Raven Daegmorgan ([info]greyorm) wrote,
@ 2007-07-23 00:00:00
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Entry tags:fiction, human behavior, movies, politics, racism, rant, review

This. Is. FILM CRITIQUE!!!!

Damn! I came across this review of 300 tonight and realized I HAD TO post a link, because it says everything I want to say about the whole hullaballo over the film, including to the folks I've attempted to discuss this film with in the past (Vincent, I'm looking at you) and various other similar issues.

I'm going to spoil it for you: ultimately, I see it as a good bash of modern critics (professional and otherwise) and their trends, which are really cultural trends at large in society that I hold no sympathy for (to describe it insultingly because it's late, I'm tired, and this is my personal space: liberal intellectual wanking, nail-biting and academic-overanalyzation-to-political/social-judgment).

Basically, what I see in a much "social analysis" from liberal quarters is exactly what I see on RPG.net, the threads on which someone else once described as "kind of gladatorial polemics for nerds, who nit-pick people's phrasing or choice of lexis as a sport." Except in this case, its nerds picking on the use of iconography and possible subtexts.

Tellingly, the rest of his comment also applies, "It gets so that people feel scared about posting in case they're deliberately misconstrued." *ahem* "Tolkien orcs are really a racist commentary on blacks." (Need I say anymore?)

Anyways, quotage:

It's somewhat amusing. It makes one feel like saying "not everything is about you, guys. This film is about Spartans, because they were interesting and weird. Get over the 'not about you' part" and you'll begin to get this film.

...

300 is better understood as an expensive art-house project and not your usual genre piece starring Gwyneth or Brad. Critics have tried to twist its story into some kind of contemporary allegory and failed.
Yeah! YEAHYEAHYEAH! *pumpfistair*

(For those missing what I'm getting at here, let me quote a statement attributed to Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.")

Also, almost unrelated, this (and here again). Grow a fucking sense of humor already, you dour bastards. You'll live longer. Shit like this is why I reject the broader vocal pagan community: like most other social action groups, they've found that in our modern culture, having no sense of humor or sense of perspective is the most effective weapon in forcing other people around.

Is it any wonder that conservatives reject liberalism as a bunch of namby-pampy noise (and then turn right around and sneakily use the same tactics themselves against liberals, because those tactics are just too effective)?

Hrm...let's see, since I'm on a roll, can I aggravate anyone else tonight? Melissa? Maybe Adam? Stupid rules for words and grammar! Bah! But only because you're my favorite word-Nazis ;D

Look at me being clever in my word-use, because I'm using that specific term to point out that the way our culture is headed, at some point we won't be able to use the word "Nazi" in a joking fashion because it will offend someone, somewhere. In fact, we are probably already there (after all, I can't say "gay" and mean "happy" or "ridiculous"...it can only mean "homosexual". Because in our current culture, the meaning of a word is invariably the meaning as understood by the person the most offended).

Also, I noticed some curious and unintended-but-very-cool synchronicity between various bits and pieces of that article on language and things I've said above. I'd love to say that was intentional and deliberate, and my being clever, but it wasn't. Still, I love the synchronicity! Damn!

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[info]cronesmoon
2007-07-23 12:50 pm UTC (link)
The movie doesn't interest me and the pagans make me tired, but I agree with Sam Smith. Though I do think he could have used about half as many words (or fewer!) to make his point. And I very much agree with your remark, "a word is invariably the meaning as understood by the person the most offended." It is one of the most frustrating aspects of language today.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-23 06:24 pm UTC (link)
Heh.

I liked the movie as a visual bit.

The "pagans" being separate from the rest of Sparta and ignored as a bunch of in-bred mutants bothered my historical accuracy nerve, then I remembered it was a movie and told my inner geekdom to shut the hell up.

Also, the whole "lascivious dance" scene bored me to tears (I was, "OK, hot chick dancing. We get it. To the point already?:tapfingers:Stop the porn?" Felt the same way about that stupid-ass rave/sex scene in the second Matrix movie).

And, yes. Today's people wield words like big, blunt, one-meaning clubs. There's no style, depth, or consideration of language as a tool to communicate. Instead, it is now a tool to manipulate; all politics, instead. As with much else, our culture is following in the footsteps of our leaders and taking their behavior (divisive, argumentative, manipulative, ideological) as our own.

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[info]tigerbunny_db
2007-07-23 01:31 pm UTC (link)
I know where you're coming from, but your privilege is showing big time, dude.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-23 06:01 pm UTC (link)
Mark, man, if I don't cut my own people slack for acting like a bunch of over-reactive, over-sensitive boneheads (see above), what makes you think I'm going to cut any other group slack?

Really!

Think about it.

As such, it's got nothing to do with "white privilege" and everything to do with cultural behaviors I find distasteful, manipulative, and destructive.

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[info]claydowling
2007-07-24 12:45 pm UTC (link)
Got a beef with the Orcs/Negros thing still? Or am I missing something?

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[info]tigerbunny_db
2007-07-24 01:28 pm UTC (link)
Don't want to get too seminar-y, but the essential point is that emotionally and culturally, treating any text as "just words" is itself a marker of privilege. To portray is to define. Similarly, to assert that any symbol is "only" about what you want it to be about (when other people/groups can and will see it differently - regardless of authorial intent - due their own histories and context) is something that only makes sense if you are claiming a privileged position with regard to that text.

It is entirely possible for the same text - be it blackface Drow, fluffybunny Pagans, or pornographic Spartans - to be read differently by different people. The power to assert a "real" meaning and deprecate the perceived meanings found by others is itself a form of privilege.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-24 03:40 pm UTC (link)
Mark, that's actually exactly my point and exactly what I'm against above!

The current social trend among liberals is that the most offensive understanding is the only relevant understanding, and if you don't treat it as such you are a bad person. I am very much against that attitude.

"You're white/not-us, so your interpretation doesn't count, or is really just hidden racism, whether you see it or not, and if you don't learn to see it that way and react to it the way WE see it, it just proves you are a racist or blind." <-- This seems to be exactly what you are saying above about privilege and treating symbols/text/anything as only about what one group wants it to be about.

Don't believe me? Go tell folks like Chris Chinn that you don't agree with their interpretation of something and then be made to feel like a dirty pariah for suggesting anything other than their interpretation be considered valid.

And when we bring privilege into it -- even though, yes, it exists -- it is thrown around way too often as a "shut-down".

The fact is, some of my fellow pagans think the joke pulled with the chalk lines man was sacrilege, and I think that's nonsense. But when someone can say my saying that their action/behavior is nonsense is "privilege" -- shifting the discussion to my having to defend myself socially -- instead of discussing whether or not it is or is not nonsense, something is very wrong.

It's like making a statement that points out flaws with the current administration or their behavior, and then having to defend yourself from people who respond by claiming, "You aren't a patriot!"

Does that make sense?

So, in regards to the movie review and the attitude I'm against, I'm not against multiple interpretations or analyzation. That's very important to art, philosophy, and progress. But I am against the extremes of doing so that our culture is currently awash in, which in practice are detrimental to our progress as a society.

We are mistaking the practice with its result, much like the way we mistake proper use of language or complexity of language with good communication (and thus often achieve the exact opposite).

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[info]claydowling
2007-07-24 08:26 pm UTC (link)
You'd better define what you mean by "privledge" pretty quick, or you're gonna start to smell like a racist prick. Because when I hear that word it sounds to me like a derogatory term used towards white heterosexual males by people with a political agenda.

In other words you're using it just like I might use the n-word if I felt like being crude.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-24 08:38 pm UTC (link)
Woah, hey guys, let's take deep breaths and calm down. No shouting matches.

Clay, that word bothers the heck out of you because you feel it is judgmental, derogatory, and sneakily used as part of an agenda, not for communication/understanding. You feel it is basically the n-word for whites. Ok.

I do not believe Mark is using it with the intent of being insulting, but trying to communicate the way people will completely dismiss how specific words or behaviors make other people feel or how they are used/perceived elsewhere. Mark?

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[info]tigerbunny_db
2007-07-25 07:18 pm UTC (link)
I don't particularly want to engage in a wrangle over this, but I'll say 2 things and then give it a rest.

1. You want not to be "shouted down" by people who find a particular expression objectionable. They want not to be "shouted down" by people who think it's Just Fine. I know who I'm gonna side with each and every time in that fight, and it's not the person who thinks it's all just Good Clean Fun. The ability to HAVE stuff like that be Just Fine for you is at least in part the result of your privilege - it doesn't touch your situation of oppression or emotional vulnerability.

2. I do have a political agenda. Everyone does. It's just that some of us are lucky enough to have our agenda be treated as Not An Agenda, Just The Way Things Are by society. Like, say, straight white guys. And if you think being called on your privilege on a message board is the equivalent of racist slurs, boy, are you living in a dream. Own it. You get to be "normal."

Sorry to trouble your geekgasms, boys.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-27 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Ok, but that's your choice, your belief that things should work that way and you should do that, and that the offended are always the ones who should be sided with. I don't agree.

This isn't about 'shouting down' someone else: what I am opposed to is the way people in our modern culture seek out things to offend them -- they have been culturally indoctrinated into seeing and taking offense, or they have found doing so to be socially and politically expedient.

This is what I call the "Pool is racist!" effect, and why I do not automatically side with the offended party or consider their justifications reasonable or rational, even when and if the logic behind it looks good.

I don't deny the mindset of privilege, either, but I do wonder what ever happened to plain old "I personally don't like that" and why today we have "I have this problem, this perception, and I'm going to make YOU deal with it" instead?

What I oppose is the same sin you are calling others out on: telling people that the only way to see something is how you, or how some specifically chosen group, sees it. I am against the fact that the current trend is to ask not only for the respect of differences, but to turn around and argue that respect for differences can only travel one way.

Someone shared a quote with me that always gets shot down when spoken by a white male: "We also often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally."

Now, I've said that a number of times and I think it also applies in some of the cases mentioned here, and too quick to call "privilege" because of that statement: but I'm just a white male oppressor, so what do I know?

Well, apparently, I know as much as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which is whom that quote comes from. And if you want to talk about a guy who has had to deal with oppression and suffering and being on the other end of the privilege stick...

Regardless, the broken attitude is what I'm against, Mark, but it seems to me you are not grasping that(?). Really, they can see it however the hell they want as long as they give me the same courtesy, and especially if, as a culture, we stop believing and behaving as though the over-analysis now rampant in modern media is a healthy thing because, Freud again, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Or to put it less cliche, just because you can see a puppy in the clouds does not mean rain is made of dog piss.

And that is what the post was about.

Sometimes, a film is about exactly what it is about, and isn't a representation of a modern struggle between "white democracy-loving Americans" and "brown facist-loving Muslims"; sometimes a bunch of bad guys in a fantasy film have dark skin because they have dark skin, not because they are meant to be or should be seen as a representation of African Americans.

I know, that's just "privilege" talking...and that is really just the easy way out of the conversation, not actually listening to the other side: after all, they support something "bad", they can't have a point, they don't agree with me or my pain, so they must be ignorant or willfully cruel.

Which seems to leave us, unfortunately, at an impasse.

I'm also ignoring the "gamergeeks" snark, because, hey, I ranted and snarked, too. I'm afraid I'm not quite clear of your meaning, here, however. Was it meant to indicate you think perception and associated discussion of "300" as an art-film-meant-to-be-an-art-film is masturbatory nonsense?

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[info]claydowling
2007-07-24 12:52 pm UTC (link)
I didn't see this movie in the theater because I was heavily put off by the excessive use of CGI. The historical story, at least, I've always found fascinating. The men who could do that were weird cats indeed, and weird cats that I'd like to know more about. If the visual design hadn't been to intentionally look like a video game it would have been hard to keep me out of the theater.

Hollywood has put out way too many movies that were all about the special effects and completely not about the story. For those in Hollywood who are paying attention, this is why there has been trouble at the box office, not because of DVD players. Story is key, story is all that matters. You can spend all you want on stars and special effects, without good story you're flushing money down the drain and wasting our time.

That said, I might have to rent this movie now. If the story can overcome the special effects, I'll consider it money well spent. If it's all about the video game graphics, I'll be reminded to avoid Frank Miller's work in the future.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-24 03:38 pm UTC (link)
It was a Frank Miller film, adapted from a comic book, so the artistry of it is important. I honestly didn't notice any CGI that made me say "Oh, CGI", so I really can't comment on that issue (or perhaps that IS thus a comment on that issue!).

I thought the film was "beautiful", stylistically-speaking, but I'm very visually oriented, with the story as a nice background thing -- by no means secondary or tacked on, however -- a functional framework for the eye-candy that both did not get in the way or detract from the whole of the experience. If you understand what I mean.

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[info]claydowling
2007-07-24 08:18 pm UTC (link)
At least in the trailers, everybody looked like they had been rendered by a video game engine. That was off-putting to me. So in that sense, every single scene I saw in the trailers made me think "damn, pointless CGI." I'm perverse though. I love really good cinematography when it's coupled with good story. That's why I like The Big Sleep, and hated Unfaithful.

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[info]greyorm
2007-07-24 08:42 pm UTC (link)
Oh, man, I thought the cinematography was excellent and not at all pointless. Miller is a visual artist, coming from the comic book medium and has been successful there, so he really understands how to use camera angles, cut-aways, close-ups, color, light and shadow to tell/enhance the story and the mood. And I think it shows in the movies' production.

If you do watch it, I'd be interested in hearing what you think.

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