In devouring old episodes, I came across an interesting point that's been sticking in my brain for a few weeks now, in episode 24, where they review The World's End, a film I really loved. In the middle of discussing the film, Cameron jumps in with a tangent about a very lazy gay joke in the film, wherein someone has defaced the words King Gary to say King Gay. I saw this film in the theater and vaguely recalled the joke, and recalled that (as with the showing Esposito saw) it was got a solid laugh. Did I laugh? I probably did. In listening to the ensuing discussion about lazy jokes whose humor derives from othering an oppressed minority, the question was posed: where does the buck stop? Whose responsibility is it to say something about these jokes? The film production mechanism is such that there are many, many opportunities for these lazy jokes to be weeded out, but they aren't. It's especially disappointing when you realize that often the people saying these lines are probably absolutely fine with homosexuality.
I started thinking about my own reaction to that joke. What was the mechanism? What lever did it pull in my own psyche to evoke that response? And the answer seems to be nostalgia, that hazy lens through which all things seem much more benign than they actually were. Gay as a pejorative is on its way out (sort of), but the button it presses is for a viewer of a certain age, for whom the use of said pejorative was a part of limited arsenal of juvenile weaponry we could use to engage each other. That "simpler" way of being is only so for a certain type of person, in this case cishet men. As a cishet while male (well, partially hispanic, but I look so white only my geneticist knows for sure), that nostalgia button can be pressed by some offensive things that were not really being addressed by the culture in any meaningful way during that time (I am thirty-five, by the way, and graduated from high school in 1996).
But if you weren't in the straight white social bracket during that time period, that joke won't be funny at all, especially if you were gay and that pejorative pushed you further and further into the closet every time you heard it. It breaks my heart when I think of the experience of kids I went to school with that in retrospect were very obviously gay and afraid to come out. Many of them have come out since, and I'm proud of them, and deeply ashamed of myself and the culture we lived in that kept them hidden and afraid for so long. It's pathetic, the things that a young person will do or say to gain acceptance among peers who are merely echoing the ignorant things they hear in the broader culture. I said stupid, ignorant things in my youth simply because I was so eager to accept the prevailing norms instead of speaking for myself.
But that kind of lazy joke still gets laughs, and why? Because straight white male humor is still the default. In a film about nostalgia, like The World's End, referencing a time period in which a joke like that was considered okay is acceptable. That we haven't changed the way we react to it is not.
How "The Storm" Set the Tone for all Avatar Episodes to Follow
I’ve been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender again (again (again)), and marveling at how much I am still emotionally affected by the episodes even though, in some cases, I know them by heart. I just finished rewatching the first season episode “The Storm.” In the past I had dismissed the episode as a backstory dump, but this time through I found myself moved by it, and realized that not only does deepen our understanding of Aang and Zuko by turning them into real characters with flaws and scars, it sets into motion a lot of the larger themes the show ends up dealing with over the rest of the series.
The storm, of course, is an actual storm that both camps (Aang’s crew and Zuko’s crew) are dealing with while Zuko is in pursuit of the Avatar. But on a metaphorical level it represents the inner turmoil that our main “good” and “evil” characters are dealing with. Is it the most novel metaphor? No. But it’s not a bad starting place if you’re going to utilize it to its full effect, and this episode definitely does.
Aang, up until this point, has mainly been the buoyant force that keeps the show lighthearted. There have been a few moments of anger or despondency. For example, after the revelation in the third episode that the Fire Nation killed everyone at the Southern Air Temple, Aang goes into an Avatar State rage until Katara talks him down. This example specifically is important because it points out just how well this show lays down layer upon layer of meaning. We see that Aang is upset at the destruction of his friends and fellow Airbenders. This makes sense and deepens our sense of Aang as a character.
But in “The Storm,” nine episodes later, we are forced to reconsider the way we felt about that revelation, when we discover that Aang ran away from the Southern Air Temple when his status as the Avatar began to isolate him from the community he loved so much, and when many of the monks at the temple wished him to spend all his time training, to the point of separating him from his guardian, Monk Gyatso. Aang ran away, got caught in a storm with Appa, and used his Avatar powers to suspend the two of them in ice when the storm pulled them down into the turbulent waters below. While he and Appa were trapped in the ice, the Fire Nation used the lack of an Avatar to their advantage, attacking and occupying much of the world.
In Aang’s mind, he could have saved his friends if he hadn’t run away from his responsibility as Avatar. Not only does he see his friends’ deaths as his fault, but all the death and destruction the Fire Nation has inflicted upon the world during his absence. The guilt is crushing him, and it is only Katara’s kind words that provide any small amount of solace. At episode’s end, when the storm threatens to engulf Sokka and the fisherman he’s working for to earn our heroes some money for supplies, everyone is pulled underwater. Aang sees his friends unconscious in the water and takes action, rising to his responsibilities as a friend and companion, as well as the Avatar. This is a watershed moment for Aang, and his need to live up to his responsibilities at the cost of his own safety and well-being becomes a fundamental part of his character from here on out. Not only does it define him, but it allows the rest of the team to play a stronger supporting role, pushing them to grow as people, as warriors, and as friends.
Zuko, on the other hand, begins the episode being a jerk to his ship’s captain, saying that he doesn’t care about the safety of the crew, and basically being resented by everyone on board the ship except his uncle. As the storm rages outside, Uncle Iroh explains to the captain and a few others why Zuko is the way he is. At a strategy session in his father’s war room, young Zuko spoke out against a plan to sacrifice a troop of young Fire Nation recruits in order for a more experienced troop to get a more strategically advantageous position. Insulted, his father, Fire Lord Ozai, demands that Zuko take part in an Agni Kai, or fire duel. Thinking that he will be fighting the general he spoke out against, Zuko accepts. But it isn’t the general he fights in the Agni Kai; it is instead his own father he will be fighting, to his horror. Zuko refuses to fight. Ozai, incensed, burns a huge swath of Zuko’s face and banishes him for being a coward. His only hope to return to his homeland and his family is to find the Avatar and restore his honor.
We have, up to this point, heard Zuko talking about his honor, and finally we understand the full extent of what he means. His mission makes sense now. It gives him a reason to be obsessed with the Avatar. But, as with many things in this series, the full ramifications of this backstory are not apparent until watching all the episodes. We see later on what Zuko was like as a child, how good-hearted and eager to please he was, how tormented he was by his terror of a sister. He was a sensitive child, and perhaps a little sheltered by his mother. To see the Agni Kai in this context is horrifying. A young boy, sweet and eager to prove to his father that he was worthy of his love, speaks from a place of sensitivity and kindness in a war room, and is scarred and beaten by his father for his willingness to cherish life over nationalism and honor, and banished because he would not fight the man whose love and respect he was trying to earn.
And this is where we find Zuko at the beginning of the series. His childlike desire for his father’s love has been twisted into an obsessive desire for redemption. He is forcing himself into a mindset that is not natural to him in a way that any victim of abuse will recognize. He wants to make things right; he is sure that his disgrace and loss of honor is his own fault. But at the end of “The Storm” we see him risk his life to save a member of the crew, and get a glimpse of that child whose sense of kindness and fairness has been buried deep.
To some extent, “The Storm” shows us that Aang and Zuko are two sides of the same coin. They are both driven by their sense of responsibility. Aang, who was raised to be open and kind, turns toward his guilt when it surfaces and rises to the occasion. He spends the rest of the series trying to be true to who he is while still accepting his responsibility as the Avatar. Zuko, whose sense of self was destroyed by the schemings and aggressive mindset of the Fire Nation high court, has lost his sense of self, and not yet having the psychological tools to deal with the confusion and violence of his past, is clinging to ideas that don’t entirely make sense to him.
Okay. So here's a few thoughts that straighten out the things that get pretty twisted up in the video:
-Saline abortion: it's awful. It is very, very rarely used anymore, even in developing countries. Here's some more info about the process if you're interested.
-Her mom had that shit done at eight months? That's serious shit. We really should do something about late-term abortions. Oh, wait, that's right: NOBODY SUPPORTS THEM EXCEPT IN VERY PARTICULAR CASES, like the baby is dead or will not survive outside the womb. It's probably not okay to force a woman to carry around a dead baby inside her. This is how conservatives are trying to reframe the argument for the "common man." The libs want to kill babies whenever they want. The will of the mother trumps all, just like when I was a kid! No, mommy, no! Well, guess what? It ain't like that at all. Premature babies can survive outside the womb with the help of an incubator, or in later stages on their own. The vast, vast majority of people would say that's probably not a good time to decide to terminate the pregnancy. I mean, you had a bit of time to work out your feelings on it, eh?
-Her mom was an unmarried pregnant nineteen-year-old woman living in Iowa in 1973, only four years after Roe v. Wade. How do you think her community responded to her being pregnant? Probably with scorn and shaming. The book The Girls Who Went Away chronicles the shaming and psychological scarring endured by women who conceived a child out of wedlock in the years before Roe v. Wade, and it's pretty jarring stuff. We all know about how even when laws change, the societal attitudes toward the newly lawful thing do not (*coughcoughracism*), so it's not difficult to imagine that this woman found herself alone and afraid at nineteen, with no one to turn to and nowhere to get real information about her situation and the options available to her. Which is why education is important. Information is what allows young people to make informed decisions, from whether or not they even want to have sex to how to protect themselves to what their options are if things go awry. Each link in the chain of education strengthens the others. If you know about sex and how it works and the possible outcomes, you're much less likely to have to use your knowledge about what to do if you get pregnant.
Look, I'm glad Melissa Ohden is alive. I'm glad that she's glad, and I'm sorry that she has to deal with her mother's decision. I can't imagine what that must be like. And if she's willing to be part of a propaganda campaign for a misguided ideological discussion, that's her right. But the fact remains that once again, the anti-choice stance is to not give us all the information.
Boing Boing's got a sneak peek at Paul Pope's newest book, an "all-ages" book called Battling Boy. It's been a while since we've had a new Paul Pope project, and if this sneak preview is any indication, it will have been well worth the wait. Rumor has it that an animated film might be in the works, which, by looking at the animated trailer for the book, seems like it would be worthwhile. I've always wanted to see Pope's style translated to animation. If this book raises Pope's profile in the world of comics and animation, can we maybe please get a DCU version of Batman: Year 100? Please?
What were you up to when you were 14 years old? Worried about making the baseball / softball team? Writing your school crush’s name one thousand times in your notebook? Trading Pokemon cards in the hallways after class? Picking your nose and wiping...
So, Orson Scott Card opened his mouth again, this time penning a message to Entertainment Weekly saying, in essence, that his stance on gay marriage is a moot point now that the Supreme Court has ruled on DOMA and we are on that dangerous slippery slope to cats marrying goats etc, etc., so hey please don't boycott the feature film version of Ender's Game, ok?
Here's the statement in full:
Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.
With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state.
Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.
Orson Scott Card
It's a concession speech. A concession speech from a man who has a long and varied history of homophobia. While I take some solace in this, his statement is problematic in a number of ways, all of which point to the core issue: ignorance and privilege.
Let's look at a few pieces:
- "...political issues that did not exist in 1984": The fact that Card thinks that gay marriage somehow suddenly became an issue recently is beyond ignorant. It dismisses the fact that people in non-heteronormative relationships have spent years and years and years in this country trying (and still not succeeding) to be treated as human beings instead of freaks and deviants. The fact that we are just now at a point in society where the issue of gay marriage is under discussion is appalling.
- "the gay marriage issue becomes moot": Well, it doesn't actually. Putting aside the fact that we're still fighting state-by-state for same-sex marriage to be accepted everywhere, the issue will not be over because there will still be people who push back, who insist that there is something morally wrong with people who love someone of the same gender. Same-sex marriage is a marker, a milestone, but the real issue beneath it is acceptance and lack of hatred. How you doing on that front, Orson?
- "Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute": This is the most telling of the many ignorant utterances in this very short note. It's not a fucking game, Card. We didn't just move ball forward a little bit. We're not lining up opposite you at the line of scrimmage, you turd. This is about life and love and the ability to be who you are. You, Orson Scott Card, have the privilege of getting to do pretty much whatever you want with your life, and you choose to spend your energy fighting against other people who simply want the same thing you were born with: the right to build their own life without fear of hatred, without being demonized. Saying that the issue was "in dispute" downplays your feelings on it a little bit, don't you think? You, who said that any government that supports gay marriage should be violently overthrown, weren't simply "disputing" the "issue." You used your gift of language, and the money that it brought you, to try to destroy the dreams of millions of people, to render their point of view, their entire selves, irrelevant.
And you ask for tolerance?! You ask that we, who won the dispute, say, "Well, all's well that ends well," and bid you a happy life? Is the National Organization for Marriage going to disband now and stop working against an entire segment of the population? Are you going to stop advocating for sodomy laws? Are you going to stop saying that most homosexuals are self-loathing victims of child abuse? No. Like a bully who loses a fight, you're pretending that it doesn't matter anymore. You're gonna take your ball and go home until you see an easy target, and then you'll be right back at it. Like racists in the South who say, "Look, y'all got your freedom, I can say whatever I want," you expect people to tolerate your ignorance and hatred because a legal battle was won.
But I'll tell you, Orson Scott Card, the issue has never been tolerance. We've tolerated you plenty. We've tolerated your outdated, ignorant way of thought. We've tolerated your support of organizations that want to eradicate an entire way of being. We don't like you, Orson Scott Card, and we don't have to. If people are mean to you, or boycott your work, it's not because we're intolerant. You're using teenage Twitter troll logic if that's really what you think. We do not have to accept your kind of ignorance; we do not have to be tolerant of it. You have done nothing to earn the respect you think you deserve. Go home, bully.
When Texas State Senator Wendy Davis filibustered SB5, an anti-choice bill that would have closed nearly every abortion clinic in Texas, for 11 hours for Tuesday, the internet stood beside her. Well, most of the internet that is. While #StandWithWendy was trending on Twitter and full of support,...
Naughty Dog refused to let The Last of Us be focus tested on only male players.
Women make up almost half of gamers, but Naughty Dog still had to insist to the research firm handling their focus groups that they get at least some female testers for The Last of Us.
While it obviously doesn't make up for the fact that a "seduction guide" (aka rape guide) got funded through their site, I definitely appreciate the fact that they're owning up to their mistake and taking steps to prevent anything like this from happening in the future.
The negative reviews I've seen all seem to point to the fact that the film isn't "fun" like Richard Donner's 1978 film, that it's "dour" and "depressing" and lacks joy. Well, let me tell you a few things about Donner's 1978 film: it's kind of boring. It's boring in that 70s way where it takes literally a couple of minutes for the Fortress of Solitude to rise up out of the ground because SENSE OF SCALE. Seriously, my parents took me to see it when I was four months old, and in a daring act of film criticism, I threw my bottle down on the floor and it rolled all the way down to the front of the theater, distracting everyone. The film still went on to be a major success, despite my tantrum, to the point that NOBODY ELSE BUT CHRISTOPHER REEVE CAN PLAY SUPERMAN.
But while Reeve's Clark Kent is a pretty fantastic bit of physical comedy, his Superman is, to my modern eyes, a character who doesn't really exist anymore. And this is where we get into trouble, because people who are slavishly devoted to Donner's film often have no idea what's happened in the comics in the intervening years. They think Superman stands for Truth, Justice and the American Way. But Superman in the comics Superman has renounced his U.S. citizenship in favor of being a citizen of the world and not favoring U.S. policy. And that's the least of the things that have happened to Superman in the thirty-five(!) years of time between then and now. He's a different character altogether. He's less of a grown-up boy scout.
The criticism of comic book films "taking themselves too seriously" is ridiculous. It's the Roger Ebert (RIP) school of comic book film snobbery, and it's the same kind of snobbery that kept nerds in basements for decades. You take this shit seriously? they ask. It's a flying man. Lest I get back on my soapbox once again about comic books being our own unique form of cultural mythology, suffice it to say that these stories have been told and retold in different iterations since their creation in a number of media, and each retelling is tailored to resonate with the era it's told in. Here we are in 2013, and here's our Superman. I tell you what; I'll reanimate the corpse of Christopher Reeve and he'll put on a straw boater and say "gee golly" for you in your very own Superman movie. You can live in the past as long as you want. Donner's Superman is a nostalgia piece, a gosh-and-golly tribute to a type of superhero that, by the time the film came out, was already falling by the wayside. I get it; you like old-timey Superman. Well, he's on DVD and blu-ray, and probably VHS if that's your jam. Have fun.
So how do you make a film that satisfies both the group of people who know what Superman has become and the people whose idea of Superman is rooted in the past? Well, pretty clearly, you don't. I'm no fan of Zack Snyder, but he seems to have jettisoned the grown-up boy scout aspect of the character, which I applaud, regardless of the film's other shortcomings.
Superman, to a great extent, lacks agency in this film. He's more a force than a human being, which makes the shoehorned romance with Amy Adams' badly makeup-ed Lois fall flat. He is drawn into a situation that forces him to display his powers and reveal himself to the world. The discovery of his origin sets in motion General Zod's return, the terraforming of Earth, etc, etc.
What's interesting about this iteration of Superman is the very, very obvious Christ imagery. This isn't a new thing when it comes to Superman, but rarely has it been this obvious. He gets advice about revealing himself to the world in a fucking church, for crying out loud. He's looking at the earth through a big hole in Zod's ship with a projection of his father, and Jor-El says, "You can save them all," and Superman takes a moment to put his arms out in a Christ-like pose and float backwards out of the ship before speeding of to save Lois, who is burning up in a capsule re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
Most interestingly, though, is that during a fight with Faora-Ul, she says to him, "Evolution always wins." Say what?! Yes, the Superman of this iteration is a force of nature, having been Krypton's first natural birth in centuries. His parents, Zod, Faora, and everybody on Krypton are the product of genetic engineering, and it led their society to stagnation and ruin. So this is a film about science vs. faith and nature. Kal's parents put their faith in him, and he learns to put his faith in humanity as humanity learns to put its faith in him. The forces of science are authoritarian and violent, stopping at nothing to regain the Kryptonian Codex that will allow their people to live again (at the cost of everyone on Earth, natch). The whole thing is a Christian conservative's wet dream. Warner Bros went so far as to send out packets to churches that they could use to get their congregations excited about Jesus using Man of Steel.
It's heavy-handed, but it's fine. It doesn't detract from the main attraction of the film, which is the violence. This is where Snyder shines; you know it, I know it, everybody knows it. I hope this film sets a new standard for super-powered combat. Please, please let that be the case. The battles are fantastic, and clearly all the logic that's missing from the plot was used in planning out the battles. It's some fantastic stuff. Let's just never mind that the damage done to Metropolis is estimated to be greater than 9/11, and that Superman never tries to move the battle to a less populated area. You can make the argument that Superman was overwhelmed and couldn't divert the fight to a better area, but that argument loses a bit of steam when he throws Zod at a gas station so that it blows up. One suggestion I read while going through reviews was that it would have been fantastic if, while fighting the Kryptonians, he was also trying to save as many people as possible. I think that would have been fantastic, but I'm perfectly okay with what I got. The film backs up my assertion that Superman maybe isn't too bright and is still getting a handle on the full range of his powers (not to mention that this is his first encounter with beings as strong as himself), and so, you know, people get hurt. A lot. Thousands. Personally, I'm hoping that Man of Steel 2 starts off like Ghostbusters 2, where the city blames him for all the damage and he has to start from scratch. Also, maybe he's hosting a talk show with Booster Gold.
As to the claims that this film is joyless, I'd have to disagree. There is a joy to this film. We spend the first half of the film watching Kal avoid using his powers whenever possible, denying his true nature, to some extent. When he discovers who he really is, and steps out of the Fortress of Solitude in Kryptonian garb (and suddenly clean-shaven?!), he is free to be himself, finally. He takes to the skies after a shaky start, and he is clearly excited to be himself.
The film does a good job, though, of making it clear that being yourself does not come without complications, difficulty, or responsibility. The revelation of his true nature imbues Superman with a confidence that carries over into his interactions with the military and the rest of humanity, which is good, because he's got to convince them that this alien who's been living among them all this while means them no harm. The flashbacks throughout the film give us a sense of the person underneath this confident persona. We see him struggling as a child with super senses (in a way that very smartly comes in handy later on) and defying his father's insistence on hiding his powers to rescue his schoolmates. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane do a lot of heavy lifting, bringing a quiet dignity to the a pair of regular folks that's a welcome departure from Donner's country yokels. In Donner's film, Superman gets all his knowledge from Jor-El; in Snyder's film, he gets confidence from his heritage, but his sense of right and wrong comes from the Kents. The reason we don't see him wrestling too much with moral issues as an adult is because the Kents gave him a solid foundation. The right thing to do is clear to him. He doesn't apologize for who he is.
I have a few other quibbles with the film, most notably that you don't need to always use a handheld camera, for the love of Pete. Jor-El's just talking to the council; put that camera on a stand and let them do their thing. Really, it's very distracting. During the action sequences it doesn't really matter (and Snyder's use of shots right out of the Battlestar Galactica playbook for aerial combat worked fantastically), but during exposition it was a huge distraction.
Perry White should have been reduced to a cameo. Really. I get that Snyder needed people to stand in as the "common folk" during the big battles, but the Daily Planet gang trying to escape from destruction was really not the best use of our time. In a related note, if you give us awe-inducing visuals, you don't need to give us endless shots of people gawking at stuff. We get it; it's crazy shit.
But those things aren't deal breakers. Overall the film never drags despite its running time, and it kept me entertained, and in some places really, truly excited me. I'm willing to overlook flaws in logic if you give me something I can't find anywhere else.
Ada is, like, my new favorite thing. An ultra smart, feminist new media studies journal with articles like "C'mon! Make me a man!": Persona 4, Digital Bodies, and Queer Potentiality and Self-Saving Princess: Feminism and Post-Play Narrative Modding, it draws from a number of realms to create a real scholarly journal looking at issues of gender and sexuality in game culture. It's very exciting for a big nerd like me, and I look forward to delving in to future issues.
Why has the SimCity story gone away? It's a good question. And the answer for it reveals much about how both the games industry, and the games journalism
This is a fascinating article on the search to discover new secrets in the desolate landscape of Shadow of the Colossus, which is one of my favorite games. The end result of this article, for me, is the idea that there might be an area of study we could refer to as video game archaeology. I've seen this term used in reference to archiving old games that might have fallen by the wayside, but I mean it more in the sense of digging through the structure of the game to find abandoned ideas or artifacts from previous versions of the game. I know this is the purview of hackers, for the most part, but it'd be nice to see it given some legitimacy, and I think this article (and Nomad's blog of unused colossi) point the way.
The episode opens with the recruits doing a training exercise. The aforementioned trainer's notes (in voiceover) highlight the action. The scene shows us the ways in which the group has grown together, the way they complement each other and clash and play off of each other's weaknesses and strengths. The people we would expect to be at the top of the class are there: our old friends Japanese Girl and Dickensian Street Urchin, along with Reiner Braun and a few others.
Eren is not the most skilled of the recruits, but he's grown a lot, and occupies one of the top spots through sheer determination. There's a pivotal scene where he finds himself in a confrontation with another recruit, and recognizes his former self in his mouthy adversary. It's a nice little moment that serves to show us exactly how much time has passed since the initial attack in the first episode, and how Eren has had to temper his blind, ignorant rage into something approximating skill and knowledge.
His devotion to staying true to himself and his aims leads him to reject a position on the King's Guard, even though the position is only offered to those who occupy the top spots. Eren makes it clear that he didn't sign up for this to get a cushy gig behind the inner wall. The place they are now was once considered safe; now it's the line of scrimmage in the battle between humans and titans. How long until there is no safe place? What is the point in hiding, when they could put all their efforts into destroying the titans once and for all. His words permeate his fellow recruits' minds, and the next day it's clear that they're all going to stay together. No one is turning their back on the front line, and the camaraderie is palpable for a thirty seconds, when a titan attacks and breaks through the wall.
There is panic and confusion, and we see that Eren's initial reaction is sheer terror. But he and his fellow recruits gain their footing and go on the offensive, ending the episode.
It was thrilling. Episode 3 left me so afraid that I'd have to abandon the series. Episode 4 was so solid, however, that I can't wait to see what happens next week.
Why "Streamageddon" Is Stupid But Par for the Course
What does this mean? Well, right now it means that a bunch of James Bond films, Barney collections, the film Barb Wire, etc, are unavailable to you. Instant Watcher has a list of all the expiring films, but I'm not even going to link you to it, because as of this writing server traffic is making it nearly impossible to see it.
In theory, we (as Netflix customers) have no right to be upset. None of the titles Netflix carries are set in stone to exist forever. I was dismayed the other week when I couldn't find an old MST3K episode I was hankering for, but them's the breaks. Titles going away and (maybe) coming back is nothing new. But what makes this scenario different is Warner Bros banking on a scheme that angles to get a cut of the streaming pie.
It's a ridiculous notion for a couple of reasons, both of them being false assumptions about the nature and means of the viewing public. I know a couple of film professors who might plonk down some cash for access to our mustache-twirling Bros' vault, but the idea that Joe Schlub is gonna pay ten bucks a month to stream a few thousand movies when they can pay less than that and have access to hundreds of thousands of titles on Netflix is bananacakes. And looking at their FAQ, it sure seems like they're only going to have a couple of hundred titles available at one one time. That's just preposterous, my good Bros.
"Ah, yes," says one of the Bros, peering over his wire-rimmed spectacles, hidden behind piles of cash, "but what of the specific titles we have that those Redflicks people haven't?" And yeah, okay, looking at their site, there's some pretty sweet old titles in their lineup of 220 available films and shows. That's nice. I know The Bros have been digitizing films that haven't gotten a wide home video release and making them available via Warner Archive print-on-demand, so that's probably what these things are. But again, does the average person care? I doubt it.
Here's how I use Netflix: I set up my instant queue. Occasionally I watch something from it. Most of the time I just sort of jump around and see what looks good to me. I'll go to Instant Watcher and see what new crap has gone up that looks like it'll be entertaining. I know a lot of people who operate the same way. The idea that someone is going to spend an extra ten bucks a month because Warner Bros might decide to have up one of the Bond films is pretty poopy, and I say this as someone who generally doesn't like poop. Disney's the only company who could really pull something like this off, because their fans are obsessed.
Will the the scheme work in the short-term? Sure. There's a segment of the population, probably a lot of film buffs, that will check out the service to see what it has to offer. And there will be some people with disposable income who will just love the idea of sitting down with a nice glass of Cabernet Sobbymom and watching some old noir film from the Bros' sweet vault. But overall it's just another example of Hollywood studio backwards thinking. In the short-term you're gonna make some bank; congrats. In the long-term, the Bros are putting up a massive barrier between themselves and the majority of the viewing public. Without the support of the general public, a studio's reputation withers and dies. If you separate your catalog of film and television from a massive, installed subscriber base, you gain a share of the streaming pie but risk losing public awareness of your legacy and power, diminishing the reputation of some once great Bros.
The blog over at the Rampant Games site has a fantastic essay on why "always on" DRM is a huge pain in the ass and damages our relationship to the medium. I always like to hear developers speak on these topics; it's a different perspective from that of the angry gamer, and usually more informed as to the difficulty developers face. It's definitely worth a look-see.
