(no subject)
I have a tendency, when watching something television or a movie that is not especially good, to construct theories or explanations that make that narrative into something grander. Something where there's a secret story ocurring in the backgrounds of the obvious story. Do other people do this? I don't know. But it helps a lot when you have a two year old picking a noticeable percentage of the television that you watch.
The most basic example of this involves Handy Manny, which you may not even realize exists unless there is a toddler in your vicinity. (You may have noticed me ranting about Handy Manny over on my LARP blog, too.) But I'll just say that the only logical explanation of the show is that the hardware clerk Kelly sabotages everything in town, so that Manny will have to go to her store for supplies, in hopes that he will eventually fall in love with her. It's a sick mental fantasy she has, and she really should just accept that this is the 21st century and a woman can ask a man out if she wants. But instead she sticks a rubber mouse inside the piano at the talent show, blames it on Mr. Lopart's cat and "just happens" to have brought piano wire and tuning keys to "juggle" them in the talent show. Juggling piano wire? Her explanation makes no sense to anyone who isn't a dimwitted anthropomorphic hammer. Thus, we have to conclude that what Kelly says is a lie, and in fact she sabotaged the piano. and everything else in Sheetrock Hills.
What, you don't watch Playhouse Disney? Well, would you prefer to hear my explanation for why Sylar appears to be guest starring in that newfangled Star Trek movie? See, the truth of the matter is that Sylar is Spock's illegitimate child. You know, from when they travelled back in time to save the whales. At some point in that time, Spock got a chance for some off-camera Rishathra and when the child grew up his weird alien human hybrid genetics made him into a superpoweed serial killer.
Zachary Quinto is about ten years too old for the theory to work perfectly. (He is also, I note from looking at the IMDB, from this here neck of the woods.) Perhaps his alien/human biology speeds up his aging, I don't know.
Finally, I think that the two new James Bond movies are tragedies, in dramatic terms. I honestly don't know if my last example is in the same sort of category as the first two. In those cases I as audience is creating new narratives in the media not intended by the authors. But in this case, I can't be sure if the authors intend for this to be true or not. Anyway, here goes:
Firstly, this is based off of Robin Laws's recent series of excellent posts concerning narrative "Turning Points" in stories, using Hamlet in particular as an example. Right now I'm especially concerned with this post talking about the difference between procedurals and dramas. You might want to read it for fuller context.
See, the James Bond movies have always had an overwhelmingly strong procedural bent. Bond doesn't change his personality much in response to the events of a movie. That's part of what makes Bond an iconic character, is the lack of an inner life. But in the two new movies, we see glimmers of Bond as a human being. But the movies are about the transformation of a human being into that iconic character, which is to say the death of his humanity. For example, in the first movie, he is upset at the death of various innocent women (arguably his motivation throughout the second film), but by the second he has femme fatales dying in his bed and doesn't seem to care at all.
It seems to me like the makers of the movies looked at Alan Moore's quote from 1986 "As our political and social consciousness continues to evolve... we begin to see that the overriding factor in James Bond's psychological makeup is his utter hatred and contempt for women". But instead of trying to change Bond to remove his misogyny, they embraced it and illustrated the transformation to the point where the death of a(nother) woman was little concern to Bond.
So the new movies have one procedural level, in which Bond is successful, but on the dramatic level Bond goes from empathic human being to soulless assassin. That doesn't exactly seem like a positive outcome to me, and sometimes it seems like the filmmakers agree.
I'd probably need to go back an watch both films more carefully before presenting this as a serious academic thesis. At this point it's just an idle fan theory, which may or may not align with all the facts of the movies. Heck, I haven't seen either movie since Solace was in theatres, so I could easily be misremembering them.
The most basic example of this involves Handy Manny, which you may not even realize exists unless there is a toddler in your vicinity. (You may have noticed me ranting about Handy Manny over on my LARP blog, too.) But I'll just say that the only logical explanation of the show is that the hardware clerk Kelly sabotages everything in town, so that Manny will have to go to her store for supplies, in hopes that he will eventually fall in love with her. It's a sick mental fantasy she has, and she really should just accept that this is the 21st century and a woman can ask a man out if she wants. But instead she sticks a rubber mouse inside the piano at the talent show, blames it on Mr. Lopart's cat and "just happens" to have brought piano wire and tuning keys to "juggle" them in the talent show. Juggling piano wire? Her explanation makes no sense to anyone who isn't a dimwitted anthropomorphic hammer. Thus, we have to conclude that what Kelly says is a lie, and in fact she sabotaged the piano. and everything else in Sheetrock Hills.
What, you don't watch Playhouse Disney? Well, would you prefer to hear my explanation for why Sylar appears to be guest starring in that newfangled Star Trek movie? See, the truth of the matter is that Sylar is Spock's illegitimate child. You know, from when they travelled back in time to save the whales. At some point in that time, Spock got a chance for some off-camera Rishathra and when the child grew up his weird alien human hybrid genetics made him into a superpoweed serial killer.
Zachary Quinto is about ten years too old for the theory to work perfectly. (He is also, I note from looking at the IMDB, from this here neck of the woods.) Perhaps his alien/human biology speeds up his aging, I don't know.
Finally, I think that the two new James Bond movies are tragedies, in dramatic terms. I honestly don't know if my last example is in the same sort of category as the first two. In those cases I as audience is creating new narratives in the media not intended by the authors. But in this case, I can't be sure if the authors intend for this to be true or not. Anyway, here goes:
Firstly, this is based off of Robin Laws's recent series of excellent posts concerning narrative "Turning Points" in stories, using Hamlet in particular as an example. Right now I'm especially concerned with this post talking about the difference between procedurals and dramas. You might want to read it for fuller context.
See, the James Bond movies have always had an overwhelmingly strong procedural bent. Bond doesn't change his personality much in response to the events of a movie. That's part of what makes Bond an iconic character, is the lack of an inner life. But in the two new movies, we see glimmers of Bond as a human being. But the movies are about the transformation of a human being into that iconic character, which is to say the death of his humanity. For example, in the first movie, he is upset at the death of various innocent women (arguably his motivation throughout the second film), but by the second he has femme fatales dying in his bed and doesn't seem to care at all.
It seems to me like the makers of the movies looked at Alan Moore's quote from 1986 "As our political and social consciousness continues to evolve... we begin to see that the overriding factor in James Bond's psychological makeup is his utter hatred and contempt for women". But instead of trying to change Bond to remove his misogyny, they embraced it and illustrated the transformation to the point where the death of a(nother) woman was little concern to Bond.
So the new movies have one procedural level, in which Bond is successful, but on the dramatic level Bond goes from empathic human being to soulless assassin. That doesn't exactly seem like a positive outcome to me, and sometimes it seems like the filmmakers agree.
I'd probably need to go back an watch both films more carefully before presenting this as a serious academic thesis. At this point it's just an idle fan theory, which may or may not align with all the facts of the movies. Heck, I haven't seen either movie since Solace was in theatres, so I could easily be misremembering them.