The dehumanizing of the socially unaccepted.
I saw Prince Caspian recently. It's rather pretty, the CG was fun, and Reepacheep was marvelous, but other than that, it was bad. Not simply because of the bad acting, the nonsensical moralizing (why can't they have their problems solved by their God-figure the easy way? Because things never happen the same way twice. We know this because it is said twice.), the badly done battles, the distinct lack of characters that are not snotty and dislikeable, and the stupid, unnecessary romantic attraction between Susan and Caspian that caused a rip in the already frayed fabric of artistic merit that caused anachronous bad music to play until the end and throughout the credits.
What really makes me say the movie was bad was not the above problems, which are common enough in movies, what makes me angry is the treatment of the anonymous boy in England who bookends the Pevensi children's journey to Narnia. At the beginning, we have Susan being hit on by an awkward child with glasses and at the end, we see him again, pathetically hoping for her attention, right after she has kissed Caspian (a character that I think we as female viewers are supposed to find rather dreamy) so that we can fully appreciate what she had to leave behind. We as viewers are supposed to laugh at that boy, and feel sorry for Susan for having to suffer the indignity of a lame suitor. This boy does not even have a name, he is identified in the credits as "geeky boy." That's it. This is a character introduced to the movie for the sole purpose of being humiliated on the grounds that he is geeky.
Why? Stereotypes are bad enough, why is it necessary to create them only so that they can be mocked? And here's the thing about this particular stereotype: the idea that is being pushed about geekiness, whatever precisely that means, is that those who are identified as such are unfit and/or incapable of interacting in any meaningful way with the non geek humans. In other words, we are segregating our society based on artificially created and perpetuated categories. This poor boy has no hope of being able to woo Susan, due to being too geeky. Now first, a man's advances towards a woman are desirable or annoying based on how she feels about him already. No matter how socially awkward he is, if she likes him, whatever he does is cute, whereas even the most suave men seem despicable if she dislikes them. Second, why does being geeky make him worthy of being dismissed out of hand, receiving a lie rather than her real name. Not only is the geeky boy too unworthy of respect to get a name, no one else will use their true names around him.
Buffy fanatic Allyson Beatrice in her snarky book Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? recounts an event at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention in which, instead of being treated courteously by the employees of the hotel which was hosting them, the con goers received the titular and angry request "will the Vampire People please leave the lobby?" Just that. They were not politely asked to dessert the common gathering area of the hotel for any legitimate reason. They were asked out, in a bellow, by those who did not regard them as people, but as Vampire People, who had no right to occupy the same space as non-vampire people, and never mind that they were paying guests at a legitimate convention.
Partially in retaliation, partially in defense, and partially because mocking others is just fun, the geeky people and the vampire people and all other people socially outcast under the general labels of dorks, geeks, and nerds, have formed something of a coherent culture based on common art forms (certain books, manga, anime, tv shows, etc), a rejoicing in actions generally considered weird, and a shared dislike of normal people. Never mind that normal is as vague and meaningless a term as geek. However, this culture of geekiness still seems to support the idea that geeky people are not worthy and not capable of interacting with normal people. Take the geek test, which has several demeaning questions. Do you want a date? Have you ever stayed in on a Friday or Saturday night to read? Have you ever stayed home from a party because you aren't cool enough? Answering yes to any of the above questions will gain you a higher score on the quiz. But why does this even make sense? Is not the desire for a date and social gatherings a common human condition? I maintain that it is and point to the number of dating sites and strategies and books detailing methods of attracting members of the desired sex as evidence that it is. As for staying inside to read being geeky, this is an aspect of American culture that I absolutely hate. Intelligence is not valued, we live in a post-literate society and we are all supposed to go to college only so that we can get a better paying job, and we are expected to cut class as often as possible so that we can go party. Knowledge is valuable, and if your highest ambition in life is to sit on the couch and watch television, at least have the decency to value those whose knowledge and talent created for you your television and all the programming thereon, not to mention your ergonomic remote control and specially contoured couch. But I digress.
Getting back to the topic of geeks versus normals, what do these labels even mean? It really depends on who you ask. It's like asking for a precise definition of any stereotype, be it redneck or yuppie or white trash or skank. The point, however, is not that labels are hard to define, it is that they are annoying and demeaning. Example: I sort of wandered into the midst of a conversation between slightly older folks who were talking about the slang of times past and who asked me if I'd heard the term "hep cat, " which yes I have, regularly, and while I don't generally use it myself I know people who do. They proceeded to look at one another and ask me if I also knew people who wore black, hung out in coffee shops, and recited poetry. Umm, I wear mostly black, I like coffee shops, and I have discussed and quoted poetry in them, while wearing mostly black as is my wont. I was informed that I was a Beatnik. Great, I am not an individual, I am a shallow stereotype based on a literary movement I had not heard of until I looked up Beatnik on Wikipedia. Looking things up on Wikipedia is, I'm sure, a stereotype in and of itself.
There's an old and rather wonderful television show called The Prisoner, in which no one has names, just numbers, laughter and merriment is by order, and escape is impossible. "I am not a number," our hero repeats throughout, "I am a free man!"
I am not a stereotype, I am a person! I cannot be taxonomically categorized, my opinions do not fit on bumper stickers, my personality cannot be expressed by my clothing. I am more complex than a Hollywood cliché. How dare you describe me in one word?
Not only do we have people labeling others, we have people fighting over whose label makes one a more worthy human. Getting back to the geeks versus normals problem. The normals don't understand the geeks incredible obsession with an artform, be it anime, American television, a book, or whatever. Yet those who scoff at such things have no issues with people painting themselves funny colours and spending hours watching heavily muscled men throw a ball around. Is there so much difference? Does it really matter so very much? We are all human, and all traveling through this world of sorrow and uncertainty.
Oh threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain-this life flies,
One thing is certain and the rest is lies,
That flower that once is blown forever dies.
~The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The Rubaiyat is about a search for meaning in life, with the conclusion that we have no way of knowing if there is any meaning until we die. Find something in this world that for whatever reason makes life worthwhile and cling to that. Find something that makes it all okay, if just for a little while, it may not be enough, it may not even be much, but it is all we have and it will do until we pass the door of Darkness through, It's like finding a song of comfort in a time of heartbreak. It doesn't make anything better, but it is something, something to make it through the moment, and the next moment after that, until we can find something else to make our moments better. In the same way, we are all, geeks, normals and whatever, looking for something to comfort us. Be it the Grape that Saki brought to Khayyam, or dressing like a vampire, or watching a game with friends, it is something we have found, and like the pot in the Rubaiyat, if we are able fill ourselves with what we have found, we may recover by and by.
Or we may not. Either way, we are all alike human in this world searching for a way through hurt and confusion, if our fellow human seems to inescapably different from us to offer what aid and companionship we can, let us at least have the decency to leave well enough alone. There is no need to be mean to be people, no need to deprive them of their names and dignity.
What really makes me say the movie was bad was not the above problems, which are common enough in movies, what makes me angry is the treatment of the anonymous boy in England who bookends the Pevensi children's journey to Narnia. At the beginning, we have Susan being hit on by an awkward child with glasses and at the end, we see him again, pathetically hoping for her attention, right after she has kissed Caspian (a character that I think we as female viewers are supposed to find rather dreamy) so that we can fully appreciate what she had to leave behind. We as viewers are supposed to laugh at that boy, and feel sorry for Susan for having to suffer the indignity of a lame suitor. This boy does not even have a name, he is identified in the credits as "geeky boy." That's it. This is a character introduced to the movie for the sole purpose of being humiliated on the grounds that he is geeky.
Why? Stereotypes are bad enough, why is it necessary to create them only so that they can be mocked? And here's the thing about this particular stereotype: the idea that is being pushed about geekiness, whatever precisely that means, is that those who are identified as such are unfit and/or incapable of interacting in any meaningful way with the non geek humans. In other words, we are segregating our society based on artificially created and perpetuated categories. This poor boy has no hope of being able to woo Susan, due to being too geeky. Now first, a man's advances towards a woman are desirable or annoying based on how she feels about him already. No matter how socially awkward he is, if she likes him, whatever he does is cute, whereas even the most suave men seem despicable if she dislikes them. Second, why does being geeky make him worthy of being dismissed out of hand, receiving a lie rather than her real name. Not only is the geeky boy too unworthy of respect to get a name, no one else will use their true names around him.
Buffy fanatic Allyson Beatrice in her snarky book Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? recounts an event at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention in which, instead of being treated courteously by the employees of the hotel which was hosting them, the con goers received the titular and angry request "will the Vampire People please leave the lobby?" Just that. They were not politely asked to dessert the common gathering area of the hotel for any legitimate reason. They were asked out, in a bellow, by those who did not regard them as people, but as Vampire People, who had no right to occupy the same space as non-vampire people, and never mind that they were paying guests at a legitimate convention.
Partially in retaliation, partially in defense, and partially because mocking others is just fun, the geeky people and the vampire people and all other people socially outcast under the general labels of dorks, geeks, and nerds, have formed something of a coherent culture based on common art forms (certain books, manga, anime, tv shows, etc), a rejoicing in actions generally considered weird, and a shared dislike of normal people. Never mind that normal is as vague and meaningless a term as geek. However, this culture of geekiness still seems to support the idea that geeky people are not worthy and not capable of interacting with normal people. Take the geek test, which has several demeaning questions. Do you want a date? Have you ever stayed in on a Friday or Saturday night to read? Have you ever stayed home from a party because you aren't cool enough? Answering yes to any of the above questions will gain you a higher score on the quiz. But why does this even make sense? Is not the desire for a date and social gatherings a common human condition? I maintain that it is and point to the number of dating sites and strategies and books detailing methods of attracting members of the desired sex as evidence that it is. As for staying inside to read being geeky, this is an aspect of American culture that I absolutely hate. Intelligence is not valued, we live in a post-literate society and we are all supposed to go to college only so that we can get a better paying job, and we are expected to cut class as often as possible so that we can go party. Knowledge is valuable, and if your highest ambition in life is to sit on the couch and watch television, at least have the decency to value those whose knowledge and talent created for you your television and all the programming thereon, not to mention your ergonomic remote control and specially contoured couch. But I digress.
Getting back to the topic of geeks versus normals, what do these labels even mean? It really depends on who you ask. It's like asking for a precise definition of any stereotype, be it redneck or yuppie or white trash or skank. The point, however, is not that labels are hard to define, it is that they are annoying and demeaning. Example: I sort of wandered into the midst of a conversation between slightly older folks who were talking about the slang of times past and who asked me if I'd heard the term "hep cat, " which yes I have, regularly, and while I don't generally use it myself I know people who do. They proceeded to look at one another and ask me if I also knew people who wore black, hung out in coffee shops, and recited poetry. Umm, I wear mostly black, I like coffee shops, and I have discussed and quoted poetry in them, while wearing mostly black as is my wont. I was informed that I was a Beatnik. Great, I am not an individual, I am a shallow stereotype based on a literary movement I had not heard of until I looked up Beatnik on Wikipedia. Looking things up on Wikipedia is, I'm sure, a stereotype in and of itself.
There's an old and rather wonderful television show called The Prisoner, in which no one has names, just numbers, laughter and merriment is by order, and escape is impossible. "I am not a number," our hero repeats throughout, "I am a free man!"
I am not a stereotype, I am a person! I cannot be taxonomically categorized, my opinions do not fit on bumper stickers, my personality cannot be expressed by my clothing. I am more complex than a Hollywood cliché. How dare you describe me in one word?
Not only do we have people labeling others, we have people fighting over whose label makes one a more worthy human. Getting back to the geeks versus normals problem. The normals don't understand the geeks incredible obsession with an artform, be it anime, American television, a book, or whatever. Yet those who scoff at such things have no issues with people painting themselves funny colours and spending hours watching heavily muscled men throw a ball around. Is there so much difference? Does it really matter so very much? We are all human, and all traveling through this world of sorrow and uncertainty.
Oh threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain-this life flies,
One thing is certain and the rest is lies,
That flower that once is blown forever dies.
~The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The Rubaiyat is about a search for meaning in life, with the conclusion that we have no way of knowing if there is any meaning until we die. Find something in this world that for whatever reason makes life worthwhile and cling to that. Find something that makes it all okay, if just for a little while, it may not be enough, it may not even be much, but it is all we have and it will do until we pass the door of Darkness through, It's like finding a song of comfort in a time of heartbreak. It doesn't make anything better, but it is something, something to make it through the moment, and the next moment after that, until we can find something else to make our moments better. In the same way, we are all, geeks, normals and whatever, looking for something to comfort us. Be it the Grape that Saki brought to Khayyam, or dressing like a vampire, or watching a game with friends, it is something we have found, and like the pot in the Rubaiyat, if we are able fill ourselves with what we have found, we may recover by and by.
Or we may not. Either way, we are all alike human in this world searching for a way through hurt and confusion, if our fellow human seems to inescapably different from us to offer what aid and companionship we can, let us at least have the decency to leave well enough alone. There is no need to be mean to be people, no need to deprive them of their names and dignity.