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Labels: a: whedon joss, dr horrible

Labels: a: whedon joss, dr horrible

Wall-E is an innovative and visually stunning film, but the "satire" it draws is simple-minded. It plays off the easy analogy between obesity and ecological catastrophe, pushing the notion that Western culture has sickened both our bodies and our planet with the same disease of affluence. According to this lazy logic, a fat body stands in for a distended culture: We gain weight and the Earth suffers. If only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet!

But the metaphor only works if you believe familiar myths about the overweight: They're weak-willed, indolent, and stupid. Sure enough, that's how Pixar depicts the future of humanity. The people in Wall-E drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," they never exercise, and if they happen to fall off their hovering chairs, they thrash around like babies until a robot helps them up. They watch TV all day long and can barely read.

It ought to go without saying that this stereotype of the "obese lifestyle" is simply false. How fat you are has a lot more to do with your genes than with your behavior. As much as 80 percent of the variation in human body weight can be explained by differences in our DNA. (Your height is similarly heritable.) That is to say, it may not matter that much whether you eat salads or drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," whether you bike everywhere or fly around in a Barcalounger. If you have a propensity to become obese, there's only so much that can be done about it.

That's not to say that our circumstances can't lead us to gain weight. But there's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting. (Most of us fluctuate around a natural "set point.")

Sanders flounced off in a huff, stating that the story "never did make any sense" and that he only accepted it to "please those who admire your work"--what altruism!--"and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers." If I were a writer currently submitting to Helix, I would kind of worry about that bit--all things considered, if a story really does suck, I'd rather have it rejected so I can fix it.

He then played psychic and claimed that I only asked for the story to be withdrawn "because, let's get real here, you feel the need to distance yourself from someone who is in disfavor with the kind of babbling PC waterheads whose good opinion is so important to you, and whom you seem to be trying to impress with this little grandstand play."

He closed with: "There was a suggestion I was going to make, but it is probably not physically practicable."

I'm actually totally okay with being told the story makes no sense; I'm fond of "Shadow Postulates" for my own reasons, but it is indeed a flawed story, albeit a flawed story that several readers have enjoyed, so it's not all to the bad.

In any case, there it stands. As for my literary career, small thing that it is, maybe it'll survive, maybe it won't. We'll see.

Meanwhile, if you are a fellow chromatic writer who writes stories that make no sense (and trust me, I have done this LOTS, and I have friends' comments and the rejection slips from F&SF--which I am, note, not posting--to prove it), try Helix! Send 'em in! There's a home for us now! (Well, y'all rather than "us," because I suspect anything I hypothetically sent to Helix would be deleted unread.)

Labels: a: whedon joss, anime: black lagoon, movies, movies: wall-e, racism, weightism

Dear Friends,

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay?

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, “It’s Show Business – not Show Friends”? Well now it’s Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

And now to answers a few Frequently (soon to be) Asked Questions:

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

2) What happens when it goes away? Does it go to a happy farm for always like Fluffy did when mommy was crying and the neighbor kept washing his fender?

No, Dr horrible will live on. We intend to make it available for download soon after it’s published. This would be for a nominal fee, which we’re hoping people will embrace instead of getting all piratey. We have big dreams, people, and one of them is paying our crew.

And somewhat later, we will put the complete short epic out on DVD – with the finest and bravest extras in all the land. We’ll go into greater detail about that at Comiccon, but we’re changing the face of Show Friendliness a second time with that crazy DVD.

3) Joss, you are so kind, and generous, and your forehead is like, huge, like SCARY, like I think I can see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint hanging off it… what can WE do to help this musical extravanganza?

What you always do, peeps! What you’re already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.

Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.

4) Joss, do you ever answer a question simply or coherently?

Shledzguohn?

There’ll be more questions, and more long, long answers, but for now I’m just excited that we’re actually making this happen. We (and a lot of other people -- gushing to commence soon) worked very hard on the show and we hope/think you guys will be pleased. Until July 15th , I remain, yours truly, -j, of the firm j, j, m & z.

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The most powerful character in the show, at least insofar as we can tell from the character descriptions, is a white woman, as is the lead; most of the men (1 of the white men, both of the men of color) are in positions of ambiguous power; all the women of color are dolls, i.e., initially at least powerless.

You could use this setup to talk about negotiating power hierarchies of both race and gender, although given his history, I think it is more likely that Whedon is going to continue to fall into typical traps of "colorblind" racial commentary. My tiny hope on this front comes from my conviction that he has in the past been somewhat responsive to political complaints about his work: i.e., Kennedy was unsatisfactory for many reasons, but she was also clearly an attempt to counteract the Dead Lesbian Cliche for Willow's relationships; the racial makeup of both Firefly and Dollhouse are unsatisfacory, but they both seem like efforts to increase diversity in response to complaints about Buffy and Angel. I'm not saying anyone else should feel satisfied with this kind of marginal improvement (especially giving the exasperatingly obvious problems with Firefly), but yeah, it does make a difference for me, since the careers of many white male producers (e.g., David Kelley) make it clear that they can get away with whitewashing TV as long as they want to.

Labels: a: whedon joss, tv: dollhouse

[I]t's a formula that has proven successful. "Nerdy spineless milquetoast surrounded by hot women who are inexplicably attracted to him" has been done again and again and it usually rakes in viewers and merchandise sales.

...

For once, I'd like to see a harem comedy or a shonen romance have a male character who starts out being a pathetic loser and learns that in order to actually attract an adult woman you have to bathe, pay attention to your wardrobe, learn social skills, stop being a social leper and actually become a functioning, normal adult, rather than suggesting that some day a buxom alien girl with little knowledge of human sexual behavior will fall into your lap and find your toxic personality charming and sexy.

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