I haven't read LJ in two weeks....
I just handed in my last academic paper (ever?).
Assuming all goes well (which it should *knock on wood*), this is it. All classes are over, this was the last bit of academic work required to graduate.
This feels so weird. Like, my entire life has been leading up to this moment. I didn't exactly choose it, I didn't exactly want it (though I also couldn't think of any more preferable option), but here I am, I've achieved it. College graduation. What an incredible relief that this is over.
I'm a bit sad, which surprises me. I felt nothing but a sort of bitter joy at having escaped high school alive; I still feel no nostalgia for that nightmarish hell. But I actually started to appreciate college a bit near the end, maybe about 2/3 of the way through. I'll never like homework or papers or grades, but once I found the kinds of classes that suited my personality--cultural studies, gender studies--I saw the point. I appreciated the insights and the need for them and I felt like I grew as a person because of those classes.
I sort of wish I could've done it over again knowing what I know now; I spent at least the first half of college floating around totally lost, without a clue what I wanted to study or where I fit in. By the time I finally found it, it seems like I barely had time to skim the surface.
But anyway. It's over and done with now and man, am I relieved!
I spent the weekend in something of a daze: all my finals this year were papers, all were long, and all were due within the same period of time. So this weekend I wrote:
- 12 pages on the construction of masculinity in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy and its relationship to the cultural changes of the 1960s in America (due Monday 5/3)
- 6 pages on the theme of objectification in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and its relation to the academic study of history (due Monday 5/3)
- 12 pages on the relationships between dominant culture, subculture, and family in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (due Wednesday 5/5)
I just returned from handing the last paper in. That's 30 pages in about four days. It was all done very last minute because I had other work to finish up the week before. That also means I've barely slept in the past four days: I was up 36 hours, from Sunday morning to Monday night, slept for about eight hours, then got up again Tuesday morning and have been awake until now (Wednesday afternoon). And now I'm at work trying to catch up because I missed Monday. Man, I can't wait to go home and sleep.
This is a babbling, nonsensical post; I offer exhaustion as an excuse.
I wish I had something related to the Spike-verse to say. Unfortunately it has utterly failed to hold my attention; the little time I've had to devote to fandom lately has been toward Methos. I really wish I could keep my attention on Spike; I love the community that surrounds this fandom. I want to continue to be a part of it. But, well, there's just nothing that Mutant Enemy could do that would make me want to watch--or even think about--their product. I'll spare you the anti-ME rant; if you read my journal you know how I feel about their ideology. I know now that there's nothing there for me and never will be. Thinking about it just makes me angry and sad.
I'd much prefer to think about Methos and Jaime Lannister, whose creators appreciated the value of an ambiguous character and the value of free will, the ability of the individual to change. drujan and I went to see Hellboy the other weekend and though I didn't particularly enjoy the film, we both loved the theme that it doesn't matter how you start out, you don't have some essential essence; you have choice, you decide who you are, no one else does. Methos and Jaime both embody that; anything that ME creates embodies the opposite: the triumph of fate, inability to escape destiny, essentialism, ultimate lack of choice. (Don't argue; if you feel differently, good, enjoy yourself, you're not going to convince me.)
I bought the DVDs for Highlander seasons four and five (graduation gift to self, shut up frugal conscience) and I love them. The writers' commentaries are so delightful in contrast to the ideas ME always repeats: they celebrate the idea of an ambiguous character, they're anxious to explore that and write more for him, they see no need whatsoever to define him as "really" good or evil. He's both; he's complicated; he's grey. Yum. Yay for moral ambiguity.
The S5 DVDs were particularly intersting in the commentary on the death of Richie. The writers felt that they had to do this to take the show in a more complicated direction. There was one comment that really struck me in relation to Buffy: if Richie had lived, it would have been a "back to the beginning" theme (a la BtVS S7). Richie embodied the qualities of both Xander and Dawn: the innocent, the goofy comic relief, the student and closest family of the hero, a white character for a black and white world. By killing Richie, they intended to kill off the more simplistic character, and create a crisis in the hero's self-identity, in order to make way for a more grey world. Imagine if Buffy had killed Dawn and/or Xander at the end of BtVS S5 or S6, and then dealt with that, instead of the lame "back to the beginning, everything's black and white, just ignore all that ambiguity we dredged up previously" that we got in S7. (I don't think the Richie thing really worked, probably due to lack of funding for HL S6, but it's so cool that they were at least trying to go in that direction, to do something daring. Compare that to Joss' idiodic preservation of the "core four" at all costs and subsequent refusal to allow the show's moral universe to ever really grow. Highlander grew, from black and white to grey. I just love that.)
Anyway, I also have all these ideas swirling around in my brain on Comes a Horseman and Revelation 6:8. The DVD is awesome: it has all 19 minutes of dailies for the Jimmy scene (guh!!), interviews with cast and crew including stuff with the actors and writers about themes and character motivations, extended cuts with 10 minutes of extra footage for both episodes, and writers' commentaries for both extended cuts. An absolute treasure. The extra stuff from Revelation is particularly interesting: scenes of the break-up between Methos and Kronos. Despite the horrible staging (thank god it was cut) the actual dialogue sheds quite a bit of light on the episodes' theme, particularly that of identity. It recurs throughout both: who is Methos?
Here's the cut scene, taken from the methos.org transcript:
Methos: I'm serious. It's what I want to do. Study and learn.
Kronos: What for? What have you got to learn?
Methos: Most everything, it seems. About the world. About myself. About who we are.
Kronos: I can tell you who we are.
Methos: Can you?
Kronos: I'm Kronos. I always have been, and I always will be. And you're just like me. We are who we are, and that's more than enough.
Methos: Not for me. Those who don't learn from their mistakes, repeat them.
Kronos: We don't make mistakes. We make history. Pour me another drink and have one yourself. You're getting too damned serious for your own good. You're turning into a Greek.
Methos pours Kronos more wine and, in a life-defining moment, slips in some poison from a ring.
Methos: Thank you.
Methos hands him his wine. Kronos drains it.
Kronos: Just don't forget what you really are.
Methos: I never forget what I am. The more I learn, the more aware I become.
(My emphases)
(Hee. Kronos is an essentialist and Methos is a social constructionist!)
The theme of identity/"is what you start out what you will always be?" recurs throughout both episodes as well:
Kronos to Methos: "You pretended to [change]. Maybe you even convinced yourself you had. But inside you're still there, Methos .... [Death is] who you are meant to be."
Kronos: (over and over) "We are the four horsemen"
Kronos: "Men like us .... Men without conscience, without fear."
"We were death on horseback."
"We think alike."
Methos: "Do you know who I was? I was Death.... That monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night."
Duncan: "Why'd you lie to me? ... About who you were."
Duncan: "And who are you now?"
Duncan: "Don't do this. You have a choice." (Ah! Mr. Black and White says something wise!)
Cassandra: "I know what I am now. What you are.... If MacLeod knew what you really are, he'd have taken your head long ago."
Methos: "You thought I would protect you. You forgot what I was."
Silas: "How can you go against what you are?"
Methos to Cassandra: "You don't know me"
Methos to Kronos: "I'm not like that anymore; I have changed"
Methos to Duncan: "I was different then," "I have been many things, MacLeod."
Methos to Silas: "I am not your brother"
"You don't know anything about me" (in the writers' commentary they tell us that this line was originally "You don't know who I am")...
Who is Methos? He certainly seems to start out as one rotten, murdering, raping bastard. And yet ... he grows. He changes. That's not all he is, despite the insistence of his brothers who are unable to grow. He is not merely what he starts out as; that part of him is still there but he has free will, he has choice, he has the ability to recreate himself and to choose who he is going to be. That moment when he finally stands up to Silas and says "You don't know anything about me" is one of my all-time favorite moments in anything, ever.
Remember when Spike said "I don't think it matters how much how you start out"? I think S5 Spike and Methos would've gotten along pretty well.
Then there's also the idea that Kronos represents the dark side of Methos (and there's all this wonderful symbolism about Methos' dual nature: his face half painted dark and half shadowed, his simultaneous loathing and desire when he speaks of how evil he once was, etc). By locking Kronos up in this well (in the cut scene) he was trying to lock away the dark side of himself, but he couldn't destroy it. He couldn't kill Kronos because that would have been literally destroying half of himself.
(And yes, I know I tend to interpret Methos' behavior in a rather positive light, while simultaneously relishing the ambiguity of the fact that you never know for sure what's going on inside his head; what can I say, I'm a redemptionist at heart...)
And then on another note there's also this running theme: is there any fate worse than death? (Not just in this episode but as a subtext of pretty much every interaction they ever have.) Mac says yes (hero types generally do), Methos says no--survival above all else. How far would you go to stay alive? drujan and I talked about this for hours the other night, though she hasn't seen the Highlander episodes. Funnily enough I tend toward the Duncan point of view: every life matters, some ideals are worth dying for. Yet in fiction it's characters like Methos that appeal to me--characters that put their own interests first, themselves and those few people that they care most about. Maybe I wish I could be more like them, take things less seriously? I've certainly grown in that direction--I was like a Hermione type when I was younger; I'm a lot more cynical and detached now. Yet I still have ideals ... maybe it's just that the hero types are boring.
And then on a more fun note, there's also all this great stuff in the DVDs about the homoerotic subtext between Methos and Byron, which is pretty explicit ... yummy ...
Okay, must stop babbling about Highlander now. Being awake for nearly four days straight kind of fries your brain, doesn't it?.... I know I'm going to cringe when I re-read this tomorrow.
Assuming all goes well (which it should *knock on wood*), this is it. All classes are over, this was the last bit of academic work required to graduate.
This feels so weird. Like, my entire life has been leading up to this moment. I didn't exactly choose it, I didn't exactly want it (though I also couldn't think of any more preferable option), but here I am, I've achieved it. College graduation. What an incredible relief that this is over.
I'm a bit sad, which surprises me. I felt nothing but a sort of bitter joy at having escaped high school alive; I still feel no nostalgia for that nightmarish hell. But I actually started to appreciate college a bit near the end, maybe about 2/3 of the way through. I'll never like homework or papers or grades, but once I found the kinds of classes that suited my personality--cultural studies, gender studies--I saw the point. I appreciated the insights and the need for them and I felt like I grew as a person because of those classes.
I sort of wish I could've done it over again knowing what I know now; I spent at least the first half of college floating around totally lost, without a clue what I wanted to study or where I fit in. By the time I finally found it, it seems like I barely had time to skim the surface.
But anyway. It's over and done with now and man, am I relieved!
I spent the weekend in something of a daze: all my finals this year were papers, all were long, and all were due within the same period of time. So this weekend I wrote:
- 12 pages on the construction of masculinity in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy and its relationship to the cultural changes of the 1960s in America (due Monday 5/3)
- 6 pages on the theme of objectification in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and its relation to the academic study of history (due Monday 5/3)
- 12 pages on the relationships between dominant culture, subculture, and family in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (due Wednesday 5/5)
I just returned from handing the last paper in. That's 30 pages in about four days. It was all done very last minute because I had other work to finish up the week before. That also means I've barely slept in the past four days: I was up 36 hours, from Sunday morning to Monday night, slept for about eight hours, then got up again Tuesday morning and have been awake until now (Wednesday afternoon). And now I'm at work trying to catch up because I missed Monday. Man, I can't wait to go home and sleep.
This is a babbling, nonsensical post; I offer exhaustion as an excuse.
I wish I had something related to the Spike-verse to say. Unfortunately it has utterly failed to hold my attention; the little time I've had to devote to fandom lately has been toward Methos. I really wish I could keep my attention on Spike; I love the community that surrounds this fandom. I want to continue to be a part of it. But, well, there's just nothing that Mutant Enemy could do that would make me want to watch--or even think about--their product. I'll spare you the anti-ME rant; if you read my journal you know how I feel about their ideology. I know now that there's nothing there for me and never will be. Thinking about it just makes me angry and sad.
I'd much prefer to think about Methos and Jaime Lannister, whose creators appreciated the value of an ambiguous character and the value of free will, the ability of the individual to change. drujan and I went to see Hellboy the other weekend and though I didn't particularly enjoy the film, we both loved the theme that it doesn't matter how you start out, you don't have some essential essence; you have choice, you decide who you are, no one else does. Methos and Jaime both embody that; anything that ME creates embodies the opposite: the triumph of fate, inability to escape destiny, essentialism, ultimate lack of choice. (Don't argue; if you feel differently, good, enjoy yourself, you're not going to convince me.)
I bought the DVDs for Highlander seasons four and five (graduation gift to self, shut up frugal conscience) and I love them. The writers' commentaries are so delightful in contrast to the ideas ME always repeats: they celebrate the idea of an ambiguous character, they're anxious to explore that and write more for him, they see no need whatsoever to define him as "really" good or evil. He's both; he's complicated; he's grey. Yum. Yay for moral ambiguity.
The S5 DVDs were particularly intersting in the commentary on the death of Richie. The writers felt that they had to do this to take the show in a more complicated direction. There was one comment that really struck me in relation to Buffy: if Richie had lived, it would have been a "back to the beginning" theme (a la BtVS S7). Richie embodied the qualities of both Xander and Dawn: the innocent, the goofy comic relief, the student and closest family of the hero, a white character for a black and white world. By killing Richie, they intended to kill off the more simplistic character, and create a crisis in the hero's self-identity, in order to make way for a more grey world. Imagine if Buffy had killed Dawn and/or Xander at the end of BtVS S5 or S6, and then dealt with that, instead of the lame "back to the beginning, everything's black and white, just ignore all that ambiguity we dredged up previously" that we got in S7. (I don't think the Richie thing really worked, probably due to lack of funding for HL S6, but it's so cool that they were at least trying to go in that direction, to do something daring. Compare that to Joss' idiodic preservation of the "core four" at all costs and subsequent refusal to allow the show's moral universe to ever really grow. Highlander grew, from black and white to grey. I just love that.)
Anyway, I also have all these ideas swirling around in my brain on Comes a Horseman and Revelation 6:8. The DVD is awesome: it has all 19 minutes of dailies for the Jimmy scene (guh!!), interviews with cast and crew including stuff with the actors and writers about themes and character motivations, extended cuts with 10 minutes of extra footage for both episodes, and writers' commentaries for both extended cuts. An absolute treasure. The extra stuff from Revelation is particularly interesting: scenes of the break-up between Methos and Kronos. Despite the horrible staging (thank god it was cut) the actual dialogue sheds quite a bit of light on the episodes' theme, particularly that of identity. It recurs throughout both: who is Methos?
Here's the cut scene, taken from the methos.org transcript:
Methos: I'm serious. It's what I want to do. Study and learn.
Kronos: What for? What have you got to learn?
Methos: Most everything, it seems. About the world. About myself. About who we are.
Kronos: I can tell you who we are.
Methos: Can you?
Kronos: I'm Kronos. I always have been, and I always will be. And you're just like me. We are who we are, and that's more than enough.
Methos: Not for me. Those who don't learn from their mistakes, repeat them.
Kronos: We don't make mistakes. We make history. Pour me another drink and have one yourself. You're getting too damned serious for your own good. You're turning into a Greek.
Methos pours Kronos more wine and, in a life-defining moment, slips in some poison from a ring.
Methos: Thank you.
Methos hands him his wine. Kronos drains it.
Kronos: Just don't forget what you really are.
Methos: I never forget what I am. The more I learn, the more aware I become.
(My emphases)
(Hee. Kronos is an essentialist and Methos is a social constructionist!)
The theme of identity/"is what you start out what you will always be?" recurs throughout both episodes as well:
Kronos to Methos: "You pretended to [change]. Maybe you even convinced yourself you had. But inside you're still there, Methos .... [Death is] who you are meant to be."
Kronos: (over and over) "We are the four horsemen"
Kronos: "Men like us .... Men without conscience, without fear."
"We were death on horseback."
"We think alike."
Methos: "Do you know who I was? I was Death.... That monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night."
Duncan: "Why'd you lie to me? ... About who you were."
Duncan: "And who are you now?"
Duncan: "Don't do this. You have a choice." (Ah! Mr. Black and White says something wise!)
Cassandra: "I know what I am now. What you are.... If MacLeod knew what you really are, he'd have taken your head long ago."
Methos: "You thought I would protect you. You forgot what I was."
Silas: "How can you go against what you are?"
Methos to Cassandra: "You don't know me"
Methos to Kronos: "I'm not like that anymore; I have changed"
Methos to Duncan: "I was different then," "I have been many things, MacLeod."
Methos to Silas: "I am not your brother"
"You don't know anything about me" (in the writers' commentary they tell us that this line was originally "You don't know who I am")...
Who is Methos? He certainly seems to start out as one rotten, murdering, raping bastard. And yet ... he grows. He changes. That's not all he is, despite the insistence of his brothers who are unable to grow. He is not merely what he starts out as; that part of him is still there but he has free will, he has choice, he has the ability to recreate himself and to choose who he is going to be. That moment when he finally stands up to Silas and says "You don't know anything about me" is one of my all-time favorite moments in anything, ever.
Remember when Spike said "I don't think it matters how much how you start out"? I think S5 Spike and Methos would've gotten along pretty well.
Then there's also the idea that Kronos represents the dark side of Methos (and there's all this wonderful symbolism about Methos' dual nature: his face half painted dark and half shadowed, his simultaneous loathing and desire when he speaks of how evil he once was, etc). By locking Kronos up in this well (in the cut scene) he was trying to lock away the dark side of himself, but he couldn't destroy it. He couldn't kill Kronos because that would have been literally destroying half of himself.
(And yes, I know I tend to interpret Methos' behavior in a rather positive light, while simultaneously relishing the ambiguity of the fact that you never know for sure what's going on inside his head; what can I say, I'm a redemptionist at heart...)
And then on another note there's also this running theme: is there any fate worse than death? (Not just in this episode but as a subtext of pretty much every interaction they ever have.) Mac says yes (hero types generally do), Methos says no--survival above all else. How far would you go to stay alive? drujan and I talked about this for hours the other night, though she hasn't seen the Highlander episodes. Funnily enough I tend toward the Duncan point of view: every life matters, some ideals are worth dying for. Yet in fiction it's characters like Methos that appeal to me--characters that put their own interests first, themselves and those few people that they care most about. Maybe I wish I could be more like them, take things less seriously? I've certainly grown in that direction--I was like a Hermione type when I was younger; I'm a lot more cynical and detached now. Yet I still have ideals ... maybe it's just that the hero types are boring.
And then on a more fun note, there's also all this great stuff in the DVDs about the homoerotic subtext between Methos and Byron, which is pretty explicit ... yummy ...
Okay, must stop babbling about Highlander now. Being awake for nearly four days straight kind of fries your brain, doesn't it?.... I know I'm going to cringe when I re-read this tomorrow.