(Nearly) open-thread Wednesday November 2 2011

Some literary "theories" seem as hard to kill as many creatures of horror. Which literary "conspiracy theory" or "just so" story annoys you most--and why?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[Lonespark]

Could this be a reponse to the horrible movie Anonymous? I don't know much about it besides the fact that I have friends with LiveJournals full of bile for the thing. Classist bullshit just-so stories...I imagine there are plenty of sexist and racist stories, too, but I don't know that much about literary academia.

[AnaMardoll]

It's not quite a "conspiracy theory", but I'm tired of the canard that McCarthy and Hoover and the like made us more secure and safer despite their odious tactics. They really didn't -- their tactics were wasteful and detrimental to the health of our nation -- and I'm so dreadfully tired of hearing that every time Hollywood wants to make a buck.

I mention this because there seems to be a new Hoover movie coming out and I cynically believe it will repeat the same tired "for a good cause" arguments. :(

[Rowen]

People have actually claimed that McCarthy made us safer? Who are these people and how can I avoid them?

[sarah]

@lonespark: Anonymous is the new movie about Shakespeare, right?

I haven't seen the movie myself, so I can't speak to it. But I'm taking a basic Shakespeare acting class right now (through a local theatre) and the teacher is great--she used to work at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Statford-upon-Avon. Someone mentioned the movie in class, and she said she didn't really think it mattered *who* wrote the plays (whether it was Shakespeare himself, or the Earl of Oxford, or whomever); the plays are consistent in language and the way they use rhythm and meter and verse, so it's important to acknowledge that it really did have to be one person (or a committee of people) who wrote all of them.

[Mmy]

@lonespark: Could this be a reponse to the horrible movie Anonymous?

Yup, on my part.

@Sarah: While I agree with your teacher I do think that it is important to talk back to this nonsense. Ask yourself why people want someone other than Shakespeare to have written those plays and you end up in a morass of classist, existentialist rot. Exciting things don't happen to the hard-working children of merchants -- they happen noblemen and members of the upper class.

They are also deeply, deeply anti-artist since the people who propound them seem to find it impossible to belief that someone could have read, thought, imagined and created something that didn't hit them over the head with an anvil.

[Ross]

Who I feel bad for are Shakespeare teachers, who are going to spend the next decade having to explain to excited students on their first day of class that no, Oxford didn't write those plays, and no, you don't know better than the teacher. Like art and theology teachers have to do every time Dan Brown publishes something.

And the shakespeareans had just gotten over having to keep explaining to people that no, shakespeare did not have a romantic fling with a young cross-dressing noblewoman who secretly acted in his plays even though women weren't permitted to act at the time.

[Catherine]

I wonder why the high ranks of society would want to claim Shakespeare's works. Correct me if I'm wrong, when they were first performed, they were considered not high art.

[Rowen]

I wonder why the high ranks of society would want to claim Shakespeare's works. Correct me if I'm wrong, when they were first performed, they were considered not high art.

Try telling that to all the people out there who hear the word "Thee" and start imagining highfalutin sticks in the mud doing boring things and yammering on about history and other dull stuff.

[Catherine]

True, but these guys come across as bitter gloryhounds.

[CZEdwards]

*deletes ragey, snarly utterly irrational extended grumpitude about anti-stratfordians*

Great ghu and all the angels, that topic is guaranteed to turn me into a troll. And when I realized that the Venn Diagram of anti-Stratfordians, anti-fluoridationists and Birchers was a near-complete overlap...

My most excellent and totally awesome high school English teacher had an enormous crush on Shakespeare, and was a fabulous Shakespeare scholar. She died this spring, and the only consolation I get is that she won't have to spend the next decade weeding this nonsense from her students' heads. She was entirely thrilled when I gave her the Thursday Next series for her retirement, specifically because Thursday spends great chunks of text debunking the "theories". (Also for Richard III as Rocky Horror Picture Show.)

Mine isn't so much a literary theory as mistory (mishandled history). Specifically, the myth of historical non-cleanliness. No, people who lived before refrigeration did not use spices to _mask_ the flavor of rotted meat. They were just as sensitive to food-borne illness as every other human being who has ever lived. They did use spices to preserve meat and make it taste better -- just like corned beef, pepperoni and knockwurst -- but really, people in the past weren't stupid. They did indeed bathe occasionally (daily is HARD without running water) and did keep their hands and utensils relatively clean. No, they didn't use bleach, but sand and sunlight? Those work. And note that they made ginormous batches of cheese. A dirty dairy fails. They knew this. They did not like starving or food poisoning.

[Kit Whitfield, who is typing with a broken elbow]

the consistent theme that bugs me is that everything must come directly from the artist's life. shakespeare had to fall in love to write romance; jane austen had to whatever, choderlos de laclos based all his characters on real people, blah blah blah. at the bottom of all these assumptions lie this one;

i don't know how anyone could just, like, imagine something out. so it must be that nobody could do it. cos if i can't do it, it's impossible.

writing seems peculiarly vulnerable to this. makes me think of george eliot's;

there is no species of art which is so free from rigid requirements. Like crystalline masses, it may take any form, and yet be beautiful; we have only to pour in the right elements -- genuine observation, humour, and passion. But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement which constitutes the fatal seduction of novelwriting to incompetent women. Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived as to their power of playing on the piano; here certain positive difficulties of execution have to be conquered, and incompetence inevitably breaks down. Every art which has its absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery.

not quite the same thing, but same principle: the lack of rigid requirements makes people assume that they ought to be able to understand how it's done - and if they can't, assume it can't be done at all.

[Skyknight]

Hm. I'm going to guess that those who regard Shakespeare's work as naught BUT high art haven't noticed that there's definite bawdy elements in many pieces (and let's not get into the double meaning of "Much Ado About Nothing"'s title...).

Come to think of it, I wonder how apt your Mk. I Mod. I higher-class playwright would have been to resort to neologisms, no matter how easily the audience could extrapolate what was meant. I very much doubt that Buffy Speak was never uttered in Elizabethan times; could some of the neologisms be along those lines, or at least share mechanism?

[Mmy]

@Skyknight: . I'm going to guess that those who regard Shakespeare's work as naught BUT high art haven't noticed that there's definite bawdy elements in many pieces

There are entire passages that are little more than sex/excretion jokes. Remember much of the audience young men who had to stand for hours in the weather in order to see the play. Plus the plays "did the rounds" of smaller towns.

The plays were both high art AND bawdy humour. I have had the fun of telling some actors what the various words actually meant in context to find American college students can indeed blush.

[Ross]

It's like I always say, if you don't know what a word means in elizabethan english, assume it's a euphemism for genitalia.

[Arresi]

I'm honestly pretty annoyed with the anti-remake fervor. It isn't that doing a remake means the people working on it are unimaginative hacks. It's that the people doing most of the remakes are unimaginative hacks.

But a fair bit of Shakespeare, most of Disney, West Side Story, Star Wars, Batman, Batman Begins, and the new True Grit says that there's nothing inherently unartistic about a retelling.

[Sixwing]

Pthalo, that's very interesting! (And actually may explain why SixSpouse's hair gets greasy a whole bunch faster than mine...)

[MercuryBlue]

But a fair bit of Shakespeare, most of Disney, West Side Story, Star Wars, Batman, Batman Begins, and the new True Grit says that there's nothing inherently unartistic about a retelling.

DISNEY ARGH. THE LITTLE MERMAID DOES NOT END HAPPY.

[Ruby]

I take it this is the wrong place to say that I find some of the Oxford theories interesting.

The word "conspiracy," much like the word "theory," gets a bad rap in that there are multiple definitions, and the one that involves improbable cloak-and-dagger antics gets more press than the one that happens all the time, when two or more people decide together to commit some fraud or crime.

Arresi: I'm honestly pretty annoyed with the anti-remake fervor. It isn't that doing a remake means the people working on it are unimaginative hacks. It's that the people doing most of the remakes are unimaginative hacks.

But a fair bit of Shakespeare, most of Disney, West Side Story, Star Wars, Batman, Batman Begins, and the new True Grit says that there's nothing inherently unartistic about a retelling.

Remakes I like more than the originals:

Sabrina
3:10 to Yuma
Little Shop of Horrors
Father of the Bride
Ocean's 11
Casino Royale

Pthalo: my hair has recently turned wavy and I'd like to try to encourage it to become more wavy. Google 'no poo' (stands for shampoo) and '"water only" hair' if you're interested. I'm still at the "new interest: reading a lot about it" stage.

I recommend Curly Girl

[Ruby]

@MercuryBlue:

Neither does The Hunchback of Notre Dame

http://www.cracked.com/article_18589_7-classic-disney-movies-based-r-rated-stories.html

[Froborr]

DISNEY ARGH. THE LITTLE MERMAID DOES NOT END HAPPY.

This is one of my literary pet peeves. "This version of the story is not identical to this other version," is not a valid criticism of either version. There is no "true" version of The Little Mermaid against which all others can be measured; all versions of The Little Mermaid are equally fictional. Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid does not end happy. Disney's does. Honestly, in that respect (and possibly only that respect) I think Disney's is better.

I mean, obviously, you can like or dislike a work for whatever reason. I'm just saying "This version came first," is a pretty arbitrary reason for declaring that version authoritative--but then, there is no non-arbitrary reason to declare a particular version of a work authoritative.

Obviously, if the changes are extreme enough you can get to the point where you effectively have two different works with the same name. But then you have two different works with the same name, and it'd be silly to argue that one of them is authoritative over the other.

Also, there's nothing wrong with saying "I like this version better than this version," or "This change was for the better, this change was not." The problem is with saying "This change was wrong." Something can only be wrong if there's a truth to deviate from, and by definition there is no true version of a fictional story.

Sorry if I'm jumping down your throat MercuryBlue. I just see this kind of reasoning a lot in geek circles, and it ticks me off. Okay, you like D&D 3.5 better than 4e; 3.5 didn't stop existing when 4e came out, you know? You still have your books, go play them! They cut Tom Bombadil from the LOTR movies? So what? He's confusing but mildly entertaining in the book, but he would have ground the movie to a halt. Etc, etc, ad infinitum.

[Lonespark]

I do like multiple versions of stories. I feel like all the best stories have them; myths hardly work as they should without variations...

But I feel like most adaptations involving Hollywood strip out complexity and further ignore the already marginalized. I'm not a big fan of most adaptations that significantly change the story's emphasis, especially to something pat and kyriarchy-pleasing. (I really wanted to use "patriarchy" there, for purely alliterative reasons!)

My friends and I used to joke about the Disney version of Les Miserables, where no one died and Cosette had a cute animal companion. I feel that would intensely miss the point.

[Ruby]

Froborr: Honestly, in that respect (and possibly only that respect) I think Disney's is better.

Also, Disney had peppier music than Anderson. ;)

One of my pet peeves is the idea that the book is always superior to the movie.

Cases in point: Jaws and Schindler's List

[Ruby]

Lonespark: My friends and I used to joke about the Disney version of Les Miserables, where no one died and Cosette had a cute animal companion. I feel that would intensely miss the point.

Actually, I could see that. (There would have to be a beta hero for poor Eponine, of course!)

Hell, it would probably be more kid-friendly than The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[Rodeobob]

The "one draft" myth of Kerouac's On The Road... that story pisses me off to no end.

For those not familiar, the myth is that Kerouac wrote his famous novel almost in one draft, very quickly from start to finish.

The reality is that he planned and plotted and worked on the novel for years in journals and rough drafts, but it's not as catchy a tale as "he was just inspired, and cranked the whole thing out all at once!"

[Lonespark]

Can I just say how much I love this place? I unsubscribed from a mailing list for a religious organization I really love today, because people were making a big deal that other people's hurt feelings were never their problem. Not most of the people, and the fascinating discussion were still there, but it was personal and painful and aaaaargggh. I have very little patience for that these days. I know it takes a lot of effort on the part of TBAT, and the wonderful guest-posters, and the folks who comment here, to go on with interesting discussion and still strive for safer space. Yay, community!

[Lonespark]

Mine are mostly about history, I guess.

One that irks me is "Rosa Parks wasn't activist. She was just an ordinary woman who had had enough." I think sometimes people in the civil rights movement did push that narrative, and I know you have to shape your message and get one that resonates as far as possible, but people who know very little end up using that as some kind of point against organizing sometimes.

[Lonespark]

Also this is an awesome prompt for my next NaBloPoMo post. I feel a Pocahontas rant coming on.

[Ruby]

CZEdwards: And when I realized that the Venn Diagram of anti-Stratfordians, anti-fluoridationists and Birchers was a near-complete overlap...

I just remembered this part. Evidence?

[Mmy]

@Lonespark: One that irks me is "Rosa Parks wasn't activist. She was just an ordinary woman who had had enough.

That always confuses me. Do all activists have to go to some special training school? Do not all truly transformational movements rely on ordinary people who have just had enough?

And is this not part of why the "media" doesn't get OWS -- they have such a professionalized concept of politics and movements that they can't see real activism until too late.

There are probably some gender things in there as well, dontcha think?

[Rebecca]

Antistratfordianism pisses me off for all the reasons already mentioned, but coming from a theatre point of view, this is one of my least favorite myths:

"It's not a directorial choice or a political statement if it's what the author wanted, or how it's always been done."

[Ruby]

Re: Rosa Parks--Americans love the underdog. (Or at least, some love the underdog and some say they do.) I think people think it's a sweet story to tell children: that ordinary people can make a difference, that the little guy triumphs, etc.

Civil rights as feel-good movie.

[MercuryBlue]

The problem is with saying "This change was wrong." Something can only be wrong if there's a truth to deviate from, and by definition there is no true version of a fictional story.

I hadn't thought I was saying 'this change was wrong', though upon contemplation I can see how you'd think I was. Maybe I actually was, I don't know. I thought I was saying, 'Disneyfy' is roughly synonymous with 'bowdlerize', and retelling a story with significant changes from the original while claiming it's the same story as the original is false advertising. The Little Mermaid is one such example. Sleeping Beauty is another. Let's just say that in the original, it wasn't true love's kiss that woke her.

[Skyknight]

Such attenuations GREATLY preceded Bowdler the Hapless (he DID try to get the readers to seek out the originals, after all). The stories collected by the Grimms? One of the brothers was a cardinal Romantic, part of that being that the idea of a mother turning on her own offspring was unnatural, unthinkable, impossible, etc. (I'd hate to see his reaction to the concept of "appeal to nature" as a logical fallacy) And yet, a lot of the folk stories offered just such chimerae. Solution? Change them all into wicked STEPmothers. Abomination against nature averted/corrected (never mind how many of the mothers were incited by having to triage the family members because of encroaching starvation...).

Meanwhile, not all retellings are Lighter and Softer; you sometimes get Darker and Edgier. Believe it or not, it wasn't until Shakespeare that you got a telling of Lear's legend where Lear and Cordelia DIED. I wonder if source-purists should be impelled to look at that with the same askance as with any softenings of source work?

[Ruby]

Skyknight: Meanwhile, not all retellings are Lighter and Softer; you sometimes get Darker and Edgier.

Exactly. And there has been a spate of darker fairy tales in recent years, and it is often pointed out that the "new" bloodier, darker visions are closer to the "originals" than cartoons. It then comes back to the question of "original." What are the original versions of the fairy tales that were interpreted (for the thousandth time) by Disney?

And speaking of fairy tales, is anyone else watching Once Upon A Time?

[Lonespark]

this is one of my least favorite myths:

"It's not a directorial choice or a political statement if it's what the author wanted, or how it's always been done."

Word. The status quo is still a choice. @#$%&*! unmarked, default, "normal" anything.

[Rowen]

Froborr,

There's a big difference in adapting history or what one person has written down and adapting what more of an oral tradition. The basic story that we know of as the Sleeping Beauty has many forms, from a WILDLY different "original" version, to the Grimm version to the Perrault version, etc. The Little Mermaid, on the other hand, is by one. Sure, he might have drawn inspiration from different sources, but it's still Hans Christian Anderson's work. And his stuff, with the exception of one piece, doesn't end "happy." I think you can change things around, BUT it's difficult and I think you have to maintain a respect for the original piece. It's why, despite many of her fans hating the movie, Diana Wynn Jones is on record as being ok with Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. Unless her publicists forced her to say that.

(I can't believe I'm putting this, but . .. well, it's the internet)
Trigger Warning (Discussion of the movie vs the books of Lord of the Rings)
One scene that I LOATHED in Jackson's LOTR is Eowyn vs the Nazgul king. Jackson had an opportunity to do something really special and REALLY bring home the message that you don't have to be a wizard or a special elf to make a difference. What does he do? Eowyn bumbles her way into killing the Nazgul King and is IMMEDIATELY overshadowed by Legolas taking down an oliphant. It becomes total fanboy cgi masturbation and is a scene no where to be found in the book.

[Rowen]

I wouldn't call this a "conspiracy" but two things that drive me up the wall.

1) Ancient myths were only told one way. I blame Edith Hamilton for much of this. But, I've come across people to think that all the stories were told only one way. Or maybe they don't THINK that, but I'll start talking about variations of Herucules, or Minos' other children or the Orphean Egg, or whatever, and it's all blank stares.

2) A linear view of history where it goes Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, 1000 years of nothing but disease and stupidity, The Rennaisance, Columbus, Shakespeare, America, the French Revolution, Jane Austen, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, some Hippies, Disco, Regan, Clinton, 9/11, Now.

[Amaranth]

I think this is marginally on-topic...

When the movie The Pursuit of Happyness first came out, everyone talked about how good it was and how I needed to see it. So I sat down with my husband and his parents and we watched it. Now, they all loved it. Went on and on about inspiration and hope and stuff.

Me? That movie pissed me off. I mean, so much so that I couldn't even enjoy the messages of hope and never giving up. Because all I could think was that the main character should not have had to go through all that hell just to provide the basic effing necessities for his son. The fact that he overcame all the obstacles was nothing next to the overwhelming feeling that he shouldn't have had to. Yeah, I get that it's awesome that he made it despite having to spend a night in a bathroom...that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't have had to spend the night in an effing bathroom because this is America, the richest dang country in the world, ya know?? To me, the movie was all about how much is wrong with the way things are.

Everyone hailed the movie as the quintessential "American Dream" story...but for me, that was my realization that the American Dream is essentially dead. Living in an effing homeless shelter for months on end while working your ass off at an unpaid intership in the hope that someday, MAYBE, they'll give you an effing job so you can feed your children...that is NOT the American Dream. And I was incensed at the idea that it was presented as such. I appreciate the fact that some people are strong enough to endure this...but the fact remains in my mind that THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!

Needless to say, my family did not understand my reaction AT ALL. I was, in their words, "missing the point of the movie". Really? I should just concentrate on the feel-good bits and ignore the massively unjust system that requires such sacrifice in the first place? Gyah.

Maybe that's why I empathize so much with the Occupy movement.

[truth is life]

2) A linear view of history where it goes Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, 1000 years of nothing but disease and stupidity, The Rennaisance, Columbus, Shakespeare, America, the French Revolution, Jane Austen, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, some Hippies, Disco, Regan, Clinton, 9/11, Now.

For a moment I was like "Well, there are some awfully big gaps in there (cue standard rant on Romans->Byzantines, how the "Dark Ages" weren't, etc.), but nothing too awful," and then I noticed that it was totally Eurocentric--and not even in such a way that it would pay attention to the places Europeans knocked over! Not to mention the nearly-total ignorance of social and technological history...

[Rebecca]

Word. The status quo is still a choice. @#$%&*! unmarked, default, "normal" anything.

Eg. Nuria Espert's Turandot which is omg so political and controversial because Turandot kills herself instead of marrying Calaf. HELLO, it's also political when she marries him for no apparent reason after stating loudly and repeatedly that she does not want to and being physically forced to kiss him.

[dr ngo]

Turandot is (IMHO) a ridiculous story in any and all permutations. Puccini, on the other hand, was a genius.

[Rebecca]

The thing with Turandot, for me, is that it's incredibly thematically coherent but that no one stages it that way. Like those dancing girls that Ping offers to Calaf in exchange for his giving up Turandot? Where do they come from? Are they interested in being the property of this guy? But no, we have to have a tenor hero, so no one explores that.

I can only appreciate "Nessun dorma" when I think of it being football-related. I hate the character so much (and the piece itself is such a departure from the rest of the opera, musically, which aside from the big riddle scene is quite lovely, I think) that I just can't listen to it without thinking of Bend It Like Beckham or being annoyed.

[renniejoy]

Happy Birthday to Raj...

[Kit Whitfield, who is typing with a broken elbow]

is it raj's birthday? Happy birthday!

also seconding the 'it's not a directorial/writing choice if...' - well, if anything. it's always a choice. if you don't make choices, the work doesn't get made, and all you have is somebody sitting at a desk chewing their pen.

[Nenya]

Oh yes, tis Raj's birthday! Happy birthday, Raj!

And ow, Kit, ow.

[Kit Whitfield, who is typing with a broken elbow]

ta nenya. i have a second x-ray tomorrow to confirm the diagnosis. am hoping it is a broken bone, cos then i'd be out of this cast in a month or so. if it's a damaged tendon, i'm really stuffed.

i can't lift baby n have had to move in with parents. come the revolution, we must have emergency support workers for injured mums. paid out of ceo bonuses.

[Kit Whitfield, who is typing with a broken elbow]

variant on 'it's not a choice': 'it's justified in the text, therefore there's nothing racist/sexist/homophobic/generally nasty about it.'

[Raj]

{{{renniejoy}}}
{{{Kit}}}
{{{Nenya}}}

Extra {{{}}} to Kit for the broken elbow. (All Kit's hugs delivered very carefully.)

-------------------------------------

Happy Birthday also to Sarah!

[Lonespark]

Oh, Rowen, yes! You have said what I was trying to think.

"What about these chapters in the World History Book about Africa, Mr. 10th Grade History Teacher?"

"I don't think we have time go over those. I am more interested in Europe. I like the food."

I am kind of ashamed to say that did not begin my daring life of crime.

[inge]

Re: the Shakespeare discussion,

reminds me of "Murphy's law was not coined by Murphy but by another person of the same name".

What's (some) people's problem with believing that someone could write a lot of good stuff in relatively short time? The Beatles did it in living memory.

I think the whole debate is born of a desire to make things complicated to make oneself seem cleverer.

mmy: you end up in a morass of classist, existentialist rot

Why existentialist? I'd have classism tagged more as essentialist, unless you have a very high degree of social mobility, in which case classism becomes weird anyway.

Kit, quoting George Eliot: Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived as to their power of playing on the piano;

I need to memorize that passage. My personal bugbear is not writing, but drawing and design. For some reason people assume that any kid can do it well enough to be constrained only by their psyche, not by their skill. As in, no psychologist expects you to write a sestina to feed their interpretative urges, but they all think you have millenia of art history at your fingertips when it comes to drawing animals.

Rowen: Am I reading you right that you say that most of Anderson's tales do not have happy endings? Can you give examples? Other the Little Mermaid I can think of the Matchstick Girl tale, but I'm not an expert.

[Lonespark]

variant on 'it's not a choice': 'it's justified in the text, therefore there's nothing racist/sexist/homophobic/generally nasty about it.'

That too. Except the one I am more familiar with is "Yes, technically all his black "friends" were slaves, but don't be such a nitpicker about historical detail."

And then, on the flip side "Why would we have a POC lead in a period piece/we can't have POC leads in this modern piece, it won't sell (but of course there's nothing racist about that, it's not meeeee, it the freeeee market)," even when the original characters or actual true story protagonists were POC.

[Lonespark]

I realize I probably should have written out People of Color at least once to be less confusing.

[MercuryBlue]

And speaking of fairy tales, is anyone else watching Once Upon A Time?

I wanna be, I'm hearing good things, but when I have the inclination I'm at work and when I have the time I don't have the brain.

variant on 'it's not a choice': 'it's justified in the text, therefore there's nothing racist/sexist/homophobic/generally nasty about it.'

Yeah, this one's entertaining me at the moment. Friend of mine is writing a novel and I'm beta-reading, and I keep having to call her on shit. She's going to be exceedingly careful to play the bride kidnapping so that both parties know it's only a game that didn't start until the bride gave her consent to being kidnapped, and the bride has the ability to roast the kidnapper's balls off (yay fantasy), but it's still an #$&* bride kidnapping. But I did get her to start calling her Romani/Irish Traveller tribe 'travelers' instead of (ROT13) 'tlcfvrf', so we're making progress.

[Lonespark]

Is the minimum wage for tipped employees really still $2.13/hr? Really? Arrrghh!!!

[Thalia]

I've been very busy at work and not able to participate, but I would like to take this moment to say

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAJ!

[Mmy]

mmy: you end up in a morass of classist, existentialist rot

Why existentialist? I'd have classism tagged more as essentialist,

Why existentialist? Because auto-correct is not always your friend. I would have sworn I wrote essentialist. However this program does not consider essentialist a word and so "helped" me by changing it to something I didn't want to say.

Head bang.

[Kit Whitfield, who is typing with a broken elbow]

Ah, autocorrect.

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/

[Ross]

My friends and I used to joke about the Disney version of Les Miserables, where no one died and Cosette had a cute animal companion. I feel that would intensely miss the point.

It would, but it would be such a clusterfrack of awesome beauteous mess that I think it would totally make up for it.

Now I want a traditionally-animated Disney's Les Miz, and I want it NOW.

This is one of my literary pet peeves. "This version of the story is not identical to this other version," is not a valid criticism of either version. There is no "true" version of The Little Mermaid against which all others can be measured; all versions of The Little Mermaid are equally fictional. Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid does not end happy.

Quite.

Except for the bit about there not being a "true" version of The Little Mermaid. Peter Pan, Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Oliver Twist, those are all stories with identifiable authors and a single original text, unlike Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and the more "folk tale"-ish Disney movies.

Anyway, it's weird for me how everyone keeps saying that The Little Mermaid doesn't have a happy ending. She gets a *soul*.

[Mmy]

@Lonespark:Is the minimum wage for tipped employees really still $2.13/hr? Really? Arrrghh!!!

In the US -- the federal minimum wage? Yes -- as long as

A tipped employee engages in an occupation in which he or she customarily and regularly receives more than $30 per month in tips

[http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/wagestips.htm].

If I am correct (and things may have changed) it is the employer who determines whether such a level of tips can be expected AND the employee will be taxed on the presumption that they received at least that much in tips. The employer is required only to pay a wage that brings the wages of the employee up to the minimum wage -- given the presumed level of tipping.

If true that means that anyone who is working in a "tipped" industry and receives less that the assumed level of tipping is paying a higher rate of tax on the amount they do receive.

It also means that the #&%*(@s who live a tract instead of a tip are functionally withholding wages AND increasing the amount of tax that employee pays on everything else they make that month.

[inge]

mmy: Because auto-correct is not always your friend.

Oh, auto-correct. I remember when it changed every instance of the word "processor" in a technical paper to "professor". It made for very strange view of the inner working of the device. *G*

[Izzy]

Enh, stories evolve. As long as you're not advertising "Hans Christen Andersen's The Little Mermaid", then whatever. Plus, frankly, the fact that something is a cartoon musical by Disney should be enough warning that it deviates from the story; I don't think you can really claim "false advertising" there. (I...actually liked Hunchback. And would absolutely watch Disney Les Mis. Why not? The original text is out there if I want to read it.)

I understand being upset about changes that make the movie worse--Faramir and his alien mind control, Arwen and her two-movie pining streak--and I can get that you want to see Story X, not Story X+3, but there's a whole "I know the original dark bloody version and therefore I am cool and did I mention that Red Riding Hood dies in the original" Hot Topic Kid thing, and it bugs me.

Actually, my pet peeve theory is the happy-endings-suck, everything-should-be-dark-and-gritty school of thought. Have enough stress in RL; do not get much catharsis from angst; not actually interested in spending my time on fiction where everything sucks forever for everyone.

Anyway, it's weird for me how everyone keeps saying that The Little Mermaid doesn't have a happy ending. She gets a *soul*.

Yeah, but...she dies, she never gets to see her home again, and the guy she was in love with marries someone else. Thinking a soul makes up for that requires a particular view of the universe that I don't have.

Plus, didn't she only get a soul if the listening children behaved well, or something like that?

[Lonespark]

Maybe it would be an old-school animation with animals, a la Robin Hood? What animal would Javert be? Which characters would get cut out? Would you be able to tell who was related or destined to marry by the species chosen to depict them? Would Gavroche be a mouse? Would he still sleep inside that elephant? Would the absinthe be animated? Would it sing a song?

[Lonespark]

Yeah, most of the Andersen stories I'm familiar with have endings I would characterize as bittersweet. Not happy, certainly, but not despairing either.

[Lonespark]

It's more the fact that it hasn't gone up since...1991? that got me, but yeah.

[Izzy]

Javert: totally a bloodhound. Or maybe a German Shepherd. Some sort of dog.

I have a vague memory of a...not Animaniacs, but one of their side-shows? With the big dumb dog and the snarky cat named...Rita?...doing a Les Mis episode, or at least an "At the End of the Day" number.

And indeed, "Les Miseranimals". Thank you, Internet.

[Lonespark]

Possibly that was not actually Faramir? Like his cousin thought it would be a great prank to pretend to be him? And Arwen is one of those cases where, hey, it's pretty nice to give a female character a larger role...as long as you don't set her up to be hated by large portions of the audience, because that is the opposite of helping...

Now I kind of want at least one Tolkien-based film that passes the Bechdel test and then some, like with Melian and Galadriel and Luthien hanging out and practicing magic along with some combat skills and being awesome and having various adventures and then coming back to take bubblebaths and talk about guys. Most of that is more-or-less canon-supported.

[sarah]

@Amaranth: I saw The Pursuit of Happyness while I was working in a homeless shelter. I saw it with one of my co-workers, and we both walked out afterward and were like, so why did we choose to see that? We see this shit every day. That was *not* an escape.

Plus, they definitely made the guy's life more movie-friendly and cut out some of the nastier bits. Not everyone is as lucky as Mr. Happyness-guy. Hell, even *real* Mr. Happyness-guy wasn't as lucky as movie Mr. Happyness-guy.

@Raj: Happy birthday! :)

[Izzy]

@Lonespark: I would so watch that. Like, I would get cable just to watch that miniseries, that's how much I would watch that.

Also, I like Sketchy Cousin Faramir. Fauxamir?

[Lonespark]

You're totally right, a miniseries would be good. They are good for lots of things.

[chris the cynic]

Did a sizable post by me get spam filtered, or was the problem on my end?

[Jason]

Happy birthday Raj and Sarah!

I personally am eagerly awaiting the Disney version of Dante's Inferno featuring a peppy musical number for each level of hell and Patrick Warburton as Virgil!

Also I can't wait for their new happier version of the Scarlet Letter which will add Hester as a new Disney princess.

[Rowen]

Many of Anderson's stories are fairly bittersweet.

In the Flying Trunk, the trunk gets burned, thus not allowing the main character to rescue the princess in the tower. In the Wild Swans, the princess doesn't finish her shirts before she's sentenced as a witch, and thus her youngest brother is stuck with one of his arms as a swan's wing. In the Red Shoes, well, Karen goes through hell because she wanted a pair of shoes and is only allowed solace when she repents of her "vanity", goes through self mutilation and dies. In the Shadow, the hero dies and his shadow marries the woman he loves. The prince in the Swineherd is . .. well, a big jerk, even if the both the princess and the king are annoying and arrogant. Little Ida's Flowers all die at the end.

He does have some happy endings (The Princess and the Pea, the Elf Mound. . .Sorta, with the Snow Queen), but even those can be much darker then what I see of "Acceptable" modern day children's literature and entertainment.

[sarah]

The Little Matchstick girl might be one of Anderson's saddest stories.

Hester as Disney princess...the scene in the woods would be rather interesting. She takes off the bonnet and starts singing.

[The Board Administration Team]

@chris the cynic: Did a sizable post by me get spam filtered, or was the problem on my end?

Checked back 3 hours in the spam trap and didn't find your post so the problem is either: a) at your end or b) one of the mysteries that is TypePad.

[AnaMardoll]

Sleeping Beauty is another. Let's just say that in the original, it wasn't true love's kiss that woke her.

Pet Peeve Alert!

There are very few "originals" of fairy tales available to us. (There are some. "Beauty and the Beast" was originally written only a few hundred years ago, but it was also based in older Beast Bridegroom tales, so the originality of the work can be argued a bit.)

One of my biggest pet peeves is someone speaking about "the original version of the fairy tale". Almost every fairy tale ever has multiple versions in multiple countries, and it's pretty much impossible to tell which version was "first" or if they sprung up independently of each other.

There are several versions of sleeping beauties being awakened after a long sleep. In some of the tales, they are awakened by kisses, in other tales they are awakened when an object causing the sleep was expelled from the throat or the body (food, hair combs, clothing). There are other versions where the beauty is awakened by sex or by giving birth.

There is also a very old version of Red Riding Hood that would appear to have been performed as a strip-tease.

Quite a few people have made a very good living looking into fairy tale archetypes and how they seem to have issued forth from very different places independently of one another. The take-away here is that you should pretty much never, ever say "in the original fairy tale" because we quite frankly don't HAVE originals for most of them and we're not certain that originals ever existed in terms of "the first from whence all other versions flowed".

OMG, I am a pedant on the internet. Sorry about that. :(

[Rowen]

With regards to history classes in America being Euro/American centric . . . there's a part of that I don't mind. I think that if you're in a country/state, many of your classes will focus on how that state fits into things. (btw, there's a difference between "We live in Texas, and therefore take a specialized class on Texas history" and "World War I was a bunch of Europeans bickering until America came and laid the smackdown.") I can also get that the 10th grade teacher's response to someone asking why we aren't learning much about Africa being "Well, unfortunately, we have a curriculum to follow, and there's a LOT of history out there and there won't be much time to study African history/the Han dynasty/the Meiji Restoration/etc. However, I can give you some pointers of where to look if you'd like."

My point was that, even in the higher levels, we teach this VERY linear and sequential view of history and students often don't get things like, "Mary Queen of Scots was born while Michelangelo was still alive, but after Columbus sailed across the Atlantic."

[Lonespark]

Well, we were studying WWI, and WWII and Korea and Vietnam and the Carter administration and just basically skipping over any of the things that happened in Not-US and Not-Europe that were reasons or consequences, plus also campaigns in the wars fought in Africa...plus also colonialism in general, mostly. Now that I think about it, I think it was "modern world history," the sequel to "ancient/pre-Colonial America" history which we had in grade 9, so it was really weird because we had talked a lot about colonialism in the first half, but then...it ceased to exist/have consequences? Gaaaaah.

[Lonespark]

And yes, I agree that learning local history is very important and often overlooked.

[Ross]

My point was that, even in the higher levels, we teach this VERY linear and sequential view of history and students often don't get things like, "Mary Queen of Scots was born while Michelangelo was still alive, but after Columbus sailed across the Atlantic."

These always get me at bar trivia. I know quite a lot about history, but have very little sense of what order things happened in when they aren't part of the same "narrative". So I'll get the kings of england in the right order, and I'll get the kings of france in the right order*, but could not for the life of me tell you who the king of england was when Louis VIII was reigning.

(* Conveniently, like 90% of french kings were named Louis )

[sarah]

In 10th grade, my history teacher did a unit on the US involvement in Latin America in the late 20th century. It was...eye-opening. We had to do presentations, and I can remember the one on the Iran-Contra scandal, which made everyone in the class kind of go cross-eyed with a bit of "well, *that* was confusing." Plus it happened in our lifetimes, since most of us were born in '83 or '84.

That was also the year that you also learned about imperialism and colonialism, so I think we had a good sense by the end that the Western world had done a lot of wrong.

[rejiquar]

On dizzy's Little Mermaid: like Izzy, I never felt getting a soul counted for anything, since, particularly around the time I was reading the original version, I was very much annoyed and feeling deceived, that `souls' were merely a comforting lie. In my view, she got screwed. I still hate that ending.

So I really liked the dizzy version, despite its imperfections. I liked that she and her prince worked as a team to defeat their enemies, and that he used his brains and tools (the ship) to take down Ursula. I also liked the twist where the sea-witch's ugly monsters clutching at Ariel were actually enchanted mers, trying to save her.

I even liked Hunchback, despite some major problems; if nothing else, I felt obligated to read the original!

[Libby]

Ruby: One of my pet peeves is the idea that the book is always superior to the movie.

Cases in point: Jaws and Schindler's List

Shrek
Twilight
The Princess Bride
...Left Behind? ;)

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Case in point:

The Shawshank Redemption

[Mmy]

Case in point:

The Manchurian Candidate
The Godfather

[sarah]

The Princess Bride's not a bad book. It's mainly just darker than the movie...which I love, by the way. :)

[Mmy]

Sometimes books and movies can each be good in different ways.

[Kit Whitfield]

Case in point:

Rosemary's Baby

[Kit Whitfield]

and personally i prefer the film version of LA confidential

[Mmy]

@Kit Whitfield: In the case of both Rosemary's Baby and LA Confidential I felt that the movie versions excised many parts of books I found either/both problematic/flabby.

[Kit Whitfield]

yeah- i felt la confidential was less sour and dogmatic, and rb was, well, more artful. levin's a good writer, but polanski, whatever his faults as a human being, is an exceptional director.

[Libby]

Sarah: The Princess Bride's not a bad book.
It's not bad, but I found Goldman's whole "this is an annotated abridgement" affectation to be really annoying. I'm not as much of a fan of the movie as most people seem to be, but I found the movie frame was much less intrusive and dismissive than the author's in-text commentary.

[J. Random Scribbler]

Wow, yeah, "The Shawshank Redemption" was pretty much my favorite movie for years (still one of the favorites.) Stephen King's written version didn't seem like much, by comparison. Granted it was a short story so there just wasn't room for as much stuff, but even the main arc just seemed sort of... flat, I guess.

And if we're talking 'movie better than book', has anyone ever read "Children of Men"? It's just a completely different story. The movie was a work of genius, IMHO, but the written version was so forgettable that I don't even actually remember whether it was a book or a short story or what.

On the actual topic, everything that leaps to mind is either political or religious or both rather than strictly literary. Is that risking too much of a derail?

[Izzy]

Also, Buttercup is *way* less intelligent in the book. Argh.

Liked both the movie and book of Shawshank Redemption, though in different ways, as mmy mentions.

Rejiquar: See, I even believe in souls, but...enh. If you're going to set up a whole race of beings who *don't* have them, and say that getting one is a huge deal, then that itself creates problems that TLM doesn't deal with.

[Mmy]

@J. Random Scribbler: has anyone ever read "Children of Men"? It's just a completely different story. The movie was a work of genius, IMHO, but the written version was so forgettable that I don't even actually remember whether it was a book or a short story or what.

I hesitate to weigh in on the book since P.D.James a) was using a fairly common scifi trope which I had read many times before and which I was holding her book up against even if that wasn't the right standard and b) her didactic religiousity rather got in the way for me

but

and this is relevant to Left Behind the movie nails the emotional flavour of a world without children.

SPOILER

The reaction of the armed men to the sight of a child -- the near religious quality of the moment was stunning.

[truth is life]

World War I? "There was some fighting over something or other over in Europe and then America came over and saved the day!"

World War II? same, pretty much, but we did learn about the Holocaust too.

I think by the end of the school year we got as far as the US saving the day in Vietnam...

Wait, but aren't you Hungarian? *Mind boggles*

[sarah]

US saving the day in Vietnam? What?

[chris the cynic]

Checked back 3 hours in the spam trap and didn't find your post so the problem is either: a) at your end or b) one of the mysteries that is TypePad.

Lucky I have a nearly complete copy then.

-

I don't like the idea that something has to be "original", or that a retelling has to stick to the original script.

For an example of the first thing:

I think Homer is better than Vergil. I think he does characters better amoung other things. But I don't like the argument that Vergil is worse because he was ripping off Homer. Homer was basing his work on a collection of oral traditions all of them made by people not-him. He gathered them together, he arranged them as he saw fit, altered them wherever it suited him, and made them his own. The fact that they don't survive is a tribute to the fact that people thought Homer's unoriginal interpretation was better.

Homer's unoriginal work is still loved going on 3000 years later. (Approximately 2800 is going on 3000, right?) Show me an original work with that kind of staying power. Remakes last. Well, certain good remakes do at any rate.

-

On the other thing I brought up, consider Medea. As near as we can tell in the pre-Euripides versions of the story she didn't kill her kids on purpose. Either someone else killed her kids, or it was an accident, or they didn't die. (They had to have not died in some versions because we have the story of what at least one of them did later on.) Euripides changed that. He told the story differently, some would say wrong.

It's entirely possible that some people at the time screamed, "MEDEA DIDN'T MURDER HER SONS!" when the play first ran (it only got third place) but now the story is that way and if you make one where it doesn't happen people will say that you're wrong. Unless you do it very well. If you do it very well then you have the potential to do what Euripides did and shift the way people think the story is supposed to be told.

-

Greek Tragedy is composed, pretty much, of two things. The first is remakes. The second is new stories inserted into the existing framework by changing something. (Or doing something wrong, if one prefers to see it that way.) Iphigenia didn't really die she was ... replaced with a deer at the moment of sacrifice so that she could be taken over here and have an adventure with her brother later on. Yeah, that's it. And people must have thought that had merit because it wouldn't survive otherwise. It takes a lot of work to get something from then to now, most things don't make the transition. (Tragedies were made in trilogies, of all such trilogies ever made only one complete trilogy survives to this day. Just one.)

I singled out Greek tragedy there, but I'm pretty sure the same can be said of epic. As for Latin works in those areas, they are delightfully derivative. Sometimes they go out of their way to remind you just how self consciously derivative they are.

If there were an aversion to retelling stories, or an aversion to radically altering stories, when these stories were made the entire body of Greek and Roman myth as it is known to us would not exist. That would be sad. (Though it is interesting to ponder what would exist in its place.)

Gilgamesh as we know it would likewise not exist, but once I step away from Latin and Greek I'm out of my area.

[chris the cynic]

Random not of randomness. Vergil's name is Vergil, in spite of what my built in spell checker may think. His name is actually Publius Vergilius Maro. Note the e in Vergilius. So why do so many people put an i there? As near as anyone can tell the reason is very, very stupid.

You see Vergil is all good and pure and awesome (I'll grant the good, and I'm willing to haggle on the awesome, but I have no idea where the pure comes from) and the spelling is so close to virgin, and virgins are good and pure and awesome (I'd actually guess that virginity is independent of those things) and so clearly Vergil should be spelled -- Please for the love of God tell me you're not seriously doing something this idiotic. -- as I was saying, it should be spelled Virgil to make it closer to the spelling of virgin. Face, meet palm. Palm, meet face.

That's the going theory at any rate. Or it was when last I heard.

[chris the cynic]

*Random note of randomness.

Why do I not notice these things when I preview?

Also I should be clear that the attempt to change the name Vergil to Virgil happened a long time ago. When I say it is stupid I am not addressing that towards anyone alive today. Unless they're very old vampires or otherwise disconnected from ordinary human lifespans. Even then it only applies if they were involved in the attempt to change the spelling.

[Froborr]

Except for the bit about there not being a "true" version of The Little Mermaid. Peter Pan, Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Oliver Twist, those are all stories with identifiable authors and a single original text, unlike Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and the more "folk tale"-ish Disney movies.

Doesn't matter; even those versions are still fictional. "This version is older," seems to me a completely arbitrary distinction; what matters is which version is better.

(Major exception: There *is* a true version of history, because history actually happened. The departures from historical accuracy in Disney's Pocahontas are thus a valid criticism.)

I'm sympathetic to the "false advertising" thing--but what does how a work is advertised have to do with the work itself? That's what bothers me--a work should always be judged for itself, regardless of what other works may or may not exist, or what the marketing department chose to do, or anything like that.

One scene that I LOATHED in Jackson's LOTR is Eowyn vs the Nazgul king. Jackson had an opportunity to do something really special and REALLY bring home the message that you don't have to be a wizard or a special elf to make a difference. What does he do? Eowyn bumbles her way into killing the Nazgul King and is IMMEDIATELY overshadowed by Legolas taking down an oliphant. It becomes total fanboy cgi masturbation and is a scene no where to be found in the book.

When I saw it in theaters (all three times) Eowyn's big moment got the biggest cheer of the movie, while Legolas' got a laugh for Gimli's line and that was about it. I agree the Mumak scene was pointless, but I really don't understand your complaints about Eowyn's. They changed the dialogue a little, in ways that I think make sense, but the physical events are near-identical to the book, and nothing about it suggests to me that Eowyn is "bumbling." As in the book: Eowyn is physically outclassed and terrified; she kills the flying creature; the initial exhange of blows with the Witch-King ends with her shield destroyed and her left arm broken; Merry takes advantage of being ignored to injure the Witch-King; Eowyn takes advantage of the injury to kill him.

The LOTR movies are a good example of what I'm talking about, actually. Some of the changes from the books are good (cutting Tom Bombadil), some are bad (Aragorn going off the cliff in Two Towers). That's what matters--is this a good moment? A good scene? A good movie? Not whether it slavishly follows the book down to the tiniest detail. It's kind of like the peeve people were mentioning above--choosing to follow the book is still a choice, and it is sometimes a bad one.