When You Watch Netflix, It Watches You

Recently, somebody I live with got Netflix. I was dubious given my last experience several years ago, when the streaming selection was so small it seemed pointless. Now there’s enough variety to keep me occupied, (possibly too much) that I’d never be able to afford on my own. The ability to say “eh, might as well give it a try” has exposed me to things I otherwise wouldn’t have bothered watching—especially foreign films. There’s enough stuff I’m grateful it uses categories to break down the casual browsing.

For those unfamiliar, Netflix will take what you’ve seen and list potential other things to watch, including custom categories. It quickly became a game to see who could get the most hilariously specific category. “Scandinavian thrillers with strong female leads” and “emotional British dramas based on real life,” were a couple that came up. I joked that at some point it was going to describe down to hair color of the lead.

Lo and behold, Netflix’s amazing April Fools joke where they did get that specific. At first we weren’t entirely sure it was a joke because they didn’t seem all that outrageous, but the more we (ok, I) looked the more ridiculous they became. I bet whoever came up with these had a ton of fun.

A few of the gems: movies that are in English but still require subtitles, movies featuring an epic Nicholas Cage meltdown, TV shows with seriously pissed off wives, movies with actors who look like Zach Galifianakis, movies starring fruits, vegetables and fungi, TV shows where defiantly crossed arms mean business!, when you watch Netflix, it watches you (all movie covers with eyes), nephrotic adventures featuring very tiny children (only 1 film), surreal ballets based on a William Shatner album (also only 1 film).

I hope they keep these around, ridiculous as they are. Bravo for this awesome Netflix April Fool’s prank.

Death of the Author

I already discussed how these days, the author is everywhere as a person. But they’re also everywhere as an author. DVDs come crammed with commentary, Youtube interviews abound, directors host “Ask Me Anything”s on Reddit, writers talk about their works and inspiration in their blogs—it’s often quite easy to find out more about the work than presented in the work itself.

While I am far more likely to look at creator commentary than I am anything regarding their personal lives, I take it with a grain of salt. Sometimes they offer interesting insights; sometimes I wonder if we are talking about the same work. I have no desire to interact directly with the authors because there is too much chance of the humanness of the author affecting my views, like it did with Orson Scott Card.

The author and the reader are more closely connected now. It’s easy to engage them on any number of websites and some even maintain much of their popularity by doing do. Readers are not as passive they used to be because of the greater connectivity of this modern age. Sometimes the readers even influence the author’s work directly. This is a double-edged sword as arguments have broken out between fans and creators, especially on social media websites. One example is the increased presence of the fan favorite Derpy Doo in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Derpy Doo grew from an animator’s joke in the background to a minor character with a speaking line, which resulted in fan backlash when her speech was edited to be “less derpy.”

These arguments usually happen when there’s a communication gap—when the creator and the audience have different views of a work. The most extreme example I can think of is the fan campaign for Mass Effect 3‘s ending. Mass Effect is a series that built itself on taking the player character through a journey where actions affected outcomes. Events in the earlier installments of Mass Effect would change the next game. As a series that lauded player choice many fans (even those who were happy with most of Mass Effect 3), felt that the original three endings betrayed that emphasis on choice and were essentially the same ending with different colors. Retake Mass Effect was born. A massive charity campaign that raised $80k to Child’s Play, a cupcake protest,questions of artist integrity, questions of who the story belongs to, controversy about the writers, protests to the FTC and BBB, and many suggestions on what they could do later, EA/Bioware responded to the fans and released a free update to the endings with more explanations and one more option added. Some fans were mollified, some were not because the choices were ultimately no different than the ones originally presented.

I think this is a display of the power of the reader. They are the ones with power, for better or for worse. In the end, does it matter that Ray Bradbury didn’t mean Fahrenheit 451 to be about censorship if that is how most people interpret his work, if that is how his work is remembered? Sure, JK Rowling can say that Dumbledore was gay and that’s great, I was happy to hear that, but by not putting it in the books people are not forced to address it. As Edward Rothstein of the New York Times said, “Ms. Rowling may think of Dumbledore as gay, but there is no reason why anyone else should.” The author’s views can certainly enhance or enlighten, but it is the readers who shape the impact of the work. All the arguments in the world will not change the imprint left on the reader unless they want it to change.

And that’s a good thing.  Interpreting something gives it more value, more meaning to a reader. George R. R. Martin could argue with me until he’s blue in the face that Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t transgender and that will not change my opinion, because Brienne’s story means more to me when I view it this way. What is writing’s goal if not to evoke change, evoke emotion in the reader? I don’t think these different interpretations should be viewed as stupid or wrong. I don’t want to be somebody who devalues my reader’s experience by saying, “what you feel or think about this is bad.”

It’s certainly frustrating for the creator when people do not share their opinion. Author commentary can help the reader and the creator be more in sync, but I think the important thing is to try to improve communication from the get-go. I believe this is one of the great values of peer review during the editing process. Bringing in others improves the final impression because their different experiences help alter that final impression sooner rather than later.

As a writer, I know this will be difficult to accept from the other side. I know somebody will view something differently than I intended because it’s impossible to account for every variation that causes people to be different, to think differently. Somebody will miss the point by a mile, I could scream myself hoarse trying to convince them of my Great Vision, but would that really help anything? If anything I should state my intent and move on to something else rather than waste the energy there.

This is one reason that I believe that once I release something, it is no longer entirely mine. The reader has the power, and the reader will absorb and reshape my words into something with meaning for them. My goal is to do my best to communicate my core meaning to as many people as possible and be happy that my words have left their mark, however it manifested.

Here’s Looking at You, Kid

I read Dragonhaven because a friend urged me to and because it was written by Robin McKinley. I went in knowing nothing about the book aside from the title. That turns out to be a good thing, because if somebody had told me the premise I would’ve said “aw hell naw” and put it back.

I say “this is a story about the drastic, life-altering effect of a baby on a teenager’s life” and there is nothing particularly remarkable about that; that story has been told. It’s not a story I want to read.  I say “this is a story about the drastic, life-altering effect of a baby dragon on a teenage boy’s life” and you have a different story entirely. And yet it’s the same one.

To sum up the premise: A teenager named Jake who works at a dragon wildlife sanctuary finds a dying mother dragon with one remaining baby alive. He takes it upon himself to save that baby, no matter the consequences. This suddenly, drastically reorients his life to revolve around taking care of that baby. At no point does he ever consider doing otherwise.

I grew up reading Robin McKinley. The Blue Sword remains one of my favorite books and I still read it from time to time. I trust McKinley as an author—she’s yet to fail me in any of the books I’ve read (aside from the annoyance of Pegasus not resolving the main plot). I would have stopped reading this book if she weren’t the author. The premise is one I’d avoid like the plague and has so many places it could go horribly wrong. But she pulls it off and leaves me with some of the most interesting commentary on gender I’ve seen in a fantasy book.

This is a story about motherhood. Jake always considers himself the mother and nobody questions that. From the strange almost-pregnancy of carrying a baby dragon in his shirt to the disgustingness of how leaky babies are to the struggle of a child growing up and learning, there is no question this book is about raising a child—the good, bad, and in-between.

If Jake had been a female character this book would’ve been terrible. I don’t mean that women raising kids is terrible; I mean there would’ve been this heavy-handed message on the roles of women and the beauty of motherhood that would’ve resulted in a story which defines women by their reproductive qualities. A female character would have been expected to take on a mothering role and reinforced gender norms by doing so. But Jake, being a teenage boy and never getting especially goo-goo sappy about the entire process, delivers the same message without that baggage. Jake is male and a mother, and there is nothing conflicting about that. Neither his maleness nor his motherhood are questioned at any point.

Add onto that McKinley’s usual brilliant handling of animal characters, a creative approach to alternate communication methods, and wonderful first person voice and you have a gender commentary I’d call excellent and a book I found fascinating despite not being interested in child-rearing at all. It was a strange experience; I am not quite sure if I can say I liked the book given how far it took me outside of my comfort zone, but I don’t regret reading it. Even if the epilogue did pull a “oh the book is ending so here’s some romance” and decides to hammer the point with a mallet, it’s a good display of how fantasy trappings can be used to tell a story in unique ways.

Authors, Authors Everywhere

Once upon a time, authors were myths to me. Actors, creators of any sort, they were all strange figures I knew entirely by their works. They weren’t people. I couldn’t really fathom them as such. I knew nothing about them save the little blurb on the cover and that they had been part of something I thought was amazing. They were a label I looked for to tell if I’d enjoy something and nothing more.

But the information age was upon us. Suddenly it was much easier to find out things about people. When I got to be a bit older I realized the people behind the books were not magical writing robots (well, I’m not so sure about Stephen King) and I became curious about them.

One of my paradigm-shifter books was Ender’s Game. As that book had impacted me so much, I looked up information on Orson Scott Card.

I was shocked.

Orson Scott Card had opinions that appalled me. I became angry, how dare he, how could I ever have read books by somebody who thought things like that? But I was torn, because I did love the Ender’s Game series. How could I deny the impact those books left on me? Eventually I realized that I could separate the creator and the work in my head—I did not have to take them as a single unit. I also came to accept (hooray for growing older and more sensible) that people are complex creatures made of a mess of horrible and wonderful and everything-in-between traits which do not necessarily cancel each other out.

Years later, in college, I met Orson Scott Card in person. He gave a wonderful talk (which did not feature the things we disagreed on), he signed my book and our lives went on. He was just another person, flaws and all. I decided it was best if I never looked too closely at the authors of the things I loved in case I found myself in conflict again.

But the spread of information and the social connectivity of the internet kept on growing. Now I can follow actors and writers on twitter, stalk their blogs and tumblrs, look up details of their lives on wikipedia, find gossip and photos without even trying. The author is everywhere. I can read Neil Gaiman discuss catching mice or Snoop Dogg talk about his wife or any other number of mundane, they-have-actual-lives things.

I’ve stuck with my policy of non-involvement. There are occasional exceptions–Ursula Vernon I discovered first through her blog and kept reading because she has the magical ability to make anything funny (even getting an IUD put in.) I’m happy with this decision. As much as so-and-so may be a lovely person, I think I’m better off not knowing in case they aren’t. They’re all human, and as humans they will fuck up. In a way they are still those nearly-anonymous entities of my childhood because I’ve put effort into keeping them that way.

I think it is one reason I have little desire to talk about myself in these public blogging times—I want people to care about my work, not me, and judge it solely based on its own merits. The me that matters is already in the work. The me that picks my nose and sings along to Gangnam Style doesn’t, shouldn’t matter. Should it?

Death of the author and the relationship between author and work are complicated enough I will make a separate post.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I quit my job.

Wait, I should back up.

I came to the realization some time ago that what I wanted to do with my life and what I was currently doing did not line up. I had a job in retail, which paid the bills, but I ultimately found it unsatisfying. It was not a bad job, and getting bills paid is nothing to sneeze at, but it was not enough. I wanted something different, something more like the vague aspirations I’d had during the haze of studying in college. So I thought about what different meant, and planned.

While there are many things I am able to do, I am looking for a job I want to do. A job I’ll throw myself into, be passionate about. I realized I wanted to be a dork not just when I’m off the clock, but on it too. And my greatest passion is writing.

I started writing as a teenager. I don’t mean essays, those felt like work. I wrote stories. They were all terrible cliche-riddled piles of garbage so stuffed full of wishful thinking they lacked any sense of realism, of course, but I kept going. I got to college, where I had the opportunity to take classes about writing. I loved peer reviewing, getting direct feedback on audience interpretation and providing it in turn. I still wasn’t very keen on the essays until I got to write them about things I was really interested in, like anthropology. (And even when it was something un-fun, I got it done.)

I’d somehow got it in my head that writers are all novelists. That didn’t seem like something I wanted to do, putting down so many words and fighting the uphill battle to be published. I was better at short pieces anyway. I mentally flagged writing as “hobby” and dismissed it as a viable choice. But I kept writing. Even when I thought my writing was shit I kept on writing.

I’d worked with other writers before, editing and tossing ideas back and forth, but a couple years ago I met some people who clicked. My writing improved in leaps and bounds and I did much more of it. I had so many ideas and not enough time to pursue them. I finally saw just how many paths were open to people who want to write. I wanted to use my anthropology in my writing so I could combine the two things I enjoyed most.

But surely it was crazy to leave this stable job to pursue a very different career, especially in a dodgy economy. Everyone would want references and resumes and assorted pieces of paper saying I know how to string sentences together, and I was lacking in ones directly related to writing.

The idea persisted.

I started planning. The more I did the better I felt. I wanted to do this.

And here I am. I saved, I budgeted, I got my ducks in a row. I made a schedule to make sure I stayed on task and included things I wanted to do when not job-hunting to enrich my life.

Saying “I quit my job to pursue my dreams” sounds ridiculous. (Mostly because it is ridiculous.) But I have to try. This is where my passion lies. Nothing makes a person work harder than striving for a goal and the prospect of making what they love to do the focus of their life.

I quit my job to pursue being a dork in all aspects of my life. I think I can handle being ridiculous.

Elementary Watsonology

When I first heard about CBS doing its own modern Holmes adaptation, I had my doubts. My intense love of the BBC’s Sherlock meant comparison would be inevitable—not just because they’re both modern adaptations, but because they’re both recent in my memory. I really wasn’t sure it could measure up

But then it did something unexpected—they announced casting Lucy Liu as Watson. That caught my interest.

I believe that every story, every character has a core to it—an immutable truth in someone’s mind that this is the unchanging essence of whatever it is. To step too far away from this image creates dissonance, causing negative reactions (see: the fan response to Mass Effect 3’s ending.) As with all opinions it varies from person to person, so reactions to adaptations or sequels will be across the board.

I do not see Watson’s gender or ethnicity as essential to the character. Changing them does not fundamentally warp Watson into something unrecognizable or untrue to the source, nor does it irreversibly corrupt any plot points. I enjoy the idea of a non-male Holmes or Watson—an exploration of gender in the ways the characters veer off and the ways they stay the same. My only qualm was I thought Liu would work better as Holmes and preferred the idea of that dynamic.

Hesitantly I began to look forward to the show. I am always for ladies being awesome and Lucy Liu Watson sounded potentially exciting. Now that the first episode has aired, I’ve digested my thoughts and am ready to pass a few opinions.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Sherlock Holmes

With two blockbuster movies, two seasons of a critically-acclaimed BBC series and now an upcoming CBS adaptation, Sherlock Holmes is on my mind.

I read The Complete Sherlock Holmes, borrowed from my school library, when I was about eight. Although I haven’t had a chance to reread it since (the perils of a lengthy to-read list), it has stuck with me. It was one of my paradigm-shifters, a media experience that changed how I see the world and as such has always remained one of my favorites.

All this Sherlock in the air makes me think back to that first reading experience. It left such a lasting impression I can easily recall what I thought of it despite the long gap. I realize with so much time passed some of these may be strange or off-base, but I think there’s value in seeing what my child self gleaned from the stories.

Of Wikis and Walthroughs: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Play the Damn Game

For anyone not familiar, Final Fantasy is a series of games that generally involve epic battles and the end of the world, with a different setting each time. They are long, expansive games that require dozens of hours to complete. At various points in my life I have started playing Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and XIII. Despite enjoying every one of those games I have only completed 2 of them. Even the Kingdom Hearts series, which features cameo characters from a couple Final Fantasies, has not escaped this trend. I call this my “Final Fantasy Curse.”

Something happened every time. The disc froze, my friend needed the game back, the save was lost, the family cat peed on the Playstation, life suddenly was too busy for spending hours playing a game and by the time I was able to play again I’d forgotten too much of the plot—there was always something. Sometimes even combinations of somethings. (Luckily the cat was only once.)

I started looking at fan-made walkthroughs because Final Fantasies are such sprawling worlds with mini-games or one-chance rare items. It was useful to have a quick reference if I got stuck. By my third attempt at finishing Final Fantasy X I was completely reliant on them, never playing without one beside me because This Is It I Will Get Everything and Be Done Damn It. I used the walkthrough to hurry my way past fights and grab all the secrets because I was trying to get to the end and declare the game vanquished before something happened yet again.

What I didn’t realize was how boring this made the games. It turned into a chore of going out of my way to grab a rare shiny pixellated doodad, constantly checking to see if I missed something, making sure I didn’t move on without getting it all. All the joy of discovery was gone. No wonder I suddenly stopped playing Final Fantasy XII despite making it most of the way through the game: it wasn’t fun anymore. I’d turned it into work.

How did I break the cycle?