Unless we were watching entirely different movies, the Owen Lars in ANH was not abusive or cruel. Beru Lars was not downtrodden and repressed. They were undemonstrative, maybe, but it was clear in my version at least that there was affection aplenty there for one another and for Luke ( Read more... )

Has there ever been confirmation about what happened to slavery on Tatooine? To my knowledge canon has never covered exactly how and when the practice was ended. I wonder if Luke grew up in a culture where the concept of slavery as a commonly accepted practice was, if not normal, recent enough to still be real and raw? Or was he not exposed to it, ( Read more... )

So there's been discussion happening in various places lately about whether slash (predominant in the discussion) or a more generalised focus on male characters (auxiliary to it) is misogynistic in its exclusion of female characters. It's a pretty complex issue and I've only encountered edges of the main conversation, but I think there are some ( Read more... )

Found a gem of an article while procrastinating researching an essay: "Trekker Slang" by Patricia Byrd in American Speech, written in 1978. It includes a glossary of the crazy terms in use among Star Trek fans at the time, such as con, fanfic, fandom, fen, BNF, Mary Sue stories and filk songs. That kind of thing. :p ( Read more... )

There's an interesting discussion at the moment over on discworld about an academic paper examining Terry Pratchett's portrayal of female characters, specifically looking at Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, Agnes Nitt and Tiffany Aching. The author of the paper makes some interesting points, but seems to be overlooking how Pratchett operates in ( Read more... )

Saw Kung Fu Panda today. It was - not too bad, but had the kind of issues with cultural stereotypes you'd expect (the only character with a strong accent runs a noodle shop, a villain whose appearance seemed to be based along the same lines as the Mongols in Mulan) and a kind of bizarre set-up for the villain, where apparently it's okay for the ( Read more... )

I wish people wouldn't label their fics with things like 'Ben/Mara'. I DO NOT THINK THAT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS. At least I really, really hope not. Although there were some strange Oedipal vibes to their relationship in Sacrifice*kills train of thought ( Read more... )

If you don't mind being spoilery McSpoiled, this thread (as linked in Club Jade) raises some really interesting notions about LotF. The fic potential alone, were it done decently, is kind of awesome to contemplate ( Read more... )

In between assignments I've been reading The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers, originally published in 1928. The detectoring side of it is quite decent, but wow, the casual sexism. I've read a few of Sayer's other novels, but none of those were as bad as this one - possibly because they had fewer female characters. In this ( Read more... )

I've been watching M*A*S*H on DVD, and it is bizarre how different the show is without the laughter track. I'm used to seeing it as reruns on TV, where turning the laughter off isn't an option. Watching it without that is like... a different show. Bleaker, I suppose, and oddly, I actually find myself feeling more sympathy for Frank Burns. Some of ( Read more... )