Discussion | The Cutprice Guignol

November 2, 2014

On Twitter, Gamergate, and the Trials of an Internet Debate

Recently, I’ve become a bit more active on Twitter. I find the whole concept of it fascinating and brilliant, on many levels; that ability to connect instantly with people across the world yada yada yada you’ve very probably heard this before.

I’ve been following the #gamergate hashtag with interest over the last month and a half or so. Gamergate kicked off in August, and you can read some articles about what’s been happening at the link below. Basically, the campaign ostensibly stands for the improvement of ethics in video games journalism, which I don’t think anyone would argue is a bad thing. However, it;s become a shield for some people to viscously attack those they see as enemies, for whatever reason. It’s difficult to know for sure to what extent the people who doxx (disseminate personal information, such as home addresses and emails, about the selected victim) or throw death threats at those on the apparent other side of the fence are doing so because they believe it furthers their cause (it never, never, never does, and anyone who does use these methods should know that they don’t win arguments or prove points) or simply because having a crusade provides a comforting cover.

And that’s the problem with debating things on Twitter. There are very likely hundreds upon thousands of people, with every shade of opinion, on every matter you want to talk about. In the case of gamergate, there are, broadly, the pro- and anti- side, both of which have been caught doing reprehensible and horrible things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. It’s spun far out of control and far from any semblance of reasonable discussion, at least to the casual observer. After two months, we’re left with two extreme sides screeching at each other over the internet, while anyone trying to have a reasonable conversation in the middle is drowned out. The particularly awful screengrabs and status updates and tweets are passed around the opposing groups like porn mags, stoking more anger and annoyance and strengthening the belief that these people have to be stopped. So they respond in kind and the cycle starts again. The media cottons on to the news-worthy extremism and the scary quotes that make good headlines, and more outraged people turn up for the party with a very specific view of events. And the ball keeps rolling.

When a huge, sprawling debate like this one, and like many arguments over social media and Twitter in particular, carries on for as along as this, hundreds of thousands of people- each with varying degrees of knowledge, investment, and understanding about the cause- have chipped in. You could browse through scores of Tweets, of arguments waged across continents and months, and what you’d find there would be a mess. With a cause like this one, it’s difficult to know what individuals are really fighting for any more.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

Leave a comment

October 29, 2014

Doctor Who Dark Water: Wild Speculation Abounds

So, blogosphere, I’ve decided to forgo a review this week- basically, I thought In The Forest of The Night was an eye-rolling disappointment and thoroughly enjoyed listening to my dad shred it into comedically tiny pieces- and everything that I’ve been saying over the last eight weeks pretty much applies to this episode. Bad pacing, cluttered plot, a crammed-in enviromental message (I’m really, really, really not sure how to feel about the Doctor encouraging a girl on medication to stop taking it because the voices in her head were saving the world, because it seems wildly irresponsible. And seems to back up that widely-held theory that those with mental health problems who choose to take medication to control it- like me- are cutting off some brilliant part of themselves as opposed to taking control of an illness), not enough Danny Pink, oddly cold Doctor, and a cool idea thrown to the four winds of blah. So, this week, I’m going to share my theories about the season finale, a two-parter that kicks off next week with Dark Water. Take a drink for every time I get proved right. Expect to stay sober.

1. Danny Pink

I’ve been theorising for weeks that Missy and the Nethersphere are actually a big Maguffin, and the really twist will involve Danny Pink. Here’s my thinking: we met him in Into The Dalek, in the same week we spent some time with a soldier named Journey Blue who had lost her brother in a war at the start of the episode. There’s a link with the colours in their names, and Zawe Ashton and Samuel Anderson don’t look entirely different (big brown eyes). I think Danny was the brother who died, was sent to the Nethersphere, and offered a chance to live again if he brought Clara and the Doctor back with him. His past is mysterious- all we know is that he was a soldier who had “one bad day”, and that he very probably killed someone he feels an immense amount of guilt about-and, when we meet his grandson, it’s revealed that one of that man’s grandparents was a time-traveller. I initially assumed that this was Clara, but could it be Danny instead? Anyway, I think his plotline will involve him being turned into a cyberman upon his return to Heaven, and that may or may not be the last we see of Mr Pink. If it is the last we see of him, the series is going to have to do something spectacular to win me back.

2. Clara

We know there are hundreds of echoes of Clara all through time, so where did these echoes go? Did they die and….wind up in the Nethersphere? The trailer showed a lot of abrupt costume changes and seemingly personality changes too, and I think that a bunch of vengeful Claras have ended up in Heaven wanting to wreak revenge on the Doctor. In this theory, Missy is definitely one of these Claras, having orchestrated the whole thing to make sure she gets revenge. The Clara in this series has been an echo of the real Clara who remained trapped in the timeline (River said she would die, but maybe she got it wrong?), aged into Missy, and eventually ended up in heaven (see Missy’s “You know who I am” in the trailer). At this point, anything they can do to really stretch Jenna Coleman’s considerable talent and charm to make her a real match for Capaldi’s colder Doctor will be warmly welcomed. If it’s not this theory, then I think that all the cybermen will be Claras from various timestreams.

3. Missy

I wrote an article about my theories on Missy at the start of the series, and I still think it’s up in the air. However, I’m leaning towards The Rani, because it makes sense, and it would be really cool. She’s presumably evil, very likely experimenting on her charges, and has a beef with the Doc. I’m even going to go waaaay out there and tentatively suggest that Chris Addison is also a timelord, and both of them, after a timelocked Gallifrey was basically brought back, are still in defensive mode and believe that they need to defend themselves against another attack with cybermen. The fact that most of the victims have come from the episodes we’ve seen is to do with the fact that they’re able to manipulate the Tardis into a matter transporter to get them there, and has nothing to do with the Doctor’s guilt as I initially thought.

But then again, the episode is called Dark Water so it WILL be River.

Leave a comment

September 18, 2014

Through a Glee, Darkly: Biphobia, Transphobia and the LGBTQ Community

Because I’m a long-time hostage of the Murphchuck series Glee, it’s become a lens through which I view a lot of important TV issues. I’m planning a series of articles in the upcoming weeks about representation, discrimination, and the process of making a successful television show using Glee as my base point. It’s going to be great, and also drive me over the edge into blissful insanity. It’s a win all round! Let’s get cracking with this week’s instalment.

Glee’s big message is acceptance. If you’re gay, straight, white, black, Asian, Jewish, virginal, promiscuous, hot, hideous, or some unholy combination of the above, there is a place for you as a viewer. I hadn’t really questioned this before, as seeing specific sexualities and identities portrayed on TV in an often sympathetic and delicately handled way seemed rare enough that I felt I had to forgive the flaws that arose. That, and the fact that Chris Colfer, who plays the most prominent LGBTQ character, Kurt, is an insanely talented guy who I’m just happy to watch doing anything.

But it’s been brought to my attention, while catching up on series five, that the representation of the youth LGBTQ community seems to end after the LG. Let’s take a look at two quotes from the show- one from Kurt, delivered to his then-crush as said crush considers the possibility that he might be bisexual after kissing a girl, and enjoying it.

Kurt: Bisexual is a lie gay guys tell in high school to hold hands with girls in the corridor so they can feel normal for a change

Blaine: Whoa, why are you so angry?

Kurt: Because I look up to you! I admire how proud you are of who you are. I know what it’s like to be in the closet, and here you are about to tiptoe back in.

Later in the scene, Kurt is vaguely called out for this behaviour, but in the end it turns out he was basically right and Blaine announces himself “100% gay” after another kiss. I have no problem with characters exploring their sexuality, but there’s a hypocrisy here that suggests bisexuality is a cop-out, a way to avoid the ramifications of actually being sexually attracted to members of other genders. I’ve been extremely lucky in that the people I’ve come out to as bisexual couldn’t care less where I put my genitals, but even now I am told outright that I’m gay and lying or straight and lying.

The denial of bisexuality as a legitimate sexual identity in and of itself is a persistent one of television, even on shows that claim to represent the LGBTQ community (I’d like to take a minute to point out that Nip/Tuck, Ryan Murphy’s longest-running show, featured three significant bisexual characters-one an emotionally damaged victim and one-time cult member, one a serial killer and rapist, and one an accomplice to the latter). This also ties in to the furore about changing one’s sexual identity. Check out the shitstorm that ensued when Jessie J announced that she no longer identified as bisexual and instead was heterosexual, versus the applause and adulation Tom Daley received for confirming his status as, not bisexual, but gay. I’m not saying Daley didn’t deserve the support, because he did, but the concept of “betraying” LGBTQ-land by deciding that you are straight, or, in Glee’s case, bisexual – anything not gay -is a massive hypocrisy when we can so easily accept other changes in sexuality.

Then there’s this quote from season five, where lesbian character Santana attempts to gauge if her crush, Dani, (played by Demi Lovato, of all people) is also gay.

Santana: I had a girlfriend, and she was bi

Dani (pulls face): Any chance of you getting back together?

Sanrana: I love her, but it’s over.

Dani:I mean, it’s probably for the best. I think you need a 100% sapphic goddess.

Predictably, they get together, and Santana delivers the clincher of the episode “...and I finally have a girlfriend who I don’t have to worry about straying for penis”.

It’s a regularly circulated assumption that bisexual people can’t be monogamous. The ability to have sexual desire for multiple genders, apparently, will prohibit the ability to stick with one partner without running off for a dicksickle or a vaginapop. It should be noted that the girlfriend she’s referring to never cheated on her with anyone, let alone “strayed for penis”, and no-one comments on the stereotypical, nasty nature of the comment.

Sure, this character is meant to be the bitchy one, but Glee is so often wildly keen to cram the after-school-special, anti-bullying, anti-anti-LGBTQ stuff down it’s viewers throats that to live this pretty offensive comment floating in the middle of an episode seems pretty lax. The prior comment, about Santana needing a “100% sapphic goddess” is meant to be fun and flirty, but comes off as if Dani is suggesting that lesbians and bisexual woman cannot have as fulfilling a relationship as two outrightly lesbian women. TV Tropes does a great line in discussing the mountains of stereotypes that bisexual people face on TV and in movies (evil, slutty, slutty-evil, closeted, attention-seeking, lying….), and this non-sequitur with no basis in the canon of the show fits into a slew of narratives about bisexual people as unfaithful or unable to commit to one person, or simply unable to form a relationship as meaningful with people who do not share their orientation.

There is one bisexual character in the show, mentioned above, named Brittany. Though she rarely (I believe once in the show’s run) refers to herself as bisexual (generally favouring bi-curious, or bicorn), she forms meaningful romantic relationships with both men and a woman. Which is good. Not so good, however, is her portrayal – seriously, sensationally dumb, she’s established to believe leprechauns exist, that her cat is a slum lord (“None of your buildings are up to code. Those families are living in squalor”), that storks bring babies, and that kissing is just two friends “talking with their mouths really close”. The question of her actual ability to consent has been brought up by a handful of commentators due to her childlike intellect, and this isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of bisexuality as an informed identity.

But wait, there’s more! There is, if you’ll notice, a T in that famous acronym. And in the last couple of seasons, Glee has addressed the transgendered community with the introduction of the excellent Alex Newell as Unique, an MTF (male-to-female) transgender teenager and the problems she faces as an out transgender high school student. This is commendable in and of itself, as the visibility of transgendered characters in pop culture is wretchedly low, and hate crime against transgendered people continues to flourish in horrible, horrible ways. In the show, phrases like “she-male” and “tranny”- which, to be clear, are pretty fucking offensive – are used without real question. Anti-gay slurs were tackled early in the series and treated in a serious way, while here Unique is told she needs to “tone it down with the whole boob thing” by Mr Schuester, set up as the great ally and crusader for these children. Introducing a serious transgender character – who isn’t there as a “trap” for a straight lead playing for laughs, or a joke, or a one-episode talking point-is a really, really good thing, but you need address the ways in which the community is being discriminated against and identify them to stop them becoming more normalised than they already are. It’s worth noting that Newell arrived on the show from spin-off reality nonsense The Glee Project, and was told in a “last-chance audition” (basically a finale where three of the kids sang a song in front of judges to retain their place in the competition) by Ryan Murphy that the creator would love to see him come out in a dress and heels.

There’s been some debate over whether Murphy was seeing dollar signs flashing in his eyes at the possibility of recruiting another “alternative” character to the series, or if he just thought Newell would fit the role. I’ll also throw in here that Nip/Tuck featured one prominent transgender character, a gay man who changed his sex in order to hook up with a straight crush, then proceeded to commit incest, trawl bars picking up high school boys and steal a baby. Again, not grand.

But it’s not just Glee who is guilty of this kind of representation. Mike and Molly was prodded angrily for featuring a transgender person who was repeatedly questioned about their genitals and referred to as a “she-male”, Two and a Half Men saw a character dump a potential new lover after discovering that he had previously been a she. Wendy Williams, high-profile talk show host, repeatedly misgendered Chaz Bono, declaring him “not as strong as a man who was born a man”. Fox News used a photo of Mrs Doubtfire in a trans-related health story. Ricky Gervais compared trans people to someone believing that they were a gerbil. Glee had a great chance to dismantle some of those deeply embedded stereotypes, but far too often stepped back and went for the easy joke, the joke that we’re comfortable with. The onus shouldn’t be on Glee alone to fix the problems with the depiction of transgender people in the media, but it still feels like they could have gone further in challenging them.

Let’s put it this way: Glee is a show that has it’s heart in the right place. It tries to represent LGBTQ characters as more than just a label, exploring their romantic and sexual relationships in an often mature and sensitive way, and a way that has helped many LGBTQ youth. That’s excellent, and I can only commend everyone involved for that. But the perpetuation of stereotypes isn’t helping anyone, especially when you only apply them to certain minority characters. It’s not enough to simply put these characters in the show, and have them face discrimination- you need to constantly question that, and draw attention to it’s invalidity. Then you can have some pride in your LGBTQ.

If you’d like to read more of my writing on sexuality, take a gander at the links below, and please consider supporting me on Patreon!

Hot Bisexuals, the Safety of Sexiness, and the Fetishization of Queer Women

Through a Glee, Darkly: Transphobia, Biphobia, and the LGBT Community

Bisexuality on Television

In and Out of the Closet: Bisexuality and Me

TV’s problem with the word “bisexual”

Inhumanity, Bisexuality, and American Horror Story: Hotel

Greey, Lying, or Slutty: Straight-Passing and Bi-Erasure

Leave a comment

September 12, 2014

Stephen King’s The Stand: Dream Movie Casting

Sometimes, I have to write totally selfish articles. This is one of those, and I won’t apologise for it- with much talk of the upcoming film series adaptation of The Stand, it’s only fair I give a few pointers to the filmakers so they have a clue what they’re doing. For those who adore the book, like me, please comment and let me know what you think: for those who don’t, I promise the Doctor Who review will be up tomorrow.

Larry Underwood- Matthew Mchonaughey

In the midst of the Mchonaissance (I only heard about that phrase a couple of weeks ago, and think it might be the cleverest thing I’ve ever come across), the Dallas Buyers Club star has apparently been in talks to play the main villain, Randy Flagg. Personally, I’ve had him picked out as Larry for years- a slightly haggard, boozy country music star with questionable morals and a way with the ladies. He’s got to be handsome in a very particular way, and Matthew might just be able to pull off that ultimately martyred charisma.

Harold Lauder- Caleb Landry Jones

Aside from the big bad, Harold might be the most complex and challenging character in the whole novel. At sixteen, he finds himself one of the sole survivors of a superflu, turning him (in his mind, at least) from a high school loser into an action hero. His tragic trajectory requires someone who can convincingly pull off a teenage saddo as well as they can delve into the dark moral ambiguity of the character. Landry Jones is by far one of my favourite young actors working at the moment, and everything I’ve seen him in so far indicates that he could pull off this role without turning it into a good-boy-turned-bad fable.

Nick Andros- Ben Wishaw

While I consider Nick one of the dullest characters in the novel (too much of a hero in a book peppered with ambiguities), the role would need a great actor to inhabit it, as Nick is both dumb and deaf. There’s a frailty and kindness to the role that the puckish Wishaw could pull off no problem. Plus this kid needs more work. So I can look at him. And his lovely face.

Stu Redman- David Morrissey

Stu is the de facto protagonist of The Stand, but also a pretty straight-down-the-line character- he’s a good guy with strong morals and the ability to bring people together under his leadership. I’ve always somewhat fancied the good Morissey for this role, as he’s old enough to bring the gravitas and charm without being too generic a “good cowboy” character.

Julie Lawry-Jennifer Lawrence

Something about the craziness and sexiness required for this role screams Jennifer Lawrence to me. She’s got to seem unstable and a little bit scary, but at the same time attractive and cool. Yup, Lawrence all the way.

Fran Goldsmith- Deborah Ann Woll

A no-brainer, really. One of the few significant female characters in the novel, Fran is too often seen as a slightly fluffy, overly feminine character, where she’s actually kind of an asskicker. Here, you’d need someone beautiful enough to play to high-school-hottie thing alongside a growing sense of cynicism and pragmatism. Woll has proved in her True Blood performance alone that she finds that roll stupidly easy. AND she needs a big-screen break.

Nadine Cross- Winona Ryder

When and why did we all forget Winona Ryder? I want a comeback, and specifically I want her playing Nadine Cross- doomed from the start, she’s got an ethereal and vaguely supernatural presence about her, as well as a penchant for manipulation. Ryder is just the right age for this now, and would bring some gravitas and smarts to the tricky role.

Lloyd and Poke- Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

For some reason, I always think of these two in the same breath, much like the characters I’ve cast them as here. Poke, a sociopathic criminal mastermind, has to be convincingly charming and cruel, and who woudn’t love to see Levitt playing a cut-and-dry bad guy? Lloyd Henreid as Randy Flagg’s right-hand man and mass murderer, has to convey the notion that he could have turned out as nothing more than a petty thief if he’d made different choices, and the slightly thuggish Hardy does a great line in morally tortured characters.

Mother Abigail-Viola Davis

Because obviously. An insanely great role for an equally talented actress.

Tom Cullen- Ryan Kwanten

I have no real justification for this other than Ryan Kwanten played a brilliantly loveable, almost Shakesperean fool in True Blood, and I think that utter likeability and clear and strong sense of right and wrong might come in handy in a role that could easily come off as patronising.

Trashcan Man-Andy Serkis

Who else but the supremely talented Serkis could play this, probably the singular most important character in the novel? A crazed, but not necesarily evil, arsonist who winds up bringing the book to it’s conclusion, Serkis has the acting chops and ability to totally get inside a character- see his performance as Ian Dury for proof. Chances are he’ll be acting through a lot of prosthetics towards his radiation-addled end too, which might suit the mo-cap hero quite well. Could you imagine anyone else dragging a nuclear weapon across the desert? Precisely.

The Kid- Elijah Wood

A diminutive sociopath who might be the most straight-up evil character in the book? Hello, Elijah Wood, what have you been doing since Sin City? Wood has those boyish good looks mixed with the ability to bring discomforting psycopathy to his roles. I would kill to see him inhabit The Kid.

Randall Flagg- Michael Rooker

A hot debate rages between every fan of the book over who should play the iconic villain, a leading character across a number of King’s works, and I’m calling Rooker on you all. At his heart, Flagg should be scary. He should look like he’s carrying decades of evil with every step, but still somehow be convincingly attractive to potential followers. We know Rooker can do crazed and scary-better than almost any actor working today, in fact- but I’m convinced he could bring the thespy, quiet, and clever stuff to life. That manic energy-and ability to pull off a knife hand-wouldn’t go amiss either. Basically, this is an actor whose got the ability to make even the most insane characters seem real- who better for the ultimate bad guy?

Leave a comment

September 5, 2014

Torchwood: Television’s B-Movie

Right, before I start, I have brief plugging to do- firstly, I’ve noticed the Doctor Who articles on the Guignol have been getting tons of clicks. If you want to read more of my Doctor-Who related nonsense (which I assume is what you’re here for), I’ll be writing a beginner’s guide to Doctor Who over the next few weeks over at the excellent site Popjunk, which I’ll posting here sporadically too. And another thing- for those new to the site, hello! I run other blogs both here (that’s an interview-based site about working in the arts), and here (that’s a music blog I run with another freelance pop culture writer). Check them out because I’m a sick-ass dope writing motherfucker. We good? We’re good.

So, Torchwood. Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who, and a code name for the rebooted show when it was still in the early stages of production) is a spin-off from the second series of the new Who, following the exploits of periphary character Captain Jack Harkness-

Swwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwoon.

-and his band of merry upgraded extras. Basically, each epsidoe revolves around them prancing about Cardiff solving mysteries. It’s Scooby-Doo, if the gang dry-humped in the back of the Mystery Machine at the end of every episode.

Torchwood was sold as a “grown-up” Doctor Who, packed with fluid sexuality, moderately offensive swear words, and pointed blood splatter. This is usually where I would start ripping the ever-living pish out of a show of this nature-a spin-off, a “gritty redo”, Russel T Davies….

But Torchwood is great. Well, it’s not, but that’s what makes it so eminently watchable. The acting is pretty average, with John Barrowman earning particularly criticism for his portrayal of Jack (although, honestly, he’s playing a swaggering, omnisexual intergalactic space cowboy- the part needs to be inhabited, not actually acted), but it works. The cast have strong chemistry, and Eve Myles in particular (who was scooped straight out of a season one Doctor Who episode, character name and all) toes the line of audience surrogate and plain exposition machine carefully and to great effect. I’m also a huge fan of Owen, because he looks wildly strange in a way that I find momentously attractive.

Is this crush alright? It’s not, is it? I wish I were Aunt Peggy, and he were the gin.

He’s also the focus of some of the most interesting episodes of the series, and carries them with aplomb. One character I don’t understand is Ianto- there was such a vitriolic tidal wave when he left the show, I was expecting an engaging, witty, empathetic character and instead he’s the…pale-ish tea boy? You can keep it, thanks.

So the acting is no great shakes, and the stories are often two-word epiphanies that hit the writers at three in the morning on the way back from the pub. “SEX……GAS”. “LIVING…..FILM. “PTERODACTYL….PET”. You get my drift. The villains inevitably turn out to be either preening ninnies or badly CGI’d monsters or twist endings that make me want to harm things, but you’re there to see the gang bicker and leap into action at least twice an episode, not for Moffat-ian scripts. Everything is oozing with innuendos, second base, and snappy, office-banter one-liners. The whole thing plays out like a b-movie, in that it’s well aware that it’s not going to win any awards, but it’s enthusiastic and ridiculous and a little bit knowing anyway. Although once some screenwriting genius working for Torchwood managed to blurt out “MARSTERS….BARROWMAN” and it was good. REALLY good.

To be that tacky late nineties wallpaper.

Keeping up with series eight of Doctor Who, one of the things I’ve been missing most profoundly is that sense of bright, kitschy, self-aware fun. That’s not to say every episode should feature Daleks in pom-poms and a swanny whistle, but there is- or should be, in my eyes- a light element of camp to the Whoniverse, and watching Torchwood reminded me that. I’m entirely game for serious science-fiction that makes a strong moral point (see: Miracle Day and Children of Earth, the brilliant if oft maligned miniseries detours Torchwood took after it’s first two monster-bashing seasons were over) or science-fiction that’s bright, breezy fun. And I also think that the Whoniverse is better placed than many to pull off both in tandem. But, in the midst of an all-too-serious season of Doctor Who, it’s nice to remind myself just how blase and brilliant this world can be.

Hang on, I just like this show because I think everyone’s fit, don’t I? It’s The Great British Bake-Off all over again.

Leave a comment

June 25, 2014

Tumblr, Self-Harm, and Me

This is a brief warning for people who come here for the funny jokes about Christian Grey being a wanker or retrospectives on Frasier (coming soon, folks!): this will not be particularly funny and may well be triggering for those who’ve self-harmed in the past.

I’ve recently discovered tumblr, because I was forced to sign up by an employer. “Oh well,” thunk I, “nothing wrong with exploring a new kind of social media, what with this being the digital age and all”. While I was browsing the internet for interesting topics to look up on the site, I came across a number of articles discussing the banning of pro-anorexia, pro-bulimia, and pro-self-harm blogs (which is what I’ll be focusing on). A statement released by the website said this on the matter:
“Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or injure themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seeking counseling or treatment, or joining together in supportive conversation with those suffering or recovering from depression or other conditions”.

That all seems pretty sensible. But, me being me, I had to go and investigate exactly what kind of content this had left on those kinds of communities; after all, once something gathers a following on the internet, it’s pretty hard to ever sponge it clean entirely (see: 4chan).

I should point out at this juncture that this topic was of particular interest to me because I have suffered from depression and self-harmed on a semi-regular basis for around two years (I tried to make that as nonchalant as possible, but this is the first time I’ve admitted it to a wide audience and a tiny part of me is fist-bumping itself and going “WAY TO BREAK ‘EM BOUNDARIES, MACGREGOR”). Most of my scars have faded but I’m still extremely self-conscious about them, and self-harm is my The Big Bad, like booze for alcoholics or heroin for junkies. You may judge me off that statement however you want, and you’re welcome to, but I’d appreciate it if you kept any needlessly nasty comments to yourself. A morbid curiosity overwhelmed me and I had to take a closer look- what were these websites promoting that was so hypnotic to the tumblr community?

I investigated. And it’s pretty safe to say that many of the tumblr pages I came across that discussed self-harm continue to glorify it. Extremely graphic pictures of scars and cuts-some still bleeding, some clearly suicide attempts, some so bad that other users have urged the poster to visit the hospital-prompt comments complimenting their beauty. Some anonymous users despair because their scars are not as deep as the ones they see depicted on the site, and they believe this means they don’t qualify as “real” self-harmers. Gifs and pictures from movies glorify beautiful people slicing themselves to ribbons without tackling anything other than the superficial fact they are self-harming. Other posts advise on how to find razors and sharp objects in everyday items. One particularly hideous gif-and I’m sure it’s not the only one- shows someone actually cutting their arm open with a razor.

I can tell you this with some security because I am in recovery: if I’d found a community that had glorified and encouraged this habit back when I’d first started, I dread to think how far I would have gone to fit in. Self-harm is confusing and frightening and addictive enough without wondering if your scars are deep enough or pretty enough or numerous enough. And recovery is a long and often lonely process, so it’s not out of the realms of belief that someone might look for some sincere support on the web when nothing else is available and come across sites like these. This shit is utterly, utterly horrible, extremely disturbing, and offering very little in the way of the “supportive conversations” tumblr had imagined. Words cannot describe how angry and sick this made me, and you’ll find the same kind of blogs kicking around for eating disorders too-several particularly grim forays include a mixture of self-harm and pro-eating disorder material.

And let’s step back from my rage and take a look at the facts. Around 30% of tumblr’s visitors are under 25, so young people account for just under a third of their entire audience. Consider this: rates of depression in young people in Britain have risen 70% in the last 25 years, and it’s now estimated that around 1 in 10 young people all over the world will take part in some form of self-injurious behavior (SIB). Do you see what I’m getting at here? That tumblr should be doing a far better fucking job at protecting the particularly vulnerable third of it’s audience from distressing or potentially triggering imagery and communities? Seems pretty straightforward to me. But then I’m a nutter cutter: what would I know?

As a sign-off, I’d like to recommend anyone else who self-harms or is in recovery (I see it like alcoholism: you never really stop having the propensity to slip back into it, but you do have long periods of time-lifetimes, even-where you don’t) the following websites, which I’ve found really useful in the past.

http://selfharm.co.uk/get/facts/self-harm_statistics
http://www.7cupsoftea.com/ Especially this one.

1 Comment

March 9, 2014

Pure Mental: Madness on TV

Recently, me and the consort demolished two separate shows in the space of a week-Hannibal, which I reviewed earlier here, and cult anime Neon Genesis Evanglelion. Both shows are brilliant in their own right (I consider NGE, which was obviously my pick, one of the best things I’ve seen in my life, and I’ve seen shirtless pictures of James Marsters, so…), and both are worth watching if you feel like a big binge of cleverness, and, in the case of Hannibal, many beautiful men. But I digress-what struck me about these shows when held together is how different they seem on the surface but how damn similar they are on closer inspection.

I should, at this point, probably outline what Neon Genesis Evangelion is: an anime series from the late nineties that is outwardly about giant robots fighting space monsters, but REALLY concerns the importance of individuality and the nature of personal madness. Now, the best way I can describe this series is by my brother’s reaction to the ending. As the credits rolled on the final episode, he shut down his computer, turned off his lights, and climbed into bed with the covers pulled up to his chin with a mixture of bemusement and mild upset on his face. It’s really fucking strange. Hannibal is similarly bizarre; focused more on the slow but unrelenting descent into madness that FBI criminal profiler Will Graham suffers as his mind becomes enveloped by a particularly traumatic case and the machinations of psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (played by Mads Mikklesen, a man so angular his face resembles a tremendously handsome Ikea shelf set). They might seem wildly different on the surface, but they do have one important thing in common: madness.

Now, I don’t claim to have ever been “mad” in the ways that these shows depict, and I’m thankful for that. But both myself and many people close to me have suffered from mental health problems in one way or another, so I’m always interested in how these sorts of things are depicted in fiction; either we get the sanitized, slightly glamorous version of insanity (you rarely see, for example, a character sitting around, depressed, binge-eating crap food and watching one episode of Top Chef over and over because they can’t bloody take it in), or the one-off descent into madness that’s cured by the love of a good woman/man/Vampire Slayer (I apologize for the Spike references; the consort is sitting next to me watching Angel as I write and I’m trying to distract myself from how shit it is by reminding us all that James Marsters exists).

But the way these two shows handle madness is very alike. In neither case is the madness in any way attractive or aspirational-it’s by turns irritating, harrowing, irrational, debilitating and frustrating. In Hannibal, you become lost in the woozy, violent half-dream world Will Graham finds himself in, and in NGE you grow to sympathise with characters who suffer through their problems because they have no other choice. There’s very little swooning around mantelpieces and taking to beds-in some cases, you have no choice but to carry the fuck on and treat mental illness akin to cystitis-pissy, a little painful, and constantly re-occurring. One of the final scenes of NGE features the main character being told the man the fuck up and do what he knows he has to do because, even though doing it seems like the absolute hardest thing in the world, it’s the right thing. This is the same voice I hear in my head (in a non-mad way) when I start sleeping for sixteen hours a day and refuse to change out of my comfy Batman t-shirt.

Both shows also use a very distinctive visual style to depict madness. I think this is worth mentioning because madness (and particularly depression) is often nothing to do with the world around you changing, but rather to do with your perception of the world. In NGE, characters are mostly seen isolated and lonely even when they’re surrounded by people who truly want the best for them; in Hannibal, Will is plagued by visions of animals and people he knows can’t exist. In both cases, little has actually changed, but the way we see these events through these character’s eyes lets us know that for them, everything is different. Madness is in the way we see the world, less what the world does to us.

Don’t get me wrong; many shows do a great job of depicting madness. And I am in no position to really judge the right or wrong way to do it, because I’m neither mad nor involved in making television (unlike, say, Gillian McKeith or Jeremy Kyle, who clearly cover both bases). But something that struck me about these shows was how satisfied and drawn in I was in both cases. It’s rare to discover shows that examine mental illness in a way that anyone with mental illness will appreciate, but these two definitely hit the nail on the-schizophrenic, depressed, delusional, self-harming, bipolar, OCD, disassociate, and just plain nuts-head.

Leave a comment

December 15, 2013

America’s Next Top Model: Redux

Last year, I wrote a protracted and essentially pointless rampage against America’s Next Top Model while drunk, that involved a whole lot of babbling about sandwiches and the conclusion that the show was a bit grim but essentially harmless. I was wrong. Oh, how wrong was I. Apparently, I feel the urge to devour a couple of seasons of this unrelenting tripe a couple of times a year, usually when I’m sick or fighting off some bout of crippling boredom or depression (pause for uncomfortable laughter; is she joking? Are we allowed to laugh at it if she is? If she’s not, isn’t that the sort of thing you just shouldn’t joke about? I mean, it’s a bit far, really, and frankly I hope The Guardian launch a liberal hate campaign against her, the scummy, anti-mental health “satirist” cow. Bet she’s sexist too. How many women have you employed, eh, Louise? That’s the question the public are clamoring for an answer to.).

In theory, the show actually comes from a pretty reasonable place. Tyra Banks, who spends much of her time forgetting to put on trousers, decided to re-define beauty in the fashion industry because….well, I don’t know actually. Maybe she had an afternoon free or something. Either way, I kind of respect her buisness acumen; being a model is a career with a built-in sell-by-date, so turning your attentions to becoming Oprah-building a TV empire seems pretty savvy. And giving less conventionally beautiful women (like all these hideously unattractive women here) a chance to break into an industry that would have previously simply laughed in their faces because they were plus-size or short is actually a really nice idea.

While much of the criticism for the show can be drawn for the fashion industry itself-with models being told they are “too slim for plus-size modelling” and the majority of winners being skinny, conventionally gorgeous women in their late teens-I’m going to focus on what’s off with the show alone. For one, not one-NOT ONE- winner or contestants have gone on to become what is, by anyone’s standards, a top model. A top model is an instantly recognisable name, someone who’s probably run around with rock stars for a while, somebody for whom their actual profession takes a back seat to the maelstrom of publicity surrounding them because they’re kind of fascinating and cool. Now, Cara Develigne has proved supermodels still exist-it’s just that the show doesn’t prepare it’s victims for the fashion industry in any way. Ex-winner Caridee English released a statement regarding the effect the show has on the models involved, after contestant Jael Strauss was discovered to be harboring a pretty sizeable meth addiction. Basically, she claimed that participants were greeted by a world in which they were lofty celebrities but unqualified and inexperienced models. There’s something tragically misleading about baring this in mind when watching the show, as the girls go through a heap of emotional distress, upsetting photoshoots and the constantly drilled-in belief that they will have a sky-rocketing career should they win the show. On a related note, both an ex-contestant and a judge have appeared on Celebrity Rehab since their stint of ANTM.

Backing away from the heavy stuff, there’s also the made-up words and phrases the show shoves down your throat at every opportunity. Smize, for example. Which is a word ellision, one that represents the notion of “smiling with one’s eyes”. Can I ask you something? Go to a mirror right now. And try to do that; try to imbue your eyes with emotion without moving the rest of your face. Can’t be done, can it? No, it fucking can’t. Maybe I’m stupid and a terrible model (it would explain the current faliure of my modelling career), but I like to believe that an expression requires some movement of your whole face. “Smizing” is not just an irritating anti-word, it’s also bullshit. This, along with forcing the attractive and charming British photographer Nigel Barker to continually use the word “fierce”, is enough to condemn the show to hell from my point of view.

Then, of course, there’s this: a collection of words so outrageous you’ll die, right here, in front of your computer or preferred device. On the All-Stars Cycle (What?), Tyra Banks filmed a “Motion Editorial” (eh?) for her novel (Come again)? Modelland, about an elite model’s boarding school (Okay, seriously now) featuring anthropomorphic people (I don’t even-), which starred the finalists from that series fondling blood oranges and gorging on whipped cream (a single flatline will suffice).

I first saw this monstrosity in the early hours of the morning and genuinley considered the option that I’d completely lost my mind. Basically, it sums up the show beautifully; a pointless, pretentious, unironically awful piece of crap that has less to do with modelling than my breakfast. Thank you, and kill me.

Leave a comment

December 5, 2013

On Adulthood and Alcohol

In the past week, it’s been my birthday, I got really sick, and a Fast & Furious star died in an ironic car crash. I’ve been getting good and existential over the last few days, helped by the slight move closer to death and lots of rum consumed over the last few days. With my teenage life-less as a member of the human race than as a runner in a weepy, Paula-Radcliffe style half-marathon-entering into it’s last year, some semblance of adulthood is drawing near and I feel this should be acknowledged. There have definetly been some vague steps in this direction over the last year-university, wobbly steps into a writing career, my own flat, becoming weirdly obsessed with hipster American sweets-but one of the main things that defines one’s leap into the Real World is alcohol.

When you start drinking-and my very first drink was a bottle of tooth-achingly sweet pear cider my Dad got me when I was sixteen-there is a certain amount of mystique to it. You think you’re infallible, impossible to inebriate and immune to hangover. The first time I got drunk was with my excellent friend back home over two Jackass films, when I realized I had had far too much to drink after I woke up with both my foot and my hair in a small pile of my own sick on his floor. My head was furious at me, my eyes thick with blergh, and my friend wasn’t impressed that I’d been sick down his Busted Tour T-shirt (sorry Cameron). But there was a kind of righteous, swaggering dignity to that hangover; like bills or unwanted pregnancy, I had a problem that was exclusive to the quasi-adult world. In my ironic t-shirt and crusty hair, I’d permanently joined the world of the grown-ups for a grim, miserable morning.

The first term of university is best glossed over; while I didn’t drink myself into a coma every night, being away from home and forced at fucking gunpoint by everyone in the world to MAKE FRIENDS FOR LIFE because it’s PART OF THE UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE was simply aided by a generous dollop of social lubricant. It was also around this time that I began to see nothing wrong with indulging in a good movie, a bottle of wine and no humans cluttering up the proceedings because sometimes, people just can’t live up to inebriated fiction.

(On a side note, drinking alone is curiously maligned; I wouldn’t encourage sitting at home weepily downing a bottle of whisky as the night draws in evening after evening, but simply peppering around a bunch of people to make it seem more legitimate is ridiculous. I had a cheeky few glasses of wine over a Heston Blumenthal marathon last week and it was heaven; other people would have just laughed at me for getting weepy when he made the sick kids at that hospital happy).

I realised earlier this evening that I’m a real grown-up/ponce when I made and enjoyed a Fancy Drink (rum, coke and a squeeze of lime. Alright, so my standards are low). I sat with a great friend, gossiped, chatted about real life, American Horror Story and ate junk food as the night wore on-and that’s the best part. The moment at which alcohol becomes, not a quick way to avoid an arse-clenchingly awkward lack of conversation, or a cheap sleeping pill with added hangover, but simply a tasty addition to an already wonderful evening, is when I consider it to be a part of my grown-up life in the real world. I’ll drink to that.

Leave a comment

November 5, 2013

Ryan Murphy: Defended

Ryan Murphy, eh? What’s the deal with the evil genius behind Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story, and (of all things) Glee? I’ve recently been re-watching Nip/tuck, the soap opera on acid that takes places in a plastic surgery clinic to better follow the lives of it’s two surgeon protagonists, Christian Troy and Sean McNamara. Now, this all sounds pretty par for the course so far, but this is a Ryan Murphy show, so I can guarantee that it’s probably going to smack you round the face with a big block of unlikely stories before running away and singing some show tunes on his other show.

One of the hallmarks of Murphy show (and, I suppose, a Murphy/Falchuck creation, because dear old Brad has had so much to do with the conception of both American Horror Story and Glee) is the completely hectic pace at which they rattle through plotlines; a kind of ADHD storytelling that works pretty convincingly if, like me, you tend to get bored with shows that linger over one plot strand too long. There’s also the sheer outrageousness of the plots to contend with, too; American Horror Story pretty much excepted, because, c’mon, it’s a horror show. But looking at Glee or Nip/Tuck or even Popular, shows which are allegedly set in the real world (even a violently technicolour version of it) are filled with stonkingly unbelievable plots.
For example, one character in one particular show (which I won’t name for spoiler’s sake) dates a closeted lesbian, tries to cut his own foreskin off, gets involved in a three-way relationship with her and her new girlfriend, dates a transsexual, dates a bigoted racist chick, beats the crap out of an unrelated transsexual, marries his father’s ex (who’s also a porn star), has a baby, gets into gay porn, becomes a meth addict, gets caught in a meth explosion, falls in love with his burns counsellor, decides to go to college to become a doctor, becomes a mime instead, goes on a robbery spree dressed as a mime, ends up somebody’s bitch in prison, strangles him with some lingerie before getting released early and running off with aforementioned baby and aforementioned transsexual to start a new life. After that, you’d want one. It’s mental. It’s ridiculous. And the worst part is I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything that happens to this character.

And that’s the hallmark of Murphy (and, later, Murphchuck shows): they are unbelievably silly. Yeah, occasionally Glee glanced over some after-school-special territory with bullying and homophobia and teenage pregnancy and what have you, but for the most part they revel in hysterical histrionics. Nonsense is what they do best, and I don’t think there’s anything outrightly wrong with that- in fact, I think it’s what makes them some of my favourite TV-brainboxes working right now. Never ones to rely on what they already know to sell a programme, they’ve constantly bounced between genres because, presumably, they get bored dealing with just one-and, surprisingly enough, they often create shows that are actually kind of excellent.

I will hold up my right to watch, read, and listen to trash as long as I enjoy it on some level, and Murphchuck have consistently created just the right balance of trash and moderate innovation for me to continue watching. Gourmet crap, if you will.

Leave a comment

Category: Discussion