Women in Horror: Reaction to XX

One of the most disheartening things to see is the idiotic comments about the XX anthology film. I see some of the horror community branding it as gimmicky, meaningless, and unnecessary. There are not many women directors making mainstream films because it's hard for women to rise as directors in the entertainment industry in general, let alone in horror. I loved the film and I felt it took some typical stories and gave them a feminine twist from feminine perspectives. Some don't like it due to the content and that's fine, but many can't even point to specific things that they dislike. So many decry the film because they blatantly don't see how these films are any different than those made by men and therefore it shouldn't exist.

One in particular cited VHS, the anthology film, as featuring women but it wasn't critically acclaimed because they didn't use it as a gimmick to get viewers. What he, and many others, don't realize is that portrayal of women is extremely varied and often is misogynistic in horror films. VHS is particularly misogynistic. I reviewed it a few years ago in a mostly inarticulate way, but my sentiments are the same. The women in that film are succubi, murderers, or hapless victims with little to no character development or relation to the audience. We aren't really meant to relate to or sympathize with most of these women, making them soundly other. The wrap around story featured a woman's shirt being forcibly pulled up to reveal her breasts numerous times in an incredibly exploitative way. It was completely unnecessary to the story and just there to give the assumed male audience their diet of expected breasts in a horror film. I am unhappy that VHS is seen as the epitome of anthology films when it literally made my skin crawl to watch it. I find it incredibly frustrating that people think inclusion of women in film is enough when so many of those portrayals are either simple or insulting.

XX, on the other hand, has women as fully fleshed out characters that are relatable and imperfect. I am a little disappointed that the majority of the films focused on motherhood, but that's my only real critique. Other than that, I found the films so much different than the usual horror fare. Oftentimes, they took known stories and put their own fresh spin on it. I hope this means that more women directors will tapped to create films in bigger studios. So many make their films independently to preserve their vision like Anna Biller, director of The Love Witch. I hope XX is only one of a growing trend of women helming horror films that will hopefully grow to other genres as well. I also can't wait for Jen and Sylvia Soska's remake of Rabid and their mysterious original new project that they've mentioned on their social media. I know haters will be numerous for women director's work, but they can't stop progress.

I Won't Be Shamed for Reading YA

An article came out a few days ago detailing why adults should feel ashamed for reading YA. First, Ruth Graham asserts that YA fiction of the 90's is just as good as it is now, which I vehemently disagree with. I devoured books by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike when I was much younger, but many of those books aren't as well written or varied as what's available now. I've tried to reread some of them and find that I've outgrown them. I appreciate that they shaped me as a reader, but they just don't hold my attention anymore. Sure there are some great books, but overall, the quality has gotten much better over the years as the genre has expanded.

Graham also asserts that love of YA stems from instant gratification, nostalgia, and escapism. Escapism is a reason to read anything. Nostalgia may play into it, but I think it has more to do with the fact that movement from teen to adult is one of the most powerful experiences of our lives and it makes for powerful storytelling. In an age where there is no defined experience that introduces us into adulthood, it isn't surprising that people turn to literature to get that experience in some capacity over and over again. So Graham, maybe you didn't like The Fault in Our Stars because you just didn't like it. Saying you don't like because you're an adult is ridiculous and you're basically calling everyone who likes it a child.

I find no evidence in the assumption that we have to abandon the adult perspective to like YA books. I like some books because I completely give in to the emotional aspects and forgive the maybe not great writing, like Twilight. I find these to be brain candy, but books like this are not exclusive to YA. I like a great many other teen books for a variety of reasons: writing, world building, characters, themes, etc. She also asserts that the endings of YA books are too simplistic. The problem with much of this article is that she seems to be writing about one type of books rather than encompassing all of YA. I think she read The Fault in Our Stars and decided that since it's revered, it must be the same as every other YA novel. You wouldn't do that for any adult book, so don't do it for YA.

The fact that she has to define a book she read as "literary" is ridiculous. Every book is literary. To say that a particular genre is not is a lazy way of dismissing it as low quality without actually looking critically at the individual books. Science fiction and fantasy are looked down upon as "unliterary" genres, but the numerous great books in those genres disproves that. Instead of being an elitist, why not just enjoy reading what you like to read instead of building yourself up by shaming others.

The assertion that more new adults would not move on to adult books is also not proven. With around a third of people not reading any books at all, the passion and excitement that YA books have given both teens and adults for reading is amazing. Why begrudge those people because of what they choose to read? C.S. Lewis said, "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on in middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of being really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." I think he brings up excellent points. This critical view of literature written for youth isn't new, but it's nice that public opinion has been swayed more towards acceptance.

So, for some other compelling reasons to keep reading what you like without shame, read this wonderful list and this hilarious rebuttal. Ignore the haters and keep reading.

I'm back! (rant and list)

Hello all. I meant to keep posting throughout the semester, but I have never had so much stress and unhelpful people, and bureaucratic crap to go through. The following is a rant about the semester, so feel free to completely ignore if you aren't interested.

I have had the worst semester ever in my life, so I fell of the face of the planet. My student teaching started off on a bad start when I  had to harass the coordinator for a week before classes started to get my assignment. Then I didn't know what date it started or ended because my lovely school doesn't see fit to make that clear at the beginning or really ever.

Then, I was placed with a band director that had no control over their classroom at all and I, as a brand new teacher, was expected to magically fix all the behavior problems. This person also undermined any sort of authority I had all the time so the kids didn't respect me at all. This person basically thought of me as a free secretary/assistant and would make me teach without her observation, which is required for me to improve and receive input. My supervisor that comes and observes me every so often was completely unhelpful and only succeeded in being completely discouraging, insulting, and a bit sexist. About a month before the semester was over, he said if things don't improve, I'm not going to pass. I had shown improvement and didn't really know what else I could do to improve the situation. I was incredibly stressed and hopeless.

I did end up passing because that teacher I worked with, although awful to work with, really fought for me. I'm so happy to never set foot in that school ever again and to have lots and lots of free time this summer.

Anyway, here is a list of things that kept me sane over this hellish, horrible time.

1) The Binding of Isaac

This adorable and creepy video game is addicting as hell. Isaac is a sweet little boy with a mother who tries to kill him because God told her to. The game features dungeon exploration clearly influenced by Legend of Zelda. Isaac starts in the basement to hide from Mom and works through creepy crawlies and monsters in the cutest cartoony style to kill his mother with the help of items, trinkets, tarot cards, and pills before she kills him. He ventures into this hellish dungeon nude and only welding his own tears as weapons. Each powerup and certain items changes his appearance, making him at times appear horribly disfigured and/or mutated. The game stays fresh because each dungeon is randomly generated with a huge number of creatures, mini bosses, and stage bosses. The deeper implications are pretty depressing, but give the game interesting layers of reality and fiction. If you have a pitch black sense of humor like me, you will like this game. I would play the game for about an hour each night after school to wind down and relax.

2) Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Making a complete 180 from Isaac, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a super addicting, cutesy Nintendo game.  You are the mayor of a town full of animals and the town looks kind of crappy with boarded up buildings and not a whole lot to do. It is up to you to build up the town with ordinances, public works projects, planting greenery, donating stuff to the museum, etc, etc. You can do anything you want in the game: go fishing, catch bugs, earn money, talk to villagers, make the town look like how you want, among many other things. I've played this game since it came out for the DS because my boyfriend played it and I've been hooked every since. This game was only out for about 2 weeks before school was out, but it helped me push through to the end.

3) Books of course!

Books also kept me sane. I read in every free moment. Even though a lot of the books I read in that time were kind of mediocre, they still gave me a nice distraction from my worries and kept me entertained in the long hours I sometimes had to sit around.

So that's it for today. My awful semester and the stuff that kept me sane. What stuff keeps you sane in crazy times?

YA Fiction is Too Dark, Whines the Wall Street Journal: A Rant

An article in the Wall Street Journal came out yesterday whining about too much darkness being present in young adult novels. This article frustrates me and depresses me at the same time. I'm going to try to put my feelings into words, but if I fail and blather on, please forgive me. I'm going to take a page from Neil Gaiman and provide a warning: contains me. I don't usually write about such personal things, but I think it's really necessary because this article brings back strong memories and feelings for me. The quoted sections are directly from the article.

* "How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it."

First of all, these "pathologies" (as if being violent is some sort of disease) have been written about well over 40 years ago. Ever hear of the Bible? the Marquis de Sade? Vladimir Nabokov? Euripides? Obviously the writer of this novel doesn't seem to have actually read much literature from any era. People have been writing about violence, brutality, and various paraphilia for literally thousands of years.

* "If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is."

I know this may be hard for some to realize, but life is not all butterflies, glitter, and rainbows. Everyone has their own problems and unique experiences. To say that darkness doesn't exist in young people's lives is to stick your head in the sand and refuse to see the truth. Teens commit suicide, have sex, cut themselves, and a whole slew of other things that these people don't want to hear about. How are teen books that reflect this "hideously distorted?" If the author and the people commenting in praise of the article are lucky enough to have a perfect life with nothing so unsavory, then they are very lucky indeed. For the rest of us, I'm so happy that young adult authors are not afraid to be frank about the realities of life.

* "Yet it is also possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures."

I just want to relate my own experience with YA for a second. Young adult fiction provided me a place where I belonged and felt comfortable in more ways than one. My childhood was difficult because I had an emotionally, physically, and mentally abusive mother and a complacent father. I thought that all families had parents that fought constantly and that everyone was terrified of their own mother. I just thought no one talked about it. How's that for normalizing pathologies? Young adult novels provided me with an escape when I needed it and provided me with much needed catharsis when I couldn't have it in real life. Without young adult novels, I don't know what I would have turned to for escape and release. To ignore such dark realities is to make teens believe that they are alone in the world and that their own dark experience is singular. I think it's just irresponsible and equivalent to brushing teen problems out of sight and out of mind. And to assume that teens will just copy whatever behavior they read about is just ridiculous. Give them a little more credit than a five year old please.

*The author goes on to describe Judy Blume's "'Forever,' in which teenagers lose their virginity in scenes of earnest practicality. Objectionable the material may be for some parents, but it's not grotesque."

I have read Forever. It's one of the most laughable and unrealistic depictions of teen sexuality I have ever read. I read it in high school and it was just incredibly cheesy and as far from "earnest practicality" as you can possibly get.

* "But whether it's language that parents want their children reading is another question. Alas, literary culture is not sympathetic to adults who object either to the words or storylines in young-adult books."

This is true because parents who find offensive material want to ban it from being read by everyone else instead of simply choosing not to buy or check out that book for their child. They want to make decisions for other parents and force authors to censor their works.

These people should really read the young adult books and look at how the issues are being dealt with in the novel instead of just screeching that there's incest, homophobia, cutting, sexuality, cursing, or whatever in the novel. These are things that teens actually experience. Also, their hatred for vampire books is just weird and confusing. I just want to shake these people. They should just be thankful that teens are reading, considering that one in four people read no books last year. That statistic is just flat out depressing. To dampen those numbers anymore over this is just ridiculous.

My last grievance is with their list of books appropriate for young adult girls and boys. The boy list has science fiction (one of them is ironically Fahrenheit 451) and war novels as if these books aren't also appropriate or recommended for girls. Did these lists really have to be separated by gender? As if boys can handle more gritty and dare I say violent books than girls.

These adults trying to ban teen books have obviously lost sight of what it is to be a teen and how life really is. I still love reading YA because I can remember being a teen and I still relate to the struggles of the protagonists, no matter how different they are from me. That transition from childhood to adulthood is a fascinating one especially in our society where there is no real support system to help teens into adulthood. Literature is where my support system was and I'm sure that's true for many others even today.

Ok. I think I'm done. I really do apologize if this is just incoherent ramblings because I'm really tired and am being a bad blogger by not rereading what I have written. I just had to get my feelings out on here to express my crazy bundle of emotions. If you feel as dismayed as I do, I invite you to go over to Twitter and search for #YAsaves to see readers and authors alike defend young adult fiction.

WTF New York Times?

On March 8th, an article was posted on the New York Times website about an 11 year old being gang raped. Not only was it disgustingly skewed to blame the victim for dressing and acting older than she was, but it sympathized with the 18 rapists. The writer, JamesMcKinley, bemoans the tearing apart of their community and families and asks "how could their young men be drawn to such an act?" Seriously? You are saying that the boys were forced to rape a young girl? By what logic? And a hospital worker said, "It just destroyed our community" and "These boys have to live with this for the rest of their lives." I am beyond disgusted. What about the girl who has to live with the experience of being violently and sexually assaulted by 18 men? I was extremely angry with the obvious misogyny and sympathy towards rapists. I don't care what a girl or woman is wearing. She doesn't deserve to be raped nor is the rape the fault of her fashion choices. Here is a much more awesome and researched article on the New York Times article and how rape is generally treated in our culture.

Yesterday, the New York Times is again guilty of belittling women, but this time it's in a review for the upcoming miniseries Game of Thrones. It starts off saying that there is a large cast of characters and should come with a warning like "If you can't count cards, please return to reruns of 'Sex and the City.'" Wow. I didn't even want to read what came after that. It's as if the author Gina Bellafante (obviously a woman herself) doubts that women have the mental capacity for keeping track of more than 5 characters. Maybe she assumes other women can't because of her own inability, but this is just a theory.

Anyway, she goes on to say that the sex in the show was obviously used to "[toss] in a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, that no woman alive would watch otherwise." I was almost speechless when I read this and the following comment that no woman stands up in her book club and demands to read The Hobbit over whatever the author thinks women stereotypically read in book clubs. This is a bold and completely untrue claim. If you go to any nerdy convention or event, there are more and more women attending. For example, with Magic the Gathering tournaments, I am usually one of the few women there. This last time I went to a prerelease, there were tons more than I had ever seen before. When I go to San Diego Comic-Con, there are a huge amount of women. To say that this show is obviously for men and women would have no interest is a huge insult to nerd girls everywhere. Even MSNBC realizes that female viewership is something that is sought after and very present for science fiction and fantasy. Many women aren't interested in the stereotypical vapid romantic comedies or tearjerker movies, but in films and shows with thought behind them and autonomous female characters. I am insulted that Ms. Bellafante only thinks women would tune in to see the sex and hot men. Maybe she hasn't met any geek girls, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Ms. Bellafante also seems to abhor science fiction and fantasy shows in general with her assertion that shows that deviate from "real world sociology" like Game of Thrones and True Blood "start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters." I don't understand this at all. I wish she would have had some examples to back up this claim instead of just vaguely generalizing. I don't really know why she's even reviewing this show if she doesn't like the genre.

I don't know what's going on at The New York Times. This makes 2 offensive articles in 2 months. If they continue on this misogynistic vein, I think they will lose a lot of readers.

Personally, I had never heard of Game of Thrones before, but I was intrigued by the trailers and posters. It seems like a really awesome epic story, similar to Lord of the Rings. I'm definitely going to record it and watch it with my boyfriend. Usually I prefer urban fantasy to high fantasy like this because high fantasy tends to come off as a LotR ripoff to me. I haven't read a huge amount of it, so if you guys like any of this type of fantasy, I would love your recommendations.

* To give credit where credit is due, I wrote this in response to Amy Ratcliffe's rant about the Game of Thrones article from her website Geeks with Curves.

Saw VI: A Rant

First of all, I watched the first three Saw movies in the theater. The first one was really scary and was ALMOST good. The ending really killed it for me. It was laughable and just seemed as it needed to be hastily ended because they ran out of money or something. I went to the next two films in hopes that they would be better. They were not. They were boring, predictable, and unimaginative. Some of the traps are interesting: the backwards bear trap in the first film was amazing and the needle pit from the thrid film made me squirm. But these were a couple of shining moments in a generally mediocre series. I made a conscious effort not to see the other Saw movies because I don't want to reward mediocrity and give them enough money to make another installment. Normally, I'll pretty much go see any movie, even if it looks awful, because it's a fun experience to enjoy or tear apart a movie with my friends and family.

Now, all I see everywhere is Saw. On every horror movie site, on (badly done) TV commercials, in the newspaper, in magazines...What other horror movie has this much advertising? None that I know of. It upsets me that it's not even good horror that is getting this much exposure. In a few years, it will be viewed just like every other overdone horror franchise: the first one was ok, but the other ones really sucked. Really good, original, edgy horror movies, such as Grace, Trick 'r Treat, Let the Right One In, Deadgirl, Otis, and countless others have to struggle just to get a LIMITED theatrical release, let alone any TV spots. The only exception to this has been Paranormal Activity, which went from a couple of free screenings to a wide release based on fan interest. (I haven't seen this film yet, but plan to this Sunday.)

What really set me off to write this rant was Scott Sigler's article, Move Over Michael...Jigsaw is Horror's New King of the Kill. The Saw movies are going to be the biggest horror movie franchise in America when the new movie comes out (not taking into account inflation, so I refuse to acknowledge it as such). I hate the "Halloween is now synonymous not with a movie from the Halloween franchise (which would seem a no-brainer), but with Saw..." Thank you, Lionsgate, for making me suffer on my favorite holiday with your incessant, badly executed advertising.

I just have to shake my head at the fact that big studios will pretty much only make sequels and remakes instead of taking a chance on any type of horror film. I will go on looking for overlooked gems and going to see them at little theaters or conventions.