I just watched “The American Society of Magical Negroes“. The movie’s amusing from a storyteller’s point of view, because it’s silly and true (“true” as in it still happens. Even black writers sometimes accidentally add them). But when they’re introducing the concept, someone defines a “magical negro” as a “black supporting character who only exists to help the white protagonist”. Then I thought “Isn’t that like Rafiki from The Lion King?” Before we check the criteria, let’s talk about “coding”. However, Disney is known for “coding” characters, especially when it comes to villains. Scar, Gaston, Hook, Shere Khan, Jafar, and Ratcliffe are all effeminate “limp-wristed” dandies. Ursula (who is literally…
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Do Gay Characters Have to Be So Gay?
My headline didn’t have to be so incendiary, but you know… got to farm that engagement. I could be talking out of my ass here, but this is my personal opinion. I don’t like it when movies and television make gay characters super-gay. Like take Agatha All Along. The character of “mmf” is clearly gay. He has a lilt, an effeminate quality, lack of strength. I mean, yes, those kinds of people exist, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of them in TV than in real life. This sounds like I’m being homophobic. I’m not. I have no strong feelings about homosexuals in media. What I have strong…
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Writers – Don’t Ever Use This Trope
I didn’t have to use such a click-baity headline, but I have an AI plugin that tells me how “engaging” my post title is and it always falls below 50%. And even this one it doesn’t like–it gives me 48/100. I hate fake-out endings. Only now did I realize just how much I hated them. I watched Cell with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, a bad movie to be sure, but I’d read the book a long time ago so nothing was spoiled. Except the ending deviates quite a bit, even though it was written by the same guy (Stephen King). I can totally understand why an ending might…
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Analyzing the Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains: Dark Phoenix (X-Men 3: The Last Stand)
DARK PHOENIX Real Identity: Jean Grey X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006) Famke Janssen plays a good character. Unfortunately, the writing wasn’t there to carry her over the threshold. We spend WAY more time with Wolverine, Xavier, and Magneto. Which, of course, means her arc is meaningless. You’ve had two movies to tell us who Jean Grey is, you failed, and you’re going make her the antagonist? The producers’ message was probably to stuff as many mutants in there as possible, forget the personal stories. Characteristics and Powers: She basically becomes Dr. Manhattan. Like a “super-telepath/telekinetic”, whatever that means. I imagine that psychic powers must take a lot of control…
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The Year of Short Stories: The Last Quarterly Check-In
Well, the work has continued. The study lingers. I still feel like a novice, but a practiced novice. Is that an intermediate? An amateur? An apprentice? I feel like I understand seventy-five percent of what a short story looks like in today’s world and how to make one. My skill is improving, but I’m still looking forward to getting this done and getting back to novels. There have been some… interesting stuff spewing out of the factory lately, but I feel like there has been quality improvement, especially if I look back at when I started this gig. But here’s the question I keep bumping into. I don’t think I’m…
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I Can Already Tell Agatha All Along is Going to Fail
So I watched the first two episodes of “Agatha All Along” and despite the great acting from Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza, the set design, the fast pacing, I can see that Disney is making the same mistakes. The same things that brought down The Acolyte, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Willow, and so on. And I can sum up all the problems in one sentence. What is the Witch’s Road? First of all, you cannot afford to make any mistakes when you’re trying to spin off a third tier character like Agatha Harkness. I’m sure she’s someone in the comics, but in the MCU, she’s a third-tier character. Iron Man/Captain America…
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The Weaponized Incompetence of Men
So I saw this xweet the other day and it gave me some food for thought. Bit of a paradigm shift. The basic message is “you shouldn’t have to ask your wife what needs to be done. You should already know and just do it.” You shouldn’t ask for what’s on her plate. You should know what’s on the plate, then take it off. You share the plate after all. And if you’re not, you’re using weaponized incompetence. I don’t think this statement is necessarily true. I think it can be used as such. But I consider weaponized incompetence to be closer to this. As you can see, Bart is…
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My Take on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
I posted this on Facebook earlier, but I felt like putting it here too (now with bonus content!) Keep in mind that this is coming from someone for whom the original is a contender for “most watched movie in my life”. It’s the first movie I remember seeing in the theater (as Geena Davis pulling her face off is burned into my brain). I wasn’t a fan of the cartoon, so I don’t have that lore rattling around in my head. But to be clear–I have my biases (and I’ll attempt to be spoiler-free). There is… there is a lot going on in this movie. Four stories are fighting for…
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The Books I Read: July – August 2024
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak(re-read) I know this is sacrilege for an author, but watch the movie first. When I first tried to read this, I didn’t “get it”. The narrator is erratic, seems to have synthesia, lives in multiple times, and is always flashforwarding. This makes the book difficult to read if you don’t know the plot going in. I couldn’t grasp the basic storyline when I was being told so-and-so is going to die later on. It’s like when you pass something around in class. You got one person looking at the object, the person in the desk next to you is leaning over to look at…
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We Need to Stop Using the “Strong” in “Strong Female Protagonist”
Or at least we need to change what it means. I think the trip-up is on the word strong. We say strong and we think this: We keep equating “strong” with “powerful”. Which is fine… ish. Women with atypical powers or abilities is good, in the same way that men with atypical powers or abilities is good. But the women above, even though they are powerful, still exist in service/subordination of men. Batman and Superman and Iron Man and the like are power fantasies. Black Widow and Catwoman and Black Cat are sex fantasies. They are intended to appeal to men and men only. When we say “powerful” female antagonists,…
