Sex, hippogriffs, and rock and roll

[vovat]

I just saw two crazy articles on MSN, both linked from the "your message has been sent" page on Hotmail. Apparently, Jessica Biel (of 7th Heaven and The Texas Chainsaw Masscare: The Shitty Remake fame), has been named the sexiest woman alive by Esqure. If I may use an Internet colloquialism, WTF? And this one says, "A war of words has erupted even between labels and Steve Jobs over whether 99 cents is too cheap for the most popular songs." Too CHEAP? I always thought that was way too expensive for one song. Granted, each track on a CD usually averages out to costing more than that, but there you actually get the CD. Last time I used eMusic, it cost a lot less than that per song, but you had to buy them in packages. I've actually heard of people paying MORE for albums on iTunes than they would have if they'd just bought the CD at the store, which makes no sense to me.

arfies made a post about Bruno Bettelheim and Freudian interpretations of fairy tales. That kind of stuff tends to annoy me. I mean, Freudian takes are probably accurate sometimes, but there are people who will interpret anything long and skinny as a phallic symbol, anything that you can put something else into as a vaginal symbol, and any interaction between family members as an Oedipal or Electra complex. My favorite is how Freudian interpreters take beheading as a symbol of castration anxiety. Because it apparently couldn't be, you know, fear of losing your actual head. It made me think of this review of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie that I came across last year. It's mostly an anti-CGI rant, but it also includes this gem:

"Cuaron proves himself every bit the hack Columbus was by watering down the suggestiveness that makes fantasy movies powerful. When Harry is taught to tame a beast called the Hippograff [sic] (a combination horse-griffon-eagle), the event is asexual, more neutered than the Pushmepullyou in the Doctor Dolittle books."

So it's not enough for people like this to provide sexual interpretations for every children's story, but when there's something they CAN'T easily sexualize, they COMPLAIN about it? I seem to recall someone mentioning another review of the movie that also said it wasn't sexual enough. Um, who said it was SUPPOSED to be? That kind of thing goes beyond the Freudian thing, though. It's the whole idea of thinking a work of art SHOULD mean something in particular, and then, if it doesn't fit your preconceived interpretation, you criticize the work instead of thinking that, just maybe, you were going about it the wrong way. That's not to say that there hasn't been some successful criticism along those lines, but saying that a hippogriff ride isn't sexual enough is pretty ridiculous.

Comments

[arfies.livejournal.com]

"Similarly, if Dreck's (I mean, Shrek's) (hoho, the cleverness never ceases to underwhelm me) $271 million gross is not simply the result of parents dragooned by their offspring into the idiotplex—that is, if the film's popularity has anything to do with eliciting actual emotional responses—then this, too, is a bad sign. Instead of satirizing fairytales and nursery rhymes, Shrek 2 simply uses their familiarity to sell underwhelming animation technology."

What a hack. Shrek DID satirize fairy tales, and the Disney versions of them in particular. And since when are movies that elicit emotional responses a BAD thing? Mind you, I wasn't crazy about the fart jokes and such, but the movie as a whole was funny and had pathos. Plus, some darn good animation. I'd like to see this guy try it.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

Jobs disagrees and publicly labeled the industry "greedy" last month, arguing that it's pushing for price hikes in a still-developing market.

you tell 'em, steve! ^_^

[loz]

Heh, that reminds me of when I was doing my thesis last year. The thesis that began as "homosexuality in the Victorian Gothic" and became "this is what other people say about homosexuality in the Victorian Gothic but not what I say because I actually, kinda, disagree with them..."

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was one of my texts, well, there's these scene describing the 'back entrance' to Jekyll's abode, yeah? and one critic/academic was making all sorts of Freudian based allegations as to the allusions of the crumbling paint and dirty walls. No, it couldn't just be saying this was a disreputable place in town, Robert Louis Stevenson was apparently using this 'back entrance' as a metaphor for another kind of 'back entrance'.

It was just too much of an anal-ysis for my liking. ;)

[loz]

Just one more thing; "There's no better proof than Azkaban's three comic villains—Oldman's Sirius Black, David Thewlis as Prof. Lupin and Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew."

... did this person even watch the film? They obviously haven't read the book (whilst suggesting they have).

[vovat.livejournal.com]

There seem to be a fair number of movie reviews written by people who either fall asleep or leave to go to the bathroom during key moments in the film, and then try to fill in the gaps on their own. But you'd have to have missed pretty much the whole thing to think Lupin was a villain. Maybe they only saw the scenes where he was in wolf form?

It's also crazy how they consistently misspell Buckbeak's species as "hippograff," despite the fact that they spell "griffon" correctly (I think there are actually three acceptable spellings for the word).

[twobitme.livejournal.com]

- Even being a fan of the TCM "remake", which I am, I do not understand the attraction to Jessica Biel. I can think of dozens of women who slink through life with more sex appeal than her.

- I think 99 cents is pretty fair for online music. In some cases, people only want the one song instead of the whole album. I've been sucker to the filler album on more than one occasion. It offers a cheap, legal way to get those songs. And so far, of the albums I've purchased, they've all been cheaper online. Granted, I'm not getting the CD, but in most cases, I end up selling the CD once I've moved stuff over to my iPod anyway.

- And the disturbing way people are trying to sexualize Harry Potter has always made me wonder about the sanity of people. The fact that people are disgusted that Harry and Malfoy haven't gotten together because of the "obvious" homosexual undertones makes me realize that people may need some help seperating THEIR fantasy from what is actually being written.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've bought entire albums from eMusic, and I never bothered getting the CD afterwards, but that's largely due to a lack of money. I like having things in a physical form, and I'm also someone who always reads and examines liner notes, which I can't do with stuff purchased online. I've bought songs from iTunes, but usually only exclusive things I couldn't get elsewhere. I wouldn't necessarily be adverse to buying an entire album from there, but I'd never do it if it cost MORE than the CD. I remember when Frank Black Francis, a collection of Frank Black/Pixies demos and remixes, came out, and some people were apparently doing just that.

I think a lot of interpretation says more about the interpreter than about the creator of what's being interpreted. But the "Hey, these two characters hate each other! I think that means they secretly want to bang each other!" interpretation strikes me as particularly wacky.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

One of the main reasons I quit being an english major and went to el ed was my Lit Analysis class. My professor could read something sexual into ANYTHING and I just could NOT get it. So then I decided that it wasn't ME who had the problem, and so decided to change majors instead.

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

I read some of those Bettelheim essays when I took a "children's literature" class in college, and yeah, they're craaazy. One of the few things I remember is a huge deal being made about the slipper in Cinderella. Incidentally, that class was really fun except that most of the snooty English major kids in it (the majority of them were the "I read a lot, therefore I am better than you" type), like Bettelheim, also analyzed the stories we read to death. Which was really not the point of the class. sigh. Some people have to take all the fun out of everything.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've heard about shoes being seen as vaginal symbols. If that's the case, is Cinderella actually a lesbian, or what? {g}

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought I remembered you being in Goebel's "Do We Need Art?" unit, but I guess not. Bettelheim was one of our assigned readings and my small group within that class had to study Cinderella. We had quite a lot of fun with the whole shoe thing. Somebody in my group had a picture of somebody else in the group tying her shoe posted on their door for awhile, along with a note scolding her for making pornography.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think that was the unit I was in. I know Bettelheim's book was an assigned reading, although I never finished the whole thing. I was in the group for Sleeping Beauty.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Huh, I was just thinking about the dirty secrets of Sleeping Beauty this morning (much as that is an incredibly odd thing to admit). You know in the very original version of the story she is not awoken by the Prince's kiss, but by giving birth to twins? Which the Prince was also responsible for, but not in any particularly noble or romantic way, dirty necrophiliac.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember hearing about that. That's pretty messed up, really. I know the Perrault version (I think it was the Perrault version, anyway) had all this extra stuff about the prince's mom being an ogre who wanted to eat her grandchildren.

[revme.livejournal.com]

The whole Labels Versus Jobs thing is hilarious, because, uh, yeah, 99 cents _IS_ a bit much for a song. I like iTunes qite a bit, but I've yet to actually purchase anything from there.

To me, I think, maybe, maaaaybe, 25 cents would be fair. Because, well, yeah, you're not getting anything physicial. Why should I pay 99 cents per song when I can pay 5 bucks and get an EP, which is probably 3 or 4 songs, plus cover art and maybe liners/etc?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, with the stuff I've bought from iTunes, the reason was that I didn't have a choice. (Well, I mean, I had the choice not to buy at all, but not to get the CD, since there either was none, or it was a compilation I had no desire to hear the rest of.) I think it's mostly just a case of record company greed, though.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Heh, *mumblemumblelimewiremumble*.

[yosef.livejournal.com]

The readings I just did for my horror films class this weekend mentioned Bettelheim. I think I've seen the word "phallic" about 100 times in all the readings for this class.