One for Sorrow

So! My thoughts on Peeta in Hunger Games. because he can be a controversial character. There's no getting around the inequality of the situation: the Games give Peeta the opportunity to not only be alone with Katniss, but play out a romance. While Katniss is forced into playing that role with him. The difference being that she never wanted it.

Yes, it’s a girl’s worst nightmare: forced to play out the fantasy of some guy who’s been silently pining for her for years. Yipes. So I can get why people can just never deal with Peeta, but personally I don't have a problem with him, myself. ( If you remember he’s 17 and dying. )

Why is she still writing about it?

So I had an awesome weekend in Vail at Sirens, which was even better than I expected. I came back all excited about women in fantasy and with a long reading list that should keep me happily busy for weeks or months. (Just finished The Thief.) So don't ask me why I suddenly have something more to say about X-Men: First Class, which I saw months ago. If there's anyone up for meta about it, though, apparently I'm your lj! Though to link it to Sirens, it does touch on that general fantasy topic of a person's powers and personality working together.

What happened was I happened to come across an exchange about the scene on the beach that raised the possibility of Charles actually pushing Raven mentally to leave him, and that then led to ( many other tl;dr thoughts )

I've been having this ongoing conversation about Inception recently--yeah, I know, a year too late. But it got brought up again! It was the standard convo about whether it's a dream or not, and my position is always: could be. But it got me thinking about the compulsion to have a set narrative for a story that doesn't want to have one. ( Spoilers inside for Inception and Mulholland Drive. )

This is kind of a silly post? But I read something on tumblr about the movie Grease and it was something it seems like I've heard in different forms for a while, and it made me want to spit some things out about that movie. And why shouldn't I write random meta about a movie from 1978 really? So... ( Grease is the word, but what is it about? )

Sorry, more X-Men thoughts. People keep having cool things to say about the movie, I can't help it! This is partly related to an exchange in my last entry about how we get more of a sense in the movie why people go with Magneto than we do why people stay with Charles, and also related to some comments I've read where people just don't get why anybody would want to stay with Charles at all! It got me thinking about what the two characters seem to grow up to be, which is (as usual) not opposites but two very different things that are both valuable. ( More tl;dr in here! )

Oh, X Men: First Class, for all your flaws, you are just a goldmine for meta! I've been so enjoying a million conversations, and a lot of perspectives have been covered elsewhere, but there's one element I have seen talked about where nobody mentioned the main factor in my own reading, so here it is. This is about the whole Charles/Raven relationship, and what it's about. ( Spoilers within—very very tl;dr. )

Just saw X-Men and oh my god, how slashy was that movie? I can't even imagine what people must be doing with Charles/Erik. So smart. So tragic! ( My scattered thoughts under here, some spoilers )

Errr, does anyone have any recs for particularly good Charles/Erik, btw?

Today I had one of those thoughts that's kind of stating the obvious so there's little need to write it down, but it was in response to many people implying it wasn't true so I'm writing it down. It has to do with female characters. ( Or rather, the perfect female character. )

I was talking today about a thing on Pop Culture Happy Hour last week where there was this theory put forth that in order to have cool kids, you ought to not be cool parents. The idea being that cool parents produce dull kids and vice versa, since kids rebel. This is echoed in a Wired piece this week about geeks needing a wider, blander culture to react against or else you don't get creativity.

And I thought a lot of the appeal of these ideas is that it gives you a formula for creativity, a way of ensuring you can be cool, when in fact creativity and talent is often innate, unearned and unfair. Which is not to say that you either get sprinkled with the creativity dust at birth and you’re a prodigy and if you aren't you should just shut up and there's no hope for you and hard work means nothing--could not disagree with that more. I just don't think it's wholly created by your environment, doesn’t always fit in with your personality, at least not in a way that makes it easy. ( So I started thinking about my own tastes in things and whether I got them from my parents. )

Anyone else have relevant experiences in this area?

I read a post today that got me thinking about the subject...here jarodrossell refers to a conversation he was having about archetypes. Specifically, characters that can redefine archetypes. The context of the original conversation is regarding African American nerd characters, of whom there aren't that many. The one everyone usually points to is Urkel, and he was on TV in the 90s. jarodrussell points out Alec Hardison from Leverage as an example, but since Hardison is a supporting character and a member of an ensemble, he doesn't have the power to redefine an archetype like a lead. ( Which got me thinking about supporting characters in general and how they often outshine the lead--which should not be taken as an argument for white leads.... )