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newsweek:
“ On March 28, 2011, a man who calls himself Kurt J. Mac loaded a new game of Minecraft. As the landscape filled in around his character, Mac surveyed the blocky, pixellated trees, the cloud-draped, mountains, and the waddling sheep. Then...

newsweek:

On March 28, 2011, a man who calls himself Kurt J. Mac loaded a new game of Minecraft. As the landscape filled in around his character, Mac surveyed the blocky, pixellated trees, the cloud-draped, mountains, and the waddling sheep. Then he started walking. His goal for the day was simple: to reach the end of the universe. Nearly three years later, Mac, who is now thirty-one, is still walking. He has trekked more than seven hundred virtual kilometres in a hundred and eighty hours.

At his current pace, Mac will not reach the edge of the world, which is now nearly twelve thousand kilometres away, for another twenty-two years. In the four years since its initial release, Minecraft has become a phenomenon that is played by more than forty million people around the world, on computers, smartphones, and video-game consoles.

It is primarily a game about human expression: a giant, Lego-style construction set in which every object can be broken down into its constituent elements and rebuilt in the shape of a house, an airship, a skyscraper, or whatever else a player can create.

(via A Journey to the End of the World (of Minecraft) : The New Yorker)

More than half the questions I am asked are about the politics of the way I look. What it feels like to be not skinny/dark-skinned/a minority/not conventionally pretty/female/etc. It’s not very interesting to me, but I know it’s interesting to people reading an interview. Sometimes I get jealous of white male showrunners when 90 percent of their questions are about characters, story structure, creative inspiration, or, hell, even the business of getting a show on the air. Because as a result the interview of me reads like I’m interested only in talking about my outward appearance and the politics of being a minority and how I fit into Hollywood, blah blah blah. I want to shout, “Those were the only questions they asked!?
stoneandbloodandwater:
“ rachelraaaaage:
“ fangorn-f0rest:
“ “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness...

stoneandbloodandwater:

rachelraaaaage:

fangorn-f0rest:

“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

It is hard to say who has won this silent battle between popularity and respect for the text. Nor who, finally, has the Ring. One thing is certain: from father to son, a great part of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has now emerged from its boxes, thanks to the infinite perseverance of his son.

Ok, seriously? You’re going to be that stuck-up about it? “Oh, TOO MANY people have been exposed to, and love his work today (probably because of the movies, when many people may not have *ever* been exposed to it otherwise). Now it means nothing because the mainstream has accepted it and dissected every bit of it to find meaning for themselves, when before it would’ve been something only studied in a literature class. It has lost it’s elitism.”

Nope, sorry. I don’t buy that Tolkien wouldn’t have loved his work being immortalized over and over again because of how great and complex his world is.

No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all. In fact, I kind of agree with him. Not that I think it’s wrong to make film adaptations with merchandising options and push that stuff commercially as much as possible. But is that the whole of Tolkien’s work? Absolutely not and it insults his memory and his work every time people insinuate that. It’s some large part of Tolkien’s work as interpreted by Peter Jackson and it is a very specific interpretation. There are parts he skips (most specifically, imo, The Rape of the Shire and a large part of Faramir and Eowyn’s arc) and themes he does not emphasize or even actively de-emphasizes. They are beautiful films with many layers, layers that often correspond to those in the books, but they do not encompass the whole of the books themselves, nor do they take into account the other books. Tolkien had personal philosophical, religious, and literary beliefs that he wrote about extensively - they don’t enter into the movies much. Part of the reason for this is because those philosophies can’t really ever figure into a commercial, Hollywood enterprise - they are distinctly anti-industrial, anti-commercial I don’t think it’s elitist to say that Tolkien would be horrified that you can buy Anduril in SkyMall. It’s just a fact extrapolated from what he wrote. I don’t think it’s elitist to say that he would be upset that his work is always, always connected to a whole genre of that while similar in content is often thematically opposed to Tolkien’s body of work (think about how many fantasy books glorify the military and violence) and this connection is made for the academic and commercial benefit of those works and has frankly tarnished Tolkien’s reputation because the quality of those books is not up to his standard at all. Well, maybe that’s elitist, to say that most fantasy isn’t as complex, academically sound, or well-thought out as Tolkien, but I think that’s true. And, frankly, the juggernaut of the film franchise encourages the misconception that Tolkien is just D&D on steroids. I agree with Christopher Tolkien that this is an extreme disservice to his father’s work, which had academic and philosophical aspects which are just not touched on in this modern iterations.

ourlightsinvain:

revisionist lay criticism for shakespeare is so popular both as like, word-of-mouth truisms — “romeo and juliet isn’t REALLY about love, everyone gets it ALL WRONG, what it’s REALLY about is—” (which is like the literary equivalent of urban legends about hidden legendary pokemon in pokemon red) — and well-meaning but ill-advised attempts to make the supposed canon ‘edgy’ and ‘relatable,’ no shakespeare’s not dry and irrelevant he’s REALLY relevant he’s SUPER relevant!  and entertaining too!  it comes off as kind of a fearful tryhard bleat, ineffectual flailing in the face of losing kids to paranormal ya and video games.  which.  the works of william shakespeare are many things but strictly textually relevant to the life of the average american teenager is not one of them.  so good luck with that

actually what gets on me more is the common (in fandom and some starry-eyed lit departments) and hopeful claim that shakespeare is or was ~SUBVERSIVE~: usually pointing to the obvious and common elements of  tongue-in-cheek homoeroticism and genderbending/crossdressing in his plays.  which.  uh, again, values dissonance.  it’s not that he was flouting taboo, it’s that sociohistorical ‘progression’ even within the same or related cultures is, well, fictitious, but moreover is not actually a linear march from some nebulous state of conservatism to some nebulous state of progressivism with a few setbacks and regressions; the sexual morals of london of shakespeare’s time weren’t the sexual morals of today’s london, and they certainly weren’t the sexual morals of today’s united states.  there’s a big difference between asserting that the staging of shakespeare’s work can be harnessed to some progressive purpose in the present day US against our particular shades of puritanical morals and asserting that they were radical purely on grounds that they might make rick santorum uncomfortable.

one can’t just decide that the things one likes and finds personally empowering are intrinsically radical and subversive on a macro, historical level because one wants them to be

… well, one certainly can, as evidenced by the vast majority of tumblr.  but.   but it’d make me PEEVISH ok

There are definitely valid concerns in this post. For one, assuming that society is inevitably marching from some more primitive state to some more advanced and enlightened state, and that all things can me placed somewhere on this path is not only simplistic and wrong, but rooted in racism and imperialism and very problematic.

The idea that the mores of one era and place can be at all mapped on to those of another is also a really problematic thing, and is an issue in both lay and academic criticisms - don’t think folks in ivory towers are immune from the inability to see the times so differently.

This comment interests me on a meta critical level, though, because that at least since the Romantics, every single movement I can think of has found a way to claim Shakespeare as if not the first of their canon, as a fore runner, or predictor of it - I have read naturalist claiming Shakespeare was a revolutionary in naturalism. Modernists and existentialists were fond of calling him the first modernist or the first true tragedian since the Greeks and thus the founder of their movement. Looking for a foundation in Shakespeare is practically a requirement at this point for a new field of theory and criticism or a new school of play writing. Everyone tries to stage Shakespeare as per the dictates of their favorite school of drama.

So this is very far from either new or lay.

Before I continue, I should note I am by no means very well studied in Elizabethan England nor do I claim to have read, let alone studied, all of Shakespeare’s writing.

But to claim that Shakespeare wasn’t at all subversive is something I question. Yes, it is very true that gender bending would have not been seen as something at all subversive - rather as a kind of sly bit of comedy for a theatre where all parts are played by men anyway. Plays were subject to censor, and Shakespeare’s own family were subject to arrest for religious and/or political reasons. So he was very much aware of the politics of the age. Plays were also “vulgar” entertainment - they were specifically made to appeal to the non-elite as well as the educated. In that sense alone, the Marxist readings of Shakespeare have grounding. In a sense, his play’s contemporary success means he had a good finger on the pulse of his contemporary politics of the “masses” and the elite.

His plays are also noted for breaking with the “standards of drama” of the day. Someone more versed in Elizabethan drama can tell you more, but some contemporary critics noted that he seemed to want for knowledge of convention and knowledge of the canon. That alone can be taken as subversive. People often called him a “natural, unlearned genius” though that comment probably gained popularity due to the Romantics love of that kind of thing.

But it is also important to remember that when a piece of literary criticism mentions “Shakespeare” they might be referring to the canon of Shakespeare’s writing, rather than the man himself. And any arguments they make about the text thus no longer depend one bit on the man himself, and become very easy to divorce from time and place. The gender bending in Shakespeare might not have been subversive for the Globe stage in the 1500’s, but if an all women’s Shakespeare troop preforms the Twelfth Night for an AIDS benefit, suddenly the genderbending becomes very subversive. It’s part of what happens when you allow for Death of the Author - it also kind of kills the original context. (OP did touch on this)

Which takes me to the part I take issue with the most in the original post.

Of COURSE Shakespeare’s canon is relevant to today’s youth. How could it be relevant and critical to every art movement up through the 20th century and suddenly stop?

How are two teenagers, restricted by their parents generations war, stuck in a city plagued by gang violence, caught up in a youthful passion turned tragic NOT relevant to inner city kids? Did you miss West Side Story?

How is Othello and Merchant of Venice not important to students facing discrimination today? Are there no more young women whose lives are controlled and constrained by men?

I mean, here, have a screenshot from a mid 1990’s cartoon from a franchise still making millions in the box office.image

image

He does the whole quotation, but I am not going to subject anyone to more of that animation style. I mean, you’ll be pretty hard pressed to find a Jewish High School in this country that doesn’t make it’s students read that play and discuss it on length. Or HERE is a link to a Key and Peele sketch from this year on Othello, for that perspective.

By the way, OP, I mean you no ill will, if you even read this - this post was stuck in my drafts for who knows how long basically until I had the brain power to get around to typing until I had an excuse to make everyone look at 1990’s animated Hank McCoy.

As one of those weirdo’s not in the Harry Potter maelstrom, I am confused.

Has someone explained Death of the Author to this supposedly great writer of our (postmodern) time?

Because I am getting a serious Night of the Living Dead vibe from this. As in maybe (figurative) shotguns should be more involved.

wish fulfillment is publicly recanting your published novel plot years later

And yes I know Dickens tried to do it in Great Expectations, but does anyone remember how that worked out? Badly. It worked out badly and was not taken well.

The Sexualization of Tony Stark

sakuratsukikage:

starkreactors:

The Sexualization of Tony Stark 

If you’re at all familiar with me and my personal thoughts on comicverse Tony Stark, you probably already know that I believe Tony is at least semi-canonically bisexual. There are a lot of reasons for this, most of which I plan to address at some point in the future, but this post is only tangentially related to that viewpoint.
This post is mainly about how Tony Stark is sexualized/has his virility or manhood mocked or questioned by villains and antagonists in the comics. At the end, I vaguely describe why I feel this adds fuel to the fire of my theory about his sexual orientation, but in this context that’s more for my personal justification than anything else.
In the 1998 Iron Man and Captain America Annual, upon first meeting Tony psychically, Metallo immediately calls into question Tony’s playboy status. image

This innuendo, while obviously intended to be a throwaway insult to Tony, is interesting because it presents Tony’s sexual promiscuity as something which weakens Tony, thus questioning his power and subverting the typical societal view of a promiscuous male (one that equates male power with sexuality). According to Metallo, because he is suddenly able to resist Metallo psychologically (he intends to mentally stop him from using mind control), his sexual strength must be diminished through his own will, making power and sexuality mutually exclusive. This then calls into question to power of Iron Man, whose identity is still a secret to everyone at this point. Iron Man’s power is clearly non-sexual in nature, but Tony’s reputation has allowed for questioning of his agency and virility on the part of Metallo, subverting traditional views of male sexual prowess.

Keep reading

Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of Greek myths to their private parts. I really do not care.
Vladimir Nabokov on Sigmund Freud

grimesish:

killing of women for a man’s pain is so lazy though, like it’s the easiest “character development jump starter” out there.  it’s so formulaic.  the woman—a daughter, a sister, a lover—dies.  The man who loves her, be it her father or her brother or her husband or boyfriend, undergoes intense pain and radical change.  Boring.

Instead of killing women, let them live.  

Let Jennifer Blake survive Peter Hale and burn Beacon Hills down around them, forcing Derek to chose where his loyalties lie.  Let her grow even stronger among the magic in Beacon Hills and slaughter anyone who would dare take what’s hers.  

Let Andrea Harrison make it through Woodbury colder and harder and still stunningly compassionate; she won’t make the mistake of trusting a stranger again but she’ll also become a symbol, the woman who won a war with kindness and understanding rather than bullets.

Let Tara Knowles survive Gemma and fight again for her sons, and her husband, and her own life; force her husband to chose between his mother and the club that’s killed his fathers and his friends or his wife who will leave him and his sons.  Let Tara live and put her life back together; let her raise her boys right, to be good and proud and strong. 

Let Debra Parker outlive Joe Carroll and dismantle his cult by pieces; let her rescue the ones he’s taken and go out into the world and do it again and again and again.

Let Shmi Skywalker walk out of the desert unbroken; let her kindness save her son and spare the galaxy 25 years of darkness. 

Let Padme Amidala rise from the ashes of Mustafar; let her fight a war with as much strength and fervor as her fallen husband; let her raise her children to be good and just and true but to never forget where they came from; let her triumph over the Sith and see her Republic returned to her. 

Let Frigga slip past Malekith’s blade; let her see through Loki’s illusions and take her son in hand again; let her keep the nine realms safe and balanced through her wisdom and cleverness and magic.

Let Mary Winchester shove a magic knife through Azazel’s chest in their bedroom; let her drive away the hellhounds; let her raise her boys to normal, happy lives. 

Let all the women who are murdered for their crime-fighting husbands live; let them defeat their would-be killers and put their angsty husbands to same. 

Let all the superheroes’ girlfriends escape a villain’s revenge; let them dodge bullets and death rays and assassin’s knives; let them unmask those villains, let them talk those villains down, let them trample those villains to dust so they never, ever rise again. 

Stop cutting women into pieces for a man’s tears.  Stop hacking us apart to spur men into action.  Stop choking us, stop beating us, stop slitting our throats in our sleep. 

Be interesting.  Let the woman live.  Give her her own strengths and weaknesses and flaws and motivations instead of a knife in the back. 

Just think, how much more interesting is the story if the woman’s out on the battlefield instead of stuck inside the refrigerator?

Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don’t wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment.
Guillermo del Toro on how horror is inherently political as a genre, Time Magazine (x)
newsweek:
“ Russian ‘kills friend in argument over whether poetry or prose is better’
Investigators say drunken literary dispute led to 53-year-old former teacher, who preferred poetry, killing friend with knife (via Russian ‘kills friend in argument...

newsweek:

Russian ‘kills friend in argument over whether poetry or prose is better’
Investigators say drunken literary dispute led to 53-year-old former teacher, who preferred poetry, killing friend with knife (via Russian ‘kills friend in argument over whether poetry or prose is better’)