13:21:00.000-08:002010-11-22T13:56:15.847-08:00How Not to Win a Religious ArgumentReligious doctrine has made the news again. This time it's the Catholic Church's hard-line stand against birth control. The current Pope has caused a stir with his assertion that condoms may be useful in the battle against AIDS. The use of condoms specifically to prevent pregnancy, he's quick to add, is still a mortal sin.<br /><br />The comments attached to the Yahoo!News article on this subject are even more entertaining, in a grotesque way, than the article itself. When last I looked there were over three thousand -- a fair number from Catholics scandalized that their Pope should start down a slippery slope that could lead to the acceptance of birth control, a good many from atheists seizing the opportunity to claim the Pope's statement as evidence that <em>all</em> religion is B.S., and a few eager Catholic-bashers asserting that every priest, including the Pope, is a pervert. So many comments, and -- as far as I had time to read -- nary a sane word among them. What source of friction is more maddening than dispute over religious doctrine?<br /><br />Arguments over religion are nearly impossible to engage in wisely -- one of the reasons many people think they're best avoided. I don't know the right way to handle oneself in such disputes, but like the always-muddled Stephen Blackpool in Dickens' <em>Hard Times</em>, I have a pretty good idea what <em>not</em> to do.<br />(WARNING: I will be expressing my own religious views in this blog. If you don't care to read them, back out now.)<br /><br />In a political chat room I used to frequent I read this proclamation: "A good sermon is one that makes the heathen run screaming into the night." This goes sharply against the Christian faith that I was raised with, which averred that it was never God's will that any soul should be lost, and that God would seek to reach sinners (that is, all of us) with the same urgency that a housewife turns the house upside down in search of a lost coin. From this perspective, a good sermon would not make the heathen run screaming into the night. Rather, it would make them sit down and listen. It would make them think.<br /><br />(The writer of the original statement had obviously forgotten that many of the most eloquent spokesmen for Christianity, from St. Augustine to C.S. Lewis, were "heathens" into their adulthood, and therefore knew well from their own experience how God seeks out the lost. Many Christians are a good deal wiser today because no fire-and-brimstone sermon sent such men screaming into the night.)<br /><br />But those who perceive the "heathen" as enemies to be driven away are dedicated to affirming the all too human proposition of "I'm right, you're wrong, any questions?" For them, proclaiming religious doctrine isn't about doing God's will; it's about winning, often at all costs. This approach can do a great deal of harm, often undesired.<br /><br />A friend of mine from my Auburn days told me about a girl she knew, whose parents raised her in the Baptist Church and made sure she went to Sunday School regularly. The family had a good friend whom the little girl adored, who happened to be Jewish. When the man died suddenly, she was plunged into grief. The following Sunday, she was at Sunday School as usual. The lesson topic happened to be "Christianity as the only true path to heaven." The little girl listened closely, absorbing the lesson, working up the courage to ask a question. Finally she raised her hand. "Ma'am, does this mean my friend is in hell?"<br /><br />The Sunday School leader looked her dead in the eye and answered, "Yes."<br /><br />I'm not sure what the right answer would have been. Certainly this woman was simply speaking the truth as she saw it. But her failure to factor the feelings of a grieving girl into her equation had a result she did not intend: the girl turned her back on the church and on her faith, never returning to either. Isn't there a Bible verse somewhere that says something to the effect that a fate worse than being thrown into the sea with a millstone around the neck awaits anyone who causes a little child to stumble in her faith?<br /><br />I had a similar experience once, on the aforementioned political website, and, as it happens, on the subject of birth control. In the course of a discussion I got very tired of posters conflating abortion and pre-conceptual birth control, and asserting that people use birth control for casual sex alone. I believed I had a story that could prove them wrong. A couple I know and love very dearly, just a generation ahead of the Baby Boom, had been, for the first five years of their marriage, in a highly unstable financial situation (like many couples). They fully intended to become parents, but wanted to wait until they were more financially secure. So they used birth control. When they were ready, they stopped, and they were blessed with a healthy baby girl. Their use of birth control during those early years of their marriage was not a rejection of parenthood (although I see nothing wrong at all with married couples deciding parenthood is simply not for them). However, my friends have told me that those five years proved a blessing, because they had a chance to solidify as Husband and Wife before becoming Mom and Dad. It may be one reason why they are still married after almost fifty years, while so many couples of their generation endured divorces.<br /><br />When I posted their story, hoping my point might take, I received this reply: "Birth control is a mortal sin, as your friends will find out on the Day of Judgment."<br /><br />This poster honestly believed she could persuade me of the rightness of her stance, by telling me that two of the people I love most in the world are going to hell. Far from convincing me, such a statement would push me deeper into Perdition. I wonder how many God-fearing Christians drive people further away from God on a regular basis, simply from their eagerness to be right, and to make disputes over faith a matter of winning and losing rather than arriving at true understanding.<br /><br />"I'm right, you're wrong, any questions?" Matters of faith are rarely that simple, because God speaks to us as individuals whose souls are complex, not as mobs or herds whose drives are animalistically instinctual. Forgetting that complex individuality in the person to whom we're speaking is, in a nutshell, the very way <em>not</em> to win a religious argument.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-89190039610591381992010-11-10T12:24:00.000-08:002010-11-10T12:52:02.157-08:00On My Writing: The Atlanta Radio Theatre CompanyAs much as I enjoy working on my novels, I have to swallow a painful truth: they may never be published. I continue to beaver away at them because I can't help myself; the daydreams are inside me and they have to come out. But I can't help knowing, in the back of my mind, that they may never mean anything to anyone besides myself and those nearest and dearest who have generously agreed to read the rough tomes.<br /><br />Fortunately for my sanity and self-esteem, my drive towards story-making has another outlet, with much more immediate results. I am a writer for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company (www. artc. org). I may not be a published writer, but I am a produced one.<br /><br />My experience with ARTC began Labor Day Weekend 2003 -- my first DragonCon. My strongest suit as an actress has always been my voice, and when I saw ARTC perform at DragonCon, my heart pounded with longing to join the group and warmed with certainty that I had something to offer it. I was just beginning a Fall semester in which I taught a Monday/Wednesday evening class, and ARTC rehearsed on Wednesdays, so my longing had to be deferred. But I would not forget the power, the dramatic intensity of what I'd heard when those gifted actors spoke into their microphones, and I would not give up my dream to be part of it. So in January 2004, I ventured to my first rehearsal at the house of Bill Ritch, ARTC's Chief and owner of the most impressive collection of books, CDs, and DVDs I have ever seen. I had only to look at that collection to know I belonged there.<br /><br />On the nature of my belonging, however, I was slightly mistaken. I thought I would make my principal mark on the company as an actress. I have been acting with ARTC regularly for six years now, starting with a bit role in Fiona K. Leonard's <em>Kissed By a Stranger</em> (which gave me a chance to do my Edna May Oliver impression) and continuing through chatty robot detectives, femme fatale mad scientists, hapless Christmas pageant directors, Deputy Mayors, devilish brain-implant discs and more. In my favorite role, demon-possessed Egyptologist Chrissy Simpson in Bill Ritch's <em>Doom of the Mummy</em>, I got to use four separate voices. It was intoxicating.<br /><br />But after my first rehearsal, I discovered that as much as I wanted to act for ARTC, even more I wanted to write for them. The performers' voices were unlocking stories in my imagination. Characters were shaping themselves, demanding release. Listening to Megan C. Tindale perform the heroine of <em>Kissed By a Stranger</em>, I began to envision a very different sort of heroine, a pock-marked musician Cinderella -- and I went home and started work on the first of my scripts that ARTC would produce, <em>The House Across the Way</em>. On hearing Sketch MacQuinor play the role of a stuffy Britisher to a comic fare-thee-well, I started thinking about a knight whose efforts at heroism often go astray, Don Quixote-style, but who, through a combination of nerve and skill and a resourceful sidekick, eventually becomes the hero he longs to be. So I began work on <em>The Challenges of Brave Ragnar</em>, which headlined ARTC's performance at DragonCon in 2007.<br /><br />I couldn't have known it at the time, but when I descended the stairs into Bill Ritch's basement that fateful Wednesday night in January, I walked into a roomful of Muses. Granted, the characters I create for my ARTC plays are not always portrayed by the actors who first inspired them; interestingly, when a different actor plays such a character, he or she often draws into the light aspects of the character even I failed to see. But my heart always gives credit to the ones who, with a particular phrasing or inflection, put the ideas in my head.<br /><br />I'm not the only one who finds the company members quite literally amusing. At a recent rehearsal, one of our number, Ethan Hulbert, mentioned that he could hardly look at a movie villain without an image of Hal Wiedeman -- ARTC's villain-in-chief, most recently heard as the twisted Dr. Moreau at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates, October 23 and 24 -- superimposing itself. When I penned my Beauty-and-the-Beast variant <em>Nothing-at-All</em>, Hal was my first and only choice to play the evil wizard. When I expanded the story into the novel <em>Atterwald</em> and gave the wizard a much broader character range, I still heard Hal's voice with each line of dialogue I penned. His is one of those deep, resonant voices you can't get out of your head, and I was gratified by the results of an experiment I tried with my newest script: instead of handing him the villain, I asked him to try out the role of the dissipated, cynical hero. Needless to say, he played it beautifully.<br /><br />Since I joined ARTC, I've had eleven scripts of varying lengths produced and performed. <em>Ragnar </em>has gotten three airings, twice as episodes from the serial version and once as a stand-alone version. <em>The House Across the Way</em>, my first script, was recently resurrected and performed twice in the past year, first in March at the Academy Theatre and then again at DragonCon. For this coming year I have two scripts that have already been read at rehearsals and been given positive feedback, and God and the company willing, they will find their way into shows this year. I have yet another story idea I mean to hammer into shape during the Christmas holidays, hopefully to bring my total up to Lucky Fourteen.<br /><br />A roomful of Muses, and the ideas keep coming.<br /><br />What more could a writer ask for?<br /><br /><br />(Note for the curious: if you visit ARTC's website and click on the podcast link, you can hear performances of three of my scripts: <em>Nothing-at-All,</em> <em>Christmas Rose</em>, and <em>The Worst Good</em> <em>Woman in the World</em>. I hope you enjoy them.)K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-11845142356960041722010-10-04T12:45:00.001-07:002010-10-04T13:23:17.690-07:00As a writer, I pledgeI'm always on the lookout for good things to read, and one of my sources for titles is Goodreads.com, a compelling, nay, downright addictive website my sister-in-law recommended to me. I can spend hours browsing through lists that attract my attention. I'm drawn to fantasy fiction due to my fascination with the magical, the far away, the long ago, the metaphorical. I'm drawn to young-adult fiction because I'm intrigued by the development of identity, the ways in which young people's self-definitions shift and change as they try new things, make mistakes, and discover gifts and talents in themselves and learn to take moral/ethical stands. When fantasy and YA combine, I'll certainly take notice. So when I came across a list on Goodreads entitled, "YA Fantasy Books That Are Better Than Twilight," I clicked on it eagerly, hoping to find some recommendations. My loathing for the <em>Twilight</em> series is already documented on this blog, so I need not reiterate it at length.<br /><br />I clicked on a popular title called <em>Hush, Hush</em> by Becca Fitzpatrick, admittedly attracted by the shadowy gray and black image of a crushed angel on the cover. After all, several Goodreads users had voted for it as superior to <em>Twilight...</em> yet as I read the synopsis and reviews, I discovered the truth: it's basically a reworking of the central ideas in Stephenie Meyer's wildly popular series: distressingly average, ordinary girl becomes obsessed with a supernatural guy who treats her badly, then stalks her; despite the fact that they have nothing in common, she's convinced this hot, mysterious guy is her soul mate, and from that moment, her life becomes All About Him. In short, if the reviews are to be believed, this book echoes every single thing I loathe about <em>Twilight</em>.<br /><br />The only thing of value I found on the page was a link to a blog entitled, "In Which a Girl Reads: Why YA Romance Needs to Change." According to this well-written examination of overdone, questionable pattern in the genre, the picture is even gloomier than I'd imagined: an overwhelming percentage of YA fantasy/romance fiction, most of it written by women, insists on echoing the tropes of ordinary, super-passive heroine and supernatural, brooding, stalkerish hero. Evidently these women are grinding out these books in the hope that what worked for Meyer will work for them, and these damsel-in-distress delusions will translate into money, money, money. Cynical as this sounds, I hope it's true. I'd certainly rather believe that than buy into the notion that nearly every woman writing YA romance fiction has the same wish-fulfillment fantasies of being a helpless empty vessel waiting to be filled by a hot, mysterious denizen of the otherworld.<br /><br />Sure, many girls and women have embraced such fictions wholeheartedly. But many of us are crying, in the fiercely demanding tones of Hawkeye Pierce, "We want something else!"<br /><br />Though I've assiduously avoided <em>Twilight</em> and all its imitators, I must admit they have influenced me as a writer. They have inspired me to make the following pledge to all my future readers as well as Atlanta Radio Theatre Company listeners who stumble onto podcasts of my produced scripts:<br />1) My heroines will always be good at something. They will have some tangible accomplishment (usually in the arts) as well as interests beyond boys and fashion.<br />2) Whenever possible, my heroines will be weird. I'm sick to death of seeing the word "ordinary" attached to 90% of YA's female protagonists. As a reader I'm drawn to heroines who have at least the potential to be extraordinary, so naturally those are the kinds of characters I like writing.<br />3) Even if their behavior is initially bad, my heroes will not "get the girl" until they display some genuine respect for her and demonstrate they are capable of behaving like gentlemen.<br />4) If stalkerish relationships appear in my stories, the plot and the description will make it clear that this is dysfunction and pathology, not true love.<br />5) In my love stories, the hero and heroine will talk to each other. I know one must always be careful not to overdo dialogue, and so I shall, but when I employ dialogue I will endeavor to make it mean something.<br />6) In the course of their interaction, the hero and heroine will discover something substantial in common. I've said this often but it bears repeating: opposites may attract, but likeness retains.<br /><br />Many different kinds of stories may inhabit my head and heart over the years to come, but I think I can keep these six pledges, and in so doing take my own stand. Who will join me in my revolution?K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-2671902704933259342010-10-01T12:18:00.000-07:002010-10-01T12:59:45.315-07:00Convention Season, Part II"Why I Love Anime Weekend Atlanta"<br /><br />My love of animation is already well-documented on this blog; I don't think I have to reiterate my enthusiasm for all things Pixar, Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies, and classic-era Disney. However, despite the sophisticated and often violent humor to be found in Chuck Jones's and Bob Clampett's best-known cartoons, the intricate storytelling and weighty themes of the best Pixar films, and the folkloric horror that characterizes some of the images in Disney's first five feature films (who can forget the transformation of Queen into hag in <em>Snow White</em>? The marching, menacing pink elephants in <em>Dumbo</em>? The grim leer of the horned Dark God in the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of <em>Fantasia</em>?), here in America we can't seem to let go of the idea that cartoons are primarily children's entertainment. If we animate it, brilliant as it may be, we must be going after a "family audience."<br /><br />Other nations do not hold such a limited view of the possibilities inherent in animation. In Japan, anything might be animated -- anything from gangster dramas (<em>Baccano!)</em> to Hitchcockian thrillers (<em>Perfect Blue</em>) to the agonizing downward spiral of two orphaned children as World War II nears its end (<em>Grave of the Firefiles</em>). These are all brilliant stories, and I wouldn't recommend a one of them for anyone under the age of thirteen. (Grave of the Fireflies may be about children, but that doesn't mean it's for children; this is a mistake people make too often. This beautiful film should come with a warning: you will want to lie down in a dark room for at least an hour after you've watched it.) "Anime" -- the term for Japanese animation -- encompasses realistic drama, slapstick comedy, thought-provoking science fiction, and wondrous fantasy. No genre is left unexplored. So when we visit an anime convention, we never know quite what we will discover. There's always some new story waiting to move or intrigue us.<br /><br />That's the first and best thing I love about Atlanta's biggest tribute to anime, Anime Weekend Atlanta:<br />1) The viewing rooms. Throughout the convention's three days, various anime films and shows of all different varieties are screened for fans. Many of these films and shows aren't available on commercial DVD; the convention gives us our only chance to glimpse them. Each year I've visited AWA, I've found myself engaged by some new story. This year it was Baccano!, with its wildly eccentric cast of gangsters, thieves, hit men, and other shady characters, and The Glass Mask, with its imaginative girl protagonist who yearns for a career on the stage. In previous years I've gotten excited by Romeo X Juliet, a take on the famous family feud which may have precious little to do with Shakespeare but offers plenty of action and romance, and Rose of Versailles, which tells the sad story of a girl reared as a boy, who grows up to serve as the captain of Marie Antoinette's guard. Historical drama, forbidden love, coming-of-age, machine guns and violence -- I never know quite what waits around the corner at AWA.<br /><br />2) The manga (Japanese graphic novel) reading room. This convention knows that the visiting fans love to read, so it sets aside a nook where we can go, choose from a varied selection of manga volumes, and sit and lose ourselves in a good story. (AWA is all about stories.) I never read many comic books when I was a child; in the manga reading room I can make up for lost time. One small objection: manga novels are usually multi-volume, and too often the room will only make one or two volumes available -- perhaps because they want to be sure we'll be driven to visit --<br /><br />3) The dealer's room. Here, as at DragonCon, we see how many and varied are the ways in which we fannish fools may be parted from our money. Plenty of manga dealers will offer to supply those volumes missing from the reading room. DVD merchants will hawk those marvelous shows we've been watching in the viewing rooms, so we can see them in all their multi-episode glory; they know, as we know, that outside the convention these shows won't be easy to find, for sale or for rent. Movie posters, trading cards, T-shirts, artwork, anything a geek's heart desires can be found within those walls. Perhaps the most valuable things we can take out of the dealer's room, however, are the inner commodities of self-control and restraint -- to look, to want, and not to buy.<br /><br />4) Artist's Alley. Area artists with an infinite variety of styles inhabit this room, offering to draw popular or obscure anime characters upon requests. When I visit the Alley, however, I'm not much interested in commissioning drawings of someone else's characters. Instead I write down descriptions of characters from stories I'm working on, and I give them to an artist and ask for sketches of them. I have favorites who seem to understand exactly how my imagination works. When a vision in my head suddenly appears before me in pencil, it's incredibly rewarding. The Alley's only drawback is that whenever I traverse it, I lament my lack of ability with paintbrush and pencil.<br /><br />5) "Anime Hell." I have to include this because it is certainly one of my favorite things to experience at AWA, but I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It takes place from 10 p.m. to midnight on Friday night, and it consists of a collection of shorts, some intentionally hilarious and some downright ridiculous in their earnestness, all designed to fill the audience with a sense of sublime wierdness. Anime Hell is not for the easily offended, nor is it for those who take themselves too seriously. But I always find plenty to make me laugh till I hurt. <br /><br />6) Costumes! I get to dress up here, too. Most of the geeks at AWA come clad as their favorite anime characters, but I always see plenty of generic costumes, worn by people like me who fancy daydreaming themselves into another time and place without inhabiting a specific character's skin. Whether specific or generic, costumes are always fun to see.<br /><br />Like DragonCon, AWA is for people who relish stories and storytelling. Also like DragonCon, AWA is hard to leave. "Day-after-Christmas Syndrome" always characterizes the homeward journey. The best my husband and I can do when we're down in those dumps is assure ourselves and each other that the year is awfully short, and we'll be back at the Cobb Galleria and Renaissance Waverly before we know it, looking over the program and choosing what shows to see and what discussions to take part in. In the meantime, our passion for stories and storytelling will not desert us.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-25664068085074519482010-09-24T12:51:00.000-07:002010-09-24T13:40:48.387-07:00Convention Season, Part ISince 2003, Labor Day weekend has meant only one thing for me: DragonCon, that glorious festival where we of the geek persuasion, we who love fantasy novels and science-fiction movies and comic books and cartoons, gather to celebrate the things we love and show off our sartorial splendor, everything from from elaborately tailored Ancien Regime gowns to barely-there leather tunics and halters. Adults playing dress-up! What could be more joyful and liberating?<br /><br />Two weekends later, Anime Weekend Atlanta arrives, and again we gather, this time with a more focused enthusiasm. Again we dress up and proclaim our love for animation, storytelling, and daydreaming. It's not a question of setting the Inner Child free. It's about reminding the Outer Adult that the power to imagine, to fantasize, enriches human existence whether one is forty or eighty-five.<br /><br />This past AWA, scholar and writer Helen McCarthy put into short, simple words why I look forward to these conventions every year: "It's like going to a big party with only people you like. You know you're going to like them; how can you not, when you all love the same stuff?" This quote may not be 100% accurate, but the gist is there.<br /><br />So here's my tribute to Convention Season, my second-favorite season next to Christmas, and so sadly past for 2010.<br /><br />What I Love About DragonCon:<br /><br />1. Panels. DragonCon is organized into "Tracks" which give me the opportunity to discuss your favorite shows, writers, and myths with others who love them as much as I do. I can go to the "Young Adult" Track to find out what books worth reading have been published this year, and then hop over to the "British Media" Track to discuss Doctor Who, or H.G. Wells, or comic fantasist Terry Pratchett, or adaptations of Shakespeare. In the "Science Fiction/Fantasy Literature" Track I can listen to some of my favorite writers discuss how they create characters and plotlines, and I can participate in a debate about the boundaries of the genres. Courtesy of the "Animation" Track this year, I got to hear <em>Spongebob</em>'s Tom Kenny, <em>Futurama</em>'s John DiMaggio and Billy West, and Adult Swim's Dana Snyder, George Lowe and C. Martin Croker trade hilarious quips and impersonations, and I got to see a wondrous cartoon short based on a concept Walt Disney worked on with Salvador Dali. The Tracks cover just about every area of media entertainment I love most. And being in the same room with those who share the love is downright electric.<br /><br />2. The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. This unusual group performs radio drama just as it would have been performed before a studio audience circa 1940. When I first saw them perform at DragonCon 2003, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Since January 2004, I have been. Every DragonCon, ARTC performs both original and adapted science-fiction, fantasy, and/or horror scripts before an enthusiastic audience. I've been involved as an actress (my favorite role came in 2008, with William A. Ritch's script <em>Doom of the Mummy</em>) and as a writer (thus far I've had two scripts performed at D*C, <em>The Challenges of Brave Ragnar</em> in 2007 and <em>The House Across</em> <em>the Way</em> in 2010); to ARTC I owe some of my proudest hours. ARTC brings fantasy to life. So naturally, the crowd at DragonCon embraces us.<br />(A sister group of ARTC, the Mighty Rassilon Art Players, also deserves a mention here. Until recently, MRAP has delighted D*C audiences with such parodies as <em>Buffy: Warrior</em> <em>Princess</em>, <em>Welcome Back Potter</em>, and <em>From TARDIS With Love</em>. It was in the midst of rehearsals for <em>The Return of the King and I</em> in 2004 and <em>Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter</em> in 2005 that I got to know the man who would become my husband. Thanks beyond measure, MRAP.)<br /><br />3. Costumes, costumes, costumes! I don't "cosplay" -- that is, dress up to resemble a specific character from science fiction or fantasy literature, movies, or TV. I just don my favorite Renaissance Festival garb and go, imagining myself into the shoes of any fantasy heroine I feel like at the moment. I know first-hand how costumes can enhance daydreams. And while I may prefer a more generic fantasy wardrobe, I do relish watching the march of people clad as Star Wars Stormtroopers, various Doctor Whos, superheroes, supervillains, warriors, and princesses. My favorite characters never fail to put in an appearance somewhere.<br /><br />4. Dragon*Con TV. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it. But one simply has not been to D*C if one hasn't gotten a glimpse of advertisements featuring "The Most Interesting Man on Tatooine" or "Thinkin' Strips: Zombies Don't Know It's Not Brains."<br /><br />5. Fire of Brazil, a Brazilian steakhouse within easy walking distance of the Con Hotels in downtown Atlanta. My husband and I have made a tradition of indulging in a meal there for the past several years. It's expensive, but one can actually eat enough food at such a place to make it worth the price. We never fail to run into some of our fellow Con-goers, but the restaurant is a haven of quiet and low lights, a brief respite from sensory overload.<br /><br />6. Music. DragonCon invites plenty of musical guests, and I always enjoy getting to know some group I've never heard before. This year I discovered Pandora Celtica, an acoustic or a capella harmony group who entertained the crowd with such songs as "Danny Borg" (to the tune of "Danny Boy," of course) and "Do You Want to Date My Avatar?" Every year I also get to revisit old favorites like the Celtic folk-rock group Emerald Rose, who, for their DragonCon performances, mix their traditional favorites with Con-themed tunes like "His Majesty's Airship Corps," a tribute to Steampunk, and a warning to role-playing gamers called "Never Split the Party." <br /><br />7. The Dealer's Room, home of hundreds of merchants of costumes, posters, books, comics, playing cards, T-shirts, and art, just waiting to separate DragonCon's herd of smart, imaginative fools from their money.<br /><br />These are just a few things that make DragonCon an event I relish attending every year. Coming up next: What I Love About Anime Weekend Atlanta. Some things may carry over, but they're not quite the same. AWA deserves its own blog.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-83957557574579903002010-08-21T14:05:00.000-07:002010-08-21T14:24:58.524-07:00The Fiction Wing, Edition 2I've been told I need an "attention-getting sentence" to sell my story, <em>Atterwald</em>, to an agent or editor. I have a draft of that sentence:<br /><br />"Among the shape-shifting <em>hal'ryth'kei</em>, a sweet, sad story unfolds, of a heartless wizard, his invalid son, and the captive fiddler girl who must find a way to heal him -- or else."<br /><br />If that doesn't sound anything like what I've been sharing with you, well, just wait. And now, without further delay, I present the second section.<br />***<br /><br />He couldn't sleep. He had thought that a shape-change might help him relax, but in his mouse form his fur had stood on edge and his blood had run hot. His heart had felt several sizes too large for his body, as if it had refused to transform with the rest of him. After an hour of this discomfort, he'd given up, shifted back to human, and reached for a book he kept hidden under his pillow.<br /><br />It was called <em>Forms of Magic Among the Tribes</em>. He'd found it tucked away in the back of a shelf of what served as a library in their village, and he'd checked it out and brought it home hidden under his coat. He'd been racing through it hungrily, but just now he cared to read only one particular section, the entry on owl-magic. An owl-magician was a useful friend and a deadly enemy. He could bless the villages of those who pleased him with the rains needed for a bountiful harvest, but he could send the mightiest of storms to obliterate the homes of those who angered him, or else curse their villages with a crippling drought.<br /><br />As he read, he envisioned his Verina gliding over a little town, her wings stretched to their full span. As the wind passed through her feathers she cast a cool, gentle breeze down on the folk below. They never looked up -- never realized that an angel was blessing them.<br /><br />He cast a glance toward his window and noted the blackness that preceded the coming of dawn. Verina would be settling down to sleep now. She would light upon the ground and stretch herself back into her human shape and rest her golden head upon her pillow. Unlike most tribes owls slept in human and not animal form. What treasured possessions did she surround herself with? And what thoughts drifted across her mind as she closed her eyes?<br /><br />The lettering on the pages blurred, and his hands lost their hold on the book. Thinking he must be drifting off to sleep, he shifted shape, then wrapped his long tail about him, his usual slumbering posture.<br /><br />His teeth chattered as if he were shivering, yet his fur and skin burned. His heart swelled to bursting. The scent of owl enveloped him. Her spirit permeated the very air he breathed.<br /><br />The walls were changing, brightening to a soft, muted white. The straw-stuffed mattress beneath him was softening to moss, then to cloud. As he gazed at the vault in the strange ceiling above him, he floated upward to meet it. Closer he rose, until he thought he would collide with it -- and it dissipated like a curtain of mist. A bright blue day-sky stretched above him, dotted with voluminous clouds. His head spun with giddy delight, and his hands reached out to clasp the nearest cloud...<br /><br />His hands, yet not his hands. They were woman's hands, with long and graceful fingers. This dizzy intoxication, this glory in the day-sky, was likewise not his own.<br /><br />The white hands tore off a ball of cloud just large enough to hold; then the fingers began to shape it. Gently, carefully, they lengthened it, then smoothed and spread it, until at last it bore the semblance of a pair of great white wings: the wings of the Guider. The fingertips shook, spreading a glimmer-dust over the wings.<br /><br />The hands drew back, and the cloud-wings began to beat, to rise until their glow filled the sky. His heart/not-heart grew fuller still, and he let out a laugh -- a girl's laugh. The part of him still himself tensed in recognition.<br /><br /><em>This is her dream. I am in her dream.</em><br /><br />A thrill of horror racked him. He was trespassing where he had no right. Should she find out, she would loathe him forever.<br /><br />How was he to extricate himself? A wave of queasiness swept through him as he floundered. Silver-white feet stumbled on the cloud where they were treading. He drew a breath through his teeth. If he tried too hard to pull himself down from the day-sky he might drag her with him, compounding his crime.<br /><br />The feet halted. He -- no, <em>she</em> -- looked around, sensing something amiss. She's found me, his mind cried. <em>Guider, your strength!</em><br /><br />Her face rose before his eyes, yet he found no anger in it. Her gaze was bright but gentle, her mouth set in the familiar pensive smile. "Good morning," she said, with a nod.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-26266615274590511612010-08-12T09:40:00.000-07:002010-08-12T10:26:09.400-07:00Hey, Mainstream Hollywood: I've Had ItI have to be honest with myself. I know I drive my hubby, my family, and my friends crazy with my perpetual complaints about depictions of women on the Silver Screen and the increasing (it seems to me) scarcity of decent movies with female protagonists. They tell me to stop beating a horse that's long dead, buried, and decomposed. I have to tell them with a sigh: <em>I wish I could</em>. I would dearly love never to utter a word of dissatisfaction about the portrayals of women in the movies again. And on occasion, I resolve firmly to do just that, to convince myself that when all is said and done, fictional characters don't matter. But my resolve never sticks, because mainstream Hollywood keeps supplying ample grounds for my ineffectual protests.<br /><br />This summer, for instance. Mainstream Hollywood has given us a child's handful of movies with female protagonists, but they've been losers with critics (e.g. <em>Salt, Sex and the City 2, Killers</em>) or at the box office (<em>Ramona and Beezus</em>). Where's this year's Mamma Mia? some might cry. Hopefully, nowhere -- since that movie's box-office triumph didn't stop it from being a painfully bad film.<br /><br />I've just read James Berardinelli of ReelViews' take on the latest "women-will-flock-to-see-it-because-we're-too-stupid-to-tell-the-difference-between-a-good-movie-and-a-bad-one" schlockfest <em>Eat, Pray, Love</em>. Apparently this story makes every effort to turn a shallow, selfish woman who breaks her unoffending husband's heart into a "heroine" worth admiring and even emulating. I put that together with what I know of the other female protagonists we've seen this summer -- the neurotically passive Bella Swan of <em>Twilight: Eclipse</em>; the shrill, screaming harpy-ditz of <em>Killers</em>; the fashionistas of <em>Sex and the City 2</em>; the butt-kicking but inscrutable and painfully fetishized <em>Salt</em> -- and I can't help thinking that mainstream Hollywood has been taken over by screenwriters, male and female, who construct their female protagonists after the pattern of Jack Nicholson's cynical writer in <em>As Good As It Gets</em>: "I think of a man, and then I take away reason and integrity."<br /><br />I have never cared much for <em>As Good As It Gets</em>, but that line has stayed with me. Reason and integrity -- two very basic human virtues. It's difficult to admire or even care about a character who lacks either quality, let alone both. So they are now my watchwords when it comes to any fictional female I encounter. She doesn't have to kick butt. She doesn't have to save the world. She doesn't even have to have much education. But at significant points in the story, she must display reason and integrity.<br /><br />My own writing must follow this principle; if it doesn't, I've done very badly indeed. In my story <em>Atterwald</em>, my heroine is asked to choose between saving the man she loves and saving the village where she grew up. She rejects this choice and resolves to try to save both. (To know whether she succeeds, you'll have to check out the novel when it's published; hopefully it will be, before I reach that point in my "Fiction Wing" posts.) Of course she's motivated by emotions, her love for her sweetheart and for the family who raised her. But she understands instinctively that to choose one over the other would seriously compromise her integrity.<br /><br />The female characters in this summer's mainstream films have not been completely without reason and/or integrity. Both Barbie and Jessie display it in <em>Toy Story 3</em>, as does the smart, courageous character played by Ellen Page in <em>Inception</em>. But in neither film is the female the protagonist. These worthy ladies are supporting players in stories that center on males. Nothing wrong with that -- except that the female protagonists we do see are so irksomely lacking in those important qualities that often we may find ourselves sympathizing more with a supporting (male) character: the put-upon assassin husband in <em>Killers</em>, the forsaken husband in <em>Eat, Pray,</em> <em>Love,</em> and just about every poor soul who has the misfortune to get involved with drama queen Bella Swan.<br /><br />Frankly, I've had it with these women, and I've had it with the Hollywood that keeps feeding us these bimboes and expecting us to like them. It's enough to make me boycott Hollywood product altogether until the mainstream Big Screen gives us a <em>good</em> movie with a <em>decent</em> female protagonist. The trouble is I'd have to wait so long for such a film that I might miss the next Pixar movie. I'm not sure I can risk that.<br /><br />I guess I'll have to content myself with complaining -- and many apologies, in advance, to those who love and care for me who have to put up with it.<br /><br /><br />(NOTE: I have frequently used the word "mainstream" because limited-release, independent films have been known to invest their female characters with reason and integrity. <em>Winter's</em> <em>Bone</em>, by all accounts, is a very fine female-centric story. Foreign films are also off the hook; some of the best female characters of the past decade have come from films with subtitles.)K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6653682124524745578.post-41079364100884191582010-08-10T13:10:00.000-07:002010-08-10T13:32:34.299-07:00The Fiction Wing, Edition 1An excerpt from Chapter 1 of <em>Atterwald</em>, a novel I am preparing (at a distressingly slow rate) for possible publication:<br /><br /><em>This is a tale of the hal'ryth'kei, the people of the second skin, creatures who are two beings, with two natures in one. It begins with an enmity between two tribes, a difference beyond reconciliation...</em><br /><em></em><br />For as long as he could remember, Brendis had loved to watch the owl-people parade into view at sunset, riding proud and tall upon their deer. Lately he had a special reason to stare.<br /><br />He laid his hoe down at his feet, licked his upper lip and frowned at the stinging salt taste of sweat. He looked up and out, toward the rim of trees on the horizon. He held his breath and tensed at the clop of deer's hoofs.<br /><br />"Back to work, Bren," his brother snapped. Arne was still busy with his hoe; Brendis knew from the crunch of turning earth beside him. "You know how Mother bellows if she catches you idle."<br /><br />"I don't care if she bellows."<br /><br />The first owls emerged from the wood -- silver-haired gentlemen in top hats and stiff, sharply tailored frock coats, nodding with regal condescension at the mouse-people at work in the field. Why they did that, Brendis could not say, for the mouse-folk paid no heed to the parade. Only he seemed to know the owls were there.<br /><br />More owl-folk appeared, all in neat frock coats, all with slim, bolt-straight figures. A tiny part of him hated them and their beauty and aristocratic mien. He hated finding himself enthralled by them, helpless to look away.<br /><br />His stomach spun as his special reason cantered into view. Unlike the others, she wore a riding-suit of pale gray, with a white kerchief about her neck and a gauzy veil streaming down her back. But even without these odd color choices, she would have stood out from the rest. Some of them might wear their honey-gold hair in ringlets; some of them might be blessed with skin like white rose-petals; some of them might boast soft oval faces with bright, clear gray eyes; but all of these beauties combined in her alone. Even they might have added up to nothing, were it not for her smile, so wistful and pensive that he constantly wondered what she might be thinking.<br /><br />Brendis had to think of the golden maiden by some name or other, so he had invented one for her: "Verina," the Glory of All Owl-Kind. But this invented name did not satisfy him. He would only feel content when he could present himself to her and ask her true name.<br /><br />But his kind did not speak to their kind.<br /><br />He remembered asking his mother just why this was. She had sniffed a non-answer: "Because it isn't done. All we need know about them is that they're there."<br /><br />Brendis had vowed then and there never to ask his mother a serious question again. In the five years since, he'd kept that vow. Hundreds of serious questions plagued him without mercy on a daily basis, but he kept them to himself and sought answers on his own.<br /><br />"Pick up that tool <em>now</em>, Bren!" Arne huffed.<br /><br />Brendis reclaimed the hoe and went through the motions of pawing the earth with it, never taking his eyes from Verina. His breath caught in his throat. Now came the moment that had stirred him for years.<br /><br />The leader of the parade -- the tallest and proudest-looking of the silver-haired gentlemen, mounted on a six-pointed stag -- folded into himself. His shoulders shrank and his arms and limbs retracted, and suddenly, where a man had been, a wide-winged gray owl hovered in mid-air.<br /><br />On their leader's signal, the other owl-folk transformed simultaneously; Brendis, his gaze locked on Verina, saw her melt into a ball of bright snowy-white feathers. She stretched her wings, and with the others she rose and soared over the jagged tops of the trees.<br /><br />Watching them vanish into the horizon, he heard his brother grumble, "Don't see why you stare at the owls. It's not as if they're doing anything remarkable. They're only changing shape."<br /><br />"It's beautiful when <em>they</em> do it."<br /><br />"Why?"<br /><br />"Because they take <em>wing</em>. Imagine what it'd be like, to be bound to the ground one minute and then take to the sky the next."<br /><br />Arne responded with a grunt and a shake of his head.<br /><br />Brendis turned his eyes from his brother to the deepening sunset sky. Where had she disappeared to? What might she be looking at right now? Sometimes, when he thought very hard about her, he could imagine himself flying with her, the wind brushing his toes. He could even catch the sharp green scent of the pines below.<br /><br />Such imaginings were generally fleeting, but lately they'd been growing clearer, more intense, giving him hope of a time to come when he might linger in the air long enough to for him to tell himself he wasn't dreaming.<br /><br />In the sky with her -- the place he most wished to be. Something strange growing inside him whispered it might not be impossible.K.S. Ceccatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04329175778142962724noreply@blogger.com2