Classical Performance: Sorry, but you don’t quite meet our needs.

Performers are no stranger to jealousy. Sometimes it is a petty jealousy but not always. Everyone who performs knows someone that got a part, not because she was more talented or had something unique to offer, but because she was marketable, more physically attractive, or the judge had some prejudice or other.

Before I began performing in earnest, I was aware that sometimes, you could be the best, try your best and still not get what you wanted. I knew that, out in the real world as well as in school, that popularity contests abound and that this was part of life. I expect this phenomenon in pop music (and I like pop music, by the way), but I expected better from the classical/musical theatre world. It’s not much better there.

When I got to high school, we all knew. No one would openly admit it. They would whisper about it to a select few people, or hold their tongues, but we knew. The people that got solos, or that got in select choir, were not necessarily the best ones. They were the good-looking ones, the ones the director thought the audience would like, or conventional ones (those that have voices and styles that people are used to hearing.) Some of them had been getting solos and slots in the chorus all four years and he only picked new ones when the seniors graduated.

There were also many performers that absolutely earned their rewards because they were good. It was easy to see why they were chosen.

I learned all too well how little your talent matters if you aren’t what some people consider marketable. People have no shame about passing you over for someone with way less talent because you don’t fit the profile they need (which is code for young and hot).

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am a classically trained singer (as well as a flautist, but that is a whole ‘nother blog post.) I have not been trained in opera and am nowhere near ready anyway. Yet I would love to give opera training a go in a few years. I have been singing all my life, but not seriously, until I was a teenager.

That was rough.

I mentioned that, like all children, I was a soprano as a child but that I developed an extensive chest register as a pre-teen and I maintained it ever since. Maintaining and expanding my upper register was a challenge. Even when I could hit the notes, they cracked all over the place and were breathy. My low notes were easy to hit but had a horrible hyponasal quality (like I had a bad head cold.) What the hell was wrong?

My choir director said something that reassured me. The human voice takes years, even decades, to mature and lower, more dramatic voices take longer than higher, lyrical voices. It is generall not advisable to classify the voices of teenagers, especially teenage boys, but we knew that I was at least an alto. This meant that my voice would take longer to mature than a soprano voice would. My job was to stop trying to be like them and allow myself to be me. ‘Me’ would emerge in time and no one else can be ‘me.’ If I don’t take care of my voice and keep forcing it to be something it was not, ‘me’ would never be.

My voice has come so far since high school and I am thrilled to see where it would take me.

Except that I don’t have ther “right” kind of voice. I am a dramatic contralto, not a lyric or spinto soprano. Those are the voices that “matter,” not mine.

Lyric and spinto sopranos are light voices that have a youthful sound. They play the young heroines in opera and many pop and contemporary stars would be classified as either of these vocies. Sopranos are the highest female voice and people are stupefied by them because they usually sing the melody of a song in chorus and they hit extremely high pitches that carry over all the other voices. Sopranos, almost by definition, dominate everyone else. (Although there is a joke that sopranos only sing soprano so they don’t have to learn to read music.:)

Contralto is the lowest female voice and the sound of this voice is associated with age. Dramatic contraltos especially have a deep, chocolately sound that bring to mind someone in their 30s and 40s because of the richness of sound. You would think this would be a highly prized voice in opera. We need wise characters, older characters, and yes, characters with dark pasts and intriguing secrets. Yet we always default to the young girl in love with the tiny dress size and the youthful voice to match. Besides, it’s awkward to be 22 and to list yourself as a contralto, because no one can picture you wearing age makeup and playing someone three times your age.

My fear is that it won’t matter, ultimately, where my voice takes me because it wouldn’t result in a decent career. Even in classical music, there is a bias toward higher-pitched, lighter voices. Opera is dominated by sopranos, and most contralto parts are “witches, bitches, and britches.” We play bit parts as old women, hags, and boys. There is nothing wrong with those parts, either, but it would be nice to have a big role or even a star role. It would be nice to have more diverse repertoire than singing one aria as the mother of a soprano lead. Pop and contemporary music is dominated by Mariah Careys and Celine Dions, not Eula Beals or even Maria Callases, who are dramatic sopranos. Plus, Carey and Dion are conventionally attractive and therefore highly marketable.

If I were to get famous, I probably would be told to lose weight. Everyone probably gets told that eventually, but where I don’t have a highly marketable voice, I might be under more pressure than the average performer because I need to sell SOMETHING! If it’s not a popular voice, I can have the hot bod, right?

I remember this one girl that got accepted into select chorus. She was a nice girl, had good musicianship, and a nice voice. However, it was not a particularly notable voice. It was average, yet because she had the sweet girl quality that people were looking for, she got in. (She was thin and conventionally attractive as well, although I don’t think that had anything to do with her being accepted. Several of the select choir members were fat.) There were other students with stronger, more unique voices that deserved a chance to shine. If I were to give this girl a chance to shine, I would give her a solor or two and train her some more. Yet people fell IN LOVE with her for some reason that I just couldn’t identify. However, she WAS dedicated and talented, and I hope her opportunities have resulted in her having a stronger voice and being a stronger performer.

Back to the point, voices actually get BETTER when they get older. They have a bigger sound, can handle longer passages and more coloratura, and overall get better with age (unless you really give your chords a beating). So why do most forms of music, even opera, have a love affair with the high and light? I guess because the people that have those voices are more physically attractive? Is it really better to have someone with less talent but who wear a size 2 than to have a tremendous talent who is over 40 and wears a size 14?

Anyway, it seems like no matter where you go, young and light are prized over old and heavy. It could be a young, light body or a young, light voice.

It sucks balls. Excuse the expression, but it really, really sucks balls.

Joanna the Bishop commands you: Needles up!

Tags

fashion, personal projects

I love Halloween. I love everything about it. I love inventing costumes and adopting a new persona for a while. This year, I have decided I want to be a bishop. The reasons why is something I won’t address right now but in later updates.

So what do I wear and where do I find it?

I’m sure there are ready-made adult bishop costumes out there and that if I looked around, I could find plenty of material. Yet you never get exactly what you want, which is why I am making my own costume.

Yes, I will be sewing my own vestments, and this is from someone who has next to no experience sewing and who has never sewn a piece of clothing a day in her life. I thought it would be fun to try something new at the same time as doing something I love to do. I might like it.

The hardest part will be sewing the cassock. The design is simple-it is a robe that buttons in front. The hardest part will be sewing on the mini-cape and the collar.

I still have that nagging question: How big?

I will start off by measuring my height, the lengths of my arms, the circumference of my upper arms and shoulder, and my neck and wrists. I will draw out the front and back separately on design paper before I cut. When I cut, I’ll add a few extra inches for wiggle room. It is easier to trim the fabric than to add on. Those part I get.

When I make the front and back, I am just concerned about width. I don’t know if the width of the yard of fabric will cover me, or if I will have to sew attachment strips near the seams because it just…doesn’t…quite make it around. I will be duct-taping my chest, so that won’t be an issue, but that still leaves the rest of me. I want there to be two seamless front and back sections joined at two seams at the sides.

If I have to expand the width of the fabric, what do the seamstresses around here recommend? I don’t suppose it would kill me to do the fabric in three or four sections instead of two. Many graduation gowns are sewn that way, but I still would like to avoid that.

The “shape” of the cassock is a flowing robe, and like I said, I won’t have to worry about chest measurements because I won’t have a chest. I still want it to have the sleek look and not look like a sack. So now I have to worry about “shaping” the cassock without making it skin-tight, which might mean expanding the width of the fabric again. Grr, I’m back where I started.

I’m still undecided on the sash because I cannot decide whether I want to tie it or sew it closed. If I sew it closed, I will need to take hip measurements and make sure I can slide into it easily. This will mean top-of-hip, bottom-of-hip, and around-the-hips measurements. If I go around the hips, my sash will slide down to my ass. If I do below the hips, it will fall off my ass. My best bet is doing it (partially) above the hips, but then it might be too high up and I don’t want to strangle myself.

Trial and error, I suppose. I’m excited nonetheless. I think this will work out well.

Is there anything else I should know about sewing or adapting clothes for larger people?

Giving Birth to Characters that Resonate

Tags

activism, art and literature, body politics, fat acceptance

Authors of screenplays, novels, and short stories all face the same challenge: to create characters that are realistic, sympathetic, and relevant. Their mission is to create characters that, as the title of this post suggests, resonate. You might not like their personalities or motivations or agree with how they act. Yet you feel that within these pages lies a real person that I want to know.

A number of people in fat acceptance are authors, artists, and others that create works of art with fat-positive themes. Activists of all stripes create artwork that is specifically designed to normalize and promote the subjects of their artwork. The purpose is to integrate subjects into the artistic fabric of society when those subjects had historically been excluded or ridiculed. Fatshion is a case in point. Other examples of activist storytelling include stories with feminist themes, gay rights themes, those that focus on a particular ethnic community, and evangelical Christian message movies. (Don’t get me started on the Christian subculture. Gone are the Victor Hugos and Dante Alighieris of the world, let’s just put it that way.)

Every story has a target audience, whether it is Irish Bostonians, teenagers, PhD-endowed liberals, or Protestant old men. There is a time and a place for activist storytelling and for focus on a select audience, especially a historically oppressed audience. Political cartoons, stories for children and teens, and other activist storytelling can boost morale, communicate important themes in an eye-catching way, and educate. They remain in your mind long after it, and the cause it was advocating, is gone. I did not live during the Civil Rights era, but that footage of young black children being blasted with fire hoses and being attacked by dogs resonates all the same.

I am bisexual and have not felt any great pressure to hide that fact, but many other gay/les/bi teens have felt that pressure. I had conservative Republican parents, too, who were surprisingly accepting, though not thrilled. I read the anthology “Am I Blue?” when I was 14 and I loved it. “Am I Blue?” is diverse, well-written, and focuses on gay teenagers learning about themselves, acceptance, and community. That burgeoning sense of who you are, the excitement,  the fear and the joy, is a universal adolescent experience. It is a universal experience regardless of age for anyone who has ever felt caged in a world that did not understand them. I highly recommend “Am I Blue?” and I want to, once again, emphasize that activist storytelling can be both highly accomplished and highly necessary. “Captain Tommy” is a children’s book about the inclusion of children with autism in school and social life. Another good read.

Nevertheless, activist storytelling cannot consume an entire body of literature and there is an unfortunate tendency for activist storytelling to be agenda-driven. As “Am I Blue?” demonstrates, not all such stories are agenda-driven, but the genre lends itself to that tendency. The main idea and plot are to, somehow, create positive role models and promote the (assumed) agenda of the targeted demographic. Agenda-driven stories may evoke a powerful emotional response but they do not make for good storytelling and in some cases, can hardly be called storytelling at all. It is more like a lecture or a rebuke.

In Notre Dame de Paris, or in Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are layers upon layers of depth. The power-hungry religious officials are not always the heroes of the story. Rather, they might very well end up in the lowest level of Hell when they die. Others are profoundly heroic, but riddled with doubts and sometime hideous faults. Yet in spite of that, their heroism shines. In evangelical Christian movies, however, the Christians are always the heroes of the story with few substantial flaws or temptations. Incidentally, Hugo and Dante are widely renowned classic novelists and Christian filmmakers are trapped in a cultural ghetto.

With heinous, fat-hating stories like “Maggie Goes on a Diet” or “I Get So Hungry,” we need explicitly fat-positive stories to escape in, and we need powerful examples for young children so bombarded with sizist cultural forces. Someday, and perhaps this has already happened, it would be nice to read a story in which a character was just fat and to not have the fat, or the loss of it, be the focus of the plot. An alternative are stories in which fat is incidental to the plot, but not the sole focus, and the messages will be interwoven into the story as opposed to parading around with a neon sign.

In the Fat-o-sphere, non-fiction accounts of weight loss surgery have started to fill that niche. Many of these stories come from people who are not fat accepting whatsoever, but they are brilliant illustrations of the humanity and suffering of fat people and the pervasiveness of culturally sanctioned hatred against them. This is enough to give many people, if not a reason to embrace FA, a reason to give themselves pause. What is it that I support ever day, tacitly or otherwise? Kinder, gentler, that’s-so-awful-but-you’re-still-pathologically-fat bigotry is still bigotry and it’s not real progress. If we can get people to ask that question, though, we have successfully challenged the conventional wisdom, in their minds, that fat people choose to be fat and that fat is culturally privileged(!) We have successfully encouraged them to see fat people as people. Or so I hope.

I am trying to write a book, as I mentioned a while back. The characters are Christian, but they are in a constant state of doubt and sin. They also have virtues that shine through when you least expect it, the most important one being holding onto faith (in a general sense, not specifically a religious or Christian sense.) My hope is that, despite the many explicit and implicit religious references, the struggles and souls of the characters will be universal. Generally, I would say a book worth reading should resonate far and wide.

How to make characters that resonate:

Self-love is not a given. Of course fat characters should be given the opportunity to love themselves and to act on that love in an unabashed way. Yet stories that ignore the awkwardness that comes with having a different body, as well as the near universal cultural burden borne by fat people, will not speak to the whole fat experience.

Neither are virtues. Just as fat people are not required to be virtuous eaters or exercisers, fat people don’t need to be virtuous in general. They can also be like most people, virtuous in many respects but with some notable vices. The trick here is to not make fat into the proxy of those vices. Thin characters should also have notable vices, possibly even those vices that only fat people are supposed to have.

Keep political and cultural references to a minimum or weave them in. Politics and culture provide necessary context for stories. It provides setting, character development, motivation and external conflict. Activist storytelling often is consumed by advancing the politcal or social agenda of the story as opposed to letting the story unfold as it will. A well-written, engaging story will communicate whatever messages you want to communicate without having to point them out. Also remember that not everything has to have an agenda. You can communicate profound insights about people and the world by showing your characters living their lives and finding their place in the world. (I almost wrong ‘Church’ there. Freudian slip?) I did not get a lecture when watching the Disney version of Notre Dame de Paris, but I got the message loud and clear-a loving God, confronting prejudices, and the nature of good and evil. As a child, I could see this. As a child, I knew that the real reason Frollo wanted Esmeralda dead (at least in the movie) was because he could not admit he lusted for her and blamed her and Satan for “witchcraft.” You need to know what you want to say and have faith enough in your story to say it. This means you need to avoid making your characters mouthpieces for your religious, cultural or political views and making them iconic images of the background from which they come.

Universality. Culture-specific messages can and do have a place in story-telling, but the overarching theme should be universal. Make the culture-specific themes subservient and intertwined with the universal message. In “Am I Blue?”, despite being a piece of activist storytelling, achieves this. The characters come from a wide range of backgrounds and intersections. Some of them might come from “gay culture,” but many do not and there is not one gay culture either. While the focus is on GLBT issues, the over-arching theme is love, acceptance, fear, and self-discovery. Even straight cis people have those concerns about who they really are or may have been teased for being GLBT. Sexuality intersects with culture if you are an immigrant to this country from some place where the sexual rules are different. Avoid having your story being a manual to joining this or that subculture. Portray the subculture, but focus on the humanity of your characters.

Many of my characters have weight and body image concerns, disabilities, or hail from a particular religion or culture. It is a challenge not to get consumed with the references and to not assume that everyone can identify what they mean. When you as a writer see your characters as people first living. and you have a clear image of who your characters are, the messages, as I said, will unveil themselves naturally.

You do not find out right away that one of my characters has a deformity, or that she is heavier than what is considered normal. You find out later, but that experience is part of who that character is. Lucia Angeli Kennsington has a facial deformity and is disabled due to birth trauma. She has a mental and communicative handicap and she lives her life as an outsider looking in. Her weight, disability, and appearance increase the sense of isolation and “other” that fuels the conflict in her character arc. Those issues are secondary to the isolation and sense of “other” but without those issues, the conflict would not materialize in the same way. The story does not revolve around, “I’m fat, disabled, and not conventionally attractive, and I’m learning to like it.” It happens along the way.

It’s rule numero uno in writing: Show, don’t tell.

Tuning into prejudice in rants over TV

Tags

ableism, culture, fat acceptance, prejudice, technology

Our culture’s current obsession with fat people is deeply intertwined with, among other things, our fear of modern life. Conservatives and progressives alike imagine fat people as the archetypal modern people-people who are lazy, shallow, of lower intellect, and who don’t care about anything. They are represented sitting incessantly in front of the TV absorbing all its messages with nary a protest. Fat acceptance advocates do not appreciate the use of fat people to present this message but they more often than not agree with the message. Of course modern people are all of the negative adjectives offered above and of course the garbage that calls itself modern entertainment is to blame for that! The problem is that it is not just fat people who are victimized by this mentality but thin people as well Thin and fat people alike would benefit from watching fewer movies and reading more classic novels.

As a lover of modern entertainment and classic novels, I have an issue with this.

Just for the record, I feel that TV, movies, video games, etc. can be just as intellectual and artistic as more traditional media. Just because it is written or expressed in some other “legitimate” medium doesn’t mean that it is automatically good. That is a rant for another day, though, and I am not interested in arguing the fine points of that position here. My issue is that in the interest of finding common cause with fat hatred, many of us have decided to agree on the issues of the evils of modern life. Such a position is often taken in a way that reveals the personal prejudices of those taking it.

Without the tie-in to fat, you have accepted the idea that people who prefer visual over verbal communication are stupid and lazy. You might not have intended to communicate that message, but it comes through loud and clear nonetheless. Actually, thin people are hurt by this prejudice as well, particular skinny boys that are seen as too nerdy, geeky, or gawky to have real lives, athletic ability, or girl friends, so they resort to creating digital lives instead. But I digress.

Not everything on TV or the silver screen is particularly artistic or intellectual (in the broad sense of those terms.) Neither is everything that has been written. The point is that people automatically assume that the verbal is superior to the visual. You hear it when they proudly proclaim that their children read books rather than watch TV or that you won’t allow them to play video games as it stifles the imagination.

I read and write at an advanced level. I am an honor student with research skills and an appreciation for the written word. I also love, and in some respects, prefer visual media like TV.

Funny. We think TV is anti-intellectual, but that plays and paintings are mentally stimulating. We think video games undermine imagination, but we do not say the same of board games. They, too, tell you what to do and have pictures and pieces that reflect the game environment. Yet they are immune from this criticism.

I like all kinds of media. I learn from it and am entertained by it. I love watching TV or a good movie, and I have ever since I was a child. When I watched classic Disney movies like Pocahontas or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I was very engaged in the message, the symbolism, the acting and the presentation. I learned the songs, I danced, and I learned new words and some things about cultures, histories, and lives other than my own. Was it a full, or entirely accurate, education? No, it was children’s fiction, but it was a start and it stuck with me and got me engaged.

Though I had always loved to read and was a strong reader, there was something special about TV and movies. Seeing and hearing these characters go through their adventures made them feel that much more real to me and it was easy to remember them and draw connections between their worlds and mine. I was socially delayed and had a speech and language disability when I was younger and I still struggle with those issues. TV and movies had a special power over me for that reason. I liked to self-stimulate, so while I liked to read when I was in the mood, I could never concentrate for long. Movies gave me something to ‘do’-act out stories, sing, dance, etc.

Reading books might require you to imagine the picture, but movies can just as well cause you to imagine the words to describe what you saw and heard. Have you never heard a child struggle to find the right word to describe that beautiful Esmeralda character with the angelic voice?

I do not necessarily learn from traditional media, but that does not make me of lower intellect, nor does it mean my way of learning is not legitimate.

I used to hate it when people would tell me what I should to reading or watching or doing because what I was doing wasn’t good enough. Predictably, it was tied in with the hatred that some people had for the fact that I was larger (and taller) than most other children. My constant sitting and absorbing would make my body fat and weak and my mind even weaker. Years later, it has done no such thing. It also did not displace other media through which to learn, like reading or watching plays, like so many fear will happen if kids like TV too much. Actually, technology EXPOSED me to media and works of art I might have otherwise missed and got me interested in them.

Ultimately, you do not need to like any medium or work of art. You do not have to like your kids being exposed to it. But those of us with learning, language or other disabilities, those of us who do not learn through traditional means, or whose cultures do not place the same emphasis on the written word as others will not appreciate the common admonition that we need to read more and watch less TV.

Especially if you blame that for us being fat.

Stupendous fat opera singer

Tags

fat role models, music

Allow me to introduce you to a woman named Lena Beylerian. She is in charge of a choir and sings religious music. More information about her is available in the More Info box under the video. It’s enough to make you believe in God again.:)

Harry Potter: Who Cares?

Tags

body politics, cinema, literature, snobbery

I’m seeing the new Harry Potter tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it.

The sad part is that I’m *just* looking forward to it, the same way I would look forward to any other movie that looked good to me. I was quite the Potterhead back in my day and would have been first in line for the first midnight show. Now my attitude is, “Okay, but…who cares?”

I still love HP as light reading and a children’s story, especially in books 1 and 2. The die-hard enthusiasm has died since JK Rowling fell into the trap of so many famous people, which is “Hey, I got famous doing something great, so I’m going to take a gigantic dump on it to squeeze out a few more bucks by pandering to the lower common denominator!”

Yeah, that makes total sense.

First, the general criticisms…

There are things about HP that I have never liked, one of them being the one-sided treatment of Slytherin house (leave it to me to vote for the bad guys!) On the other hand, the later books have done some good work, such as making Draco Malfoy a human being rather than a 1-D bully. Overall, I was willing to overlook the flaws because of the good I saw and the potential it had in the end to be something (pardon the pun) magical.

When the series began, it was a children’s series that was fun and innocent but also dealt gamely with some troubling real life issues. It was unique. Then, in book 5, she started trying to make it into an Epic Work of Classic Literature (TM) rather than letting it be what it was. Ironically, if she had just let it be what it was, then it had a much greater chance of actually becoming classic.

This is where she falls into the second common trap of famous people: If you want to look edgy and, like, totally cool, litter your book with useless and distracting violence, profanity, and sexual references. Now, I don’t object AT ALL to the appropriate use of adult elements. If they are important to the story and are done in an artful way, then great! I’m all for it. That doesn’t happen in HP, though. JKR pretty much does it because she knows she has to if she wants to be taken seriously by pretentious art critics and self-consciously hip teenagers. Content? Who needs that?

The movies fall into this same trap. The first two movies had their flaws, of course, but on the whole I love how they captured Harry’s world. I think Columbus did a good job, again, capturing the essence of children’s entertainment, maintaining innocence and fun but with dark undertones and real emotion. People like to say that he copied the book verbatim, but this is bogus. He very obviously did NOT copy the book verbatim, for time, production, and other reasons. In any case, any director has a right to some artistic vision. At the same time, I think a movie based on a book should be, well, based on the book in question. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Then Alfonso Cuaron comes along, and I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. Like I said, directors are allowed to have new ideas and movies cannot be books because of the features of those two media are very different. But this guy took things out, changed, and added things for the hell of it and is very much like the pretentious art critics I described above. Throw in adult elements and special effects with no real story and call it a mature art film. Not only is it not a HP story, but it’s not even much of a story. He added innuendo between Ron and Hermione, and Hermione and Harry, that did not need to exist, brought in relics from Mexico in a story set in England, and did too many other things to list and for no good reason.

The later movies really aren’t any better, partly because of there being much more, and poorer, source material, but I cut them slack because they don’t have the hipster ‘tude that I think AC had. That’s still no excuse for craptastic pacing, lighting, and not at least having a coherent screenplay.

Granted, I still enjoyed all of them to some degree and I own them all except for the 3rd one. I also own the 3rd Harry Potter soundtrack because it really is cool, as were the special effects. I know I was hard on AC, so this is where I throw him a bone.:)

The inverted girl geek stereotype: Enough is enough

Other Fatosphere bloggers have commented on the rampant lookism that JKR engages in when constructing characters, especially with fat. I want to expand on that theme with regard to the movies.

At one time, geeks were geeks. They wore thick glasses, had incorrigibly curly hair, and other so-called physical flaws. They also had good hearts and brilliant minds. Hermione was this character. I have never totally been in love with her either, but I was very much in love with her geek persona. She had the brains and was not ashamed to admit it. She eventually got some friends and got a bit of a rebellious streak later on. She had large teeth, frizzy brown hair, and wasn’t much into fashion. There are some recognizable geek features, but Hermione had put her own spin on them and became Hermione Granger, not just another geek.

In later books, she got her hair straightened (Do NOT get me started on the overtones in that one!), got her teeth re-sized and started to care a lot more about fashion and what boys thought of her. Her intelligence did not shine nearly as much as in the earlier books. The movies take it a step further and make Emma Watson wear ultra-trendy clothes (even when in class in a school that requires, ahem, uniforms) that are form-fitting. They are designed to emphasize sexiness and her thinness. I guess the uniforms that are called for aren’t sexy enough for our stars.

Then I saw this.

I know Emma Watson is not Hermione Granger. I don’t expect her to pass up good jobs, nor do I want her to not do what makes her happy. I wish her the best in her endeavors, and yes, it’s a pretty cover.

I still can’t help but feel disappointed that the world’s favorite girl geek is yet another conventionally attractive actress.

Come to think of it, this isn’t a problem just in HP. Think of all the spy movies or shows you’ve seen. How often are the female leads very thin, conventionally attractive, and without disability? Shows like Burn Notice features ultra-thin hot women. The movie Kick-Ass, a movie that could take up its own post, features a pre-pubescent Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl. Hit Girl is a-surprise, surprise-conventionally attractive, thin girl with bad-ass athletic ability.

Sorry to interject, but does anyone else find it perverted that they had an 11-year-old wearing latex, using words like ‘cunt,’ and being trained by her father to be a serial killer? That’s just plain sick. I don’t care if it is a movie.

Vanessa Hudgens as Gabriella Montez in High School Musical is another chic geek. She is non-white, but she is conventionally attractive, and thin, in every other way. She is loved by her classmates, except of course for those people totally jealous for her brains. She even says at the beginning of the movie that she is afraid of being the “freaky genius girl.” Try being a fat kid or a kid with a deformity. You’ll miss being the genius really fast.

Can’t we, for once, have a fat spy? A model with a facial deformity? Can we, for once, allow people to be unathletic without it being a commentary on their character or an invitation to concern trolling? Can we have genuine minority actors, and not just thin people pretending to be fat or hot actresses wearing bad FX makeup?

We have tried so hard to dismantle stereotypes of geeks that we have gone too far in the other direction. We have made the girls into the popular girls, only somewhat less bitchy and with the brains too!

Can you say Mary Sue?

LCD viewers won’t care though, because they get to watch a hot lead actress and special effects, not to mention some hot kissing scenes.

Anyway, in a few hours, I will be seeing the last Harry Potter movie. I will be seeing Emma Watson’s last appearance as the thin and sexy Hermione Granger.

And I won’t miss it all that much when it’s over. It tried to be all things to all people and a work of high lit at the same time. It ended up being nothing.

That’s too bad.

Christian filmmakers, why have thou insulted me?

Tags

cinema, faith, social issues

I don’t imagine anyone here is dying to know my religious affiliation, but since it is relevant, I will tell you. I see value in most faiths and have drawn inspiration from many of them on my spiritual journey.  When all is said and done, however, I must say that I most closely identify with Roman Catholicism.

Few people who know me are aware of this and I usually prefer not to tell anyone. I don’t fit the image of what they think a Roman Catholic should be and I don’t engage in overtly religious behavior in public.

It’s not because I am ashamed. No, rather, I am proud because that is what Jesus Himself would have commanded. He looked down on those who pimped out their faith so that they may be seen and admired by others. Also, faith is best studied and strengthened in solitude anyway, in my opinion. Faith is a deep, complicated matter and it needs your full attention. While it can be enriching on various levels to connect with others that share our faith, faith is, ultimately, between you and your higher power. It’s not between you, God, and the Pope. It’s not between you, Buddha, and your fellow enthusiasts on your retreat. You and God.

Christian filmmakers would do well to learn this lesson.

It is a rare Christian program that doesn’t explicitly preach to its audience. Even programs that aren’t intended to be Christian involve Christian themes or stock characters.

“To Save a Life” was a sad testament (no pun intended) to the continuation of this vein. It started out promising. It was about a boy that sought to take responsibility for making the world a better place after his best friend’s suicide as well as add meaning to a life he feels is falling apart. Namely, he wanted to acknowledge his role in helping to create his despair and reaching out to other alienated young people at risk. This process is, obviously, religiously motivated.

Disappointment and disgust are the words that come to mind when I think of this move. It could have been so much more than it was. Aside from what I thought was shoddy storytelling, the cliche Christian perspectives are fired into the audience with the force and repetitiveness of an automatic weapon. The kids who have found God were happy and stable, and those who have not were the suicidal, the drug users, the cutters, and whose who, damn it, just didn’t KNOW what Christ has to offer them. There is at least one Christian political message, and that is, predictably, on the subject of abortion. Abortion not only is the tragic taking of a human life, but oppressive to women. Women only seek out abortion because of force or coercion, and it is mainly men who are responsible for this. Without debating the merit of the movie’s position on abortion, the point is, this film comes off as hugely propagandistic.

Since when are self-professed Christians offended by Christian filmmaking?

As someone who strives to be open-minded, on both Christian and universal moral principle, I am offended by anything that claims that there is only one path to a meaningful life. I am offended by anything that tries to tell you who you really are, whether or not you are a true Christian, Jew, or member of any other faith because that is not up to them. As I said before,  such matters are primarily between you and God. You know your own heart better than anyone, and God knows it even better than you do.

What about my thoughts from a Christian viewpoint?

Christians who support abortion rights, favor sexual freedom, and who are liberal in general are hardly exceptional. The caricatures you see in this film are just that. They do no  represent all or even most real-life Christians. Plus, conservative Christians* who believe that their conservative beliefs hold exhalted status before God, and that those who question them aren’t real Christians, are acting on a shallow understanding of the Christian faith.**

My next criticism is from both a Christian and a movie-making standpoint. What separates genuine, moving spiritual journeys from shallow, insulting ones?

I couldn’t figure it out at first. At first I thought it might be emotion, but that can’t be it. Movies like “To Save a Life” pack in the sentiment to the point of melodrama.

Then I thought it was relevance. A common, often justified complaint about Christian media is that the people and situations are sterile. The characters are too perfect and the situations either not serious enough or too easily resovled for people to relate to. Another complaint is that it’s not relevent to most people because it is too formal and judgmental, i.e. not hip  enough for happenin’ believers.

We’re getting warmer. Admittedly, I’m not interested in watching fictional characters act as models for what I should be. I want to see real people with real feelings, real struggles, real questions, and yes, real sins. I want to see real accomplishments, not symbolic accomplishments that give you Christian street cred.

But there’s more to it than that. In an albeit unconvincing way, the movie tries desperately to tackle “tough stuff.” Teen pregnancy and abortion, drug use, suicide, and much more are covered here. And the Christians featured in this film are more than happenin’. The teenagers wear funky clothes and hair, curse, have a rock band, and a totally cool younger pastor.

So I went through the list and finally, I came to a conclusion that I found most unusual.

The answer was privacy.

The most genuine, moving spiritual experiences were those that occured in private.

Our deepest thoughts and feelings, both good and bad, as well as our deepest fears and desires, are rarely privy to others. It is over these sentiments that the most potent spiritual battles rage. Because these hidden sentiments compose your true self, transformations involving those sentiments are the most significant. Because these sentiments are those that only you and God can really understand, these private moments of reflection can cause us to feel profoundly isolated. It is during these times that we need God most to comfrt and guide us. This is an important part of how we grow.

The most important benefit of privacy during a spiritual experience, however, is freedom from exploitation.

People who pray and practice in private are doing so because they are experiencing genuine spiritual gains. Those who endure spiritual battles in private, again, are in a state of true conflict and don’t pimp it out for the world to see as proof of their strength of will. They are not like those to practice publicly to be seen and admired by others.

For the record, acting on your convictions very often WON’T get you the  praise you may be looking for. In movies and television, I see Christians get harshly judged initially for their choices but they eventually either get a small cheering section or rewarded handsomely in some way. In reality, acting on your convictions is well-known to result in you being feared, hated, and shunned. Sometimes you will be out-and-out abused. There is no guarantee that you will be rewarded in the next life, either. That’s another pitfall of being a person of conviction. Your lack of popularity will often lead to self-doubt that is both isolating and crippling. Now, I don’t want to see an onslaught of sob stories on modern-day martyrdom, but I do want to see some real consequences, including the self-doubt, to the decisions Christian characters make. Getting stared at in the hall and not going to prom don’t really do it for me. Experiences like that can certainly be painful, but they don’t shake the core of who you are. In a secular film about confidence, identity, and life pressures, material like that would suffice and could be used to great effect. Anything with a spiritual dimension, though, will require a lot more.

For those who believe that witnessing is a crucial part of being a Christian, I ask you this: what matters more, words or deeds? Your acts of goodness alone ARE a form of witnessing for your faith. Every time you do a good deed, the divine power that inspired it touches the recipient. Every time you do a good deed, you set an example as to what a Christian should be. Words are superfluous, and they may even offend God if they are too showy.

Granted, many recipients will not convert to Christianity or even consider it. This doesn’t bother me personally, because I don’t believe you need to view Jesus as the Son of God to be inspired by Him or by Christians. Be inspired simply by the people that they were. I’m not Hindu or Muslim, but I am very much inspired by those faiths and respect them as legitimate paths to God and their followers as righteous people.

Back to “To Save a Life,” it’s a shame really. So much could have been done with that material. But a good Christian doesn’t let trivial things like honesty, depth, faith, or even good storytelling get in the way of a few good slogans.

*Conservative Christian is defined here as someone who is both economically and sociall conservative and holds the positions considered typical of the Republical Party, i.e. opposition to gay rights, welfare, abortion.

**I make a distinction  between conservative Christians and conservatives who happen to be Christians. I do not argue that conservative beliefs aren’t ever Biblically justified. There are Christian conservatives who understand and accept alternative worldviews while holding fast to their  own. Conservative  Christians in my post are those who *cannot* accept others’ differences and who think they are above those they disagree with.

Sunday Sentiments: Feelings in Rhythm

Tags

literature, personal projects

As do a lot of people here, I’m sure, I write poetry. Here are two poems that I wrote a while ago that I felt like sharing.

Graveyard Shift

Radio comes on

Wake up to darkness

Even more tired now than when I went to sleep

Water streams down my face

Microwave chimes

Rush hour, cars galore

Doors slam, children yell

Not here, still as death

Street lamps filter

Through my window

Vision cloudy as in a dream

Turn  the key, engine starts

Minutes feel like hours

Punch in

Only a few people here

Such beautiful quiet

Click…click…click…done

Plop…plop…plop…punch out

Can’t remember driving home

Turn the key, door creaks

Dark and silent, still as death

Microwave chimes, TV drones

Out my window

Brilliant colors to the East

Lavender fills my living room

Armchair soft, heater humming

Sleeping dreamless

Radio on

Wake up to darkness

Even more tired now than when I went to sleep

*******************

Erased

The doctor said, “She has so much potential.”

I was handed a bottle

My parents were so proud

I walked down the isle

He shook my hand

I held my achievement in my hands

A summer later

I’m so afraid

I just don’t care

My life is going on without me

I spend my days

gazing in the windows

of people who  used to be me

Only phantom friends for company

Such good friends

So understanding

Always by my side

As I wander down the street

Night after night

To a chorus of stares

and “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s too bad.”

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Don’t I know you?”

Can’t you see?

One day was all it took

I couldn’t take it

I tossed the bottle

And took off the mask

And disappeared

One day

I used to be the one

Everyone sought out when  they had a problem

This was a problem, my life, that I could not solve

And just as quickly

Uneventfully

As you send the wrong answer to a math problem

Into oblivion

My problem

My life

Has been

Erased