Sidetracks - July 15, 2012
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ladybusinessSidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.
➝ Aidan posted a great entry recently, A Dance with Dragons, a year later. I have only read the first book and stopped immediately after due to Certain Events, with plans to read it when there's not less horrible cliffhangers. This part of his part resonated with me:
Thirty years from now, however, a new reader will discover Martin’s series in a bookshop (or whatever passes for a bookshop, should they no longer exist) and she will devour the series, gobbling up all the goodness found in Martin’s seven (or eight) volumes. During the middle portions, she’ll hit something of a bit blip, her enthusiasm might wane, but she will push on, and reflect on that period as a necessary evil for the series, the first tip of the boulder that sets of the avalanche that happens in the following volumes. Or so I like to think. Hope.
It makes me wonder about how different my reading experience is going to be since I don't plan to read the series until its completion. There's something to be said for following a story as it's released, waiting for each new installment, and experiencing it so it stretches out as part of your life. There's a certain relationship with the story, and sometimes I would argue, the author, that is missing when you just shoot straight through. I've never really had a relationship like this with a fantasy or science fiction series. I didn't really get into Harry Potter until book four was out in hard copy and I always felt I had come into this huge cultural event too late to claim it as my own. A Game of Thrones is the same.
Which is to say, I think this article is great, but have no opinions on the book itself. Seeing as how the first one sent me screaming for the hills re: cliffhangers. :)
➝ Am I the only one still collecting Brave commentary? I honestly think one could write a nice, scholarly essay on the reactions to this movie. Assume spoilers in all of the following. This post on tumblr was great:
There is real female power in the fantasy Scotland that Merida inhabits, and you can see just what Elinor is preparing her daughter for: not just a life of a good and proper princess, but one where she will wield actual power and where her thoughtless actions will have consequences. Consider this, and consider Aladdin, where it’s amply clear that after the Sultan dies, it’s his son-in-law who will wield actual power in the realm, which is why Jaffar wants to marry Jasmine in the first place.
Then today I read a post by Abigail Nussbaum covering her thoughts on Brave and came across this:
Brave tries to reconcile these two ideas of female power, but the only way it can do this is to posit a fantasy world in which all men are rambunctious but harmless children, who would never lift a hand against a woman and can always be whipped into gentlemanly shape by a stern word and a disappointed expression. That's a dangerous message to send to young girls (and to young boys too), especially coupled as it is with the film's deprecation of martial strength. For all the interesting things Brave tries to do with the Princess Movie template--it is, for one thing, a movie that treats being a princess as a job and castigates its heroine for shirking it--it can't get away from the inherent patriarchal assumptions at that template's core.
Jodie, it's safe to say I may be eager for that princess week you proposed. >.>
➝ Some Further Observations, a collection of tweets about rape jokes and rape culture by Melissa McEwan, collected into one post.
➝ Some Thoughts on Reviewing, where once again Foz Meadows is awesome:
Ultimately, I think, a useful review — even a negative one — should invite conversation. If I dislike a book, I’ll strive to say so in a way that opens the issue up for discussion; which isn’t to say that I’ll always succeed, only that I find the idea of actively trying to discourage discussion incredibly problematic. Making someone feel stupid for liking something — or not liking something — isn’t an outcome that appeals to me: I’d much rather invite people with different opinions to contribute to the conversation than surround myself exclusively with like-minded people, whose agreement — while certainly flattering — does’t teach me anything.
➝ Michelle Dean's Listening to Women is a thoughtful piece about the kind of critical responses works by women are often met with:
That echo you hear is of the "Bechdel test," which applied to movies asks whether the film contains a conversation between two women about something other than a man. The world of books, lacking the bombast imparted by the Hollywood machine, has largely been excused from such rigid measures. But the truth is that literature has its own line to tow here. In "serious" fiction of the sort reviewed by "serious" people, the subjects discussed by women tend not to be so wide and abstract as the nature of "life, the universe, and everything" (to steal a man’s phrase, because there are few others available). Pointing to anything made primarily by women—Girls,Bridesmaids, Swamplandia!—and declaring it a triumph for all women everywhere is an increasingly popular pastime. But I’m not willing to plant a victory flag until the kinds of conversations Sheila has with Margaux feel much less rare—or, at least, provoke a reaction in male critics other than the dubious rubbernecking they currently inspire.
And:
Heti’s closer analogue might be Fiona Apple, who wrote a beautiful, musically virtuosic album with a long title that she fought for because it was what suited her. And now every piece about Apple must begin with a thicket of speculation, ventured under the cover of artistic respect, that she is crazy. Even Apple’s noticed it. "Because that’s what you do with me, right?" she asked Jon Pareles of the New York Times. Even when someone admits that what Apple has to say is worth hearing, they can’t resist the armchair psychologizing. Push the envelope too far as a female artist, and you may only earn an ocean of ink expressing concern for your delicate constitution, amounting to a caution against playing on traditionally male wavelengths.
➝ This interview with Laurie Penny made me want to get my hands on her books asap.
➝ Ekaterina Sedia on being one of the guys as a superpower.
➝ Memo to Hollywood: Women go to the movies, too:
One secret is that the blockbusters Hollywood so relies on would not succeed without women. Films such as "The Avengers" — for which women bought 40 percent of tickets on its opening weekend — need female audience members to become true global phenomena. Yet hit films with majority-female audiences are often dismissed as flukes. Making movies about women is like being on a roller coaster, says longtime producer Lynda Obst, who worked with Ephron on several films. She says that after a success, people in the film industry are focused on more female-driven movies for about six months, then everyone "miraculously suffers amnesia in the wake of another kind of hit," and the momentum stalls.
➝ I still haven't watched Brave, but this review at the New Inquiry was really interesting.
➝ Malinda Lo runs the numbers for LGBT YA for the second year in a row.
➝ There's a fun pictoral analysis of Charliz Theron's role in 'Prometheus' and 'Snow White & The Huntman' at the Mary Sue. I too hope that in real life Charlize Theron lives in a castle in the sky.
➝ Yay, Jamie Chung is going to play Mulan in S2 of 'Once Upon a Time'. :D
➝ I really enjoyed Amy's Sunday Salon post 'Warning: A Possibly Unpopular Opinion Awaits You'. She starts off talking about the recent kick off between librarians and book bloggers that centred around ALA and goes on to talk about the way book bloggers support reading culture, aside from prompting people to buy books:
'I've said it here many times, but I will say it again—the blogs that have meant the most to me throughout the years have been the ones that personalize the reading experience. I don't often go rushing to the blogs that will show me the cover of a new book, or have a million giveaways (not saying these things are bad, I do them myself!)—I am instead drawn to the blogs where I can sense the genuine enthusiasm for reading in the reviews, where I can connect to the blogger as a person, or I am challenged to see things in a new and different way.'
This post gave me the warm fuzzies.
➝ Karen Healey reminds us that Gwendoline wuz robbed in her post 'Daniel Deronda, a Weird Review'. I was stranded in 'Daniel Deronda' for three long months and heartily agree that Gwendoline gets jacked by the narrative, so I will now pretend that Healey's head canon ending is what actually happened.
➝ An alert for anyone in the UK, or with access to UK TV currently in Tom Hiddleston fandom — dude will be playing Henry V in the BBC's 'Hollow Crown' series (I think this one is scheduled for 21st July).
I have to say I don't really get the Hiddleston craze. I like him as Loki, but maybe growing up seeing him play thoroughly nice but bland bit characters removed his sex appeal for me? However, I LOVE 'Henry V' and while my dream casting for the role is probably Rupert Penry Jones in the main role, I'm interested to see what Hiddleston does with this role. In this play Henry is England's boy wonder, the guy who is capable of making one helluva speech, but he's also a bit of a bastard and I want to see if both things come through in this version.
➝ The last item on Sidetracks this week is about male strippers. I am committed to keeping this a classy establishment obviously :D
I saw 'Fighting' because Channing Tatum was in it (a film that I largely remember because of the chilling sound of a man's head hitting a marble floor) so it's pretty inevitable that I will be seeing 'Magic Mike' when it comes out next week. Oddly, I keep catching myself feeling embarrassed for wanting to see 'the stripper film', which confuses me considering how many times I've seen 'The Full Monty'. Maybe I will watch the trailer again to work out what is up with my feelings:
I know everyone says he can't act, but he keeps ending up in these films with really sweet relationships that just warm my tired heart so I continue to find his films satisfying.
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Date: 2012-07-15 05:18 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Brave yet, but I'd like to. Also yes please do your princess week!
Jodie, I don't get the Hiddleston love either, but I don't often get a lot of the popular trends, and rarely get really attached to actors, so.
having said that, aw, I do enjoy Channing Tatum and feel there should be no shame in it!
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Date: 2012-07-16 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-17 04:47 pm (UTC)