Author Archives: Evan

A Look at The Walking Dead‘s Theodore Douglas

Posted on March 20, 2012 | 4 comments

Season 2 of AMC’s The Walking Dead wrapped up this past Sunday, kind of a big deal when you take into consideration the fact that the show was pulling in roughly 10 million viewers every time it aired. There are blogs all over the place discussing the big reveal, so feel free to head over there if you’re wondering what all the fuss is about. This post is meant to take a good hard look at character Theodore “T-Dog” Douglas.

AMC’s The Walking Dead is based on an immensely well-received comic book series of the same name written by Robert Kirkman. While it has, for the most part, stuck with the comics’ general plot progression, there have been a large amount of changes made. The addition of T-Dog as a member of the group in the first season was one of them.

As this season has progressed the internet has taken a lot of interest in T-Dog, for the most part discussing how little a role he actually has to play in the show. The following are his biggest moments listed in chronological order:

S1E1, Guts: T-Dog is one of the group members. He is savagely beaten by a racist among them and is almost killed.  The character who beat him is handcuffed to a roof as punishment. Later, when sent to free him, T-Dog drops the keys down a drain.

S2E1, What Lies Ahead: The survivors are scavenging an abandoned
highway for supplies. T-Dog doesn’t hear Rick, their leader, tell everyone to hide under cars due to zombies. He cuts his arm open on a car door. His life is saved when another survivor covers him with a dead zombie.

S2E2, Bloodletting: T-Dog is upset because the group is leaving him behind with an old man. He thinks it is because he is black. It turns out that he has blood poisoning and is weak and might die.

S2E4, Cherokee Rose: T-Dog almost drinks water from a well that had a big fat zombie in it.

S2E6, Secrets: They’re at a farm, and one of the farmer’s kids turns his pistol sideways during shooting practice. T-Dog tells him not to “give [him] any of that gangster sh-t.”

S2E12, Better Angels: T-dog sees that a prisoner has escaped and exclaims “Aw hell no!”

S2E13, Beside the Dying Fire: Zombies attack the farm and everyone scatters. T-Dog is driving himself and two others to the coast. One of them, Rick’s wife, tells him to turn around or she’ll jump out of the truck. He does so, performing a particularly ugly U-turn.

As the second season progressed, the conversation about T-Dog and what he has to do with anything grew immensely. In the last few episodes many were wondering if he was ever going to get past more than one or two lines per episode. Some have theorized [and by some I mean me] that he shares the same affliction as Eddie Murphy’s character in the universally panned A Thousand Words.

Thankfully, an interview with showrunner Glen Mazzara hopes to answer all of your questions about this enigma of a man. Entertainment Weekly asked if we would be seeing more of T-Dog next season, and the answer was as follows:

There is a plan for T-Dog. Given all of the things that I had to focus on to develop the show in a way that I felt was best, I will say that T-Dog got short shrift. We took care of business, and now we can delve into [SPOILERS] and T-Dog and all these other characters. T-Dog fans will be happy. We’re no longer interested in having a character in the background only saying one line per episode. We’re done with that. But again, we only had so much real estate, and it was very important for me to tell Rick’s story.

Which is great, really, except that I don’t see him having much more to offer the show. As far as what his role is it’s difficult to look any further than token black character. Glenn, a Korean-American character, was present in the comics and as a result has a pretty well-defined personality and storyline. In other words, Glenn has a foundation that extends beyond diversity for diversity’s sake. At this point in the series, T-Dog is actually the only character [save for a girl whose name was changed] not found in the original comics, and this really stands out.

It’s great that Mazzara was able to address, in a straightforward manner, that they did have a character who was “only saying one line per episode.” What remains to be seen is whether or not the writers for The Walking Dead can add any sort of complexity to T-Dog in this upcoming season. It’s been amusing watching and waiting to see if he does, well, anything, but while that may be enjoyable it doesn’t make it good television.

 

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Thoughts About The Internet

Posted on March 13, 2012 | 1 comment

So a friend of mine tweeted in the early hours of the morning, musing about the internet. The tweets are as follows [to be read from bottom to top]:

Before I can really begin addressing this, I think it’d be good for me to have a good definition of the word “celebrity.” Dictionary.com tells me that as far as people go, a celebrity is a “famous or well-known person.”

So are there capital letters CELEBRITIES, or are there just people, again, referencing the tweets, with fame? And, if they’re one and the same, do they equate with people outside the internet?

The 21st century is a place where being “outside the internet” is a basic impossibility. That being said, there is a distinction between being general fame and internet fame. Brad Pitt is a well-known movie star. wheezywaiter is a popular YouTuber with 382,628 subscribers. If both walked around the streets of any major city in America they’d be recognized, but only one would create a stampede of screaming fans leaving several dead.

On the other hand, some celebrities have supplemented their fame with their internet presence. Ashton Kutcher was the first twitter user to reach a million followers, and currently has almost ten times that. Comparing that to his work in film and television, it actually dwarfs his presence “outside the internet.”

The thing with being internet famous is how quickly it spills into the offline
world. High school pole vaulter Allison Stokke had her picture submitted to With Leather, a sports blog, where it appeared in this post [as far as I can tell, the images connected to the specific post have since been removed]. These images quickly spread around the internet, however, and Stokke became the target of a large amount of unwanted attention, a lot of it very sexual. It got to the point where her high school began receiving requests for photo shoots of the athlete. The Washington Post has more to say about it here.

To be fair, that wasn’t Stokke garnering internet fame for herself, but was instead unwittingly swept into it by a blogger named Matt Ufford. She’s not the only one who runs the very real risk of being recognized in public. Webcomic artist Jeph Jacques bumped into fans while vacationing in New Zealand, less of a surprise when you take into account the fact that his strip has thousands and thousands of viewers.

The internet is a “peer-to-peer” place where anyone can post anything and have an audience of anywhere from one to millions. I have 71 followers on twitter [with only a few spambots], meaning that anything I tweet [which I rarely do anymore] is instantaneously communicated to a several dozen people all over the world. That’s an amazing thing. Audience does matter, though.

If you have a blog, and there are millions, what are the chances that anyone is going to read it? You could tag it with words like “Dakota Fanning” and “Playboy,” and that might help, but your readers won’t be consistent and probably won’t be coming back. We may all be in the same place, but we write or draw or play instruments because we hope that others might be audience to our work, and when that audience gets large enough it will inevitably change our lives outside the internet.

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Attitudes Towards Feminism in the Past Week 3

Posted on March 6, 2012 | 1 comment

If you are a person who gets their video game news from the Penny Arcade Report, this won’t be new to you. If you’re a person who doesn’t read video game news much at all, this is not a post that will enhance your views of the subculture.

The article is here, and I strongly recommend you read it. I’m going to be summarizing the issue pretty succinctly, so it’s definitely worth a read.

Cross Assault, a Capcom-sponsored event is “the world’s first fighting game reality show.” It features ten contestants, with half being experts of the Street Fighter games and other half being highly proficient at Tekken. Since the show is streamed live online, there’s evidence on the web of all of the reprehensible behaviour that was featured on it.

The primary individual I’m going to be writing about is Aris Bakhtanians, the coach of the Tekken team. To sum up his stance on women and fighting games, he’s quoted as saying that sexual harassment and the fighting game community are “one and the same thing.”

The victim of the harassment in this case is Miranda “Super Yan” Pakozdi, a member of his team. She forfeited a match due to mistreatment by her coach. Below is a video of the first day of the show. Below that are quotes pulled from the clip, in case you didn’t want to hear/watch all of that.

Miranda vs. Sheri mud wrestling cage match, what do you think, Miranda? [. . .] That’s the theme, mud wrestling. And then I get the winner?

How does Miranda smell?

Miranda, I want to know your bra size.

I want to hang a Mona Lisa in the ladies room with the eyes cut out.

That’s all from the first four or so minutes of the video. I’m not certain of whether or not all of the quotes can be attributed to Bakhtanians.

The Tekken coach did email Patrick Klepek at GiantBomb.com with a full apology. To sum up where he’s coming from, he cites the origins of the fighting game scene in arcades as a large part of the subculture. People trash-talked a lot back then and he is, in part, afraid that bringing this world into the public eye will censor a lot of what created it in the first place.

This was a combination of the people taking things out of context and my own inability in the heat of the moment to defend myself and the community I have loved for over 15 years.

In other news, yesterday podcaster/writer Mur Lafferty posted on her website a response to a New York Times article from last year titled “‘Tough, Cold, Terse, Taciturn and Prone to Not Saying Goodbye When They Hang Up the Phone.’” In the article Carina Chocano derided the “strong female characters” that appear in pop culture are defined primarily by being the “strong, silent type.” She also complains that the aforementioned women also show little to no traditionally feminine traits.

Lafferty’s post, “Strong Female Characters, My Own Definition” argues that these characters do exist, and that that they’re “[women] who can take action, who [aren’t] passive.” The following quote was also the one featured on i09’s article [where I discovered the articles]. It’s a good one.

Strength is taking charge of your own destiny and not waiting on others to do so. You don’t have to swear and drink and beat people up and slay monsters. You’re allowed to cry and take care of children and cook and get your heart broken and dress up and date and get pregnant. But when decisions have to be made, a strong character makes them and doesn’t wait for someone else. When a monster is chewing on your true love, you hit it with a stick (or pick up the sword that’s RIGHT THERE.)

I also highly recommend reading both articles, as Lafferty’s fuller, more complete definition manages to soundly trump Chocano’s.

milehighTo end this all off with my favourite subject, comics, Kate Beaton, Carly Monardo, and Meredith Gran created Strong Female Characters last summer, a clear parody of how they saw women portrayed in the media. With names like Georgia O’Queefe, Queen Elizatits, and Susan B. Assthony, these are three ladies who know how to pose while showing off as much of their assets as [in]humanly possible. They featured in a decent number of strips, all hilarious, which can be read at Kate Beaton’s site here.

This has been  attitudes towards feminism in the past week. Three.

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A Response to Kotaku’s “Why a Colonial Assassin’s Creed Makes Complete Sense (and Sounds Awesome)”

Posted on March 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

At least one spoiler present.
                                                                                                                                                                      

No matter the medium, there have always been dominant themes in literature.

I realize that today is Elisa’s day to post, but I just had to get on this Assassin’s Creed bandwagon before it was too late. To get this out of the way, I have played Assassin’s Creed II on the Xbox 360, and enjoyed it immensely. I have not yet had the chance to play its two sequels, Brotherhood or Revelations.

Kotaku and other gaming news sites have released the cover of the game, seen on the right. It’s pretty evident from this that the game will take place during the American Revolution, a far cry from the Holy Land of 1911 and Renaissance Italy. Kotaku’s article, mentioned in the title of the post, is “Why a Colonial Assassin’s Creed Makes Complete Sense (and Sounds Awesome),” and this is a point by point response to what its author, Luke Plunkett, feels about the new setting for the latest in the franchise.

THE REVOLUTION DESERVES BETTER

Plunkett’s point here is that this is an era in American history that’s taken on a “mythical status in the hearts and minds of many Americans.” He then goes on to say that there’s “very little mythical about it.”

What I think he’s trying to say is that the game will help reveal the realism behind the American Revolution, but for some reason I think that using a franchise all about how aliens are working through a group named Assassins to save the world may not be the best way of doing so.

THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE TREES

Here arises the argument that Colonial American will not have the vast cityscapes, et cetera, that the older European settings have. Plunkett reminds readers that cities like Philadelphia were actually quite large.


I question, I suppose, the very title of this particular point. Yes, there will be trees that are scalable, as seen above, but will all of them be this way? I imagine that having an entire forest of interactable objects would be difficult to pull off, but I guess that’s technology these days.

That’s all I really have to say about this. There will be, as he mentioned, churches and ship masts and things to provide those look-out points, so that really shouldn’t be a huge issue.

NATIVE AMERICANA

Yes, I entirely agree. It’s definitely very, very cool that the protagonist of this game is speculated to be, at least, half Native American. It’s a large, incredibly popular series, and it’s fantastic to see a little bit of diversity to mix up the “athletic white male protagonist” that dominates the industry.

GUNS & STEEL

Again, not a point I can argue against. There are those who say that this is a time period in which the presence of gunpowder is too large, but it’s highly debatable. Plunkett is entirely  correct when he says that smaller skirmishes were highly dependent on bayonets and swords. Native Americans, of course, often used tomahawks and bows, both of which are present in the images above.

PLENTY OF TARGETS

Another good point. A block quote will wrap up pretty well what his point is:

You’ve got established colonials. European immigrants from all corners of the continent. Local militias. The Continental Army. The British Army. Tens of thousands of Germans fighting for the British Army. The Royal Navy. The French Army. The French Navy. The Spanish Army. Slaves. Not to mention Native Americans on both sides (and stuck in the middle).

Basically, there are lots of people to kill. You are, after all, an Assassin.

SUPPORTING CAST

Leonard da Vinci appeared [as a gay man, actually] in Assassin’s Creed II, among many other historical figures. That being said, it’s entirely expected that characters such as Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, et cetera, might be making appearances.

An issue that has been brought up a good number of times is that many of America’s Founding Fathers were thought to be Freemasons. Freemasonry has often been connected to the Templars, who are the sworn enemies of the Assassins.

That being said, will this game’s protagonist be trying to assassinate well-known figures in American history? See: the following point-

AMERICA F-CK YEAH?

Look at the cover of the game. Now without bothering to make overly lengthy references to Old Spice commercials, look at it again. It’s the protagonist of an extremely popular video game franchise taking the tomahawk to a British soldier’s face. In the background flies Betsy Ross’ 13-star variant of the American flag. That seems like a loaded image, to say the least.

This is the point I’ve been waiting to get to. Allow me to, again, use a block quote to present where Plunkett is coming from:

I’ve already seen a few people complaining that this is yet another game about America, that it’s a shame to see a series that had been so un-American end up so, well, American. That to me sounds ridiculous. The America you’re sick of seeing wouldn’t be the America represented in a Colonial video game. This is that nation’s origin story, and as such will sound and feel much more European (particularly British) than anything you normally associate with electric guitars and square jaws.

Do I agree? Somewhat. Yes, to follow the story Desmond’s ancestors would have had to make it to America at some point, so I suppose this was inevitable, but did there have to be an entire game about it? Just staring at the cover makes me uncomfortable; it practically bleeds nationalism.

That being said, at the very least it’s no Homefront, the 2011 FPS that’s premise is that North Korea has invaded the US and you’re fighting to win it back. No one with any sense of international relations could see this as being possible, and the very concept is unnervingly jingoistic.

Plunkett ends his article by saying that “the guys making the game [. . .] aren’t American either.” This is true, as the game is being produced by Ubisoft Montreal. Why this studio has decided to go with this concept as well as this kind of approach to marketing the game is questionable, and one I’m interested in finding out. From a general observation I can see this as being a game that appeals to gamers in general [it’s a good series], but Americans in particular.

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Archetypes: Why Wizardry Triumphed Over Mythology

Posted on February 28, 2012 | 1 comment

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone [marketed that way everywhere but in the States and India] was released in 2001. Nine years later Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, the first film adaptation of Rick Riordan’s series of young adult novels, hit the big screen. One went on to spawn a sequel the following year, while the other is taking as long as three. One of the reasons for this, I think, lies in the studio’s portrayals of the characters in their respective works.

I’m not going to go into a great deal about the Harry Potter franchise. The first book was released in 1997, and since then the films have swept up Western culture [and others] up into a wonderful world of witchcraft and wizardry. This post is written under the assumption that you have at least some familiarity with the works.

I opted for an image of them really young, since the majority appear to be just shots of good-looking young people staring somewhat broodily at the camera.

At their foundation, Rowling’s novels are built on a trio. Harry Potter is the chosen one, the courageous hero, the primary protagonist. Second is Ron Weasley, redhead, best friend, basically a wimp [for a lot of the series]. Last, but certainly not least, is Hermione Granger, the girl, the genius, the level-headed one. Clearly this is a team with some kind of equilibrium to it and a formula that works, and this is definitely evidenced in Riordan’s pentalogy.

The Lightning Thief, the book the film was based on, stars Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, talented swordsman, fearless warrior, and new to being a halfblood. Second is his best friend, Grover Underwood, a satyr, kind of a cowardly kid [goat jokes, everyone]. Topping this all off is Annabeth Chase, Athena’s daughter, meaning that she’s definitely got the wisdom thing going on. Clearly if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Before you go to assuming that Riordan’s books are a cheap knock-off, don’t; the series is a well-written take on both Greek mythology and the young adult genre as a whole.

From left to right: Grover, Percy, and Annabeth.

The problem isn’t that the characters appear to mirror those in the Harry Potter books. If anything, this is a strength of sorts, as they’re both familiar and effective. The issue is that the film adaptation of the novel takes these archetypes and throws them out the window. The result is this: three badasses.

In Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Percy, Grover, and Annabeth are all depicted as being a) brave, and b) proficient at fighting, making them essentially slightly different facets of the same archetype. Yes, Annabeth is the one knows more about mythology and magic, et cetera, but she still wields a sword along with the best of them, transforming her from a cold, sharp-tongued girl to an athletic tomboy.

The irony is that Chris Columbus directed both films [as well as Academy Award winning The Help], choosing to faithfully adapt one and tailor the other for a specific audience, going so far as to significantly age the characters. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief has all the signs of a movie meant to catch the world’s attention with action, special effects, and good-looking teenagers. Three traditionally heroic characters are three times as entertaining, or at least that’s what a certain type of logic would dictate.

The film did well regardless, pulling in $225 million and with the sequel supposedly [I reserve the right to express some doubts] dropping sometime next year. Fans of the book, however, are hoping that Sea of Monsters is a much better installment than the first. Full character rewrites are rare, so the best they can expect is a film that respects the narrative of the series, and strives to fit their characters into that.

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Girls: 2 Broke and One New [Pt. 3] – Race

Posted on February 23, 2012 | 3 comments

As you may have guessed by the title, this is the third and final part of my observations about the relatively new shows 2 Broke Girls and New Girl. To read the first two posts about cast and humour click on the respective words, or just scroll down if you’re already on the front page.

RACE

For the most part, I’ve already gone into great deal about this topic and 2 Broke Girls in my post titled “Michael Patrick King, Definitely Not Being Racist.” To summarize a lot of what I’ve already written in a few words, the show is not great when it comes to boiling people of different ethnicities down to their bare bones stereotypes. Or they’re really great at it, depending on your point of view.

Per episode the show has a much greater number of new characters as its stars find themselves stumbling into such locales as a thrift store and a pharmacy in a Jewish neighbourhood. With that being said, they’re given countless opportunities to put different spins on people from different cultures and backgrounds, but fall flat again and again. I’d recommend that you turn to the post I linked to in the paragraph above to get a more in-depth look on the matter.

The show’s approach to race has made it the recipient of a lot of flak, and their most recent decision to alleviate said criticism is to bring in a “hot Asian guy.” A casting call was put out last month which sought to find an attractive male of Asian descent to act as a love interest to Beth Behr’s Caroline Channing. While this may seem to be a dictionary definition for “affirmative action,” it may be a step in the right direction.

On the other hand, we have New Girl, a show whose approach to race is summed up quite nicely in the following video clip:


Just like Morgan Freeman and his approach to Black History Month, New Girl tackles race by not making it a big deal. And it does so flawlessly in the first few episodes. The pilot has Zooey Deschanel’s Jess meet a perfectly nice Asian guy who later stands her up on their date. Yes, he’s made out to be a douchebag, and no, that’s not particularly flattering, but you know what else it’s not? A stereotype.

Similarly, in the third episode, “Wedding,” the newlyweds are an interracial couple, with an Asian groom and a Caucasian  bride. There is not a single character who makes a big deal out of it, and everyone on the show takes it as completely normal. Because it is. This is not a situation I can see the writers of 2 Broke Girls passing up for comedy, and the fact that I’m 100 percent certain of that is a sad thing.

Since it’s not plumbing the depths of New York City for people from different ethnicities and the like, New Girl has less diversity than 2 Broke Girls. That being said, its treatment of nonwhite characters is, well, nothing special, which is great. A mixed race group of students might show up, or an Asian judge [“Bells” and “Jess  & Julia” respectively], but no one makes jabs or even hints at ethnic stereotypes. The closest thing the show gets to a joke about race is Winston’s one-liner about Black Friday [I had a YouTube clip but it doesn’t work now; sory].

I’d seen that video of Morgan Freeman years ago, but it never struck me until recently how true it is. If the media simply acknowledges that we live in an incredibly diverse world and stops calling attention to details as nongermane as ethnicity, then we can live in a world where racism truly ends.

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