This Is Not the Great Depression x 2
Take this into account before we all start tossing our cookies and thinking the world is crumbling into another Great Depression and the U.S. is going to fall apart, or that life is ever so hard right now: 1930sPopulation: Roughly 123,000,000 (census was taken in 1930, so there will have been growth)Unemployment Rates: In 1930 it was 3.7% and climbed by 1933 to 24.9% 2000sPopulation: Roughly 300,000,000 (give or take a few million for growth)Unemployment Rates: In 2000 it was roughly at 4.0% and climbed to a current 6.1% in 2008. That’s a measly 2.1% jump in eight years in comparison to a 21.2% jump in three years during the Great Depression. And we’ve been in a relative recession since Bush took office in 2000, if you look at the figures. Is it possible that unemployment might climb to record proportions? Yes, but it’s also possible that Galactus will descend from the sky and consume the Earth, but not as a big supernatural cloud like they had in that Fantastic Four movie, but as his big, pinkish self with the funny hat and all that. Or maybe some other giant celestial being will descend upon us, like that one planet with the mouth (Ego I think). So, stop your bitching. We are nowhere near the panic point. When unemployment jumps over 10.0%, then start worrying, but until that happens, stop throwing a fit about how bad life is right now. We have nothing to bitch about as a collective entity. The people in the Great Depression had something to bitch about. We at least have minimum wage. They basically were allowed to breathe in exchange for work in horrible conditions, etc. Consider yourselves blessed that we live in the America we have now. Yes, get pissed at the President, get pissed about things changing, etc., but stop talking like this is the Great Depression, because it’s not and it makes all of you look like idiots. Do you have food in your belly? What about hot water? How about clean water? Plumbing? A roof over your head? Do your kids get to go to school? Do you have a car? If not, do you have a bike? If not that, is not having a car or bike a personal choice because you can get to work/school via other means? If you said yes to any of those questions, tuck your tail firmly between your legs and find something reasonable to bitch about, like how your President is violating your rights or how almost nothing has been done to help stifle the current recession and how there shouldn’t even be a recession remotely visual enough for people to be upset about. Or maybe just get upset that our President is a moron and that another moron is running for office and hired a religious wacko who has about as much political experience as Gumby. Plenty of things to bitch about. Thank you. P.S.: And before anyone goes, “Oh you’re all secure with your college money and blah blah blah,” it should be noted that I will be over $21,000 in debt to the government when I graduate with my BA. So, I have a good reason to be concerned about the economy and jobs too, because I have to deal with the conditions when I get my degree. I just don’t have concerns that I won’t find a job, just that I won’t find the job I want. There are plenty of jobs out there, but they are jobs that people don’t want to fall back on and I respect that. I don’t want to work at Taco Bell either, not after all this damned college work. And I know those of you who had careers or have careers and are worried about losing them don’t want to go from such a good spot to the living hell of customer service.
The Imagination Problem
It seems fiction has, for the most part, fallen to the wayside in favour of reality TV shows, biographies, ghost-written star stories and factional retellings of stories we’ve heard a million times before. The majority of TV and many of the books in the bestseller list have a compulsive fascination with the ‘real’, attempting a simulacrum of lived truth. But the problem is, these hyped-up, often trashy, lowest-common-denominator stories sap creativity rather than encouraging it. People aren’t encouraged to question, think or imagine, but rather to accept and receive. If it’s true, you don’t have to deliberate, right? Wrong! Who said it’s true? Why is it being presented as truth? Why are you so happy to sit there and take it, and why are producers so happy to dish it out at ten-a-penny? In response to this, however, I have seen a similar trend: a rise in speculative fiction. For a while SF/F was considered geeky and trashy. Much of it is, unfortunately, but not all of it. And it’s become popular again. Even horror is on the rise again. After the 90s when franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween were run into the ground, we’ve seen a spate of new horror films and reworkings of classics to thrill, shock and horrify bored audiences who’ve been numbed by years of processed, production-line ‘reality’. Now we have Harry Potter and the tricksy hobbits entertaining huge audiences. The White Witch and Aslan excite us. Audiences are crying out for imagination. Perhaps this also explains the rise of genres like bizarro, irrealism and avant pulp. People want to throw every semblance of reality to the wind and revel in chaos and pure flights of fancy. On the surface, the realists would argue this is pure escapism. Sure, it is. But so are The X Factor and American Idol. What reality TV doesn’t do that spec fic does, is make you think differently. Even if it’s only to ponder ‘What if . . .’, it’s better than thinking ‘Can I afford to ring that premium rate telephone number again?’ Thinking outside the box is what leads to cures for cancer and HIV. It’s what led to the lightbulb, the aeroplane and the special theory of relativity. Not thinking is leading us to accept a police state, whether in the US or the UK. It’s time to think again. So ditch the tabloid with its sensationalist ‘real’ stories, drop Heat Magazine, switch off Simon Cowell and get imagining again.
Show Review: Sanctuary (the pilot episode)
I decided on a whim today to watch the pilot episode of Sanctuary itself because I absolutely, positively hate commercials, and particularly hate the commercials on the Sci (online rather than on Sci FiFi channel). I’ve heard a little bit about the show and was curious, although I probably should have been reading instead. Regardless, I have some thoughts. My overall impression of the show is that it feels very much like the kind of show that shows up on a cable/satellite network station and then gets cancelled at the end of its first series. Perhaps that sounds harsh, but there are a lot of things that feel wrong about the pilot episode and particularly that cry of poorly devised genre. My issues with the pilot also stem from my issues with the Sci Fi channel in general. So, I guess I’ll just dig in. First, the premise reads like a TV version of Hellboy, which isn’t necessarily bad, but certainly will be noticeable to people who are fans of Hellboy. The problem with Sanctuary is that it lacks the funding that Hellboy received to make that film a much more visually appealing creation: meaning that Sanctuary lacks the visuals to make it an outstanding show. There are too many times when you are fully aware of the CGI, which immediately pulls me out of the show itself. One of the things I think has destroyed modern television and film is this reliance on CGI, but a complete lack of attention paid to the actual details behind it. My rule has always been the following: Unless you can make it look real, don’t use it. Sanctuary falls prey to many of the problems that exist within Sci Fi Channel’s original content: poor CGI. This is incredibly depressing when you look at shows like Battlestar Galactica found within the first Mortal issues. None whatsoever. They could have removed half the (the new incarnation) and see what Sci Fi is actually capable of for a limited budget. True, you are aware of the CGI in BSG, but because it’s done well overall you’re much more willing to let it go as being a limiting factor of TV. But Sanctuary relies on its CGI to even work, whereas BSG does not. All the creatures (well, almost all of them) either have to be puppets or CGed critters, and it is really obvious when those creatures are CG. There is a mermaid in the pilot and she looks so obviously fake that it bugged me every time I saw her. The CGI quality here is not that far from the CGIKombat movie, and if you remember the CGI in that film, you’ll know that that’s not good at all. Even when the CGI looks good it’s flawed by crappy green/blue screen techniques where the people don’t look like they are actually a part of the environment around them (this is particularly annoying when they’re inside of the mansion and it makes you wonder why it was so hard for the producers to hunt down a nice mansion where they could film). I realize that TV shows don’t have a lot of funding, but if you’re going to use CGI, make it look good, or don’t use it at all. There really is no reason for the entire pilot to be mired by CGICGI to make the stuff that had to be CGed look even better. And this is very consistent within the Sci Fi Channel’s attempt to reach their market. No wonder the station has issues being taken seriously even by fans (and I will make a claim here that any time Sci Fi wants to be taken with a grain of salt when it creates its own scifi/horror movies, then they should cast Bruce Campbell in every part, because only then will anyone watch and be willing to let all the issues in the production slide…because Bruce rules). Additionally there are issues with casting. The daughter, Ashley, comes off forced and cliche–oh no, yet another leather-clad blonde girl who runs around fighting people and shooting guns…yippee. The main character, Will, is okay, but it feels a little Soap Opera-ish, and Amanda Tapping as Dr. Magnus is perhaps the strongest role, although even her performance is a mixed bag. Even the bad guy, John, isn’t perfect, although he really creeped me out and felt like a British version of Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty from Blade Runner. Did anyone else see that similarity? There ‘s a complete lack of atmosphere too, let alone conflict. True, there is conflict, but it’s poorly done within an hour an a half of actual show. The overall issue is getting Will to join up with Dr. Magnus to deal with all the nifty unknown tidbits of the world (the sort of hidden and unknown aspect of Hellboy’s world of monsters and demons and what not). And that part gets resolved, but at the same time we’re told a lot of things about Dr. Magnus, which should have been a feature drawn out over the first season rather than developed and answered all at once, and her relationship to her daughter and John. In fact, the whole pilot was trying to do so much all at once it just felt like a bad movie. The atmosphere tries to be dark and gritty, somewhat noir in approach, but it fails to do that because of its poor production quality and limited sets (which is probably due to it being a TV show instead of a movie). The sets that exist don’t feel very lived in, but more like temporary creations that lack the personal touch that we might have seen in Lord of the Rings–and before anyone goes off on me for making a comparison between a movie like LOTR and a TV show, you can still create character and atmosphere with cheap props on a TV show in the same manner as was done with expensive props in LOTR,