Romance Recap

I recently came across an email I wrote to my family several years ago (before I had a blog). Since I've been writing about men, women, and romance lately, I decided to post it:

I am reading a book called How to Write Romances on the principle that romances sell, so they must be doing something right (as in something that makes money).

Unfortunately, I haven't learned anything so far except not to switch viewpoints in the middle of a sentence, and I already knew that. The book is aimed at almost entirely unexperienced writers and is the sort of book that recommends new writers to keep a file of newspaper clippings for ideas. There's nothing wrong with this suggestion, but I can't really wrap my head around someone wanting to do something (write, paint, sing) which they have never tried before on the off-chance that it will be EASY! and FUN! [Hello, American Idol.]

However, despite the lack of useful tips, I am still reading the book because it is, entirely unintentionally, completely hilarious. I ran across this quote:

He didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to taking Petey away from Ashley. Not unless he could prove she was an unfit mother. After seeing her with Petey today, he knew that was out of the question. She was a perfect mother, and he was an out-of-state politician who hadn't known the boy existed until a day ago. That's why he had to get her to Texas.

"Study the preceding paragraph," the author writes, "to understand the wealth of information fed so discreetly to the reader."

I had to read the above sentence twice to make sure it actually said what I thought it said. And that's when I realized I was going to have a lot of fun reading this book.

This is my favorite bit of advice so far: Concerning figurative language

[y]ou should not use Artic comparisons if your novel takes place in the tropics.

Such as . . . Tarzan lurched along the jungle floor, beating his handsome, muscular chest and yoodling like an Artic seal calling for its mate!

[Unfortunately, I have found the above advice does need to be given to my composition students. At the time I wrote this email, I thought not mixing metaphors a rather obvious tip, but apparently, mixing metaphors is a national pasttime for beginning writers.]

Back to the book:

For most romance lines, a coal-mining town . . . is too difficult to imagine as a romantic setting. A small-town setting with a fashionable resort, an Olympic-trial ski run, or other point of interest could easily be considered exotic.

And whilst you are describing the exotic ski run, do NOT write, "Daphne, taking a break from her hard life as a secretary to a billionaire lawyer who might secretly love her but couldn't show it due to some silly misunderstanding that will be cleared up in Chapter 12, watched the snow fall on the ski lift like coal dust from a town very far away and completely unrelated to her." Because ski lifts and coal dust DO NOT mix.

Let's take a look at character development:

There is an advantage to keeping a character chart. When you first begin writing, it is very easy to remember names and descriptions. However, as you progress from chapter to chapter and book to book, you will soon discover how easy it is to forget names as well as color of hair or eyes. By charting or listing the physical as well as psychological makeup of your characters, you will save time and effort.

I can just see Shakespeare: "Darn it all--is it Lear with the daughters in the rainstorms or is that MacBeth? Which is the Dane? Fudge! I keep confusing Juliet's boyfriend with Ophelia's!"

And what color are Romeo's eyes anyway?

Even the most villainous people should have at least one good point to make them believable (my emphasis).

Because we all know villainous people who steal, murder, and mug little old ladies but have a soft spot for cutesy-wootsy bunny rabbits.

If you want to show strong feelings but prefer not to spell out the swear words, easy solutions exist: 'He swore competently.'

He swore COMPETENTLY? Is that like getting a prize at a spelling bee? "Jimmy, please stand up and swear competently. Are you ready, Jimmy. Begin with the s's."

How about some plot advice?

Mark, a newspaper columnist, finds himself attracted to Coryn. But after a few dates, he abruptly stops seeing her without explanation. Coryn's father is about to run for political office. Interwoven subplots involve Coryn's mother, who is in the initial stage of Alzheimer's Disease, and the death of Coryn's dog, all neatly tied together to make an inspiring and informative read.

I could write a novel like that: "The subplots of Pamela in Portland combine the ongoing search for Mr. Right (Now), the loss of the heroine's job, a sudden discovery of a cure for cancer, and the death of the heroine's cat by a passing car."

Since this how-to book IS about romances, we must discuss the PG-13 bits. The author makes a big deal about the difference between sensuality and sexuality. Sexuality is all very well and good, it seems, but it is sensuality that sells the book. Sensuality falls in to the category of "a phone call in the middle of the night to tell you how much he needs you" which proves that sensuality is all relative since I, personally, would consider battering Mr. Lover Man to death with a brick for waking me up in the middle of the night. (Actually, the conversation would go something like "Wha?" "Wha?" "I don't--" "Uh, sure." "You in trouble--need a lift somewhere or something?")

On to sex:

There are closet scenes, anthill scenes, love among the pine needles, and lovemaking under water.

An ANTHILL? Not really up there with Lady Chatterley's Lover [addendum: I have since read Lady Chatterley's Lover, and it is at about the same level. LCL is a remarkably stupid book.]

And I'm sure the sex education folks will be relieved that "some publishers now accept clinical descriptions" EXCEPT, the author adds, "too much realism--on any score--destroys the fantasy we are providing and that includes the discussion of safe sex."

[Along these lines, Katie Roiphe wrote a fascinating book called The Night After where she discusses the fantasy v. the reality of sex-in-the-moment and why the latter, despite public education, is considered more romantic. I also recently picked up a book called Predictably Irrational. Provable fact: All the sex education classes in the world aren't going to make teenagers behave sensibly in the throws of passion. When the hormones get going, "cold" promises go flying out the window. Education and supervision are the only two options and, turns out the Victorians were right, education doesn't always work.]

Back to character development, repeated several times by the author is the instruction that (1) the heroine cannot be promiscuous; and (2) the hero cannot be a wimp.

I don't find the first particularly puzzling--it's part of the finding-your-one-and-only idea--but the second is a non-starter. He can't be a wimp means the hero is not only supposed to be physically pro-active, he is supposed to be ambitious/rich. So this workaholic, ambitious, unrelentingly superdynamic multi-millionaire is also supposed to take time out to be sensitive, caring, loving, and gentle, blah blah blah.

I work for workaholics and believe me, it is an attractive quality, but it NOT romantic. Walking around with a cellphone sticking out of one's ear is NOT romantic. Demanding, "I want my fax NOW" is frankly irritating. And obnoxious bosses getting stuck overnight in an airport because of the weather is just funny. But then I'm a secretary and earn about 1/16th of my bosses' salaries, so I have the right to find those things funny.

[As many of you know, I now teach; one reason I changed careers is because I got fed up with getting snapped at by workaholics. It really isn't that datable a personality type.]

Anyway, there's something intensely schizophrenic about the romance hero who has to be all things to the heroine.

Okay, that's enough of the PG-13 stuff. Back to plot, specifically violence!

It always creates a strong plot point to surprise the reader and kill off a character or two who seemed to be a vital part of the book. But I was reminded by a speaker at a writer's conference to never kill off too many characters in a novel because it all but eliminates the possibilities of a sequel.

Agatha Christie wrote some very funny passages in which her alter-ego, Mrs. Oliver, complains that whenever the publisher demands another 3000 words, she just kills off another character.

But then Agatha Christie, who I greatly admire, was writing mysteries, not supposedly character-driven romances. There's something downright annoying about writers (book and script) who kill off characters not for the puzzle but to "shake things up."

On the other hand, I like this advice (about the Middle Ages):

It is difficult to sell a book set during any time when civilization was at an extremely low ebb.

And:

[A romance writer] asks herself if she would believe [a plot device] is she were reading it for the first time. If the answer is no, she takes it out.

Not to be rude or anything, but I suddenly had an image of a romance writer's transcript with nothing left except the sentence "Lucinda walked into the room."

Don't write about trees.

This is actually great advice! The author is saying that writers should always be specific. If you write about trees, call them "maples" or "birches."

Then, presumably, you can stick your heroine amongst the birches or maples and have her ruminate, discreetly, about her life. Using the principles noted above, the result would be something like this:

Rochelle walked through the tall fescus (Festuca elatior) grass under the looming oak (Quercus) trees, thinking of Bradley's devotion to his job, yet how he always managed to take her to champagne lunches while putting through mergers and giving money to charity. He even took time to text message her: b luv u--lines as sincere and moving as Shakespeare's poetry, the bits from The Merchant of Venice where everyone is talking about money. Perhaps she should confess to him that she had been systematically siphoning off money from his accounts for six months, but it was probably better to wait until he confessed his undying affection. There are limits to how much a women should put out.

BOOKS

Unannoying Gender Difference Analysis

Men and women think differently--this seems kind of obvious. Yet in some circles, it is still considered bad form to say such things. In my master's program, this idea was treated very warily. And, truth be told, there's so much nonsense out there on the subject, I didn't mind; it's not like anyone in my master's program would have said anything concrete and provable on the subject.

However, I am an advocate of the belief/argument/theory that biology, rather than social constructs, makes men and women different and in more ways than the obvious. So I will occasionally pick up books about gender differences. And I will then get annoyed. The reason for my annoyance, usually, is that the writers form illogical conclusions backed by justification and self-congratulation. That is, since more men than women can be found in the top levels of hard-science, women must not be good at the sciences (fallacy), therefore (1) science stinks (justification) or (2) women just aren't made that way--sorry, ladies (self-congratulation).

And I throw the book down and that's that until the next one.

However, I think I have found a book that doesn't annoy me: Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox. Susan Pinker is examining why men appear to achieve more than women in "high-flying" careers, but she examines "why" using interviews, statistics, and reliable methodology, not political correctness, her own experience, or fevered socio/geo/religio politics.

So refreshing!

She also has a great perspective. First, she makes the point (through all those statistics, etc.) that, for instance, women do enter the sciences and those that do, succeed. Second, not only are these women not discriminated against, often they are sought after. Third, many of these women choose to leave the track they are on and pursue different (less kudo-offering) careers for reasons that have nothing to do with external pressures.

In other words, women consistently make choices where internal desires--job satisfaction, a sense of obligation to family, and a desire for personal time--outweigh external privileges: mucho dollars and prestige.

And, Pinker says, so what?

Well, she says more than that, but her attitude (so far) is that these choices aren't wrong, detrimental, unfair, discriminatory, or hurtful to women. And she has so far avoided the equally annoying tack that women have it right, why don't the stupid men get a clue. Rather, she argues that women should not perceive themselves (or each other) as failures if they make choices that make a lot more sense to them than the alternative.

She proves over and over that women who "opt out" of the money/prestige path are not suffering from discrimination. (Not necessarily. She does make the interesting point that women in high academic positions tend to get burned out since they are expected to be more motherly than their male counterparts. I can attest to this. I walk into a class--5'2", female, late 30's-- and I can see the "oh, she'll be so sweet to us" look in my students' eyes; I imagine coyotes look at poodles the same way before they leap. Consequently, I give a speech at the beginning of each semester where I nicely, but forcefully, advise my students that the requirements on the syllabus will not change, and they will be sadly disappointed if they think I will fold to their hard-luck stories in four months. I'll feel incredibly guilty about their hard-luck stories, but I won't fold. And I don't. And at least one student a semester gets very angry at my--to quote the expurgated version--"cold-heartedness.")

Women, Pinker says, are making choices by which they put various aspects of their lives first. A woman who goes into pediatrics rather than surgery (and this is common) is not doing so because (1) she hasn't the brains (in fact, women do better academically than men at almost every level) or (2) because she hasn't the ambition (keep in mind that the women Pinker is studying are all, for lack of a better word, alpha-females). Rather, the woman who goes into pediatrics would simply rather have her cake and eat it too, even if eating her cake means a cut in salary because she has opted for a more flexible schedule and for a more people-oriented application of her knowledge. (It isn't about choosing babies over careers; it's about making career choices that allow for babies . . . and other stuff.)

What insight! On a personal note, I've never considered myself a people-person, and yet, I work in education. Since I took on too many teaching jobs for this coming fall, I recently had to decide what to drop; what got dropped, interestingly enough, was the online tutoring: the job with the least amount of student contact (and a job I find rather depressing) even though it is probably the easiest, fastest and least inconvenient way for me to earn good money. Apparently, despite unexpurgated emails, I prefer to work with "real" students than with faceless entities.

I'm not exactly an "it's all about the people" poster girl, however, since I would rather be paid to write than to teach. But I would still teach if I got paid to write; I just don't like my entire life hanging on a career track, which actually, now I think of it, probably makes Pinker's point. However, a strong streak of "do my own thing" runs through both the men and women in my family, so it could just be a Woodbury thing.

In any case, to muddy the waters still more, men make people choices too. An ER doctor I know works ER precisely because it has more regular hours (don't have to carry that annoying beeper around), and he can be home with his family more. Pinker is not saying that ALL women are one way, and ALL men are another. She is noting consistencies, trends if you will, amongst women and men. The trends are strong, and they occur even when other social factors have been accounted for; more is going on than a social construct.

And what Pinker sees as going on is not evolutionary psychology (per se; evolutionary psychology isn't her focus) but choices. "[T]here is new evidence," she writes, "that it is a good idea to trust women's choices instead of pushing them to study what doesn't appeal to them. . . women--both those who chose science and those who didn't--knew their interests, their capabilities, their appetite for risk, where they would succeed, and exactly what they wanted." Now, that's a feminism I can get behind!

BOOKS

Ratatouille as a Lesson in Non-Elitism

I just finished watching Ratatouille on DVD. This is the second time I've seen the movie (the first time was in the theatre). It usually takes me two to three viewings before I feel comfortable declaring a definite opinion on a movie which is why you will never see me as a New York Times movie critic (and why I haven't reviewed Caspian on my blog yet).

I have boundless respect for Pixar and for John Lasseter (head of Pixar) in particular. Every production Pixar creates is thoughtful and aesthetically pleasing and although some are better than others, none of them, in my view, are actually bad. However, although I enjoyed Ratatouille the first time, I can't say I was bowled over by it.

The second viewing gave me a chance to reflect more on the plot and theme of the movie. First of all, I would be surprised that Pixar marketed the movie specifically to children if it wasn't for the fact that in the United States (as opposed to Japan), animation is automatically (and erroneously) equated with a juvenile audience. In any case, I think Ratatouille deserves a broader audience.

The plot of Ratatouille is complex as is the dialog. There is NO attempt to "talk down" the dialog or even, as in Toy Story and Shrek, to keep the plot dialog basic while throwing in funny and more complex subtext. All of Ratatouille's dialog demands close attention. Still, it is possible that for young children, the images carry most of the story. And I happen to believe that while a child may get bored with an overly complex work (i.e., War & Peace), complexity doesn't automatically hurt a child's appreciation of a film or book: even if the child doesn't understand every plot point, innuendo, or theme, the child still responds to the film or book's created world and the human tensions within it.

Likewise, I think a child can appreciate the rather complex theme of Ratatouille, especially since the theme has multiple levels. When I first saw the movie, my English-teacher's brain was mislead by Gusteau's slogan, "Everyone can cook." I jumped to the conclusion that the movie was another one of those Disney films about someone trying and trying and trying until he or she achieves her goal! The Little Engine That Could, version 3,025.

But really, Gusteau's slogan should be "Everyone may cook" or, rather, "Everyone with talent should have the right to cook." In other words, Gusteau's point is not "hey, if you just try, try, try again, you can make it" (after all, Linguini freely admits at the end of the movie that he has absolutely no talent); rather, Gusteau is challenging the position of elitists.

"Everyone can cook" as in EVERYONE. Although Remy is the ultimate example of this, there are constant and sometimes subtle references to Gusteau's slogan throughout the entire movie: Colette challenges Linguini to doubt her talent (and her chutzpah) because she is a woman in a "man's world"; Skinner deplores Linguini's achievements because he is (1) a garbage boy and (2) untrained. Elitism--specifically the elitism that claims superiority for reasons other than talent (I have the right schooling; I know the right people; I belong to the right class/clique/political party)--is being attacked. In this context, Ego's name, of course, is a dead giveaway. His critiques (until the very end of the movie) aren't about enjoyment, pleasure, the fun of the thing; they are all about ego.

What makes Ratatouille, like so many Pixar films, unusual is that the issue of anti-elitism is not allowed to stop there. Yes, attacking elitism is great, but the writers force Remy to examine his budding anti-elitism. Will it (like it has for so many angsty college graduates) simply make Remy an anti-elitist elitist? Because Remy's family doesn't really understand or care about his talent does that mean they are stupid, capitalist, thieving philistines who should be shoved out of his life as quickly as possible?

Not at all. Remy's brother Emile will never lose his taste for Ramen noodles, tater tots, and Hostess cupcakes. The guy just isn't a gourmet. But he loves his brother, and his brother loves him, so . . . what does it matter? In fact, Brad Bird, the writer and director of Ratatouille, attempts to answer that question: Why does Remy's talent matter (if not for elitist reasons)? His answer: Remy's talent isn't about being better than other people; it's about doing something that will add to the world.

I like that because it bypasses the whole elitist versus self-esteem-for-everyone argument. (I dislike the first position and consider the second counter-productive.) In my thesis, I argue that people enjoy artistic works because those works enable them to use their creativity, but I also argue that creativity is a very broad desire. Speaking of those college grads, creativity does not (necessarily) mean "feeling angst and staring at my navel." Here's what I wrote in the second chapter of my thesis:

Creativity is not a specialized right-brained activity, reserved for artists, poets, and performers. People want to create all kinds of things: loving families, good filing systems, decent web sites, tasty treats, well-groomed animals, a trusty lesson plan. How that desire plays out may very well be influenced by social, cultural environments and institutions but votary theory [my theory that I present in my thesis] postulates its existence regardless of external frameworks. The creative desire like any human desire (envy, hate, love) exists throughout time and history. The modes of its expression are influenced by context but context does not determine the desire. A contemporary Shakespeare would not, perhaps, write plays (unless he teamed up with Andrew Lloyd Webber); that a contemporary Shakespeare would have creative impulses I have no doubt.

In any case, all this thought about what constitutes talent and how it should be handled is extremely impressive for a movie that is, ostensibly, a light children's film, but then I have always found designations for films and books to be more confining than truthful. (I have to be careful about this as a teacher, however; I am perfectly willing to bring any writing to the table if I think it is good and will help my students. My students are not so broad-minded, and I have to explain to them that I'm not using children's literature because I think they aren't smart enough to handle "adult" material; I am using children's literature because it is usually better written than so-called adult material. "You can fake out an adult with big words and highfalutin' sounding sentences," I say. "You can't do that with kids. If you can't communicate clearly with kids, your writing just won't work.")

Back to Ratatouille: I think movies have exhibited a shift in perspective over the past few years, starting with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the protagonist's desire to grow is not immediately (and inevitably) pitted against the protagonist's family or culture. Compromises are presented, and the protagonist usually ends not by riding off, alone and self-satisfied, into the sunset but remaining, though changed, within the family/cultural circle. Which solution is, whether in a movie for children or for adults, far more mature.

MOVIES

The Fallacy of Nature-Loving Pagans

Since I've gotten somewhat more political lately, I decided to recyle a post I wrote when I was in grad school (in case anyone thinks my entire grad school experience was horrible, see this post).

One of the theories that cropped up in my grad school classes is that the pre-Christian world (i.e. pagan Europe and the Ancient Mediterranean civilizations) was populated by nature-friendly people. The image that emerges is a more sophisticated version of Walt Disney's Pocahontas: tree huggers with pro-nature beliefs flitting happily through the dank forests of Europe.

This is such a very stupid idea I have decided to address it here.

The image of a pure/good past is part and parcel of the whole noble savage doctrine promoted by people like Rousseau. It got quite a grip on Western Civilization in Rousseau's time and is still bandied about today. In the 1970s, alongside the feminist and environmentalist movements, a group of anthropologists/archaeologists promoted the idea of a pre-Christian, pro-woman, pro-nature "before the mists of time" idyllic society. Their idea was based principally on the discovery of goddess worship in the ancient world. How one leaps from goddess worship to all the rest escapes me; nevertheless, it was a big deal.

That is, until more archaeologists (and sometimes even the same archaeologists) went back and dug up more stuff and discovered, what do you know, that every time you find goddess worship, you find a big, thundering obnoxious patriarchal god right next door and he is, inevitably, calling the shots. You find temple prostitution to boot. So much for the non-exploitation of women.

What about the ancients' attitude towards nature?

The following list is a description of non-nature-friendly aspects of the ancient world, starting on the south side of the Mediterranean, progressing around to the east, back to the west and then north.

1. The salting of Carthage
2. The pyramids (see Stonehenge)
3. The lighthouse at Pharos (which would have burnt a tremendous amount of wood or oil on a daily basis--think smoky, smelly air pollution)
4. The mummifying of kittens for sale (commodification!)
5. Jericho: the oldest city possibly in the world was a fortress! (Tells you something about human nature)
6. Ziggaruts (see Stonehenge)
7. The Tale of Gilgamesh which, taken together with the story of Noah, is about how much is stinks to be flooded
8. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: the ultimate cultivation of nature
9. The Greek concept of civilization (basically: cities)
10. The Roman concept of civilization (basically: really big cities)
11. The Roman Games which killed thousands and thousands of animals from Europe
12. The Celts: agriculturists, traders and miners
13. Moving furthur north: Stonehenge. Stonehenge, along with the pyramids and ziggaruts, is a great example of ancient people quarrying huge amounts of rock (for fun!), hauling those rocks hundreds of miles to a completely different location and constructing a monument that does not blend into the landscape even remotely. (Ziggaruts are a little more blendable.)
14. Beowulf: an ancient tale that was brought into Britain by pagan Anglo-Saxons and later Christianized. The non-Christian parts of the tale are even less friendly about nature than the Christian parts. Nature is the enemy in the shape of big, angry monsters that eat you. You survive by having a good leader, good warriors, good trade, and strong defenses.
15. And then there's the Vikings . . .

It doesn't strike me as a particularly nature-friendly list.

CURRENT NOTE: In one of my classes, a student tried to tell me that pagan Europeans would have gotten a long with Native Americans better than Christian Europeans. I didn't laugh in her face because that would have been rude, but I remember thinking, "Yeah, right after they slaughtered them and burnt their villages" (see Vikings above). I can't speak to the beliefs of Native Americans, and I'm not going to try, but I do know from my own studies that European and Classical pagans were some of the least friendly people ever. And they were not big fans of nature. As far as I can tell, the only reason they didn't burn, ravage, destroy, mutilate, pollute, and decimate more of Europe and the ancient Classical world was lack of equipment.

In any case, when you consider that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79 C.E.) was more powerful than an atom bomb (40 atom bombs according to this website), you realize the ancients were completely and totally and monumentally right to fear nature.

HISTORY & LEARNING

Jonah Goldberg, Calvinism, Genre Literature, and Anthropology

I just finished Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. In Liberal Fascism, Mr. Goldberg traces the historical link between progressivism, fascism, and liberalism. The history is interesting, Mr. Goldberg's points are more than a little valid, and the tone of his tome is relaxed, intelligent, and much less in-your-face caustic than, say, Ann Coulter. He's readable plus you don't feel like you're in the middle of a screaming match like with so much political pundit writing.

And man, is he insightful! While reading the book, I kept going, "Yes! Yes, that's exactly how I felt in my master's program!" In fact, I wrote similar things while in my program here.

This particular quote caught my eye:

[O]ne of the main reasons I've written this book [is] to puncture the smug self-confidence that simply by virtue of being liberal one is also virtuous. At the same time, I need to repeat that I am not playing the movie backward. Today's liberals aren't the authors of past generations' mistakes any more than I'm responsible for the callousness of some conservative who championed states' rights for the wrong reason well before I was born. No, the problems with liberalism today reside in liberalism today. The relevance of the past is that unlike the conservative who has wrestled with his history to make sure he does not repeat it, liberals see no need to do anything of the sort. And so, armed with complete confidence in their own good intentions, they happily go marching past boundaries we would stay well clear of. They reinvent ideological constructs we've seen before in earlier times, unaware of their pitfalls, blithely confident that the good guys could never say or do anything "fascist" because fascism is by definition anything not desirable. And liberalism is nothing if not the organized pursuit of the desirable.

I concur. There are few things in this world as bizarre as listening to a liberal tell you how horrible and close-minded and disgusting conservatives and Republicans are and then, in the same breath, tell you how much the said liberal hates various groups. (And no, I'm not exaggerating.)

When in my master's program, I would refer to this attitude--"whatever I say is tolerant no matter how intolerant it sounds because what I'm saying is de facto tolerant"--as Calvinism although maybe that's unfair to Calvinists. Still, the approaches bear a similarity: rather than behaving a certain way, one adopts certain attitudes or positions. If I gain a conviction that I am saved, I must be saved.

And this attitude, oddly enough, dovetails into a completely different subject I've been thinking about lately: the belittlement of the science-fiction and fantasy genre by "sophisticated" writers.

I used to read articles by Orson Scott Card and Stephen King about so-called sophisticated writers belittling genre literature, and I'd get all worked up about it, but in my heart of hearts, I didn't believe it was that big a problem. However, in just the past few years, I've had similar experiences whereby I encountered "sophisticated" writers declaring that fantasy and science-fiction pieces are just soooo childish--not real and reputable and profound and sophisticated like the stuff they write and read.

I have found these experiences bewildering, to say the least, since the attitude doesn't seem to be based on anything remotely intelligent. I always thought "sophistication" meant a knowledge of the world which, unless one ignores most of history and World Literature, includes fantasy and science-fiction (the first English novel was a fantasy: Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, and you could argue that The Tale of Genji is fantasy although in a somewhat different vein).

Knowledge, by the way, doesn't entail liking. I have no trouble with someone who doesn't care for fantasy, who prefers, for example, Henry V to Midsummer Night's Dream, but there is little to no point in saying, "Midsummer Night's Dream would be so much better if it wasn't for the fantastical element." What, the lovers are supposed to take a road trip across America and find themselves instead? I'm sure Shakespeare could have written that sort of thing if he'd known about it, but it would kind of ruin the play. (And despite assumptions to the contrary, it wouldn't automatically make it more insightful.)

I've decided that Calvinism and what Goldberg defines as "smug self-confidence" is at work here. Rather than formulate intelligent, sophisticated arguments about the immaturity or non-insightful nature of fantasy and science-fiction, supposedly sophisticated critics and writers have simply decided to define fantasy and science-fiction by those terms. (This is marked by the fact that when they do decide to like a piece of fantasy, they redefine it as "magical realism.")

But why, I've asked myself, create the definition in the first place? It is hardly necessary for someone who likes contemporary, "realistic" (see this post for my discussion of what constitutes "realism"), finding-ourselves-in-suburbia fiction to even have an opinion about fantasy and science-fiction writing.

I've decided (and this brings us back to Mr. Goldberg's criticisms of modern-day liberalism) that humans have an intense fear of not-being-cool.

Yes, yes, I know, we all of think of that fear as an adolescent trait, but I believe the fear of not-being-cool is simply more vocalized, more honestly admitted to, in the teenage years. The hold of "the cool" never really leaves us. It is the fear that somehow one will fall out of favor with others of one's tribe if one supports that which is not tasteful, profound, appropriate, sensitive.

Now, "cool" isn't the same as "acceptable." We are not talking about murder or theft or even breaking a religious commandment here. In other words, we are not talking about actual crimes or deeds that result in ostracism, a literal outcasting. (For good or bad, all functional societies practice a form of social ostracism: it is a much more powerful force than legal punishment.) Rather, breaking the rule of "cool" results not in ostracism but in a lack of empathy. Dissonance occurs. You are no longer "one" with the group.

This happened to me in high school on several occasions. On one occasion, I was reading Izzy Willy Nilly by Cynthia Voigt. The cover of my edition was "teen friendly," a made-up girl sitting in a chair, and the cover blurbs were, for lack of a better word, "teen-fantastic." In other words, the book didn't look even vaguely sophisticated. All the "sophisticated" people I hung out with then were reading Thoreau. One of them picked up Izzy Willy Nilly and said, "Oh, what are you reading?" in a "this is just toooo pathetically teeny-bopperish" tone.

I wasn't being ostracized, but I was being informed of the "right" tastes of the group. However, another student spoke up and said, "It's a good book," and the incident passed. It wouldn't have worked on me anyway. I was as susceptible to peer pressure as the next teenager, but it never occurred to me not to read exactly what I wanted. (I got "uncooled" again when I read Gone With the Wind, which to be honest, was rather a waste of time. I never did read Thoreau.)

But I still wonder, Why the need to "uncool" people? To not just say, "I think you should believe this, and if you don't, you're wrong," but to say, "If you don't believe this, you aren't a neat, sophisticated, with-it person like us"?

From an anthropological standpoint, the need for people to hold certain tastes in common could bind the group together; still, you'd think the need to eat and not die would have a slightly stronger hold. I suppose people are more likely to find food together and not die if they hold ideas in common, but an excess of common ideas could also stagnant the group.

And I think, too, such "cool" agreement (as opposed to blatant ostracism) is largely superficial as a binding mechanism. I have remarked elsewhere that I found the supposedly uniform culture of Brigham Young University (a church-run university) more conducive to open discussion than other more liberal institutions I've attended (hey, BYU had protesters of the Gulf War and protesters of the protesters!). A society that holds fundamentals in common seems to be more ready and more tolerant of dissent than societies that don't.

So, while I haven't solved the purpose of "uncooling," maybe it explains why fantasy/science-fiction writers seem to be more open to different types of writing than "sophisticated" writers. Like conservatives, fantasy and science-fiction writers are forced to defend their beliefs so often, they learn what they believe. Rather than being grounded in a "I say I'm saved, so I am saved" mentality, they are grounded in something tangible. Which is a much healthier place to be than "I'm so tolerant, everyone fall down and worship my tolerance!"

BOOKS

Classic Trek: Yeah, It's Good

I am watching the first season of Classic Trek (birthday present!), and I have reached the conclusion that it was a pretty darn good television show.

I've alway viewed Classic Trek fondly as the granddaddy of the Star Trek universe, and I'm a fan of the movies. And there are episodes such as "Space Seed" and "City on the Edge of Forever" that are true classics in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, it is easy for Classic Trek's positives to get lost amid the silly music and blinking lights and the, by our standards, hopeless special effects. So, yes, us geeks like it, but otherwise . . .

That's how I approached my viewing: me and my geek-dom. Upon viewing the first season, I must make a case for the show as truly well-crafted television. I have listed some of my arguments below:

SPECIAL EFFECTS

I'll deal with the hard one first. Yes, by our standards, the bouncing ship on a string is a little pathetic, but considering the standards of the day, the special effects weren't too shabby. They are only slightly worse than Lucas' in the first Star Wars (which came along nearly ten years later). Star Trek effects were done on an extremely tight budget (it is hard to imagine, these days, how comparatively poor television used to be, even taking into account that Paramount executives were probably tightwads). The skill of the effects speaks to some very, very dedicated effects personnel.

Additionally, the science-fiction part of the effects is quite forward-thinking. I don't mean the wooshing doors which are just annoying. (As Gene Hackman says in Superman II, "With all this accumulated knowledge, when will these dummies learn to use a door knob?") But the ship's library is very smart (really kids, the Internet didn't exist back then) as is the turbolift (with handholds, which I like better than later designs) and the sickbay med panels (when I went to see my father in the hospital two years ago, we walk around his floor until we found the monitor that was tracking his heart information. Not really all that different!)

Okay, granted, there're a lot of bulbous chirping lights, but as Tom Paris points out on Voyager, garish lights you can snap on and off are a lot more fun than panels you just tap.

Out of all the technology on Star Trek, though, the thing I consider most prescient is the communicator. Sure, they had walkie-talkies back then, but it takes real smarts to imagine something as small as the communicator Roddenberry put into the crew's hands. Not until the last five years did cellphones reach that size.

SCIENCE-FICTION PLOTS

Classic Trek used every single standard science fiction plot ever invented, and then it reused them. There are the episodes where people age too quickly or too slowly or too weirdly. There are the episodes with evil androids (sorry, Data, although Lore was pretty evil too). There are the episodes with the kid(s) with telekinetic powers. There are the MUST DESTROY UTOPIA episodes. There are time travel episodes and false gods episodes ("Q" anyone?). Star Trek has them all and added a few really stupid ideas, like "Spock's Brain", just for fun.

What surprised me, watching the first season, is how seriously the writers took these ideas. I think in some corner of my mind (based, I imagine, on what I have read about Paramount at the time) I believed the studio never really "got" Star Trek. I must have transferred that information about the studio bosses to the Star Trek writers and assumed the writing was a hackneyed attempt to pretend to be sci-fi.

Well, that may have been the studio's attitude, but the writers themselve made a solid effort to create consistent episodes that work on a science-fiction level. That is, the sci-fi element is threaded through the plot, it isn't just dressing for the plot (which happened in the 1980's; I've written elsewhere about why that doesn't really bother me).

DIALOG

McCoy-Spock-Kirk exchanges are (rightly) touted as good writing. What I hadn't realized was how modern the dialog could get. There are a number of scenes where Kirk and McCoy have exchanges that could show up in Bones (Booth and Bones) or Stargate (Daniel and Jack). In the episode "Mudd's Women," McCoy is going on and on about why Mudd's women are so attractive; Kirk makes a suggestion to which McCoy responds, "Sure, but it wouldn't make my med panel go 'bleep'" at which point Kirk looks at him blankly and says, "I don't know what you mean." Kirk could be Bones saying, "I don't know what that means" to the latest pop culture reference from Booth. It is very funny. (And yes, I do think the sexual innuendo is deliberate, and yes, there is a lot more of it on Classic Trek, and yes, the studio heads probably didn't get it.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Three Seasons: The first season of Classic Trek appears to be the best. I've rented episodes from season 2 and season 3, and even the best of those seasons ("Turn-about Intruder" and "The Enterprise Incident") don't show the attentiveness I have seen so far in the Season 1 episodes.

Spock-Kirk-McCoy: When I teach Argument/Persuasion to my composition students, I usually describe "Spock" as the logical approach to argument; "Kirk" as the emotional approach; and "McCoy" as the ethical approach. I now think I've been wrong. Kirk has been stereotyped as an "overgrown boyscout": no brains, lots of brawn, action, action, action. And of course, Tim Allen did a magnificent protrayal of this stereotype in Galaxy Quest.

But after watching Season 1, I think Kirk is actually the ethical member of the triumvirate: he is the one who makes decisions based on what is best for humanity or best for his crew (after getting Spock and McCoy's input). It isn't his fault that the writer's change his moral base (ethics needs a moral base) every episode!

I also think Shatner had it in him to be a better actor than he has been treated. I think nowadays with all the money television has, he would have gotten a good coach who could have helped him smooth out some of that start-stop dialog. His sense of comedic timing is impeccable, and his physical acting (other than when he is falling out of chairs) is excellent; he obviously understood how the role was supposed to be played (as did Nimoy with Spock, only apparently Nimoy annoyed people less when he made his demands).

Utopia v. Dystopia: Star Trek often paints itself as a utopia-centered show (and yes, okay, Roddenberry wanted it to be utopian). However, the first season of Classic Trek is much more dystopia-centered than utopia-centered. I believe that Star Trek, ultimately, is a dystopia phenomenom and that its dystopia status is inevitable; in fact, I would argue that all science-fiction writers eventually end up dystopia writers since dystopia provides conflict. However, I will grant that Star Trek tried really, really hard to be utopian in the 1980's.

TELEVISION

Stargate to House: Story Arc as a Necessary Evil

I recently reached Season 5 of Stargate. Season 5 is when Daniel Jackson ascends or dies or, at least, leaves the show until he gets a better contract.

I remember hearing about the incident back when it originally happened. My reaction at the time was, "Oh, another actor who thinks he should be the center of the script!" (my apologies, Michael Shanks). Now that I have more investment in the disappearance of Daniel Jackson's character, I went onto the Internet to discover why Michael Shanks took a year off.

I discovered yup, he came back when his agents re-negotiated a better contract, but I'm more interested in the explanations Shanks gave to interviewers at the time: namely that his character had become superfluous since the show was doing this whole conspiracy/a million-military-episodes arc: not much need for a language-guru archaeologist.

Shanks' reasons may have been a contract ploy, but they happen to be accurate. In Season 5, Daniel Jackson basically spends every episode playing straight man to Jack. Which is very funny, but not exactly character-driven or in keeping with the show's original feel.

All this analysis of Stargate is a big lead-in to the following: I find the story arcs of most shows incredibly dull.

Weird segue, huh? But I agree with Michael Shanks' analysis; I too think Stargate morphed from "our fun group visits another interesting planet this week" to "watch next week to see if the good guys took over a particular outpost yet" type of show. I've always found the former approach much more engaging than the latter. "Watch next week to see if the good guys took over a particular outpost yet" is inevitably linked to "what's the big story arc this season?" and as previously stated, story arcs just don't captivate me in the same way a tightly plotted episode does. I was rarely interested in the arcs on Buffy (with one exception--see below). I gave up on Angel because of the story arcs. And I have about as much interest in the "conspiracy" arc of X-Files as I do in the composition of plastic.

Here's what I can't figure out: do most viewers prefer arcs or do viewers put up with them for the sake of the characters?

If you watch how shows unwind, usually the first season is a collection of individual episodes: plot-driven, tight, and non-arc-related. By the time you hit Season 4, however, everything is arc-driven (with the exception of Star Trek, thank goodness). Granted, by this point, the only people watching are die-hard fans; hence, the writing is all about, "Will so-and-so finally do X, Y, or Z in this episode?" The writers assume the viewers have long-term viewing and emotional investment with the show.

And I don't want to. Have investment. I figure I have enough problems with investment issues in my real life; why create more? I like certain characters; I get a huge kick out of Jack and Daniel's relationship on Stargate (and a bigger kick out of the unintentional or intentional homoerotic element that, like it or not, I am SURE attracts a certain number of dare-I-say female fans). I love Mulder and Scully. I am incessantly amused by David Boreanaz's ability on Bones to be completely different from his Angel self while still being David Boreanaz. (And I like the rapid-fire dialog.) But I simply can't go on caring. I don't want to go on caring. It's like American Idol. I was interested when I watched last year, but I can't remember anyone's name now--well, except for Sanjanya, bless him.

There's nothing particularly profound about my disinterest in becoming emotionally attached to television characters or, even, my huge interest in plot-driven episodes (with a touch of character interaction to satisfy my need for subtlety). But my non-profound reactions do bring up the whole issue of "Why do people enjoy . . . " fiction, a particular show in the first place?

Is it the story arc? Is it the characters? Is it the suspense? Is it the need or desire to "connect"? Is it emotional? Intellectual? Logical? Is it about imagination? Are we forced to invest in TV characters (you can't get the created universe without the writers' story arc, darn it!) or do we WANT to invest? Is it all the gadgets? Is it personal--what people get is entirely individual and the story arc is the only way to deliver "whatever it is" to as many people as possible?

My theory is that story arc is the only way to deliver whatever it is people really want: that is, we are looking for something other than the arc, but the arc becomes the vehicle and, like it or not (I say to myself), the arc is the only decent delivery system.

Maybe, just maybe, without the arc, we wouldn't get the wry, self-deprecating yet wholly untrustworthy Garak or the utterly entertaining, self-aware and ambiguous Spike. Maybe, without an arc, I wouldn't appreciate Samantha Carter's practicality (most normal woman character in all television: I kid you not) or Cuddy's snappy comebacks: "Is your yelling designed to scare me because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be scared of. More yelling? That's not scary. That you're gonna hurt me? That's scary, but I'm pretty sure I can outrun ya."

Perhaps, without a story arc, I wouldn't look forward to Jack's unflappability or General Hammond's stoicness. I certainly wouldn't learn that Teal'c likes vibrating hotel beds! And perhaps, without the story arc, I couldn't appreciate all the fun details (so smart to move Wilson's office next to House's) and other such touches, such as ending and beginning Season 1 of House with Mick Jagger's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and the final pay-off of Sarah and Grissom (which I realize is over, but I stopped watching CSI 2 seasons ago).

Maybe, just maybe, the story arc is a necessary evil.

A few arcs I admire:

Buffy, Season 2 is the smartest story arc ever created: it combines a fundamental/classic plot (boy dumps girl) with a supernatural/mythic twist.

The House arcs are always very, very good. However, when I borrow the seasons from the library, I never watch the arcs, just the individual "cases."

On Star Trek, I've always liked the Borg arcs. However, I've never cared for the Cardaissan arcs. I LIKE the Cardaissans: great bad guys. But the arcs are very military/very spy-capture-torture stuff. To be clear, I have no ethical problems with military/spy-capture-torture television/films, just no interest (my apologies, all Bond fans).

The amazing show Dead Like Me is a continuous story arc. It isn't soap operatic, but both seasons together are like watching one long story. It is also unbelievably good: the writers/producers could give Whedon a run for his money. The show is smart, insightful, human, funny, and has Mandy Patinkin, the stunning Britt McKillip, and an excellent heroine (Ellen Muth).

TELEVISION