Comment Policy
Offensive, harrassing or baiting comments will not be tolerated and will be deleted at my discretion.
Comment spam will be deleted.
Please leave a name and either a valid web-site or e-mail address with comments. Comments left without either a valid web-site or e-mail address may be deleted. Atom Feed LiveJournal SyndicationLOLcats feed
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Because Gay Men Have Bad Taste...
This article at AfterElton talks in rather broad terms about why, in most cases, films aimed at gay men are so bad. I really have a hard time disagreeing with the basic argument here: most gay films are really, really awful. But then, most films are really, really awful. Add to that the fact that gay films tend to be low-budget affairs, and it's really not surprising that they tend to be somewhat lacking. Further add to this that most gay films fall under the rubric of "independent films," a genre which tends to attract the pretentious, and it's surprising that any gay films are ever any good at all.
A good example of this is the film I watched last night, O Fantasma. This is a perfect example of the "Emperor has no clothes" principal as applied to independent film. The acting is terrible, the script is non-existent, and the film ends with the entire project disappearing up it's own sense of self-importance. Yet it was highly critically praised. Apparently all your average gay film-goer needs to be convinced that a film is brilliant is a few dick shots and an explicit hard-core sex scene or two. If you're ever tempted to watch it, just watch a Bel Ami film instead. At least the acting and script will be better in that.
There are a couple of things in the article which make me question the aesthetic of the author, however. He calls Adam & Steve disappointing. I thought it was pretty charming, and one of the better examples of the gay dating film genre. If nothing else, the fact that it's not about 20-something twinks who magically find a pure and everlasting love without any complications whatsoever (other than a sexy rival) puts it miles ahead of most of the "boyfriend" films. Eating Out is also cited as an example of a good gay film, and this is where the author totally loses me. Eating Out is a terrible, terrible film. Again, apparently a couple of full-frontal nudes, and in this case a soft-core sex scene, are all it takes to win over gay men. The "gay man falls in love with straight man" premise of the film is offensive, the film is incredibly misogynistic, the acting is horrible, every single character is thoroughly and completely unlikable and unsympathetic, and the stupid, annoying made-up slang drove me batty after five minutes. And there's apparently going to be a sequel.
It's films like this that sometimes make me glad that gay films don't more often play in my area.
One of the more baffling "wouldn't it be cool" games that fanboys and girls play is the "wouldn't it be cool if Superman and Wonder Woman got together? You know...in that way?" And no, no it wouldn't. Because both characters have far too much history and story elements built into their existing supporting cast and romantic subplots. Such a pairing just doesn't fit the tone for either character. But that's a rant for another day.
In this instance, as her plane plummets to Earth, Wonder Woman's most recent vision is of how her life would be different if, somehow, Superman had crashed into the waters off Paradise Island. Weakened by a cloud of kryptonite dust or something, I guess.
Dispensing with the rather silly gold and crystal carpets, Kal-El simply floats all the time as he recovers on Paradise Island and makes googly eyes at Diana. Disturbingly, there's a really uncomfortable element of ubermenschen to their courtship.
They have a small service in Metropolis so that all of Superman's friends can attend. Apparently none of Diana's relations are invited to this ceremony, despite the fact that Hippolyta approves of the pairing this go-around. And even though this is Wonder Woman's book, Superman's supporting players manage to remain in character.
Yep, Perry's an ass and Jimmy's an idiot.
Things get off to a promising start. I mean, what could possibly go wrong in a relationship where both partners have demanding, high pressure occupations?
Excuse me? Too dangerous? Who was it who saved your alien ass from drowning again?
An errant splash of lava from an exploding volcano results in the closest thing to fan service this book gets.
Creepy exhibistionistic super-sex. Ew.
Proving that Clark's supporting cast really are dumb as fence-posts, no one notices that Superman and Clark both got married to statuesque brunettes at the same time. And both Clark and his new wife have a habit of rushing off whenever there's a crisis. The Daily Planet is really a terrible paper, isn't it?
Why do I get the feeling that dressing isn't the only time Clark's worried about "saving time?" It would explain the disgruntled expression.
Ultimately, the pressure of the relationship proves to be too much for both of them. They never see each other, and when they do see each other they spend all their time bickering over never seeing each other. At least there were no little super-children to be traumatized by the dysfunction that settles into the relationship before it reaches it's only logical conclusion.
Of course she goes back home to her mother. It wouldn't be a soapy melodrama without one last little cliche, now would it?
Diana manages to wake up and avoid crashing her plane, but she's rather disturbed by the vividness and unhappy nature of all these visions she's been having. She gets some sound advice from other Amazons, and a comforting call from Steve before, you guessed it, passing out again.
Really? You wonder if the Sandman might have anything to do with this? The "Master of the Dream Dimension" who has been spying on you, involved somehow? Who'da thunk it?
Tomorrow, someone's fetish is realized as we discover the fate of the Feminazi Wonder Woman.
It would figure. The week I don't have a pay-check incoming, the week after the week I paid all my bills, both Alan Moore's Lost Girls and the Horrorclix brick I pre-ordered ship.
(I'm the only person on the planet buying both of those things, aren't I?)
And next month Pete's birthday, a Scissor Sisters concert in L.A., and the start of the new school semester for Pete all fall on the same day as well.
Wonder Woman again dreams of what her life would have been like if the events leading up to Steve Trevor crashing his plane had gone differently. This time Diana dreams of what would have happened if someone other than good old Steve had been a lousy pilot. Meet Trevor Stevens.
I wonder if this is Diana's subconscious letting her know something about Steve she won't admit.
Trevor's a bit...different than Steve. For one thing, he lacks even the basic sense of tact and courtesy that Steve possesses. I know, it's hard to imagine. But just look at the marvelous first impression he makes on Queen Hippolyta.
Oh no he didn't!
Damn! Polly got so pissed she came out of the panel!
It's hard to see exactly what Diana sees in Trevor, but somehow he managed to successfully get her to fall for him. This really doesn't say much for Diana's taste in men, that even in her fantasies she ends up with jerks.
Can you tell this was written in the eighties?
In this little drama, Diana didn't even bother going through with the contest, apparently. She just grabbed the outfit and the lasso and makes plans to take off with Trevor.
Cue Diana taking her plane underwater to recover a box that went down with Trevor's plane. He's oddly insistent that she get the "long, airtight box" out of the wreckage. But Diana's so besotted with him she barely notices. She barely notices the Amazonian armada bearing down on them as they surface until she flies right through it, wrecking ships and severely endangering her sister Amazons.
Cripes, woman, get a clue. The guy's congratulating you for nearly killing people. This is not a blissful "mmm" inducing moment, here!
Diana and Trevor head back to Man's World, Miami International Airport to be specific. Trevor's none too pleased to find a reception waiting for him (how did they know?), though Diana's naivete about the crowd around them is a nice echo back to her original arrival in America.
Turns out Trevor's just a common thief, and that airtight box contained a prototype disintegrator. Which he then uses to kill all those cops that greeted them at the airport. Yeah, Diana picked a real winner there.
As glad as I am that Diana finally got a clue, I'm horrified that it took her this long.
It's hard to believe that Diana managed to fall in love with the one guy who's even more of a chauvinistic jerk than Steve Trevor.
Wonder Woman wakes from her latest dream to see the shadow creature that's been plaguing her hanging around. It runs away before she can fight it, so to settle her mind she decides to hand-deliver some of her wedding invitations to her co-workers.
Diana, the correct response is "Stop being such an egotistical ass, Clark.
Diana starts to think in far more detail than she probably should about Clark's love-life as she flies back to Earth...only to fall asleep again. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure narcoleptic Amazons should be flying invisible stealth jets in the first place.
Tomorrow, the dreams of lots of creepy fanboys is made manifest, as Diana discovers what her life would be like if she married Superman.
Yeah. You just know that's not going to end well...
Even though I (thankfully) no longer work in comic retail 24/7, I still keep my hand in and assist my former employer with the manga orders. I really try my best to maintain as diverse and full a stock of new titles as possible, and research new titles as they're solicited as much as I can. But I don't have an unlimited budget and manga is not the focus of the business, so cuts and exceptions have to be made. Occasionally I screw up. I never ordered any of the Project X books, for example, because I couldn't imagine anyone possibly wanting to read a comic about the history of Cup Noodles. And then it became a hit with the discerning manga blogerati.
I've got a pretty good grasp, otherwise, about what does and does not sell to our customers. Manga novels don't sell. Sports manga don't sell. So-called "global manga" titles don't sell. A few Korean titles will sell every once in awhile, but the "original English language" stuff is almost always dead on arrival. So I keep in mind the types of material customers won't buy at the store when I set the order numbers.
But a great way to keep orders down on certain titles, or entire lines, is to pull stupid, un-friendly to comics retailer moves. I've been very impressed with Go Comi's line of books, particularly their production values. But I won't order any of their titles that have been Borders exclusives. Why should I? Anyone who wants them has already had four or five months to buy them at Borders. We haven't carried anything from Net Comics either, because, as I said earlier, Korean comics tend to be a tough sell with our customers and they solicited something like twelve first volumes their first month in existence. That was simply too much at once on unknown properties from a new publisher. I may start ordering some of their material, now that I've had a chance to see it for myself elsewhere, but I have no regrets for not letting them flood our shelves early on.
And now I have to decide what to do, if anything, about Tokyopop. I'm extraordinarily upset about this latest move of theirs. They've always been a bit of a nuisance to deal with, from an ordering and budgeting angle. They put out too much at once, their section in Previews is a mess, and now doesn't even include descriptions for anything more than one or two volumes old, and their production values are somewhat lacking in comparison to almost all their still in business competitors.
My first impulse, honestly, is to simply stop ordering any Tokyopop titles outside of what we need to fill pull-lists. Why should I take a chance on ordering a new series from Tokyopop if, two or three volumes later, they might decide that it isn't selling what they think it should be and make it an online exclusive item? Why should I attempt to build an audience for a title in the store if Tokyopop could decide that they'd rather cut out the middle-man and sell the title direct themselves? And what do I tell customers already buying a title when Tokyopop decides to take it exclusive?
I'll probably have to talk with the rest of the people who work at and operate the store before I come to a final conclusion, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone is going to have an opinion about what to do that's far different from my first impulse. Tokyopop really did a lot to usher in the current manga marketplace in the U.S., but their actions since then have been frustrating and baffling and have burnt out a lot of people's goodwill towards the company.
When last we left Diana, she had just fallen asleep in the throne room on Paradise Island. In her dreams, her mind drifts back to the day that she first met Steve Trevor, when he crashed his plane into the waters off the coast of the island.
A romance quickly develops between Steve and Diana as she nurses him back to health, much to Hippolyta's annoyance. She declares that as soon as Steve is healthy, he must return to Man's World, and a contest is held to determine which of the Amazons is most worthy of the honor of escorting the uninvited guest that no one really wants there in the first place back to where he came from.
It's a sequence we all know and love, with Diana of course beating out all other competitors. But, what's this? Heretofore unrevealed romantic complications as Diana's friend Mala reveals that she, too, is in love with Steve?
Diana shows her usual tact and sensitivity and makes time with Steve until it's time to leave.
Wait, he hasn't even bothered to learn her name after all this time? Cripes.
Hippolyta, distraught over the prospect of losing her daughter to Man's World, consults the patrons of the Amazons about what she can do to keep Diana in Paradise. Very little, it turns out, as "love must conquer" and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Unless, of course, there's a more vital role that Diana could fulfill than ambassador to the outside world...
Oh, dear...does that mean...
Steve isn't really very quick on the uptake, is he?
Steve really isn't very quick on the uptake, is he? How many hints can Diana possibly drop? "Everybody whose girlfriend's mother is still alive, raise their hand! Not so fast, Steve..."
Eventually Steve figures out what Diana is talking about. He's a bit put out that she won't be taking him back home, and not terribly taken with his consolation prize, an escort with Mala, runner-up in the contest and the understudy Wonder Woman.
See, redheads look good in the outfit. That explains Artemis, a little.
And he finally learns her name. And the healing begins, as he doesn't entirely shoot Mala's suggestion down.
Steve and Mala head to the United States, and Diana does her duty to her people and her gods and takes the throne in her mother's absence, shedding a single, solitary tear as she mourns the loss of the life she could have led with a chauvinist who'd barely have time for her.
It's very reminiscent of high romance tales of chivalrous love, where duty separates the lovers. Except that the guy is a total tool.
Diana awakens from her dream and goes to talk over her disturbing vision with her mother. Hippolyta's not particularly helpful, revealing that, actually, she almost did just what Diana dreamed she'd do, but changed her mind at the last minute. I guess Polly was more committed to letting her daughter make her own mistakes than we thought. Diana also talks about the Sandman's recent visits, and mother and daughter both agree that the guy's kind of a creep. To cheer her up, Polly suggests that Diana go and check and see how plans for the wedding are proceeding.
Putting the men in their place? That's putting a bit of a fine point on Marston's intent with the character, isn't it?
That's right Diana, it's utterly impossible for women to be sexist. Or racist. Or homophobic.
Tomorrow, Wonder Woman learns what her life would have been like if a different man had come to Paradise Island. Meet Trevor Stevens...
I love these threads when they pop up, with appalling regularity, on message boards. You can pretty much run down the usual list of "ways to lower prices" that are always offered. Increase the page count (because publishers would get a better deal per page that way...what?), lower the paper quality, increase the number of ads, pay artists and writers less, reduce staff at the publisher to lower over-head...
Lowering the paper quality is my personal favorite, because it completely ignores the fact that paper prices are actually fairly high across the board. And printing comics on lousy paper would have such a minimal effect on final price that it really isn't worth considering. Especially when lower paper quality would more likely than not lead to readers complaining about the terrible paper quality.
Funnily enough, what I almost never see mentioned in these threads is that one of the reasons for "high" comic prices (and I put that in irony-quotes because it's entirely possible that comics are actually priced too low to really be profitable in their current format, but no one really wants to have that conversation) is the very small audience for monthly pamphlet-format comics. You can charge more for a niche-market specialty item, because the intended audience is willing to pay the price.
I also find the notion that increased comic sales would lead to lower prices touchingly naive. Because, let's face, if you can sell 100,000 units at $3 a pop, and then you increase demand so that next month you sell 200,000 units at $3 a pop, where's the incentive to lower prices?
Because, you see, he's once or twice had characters make jokes about some of the sillier tropes of the genre. Most of which actually made sense in the context of the story being told. But, you know, context and common sense are strangers in the lands of comic book message boards.
I can't really extract any choice quotes because, honestly, there's no point. I've said it before, and it's worth repeating, but if you read a Grant Morrison comic and somehow come away with the idea that he hates super-heroes, I'm sorry, but you simply are not a good reader, because you've grossly misunderstood the point. Morrison loves super-heroes. Almost his entire output as a comics writer has been a celebration of the genre. Zenith, Animal Man, JLA, Marvel Boy, Seaguy, All Star Superman, they're all love letters to the idea of gloriously gaudy men and women in tights having weird adventures. Hell, Flex Mentallo alone is a pretty definitive statement on the transformative joy of super-hero comics.
Now, if you want to talk about writers who hate super-heroes, I can give you that list. Pat Mills. Garth Ennis. Warren Ellis. Heck, Nextwave is almost a treatise on stripping down the super-hero genre to it's stupidest and basest cliches. That it's been embraced by so many fans of the Marvel angst school of comics writing makes me wonder if everyone's in on the joke.
To be honest, I've not played more than one or two of the games cited. I do have to say, however, that I object to Tingle being named as the "gayest character" in video games. Tingle isn't gay. Tingle is just infuriatingly annoying. We're not going to claim him. He can sit out in the "too friggin' weird to be gay" hall with Tom Cruise.
I like that Bertram from Temple of Elemental Evil made the list, as I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a gay romantic subplot in the game. It was a nice gesture for those of us who play RPG style games to have a romance story in-game that wasn't heterosexual. They mention Fable as well, and while I did enjoy that game, I was disappointed in the limited nature of the much vaunted "customization" in the game. Being able to woo and marry men was a nice touch (though it made finishing the brothel sub-quest while remaining a Kinsey 6 tough), though the heteronormative labeling of your partners "wives" was annoying. No shout-outs for Sims or Sims 2, though, which I found interesting, as those were really the first games I can think of whose open-ended nature allowed for gay characters.
The 300th issue of Wonder Woman is a very special anniversary issue. Not only do we get an in-continuity marriage between Diana and Steve Trevor, we also get to see several "What If?"-type scenarios, in which Diana learns what her life would have been like if the events leading up to Steve crashing his plane into the coast off of Paradise Island and Diana accompanying him to Man's World had gone a little bit differently. But first, the set-up:
Diana has been having trouble sleeping, and lately a shadowy, intangible creature has been attacking her. After the most recent attack, she succeeds in driving it away, but only after the Sandman jumps to her aid from the Dream Dimension. It seems he's been keeping a close eye on her, in a not-at-all-creepy, sort-of stalker-ish way. Classy guy that he is, he tells her to dump her man if he's causing her stress.
After politely telling him to pack himself back off to Jerkland, Diana heads to work:
This panel doesn't really add anything to the story, I just thought that guy's thought balloon was funny...
At the Pentagon, Diana and gal-pal Etta Candy are called into a meeting with Col. Trevor and General Darnell to announce that Diana is being given a promotion. She's now, effectively, equal in rank to Steve. Everyone is excited about Diana finally being given the recognition she deserves for her years of hard work, including, apparently, doing most of Steve's job for him. Everyone except Steve, of course. The jerk.
"To be honest, I always thought of you as a sexless automaton that would pick up the slack at work while I go get busy with Wonder Woman. Hey, why are you leaving?"
Wonder Woman flies off in a snit, only to be once again attacked by the shadow creature. She's saved this time by her counter-part from Earth-2. Because, somehow, in the process of fighting the shadow creature, Diana crossed the dimensional barrier into Earth-2. Hey, that sort of thing happened before the Crisis. In any case, Diana takes Diana home, to help her work out her annoyance with her job and her man. It's there that Diana sees how happy Diana and Steve are now that they're married and meets their daughter, Lyta.
Look at Steve's face. You just know he's a minute or two away from proposing a three-way. "But, honey, it's not like I'd be having sex with another woman!"
Earth-2 Diana: "Whore." Earth-1 Diana: "Bitch." Steve Trevor: "Ladies, there's plenty of me to go around! Say, did I mention that it's not technically cheating?"
Diana returns to her own Earth, and decides that after seeing how "happy" Diana and Steve are on Earth-2, she tells Steve that she will, finally, agree to marry him. Wedding preparations are begun on Paradise Island (including devising a way for the groom to actually stand on the island for the ceremony), but the wedding is put off until after Steve, Etta and Diana Prince travel to a conference in Mexico. Diana's still not sure what to do about the whole secret identity thing, when the discovery of a bomb in the briefcase handcuffed to Diana gives her a tidy little solution.
A very low-key memorial service is held, and no one except her friends from work show up. Steve is too over-come by emotion to say anything, but Wonder Woman does manage to make it in the nick of time to deliver a stirring eulogy. After everyone leaves, Diana is left alone when the Sandman shows up again. He's still watching her, and in an effort to put her at ease, he relates to her his startling secret origin as a military scientist studying dreams and how to view and enter them. "Healthy young men, after all, often have sexual dreams which tend toward the explicit" he's sure to tell her. Because that's not creepy at all. She's not too thrilled to discover he knows the secret of her double identity as well.
After politely brushing him off, again, the Sandman leaves, but not before confessing his voyeuristic love for her.
Really, a threat? And he seemed so normal and well-adjusted up until now, did he?
Alone again, Diana finally manages to get some sleep, and sees a vision of what her life would have been like if her mother had found a way to keep her on Paradise Island. That will be in Part Two, tomorrow.
The Brave and the Bold brings us yet another example of something we never see Batman doing anymore: skiing.
Green Arrow gets in on the Alpine action as well. In his usually petty manner, he just has to try and upstage Bruce. No hands, while firing a bow. Show-off.
Interestingly enough, Two Face can't ski. Or at least not very well.
This issue also features a guest appearance by the very rare "Green Arrow Brand Inflatable Love DollTM."
Atom Feed
