Entertainment

Boasting, binging, and beginning.

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First of all, I apologize for not posting in several days. I’ve been out of commission.

But today I feel better, so here we go:

You know what I notice about technology? It’s a tough thing to break away from.

But what if our addiction to it isn’t just because its addictive (though it is as addictive as drugs.) What if we have more addicts in our culture simply because our values have altered so much that we encourage it?

That’s not really  a new idea, but I think the implications of it tend to go over our heads.

We can all agree that entertainment industries feed our addictions. They even have the audacity to boast in their commercials that they are “binge–worthy, you can’t miss it, you can’t go without it, it’s irresistible”… sounds familiar right?

What if I said that about my posts? You have to read this. (Hey, we get emails titled that don’t we?)

Well, I’m not kidding myself. No one has to read my stuff. No one is going to die if they don’t see my latest. Come on.

Frankly those commercials annoy the heck out of me.

But how little resistance there is to them now. Being an addict is even kind of cool now, in the meaningless way anything is cool nowadays. (Cool used to be a certain way of acting and thinking and dressing, now I’m not sure what it means except that you like something.)

People joke (READ:Brag) about binging on things that they can’t get enough of. And the rest of us laugh; ha ha, they have no self control, it’s hilarious!

I suppose it’s equally hilarious when it is deadly things like drugs and alcohol.

So what about technology? We’re proud of being addicted to that too. Well, I’m not.

I don’t mind loving a good show or movie, or finding usefulness in electronics, but that’s nothing to be proud of.

The pride isn’t obvious, most of us wouldn’t use that word at all; but what else would you call it?

Getting the latest version of whatever. Getting to a more difficult level of a video game. Getting so many likes or views on Facebook, twitter, Instagram, you name it.

Getting a bigger TV, getting a better car, getting those channels on TV that other people can’t get.

Being able to say you’ve seen every single episode of this show, or that you’ve seen this movie so many times in theaters.

Even being slightly embarrassed about how much you consume can be something to brag about….I’m not clear on why. It just is.

Because somehow, admitting it makes it okay. I may do nothing at all to rectify my problem, but at least I’m not deceiving myself.

Except I am. Many of us are. We think that just because our friends (both in person and online) don’t judge us for our weaknesses in addiction, that means it’s okay.

Which is like a colorblind person thinking they know the difference between yellow and pink, just because all their friends are blind.

That’s an unlikely example in the physical world, but when it comes to mental things, it’s all too common.

The fact is, all our friends are not likely to point out our problem because chances are we only make friends with people who have the very dame problem.

What would most Americans have in common with anyone who did not own a TV, or a smart phone, and preferred old fashioned entertainments and knew nothing about pop culture.

I don’t mean to generalize, there are Americans who don’t buy into all that stuff, but there’s precious few of us who don’t own a TV and struggle with this problem at some level.

What’s hard is even getting the younger generation to see it as a problem. They have grown up with their lives wrapped around technology and entertainment. They boast about how much of it they consume.

The older generation admits it’s a problem but often is too susceptible to it themselves and they don’t set a strong example.

In my family the problem tends to be that each person spends a portion of the day engaged in other activities, but we don’t do it at the same time. One person’s play hour might be another’s work hour, so we distract each other without meaning to.

In some ways, having a designated room for TV and another for study and work is a better arrangement, but too often it becomes an excuse for isolation.

I know I harp on about this subject a lot, but part of the reason is that I mself notice that if I’m not regularly reminded of the dangers of screen addiction, I start slipping into it and not bothering to fight it.

So I’ll end with a few tips for at least cutting back on it, though eliminating it completely is something I haven’t figured out yet.

  1. Don’t be constant: It sounds like weird advice, but one thing to do is to limit what you watch in a day. One TV program, one movie. My mom used to give us time limits for how long we could use the computer for a movie or game. Sometimes I hold off watching anything until a certain time of day, and then only one thing. (It’s too easy now to just passively sit while someone else puts on something unfortunately, but if you live alone  or with less people that’s not such a problem.)
  2. Just don’t: Kids and teens will usually give into the temptation without much resistance; not because they are by nature more susceptible to addiction, but because they tend to go along with what adults are doing, and make poor choices when left to themselves. Humanity in general is not apt to make wise choices as it is. But with no one to watch us, we tend to do worse. So just don’t let your kids have access to technology except when it’s necessary or it’s a special occasion.

 

That’s about all I’ve got. Self control in this area is particularly difficult due to how often we are tempted. Total abstinence seems to be the only guarantee for never slipping.

But since perfection is not what we can expect, limitations are a good place to begin.

I don’t give up hope of conquering this addiction, but I admit it is hard and the hardest part is realizing it’s a problem. It just doesn’t feel like a problem most of the time.

Anyway, here’s hoping, until next time–Natasha.

Redeeming the time: X-men style.

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When I did my X-men review, I wanted to go more into Days of Future Past, but I ran out of time. So, here we go.

Honestly, this one was my favorite.

I’m going to jump right in by bringing up the principle theme, split into two different plot lines, of the film.

The theme is Redemption.

First off we learn that in the future mutants are hunted down (so much for the efforts of the X-men in all the previous movies) and so are any humans who side with them or who harbor some early form of the mutant x-gene.

The reason all this happened is not because of Magneto’s heinous acts against humanity, as one might expect, but because of one murder of Mystique’s. Her first ( not her last.)

Mystique was always a pretty rough and seemingly merciless and conscience-less character in the first three films, in the fourth we learn she wasn’t always that way, in the fifth they finally get around to asking “What if she could have been different?”

If they could stop her from murdering the man, Trask, they could stop the war that is killing off all of them.

What if?

There are a couple things that come to my mind when I think about the idea of traveling back in time to save people.

There’s my favorite book, Till We Have Faces, in which the main character thinks that the gods can change the past. At first thinking they do so to make us seem guilty, and later realizing they do so by changing us ourselves into different people.

Then there is that verse in the Bible that says we redeem the time because the days are evil.

That certainly fits this movie’s whole premise.

I don’t believe time travel is strictly possible. But if it were, I would think it was like any other gift, meant to be used to help and to heal, but able to be used to do damage.

There’s plenty of fiction that covers the latter, but this film interestingly enough shows how, even with the best of intentions, someone could still make the future worse than ever by going back. There’s a delicate moment when Future Charles warns the team not to wake Logan up, or there will be a worse darkness than there is now. By which he means that thanks to Erik, the mutants will have exterminated humans.

Now if Logan had not gone back and busted Erik out, that could not have happened.

Actually Erik was mostly useless in the film. He didn’t help convince Raven not to shoot the guy, he didn’t try to change the people’s minds about mutants, he almost sealed their fate.

But I guess it was better for him.

Raven was the most intriguing character to me from the beginning, since I had heard she turned good eventually, but I was constantly frustrated by her poor choices.

What I liked about this film was its disdain of the idea that Raven was meant to kill Trask, and that the War was meant to happen. Of course those terrible things weren’t meant to happen.

The movie admits, through Younger Charles, that Raven needs to have a choice, but it never leaves any doubt that there is only one right choice for her to make.

That’s the thing abut knowing the future, it’s pretty hard to argue with it.

The reason Raven refuses to listen at first seems to be pure stubbornness and resentment of Charles’es attempt to control her; but I think it’s also human nature to deny consequences to our bad choices…why else do we make them?

The theme of redeeming the time comes in strongly in another way, through Logan’s wake up call to Charles himself. We know that before Logan came back, Charles wasted a good portion of those years, and was not there for Raven or for other mutants, as Erik spitefully (and unjustly considering his many betrayals) points out.

But Charles changes that, and redeems his own time as well as Raven’s.

Raven always chose Erik before, he was more intriguing, he had a sort of magnetic personality, even Charles felt its pull though he knew better than to listen to him.

What makes Raven in the end choose Charles is a number of factors.

Partly it’s that she realizes a lot sooner that Erik is not loyal to her, and does not care about her in any recognizable way; as she had thought he did. (By the way, trying to kill someone and then flirting with them when it is too late is sick and only seems charismatic in movies.)

Partly it’s that she is told the future depends basically on her actions. (Which is one thing that does not change oddly enough. People are positioned, they don’t get to choose that, they only get to choose how they use that position.)

But the most important thing that changes her mind is Charles’es persistence, and finally his releasing of her to be who she truly is.

And who she was, he believes, was never the person Erik saw her as, Older Erik admits he set her on a dark path; who she was was not even exactly what Charles himself thought, she was more than that.

When released from those negative expectations, Raven realizes what she really wants, and she drops the gun.

That moment was every bit as epic as it was intended to be, because we know how hard they worked for it.

Raven sees an opportunity to be seen as a hero instead of a villain, and she chooses it. And I personally thought the look on her face when she turns to Charles and Hank afterwards was pure relief.

Raven actually saves her own life by doing this, though no one ever actually told her (in the cut version I saw) that she died as a result of shooting Trask.

Much like another fictional character named Raven (Ever After High), she changes the whole course of history in one moment.

And who knows when any one of us might do the same thing?

Until next time–Natasha.

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The Good Doctor.

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I don’t know if any of you have heard of the person Temple Grandin. She was a high functioning autistic woman, (actually I believe she’s still around,) she thought in pictorials.

I think we owe her some of our modern understanding of the condition, and also of how people who have it cope with things and overcome their disability.

Unlike with deafness or blindness, no one can really argue that Autism is not a disability. It causes a lot of frustration for the people who have it. I’m sure thy often wish they didn’t. But it’s the way they are and they have to deal with it.

I want to say upfront I don’t see these people as weird, or less then human, as some  have in the past. I see them rather as people who have involuntarily been put behind these glass walls of communication. They can look out, but it’s much harder to get out. And much harder for us to get in.

I want to give a cautious endorsement today to one of abs’s newest shows.

First off, I don’t like abc at all. So this is a big thing for me, but for once I like what they are doing.

The new show is barely a month old. It’s The Good Doctor.

Anyway, the main character of the Good Doctor, Shawn Murphy, is autistic. He is amazingly high functioning, but still very much autistic. He talks with the odd monotone they use, and has to have things a certain way.

Shawn is a doctor (duh) at as hospital in San Jose, California. They were reluctant to take him on because he has a hard time with communication. Which they really stress as important for the patients.

Back when I first started seeing commercials for this show, I was skeptical that the writers would do anything imaginative with it, though I thought it was a good idea.

I don’t know about you, but thanks to the relatives I have who like medical drama shows, I’ve seen quite a bit of Grey’s Anatomy, Bones (not exactly medical, but similar,) and NCIS.

And not one of them stressed communication and patient comfort that I could see. So, yay for San Jose!

Though the hospital has plenty of issues in its inner workings, which I’d like to think are exaggerated for dramatic effect, and not what real hospitals are focusing on, but I have no real knowledge of it.

But even though the authority figures there are concerned with image and increasing their numbers; the live-ins, Shawn, Clair, and Jared, are a tad more concerned with helping people. Especially Clair, who is actually getting in trouble quite a bit for being too nice and not honest enough with the patients.

Shawn has no filter when he speaks, so after he’s hired he steps on people’s toes without realizing why they would have a problem with what he’s saying. He has the gift of thinking in pictures and patterns (like the real life Temple Grandin) so when he looks at the human body, he intuitively understands it far better than the average doctor. He can figure out things in his mind that machine scans can’t pick up on.

A bit like Superman, who can see better with his own X-ray vision, than any X-ray machine can. Because the human capacity is always more flexible and can be improved and honed in time, while a machine can’t correct or stretch itself.

Shawn may have no social skills whatsoever, but his heart is in the right place. He is always striving to make sure the patient is completely healthy.

What I would say this shows gift is is that it understands what you, the audience, are felling watching it. Clair wants to understand Shawn better but knows nothing about how to handle him, so she starts from the ground up. And we feel the same way, trying to comprehend this person, and even though we often get glimpses into what’s going on in his mind, we still struggle with really understanding him.

It makes me wonder if the writers themselves are figuring it out as they go and hoping to better understand Autism because of their efforts.

Actually, I feel like I have almost a unique perspective on this type of thing. At least a different one than anyone else I know has.

Because, whether you have Autism, or whether you just don’t fit into the social mold society has established; it’s your decision whether you will withdraw further than ever and become even more locked into your own mind, or whether you will push the barriers.

Temple Grandin was a real life example of what Shawn Murphy is fictitiously demonstrating. Someone who realized she was different form other people, but knew that didn’t have to stop her from doing something with her life, and also realized that if her needs should be met and understood, then she should understand other peoples.

For example, Temple didn’t like being hugged. (I used to dislike that also.) But overtime she realized what a hug meant to people and she grew to offer them as a way to comfort others.

The more I learn about people with disabilities, the more I’m convinced the actual disability is the one we choose to have.

The introvert only becomes a total recluse when they accept that they can’t function with other people at all.

The person with dyslexia only becomes illiterate when they accept that they can never find a way around their problem with printed text.

You get the idea.

In conclusion, I like this show’s progress so far, I think it might actually accomplish what you would hope its goal is. To help people better understand those who have this condition, and know how to respond to them.

That’s worth making a show for.

Until next time–Natasha.

X-Men –2

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Picking up where I left off…

Aside from the core theme of right vs wrong and forgiveness vs revenge, the movies cover whether people should be able to choose whatever way they want to solve things.

It comes down always to Erik vs Charles. One determined to overthrow humanity, the other determined to co-exist with it peacefully.

If one ignores the evolutionary basis for the whole concept of useful mutation (totally unfounded in real science) I would find the difference between Christ and the Devil in these two points of view.

It doesn’t seem that way at first, but when, inevitable, the question about whether mutants just deserve by birthright to be in charge and to be over all regular humans, is raised. And Magneto declares that mutants are gods among ants. Which he tells Phyro, one easily swayed mutant who joins him. He repeats the idea at other moments, no one ever contradicts him.

But Charles actions are a kind of contradiction. He chooses to protect people. Even if he is more powerful than them, he does not consider himself better than them.

We find out in the fifth film that this was because he could feel their pain. Every single person’s he read the mind of, he could experience their pain, yet without breaking. And once you have done that, it is pretty much impossible to despise them.

Nothing unites human beings more than love and pain. Ideally, it would only need to be love. But now that we all suffer, sometimes what clears away the walls is the realization that other people have suffered the same way.

What amazed me aobut Erik is that in the whole course of the films that covered his backstory and his terrible experiences in the prison camp, he never once seemed to consider that most of the Jews there with him were “ordinary’ people.

Maybe his powers made for a unique kind of torture, but other people were tortured, other people watched their families die, other people were experimented on. Other people lost everything.

Humans are just as terrible to each other as they are to other kinds of creatures.

What’s more, some of the people in prison camps were there for risking their lives for Jews. People who willingly risked their lives for the outcasts. They died for that.

Humanity may be cruel, but it can also be more kind than we have any right to expect in this cynical world we often find ourselves in.

For almost every story of some crazy person taking life there’s another of some noble person laying their life down for others.

How Erik could be so selfish, yes selfish, as to be blind to all that is astounding to me.

How he could feel the injustice of bigotry toward mutants, but not of every bigotry, is just hypocritical.

What would we say of the people who followed him?

Did it make them better? More loyal? More noble?

No, those who follow a bad leader become like him.

Mystique became a cold blooded and vengeful killer who never seemed to think for herself. Phyro turned on the people who were his friends and who risked their lives for him and on Professor X, and he despised them. Angel, ( First Class,) turned on the first real friends she ever had because of the Mutant in that film, and then stuck with Erik’s way at the end of it.

What further amazed me is that none of these people turned back even when they had to fight those they once cared about. They were so willing to give into the darkness.

It was darkness. Erik turned Raven against Charles by suggesting that Charles wanted to control her. Maybe it was true, but Erik controlled her far more than Charles ever did, and she let him do it. Charles at least loved her, Erik was incapable of loving anyone.

(In the end Charles lets Raven choose what she will do. But only because at that point forcing her to do anything would be futile. Giving her her choice was the only way to make things right, but it was not so for Erik. He had chosen already, force had to be used on him, which we see immediately; in contrast to Charles releasing Raven.)

Phyro turned to pride. To thinking he was above mere mortals. The classic struggle that separates superheroes from super villains is whether they see their strength as for service, or for power.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

What of the actual bigotry exhibited by the humans?

Well, it’s important to remember that a lot of the mutants are afraid of their own powers until they get used to them, because things that are different are often frightening. No one likes what they can’t understand until they learn to do without understanding.

But beyond that we are never given an example of humans who are open minded until the fourth and fifth films. There we see the secret agent who seemed fascinated by mutants and not at all disgusted; later we see a mom who seems to put up with her son’s mutation though she is irritated by it. We also learn that some humans defended the mutants in the War.

Even in the first film we see a man going from hating mutants to realizing they weren’t all bad, and that they did not choose to be born this way. The president is even left with deciding to be more lenient with them.

We see other humans who don’t seem to be trying to fight the mutants exactly, but they see their powers as a medical condition. Mutants like Rogue almost agree. (I can’t blame her.)

Strictly speaking the mutants are still human, and Charles, who has felt mutant pain and human pain alike, knows that the only difference is really in our minds.

That’s a two sided coin by the way. Storm admits that she hates humans sometimes because she is scared of them, and we know that is why humans hate mutants.

What someone ought to have told Erik long ago is that you can’t judge a people by what some of them do.

In the Bible, God often rules in favor of the minority. Eight people survive the flood, three people survive the destruction of two cities, a remnant is left of the Hebrews. The reason is, the parts of humanity that make it worth preserving are often int he minority. But they are still important.

In fact, the good of humanity is more important than the evil. The good in us is the reason we exist, it’s what we have left of what we were meant to be; the evil in us is the sign of our decay.

And mutant or not, that decay is present in all of us, and all of us choose whether we’re going to fight it, or give way to it.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.

X-Men

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This is actually not a review of the first X-men film, it’s for all of them up to date except for Apocalypse (honestly, I don’t plan on watching that one anytime soon.)

Up till about two months ago I had never seen any of the films, but after liking Spiderman and the Guardians of the Galaxy, I decided to give this other big marvel franchise a shot. Anything would be better than the Avengers, right?

Sooo right.

I’ve seen five movies about X-men, in order, and I would say they were superior tot he Avengers in every way. (Sorry fans.) Though to be clear, I still rate them below Spiderman. Maybe above G of G. (Maybe. But I doubt it.)

Here’s the difference I perceive between the industries.

X-Men movies are almost all origin stories in some way. New mutants are constantly being introduced. We don’t find out Jean’s origin till the third film she’s in, or Raven’s till the third and fourth. But also we have old characters coming back repetitively and learning and adapting, giving it a both fresh and continuing feel. Spiderman may have done better at growing the specific characters, but these films definitely tell you more about them and make you understand the way they think and feel.

Though ostensibly these films are about diversity, bigotry, and acceptance; the real crux of each one never comes down to any one person giving someone else their rights. (except the last two, but that was a little different I’ll get to that later.) AT least for the first three, the crisis of the whole movie rests on what the heroes or villains are willing to do, and what they choose to believe.

In the first film a lot rides on Magneto changing (in a heartbeat) from being willing to mutate ordinary people to being fine with it killing them in the process. From that moment on, he never ceases trying to destroy humanity and preserve mutants. But only the mutants who have no problem with finishing off regular people.

For the ones like Raven/Mystique, this may not be such a hard jump. Her family tried to kill her. (we are never told how or why.) Understandably she’s a bit jaded toward humans and doubts they’ll ever accept her. but she’s made a huge leap. And so did Magneto.

In movie no# 4 (First Class) we learn Erik/Magneto is a holocaust survivor whose mother was cruelly murdered right in front of him because of his powers. Erik claims to want to protect all mutants form the human who would stifle them, but in the beginning, it was her who was exploited for his power, not stifled. And deep down, it’s not really about protecting anyone but himself, as he does not hesitate to kill his “kind” should they stand in his way. He never plays fair, and whenever his old friends need him most to be there for them, he abandons them to their fate. Erik is a broken man who does not wish to be healed but only to inflict his brokenness on every other person he meets. Turning several mutants away from Charles and toward a darker cause.

Then there’s people like Rogue/Marie and Logan/Wolverine. They are both experienced in hurting people either by accident or sometimes on purpose in his case. But neither of them really likes it. Though they suffer a lot, especially Logan, he never seems to like killing or mangling people even in self defense. There’s almost always a look of regret on his face when it happens.

Rogue simply can’t help hurting people because it’s literally her power to drain their energy. She can’t be close to anyone.

Amazingly enough, though mutants like Magneto and Mystique may feel their chance at human it was stolen from them, one might argue in Logan and Marie’s case it was even more so, and for Marie it seemed to be fate, not even a wicked person behind it. Still Marie does not want to dish out what she herself has to take, and neither does Logan.

Which really shows that revenge is a choice. It’s not something you are forced into by being mistreated, but something you choose as a way to dull the pain, or at least to share it, even when it does you or your kind no personal good.

What amazes me is that never once in the films does Charles decide to finally admit Erik is the villain of the movies. And I watched closely to see if Erik ever does a single redeemable act through any of them. Guess what, he doesn’t. (not till the post apocalyptic future of Days of Future Past.) Never. Erik never makes a choice that is unselfish, kind, or merciful. Not even to his most loyal followers. Not to his oldest and only friend Charles Xavier.

There’s no way to gloss over the fact that Magneto is the villain of every single film, but I will give them credit for never making him so dislikable that you aren’t hoping he will turn. You get why Charles keeps giving him chance after chance (an also why he punches him in no#5) because  Magneto is the sort of man who might, in another movie or even in another time, realize that he is on the wrong path. Apparently he does at some point,( we can hope.)

Magneto is actually a hypocrite. He does the same things he is angry at the humans for doing, he does it to other mutants as well as regular people, he has no limit. Sometimes it seems like he actually wants his victims to suffer.

But he has a fascinating effect on a lot of mutants, especially Raven. He seems to respect them and see them for who they are.

But does he really?

More on that in part two.

Until Next time–Natasha.

Word Girl.

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Now for a word about a show that is probably unknown to most of you:

Word Girl is the only show on PBS I still watch. Actually I started watching it when I was way too old for that channel. Have you guys ever heard that TV shows can get in trouble for attracting too many people of different age groups than the target audience.

I guess a lot of people might think it’s a little young for me, but there’s something in it.

It’s a bit watered down compared to adult superhero franchises, but Word Girl does hit some points on the head that more “mature” overlook.

You have to be willing to put up with a lot of corny jokes.

Still, my siblings and I enjoy finding deeper meaning in things most would write off as as dumb kid’s show. Some of the characters are more complex than they would seem.

An unusual thing about it is how often Word Girl is just an ordinary kid who makes mistakes, moral mistakes, a lot. But still intends to do the right thing in the end.

What I like about the show is how it is trying to constantly teach kids while being fun. IT works a lot of other things in along with vocabulary. As a homeschooler, watching educational programs was always the way to get to watch TV at all. (Not that I never watched stuff that was just fun.) But my taste is always that I get something from the show.

Anyway, I won’t say that much more aobut it, but I don’t think it’s bad to enjoy even the simplest of shows, (so long as they actually have merit,) it would be kind of snooty to think a show has to be huge to be worth watching.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.