Sometimes fantasy and our shared reality intersect.
We're quick to tout that sort of thing when science fiction paints the blueprint for science's advances or becomes an intelligent platform for social commentary. Usually, what we define as fantasy is composed of elements not readily or likely to be duplicated without selective changes to physics. Those considerations are all part of the ride those adventures promise when we open the portal to other times and places.
That said, there are some things I can do without. Political correctness is something I consider a needless corruptive influence. I do not feel that the addition of black Vulcans to Star Trek was warranted by the lore nor a choice that improved Star Trek: Voyager. I've never been a fan of anachronistically shoving social enlightenment into the spotlight of a medieval historical adventure, for example, just to make an excuse for throwing a female warrior into the action. Pure fantasy, set in fictional, non-historical worlds, seems to handle that sort of thing better. You'll find female warriors there without the baggage of a civil rights movement. They just exist. It's accepted and the story moves on. Likewise, there have been female warriors and even gladiatrixes in history. You may know about them if you went looking for them. You may not know about them. They didn't come with sweeping social movements. They just were, like many of their male counterparts, and then they were gone. The story moved along.
Tolkien's Middle Earth is supposed to be a version of Earth long ago. Do I find it odd that all the humans are white? Considering the world it's supposed to be, yes. Considering the source of the fiction, I do not. Has the homogenized view affected my enjoyment of the work or its adaptations? No. Skin color and cultural representations aren't big factors in Tolkien's work and not weighing upon the mind of the audience. I will never petition for any kind of multi-ethnic representation in such work. It'd be ridiculous. If you want a melting pot, there's always Conan and Howard's Hyborean Age. If you want an un-melting pot, check out Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, and watch as a series whose overarching storylines heavily involve genetic engineering gradually winnow diversity into a monochromatic central cast. In the least subtle maneuvers of the show, the mysterious and purple Trance Gemini was not only rendered tailless, but tags out of the show to swap places with a white, future version of herself. Maybe the make-up was irritating, but odd storywise.
Conversely, I find it a little bothersome that most of the non-white humans in the very popular products of Georges Lucas and Martin seem to be tied into slavery. For Lucas, it's hidden under stormtrooper helmets, but all those clones of Jango Fett constitute a slave race that was created to fight a war. For Martin, it's the Unsullied, a similarly dehumanized group of slave warriors. Maybe it's important to their storylines that these groups be slaves, but is it also necessary that the otherwise barely represented non-white humans be slaves? Is it a subtle racism. Is it overt? Is it something I'd rather not have leaking into fantasy? There's enough here and certainly not something I went looking for in escapist fare. Such choices would seem to be rather like a poker tell. Or a big neon sign, flashing, "Look at how I see things!"
I suppose what got me started on this was a video game. It was an otherwise ordinary one, fantasy world with real-time resource management that's become very popular. Not much different from StarCraft, really, except that instead of humans and aliens, it gives humans and dwarves, elves, orcs and dark elves. Whichever group you're running as the storyline proceeds, you send workers to gather resources. In StarCraft, it's drones. In this game, they're workers. Oh, unless you're using dark elves. Dark elf workers are labeled as slaves. *sigh* Seriously? I was having a perfectly fine writing break, playing a little fantasy game, then you had to make me ask, "Why are the dark elf workers slaves?" I know, some of you may not understand, but it just messes up the game for me by being jarred with the "Racism's still alive" hammer.
There are a lot of crayons in the box. When the devil creeps into specific details, it says a lot about the artist. Remember Aladdin? Not the derivative versions, but the original. In the Tales of the Arabian Nights, he was Chinese. Why? Because his tale was set in China. The story goes out of its way, though, to make mention that there are also "evil Jews" at the marketplace. Was that important to the story? No, neither then nor now. Hmmm...sounds like some cultural bias.
It ends up acting like a toxic spill, making me wonder about subtle racism in other places. I see previews for CW's upcoming "Star-crossed" show, for example, and I notice that their idea of aliens is white kids with tattoos. They're going to have to do more than that to give them a hard time fitting in, I figure. A kid from the Middle East would have a harder time dating in America's middle class gene pool.
These are things that usually don't trouble my mind or cloud my writing. I'm not a fan of hatred or stupidity. Racism certainly isn't my "go to" when I look for motivators. Greed, lust, envy...the classics are the ones I start with. Racism is pretty low on my list and has to be rather visible before I make the accusation. Just ask any of my friends and acquaintances. Most of them are human. They may feel differently about all this stuff than I, but that's OK. They're friends, not clones. Everybody's taste buds are a little different, so are the ways in which one's mind receives words and pictures and ideas. That's what being subjective is about.
Every creation, yours or someone else's, may teach you something about yourself.
Showing posts with label psyche. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psyche. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Friday, August 26, 2011
16392--Lowering the Bar
I'm...wondering about us. I'm not just wondering about a selective "us". No, this time, I find myself concerned about the collective "us".
Stop rolling your eyes. This is for your benefit, too.
Our stories are our mythologies. They aren't strict histories, but they are tales of us and our culture. They may be more telling now than any other time we know as we have not only local cultures, but grand global culture as well. Tales of the global culture have grown and changed over the last few decades, with creators and audiences finding comfort in exploring greater levels of detail and emotional depth.
We have largely foresaken simplistic tales for those deemed more realistic. As a result, we have populated our stories with protagonists and antagonists who find themselves sharing more traits with each other. Antagonists who wear the mantle of tragedy or show some quality making them worthy of redemption have become most interesting. Likewise, protagonists are heralded not for the heroic qualities they use to rise above crisis and conflict, but their own flaws over which they find triumph in spite of lest they be deemed lacking of sufficient dimensionality. While we are certain we have gained previously unknown richness in our entertainment, have we done so at too great a cost to ourselves?
We have given ourselves protagonists increasingly willing to embrace internal darkness as part of their nature rather than as a part of their struggle. Flaws have become less the uncertain footing for a hero to guard against and more the traction of his foundation. A character like Superman has been deemed "too good" by many with his heroic ideals considered to be something to which we can no longer relate. Many modern folk have come to champion Batman and Wolverine as examples of those with whom they can find greater comfort because of their darker aspects. What are we saying about ourselves when we find that we're happier dealing with a hero who's a brooding alcoholic willing to take a few shortcuts to win the day than one who's willing to put other people's needs ahead of his own and make the right choices even though they're hard choices? On what side of the line in the sand have we chosen to stand when we find more ready respect for a villain than a hero?
Have we lowered the bar too much? In some ways, it seems we have. I've become concerned for us because it has started to look like we are more comfortable with protagonists and antagonists who seem more realistic because of the challenges they don't represent rather than those that they do. An antagonist we can understand is one we can possibly talk with rather than fight. A protagonist who doesn't stand as too tall a role model, daunting us with lofty aspirations, makes us feel less inadequate but also gives us lower goals for which to reach. Sadly, we're left lost and confused.
Remember the TV series "Heroes"? It started off with decent energy, but lost its way as the most heroic heroes squandered their potential and became too flawed to function. As that went on, the show's most villainous villains had themselves more put together than the heroes to the point that the baffled audience no longer knew for whom to cheer. The show ended quietly, mercifully, as ratings fell along with interest. On this side of the TV screen, we've likewise been battered with years of ridiculous presidential failures. Some have been as simple as maligning English and the image of the office. Others been more blatant machinations like lying to Congress and We the People, having the audacity to question the definition of "is" to avoid answers or engaging in complex criminal activities while investigators and whistleblowers die off in curious ways. Flaws and shortcomings like these will apparently persist as long as we abide them. Are they what we want? We are the ones who've decided to hold people to a lowered standard.
I recently found myself ready to fight over one noted writer's notion that Superman was disliked because of his working-class background while Batman was loved for being a billionaire who beat up poor people, thus representing a wish fulfillment fantasy. My vehement response included a recommendation that said writer had at the least become a victim of his self-professed drug use and could do far worse than to submit himself for psychiatric evaluation. If surveyed regarding his opinions, I will obviously choose the "strongly disagree" option. I don't think we've gone so far afield yet that we've completely lost sight of the "good guys versus bad guys" basics.
In a time when many of us have become more comfortable with celebrating mediocrity and comforting underachievers, however, it seems to be increasingly within reason that we would succumb to this brand of socialism that has us seeking our lowest common denominator. That's the thing about socialism, though: you can bring everybody down, but you can't lift everyone up. It seems odd and sad that many of us have given in to weariness, since we have so long held that our reach should exceed our grasp and aspired to better ourselves. I know, though, that we know better than to merely surrender. Just as satisfaction comes from achieving our goals, it wears on us to fail. We have always set that standard of success as having the will to rise that one last time and to never stop striving to be more than we already are. That's the heroism that blossoms from within us. It fuels our strength to rise, our courage to be unselfish and our will to face our fears. It brings none of us down and can lift everyone up. That is a part of ourselves we must never relinquish or we resign ourselves to always being less than our best.
Oh, sure, a certain level of laziness, settling for less and reclining in comfort holds a basic physical appeal to us. We need it. This allows us to enjoy our rest from our efforts and relax. There's a limit to how much of that we can handle, though. That's the line where outright sloth begins. Reaching for more is inherent in our psyche, a basic part of driving us to improve. Looking at it closely, it still appears to be worth our efforts not to abandon anytime soon. Daring ourselves to dream means not lowering the bar. It means finding the strength to fight evils that are indeed evil and not merely misunderstood, just as it means allowing ourselves to feel worthy of heroes who are better, stronger and faster than we are so that we might learn to fly and continue to achieve ever-greater goals.
Stop rolling your eyes. This is for your benefit, too.
Our stories are our mythologies. They aren't strict histories, but they are tales of us and our culture. They may be more telling now than any other time we know as we have not only local cultures, but grand global culture as well. Tales of the global culture have grown and changed over the last few decades, with creators and audiences finding comfort in exploring greater levels of detail and emotional depth.
We have largely foresaken simplistic tales for those deemed more realistic. As a result, we have populated our stories with protagonists and antagonists who find themselves sharing more traits with each other. Antagonists who wear the mantle of tragedy or show some quality making them worthy of redemption have become most interesting. Likewise, protagonists are heralded not for the heroic qualities they use to rise above crisis and conflict, but their own flaws over which they find triumph in spite of lest they be deemed lacking of sufficient dimensionality. While we are certain we have gained previously unknown richness in our entertainment, have we done so at too great a cost to ourselves?
We have given ourselves protagonists increasingly willing to embrace internal darkness as part of their nature rather than as a part of their struggle. Flaws have become less the uncertain footing for a hero to guard against and more the traction of his foundation. A character like Superman has been deemed "too good" by many with his heroic ideals considered to be something to which we can no longer relate. Many modern folk have come to champion Batman and Wolverine as examples of those with whom they can find greater comfort because of their darker aspects. What are we saying about ourselves when we find that we're happier dealing with a hero who's a brooding alcoholic willing to take a few shortcuts to win the day than one who's willing to put other people's needs ahead of his own and make the right choices even though they're hard choices? On what side of the line in the sand have we chosen to stand when we find more ready respect for a villain than a hero?
Have we lowered the bar too much? In some ways, it seems we have. I've become concerned for us because it has started to look like we are more comfortable with protagonists and antagonists who seem more realistic because of the challenges they don't represent rather than those that they do. An antagonist we can understand is one we can possibly talk with rather than fight. A protagonist who doesn't stand as too tall a role model, daunting us with lofty aspirations, makes us feel less inadequate but also gives us lower goals for which to reach. Sadly, we're left lost and confused.
Remember the TV series "Heroes"? It started off with decent energy, but lost its way as the most heroic heroes squandered their potential and became too flawed to function. As that went on, the show's most villainous villains had themselves more put together than the heroes to the point that the baffled audience no longer knew for whom to cheer. The show ended quietly, mercifully, as ratings fell along with interest. On this side of the TV screen, we've likewise been battered with years of ridiculous presidential failures. Some have been as simple as maligning English and the image of the office. Others been more blatant machinations like lying to Congress and We the People, having the audacity to question the definition of "is" to avoid answers or engaging in complex criminal activities while investigators and whistleblowers die off in curious ways. Flaws and shortcomings like these will apparently persist as long as we abide them. Are they what we want? We are the ones who've decided to hold people to a lowered standard.
I recently found myself ready to fight over one noted writer's notion that Superman was disliked because of his working-class background while Batman was loved for being a billionaire who beat up poor people, thus representing a wish fulfillment fantasy. My vehement response included a recommendation that said writer had at the least become a victim of his self-professed drug use and could do far worse than to submit himself for psychiatric evaluation. If surveyed regarding his opinions, I will obviously choose the "strongly disagree" option. I don't think we've gone so far afield yet that we've completely lost sight of the "good guys versus bad guys" basics.
In a time when many of us have become more comfortable with celebrating mediocrity and comforting underachievers, however, it seems to be increasingly within reason that we would succumb to this brand of socialism that has us seeking our lowest common denominator. That's the thing about socialism, though: you can bring everybody down, but you can't lift everyone up. It seems odd and sad that many of us have given in to weariness, since we have so long held that our reach should exceed our grasp and aspired to better ourselves. I know, though, that we know better than to merely surrender. Just as satisfaction comes from achieving our goals, it wears on us to fail. We have always set that standard of success as having the will to rise that one last time and to never stop striving to be more than we already are. That's the heroism that blossoms from within us. It fuels our strength to rise, our courage to be unselfish and our will to face our fears. It brings none of us down and can lift everyone up. That is a part of ourselves we must never relinquish or we resign ourselves to always being less than our best.
Oh, sure, a certain level of laziness, settling for less and reclining in comfort holds a basic physical appeal to us. We need it. This allows us to enjoy our rest from our efforts and relax. There's a limit to how much of that we can handle, though. That's the line where outright sloth begins. Reaching for more is inherent in our psyche, a basic part of driving us to improve. Looking at it closely, it still appears to be worth our efforts not to abandon anytime soon. Daring ourselves to dream means not lowering the bar. It means finding the strength to fight evils that are indeed evil and not merely misunderstood, just as it means allowing ourselves to feel worthy of heroes who are better, stronger and faster than we are so that we might learn to fly and continue to achieve ever-greater goals.
Monday, July 11, 2011
16346--Born of Tragedy, Tempered by Conflict: Why It Gets Our Attention
I've often heard it said that people love to cheer for an underdog in a conflict. I also often heard that everybody loves a winner.
Conflict seems to be nourishing to our spirits. When we can't find it externally, many of us will find a way to generate it internally. It might be as simple as suddenly wanting to do something we've just been told we can't or wrestling with eating food that's bad for us. If we're willing to fight with ourselves for the sake of having a fight, I'd say that demonstrates dedication to a principle. Give us a few brief moments of cherished contentment in our lives and those of us stable enough not to run about sparking artificial drama will turn to fiction. 
The phrase "Death at the box office" comes to mind and it has nothing to do with the high body count of the latest action flick. Conflict builds character and characters drive our stories...often at very high speed. "The Lord of the Rings" isn't about Gollum admiring jewelry in the solitude of a cave. The story didn't get moving till he lost it and experienced conflict with others and himself.
Tempering metal stresses it with heat to create a stronger metal than one left in its natural state. Tragic characters draw our attention, those who have survived stresses that tested them and produced stronger characters. Ahh, those underdogs...There's just something about them we can't resist. In the comic books, they've been feeding our popular culture for decades. There's a mighty mutant superhero spawned during the sci-fi surge of the fifties who was tough, strong, genius-smart and a psychic powerhouse. He fought a war in the shadows, defending us from alien invaders. His name was Captain Comet, a good and decent fellow with a happy childhood. He had power handed to him, always fought for good and left Earth to continue his adventures in space. Never heard of him, huh? *sigh*Yeah, he didn't catch on as well as the superhuman orphan from Krypton. He had no real people of his own because his whole planet had blown up. He championed the poor and helpless against crime and corruption. An orphan and an immigrant, he could never go home, so he worked hard to do his best in a place where he'd never quite fit in with the natives. They would call him Superman. He caught on.
Start with a ten-year-old boy and stick him in a wealthy family with doting parents. Hey, it's Richie Rich. Now, orphan him by ruthlessly murdering his parents before his eyes and you're on the road to turning Bruce Wayne from a doughy playboy into a caped crusader engaged in a relentless war against criminals. On top of that, the only significant romantic relationships he can seem to develop have come from the criminal community. They're hardly stable, but Holy Romeo and Juliet! talk about a conflicted character. Has he collected adoring fans? You bet.
Nobody seems to hold being a rich guy against him. He's tightly wound, calculating, bad with relationships and will let his relentless determination carry him to the extremes of his abilities to win.Likewise, people don't seem to mind little boys being powerful, yet poor...and orphaned. Billy Batson barely has name recognition, but look at how many people know the word Shazam!
We've got a soft squishy spot for orphans. Orphans have issues. They lack foundation and identity. Whatever else they may have going for them, not having their parents puts them at a social and perhaps a psychological disadvantage. Peter Parker was a smart kid, but an orphan and when power fell into his lap, he still made bad decisions. He had to suffer some additional loss before we stood firmly behind him. The budding Spider-man had to not only be an orphan in a poor family, he had to lose his surrogate father as a result of his own failure to act for his character to really take a firm shape.It seems to be inherent in our psyches. Most people are attached to the dream of obtaining something for nothing, but we always look for the "catch". We know there's a price that must be paid for the "free" lunch. You can have your wishes, but any decent genie will tell you that they come with consequences. In alchemy, they called it the Law of Equivalent Exchange. To Shakespeare, it was the straw he spun into gold to gild the human condition. His work continues to resonate through us because he found elegant ways to share with us the truth that we are creatures of conflict and struggle. We neither trust nor respect anything that comes too easily. How often have we seen power and wealth that came without work and wisdom squandered by the recipient? Like Adam and Eve, we won't stand for being handed paradise and perfection. Something in the depths of our beings has to feel that it has been earned and deserved.
Our natures shape our works and our lives. As Spock once said, "Having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting." For us, striving is clearly a bit more important than attaining. The journey is more important than the destination.
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