The Mystery of Girls' Media

Capitol Couture

2012-01-20T17:11:00.000-05:00

The Hunger Games Extended Media Campaigns are launching. Check out Capitol Couture #lookyourbest

Fans Affect Storylines: ABC's Revenge

2012-01-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

Part of the challenge for Kelley – and any showrunner for that matter – is keeping the fans happy with where the series is going. So, THR spoke to Kelley about his writing process and how much viewers’ expectations affect what happens on the series.

More at The Hollywood Reporter

Everything You Know About Corsets is Wrong.

2012-01-19T18:19:00.000-05:00

The corset has a bad reputation. And unfairly so, according to Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, who says this undergarment of centuries past is not nearly as evil or confining as modern folks have come to believe.

Check out this Fascinating article at Collector's Weekly

Barbie goes Black Market in Iran

2012-01-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

The latest casualty of worsening Iran-US relations is Barbie. The Iranian government is apparently cracking down on the sale of the popular perma-heeled doll, forcing some dealers underground.

Read More at Jezebel.com

Why Everyone in the Universe Should Watch Downton Abbey

2012-01-10T10:37:00.000-05:00

The good folks at Gawker descrbe well why Masterpiece's smash hit is so appealing.

Lego's Old Line of Girl's Toys

2012-01-03T11:45:00.002-05:00

There it was.

Bonus: a 14-year-old's letter to lego

If Famous Authors had written Twilight

2012-01-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

at io9.com

Fallen Princesses

2012-01-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

Check out Dina Goldstein's Fallen Princesses Series, It's a special kind of wonderful.

Adaptation of Legend: Red Riding Hood, Beastly, Once Upon a Time, Grimm

2011-12-30T11:09:00.001-05:00

One of the most fascinating things I read about in 2011 was a study done on how audiences react to books with embedded, explicit foreshadowing of their conclusions (I.E. Spoilers)

"...a new study suggests that spoilers can actually increase our enjoyment of literature. Although we’ve long assumed that the suspense makes the story — we keep on reading because we don’t know what happens next — this new research suggests that the tension actually detracts from our enjoyment.

The experiment itself was simple: Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt of UC San Diego gave several dozen undergraduates 12 different short stories. The stories came in three different flavors: ironic twist stories (such as Chekhov’s “The Bet”), straight up mysteries (“A Chess Problem” by Agatha Christie) and so-called “literary stories” by writers like Updike and Carver. Some subjects read the story as is, without a spoiler. Some read the story with a spoiler carefully embedded in the actual text, as if Chekhov himself had given away the end. And some read the story with a spoiler disclaimer in the preface."

So mysteries where you can deduce the ending with a practiced eye; or lets say, adaptations of famous tales where you can observe patterns of a recognizable myth or event are popular. Take ripped from the headlines procedurals like Law & Order and remakes of famous films; are enjoyable even though you know how they'll likely turn out.

I know Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, absolutely delighted me when it hearkened directly back to the Conan Doyle Canon, even though most of the movie diverges, creating its own Holmes and Watson in the process.

Two suggestions from this Wired Article offer interesting insight into this phenomenon

"Just because we know the end doesn’t mean there aren’t surprises. Even when I cheat and read the final pages first, a good thriller will still surprise me with how it gets there. Perhaps we’ve overvalued the pleasure of the shocking ending at the expense of those smaller astonishments along the way. It’s about the narrative journey, not the final destination, etc. Christenfeld and Leavitt even speculate the knowing the ending might increase the narrative tension: 'Knowing the ending of Oedipus may heighten the pleasurable tension of the disparity in knowledge between the omniscient reader and the character marching to his doom.'"

and,

"Surprises are much more fun to plan than experience. The human mind is a prediction machine, which means that it registers most surprises as a cognitive failure, a mental mistake. Our first reaction is almost never “How cool! I never saw that coming!” Instead, we feel embarrassed by our gullibility, the dismay of a prediction error. While authors and screenwriters might enjoy composing those clever twists, they should know that the audience will enjoy it far less. The psychologists end the paper (forthcoming in Psychological Science) by wondering if the pleasure of spoiled surprises might extend beyond fiction:

'Erroneous intuitions about the nature of spoilers may persist because individual readers are unable to compare between spoiled and unspoiled experiences of a novel story. Other intuitions about suspense may be similarly wrong, and perhaps birthday presents are better wrapped in transparent cellophane, and engagement rings not concealed in chocolate mousse. '"

“Plots are just excuses for great writing.

What the plot is is (almost) irrelevant. The pleasure is in the writing,”

“Monet’s paintings aren’t really about water lilies,”

Nicholas Christenfeld

UC San Diego professor of social psychology

Looking at this study, and the history of storytelling, there is definitely some truth there. We all know certain stories, and pull them into our own times and places and enjoy them again and again.

Just because we once had this–

Doesn't mean we wouldn't enjoy this, or that our children would.

2011 saw a spate of Fairy Tale adaptations, Red Riding Hood, Beastly, Once Upon a Time and Grimm

Once Upon a Time

While these seem to seek out a female audience, just because they are fairy tales does not mean they have to be for children or for women.

Legendary seems to be banking on this fact with Jack the Giant Killer, which looks like it is going to be vastly entertaining, and If you like Brian Singer (I generally DO) you probably need to get over and residual fairy tale issues.

Facts are, a good story gets retold endlessly, how many times have parents cheated and abridged their way through a bedtime story? How many times have tales been retold through the years? What really makes an adaptation, retelling or reboot compelling is the artistry of the storyteller in this iteration, and the attention given to its execution.

Hue and Cry: Lego for Girls

2011-12-29T10:55:00.001-05:00

If there is one thing you can set your watch by, it's that the vast predominance of things done "for girls" or "for boys" are going to miss something about the core of what they are adapting. Example, above, the new Lego Friends line of Legos aimed squarely at girls.

My first knee jerk response to this was: Wow, Lame. Legos has a product that appeals to girls, it's called Legos. They have female Lego characters, maybe not enough of them, but they exist and I remember loving them.

My nuanced response to this was: Wow, Lame. You can't even really play with the existing Lego sets with the new characters. One of the greatest crimes of childhood is that in imaginative play, where yes, branded characters end up fighting one another in epic battles, or domestic arguments, or quirky adventures, Scale Matters.

Also, I don't see how she can pilot my space plane-castle in that outfit.

The only male action figure that was a similar size to my She-Ra was Batman, and he was a little short. He-Man and GI Joe and even the Ninja Turtles rarely played well together, entirely because of the size issue.

Whatever one can say about play patterns and focus groups and test cases, and I'm sure Legos has reams and reams of Data, this seems to narrow what always made Legos so appealing. Choice.

They certainly are going out of their way to portray a certain type of girl, and while there seems to be a diversity of skin colors... what was wrong with the block shapes? wasn't this all about construction and a tabula rasa (or tabula yellow)?

You mean I can wear a short skirt AND bake?

Legos are building blocks and therefore can become ANYTHING, you can mix and match and imagine with them, but, the size differential of these dolls clearly call them out as "not other legos."

But to be honest, I have no idea why I'd buy a Lego pet toy when there are literally hundreds of doll/pet combos exactly like this one.

In defense, I would totally get a little girl this robot building doll set if she wanted it, it's pretty awesome, but can it play with her pirates handily? will her play experience be "a little off" because they aren't really of a piece?

And beyond the Robot kit, and the one girl on the ATV, it seems that these new toys are largely hitting the low hanging fruit of the Girls' Aisle or the "Pink Ghetto" as it often seems: Nurturing Pet Owner, Cook, Fashion Designer, Rock Diva, Lady of Leisure...

Can someone PLEASE tell me what is going on here?

I mean, seriously. Is it landscape design? No, because this is landscape design:

There's a disconnect here as well in terms of aspirational clothing, if you scroll up you can see precisely one pair of covered legs, one long sleeve shirt, two pairs of Capri pants, and every other girl in a skirt and a lot of revealing tank tops. It may just be the marketing, but it doesn't present a product to a 5 year old in an ideal light.

With that in mind, this little girl has emerged as Patron Saint of this argument in the past couple weeks:

Preach it, Little Sister, I've been whining about this for years.

Sigh.

The Hunger Games: Katniss and Aesthetic Perception

2011-12-28T23:35:00.004-05:00

One of the most fascinating parts of The Hunger Games to me was that it had one of the most down to Earth explanation of why someone should care about their looks I've encountered in literature. As you may remember from my post on Tinker Bell Wearing Pants, the reason why someone chooses to look a certain way is as important as their natural beauty, and often times, far more important. Also, and this is really key to story, it's much more interesting than someone merely radiating unfathomable golden beauty under a raft of adjectives to know say: they're dressing up so people will buy them weapons so that they can fight for their survival.

Now, what follows has SPOILERS so if you don't want SPOILERS you can stop reading now, pick up the book trilogy and come back later, you've been warned.

So Katniss, she's a pretty practical girl, darker coloring than her mother and sister and doesn't have their culturally beautiful looks. That said, she's not hideous, she's pretty we all know this, she's the heroine, it true and others do see this even though she doesn't think about it much herself, what with avoiding starvation and supporting her family and all, she's busy and young. This is all hugely relatable and frankly a good place to start.

Now you'll say to yourself, "this is such a fantasy character"; and I will reply, "Yes, she is. It's a young adult fiction fantasy novel, that is pretty much the point, accept it and move on. Her reason for existing on multiple levels, is as an object lesson to others, and the point of a good story is to keep you interested enough to learn.

Now through twists of fate she ends up being taken as a tribute to the Captiol to fight in The Hunger Games, a reality show fight to the death between the 12 Districts of Panem. Now, while Katniss hails from District 12 a gritty Coal Mining area filled with poverty and death, the Capitol, the central district of this authoritarian empire is a place of extremely artificial beauty.

Effie Trinket, host of The Hunger Games

We're first introduced when she meets her stylist, Cinna. A young designer who is a fashion wunderkind in a land that knows its fashion, and has chosen District 12, because it is one of the poorest districts, least well provisioned, not capable of training gladiators for the arena, and that is a crime. Cinna is a man with specific gifts, who sees how he can make the biggest statement he can, and for that, Katniss is his tool. Katniss is a random variable in someone else's aesthetic style, the opening ceremonies of the Hunger Games are like the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games, big costumes and people picks who they're rooting for. And, Spoiler, Cinna literally sets Katniss on fire in order to give her the most memorable image and ensure that someone would want to be her patron and send her food or weapons during the fight.

Sometimes, making a good first impression is a matter of life and death, whether it's a job interview or a national television debut when you need to garner support, consider your presentation accordingly.

Over the course of the next book, Katniss is paraded around and is constantly under public scrutiny. Largely, the style and execution of her physical appearance and activities are out of her hands, are once again: a matter of life and death. Cinna comes and goes, using his expertise in executing the instructions of President Snow and giving savvy advice to Katniss, who he knows has to keep up an act for more than fame and fortune, he knows that if she fails, the stakes are truly dire. Katniss listens to all of this advice, she takes most of it, and most importantly begins to be able to gain mastery over the aspects of beauty as she had archery and trapping. She learns what advice is good and what is bad, and survives the less martial trials with equal savviness.

The Mockingjay Pin she wears becomes her personal symbol

Don't turn down well intentioned advice out of hand, learn from all of it.

As I mentioned, the President was involved here. Katniss inadvertently makes herself a very strong political symbol at the end of the first book. And must act out motivations publicly that are contrary to the underlying reasons that she did the thing that she did that made all that come about (it is worth reading, I'm trying not to give away too much). So she's under scrutiny that is both that of of a Reality Show star, who is essentially the only star around, and a political propaganda figure for multiple factions within Panem and frankly, she's still a kid who just wants to get out of there.

She may be reacting to many factors out of her control, but within that given scenario she is smart, she is clever and she is attentive to the world around her. She knows she must look a certain way to accomplish her goals, and she strives hard to execute that goal aesthetically in a way that compliments her choices.

Finally, the game has changed, the whole world is upside down and --SPOILER-- Katniss is the figurehead of a Revolution. Now, contrary to many ideas of what the "Leader of a Revolution" is, Katniss is once again more or less under the thumb of those who have been planning for this, have more resources, and spin the world around their schemes. At the same time, Katniss

She learns how to wield her fame and image because they are the strongest weapons she has, and learns to use her voice as well as her face to move people and highlight what she knows to be important. When she learns to combine the two, she takes the power from those who would spin her opinion or speak for her, and is able to take agency for both action and perception of her actions.

A worthy message can be undercut by a poorly presented speaker. A superb, interesting facade can be utterly vacant. Aesthetic skills can be learned, and should be learned with applicable motivation behind them. The Hunger Games does a phenomenal job explaining why aesthetic presentation is important, without enforcing a specific ideal of beauty. The real beauty it asks the audience to seek out is that which best presents the self.

Clothes can come on and off, but knowing who you are underneath is the only way to truly present yourself in the most powerful, appealing light. The reality is that the world is always watching, even in a microcosm, and if you want to get your way, you have to learn how to use the tools at your disposal.

Tyra Banks, Modelland and the Aspirational Top Model

2011-12-27T16:30:00.000-05:00

Tyra, Tyra, Tyra. Tyra Banks, former Angel, media maven, TV Host, actress, singer, author. Tyra Banks is a force to be reckoned with in the Girls' Media world and those who do not recognize it do so at their peril. Tyra is the ideal to which millions of young girls hold themselves, an insanely beautiful woman, plucked off the sidewalk at 15 to super stardom on the world's runways, who loves to eat and whose curves both launched Victoria's Secret lines and her desire to reveal the extremely exacting world of Modelling and its realities to new generations of aspiring girls.

This led to America's Next Top Model, a TV show where girls go through casting, rigorous challenges that mirror some of modelling's realities and ultimately, all but one has to stand in front of an impeccably lit and styled Tyra Banks as she tells them why they just aren't good enough to make the cut... Harsh.

I hold two pictures in my hands... and by your age I was already a multimillionaire supermodel.

But let's be clear, this is AMAZING TV, and it's no surprise that the show is going into its 18th Season. It's also a not-unrealistic interpretation of the modelling industry, which let's be clear, the mostly 17 and 18 year old contestants of ANTM have mostly already aged-out of by the time they reach Tyra's critical gaze.

You can read more of my thoughts at my Beauty: Semantics I use on this Blog entry. Rather than dive into why all this "Beauty" and material pursuit is a dangerous or bad thing, for the sake of this article, let's talk about it in these terms:

"Beauty" is a goal of aesthetic presentation that is pleasing to the eye of the beholder and those around them.
"Style" is personally identified and executed that represents the aesthetic choices of an individual.
"Fashion" is an externally dictated, aspect of potential style that is agreed upon by mutual consensus of a group.
"Costume" is dressing as something that you are not, in a recognizable (i.e. not subtle) way, to mimic or represent an exaggerated "otherness"

Generally, for the garment and fashion industry, especially the costume and fashion worlds only meet on the runway, you aren't going to sell millions of Lady Gaga's Favorite McQueen Alien Bug Queen Shoes.

I'll take 10, one in every color, and then a full leg cast... make it 2.

And chances are, no one will want to show their clothes on someone who doesn't quite fit their specific measurements (designed to showcase clothes, not women themselves) or the industry standards (Tall, young, usually white) because that will affect the buyers opinions of the clothes and their yearly sales.

These, among many other sad realities are ones that the judges and coaches of America's Next Top Model impart on the young ladies. There are things they need to be able to do, they are competing against one another for jobs, as well as thinner, younger, more established models. And not being able to take a good picture, or walk, or interview well, frankly no, you won't be hired again.

America's Next Top Model's Plus Sized Winner

This is not to say that the show fully condones all of the industry's problematic stances on race, age, and body type, they are often spoken of loudly, but they are giving some insight into the industry to girls who otherwise wouldn't know, both on screen and sitting at home.

But I haven't yet talked about Modelland? What about that picture up top you might be thinking! Modelland, Ms. Bank's first literary attempt is very much about exactly this same thing from a different perspective. Instead of taking girls through the paces of reality, Tyra is taking her reader on a symbolic journey in a sci-fi setting that asks the same questions: What is Beautiful? Is inner beauty most important? What is more important, relationships or success? And all of the industry's big issues: race, size, elitism, xenophobia, etc... are touched on and addressed.

The reviews of this Young Adult novel are mixed, but it debuted at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list and while it is extremely campy it is a pleasurable read if you can go into it prepared for a sci-fi fashion world novel. It has some "first novel by an author" issues, but no more than most and passes the "I would hand this to a tween girl looking for this kind book" test in my mind. Thematically, it fits with Tyra's greater themes and messages and it's fun and entertaining.

On the most recent season of America's Next Top Model (the all star season) Tyra had the finalists "act/model" in a Motion Editorial (I will trust them that that is a thing) about Modelland, which is sensible from a transmedia standpoint. Although I wish they'd spent as much time on the props as on the dresses.

The second half of which revealed who the America's Next Top Model: All Stars winner was - Spoiler, it's this one.

This whole thing was quite savvy. In fact, the whole season was extremely smartly done when you consider that they were culling the fan favorites of past seasons and creating as much content for online distribution as they could fit into the schedule of the show. Commercials, Music Videos, Copious references to each model's fanbase. At the end of the season, when a mysterious and as yet unexplained disqualification occurred in the finale, it only served to fan the fan flames higher after the show's season ended.

America's Next Top Model has always been a juggernaut of tie-ins, licenses and promotion, this year it came in as number 9 in number of product placement references. Make of it what you will, it is completely honest and fairly reasoned about how it does these things.

ANTM and Tyra Banks, know their audience, young girls and women (and some men) who love the glamour of fame and fashion, and who dream of a life as a supermodel, but who would very rarely get to experience that life for themselves. This is illustrated in her expansive franchise empire of transmedia storytelling, leading with the factual foot and now expanding into fiction.

While not everyone will enjoy it, and plenty will argue that it's still very superficial, all of these pieces, America's Next Top Model, Modelland and the other books that have been produced by Ms. Banks, attempt at least to discuss Superficiality in some depth beyond the easy response of "superficiality is bad." These narratives recognize that superficiality exists, that it is an integral part of one of the most influential industries on the planet, and tries to demystify some of its workings to young girls in a way they will enjoy and understand.

Licensing Beauty

2011-12-27T15:46:00.002-05:00

If you haven't already read Beauty: The Semantic Rules of this Blog, I recommend it now.

The business of narrative often overlooks aspects of Beauty in its properties, or doesn't give it enough attention. For example, Twilight, the books and movies, have hugely boosted the sales of pale foundations. The Hunger Games has its own Nail Polish Line, and DC has already started to roll out Wonder Woman and other Comic Book heroine inspired lines with M.A.C.

Here, fictional character Effie Trinket's personal style dictates fashion for both the fictional world of the Hunger Games and likely, the fashion of the film's fans in the real world. Wearers can mix and match from a broad color pallette according to their own style without appearing costume-y. Effie Trinket's over the top style in the Captiol of Panem is considered "Fashion" and not costume.

The commercial advice that is illustrated here is that ultimately, the aesthetic interpretations of beauty vary pretty widely in the real world. Even in distinct fashion circles the pursuits are individual at their heart, and rather than dictating a specific style the creation of compatible options are the strongest way to market beauty products within a franchise.

Beauty: Semantic Rules I Use in This Blog

2011-12-27T15:46:00.000-05:00

Beauty is a very strong carrot that is confusingly thrown into a pot of conflicting societal dictates, stirred together, refined into glitter and blasted into the faces of young girls, from age 4 onwards (if not earlier). It's an extremely subjective analysis often portrayed as analytically objective by taste makers and professionals who have their own agendas for owning "style", "fashion" and "the next look". For many, this is fun, chasing a look, attempting a new style, the season's colors. And for many it is an arduous and repulsive chore to iron, diet, pinch, prod and attempt to emulate the forms that some people just naturally look like.

Rather than dive into why all this "Beauty" consciousness and material pursuit is a dangerous or bad thing, for the sake of this article, let's talk about it in these terms.

"Beauty" is a goal of aesthetic presentation that is pleasing to the eye of the beholder and those around them.
"Style" is personally identified and executed that represents the aesthetic choices of an individual.
"Fashion" is an externally dictated, aspect of potential style that is agreed upon by mutual consensus of a group.
"Costume" is dressing as something that you are not, in a recognizable (i.e. not subtle) way, to mimic or represent an exaggerated "otherness"

Costume may seem a little off topic, but go with me on this tangent for a moment. Costume is an often childish pursuit that is generally looked down upon in "fashionable" circles, except during specific events, Masquerades, Halloween, Carnival, Themed Parties, Some Fashion Shows (Alexander McQueen and Betsey Johnson rode/ride that line pretty close)...

Costume is about seeking out something that is performative and mythic beyond style and fashion, this is why "National Costume" is powerful: it represents a cultural identity of a group that is easily identifiable and when worn, puts a person in a totally different context, they are part of the long cultural history of their land and are representing it to others.

It's also why things like LARPing and Cosplay have such powerful resonance for fans. When you can physically put on an item to become part of a narrative or legend that resonates with you it creates a new type of engagement and sense of one's ownership in that fictional world. It helps one act in accordance with the world's rules, and understand the nuances of how a character feels: literally walking in their shoes.


These shoes are actually quite heavy, and hard to keep shiny.

Not Everyone can pull of a Metroid this Bad Ass; for instance, Metroid: Other M.

So, to review

Costume: Represents something other than yourself.

Fashion: Consensus Based

Style: What you put on your own body by your own choice.

Remember, even if someone else picks it out for you, you have to say yes.

Articles Rejected by 2011: Katniss, The Hunter

2011-12-27T13:45:00.004-05:00

Because the year is coming to an end, I'm posting abstracts and summaries of articles that were rejected or just didn't get published last year, for recapitulation, and also because if you want me to actually flesh them out more, Dare me to in the comments, and I probably will.

Katniss Everdeen & The Hunter: From Artemis to Hit Girl, How Katness Speaks to the Warrior in All of Us.

The Greatest Franchises, indeed the greatest stories, appeal to certain archetypes that resonate across time. The image of a woman, bow in hand, speaks to the primal need to survive and the elegant grace of the hunt. Katniss, the lead protagonist in The Hunger Games, is both a Warrior and an Outlaw. A poacher, she combines two powerful archetypes that are not currently represented in the zeitgeist of popular culture, or at least not from the feminine perspective. This vacancy, and the careful execution of Katniss’s story, is a big part of the commercial success of The Hunger Games, and why it is a viscerally compelling story.

The perception of heroines as passive or weak does not accurately reflect the historical and modern role of women in society. From time immemorial, women have been providers and heads of families, despite the “delicacy” of their gender or societal requirements of femininity. The difference between stereotypical interpretations of femininity and archetypal heroines is a combination of verisimilitude, celebrating the union of femininity, and the requirements of survival in any given situation.

It gives me additional glee to pull this linked picture from an article about the movie's Nail Polish Collection

The personification of the conflict between adolescent femininity (just beginning to awake to romantic pursuits) and an extreme focus on pursuing a larger goal is one that resonates strongly with modern women. Katniss has spent most of her youth pursing survival, becoming confident in her forestry skills, and defines herself by her skills and abilities as a provider, rather than as a potential romantic partner or master of domestic skills.

When romance and sexuality arrive in Katniss’s life, she is blindsided. While she knows innately how to give and receive affection, the connection between affection and underlying emotion is blurred by circumstance. Mirroring the struggle of many modern women, the early exploration of her sexuality is defined by insecurity. Is it any wonder that Artemis was celibate?

"You're both good men, but how can I tell who I love when you're both always wearing shirts?"

Katniss tackles these problems in her life, the obstacles she must overcome in the narrative, by taking them on actively and directly. In many ways, she is denied the luxury of other courses of action.

Katniss hero’s journey through the lens of the Caregiver and the Outlaw shows how these archetypes impact modern perceptions of femininity and fill a vacant niche in the current pop culture landscape. It’s easy to see how it would appeal to women from all walks of life.

From mama grizzlies to urban cosmopolitans, homemakers to corporate executives, women struggle to operate as independent and capable individuals. The feminist ideal of choosing one’s own path while still supporting a family is addressed in Katniss’s journey, a single young girl with the weight of a revolution on her shoulders. She is expected to be everything to everyone, while simultaneously desiring above all else to be able to preserve the principles and people that mean the most to her.

Articles Rejected by 2011: The Hunger Games and Twilight: Competing Philosophies of Femininity in Modern American Literature.

2011-12-27T13:22:00.003-05:00

Because the year is coming to an end, I am looking back over abstracts and things that I submitted to places but for whatever reason, were soundly rejected by whoever saw them. In the interest of me moving forward, (though if you want and tell me so I can pontificate most verbosely on these babies) I will be posting them here. At least in abbreviated form, because as someone reading this blog, it's likely you are somewhat interested in my thoughts on these things.

The Hunger Games and Twilight: Competing Philosophies of Femininity in Modern American Literature.

Entertainment Weekly has christened The Hunger Games the likely heir apparent to the Twilight Saga’s throne in the hearts and minds of female audiences. Its ascendance on the New York Times Bestseller list as Twilight drops from the list and the rabidity of fan commentary surrounding the feature film’s casting has only re-enforced that assumption.

A number of similarities exist in the reception of the two series; they have been banned in school libraries and have proven to appeal to adults as well as their core Young Adult market segments. They both appeal to clear archetypes and contain romances that create heroines that are approachable, but who are thrust by circumstance to be larger than themselves.

While The Hunger Games represents the archetype of survival and freedom through action, Twilight represents a yearning for life after death. These themes are represented both explicitly and implicitly within the narratives of the novels and have catalyzed strong fan associations who rally around those heroines as aspirational figures.

While both embody the Jungian archetype of the caregiver and must both face inititatic rights of death and rebirth, the similarities between them serve to exemplify very different underlying ideas about the nature of life and life beyond death. Their relationships to others, parents, lovers, friends and their community also highlight major differences in the motivations of each heroine and how that reflects larger ideologies that exist in the world of the audience.

Katniss is a survivor, a hunter, warrior and eventually the leader of a rebellion who must act in order to preserve her life and that of those she cares about. Bella, on the other hand, spends most of the Twilight Saga nearly catatonic, unable to act on her own except in a desire to end her mortal life– either to escape depression or to join Edward in the afterlife of vampirehood.

Both heroines are unmistakably caregivers, and when empowered by responsibility for others, Katniss before the beginning of The Hunger Games when her father dies and mother withdraws. Bella becomes empowered when she gives birth, both by the realization of vampiric powers and peership with her enemies, but also an ability to better perceive her goals and act to not only combat her enemies but change the very reasons they fight.

The motivation to survive and live, versus the desire to live so that one may reap rewards after death are indicative of larger motivating factors in the American population and when observed through this lens, reveals much about both heroines, their stories, and the cultures created in their fanbases.

If you want to read more of this article: Dare me to write it in the comments.

Links for the Holidays

2011-12-21T11:10:00.000-05:00

Since work is slowing down slightly with the holidays, I've been visiting my favorite blog: Sociological Images.

Here are some recent gems for your perusal.

Barbie Vs. Woman

Discourses on Adoption on Once Upon a Time

And for those of you who need a daily dose of indignation and facepalming...

Molson's Divergent Marketing: Cosmo V. Playboy

Because I suppose no one would be drinking it for their taste anyway.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-16T12:23:00.000-05:00

Hey there folks,

Yes, I know, one of those blog posts saying you're going to post later, so that way. Between Jurassic Park Slope and writing a bunch of stuff for Starlight Runner (which I will actually be able to tell you about in the coming months!) I've been neglecting you, dear readers.

This is Doctor Goat, it's been a long few months.

But! I am going to be posting more in the New Year, possibly during the holiday break from work, in which I will continue to work but curse the work twice as hard as before.

Coming up in the time when I actually write: My long-threatened, unpublished articles on The Hunger Games, Twilight, Sucker Punch (Special, He Dared Me to Write it Challenge from my boss) and probably some conversation about Bridesmaids and the Help.

To tide you over, Merging+Media has put up one of the panels I spoke on, if you're feeling particularly inclined here it is.

Jurassic Park Slope- The Land Before Rhyme

2011-12-01T11:10:00.002-05:00

My independent project, Jurassic Park Slope has a big event this weekend, those of you in the NYC area whose hearts are open to fun, hipsters and dinosaurs should come out.

Jurassic Park Slope: The Land Before Rhyme

On December 3, an event 65 million years in the making will culminate in the MOST IMPORTANT DINOSAUR HIPSTER PARTY EVER.

In a new space in Brooklyn, live bands, burlesque dancers, hip hop politicians and the combined forces of Jurassic Park Slope will create an experience not to be missed. Also you will drink at it.

Doors open at 9:30
Suggested Donation $7, ($5 in costume)

254 Irving Ave, Brooklyn
Between Greene Ave & Bleecker St
Across from Verde Coal Oven Pizza

Off the Myrtle-Wyckoff Station (L, M)

Acts include: Derrek Karg (indie, acoustic), Igor's Egg (Sci-Fi Adventure Rock), The Honorable George Martinez (D-Brooklyn, Hip Hop), The Baron Joseph CR Vorteque (electronic, dance, awesome), 23 (dubstep, "synergetic paroxysm of anarchic bliss) and more!!!!

The Jurassic Park Slope Cast will be shooting scenes live and YOU can be a part of the action. The Honorable George Martinez, everyone's favorite Velociraptor Awareness candidate will be in attendance and performing! Djs! Dancers! Fun Loving Sauropods! Cheap Drinks (with ID)!

Come be a part of the fossil record.
_________________________

Want to be a part of the magic?

Interested parties should contact jurassicparkslope@gmail.com

Transmedia for Social Documentaries: TFI at The New School

2011-10-31T12:58:00.000-04:00

Check out our latest free panel at the New School in Manhattan, co-sponsored by the Department of Media Studies and Film.

Tribeca Film Institute at The New School: Transmedia for Social Documentaries
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 7:00 p.m.

What does the word transmedia actually mean? What do documentaries need to be to ensure that they are seen in this complex media world? Documentary filmmakers, funders, and technology experts join in conversation to explore gaming, films for mobile phones, new animation techniques, and storytelling platforms for the iPad and other tablets. This panel is an opportunity to learn about and discuss the future of media-driven communication.

The panel will be moderated by TFI's own Opeyemi Olukemi. The speakers:

Vladan Nikolic is a filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at The New School. His most recent work includes producing the feature Here and There (winner of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival Best NY Narrative Award), and writing, directing and producing the feature film Zenith, which is accompanied by an elaborate transmedia campaign.

Caitlin Burns is a transmedia producer with Starlight Runner Entertainment who has worked on a number of blockbusters including Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron Legacy and Avatar, as well Halo for Microsoft and Transformers for Hasbro. In addition she runs Starlight Runner’s Documentary and Social Issue campaigns focusing on using entertainment for social change.

Megan Cunningham is the Founder and CEO of Magnet Media, an award-winning digital production studio and marketing services firm that produces web video and social media campaigns for many of the largest brands in media, entertainment and technology, including Apple, Google, ABC, Showtime, the Associated Press, Dreamworks Animation and more.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Media Studies and Film.

Location: Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor

Admission: Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

Reading List

2011-10-11T13:05:00.000-04:00

Be Sure to check out this ebook, it contains pearls of wisdom from many interesting people... and me as well.

Alexandre Brachet (Upian) ; Alexander Knetig (ARTE); Alexis Sarini & Louis Villers (Webdocu.fr) ; Andrew Devigal (The New-York Times); Anne Vierhout (ex-IDFA) ; Arik Bernstein (Alma-Films) ; Brian Storm (Mediastorm) ; Caitlin Burns (Starlight Runner) ; Danae Ringelmann (IndieGoGo); Elizabeth Radshaw (Hotdocs) ; Femke Wolting (Submarine) ; Heather Croall (Sheffield Doc Fest); Hugues Sweeney (ONF/NFB) ; James McQuivey (Forrester Research) ; Jon Reiss (Think Outside the Box Office); Katerina Cizek (NFB) ; Laurence Bagot (narrative) ; Marc Meurisse (Belle); Mark Atkin (Doc-Campus/Crossover) ; Mathieu Détaint & Nicolas Sauret (Inflammable); Nicolas Saint-Cyr (Nikosanto) ; Paul Pauwels (ETMA) ; Peter Wintonick (DocAgora/Eyesteelfilm) ; Rob Ford (FWA); Sheri Candler (Social media consultant) ; Stefano Strocchi (Move production) ; Tamara Krinsky (IDA) ; Tom Koch (PBS).

Find out more at http://www.notsocrazy.eu/

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

2011-10-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

Ada Lovelace Day has begun!

Do you remember which women have influenced you over the years?

Perhaps your maths teacher, one of your university lecturers, or a colleague?
This Ada Lovelace Day on October 7, share your story about a woman — whether an engineer, a scientist, a technologist or mathematician — who has inspired you to become who you are today. Write a blog post, record a podcast, film a video, draw a comic, or pick any other way to talk about the women who have been guiding lights in your life. Give your heroine the credit she deserves!

The Recipients of Our First-Ever TFI New Media Fund

2011-10-04T16:09:00.001-04:00

"We're thrilled to announce the six projects selected for the inaugural year of the TFI New Media Fund, a diverse collection of nonfiction transmedia works exploring everything from the Egyptian Revolution to global health to the "friendly fire" death in Afghanistan of American serviceman Pat Tillman. These grantees will receive $50,000 and $100,000 apiece, with funding effective immediately."

I'm really honored to be a Jury Member for the Tribeca Film Institute New Media Fund, check out all the recipients here.

The Perils of Power, the Effects of Empowerment

2011-09-26T10:36:00.001-04:00

I was GOING to possibly talk about The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their 'Liberated Sexuality' but with most things about women in comics, I know people who can speak to this much better than I do, mostly because they care a lot more and I have become... apathetic about the comic book industry.

So Check out The Perils of Power, the Effects of Empowerment

I think one of the principle problems in discussing Strong Female Characters…

(yes, like these)
…in particular, and Strong Characters in general, is that there are a number of ambiguities in play. One is an ambiguity around the word “character”: this is a word used both to describe the figure in the novel (“The character of Elizabeth Bennett is the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice”) and the behavior and personality of people, both real and imagined (“Elizabeth Bennett’s character was repeatedly called into question by Mr. Darcy’s aunt Catherine”). And there’s likewise an ambiguity (actually a trambiguity, I guess), in terms of the way we use the word “strong”: a person could be strong like Superman in the sense that he could lift a heavy object, or he could be strong like John McClain in the sense that he’ll keep fighting no matter what, or he could just be rendered strongly: that is, this is just a clearly and boldly defined, precise and complex character.

Read more here, it's written by the entirely too charming Chris Braak, who is also the author of the go-to blog post on talking to someone who is defending the portrayal of women in comic books: Representations of Women in (Mostly Superhero) Comics

DC Comics, Bad at Math

2011-09-26T10:29:00.002-04:00

From Shortpacked!

6 Obnoxious Assumptions Hollywood Makes About Women

2011-09-21T11:35:00.000-04:00

6 Obnoxious Assumptions Hollywood Makes About Women at Cracked.com

Quantity V. Quality: Are more women on TV enough?

2011-09-20T17:35:00.000-04:00

TV this fall seems positively lousy with Women. The word that comes to mind is lousy though, really, because the roles in which we see these women seems somewhat overwhelmingly fetishized. Charlie's Angels, The Playboy Club and Pan Am, a show about Stewardesses (long before flight attendant came to vogue). An interesting article in The Washington Post asks the questions "WHAT THE [EXPLETIVE] HAPPENED TO WOMEN??"

To be clear: This is a vastly mediocre fall TV season in every way, even after I graded it on a curve. It doesn’t do much for men or women (or dinosaurs). It’s a season filled with some zippy ideas that fizzle out within minutes of the first episodes. I expect a lot of quick cancellations.

But what is most striking about it — what critics and pop-culture observers have picked up on — is the surfeit of new shows about women. Others have dubbed it a victory, yet why do the women we meet depress me so? As I watched, the overriding question I’ve written in my notes is, often in exasperated all-caps, is simply this:

WHAT THE [EXPLETIVE] HAPPENED TO WOMEN?

On the plus side, women write and produce and star in more TV than ever. But if the only women you ever saw were those on these shows, you would have a hard time believing that a liberation movement had ever occurred.

It’s all bunnies, baby dolls and broads — and bridezillas and bimbos, if you get into reality TV. It’s still giggles and jiggles.

My, the jiggles. This season’s uncalled-for retread of “Charlie’s Angels” (co-produced by Drew Barrymore yet entirely absent the ironic panache of her 2000 big-screen version) brings the word “jiggle” back into play, though with the 21st century’s predilection for gymnastics and martial arts. This has the effect of making the jiggle seem more lithe and elegant, but it’s not the curves that have gone jello-esque — it’s the brain stem. How is it possible that a “Charlie’s Angels” in 2011 would make the “Charlie’s Angels” of 1976 look like Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”?

And without having watched any of these yet, stopping to write the list I wrote above does give me a little pause to ask, is this progress? On one hand, yes, more women on TV and in leading roles is a kind of progress. But as a whole, is it meaningful if the shows are terrible?

Let's ask the bigger question which I think is hinted at beautifully in this article, what are we asking of television that we aren't getting even when we are getting what we thought we wanted?

We seem to want more diversity from our shows and their casts and creators (in this case GENDER diversity), why do we want that? Fairness, piffle, we want things that are legitimately entertaining. If a story is good do we watch it even if we find the creator vile? yes, yes we do.

The fact is that creating a bunch of shows that star women but aren't terribly good does make us ask the question:

If a show stars a woman and it's terrible is it worth watching?

I don't think yogis have to meditate over that Koan for centuries. I think it's pretty clear that it doesn't matter if there are women or men in leading roles if the stories are uninteresting. If these shows are as terrible as the Washington Post describes chances are we won't have to worry about them in the Spring lineup.

At the same time, it's worth considering why these shows might fail and how unsurprising it would be if they did. Television has one thing going for it that the Internet doesn't (yet) the ability to tell a story on a scale and timeline that allows for long-form development and weekly frequency. Charlie's Angels' old audience of young boys who need a jiggle fix can get that elsewhere, and if Pan Am doesn't live up to the quality of Mad Men, people will just watch DVDs of Mad Men.

These are exactly the same reasons terrible shows starring men don't bring people back to the major networks. A Terrible Show is Terrible whether it stars women or not.

Brazil's Telenovelas change lives of women.

2011-09-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

Machisma

How a mix of female empowerment and steamy soap operas helped bring down Brazil’s fertility rate and stoke its vibrant economy.

from National Geographic

How 'The Help' solidifies a new summer tradition... pissing me off about film criticism.

2011-08-16T11:27:00.003-04:00

From the LA Times

"For all the cliches about chick flicks, the form has actually taken some interesting turns in recent years. This weekend it took the latest, with the Viola Davis-starring "The Help" telling a story about friendship and loyalty against the backdrop of racism in the 1960s-era South.

Over the past few years, it's become practically a ritual that a star-driven movie about female-friendship and -empowerment come out every summer, usually in August, and usually based on a book-club favorite. Last year it was "Eat, Pray, Love;" the summer before it was "Julie & Julia." "The Devil Wears Prada" (which was released over the July 4 weekend) served the genre in 2006.

Whatever these movies' differences in tone and subject matter, they have several important things in common. They all traffic in themes about female identity. And they're all solidly, sometimes even wildly, successful.

There are a lot of reasons why these movies have performed as well as they have, and Taylor Tate's "The Help," which has taken in a resounding $35.4 million since opening last Wednesday, is no different. The beloved book title gave it a running start, and critics then fanned that enthusiasm with strong reviews. "The Help's" ability to tackle serious themes about changing the status quo in a familiar cinematic context about friendship and comedy provided that holy grail: slick entertainment that's also a little good for you (much like "Prada's look at post-college identity in the glittery fashion world)."

Wait, wait, wait, you might be asking yourself a film aimed at women was reasonably successful at the box office? GASP! Shock! Apparently, we're still here, we're going to talk about this again.

The subject of women at the box office has been a hot one this summer, what with "Bridesmaids" and "Bad Teacher" putting women front-and-center in a potty-mouthed comedy. With those films, pundits said that Hollywood was serving or even creating a new audience: women who wanted their movies as bawdy and escapist as men. But with the release of a film that was comedic in a far gentler way, the most recent weekend proved that the old audience hasn't really gone anywhere.

Note: I haven't seen The Help yet. But I'm not really going to talk about The Help right now either. The implication here is that reporting on the success of these narratives (women in empowering stories of friendship in this case) is still anomalous to the entertainment industry. I mean really, Women in Empowering Stories of Friendship is a Blue Chip Narrative Stock in the entertainment industry, reliable, time-tested, and honestly, not the most expensive genre to invest in.

Fem blog Jezebel's commentary on this is as follows:

A more likely explanation: The female half of the population doesn't suddenly remember in early August that we like to watch films that reflect our own experiences, that's just when these movies happen to come out. According to the bestseller/strong ladies/A-list star criteria, The Blind Side should be on this list too (like The Help there's even that questionable "white lady saves poor black people" angle). However, the film came out around Thanksgiving and wasn't considered a "chick flick" because it's not humiliating for guys to watch a football movie.

I think the ladies at Jezebel would agree with me when I say, it's a bit insulting to hear again and again that it's surprising that us girls open up our pocketbooks and go see movies when they features themes and narratives that we can relate to. Even though I've never had my own maid, worked at Conde Nast or had a pair of magical traveling pants I've paid to see three movies about women who had.

The constant surprise that women go see movies is ludicrous and exhausting. Even moreso, the fact that a variety of movies that feature female stories being successful: raunchy comedy, sincere drama, light-hearted romance, sci-fi revolutionary epic (Come on Hunger Games!!!!).

Facts:

Women go see movies.
Women have the money to pay to see movies they want to see.
Women want to see movies that feature characters they can relate to.
Women will see movies that feature characters they can relate to in a variety of genres.
Women will pay to see movies that feature characters they can relate to in a variety of genres.

Given those facts, can we please eliminate the emotion of surprise

that movies that feature women characters don't immediately crash and burn?

Gloria Steinem Calls of Boycott of NBC's The Playboy Club

2011-08-10T10:58:00.001-04:00

From Jezebel:

TV viewers may be confused because the Playboy Club seemed pretty glamourous when Don Draper was there (though keep in mind that the visit resulted in a horrific, racially-motivated cane attack). Thankfully, Steinem has given feminists the go-ahead to keep loving Mad Men, even if the club's brief appearance on the program showcased sexy costumes with no mention of the requirement that Bunnies undergo internal exams and STD tests (a rule the clubs were forced to drop thanks to her expose). Steinem says Mad Men is "a net plus, because it shows the world of the early 1960s with some realism." However, she expects that The Playboy Club, "will be a net minus and I hope people boycott it. It's just not telling the truth about the era."
Steinem continues:
"It normalizes a passive dominant idea of gender. So it normalizes prostitution and male dominance...I just know that over the years, women have called me and told me horror stories of what they experienced at the Playboy Club and at the Playboy Mansion."
That doesn't sound all that empowering, but maybe Steinem just has her facts mixed up. She should be sure to watch Bra Burners, NBC's new 1970s historical drama about the ladies who got into pillow fights to protest society pressuring them to wear underwear.

Pony Up Haters

2011-08-10T10:46:00.001-04:00

So, those of you who read my earlier post about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic know that the Brony is now, entirely, really a "thing".

Example: The only smartphone app for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic currently in the offing is fan created and this is its description:

"This is not for kids!! This app is designed for pony fans, usually males 18+, with huge online presence. If you are a parent wishing to get an app for your kid - DON'T DO IT. Thank you!"


When the internet thinks something is inappropriate for kids, you should probably believe it.

While there is some question as to whether the meme started on 4chan or Something Awful, this article does a great job of chronicling the rise of this fangroup, and seriously, as weird as it is, it totally proves my longstanding point that boys and men will enjoy well-done shows aimed at women or girls.

Epic Win to Lauren Faust.

Brony, short for “bro pony,” refers to an unusual audience demographic of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, a cartoon that began airing on the new cable network the Hub in October of last year. The show, based on the seminal 1980s toy franchise, was created for Hasbro by Lauren Faust, a former writer and director on The Powerpuff Girls. While it is marketed to children, it has quickly amassed a legion of fanboys between the ages of 18 and 35 who obsess over characters with names like Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Predictably, this has led to some confusion.

“Everyone thought I was a girl,” said a mop-topped young man wearing a Friendship Is Magic T-shirt and a name tag that identified him as Strawberry Spice (Purple Tinker, the head of the Bronies’ New York chapter, calls these alter egos“pony-sonas”). Mr. Spice, 18, was at the Brony meetup partially to establish his gender in person, but also to hand out homemade stickers and pony-themed fruit snacks.

Yamato nadeshiko – Ideal Womanhood and Manga

2011-07-29T13:42:00.001-04:00

Check out this fascinating article By N.K. Jenisin

"One of my favorite manga is a shoujo (girls’) comedy serial called Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge (YNS), sold in the US as The Wallflower. Now, the Japanese title has a more complex meaning than a phrase like “the wallflower” can encompass, in part because it’s referencing a phrase that’s fairly esoteric to Japanese culture — the idea of quintessential Japanese womanhood, or the yamato nadeshiko spirit. But the story itself is fairly simple: four hot guys are offered the chance by an eccentric millionaire to live in a stunning mansion, rent-free — but in exchange, they have to transform her ugly-duckling niece Sunako into a “real lady”."

Architect Barbie Dream House

2011-07-29T12:27:00.002-04:00

The AIA received nearly 30 submissions for the AIA Barbie® Dream House™ Design Competition. The AIA and its panel of jurors have selected their finalists, with input from Mattel’s own team of Barbie® experts. Now it’s your turn to help select the winning design. While the submissions/winning design will not be produced by Mattel, it’s still a fun way to play and engage with Barbie® I Can Be™... Architect regardless of your age.

Bridesmaids now the #1 R rated female comedy of all time

2011-07-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

Universal’s sleeper hit Bridesmaids has become the top R-rated female comedy of all time, surpassing Sex and the City.

Bridesmaids should end Monday -- the July 4th holiday -- with a domestic total of $153.7 million.

Universal touted other milestones, saying Bridesmaids is now the studio’s biggest romantic comedy ever, as well as the seventh best romantic comedy of all time, according to tracking service Cinesys. Bridesmaids isn't a traditional romantic comedy, although the girl gets the boy in the end.

Please can we have fewer shoe jokes now? I will also accept better shoe jokes.

Sexism and Toddlers, it's not just me

2011-06-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

You see, Star Wars, is huge at my daughter's pre-school. She's seen it, everyone in her class has seen it, and many of them have even been privy to Empire. Although we think she needs to be older to handle the loss, albeit it temporary, of Han Solo. The kids talk about Star Wars, they play Star Wars, and finally my daughter noticed something during playtime. So she asked me, "Mommy, why aren't there more girl characters in Star Wars?"

Read More from April Peveteaux at "the Stir" 'Star Wars' taught my daughter the meaning of sexism

Is Bad Teacher a Strong Female Comedy or more Eye-Candy for men?

2011-06-27T15:58:00.000-04:00

Critics are torn on whether Bad Teacher is about a strong woman, a materialistic slut, or both.

What are your thoughts? did you see it?

Brave

2011-06-27T14:10:00.002-04:00

Pixar's First Female Protagonist

Hue and Cry: The Success of Bridesmaids

2011-05-26T16:37:00.003-04:00

Every so often a movie comes along that makes a good portion of the blog-o-press-o-sphere froth at the mouth about the position of women in Hollywood (for example, Amelia) and there is a sense of stress and doom applied as though this one movie may validate or invalidate female creators/writers/funny people/etc... In my opinion, these sorts of events are the things that ulcers are made of.

That said, I'm interested in why a movie like Bridesmaids gets the Hue and Cry treatment, when it inhabits a fairly clear niche in the entire genre of "lady films". Is it that the film was not being marketed in the same upbeat movie cat-fighting advertising that accompanied say: Bride Wars?

Lets be fair, Bride Wars is a PG movie with a Tomatometer rating of 11% described as "Bride Wars takes the already wearisome concept of battling bridezillas, and makes it thoroughly insufferable via a lazy script and wholly detestable characters." and Bridesmaids rates an 89% on the Tomatometer and is described as "A marriage of genuine characters, gross out gags, and pathos, Bridesmaids is a female-driven comedy that refuses to be boxed in as Kristen Wiig emerges as a real star." So, quality of script is clearly a factor, as is the ambitiousness of the boundaries of the "Wedding Movie Genre."

Lets take a sideline and discuss wedding movies in general. A subsection of the romance genre usually, there are a few highly successful and many less successful wedding movies out there. My Best Friend's Wedding, Made of Honor, 27 Dresses, Father of the Bride, etc... They all feature the event, which is one that even if an individual never gets married, they will probably attend or participate in at some time in their lives. Add a dash of the sheer complexity and expense of these events, the potential emotional tribulations that surround them and there you have a movie.

But that's just movies, there are literally networks devoted entirely to wedding shows, Bridezillas, Rich Bride, Poor Bride, A Wedding Story, Wedding SOS, not to mention Bridalplasty.

The preoccupation with marriage, the event, landing a partner, and of course, the temporary insanity that seems to descend on otherwise reasonable women, the bridezillas, is a genre that clearly has market value. Deliciously traditional with a dash of "every girl wants to be a princess" it is a "safe" genre for stories.

Bridesmaids set out to give that genre a sharp shock.

Kristin Wiig and writer, Annie Mumolo, had a charming and funny script that was then blended with Judd Apatow and Paul Feig's comedic stylings.

If Apatow was going to make a movie with Kristen Wiig, he made it clear, he wanted to capture the outrageousness that had made her a television star. “No, we’re not going to sit and talk,” Mumolo remembers Apatow saying about one scene of sedentary dialogue. The two female writers were occasionally wary about some suggestions made by Apatow and Feig — like a scene in which the bride and most of the bridesmaids come down with violent food poisoning. What were Wiig’s reservations? She shot a look. “Just that it was a huge scene about women vomiting” and defecating in their pants. “We wrote the script, and we didn’t really have anything in that tone, and it seemed to be such a big statement,” she says. Apatow assured her that if it did not work, they could cut it. Wiig and Mumolo — a writing partner from her Groundlings days — ultimately agreed that it did work.

Paul Feig as director seemed to mediate the female voice and often over the top comedy elements:
From a Wall Street Journal interview with Paul Feig:

Because so many big female-driven comedies can be watered-down versions of male ones, how careful did you have to be to make sure that it wasn’t going to be a really funny girl version of “40-Year-Old Virgin”?

What it just adds up to is they’re women talking like women and we’re not grafting anything on them other than potential story points or moments. Early on with Kristen and Annie and there were other women, we checked to make sure those story points were honest – what would be your honest reaction to this? And so it just kept us honest the whole time. I honestly don’t see how you can do it any other way if you’re working with a member of the opposite sex. Because I’m a pretty feminized geek, you know? I have that point of view, I grew up around a lot of girls, so I’m pretty sensitive to that. But I don’t dare say “I know how women think.”

So, what do we see here? People of both genders thinking about what they're doing and considerately making a movie that clearly appeals beyond the traditional market boundaries of the "Chick Flick." There was also a concerted effort to describe the film in a way that was accurate to its content. It isn't a standard chick flick, but while these ladies are sexy, they didn't single out the 'prettiest' and tart her up, nor did they attempt to overemphasize the scale of the shenanigans they get up to for shtick

Honestly, who wouldn't squish down their hair in that pose?

(example mug shots of me being wrong in the comments, please.)

So, Bridesmaids' budget was $34 Million, and in its opening weekend it made over $24 Million, outperforming it's studio's estimates. Good for it. According to Deadline Hollywood the audience was 67% female vs. 33% male, and 63% of the audience age 30 and older vs. 37% under age 30."

Universal crowed: "Bridesmaids has broken new ground in presenting an R-rated comedy designed for female audiences that also plays with male moviegoers – as opposed to traditional films in the R–rated comedy genre being targeted primarily for men. The film’s bigger than expected opening puts it in the category with other sleeper R-rated comedy openings such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin ($21.4m / $109.4m)."

I was so convinced that this rare R-rated event comedy featuring women burping and farting for our female amusement wouldn't make over $13M, even $15M tops, that I promised Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson that I would leave Hollywood reporting forever if Bridesmaids did the $20+ million he thought it would. Well, I've called the moving vans because I clearly have no idea what works at the domestic box office anymore.

Nikki Finke is certainly not the only one surprised by the numbers, but that is a little sad. The idea that with the talent and energy put into this movie it wouldn't do at least reasonably gives me a serious case of the beleaguered sighs.

Judd Apatow spoke to the The New York Times about what this means to women in the industry in general.

"Sadly, I think some of that talk was true. There are a lot of female-driven comedies on the bubble at the studios and they do look to measure how well these things do, and what levels of interest there are in certain genres. One of the reasons there was pressure is because the studios knew this movie came out very well, and if nobody bothered to go see it, they could say, "Even when you make a really good one, nobody comes." But because people came, the opposite lesson was learned, which is, there's an enormous neglected community of moviegoers who want to see films like this... I think they [the ensemble cast of Bridesmaids] all deserve to star in their own movies. It is usually a dearth of scripts which hold great actresses back. Hopefully the studios will develop more movies for them. As will I."

So, unlike Amelia in 2009, this lady-driven movie succeeded. Is it a factor in the sudden increase in female created scripts picked up for the fall TV lineup? (in my heart of hearts I hope not) Does it mean there should be a corresponding increase in scripts by ladies being picked up? only if they're good. It's a shame that every time a movie with a lot of female characters or writers or dare I say it, directors must stand exemplar for all women in the business. By that logic I demand we hold all movies by male directors to the standards of Bubble Boy and Battlefield Earth.

"Women must pay for everything.

They do get more glory than men for comparable feats,

but, they also get more notoriety when they crash."
-Amelia Earhart

It is my ardent hope that someday that quote will truly be the hallmark of an era that we have passed beyond.

Update: Bridesmaids is poised to become Judd Apatow's highest ever box-office hit

A Physical Analysis of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

2011-05-24T10:53:00.006-04:00

So, This is amazing, (it's awesome, it's awesome, it's awesome... the animation is incredible). I happen to be a fan of the My Little Pony. I was exactly the right age to get the full force of Hasbro's cartoons as a young girl, and with that in mind, I have fond memories of sparkly pegasai, magical unicorns and that utterly specific smell that ONLY my little ponies smell like (something about the rubber? if you have ever smelled one, you know what I mean).

I have this on my desk. Jealous?

My little pony was always filled with sparkles and magic and friendship but also, Tirek:
(From Cracked.com)

"Tirek, a gigantic half-goat/half-horse/half-man and 150 percent motherfucking hellspawn, lives in his Midnight Castle. Scorpan, his Yeti-with-wings minion, executes his evil commands, which oddly mostly consists of kidnapping ponies.

Tirek's plan involves using a powerful black magic, called The Power of Darkness, to turn said ponies into dragon slaves so they'll pull his "Chariot of Darkness" and perhaps some other appliance of darkness that requires dragon energy to work properly."

So, I suggest that we all take note Magical Ponies totally owned "The Power of Darkness" for a good 10 year period. So, while you psychoanalyze that a bit I will move on,
to the My Little Pony of today. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Now as a My Little Pony fan, but also, the mother of a little girl, the goal of watching something together that doesn't make me want to vomit with rage or gauge out my eyes with boredom is a preoccupation of mine. This show is delightful.

While it's obviously made for kids, it has enough story to make it interesting for an adult, and is occasionally hilarious and usually filled with action. Instead of Tirek, the story is more about balance, the power of darkness is still an issue and makes a major mythological cameo in the first episodes of the series, but the stories are overall, slightly less life or death. The ponies inhabit a vaguely greek world with manticores and cocatrices and hydras and they face some perils and all that good stuff. I heartily recommend watching it to make your mind up for yourself.

"Cartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness. Girls like stories with real conflict; girls are smart enough to understand complex plots; girls aren’t as easily frightened as everyone seems to think."

– Lauren Faust

The Powerpuff Girls and

Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and now,

My Little Pony: Frienship is Magic

I can wax poetic about this for a while, but as a reference to the video above. I am not the only person who is all about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There is a very robust fan base of grown-ups and in fact, grown up MEN. Men who like animation who like interesting stories, and who may have sisters, girlfriends, or friends who grew up with the show are now finding and enjoying it.

They are enjoying it to the point that they are doing physics presentations about it, mining it for pop-culture references and even writing long essays about the ramifications of it's governmental structures mean in terms of political satires.

"One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories; after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. These kinds of stories rely on a plausible economic base to be meaningful. "

Oscar Moralde

Solidarity is Illusion: The Political Economy

of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

This piece of art inspires fascinating thought. Which should be a primary motivator in the creation of children's entertainment. What's more, it's really entertaining and I can watch it with my daughter without qualms. That is a win.

xkcd: Marie Curie

2011-05-21T13:27:00.002-04:00

The Smurfette Principle

2011-05-20T15:26:00.003-04:00

Seven Deadly Sins- In Disney Princess Form

2011-05-16T16:11:00.000-04:00

Check out these awesome designs by artist Chris Hill, not just are they gorgeous, the artist's commentary on each image is really interesting.

"It's no wonder that her name means Beauty...

Here's Belle, the victim of vanity. While she herself is not vain, those around her seem to see nothing but her beauty, such as Gaston only wants her due to her radiance. Her tale itself is one completely focused on Vanity."

Understanding Youth- Toronto, Ontario. June 8, 2011

2011-05-12T10:12:00.000-04:00

AFTERNOON KEYNOTE:

Transmedia Storytelling - The Power of Connected Narratives

June 8, 2011 - 1:15 PM to 2:00 PM

ROOM: Epic (as a note, I seriously love that I'll be presenting in the "Epic" room)

The most dynamic entertainment franchises and the most potent social movements in recent years have something profound in common: Transmedia Storytelling.

Young people are no longer satisfied with being broadcast at. They want to engage, create and participate, and the brands that validate their involvement will be a step ahead of their competition. Transmedia Producer from New York-based Starlight Runner Entertainment, Caitlin Burns, will explain how to entice young consumers with evolving technologies and platforms; whether to evangelize a cause or a brand.

Learn how core storytelling tools can be used to activate and develop communities leveraging multimedia and emergent technologies including mobile content, social media, marketing, commercial campaigns, online ventures, gaming, television and film.

Burns has applied her skills to properties and brands including Halo for Microsoft, The Happiness Factory for Coca-Cola, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, Dexter for Showtime and Transformers for Hasbro.

To Register for Understanding Youth, Click Here

Growing Up Female in 1971

2011-05-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

Growing Up Female in 1971

Check out the first 5 minutes of this documentary

Surprise Verdict in Barbie vs. Bratz Trial

2011-04-22T10:33:00.002-04:00

In a surprising turn, Mattel must pay MGA $88.5 Million in Mattel's suit against the Bratz toymaker

From the LA Times:

"In siding with MGA Entertainment Inc. over rival Mattel Inc. in the retrial over who owns the rights to the billion-dollar Bratz doll franchise, a federal jury said the toy giant had not proved its allegations of copyright infringement.

What's more, some jurors said they sympathized with MGA's plight as a small company trying to compete with the industry behemoth.

"I don't think anyone should be able to bully someone and own everything," said juror Nadine Done, 22.
The eight-person jury unanimously rejected Mattel's copyright infringement claims; said Mattel did not own the rights to the dolls, early models or sketches; and said MGA did not steal trade secrets.

Instead, it found that Mattel had stolen trade secrets from MGA and owed MGA $88.5 million. MGA had accused its rival of stealing 114 trade secrets; the jury awarded damages on 26 of them...

...The decision was a major turnabout from the first trial in 2008, when a jury in Riverside awarded $100 million in damages to Mattel in the copyright infringement case; MGA was ordered to turn over the franchise to Mattel and stop making and selling Bratz products."

Also, The Google Image Search here is great :

Interestingly Enough, "Bratz Barbie" gives you higher listed images of active violence such as the above or this image and more sporty contexts, while "Barbie Bratz" tends to show images of catfighting. Catfighting obviously permeates throughout, but it's an interesting note.

airbrushed

Not Airbrushed

From Mattel's previous win in Appellate Court


from Momlogic.com

If nothing else has come of this, the photo groups at a couple of newspapers had some fun with this one.

But don't fear, those of you who want to re imagine this court case in a Dino-Riders style battle royale (PLEASE do this, if you don't I may have to and I really don't have time to build that diorama) there's a really strong chance Mattel will appeal yet again.

Also from the LA Times:

"This time around, jurors heard not only the copyright claims but also accusations from each company that the other side stole trade secrets. Among its claims, MGA accused Mattel of sending employees into its showrooms at industry trade shows to spy on its products. It also said Mattel distributed an internal "how to steal" manual.

Mattel is expected to appeal the verdict if a new trial isn't declared, but toy analysts said doing so could hurt the company's reputation and urged Mattel to walk away.

"If they decide to appeal, I think their stock goes down. At this point everyone wants to move on," said Gerrick Johnson of BMO Capital Markets. "The irony of the whole thing is Mattel brought this case seven years ago, spent about $400 million on it and what did they get in return? The right to pay Isaac Larian $89 million. That's pretty amazing."

Now that a verdict has been reached, the question remains over how viable the Bratz franchise is. Many worry that the brand may be irreparably damaged by years of litigation. On top of that, the fashion doll category has grown more competitive in the last decade, making a total comeback of Bratz unlikely.

Not surprisingly, the two sides blamed each other for Bratz's dwindling value.
"Larian has so lost his focus on his business — he's allowed this property to wither on the vine," Estrich said.

"Mattel killed the Bratz brand," Larian shot back. "It will never be the same level it was before."

From Alexander Pope to "Splice": a Short History of the Female Mad Scientist

2011-04-21T18:21:00.000-04:00

From io9.com

"The mad scientist is an icon of modern popular culture, but critics have traced its origin back centuries. Yet there seem to be few female mad scientists. Which is odd, because the first significant fictional mad scientist was a woman."

Wonder Woman

2011-04-13T22:10:00.001-04:00

No show about a female superhero should be more preoccupied with what she is wearing than what she is doing.

NEXT GENERATION DOCS: Social Media and Cross-Platform Storytelling

2011-04-11T12:01:00.000-04:00

Wednesday Apr. 27, 2011

6:30 PM

Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
New York University
20 Cooper Square, 6th Floor

Hosted By New York Women in Film & Television

Digital technology is changing documentary filmmaking. This month the focus is on docs with digital offspring and a great social strategy.

With millions of people active on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, social media has become a new ally during the research and production of a film, and it can keep a project active online long after its launch. The emergence of additional platforms for cross-media storytelling – the Internet, games, mobile TV — is allowing filmmakers to extend their narratives and create completely new ones.

This panel will explore the potential of all this new technology. We’ll hear how producers harness crowdsourcing techniques (the power of the online crowd) to create innovative projects that deepen documentary storytelling and build social experiences.

More Info -- Register Here

Words in Gendered Toy Advertisements

2011-04-11T11:02:00.000-04:00

"Crystal Smith @ The Achilles Effect (a site that examines how young boys’ understanding of masculinity affects their perception of femininity) culled a list of words from 59 toy spots directed at either boys or girls and plugged them into Wordle to produce a word cloud illustrating which words are used most often in ads targeting boys (top) versus words used most often in ads targeting girls.

“This is not an exhaustive record,” Smith says, “it’s really just a starting point, but the results certainly are interesting.”

A complete breakdown of the facts and figures can be found here. A follow-up post with responses to common questions and criticisms can be found here."

-Via the Daily What and The Achilles Effect

Transmedia: Hollywood 2

2011-03-29T18:54:00.001-04:00

Hey Blog Fans,

I know I've been busy, but if you need a fix of hearing me talk about things, check me out in Los Angeles next week at Transmeida, Hollywood 2: the Sequel, like Godfather 2, and not other sequels that are not good.

See you there!

______________________________________________________________________

TRANSMEDIA, HOLLYWOOD 2:
Visual Culture and Design
A UCLA/USC/Industry Symposium
Co-sponsored by
UCLA Producers Program,
UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television
and
USC School of Cinematic Arts
Friday, April 8, 2011
James Bridges Theater, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television
9:45 AM - 7 PM

Event Co-Directors:
Denise Mann, Associate Professor, Producers Program, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts, USC Annenberg School of Communication

Overview
Transmedia, Hollywood 2: Visual Culture and Design is a one-day public symposium exploring the role of transmedia franchises in today's entertainment industries. Transmedia, Hollywood 2 turns the spotlight on media creators, producers and executives and places them in critical dialogue with top researchers from across a wide spectrum of film, media and cultural studies to provide an interdisciplinary summit for the free interchange of insights about how transmedia works and what it means.

Co-hosted by Denise Mann and Henry Jenkins, from UCLA and USC, two of the most prominent film schools and media research centers in the nation, Transmedia, Hollywood 2 builds on the foundations established at last year's Transmedia, Hollywood: S/Telling the Story. This year's topic: Transmedia, Hollywood: Visual Culture and Design is meant to move from an abstract discussion of transmedia storytelling in all its permutations to a more concrete consideration of what is involved in designing for transmedia.

The past year has seen the Producer's Guild of America (PGA) embrace the concept of the transmedia producer. The other Guilds have begun discussing the implications of these developments for their membership. A growing number of small production units are springing up across the film, games, web, and television sectors to try to create and distribute transmedia content. Many of today's new transmedia producers are helmed by one-time studio or network insiders who are eager to "reinvent" themselves. Inside the studios, the executives tasked with top-down management of large media franchises are partnering with once marginalized film directors, comic book creators, game designers, and other creative personnel.

The underlying premise of this conference is that while the traditional studios and networks are hanging onto many of their outdated practices, they are also starting to engage creative personnel who are working outside the system to help them re-imagine their business. With crisis and change comes the opportunity for the next generation of maverick, independent-minded producers--the next Walt Disney and George Lucas-- to significantly challenge the old and to make way for the new. So, now, it is time to start examining lessons learned from these early experiments. Each of the issues outlined below impact the day-to-day design decisions that go into developing transmedia franchises. We hope to break down the project of developing transmedia content into four basic design challenges:

What does it mean to structure a franchise around the exploration of a world rather than a narrative? How are these worlds moving from the film and television screen into other media, such as comics, games, and location based entertainment?
What does it mean to design a character that will play well across a range of different media platforms? How might transmedia content re-center familiar stories around compelling secondary characters, adding depth to our understanding of the depicted events and relationships?
What does it mean to develop a sequence of events across a range of different media? How do we make sure that the spectator understands the relationship between events when they are piecing together information from different platforms and trying to make sense of a mythology that may span multiple epochs?
What does it take to motivate consumers to invest deeply enough into a transmedia franchise that they are eager to track down new installments and create buzz around a new property? How is transmedia linked to a push towards interactivity and participatory culture?

As with the first event, Transmedia, Hollywood: Visual Culture & Design will bring together comic book writers, game designers, "imagineers," filmmakers, television show runners, and other media professionals in a conversation with leading academic thinkers on these topics. Each of our speakers will be asked to focus on the unique challenges they faced while working on a specific production and detail how their understanding of transmedia helped them resolve those issues. From there, we will ask all our speakers to compare notes across projects and platforms with the hopes of starting to develop some basic design principles that will help us translate theories of transmedia entertainment into pragmatic reality. The creative personnel we have assembled include many of the key individuals responsible for masterminding the fundamental changes in the way traditional media operates and engages audiences by altering the way stories are told temporally, by exploring how graphic design translates from one medium to another, and by explaining how these visually-stunning worlds are being conceived in today's "connected" entertainment arena.

Disney Princesses vs. Sucker Punch

2011-03-19T00:56:00.001-04:00

Questions?

2011-03-07T15:24:00.002-05:00

All Right Internet, Do your stuff.

NYC Transmedia Meetup, February 24, 7pm

2011-02-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

Join me this Thursday, February 24 for the NYC Transmedia Meetup, I'll be presenting a scene from Jurassic Park Slope and then giving a presentation on Transmedia Storytelling for low-budget productions. If you can't make it in person (it's almost full) it will be livestreamed.

Gender and Toys

2011-02-14T10:45:00.002-05:00

Also just in time for this... I went to a Gender and Toys presentation at Toy Fair this morning.

The presentation itself was to release the findings of Richard Gottlieb and his group on the subject which were, to summarize broadly:

Pink isn't as desirable a motivating factor in toy purchase as one might think.
Few mothers want to buy their child a gun toy regardless of gender.
The overwhelming majority of the survey population does not think that toy play determines sexual preference.

The most interesting part of this study is that it is just beginning. Also announced in this presentation is a conference in Los Angeles in April on Girls, Toys and Media. This study, whose results are not yet publically available, is only the surface of an endeavor to really study the behavior of girls and toys with an eye toward the industry. The audience was also a great mix of Toy Industry leaders who actually care about the issue, not only because it's obvious that there are disconnects, but because failing to address it can not only be unsatisfying for those creating and marketing these items, but for consumers as well and that leads to a loss of profits.

As Gottlieb pointed out, the ultimate bad guy in the issue of toys is an idea of market departments in stores that dates back to the 1880s, and by cleaving so strongly to those departments, a lot of more nuanced harder to quantify products haven't been brought to market because they don't quite fit. The grand conspiracy to keep girls off marketing and keep girls toys pink is less about some grand social engineering scheme, and more a sense of "oh I hadn't thought of that" and in so many industries, the next step is to be constantly challenging ourselves to think in ways we haven't before.

Objectifying Men: Genuine Ken- UPDATE

2011-02-14T10:39:00.001-05:00

Barbie and Ken are back together just in time for Ken's 50th Birthday, he doesn't look a day over the time it takes a plastic, molded toy to be shipped from China to America.

Also there is a pop-up store and a big ol' show at Fashion Week.

Objectifying Men: Genuine Ken

2011-02-10T16:30:00.001-05:00

So, for those of you who are going... what on Earth is this? Here is some backstory. In 2004, Barbie and Ken broke up, she wanted to date a surfer, her career(s) had clearly outstripped his and she wanted to move on with her life, sew wild oats, etc... Regardless, she was IMMEDIATELY dating a blonde Australian surfer. Don't believe me? Here's an article for BusinessWeek that goes into the whole thing in more depth.

So, years later, the Internet age has led to Barbie and Ken going... transmedia. Barbie Tweets, Ken Tweets, and now Ken has launched a nationwide multi platform marketing campaign to get her to take him back. Now, with Barbie flying to Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and Valentines Day Monday, we're all wondering... Will They Get Back Together?????

At least some people are, people who post to Ken's facebook page and respond to his tweets and who are voting in the online polls and so on. His facebook page also aggregates all the content being created (suspiciously all licensees of Mattel's) to support the campaign to get her back. You can vote here at BarbieandKen.com

... and this phenomenological display at Dylan's Candy Bar in Manhattan

Anyway, you get the gist of all this. Something is going down at fashion week and

Barbie and Ken are really familiar to people the world over, have been for decades. With that and they've been parodied and played with endlessly by millions. Toy Story 3 did some great things with the pair.

They're just now getting "voices" of their own online, though Barbie has been defining herself more clearly to her audience in narratives for years in films and television spots and games. This is a natural progression of marketing efforts and one I have talked about at some length given that this sort of thing is my job.

All of this is cute, and interesting to a wide fan base, most notably that of Adults rather than children. Kids overall don't need to be sold on Barbie, but if you want to expand Barbie's market demographics it's sensible to look towards those who once loved her rather than trying to sell boys on the pink plastic dream house.

Ultimately, very few people need to learn that Barbie and Ken exist, the marketplace is saturated. But as icons, they have grown stale and people have forgotten why they exist and why they're popular. Why they played for hours with them as kids, and why their children probably would. This is not an intellectual process but an emotional one and while it is cheesy and direct that is exactly what Ken and Barbie are all about.

Ken has always been a secondary character in the Barbie Franchise, one who is the butt of so many "no genitals underwear painted on his pants" comments that it doesn't even need to be said anymore. He has always been Barbie's match and has always filled a role that men in the modern era find themselves in more often than it seems they once did, with wildly successful interesting girlfriends with a variety of interests, who often take the spotlight and who want a partner who isn't threatened by that. It is a piece of the zeitgeist that is not explored as thoroughly as it might in other narrative franchises, and that sets the stage for some big things from Barbie.

Ken's love of Barbie has lacked a clear voice for Barbie and it's a great argument to make for the Barbie brand to put Ken forward in this way because he can articulate all the reasons why a person would love Barbie, because he does. So, you have a solid campaign in the narrative universe, what other kinds of stories fit here?

If you're anything like me, your gut reaction to this reality show is horror, mixed with fascination, mixed with a feeling of nausea and a bit of terrified awe. But that is my reaction to every reality show I've ever heard of so it's a dismissible reaction.

So. These guys are all competing for the title of "Great American Boyfriend" in the mold of Ken. Explicitly. It's clearly branded, immediately identifiable and yet, is really down to earth when it comes to the actual tasks presented. It's clearly not designed for the 5-9 set, though I don't think I'd be uncomfortable if someone that age saw it.

It has the feel of other 28 minute dating shows and is fairly wholesome. After getting over my initial terror of the whole thing (the things I do for you, blog) and actually watching it, I have to say, in the reality genre, it's solid. It's very well produced, very high quality for a web show, and they obviously were extremely considerate in the way the put it together. Admirable attention to detail.

There is a certain joy that comes from watching guys objectified in the same way women often are on reality shows, and there's nothing abnormal about any of the portrayals. There is less emphasis on sex because there's no one object of the contestants' affection to seduce directly. Instead, the focus seems to be on the guys various personalities and components of romance. That is actually somewhat refreshing in the genre and totally tone perfect for the Barbie and Ken romance. (insert joke about Ken's underwear here)

I found myself laughing out loud in the judging ceremony at the end of the show too, because in classic reality show fashion, they receive tokens that say they are moving forward. Those tokens:

Full Sized Ken Tags.

This whole campaign is extremely well done. It's really highlighting strong points in its brand, while not pushing against the grain and trying to take the brand into places that don't fit. It's playing to its strengths, but doing them carefully and considerately. I have never been the biggest fan of Barbies, as a kid I preferred dolls that were action figure sized because boys toys and girls toys were notoriously hard to play with together. Barbie was too tall for G.I. Joe, Batman was a little too short to play with She-Ra, and I liked the action figures a lot more than I cared about Ken.

As an adult though, I find myself intrigued by this whole campaign and feel a bit more inclined towards the content for my daughter as a result, it shows that there is thought going into the franchise and what the dolls mean. I am not running out to buy Barbie, but I probably wouldn't keep my daughter from getting one if she wanted one.

Gender-Neutral, this is how it's done.

2011-02-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

While I'm not suggesting that any Super-Bowl commercial cater to women, though I might say this year did the best job in recent years of not making me feel like "Chicks don't watch football and if you are a chick and watching it we're going to make sure you feel as uncomfortable as possible."

Not that it was filled with gems, or much that was particularly creative. But this commercial wins. I love the beaver commercial, but Little Vader, with it's androgenous child and total and utter wonderfulness takes the cake.

Bratz trial: Carter Bryant, creator of the saucy dolls, begins testimony

2011-01-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

Best Headline goes to the Los Angeles Times

for

"Creator of the Saucy Dolls"

at least it does in my heart

When asked about the inventions agreement Thursday, Bryant said: “I don’t think I had a real clear concept of this contract during my employment. I don’t think it was ever explained to me fully.... I think I thought that the thoughts that I had on my own time were my thoughts and didn’t necessarily belong to anyone else.”
Price then asked Bryant if he believed that a design idea would not belong to Mattel if he came up with it at 8 p.m., after work hours, but it was related to something he worked on in the office at 4 p.m.

“I think more what I’m saying is that projects that I was working on specifically for Mattel, if I had thoughts about that after hours, that yeah that would be a Mattel thing," Bryant said. "But if I had original things that I was thinking about, that those weren't necessarily [Mattel's]."

In the hallway during a court recess, Bryant -- who has remained an elusive figure during both trials, reportedly falling out of contact with both Mattel and MGA -- said he has moved back to Missouri. An aspiring recording artist, he said he is working on a music album with his sister.

"It's time for it to be over," he said of the retrial.

On the eve of the first trial, Bryant settled with Mattel for $2 million. He is no longer a defendant in the case.

Little Big Planet and the Rise of Creator Culture

2011-01-19T13:57:00.000-05:00

Little Big Planet and the Rise of Creator Culture from Kotaku: Australia

"The words ‘Little’ and ‘Big’ are so appropriate, and in LittleBigPlanet they never juxtapose. In a sense Media Molecule’s creation was borne from a small idea – give people the tools to create their own experiences – but in execution the potential is enormous.

“I heard someone describe it the other day as a “’bottomless toy box’,” says Siobhan, “and I thought that was an awesome description – I know that the other guys at Media Molecule would love it as well.”

Living the Dream:

2011-01-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

Youth Radio's newest news service, Turnstyle, has profiled me! My interview covered a lot of aspects of what it is I do with myself day to day, but really encompassed that fact that I am working at my dream job. Transmedia Producer is a vocation that I never dreamed of as a child but that I have been supremely honored with the opportunity to become.

I would much prefer your love and to help with the ongoing collaborative process than purely for you to be jealous of my success, this is a collaborative art and I'm addicted to new ideas. Let me help you help me live the dream, there's enough to go around =)

Remember, you can always reach me @Caitlin_Burns

DC and M.A.C. Team up on Wonder Woman Make-Up Line

2011-01-14T14:57:00.024-05:00

M.A.C. Cosmetics and DC Comics are collaborating on a fascinating consumer product. Wonder Woman Cosmetics.

On the left, you will see the only consumer product for Wonder Woman I have a memory of as a child, and lordy did I look. I had a paper crown and a piece of rope and thank goodness her plane was invisible. I also have fond memories of my mother driving me to Burger King not once but twice in a week, an fairly unheard of event because neither of us cared for Burger King's food, and purchasing not just one or two, but three of these figures. One went to Mom, and two to me. I painted one up and the other was a staple figure in my doll collection who endures to this day in storage.

One step above a hoop and stick toy, clearly.

Today you can find plenty of Wonder Woman toys online, a little girl who wants to play with Wonder Woman has a lot more options that I did. So, how do I feel about a make-up line aimed at adult women? The answer is a restrained, grown up, totally internal 4-year-old's squeal of glee.

The World Would be a better place if everyone's job made them feel like this.

Someone over at Allure (pictured above) Got to try it out.

Comic-book characters and beauty companies don't often cross paths (though a line of Superman hair gels and shine sprays could have really taken off, we say). Now M.A.C. is bringing the two together with its limited-edition Wonder Woman makeup line. Along with bold lipsticks and shadow quads, colored mascaras, and jumbo-size—Ms. WW is, after all, an Amazon—lip glosses, bronzers, and liners, the collection also contains quirky metallic accessories: No lasso of truth hangs from the gold utility belt, unfortunately, but it is equipped with small makeup pouches on each side. And the "Invincible" hand mirror (which you can see me modeling above in my best attempt at a Wonder Woman pose) is, well, pretty awesome.

This consumer product seems well thought out. Not only is it capitalizing on the fangirl market, but the woman who is putting on her strongest, most powerful face when she puts on makeup. For many women, makeup is more than an attempt to look prettier. For many, makeup is considered a quotidian and essential part of work attire, something that will go unnoticed unless it isn't there and often, becomes a ritualistic part of preparing oneself to face the world for the day.

Eyeliner

Lipstick

The aesthetic component of the materials a woman uses for that ritual is an important factor in how she feels about her day and about herself. Not to mention an essential component of distinguishing products from one another in a glutted market.

Pictured: 10,000 names for "pink"

Contrary to many opinions, makeup is as much for the person putting it on as it is for the person they encounter. From this abstract, that is representative of tones I've seen in many papers on masking:

There are four broad ways of approaching the definition: masks as theatrical, figural, spiritual and/or utilitarian. Even within these categories, however, there two further types to be investigated: the hard mask and the soft mask. As far as differences go, the hard mask and the soft mask produces varying levels of intensity and psychological effects, which I've shown through the example of pantomime and Bamboozled. Furthermore, masks have frightening power over the human psychology by which they can effectively create a new identity. Masks are distinguishable from the face in that they are not the truth as Aristotle and Plato claim that the face is, but instead create a new image, material or immaterial. An example of an immaterial mask would be stereotypes. Though masks act as an extension of the body in that they add layers to the skin, they are complexes of reduction in that they amputate a person's soul. Masks become both a medium of understanding and misunderstanding.

And much hay is made about how people act in masks soft and hard alike, in phenomenological theory as well as sociology and philosophy. Cosmetics are essentially selling a mask, and the person using those materials are applying one that they are determining based primarily on its aesthetic packaging presentation. MAC has made its brand on having bold pigments and carrying a wide range of colors not carried by other product lines. This makes it a perfect fit for a comic book license.

Beyond that, selling a cosmetic line that will create associations of strength, beauty, amazonian power and play to childhood affections is a smart move. Playing to the growing subculture of woman who enjoy cosplay, the integration of functional costume elements, the Utility Belt, is insightful and will pay off massively. The lack of power bracelets makes me hope that they will do a follow up to this special edition line.

This sort of association between a consumer product and the narrative of Wonder Woman, is a perfect example of how to consider the fantasy fulfillment and sensory experience that translates from narrative to object. Whether you love Linda Carter or Justice League, or if you're an old school comic book fan, or if you primarily played with a cup holder for your youth you can experience some of the feelings that Wonder Woman invokes when you use this makeup.

Great Hera! won't someone tell me where I can actually buy this?

Update: Not until February at Sephora.

No, Falling from the sky does not count.

Mud Flies in New Bratz Brawl- WSJ

2011-01-14T12:20:00.001-05:00

In other news, Bratz ponies still look like pigs.

The Danger of the Single Story

2011-01-13T19:09:00.001-05:00

Pink Ponies- A Case Study

2011-01-11T12:50:00.001-05:00

How to Turn a Doll into an Action Figure

2011-01-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

Tired of boring dolls that do nothing?

Don't rip off their heads in frustration, do it in the name of practicality and fun!

This instructable shows how to turn a static doll into an awesome action figure!

I wish I had thought of this years ago.

Teen girls in film showcase true grit

2011-01-09T12:47:00.001-05:00

The plucky young women who drive 'True Grit' and 'Winter's Bone' highlight the evolution of dumbed-down female characters into ones that save the day with smarts and courage and the growing influence of women in the film industry.

-LA Times

Gears of War 3 to Feature Bernie Mataki

2011-01-07T15:05:00.002-05:00

Now, for those of you who know me well enough to have heard me proclaim my love of Karen Traviss and her Gears of War novelization- usually that takes 2 drinks and 15 minutes- you'll know that they are amazing.

In the novels, which cover the periods before and between the console games, Traviss has added profound emotional depth that one can't really expect from cut scenes. I was deeply moved by scenes in the games based on the back story and resonance that had been built into the main characters in the novels, Dom's search for his wife held new depth, Marcus' every grunt held new nuance and subtlety.

You'll also know that they feature a particularly compelling female Gear (soldier), Bernadette "Bernie" Mataki who is not only a hard-core badass of the highest order, but who is a woman of a certain age.

While I will fully admit that she looks a bit less aged than she might for someone in her 50s or 60s, though the books do suggest that she looks a bit more weathered. I love the character far too much based on Traviss' brilliant authorship to allow myself to get too worked up about the visuals... yet. Bernie, who is often called Granny, is the same age as the COG commander, Victor Hoffman.

In the future, no one has wrinkles, just fairly smooth joweling.

So, by video game visual standards for women, she's non-traditional. One of her most charming qualities in the novelizations is her perceived lack of femininity: she's a Gear, an infantryman through and through, she's a hard-cursing, hard-fighting crude pain in the ass, and she'd kill anyone who says differently. There is much hay made about her lack of femininity, and her being treated as a Gear, not as a women. She is far from the only female Gear, but she is probably the oldest and most respected. It is interesting to see that juxtaposed with the sexy lady above, but despite the thoughts I have having read the novels, one can make a serious argument that if Karen Traviss is writing the game, she may have pictured Bernie differently. After all, people in their 50s aren't grizzled sea hags these days.

Daryl Hannah is in her fifties.

Bernie does have a romantic life, with Hoffman in fact over a period of decades; she is not sexless, she is simply older and a warrior. Depending on how the game portrays the character, her appearance may be contextualized in a way that is more compelling than a knee jerk aesthetic analysis can yield.

Not pictured, the crushing of one's enemies, seeing them driven before one, and the lamentation of the Berzerkers.

The only thing that I felt was truly missing for me was that the female characters that Traviss had spent time developing in the novels were in the background, or completely unseen in Gears of War 2. But, with their addition to Gears of War 3, I am willing to forgive completely and buy in with my whole heart, hoping intensely that I will not be let down in a horrific soul shattering way (I'm looking at you METROID: OTHER M)

With Karen Traviss also listed as writer for Gears of War 3, I am especially optimistic. Her track record with this franchise is excellent, and her other work, the Wess'har Wars and her work with Halo and Star Wars are also phenomenal, coupling strong heroines, environmental awareness and totally awesome, brutal, kick-ass action.

Seriously, what point is there in saving the world if there are no women?

More (Bad) Advice from a Cartoon Princess

2010-11-18T20:18:00.000-05:00

Pronoun Trouble.

2010-11-16T12:43:00.008-05:00

Let me just start by saying, I really really love Assassin's Creed, I think Ubisoft is awesome. But yeah... pronoun troubles. *single tear*

I'm just a girl who likes to assassinate things in a man who likes to assassinate things's world.

Frankly, if you aren't aware of what Assassin's Creed has been doing surrounding the release of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, you're missing out big time. There's an incredibly well executed Facebook Game, Assassin's Creed: Legacy that feeds into Uplay a fantastic unifying social portal for achievement sharing and rewards that is integrating back into Legacy. In tandum with a wider rollout of animation and comics (hopefully more extended novels that aren't simply adaptation of the games)

Here's the trailer for Ascendence it looks awesome.

This whole rollout is so exciting to me that I have been a bit... obsessed with it over the past few weeks. Which is rather rare for me, but always wonderful when it arrives. So, in as much as I am annoyed at the gender bending on my facebook wall, I want you all to go and check these things out because it is a blip in an otherwise AMAZING execution.

And if Ubisoft sees this, just please fix the bug so no other lady's experience is marred by the oddness. The copy that automatically posts as soon as you join your social network really should be gender neutral. It has spoiled a bit of my enjoyment to be called a man, and I know I'm not the only woman who would feel that way.

Please? Because I love your campaign rollout way too much to let this happen to others.

Transmedia Talk Podcast #10- Me recorded in Audio

2010-11-11T09:26:00.001-05:00

Because apparently I've become somewhat of an expert on Fiction in Twitter (Life is weird, neh?) I was invited to the Transmedia Talk Podcast this week. Episode #10, the best possible episode this week.

Not only can you download it at The Website!!! but it's available on iTunes.

NaNoWriMo

2010-11-09T08:20:00.000-05:00

Hey There Readers,

I know I've been denying you the pleasure of my rantings lately, and I hope you'll be able to forgive me, between travel and random colds, actual work and family... I've just been sleeping in my free time. But, in addition to my somniferous hobby I'm attempting to do NaNoWriMo this month! I'm already a few days behind but you can share in my brilliant novel-related flame out by becoming my friend at www.nanowrimo.com my handle is citalin.

Meanwhile, if you're feeling neglected you can always join the Facebook Fan Page, Follow me on Twitter or check out Jurassic Park Slope to get your fix of Girls' Media... which will also soon be available in book form *fingers crossed*

Finally you can see where I'll be speaking publically at home and abroad at www.starlightrunner.com or at THAT Facebook Page. Phew.

Sluttoween 2010: At least they're for adults?

2010-10-25T00:54:00.005-04:00

It's October, the leaves are turning and that means it's time for my annual recap of inappropriate Halloween Costumes.

Here's my list of requirements for any costume I buy or make for myself or my kids, it's based on my years as a costume designer, event planner and wearer/buyer of Halloween costumes:
Can one move in it?
Will it be appropriate for the weather?
Is the fabric comfortable enough that I won't claw off my skin?
Will I be visible in the dark? (Especially important for Trick or Treating)
Am I going to be comfortable with what this outfit covers or uncovers? (also think about how it's going to act when you move? will the hemline rise if you walk?)
Is this something I'd want to wear more than once?
The answers to these questions are different for each person and each situation, but if you go in having some sense of what you need from a costume and what you want from a costume you'll end up with one more appropriate for you or for your child than you might if you go in without any ideas. Not every costume is one that you end up wanting to remember forever, and there are still options out there for people who don't want to wear something raunchy for All Hallow's Eve, but make sure that you're not settling for something you don't like just because it's available.

There, words of wisdom, now down to business. 2010!!! the year that these costume companies realized that girl geeks exist... in the oddest way possible.


May the Whores Be With You.

Vinyl, Cold AND I can't move my arms, WIN!!

I have no words.

Yes, this is meant to be Optimus Prime.

Oh yes, Also, your dog can now be sexy.

Thanks guys, now I'm out of Eye-Bleach.

Of course, girls like Star Wars, Girls Like Transformers, but yeah... these really don't do much to celebrate the characters they claim to portray. "There is plenty of sexy in the world without making stupid things "sexy."" Example: Sexy Chinese Take-Out.

At least the scope of the controversy this year is an aesthetic one about adult costumes, and hopefully a lawsuit about copyright infringement, I seriously hope George Lucas didn't look at these and say "sure." Most grown-ups are making their own costumes choices, as opposed to last year's general outrage over "tween sexy witch and what not" There is a certain point where splashing a bunch of pictures of young girls in these inappropriate costumes is doing a negative. Let the question of what is appropriate for my child to wear rest with parents, and try to explain that if someone is wearing a stupid looking costume, it's their own business... after giggling.

Final thought, there is a way to do the sexy-character-costume right, and it involves slightly more thought than sticking a trademarked name on a Vinyl bodysuit. Observe this R2D2 swimsuit, a little cold for Halloween, but definitely reasonable pool wear.

As weird as it is, that is a fairly cute swimsuit.

For more insight into what you shouldn't wear for Halloween, Gawker has some great advice; Cracked.com has a solid NSFW recap; And of course isitracistif.com

User-Generated Content and THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER.

2010-10-22T11:07:00.002-04:00

Remember Shaylyn Hamm? Author of The Aesthetics of Unique Video Game Characters?

Refresh your memory here:

"...My research suggests that it is possible to create distinctive and unique characters that have a generally broad appeal among different ages, genders, and gamer types. The characters I created have body types, features, and ages that do not follow the ideal of what is typically marketed in the video game industry, yet they were well received by the majority of people who have reviewed them. My feedback also suggests that there is a desire among many gamers to see more varied female characters in games, and perhaps when more of such characters are introduced into mainstream games, the perception and role of females may become less limited. This is an area of study that is very relevant to modern gaming, as female characters are found in nearly every game, and they are found by many people, both male and female to be lacking of interest and personality. For further research, I would like to see similar tests by myself and other artists, with characters designed to fit and explore a variety of video games in a variety of genres and styles..."

Well, Ms. Hamm just became one of my personal heroines because not only did she write an AMAZING thesis but she was a winner of the first ever Team Fortress 2 Polycount Pack,

Members of the Polycount Community were given 5 weeks to come up with a SET of items for one of the 9 different TF2 classes. These sets had to be within the same theme, and fit well within the TF2 universe. In total, some 70 sets were completed and entered (read: thats at least 210 items!) It’s no wonder they had their work cut out for them when choosing the first ever pack.

Now, why is winning a user-mod contest important to me? Especially when the winning design isn't even a girl, you ask?

Because, ladies and gentleman, two weeks ago these mod-packs were released for purchase in a user-generated virtual marketplace by Valve.

And.... (From Gamasutra) :

Her Winning Submission

"When Valve Software announced the results of Polycount's Team Fortress 2 item-modding contest, the winners were just excited that their creations would be in the popular mulitplayer shooter.

But with the recent introduction of the game's user-created virtual item marketplace, the Mann Co. Store, the winners' items went on sale to the Team Fortress 2 community -- and a 25 percent revenue share to the modders led to a surprising payoff.

Today, Valve said that community content creators Rob Laro, Shawn Spetch, Steven Skidmore, Spencer Kern and Shaylyn Hamm took home initial royalty payments ranging from $39,000 to $47,000 each from the first round of Team Fortress 2 content creation. And these are just the checks from the first two weeks of operation.

Kern told Gamasutra, "By having [user-generated content] implemented in the way that Steam has it, where people are getting monetary gains for the items they put in, it rewards people who put in the good items, who listen to the community and put in the stuff that everyone wants to see in the game. ... It'll bring out the quality artists to do the work."

He added, "It was completely mind-blowing, the size of the return that we're getting on these things."

Skidmore said, ,I feel like this is going to open up a whole new level for everyone in general that plays these games who has an interest [in game design]. .. It'll ultimately be better for the industry, attaching the community to the game developer.'"

This is fantastic evidence of the potential for revenue generation from user-generated content that can be applied much further afield as entertainment franchises seek out new ways to interact with fans, as well as examples for developing properties to establish strong conversations with fans early-on in their development. Suffice it to say I will be citing this campaign in pretty much everything I create from here on out when talking about User-Generated Content, and I will not be alone.

On "Low Art" and Fan Culture

2010-10-20T13:40:00.003-04:00

From English Russia

Recently it was brought to my attention that in Russia there is a Cult to Gadget Hackwrench.

“She is the divine being, the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great God on Earth”, say one of the participants. “Why I love her? It’s stupid question, how I can’t love the Goddess?”. “She is strict, cute, optimistic and her level of technical knowledge is unachievable for a mortal being.” those are just a few of the testimonies of the sect followers.

Now, it's almost incidental whether or not this is true, it's truthy at worst. And sorry Russia, the same way America's Double Down Sandwich makes the rest of the world assume the worst about America's eating habits, your 18th Century Castration Cults make this reasonably believable to an outsider. Similarly, those of us who grew up with the Rescue Rangers know precisely what they're talking about when it comes to Gadget.

At any rate, the sheer number of YouTube tributes to Gadget show that she has had a powerful effect on the psyches of those who grew up with her even if it was just for 18 minutes in the afternoon after school while they had a snack.

What am I getting at here, you might ask?

I'm getting at the point that fictional characters are increasingly taking a central place in the building of communities. Fandom is in many ways, more powerful a unifying force than geographic location, people are connecting more about ideas than they are in their physical communities, and the way humans are congregating is reflecting that fact. Entertainment Franchises are becoming increasingly similar to the cultural function of religious ideologies.

According to Clifford Geertz, religion is

· (1) a system of symbols which acts to

· (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by

· (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and

· (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that

· (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic

^ C. Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System," in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion , ed. M. Banton (London: Tavistock, 1966): 1-46

The connection to Geertz, comes from Jeff Gomez, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with at Starlight Runner Entertainment for nearly 7 years. Recently he gave a speech at TEDxTransmedia, check it out here:

Jeff often speaks about how the power of storytelling affected him as a child growing up in unfortunate circumstances, and as an adult, how learning how to tell stories helped him manage debilitating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Here he speaks about Kikaider a character from his youth that became a powerful aspirational force in his life, inspiring his creativity as a child and later, returning as an avatar of righteous action in his darkest hour as an adult. This is an experience that is hardly exclusive to those who create art, though it is a powerful motivator to do so, and the greatest art of generations is usually created out of a desire to highlight the best aspirations of humanity, an underlying message that can pull people from their darkest hour and give them an example of how they can fight against their foes and their own demons to emerge victorious.

The reason I bring this up is because these moments are intensely personal, and arguably spiritual, and whether your God comes to you as St. Christopher or a Badass Robot, the salvation is palpable, arguably a miracle, re-enforcing the underlying message, that these parables are affecting our lives and that they CAN be an amazingly powerful force for good.

It is not my intention here to discuss what is or is not a valid religion, but, it is essential that we consider this component as a piece of connective tissue about why people are becoming drawn together based on these factors. They apply to narratives and story worlds and as people are connecting globally, these story worlds become more pervasive and internationally appealing, people in Singapore and Calgary will be connecting over a shared affection for a cartoon show long before they get into deeper discussions of the meaning of life. These connections rapidly become communities of like-minded individuals who will often pool resources in mutual self-interest.

As an example of a fan-tribe, I'm going to discuss the Insane Clown Posse. This week, someone asked me at a professional function, "WTF is up with ICP????" The answer to that question requires a lot of background, and a lot more discussion than most people are willing to commit to rapping clowns.

“Comedy has had no history, because it was not at first treated seriously.”
– Aristotle

People tend to discount popular culture because it is just that, popular, often commercial and often directed at socioeconomic groups that are dismissed: Just for Kids, Trash TV, Bawdy or Gross-Out Comedy, Horror, Gornography (violence for its own sake), but these "entertainments" create lasting lessons in the minds of their audience that are later turned into social associations. Who would have thought Gadget would be affecting to an adult when she was affecting as a 6-year-old? the more important question is who DIDN'T think she'd still be affecting?

Is Popular Culture somehow not culture because it is popular?

The Art that is designed to affect the most people will be affecting to the greatest number of people.

So let's take a moment to talk about clowns.

For those of you too scared of clowns to go on, go to the Merging+Media website to see my Remix of this post where the focus is the Astor Place Riots and Shakespeare.

Clowns are designed to be artistically Grotesque.

gro·tesque
/groʊˈtɛsk/ Show Spelled[groh-tesk]
–adjective

1. odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre.

2. fantastic in the shaping and combination of forms, as in decorative work combining incongruoushuman and animal figures with scrolls, foliage, etc.

Clowns are tricksters, they are jesters and they are zany. Their excesses, their grotesqueness, are designed to seduce their audience with humor and the absurd to elocute an underlying truth.

The English word ‘clown’ comes from the Old Icelandic, klunni, which denotes a clumsy person. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a clown is “a familiar comic character of pantomime and circus, known by his distinctive makeup and costume, ludicrous antics, and buffoonery, whose purpose is to induce hearty laughter. The clown usually performs a set routine characterized by broad, graphic humour, absurd situations, and vigorous physical action.”

Clowns do all that and then also a little more. They heal, they scare, they mock, they amuse. White faces; red noses; painted smiles absurdly exaggerated; wee little hats with a daisy sticking up; braces barely bolstering puffy pants... They tumble from tiny cars and trip over their outsized shoes. They know every trick in the book and they live for a roar of laughter from the crowd. They fool about and clown around and mostly we don’t think much about them.

Yet, they are the keepers of the sweet spot on the human psyche – the part that sees the absurdities and tells the truth, the part that is not afraid of being hurt or embarrassed or of showing emotion. Clowns represent at the same time our greatest vulnerability, fragility even, and the robustness that enables us to get right back up again every time we fall. Similarly, they hold the dichotomy of our innocence, the child within that never grows up, as well as the wisdom that enables us to see through the farce.

Clowns have always known what educators are only cottoning on to now: humans learn best while laughing. Clowns are never mean: the joke is always on them. When they make elaborate and conspicuous plans to make fun of someone else, the joke always backfires. Sometimes literally. Clowns are courageous: in ancient times at the royal court, clowns (or jesters) were the only ones who dared to contradict or criticise the king. Clowns are multi-talented: not only can they tickle the funny bone but they often juggle, walk tightropes, ride unicycles or tumble from trapezes while doing so.

So we have some modern clowns, the Insane Clown Posse:

The Insane Clown Posse is a rap group of clowns, literal clowns, and raps about sexual, violent, profane content. A very wide swath of people hear about I.C.P. exclusively through reports of fans committing violent acts.

They call themselves murder-rap, horror-rap, and have lyrics that are often accused of directly insighting their fans to violence, or are intolerant to different groups, or are otherwise not productive to society. That is a subject for someone else to take on, I'm not going to, I want to talk about why you should know something about I.C.P. on a sociological, cultural level. As a nod to the ongoing controversy of what their music is about, here is the band on the O'Reilly Factor:

The following video contains profanity and may be NSFW.

Fans of ICP who call themselves Juggalos and Juggalettes, they are numerous, they have their own vernacular, they have their own community centers, they have very clear cultural aesthetics and rally around the music, sensibilities and rituals that have developed in response to the myriad releases of ICP, which include albums, videos, movies, recognized fan content and of course, live concert events.

From Westword,
Juggalos Band Together at Primos. By Jessica Centers Thursday, May 15 2008

When Denver School of the Arts student JD Gonzales entered the national My City Now contest a few years ago, he had to create a video about what made his city a great place to live. His answer: a little tire shop near Alameda and Sheridan called Primos, "A Juggalo Home in Denver's Zone." While the camera pans across a dozen kids sitting on the ground outside the shop, outfitted in baggy red and black clothes, tattoos, piercings and long dreads, the voice of Kiki Rodriguez, a Primos owner, explains ICP's draw: "All these kids don't have shit. They wouldn't have nothing, dude. But because they're a juggalo, that's a big part of their life. It gives them something to fucking do, something to be proud of."

A Juggalette from New Mexico once told me about people they've made who would drive her and her friends places just because they also liked ICP too. This basic bit of community allowed her to access a world from which she would have otherwise been completely isolated, even though the drive from her house to the city center of Albuquerque is only 45 minutes, it might as well have been days for a teenager without a car and without parents to drive her. The shared human connection of liking the same band is powerful, and one with such a clear culture associated with it, makes the barriers to entry into that society attainable and explicit. Fandom connects people and gives them an excuse to help one another.

Faygo is a soft drink that has seen success entirely because of Juggalos, as an example. A comparison can be drawn to the 30% rise in the sales of pale make-up foundation around the release of Twilight: New Moon. Fan groups influence commerce they are groups that, when large enough, constitute their own demographics.

Two nineteen-year-old girls hold up their T-shirts to show off the matching tattoos on their lower backs. The tats are the logo for Primos, the kerosene-and-tire shop where they've hung out, sometimes for hours at a time, every day since they started high school. "I just showed up for a barbecue one year and never left," Bethany says. "I've never had a big family. It's been nice having this instead."

...Childish, a member of the rap group Brutally Vicious Killaz, tells the camera that Primos is a place where juggalos get together like family. There's no other place like it in Denver; he doubts there's another place like it anywhere. "Denver juggalos are the lifeline of Denver," Kiki continues. "Everybody thinks, how can that be? How can all these scruffy kids have anything important to do with our Mile High City? Juggalos, we're the backbone, yo.... We're all one family. We're united. We're from everywhere. Jocks are juggalos. Rich kids are juggalos. Poor kids are juggalos. Everybody's a ninja. Your grandma could be a juggalo — you just don't know it."

The attraction of a family that takes care of one another is an extremely powerful draw for young people who have grown up disconnected from the people around them, either by geographic distances, urban planning, or simply because they feel alienated from visible peer groupings –an amazingly common feeling in adolescence and adulthood.

The Insane Clown Posse's content promotes expression of these feelings in a way that other visible ideologies do not. An aggressive, in your face sort of honesty that appeals to those who feel disenfranchised.

As the subculture matures, the sophistication of amenities the subculture can offer will mature as well. Just as the scope of the content has matured from exclusively destructive to tones of spiritual exploration and family.

The following video contains profanity and may be NSFW.

A recent spate of parody and uproar sprouted in response to the song "Miracles." It's still aggressive, violent at times and laden with profanity, but it speaks to the search for more substantial spiritual truth. The anti-Establishment, this time intellectual and scientific, is in line with previous contexts of the Insane Clown Posse's artistic endeavors. It appeals quite clearly to its base while also articulating a frustration with the cult of the expert: does it really matter at the end of the day why magnets work? is it not still a miracle that they do if a scientist can articulate the submolecular process?

The fact that the Internet exists has allowed for new dialog about just this to begin in the arena of Low Art. The Internet has taken it upon itself to remix the song miracles in a variety of ways. Now that more people know that I.C.P. exists, the more mainstream reactions to its ideologies are pushing back and creating an artistic dialogue that must be integrated into the I.C.P. worldview either with acceptance or rejection or somewhere in between.

The Unified Theory of Juggelonics:

This is only occurring because the commons for ideological discussion is much more accessible, the Internet makes it easy to talk about stories and entertainments. These pieces of art, low though they may be, pose questions that their audience is now capable of answering in its own time, and spawn creative responses that are not only entertaining, but represent cogent counterarguments.

Whether you approve of the messages they are spouting, or condone the ideologies they are attempting to embody, there is value in the ideology and the social connections associated with that ideology. People connect to the message and celebrate the aesthetics that say the same thing by association.

That, My Ninja, is what is up with I.C.P.

The power of these associations, violent messages, and fan community are hardly exclusive to Juggalos, the content of all art is affecting. Even stories that preach balance and chivilry can, in the proper circumstance lead to violence.

The following video contains profanity and may be NSFW.

There's even a response interview with the punks who were in the fight

While this instance shows some self-awareness and no one got stabbed or murdered, it does show that people get violent about fan affiliations, The "Jedi's" here had the option to just let it go, they themselves say "these guys were standing they're ground and talking Shit" and they stepped out of line ans escalated. Cultural affiliations, even 'Pop Culture' are a pretty quick way to get people into situations where they're willing to be confrontational, and violent, be they Punk Vs. Star Wars fan, or National, Ethnic or Religious affiliations. These affiliations become part of people's identities they represent strongly aspirational identifiers that are also the rallying points for people's social communities.

People who lack respect for the power of these affiliations do so at their own peril, and those seeking to create them should be aware of the potential that the ideas and messages of a narrative have lives outside the story.

To read the Remix of this post where the focus is the Astor Place Riots and Shakespeare, head over to the Merging+Media website

Twitter Fiction on The Underground Book Club

2010-10-20T11:22:00.002-04:00

Is the first rule of Underground Book Club that you not talk about Underground Book Club? if so, my bad.

Glee-Cap! Top Bitches

2010-10-15T15:17:00.000-04:00

Glee-Cap up at AllThingsFangirl.com, I have yet to become whole-hog Gleek nor have I fallen into a slushee-filled despair. We shall see.

Female Character Stereotype Flowchart. EPIC!!!

2010-10-12T11:09:00.001-04:00

Glee-Cap! Sacrilicious- Season 2, Episode 3

2010-10-07T17:31:00.000-04:00

Check it out over at All Things Fangirl.

Also, if you're trying to find "Low Art and Fan Culture" It'll be up again in a few days, pending some exciting and secretive goings on.

Helen Mirren is Prospero in Taymor's Tempest.

2010-10-05T15:53:00.000-04:00

Also there's Russel Brand. I know what I'm doing December 10th now.

Glee-Cap: The Imaginarium of Dr Stamos, Season 2, Episode 2

2010-09-30T10:47:00.000-04:00

Brittney S. Pierce finally is getting featured on this episode of Glee. Answering the question of "what is going on in there" definitively and authoritatively.

Ha, I'm kidding, we still have no idea what is going on with Brittney. Though I have a theory or two, but until Glee actually puts more of her into the story there's no way to judge.

BONUS: Weigh in on whether it matters if entertainment has good storytelling in the comments section

Metroid: Other M

2010-09-27T01:08:00.000-04:00

"In short, you're asked to forget that Samus has spent the last 10-15 years on solitary missions ridding the galaxy of Space Pirates, saving the universe and surviving on her own as a bounty hunter. Instead, Other M expects you to accept her as a submissive, child-like and self-doubting little girl that cannot possibly wield the amount of power she possesses unless directed to by a man."

Abbie Heppe's controversial review of the new Metroid game and its main character, Samus can be found here at G4. One of many compelling responses to her article here at the brainy gamer.

Beyond the comments from video game players who do not care about story, the battle rages on about how female characters are portrayed in console gaming.

Deconstructed My Little Pony

2010-09-26T12:23:00.002-04:00

The Media is Way Behind on Men

2010-09-24T03:40:00.000-04:00

"First there was the Atlantic's "End of Men." Dan Abrams is penning a book called Man Down, in which he'll argue "that women, as a group, are more thoughtful, efficient, tougher and less likely to make mistakes." And now Newsweek is chiming in with a whole package of manliness-in-crisis articles, including cover story "Men's Lib" (accompanying photo: the no-doubt struggling Brad Pitt). Gender roles — and specifically the supposed downfall of men — are totally hot right now. "

Read more at Jezebel:

Scale.

2010-09-23T11:38:00.001-04:00

Glee-Caps, now exclusively at All Things Fangirl

2010-09-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

I'm still doing Glee-Caps, just now they're all over at All Things Fangirl for those of you who are unfamiliar (or who haven't tried to scroll down), I do this, I don't know if I'm a fan, or if I'm just watching a train wreck, if you're interested in finding out with me... Season 2, Episode 1 is here.

On Girls in Boys' Stories

2010-09-22T13:03:00.000-04:00

It’s one thing to market toys to boys, but it’s another altogether to create entertainment in which girls don’t exist. - Jeff Gomez

Be sure to check out this insightful article at Kidscreen.com about Hot Wheels World Race, and the process of making that property a success.

"a few Mattel execs (who are no longer at the company) expressed hesitation about female characters. They didn’t know how young boys would respond to them, Hot Wheels being a very “boy world” and they thought perhaps we could do without them. This would be one of the few times I really spoke up. I really wasn’t interested in a major story world that didn’t include girls. Had Disney’s Fairies property not included boys I would have protested equally loud. Single gender worlds compound artifice and by definition are not resonant with the contemporary world in which we live. It’s one thing to market toys to boys, but it’s another altogether to create entertainment in which girls don’t exist.

Fortunately, the series animation house Mainframe and several others at Mattel did agree with me and female driver Lani Tam got some nice screen time. There would be several other heroic girl drivers who would star in their own comics as well. Bravo Mattel!"