When people claim I move goalposts to criticize Medrano while praising Gooseworx.
Gooseworx wrote a show about abuse, trauma, mental health and recovery by finding meaning and purpose in community and being a part of something bigger. Even if you don't like the show, that is what the show is about. You don't have to like ducks to look at one and say "Yeah, that's a duck."
Vivienne Medrano has this as her studio's header:
If you're saying my critiques of how the show makes light of those topics are just killing the fun, they aren't supposed to be fun. They are supposed to be the themes. Your themes aren't jokes.
Ever.
It isn't because that's against the rules, it's because if your themes are jokes, then you're making Ren & Stimpy. You're writing Beevus & Butthead. You're not actually laying the path down in order to explore anything when the path is "just a prank bro" and made out of chalk only to wash away in a rainstorm and leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
You're not exploring anything. The shows don't explore anything, at all. They showcase trauma, abuse, redemption- but they never actually explore it.
This is her thesis, not mine. I'm grading her on her own terms. If you want to explore, you have to actually show the story, not the highlight reel.
Also, I cannot get over how, when presenting these themes, she doesn't highlight the animation or the writing, instead elevating the Voice Cast of actors who have literally nothing to do with the studio. They are not affiliated with Spindlehorse, they are contracted for a show. I cannot even conceptualize why she would highlight the VOICE ACTORS on the front page of her ANIMATION STUDIO.
The big things I grade any production of the Nutcracker on are:
Cuntiness of Drosselmeier. It's a must. I lose interest if he is not slaying. A cape goes far in ur favor here, and if u dare to give him makeup I will kiss u on the mouth.
Cuntiness of the Mouse King. I mean come on, he's the anthropomorphic villain, what am I meant to do?
A really good pas de deux between Clara and the Nutcracker at the end. (Or between the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.)
Good costumes. Boring ones or ugly ones are a huge turnoff. It's a ballet, it's supposed to be pretty.
Something new and fun that's not in other versions. I give big points for smthn being weird if it works.
Now, what exactly makes a himbo? I'm glad you asked!
The criteria that this blog will be judging on will be the following five traits: Buff, Dumb, Kind, Slut (or Chad), and Respect Women. Each character, person, or abstract concept we analyze will be judged on these five traits (which I will clarify here in a moment) on a scale of 1-5. In order to qualify, the overall score must be no lower than 15, and they will automatically be disqualified if any one category falls below a 3.
Important to note is that the himbos are not being stacked against each other, but other people from their shared canon, using 2 as a baseline for what a normal person would display in each category.
Example: if a character gets a 5 in Buff and Kind, a 3 in Slut and Respect Women, but a mere 1 in Dumb? I'm sorry, but that man is not a himbo, he is far too smart, and we are looking for someone whose inner monologue is the Wii Store Theme.
What about if a character ranks a 5 on Dumb and Kind, a 3 in Respect Women, but a 2 in Buff and Slut? This is not the himbo we are looking for - but he has potential.
But how am I defining these characteristics? Let's get into the 5 key traits that define a himbo, and why they are important.
First up is Buff. It is not enough that our himbo is fit, or in peak physical condition. Our himbo needs to have enough meat on his bones that he struggles with hairbrushes. He needs to look like he could participate in the Highland Games Caber Toss with a Range Rover. If he can make his pecs dance, he can make me dance. Simply put, a himbo has to take up space.
Why is this important? A himbo needs to be built like a shit brick house to differentiate him visually, to begin. But also, and more importantly, when combined with the himbo's other traits, his Buffness separates him socially and breaks the audience expectations that muscular = dangerous.
Next, we have Dumb. The himbo cannot have too many thoughts going through his head at once, or he will start to get a headache. This is not to say that he cannot have a certain kind of savvy in areas wherein he has expertise, but in general the inside of a himbo's head looks like the bouncing DVD logo screensaver (he may even cheer when it hits the corner!)
Why is this important? This acts counter to his big ol' muscles. Certainly, a man can be 6'20 and made of Grade A Beefcake and also be able to recite the first 90 digits of pi, but it is important that the himbo's mindset be simple. He only knows a handful of things for sure, but he outsources the heavy mental load to others who may be more suited for the situation than he.
And rounding off the classic trifecta is Kind. A himbo is someone who loves his mama, who rescues kittens from trees. He is a man who is selfless and willing to put others first (but not necessarily self sacrificing, because he also has to be kind to himself). In as few words as possible, a himbo is someone you can trust to do the right thing.
Why is this important? This characteristic files off the rough edges of the above two to make a complete, classic himbo. Since one of the main purposes of a himbo is to break the audience expectation that someone like that could be dangerous, we must trust implicitly that a himbo has everyone's best interest at heart. Almost a naivete, but not quite, a himbo's kindness is what elevates him from eye candy or comic relief into a genuinely good dude.
But we're not done, oh no. In addition, we are expanding the traditional trio with two further traits of equal importance. We'll also be grading them on Slut (or Chad) and Respect Women. Now these might seem like variations of Buff and Kind, respectively, but there's a little bit more nuance to them that bears exploring.
Slut (or Chad) is a level of their desirability within their own environment. Does he fuck? Does he want to? Do people in his living space look at him and begin imagining doodling their names together in a heart in their diary? All important questions which help to codify this certain je ne sais quois of how much other characters want this himbo in their lives. (NOTE: For characters portrayed as a minor throughout their entire tenure in their canon, or are otherwise portrayed as asexual or uninterested in sex as a whole, then they will be graded on Chad, which is essentially the same but with a more platonic quality.)
And finally we have Respect Women, which at first glance may seem like a specific subset of Kind, but it is in fact its own trait. Sure, a man may hold the door for a woman, but would he trust her enough to allow himself to be vulnerable in her presence, or to defer to her expertise when needed? If he does not, then he's no himbo of mine.
dagNotes: Colloquium on Useful Norming & Composing Meaningful Grading Criteria
A little nervous, today.
I left the States in 2008 after two years of financial and health hardships that were the direct result of sixteen years of struggling to finance my own education from undergraduate to doctoral work. I'm not ashamed to admit that my lifestyle took its toll on me and I physically and mentally broke down. I know I'm not the only one.
2006-2007 were the most unproductive years of my career. I knew I needed to change direction and find a way to become motivated again. I needed to become physically healthy, as well. Before taking a break, I ended up with a hole in my lower guts and bled 30% of my blood mass out before I did anything. I had a doctor call me at work and yell at me for not taking my condition seriously. A year later, I was in shape and leaving for Korea.
As some of you know, I'm now preparing to finish my dissertation. I'll attempt to defend next year. I'm sure my teachers and colleagues will be happy for me. I don't think I'll have trouble accomplishing that goal. What's a little more difficult is figuring a way to get back into scholarship, from conferences to publishing. I'm in Korea. Far away means out-of-touch with the community of writers who got to know me prior to 2007. It really is out-of-sight-out-of-mind with colleagues. I can't blame them. The competition is tough, and I'm proud of my friends' accomplishments.
In addition, the expat community in Korea is over-burdened with amateur authors as well as dorks trying to Eat, Pay, Love their way away from home. People should write, of course, but all writing is not good. The writing in English in Korea is mostly execrable. And the writing community is run by the amateurs and the wannabes. I won't participate in that community. (I know. I'm mean. I'm elitist. I admit it.)
I decided to create a proposal to submit to universities with Foreign Language Institutes focusing on norming and grading criteria. I'm a composition and rhetoric nerd and enjoy thinking about teaching practices in writing programs. It's no wonder: I began lecturing and working part-time back in 1999. I was teaching as a Fellow in my doctoral program and lecturing and adjuncting at other schools. I'm as much a writing teacher as I am a writer.
In Korea, the teachers who work at universities teaching writing and presentation courses often did not come from university jobs. Until recently, many schools didn't require teachers to hold graduate degrees in English or Education. Though Master's degrees are becoming mandatory, teaching experience in English, Writing, Rhetoric, ESL/EFL, and/or Communications is often not. I thought I could find departments interested in finding a way to help teachers improve their practices in a manner that benefits the teachers and students while encouraging professional development that would also benefit my desire to continue thinking about pedagogy and practice. And the wary teachers may not understand this, but what I'll teach them about today might be a way to further secure their jobs as the practice insures that they have more of a say about the standards departments develop to shape the identity of their departments to attract more students. I'm also happy to do everything in my power as a teacher to get the students involved. Students really do need writing teachers who can appropriately and usefully articulate criteria for evaluating student writing.
Today I'm working with fifty or so instructors. I'm a little nervous, but excited. I'm treating it like panel work at any conference back home. I'm interested to see how these non-traditional writing teachers take to norming and how they approach composing useful grading criteria. I know I'll get some push-back and for several reasons. People are very worried about job security, as you can imagine. More significantly, many foreign teachers don't like to face their lack of proper educational background. They've developed a means to teach that works for them, and I support that. I hope they'll learn that I think even the least experienced instructors have something to bring to norming practice and criteria development.
I hope they like what I prepared for them. Tomorrow's my last day at my high school. I'm nervous about that as well. But I'll save that stuff for a post later this week.
