(no subject)

[oyceter]

I supported two independent presses and three independent bookstores this weekend ^_^. Aka, my book spending is still out of control.

Busy weekend. I ended up going to San Francisco yesterday to see Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkins and Karen Joy Fowler talk about the Tiptree Award. I didn't know very much about the Tiptree Award previously, so it was a great fun listening to them talk about how they created the award. And bake sales. I am amused that Bruce Sterling baked cookies. And I didn't realize I would want to take notes until they started talking, so I ended up not being able to. However, I'm not quite sure how new the information would be to people on LJ, given that it seems a good deal of people have been to Wiscon before and probably know all about the Tiptree? Anyhow, I ended up buying the new Tiptree Award anthology and getting that, along with Fowler's Artificial Things and Sarah Canary, signed. I was particularly excited because they mentioned that Kara Dalkey's Japanese Snow Queen story that was in Firebirds, along with a new translation of "Snow Queen" and another short story based on it. One of my favorite fairy tales. Of course, after hearing that, I had to buy the book immediately. I also ended up finding Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Book. I did feel rather awkward after the panel, because it seemed like most of the people who had gone there knew each other and were quite comfortable standing around chatting. I ended up sort of hiding behind stacks of books. I'm not very good at the whole social thing, so I keep flip-flopping around as to whether I should try going to a con or not.

Also ended up watching The Incredibles. I liked it, but was rather irked by the gender roles. Why start out by having Elastigirl proclaim that she wouldn't want to give up her secret identity to settle down and then have her be a typical housewife? Also, I was rather annoyed by how the female characters were reluctant to use their special powers while the male ones weren't. And if I were married to Mr. Incredible, I would have been really mad at him, galivanting around while I was stuck at home with the kids. And the girls were all stick thin.

Mostly I wasn't quite sure what Brad Bird was trying to say about superpowers. The boy thinks I'm sort of overanalyzing, but the movie was asking the questions! And while part of me thinks it's unfun to have to supress secret powers, I didn't actually have too much sympathy for Dash wanting to run the race. And there seemed to be this disturbing undertone on normality and how normal people just want to cut super people down to size because of jealousy.

I was very amused by assorted things like the snippet on the dangers of capes. And Edna is the bomb. Daaahlink. Tee hee. I think I may have embarrassed the boy by laughing really loudly everytime Edna was on the screen, but seriously, she was the bomb. And everyone else was laughing too. Movie also gets bonus points for cool uses of superpowers (I liked the speedboat thing).

And today I met fannishly, and we talked about many things ranging from the joys of Angel, Asian mothers complaining about people being too fat, depression and LJ! Yay, fandom folk from Taiwan! There should be a club ;).

Comments

[fannishly.livejournal.com]

Yay, fandom folk from Taiwan! There should be a club ;).

*signs up*

:)

[oyceter]

Sweet ^_^. Now there are two of us!

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I saw the Incredibles last night as well, and I thought that it deserved the criticisms some people wrongly aimed at the Meers/Wells plots of BtVS. And also that Pixar are massive hypocrites, but I'll expand on my own journal.

[oyceter]

Oh good, looking forward to your coming entry.

[luned.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip on Snow Queen stories.

As for the Tiptree Award stuff, I don't know much about it, and from what I've heard about the con, I'd feel about as welcome there as fleas at a cat show.

[oyceter]

Ohh =(. Really? It sounded like the people who went there last year had fun...

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

And while part of me thinks it's unfun to have to supress secret powers, I didn't actually have too much sympathy for Dash wanting to run the race. And there seemed to be this disturbing undertone on normality and how normal people just want to cut super people down to size because of jealousy.

Bounced in through KDS. That aspect of the film bugged me too. Dash's racing is sort of a contrast to "Earshot". On the one hand, Nancy is shown as that irritating over-acheiver/wannabe type like Syndrome is, and yet there's also the sense that it's something akin to cheating for Buffy to use her Telepathy to her advantage in class.

The movie was tons and tons of fun to watch, but I did find it disquieting too. It does seem to take too much joy out of punking on people who have the misfortune to be born without SuperPowers.

[oyceter]

Yeah. KdS says it much better than I do though! And there is that not-so-nice undercurrent that superpowers are somehow genetics, which makes the issue even thornier.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And it's problematic, because whenever a storyteller divides the population into two classes of people: Those who are Super (have potential/are chosen) and those who are not, my scrutiny as a reader is directed toward what the teller has to say about the Have Nots.

[oyceter]

Right. I was wondering if Brad Bird was maybe trying to draw an extended analogy between the Supers and gifted people (geniuses, athletes, etc.), but the sheer extent of the superpowers stretched it, imho. Or maybe he was trying to make the same point Vonnegut was in "Harrison Bergeron"?

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wonder that too.

I remember, by the time the Potential Slayer storyline came around in S7 of BtVS, I started to wonder if Joss Whedon ever watched ESPN. The portrayal of Potential/Slayer/Everybody Else and the gender/power (and by power I mean might) isues felt sort of quaint to me when I was watching 13-year old Michelle Wie compete in a Men's Golf Pro-Am, and when I could watch Serena Williams on Sports Center. Were we getting into Slayer:Human::Olympic Athlete:Human sort of a situation. But my thoughts on that never really got anywhere coherent.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'd be interested to hear what you say about DC Comics, which I posted about here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/scrollgirl/161640.html) partly as a response to KdS' posts on The Incredibles and Buffy S7. I've always enjoyed stories where the hero was "special" in some way -- magic powers, super strength, whatever -- but I have to agree that if the supporting characters who don't have powers aren't treated with respect or aren't written as having some kind of agency and purpose, then I'd probably look askance at the overall message.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I'm not really a comics reader, so I can't really respond in much of an informed manner.

I've no problem with the story wherein the hero is "special" in some way. The thing is, I tend to read things in a very political manner, and democratic/egalitarian politics requires me to consider the idea that everybody's special. Whether we're aware of it or not...

I also should point out, that as a reader/viewer, I don't identify directly with or as the Hero. Mostly, I think in terms of "my parents live in that town".

So yeah, the super hero is special. But just because nobody tells a story about him, it doesn't mean that the guy who sells him the newspaper or the lady in line at the bodega isn't special too.

People have a whole host of different talents, whether it's cleverness or super-hearing, or one thing or another. But it's heart-spirit-mind that I care about. Physically manifest superpowers make for an interesting laboratory for that, but aren't required.

Buffy is my favorit of Whedon's characters, but I always liked her best for the non-Physical-Power aspects of her character. What I like were aspects of story wherein Buffy had to determine what was valuable to her (and when what was valuable to her extended beyond herself toward those who shared her community), wherein Buffy had to examine what she was capable of (and when that capability extended beyond simple questions of physical capability), and how she could take action (and recruit, persuade and influence others to act) in order to bring about positive change and good.

And none of that required her to have superpowers. It just required her to demonstrate virtuous character. When writers nelect that, I lose interest. Because I never forget that the superpowers are a reality to the character, whereas not having superpowers is a reality of my life. So I can't just take the superpowers... I have to be able to take things from it that can be unwound and separated from the SuperPower.

[oyceter]

I haven't read all that many superhero comics either, but throwing in my two cents. I'm mostly interested in the Batman comics because of the fine line between Batman and many of the villains he fights, but then, my Batman view is highly influenced by Dark Knight Returns. I like reading about the difficulty of using power, and what can happen when someone is too focused on vigilante work and not enough on the people behind it. So it's the flip side of superpowers and being special (even though Batman doesn't have them.. hrm, bad example), and I like looking at how being special can be isolating. Obviously, I read Ender's Game way too many times as a kid ;).

The more optimistic view of it (imho) would be the Spiderman movies, in which Peter Parker is much like Buffy. He doesn't even have to have superpowers to go and help, and I like him because he really is out there trying to do good, not only via his Spiderman persona but in his life. I like how Raimi shows that Peter doing good can't really be separated from Spiderman doing good, because like dlgood says, it's not the specialness, it's the heart behind it.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I'm posting this point on different LjJ's the discussion's extending over, but it's interesting that the only Incredibles character we get an origin for is the villain. Which ties in with the idea that super-powers are just divinely and ineffably ordained gifts.

[oyceter]

Yes -- it seems to break away from what I think of as typical superhero narrative tradition, which places a good deal of emphasis on the origins of the superpowers.

Oh, one positive gender aspect of "Incredibles"

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

That the villain's girl is shown to betray him for thoroughly sensible reasons (his demonstration that he didn't give a crap if she died) and not because she's overcome with desire for the hero's manly charms.

Re: Oh, one positive gender aspect of "Incredibles"

[oyceter]

Good point. Thank goodness! Though I was, heh, ready to slap someone when Mr. Incredible started doing the "I can't lose you again, so please stay behind" bit, though luckily Pixar didn't go through with that.