Reposting my Facebook Rant That Was Then A OWL Rant and now a Blog Post.

I would like to highlight a problem I had with Bend It Like Beckham, specifically a false assumption in holds about character and sexuality. I have phrased my problem in the form of two rambling letters.

Dear Movies, 

Just because you have a gay character does not automatically mean I will care about them, their hopes and dreams, or even like them. There appears to be this harmful idea that “being gay” is a well-defined character trait. I can call a character "energetic", "zany", "sinister", all of those come with their own expressions of modality that are the hallmarks of any trope. But if the only thing I can say about a character is that they are "the gay one", that's Very Bad Writing, akin to a character being there to fulfil the role of “woman”- it's treating a noun as an adjective. 

To look at it another way, let's look a group most people are familiar with: the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron from the ubiquitous Harry Potter series. Each character realizes a particular role in the films/books. Harry is the one who is “brave”, the hero and driver of the narrative. Hermione is there to be the “smart” one, to have the expeditionary/expository knowledge to help Harry be able to drive where he needs the story to go. Ron is there because every story needs a buffoon, and to keep Neville from being a main character and thus ending the series by the end of the first book by sheer bad-ass awesomeness. But what if we changed how we define a character? Harry: Brave, Ron: Supportive(I'll be nice), Hermione: Woman.

One of those things is not like the other. That kind of phrasing is not only a sweeping generalization of everything a woman could potentially be, it's sexist and disingenuous to boot. Tokenism in the worst way, and it spreads a harmful worldview that you can be completely defined by your gender. 

“But James, you snarky and slightly patronizing comment poster, you, what does this have to do Bend It Like Beckham, and why didn't Neville get his own spin-off?” I hear you cry. Well, the second question is far beyond the scope of this post, so I'll just stick with the first one. In the best Socratic tradition, I will answer this by posing another question, albeit one directed at the film as opposed to you, gentle reader, who patiently awaits enlightenment.

Dear Bend It Like Benton: 

You have a character who admits he is gay. Explain why, at any point in the movie, I ought to care about him. No one ever expects me to root for "the straight one" just because the character is straight. Since he is not the main character of the piece, having him come out to our protagonist must serve some sort of purpose in the story, right? Was it to prove that Jess wasn't prejudiced? It... might, but she seems like a pretty forward thinking young woman, I don't think that was ever called into question. That can't have been the function. So it had to be that it was important we know that Tony was gay for our understanding of Tony's character. It must be important to the story that we know who Tony is. 

Who is Tony?

He is friends with the main character. He has a crush on David Beckham. He likes soccer. He thinks the coach is cute.

And...

Um.

That's it, really. I looked it up on IMDB, Tony doesn't have a last name. He's just Tony, “the gay one”. Huh.


Why don't we play a game? It's called "Remove the Coming-Out Scene." First, you cut the scene where Tony says he's gay. Then, watch the movie and tell me if losing this scene has any impact on the story in any meaningful way shape or form.

If there is any change, its on how we interpret his gesture to enter into a sham marriage so that Jess can play soccer in America. But for me, his sexuality doesn't really change the nature of the gesture (which is a noble one, which we could add to his character list if I was in a more charitable mood, but since it's this fake-out deus-ex-machina that is immediately dropped, I'm not going to). Let's say we didn't know he was gay. He;s still entering into a (romantically) loveless marriage of connivence to help a friend. And had it gone through, Hollywood probably would have forced a sequel where they really fall in love and please all those Tony/Jess shippers out there, but realistically we have to take the movie as a complete package, concrete in its habitus (isomorphically emergent with its own structural conditions). At the end of the day (and end of the move), straight, gay, bi, non... hell, the guy could only be attracted to bumblebees; his sexuality in no way changes the nature of the gesture. He is willing to enter into a lie to help a friend.

(And regardless: that's nice in all, but for a sacrifice to be meaningful, I have to think that he's giving up something worth while. “Oh no, he's giving up his life of... really liking David Beckham?” Seriously, movie. Who is this guy, why should I care? What does he do for a living? Does he have a job, other friends, does he like movies, music, anything at all besides David Beckham? Will his sham marriage keep him from really liking David Beckham? Because I'm pretty sure Jess also likes David Beckham.)

If he was gay, and it was just accepted (i.e. no coming-out scene), then that would be great. I love to have gay characters who's sexuality isn't used as way to milk pathos from the narrative. As is, its used as disposable emotionality. “Huh, this bit of the film needs punching up, let's cram an awkward-yet-endearing “I'm gay” scene to pad out the run time and make us seem topical.” Who is Tony? It doesn't matter, he's just there to help the protagonist go kick a ball in a country that has an entirely different definition of the word 'football'. I need to know that Tony is something other than a manifestation of the main characters subconscious need for a perfect male friend who loves everything she does (Soccer. David Beckham. Soccer) without wanting to get in her pants.

There's a lovely test called the Bechdel Test, which a movie only passes if it meets the following criteria: 

1.It has to have at least two women in it,
2.Who talk to each other,
3.About something other than a man.


I'd like to compliment the Bechdel Test with something I call The Prager Test. A movie passes the Prager test if:

1.It has a homosexual character
2.Who talks to the main character
3.About something other than a crush, or the main character's interests and problems.

Your character is gay? Fine, that's great. But it's not enough. Work with that, do something with that, define your character as, well, someone more than a one-dimensional plot point. Please. This heteronormative indifference is ever so aggravating. 

Anyone needs me, My Little Pony Season 2 just started up, so I have to re-watch the premiere and finish my twelve volume series “Why Glee is the worst thing on television since My Mother The Car” 

I remain, yours &c.,

James Campbell-Prager

(Corollary: Putting the gay character in peril does not mean I have any interest in seeing them live over dying. This holds true of "adorable" yet bratty children. If I simply hate them, I may be thrilled that they died. This is what's known as “Adric Syndrome” )

tl;dr: You're in university now. If you can't be bothered to read long things, drop out. Now. I'm dead serious. You will be crushed without mercy by an uncaring education structure that expects your reading skills to be at least at a grade eight level.

If On A Costal Street A Traveler...

A Poem, aware of its pretentions. Apologies and defiance.  

Tonight,
For reasons all my Own
I walked the darkened streets that are
a minor city's passageways.

To satisfy my cravings for a summer's wish
still unfulfilled,
I purchased late at night
two sandwiches of ice cream,
And continued out into the cool September air.

In my endless search for symbolism
I said why I had purchased two.
It was not just the sale.
The other was for absent friends.

The fool's gesture impressed no one
And none.
In any case I ate them both.

Eblis O'Shaughnessy
Could never dream or destroy.
To him I stand in opposition.
No skill or trade have I,
Merely endless dreams,
And the personal destruction that is creation

The living worlds
Lately writ by me
Have in their antecedent
A thousand others
That I failed to bring to life.

I have given up much of myself
Of late.
If only to give the flood of words
A fitting resting place,
Perhaps to give my tired mind
A little breathing space.

The phrases that seem so profound
Written in the moment on a chill autumn's night
(Whilst eating colder-still ice cream)
Once put to paper seem paltry things.
A dumb show filled with noise
Concealing empty meanings.

In lieu of absent, distant friends
I turn to doggrel verse.

Fairy Logic

Fairy Logic, at least in the Craicéailte School, is unifying rather than fragmentary. To the largely Sylphic disciples of Craicéailte, there is no paradox in Zeno or rather, nothing of concern. That Achilles will never outrun the Turtle, while at the same time will naturally outpace it in seconds is not an issue that needs fixing. To many of the fay, accepting the contradictory is as natural as breathing, both statements are true. A paradox is not something to be solved but celebrated. To a Craicéailte, that you can empirically disprove a paradox of Zeno is irrelevant. In their fashion, Craicéailtes reject the idea of repeatable causality. Solvitur ambulando might have given credence to one point of view a one particular moment, but that is no indication that it will do so ever again. Holmes' maxim has no place in their world. Why rule out the impossible, when it so often occurs?

This is best expressed in the central Craicéailte concept known as Liused's Apophthegm, for which we shall take a brief detour to first contextualize before discussing its impact.

There has been no more enduring figure of second wave Craicéailte thought than Doctor Mell Liused (1693? - 1740). Liused was both a logician and temporal physicist, although it is the second discipline for which she is best know. Her work in that field was so revolutionary that next to none of her contemporaries grasped her mathematics or gating theories. Her work was to remain forgotten and ignored until it was rediscovered by Adalmar Wesserman in the late 1940s, who would both expand upon it and restore the good doctor's position in the eyes of physicists.

However, it is not her work on gating mechanics that is of interest to us. She remains a “patron saint” to Craicéailtes after her death owing to a series of documents know as the Gwrn-Mell Letters. In her youth Liused had studied under Dr. Gwrn Hywel (1651-1742) at Glorianna University in Gyre-Carling, and afterwords worked with him for a number of years. After Cordeilla III founded Ard Rí College (Fairy's first institution devoted purely to the study of worldgates) in far off Andlang, Liused did what was unthinkable in those days and travelled all the way to its Endymion chapter in Dome, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Until her early death, she would remain in constant correspondence with Dr. Hywel, and from the letters that survive we have a fascinating look at the life and times of intellectuals of the period.

In many ways, both doctors were of among the last of their era. Although he would die before the pogroms started, in Gyre-Carling Dr. Hywel was witness to rise of the neo-glamour movements that would see the deaths of thousands of academics and students in the century to come. To the neo-glamourists, the study of scientific principles was a rejection of everything a fairy was, they considered persons like Hywel to be species traitors. The extent of their destruction and the set-back to knowledge that their reign entailed is far beyond the scope of this book, so we shall touch upon it no further.

While the neo-glamour movement never had any force in Andlang, the economic and social toll of the Ranrike War would decimate the youth of the kingdom. There would be only of handful of young people able to attend universities, and it would be a long time before academic knowledge would be increased and improved by anyone educated in Andlang colleges.

For Liused and Hywel, then, theirs was the last flourishing of intellect before a dark age, and nowhere is this better reflected in Hywel's admonishments to his former student, who had been introduced to Craicéailtism at Ard Rí. For Hywel, Craicéailte thought was a form of scholastic nihilism, a rejection of everything a teacher should stand for. He sought to illustrate this by drawing attention to what he called the Pixie Dilemma. In brief, this is the demonstrative fact that, according to scientific law, a pixie cannot fly. Their delicate, lacy wings simply don't have the power or lift to make a creature of that body mass fly. But pixies do fly, regardless of their size or encumbrance.

Hywel believed that the Craicéailte approach was a destructive one to the pursuit of answers. The paradox of pixie flight, the solution to which (no doubt) lay tangled in science and magic, should be treated as a contradiction and be unravelled and solved. That the Craicéailtes wanted to celebrate the paradox was criminal, a learned fairy ought to find answers, not revel in their absence.

It was in Liused's response in 1711 where we find what we know call her eponymous Apophthegm. Their letters were written in the Vulgar-Carling dialect of south-western Sylphic, I am indebted to Mateo Cwna for the translation.

“A theory that is contradictory in itself cannot begin to explain the contradictions inherent within it. As persons of learning, we are expected to dismiss any such theory on principle. This is also true for any two theories that, should one be “correct”, the other is automatically “wrong”. And yet on the emotive, psychological level we accept both the reverse and the obverse all the time.

Do we not often hate one we love the most? Is there not often lust for one we wish to destroy? Why then can this acceptance of the contradictory not continue onto the physical plane? Why must the impossible be rejected in favour of partisan positions on that most subjective of nouns, the ever elusive Truth?

To accept that they are both true is not say that they should not be examined, debated or discussed. But it is a rejection of the concept of 'impossible'. We celebrate that which is contradictory because it shows that learning is without bounds. To 'take a side' is limiting. To accept both and build upon it is to leave the labels and boundaries of normative thought behind.”

It is important to know that Liused would later note that Craicéailte thought is one that works best in the abstract. Unlike other thinkers of the same school, who went so far as reject not just objective truth but objective reality entirely, Liused stressed that one should never abandon realist practicality. “One can, if one so chooses, build a house in mid-air having accepted both 'theories' that it will both collapse and never collapse. To do so, however, is at best specious and imprudent, at worst, outright fatal.”

An Excerpt From The Beat Betwixt the Pixie's Wings: A Fairy's History of Thought

Dr. Seumas Kermichil

Endymion University Press, 1997

Hollywood, Call Me

[Opening Scene: Superhero in an action-packed costume shows up during a bank robbery. He kicks major ass, throws shit, breaks the criminals against each other, saves the day. As bank patrons look on in awe, a little boy says "Who is that man, and where did he come from" with lots of "dawe"and "awe". We zoom in on the Superhero's chiseled jaw and cut to:]

TITLE CARD:  [SUPERHERO'S NAME, MAYBE A SUBTITLE]

IINTERTITLE: "Six Months Ago"

Cut to: Cubicle in an office. Our Hero works at a computer. His boss comes over, lays a super hero outfit on Our Hero's desk.


BOSS: Bob, here is a uniform. You are now a superhero. Fight crime and do good while still keeping regular hours here.

HERO: Sure thing, boss.

REST OF MOVIE: AWESOME SUPERHERO STUFF, MINIMAL ANGST, EXPLOSIONS.


Fin.


HOLLYWOOD, CALL ME. I CAN SOLVE THOR, GREEN LANTERN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA'S PROBLEMs IN ONE SITTING.

A Spotter's Guide

Rule One of magna-esque webcomics: If your protagonist isn't an asshole, he must wander around semi-aimlessly expositing every little       thought aloud until the plot happens to them. Bonus points if they have amnesia.

Rule 2: Tell, don't show. What do you mean comics are a visual medium? God gave us Text Boxes, no?

Rule 3: Breasts!

Rule 4: The plot ain't going to unfolded itself. Do it now- lingering tension will just make your readers antsy.

Rule 5: Did you follow Rule 3? Angsting about breast size is neither hackneyed nor cliched, but is instead a vibrant and untapped source of drama and comedy that is not at all demeaning to any female character you might have.

Rule 6: There are plot coincidences, and then there is deus-ex-fabula. Always go for option 2- nothing says well written like an author placing a sign that says Vital Characters Assemble Here

A song for the cat

To the tune of Navigator

The bands, and the boxes
The laptops and cords
He chewed and he spat them,
That feline of lords
He minded not noises
That rose through the nights
And the morning hours rang with
His Yowls and his Flights

[CHORUS]
Aggravator, Aggravator,
Rise up and be gone,
The morning is here,
I have not slept too long.
The sun in this wee hour has barely begun,
And off to your food bowl I see you do run.

Brought in by the hundreds,
Mice and birds beware
Presented as gifts
And left here and there
You pray he'll bring dead ones
Because they don't squeak
As the live ones he drops off
Wake you when you sleep

[CHORUS]

A cat owners' curse
Is still yet his joy
That furry behemoth
That lovely wee boy
You'll put up with yowling
And the signs of cat brains
For the chance of a snuggle
When outside it rains

[CHORUS]

Make Glad The Heart of Childhood

Well,  it seems that Christmas at the Gougère-Rombaur household has once again limped across the finish line, exhausted yet still victorious. At this hectic point in child rearing, Reg and I take our successes where we can find them. We woke a little around seven in the morning, the clarion call of greed in our ears as our children heralded the arrival of more bedroom clutter. Faster than you can say whatever strange mumbled curse my husband groaned out when he woke, our children were at our bedroom door, their eyes so bright that it even mollified my loathing of early morning rising. In their hands they clutched their stuffed stockings tight, eager to begin the august and inviolable rituals of Christmas morning.  Reg, whom I have selfishly molded into something resembling a morning person, clomped downstair to put on a pot of coffee. Will (at five our youngest) went with him, saying he needed to tell the pets about their stockings. Annie, seven, stayed with me, dancing around the bed in a flurry of grace and exuberance, extolling the virtues of the holy gentleman who filled our house with stuff for her. There's a Great Big Santa and an itty bitty Jesus, as a rather cynical priest of my acquaintance once said. In a sober whisper, Annie told me that she had made sure that she had gotten the most presents. I smiled wryly at this- Annie appears to have inherited my (in)ability with mathematics, because Reg and I had made very sure that the amount of presents was equal. Satisfied with her Christmas supremacy, Annie sat down with her stocking on the bed.

Reg, that stunning paragon of Yuletide virtue, came in at last with the blessed coffee, trailed by Will, who had chosen to eat a candy-cane for breakfast. It stuck out of his mouth at a jaunty angle. In his one arm he clutched his stocking, under the other he held Withnail (the cat-of-long-suffering), the arm looped around Withnail's rear, with his front half dangling, reaching desperately for the floor. With an amused look, I was informed by Reg that the dog, Sasha, had already opened her stocking, which explained the odd crunching noise coming from under our bed.

The Opening Of The Stockings is the first of several time-honored Christmas traditions, which started with watching the Muppet Christmas Carol the night before, the kids singing along to the songs and me quietly hiding my tears every few scenes. Christmas morning begins at an ungodly hour with the stockings on the bed, filled with candies and tiny toys, clementines and almonds. Annie is pure unfettered id, living only in the moment. She likes to pull everything out as fast as she can, spreading it in her corner of the bed, finding the thing she likes best and the fawning over it as much as possible. This year it was a pink sparkly cat comb that she immediately used on everyone but me- I was given a long, appraising look before she declared dramatically "I'm sorry, Father, but there is no hope for you. That hair... my comb is too late!" I took this pronouncement with as much dignity as I could. Will is very imaginative, living entirely in his own world, as grave and serious as a five year old can be. After handing the traumatized cat off to Reg, Will had pulled a Sleeply LaGoof, slowly taking out the candy cane and placing it beside him on the bed, leaving a pinkish stain on my duvet. Setting his Bolt toy over it as a guard, he carefully and slowly pulled out each item with a contemplative smile on his face. He likes to arrange them in some arcane order, occasionally showing something to Bolt for approval. Even when his sister tried to tame his unruly mop of brown hair, he kept to his task until he was satisfied.

By the time he was finished, Annie's attention had already switched tracks. She had first tried to open Sasha's stocking, but the dog could not be persuaded to climb out and relinquish her new bone, so she had turned her focus to Withnail, showing him his new catnip mouse and explaining to him in a rapid-fire stream of instructions about how he was to make sure this mouse lasted and stayed clean and so on. Withnail endured this with the same look of horrified panic and wounded pride with which he seems to go through life, the poor fellow. Soon enough, Annie's 'beans' and Will's attempt to use his wet candy cane to draw drove us out of the bedroom and downstairs, to commence the wrapping paper massacre once more. Soon the ground floor was littered with scraps of paper as Annie and Sasha struggled to outdo one another as agents of chaos. Annie feels that she has to emulate cartoon shows and reduce any wrapping paper to confetti, while all the revelry over-excites the dog, who is liable to grab wrapping paper debris and tear around the house, shredding it in the process. Eventually we end up on the couch, Reg and I side by side, Will on Reg's lap, Annie exerting her independence by curling up with some Barbies in the big armchair. As always, we sit down to watch Pee-Wee's Christmas Special, long on a dying VHS and recently and poorly transfered to DVD. We eat it with waffles, the only thing that Reg does better than I and, thus, the only time in which he is allowed to work in my hallowed kitchen unsupervised. We start later than usual- Will needs to make sure that both Bolt and his new teddy bear Ambrosias II (his predecessor having had an unfortunate encounter with Sasha six months ago) have a good view of the TV. As always, Reg and I argue over wether-or-not k.d. lang could have worn an uglier outfit, and I again declare it my life-long dream to have Frankie Avalon as my personal Christmas Card Slave. As always, watching this will make Reg throughout the day suddenly exclaim "Now all it needs is Charo!" to the general bewilderment of anyone around him. And again,  as always, the end of Pee-Wee heralds the oncoming cold- getting dressed, bundling up and setting out for Christmas Day at Nana Gougère's- or Red Nana, as the children insist on calling her, in order to distinguish her from Grey Nana, Reg's mother. I will not go into too much detail here, as mother's post-Christmas Column is inevitably devoted to her yearly Christmas menagerie of relatives. Like every year, my mother commanded the sea of people with Pattonesque flair, her wooden spoon a riding crop as she barked orders, directed people around and tried to make order out of madness. Cousin Arthur's drunken carols at the piano were inappropriate for everyone (Darlene left him again),  and Grandma Gougère has only gotten more cantankerous with age, until she espies her great-grandchildren, who seem to make her melt like hot butter.

The children are finally asleep, their fingers inexplicably still sticky from sweets. They were so buzzed from the sugar high that it took almost an hour of my sister reading them bedtime stories before they calmed down- thank God for Mairia Kalman. I hear the siren song of my childhood bed calling out to me, so I will draw this column to a close.

I hope you all had the most Merry of Christmases, and will have a very happy New Year.

I remain, as always,

W. Gougère

Christmas 2010