#every franchise is getting gender swapped anyway

[mcmusing]

Yes, dance, children. Dance and rejoice, you beautiful rainbow! Before you're marched one by one into the gas chamber!

Oookay, this franchise is taking me down the dark side of the female mutation....

Why do I keep getting left alone with my own brain? All I do with it is engage in the dangerous pastime of thinking.

First, let me make something perfectly clear. I absolutely loathe today's pandering wokeness that's infected entertainment across every medium. It's all a condescending, disingenuous, trendy spectacle. It serves many purposes, none of which having to do with inclusivity. It allows ego-driven women in power to insert their mary-sue avatars into popular stories. It gains the favor of the oblivious pandered, which leads to a boost in support for bias political positions. It pushes bigotry disguised as tolerance. Not to mention, it's an excuse for laziness from the creatively bankrupt. Why build or expand original diverse characters when they can simply race and/or gender-swap established ones? It's especially useful in eradicating all of those filthy gingers plaguing comic books for nearly a century.

Even worse, the whole thing seeks to erase all of the progress since the past by pretending we're still living in the past. I don't know what's more asinine. The woke pretending that social issues haven't significantly improved with every passing decade or the pandered who buy into that collosal load of bull. Were the 70s, 80s and 90s perfect? No and unless an alien species arrives on Earth to forcefully lobotomize all of humanity, perfection will never be achieved. That does not change the fact that we enjoyed mostly peaceful race relations during those decades. Then, the 2000s slow but steady rise in race-baiting, mainstream media bias, government dependency, and erasure of individual agency for narrow group think landed us in today's uninspired dystopian dumpster fire.

There is no bias to be had in my next points. As a Grand Princess of the True United Nations- no, elaboration on that piece of intel will not be provided- my objectivity is legit.

It's been brought to my attention by the gerbils who turn my inner wheels that most of the show runners for X-Men film and television are a special kind of incompetent. No, not just because the only consistency they have is in their inconsistency. We all know the purpose of the X-Men as an allegory for real world social and political issues. And for all the self-satisfaction the movies take in demonizing the white man, they go out of their way to avoid featuring the rest of the color spectrum in any meaningful way.

Sure, the 90s animated show did pretty well with this thanks to likable versions of Jubilee and Storm. They also took the time to explore the entire team's various backgrounds. I didn't notice as a kid, but the men and women were fairly evenly split in numbers as well as power levels. The Jewish guy wasn't a soulless idiot. Ah, the 90s.

Anyway, X-Men Evolution was a decent enough later animated  adaptation. Problem is, they had a nice gorgeous Storm who only received one solo episode. As for her nephew Evan- man, was that kid the series stepchild. He came from a happy two-parent home, but was made into the most needlessly rebellious one. They completely dropped his basketball interest and history with Pietro Maximoff to make him a skateboard guy and nothing more. Even Professor X almost sent him back to his parents. Professor X- he who made Logan's random road-tripping self a prominent instructor and who managed not to beat the insanely reckless new  recruits with a big stick- was going to give up on a mutant kid over bad grades and cutting class. But at least the Jewish guy wasn't a soulless idiot. Just an emotionally negligent yet somehow overbearing parent. Hey, not getting his kids killed or instilling enough fear in them to make them hide their familial connection places him leaps and bounds above cinematic Erik.

Speaking of which, I have to say nice things about the film franchise now. How grotesquely unnatural. Anyway, yes Halle Berry was a seriously dull Storm but attempts were made- in the *original* trilogy- to give her layers. Her moment of staying with Senator Kelly as he died was really poignant. She also seemed to be the one to harbor the most contempt for homo sapiens. She earned no points with me with her self-righteous shaming against the cure. I swear she's just like young Erik with that. Hey, conventionally attractive mutants with easily concealed powers preaching about pride, do shut up.

None of this would matter since for the prequels, Storm was portrayed by the even more boring Alexandra Shipp. She was a forgettable waste of screentime, possibly more than Moira was. And since she's a female mutant in this franchise, probability dictated she be easily lured into darkness and disrespect the man who forgave and offered her a home.

Why couldn't her part be given to the perfectly casted Jubilee??! All Storm does is lame lightning tricks. Jubilee can do electric sparkles. Though, keeping her around might have given off the inappropriate message of being grateful towards benevolent authority figures. We can't go down such a controversial road with impressionable young people in the audience. Think of the children!

How come they jacked up Stan Lee's two Jewish mutants? As previously mentioned, Erik's a soulless idiot. But what was last stand even doing with making Kitty Pryde the 'other woman'? Between rampant civil unrest surrounding mutants and the death of two family members at another member's hands, these writers thought it appropriate to squeeze in a shallow teenage love triangle. Did cruelly killing off Scott before Jean and Logan could hurt him anymore leave them with pointless romantic drama withdrawal?

Best believe I haven't forgotten a particular bit of FC stupid. Killing Darwin and exploiting Angel. They had good actors and everything! Ginger-cide continued as Sean died off screen from Bryan Singer bias. That tribute to the x-women Simon Kinberg promised? It consisted of making the two female redheads as unlikable as possible before killing them in stunning anti-climatic fashion.

Admittedly, outside of white male suffering, I don't think any of these horrendous moments were intentional exactly. The production teams just severely lacked self-awareness and the slightest trace of work ethic. Pandering led to all-around ruination.

Now, if we're talking about an original independent passion project, none of this would bother me. Contrary to modern entitled opinions, creators who design their own universes and characters from the ground up are NOT obligated to include diversity. This goes for white creators, black creators, gay creators, lady creators, plaid creators, etc.

However, cutting a check for the rights to popular stories does not give a studio the right to bastardize and destroy the legacies actual creative people spent years building. Legacies packed with important messages, inspired world building, and all kinds of characters that resonate with many different people across the generations. They certainly don't get to weaponize them in order to spread the very hatred and hostile division they claim to fight  against.

These works are meant to strike up conversations and forge bonds, not to spread chaos and fuel bigotry.

How ironic that the very escapism that once provided refuge for so many of us now needs to be rescued.  If you're expecting Hollywood studios and these other mediums to do it, you're better off growing out your hair and waiting on a stray prince. Before the RL villains finish them off.

[loopy777]

Nickelodeon gives you the task of writing a series based on Korra's earthbending successor with no limits on what you can do. How would you write his story?

Interesting that you say “his.” There’s no rule that the Avatars have to alternate gender, but at this point the fandom assumes it so much that I’d just go with it to avoid controversy.

Anyway, I’d probably turn Nickelodeon down if they wanted me to write Korra’s successor. I have no interest in the future that seems to be getting established in LoK. I want the franchise to stay in the past forever; there’s more than enough room, and I’d even be open to throwing away the concept of “canon” to tell stories that might merely be in-universe legends.

But, I’m going to try to answer the question in good faith. If I was a professional television writer/producer, and my career depended on saying yes to this and trying to do a good job, here’s what I’d do:

Working Title: The Last Avatar

Our star is a poor Earthlands boy. The Earth Kingdom collapsed years ago, Balkanizing into a bunching of struggling nations divided up haphazardly among various tribes, local cultures, and convenient geographical groupings. Our Boy is an Earthbender, but he hasn’t pursued any official training because it’s largely a waste of time and money. Instead, he’s been working his way through an education, learning about robotics and spirit-energy, because demand is high for that knowledge. He repairs old robots for spare money, and even has his own glitchy assistant -- who can transform into a van -- who he likes to trash-talk to show his love. He’s a huge nerd.

Actually, the only reason he can defend himself with Earthbending at all is because of a classmate and friend who’s passed on her own lessons. This girl is one of seventeen young adults who currently use the Beifong name. She’s a Metalbender using her ability to innovate with circuitry, very interested in technology and business, but she also values some of the old ways and thinks Bending is an important part of Earth culture that should not be ignored.

Our Boy knows he’s not the Avatar because the Avatar is a super-famous influencer, activist, pop-singer, and advertising icon. She lives in the Fire Nation and has green hair. You should picture Hatsune Miku for her. There are bigger celebrities, and none of her movies have been huge hits, but the Avatar still has enough culture significance that she was born famous and has managed to stay in the news.

By the way, Fire Nation culture is dominant. All the best stuff comes from the Fire Nation. Their movies, television, music, and video games are popular all over the world. Their technology is better. Their quality is life is better. They have the best doctors, the fastest internet, bigger apartments, the most prestigious schools, and the best jobs. Immigration is limited by law, in order to maintain their high quality of life.

The United Republic and the Water Tribes have seized some former Earth Kingdom territory, so their influence has expanded. The United Republic invested heavily in technology, and they’re now a dystopian cyberpunk nightmare with a government that just does whatever its corporations say. The president of the United Republic is a position that rich men use to become richer. The Water Tribes are a lot better, having managed to transition to a constitutional monarchy and maintain something like a balance between life and technology.

Note that I didn’t say “spirituality and technology,” because the two are one. All technology is spirit-powered. Spirits can meld with the internet. Spirits can inhabit robot bodies. Spirits and humans meet in abstract Virtual Realities where the difference between the two disappears.

And all of this orderly chaos is set to collapse when Our Boy accidentally Firebends during a dangerous action moment. He and Beifong Girl realize he might be the Avatar. But Hatsune Miku has demonstrated command of all four elements. On separate occasions she’s been seen and filmed Earthbending, Firebending, Waterbending, and Airbending, sometimes two at once. So how can Our Boy also do that?

Beifong Girl urges him to contact the Air Nation and the descendants of Avatar Aang to find out. Except, when he does with her family’s help, Dual-Benders -- warriors using two different elements -- try to kill him. He’s been betrayed by the Air Nation- and possibly the Beifong clan. His friend helps him get away, but she isn’t sure she can trust her family. They both go on the run, not sure what to do.

The mystery of what’s going on will drive the whole series. Here’s our cast:

Our Boy: The true Earthbending Avatar, completely untrained. He’s a poor nerd thrown into the deep end of a global conspiracy, but fortunately he has a robot who transforms into a van, so at least he has transporation.

Beifong Friend: Our Boy’s best friend. Not a love interest. She’s the youngest Beifong cousin, an Earthlands patriot who wants to raise the former Earth Kingdom out of its divided state using technology. She’s also far too gentle for her family of power-hungry vipers, but she’s still a great Earthbender and will become a Metalbender warrior before the end.

Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku: An artificial biological/spiritual construct of the Red Lotus, able to Bend two elements at any one time by swapping out a set of four spirits (all of whom are intelligent, devoted solely to her, and have different personalities), and the center of a conspiracy that she’s the Avatar. The Red Lotus built her and are using her to advance their plans. She joins the hunt for Our Boy, officially decrying him as a Disciple of a Vaatu cult trying to destroy humanity. However, she eventually begins to have thoughts of her own and resent how she’s used and abused as a tool rather than a person. She becomes our Deuteragonist, going rogue and having her own journey and arcs that intersect with Our Boy. Depending on fandom reaction, she might becomes Our Boy’s love interest, but might also become just another friend. She eventually frees her spirit friends, giving up all Bending powers.

Water Sage-Candidate: A young man who is training to be a Water Sage/Shaman. He’s a new-age hippie type who distrusts technology but likes people and spirits, wanting everyone to be nicer and more supportive to each other. He’s suspicious of what’s going on with this supposed Vatuu cult, despite his master (a Red Lotus infiltrator) telling him to trust in the true Avatar. When Our Boy and his friends come to Water Tribe territory, he joins up with them to help expose the truth.

Air Detective: An Airbender, a master detective and manhunter, who has been tasked with helping to track down Our Boy. It turns out she’s honest and completely ignorant of what’s really going on, so as she hunts Our Boy, she realizes the greater conspiracy at work- one that seems to have set its sights on the Air Nation back during the height of Avatar Korra’s influence. She’s older than the main cast and largely separate from them, but she does spend a lot of time with Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and becomes something of a mentor to her. She struggles balancing Airbender ideals and her own cynicism about humanity, and is probably the best fighter in the story.

The Red Lotus: Our villains. They have infiltrated every level of every government in the world, and have figured how to replicate what Raava did with Wan- use a melding between spirits and humans to swap out Bending powers. They have managed to get up to a human/spirit combo being able to actively use two at a time, but they’re hot on replicating the full Avatar experience. The idea is that they eventually want to give everyone full Avatar powers, ruining the office of the Avatar and empowering everyone with the strength to topple governments and businesses. Any single person can knock over a building and kill thousands. And for those who are incompatible with the melding process and explode- well, those are necessary losses. Red Lotus foot soldiers will often have, as one of their two elements, Firebending.

Red Lotus Traitor: A NonBender history nerd from a Red Lotus family. The more he sees as he’s initiated into the family business, the more horrified he becomes, but he successfully manages to hide it- which is good, because recruits who balk tend to wind up dead in ‘accidents.’ When Our Boy comes to the Fire Nation, he and his friends encounter the Traitor, which brings them to the Red Lotus’s attention, but the Traitor finally breaks free and gets the group out, joining them.

Boss Red Lotus: The leader of the Red Lotus. A NonBender. She and her family -- siblings, a father or mother we can maybe tie to a character in LoK, and maybe a kid or spouse -- are running the whole show and have inherited the plan that the Red Lotus are executing. What separates Boss Red Lotus is her personal investment in Fake Avatar Hasune Miku. She thinks of herself as Miku’s mother, and has become more interested in creating a higher form of life than merely giving humanity Avatar powers. She grows more obsessed when Miku goes rogue and commissions a more advanced clone.

Fake Love Interest: A love interest for Our Boy who is a little bit weird and a little bit cool, very pretty in a vaguely gothy way, and fond of bugs. This is actually Koh in disguise as a human, and the romance doesn’t work out. It will be awesome, trust me.

The bulk of the series is Our Boy and his growing group of friends tooling around the world in their robot-van, chased by Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and the Airbender Detective, slowly uncovering the Red Lotus conspiracy and eventually rising up to save the world with the help of everyone who isn’t evil. The setting is dark and inspired by science-fiction, and there’s a theme of rediscovering the past, but the past doesn’t always hold the solution. Sometimes, the past merely contains the mistakes that led to today’s problems. The redemption of the world usually comes from getting in touch with the culture of the past, and mixing that with the wondrous new technology available today.

The ending I’m envisioning is a kind of embracing of the Red Lotus’s plan, but a non-destructive form. Everyone gets all four elements, but no one is killed by it, and the power level is completely normal. The Avatar, though, is the sole person to be able to Energybend, and it’s this role -- being able to explore the limitless potential of humanity -- that makes the Avatar important going forward. The significant Red Lotus are all sucked into hell or the Fog of Lost Souls or something, except for those who die outright, with the rest being rehabilitated.

Romance will be downplayed, aside from the fakeout with Koh, but if any of the recurring characters show some chemistry, there’s room to develop it. The Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku should be designed to be the audience’s tortured, angsty, badass waifu.

The next level of development for these ideas should come from the Concept Artist team, especially focusing on the weapons used in this setting. This will be followed by a more detailed revision by me with major plot points, and then going to the writers’ room for development of the first season. Entire characters or concepts may disappear or be added during that time.

Merchandising should emphasize the Tron Lines on everyone’s clothing that glow when Bending. Also, the Robot Van can be expanded to a whole line of transforming robots toys, although the word “transform” should not appear in any official material. We see video games as a major licensing opportunity, with a possibility for “canon” stories set in the same time period, intersecting with the cartoon’s main plot. To this end, final character designs should perhaps be modeled on voice actors, so that face scans or motion capture can be employed for AAA video game appearances.

And that’s my pitch.

[smokeybrand]

Barrel Roll

Apparently Disney plans to remake The Rocketeer with a race swapped lead and people feel some kind of way about it. I don’t. I am indifferent to the Rocketeer. I remember enjoying it when i was young and i do think it would be something amazing to see with modern effects but who’s this movie for? No one under the age of sixty gives a sh*t about pulp heroes. Hell, when it originally released, no one i knew who was my age, cared anything about that sh*t. If you’re name didn’t start with Indiana, none of that old timey, Thirties radio serial, heroic adventure nonsense was going to fly. That includes other properties like Doc Savage, The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and The Shadow. Those things, that entire genre, is laughably corny to my generation and the ones coming up under us? Yeah, they grew up in the Age of Marvel at the theaters. There’s no way you make a Rocketeer movie that can compete with f*cking Spider-Man on the big screen. Sh*t is an abject waste of money. That’s what people should be discussing, not a pandering stunt cast for the lead. You don't have a problem with the swap, you have a problem with Hollywood.

I don’t mind race or gender gending if the performance and content are strong enough to justify that decision. I think that, if you plan to switch Bond to a Black dude, you need a great performer with Sean Connery levels of charisma and Daniel Craig levels of physicality. Idris Elba has both of those in spades. There is literally no reason, outside of the very glaring racial biases of White people, that Elba can’t be Bond in this, the year of our lord, 2021. The films have deviated so far from Ian Flemming's novels at this point, who f*cking cares? I didn’t have an issue with Rey Palpatine when she first showed on Jakku. The Force Awakens was literally just a rehash of A New Hope and i was okay with that. I understood that it was a refresher to the franchise, an access point for a generation raised on Minecraft and Ipads. I thought the threads JJ left were intriguing. And then Kathleen Kennedy ruined that sh*t with her ridiculous identity politics. The Last Jedi was a whole ass coup attempt on her part, with huge assist from Rian Johnson, and it failed miserably. That’s how you f*ck up a swap. Daisy Ridley did her best with what she had, but what she had was clumsy trash. The content, the writing, failed her and it led to the entire franchise failing. If you want to shift perspective like that, you need to have strong ass content surrounding the switch in order to hold that sh*t up.

Swapping, both gender and race, isn’t inherently the problem. The problem is with Hollywood. The problem is with how these executives only see dollars and metrics. The problem is how they use the wrong ones, learn the wrong lessons from the data on hand, in an attempt to home run every time. That’s not what films are about or, at least, what they shouldn’t be about. I hear people screaming it’s a business all the time and that’s true to an extent. However, these people making these films are artists. They’re storytellers. Let them tell their f*cking stories, the way it appears in their heads. And before you start with the White swap for Black roles or Males for Females, no, i don’t think that’s okay, ever. Black people, and anyone not White, for that matter, struggle to get leas roles in Hollywood. Again, Hollywood problem. If a Ginger becomes a Black, f*cking so be it. That’s a prominent role in a visible franchise. That Ginger can wear a wig or dye their hair for a completely different job. Minorities can't take a dip in bleach and come out another race. Women can't just grow a dick and a beard. Why not just create new roles for these characters then? That’s fine but then your Ginger would get removed anyway because a cast full of white people isn’t realistic and, more to the point, profitable anymore. You don’t have a beef with wokeness or representation, you have a beef with executive decision. You have a Hollywood problem, bud, not a swap problem.

[koujakuzure]

how do u feel about genderbending?

short answer: I generally don’t mind

longer answer with more explanation:

hmm… well, honestly, it depends! and I know there are very mixed opinions on this subject, especially when it comes to “gender-bending” trans individuals (which is another conversation in itself, which yall can ask me about separately if u rlly wanna kno my opinion on it), so I try to look at it from both and all sides. it’s not a very black-and-white thing, just like pretty much anything that deals with gender lol 

really, I prefer the term “cis-swap” rather than “gender-bend” mostly bcuz gender…. is very ambiguous. Gender, unlike sex, is a social construction (and you can look all of this info up or ask any sociologist or psychologist to confirm that I’m not just pulling this stuff outta my ass). Sex is a biological concept, based on genitalia (and/or chromosomes); it’s often very black-and-white (with a few exceptions, such as intersex individuals), unlike the concept of gender. Gender is basically the traits we use in society to identify what is deemed “masculine” and what is deemed “feminine” (i.e. in American society, the color pink is deemed “feminine” whereas blue is “masculine” even tho they’re literally just colors; or how skirts, dresses, and heels are “feminine” clothing items, and suits are often deemed as “masculine” attire, or sometimes androgynous/gender-neutral). 

and, with the term “gender-bending”, that’s insinuating that you can take a gender fluid, agender, or nonbinary individual/character and somehow recreate them as an “opposite” of their initial gender identity (if that makes sense- sorry if the wording is a lil weird).

I don’t mind when ppl use the term “gender-bending” bcuz I get what they mean when they use it, but I just use “cis-swap” as to not overcomplicate things adjfhskhs (or maybe I’m the one that just overcomplicated things orz). 

but anyway, I think that there’s really only two things that bother me when it comes to the general populace’s take on “gender-bending”:

1. Ok, well firstly… “Gender-bending” one damn character in an entire franchise just to put them into a heterosexual relationship with another character… it’s very lame. I don’t feel offended by it or anything, but every time I see it I’m just like “…… weak…”. That’s not to say that the characters may-or-may-not-be headcanoned as a different sexuality (maybe bi or pan or smthin), but 9.999 times out of 10, when a person “gender-bends” ONE character to pair them with another character into a heterosexual relationship…. it’s often to make them hetero. And just to clarify, since I know (I just goddamn know) someone on this hellsite will take this the wrong way and NO. I am NOT saying heterosexuality is BAD. dear christ hop of my dick, I saw those gears whirring in ur brain, readin’ into shit. It’s Not That Deep.

2. Oftentimes when someone takes a male character and turns them into a female, you could’ve started off with the most muscular, steel-eyed, roughened, toughened male character….. and his female counterpart is often amounted to some lameass little dainty girl with giant gravity-defying tits, and big, sparkling moe eyes. @ all y'all artists that do that shit: you are WEAK. When you make a “gender-bent” character, you shouldn’t be changing the ENTIRE goddamn character, personality and distinct physical traits and all. Girls come in all different shapes and sizes (that includes their muscle mass and boobs, dumbasses). Same with guys!! Gender-bending female characters into men shouldn’t always mean giving them a six-pack lmao There is a vast array of *~body types~* 

I have this specific image in my mind of a “gender-bent” thin moe-lookinass Jotaro smothering the original male version of Kakyoin with her overly-sized tits and it’s killin me yall pls stop doin this,, yall killin m e, i lose brain cells when i come across this shit p l s

[nintendoduo]

6 Things We Need to See for Smash 6

A month ago, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate released.  That means more than enough time has passed and we can start issuing demands for what we want to see in the next installment of the franchise, so here are 6 things that NEED to be in Smash 6:

1. Every Pokemon ever

The “Everyone is Here” ad campaign was blatant false advertising.  According to Bulbapedia there are 810 known species of Pokemon but only like 60 of them are in Smash Ultimate.  Sakurai’s blatant slap in the face to Pokemon fans needs to be rectified immediately.  All 810 species should be either playable or in a Poke Ball, even if it means deleting minor characters like Dr. Mario or Link to make extra space.  It’s whatever year Smash 6 releases, Nintendo, straighten up.

2. Buy Microsoft

Like everyone else, we’re huge fans of Banjo-Kazooie and want to see him in Smash.  Unfortunately, Mr. Kazooie’s IP is owned by Microsoft so this is a tricky proposition.  What would solve the problem is Nintendo just buying Microsoft and bringing Banjo-Kazooie back home to the company that never owned him!  As a bonus, Nintendo would also inherit Microsoft’s lesser properties and bring them into Smash as assist trophies, such as Blinx, Mr. Halo and Windows.

3. Gender-swaps

If the popularity of Bowsette has taught us anything… well, it hasn’t taught us anything, but people want gender-swaps nevertheless!  Every character should have a gender-swapped counterpart, and then, in the interest of full equality, those gender-swaps should get gender-swaps too (like Male Bowsette or Male Linkle... can you imagine?).  By our count that’s a shitload of new characters, so get started on this one early, Nintendo.

4. ???

?!??!

5. Make it playable on the Nintendo GameCube, the only good console to exist

Just being able to use the GameCube controller isn't enough.  For a fully authentic experience, we need to be able to play the next Smash game in a real GameCube in crisp, 480i graphics.  Nintendo needs to understand that not everybody will own whatever system is going to follow the Switch, but EVERYBODY owns the GameCube, assuming the small circle of competitive Melee players we follow constitutes everybody!

6. In fact, just re-release Melee 

You know what, forget about Smash 6.  It’s obvious that nothing else in this franchise, or world, matters except for Smash Melee anyways.  Re-release the only quality video game the world has ever seen and call it a career, Nintendo.

[ma-at-thought]

🔥🔥🔥

What’s this?! THREE Unpopular Opinions, with no specified topic?!

Buckle up.

1: Some of these fandom “shippers” need to shut the fuck up.2: People don’t get to bitch about a character being re-imagined one way when they’re doing the same thing, but another way.3: The whole idea of the Ghostbusters reboot was fucking terrible and I’m still pissed about it. (But not for the stupidly sexist reasons that were all over the place.)

Details for each of these Unpopular Opinions under the cut! And remember, these are unpopular opinions for a reason. They’re my opinions, and mine alone. But holy crap, I’ve been wanting to get this Ghostbusters rant off my chest for a while. Thank @depraved-debauchery for this.

1: Some of these fandom “shippers” need to shut the fuck up. Look, I don’t even play Overwatch, but every time there’s a hint of a new voice line or a glimpse of official art, it’s almost guaranteed that wild loonies will spring forth from the damn walls screeching about how “X” is totally wrong. 

I’ve seen the angst, people. I’ve seen the relentless Twitter assaults on designers for daring to imply a particular relationship. Some of these shippers have this shockingly, disgustingly entitled “how dare you write the character like that!” attitude and it’s fucking awful. 

First, these aren’t your characters. You didn’t design them, you didn’t write them, and yet you still think that your insults and demands should change their stories. That is so insulting it makes me grind my teeth. You’re throwing huge tantrums that the romance you envision is the only right one, and it’s awful (or racist, or sexist, or anti-LGBT or whatever) for the writer to imply even a shred of a relationship that doesn’t fit your ideas, which is exceedingly stupid because...Second, you’re going to imagine them doing whatever the hell you want anyway. Two characters having a canon relationship is not going to stop you imagining, writing, or drawing those characters in the pairing you prefer anyway. Because to you, it only matters if something is canon when it justifies your personal preferences. And you’re willing to throw massive hissy-fits at developers over it. That’s shitty.

2: People don’t get to bitch about a character being re-imagined one way when they’re doing the same thing, but another way. I’ve seen this a couple of times in fandoms and it bugs the hell out of me. People really like a particular character, so they want to re-imagine that character as more relating to them, whatever they may be. This has resulted in characters being drawn or written as plumper than they originally are, a different skin-color, a different gender, a different age, a different sexuality, whatever.

And this is just fine. (Unless super-creepy things are being done with aging a child character for the purposes of erotica; don’t do that shit. Like ever.) These are head-canons for fun, so people can feel more represented, or so they can re-imagine a character they love and admire as more like them.

But the very same people who re-imagine a Caucasian character as PoC, or a slim character as chubby, or a straight character as gay, or a male character as female will absolutely lose their damn minds if someone else re-imagines things the other way around. I’ve seen a chunky character re-imagined as more buff, and it was like Tumblr collectively exploded. This pisses me off so damn much because it’s hypocritical as hell. People want representation and that’s totally valid; hell, in American media it’s badly needed. But hurling insults at someone who re-drew an Asian character as Arabic, or a fat character as just a little bit chubby, or an old character as middle-aged, or a gay pairing as intimate with someone of the opposite gender, is just shitty. These are all re-imaginings or head-canons, and people can imagine what they want.

3: The whole idea of the Ghostbusters reboot was fucking terrible and I’m still pissed about it.

Let me be exceptionally clear about this one right off the bat: A bunch of chick Ghostbusters is awesome.

But holy shit was that ever an awful way to go about it!

I was so excited when I heard that there was going to be a new Ghostbusters. I grew up on that stuff; I owned a pile of toys that didn’t come with slime because my family knew all the ways that could go wrong, and I watched the cartoon all the time. I could probably recite the dialog along with the movies for the most part because I’ve watched them over and over. I Love Ghostbusters.

And then I realized that it was pretty much just a gender-swap. Same type of cast, but chicks instead of dudes. And that was just such a god damn cop-out, because there was so much else they could have done instead, especially with modern CGI and big movie budgets. They didn’t have to do a fucking gender-bend; they could have launched a whole new series of awesome and instead they just went that way.

Bear with me here. Imagine, if you will....

A new Ghostbusters franchise opening in San Francisco. At least half of the new Ghostbusters are women, and at least half of the new Ghostbusters aren’t white. They’re all their Very Own Characters, with no ties to the old movies beyond being a Ghostbusters franchise, so the characters can shine in their own right without being overshadowed.

Not every Ghostbusters franchise needs to be in a firehouse, so they go and save an old, small apartment building from being turned into a parking lot. They’ve got a bunch of extra space, so they add on to their mission. Not just busting ghosts, but providing shelter and work for homeless teens. They’ve got a big soft-spot for LGBT kids that have been kicked out by their asshole parents, and one of them has a buddy at the local college who is a science teacher. They arrange for her to come in and teach these kids lab-work, even get them some science college credits

While the new team is out busting ghosts, these teens handle the secretarial stuff and do important Science! and very probably cause shenanigans.

With that as an option, a gender-bent reboot seems like a god damn waste.

[pw-wp]

FAN ART: Weird subculture or Natural offshoot of Graphic Design?

IMAGE: Examples of fan art from the Deviant Art website.

My work often takes me to the hallowed halls of convention centers and community centers for annual gatherings of image makers of all stripes and their fans. These conventions, or “Cons”, be comic, horror, or video game themed, but one thing seems to be universal about them: Fan Art.

IMAGE: The fan-art-made-good example of Fiona the human and Cake the Cat from the Adventure Time cartoon series.

Fan Art is, essentially, art created by a fan-base centered around a specific property, actor, story, etc. It fulfills several purposes, from practicing art-making, community building, and, in some controversial cases (like most Cons one could attend), for profit. PBS’s Off Book program has explored how fan art is something that transcends media, stretching from graphic design to illustration and beyond (Brown, 2012). In some cases it can even influence the original product, as in the case of Adventure Time’s gender-swapped characters Fiona the Human and Cake the Cat (gender-swapped fan art creations of series leads Finn the Human and Jake the Dog). These characters proved so popular that series producer Fred Seibert greenlit an episode starring the duo (Brown, 2012). This is a grand example of fan art, but with the ocean of other offerings in the realm via online homes like Threadless, DeviantArt, and Mondo (at varying levels of quality and legality) and the recent experience of walking through mountains of fan art at a Wizard World Convention, I thought it might be a fine idea to look at the genesis of this subset of art.

Commissioned Beginnings

IMAGE: Top Row: Mythical figures drawn by Hokusai, Bottom Row: A selection of Mucha’s posters of Sarah Bernhardt.

Like much art, the term fan art is subjective. For example, if we consider religions to be organizations and gatherings of fans, why, we have fan art going back to ancient times of religious figures. Maybe the Venus of Willendorf had her own comic book. These images extend up to today, outside of Islam, anyway, and I don’t have years to write a single blog post, so we will narrow our scope a bit. Perhaps the best look at the origins of fan art can be traced back to the same beginnings, we ascribe to modern graphic design. I’m speaking, of course, about posters and Japanese ink prints.

Meggs notes that some of the early Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints that made their way over to Europe depicted Kabuki actors (p. 196, 2012). While the context is lost to many viewers today, these images functioned the same way as movie posters of actors function today. This is essentially the legit version of fan art- advertising art that is usually commissioned by the rights holder. It was not limited to just actors: like the posters of Superman or Wonder Woman on your kid’s wall, artists like Hokusai produced prints representing heroic warriors like Yoshitsune (Bouquillard and Marquet, pp.151-152, 2007)  It did not take Europe long to pick up on this trend, either.

Artists like Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec immediately spring to mind. Ulmer writes about how Mucha practically produced a sub-genre of Sara Berndhart posters in the late 19th century, when the actress contracted him exclusively to produce the now immortal prints (p.8, 2007). It would not long before professional image makers like Mucha found themselves joined by amateurs as well, and not just in the schoolbooks of aspiring artists.

SKYGACK and the Beginnings of Cosplay

IMAGE: Original comic image and homemade costume of Skygack the visitor from Mars.

Innovations in printing lead to an image explosion around the turn of the twentieth century. Along with adverts, newspapers helped launch the comic strip, a medium that has since branched into the multi-billion dollar businesses of animation, comic books and films. It’s fitting then, since thousands dress up as Batman and Spiderman every year, that one of the earliest documented examples of fan art would concern cosplay (the dressing up as) a comic strip character.

According to Ron Miller, Mr. Skygack was the creation of cartoonist A. D. Condo and was essentially a fish-out-of-water gag wrapped up as a visitor from Mars (2013). The character proved so popular that Plunkett notes fans started to make costumes of the Martian for city events and parties (2016). Apparently it was such a big trend that the newspapers picked up on it, so we have visual evidence of it, over a hundred years later. While the creepy looking fellow is something of a footnote now, Skygack deserves at least a plaque in the inevitable fan art hall of fame as a pioneer in the field. While this fellow was all laughs and harmless fun, there is also seedier side to fan art, so much so that the label may not even be properly applied.

TIJUANA BIBLES and Selling under the Table!

Image: Safe for work covers of Tijuana Bibles.

Now comes probably the most controversial subsection of fan art: erotic fan art. No, there won’t be any NSFW images presented here, but it is fascinating to examine this subsection, considering it is most associated with Rule 34 of the Internet today.Rule 34, of course, is, as Dewey writes, “If it exists, or can be imagined, there is Internet porn of it” (2016). Like the pioneering days of film, video and art itself (exhibit A: The Venus of Willendorf, of comic book fame), fan art’s less discussed and notorius subset has a history dating back decades. Tijuana Bibles, sometimes referred to as bluesies or eight pagers were illicit, cheaply printed little tracts depicting your great grandpa’s favorite cartoon characters in sexually explicit situations.

These illegal little books were sold under the counter and included scandalous adventures being pursued by Popeye, Blondie, and even Mickey Mouse. While the quality for most is lacking, some actually include some fine draftmanship, enough so that places like Duke University have collections of the little deviants(David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 2017). They served as an income source for many artists in the same way that illicit images produced on the internet are sometimes produced for profit. Indeed, they could even be used as stepping stones to “legitimate” careers. Faraci writes about how the initial Bazooka Joe (of gum comic fame) artist, Wesley Morse, got the nod from producing Tijuana Bibles (2012). The legacy of these little things extends out to today, and beyond just visual art. After all, we are all suffering through Fifty Shades of Grey movies thanks to written erotic fan fiction writing based on the Twilight series. One wishes the artists of the original Tijuana Bibles could have gotten a piece of that pie!

Beyond this somewhat seedy side of the fan art universe, not much of note has lasted the years between the early 20th century up to around the 1980s, outside the fantastic riffs of MAD magazine and the extreme world of Underground Comix in general, there is a style of fan art that is worth noting.

Before they were Pros: Fan art by Superstars when they were Young

IMAGE: The evolving skill of painter Alex Ross, as seen through his love of comic books.

Everyone has to get started somewhere. As Brown notes, oftentimes fan art is used as a way to practice the craft while having a guidepost and not needing the time to make new ideas (2012). This certainly makes sense. Even the author of this blogpost got his start from drawing horrendous Mickey Mouse doodles. The recent influx of artist books in the marketplace also provide the proverbial proof to the pudding.

Alex Ross is known far and wide for his painted depictions of superheroes. A collection of his work for DC comics shows that the man has been steeped in his subject matter for years (Kidd, 2005). His early drawings are certainly crude (he was, after all, five years old) but his efforts certainly pay off over time as his work gets better and better. He moves from doing fan art to inspired original characters, building his skill level over time before getting to college and mastering painting (pp. 21-28). Like many other comics artists, Ross does not appear out of a stump- he starts by emulating things he enjoys and grows into his own style and artwork. He is not alone in this- one particularly famous quartet of terrapins owe a lot to fan art and fandom in general

IMAGE: From left to Right: The work of Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and Eastman and Laird.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird have been very open about the inspiration that creators Frank Miller, Jack Kirby, and the character of Daredevil from Marvel Comics provided them in creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Farago writes about how both were inspired by artist/writers Jack Kirby and Frank Miller (p. 20, 2014). These inspirations, swirling about in the indie-publishing scene of the 1980s, were given manifest presentation in the first issue of the Ninja Turtles, which blatantly presents the heroes sharing an origin story with Daredevil (Farago, p. 20, 2014)- at the time being brought to new prominence by Miller. The fact that the comic book is dedicated to Kirby and Miller helps seal the deal.

The themes and art style of the early TMNT books has a healthy blend of Kirby dynamism and Miller inking techniques from that time. While not strictly an exercise in fan art, Eastman and Laird’s admitted admiration for the two other creators helped shaped one of the most dynamic franchises of the last thirty years. Like with Ross, the fruit of this labor shows the benefits of early, devoted fan hood combined with art making.

The Good, the Bad, and the Interesting Controversy

So we’ve seen a ton of interesting sides to this whole fan art thing. The good side has been expounded upon, along with the seedy seed, but what about the bad side? Well, the last bit of this blogpost will take a look at that and some of the controversy involved. Specifically, the copyright infringing, convention engulfing controversial side of the issue.

The culture news site Bleeding Cool has done fairly extensive reporting on the issue of rampant fan art at comic conventions. They have noted the uptick of giant collections of fan art that keep showing up at these fan gatherings, and how much these collections irk some practicing artists, who may rely on licensed image reproduction of everyone’s favorite superheroes to supplement their income in a tough business. One artist, Aldrin Aw,, was so frustrated at a  particular vendor selling “fan art” (which here mostly related to copying original art and adding digital effects) that he hounded him out of the convention (Johnston, May 2016). He also went out of his way publicly shame the “fan” artist on social media. The growing conversation around the fan art and bootlegging at conventions has also lead to greater efforts at explaining the legal repercussions of selling another person’s intellectual property throughout the community. Seth C. Polansky, a lawyer specializing in art and IP issues points out that much of what we consider “fan art” is, in a strict sense, illegal (Johnston, June 2016). That’s certainly a downer for a growing artistic subculture.

Thus, we find ourselves at a crossroads. A long-running subset of image making and artistic development that’s struggling to find a balance between a passionate hobby and legitimate money-making venture that crosses many redlines in the legal sense. Perhaps the best balance is seen in the work of studios like Mondo and Gallery Nucleus. Both offer a variety of fan art paintings and other works, but they are licensed. Unlike sites like Deviantart, much of this work is invited and functions in the same way as the commissions of Kabuki art cited above. Things have gone full circle, in effect.

Regardless of the many issues involved, fan art is something here to stay, and it has a pedigree. It will be quite interesting to see just how far it spreads in the future.

Sources for this writing include:

Bouquillard, J., & Marquet, C. (2007). Divinities, warriors, and legendary figures. In C. Henard (Ed.), Hokusai: first manga master (pp.145-157). New York: Abrams.

Brown, K. (2012, May 3). Fan Art [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/video/off-book-fan-art-creativity/

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. (2012).Guide to the tijuana bibles collection, 1930-1998 [Data file]. Retrieved from https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/tijuanabibles/#historicalnote

Dewey, C. (2016, April 6). Is rule 34 actually true?: An investigation into the internet’s most risque law. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/04/06/is-rule-34-actually-true-an-investigation-into-the-internets-most-risque-law/?utm_term=.eed623bc895e

Faraci, D. (2012, July 25). Tijuana bibles from wesley morse, creator of bazooka joe (NSFW). Birth.Movies.Death.. Retrieved from http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/07/25/tijuana-bibles-from-wesley-morse-creator-of-bazooka-joe-nsfw

Farago, A. (2014). Teenage mutant ninja turtles: The ultimate visual history (1st ed.). San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions.

Johnston, R. (2016, June 10). Artists alley, art theft and copyright law- a lawyer speaks to bleeding cool. Bleeding Cool. Retrieved from https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/06/10/artists-alley-art-theft-and-copyright-law-a-lawyer-speaks-to-bleeding-cool/

Johnston, R. (2016, May 8). Buzz sends tim lundmark packing at wizard world minneapolis comic con. Bleeding Cool. Retrieved from https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/05/08/buzz-sends-tim-lungren-packing-at-wizard-world-minneapolis-comic-con/

Kidd, C. (2005). Mythology: the dc comics art of alex ross. New York: Pantheon Books.

Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2012). Art Nouveau. In Meggs’ history of graphic design (pp.196-231)(5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Miller, R., (September 19, 2013). Was mr. Skygack the first alien character in comics?. Io9. Retrieved from https://io9.gizmodo.com/was-mr-skygack-the-first-alien-character-in-comics-453576089

Plunkett, L.,(May 16, 2016). Cosplay is over 100 years old. Kotaku. Retrieved from https://cosplay.kotaku.com/cosplay-is-over-100-years-old-1777013405

Ulmer, R. (2007). Alfons Mucha. Los Angeles, CA: Taschen

[junker-town]

8 things I learned watching all 5 'Air Bud' movies

Happy 20th anniversary, Buddy.

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1997, Disney released Air Bud, a movie about a golden retriever named Buddy who can play basketball. It did well in the box office, because there were enough people who wanted to see how the hell Disney was going to execute this idea. Then four more Air Bud movies were made over the next six years.

I have no nostalgia for Air Bud. The idea to watch it never crossed my mind when I was seven years old. It was a cultural blind spot that I shared with my colleague Charlotte Wilder, who also watched it for the first time this year. But with the 20th anniversary coming up, I decided to rectify my Air Bud-less life and watch all five movies, stopping short of watching the Buddies spinoff series.

With that out of the way, I would like to share the following things I learned while watching the Air Bud series:

1. This is the loophole Air Bud uses in order to let Buddy play basketball.

Disney

Sure, that works. Never mind the fact that you’d normally have to be a student with good academic standing in order to participate in your school’s athletics. But who has time for nuance? Let’s see Air Bud do his thing.

2. This is what it looks like when a dog’s on your basketball team.

Disney

It turns out it’s not that far-fetched to play with or against a dog. Buddy is capable of making baskets, steals, assists, and sometimes he can get rough — shout out to the first movie’s bully Larry Willingham for getting wiped out by a dog.

Disney

3. Each movie has villains who want to steal dogs for their own personal gain.

The villain in the first movie, Norm Snively, actually had a direct relationship to Buddy. He was Buddy’s abusive owner — Buddy’s origin story exists because of him. Snively worked as a terrible party clown and Buddy was his sidekick. During a children’s birthday party, Buddy gets rough during a ball trick (I’m assuming he was fed up with Snively’s bulls*** at this point), and the both of them cause a mess at their client’s house. Snively gets angry and threatens to send Buddy to the pound, but Buddy escapes after falling out of an open truck bed.

Disney

After that, Buddy makes a connection with Josh Framm and his family, and becomes famous in town for his dog tricks. Snively learns about this, and tries to steal him back for his traveling act. Snively is the only villain in the franchise that gives the story any stakes.

In the sequels, we get introduced to the following:

A brother-sister duo from Russia who wants to steal Buddy for their circus

Two criminals who are trying to steal Buddy’s girlfriend from a rich British family

Two scientists who want to steal Buddy and his puppies in order to make more dogs who play sports

Two criminals who want to steal Buddy so they can use him to steal a precious diamond in a room filled with lasers

The climaxes of these story arcs always occur conveniently when Buddy’s team is about to play the championship game. Every time he goes missing, everyone is worried that their team is going to lose. But it never feel like things will truly go wrong, because everything always works out in the end and Buddy’s team wins.

Aside from Snively, the villains are the weakest parts of the series. Their only purpose is slapstick comedy. I wish they created suspense out of the sports scenes instead, but maybe I’m asking for too much. These are kids’ movies, and you can’t deny kids the chance to see two guys drive off a ramp and into a mud pool.

4. The Air Bud movies are forward-thinking in terms of portraying mixed-gender sports.

In World Pup, the best player on Josh’s high school soccer team happens to be a girl. In Seventh Inning Fetch, Josh’s baby sister, Andrea, and her best friend, Tammy, join the middle school baseball team with male teammates and a female coach. In Spikes Back, Andrea joins a summer league volleyball team that’s filled with girls and boys. All of this is treated as normal, and the fans who watch these teams don’t question (and why would they?) why girls and boys are on the same sports team. They just love watching these athletes play, and it’s a really cool thing to see.

5. We have to discuss the ending of World Pup.

This movie came out in December 2000, a year and a half after the U.S. won the Women’s World Cup. The date is important*, because four months after Buddy’s team wins the state championship, there’s another Women’s World Cup. In the Air Bud Cinematic Universe, the “every four years” World Cup time frame doesn’t exist. You could argue that the filmmakers took artistic license, but this seems a bit much.

*The movie is indeed set in 2000, because I double-checked the small print on a spinning newspaper transition.

Anyway, at the 2001 Women’s World Cup final, the United States and Norway have gone on to a penalty shootout to decide the champion. Briana Scurry — who, in real life, made a crucial save for the U.S. in the 1999 final’s shootout — gets injured, leaving everyone worried until the camera pans over to Air Bud, who substitutes for Scurry, and clinches the match for the U.S. with his own save.

Disney

So, to recap, the U.S. becomes champion in a way-too-early Women’s World Cup by having Air Bud save the day, which feels a bit like cheating. But I came to see a dog play soccer, and I think I got what I paid for, which is whatever Netflix pays Disney each time I stream Air Bud: World Pup.

I’m surprised it took the movies this long to get Air Bud integrated into a major sports event, but here we are. Also, it turns out this wouldn’t be the first time Air Bud participated in a championship game. Let’s talk about Seventh Inning Fetch.

6. Y’all wanna see Air Bud in batting practice? Yeah, you do.

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I’m pretty sure dogs aren’t supposed to hit balls that well with their mouths, but just like it says on the town sign that pops up at the start of every Air Bud movie, everything is possible.

7. They took Air Bud to the World Series.

It would have been enough for Seventh Inning Fetch to end with Air Bud and Andrea winning the state championship game. But no, they had to go further and take him to the World Series.

Please enjoy the following scene:

I have a few questions:

How the hell did Air Bud end up in the majors?

Why is there still sunlight during a World Series game?

If Air Bud is set in Washington, why isn’t Buddy helping out the Mariners win their first World Series?

Did the filmmakers have Air Bud play for the Angels because it was the closest MLB team they could get access to from the studio in Hollywood?

Our old pal Rodger Sherman wrote about the ending a few years ago, and brought up some more good points, which I’ll resurface:

If you look closely at the scoreboard, the Padres are up 5-1 against the Angels, with no outs in the inning, and yet the Angels win the World Series with a double play.

The home plate umpire signals a home run after Buddy gets a runner out at first.

The stadium was too bright for actual fireworks, so they had to make do with LED sign fireworks.

And at the end of all this, Air Bud wins World Series MVP! This is an actual frame from the movie, in case you want to swap out your desktop wallpaper:

Disney

All we saw was Air Bud catch a ball in his mouth and get the final out, and apparently that was enough to earn MVP. We didn’t see him at bat, although thanks to the scoreboard, we can assume he didn’t help much there. All we’re left with is imagining what else he did at first base to earn that honor, and maybe that’s for the best. Part of me believes this ending was all a dream sequence in Air Bud’s head.

8. I ultimately came away liking the Air Bud movies more than I had expected.

The franchise has a lot of corny, ridiculous things that deserve to be made fun of: villains who contribute to excruciatingly formulaic plots; the soundtrack, which can range from romantically cheesy to “wait, this is totally a knockoff of John Fogerty’s ‘Centerfield’”; the ridiculous sports scenes involving Air Bud, like his aforementioned batting practice, and this block from Spikes Back.

Disney

But there’s something about the Air Bud series that’s worth admiring: these movies have heart.

You see a gifted dog get abused and abandoned, then end up in a loving home. You see the Framm family move to a new town and try to cope with the death of their pilot father. You see Josh Framm struggle to make friends at school, and stumble through a couple extracurricular activities before trying out for the basketball team. You see Josh eventually make friends thanks to his basketball-playing dog, and go through the awkwardness of being a teenager. You see a widowed mother fall in love and get married to someone new, and then try to make things work for her family (which she does). You see the Framm siblings embrace each other when Josh has to leave for college, and Andrea isn’t ready to say goodbye. You see Andrea try to her hardest to earn travel money so she can see her best friend who moved to a different state.

You see Noah, the youngest Framm sibling, grow up into a toddler and steal the spotlight, because he’s genuinely the funniest human character Air Bud had to offer.

Disney

Most of these scenarios are minor, and they step to the side to make way for Air Bud, but they’re some of my favorite parts of the franchise because they’re sincere. They make you feel for the characters and root for them, even when you know that everything will turn out OK.

These movies are not great, but I believe, after every silly thing I learned, that they’re worth checking out, even just to see how ludicrous they can be, and imagine what it took to make them. If you ever find yourself on Netflix or Amazon, a mere click away from watching one Air Bud movie, now you know what to expect. Maybe you’ll end up liking it too.