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Antifa Turkeesian posted:Midcentury Americans also fetishized photographs as a way of sharing an experience, as seen in the recurring comic storytelling trope of someone being bored by having to sit through a slideshow of their friends’ vacation. Yeah, it's really easy to just take it for granted now, but easy film development advances in the 60s led to a huge boom in American photography. It's a boring trope now, but my grandparents used to tell stories about how whenever anyone got back from vacation there'd be an anticipated dinner party and viewing of the photos. It feels weird and kind of milquetoast, but these were people that grew up in the depression, and now an interstate system was connecting the country as well as affordable air travel becoming more common so there was a huge hunger for seeing a world that was better than the battlefields they saw in WW2. So they and their neighbors hit up all the over the world and share their experiences with each other because no one can really afford to see everything themselves. This may be a too much thought for the topic, but my wife loves going to second hand and consignment stores so I end up spending a lot of time in the souvenir/travel artifact section of the stores thinking on it.
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Dec 7, 2021 06:15
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christmas boots posted:What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man? In-context, I maintain that this is one of the most beautiful sentences in literature. Kuiperdolin posted:I get why authors would get mad but I think the soup thing is actually cool and hilarious. This sounds more like something Dibbler would do IN a Pratchett novel, than something a real world publisher would do TO a Pratchett novel.
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Dec 7, 2021 06:59
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Dibbler actually did do it in Moving Pictures and I now realise that's probably where he got the idea for the joke. I mean, yeah, it's a subliminal advertising joke done Discworld style, but that German publisher had to be on his mind.
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Dec 7, 2021 07:41
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Apparently they were pretty bad translations all around, too. And the publisher still doesn't seem to know what they did wrong.
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Dec 7, 2021 07:59
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Apparently they were pretty bad translations all around, too. And the publisher still doesn't seem to know what they did wrong. For years Iceland's translation of Dracula was a totally different story because no-one who spoke both languages bothered to double-check.
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Dec 7, 2021 08:31
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DontMockMySmock posted:A few of the books, mostly the Rincewind books, have some somewhat problematic depictions of women. They're a lot better than the sword-and-sorcery books they're parodying (a low bar for sure), but it does get a bit awkward when character after character is described as big-breasted and blonde and you can really feel Pratchett's horniness coming through. Fortunately, that almost entirely goes away after the first five books or so, with the exception of the character Angua. Disclaimer: I haven't read the very early ones in years, but I remember the stereotypical female warrior Rincewind meets (Herrena the henna-haired harridan) is specifically described as not being, you know, dressed in a chain mail bikini, like he says she wears leather, but only because its practical, it's not That Kind of leather. There is the Anne Maccaffrey stuff later on, yeah...
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Dec 7, 2021 08:54
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Pookah posted:Disclaimer: I haven't read the very early ones in years, but I remember the stereotypical female warrior Rincewind meets (Herrena the henna-haired harridan) is specifically described as not being, you know, dressed in a chain mail bikini, like he says she wears leather, but only because its practical, it's not That Kind of leather. There is the Anne Maccaffrey stuff later on, yeah... I've said for a while there's a problem with a lot of fantasy artists that they'll just draw cliché and cheesecake no matter what you tell them.
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Dec 7, 2021 09:10
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On Discworld covers, after Josh Kirby died, Pratchett was pretty open about how he’d patiently listen to authorial instruction, nod along, and then by and large just go do his own thing, even when Pratchett had become a huge success. Didn’t even seem mad about it, just accepting that that’s how Kirby was. Pratchett had a much closer relationship with the subsequent illustrator, Paul Kidby, which led to a more coherent, I guess, look for Discworld art. That said I’d probably pick a literal four eyes over uh https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/61/21/b46121cb31471475ef9e554ab5119aa4.jpg
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Dec 7, 2021 09:36
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I feel like the ridiculous cover art kinda helped with how early Discworld leaned into parodying fantasy novels before it went more or less into its own thing.
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Dec 7, 2021 09:48
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A bit of an unusual twist this one: media that's aged poorly not because society moved forward, but because context got lost. When Oswald Moseley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists and all-round openly-Nazi shitbag died, a lot of British newspapers went all  with their obituaries, quietly brushing his past under the carpet.Satirical TV show Not The Nine O'Clock News weren't willing to let people forget that the dead man the newspapers were all gushing about was a Nazi, so they did this: https://youtu.be/LPCZvYu0QBA But without the context that this was what was going on at the time, (and with nazis being a thing that actual politicians are going to bat for again) it doesn't read all that well.
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Dec 7, 2021 11:46
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Kit Walker posted:Terry Goodkind was an absolute bellend with an ironic lastname. I also just found out he died last year so that's some great news for today Oh hey cool! Looks like the cause of death wasn't publicly released, but he was apparently 72, so it probably wasn't anything too wild. The world brightens with his absence. Now for Piers Anthony, who is to pederasty what Goodkind was to objectivism. Hopefully he goes out in such a way that they have to investigate his property.
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Dec 7, 2021 12:05
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christmas boots posted:IIRC there were a lot of Japanese tourists visiting foreign countries in the 80s before the bubble burst. My guess is that the large groups thing was either because the vacations were prepackaged tour groups or it was some sort of "We don't know the language super-well so if we go in a big group we should be able to figure it out and at least we'll be safer" kind of idea. 1) Organized group trips, as you said. 2) The fact that in 80s there were no smartphones and, while it was not uncommon for a family to own a camera, Photography was mostly the realm of the hobbist; cameras were expensive and bulky - also quite noticeable when used. Japan was producing a good chunk of the top tier equipment and it was relatively cheaper for Japanese people to own and operate cameras compared to the rest of the world. This means that a group or organized tourist from other countries would have less camera/tourist on them compared to a group of tourists from Japan. 3) The fact that in the 80s certain countries had very little native Asian-x population and that immigration from Asia was also not as diffused as it is today. Once again, a group or organized tourist from, IE: Spain visiting Rome would stand less out of the crowd of (monocultural, predominantly caucasian) local population compared to a group of Japanese tourists.
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Dec 7, 2021 12:31
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Ragnar34 posted:Oh hey cool! Looks like the cause of death wasn't publicly released, but he was apparently 72, so it probably wasn't anything too wild. The world brightens with his absence. It was almost certainly COVID, but the dude was a 'DO NOT COMPLY/CUCKMUZZLES!!!!1111!!!11!' type, so his estate doesn't want to say.
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Dec 7, 2021 13:26
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Pookah posted:Disclaimer: I haven't read the very early ones in years, but I remember the stereotypical female warrior Rincewind meets (Herrena the henna-haired harridan) is specifically described as not being, you know, dressed in a chain mail bikini, like he says she wears leather, but only because its practical, it's not That Kind of leather. There is the Anne Maccaffrey stuff later on, yeah... Well, it's been a while since I've read the early ones, too, so I may be exaggerating here. But despite not having a bikini, I remember Herrena still being described in a very men-writing-women way. And there's the dragon-rider princess in Colour of Magic, who IIRC does actually wear a bikini. And then there's Conina in Sourcery, and probably one or two others that I'm forgetting. I just remember there being a lot of discussion of breasts in those early books, to the point where every female character who isn't an old woman (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg) or a child (Esk, Ysabell) has their bust size discussed at length. edit: to be perfectly clear, I'm not tryna cancel Pratchett here, I fuckin love his books and he got a lot better at writing women a little later in his career.
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Dec 7, 2021 14:09
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DontMockMySmock posted:Well, it's been a while since I've read the early ones, too, so I may be exaggerating here. But despite not having a bikini, I remember Herrena still being described in a very men-writing-women way. And there's the dragon-rider princess in Colour of Magic, who IIRC does actually wear a bikini. And then there's Conina in Sourcery, and probably one or two others that I'm forgetting. I just remember there being a lot of discussion of breasts in those early books, to the point where every female character who isn't an old woman (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg) or a child (Esk, Ysabell) has their bust size discussed at length. The early Discworld novels were parodies. The dragonrider woman wore three napkins and string because that's how the characters she was based on were dressed (and the men did too). And Conina wears the chainmail bikini for the same reason Cohen goes round in a posing pouch - it's what's expected for barbarians. So it's not the Disc books that have aged badly; it's the source material.
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Dec 7, 2021 14:21
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Jedit posted:The early Discworld novels were parodies. The dragonrider woman wore three napkins and string because that's how the characters she was based on were dressed (and the men did too). And Conina wears the chainmail bikini for the same reason Cohen goes round in a posing pouch - it's what's expected for barbarians. So it's not the Disc books that have aged badly; it's the source material. Is it really "parody" if you just do the thing though?
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Dec 7, 2021 14:24
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DontMockMySmock posted:Is it really "parody" if you just do the thing though? yes, its still parody even if it isn't spelled out with a big blinking sign reading SATIRE
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Dec 7, 2021 14:33
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Pratchett is probably one of the least horny fantasy/sci-fi writers out there, at least from the ones I can think of. Most of his characters are terminally awkward in an endearing way, mostly over the whole "sex" thing or just completely asexual. The only exception is Nanny Ogg, who might be the only non-creepy, sex-positive elderly woman in... probably the entirety of genre fiction.
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Dec 7, 2021 14:45
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The weirdest Japanese Tourist joke is in Rosemary’s Baby.
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Dec 7, 2021 15:08
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:yes, its still parody even if it isn't spelled out with a big blinking sign reading SATIRE furthermore, it's not diahorrea, I'm making a clever parody of people who poo poo their pants
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Dec 7, 2021 15:10
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I found the herrena description:quote:In fact, the hero, even at this moment galloping towards the Vortex Plains, didn't get involved in this kind of argument because they didn't take it seriously but mainly because this particular hero was a heroine. A red-headed one.
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Dec 7, 2021 15:15
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DontMockMySmock posted:Is it really "parody" if you just do the thing though? Yes, see how Airplane parodied Zero Hour, often by using the exact same lines of dialogue.
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Dec 7, 2021 15:52
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The fun thing about parody is it was doing something ironically before that concept was a thing
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Dec 7, 2021 16:28
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Or the April Fool's episode of Sealab 2021 which was just a completely unaltered (except for the end shot) episode of Sealab 2020 and showed everyone just how mind-numbingly dull the latter show was.
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Dec 7, 2021 16:29
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christmas boots posted:What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man? “ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.[...] LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?”
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Dec 7, 2021 16:33
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CharlestheHammer posted:The fun thing about parody is it was doing something ironically before that concept was a thing The thing with being a hipster before it was cool is that being a hipster was never cool.
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Dec 7, 2021 17:01
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Ror posted:I always thought Earthsea was supposed to be the gold standard for non-problematic fantasy, but I still have those books sitting unread so I can't personally vouch. I've only read the first one but it is fantastic. K Le Guin stuff has aged well, and Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favourites if you haven't read anything by her. That one is less YA than Earthsea too
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Dec 7, 2021 17:04
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Samovar posted:Yes, see how Airplane parodied Zero Hour, often by using the exact same lines of dialogue. The Airplane producers had to just buy the rights to Zero Hour because they were using so much of the original movie.
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Dec 7, 2021 17:27
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It makes watching Zero Hour now deeply surreal because it's so nearly the movie you remember. Terry Pratchett got better about his female characters really fast. Stephen King got a lot better in later work too and I feel like both of them were more accidental background sexism than the kind of tedious horny bullshit you see in so much older genre work written by straight dudes. Sometimes I think of Asimov's creation Susan Calvin who was a genius but just couldn't really operate on a human level because dang it, she didn't have children.
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Dec 7, 2021 17:39
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I know we’ve mentioned that Star Trek with the “lady diplomat” who dies and lets an alien energy blob inhabit and drive around her corpse after death because she wants to vicariously enjoy the pleasures of heterosexual marriage and child-rearing that she denied herself by having a career. The alien energy blob is glad for this opportunity to give up omnipotence and immortality to grow old and die because it’s the only way the man she loves can stand to be around her. It’s a happy ending!
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Dec 7, 2021 17:44
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I've read more than one late-era Ray Bradbury work that was just "I went back in time and met a nice sexy lady :-)"
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Dec 7, 2021 17:58
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Earthsea is cool because LeGuin returned as a mature writer something like 20 years after the third book, came to the conclusion that there had been an significant unconscious strain of sexism in her writing, and basically set out to address that thoughtfully in three further books. Not that the earlier books were all that sexist by 1970s standards tbh but there was some casual stuff about women’s magic being wicked or worthless, and more generally the whole order of wizards on Role were all dudes. Having LeGuin come back and complicate that in an interesting way while owning up to her own changed understanding of feminism in forewords was really cool. Like the opposite of what Rowling did, kind of.
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Dec 7, 2021 18:00
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Le Guin is wonderful. Always Coming Home is my favourite book I think.
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Dec 7, 2021 18:10
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HopperUK posted:Stephen King got a lot better in later work too and I feel like both of them were more accidental background sexism than the kind of tedious horny bullshit you see in so much older genre work written by straight dudes.
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Dec 7, 2021 18:15
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Ellie Trashcakes posted:Oh no, King is a master of tedious horny bullshit that is also incredibly gross nah, King is pretty good at keeping his own dick in his pants the thing is that King is a good writer - he writes about sex and about people and about desire, and most every fiction writer should be doing that. The problem isn't writing about sex or attractive people in and of themselves, but writing in a way that denies agency/is objectifying/where you can tell the writer is getting off to their own writing (which is also fine if it's erotica but gross when jammed into another text, most frequently by cis men). King has a pretty good handle on keeping things at a remove, though. I read Bag of Bones (early 2000s) recently, where a major pillar of the plot is King's usual Maine-ish writer guy main character recovering from grief for losing his wife, then getting entangled with a younger woman literally half his age. And King goes hard on describing how attractive the young woman is, all the things that the character reads as come ons and all of that - and then immediately castigates his main character for how gross he's being about all these things, repeatedly pointing out that the woman is just doing normal things and it's his own dick leading him around and that's inappropriate. Eventually, the two do strike up a mutual, consenting relationship that is initiated by the woman, and without spoiling it, it is configured as a site of abject horror just as immediately. It's very clear that King is evoking sexual desire and sexual interest as part of character development and the horrific elements of the book, not just to go "oh drat i'm a good writer I get to write about hot young women and everyone reads it across the world unf unf." King doesn't write books about old writers or professors who are just so entranced by young women who fix everything in their lives and make them feel young and virile (shudder) again, he writes books about people living American lives with American desires and fucks them up with horrifying things. There are certainly things to critique in King's writing (his continual return to stereotyping Black people and his novels frequently involving a magical intellectually challenged savant who saves the day), but King's gender politics, by and large, are pretty good. A man who's only thinking about women as sex objects he can gently caress is not a man who would write Dolores Claiborne.
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Dec 7, 2021 18:28
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Arivia posted:nah, King is pretty good at keeping his own dick in his pants Have we been reading the same King? Terrible hair, glasses, looks like a bulldog?
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Dec 7, 2021 18:32
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Arivia posted:nah, King is pretty good at keeping his own dick in his pants The dude who can’t stop himself from describing how women’s (and underage girls) nipples get super hard when they feel any emotion? That Steven King? The child-sewer-sex-orgy guy?
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Dec 7, 2021 18:39
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Can’t bring up King in this thread without bringing up the child gangbang in It. I had forgotten about it when I reread it a decade or so ago. What the gently caress, Steve?
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Dec 7, 2021 18:42
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HopperUK posted:Le Guin is wonderful. Always Coming Home is my favourite book I think. She really is. My favourite is probably The Dispossessed
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Dec 7, 2021 18:51
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GreenMetalSun posted:The dude who can’t stop himself from describing how women’s (and underage girls) nipples get super hard when they feel any emotion? That Steven King? The child-sewer-sex-orgy guy? I think Steve's explanation of the sewer orgy makes sense, it's a bunch of teenagers trying to make sense of themselves and their relationships under incredible stress. Is it normal? No. Is it hosed up? Yes. Does it make sense in the context of a horror novel with a bunch of warped relationships? Yes.
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Dec 7, 2021 18:54
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