Leslie Knope: My Favorite Feminist

NBC's Parks and Recreation returned recently to not nearly enough fanfare. It's one of the smartest shows on TV, and has been consistently good, after a rocky start, since the beginning of the second season. The entire cast is brilliant in their specific roles (Rashida Jones doesn't get enough love because she's playing the straight man to the wackiness of everyone else) and I honestly feel like the one loose end is now gone, with um... that dude... leaving. Brandanowitz. Or however that's spelled.

But the main reason I love this show is Leslie Knope. Leslie isn't like any of the other comedic leading ladies I've come to know in my life, except for one who I have vague memories of (more on that in a bit). Leslie is a feminist, and she wouldn't deny it if you said it.

Back in the nineties (remember those?) when "girl power" started floating around as a new term, and people were talking about new wave/fourth wave versions of feminism, they'd start talking about characters like Ally McBeal and Xena. More modern example are Liz Lemon or Starbuck.

Now, I remember Murphy Brown. Vaguely. I remember her journey through the male-heavy world of the news, and I remember the single mom kerfluffle when she became, well. A single mom. But I was ten. And a lot has changed in twenty years.

Right?

Well, supposedly.

See, if you call Liz Lemon a feminist, she'll probably crack a joke, freak out, then by the end of the show go on a rant about how feminism is great, it doesn't mean she's a lesbian, and she has a boyfriend, thank you very much. It's a mixed message, with a bit of what we need (a strong woman standing up for herself) and a bit of what we don't (the association of feminism with lesbianism, and the implication that both things are bad or abnormal).

If you call Leslie Knope a feminist, she'll say thank you and show you her signed copy of This Bridge Called my Back.

The thing is that there's a difference between a feminist icon and a feminist character. The former is a symbol for those of us at home, some sort of deviation (in a positive way) from the norm of the sterotypical strong male/weak female dichotomy. The latter is actually a feminist.

There aren't many of those on TV.

I love Leslie Knope because she's not an idiot (like Michael Scott, whom she is often compared to), and she cares about her community. And while it annoys her that she's single and makes her sad that she's lonely, it doesn't rule her life. I love Leslie because she's got a picture of Madeline Albright in her office (who, herself, looked up to Xena). I love Leslie because she's got civic pride and liberal pride and because she's completely and one hundred percent aware that sexism still exists (right along with racism, homophobia, classism, etc.) and she wants to do something about it.

My all-time favorite moment of Parks and Rec comes in the "Hunting Trip" episode. Leslie has managed to finally get herself invited to the "boys only" hunting trip, and brings the rest of the female cast with her. It's a premise that starts with the ridiculousness of someone who doesn't even like to hunt getting invited only because he's a dude, and builds from there to brilliantly and bitingly showcase the very real sexism that women still face every single day.

And then someone gets shot. Please enjoy one of the (arguably, and I'll argue it) single most feminist moments on television in the last thirty years.

I love you, Leslie Knope.

Greetings, programs. TRON: Legacy Review.

I have been waiting for TRON: Legacy since I was old enough to know that movies had sequels. I've been nervously eying news about it since it was called TRON 2.0 or, worse, TR2N. I've had a google alert running for well over a year, slowly bringing me more and more news about the casting, development, filming, soundtrack, etc. etc. as each day passes.

To say I went in with expectations would be an understatement.

Still, as a fan of comics, I've gotten very very good at separating one iteration of something from another (a useful skill for things like I, Robot, I am Legend, and various other movies with Will Smith that start with both I and other letters).

So let's begin with my Twitter reviews posted last night:

Okay. Initial verdict: it was a pretty movie, not satisfying as a TRON sequel but totally satisfying on its own. #tronlegacy

I'm not just saying this because I follow her on twitter: @oliviawilde's character was definitely the most interesting (big picture-wise).

And a bit of a test on your SAT skills:

JJ Abrams Trek : Star Trek :: TRON Legacy : TRON

Yes, my iPhone has learned to correct Tron and tron as TRON.

I know that they keep saying TL is not a re-imagining, but a sequel. Honestly, as a fan of the original, it's much easier to think of it as a re-imagining akin to Star Trek XI. The things happening in this movie exist in a parallel world to those of the original, and yay everyone's happy.

'Cause, really, as a movie it's a lot of fun. It's beautiful to watch (I saw it non-IMAX 3D), the plot has holes but is saved by certain characters and actors, and the ending until the last sixty seconds is both satisfying and open-ended enough for a potential sequel. It remains open-ended during those last sixty seconds, but... well. I can't even tell you what it is a direct rip from, or it'll be some heavy spoilers (actually, I guessed it anyway about two days ago, but I'm trying to refrain from spoilers here).

So Sam Flynn is the cranky son of genius Kevin Flynn, whose ability to program video games and get digitized by an evil computer program have also imbued him with the ability to be a really good executive at Encom. Flynn the Elder disappears and Flynn the Younger grows up with various father figures and a big, archetypal chip on his shoulder that includes parkour skills, outrunning the police while his dad's old Ducati, having tons of money but drinking Coors Light, living in a swank bachelor pad, and pulling genius pranks on the company he now owns.

And then it gets interesting, because he gets digitized too.

There are a lot of questions that pop up for a fan of the original. Flynn yuppied out? Who's Sam's mom? Why won't Alan get contact lenses? WTF is Cillian Murphy doing at Encom? [Sshh, he's playing a completely inexplicable character that apparently exists as a shout-out to the original, which isn't really needed in the sea of other shout outs... but I hope they use him in the sequel.]

Who decided programs should have hair?

Luckily most of these questions can be answered by remembering that we're in an alternate universe where Nero has come through and changed history and not in the universe of the first TRON.

Flynn the Elder has basically become a cross between Gandalf the White and The Dude, which is absolutely fine because Jeff Bridges can pull that off in a heartbeat. He's not as adept at pulling off the bad guy, until the bad guy's real motivations are revealed. His origins are revealed in cut-scene flashbacks, some with animation lifted directly from Tron: Evolution, the video game that is supposed to bridge the gap between films (but is mostly just a digital version of Assassin's Creed 1).

The motion capture animation that made Jeff Bridges a younger Flynn the Elder was pretty neat. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that I bought Clu as a character. It helped that he was supposed to be a computer generated character, quite literally. And, overall, I have to say that this was a gorgeous film to watch. The world was exactly as beautiful as all of the released footage made me think it would be, but on a larger scale. I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever about the visuals of this movie, aside from the film's insistence on relying on physics that it doesn't need: evident in the first disc game, when gravity shifts and the camera inexplicably doesn't, something that looks particularly sloppy in the world after Inception.

The enemy's gate is down, guys.

The plot had its share of archetypes, tropes and holes. I won't go into too many here, because I really don't want to spoil the parts of the plot that were interesting and good, but Sam Flynn was pretty much the worst protagonist since - actually, I can't think of a protagonist I have disliked as much in the past. This isn't a comment on Garrett Hedlund; he was just fine in the role he was given. It's that Sam as written was unlikeable, stereotypical, and grating.

Until I stopped thinking of him as the protagonist.

Joseph Kosinski said in one of the many many interviews I read that TL was the story of two sons, and the TRON world let him tell that story in a new way. It wasn't and it was, but if you think of it as offspring and they are Clu and Quorra, and Sam is just the plot device that is being used to move you to the real characters - Clu, Quorra, and Flynn the Elder - then Sam is fine. He serves his purpose and does it just fine, with a bit of yelping and inexplicable martial arts skills.

And that's where Tron: Legacy gets good. The story isn't about Sam at all, so the fact that he's unlikable is something that can easily be ignored. As easily as James Frain's (love that guy) weird sycophant.

Olivia Wilde inhabits Quorra well, which is nice to write. I'm a fan of hers and Quorra is something different than her usual world-weary characters. She's naive, full of life and hope, and even though her shoulder-cut outfit makes even less sense when you watch the movie, she holds her own against the majority male cast.

The only other female character of note turns out to be exactly what you think she's going to be, and it's not a positive portrayal. But it was nice to see Beau Garrett have a larger role than I expected, and every movie needs its femme fatale. Well, no it doesn't, but screenwriters seem to think so.

All in all, the actors are fine. But what do you expect from the likes of Michael Sheen and Jeff Bridges? There's a reason they're big name actors that win awards: they're good at what they do. Garrett Hedlund does exactly what he needs to, and Michael Sheen is a lot of fun.

The main issue I had was that we're supposed to believe that Flynn created all of these programs. No one but a user can create programs, they can only repurpose or derezz them. So where does the free will come from? This was a question in the first movie, but because of the plot of this one it becomes even more of an issue.

But the plot isn't really the point of TRON: Legacy. The point is that it's a pretty movie with pretty people and a perfect soundtrack (many kudos to Daft Punk, who won me over with their gorgeous, ambient soundtrack and score, despite my love for Wendy Carlos) and it tells a familiar story well enough to be satisfying on its own. It's exactly what I want from typical Hollywood big-budget movies and even though it has the TRON name on it, it's better on its own as its own movie.

Go see it. If you're reading this blog, you're the the type that will enjoy it. Or hate it and comment here and tell me why. Either way...

End of line.

Queer in Albion: Fable 3 Playthrough One [and a half] Review

Author's Admission of Idiocy: Uh, I figured out how to adopt without giving the orphanage money as the monarch. So that basically makes 2/3 of the following entry pointless. Leaving it up anyway, because I always enjoy revisiting my ignorant indignation. [11/10/10]



As I get a bit less immersed in comics (mostly because I let myself go crazy and started collecting too many titles and am now nearly-broke), I'm going to start writing about other things that take my time up. So here's the first one about video games. Enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think.

Warning: This review/commentary/rambling will most definitely contain spoilers to the main storyline (and probably several of the sidequests) of the recently-released Fable 3. So don't read it if you don't want to be spoiled. The end!


Alright, I got Fable 3 the day it released. I'm a huge fan of the Fable series and see them as sort of a spiritual descendant of the Zelda games. They're ridiculously easy to play, but very immersive and with a good fantasy-era storyline. Instead of adding stupid 3D control styles (I haven't really enjoyed a Zelda game since "Ocarina of Time"), they introduce choice and customization and keep the fighting simple.

As with the Mass Effect games (which I intend to discuss later), most of the marketing showcases the male player-character. But as of Fable 2, there's also been a female choice. And along with that female choice comes all sorts of neat ways to customize your character. She can wear men's clothes (there's even an achievement for this), she can wear facial hair, she can marry another lady... but in Fable 2, a same-sex marriage (whether with males or females) meant no kids.

Fable 3 changed that with the introduction of adoption.

Except... not really.

Before I get into that, I would like to say that I'd give this game a 7/10 for a lot of reasons. The world is large and interesting, the continuation of the world of Albion into a steampunk type place on the brink of violent revolution is interesting, and the Road to Rule is a way better way of customizing than having to earn specific orbs for skills. But I found the main storyline abrupt in its ending (at least on the first play through) and the moral of the story was that the good leader is still the bad leader. I'm not sure how I feel about that at this point.

Still, for any fan of the Fable series, it's a great game and definitely worth more (with money-to-play ratio) than the other game I got the same day, which was Force Unleashed 2.

General Thoughts on the Game
And now, just to make this a quasi-legit review, here's my breakdown of improvements versus, um. Unimprovments (TM) between Fable 2 and Fable 3:

Improvements:

• The Road to Rule. It's nice not to have to kill enemies in a certain way to be guaranteed an upgrade in that particular class, and I'm glad to have all the dyes and expressions in one area. Makes it easier to customize my character without hunting all over the place.
  
• Weapon customization based on actions, instead of total body customization. No more disgusting evil characters. I've often said that evil would look fairly pretty.
  
• The Sanctuary. Way better GUI for all your options than just the plain old start menu.
• The gnomes. Way easier to find than those damn stupid gargoyles.
• Job upgrades via the Road to Rule instead of through gold earned.
• Multiplayer. Seems easier than before, though I'll admit that I haven't really gotten into it yet.
• Using the map to manage properties, families, etc.
  

Things I miss:

• The expression wheel. I've got all these expressions, let me choose different ones!
• The ability to hold multiple types of food. If I want to get drunk I have to get rid of my carrots? Hell no!
• Black dye. I hear it's in an upcoming DLC. Bring it on, yo.
• The economy. I don't find shopping or trading to be as useful as I did before, particularly because you can only give gifts when they're specifically requested and because there are now only a few places where you can sell your items.
  

New things I could live without/things I'd like to see:

• The Big Bad. I hope there's a Fable 4 to resolve all that. It seems sort of, like I said, abrupt. Maybe I'll catch more as I complete my second playthrough.
  
• No integration of Fable 2 game saves. I know it's possible, since ME2 does it. My hero of the Spire was a woman, why is the previous hero a king and not a queen?
• Relationship quests. Snore.
• Why can't I set my spouse as a target? She's a pain to find in Bowerstone Industrial.
  

Having Kids in Albion: Where does the pollen go?

So. Kids. Let me tell you a bit about my first playthrough of the game. I chose the princess, who was forced to wear pink, bow-covered pajamas and flirt with some dude during the prologue. I usually make my first playthrough a good character, so the dude ended up dying and as soon as I was out in the world, I got my princess into some better clothes. Men's clothes.

I got married to the first lesbian character I could find, which was a pain in the ass (interestingly, now that I'm playing through as a male I'm having trouble finding straight women). I did it just to see what would happen. I was exploring the social aspects of the game as I ran through the main storyline (and some sidequests, which also forced opposite sex relations on me, such as seducing the bad husband in "A Marriage of Inconvenience").

So we got married in a nice ceremony on a bridge somewhere, and then I tried to figure out how to adopt kids. No luck. I made it to Bowerstone Industrial, where the orphanage apparently was, completed the quest to save the people who ran it, and... nothing.

Not until I became queen. By then I'd divorced my first wife and married someone hotter, because, hey. It's good to the the princess (that's a Mel Brooks reference, btw). I had to wait until half a year into my rule to decide to open the orphanage.

What?

So a heterosexual couple can have babies whenever, but a same-sex couple has to wait until the game is almost over. This honestly isn't much of an improvement. Not to mention that you can't adopt babies, only toddlers.

But the worst part of this, besides the delay, is that you make money from having kids. There's some sort of kid benefit (which later on you can abolish or increase) that a heterosexual couple can start collecting basically right after you open up Brightwall. A same-sex couple doesn't have access to that until, well. It might already be gone. It's at least 10 hours more into the game, though.

This sort of detracts from the the whole "you can choose whatever you want" idea behind the series. It penalizes you, literally, for choosing to marry someone of the same-sex. I'm not disappointed, really, because Lionhead has been so good about this kind of thing since day one. It's hard to say something this minor (relatively) could ruin the whole game for me. And it didn't, I still enjoyed the game.

But now I'm playing through as the prince, and it's a whole different world. I've got kids in every port, and I'm raking in the cash.

I also find, incidentally, that I prefer to play as males. I could get into my theories on my gender identity as expressed through games, but I think it comes down to the fact that males just look cooler (in a totally subjective way) in most of the games I choose to play. The only exception, really, is Mass Effect. In that one, I only chose a male!Shep so I could sleep with Miranda in ME2.

I'm shallow like that.

How Scott Pilgrim Got me back to the comic shop.

I've been gone awhile. No big secret there. In fact, I haven't read a weekly-issue comic book in ages. They're sitting on my shelves, waiting to be organized and read, and I just haven't had the motivation. I didn't even have the motivation to go to the store to pick up my subs.

Why?

Not sure. Money became tight for a bit, and shelling out $30 a week, or more, just wasn't as viable for me. Blackest Night ended and Lian Harper died and Ollie killed a dude and Steve Rogers was back and Barry Allen was back and Bruce Wayne was on his way back, while Batwoman ended up off the pages of Detective Comics, Bart Allen was stuck as Kid Flash, and there were five billion new Avenger teams to follow. So there wasn't a lot drawing me to the titles I'd followed.

Then I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I'd never read the books before, but the adorable story and styling of the movie interested me. It's hard for me, in my cynical old age (har har)to really get behind another dorky-dude-gets-the-awesome-girl heterosexual love story. But this dorky dude wasn't exactly dorky. Or he was, but it was the sort of dork I saw in myself. Because what dork doesn't want to be the best fighter in the province? Right?

So I thought to myself "I will go buy these books and see if they are as enjoyable as the movie". So far, yes (obviously, as source tends to be better than adaptation usually). And while I was in the comic shop, I picked up all the books that had been waiting for me for months.

And a Flash plushie (in my mind, that's Bart).


So I'm back. And I've decided I'm going to expand my discussion a little from comics and comic-related things to other Stuff I Like. Science fiction, video games, television, movies, and the occasional random pop culture bit of fluff. I've been heavy into video games lately, and I have a a few things I want to say - mostly about Mass Effect - about those. It'll keep me posting more regularly as I catch up with what brought be here in the first place, comic books.

30 Days of DC Meme. Day 8: Favorite Film

I'm cross-posting this directly from Tumblr, because I have no idea how the comments work over there, and was hoping to foster some discussion.

Okay. Hear me out on this. I've written a little bit about this in various places, but let me try to filter everything into a bulletted list of why I like this movie. I completely understand some of the criticisms (and welcome discussion), but to me this is my absolutely favorite comic adaptation. That should be considered something separate than a comic movie, really, since the Superman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. movies may be based off a bunch of things (focusing on origins usually) but aren't direct adaptations of a singular story. Still, they're all comic movies and they should all be considered.

• First, please watch the gorgeous opening sequence. This is about 40 pages worth of comic (and prose) back story set to the perfect song and turned into a poignant, nostalgic, perfect look back at this past that is not-quite our past. They should have won an Oscar for Best Short Film for this. I could watch over and over.
• Second, I know it wasn't completely faithful to the storyline. No giant squid (oh dear, I've spoiled you). But I felt that what they did do worked perfectly as a 21st century adaptation of the story. We're facing an energy crisis in a completely different way than they were when the story was written. Not giving us immediate access to the electric cars of the original story, having it be something tangible that comes out of Adrian's mass destruction (which was no longer limited only to NYC, thankfully), made the sacrifice of the people, and of Doctor Manhattan, much more poignant. We, as a nation, made it through 9/11. England made it through 7/7. Madrid... there are places where bombings and terrorism bring people together for a bit. And then we're divided again. I think Adrian's plan was a perfect way, in this new age of terrorism that is nothing at all like they were dealing with 25 years ago, to get his goal accomplished.
• Casting. Damn fine casting. My only dislike was Adrian, and that was minor.
• Get over the blue penis, people. Seriously.
• They obviously put so much care into set design, costume, etc. that it really felt like the comic had come to life. Even if there were cuts from the story and things changed, I felt like I was watching one of my all time favorite comic books come alive in front of me.
• This movie was made with love by a fan for fans. And as a fan, I appreciated that. And loved it.

Help, I'm Alive.

Hi there.

In an effort to get myself back into the swing of things, I will be doing a "30 Days of DC" meme, in conjunction with my friend Anika (the Fantastic Fangirl), who's doing a "30 days of Marvel" version that she found on tumblr.

This was all her idea, and I love it.

I'll be posting the images to my tumblr, but I figured I could use this blog to write more detailed explanations, if there are some. I'll either consolidate or only post a few so as not to be annoying and have 30 days of posts.

Or maybe I'll be annoying and have 30 days worth of posts.

[BTW, 1979semifinalist, thank you for the nomination/award. I'm aware and am writing up a response, I just want to get a good list of blogs together and have been slammed at work. It's so so appreciated, though!]

Women Don't Sell (Unless they're in bathing suits.)

At the recent Gallifrey One convention in LA, I went to this panel about transforming comics into other media. There was an interesting mix of creators there (6 men and 1 woman), and some guy who sat on the end and basically spent his introduction time telling us about upcoming comic movies we can go pay to see.

One of them was Ant-Man.

I was in the second row and had my hand up pretty much right away, to ask about the total lack of superhero women in comic movies, considering some of the awesome women flying around comics right now (Batwoman, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Woman, just to name a few). I said something about how even Wonder Woman has name recognition that they can play off of. Javier Grillo-Marxuach says she wears a bathing suit. Someone said Black Widow, who as far as we know so far is the coquettish yet deadly/sexy sidekick to Tony in the next Iron Man. My frown was probably fairly evident, and eventually Paul Cornell interrupted his way into the "heh heh Lynda Carter bathing suit puberty" tangent to actually talk about my question.

A little later on in the panel, someone asked why, with the success of the recent Wonder Woman animated film, a live-action WW movie seems so far-fetched. Marv Wolfman answered that the return wouldn't be worth the investment.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach made another joke about Wonder Woman's bathing suit.

Marv Wolfman did a "no, but seriously, not enough interest to generate return," and nobody but me yelled out "Ant-Man?"

Ant-Man

That's right, Hank Pym. Super scientist. That shrinks. Really really small.



Oh, and he beats his wife.

But it's okay, 'cause she's dead now and he took up her superhero name.



Well, at least he didn't kill her himself. There's... that.

How many non-comic fans have heard of Ant-Man? How many people think an Incredible Shrinking Superhero movie sounds fun? How about a Dude that Dresses Like a Bug movie? Sure, Spider-Man dresses like an arachnid, but he's also Spider-Man. He's also smarter and less of a tool.

Ant-Man.

The scientist who has a break down from stress and hits his wife. But it's okay. They make up. And then swap mildly-disturbing sex escapades.

Maybe Ryan Reynolds could play him. That's about the only way I could become less interested in a movie about Hank Pym.



Ant-Man.

Listen, I'm all for obscure, semi-obscure and quasi-obscure comic characters getting their due. But, I don't know, maybe we could, like. Have one of those be a woman? Most women in comics are obscure anyway, and all the best ones (Kate Spencer, Renee Montoya, Jessica Jones-Cage) would probably make even some comic fans stop, check out google, and then get back to you.

The deal is that studios want to sell tickets. So then, there shouldn't be any obscure characters having movies made about them. But if there are going to be, let's let some non-wife-beating-self-pitying characters shine, yeah? Maybe?

Hey, maybe Kathryn Bigelow can direct. She does action movies. And women go to see them. Shocking, yet true.