Jake

Idle Thumbs 176: The Classic Alien Form

Recommended Posts

Ok! I shared this on twitter a few moments ago, but here it is. The DEFINITIVE Farscape skip list. The first season, I've highlighted what to actually watch - skip everything else.

 

Thanks for the list, I remember watching Farscape when it was airing new, and alternating between thinking it was near unwatchable or one of the best things I had ever seen.  It's nice to know that I wasn't crazy.  The discussion on the 'cast makes me want to give it another shot.

 

 

 Still, with the death of the archive as a public institution, it seems like there's nowhere for stuff like that to go, so someone probably has to choose to profit from it if it is to continue to exist at all.

 

I think the obvious solution is to use profits to support charities, particularity educational funding for low income people.  Most major corporations have charitable arms of some sort, whether it's for tax purposes, good will, marketing or because of a genuine interest in doing good.  Both Warner Bros and Disney do (since they were both discussed).  People who are interested in the works for historical or cultural reasons won't mind their purchase going to a good cause, and those buying it because they are racist dickbags will have to stomach knowing that their hard earned dollar is going to help make someone's life a little better. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm glad the skip list thing came up here already (I saw Mints' tweets about it, thus reminding me). I had something to say about it as I listened to the episode.

 

Skip lists are a thing? I mean, I immediately understand how and why they exist. I've just never thought to look up such things before. I've never gotten that intricate before either. Like when I tell people to watch this show or that, I often say what point is best to start if you want to see the show from when it found its more "permanent" identity. But I've never gone through episodes individually among the good batch to say "skip this, watch that."

 

The behavior fascinates me.

 

Edit - Just for insurance this is not passing judgment or anything.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the obvious solution is to use profits to support charities, particularity educational funding for low income people.  Most major corporations have charitable arms of some sort, whether it's for tax purposes, good will, marketing or because of a genuine interest in doing good.  Both Warner Bros and Disney do (since they were both discussed).  People who are interested in the works for historical or cultural reasons won't mind their purchase going to a good cause, and those buying it because they are racist dickbags will have to stomach knowing that their hard earned dollar is going to help make someone's life a little better. 

 

Another option that felt equally obvious to me: sell them at cost (edit: but that negates the supposed fact of life that companies will never do anything that doesn't benefit themselves... that's also a problem with the charity angle.  I can already see the reaction: "These people are selling racist videos at a loss, all to *rake in the PR praise* for their charitable donations!?!? How cynical and evil!!! Set hatred to *MAXIMUM POWER*.").

 

 

Skip lists are a thing? I mean, I immediately understand how and why they exist...

 

Yeah, I really love that feeling of going from "This exists?" to "Of *course* this exists..." in about two sentences of implicit explanation through conversation.  It's also an instance of wanting something, but not knowing the magic jargon to type into google.  After a few test searches, knowing the term "skip lists" feels like a (lame but awesome) super power.

 

(Skip Lists are also neat and efficient, being a cool somewhat-obscure data structure, but that's neither here nor there)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Growing up I used to live ~30mins from Disneyland. 

 

In high school my orchestra played there a few times, so I got to see a bit of the behind-the-scenes section of the park.

 

What I remember: a significant part of the employees-only area had an overpowering smell of bacon. Also, there's a giant warehouse/storage area near where the employees put on their uniforms that has a massive amount of busted or otherwise out of service animatronics/statues/vehicles, which was cool/presumably terrifying at night.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I patriotically watch all of Farscape, even the dumb episodes. I love how Americans use New Zealand for this mythical/fantastical backdrop, with rolling green hills and dramatic mountains, and Australia's landscape is bizarre sci-fi/hellish postapocalyptic wasteland. We are like right next to each other.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm glad the skip list thing came up here already (I saw Mints' tweets about it, thus reminding me). I had something to say about it as I listened to the episode.

 

Skip lists are a thing? I mean, I immediately understand how and why they exist. I've just never thought to look up such things before. I've never gotten that intricate before either. Like when I tell people to watch this show or that, I often say what point is best to start if you want to see the show from when it found its more "permanent" identity. But I've never gone through episodes individually among the good batch to say "skip this, watch that."

 

The behavior fascinates me.

 

Edit - Just for insurance this is not passing judgment or anything.

 

I've only ever used that as a thing for watching The Star Treks. But that was only after watching all the fucking god awful episodes of The Next Generation's first season. :S :tdown:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was secretly really hoping that Nick Breckon had opened a second twitter account for the express purpose of sabotaging Chris and Sarah's Astro Blasters run.

 

That would've been too obvious, instead he decided to hack a forum and twitter account...

 

And the idea that we shouldn't because "Well, someone might see that and agree with it.", as if someone would happen across some 50 year old movie and be introduced to the concept of racism by it and suddenly think "Well, that seems just fine to me." is kinda ridiculous.  As though we can remove racism from the world by hiding all previous examples of it.

 

That is ridiculous but that's not what people are worried about happening.

 

When you make a work, you're presenting a certain worldview to the audience, your take on how the world is and how the world works. People soak up this information if they're not conscious of it. And then it's in their head, either creating or reinforcing the various different biases and prejudices their brain contains. Biases and prejudices are inescapable, it's just how our brain operates to make it easier to figure out stuff, it's much harder to go through life if you view every person you ever meet as a blank slate and very slowly building an impression of them from their actions. And frankly you don't have the chance to opt out like that, our brains have evolved to work this way.

 

So the real issue is that if you present the racist material as is, there will be people who just accept it to their subconscious. While it will diminish this if you trigger its existence with a preamble about how this racist material is wrong and harmful. Though how much it helps is debatable.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Farscape is rad. I am super picky with space opera, especially on TV. I couldn't watch Star Trek to save my life. Farscape and Firefly are far and away my favourites though. I guess I find it much easier to relate to the subversive misfits-on-the-run theme where the main characters are of sometimes dubious moral quality as opposed to the typical ultra-militarised Space Navy of Star Trek and its ilk, which are essentially what the antagonists are in Farscape and Firefly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

While I like the non-profit/museum/collect donations solution, Anita was right that it kind of implies that our current media is post-racial. There's a lot of exploitative stuff in a lot of media, and a lot of it isn't even that much more savvy than those cartoons. Bugs bunny fighting a racial stereotype villain is bad, but Bioshock Infinite being a decorative shawl of racial "insight" draped over a bloody woodchipper is also bad, and I wouldn't have minded seeing that for free after realizing that's all it was. So along with not taking money for the obviously bad old stuff, it would be good to contextualize it to show exactly what harmful things it's couched in, while also conveying that not taking money for those older things doesn't mean that the current entertainment that is  making money isn't also exploitative.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

On the "violence leads to violence" vs. "sexism leads to sexism" e-mail (by LOLFace) and discussion:

 

I think the better comparison to the sexism discussion is the discussion on how Call of Duty and similar games depict the source of international tensions and the motivations of foreign groups. Call of Duty, so the argument, does not make you more likely to "kill brown people" in the name of counter-terrorism, but it may make a substantial proportion of players more accepting of it. Both this and the discussion about sexism are about establishing attitudes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nitpicky comment: I'm currently replaying Link Between Worlds and Zelda isn't the one who gives Link the bracelet that lets him become a painting.  That came from Ravio, the dude who sets up shop in Link's house.  Anita's point remains valid nonetheless for reasons I won't get into because they're spoilery but I am compelled to point out dumb trivia like this.

 

Question for Danielle: I see that you didn't include The Peacekeeper Wars on your Farscape list.  I'm curious what your thoughts on it are.

 

Repeating myself and tooting my own horn: The skip list for Star Trek that BigJKO mentioned above was actually developed on this forum, partially by myself but also others.  TNG Skip List Additional TNG Episodes Voyager List DS9 List (I recommend reading more of the thread for other episode recommends but those are the big lists)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm only halfway through this episode but man is the Disney discussion interesting. As someone who grew up in a suburb of Orlando, let me say that going to Disney World a lot doesn't automatically mean you absorb and catalog that collected knowledge like Danielle does. I don't think I went 80 times, but I had an annual pass and went at least once a year (usually more) from age 7 - 18 because it was a simple 20 minute drive. I didn't notice ANY of that stuff she was talking about and I usually consider myself a person who cares about details. Hearing about some of it does make me reconsider some of the few memories I have of the time, but I wish I was half as excited to go to Disney back when I could do it with such ease. Weird how proximity and convenience can take all the magic out of something.

 

Now that I'm a two hour drive away, I actually really want to go. Too bad single/two-day passes are so expensive.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I really appreciated hearing Anita just hang out in a more relaxed environment and talk about things.  I'm mostly only familiar with her from FemFreq, which is great, but tends to be very measured and near academic.  It was a very humanizing episode for someone who has been so consistently dehumanized and demonized by other fans of our hobby. 

 

So thanks Thumbs, and thanks to Anita for being a guest host. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In the abstract that's a cool idea but I feel like it gets us into some issues related to freedom of speech and expression especially in regards to deeming works nefarious, offensive, and so on.

What I'm suggesting would be entirely voluntary (unlike national libraries requiring copies of all books published listed in their country, for example), so I don't really think it's a freedom of speech or expression issue. Returning to the Disney and WB examples, these companies are already either disowning their objectionable archives or couching them in caveats, so they would be no more suppressed than they already are; they'd just be available through more ethical means (in my estimation). The charity idea's also good, though I do feel there is a certain ethical simplicity in removing the rights owners from the process entirely.

Anita's point about it implying a post-racist world is interesting. I'm trying to work out how exactly I think that should inform things.

Anyway, great episode. I very much echo Björn's* sentiments above.

* I insist on the diacritic.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I loved this episode. Disney is weird, board games are cool and Anita Sarkeesian is a great guest.

 

It did make me regret not having played Guts of Glory when Zach was showing it off at an event at Kickstarter HQ a while ago. It sounds pretty crazy.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

@ Films, China, censorship, Theme Parks

In the Silent Film era it was not unusual for there being several versions of a film: "There were no good duplicate materials available yet, and only if one had several negatives was it possible to produce a large number of copies, or export negatives, from which, in turn, foreign distributors could make their copies. These original negatives, shot parallel, originated from several cameras that were placed side by side during shooting, or were a montage produced from a number of different takes of the same shot that were at best on the same artistic level, but never totally identical, of course." (Source pdf) For Fritz Lang's Metropolis, to which this quotation refers, there was a german and an international version as well as a copy for Paramount, the US-american distributor.
Until this day distributors and goverments are unfortunately able to create "country specific" versions of films. Recent-ish examples: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Blissfully Yours was cut from 125 to 110 minutes in his native Thailand due to nudity and sex scenes. Harvey Weinstein, the US distributor for Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, wanted to cut 20 minutes from the original and add a monologue at the end that ties up lose ends. Bong was able to prevent this from happening. In 2010 Jafar Panahi received a 20 year ban from making films from the Iranian government. Since then he has released two (fantastic) feature films by smuggling them out of Iran on USB sticks.

Panahi's situation is similar to the independent film scene in China, where there are official and unofficial or legal and illegal films, as Karin Chien from DGenerate Films puts it in this great documentary on the subject: "

"


Jia Zhangke's first three feature films qualify as underground according to this definition. They, like Weerasethakul's and Panahi's films, ran at film festivals abroad, but were illegal in China. It's surprising then, that Jia's first state approved feature, 2004's The World, was approved in the first place, because it is as critical about current day China as his previous works. It depicts the life of young a young couple, Tao and Taisheng, working at Beijing World Park "which recreates world landmarks at reduced scales for Chinese tourists". The film explores, in Baudrillard's words, the 'masking and denaturation of a profound reality' to which Anita referred to: Tao wants to see the real world, but is trapped inside this scaled down version of the real thing.

@Zelda

The Giant Bomb guys recently played some CD-i games. Amongst them Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Most people (me included) probably know them for their outlandish cutscenes and not for their gameplay. I was quite surprised that in Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon you, as the title suggests, play as Zelda. From wiki: "Reversing the traditional Link-saves-Zelda plotline, Wand of Gamelon stars Zelda as she adventures to rescue Link and her father the king who have not returned from their quest."
In the third Zelda game for the CD-i, Zelda's Adventure, you also play as Zelda. Again from wiki: "Gannon has kidnapped Link and stolen the seven celestial signs, creating an "Age of Darkness" in the kingdom of Tolemac. Princess Zelda is recruited by the court astrologer Gaspra (played by Mark Andrade) to collect the signs to defeat Ganon and save Link."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love all this Disney talk! My parents -- especially my mom -- were the type to shun Disney parks because of the obvious crass commercialism and the expense. I grew up assuming that the bad was all a Disney theme park could offer, and probably would have continued thinking that way if I hadn't met a lot of smart people who felt differently. The emphasis on "if you wish hard enough, your dreams will come true" at Disneyland made me uncomfortable, sure, but there was a lot of good to balance out the more unsavory aspects. Apparently visiting Disneyland for the first time as an adult with basically zero knowledge of what the rides are is the way to go.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love all this Disney talk! My parents -- especially my mom -- were the type to shun Disney parks because of the obvious crass commercialism and the expense.

 

Hah... my dad was that, and my mom was the opposite. Then, when I was working there, he had no choice but to come visit, and ended up really enjoying it :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I really appreciated hearing Anita just hang out in a more relaxed environment and talk about things.  I'm mostly only familiar with her from FemFreq, which is great, but tends to be very measured and near academic.  It was a very humanizing episode for someone who has been so consistently dehumanized and demonized by other fans of our hobby. 

 

So thanks Thumbs, and thanks to Anita for being a guest host. 

 

I loved this as well. It's such a bummer that women int he video game space have to be like, super guarded and walking over egg shells all the time because if they say something that doesn't jibe with a segment of the internet they are going to experience a lot of extremely aggressive behavior.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love all this Disney talk! My parents -- especially my mom -- were the type to shun Disney parks because of the obvious crass commercialism and the expense. I grew up assuming that the bad was all a Disney theme park could offer, and probably would have continued thinking that way if I hadn't met a lot of smart people who felt differently. The emphasis on "if you wish hard enough, your dreams will come true" at Disneyland made me uncomfortable, sure, but there was a lot of good to balance out the more unsavory aspects. Apparently visiting Disneyland for the first time as an adult with basically zero knowledge of what the rides are is the way to go.

I had those parents as well (when I mentioned to my dad we were going to Disneyland this time I think his entire response was "Why?"), and so even when I ended up going to Disneyland as a kid/teen with friends, I was still basically neutral on it. I certainly had fun (it would be hard to have NO fun at Disneyland I think) but my overall impression was really primed to be really skeptical, so my memories of those visits are very scattered. It wasn't until I was an adult that I actually appreciated it the way I now do.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

the worst nightclub

 

The best pro wrestling gimmick match.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now