Video Found: “Cargo” from TropFest Australia 2013
I think this may be the first time I’ve shed a tear during a zombie movie. This short film deserves a feature film adaptation. The concept is absolutely beautiful: during a zombie outbreak, an infected father spends his last moments trying to bring is infant daughter to safety. A+
Professional Writer = No Day Job?
On a recent episode of the Functional Nerds podcast, Patrick Hester posited that based on the prefix “professional” in “professional writer,” those writers who do not make a living as writers technically don’t count as pros. I’m paraphrasing, of course, so I recommend actually listening to the podcast here (the comment appears around the 30-minute mark). The idea is not a new one. It falls within the same discussions about who gets to call themselves “writers” or “authors,” and who has to suck a bag of too-bads and accept that they don’t get to use a fancy label. And it’s likewise tied into the longstanding discussions about the term “professional” within our field, most notably in the fact that what the SFWA considers a “professional” publication has very little to do with whether one actually makes a living as a published writer. It’s from that last line that I’d like to suggest that while it’s perhaps accurate to apply “professional writer” only to those who make a living as writers, the material realities of the writing life make such a determination numerically meaningless. So few writers actually make a living as writers, and of those that do make a living as such, most of them do so via a variety of writing avenues. A midlist author of science fiction novels, for example, may fill in the enormous gaps from fiction publications with freelance work (essays, editing, etc.). The number of authors who actually get to live off a single form of writing (Stephen King, for example, or Neil Gaiman…) comprises such a small number of all published writers out there that using “professional writer” on them alone wouldn’t really tell us anything other than “these are the authors who sell enough books to pay a mortgage.” Since a great deal of non-writer folks likewise wouldn’t fall within the domain of a “professional” based on how well they do in a given field, I just don’t see why the term provides any use value if we apply so selectively. And that’s perhaps the big problem here. What the hell is a professional writer anyway? Would Harper Lee count as a professional writer? She only wrote one book: To Kill a Mockingbird. But it sells so many copies every year that I suspect she could live quite comfortably off the various royalties and rights purchases associated with it. Is she a professional writer? By the standard of financial value: yes. By any other standard of professionalism? Nope. Most uses of the term professional apply to those who actually participate in the production of a “thing.” A doctor who has a practice or works at a hospital is a professional. A practicing lawyer is a professional. An author who sells one book and nothing else? Well… I suppose all of this is essentially a reflection about the state of the field of authorship. In other fields, one can become a professional by “doing,” but in the world of writing, I’m not sure there’s an easy measurement for “professional” and “not.” Harper Lee is probably a professional writer, but the standards by which her professionalism would be measured wouldn’t apply to someone like, say, Tobias S. Buckell, who still splits his salary between fiction sales and freelance work (I’m not sure how true that is today, though; he used to do these in-depth analyses of his yearly salary, but he’s been quite busy lately). In Hester’s assessment, the former is instantly a professional writer; the latter is not. Why? What makes the distinction here? Money can’t be the only valuable distinction between the two. There have to be other factors, too; otherwise, what’s the point of calling anyone a professional writer if all you need to do to become one is publish one book and sell millions of copies? Any thoughts?
Video Found: “This Must Be the Only Fantasy” (w/ Elijah Wood)
Apparently, the following short film is a collaboration between a fashion designer and a photographer. There’s something to be said about the fashion industry giving attention to roleplaying games, I suppose. In any case, this video is kinda strange and kinda awesome at the same time. And Elijah Wood has a small part, for what it’s worth. Enjoy.
Around the Podosphere: Shoot the WISB Review of Elysium
I’ve been wildly anticipating the next Neill Blomkamp film for a long while. Now it’s finally here, and I’ve joined David Annandale and Paul Weimer to talk about it in the current episode of Shoot the WISB. Go check it out after you see the movie yourself! You might also like to check out some other episodes over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show, including these: An Interview w/ Michael J. Martinez (author of The Daedalus Incident) Torture Cinema Meets Transformers (2007)
Open Road Media and Genre-Bending Novels (and a Book Sale)
Open Road Media is running a sort of awareness campaign / sale for novels which essentially defy categorization. There are quite a few interesting books on the list, so in case you’re interested in that sort of thing, here are the details: Jonathan Carroll. Edward Whittemore. Robert R. McCammon. James Morrow. All of these authors have written novels that defy our understanding of conventional genres. More than just literary fiction, these novels rejoice in the fantastic and the sublime. Since their initial publication, many of these stories have been categorized as science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and “other.” This week, Open Road Media is celebrating these tales of the in-between. Novels that, for one reason or another, refuse to be categorized. We encourage you to take a look at the ten ebooks we’ve selected and expand your conception of genre fiction. The titles with the asterisk* will be on sale for $3.99 or less until August 20th. 1. The Summer Isles* by Ian R. MacLeod2. From the Teeth of Angels by Jonathan Carroll3. Black Light by Elizabeth Hand4. Sinai Tapestry* by Edward Whittemore5. The Eighth Square* by Herbert Lieberman6. Expiration Date* by Tim Powers7. Mine by Robert R. McCammon8. The Broken Land* by Ian McDonald9. The Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow10. The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti by Stephen Graham Jones Cross genre boundaries and join the conversation this week. Feel free to share your thoughts on your site, or contribute to ours. Even our authors are speaking out. “The real reason I write across genre lines,” explains Stephen Graham Jones,” “is because I want to see cool stuff.” You can find details about the books on sale here. There’s an interesting question behind all of this: what are some of your favorite genre-bending stories? And so that’s the question I’ll leave you all with: What are some of your favorite genre-bending novels, short stories, or films?
Talking About Wonder Woman and Her “Problems”…Again
Some time back, I talked about the path I hope the studios will take for a film adaptation of the Justice. Since such an adaptation will naturally include popular characters like Wonder Woman and Flash, I felt compelled to talk about why the studios had to approach the whole venture carefully to avoid the pitfalls of camp that continue to plague the characters. Now, I feel compelled to talk a little bit more about Wonder Woman, and it’s all Tansy Rayner Roberts’ fault. Last month, Tansy Rayner Roberts took a stab at the reasons why people think Wonder Woman won’t work in film. I agree with Roberts that most, if not all, of the reasons are pretty dumb, especially the argument that movies with female superheroes are stupid. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. There are certainly bad movies which include female superheroes, but those movies suck because they are bad movies, not because you’re being asked to root for the ladies. Not surprisingly, people do actually go to movies involving female superheroes. Shocking, I know. I mean, how the frak is that even possible? It must be witchcraft…or a Kenyan government conspiracy involving the IRS. Anywhoodles. Roberts’ rightly points out, in agreement with Shoshana Kessock on Tor.com, that one of the major “problems” with Wonder Woman concerns her explicit feminist nature: I think Shoshanna at Tor is right on the money with her article – the “problem” with Wonder Woman is that most people don’t know how to deal with an unapologetically feminist character. Writers panic. Executives panic. The way that women in particular are written in Hollywood is so vastly different to the way that superheroes tend to be written, that when the two concepts are combined, fear and cosmetics companies and ice-cream tend to get thrown at the resulting mess until it goes away. I also agree with this premise, which is why I like the idea of Wonder Woman as a character, even though I think she frequently falls prey (in the public consciousness of her character) to a certain kind of campy optimism. Done right, she could make for a profitable and, well, qualitatively good franchise of films. I’d love to see some well-written Wonder Woman movies. Watch her battle to save the Earth and for equality. Of course, the character hasn’t always had this optimistic feminist view of things. I don’t know if Roberts has read the recent Flashpoint crossover event, but I would certainly like to hear her opinion on the portrayal of Wonder Woman and the Amazons in that particular set of comics. If any major event in the DC universe has been officially put in the studio’s list of “stuff we’re not going to put on the screen…ever,” it would be Flashpoint. Well, there are probably other things in there, and some sexist jackass is probably sitting in an office somewhere thinking about ways to kill (in the comic book definition of the word) Wonder Woman after turning her into a “misandrist” villain. Maybe not… I actually really liked her costume in Flashpoint… For those unfamiliar with the comics, I’ll briefly explain the main thrust of the Flashpoint event, though I won’t tell you how the event got started, as that would ruin the reveal at the end. Basically, something happens and the entire DC universe is rewritten, changing the entire power structure of the Earth. From the first few comics, we learn two crucial things: Wonder Woman and Aquaman had originally agreed to marry in order to unite their kingdoms, but an assassination plot led to the death of Wonder Woman’s mother (i.e., the Queen), followed by a massive war between the two kingdoms. Half of Europe is under water, the United Kingdom has been taken over by the Amazons, and all is chaos. In the middle of all of this, we learn that an entire faction of the Amazons (enough that Wonder Woman’s ignorance of their doings is rather difficult to believe) has been doing two things: 1) enslaving or killing men, and 2) subjecting women to genetic and psychological re-wiring to make them part of the Amazons, too. Can you see why this wouldn’t work all that well on film? Now, I’m not one to make grand Men’s Rights claims about misandry (these claims are, to put it bluntly, brainless). I don’t buy into the idea that feminism is the hatred of men. I’ve never met a feminist who hates me because I have a penis; I have met men who hate women because they have vaginas. But setting aside the motivations for the power games in Flashpoint, the simple fact remains that the Amazons are not portrayed as particularly positive feminists. If anything, I wouldn’t call them feminists at all in this alternate universe. They actively express their hate of men, engage in activities which involve the oppression of men, and manipulate, destroy, and/or augment women in an attempt to inject new blood into the ranks. They are, in effect, pretty much frakking evil (Wonder Woman, as I’ve noted, may not actually know what is going on under her nose; either that or she’s naive as hell)(truthfully, there aren’t that many “good people” in the Flashpoint universe). They’re kind of like a literal representation of what anti-feminists imagine actual feminists are like. You know the narrative: they run around trying to think about ways to oppress men, keep everything for themselves, ruin society, and so on and so forth. Basically, they’re an idiot’s wet dream. I bring all of this up because I think it’s important to recognize that Wonder Woman as a character can, as Roberts points out, ruffle feathers, in no small part because she is, largely speaking, an open feminist and advocate for women’s rights (in my experience, anyway). Flashpoint, however, is a terrible deviation from her positive narrative. And it’s canon. It’s part of her development in the modern age of comics. Studios will avoid it like the plague for what they think