This weekend, I flew to Chicago for a dance party full of 100 drunk fangirls covered in sparkles, stayed up almost all night, slept 90 minutes, then flew back to Boston and went to a wedding rehearsal. This is the kind of the thing my life is full of.
Technically, I wasn't just there for the dance party. The dance party, Club Vivid, is the Friday night event at Vividcon, the fanvidding convention that occurs every August in Chicago. (For explanation of vidding, here's one of my earliest posts to this blog: Festivids Reveal.) The con runs friday-sunday, with many people arriving Thursday and staying till Monday, for extra time with rarely seen friends, or time to visit Chicago. Last year, my first time, I showed up on Wednesday and stayed till Monday. This year, I was scheduled to be Maid of Honor in my friend's wedding on Sunday (today). I was quite miserable over the scheduling, and eventually decided to go anyway, just attending one day of official programming.
I flew to Chicago on Wednesday, and went and visited two old internet friends of mine who live in the area. On Thursday, I visited the Field Museum with 5 other fangirls, one of whom works there (and got us in free!) On Friday, I attended panels, and Club Vivid. During all that, I spent as much time hanging out with my once-a-year friends as I could. It was very bittersweet, knowing I'd be missing two days of programming and the big Premiere event, when dozens of vids made my attendees premiere for the first time ever.
There's a lot to talk about with Vividcon, but in this post I'm just going to talk about Club Vivid.
From what I've gathered, no one ever expected Club Vivid to become what it is. It started as a dance party where attendees danced to fanvids made to dancey music. Now Club Vivid has on the order of thirty vids that are made *for* Club Vivid, and premiere there before being offered online or to anyone else. I think the whole con shows up, there is a pre-paid open bar, people wear complicated costumes and a whole lot of glitter, and it's my favorite dance party in the world. I had a fabulous time this year. A lot of people at Vividcon are anxious, many of them surrounded by people they only know online. Drunken dance parties help with that.
Club Vivid always starts with the Joxer Dance from Xena. Imagine rows and rows of excited fangirls dancing along to this, including the weird hopping and the conga line. It is good times. I found myself in a somewhat grumpy mood before Club Vivid, wondering if it really was smart to come all the way to Chicago for such a short trip that would leave me exhausted for the wedding rehearsal.... and then the Joxer Dance came on and everything was better. :-)
[It is at this point in the writing that the author realizes that many of the vids she's been planning to use in this post are not yet available online. This makes her sad, thought she doesn't fault the vidders at all, because they are still having fun at the con or traveling home. It does however change the rest of the post.]
I don't know of anything like Club Vivid. Vids made for Club Vivid... will get watched by other people, but the intended audience in unique in my knowledge of vidding. (Please enlighten me if you know otherwise!) The audience will be watching many, many vids in a row, but that is not unique, given vidshows at many cons. The audience will generally be very happy, and much of it will be intoxicated. Club Vivid (CVV) vids might have some deep and profound meaning, but most of the audience won't see deep nuances while dancing. They won't be looking at the vid continuously, there may be a significant undulating crowd between them and the screen, and they wlll be *dancing*. Some people will ignore the images completely and just dance to the music! I have no proof, but I feel like CVV have it easy, because the audience is easy to please. Given them good music, and something that looks pretty or contains characters they like, and people will cheer and dance. In the light of day, those vids will be analyzed, they will be watched by sober people who are sitting still and watching ever second intently. They will be critiqued, praised and criticized, but for those few moments at Club Vivid... it's just pure glee. I like to play vids for my friends who aren't regular vid watchers, and I have a hard time trying to explain the context of Club Vivid vids to them... hopefully I have done a better job here.
Unsurprisingly, I would like my first Vividcon vid to be at Club Vivid, and I at this moment I am committed to submitting one next year.
And now, some vids that have shown at Club Vivid. I really wish this year's first premiere was available online... I'll add it when it gets posted. Not all vids at CVV were made specifically for Club Vivid.
First off, an Adam Lambert vid to a Lady Gaga song. :-)
This is one of my favorites CVV vids. It premiered last year at CVV and played again this year, it's a multi-source vid about robot armies. Seven Nation Army
Iron Man vid to "Let it Rock" (made for one of my vividcon roomates!)
Club Vivid makes me dance to things I'd never voluntarily listen to, like Miley Cyrus and Kee$ha. Yes, I know.
From Milly, a "Legend of the Seeker" vid to "Party in the USA".
http://millylicious.livejournal.com/343231.html
From Kuwdora, a Vampire Nikola Tesla (from "Sanctuary") vid to "TiK Tok" by Ke$ha
http://kuwdora.livejournal.com/502230.html
This one might need to be seen to be believed... "The Sound of Music" to a remix/cover of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer". It is a bit weird. :-) (If you want to see a "The Sound of Music" vid that made me cry, go here)
One that was very popular at Festivids, OK Go and "Back to the Future", Here It Goes Back Again (download only, no streaming).
Of course, we had to be on a boat.
This one is so loved that when the song was played at another con's dance party, sans vid, people were shouting about this vid. It's my favorite of Dualbunny's vids about Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica to Pink songs. :-)
There are many more, but I need sleep to recover from my mad 5 days of con and wedding!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Talking About Television: Mad Men (contains very minor spoilers)
There's lot of reasons I watch "Mad Men", but I think in the end the most important reason is the world. I am fascinated by the world of 1960s Manhattan. I like to think I am acceptably well versed in history, but nothing else has given me such a window into this world. It became even more fascinating to me when I realized that I'm looking at the world of my grandparents. They all worked in Manhattan. My parents are age contemporaries to Don Draper's children. One of my grandmothers met my grandfather because he was looking for a nice Irish girl from the girls in the building (for they were decidedly considered girls back then). My grandfathers both worked in insurance, and I know the constant heavy drinking was real, and something that had real consequences. I've never really understood what that world was like, and I'm fascinating. I'm planning to send DVDs to my 84 year old grandmother, and see what she thinks. There's so much going on in Mad Men, and so much of it is mostly in the background, but so important. Little things, like the family picnic that ends with just leaving all the trash in the grass, and things that turn my stomach, like the depiction of early 1960s childbirth. There's so much going on with gender and gender roles, the sexual revolution, and the increasing prevalence of divorce.
So far, Mad Men has covered 1960-1964. In my mind, the 60s didn't really begin until Kennedy was shot and the Beatles arrived (and I've long seen the intensity of Beatlemania as partly a reaction to the hole left in the America psyche by JFK's death). All of the major events of the 60s are foregone conclusions in the minds of the audience. I know that Nixon loses the 1960 election, and that JFK, MLK and RFK don't survive the decade. I know we make it to the moon. I know that the little conflict in Vietnam first mentioned in season three is going to change American life. It's weird, I rarely watch TV where I know so much of what will happen.
For all of season three, I felt JFK's death looming. Early on, we see the date on a wedding invitation for Saturday, November 23, 1963, and we know that the wedding is doomed, taking place the day after JFK's death. JFK died long before I was born, but I still found myself crying over his death, not so much because of the loss of his life, but because of the way it affected the people on the show. I am a sucker for strong emotion on screen, sometimes even commercials can make me cry.
I am honestly dreading the escalation of the Vietnam War in the Man Men world. That is a story that I know quite well from school and other media. Perhaps they will surprise me and show me some angle that is new to me, but I'd rather they focus on something I know less well. I am very curious to see how many years Mad Men will cover, and which time periods they will skip over. I am looking for recommendations of other shows that give such a profound send of a real time and place.
So far, Mad Men has covered 1960-1964. In my mind, the 60s didn't really begin until Kennedy was shot and the Beatles arrived (and I've long seen the intensity of Beatlemania as partly a reaction to the hole left in the America psyche by JFK's death). All of the major events of the 60s are foregone conclusions in the minds of the audience. I know that Nixon loses the 1960 election, and that JFK, MLK and RFK don't survive the decade. I know we make it to the moon. I know that the little conflict in Vietnam first mentioned in season three is going to change American life. It's weird, I rarely watch TV where I know so much of what will happen.
For all of season three, I felt JFK's death looming. Early on, we see the date on a wedding invitation for Saturday, November 23, 1963, and we know that the wedding is doomed, taking place the day after JFK's death. JFK died long before I was born, but I still found myself crying over his death, not so much because of the loss of his life, but because of the way it affected the people on the show. I am a sucker for strong emotion on screen, sometimes even commercials can make me cry.
I am honestly dreading the escalation of the Vietnam War in the Man Men world. That is a story that I know quite well from school and other media. Perhaps they will surprise me and show me some angle that is new to me, but I'd rather they focus on something I know less well. I am very curious to see how many years Mad Men will cover, and which time periods they will skip over. I am looking for recommendations of other shows that give such a profound send of a real time and place.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Leaving Iron Blogger?
I'm really not sure if Iron Blogger is working out for me. I went to a (champagne brunch) meetup just today, and I had a good time, but I think this may be causing me more stress than it is worth.
My life is very weekend focused. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on weekdays throughout the year just planning weekends, whether it is conventions, festivals, trips, or parties. I am usually exhausted on Sunday nights, and find myself thinking of needing to blog similarly to how I think about needing to deal with the trash (and cat litter) on Sunday nights.
Part of it is that the rest of iron blogger is overwhelmingly about computers in ways I don't care about at all. I love when my friends get slashdotted, but usually their posts mean nothing to me.
I do want to keep blogging in a more formal style, but I might be better off posting because I have something to say, not because I want to avoid paying money.
I almost quit last week, but someone asked me not to. Ironically, by posting about this, I keep myself from hitting the maximum debt level for another week. I'm moving next weekend and running a bachelorette party, so we'll see if I blog anything. If this is my last post in the iron blogger group, well, it's been fun, and remember to talk about things oher than computers sometimes, even if you are really skilled in that area. The world is full of interesting things to explore and talk about!
My life is very weekend focused. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on weekdays throughout the year just planning weekends, whether it is conventions, festivals, trips, or parties. I am usually exhausted on Sunday nights, and find myself thinking of needing to blog similarly to how I think about needing to deal with the trash (and cat litter) on Sunday nights.
Part of it is that the rest of iron blogger is overwhelmingly about computers in ways I don't care about at all. I love when my friends get slashdotted, but usually their posts mean nothing to me.
I do want to keep blogging in a more formal style, but I might be better off posting because I have something to say, not because I want to avoid paying money.
I almost quit last week, but someone asked me not to. Ironically, by posting about this, I keep myself from hitting the maximum debt level for another week. I'm moving next weekend and running a bachelorette party, so we'll see if I blog anything. If this is my last post in the iron blogger group, well, it's been fun, and remember to talk about things oher than computers sometimes, even if you are really skilled in that area. The world is full of interesting things to explore and talk about!
Monday, July 19, 2010
20 Days of Vidding
There is a popular style of meme/survey in fandom, where people answer a series of questions about things they like (or don't) like, theoretically answering one question a day. I've seen a lot of these lately, probably due in part to the lack of new television recently. There's 30 days of Doctor Who, with questions about favorite companions and season finales, 30 days about favorite songs, and a number that are just generic questions about one's favorite show, or all time favorites across sources. Last week, jarrow came up with 20 days of vid questions, in preparation for next month's big vidding convention, Vividcon. I am going to attempt to participate, and share the results with y'all. Forgive me for overusing the word "awesome", I am not the best at talking about vids. Just watch them. ;-)
Day 1 - A vid that made you start watching a brand new show
Day 1: Winner: Mad About You by gwyn-r, Mad Men. I first saw this vid at Vividcon Premieres last year, and I knew nothing about these women, but they grabbed me, and I needed to know them, I needed to know their lives. I had been meaning to go back and rewatch this vid for a few days, and then this meme appeared! The streaming video was skipping, so I pulled out my VVC 2009 Premiere DVDs and wound up watching a lot of vids. :-) This was my first time going back to this vid since I started watching "Mad Men", and of course it is just wonderful.
Day 1: Runner up is "Fix You" by sdwolfpup, Battlestar Galactica (which was very hard to find given that I couldn't remember who had made it, and it turns out there are a lot of "Fix You" vids!). In actuality, a lot of vidders made me watch BSG, because I saw all my favorite vidders were vidding BSG and I wanted to know the source so I could watch their vids. It sounds a bit ridiculous and silly now that I admit it. :-) This vid did push me over the edge, I think I saw it at a random little vid show at Wiscon in 2007, and I was intrigued, and started watching.
Then right after Vividcon 2008 I read a whole lot of lj posts about the vids, and This post by bradcpu talked about "Fix You" and I went back, having seen tons of BSG by this point, and I was blown away by the awesome.
Day 2 - A male character study vid you love
"In the mirror" by Here's Luck, due South. The reason I am so impressed by this vid is that I hardly know Ray Kowalski. I watched the first two seasons of due South devotedly, completely unaware of the fandom. After that, it became really hard to find the episodes where I lived, and I only caught a smattering of episodes, and was generally suspicious of this major casting change on my beloved show. Years later, I was startled to discover due South had this huge fandom! I had thought only sff had fandoms.
I found this vid, and I watched it, and I felt like I understood RayK, between the episodes I had seen, and this vid, and all the bits and pieces I picked up from people... it all came together in such a great way. Being able to convey so much to someone who doesn't know all the source? Totally awesome. :-)
Day 1 - A vid that made you start watching a brand new show
Day 1: Winner: Mad About You by gwyn-r, Mad Men. I first saw this vid at Vividcon Premieres last year, and I knew nothing about these women, but they grabbed me, and I needed to know them, I needed to know their lives. I had been meaning to go back and rewatch this vid for a few days, and then this meme appeared! The streaming video was skipping, so I pulled out my VVC 2009 Premiere DVDs and wound up watching a lot of vids. :-) This was my first time going back to this vid since I started watching "Mad Men", and of course it is just wonderful.
Day 1: Runner up is "Fix You" by sdwolfpup, Battlestar Galactica (which was very hard to find given that I couldn't remember who had made it, and it turns out there are a lot of "Fix You" vids!). In actuality, a lot of vidders made me watch BSG, because I saw all my favorite vidders were vidding BSG and I wanted to know the source so I could watch their vids. It sounds a bit ridiculous and silly now that I admit it. :-) This vid did push me over the edge, I think I saw it at a random little vid show at Wiscon in 2007, and I was intrigued, and started watching.
Then right after Vividcon 2008 I read a whole lot of lj posts about the vids, and This post by bradcpu talked about "Fix You" and I went back, having seen tons of BSG by this point, and I was blown away by the awesome.
Day 2 - A male character study vid you love
"In the mirror" by Here's Luck, due South. The reason I am so impressed by this vid is that I hardly know Ray Kowalski. I watched the first two seasons of due South devotedly, completely unaware of the fandom. After that, it became really hard to find the episodes where I lived, and I only caught a smattering of episodes, and was generally suspicious of this major casting change on my beloved show. Years later, I was startled to discover due South had this huge fandom! I had thought only sff had fandoms.
I found this vid, and I watched it, and I felt like I understood RayK, between the episodes I had seen, and this vid, and all the bits and pieces I picked up from people... it all came together in such a great way. Being able to convey so much to someone who doesn't know all the source? Totally awesome. :-)
Monday, June 28, 2010
(Not very deep) thoughts on my relationship with video games
I have so much trouble thinking of myself as a (video)gamer. I'm a LARPer for sure, a writer and player of live action roleplaying games. I'm a tabletop gammer, with Dungeons & Dragons, Exalted, World of Darkness, et cetera. These days, I even play german-style board games, despite swearing for years I'd never given in to their siren call. But video games? I'm not a gamer, I just play the stuff. My little brother had video game systems, and I played them sometimes, but he was the gamer, not me, I was sure of it.
Hilariously, I used to *make* video games, when I worked at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab back in college. It might have been that experience that raised my standards of what a "real gamer" was, as it seemed everyone around me was so much more into videogames than I was. The games I did like tended to be puzzle-oriented games, not "hardcore" games, which obviously made me less of a "real gamer".
It all went downhill with Rock Band. I love Rock Band sooooo much. I engaged in ridiculous shenanigans to get to play RB, and desperately wanted to play it all the time. I was in the middle of trying to convince my boyfriend's housemate to get it when I had a birthday party, back in December 2008. My clever boyfriend got a bunch of my friends together, and they bought me an X-Box 360 and a Rock Band 2 set. I was ridiculously excited.
I never would have bought an X-Box on my own, and for a long time I thought I'd only ever use it for Rock Band. I got sucked in by being able to get download games and game previews directly onto the X-Box. Portal and Braid lured me in. Now I have a Nintendo DS, and a Wii, and a Gamefly subscription. Gamefly is basically netflix for video games, and it's fantastic for me. Games are so expensive, and I just can't convince myself to buy most games without having played them. Gamefly is wonderful. Right now I have out "New Super Mario Brothers Wii" and the "Metroid Prime" trilogy for the Wii, and I sent back "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" for the DS. NSMB is a modern take on the traditional 2-D side scroller Mario game, Metroid Prime is, well, I guess a combination First Person Shooter/Sandbox/Puzzle game, and Phoenix Wright is actually a game about being a lawyer. Earlier this year, I found myself completely obsessed with "The World Ends With You", a Japanese RPG. These days, I find myself open to most styles of video games now (except MMORPGs, not going there!). What should I play next?
Hilariously, I used to *make* video games, when I worked at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab back in college. It might have been that experience that raised my standards of what a "real gamer" was, as it seemed everyone around me was so much more into videogames than I was. The games I did like tended to be puzzle-oriented games, not "hardcore" games, which obviously made me less of a "real gamer".
It all went downhill with Rock Band. I love Rock Band sooooo much. I engaged in ridiculous shenanigans to get to play RB, and desperately wanted to play it all the time. I was in the middle of trying to convince my boyfriend's housemate to get it when I had a birthday party, back in December 2008. My clever boyfriend got a bunch of my friends together, and they bought me an X-Box 360 and a Rock Band 2 set. I was ridiculously excited.
I never would have bought an X-Box on my own, and for a long time I thought I'd only ever use it for Rock Band. I got sucked in by being able to get download games and game previews directly onto the X-Box. Portal and Braid lured me in. Now I have a Nintendo DS, and a Wii, and a Gamefly subscription. Gamefly is basically netflix for video games, and it's fantastic for me. Games are so expensive, and I just can't convince myself to buy most games without having played them. Gamefly is wonderful. Right now I have out "New Super Mario Brothers Wii" and the "Metroid Prime" trilogy for the Wii, and I sent back "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" for the DS. NSMB is a modern take on the traditional 2-D side scroller Mario game, Metroid Prime is, well, I guess a combination First Person Shooter/Sandbox/Puzzle game, and Phoenix Wright is actually a game about being a lawyer. Earlier this year, I found myself completely obsessed with "The World Ends With You", a Japanese RPG. These days, I find myself open to most styles of video games now (except MMORPGs, not going there!). What should I play next?
Monday, June 14, 2010
Talking about TV: "Dexter" (very minor spoilers)
"Dexter" (4 seasons, 12 episodes each, Showtime)
This is one of those shows that I started watching due to excessive critical acclaim. I actually postponed it for years because I have still never finished "Six Feet Under" and I was convinced I wouldn't be able to deal with Michael C. Hall playing such a profoundly different character from the sweet gay Catholic undertaker I knew and loved from SFU. Turns out Michael C. Hall is such an amazing actor, it didn't matter. I swear even his voice is completely different. I picked up the show while sick and marathoned the first two seasons, and watched the third season fairly quickly as well. The fourth season ended last December, and I watched that mostly in real time.
In case anyone is unfamiliar with the premise, I will summarize. Dexter Morgan works in the homicide department in Miami, doing blood spatter analysis. He brings donuts into the office and is on the bowling team. He is very patient and kind with his girlfriend Rita, who is a survivor of spousal abuse and is raising her two kids while her ex serves jail time. Dexter is also an extremely good serial killer, so good that no one even knows there *is* a serial killer in Miami. Dexter had a very traumatic incident as a child, and was adopted by a policeman, Harry Morgan. Harry realized (or decided) that Dexter was going to grow up to be a serial killer, and he didn't want his adopted son to wind up executed for murder. Harry taught Dexter how to blend in, how not to get caught, and indoctrinated in him that he was only allowed to kill other killers, people who deserved to die by Harry's Code. He also gave Dex some issues. As the series progresses, Dexter has to deal with balancing his work, his relationship with Rita and her kids, and making time to get out and kill people. Things predictably get complicated.
"Dexter" is a really well crafted show, but not an uncomplicated one. At Wiscon I walked into the middle of a discussion about Dexter that I really wish I'd heard all of, about the way that we the viewers become complicit to Dexter's crimes. I have thought long and hard about this, and right now the best I can come up with is saying that I have different rules of morality for the real world and fiction. I don't even support the death penalty, and here I am, wanting things to work out for Dexter, wanting him to keep getting away with it. It's... complicated, and I'd love to talk about it with anyone who watches the show.
As the show is getting on in years, I am thinking more and more about how the show will end. Because of the nature of TV, something dramatic pretty much has to happen in Dexter's life in the next couple of years. It probably won't be "twenty years of more of the same, and then he gets caught". I sort of resent that TV basically has to do that, but there's not much to be done about it (unless we get better at making actors look older.) I really like when shows have big time jumps, actually, as I often feel it makes narratives and character development feel more genuine, rather than rushed. But that's a tangent! As I see it, there are three options for Dexter:
1) He gets caught and almost certainly executed, or dies in some other way
2) He gives up killing
3) He keeps up killing, probably with a lot of lengthy introspective Dexter voiceovers.
I forgot the voiceovers! It's a fairly voiceover heavy show, because who the hell is Dexter going to talk to about any of this? Honestly, they probably use the voiceover more than is necessary, I can't think of any other show I've watched that uses it so much. I watched "Dexter" and "Mad Men" at the same time, and I found a lot of parallels between Dexter and "Mad Men"'s Don Draper (and I was so glad to see I wasn't the only one who saw these, as I felt kind of weird), and "Mad Men" never uses voiceovers. (Given how hard they work to put the passage of time into dialogue instead of on screen text, I expect they'd never even consider a VO. It would be pretty stylistically weird.) Don Draper is full of secrets, and things are revealed very slowly. Sometimes I want to beat the TV and have him just say why the hell he is doing certain things, but Mad Men is all about making you read into things, where as "Dexter" spells them out very clearly.
I think "Dexter" needs to have voiceovers to make people watch the show. He's a serial killer! He's not supposed to be sympathetic, by conventional morality. The show really takes place in Dexter's head, looking at events from Dexter's perspective. However, the voiceover does lead me to one of my favorite parts of the shows, which is what an unreliable narrator Dexter is. Dexter will tell us over and over again about how he doesn't have any feelings, how he doesn't care for Rita and her kids, how they are just a convenient cover, but his actions will eventually betray him, as we the audience see that he *does* care. Dexter is a dynamic character, and I am really interested in seeing where he goes. (This will possibly lead to me feeling horribly betrayed if his final destination is not one I like, but that's one of my big problems with watching ongoing TV). I think Harry, Dexter's adopted father, had really good intentions with Dexter, but I think he may have done him a disservice, that his serial killer was perhaps not set in stone, that he could have learned to have more normal relationships if he hadn't had Harry basically telling him he'd never feel love. It's weird. Harry's been dead a number of years, but spectral Harry shows up, mostly to criticize Dexter. It is completely portrayed as a construct of Dexter's mind, Harry's influence lingering in him, and not at all like there is an actual ghost. (Though I like those shows too, especially when they involve Paul Gross!)
If Dexter winds up executed, I will probably cry, especially if it suddenly turns into some morality play about "Dexter has to pay for his crimes". Dexter suffering for what he does is fine, that had already happened in pretty significant ways, but I would hate if the show suddenly stopped being complex at the end. I would probably be mostly okay with Dexter having a lot of realizations and epiphanies and what not and continuing on with his killing, or it being left ambiguous if he will. (I have a very clear potential final shot for the series, with Dexter doing something very normal looking, like barbecuing with family, and it looks like he's given up on the killing, but then he turns and looks at the camera, at the audience, with a creepy ambiguous look in his eye and a hint of a smile. If you know the series you can probably pictures this yourself.)
I think what I actually want to see is for "Dexter" to learn to live without killing. It is presented as a serious compulsion, something he can't live without. In one season, he even went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and talked about his need to kill like it was a drug. His killings is very ritualized, very careful and almost clinical. It is never presented as something that is sexualized for Dexter, but it does seem reminiscent of media portrayals of sexual fetish. There is probably a lot to be said here about mental illness, but I don't actually feel qualified to get into it and I need to go to bed. :-) I want Dexter to be happy, I want Dexter to grown up and step out from under his father's shadow (which his sister is also living under, in a very different way). I want Dexter to stop killing people, to not need to kill people, to have real, happy, normal human relationships. I don't want the people around Dexter to have to deal with finding out he is a serial killer, as it would probably leave many people emotionally scarred and crippled for the rest of their lives. I want a happy ending, I guess, which may be a ridiculous thing to want in this context, but I want it.
The other big thing I love about "Dexter" is the other characters. It would be really easy in a show like this the other characters to just be two dimensional, for them to only exist in relation to Dexter, but somehow, they don't! Dexter is on screen *most* of the time, but all the time when he's not is generally well used. I adore his foul-mouthed, insecure adopted sister Deb, who wants nothing more than to be a great detective like her dad. I as pleased as punch that beyond Dexter, his white sister and white girlfriend, most of the rest of the cast *isn't* white! It is Miami, but anything can be white-washed, and this isn't. I adore Angel, one of Dexter's Cuban coworkers, to itty bitty little pieces. Maria LaGuerta is the head of homicide, and I really didn't like her much in the beginning, and she really does some super questionable things at times, but she's really well drawn. Jimmy Smits shows up in season three and... really surprised me, honestly! Doakes... I can't even begin to talk about Doakes right now, I might need a second post. (To think I'd work multiple shows into this one post!) We get romances between characters of color, and we even get closeups of characters of color kissing! (Turns out white people kissing is framed differently on TV, which I find fascinating.) The show is multicultural and it does not feel forced at all, it's just what Miami is, and I love it.
In conclusion: I think Dexter is worth watching. It's on premium cable and is about serial killers, so there's blood, but I'm pretty sensitive to these things and I find it easy to deal with, in large part because it's rarely a *surprise*, I can close my eyes when Dexter's about to stab someone and miss all of the gore. It's complex, and it may make you uncomfortable, but I think it's the kind of discomfort that is important to explore. Let me know what you think.
This is one of those shows that I started watching due to excessive critical acclaim. I actually postponed it for years because I have still never finished "Six Feet Under" and I was convinced I wouldn't be able to deal with Michael C. Hall playing such a profoundly different character from the sweet gay Catholic undertaker I knew and loved from SFU. Turns out Michael C. Hall is such an amazing actor, it didn't matter. I swear even his voice is completely different. I picked up the show while sick and marathoned the first two seasons, and watched the third season fairly quickly as well. The fourth season ended last December, and I watched that mostly in real time.
In case anyone is unfamiliar with the premise, I will summarize. Dexter Morgan works in the homicide department in Miami, doing blood spatter analysis. He brings donuts into the office and is on the bowling team. He is very patient and kind with his girlfriend Rita, who is a survivor of spousal abuse and is raising her two kids while her ex serves jail time. Dexter is also an extremely good serial killer, so good that no one even knows there *is* a serial killer in Miami. Dexter had a very traumatic incident as a child, and was adopted by a policeman, Harry Morgan. Harry realized (or decided) that Dexter was going to grow up to be a serial killer, and he didn't want his adopted son to wind up executed for murder. Harry taught Dexter how to blend in, how not to get caught, and indoctrinated in him that he was only allowed to kill other killers, people who deserved to die by Harry's Code. He also gave Dex some issues. As the series progresses, Dexter has to deal with balancing his work, his relationship with Rita and her kids, and making time to get out and kill people. Things predictably get complicated.
"Dexter" is a really well crafted show, but not an uncomplicated one. At Wiscon I walked into the middle of a discussion about Dexter that I really wish I'd heard all of, about the way that we the viewers become complicit to Dexter's crimes. I have thought long and hard about this, and right now the best I can come up with is saying that I have different rules of morality for the real world and fiction. I don't even support the death penalty, and here I am, wanting things to work out for Dexter, wanting him to keep getting away with it. It's... complicated, and I'd love to talk about it with anyone who watches the show.
As the show is getting on in years, I am thinking more and more about how the show will end. Because of the nature of TV, something dramatic pretty much has to happen in Dexter's life in the next couple of years. It probably won't be "twenty years of more of the same, and then he gets caught". I sort of resent that TV basically has to do that, but there's not much to be done about it (unless we get better at making actors look older.) I really like when shows have big time jumps, actually, as I often feel it makes narratives and character development feel more genuine, rather than rushed. But that's a tangent! As I see it, there are three options for Dexter:
1) He gets caught and almost certainly executed, or dies in some other way
2) He gives up killing
3) He keeps up killing, probably with a lot of lengthy introspective Dexter voiceovers.
I forgot the voiceovers! It's a fairly voiceover heavy show, because who the hell is Dexter going to talk to about any of this? Honestly, they probably use the voiceover more than is necessary, I can't think of any other show I've watched that uses it so much. I watched "Dexter" and "Mad Men" at the same time, and I found a lot of parallels between Dexter and "Mad Men"'s Don Draper (and I was so glad to see I wasn't the only one who saw these, as I felt kind of weird), and "Mad Men" never uses voiceovers. (Given how hard they work to put the passage of time into dialogue instead of on screen text, I expect they'd never even consider a VO. It would be pretty stylistically weird.) Don Draper is full of secrets, and things are revealed very slowly. Sometimes I want to beat the TV and have him just say why the hell he is doing certain things, but Mad Men is all about making you read into things, where as "Dexter" spells them out very clearly.
I think "Dexter" needs to have voiceovers to make people watch the show. He's a serial killer! He's not supposed to be sympathetic, by conventional morality. The show really takes place in Dexter's head, looking at events from Dexter's perspective. However, the voiceover does lead me to one of my favorite parts of the shows, which is what an unreliable narrator Dexter is. Dexter will tell us over and over again about how he doesn't have any feelings, how he doesn't care for Rita and her kids, how they are just a convenient cover, but his actions will eventually betray him, as we the audience see that he *does* care. Dexter is a dynamic character, and I am really interested in seeing where he goes. (This will possibly lead to me feeling horribly betrayed if his final destination is not one I like, but that's one of my big problems with watching ongoing TV). I think Harry, Dexter's adopted father, had really good intentions with Dexter, but I think he may have done him a disservice, that his serial killer was perhaps not set in stone, that he could have learned to have more normal relationships if he hadn't had Harry basically telling him he'd never feel love. It's weird. Harry's been dead a number of years, but spectral Harry shows up, mostly to criticize Dexter. It is completely portrayed as a construct of Dexter's mind, Harry's influence lingering in him, and not at all like there is an actual ghost. (Though I like those shows too, especially when they involve Paul Gross!)
If Dexter winds up executed, I will probably cry, especially if it suddenly turns into some morality play about "Dexter has to pay for his crimes". Dexter suffering for what he does is fine, that had already happened in pretty significant ways, but I would hate if the show suddenly stopped being complex at the end. I would probably be mostly okay with Dexter having a lot of realizations and epiphanies and what not and continuing on with his killing, or it being left ambiguous if he will. (I have a very clear potential final shot for the series, with Dexter doing something very normal looking, like barbecuing with family, and it looks like he's given up on the killing, but then he turns and looks at the camera, at the audience, with a creepy ambiguous look in his eye and a hint of a smile. If you know the series you can probably pictures this yourself.)
I think what I actually want to see is for "Dexter" to learn to live without killing. It is presented as a serious compulsion, something he can't live without. In one season, he even went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and talked about his need to kill like it was a drug. His killings is very ritualized, very careful and almost clinical. It is never presented as something that is sexualized for Dexter, but it does seem reminiscent of media portrayals of sexual fetish. There is probably a lot to be said here about mental illness, but I don't actually feel qualified to get into it and I need to go to bed. :-) I want Dexter to be happy, I want Dexter to grown up and step out from under his father's shadow (which his sister is also living under, in a very different way). I want Dexter to stop killing people, to not need to kill people, to have real, happy, normal human relationships. I don't want the people around Dexter to have to deal with finding out he is a serial killer, as it would probably leave many people emotionally scarred and crippled for the rest of their lives. I want a happy ending, I guess, which may be a ridiculous thing to want in this context, but I want it.
The other big thing I love about "Dexter" is the other characters. It would be really easy in a show like this the other characters to just be two dimensional, for them to only exist in relation to Dexter, but somehow, they don't! Dexter is on screen *most* of the time, but all the time when he's not is generally well used. I adore his foul-mouthed, insecure adopted sister Deb, who wants nothing more than to be a great detective like her dad. I as pleased as punch that beyond Dexter, his white sister and white girlfriend, most of the rest of the cast *isn't* white! It is Miami, but anything can be white-washed, and this isn't. I adore Angel, one of Dexter's Cuban coworkers, to itty bitty little pieces. Maria LaGuerta is the head of homicide, and I really didn't like her much in the beginning, and she really does some super questionable things at times, but she's really well drawn. Jimmy Smits shows up in season three and... really surprised me, honestly! Doakes... I can't even begin to talk about Doakes right now, I might need a second post. (To think I'd work multiple shows into this one post!) We get romances between characters of color, and we even get closeups of characters of color kissing! (Turns out white people kissing is framed differently on TV, which I find fascinating.) The show is multicultural and it does not feel forced at all, it's just what Miami is, and I love it.
In conclusion: I think Dexter is worth watching. It's on premium cable and is about serial killers, so there's blood, but I'm pretty sensitive to these things and I find it easy to deal with, in large part because it's rarely a *surprise*, I can close my eyes when Dexter's about to stab someone and miss all of the gore. It's complex, and it may make you uncomfortable, but I think it's the kind of discomfort that is important to explore. Let me know what you think.
Monday, June 7, 2010
MIT: One year on
(Our internet is down, so I'm writing from my phone, so I expect this to be brief)
The MIT class of 2010 graduated on Friday. Today I found my MIT freshman class photo, taken on August 26, 2010. I feel like... I should feel more. I've always been rather sentimental, and put great stock in things like anniversaries and things in that general category. People have told me that the first year out is the roughest. That certainly would be nice! Overall, its been a pretty good year, except for my crazy startup job that was too similar to the bad parts of MIT.
When I look back, I am still proud of what I accomplished, and still just a bit shocked I actually made it through, but right nw, the main emotion is disbelief at how crazy I let mit make me. I still remember just how desperately I wanted to graduate, and the ridiculous sacrifice I made, the horrible thing I did to my body and my health and my mind. What was I thinking? It's absurd. I can't imagine voluntarily suffering like that again unless someone's life was literally on the line. Such madness.
Everyone suffers some at mit, but the people I find I can connect most easily with on this topic are other people who didn't do the 8 consecutive terms option. If you get into mit, leave, and then have to convince the to take you back... it requires some soul searching, and a much more informed decision to enter hell than any high schooler could make. We knew how bad it was, and experienced extra badness in one way or another, and we came back for more.
Don't get me wrong, MIT was a fabulous experience in many ways, formative and transformative in more way than I even am aware of yet, I'm sure. I found the most important people in my life, and I have no idea who I'd be without MIT, but MIT and I had a messed up relationship, and it was bad for me in a lot of ways. I feel like I've spent this year detoxing getting the bad stuff out of my system. I'm wiser and happier now, I'm more self aware and more at peace, I'm more grown up. I don't know where I'll be in a year, but I'm okay with that. I think I will probably stop counting the months since I graduated from MIT. MIT is not the most important thing in my life anymore!
Congratulations, class of 2010. I hope your lives only get more awesome from here!
The MIT class of 2010 graduated on Friday. Today I found my MIT freshman class photo, taken on August 26, 2010. I feel like... I should feel more. I've always been rather sentimental, and put great stock in things like anniversaries and things in that general category. People have told me that the first year out is the roughest. That certainly would be nice! Overall, its been a pretty good year, except for my crazy startup job that was too similar to the bad parts of MIT.
When I look back, I am still proud of what I accomplished, and still just a bit shocked I actually made it through, but right nw, the main emotion is disbelief at how crazy I let mit make me. I still remember just how desperately I wanted to graduate, and the ridiculous sacrifice I made, the horrible thing I did to my body and my health and my mind. What was I thinking? It's absurd. I can't imagine voluntarily suffering like that again unless someone's life was literally on the line. Such madness.
Everyone suffers some at mit, but the people I find I can connect most easily with on this topic are other people who didn't do the 8 consecutive terms option. If you get into mit, leave, and then have to convince the to take you back... it requires some soul searching, and a much more informed decision to enter hell than any high schooler could make. We knew how bad it was, and experienced extra badness in one way or another, and we came back for more.
Don't get me wrong, MIT was a fabulous experience in many ways, formative and transformative in more way than I even am aware of yet, I'm sure. I found the most important people in my life, and I have no idea who I'd be without MIT, but MIT and I had a messed up relationship, and it was bad for me in a lot of ways. I feel like I've spent this year detoxing getting the bad stuff out of my system. I'm wiser and happier now, I'm more self aware and more at peace, I'm more grown up. I don't know where I'll be in a year, but I'm okay with that. I think I will probably stop counting the months since I graduated from MIT. MIT is not the most important thing in my life anymore!
Congratulations, class of 2010. I hope your lives only get more awesome from here!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)