It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's an Overanalysis of Man of Steel!

So today’s blog is about Man of Steel. It doesn’t contain spoilers, as such, but if you haven’t seen it and you want to go in without my opinions bouncing around your head, maybe save reading this for later. Alternatively, my opinions are pretty good, so definitely take that into consideration.

The problem with overanalysing this film is that I decided to do so ten minutes into it, and also I’ve only seen it once. When I did Mulan last week, I stopped and started it, took screenshots, and wrote notes. Not having that luxury yesterday, I mostly spent the film leaning over to Boyfriend and making “witty” comments in an attempt to remember them. I’m sure this really enhanced his viewing experience. It certainly improved mine.

Here’s what you need to know about Man of Steel: it’s not a Superman movie. “Oh but Lizzy!” you cry, “I’ve seen the trailer, I’ve seen the poster, it has a dude in blue and red punching the air while flying. He has a cape. I know what is what.” Yeah, well, sure it has Superman themes and ideas but because the film focuses on Superman’s origin story, it’s actually an alien movie. More than that, it’s an alien invasion movie. . It follows a bunch of the same tropes as other alien invasion films, the first act of the movie is set on Krypton and there’s a bunch of dudes in suits talking about the importance of protecting earth. I love alien movies that are set in America. They always vaguely reference how other countries react (usually in front of well-known landmarks), but it still comes down to the CIA or FBI to sort that shit out.

...and this guy

The aliens look exactly like humans, except they have cooler clothes. Kryptonians are big on skintight suits and armour, and after seeing the film; I must admit I’m a convert. What a badass way to dress. We should all incorporate a little more armour into our wardrobes. But I’m less inclined to adopt their architecture… the major theme of which is genitalia. I know I’m not alone in thinking this because Boyfriend definitely nodded at one point when I whispered “are they living in a giant penis?” And when a bunch of Kryptonians got incarcerated in sarcophagi-like things, Boyfriend said, “You’ve been sentenced to dildo prison, sorry”. Given that a large part of the film is about how babies are made, and (SPOILERS, select to read) how great it would be to make them on the ashes of earth, the phalluses are more than a little off putting.

                                                                             

Now, I must come clean here and say that my Superman knowledge is limited. In fact, all of it comes from the TV show Smallville (please, don’t judge me). Perhaps I’m not the best person for this job, but hey, I’m the boss at Hum Drum Plum and I just seemed like I had a good head on my shoulders, I gave me a shot despite my initial misgivings. My Smallville watching did prep me for noticing the little references to the Superman source material. I particularly enjoyed that lots of trucks and buildings are branded with “LexCorp”. Also Clark lives in a town called Smallville and the nearby city is called Metropolis. Look, I understand the metaphorical nature of these place names but they are kind of awkward in the context of serious film called Man of Steel.

but 100% fine on the show that thought this was a good promo image

Speaking of Metropolis, you know that scene in The Avengers where they fight in New York? It’s a great, action packed ending but I spent most of it being distracted by the overwhelming concern that they were breaking New York. Yeah, well if you felt anything similar while watching that film, be prepared to be weeping for humanity as you watch Man of Steel. Sure, Metropolis is a metaphor for some other city (not New York, as Boyfriend reliably informed me, Gotham is New York), but they BREAK IT INTO A THOUSAND PIECES. I don’t think it’s spoilers to say that the day gets saved (it’s a Superman/alien film after all), but an entire city gets smashed up in order to do it. What are the repercussions of this? The American economy would be significantly effected, hundreds of thousands of people would be refugees, there’d be disease, crime, looting. How could they begin to rebuild? Would Clark Kent be held accountable? Where the hell is the Daily Planet situated now given that the entire city just burnt to the ground? These are the important questions people. I have no doubt there will be a sequel, and I really hope that the writers and directors endeavour to answer my questions in due time. I am confident they read my blog religiously.

What did you think about Man of Steel? Got some shit to say? I am happy to provide you with a platform to do so here in the comments, on facebook and on twitter. Get involved!

I'll Make a Man Out of You - Overanalysing Disney's Mulan

So it begins, after having a small crisis about what I’m doing with this blog, I’ve decided to overanalyse stuff on a regular-ish basis. After a vote on the facebook page, the people have spoken, and today’s film for brutal decimation rigorous discussion is Disney’s Mulan. If you haven’t seen it, or if it’s been a while, the basic plot is this: 

Ancient China. Mulan steals her dad’s armour and pretends to be a dude called Ping in order to join the army in her father’s place. She trains with men, “assisted” by a small dragon, Mushu and a cricket (because Disney) and goes to war. She saves the day, but is revealed as a woman, so she is scorned and kicked out of the army. But she is the only one who knows the Hun are still coming! So she saves the friggin day AGAIN and then goes home to her family. It is implied that the handsome commander man who has thus far been a dick to her marries her. The end.

I liked Mulan as a kid. I really did. I was a tomboy, and I liked the idea of a Disney Princess who did her own dirty work. No one saves Mulan, she does it all herself. She wields a sword, rides a horse, sings good songs and is quite funny. The film came out when I was 10, and I can say with absolute certainty that I admired her. In many ways I still do, but having watched the film twice this year, one of those times being this morning, I have a few bones to pick with Disney.

First of all, who approved the racism? A number of the artists working on the animation are Asian or of Asian decent, a number of the voice actors are Asian Americans. George Fucking Takei is in this film. I cannot believe that not a single one of them was like “uhhh… guys?” at some point. But nope, Disney you just went right ahead with cringe worthy racial stereotypes and shitting all over Chinese religious practises.

"A single grain of rice can tip the scale" - geez thanks Confucius, I mean Emperor

This is nothing to the fact that the basic premise of this film is “even Asians think all Asians look alike to the point where they don’t notice a girl dressed in her dad’s armour.” Raaaaaacism.

Ok, so I think we can all accept that Mulan isn’t exactly racially sensitive. In fact, it’s pretty well known that Disney regularly shits all over “other” cultures. May we never forget Pocahontas. But at least Mulan is a better role model for girls than the other princesses, right? Finally we have a female protagonist who looks after herself, who beats people up, who isn’t a damsel? Lizzy, I can practically hear you thinking, please don’t ruin this film by going on a feminist rant. Well, first of all, you’re in the wrong place my friend, and second of all, I am a big advocate for enjoying things in spite of the fact that they may be ‘problematic’. Given that I feel more knowledgeable and more comfortable talking about sexism rather than racism... 

Yeah. I’m about to tear Mulan to shreds.

In the matchmaker scene, Mulan is meant to be all demure and a “good woman” in order to impress the match maker (Miriam Margoyles by the way! Omg!). If impressed, the matchmaker will set Mulan up with a nice husband and she’ll “bring honour to us all”.  But it goes horribly wrong. In a rather hilarious, Disney style way. Stuff breaks, things spill, there’s a fire… it's fun for the whole family. But it doesn’t go wrong because Mulan isn’t a good woman, it goes wrong because the cricket Mulan’s grandma shoved up her dress gets out and causes a fire on the matchmaker’s butt. I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here Disney. In my memory, I always thought Mulan was too tomboyish and adventurous to be a good, little demure woman. But in reality the problem is that she has a crazy grandma who shoves insects in people’s clothes? WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE? I’M SO CONFUSED.

In fact most of the things that go wrong in this movie aren’t Mulan’s fault.  When she first arrives at training camp she gets blamed for a brawl that her dragon friend, Mushu, started, she is then singled out for the rest of the training montage.  The other soldiers sabotage her at every turn, putting scorpions down her shirt, tripping her, throwing rocks at her… you know generally being jerks. Once she’s left alone, she works hard and is the only one to climb to the top of the pole and retrieve the arrow. And then she suddenly gets good at all the other stuff. Except that’s not it, is it? She always had the potential but she was just being held back by jerks who didn’t think she could do it. I know they don’t know she’s a girl but um this looks EXACTLY LIKE INSTITUTIONALISED MYSOGINY.

So anyway, she goes on to be the best at army and they set off to defeat the Hun. Mulan uses her cleverness to save them all during a battle and in particular, saves Shang, the guy in charge who she has a slight crush on, from certain falling-off-a-giant-cliff-death. Unfortunately, she gets injured, and when they are patching her up, they discover boobs!

I am not kidding, the music literally goes "Dun Dun Dunnnn" at this moment.

So even though she’s awesome (and also quite injured by the way), she gets thrown to the ground and Cunning, Sneaky Administrator says, “I knew there was something wrong with you! A woman!! Treacherous snake! High treason! Ultimate dishonour!” Are we talking about impersonating a man here dude, or just being a lady in general, I’m not 100% sure. Sexy Shang doesn’t kill her (so generous!) because he owes her his life, but they leave her in the snow. While watching this I made the following note: 

Hello you just saved all our lives and were gravely injured in the attempt. But unfortunately, you have boobs, so we’re going to leave you to freeze to death, bye!

Of course that’s when Mulan realises that the Hun are, somehow, impervious to snow? I don’t know, she destroyed them all with a giant avalanche but even though some of them are shirtless, this seems to have no effect, and they go off on their quest to destroy the Emperor some more. Being the only person who knows this, Mulan heads off to tell everyone. Of course, Sexy Shang doesn’t care that she has vitally important information, only that she insists on still being a girl. “You said you’d trust Ping, why is Mulan any different?” God Mulan, haven’t you got it yet, it’s because of your treacherous anatomy!

It’s all ok though, because Mulan saves the day yet again. And this time, she does it wearing a dress. She’s not the only one either. Three of the men dress as concubines for no real reason to distract the guards. Of course, only the comedic male characters dress as women, not the heroic love interest, because dressing as a woman is both shameful and comedic. Yay. The Emperor is super duper grateful and offers Mulan a place on his council. She turns it down though, because she misses home. Sexy Shang follows her because all of a sudden he’s decided he’s in love with the woman he has been cruel to since the moment he discovered she wasn’t a dude named Ping.

I think what’s most upsetting about Mulan is that it presents as a feminist Disney film. Or at least, it promises a strong female lead, a complex interesting person who is looking for more than just Prince Charming. But it ultimately disappoints, because there’s no real challenge of any status quo. She could only do all those amazing things by being a man, and the second she was found out, she was despised. Mulan marries the handsome man even though he was a dick to her because… why? Because Disney films don’t seem to be able to conceive of a woman who doesn’t want to get married. She can’t just be happy because you know… she saved China, she also has to get a husband, otherwise she’ll be unfulfilled.

Which is exactly how I feel after saving large Asian countries too.

If you liked this, please tell me about it! You can click the reaction buttons below, or write a comment, or like and comment on Facebook. Also available below are sharing buttons: if you liked this, your friends might too. Or they might not. Maybe you are really different to your friends, maybe you struggle to relate to anyone. Maybe you don't have any friends. Oh god I'm sorry... I'm not very good at this. 

Help! I need somebody!

Readers, bloggeroos, lovers. Whatever it is you’re called… I need your help.

not just anybody...

You may have noticed (you probably haven’t, I’m probably being paranoid) that my blog has been coming to you later and later every week. Sometimes it doesn’t reach you until Mondays. Also, and I know I probably am just being paranoid now, but you may have noticed the quality is getting shittier too. The truth is, my friends, that blogging is getting harder and harder for me. It’s not that I don’t have the time, it’s not even that I don’t like it (I love it), it’s that it feels like there is some inspiration box of ideas in my head, and at the moment we’re down to a paperclip, two bits of fluff and the last bit of scrunched up paper that says, “write a blog about how you’ve run out of ideas”.

I know, in my heart, that this isn’t true. Inspiration doesn’t work like that, there aren’t a finite number of ideas and I haven’t used all mine up already. If I had, I’d probably be dead. But I do think that writing once a week means that good ideas, great blog posts seem to be few and far between. They swim in a sea of posts about my own, little life. My most popular posts are ones that aren’t about me. You guys love reading about Disney, Translink, Harry Potter and growing up. Obviously, I always write from my own perspective, and my own experience, but I understand why the more relatable posts aren’t ones exclusively about my life. My life just isn’t that interesting. On the other hand, I’m sure you guys can understand why I do often write about myself. When casting around for inspiration, it’s much easier to stop in my own living room, or in my own head.

I am a big believer in quantity. Obviously, quality is very important (and it’s why I’m having this freak out), but I really do believe that making myself write a blog every week has made me a better writer. If I were to just write whenever the fancy took me, I would never write at all. You can’t just sit around waiting for inspiration to hit, because it won’t. That’s a fallacy. For me, anyway, there’s no creativity phone and you can’t just sit around waiting for it to ring. You’ve got to pick it up, punch in numbers randomly until you find something worth talking to. Maybe inspiration just comes for some people, but I have to push for it, and more often than not I write without it. And making myself write regularly has made me *find* inspiration, and that’s great. But even still, I feel like I’ve been pushing too hard lately, like I’ve damaged the part of my brain that comes up with ideas.

So I’m completely conflicted. A part of me wants to stop blogging for a while. Give my brain a rest and try to let ideas come to me later. Another part of me thinks that’s stupid; I should keep at it, because keeping at it for the last year or so is what has made me better. I think maybe the answer is that I need to switch it up. I need to get a new style, a new project, maybe even a new blog. My big idea at the moment is to pursue an “overanalysing” theme. I really enjoy doing those kinds of blogs, and people seem to like them. So I’m wondering if I should just throw myself in to *only* doing those kinds of things for a while. You know, watching and ripping apart Disney films, other kids movies, TV shows, stuff I haven’t seen before… etc.

And this is where you come in. I write for you guys, so I want to know what you think. I’ve made up a very quick survey and it would be amazing if you could do it. I estimate it will take you no more than a couple of minutes, and it just covers a few questions about who you are, why you read this blog and what you’d like to see in the future. If you could please take a few moments to do this for me, I will love you all 5eva. 

This is the link to the survey, please help!

Overanalysing Harry Potter

... well it’s worked for me once, why not try again?

Overanalysing TV, books, movies etc. is one of my all-time favourite pastimes. I respect that for some people, this is classified as “ruining”, but for me it is a true expression of my own enjoyment of a text. Now, I’m sure you guys will be stunned to hear this, but I’m currently re-reading the Harry Potter series. I’m about a third of the way through the Chamber of Secrets and already my brain is buzzing with some of the big questions. Please keep in mind that I am analysing from an ‘in-universe’ perspective, that is, I am looking for answers in the stories as if they are for real, and making assumptions where there are gaps. I am not suggesting that J.K. Rowling has any flaws whatsoever, because she is a perfect human being.

Why are all Slytherins jerks? I mean I’m not sure that we ever get a fair representation of them, given that we usually see them from Harry’s perspective, and Harry’s first encounter with Slytherins is Draco, who sucks at being a human. Harry then sees all things Slytherin though this lens, and understandably, that house is tainted with a whole lot of bad shit. But there is no real evidence to suggest this perspective is wrong. Even Slughorn, who is mostly harmless, is kind of a dick. He’s cowardly, insensitive, prejudiced against muggleborns in a really dangerously subtle way. And of course there’s Snape, hero, double agent, eternal sufferer; surely he bucks the trend? No, he’s still a douche and besides, Dumbledore himself says that Snape’s good qualities suggest that Hogwarts “sorts too soon”. That is to say, that Snape perhaps never belonged in Slytherin to begin with.

So I propose one of two answers to this conundrum. Either 1. Slytheriness is hereditary or ingrained or 2. Sorting people into Slytherin makes them douches. I’m inclined to go with option 2, because it seems to me that there can’t be four kinds of people in the wizarding world, but segregating children, bringing them up with four limited world views *creates* four kinds of people. I hope that some time in the future, Hogwarts thinks about reviewing the sorting process. I know that houses are a big part of their history, and that tradition is important, but I would suggest that certain dark traits could be gently discouraged and harmony and cooperation better achieved without this archaic practise.

Where the flip does all the food come from? We know that food is the first of the five principal exceptions to Gamp’s law of Elemental Transfiguration. Right? You guys all knew that right? Basically, you can’t make food out of thin air. Other exceptions likely include money or precious stones and other wealth. This makes sense, if you could conjure that shit up, there’d be pretty much no need for economy or education or like… anything. If you could sit around making food and money all day, you’d never leave the house. BUT we do know that you can summon food from elsewhere if you know where it is: we know that House Elf magic can teleport food between say, the kitchens and the Great Hall. You can also make more of it if you’ve got some already. So presumably, if you had to feed 100 people, you could make a couple of yummy dishes and then just multiply them, or make them bigger. But this isn’t my question, my question is, where does that original food come from?

Are there wizard farms? Wizard grocery stores? Wizard farmers’ markets? Would you become a primary producer if you could be an auror instead? Would you farm the land if you could be the Knight Bus inspector? I feel like there are probably speciality food producers, the kind of people who make magic sweets and chocolate frogs and stuff, but who is growing the corn? I guess the answer is probably muggles. While most witches and wizards would not be able to cope with muggle money and muggle shops, there are probably some who are savvy enough to buy from muggle suppliers and then use Geminio or something and sell it all at a hefty profit.

I was having this discussion on facebook and my friend Blake made the rather amusing suggestion that some pure blood families wouldn’t like this idea, and that there are “muggle-free” ranges that can be purchased by those not wanting their food tainted by non-magical hands. I like to think the shop owners would have to be pretty subtle about this, to avoid being condemned as muggle-haters. I bet the labels say things like “mud free” and “pure bread”.

 Can I go to magic school? I mean, no I can’t, because I’m 24 and a muggle, but where do Australian witches and wizards go? Where do all the non-British, non-French, non-criminal wizards go (sorry Drumstrang, but let’s be real). There’s reference to the Salam Witches Institute, but that seems to be for grown-up witches in America and Bill had that Brazilian pen-pal. I just want to knooooow. I bet the Australian school is somewhere in the outback, and the kids get to it on the magical equivalent of a Greyhound bus. I think magical and non-magical Indigenous people lived together in harmony before Europeans came and mucked it all up. The school would be underground maybe, and Quidditch would be played in the dust and the haze. Mail would be delivered by Tawny Frog-Mouths and Care of Magical Creature class would be even more dangerous than at Hogwarts. In short, it would be awesome.

Incidentally, if J.K. ever felt like releasing An Appraisal of MagicalEducation in Europe like she did with Quidditch through the Ages and The Tales of Beedle the Bard I would be all over that shit in a heartbeat. 

Hey you guys guess where today's blogspiration came from...