I spent some time today deciding how one might divide up the horror genre into bite-sized chunks. Gooder and I tossed around the idea of doing it by the various different styles and waves that the genre has gone through since its beginnings, but I ultimately rejected this because it's a) too hard, and b) not weird enough.
Instead, I decided to spend a bit of time chopping up horror cinema into the various fears they play upon. Never one to start with a whimper, then, we begin the process with considering my own personal favourite horror theme: the apocalyptic clusterfuck.
This particular division can be further broken down. In some horror films the "end of the world" (whether it be the literal destruction of Earth in End Of Days, the destruction of human society in In The Mouth Of Madness, or even the alteration of humanity into something entirely different, as in Shivers) is an ongoing process, something the heroes struggle to stop. The odds may be stacked against them, their chances of success might be slim, but this is Hollywood, and stranger things have happened. There always exists the chance that Armageddon can be averted.
The nature of the fear here is fairly obvious: all things being equal, we'd much rather that our friends and family didn't end up on the business end of a zombie apocalypse. Losing our own lives isn't really a particularly palatable option, but the idea that everyone else is going to cark it too makes things much, much worse. Humanity itself becomes under threat, and once that happens you and I are just tiny cells in a much larger body, statistics that no-one is even likely to look at whilst they try not to get their throats ripped out. If our heroes fail, then we won't have anyone else to turn to. If a serial killer escapes and comes to our neighbourhood, then at least we can call the police, or run for shelter in a friend's house, or what have you. Once we get to this level, though, all help is gone. It no longer becomes about surviving long enough to find a working phone box and dialling 999. There will be no help coming, ever.
Those are the stakes, then. That's what's coming. You can put together a perfectly serviceable horror film that way, though you're going to need either a very strong theme, or a lot of immediate scares as you go, because whilst the ideas I mentioned above are certainly plenty horrifying, as long as the protagonists continue to struggle against the oncoming storm, it's a possibility to be considered, rather than a reality to be faced, and that's not as scary. You can stick in as many maniacs with knives jumping out from behind doors or mutilated corpses showing up in bathtubs as you want, but that's a distraction from The Big Idea, not a reinforcement of it.
The American remake of The Ring is a good example of all this [1]. The Japanese original contains comparatively little in the way of scares for much of the film (it has more important things on its mind). The atmosphere slowly builds to an impressive level, and there are a good number of weird happenings (Ryugi's implicit telepathic powers, for instance, entirely missing in the US version), but actual scares? Not so much. It doesn't need them, the central supernatural mystery and the absolutely terrifying pay-off (Charlie Brooker once said it almost made him shit his head through his arse, and frankly he underplayed it) combined with the human drama (I can't believe I just wrote that) is more than enough to sustain the film. Obviously, this wouldn't do for Hollywood, so any number of totally irrelevant ancillary scares (some cribbed from Dark Water, another Japanese horror film directed by Nakata) were bolted on. Some of them, to be fair, were pretty stylish (the faces of the dead are just hideous), but they still didn't do anything beyond mark time until all was revealed (and, to be fair, the ending is just as horrifying in the remake as the original, though it's worth noting that the original stole it from Videodrome in the first place).
On the other hand, it's entirely possible to chart the progress of the end of humanity in such a way as to make it absolutely terrifying, without having to resort to cheap shocks. Many times, this involves making the apocalypse a gradual process. Often this is done by the tried and tested "Make us into them" idea, which will get a post all to itself, but obviously includes such films as Night Of The Living Dead and The Faculty. Each casualty taken is a new soldier for the other side, which is scary for several reasons, but for now the most important one is that it reinforces the hopelessness of the situation. How do you defeat an enemy that recruits from your own side? More than that, what happens when they recruit your wife, or your child, or your best friend?
There are other ways to intimately link your mid-game scares with the overall picture, of course. One brilliant example of this is Kairo (remade in the States as Pulse, which starred that pretty boy the writers killed off in Lost because he never did anything ever). The film is set in Tokyo, which is becoming both infested with ghosts and simultaneously emptied of people. The ghosts in the film serve a very specific purpose, far beyond just simply appearing at random just as the frantic cellos cut out. The spirits have returned (via the Internet, which might sound stupid but it feeds directly into the overarching theme of people's increasing isolation) to inform humanity that death is "the ultimate loneliness"; that there is nothing beyond the veil of death but an eternity of solitary confinement. Miserable beyond measure at this message, thousands immediately commit suicide (not really the best plan considering what they've learnt, but people can be painfully stupid). You get the best of both worlds (for a specific definition of "best", obviously), since various ghostly hi-jinks are not just designed to scare you at that exact moment, but also tie into the more genera idea that if death is going to be an endless road of total isolation, we should probably think twice about cutting ourselves off in this life too (hence the use of the Internet as ghost-summoner, although anyone who thinks the web prevents you from achieving human contact simply isn't doing it right).
In the second type of ACF horror, though, everything has already gone wrong, and our luckless protagonists are just trying desperately not to get eaten, or infected, or whatever. The best case scenario is now nothing more than living long enough to die of natural causes, which is pretty damn bleak. At this point the fears I described above, of not only being beyond help now but recognising that you will be beyond help forever, come into play. Which is not only scary, but really rather depressing as well, which is a nice one-two punch to the gut that doesn't get used enough in horror. [2]
The great advantage to this second kind of film is that the mystery has already been "solved". Or, at least, if it hasn't been, then its incomprehensibility has been accepted by the heroes, who are far too busy just staying alive to ask philosophical questions about how they got to this point. Without that mystery, the film-makers have to find themselves something else to fill the gap. There has to be something more than just "They all try not to die, and some of them fail". At least, there should be.
Romero's zombie films are one of the best examples of what I'm talking about here, and Day of the Dead most of all. By this point, the ghouls/dumb-fucks/stenches have taken over the world. They outnumber the survivors by tens of thousands to one. The film concentrates on the various ways the characters (soldiers and scientists, drunks and evangelicals) process the fact that humanity's time is passed.
If anything, the film is the Kubler-Ross model (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) applied to celluloid, only the one dying isn't a person, it's a civilisation at best and a species at worst. Logan is denial, convinced that he has a way to keep humanity alive, even though it's obvious to everyone else that it cannot possibly work (how exactly he expects to millions of zombies tamed by constantly feeding them human flesh is a question best left answered, although it does feed my pet theory by being the bargaining part of the equation, "Have this food and don't eat me, please!"). Rhodes and most of his men are anger, blaming the scientists for their predicament and their losses, determined to "blow the piss" out of the enemy even though they know they don't have enough bullets, let alone men, to do the job. Salazar, fairly obviously, is depression, and for much of the film, so is Sarah. She might be more level-headed than anyone else (with the possible exception of Fisher), but she's still massively strung-out, still lamenting the loss of what she personally and humanity in general had, and terrified that what little she has left (including her lover) is about to be lost too.
As the film continues though, she begins to reach acceptance, helped out by William and John, who are already there, and are determined to simply live out their lives finding what comfort they can.
In fact, Day... is an even more poignant example of the accompanying sadness I mentioned before, because it focuses on the exact moment the first type of apocalypse film (the sky is falling!) turns into the second (the sky has fallen, and we ain't getting it back up again). The characters have to make a conscious choice to let go of the hope they've held since the crisis began, and find something else to cling to instead. These films are generally about acceptance to some extent, but what makes Day... unique is that it focuses on acceptance by those who were tasked with affecting change. Viewed from this angle, the fear of losing the support of society becomes instead the fear of being forced to change, to re-write one's internal assumptions and certainties.
Also, you might get eaten by a zombie. Wouldn't want that.
Fears of loneliness and helplessness, of change and hopelessness, and the horror of one day becoming someone who doesn't really mind any of those things anymore. Not bad for movies that are sold on the grounds that ghosts and zombies are going to freak the crap out of you, I would argue. Next time, I'll go into greater detail regarding the fear that we won't just be killed by whatever it is that stalks us in the darkness, but that we will become it, as well.
[1] I include The Ring in the ACF bracket mainly because the books make it clear that Sadako's ultimate aim is to replace humanity with endless clones of herself. This isn't really followed through in the films, though since the logical extension of the tape's influence is to end up with everyone in the world having either seen it or died from it, I think we can place it in the category of "approaching apocalypse".
[2] It may say something rather tragic about me that I consider fear and sadness to be so closely interlinked. You can probably add love in there as well, frankly, and thus create the trifecta of intolerable modern life.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Monday, 13 October 2008
'Tis The Season
With Halloween fast approaching, it might be appropriate to spend some time considering horror films in detail. A more structured set of articles will appear soon (and no, I haven't forgotten SpaceSquid vs. The X-Men, I just need more time to research Mimic, I can't read more than three pages without passing out with boredom), but since I'm short of time this evening we'll dip our toes into the water with the following question: why do I like horror in the first place?
Much of this post was born out of arguing with Gooder (I expect he'll appear pretty quickly in the comments section to tell me everything I've said is wrong and that I've totally misrepresented his position), who is simultaneously the go-to guy on any given film question, and almost totally disinterested in horror as a genre. He has on several occasions described horror as a roller-coaster ride, and there's certainly some truth to that analogy. If films are designed to do anything, they're intended to instill emotion in the viewer, and horror movies are based around the build-up of apprehension, stepping up to fear (hopefully, if the film-makers are any good) which then explodes in a sudden (or perhaps not quite so sudden) shock, followed by release. Not too dissimilar from a fairground ride.
Of course, while the analogy may not be inaccurate (and I do like roller coaster rides, or would do if my general cynicism didn't make me sure that every one I get on will inevitably collapse and then burst into flames), it also doesn't go far enough, any more than likening Some Like It Hot to a joke book would. There is much, much more to the genre than that.
Uniquely amongst cinema genres, horror films are sold on the quality of their antagonists [1]. There are two levels to this. Most obviously, there are any number of films where the villains themselves are the immediate draw. The various horror franchises are clear examples of this. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, the Tall Man, on and on and on and on and on. In almost every other movie franchise I can think of, villains can come and go but the heroes stay the same (until they jump ship, anyway). With horror films, though, the heroes are almost entirely incidental. I literally cannot remember the name of a single character from the Nightmare..., Friday... or Halloween series (Phantasm is an important exception, though Reggie the sex-pest is hardly what one would call heroic) other than the indestructible killer. Whilst it is true that once a franchise reaches a certain point each new installment becomes less of a story and more of an exercise in box-ticking, it is still of interest that in this case the boxes are entirely based around the actions of the villains (well, there probably has to be tits in it as well, in fairness). Interesting antagonists often vastly improve a movie, and can even save one entirely (see Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, respectively, both of which owe a massive debt to Alan Rickman), but in horror the villain is the starting point. Adversary, then plot, then hero, if there's time. Many trailers spend some time setting up the situation the protagonists have found themselves in, but it isn't often outside of horror movies that much time is spent plugging specific villains (unless they're being played by someone famous).
Obviously, sometimes this is sheer name recognition; Dracula, Frankenstein [2], Nosferatu (again, though, how many non-horror films are named after the bad guy?). On other occasions, though, individual monstrosities are less important than the overall genus. Marauding zombies (Romero class, natch), vicious werewolves, radioactive mutants; even starting with such basic templates, often the individual traits of the "heroes" are quickly overwhelmed. That's not to say that the protagonists are necessarily particularly poorly written (although they often are), simply that the enemy always seems to hog all the attention. Who remembers anything the Carter family did in The Hills Have Eyes remake other than end up on the crappy end of a bunch of radioactively-scarred hillbillies? I can remember exactly two moments from Wrong Turn, and both of them involve a particularly grim death at the hands of an outraged genetic deviant. Even in the cleverest horror films (The Last Broadcast, Ring, the original Day Of The Dead), the most iconic scenes involve the opposition, with the protagonist(s) essentially reduced to cannon-fodder.
There is a second way that these films often take shape around their villains. Many of the best horror films combine a monstrous protagonist with an interesting mystery. Science fiction and fantasy often manage this as well, as (obviously) do thrillers, though the necessarily prosaic puzzles of the last category mean they are of less interest to me. What makes these enigmas particularly fascinating in the case of horror is, in part, that one is invited to solve them without being sure which of the established laws of the universe actually apply in this case. It's an exercise in lateral thinking. As I say, this often applies to science fiction and fantasy as well (though less frequently), but what makes horror unique in this regard is that the process of gathering together the threads goes on at the exact same time as your brain is being distracted by swells of sinister music and mutilated corpses are falling out of wardrobes. You're trying to engage your cortex whilst your reptile brain keeps screaming for attention. It's like trying to sit an A-level French paper inside a burning building.
That's why so many of these films revolve around "Who is the killer?", or "What is inside the puzzle box?" or "Why is it that before you die, you see the ring?". At least, that's what the best of them do [3]. Even the comparatively straightforward examples of the genre contain something along these lines, mainly because horror by its very nature demands it. It can be as simple an idea as "What's on the other side of that door?" or "What is it with all these undead cannibals, Barbara?", but horror thrives on that sense of unknown. It's the unknown that's scary, after all. In a crime drama, when the FBI agent pulls a gun on a Mafia Capo, we know the criminal might escape, or disarm the Fed, or have reinforcements waiting in the wings, but him turning into a giant cockroach or making his enemy's head explode with mind-bullets are possibilities we generally discount.
So that's my case. Horror films rely on fear where most other genres at most reference it from time to time. They focus on the machinations and/or the nature of their antagonists in a way that sets them apart from other films. They can promote deductive reasoning at the very same time as they desperately attempt to rob us of it. Last, but not least, they rely on plumbing the depths of the unknown, which appeals to my sense of monkey curiosity, and I'd wager I'm not alone in that.
That's how I see it all, anyway. Puzzles and monsters and the darkness over the next hill that you know you shouldn't go to look at, but you just can't help yourself.
Sleep well.
[1] Obviously there are individual films that are sold on the villain (though as my esteemed flatmate points out, in this case they are often referred to as anti-heroes), but these are rarities in any genre beyond horror.
[2] OK, so Frankenstein himself is technically the protagonist (though it would be a stretch to call him the hero). Note though how many people think it's the name of the monster. Still, if you want to be pedantic about it, you could always replace Frankenstein with King Kong if you want. And don't tell me King Kong isn't horror, it's original incarnation is a fairly par-for-the-course creature feature, albeit one with more class than most.
[3] I'd be careful about pigeon-holing it as horror, though there would be some logic in doing so, but Dark City (absent the cheat-code initial voice-over, obviously) is one of the best examples I've ever seen of attempting to piece together a complex puzzle whilst avoiding being distracted by all the crazy shenanigans (in this case brightly-coloured energy-spiders and a bunch of murdered hookers. And Richard O'Brien). Shallow Ground and (especially) The Last Broadcast (which if you haven't seen, you must see now, alone and in the dark, because I did and it almost killed me and I dare you to prove your worth!) boast a similarly intricate jigsaw, but with a somewhat greater degree of OH HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT!?!
Much of this post was born out of arguing with Gooder (I expect he'll appear pretty quickly in the comments section to tell me everything I've said is wrong and that I've totally misrepresented his position), who is simultaneously the go-to guy on any given film question, and almost totally disinterested in horror as a genre. He has on several occasions described horror as a roller-coaster ride, and there's certainly some truth to that analogy. If films are designed to do anything, they're intended to instill emotion in the viewer, and horror movies are based around the build-up of apprehension, stepping up to fear (hopefully, if the film-makers are any good) which then explodes in a sudden (or perhaps not quite so sudden) shock, followed by release. Not too dissimilar from a fairground ride.
Of course, while the analogy may not be inaccurate (and I do like roller coaster rides, or would do if my general cynicism didn't make me sure that every one I get on will inevitably collapse and then burst into flames), it also doesn't go far enough, any more than likening Some Like It Hot to a joke book would. There is much, much more to the genre than that.
Uniquely amongst cinema genres, horror films are sold on the quality of their antagonists [1]. There are two levels to this. Most obviously, there are any number of films where the villains themselves are the immediate draw. The various horror franchises are clear examples of this. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, the Tall Man, on and on and on and on and on. In almost every other movie franchise I can think of, villains can come and go but the heroes stay the same (until they jump ship, anyway). With horror films, though, the heroes are almost entirely incidental. I literally cannot remember the name of a single character from the Nightmare..., Friday... or Halloween series (Phantasm is an important exception, though Reggie the sex-pest is hardly what one would call heroic) other than the indestructible killer. Whilst it is true that once a franchise reaches a certain point each new installment becomes less of a story and more of an exercise in box-ticking, it is still of interest that in this case the boxes are entirely based around the actions of the villains (well, there probably has to be tits in it as well, in fairness). Interesting antagonists often vastly improve a movie, and can even save one entirely (see Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, respectively, both of which owe a massive debt to Alan Rickman), but in horror the villain is the starting point. Adversary, then plot, then hero, if there's time. Many trailers spend some time setting up the situation the protagonists have found themselves in, but it isn't often outside of horror movies that much time is spent plugging specific villains (unless they're being played by someone famous).
Obviously, sometimes this is sheer name recognition; Dracula, Frankenstein [2], Nosferatu (again, though, how many non-horror films are named after the bad guy?). On other occasions, though, individual monstrosities are less important than the overall genus. Marauding zombies (Romero class, natch), vicious werewolves, radioactive mutants; even starting with such basic templates, often the individual traits of the "heroes" are quickly overwhelmed. That's not to say that the protagonists are necessarily particularly poorly written (although they often are), simply that the enemy always seems to hog all the attention. Who remembers anything the Carter family did in The Hills Have Eyes remake other than end up on the crappy end of a bunch of radioactively-scarred hillbillies? I can remember exactly two moments from Wrong Turn, and both of them involve a particularly grim death at the hands of an outraged genetic deviant. Even in the cleverest horror films (The Last Broadcast, Ring, the original Day Of The Dead), the most iconic scenes involve the opposition, with the protagonist(s) essentially reduced to cannon-fodder.
There is a second way that these films often take shape around their villains. Many of the best horror films combine a monstrous protagonist with an interesting mystery. Science fiction and fantasy often manage this as well, as (obviously) do thrillers, though the necessarily prosaic puzzles of the last category mean they are of less interest to me. What makes these enigmas particularly fascinating in the case of horror is, in part, that one is invited to solve them without being sure which of the established laws of the universe actually apply in this case. It's an exercise in lateral thinking. As I say, this often applies to science fiction and fantasy as well (though less frequently), but what makes horror unique in this regard is that the process of gathering together the threads goes on at the exact same time as your brain is being distracted by swells of sinister music and mutilated corpses are falling out of wardrobes. You're trying to engage your cortex whilst your reptile brain keeps screaming for attention. It's like trying to sit an A-level French paper inside a burning building.
That's why so many of these films revolve around "Who is the killer?", or "What is inside the puzzle box?" or "Why is it that before you die, you see the ring?". At least, that's what the best of them do [3]. Even the comparatively straightforward examples of the genre contain something along these lines, mainly because horror by its very nature demands it. It can be as simple an idea as "What's on the other side of that door?" or "What is it with all these undead cannibals, Barbara?", but horror thrives on that sense of unknown. It's the unknown that's scary, after all. In a crime drama, when the FBI agent pulls a gun on a Mafia Capo, we know the criminal might escape, or disarm the Fed, or have reinforcements waiting in the wings, but him turning into a giant cockroach or making his enemy's head explode with mind-bullets are possibilities we generally discount.
So that's my case. Horror films rely on fear where most other genres at most reference it from time to time. They focus on the machinations and/or the nature of their antagonists in a way that sets them apart from other films. They can promote deductive reasoning at the very same time as they desperately attempt to rob us of it. Last, but not least, they rely on plumbing the depths of the unknown, which appeals to my sense of monkey curiosity, and I'd wager I'm not alone in that.
That's how I see it all, anyway. Puzzles and monsters and the darkness over the next hill that you know you shouldn't go to look at, but you just can't help yourself.
Sleep well.
[1] Obviously there are individual films that are sold on the villain (though as my esteemed flatmate points out, in this case they are often referred to as anti-heroes), but these are rarities in any genre beyond horror.
[2] OK, so Frankenstein himself is technically the protagonist (though it would be a stretch to call him the hero). Note though how many people think it's the name of the monster. Still, if you want to be pedantic about it, you could always replace Frankenstein with King Kong if you want. And don't tell me King Kong isn't horror, it's original incarnation is a fairly par-for-the-course creature feature, albeit one with more class than most.
[3] I'd be careful about pigeon-holing it as horror, though there would be some logic in doing so, but Dark City (absent the cheat-code initial voice-over, obviously) is one of the best examples I've ever seen of attempting to piece together a complex puzzle whilst avoiding being distracted by all the crazy shenanigans (in this case brightly-coloured energy-spiders and a bunch of murdered hookers. And Richard O'Brien). Shallow Ground and (especially) The Last Broadcast (which if you haven't seen, you must see now, alone and in the dark, because I did and it almost killed me and I dare you to prove your worth!) boast a similarly intricate jigsaw, but with a somewhat greater degree of OH HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT!?!
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Friday, 10 October 2008
Missing The Point
It may no longer be at its best (or, in truth, particularly near to its best), but XKCD has been good to us over the years. Last year Vomiting Mike was kind enough to buy me one of their t-shirts as a birthday present (well, actually as three combined birthday presents, because the man is an idiot) based on this particular strip:
Much as I love the shirt, though, it can lead to complications whenever I wear it around the department.
Big Dave: What the Hell is that on your t-shirt?
SS: It's XKCD merchandise. I think the idea behind it is-
BD: Bollocks to the idea behind it, equation 4 is bullshit and chips.
SS: What?
BD: Look at it, Squid; you're multiplying the identity matrix by heart!
SS: So?
BD: So that must equal heart. Not question mark; that's just retarded.
SS: You're assuming a compatible matrix.
BD: What?
SS: Well, what if heart has a non-compatible dimension. 4x5, say.
BD: Then the expression itself is meaningless.
SS: The question mark represents meaningless, you fool, it's a maudlin statement on how
love can't be-
BD: And what's that supposed to be, a probability integral? This is the least mathematically viable piece of clothing I've ever seen.
SS: Christ, Dave, you need one of these t-shirts more than I do.
I love my job.
Much as I love the shirt, though, it can lead to complications whenever I wear it around the department.
Big Dave: What the Hell is that on your t-shirt?
SS: It's XKCD merchandise. I think the idea behind it is-
BD: Bollocks to the idea behind it, equation 4 is bullshit and chips.
SS: What?
BD: Look at it, Squid; you're multiplying the identity matrix by heart!
SS: So?
BD: So that must equal heart. Not question mark; that's just retarded.
SS: You're assuming a compatible matrix.
BD: What?
SS: Well, what if heart has a non-compatible dimension. 4x5, say.
BD: Then the expression itself is meaningless.
SS: The question mark represents meaningless, you fool, it's a maudlin statement on how
love can't be-
BD: And what's that supposed to be, a probability integral? This is the least mathematically viable piece of clothing I've ever seen.
SS: Christ, Dave, you need one of these t-shirts more than I do.
I love my job.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Funny 'Cos It's True
I've been idly wondering for a while whether there will be a parallel between the way the Conservatives reacted to the '97 Labour Landslide and the manner in which the GOP will respond to their now almost inevitable defeat at the start of November. It seemed that anyone with any real brains realised that a moderate centrist was the only viable choice this time around, but there are a great number of conservatives convinced that they should have chosen someone less wishy-washy. It's the usual refusal to accept any given evidence could possibly count against conservatism as an idea. Bush was a bad president because he was too neo-conservative, McCain is losing because he isn't neo-con enough. It's at least possible, and I would say likely, that these elements of the Republican base will make it horribly difficult for another moderate candidate to get anywhere in the primaries (and let's not forget that McCain was a moderate candidate, although at this point he'd promise to blow up the planet if he found out the Martians wanted it and had 270 electoral votes in their pocket-equivalents), and that until the Republican's allow their brand to become more moderate, the voters won't touch them.
I'll admit that it isn't beyond the possibility that another Bush would get traction, because of the nature of American politics. Even so, we potentially stand on the brink of a situation similar to that suffered by the Tories for eight or so years, with the hardliners repeatedly nixing any attempt at large-scale change and leaving Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard all bleating on about small changes to reflect current events, whilst Labour kept pointing out that the Tories used to be all kinds of shit and haven't bothered altering that fact. It's been obvious for years that they needed their own version of Tony Blair, and in Cameron they finally sort of have it (I say "sort of" for a number of reasons, but mainly because nothing he has done since taking control gives me any confidence that he isn't still bound to the hardliners, and just better at hiding it than Howard et al).
Turns out Kevin Drum is thinking along similar lines:
I'm not sure that I'd have chosen Labour as my analogy, but I don't really remember that period too well, and it's entirely possible that Labour were as divided between change and stasis, and I just didn't notice. Regardless, it makes far more sense (especially on an American blog) to name-check Blair rather than Cameron, so I guess it doesn't really make that much difference.
I'll admit that it isn't beyond the possibility that another Bush would get traction, because of the nature of American politics. Even so, we potentially stand on the brink of a situation similar to that suffered by the Tories for eight or so years, with the hardliners repeatedly nixing any attempt at large-scale change and leaving Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard all bleating on about small changes to reflect current events, whilst Labour kept pointing out that the Tories used to be all kinds of shit and haven't bothered altering that fact. It's been obvious for years that they needed their own version of Tony Blair, and in Cameron they finally sort of have it (I say "sort of" for a number of reasons, but mainly because nothing he has done since taking control gives me any confidence that he isn't still bound to the hardliners, and just better at hiding it than Howard et al).
Turns out Kevin Drum is thinking along similar lines:
...[T]he GOP is going to be riven by factional warfare for years, with moderates unable to get a purchase on the party apparatus because of the McCain albatross hanging around their necks. Eventually, like Britain's Labor Party in the 80s, they'll find their Tony Blair, but in the meantime they're likely to double down on the most strident possible social conservatism, convinced that the heartland will respond if only they regain the true faith. Ronald Reagan, who was more pragmatic about these things than any of them ever give him credit for, will be rolling in his grave. And Democrats, at least for a while, will go from strength to strength.
I'm not sure that I'd have chosen Labour as my analogy, but I don't really remember that period too well, and it's entirely possible that Labour were as divided between change and stasis, and I just didn't notice. Regardless, it makes far more sense (especially on an American blog) to name-check Blair rather than Cameron, so I guess it doesn't really make that much difference.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
None More Black
Warning: the following post contains a discussion of potential implicit racism in a tabletop war-game. If that isn't for you (and let's be honest, who could blame you), then I'd recommend tuning back in tomorrow, when hopefully I'll be spouting off about a more relevant issue.
For the rest of you, let me tell you a story.
Subbuteo is rubbish. It always has been rubbish, and it always will be rubbish, unless at some point the game is tweaked to allow tanks, air-strikes, or possibly a referee with a flamethrower. Part of its crapness can be accounted for by the fact that football itself is a feeble excuse for an activity, both dull on its own merits and responsible for the idolising of any number of selfish unthinking thugs whose complete inability to live within the confines of society is tolerated as long as they can kick something at a net with more accuracy than most. This is not to say all footballers are scum, just that the ones that are should be more clearly labelled. Possibly with gravestones.
In addition, the game mechanics of Subbuteo are pretty poor, sort of a cross between marbles and tiddlywinks, only at, like, seven thousand times the cost (give me Blood Bowl any day, at least that way vampires can get in on the action). The only time this wretched pastime has been of any interest in the entire history of its miserable, static-generating existence was when at some point during the early nineties someone accused it of being racist.
The argument was pretty simple; every single player was white, even in teams which were entirely black in the real world. Hasbro's defence, if memory served, was simple economics; cheaper to buy pink paint in bulk. Whatever the outcome of that particular spat, these days Subbuteo is a veritable explosion of ethnicity, so everyone got to live happily ever after.
My point in all this? Sometimes people offend by omission in the strangest ways. Also, painting is a serious business.
Let's talk about something else. One of the most interesting aspects of stories set in the future, to me at least, is how they deal with the question of race. Whatever criticisms you can level at the second two Matrix films (and God knows, there are plenty of options), I really liked the fact that every natural born human was some shade of brown. It made sense to me that decades of interbreeding between the only 250,000 humans left free would leave my pasty Caucasian complexion several rungs behind on the evolutionary ladder [1]. Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy imagined an interstellar human civilisation in which most planets boast populations almost entirely made up from people of one former Earth country. Simmon's Hyperion Cantos (yes, back to that again) works along similar lines, the idea being (though this is much more explicit with Hamilton) that with all the other things a colonial population will have to deal with on an unknown and potentially hostile world, it doesn't make a lot of sense adding ethnic strife to the pot as well.
Warhammer 40,000 (hooray! I approach my point) has a similar idea for different reasons. At least, probably for different reasons. By the 41st Millenium so much history has been lost that it's anyone's guess as to how the first colonies were put together, but certainly the march of the centuries has led to increasing homogeneity across the population of each human world. Which is all fine and dandy, in theory, but in practice it seems like every planet in the Imperium is crammed full of white boys. Cadia, Catachan, Mordian, Armageddon, the survivors of Caliban, not one of them looks like they can dance worth a damn. The Blood Angels have names that invoke Italy, the Crimson Fists (arguably) a Hispanic culture, on and on and on. A certain amount of effort went into using the Mongols as templates for the Attilans and the White Scars, in that they have long hair and/or silly hats (plus they ride about the place, how ironic), but in general, it's all so depressingly monochrome, Subbuteo mixed with Aliens.
The only real evidence that the galaxy wasn't colonised entirely by the Klan used to be the brothers of the Salamander Space Marines (see here, for example). OK, so they had an odd habit of dyeing their hair blonde, which made them look upsettingly like Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man, but still, they were unrepentantly non-Caucasian, and the universe was the more interesting for it.
So what do Games Workshop do? They take the only ethnic variant population in the whole damn galaxy and they mutate them the fuck up. No longer are they the latest generation of the original tribes of humanity, now they all have jet black skin and shiny red eyes. These days, apparently, you're either white or you're a grotesque deviant. It doesn't even make any sense, frankly. The 40K universe is renowned for the fact that an army's name and symbolism reflects their nature as well. The Space Wolves are Viking-like and unruly (and occasionally werewolves, or something), the Blood Angels are violent vampires, the Dark Angels are taciturn and brooding, etc. What's with this, though? Is it really just that the Salamanders are big fans of flame weapons (that, at least, makes sense) and flame, like, makes things black? They're supposed to look like they've been hit with their own weapons? That's like having an army of chainsaw wielding lunatics who are all missing limbs. Or is it just that they come from a moon that is always dark, and black is really, really dark?
It annoys me, is all I'm saying.
[1] One thing that always got me about The Matrix was that your residual self-image more or less looks like you. But then if you look like your parents in the Matrix, then the only possible explanation is that the machines have robots whose job it is to ensure that the right semen gets to the right pod. "What do you mean Stan and Sarah Elliot just got it on? They're eight thousand miles apart out in the fucking Real! I have sixty-three other copulating couples to get through tonight!".
I don't want that guy's job.
For the rest of you, let me tell you a story.
Subbuteo is rubbish. It always has been rubbish, and it always will be rubbish, unless at some point the game is tweaked to allow tanks, air-strikes, or possibly a referee with a flamethrower. Part of its crapness can be accounted for by the fact that football itself is a feeble excuse for an activity, both dull on its own merits and responsible for the idolising of any number of selfish unthinking thugs whose complete inability to live within the confines of society is tolerated as long as they can kick something at a net with more accuracy than most. This is not to say all footballers are scum, just that the ones that are should be more clearly labelled. Possibly with gravestones.
In addition, the game mechanics of Subbuteo are pretty poor, sort of a cross between marbles and tiddlywinks, only at, like, seven thousand times the cost (give me Blood Bowl any day, at least that way vampires can get in on the action). The only time this wretched pastime has been of any interest in the entire history of its miserable, static-generating existence was when at some point during the early nineties someone accused it of being racist.
The argument was pretty simple; every single player was white, even in teams which were entirely black in the real world. Hasbro's defence, if memory served, was simple economics; cheaper to buy pink paint in bulk. Whatever the outcome of that particular spat, these days Subbuteo is a veritable explosion of ethnicity, so everyone got to live happily ever after.
My point in all this? Sometimes people offend by omission in the strangest ways. Also, painting is a serious business.
Let's talk about something else. One of the most interesting aspects of stories set in the future, to me at least, is how they deal with the question of race. Whatever criticisms you can level at the second two Matrix films (and God knows, there are plenty of options), I really liked the fact that every natural born human was some shade of brown. It made sense to me that decades of interbreeding between the only 250,000 humans left free would leave my pasty Caucasian complexion several rungs behind on the evolutionary ladder [1]. Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy imagined an interstellar human civilisation in which most planets boast populations almost entirely made up from people of one former Earth country. Simmon's Hyperion Cantos (yes, back to that again) works along similar lines, the idea being (though this is much more explicit with Hamilton) that with all the other things a colonial population will have to deal with on an unknown and potentially hostile world, it doesn't make a lot of sense adding ethnic strife to the pot as well.
Warhammer 40,000 (hooray! I approach my point) has a similar idea for different reasons. At least, probably for different reasons. By the 41st Millenium so much history has been lost that it's anyone's guess as to how the first colonies were put together, but certainly the march of the centuries has led to increasing homogeneity across the population of each human world. Which is all fine and dandy, in theory, but in practice it seems like every planet in the Imperium is crammed full of white boys. Cadia, Catachan, Mordian, Armageddon, the survivors of Caliban, not one of them looks like they can dance worth a damn. The Blood Angels have names that invoke Italy, the Crimson Fists (arguably) a Hispanic culture, on and on and on. A certain amount of effort went into using the Mongols as templates for the Attilans and the White Scars, in that they have long hair and/or silly hats (plus they ride about the place, how ironic), but in general, it's all so depressingly monochrome, Subbuteo mixed with Aliens.
The only real evidence that the galaxy wasn't colonised entirely by the Klan used to be the brothers of the Salamander Space Marines (see here, for example). OK, so they had an odd habit of dyeing their hair blonde, which made them look upsettingly like Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man, but still, they were unrepentantly non-Caucasian, and the universe was the more interesting for it.
So what do Games Workshop do? They take the only ethnic variant population in the whole damn galaxy and they mutate them the fuck up. No longer are they the latest generation of the original tribes of humanity, now they all have jet black skin and shiny red eyes. These days, apparently, you're either white or you're a grotesque deviant. It doesn't even make any sense, frankly. The 40K universe is renowned for the fact that an army's name and symbolism reflects their nature as well. The Space Wolves are Viking-like and unruly (and occasionally werewolves, or something), the Blood Angels are violent vampires, the Dark Angels are taciturn and brooding, etc. What's with this, though? Is it really just that the Salamanders are big fans of flame weapons (that, at least, makes sense) and flame, like, makes things black? They're supposed to look like they've been hit with their own weapons? That's like having an army of chainsaw wielding lunatics who are all missing limbs. Or is it just that they come from a moon that is always dark, and black is really, really dark?
It annoys me, is all I'm saying.
[1] One thing that always got me about The Matrix was that your residual self-image more or less looks like you. But then if you look like your parents in the Matrix, then the only possible explanation is that the machines have robots whose job it is to ensure that the right semen gets to the right pod. "What do you mean Stan and Sarah Elliot just got it on? They're eight thousand miles apart out in the fucking Real! I have sixty-three other copulating couples to get through tonight!".
I don't want that guy's job.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Thanks For The Memories (I'm Too Tired For Originality Today)
So the Guardian has up a thread on songs about memory. Specifically the nature of memory, and the tricks it plays, rather than "Remember that time I screwed that chick? That was awesome!", which I would guess invalidates about 98% of songs which deal with the topic.
Rather than join in the debate over there (which by this point is probably an argument about Muslim immigrants anyway) I thought I'd slap together my top five memory-related songs and display them here.
1. Avalanche - Ryan Adams
In which our alt-country hero finds a picture of a former girlfriend and realises that he can't actually recall who she is. "I can't remember you, remember us, or anything." He's built up so many memories over the years that they've begun to obscure one another, or run together. "She comes apart in the avalanche/ Fades out like a dance". It's a rather depressing reminder that even the people we think are most important to us right now sometimes just fade away given enough time apart.
2. Pictures of You - The Cure
"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you/ That I almost believe that they're real/ I've been living so long with these pictures of you/ That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel." At what point have you stopped loving someone, and have just started loving the memory of when you did?
3. My Selective Memory - The Eels
No video for this one, which is a shame as it's a beautiful song (anyone who's heard Fresh Feeling off of the Scrubs soundtrack will already know the string part, E has never been above a spot of "self-sampling"). It's also ridiculously depressing. When the singer sleeps, he has a vision of himself as a baby in the park, whilst someone (perhaps his mother, perhaps his sister) is next to him in a polka-dot dress. She leans in and whispers something in his ear, something that to this day he is sure is "Everything I need to hear". Every time he wakes, though, he can no longer remember what it was. "I wish I could remember/ But my selective memory won't let me." It's the use of the word selective that gets me. Is his memory deliberately hiding what was said? Why? Because it's bound to be a disappointment? Because it might make things worse? Or is his brain just perversely conspiring against him in the way they so often seem to?
4. Hard Candy - Counting Crows
A song about the benefits and perils of memory. On the one hand, whenever the character in the song is dissatisfied, he can reach into his mind and pull out memories of one extraordinary woman he once knew. He can't be sure of the specifics anymore, but that isn't really important anymore. On the other hand, whilst he sleeps he visits his dead mother, only to find that those memories are fading, and with it the comfort they used to bring.
Of course, whilst the specific images may not last forever, the combined effect still lasts, which is why waking in the morning with the sun shining on your face still makes him feel content. His emotional responses still carry memories that his brain has begun to let slip away.
Also, I should note that the album version of this song is somewhat less mental.
5. Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen
I may be cheating a little here, since this is a little closer to a threnody for the departed than a true discussion of memory, but it's my blog and I make the rules. Also, this is probably one of Cohen's best songs, which is really saying something. I guess I can sneak it in on the grounds that Cohen goes into incredible detail about this one memory, the conversation, the location, the (ahem) fellatio, works it all into his usual poetry about the nature of things, and then confesses at the the end that that's really all he remembers about their time together, on the rare occasions that he thinks about it at all. I like the idea that people tend to some up their entire past relationships with just one or two of the most beautiful memories, whilst all the more more mundane or even unpleasant surroundings fade into the distance.
Anyway, those are my picks. Any other suggestions?
Rather than join in the debate over there (which by this point is probably an argument about Muslim immigrants anyway) I thought I'd slap together my top five memory-related songs and display them here.
1. Avalanche - Ryan Adams
In which our alt-country hero finds a picture of a former girlfriend and realises that he can't actually recall who she is. "I can't remember you, remember us, or anything." He's built up so many memories over the years that they've begun to obscure one another, or run together. "She comes apart in the avalanche/ Fades out like a dance". It's a rather depressing reminder that even the people we think are most important to us right now sometimes just fade away given enough time apart.
2. Pictures of You - The Cure
"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you/ That I almost believe that they're real/ I've been living so long with these pictures of you/ That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel." At what point have you stopped loving someone, and have just started loving the memory of when you did?
3. My Selective Memory - The Eels
No video for this one, which is a shame as it's a beautiful song (anyone who's heard Fresh Feeling off of the Scrubs soundtrack will already know the string part, E has never been above a spot of "self-sampling"). It's also ridiculously depressing. When the singer sleeps, he has a vision of himself as a baby in the park, whilst someone (perhaps his mother, perhaps his sister) is next to him in a polka-dot dress. She leans in and whispers something in his ear, something that to this day he is sure is "Everything I need to hear". Every time he wakes, though, he can no longer remember what it was. "I wish I could remember/ But my selective memory won't let me." It's the use of the word selective that gets me. Is his memory deliberately hiding what was said? Why? Because it's bound to be a disappointment? Because it might make things worse? Or is his brain just perversely conspiring against him in the way they so often seem to?
4. Hard Candy - Counting Crows
A song about the benefits and perils of memory. On the one hand, whenever the character in the song is dissatisfied, he can reach into his mind and pull out memories of one extraordinary woman he once knew. He can't be sure of the specifics anymore, but that isn't really important anymore. On the other hand, whilst he sleeps he visits his dead mother, only to find that those memories are fading, and with it the comfort they used to bring.
Of course, whilst the specific images may not last forever, the combined effect still lasts, which is why waking in the morning with the sun shining on your face still makes him feel content. His emotional responses still carry memories that his brain has begun to let slip away.
Also, I should note that the album version of this song is somewhat less mental.
5. Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen
I may be cheating a little here, since this is a little closer to a threnody for the departed than a true discussion of memory, but it's my blog and I make the rules. Also, this is probably one of Cohen's best songs, which is really saying something. I guess I can sneak it in on the grounds that Cohen goes into incredible detail about this one memory, the conversation, the location, the (ahem) fellatio, works it all into his usual poetry about the nature of things, and then confesses at the the end that that's really all he remembers about their time together, on the rare occasions that he thinks about it at all. I like the idea that people tend to some up their entire past relationships with just one or two of the most beautiful memories, whilst all the more more mundane or even unpleasant surroundings fade into the distance.
Anyway, those are my picks. Any other suggestions?
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