Guest Post: "Six Movies That Never Should Have Been Remade" by Isa

Well, everyone, the baby came 4 weeks early! It was a big surprise, as I'd convinced myself he was going to go all the way to term (there were signs that wasn't going to be the case, but I decided they were just false alarms). I'm very happy to say he's doing really well. But as a result, all my writing and social media time has pretty much vanished. What luck that Isa from Culture Coverage contacted me to propose that she contribute a guest post to this blog! I'm very pleased to present her post on six films that should never have been remade. Enjoy!

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Movies are more than just entertainment; they are a form of art. As such, it's everyone's duty to put on the hat of the critic from time to time. I would like to express my appreciation to sophia-martin.blogspot.com for affording the opportunity to do so with this post. When you're finished reading, it's worth checking out some of the other content on this site!

Some movies are way ahead of their times. They’re done with limited resources that couldn’t possibly do the film justice—made too early. Filmmakers frequently look to past films for ideas, sometimes completely remaking them. At times, it goes well; the recent Batman trilogy is an example of just how successful this kind of ideology can be. Some films are just worth waiting for.

But then there are “those” movies. We’ve all seen one before; they’re remakes of movies we once loved. Even if the originals lacked the technology, were horribly campy, or deviated hugely from their source material (in the case of films based on books), there was something we loved about them. But the remakes often fail to capture that spirit.

A few remakes were done so poorly that the fans of their basis have mentally distanced themselves from them like a bad memory. Those are the films we’ll be looking at today.

Psycho (1998)

Movie remakes usually hope to bring something new to the table. Whether they tweak the story, add new special effects, or update the setting to reflect a more modern and relevant feel to audiences, there’s usually something distinctly different. This is not the case with the 1998 remake of “Psycho.”

For some unknown reason the remake of "Psycho" is virtually shot for shot identical to the original piece from 1960. True, there are a few differences; the movie is shot in color with a higher quality playback rate on the audio, and the cast is entirely different. But the actual scenes haven't changed at all.
In fact, a lot is lost in transferring the film to color. Without the dim, dark environment (and no special effects to help instill that same feeling in color) the film is abjectly inferior to the original. The cast also lacks the authenticity of the original actors, particularly Norman Bates (now depicted by…Vince Vaughn?...) whose character was designed to start off very innocent, almost non-offensive.

Perhaps had the film brought something new to the table, it would have fared better. Ironically the next movie tried to do exactly that and was even worse.

Godzilla (1998)

Oh my goodness gracious, I just don't know where to begin. There is so much wrong with what fans have come to know with disdain as "Godzilla '98" that it could use its own government-backed study.

To begin with, Godzilla has always been a franchise of very mediocre acting; there’s plot in each film, but the focus is really on the kaiju (the big monsters). Whether Godzilla is facing Rodan or King Gidorah, the movie is about him. And for a monster that was created by nuclear radiation that destroys cities (exclusively in Japan) he often ends up depicted as the hero.

The American adaptation captured very little if any of Godzilla’s essence. Instead, he’s just a big angry lizard destroying New York; “he” also lays a ton of eggs that are an essential plot point, although a confusing point at best.

Besides rarely actually showing Godzilla in the film (perhaps due to budget limitations), the film is distinctly about the people with Godzilla used merely as a plot point. He also has no atomic breath, a huge disappointment to fans. Perhaps the film would have done better had it not tried to tie itself to the Godzilla franchise and just been called “Big Lizard in New York.”

The Haunting (1999)

The remake for “The Haunting” can only be described as a victim of 1999. It tried to take the original films concepts and make them grander. The sets are huge and detailed, and the plot goes out of its way to try and mislead the audience. Both efforts amount to naught.

Instead of a creepy haunted house that is depicted in the original, we’re presented with a mansion that looks like it was constructed by hundreds of skilled artisans. Its over-the-top attention to detail actually distracts from the whole point of the setting: it’s a scary haunted house.

But the film also tries to convince you the house isn't haunted…but it is! Surprise! Unfortunately, the well-paid cast does little to help carry the movie's inept script. Without the uniqueness between characters, we're faced with a bland and uninteresting variety of the same person dressed in different clothes.

Besides being an unnecessary remake, “The Haunting” remake goes one step further by just being an all-around bad film. And not just a bad movie, but a PG-13 film—in the 90s. There's nothing more to be said because there's not much going on with this movie. At least it made money.

Guess Who (2005)

The original film, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” touched a very sensitive nerve for its time. In 1967, interracial marriages were still a very controversial thing [Sophia's buttinsky, here: they still are, if that Old Navy ad controversy is any indication]. When the story’s couple comes home to meet mom and dad, they are understandably shocked. But at least their daughter has managed to catch herself a wealthy foreign doctor.
The modern rendition seen in the remake titled “Guess Who” hopes to flip the premise on its side; instead of a white woman (Katharine Houghton) bringing home a black man (Sidney Poitier) to her white folks (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), you have Zoe Saldana returning home with Ashton Kutcher meet with Bernie Mac and Judith Scott.
While the film isn’t as awful as some of the others we’ve gone through, it fails to capture the essence of the original. It’s thoroughly inoffensive, barely pushes any bounds, and does little to inspire any sort of conversation regarding racial politics. It’s just another film that simply wasn’t necessary.

Footloose (2011)

By all accounts, the original "Footloose" was set up in a way that should have yielded a terrible movie. Instead, it became an American classic long remembered for its fun dance scenes, good acting, and believable plot. Its focus on dance makes plenty of sense, being a film in the early 80s.

Having not learned from the mistakes of the “Psycho” remake, the movie again attempts to recreate (including in dialogue) many scenes from the original but does so poorly at it that one can hardly justify the film’s existence. The actors are less believable, particularly Ren who is depicted by Kenny Wormald and no longer looks lost, confused, or even well…young.

The dances have been updated to reflect the period, but that does little to help the movie along. Instead of the more innocent dances of the 20th century, we’re treated to the waist-to-waist grinding of modern dance that would make any Reverend protest, a plot element sadly wasted by the remake.

Total Recall (2012)

Everything I say here I must first preface by admitting this one bias: I am someone who thoroughly enjoys cheesy Schwarzenegger films. And by all accounts, the first "Total Recall" did virtually no justice to its source material. It was truly an adventure of its own making; it was an 80s sci-fi shoot’em up complete with corny one-liners, explosions, and bad acting galore.

But what the original had in spades, the remake lacks by all accounts. With none of the original's fun, the remake sets about creating a plot with nearly identical key points depicted in a slightly different way. Instead of being largely on a Mars Colony, the film is portrayed on post-apocalyptic Earth.
The change in secondary antagonist is equally questionable. The original featured a slew of “named” bad guys all going after Quaid, the protagonist. The remake replaces most of them with Quaid’s wife, leaving us with a decided shortage of characters to care about and a glut of faceless nobodies.

In some ways, the sets of the new film capture the feel of a "futuristic" society better, but there's just something very…forgettable about it all. While the memory of the original lives on well into the present, the remake has already faded into obscurity. Alas, another wasted opportunity.

Sequels and remakes are always a topic of debate. If you feel differently about one of these films or would like to discuss a different remake, post it in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

About the Author: Isa is a critic in her own right, frequently blogging about her most and least favorite films. When not discussing entertainment, she spends her time writing about internet security and advocating online safety. To read more of her work, visit SecureThoughts.com or CultureCoverage.com.

Deadpool -- I didn't love it, Part 1: The Overview

I didn't hate it, either, but after all the hype that seems to be building exponentially on Twitter, I really went into it expecting more. Which, I believe, is part of why I wasn't that impressed. I think if I'd gone into Deadpool without hearing about how hilarious it was and how original and irreverent and surprising and all of that, I might have actually found it funnier, more surprising, and maybe even original. Though ultimately the conclusion I have come to is that Deadpool is unusual but not original.

But before I go further with this review...

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS.


Anyway.

The first unusual bit comes with the opening, a frozen scene of a car accident which might as well have the word (abbreviation?) "FUBAR" written across it. As the camera winds and pans out, what appear to be credits begin scrolling, except that they are... unusual. Instead of actual names, they are things like, "A Hot Chick," "A British Villain," "A Moody Teen," "A CGI Character"... the producers are listed as "Asshats" and the writers as "the True Heroes Here." So that was cute. Except all the cliches promised are delivered without a twist. I was hoping, I guess, that there would be something interesting and unexpected about the hot chick, the British villain, and the moody teen. But the hot chick, played by Morena Baccarin (I'd watch a much crappier movie to see her) is just a hot chick. Sure, she doesn't take shit from an asshole in a bar, and eventually she does stab a villain (doesn't kill him though), but ultimately all she is, is a hot chick. A damsel to be rescued. More on her later. The British villain is all evil, no complexity, and he succeeds in making the viewer hope Deadpool ignores the advice of the CGI character trying to convince him to be a hero and not shoot the Brit in the face (Deadpool delivers). More on the CGI guy later, too. The moody teen gets defined right away by Deadpool, who says she'll spend the whole movie brooding silently or saying mean things... and she does. Pretty boring, actually. Pretty abysmally boring, to be honest. Why would you put together these elements? I mean, on the one hand you have a movie that's trying to be unusual (at the very least) with a surprising number of crude jokes (it's true that you don't tend to see Spiderman or even Iron Man referencing his masturbation habits the way Deadpool does), but then they just build a story that's nothing short of one big cliche, and they populate it with characters who are also all cliches, except maybe for Blind Al, who, I admit, does stand out: she's an acerbic, elderly, blind, African American woman who is Deadpool's roommate.

Deadpool is an antihero's origin story and not much else. It plays out nonlinearly, which was exciting back when Tarantino was doing it, I guess, though I never thought it was that big of a deal to begin with.

So before I come back to a discussion of the Vanessa character and the Colossus character (both of which relate to the only two times the movie managed to surprise me) let's recap. Deadpool is unusual in that it breaks the fourth wall quite a bit. A lot of the jokes are off-color in a way you don't generally see in a superhero movie. And... well, there's the thing that happens with Colossus, but I think you'll agree once I get to that that it's really not enough to make the movie original. Otherwise you have an origin story which I guess does have another unusual element--the motive for Wade to become Deadpool is that he's dying of cancer. Having a lead make a massive life change due to cancer has been done (Breaking Bad) but not so much with superhero stories (which actually relates to the other thing that surprised me). But besides El Cancer (as Deadpool calls it) the origin story isn't particularly interesting or original--Wade lets an evil private corporation do an experimental procedure on him, becomes their prisoner as they torture him for a while, eventually the procedure takes, and voila, he's a regenerating machine. He's also horribly disfigured but I'm sorry, that's not all that original. Plenty of superheroes go farther in losing their former looks--Swamp Thing, Beast, Hulk (who, granted, gets to change back and look human sometimes), V from V for Vendatta, Marv from Sin City, etc. Deadpool, as an antihero, scars more than most heroes, but that's so unoriginal TV Tropes addresses it. We're meant to like Deadpool because he snarks in the face of torture (don't we just love leads who do that?) but again, so not original.

"'Ba'al?! As in 'bocce'?" - O'Neill in the same scene as above, when he first meets his torturer.

What's even more disappointing as you peel back the layers is that one of the main things that makes Deadpool unusual is actually built on some old, overused ideas. Namely the crude humor. A lot of it grows out of the same old homophobia and misogyny powering all the "funny" not-gay-but-gay scenes in otherwise really good shows like Friends and Supernatural. And it's really too bad, because sometimes Deadpool seems to be embodying a new kind of masculinity, in which feminine poses and admissions of weakness don't undermine his strength. But then he "kisses" an early male encounter to cement his dominance over him, makes fun of the Brit for having the first name "Francis" (which clearly means the Brit lacks some essential masculinity) and provokes a fight in a bar by buying a guy a "blow job" shot and making it look like another guy sent it to him. Hilarious. What's more, Deadpool is just another man-child. He loves his toys (literally, he collects Voltron figurines) and can't face his illness with any kind of maturity, while Vanessa steps up right away. How many couples have we seen where this is the dynamic? Why aren't people sick of the man-child/woman-mommy relationship?!?

And despite the inclusion of Blind Al, Deadpool manages to be racist. DP gets in a cab driven by a South Asian man who is a wide-eyed innocent. The cabbie is soon so enamored of DP that he doesn't react when DP stiffs him, and in fact will gladly pick him up again later. The cabbie is in love but a rival has stolen his fiancee--DP advises him to kill the rival and kidnap the fiancee (and after a flashback in which he condemned stalking, too), and by the movie's end the rival is struggling in the trunk of the taxi, so it's clear the cabbie will do exactly as DP suggested. The cabbie's sole purpose in the film is to provide comic relief (though I gather he's not who the opening credits call the "Comic Relief"--that's DP's bestie, Weasel). If I were a South Asian man watching the film, I wouldn't be too happy with that guy as a representative of people like me.

Did you see Deadpool? What did you think of it? Did it live up to your expectations or, like me, were you let down?

More on the characters of Vanessa and Colossus in the next post...

Maleficent: Hell Yes.

So, I'm in love.

My husband and I went to see Maleficent yesterday and if bigamy was legal and you could marry a movie, I'd marry Maleficent.

Okay, I'm kidding a little. But only a little. The movie isn't perfect. I could have completely done without the narrator, for one. Add a scene or two to provide the exposition, and get rid of the narrator. The only narrator I ever like to listen to is Galadriel, and this was no Galadriel. Also, the three Stooges-esque "comedy" of the three fairies was really weak--but then I've never been a fan of that kind of slapstick comedy. And I get the criticism some reviewers have made regarding the idea that anyone would entrust a baby to those goofs. Plus, this is not the movie where Disney makes any strides towards LGBTTQ inclusiveness. I'm willing to just set all that aside, because what I loved about the movie just so far outweighs all the flaws.

Some reviewers were unhappy with how focused on Angelina Jolie the movie was. This was no problem for me, because I really admire Angelina Jolie. Before she became unnaturally thin, I used to think she was very attractive, as well--I don't think of her that way as much, but I really enjoyed her in this role. She was perfectly cast. She has the unusually extreme features necessary for a non-human character, and all they needed to do was enhance her cheekbones and her eyes a little to make her look fey. Even her thinness worked for the character. And I loved how demon-like she looked, with her horns and the hooks on her wings. And yet she was not a demon. That was awesome.

Beyond her looks, though, I admire Jolie for her adoptions and her choice to go public with her decision to get a double mastectomy. I'm sure she's got plenty of flaws, but when it comes to what I know of her, I think of her as a really strong woman.

Which brings me to what I loved about this movie. This was a movie about a very strong woman. It showed her suffering and rising from that, taking vengeance, and then returning to herself. It's hard to capture in words how watching this movie made me feel. Just watching her fly--I had tears in my eyes. Why? Well, partly because I'm not in my right mind these days. But also because I haven't seen anything like that in so long. It's been so long since a I saw a female character who was strong without being irrationally emotional. Who was beautiful without being oversexed. Who was furious without being obsessed with a man. And the whole movie was like a feminist fantasy* of a woman beating these awful men--and only when they were trying to destroy the forest, too. I mean, for a greenie like me, that was awesome.

Most of the characters in this movie were female. Like I mentioned above, the fairies were too silly, but even so, at least they were female. I get very frustrated with all the stories where maybe the main character is female, which is nice, but then it's like the people writing the story have to balance that with three extra male characters. And then, of course, there's the bazillion stories out there with the one or two female supporting characters, who never talk to each other unless it's about one of the male characters. Even my beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy is terrible in this way. I've come to a point where I watch shows and movies and just try to roll with it. Watching Maleficent shook me up because it reminded me of what I've been missing.

[MAJOR SPOILERS]

Maleficent does fall in love in the film, but it's never central to who she is or what she's doing. Her love, Stefan, eventually becomes too wrapped up in his ambition to become king to visit her anymore, and all that happens is that Maleficent spends some time alone sometimes. It's implied she misses him, but not really spelled out, and certainly not dwelt on. That was refreshing. Then, the king tells his would-be heirs that he will give the succession to the one who kills Maleficent, and Stefan uses their former relationship to approach her. He drugs her and tries to kill her. He can't go through with it. One reviewer I read claims this is because he's "weak." I disagree. Stefan can't kill Maleficent because some part of him still loves her. Instead, he cuts off her wings.

Here's one of the things I loved about the movie. I knew something bad would have to happen to her to make her go evil and curse a baby, and I was dreading the obvious choice for her motivation there: the woman-scorned storyline we see so often (recently they decided to explain the Wicked Witch of the West's motivation in this tired way, for instance). But Maleficent doesn't go evil because Stefan scorned her. She goes evil because he stole her wings. It is her wings she mourns--not her love. She describes them, latter, "I had wings once, and they were strong. They could carry me above the clouds and into the headwinds, and they never faltered. Not even once."

Thoughout the scene where she first mourns her wings I cried for her because I thought of how in real life, Jolie has had to give up part of her body. I don't know what it's like to lose your breasts. I know she made a choice to do so--but it must still have been devastating. So, another reason the casting of her in this role resonated powerfully.

Then, there's the resolution of the curse. If you're familiar with the original Disney movie of Sleeping Beauty, you know that Maleficent curses Aurora as a baby--she will grow in grace and beauty, everyone who knows her will love her,** but then at the age of 16, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel's needle and fall into a death-like sleep (although in the original story, unless I'm mistaken, the evil fairy curses her to die and one of the good fairies softens the curse to a death-like sleep--in the movie they skipped that). Only true love's kiss will wake her, but then, Maleficent doesn't believe in true love.

Maleficent watches the baby grow and finds she has to intervene because of the three fairies' incompetence. Soon, she is charmed by the little girl, and eventually, comes to love her so much she wants to revoke the curse, but can't. Aurora pricks her finger and falls asleep, but not before meeting a nice-looking, charming prince. Everyone scrambles to get this prince to Aurora's bedside, Maleficent included.

Now, I watch Once Upon a Time, and one of the things I love about that show is that mother's love counts as true love. And if anyone acted as Aurora's mother as she grew up, it was Maleficent, though she was cold and withdrawn about it. So I was really hoping Maleficent's kiss would do the trick, and pretty annoyed that they were going with the love at first sight silliness with the prince. And then... his kiss didn't work. Maleficent's did.

That was exactly what I wanted to see happen.

My husband, who in some ways is more radical that I am when it comes to gender and political stuff, was annoyed when the prince turned up at the end as some kind of reward for Aurora. He thought it would have been better without that. I can see his point, but it didn't bother me. The movie was never about Aurora, though she was important. And I don't begrudge characters having romantic relationships, as long as they aren't the only thing they are living for. I'm married, after all, and very happy to have a companion that I love. I wouldn't want to deny that to all the fictional characters out there, in some effort to make them all strong and independent islands. And Maleficent remains strong and independent, though not an island, because she has her companion and servant, Diaval***.

Anyway, overall, halleluliah for a film that presents a strong woman who never falters in her strength. A woman not ruled by her emotions. A complex woman. I have waited a long time to see that. Not to be over-dramatic about it, but in this current culture of open misogyny and narrow roles for women, it was like a balm to my soul.

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*It was very much the kind of fantasy I would have had as a young feminist. But I don't want to give the impression that I buy into the "feminists hate men" stereotype. It happens that many women, myself included, come to feminism after having very negative experiences with men, and as a result they do go through a period of fury towards men. It's not a balanced approach, and if this film wanted to be balanced, it failed at doing that. But I honestly don't need balanced fantasies right now. I am fine with a fantasy that privileges women, for once. If this movie plays out a feminist anti-man fantasy, in contrast with the thousands of male-fantasy misogynistic movies that objectify and dehumanize women, I am okay with that.
**This is actually something that bothers me. The implication is that Maleficent comes to love Aurora because of her own curse, not because she is a complex person with sensitivity and the ability to love independently of magical influence. I think it's great that she's so cold about it--she doesn't morph into this maternal, nurturing stereotype of perfect womanly motherhood at any point. Having experienced some of what she sees in Aurora with my own baby, I felt like I knew why she loved Aurora despite herself, and that's all I needed.
***One reviewer complained that Diaval becomes the dragon in the end instead of Maleficent, but I really feel that that reviewer totally missed the point. Maleficent is the one who turns him into a dragon, and he serves her. In the end, Maleficent regains her full power when she becomes fully herself once more. Changing into a dragon would have detracted from that.

The Conundrum of Ender's Game

Anyone who is interested in sci fi and LGBT issues, and has access to the internet, has probably already heard about the boycott against Ender's Game, the movie based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, opening tonight. A lot of people are very excited for the movie. As I understand it, the novel is very good. My ex-husband certainly liked it a lot. I have never read it, but I do know a little about it from what he told me.

All things being equal, I love sci fi and often wish there were more shows and movies out there to see. So I would have been happy to go see Ender's Game. However, there's a problem. Orson Scott Card is not only a vocal opponent of LGBTQA rights, but he puts his money where his mouth is. So essentially, paying to see Ender's Game means making a contribution to a vehement homophobe's campaign to keep gay marriage illegal and even criminalize homosexuality. Of course, now that his novel is being made into a film and the world has started to discuss his views and actions, Card is claiming he's backing off. He's demanding that everyone show tolerance for his past statements and actions. Which is like Napoleon asking everyone to forget he once took over most of Europe after he was sent to Elba.*

So, okay, Card is a tool and a bigot. Let's all boycott the film.

Except as was recently pointed out to me on  Goodreads forum, Lionsgate, the company producing Ender's Game, has a history of positive policies towards their LGBTQA employees.They've issued a statement, unsurprisingly, in hopes of stopping the boycott before it starts. So paying to see Ender's Game means supporting a company that has publicly declared itself an ally of the LGBT community and apparently puts its money where its mouth is. So the decision is a bit more complicated.

I need to say one or two things about boycotts in general.

First of all, calling for a boycott of a product or service is not the same thing as calling for censorship. I have seen way too many people on the internet in the last few months conflating those two actions. No one who wants to boycott Ender's Game is also automatically saying Card should be silenced, his books should be burned, or anything else that would fall under the purview of censorship. Censorship is about restricting someone's freedom. A boycott is about using one's freedom to choose where one will spend money. In boycotting Ender's Game, people are saying, "Sure, Card, keep doing what you're doing, that's your right. It's also my right to ignore you and refuse to give you money."

Secondly, there's something to be said for participating in a large-scale boycott because it sends a message, even if it seems to be picking on just one person. I've heard before that there's no point in individuals boycotting items without it being part of a larger boycott, because only a large, organized boycott will make a splash. I, for one, boycott Walmart (for so many reasons I will not go into here; watch this movie if you're curious) despite the fact that my boycott is indefinite and doesn't have to do with a larger organized effort. I will continue to do so even though Walmart probably won't ever notice, because I could not live with myself if I shopped at a place with so many awful policies. There are other businesses and individuals I boycott, but I won't list them all here. The point is, I believe in boycotting, on a personal level and as part of a larger effort. And the larger efforts may actually bear fruit, which is why boycotting Ender's Game may be worth it despite Lionsgate's good policies.

Another thing to consider is the long view: if Ender's Game does well at the box office, Card's chances of scoring more movie deals go up. Do we really want to funnel millions of dollars into this man's pockets?

I am sad I'll miss out on what I'm told will be a really good sci fi movie. But to quote MLK, "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." I realize it's just a movie. Seems a little dramatic to quote King. It's just that I so rarely want to see movies that come out these days, and it's such a pleasure to do so. So it is a sacrifice. And a worthy one--I am committed to opposing forces that would deny rights and dignity to people anywhere. So no Ender's Game for me.

Were you planning on seeing Ender's Game? Have you changed your mind? Tell me your take on all of this.

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* It's important to note that Napoleon later escaped from Elba and went on to lead an army again. Need I explain the implication I'm making in reference to Card?

Adventure Stories & Orientalism

I'm so pleased that several people have commented on my post concerning dieselpunk and orientalism. I had already decided to write a follow-up post in order to delve more deeply into the question, as I really think it's worth discussing and it's something I mull over a lot. This is that post.

David Mark Brown commented on my original blog post about how he chose to flip character expectations around in order to challenge some of the problems of race relationships, etc., in his dieselpunk fiction. That shook me out of the assumption that the main characters of dieselpunk stories had to be westerners. I still have an issue with that, though, which is as a white westerner myself, I'm not sure how to believably write from the point of view of a nonwesterner or someone belonging to a nonwhite culture. I'm not ruling it out, just saying it would pose a considerable challenge to me. I've actually attempted to write from the pov of a black woman in the past (it was sci fi in a universe I built, so saying African American or Caribbean American doesn't fit). I never felt like I pulled it off, though.

A really big part of what troubles me is the issue of exoticism. Stephen A. Watkins commented on this blog post (which Tiyana Marie White wrote in response to my post), "I think there’s a difference between the aesthetic appreciation of something “exotic” meaning that it’s outside the norms of your experience and the type of problematic “exoticization” that results from fetishizing something that’s different for no reason than that it’s different." Exoticism/exoticization is huge for me. To be clear, the trouble I have is that I would like to write stories where the mc must go to some country foreign to them, to seek out some sort of treasure/have some sort of other adventure, much in the tradition of Indiana Jones. What I can't work out is how to impart all the thrills and fears of such a thing, without painting the culture as exotic and sinister. I'm not talking about describing the people in stereotypical terms (which isn't just offensive, it's also plain tiresome), so much as trying to achieve a tone of menace, etc., for the mcs, who are navigating a land that is foreign to them. Throw in some sort of cursed item(s) or whatever, and you have a recipe for your typical dark and threatening culture as seen in myriad books and films. The problem with that is that when you choose to represent a real Earth culture that way, you other them and contribute to a history of imperialism and oppression, something I don't want to do.

One option is to go ahead and represent some of the culture as sinister. For example, have some creepy big wig in the culture invite the characters to dinner, say, and then the characters proceed to navigate a house full of unnatural shadows and decorated with unsettling objects. The meal would be shocking to them as well due to whatever they're eating... if you've read my previous post, you might recognize this as a reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a movie that really beats you about the head with orientalist representations. As you may recall, part of the trouble with Temple is that it's not just portraying a culture in a very negative light, it's also doing so with blatant inaccuracies. Anyway, so let's say I want to have the creepy dinner chapter and I'm going to avoid the blatant inaccuracies. I'm still using items of the culture to create an aura of fear and danger. I could counterbalance that chapter with some sort of positive interaction in another chapter with much more approachable, appealing characters of the foreign culture. I don't mean yet another stereotype (lusty women who fall for the hero, mystical sages who provide guidance, etc.). No, I'm thinking more along the lines of the Colombian drug lord in Romancing the Stone (not a dieselpunk movie, but it operates on the same principal as interwar adventure stories with the mild mannered woman and rough and tumble male guide--think of The Mummy, same principle--who delve into a dangerous foreign land and encounter menacing characters, etc. in the pursuit of treasure). In Romancing the Stone, the audience is led to believe romance writer Joan Wilder and her adventuring guide, Jack I-forget-his-last-name are about to meet a stereotype of a Colombian thug: some backwards, unsophisticated guy who rides a mule. Turns out, the guy has modern ammenities, has read all of Joan's books, and the mule in question is a 4X4. Now, believe me, I'm not here to say that Romancing the Stone somehow avoided racist depictions because of this scene. Sadly, as much as I enjoy that movie, I think it's terribly problematic, too. But I digress. My point is that the scene challenges audience expectations. It does it, no doubt, in order to get laughs. Similar scenes abound in many films--and I think more often than not, they are there to get laughs. It's funny to set up expectations and then turn them on their heads.

My question is, do those sorts of scenes challenge expectations enough to be an antidote to the sinister scenes that paint a "foreign" culture as dark, dangerous, magical, etc.?

Anyway, to return to what Stephen Watkins wrote, I suppose another way to approach the issue of exoticism to interrogate whether those "sinister" representations fetishize the culture or simply represent it as unfamiliar to readers/viewers. When I wrote the as-yet-unpublished sequel to The River and the Roses I wanted to introduce Daniel Seong's family, and I wanted to do so intelligently. So I went on a Korean American chat board and asked a bunch of questions. The people on the board were super patient with me and helped to dispell some of the stereotypes I had knocking around in my head. They gave me insight into how to represent the family dynamics, the words people use, the way a dinner would play out, etc. It was all very cool and I learned a lot in the bargain. I'm reasonably sure I did a nice job of writing those scenes concerning Daniel's family. It's just a lot easier in the realistic setting of my modern day psychic mystery to not fall into the orientalist trap. In River, I can have Veronica come in as an outsider to a culture she's unfamiliar with, and have her be a bit uncomfortable and nervous about it, but still see it as a real, breathing, normal culture. Then again, she's not meant to be in a threatening situation. It's not an adventure story. Aside from her ability to commune with the dead (which really makes her more exotic than anyone else in the book), there's no magic, no cursed items, no spooky caves, no dungeon crawls, no evil villains (there are bad guys, but they are much more plebean). Is it possible to write adventure stories where there are all those things and not fall into the orientalist trap?

I suppose another option is to take the flipping-the-binary thing even further. Have a nonwhite and/or nonwestern hero who is dealing with a white, western villain. I mean, you do see that, of course. Nazis spring to mind. Is that the only way? Isn't avoiding casting nonwhite and/or nonwestern villains in a story just another form of discrimination?

Well, I've written myself into a corner. Help me out, folks. What's your take?

What is Dieselpunk?

After my recent blog post on Captain America: The First Avenger, I got a couple of questions about the terms "dieselpunk" and "decopunk." There's a pretty nice description of dieselpunk here, but I thought I'd talk a little about what it means to me.

I've come across a forum post where someone described dieselpunk as a scene rather than a genre, mainly, if I understand correctly, because of the dirth of actual dieselpunk fiction out there. I'll grant you that there aren't as many movies and TV shows with the elements that make up dieselpunk than there are capitalizing on the popularity of steampunk, but I think it's incorrect to say there aren't very many. In the last few months I've watched eight movies and two anime tv shows (notably Last Exile, which perhaps due to the fact that I watch it at 3am when I'm giving the baby his bottle and I have the sound turned almost all the way down, has come to a point where it is incomprehensible to me, unfortunately. I still really enjoy the soundtrack, though)--and of those eight movies, none were in the Indiana Jones series. There are also quite a few books that qualify, at least according to my definition.

So I should probably get to that.

To me, dieselpunk is fiction genre (or, more broadly, a scene) that draws on sci fi from the 1920s-1940s. Dieselpunk differs from steampunk in that its machines have internal combustion engines. You don't see airplanes in steampunk--at least, not unless they are some sort of steam-powered clockwork. You do see airplanes in dieselpunk--prominently so. But you also see other, weirder vehicles like the vanships in Last Exile. Also, very often you see robots. The idea with dieselpunk is that the tech is retro-futuristic (a combination that I find delightful). Lots of dials, knobs, gauges, levers, and grease, but I could see a story where these old-fashioned machines allow for (minor) space travel or teleportation--much like Telsa's inventions in The Prestige are steampunk yet futuristic.

The time period encompasses the decades of history I find most interesting to study--the 1920s, especially in the U.S. due to Prohibition, are fascinating because they represent the moment when westerners entered the modern age. Probably because of that, much of the pulp fiction of the time involved exploration of nonwestern parts of the world--the exotic, mysterious places most threatened by extinction in the modern age. More on that in a moment, as it raises a rather thorny problem.

The 1930s provides the concept of noir--film noir, detective stories, and the rise of fascism in several locations around the world.

And the 1940s gave us World War II--a terrible time, of course, but also a time people remember as a golden age of victory gardens, radio programs, and shared purpose. In our memories, everyone was in agreement in the 1940s--the Allies were working together to oppose the evils of the Axis Powers, who in turn were working together to destroy everything good in the world. Through a simple lens, World War II is the most ethically accessible war, because there are such clear bad guys, especially in Europe. (Please understand, I'm saying this as a writer, not as a historian. As a historian, this sort of thing does not fly.)

So dieselpunk has a rich playground to run around in. Add to that all of the bright optimism and faith in science that preceded the dropping of the atomic bombs and the discovery of the death camps. Think of the excitement of the World's Fairs. And to top it off, dieselpunk has its own artistic style: art deco. In fact, a subgenre of dieselpunk (itself a subgenre of steampunk, of course) is decopunk--basically everything dieselpunk is without such an interest in the machines.

But back to the exotic lands, for a moment, and the problem they pose.

I may eventually devote an entire post to this minefield, because it's a doozy, and it's one I'm particularly concerned with because I'm liable to get caught in the middle of it one of these days. Orientalism.

What, you ask, is orientalism, and what does it have to do with dieselpunk?

In a nutshell, orientalism is the representation of nonwestern cultures (most often Middle Eastern, but it's just as valid for various Asian areas as well as any other part of the world where people are predominantly brown, in my opinion) through the filter of western ideas, desires, opinions, prejudices, etc. It's a form of racism with a long history in fiction. Probably one of the best examples of a movie that is both dieselpunk and orientalist: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. One of the big problems with orientalism is that writers who fall prey to it often misrepresent cultures or conflate two or more cultures. In the case of Temple, for instance, the goddess Kali is depicted as evil and ruling the underworld, which is inaccurate. Much of the cuisine is probably closer to Chinese than Hindu, as well. The attitude in days gone by among writers and fans of orientalist fiction was to shrug and say something along the lines of, "It's all the same anyway." (In case that's your attitude, try turning it around and imagining what it would be like for a Hindu or Chinese film to depict your culture as the same or at least jumbled with some other culture--usually belonging to a historical enemy. Now imagine that happening over and over in every book and movie that depicts your culture for hundreds of years.) For more on Temple's issues specifically, go here.

Nowadays I see a deep uneasiness in movies like Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow--they so desperately want to be able to depict grand adventures like those of Allan Quatermain (a character who was originally more steampunk than dieselpunk) but they don't want to come under fire for racism. It's a pickle. I love stories of treasure hunts, dungeon crawls, scary jungles and survival in ice storms. But how do you write about exotic lands without othering those people the main characters, who by nature of being dieselpunk characters will be westerners, will encounter there? How do you portray a culture respectfully while simultaneously making it mysterious, sinister, and, in many cases, somehow mystical? What's a white writer in love with the retro-futuristic fiction of the1920s-1940s to do?

The best I've come up with is to take the story off of planet Earth altogether, and set the dungeon crawls, barroom brawls, and mystical encounters on other planets entirely (Firefly, anyone?). And don't even think about basing the alien cultures on specific (stereotyped and misrepresented) Earth cultures. Lucas did that and it's painful to watch. Of course, the real problem with that solution is that you've pretty much left dieselpunk behind once you leave Earth or at least an Earth-like setting. Yes, it's sci fi, but it's limited sci fi. Dieselpunk is not atomicpunk, and I can't see diesel engines powering even the most fun retro-futuristic space ships farther than a trip to the moon, maybe.

What do you think about dieselpunk? Do you like stories set in the 1920s-1940s?
How would you handle the orientalism problem?

I did plan to write today...

I promised myself, when I woke up this morning, that I would write for at least a half an hour today. I hoped that it was a low estimate. However, the baby is having a bad day (he's in his crib, not sleeping, right now--it's only a matter of time before I have to pick him up again, I think). We've both had colds and I switched him to soy-based formula in the hopes that it would alleviate his sinuses (when I drink cow's milk it always makes me stuffier), and I don't think it's agreeing with him. I'm especially frustrated because 1) the doctor told me to switch to soy weeks ago because of the baby's eczema, but I didn't because we couldn't afford new formula at the time, and the eczema got better on its own 2) due to a snafu with Amazon I ended up ordering a large quantity of the soy formula and now he seems to dislike it and possibly be having a hard time digesting it, and maybe even getting a bit of a rash from it 3) this all comes at a point where my own milk supply is really dwindling and I've been having to "pump-and-dump" anyway because I'm taking cold medicine so that I can actually sleep the few hours I get here and there... ugh. I feel guilty about not breastfeeding him and now I'm going to have all of this soy formula, and it looks like I have to order more of the other kind. I'd consider returning it, except we're almost completely out, and I can at least mix the soy formula with the regular while we wait for another shipment of the regular... and I have to order all this stuff online because everything at the local store here in lovely Mount Shasta is ridiculously overpriced. Basically I'd pay more than double if I bought the formula there.

Sorry. Didn't mean to go on a tirade about baby formula there. Looks like he's dropping off, at last. Of course, in about 45 minutes I have to pack him up in the car to go pick up his dad from work. I hope he doesn't freak out, poor thing. He's having a rough day.

So maybe I'll grab these 45 minutes to do some writing. I haven't been making much headway, but that has more to do with the cold, the bad sleep patterns, and all the other mommy stuff than with a problem with the story. Jeff and I just started watching the first episode of Boardwalk Empire, which is awesome as it's set in the 1920s, like my story. I love it when a tv show or movie fuels my inspiration, just by its setting, like that, or sometimes there's an actor I've envisioned for a character, and it can be inspiring to watch them, too.

Do you have shows or movies you watch to get your writing juices flowing?