Premature Ossification?

[digitaldiscipline]

It's getting harder and harder for me to find anything new good or interesting.

"Sin City" cleared the bar last night. Going to add it to the collection.

My out-and-out refusal to succumb to Harry Potter took K by surprise the other night. HP is one of those things that, no matter how many of my friends throw in with or endorse, I simply will not devote any time to. I don't cotton to the hyper-popular saturation in much the same way that I'm not interested in young adult fiction. I see it as a marketing juggernaut first, and that's indelibly colored my preconceptions about the whole affair, unfairly or not.

I feel similarly about Joss Whedon's body of work, and it even has the dubious inducement of cute females who are above the age of consent. I've seen a couple episodes of Buffy, but it didn't grab me the way a half-episode of the X-Files did once upon a time. Stargate, ditto. Babylon 5 was interesting enough to not change the channel, but not compelling enough to make me look for back episodes or pay attention to when it was on.

On a slightly-related note, Gardner Dozois has decidedly grimmer taste in SF than David Hartwell for their respective "Best of" yearly anthologies.

Comments

[helcat.livejournal.com]

Buffy/Angel grabbed me belatedly. Harry Potter grabbed me before the hype did.

No matter how much naysayers like you say you don't want to hear endorsements, these both have mine, and I dispense them rarely.

I should note that the main reason I didn't give Buffy a chance was that Sarah Michelle Gellar looks like Justin's wife. talk about petty. But to appreciate either series, watching one ep from the middle is like forming an opinion of a book after reading one page in chapter 20. Since that's how Dean decides when he's going to read a book, he's missed out on these gems as well.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I don't discount those folks who enjoy 'em - on the main, I do tend to look to certain peoples' opinions when rummaging for some things - this is just one case where, even if it's universally well-liked, I'm just not going to give it a shot. Endorse what merits it.

From what I hear, a lot of people liked "Napoleon Dynamite," too, but those that didn't made it sound like the worst thing since Andy Dick and Tom Green's inexplicable brush with fame.

I saw the episode of Buffy sometime before the peak of the hype, and the impression I took away from it was, "This is Xena for suburban teenagers." The writing, the production values, even the foley work - it all worked together to put me off just enough to not want to bother. Seeing breathless discussions of the inner lives of the characters (cavalorn's brilliant snark slashfic earlier this week nothwithstanding) only reinforced this.

At this point, I'd be more apt to read HP slashfic than HP. How sad is that?

[helcat.livejournal.com]

My endorsements are:

Buffy and Angel are the best-written TV series I've ever seen. I was an X-files story arc fan--imagine if the X-files story arc was never interrupted by sub-par writing. Buffy has filler episodes, but they are across the board _written well._

Harry Potter is a resoundingly good example of storytelling in book form.

While it's cool to be iconoclastic, I would suggest that you, as a writer, would benefit from studying these two things to understand why it was possible for them to become marketing bohemoths in the first place. They weren't created to become marketing bohemoths. There is no chicken/egg debate here.

I mean, I read Terry Goodkind's first novel because I understood it to have the highest advance for a first novel ever. That may not be accurate, but in reading it, I was able to see that I never want to get a huge advance.

Know the enemy, I say. if it converts you, then eat crow, but to broadly condemn good stuff in a vast ocean of really bad without having given it a proper examination smacks of fundie behavior. :)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I'm going to spend a little while licking some well-delivered rhetorical rounds, madame. :-)

[helcat.livejournal.com]

i ate crow over buffy, but honestly it wasn't one person's recommendation or well-delivered thingimabob that caused me to re-evaluate it. it was seeing no fewer than 20 very talented writers oohing and aahing over the writing. I did not want to like it.

As for Harry Potter, I should disclaim a bias. I had struggled for years to get Kieran to want to read above his age level--he was good enough, but didn't want to engage "big books." He was six when I gave him the first Harry Potter, and since then, the more "big books" the better.

There may be a relationship between your not wanting kids and your disconnect with children's literature, but by far the best fantasy is in the kid's section, IMHO.

In other news, I'm hungry. :)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Buffy, the movie, looked more fun to me than Buffy, the show. I think part of my reluctance stems from either the implicit irony, or utter lack of irony, with which the show needs to be engaged. I have tried, on several occasions, to eschew it altogether when writing, and find that it's intrinsic in my voice, whatever the subject. This ambivalence about the show's craft leaves me unable to get into the right mood to watch it. I have no concept of what makes for a well-written TV show; a byproduct, most likely, of the minimal exposure I tend to have to it.

Plus, it just looks cheesy as hell, vis a vis Xena/Hercules production values, and that rendered it all but impossible to suspend my disbelief. [the after-the-fact fangirlgasms over spike and whatnot didn't really make for a compelling inducement, either.]

My general distaste for young humans does play a large part in my antipathy towards HP - I don't really want to spend several hours with real ones, I -really- don't want to spend several hours with semi-magical made-up ones, especially since, from what I can tell, they're a fairly unlikable lot - a bumbler, a know-it-all, an arch-enemy - and the general supervisory powers of various adults who are similarly uninteresting-to-me.

Were I a parent, or more engaged with children, I might have a different mindset. Then again, if I had a different mindset, I might be a parent, or more engaged with children.

As for being hungry, you can lick my. . . oh, wait. Wrong List! ;-)

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

JK Rowling was asked in an interview once why she would write such dark material for childrens books. She answered; "These are books that have children in them. They are *not* 'childrens books' ". A book about incest could have children in it, but I wouldn't call that a "childrens book" either (HP is certainly more kid friendly than that, but you get the drift).

In another interview, she related a story about a letter sent by the Mother of a young fan. The Mother spoke of how she admired the first book, but thought the second one too dark for children, and that a writer of JK's obvious caliber could certainly manage an interesting story without such. JK's answer was something like; 'Thank you for your compliments. Don't read any more of the books'.

The thing I admire about her work is that she is not willing to sell out her original vision. She is not a "Hollywood" writer. She doesn't round out each book with some uber-sappy happy ending. People die...main (and beloved) characters die. There is more of what life really is in her work because of it.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with the endorsements of Buffy, Angel and Harry Potter. For me, Buffy sucked in it's first year or two, but it developed in surprising ways. Angel was the same for me as well. And, as far as I am concerned, Joss Whedon only got a running start with those. His real masterpiece is "Firefly".

Check it out! It's a wonderfully alternative vision of the future. Not at all like anything else out there, except that the dialogue is every bit as witty and snappy as anything Joss ever did with Buffy or Angel.

The movie, "Serenity", is due out in a couple of weeks.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The Geek and I cringed our way through Napoleon Dynamite, and have a quiet agreement never to have anything to do with it ever again. The only artful thing about the whole deal is that the film and its marketing is horribly abusive to the audience in exactly the same way that the background world treats the main characters of the film, and the public sucks it up and goes back for more in exactly the same way, all the while praising the bullies and being happy they're getting attention from their "friends".

But one doesn't have to put up with seeing the film to appreciate that irony.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

"You're a dork! Watch the dorks!"

It was uncomfortable enough when I was ostensibly supposed to be watching John Hughes movies. American Pie was at least clever and ribald. This looked like Beavis and Butthead, the live-action years.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

One big difference I see is that B&B aren't liked, aren't expected to redeem themselves, and few (if any) deeply identify with them.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

I didn't know anything about HP until my mom said "you should read this, it's fun." We have similar tastes in fantasy books, so I gave it a shot & was immediately hooked.

I tried to watch Buffy once, but ditto, it didn't grab me from the first second like X-Files did. But I don't begrudge my friends their enjoyment of it.

While I used to be "it's too popular so I automatically hate it," more recently I've decided to give things a chance on their own merits & see how they fare. Except for that Titanic movie. No matter how drool-worthy the costumes are, I just can't give more money to James Cameron ;-)

[geekers.livejournal.com]

Heh. I commented before I read other comments -- and I mentioned Titanic, too.

[geekers.livejournal.com]

... much the same reason I didn't like/enjoy Donnie Darko or 28 Days Later. Titanic is one of those movies I entirely avoided, and will continue to do No Matter What. Harry Potter (books and movies) are the same for me. (Although I must admit I saw about 30 minutes of the first movie when I was at a friends house ~ I fell asleep to it and woke up to see the last minute before credits. :p)

I only learned to tolerate Buffy because Peter owns them (oof, but the cheese factor kills me), and X-Files is okay (which I only recently learned because TiVo thought we would like them). Ewwwww, Stargate. Babylon 5 is only slightly higher than Stargate on my scale of suck.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

You know why I refuse to see "Titanic"?

Because it out-grossed Star Wars. I hate "ET" for the same reason.

That, and I think Leo DeCapitated is a shitweasel, and I know how it ends.

The boat sinks, right? I mean, it's not like there's a lot of suspense there. . .

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

The reason to miss "Titanic" is because, as period pieces go, it was a travesty. I don't care how much it earned.

What puzzles me is why you would seemingly (said because I know I probably don't truly understand what you're saying yet) assign value based on how many dollars a thing earned. Making no money is not an indicator of a thing being bad, but also, making tons of money is not an indicator of a thing sucking, either.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Pure, simple resentment. They out-grossed my childhood favorite, and for that, they would not be forgiven.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

:::smiles:::

So...you're holding your breath until your face turns blue to get even? ;P

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Not really - I have no interest in seeing Titanic anyways.

I don't have ovaries. ;-)

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

This gives further validation to my long held theory. I am a man with undescended testes. I hated that film (Titanic). It bored me to tears.

If given a choice between "Titanic" and "Spiritual Kung Fu" (an early Jackie Chan film made in Taiwan, with subtitles), I'll take the latter.

...so not the "chick flick" kind.

I hear ya, brother.

[smaugchow.livejournal.com]

I've been assimilated by the Potterverse, and while I don't find it to be a painful situation I suspect it has not enriched my life much. I admire your moral stand - I'm the same way with Wal-Mart.

I'll say one good thing about HP, both books and films - they are well done. I mean, a pile of shit is a pile of shit no matter what you do with it, but a WELL DONE pile of shit can have some merit. I tend to respect things that are well crafted. I occasionally have to go to a chick flick to keep the wife appeased and while they are all shit, a very few of them are well crafted shit and therefore not complete wrist-slitters.

I am a Buffy virgin and I like it that way. Ditto with Angel. X-files were vaguely interesting but I felt like they steadfastly refused to get to the fucking point, so I lost interest.

Re: I hear ya, brother.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I got sucked into X-files because of one clever hook, which never happened again - some one-off character replaced his vulgarities by saying "bleep."

The next episode I saw remains the only one that legitimately creeped me out (the fountain of youth descendants in the north florida swamp, where one ends the episode under scully's bed), and that was it - i watched. it sucked towards the end, no lie.

Re: I hear ya, brother.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

Hah hah, that's *exactly* how/when I started watching the X-Files too.

Re: I hear ya, brother.

[firefly-pilot.livejournal.com]

In Firefly, they replace the vulgarities by swearing in Chinese. You wouldn't know that they're actually saying "Fuck everyone in the universe to death," but lines like that appear in most episodes. :)

Re: I hear ya, brother.

[firefly-pilot.livejournal.com]

Oh, and River (17-year-old tiny slip of a girl) calling Cap't. Reynolds (who is usually armed) a "Stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey."

Re: I hear ya, brother.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

That "tiny slip of a girl" could take out the entire crew while doing her nails, thankyouverymuch.

[fenixinthedark.livejournal.com]

My out-and-out refusal to succumb to Harry Potter took K by surprise the other night. HP is one of those things that, no matter how many of my friends throw in with or endorse, I simply will not devote any time to. I don't cotton to the hyper-popular saturation in much the same way that I'm not interested in young adult fiction. I see it as a marketing juggernaut first, and that's indelibly colored my preconceptions about the whole affair, unfairly or not.

firefly_pilot had similar issues with HP (as well as MIB and a couple of other things I have since been able to introduce him to). He stood as resolutely as you do here, and with near the same justifications as you are giving. Until he happened to be over a few nights as I was reading allowed to the spawn. He found himself unable to get over one evening after several of listening in, and he wound up IMing me in a panic because he realized he would be missing out on knowing what happened 'that night'.

I understand the basic premise you present here and share it for a great deal of the pablum that is most pop-entertainment (Twittany Spears comes to mind).

But, when half a dozen people who you think are intelligent and discerning tell you that the reason for a specific things popularity is because it actually deserves it, then maybe that's enough to warrant another look?

Dunno. Your call, but I do think you're missing out.

[firefly-pilot.livejournal.com]

Fenix is correct; I resisted Potter, MiB, and even Roger Rabbit on the basis of their popularity. I never liked Buffy or any of Joss Whedon's other work because of how many other people liked it; I liked them (well, the later seasons of Buffy, and all of the little there was of Firefly) because I saw them and thought they were clever. The characters are distinctive, interesting, and they make me laugh.

As far as Beavis and Butthead is concerned - it wasn't popular because people could identify with it, it was popular because it gave people - even stupid people - something to make them feel better about *themselves*. A cheap ploy, but it appears to have worked for a time.

Harry Potter isn't good because a lot of people like it. Harry Potter is good, for me, because *I* can like it. They are *masterfully* well-told stories in a rich world. I get enough pleasure from it that I delight in finding other people who enjoy it, because it gives us so much to talk about, to theorize about.

Fenix writes: "But, when half a dozen people who you think are intelligent and discerning tell you that the reason for a specific things popularity is because it actually deserves it, then maybe that's enough to warrant another look?

Dunno. Your call, but I do think you're missing out."

Emphatically seconded.

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

I don't hate the HP books, but I don't love them to death, either. I've read them all mostly out of a sense that I should know our products. I hadn't read any of them before I started working here at the Gryffindor Labor Camp and Detention Facility.

Same with the Buffyverse, I'm pretty immune. I've seen all of the shows and enjoyed them here and there, but I never really felt any compelling desire to watch on a regular basis. Rick is a Buffy addict and I just don't get it.

This reminds me...

[ross-winn.livejournal.com]

... how fucking old I am. Thanks a bloody lot...

I don't want to get off on a rant here, but sangro de cristo, Babylon 5 sucked. Next Generation sucked. Voyager sucked. I never saw Enterprise or whatever the last one was called. The only SF show I have liked (before the recent Battlestar Galactica) is Farcape. Stargate had its moments, but they were only moments.

It reminds me of "There's Something About Mary". By the time I saw that film Cameron Diaz could have jumped on my lap and fellated me and I still would have thought it was over-rated.

Why is it no one has any taste any more?

Re: This reminds me...

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me - I hated that flick, too [though I'd probably have done anything but object if Ms. Diaz had done so].

I liked Next Gen, and, for a while, DS9. The others? Not so much.