To whom it may concern...
Nov. 8th, 2008 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTo Spike Lee,
I notice that you, and some other filmmakers, have accused theater employees of deliberately selling customers tickets to movies other than yours, despite the customer's request, for reasons ranging from racism to politics. I don't have to tell you that the only way this would be feasible or even noticeable would be for there to be a conspiracy of like-minded ticket-sellers, working in concert, who all speared your movie enough for you to notice.
However, I should point out that theater employees tend to love movies, seeing as one of the perks is usually seeing free movies. We also tend to be tremendous nerds. I've had a conversation with a manager about Leia in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. That's pretty fucking nerdy. I should also draw your attention to the fact that movies such as Meet The Spartans, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, and, yes, Beverly Hills Chichiua have been box office successes.
Now, if the big bad theater conspiracy wanted to short-change a movie... don't we think we would hit Disaster Movie? We would. We so would. We have to clean up after the brain-dead teenagers who think that Disaster Movie is funny.
To comic book writers of various strain,
It's an unfortunate fact, but due to the long-running nature of comics, several titles have a history of racism. Characters like Pieface in Green Lantern or Ebony White in The Spirit who were fine according to the conventions of the time, but today are an embarrassment, thankfully forgotten or transitioned into a more palatable form. Ebony White in the Spirit reboot, for instance, has retained his bravery and the trusted status he enjoys with the Spirit, but the racist caricature of his appearance and the way he's frequently a foolish object of derision have been dropped.
It is also an unfortunate fact that a statistically improbable number of female characters have rape in their backstories (with the accompanying unfortunte implications) or have been raped in the course of their adventures. Unfortunately, some number of writers persist in including rape in their storylines, usually (in fact, almost exclusively) not to the merit of said storylines. Even worse, a number of writers retcon rape into the backstories of heroines who usually have less cliched, dare I say more feminist motivations.
Now, stay with me here, but to suddenly write a story in which (for instance) Supergirl was revealed to have been raped on Krypton, is to me akin to writing a story in which it's revealed that Bruce Wayne used to frequent a black shoe shine boy with buckteeth, pidgin English, and a cowardly response of "feet don't fail me now!" to any danger. It's a callback to an embarrassing genre convention and we should, as either consumers or producers of said stories, know better.
I notice that you, and some other filmmakers, have accused theater employees of deliberately selling customers tickets to movies other than yours, despite the customer's request, for reasons ranging from racism to politics. I don't have to tell you that the only way this would be feasible or even noticeable would be for there to be a conspiracy of like-minded ticket-sellers, working in concert, who all speared your movie enough for you to notice.
However, I should point out that theater employees tend to love movies, seeing as one of the perks is usually seeing free movies. We also tend to be tremendous nerds. I've had a conversation with a manager about Leia in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. That's pretty fucking nerdy. I should also draw your attention to the fact that movies such as Meet The Spartans, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, and, yes, Beverly Hills Chichiua have been box office successes.
Now, if the big bad theater conspiracy wanted to short-change a movie... don't we think we would hit Disaster Movie? We would. We so would. We have to clean up after the brain-dead teenagers who think that Disaster Movie is funny.
To comic book writers of various strain,
It's an unfortunate fact, but due to the long-running nature of comics, several titles have a history of racism. Characters like Pieface in Green Lantern or Ebony White in The Spirit who were fine according to the conventions of the time, but today are an embarrassment, thankfully forgotten or transitioned into a more palatable form. Ebony White in the Spirit reboot, for instance, has retained his bravery and the trusted status he enjoys with the Spirit, but the racist caricature of his appearance and the way he's frequently a foolish object of derision have been dropped.
It is also an unfortunate fact that a statistically improbable number of female characters have rape in their backstories (with the accompanying unfortunte implications) or have been raped in the course of their adventures. Unfortunately, some number of writers persist in including rape in their storylines, usually (in fact, almost exclusively) not to the merit of said storylines. Even worse, a number of writers retcon rape into the backstories of heroines who usually have less cliched, dare I say more feminist motivations.
Now, stay with me here, but to suddenly write a story in which (for instance) Supergirl was revealed to have been raped on Krypton, is to me akin to writing a story in which it's revealed that Bruce Wayne used to frequent a black shoe shine boy with buckteeth, pidgin English, and a cowardly response of "feet don't fail me now!" to any danger. It's a callback to an embarrassing genre convention and we should, as either consumers or producers of said stories, know better.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 05:30 am (UTC)Also, you speak the truth, sister. And, you know, the same is true with movies. If a heroine wasn't raped in her past, then someone killed her family. Whatever happened to originality? :(
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 05:35 am (UTC)That is, like, grounds for some deep blue Titus Andronicus shit.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 12:14 pm (UTC)Dude, give me back my Xena anytime. At least all she had was a case of warlordism and the want to take over the known world. Plus, she was hot and had GREAT subtext.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 04:29 pm (UTC)