Criticism Archive

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A PoR Public Service Announcement: Do not Submit Your Fiction to Starburst Magazine

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 21, 2013Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft

Though I’ve only sold one short story in my life, I’ve had a great many stories rejected. Moreover, I’ve been getting rejected long enough to feel a certain amount of confidence in my ability to parse submission guidelines and the rights that magazines/publishers are looking to buy. In a recent attempt to find a home for my fiction I came across Starburst Magazine. After reading their submission guidelines I feel fully confident in saying the following:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTNACES SHOULD ANY WRITER SUBMIT A PIECE OF THEIR ORIGINAL FICTION TO STARBURST MAGAZINE.

At the time of this post, Starburst continues to accept submissions for original fiction. For the sake of convenience, I’ve reproduced their guidelines below.

Would you like to see your original fiction featured in the pages of Starburst Magazine or online at www.starburstmagazine.com? Then you’ve come to the right place! We’re currently on the lookout for sci-fi, fantasy and/or horror themed short stories, so if you’d like to submit yours for consideration, email it to:

rylan.cavell@starburstmagazine.com

Stories must be 100% your own material, previously unpublished, between 800 – 1600 words in length (for print) and categorically NOT about the zombie apocalypse. (Seriously, we love a good zombie yarn as much as the next person, but the amount of these things out there right now is frightening. And not in the good way.)

Please note: If published, Starburst will retain copyright, but any further use beyond the above will be subject to renegotiation. Additionally, while every effort is made, the demands of the submissions process deem it difficult to offer critiques on all material sent in.

I see two problems with these guidelines. First, they don’t talk about payment. Even if a magazine doesn’t pay, it should say so in the guidelines. More troublesome though is the final paragraph.

“Starburst will retain copyright?” What? That’s not right. By those terms a person submitting their fiction to Starburst is not offering it for sale but surrendering the ownership of said story.

I reached out to Starburst for clarification, assuming this was all just a mistake on my part or a typo on theirs. Here’s my email.

To the editors,

I am writing regarding your submission guidelines for original fiction.

You do not list any per-word or flat rate for payment. At this time are you offering payment for accepted submissions?

You also state that Starburst will retain copyright upon publication of a story. This suggests that you are buying the story outright and in perpetuity. Is this an accurate interpretation?

Cordially yours,

Adam Shaftoe

Starburst responded with the following:

Good evening,

Thank you for your interest in Starburst Magazine. At the current time we are not offering payment. When and if published Starburst will own the rights to the fiction, but this can be renegotiated in the future if needs be.

I hope this clears up any confusion

Rylan

For the record, reputable magazines do not bring up copyright except to reaffirm that it remains in the hands of the author. A sample contract from Lightspeed Magazine illustrates this previous point.  A magazine buys, or is given, certain publication rights. Starburst’s guidelines are on par, if not worse, than what we’ve seen recently from scummy publishers who try to gimmick neophyte writers into surrendering all rights until the sun explodes. At least in those cases the author is still the legal owner of the work in question.

Though I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that these these guidelines are so poorly written that they may not even be actionable under the laws of gods and men – at least not without a highly unconventional contract to support Starburst’s ownership claim on printed fiction. Regardless, the publishers of Starburst Magazine, either out of slime-bag malice or colossal ignorance, have set up a system which appears to appropriate the work of the artists they purport to showcase. This will not do at all.

I encourage all writers, readers, and interested parties to boycott Starburst Magazine, and share any outrage they may feel with the magazine’s editorial team until such time as Starburst’s submission policies reflect a more responsible and equitable approach to publication.

Contacts at Starburst Magazine

EDITOR

Jordan Royce jordan.royce@starburstmagazine.com

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Kris Heys kris.heys@starburstmagazine.com

PR LIAISON

Phil Perry phil.perry@starburstmagazine.com


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The People Versus Zach Braff

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 13, 2013Posted in: Criticism, Movies, The Daily Shaft

I was content to leave Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here controversy alone. I said my piece on celebrities using Kickstarter during my last podcast. But upon witnessing the sheer condescension and doublethink of Mr. Braff’s recent knee jerk to criticism, I’ve decided to build upon my past dialogue.

I view Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowd sourcing platforms as a very high class form of begging, and that’s fine. People who pass the digital plate around are usually saying, “I don’t have the money to do x, but here’s my plan, and this is the endgame. Please invest without actually buying stock.” In theory, crowd sourcing then works as a meritocracy. The essential problem here is that mixing celebrity sponsored projects into the equation has the potential to skew what should be a level playing field.

In this case, it is fair to ask if Zach Braff met his funding goals because people believed in his creative vision, or if adoring fans supported the object of their affection, regardless of the value of his project. The latter becomes problematic and potentially exploitative. I doubt Kickstarter’s founders would claim that the intended purpose of their platform was to facilitate celebrities leveraging their notoriety as a means of funding vanity projects. And in the eyes of this critic, there is a very fine line between passion project and vanity project.

In the wake of criticism from the likes of Ken Lavine, and the internet at large, Braff made the mistake of taking to youtube to defend himself. NB: I say this as somebody who quite enjoyed Garden State and mostly liked his work on Scrubs. So, dear reader, please do not assume I am jumping on board the hate for hate’s sake bandwagon. Where Braff should have applied his celebrity sensibilities and ignored his detractors, he instead he got righteous with the internet.

Braff opens with an attempt to establish a sense of legitimacy as both a citizen of the internet and film maker. Fair enough, I’ll concede Braff’s knowledge of directing outstrips mine. Unfortunately, this opening salvo very quickly turns into a sort of narcissistic doublethink. Braff points out his “huge” social media following, suggesting that “it would only take 20,000 or 30,000 people giving ten bucks a piece” to make his movie. Never mind that he set a fundraising goal of two million for Wish I Was Here; let’s stop and parse his statement. Zach Braff has over a million followers on Twitter. In his hypothetical situation Braff would be mobilizing a mere 2.5% of that fan base. To put this in context, if 2.5% of my twitter followers (at the time of this post) gave me 10 bucks for a production I’d have about $100 – enough for one new podcast quality microphone, but not the mic stand. Perhaps there is something to be said for the online community raising questions about (ab)use of star power in this situation.

Braff further attempts to leverage himself as a member of an online community when he is directly pressed on his celebrity status as a key to kickstarter success. In answering this question he segues into an anecdote involving his publicist reminding him that he was writing a production blog for Garden State before blogging was a mainstream thing. Ah, hipsterism at its finest.

The problem is that Braff doesn’t seem to realize that any points he may have scored for being “one of us” are now tallied against the fact that he’s the kind of person who begins a story with “my publicist just reminded me.” How many other people seeking funding for projects on Kickstarter have publicists? I don’t begrudge Braff his success, and subsequent need for a public relations person. Yet it remains difficult to buy into his dialogue of egalitarian oneness when he’s invoking something that is closely related to celebrity exceptionalism.

In a further discussion on community Braff discusses how he received unsolicited concept art from a German fan. Braff appears genuinely grateful for the support. Yet he never seems to acknowledge that his role in the community is of a first among equals. We might all part of an online space, but not everybody gets people doing things for free on their behalf. By virtue of his mainstream celebrity, he is predisposed to a certain type and quantity of sweat equity that other independent producers can only imagine. Again, this is fine. But when Braff idly suggests that he could call Bill Lawrence if he wanted to really make money, in lieu of working on an independent production, he’s not demonstrating humility; he’s projecting an air of cluelessness about the connections he has within the entertainment industry. Where other producers on Kickstarter will be scrounging talented volunteers, and daring to hope for mainstream recognition, Braff has a rolodex of established industry professionals to call upon. On some level, he must recognize that he’s not just some kid from Jersey with a video camera and a pocket full of dreams. Joss Whedon might have made Doctor Horrible as an indie project, but he was still able to get Fillion and NPH on-board before they’d even seen a script. Braff isn’t Whedon, but he moves in similar circles. Any pretensions otherwise land as, at best, flaky, and at worst, dishonest.

Perhaps the most damning parts of the interview occur when Braff speaks to his critics. He begins with humility but then transitions into condescension: “Those of us involved in social media, or are very web savvy, had to see this was coming.” Really, Zach? What does that mean? Seems to me like you’re suggesting those who disagreed with your vision aren’t as plugged in as you are? He also chalks up the “head scratching and vitrol” directed toward his campaign as a reaction to the unexpected speed with which his movie was funded. It’s all very polite, but there’s a distinct subtext of righteous indignation to Braff’s words. It is as if he’s saying that those who agree with him are clearly hipper than those who dare to question what is happening.

To reiterate, my ultimate point of contention is not with Braff as being “too rich” or too successful to use kickstarter. I don’t have access to his books, so I won’t speculate. I do suspect a great many people find his justification for using kickstarter distasteful. Similarly, his demands for total creative control might echo as hollow and self-aggrandizing. For me, the crux of this issue is Braff’s faux humility and strategic application of doublethink.

Braff talks about nobody making money on indie art house projects. Yet Garden State is an incredibly successful movie in terms of money. It cost, according to Box Office Mojo, $2.5 million to produce and grossed $26.7 million. He talks about Wish I Was Here as a passion project, but then discusses “Presale territories”, and commitments to screen in Rome, Berlin, and Paris. This is not the voice of an “indie” artist who has maxed his credit cards and borrowed from his parents just to submit to a local festival a la Kevin Smith’s Clerks. What it seems like is Zach Braff using Kickstarter to fund Zach Braff Studios, all the while invoking “community” and film school sensibilities as a smoke screen. This is  why people are mad at you, Zach Braff. This is why you need to shut up for a while, then say thank you a few thousand times before making your picture. You said it yourself, Zach, vis-a-vis the disaster of Morgan Freeman’s Reddit AMA, “People can smell bullshit,” and right now your riposte video stinks to the high heavens.


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In Defense of Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar Performance

By
Adam Shaftoe
– February 25, 2013Posted in: Criticism, Movies

Even the greenest of initiates into the ways of prognostication could foresee the critical backlash against Seth MacFarlane hosting the telecast of the 85th annual Academy Awards. It was inescapable. Even as I read an interview in the Globe and Mail featuring two female science fiction writers with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted, the headline in the margin read “…MacFarlane keeps up the Oscar trend of terrible hosts.”

The words that followed were no kinder. Mr. McGinn of the Globe accused MacFarlane sexism, racism, misogyny, and elevating the Franco-Hathaway Oscars to “the golden times of Bob Hope.”

And I must admit that as I watched MacFarlane, who tapped none less than William Shatner as his monologue wingman, my thoughts drifted to an episode of Family Guy wherein Peter Griffin, voiced by MacFarlane, punched Jimmy Fallon in the face. Fallon’s crimes: a propensity to smile and sometimes laugh at his own jokes during his monologues. For the first hour, MacFarlane could hardly get through a punch line without grinning at the camera. While it would be unfair to compare him to the likes of say, Marco Rubio, MacFarlane alternated between zingers and awkward anxiety in equal measure, only gradually settling into his performance. Of course, I don’t blame him for this in the slightest.

MacFarlane’s claim to fame is the sort of comedy which walks the line between brilliant subversion and intentionally offensive. For every Brian Griffin mini-editorial deriding the broken nature of American political culture, there’s a dick joke ridden to death and dry humped into the grave. Amid the institution of Hollywood, MacFarlane is a consummate outsider. Where past hosts have demonstrated some level of Oscar credibility (Franco, Hathaway, and Jackman, come to mind) Seth MacFarlane has never been on a course to collect a golden statue for any of the big awards. This brings me to my first question: why all the surprise and, likely ersatz, outrage at MacFarlane doing what he does best? Was it expected that Chris Rock wouldn’t drop a single racial reference when he hosted? Did audience and critics alike not expect Jon Stewart be Jon Stewart when he twice hosted the Oscars?

For as long as I have watched the Oscars, which began the year Angelina Jolie made out with her brother, I have seen two types of Oscar telecasts: the Oscar ceremony and the Oscar spectacle. What we saw last night was the latter of the two.

The Oscar spectacle is hosted by an outsider who by their nature is allowed to call out Hollywood and the Oscar ceremony as the self-congratulatory circle jerk that it is. What other industry makes such a sensation out of celebrating its own financial success? MacFarlane is perfectly on point when he lampoons the paradox of billions of dollars in box office sales met with perpetual cries of poverty.

Certainly, the likes of Saint William of the Crystal would never have sullied his lips by singing, “We Saw Your Boobs” within the opening number – never mind his most famous character was the 1980s answer to Barney Stinson. But here’s a theory, MacFarlane isn’t to blame for a culture of female body commoditization within Hollywood. Sure the song itself is juvenile and possibly offensive to women in the audience, but so what? One does not simply shoot the messenger for looking Hollywood’s elite square in the eye and pointing out their silent consent in a broadly misogynistic industry. In a business powered by liars, cheaters, phonies, image consultants, publicists, and spin doctors, tut-tutting a comedian for using his trade to hold a mirror to his institutional betters is something of a zero sum game.

Such is the nature of comedy, after all. Comedy deconstructs, offers editorials, and shines light on things which are otherwise uncomfortable. Case in point, is it tasteless of Seth MacFarlane to call Django Unchained a date movie for Chris Brown and Rihanna? Only to mindless fans and Paparazzo who claim a false moral high ground as observers of an obviously toxic situation. Who among us would wait for the TMZ photos were one of our friends perpetually relapsing with the likes of Chris Brown? So why is the issue somehow sacrosanct with a celebrity? More importantly why is MacFarlane being tossed under the bus for reminding us of this uncomfortable truth?

Was MacFarlane racist when he “confused” Denzel with Eddie Murphy? Doubtful. Instead I see an invitation into a broader discussion on African American actors within Hollywood. Perhaps we can start with Anthony Hemingway’s Red Tails retconing the Tuskegee Airmen into extras from Good Times, and in doing so playing into half a dozen of the worst stereotypes seen in African American movie characters. Until MacFarlane does something that says, “A black man can spot a sexy white woman from an altitude of two-thousand feet,” you’ll forgive me for giving him a pass on sock puppet Flight, and making the exact same joke at the expense of Salma Hayek’s accent that Tina Fey’s writers did on 30 Rock.

Critics may bemoan MacFarlane for his performance, but in the end I expect ABC and the Academy will have precious few complaints. Youtube content, of both the licensed and illicit variety, will spur conversation about the Oscars well into the summer. People will remember Seth MacFarlane calling out Hollywood on its “dieting” culture in the same way they recall Ricky Gervais’ Mel Gibson jokes at the Golden Globes. Subsequently the cost to advertise during the Oscars will likely go up next year. Meanwhile the powers that be will get a younger audience, as well as their key demographic, watching Amy Poehler and Tina Fey deliver a non-offensive Oscar ceremony, all of which will tie back to Seth MacFarlane. The dignity of the Oscars will be restored until 2015 when Joel McHale hosts, and we begin this cycle all over again.


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Adam Shaftoe on John Updike on Criticism

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 5, 2012Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft

In my travels about the internet I happened upon six of John Updike’s rules for literary criticism. Though these rules were originally published in Updike’s 1977 anthology Picked up Pieces, I think they remain relevant for experienced contemporary critics as well as those seeking to dip a toe into critical waters. In fact, I suspect these guidelines could be applied as signposts for any sort of critical analysis, regardless of the medium in question; in the interest of brevity, I’ll save said discussion for another day.

A word of warning before we proceed any further. Criticism, like art itself, can often be a very subjective thing. What one person reasonably and rationally justifies as a sound evaluation can just as easily and efficiently be dismissed by another. Therefore, it’s important to take the following rules, as well as my subsequent editorial, with a grain of salt. When art is defined by what the audience is willing to accept as art, the waters of critical consideration can get a bit muddied.

1- Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

In my estimation this is a crucial first step. Reading a text with enough depth to understand the author’s motivations informs the sorts of conclusions that can be drawn from various metaphors, allusions, and sundry literary devices within the book.

Additionally, there is a difference between blaming an author for missing their goals and holding them to account for the self same shortfall. Assume that a dedicated artist is concerned with honing their craft. Showing how a book misses an understood, or explicit, goal is a very good way to help an author reflect on their growth. Moreover, it establishes a meaningful connection between critic and writer.

2- Give him [or her] enough direct quotation – at least one extended passage – of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

Generally, I don’t think this is a hard and fast necessity. Between Google books and Amazon it’s easy enough to find a chapter of a given book. However, there is something to be said of a critic who can find a passage from a book which embodies the novel’s themes as well as the writer’s narrative voice. Alternatively, there are writers whose wholesale style and subject are so unconventional, James Marshall comes to mind, that any paragraph would be sufficient to show off a text’s essential uniqueness.

3 -Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

Again, not a rule I think people need to follow. Updike was writing for a literary market with less access to books and book marketing than the world in which we find ourselves today. This said, rule three speaks to something essential and often absent within a quick, fast, and dirty review market: supporting evidence. Regardless of word limits and other such barriers, if a critic puts a judgement on the table they owe the reader and subject under evaluation some level of substantiation.

4- Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

Yes. Forever yes. Frankly, it is a poor critic who can’t evaluate a text without giving away the ending. One, if not the ultimate, purpose of a review is to help a reader make an informed choice about if they will read a particular text. Spoiling the ending, or giving away the resolution to a story’s central conflict nullifies the need for a review. However, there is a time and place for full-on analysis. In those missives, which can often masquerade as reviews, surprise endings are not sacrosanct.

5- If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?

The ability to compare from one text to another is the mark of a great and well experienced critic. Bearing this in mind, any poser can use Wikipedia to pad a piece with a couple hundred words of name dropping. Even if those references are genuine, filling a review with oblique comparisons can be worse than useless to somebody using a review as a roadmap to break into a particular genre or style.

I’d also offer there’s nothing wrong with a critic who is willing to admit that their personal taste renders a certain book unpalatable. Again, so long as the reviewer is clearly justifying their position – so much so that the reader can compare their own tastes to the critic’s – they are doing their job.

Updike also offered a sixth potential rule.

6. To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge, Norman Podhoretz) try to put the author ‘in his place,’ making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.

Much of this rule exists to protect the critic. Just as authors put a part of themselves on public display through their work, so too do critics. It’s a different sort of vulnerability, but it exists in the moments when readers go out of their way to tell a critic they are wrong/stupid/tasteless.

Also, Updike’s sixth rule speaks to a maxim made famous by Wil Wheaton, “Don’t be a dick.”

Sage advice for all critics.


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On the Virtue of Silence

By
Adam Shaftoe
– November 14, 2012Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Page of Reviews post for a discourse on the virtues of silence.

There are two things I don’t want this post to be: One of them is a rant; the other is a sermon. Yet I find myself a little frustrated by some recent events, so I’ll humbly beg the internet’s indulgence if I deviate from my usual fare.

I started attending genre conventions a few years ago. During this time I’ve been to professional cons, and I’ve been to fan run cons. I’ve attended as a guest and more recently as a panellist. And if there is one thing that really bothers me about con culture, it is creepers who don’t know how to handle themselves around members of the opposite gender. However, better people than I have already discussed this subject at length, so let’s talk about the number two thing that puts me ill at ease within a con: people who don’t know the virtue of silence.

Silence is an underrated behaviour/state of mind. I was first exposed to foundational lessons in silence as a student of the martial arts. There I discovered I was more receptive to new ideas when my voice was quiet. Outside of the dojo, silence allowed me to take new concepts and compare them with my own world view. Throughout university and work life silence was especially helpful in building new skills and thus achieving a measure of personal and professional growth.

As I’m the sort of person who finds new ideas very exciting, I’m often tempted to break the silence if only to share some of the thoughts coalescing in my head. In my less confident moments I also fear people will think me slow or dim witted for not responding to something straight away. Thus, silence can be a very challenging thing, especially when I’m seated in a room brimming with people who share a number of my interests and passions. I expect many other people feel the same way.

Consider then, a panel at a convention. Though geek culture tries to be egalitarian and inclusive, a panel is one of the few places where a pure democracy is out of place. The people on the panel are there to speak on a given subject because they have some unique experience or expertise with the matter at hand. Therein, when I attend a panel as an audience member, I try to practice silence as best I can. I may not agree with everything that is said, but I do not feel disagreeing with somebody, or even emphatically agreeing with them, warrants taking time away from the official programme. If the panel moderator sees fit to have a Q&A session, I’ll make an inquiry then. Otherwise, I’ll talk to my friends and colleagues about it after the fact.

Having attended many academic conferences before participating in my first convention, I take this behaviour as something rather self-evident. No scholar would dare to interrupt another mid-presentation; even between experts who wildly disagree on a subject, there is an expectation of professionalism. Obviously a con is not so formal an affair; yet, I suspect this particular practice is something the world of conventions can and should learn from academia.

Because the only thing I find more frustrating than a member of the audience bogarting my speaking points as a panelist, is listening to that same person prattle on when I am part of the audience. It’s not only disrespectful to the panelists, who have invested time in preparing their thoughts on the topic under discussion, but it’s equally an affront to everybody else in the audience. Brilliant as the rogue audience member’s remarks may be, they should be saved for a time of the moderator’s choice so as not to infringe on both the audience’s and panel’s con experience.

People who attend genre cons often talk about a sense of community, a notion I hold to be quite true. However, we’re an odd sort of self-policing community. This can lead to problems when customs, such as practicing appropriate silence, are understood by most but land as utterly alien to others. The community’s self-policing nature doesn’t lend itself to easily correcting various faux pas or introducing certain folk to ideas held true by the majority. Moreover, calling somebody out for poor social skills can be awkward and may reflect poorly on the person attempting to correct the unwanted behaviour.

Therefore I think we must do better as a community in recognizing and proactively celebrating the virtues of appropriate silence. Ultimately, this issue speaks to a greater level of mutual respect within our community. By corralling our thoughts and saving them for the appropriate time – whether this is at the selection of the moderator or for post-panel discussion in the hallway or con suite – we all take it upon ourselves to ensure other members of our community are having the best possible time. Shouldn’t that be the first goal of a community?

We now return you to your originally scheduled Page of Reviews programming.

…and keeping those details in mind, I believe it is now quite evident that each of Paul Verhoeven’s movies are actually clever social critiques, which only masquerade as easily digestible action movies.


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Critic for Hire: A Thought Exercise

By
Adam Shaftoe
– September 19, 2012Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft

Since the New York Times broke the story on Todd Rutherford’s reviewer for hire service, there’s been no so shortage of justifiable outrage orbiting critics who get paid to write glowing reviews regardless of the text under examination’s actual quality. Over at The Mad Reviewer Carrie Slager calls the transaction of cash for disingenuous praise “unethical on the reviewer’s part and laughably pathetic on the author’s.” At Salon.com Erin Keane says that buying rave reviews is “lazy and counter to the true indie sprit.” Do a few more google searches on “Paying for book reviews” and a theme of near universal condemnation for said practice will emerge.

And generally, I agree with their sentiments. Any critic worth their salt knows not to intentionally misrepresent a given work. So please, dear readers, go forth in this missive knowing that I do not advocate being paid to spread lies.

However, I would ask if it is sensible to expect non-professional critics (that is critics not paid a fixed salary to review life, the universe, and everything) to maintain a level of integrity and impartiality akin to that of the Jedi Knights? Idealism is all well and good, but more often than not it loses out to pragmatism. Allow me to draw a comparison.

During the glory days of the Roman Republic, the Senate thought it best not to pay citizens who held various public offices. The dominant rationale being civic virtue and a sense of service to Rome was ample reward for a year spent as a city magistrate, judge, or septic engineer. This idealism was bolstered by the fact that any Roman who had the means and social connections to consider a life in politics was, by and large, of an old moneyed family. Yet this reality did not prevent a measure of corruption from winding its way into even the lowest levels of Roman bureaucracy.

So as an artistic community, are we not setting ourselves up for disappointment by expecting critics, who probably can’t claim the same sort of financial backing as a Roman aristocrat, to act as beacons of virtue? Indie authors, depending on how they market themselves and the quality of their work, can at least hope to find some form of eventual compensation for their labour. Even if those returns on a self-published novel amount to a penny per word, it’s more than most critics can hope to see given this now explicit expectation of monastic purity and poverty; at least monks received a warm bed, food, and beer in exchange for their daily scribbles.

Once again, I’m not advocating for the sort of disingenuous practices that Todd Rutherford was employing in the name of supply and demand. Yet Rutherford reminds us all that words arranged in a pleasing fashion are a commodity, fiction and editorial alike. Therein he and his ilk illustrate what I see as the crux of this issue. While writers, and perhaps even artists at large, now have venues to create for free with the expectation of deferred compensation, no such effective model exists for independent critics. Those few reviewers who are alternatively audacious or desperate enough to sell their services can now look forward to being anathematized by the writing community, and subjected to the digital age’s equivalent of being pilloried and flogged in the town square.

Still, prosecuting these offenders, at least within a Western tradition of justice, is not always as reductive as condemning a guilty act. Ask yourself if an extreme reaction against buying and selling reviews is warranted when the mens rea is simply a writer wanting to be paid for their words? Show me a writer, any writer, who doesn’t crave a vision of the future where they can write for a living, or even write for the occasional bottle of scotch, and I’ll gladly kiss your ring.

If we take it at face value that the digital age has democratized publications, and further assume that the ideal state for publication 2.0 is a meritocracy wherein good independent authors are rewarded with sales, then shouldn’t it follow that there is a similar revolution awaiting criticism and reviewing? Treating critics and reviewers as a limitless gestalt of free opinions is the same sort of tack some elements in the publishing industry struck with writers prior to the rise of e-publication. We need only look for diminishing sales and stock values to see how mindless adherence to tradition is faring in those quarters.

More to the point, can we really expect this new system to flourish if there are no incentives for reviewers to resist the temptation to mindlessly shill? Perhaps a good place to start is asking if there is a way to reconcile buying a critic’s services without buying the critic wholesale? Because as the indie publishing market grows, the problem of reviewers as paid PR stooges is only going to grow with it.


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Guest Post: KW Ramsey on The Big Bang Theory As A Tale of Misogynist Redemption

By
K.W. Ramsey
– August 8, 2012Posted in: Criticism, Television, The Daily Shaft

I’m not going to lie, I’ve never seen an episode of Community, and in fact I’m a fan of its opposite, The Big Bang Theory. Yes, I know, I’m a terrible person who should be burned at the stake as a heretic, how dare I show myself in public, yadda, yadda, yadda. I tell you this not for public self-flagellation but rather so you’re aware that what I say below isn’t directed as a dig from a non-fan but rather an analysis from someone who actually watches and enjoys the Big Bang Theory.

I wasn’t a fan of the show at first. In fact, I think I’d dismissed it entirely without even seeing an episode as insulting to nerds/geeks and playing upon the tired stereotype of intelligence being a detriment when dealing with members of the opposite sex. (Yes, I know, a sitcom that uses stereotypes as part of its humour, what a shock.)

What turned me around later was the advice of my friend Jeff, an older geek (with the grey hair to prove it – yes I will pay for that comment later) who really enjoyed it and convinced me to give The Big Bang Theory a chance. I’m glad I did, if not completely for the reasons Jeff recommended it.

Yes the show panders to stereotypes about nerd/geek culture, dipping its toe into the shallow end of the geek pool. At the beginning the four main characters, all male, are all outliers of negative aspects of geek culture, used for comedic purposes. They are also misogynists. Okay, I’m sure that statement has upset a few people, but read on before condemning it, as I’m about to explain how they are misogynists and why The Big Band Theory is the tale of their redemption.

So Leonard, Howard, Sheldon, and Raj form what I’ve decided to call the “Four Faces Of Big Bang Misogyny”. I call them that in an effort to keep the scope of discussion narrow as there are many aspects to misogyny and gender relations that I am not an expert at and won’t address, though I do encourage those with deeper knowledge to comment on this piece to engender further discussion. Now, on to the Four Faces.

Howard during a "date night" with TV's Katee Sackhoff

Leonard is the first Face. He is the objectification of women so that they are held up on a pedestal above him and other men, an unobtainable goal that needs to be chased, quested for, and will ultimately remain out of reach. Leonard is the classic “good guy” before he’s turned bitter and resentful and morphed into the second Face or worse. He sees women as the Madonna.

Howard is the second Face. He is the objectification of women so that they are brought down to his level or lower (at least in regards to women he isn’t related to – I’d discuss his relationship with his mother but that’s an essay in and of itself). Howard is the clueless horndog who’s watched one too many rap videos and absorbed far too much of modern culture’s obsession with sex. He sees women as the Whore.

Sheldon is the third Face. He is the anger towards women that manifests itself in arrogance and disdain. Of course, Sheldon treats just about everyone that way, so it could be argued that he isn’t misogynistic, but consider this: the comments he makes about his fellow male scientists, while harsh, are rarely if not never gender-based.  The comments he makes about the female characters on the show quite often are. Like Howard he sees women as the Lesser.

The final Face is Raj. He is the fear towards women that manifests itself in selective mutism and an ersatz homoerotic relationship with other men where he takes on a female role, and of the four I think his version is the most insidious. Raj is, after you strip away the veneer of sensitivity, an old school misogynist raised in culture that still sees women as subservient to men (at least that’s how it is portrayed on the show – I can’t comment on current Indian culture as I’m not Indian nor have I had enough exposure that I can adequately comment). Raj is the hidden misogynist, the one you least expect, and therefore the most dangerous.

So those are the Four Faces, but if The Big Bang Theory is about four misogynists, where’s the redemption?

The redemption comes from how the characters have grown over the last few years, and covers not just the Four Faces but the show itself. At the beginning the focus was on the Four Faces and their struggles to fit in to society when they are so horribly not suited for life outside of their parents’ basements. (Sorry, it’s true – no one in their right mind wants these people as friends, and not because they’re nerds but because they’re just rather unpleasant to each other at times). A lot of the humour at the show’s beginning was based on how odd and pathetic Leonard, Howard, Sheldon, and Raj were. But then things started to change.

First, for the show’s redemption, Penny, the one female opposite the four guys, started to grow as a character. This is an important fact because Penny is the catalyst for change in The Big Bang Theory. She is the one that gets Leonard to actually do something about the attraction he feels towards her and pushes him to become a more rounded individual, a man who can have real relationships with women rather than chasing after unobtainable objects. She also opens Howard’s eyes by turning them black and blue, and is instrumental in introducing him to Bernadette, the woman that will act as the catalyst for Howard’s redemption. In an odd twist of fate, both Leonard and Howard end up on the road to redemption upon obtaining the objects of their affections and realizing that they are more than what they thought.

How do they show their redemption? Leonard breaks up with Penny, dates other women, and learns how to be a more confident partner, which comes to a head in an episode last season where he imagines what would happen if he and Penny got back together. He sees the worst possible scenario and decides to try again with Penny anyway. Their new relationship is a much more mature one, on both sides.

Howard, on the other hand, shows his redemption by having a stable relationship with a woman that is far from what he thought was his ideal mate. Bernadette is sweet, somewhat innocent (hey, she’s a woman, not a statue) and is nothing like the wanton sex-goddess Howard hoped to land. But she’s what Howard needed. After a false start they end up having the longest lasting and most stable of all the show’s relationships. Howard has his eyes opened up and realizes that having a partner is much better than having a living sex doll.

Even Sheldon gets in on the redemption train. The most recent season of the show saw him start to acknowledge he has an intellectual equal who is not only a woman but someone he has genuine feelings for. Of course, this being Sheldon he’s still an arrogant prick with childlike tendencies, a He-Man Woman Hater who’s physically an adult if not emotionally, but at least he’s made progress.

The only person who hasn’t shown signs of redemption is Raj. Not that he hasn’t tried to overcome his fear, but his methods have all been external to himself, through drugs and alcohol, rather than through internal means like the rest of the Four. Leonard, Howard, and Sheldon have all had realizations about themselves and their attitudes that lead to improvement. Raj has not. In fact, at times I think Raj has slipped even further backwards, as evidenced in an episode in the last season where he dated a woman because she was deaf and he could control her through gifts. I do hope that the next season sees the start of an arc where Raj truly starts to get his stuff together and work on his problems.

So those are the Four Faces and their treks toward redemption, but what about the show itself? How has The Big Bang Theory redeemed itself, if not for everyone then at least for myself? By improving and expanding the role women play in the show.

Early on there was an attempt to introduce a greater female dynamic and provide Penny with a female foil in the person of Leslie Winkle. Unfortunately, the writers or show-runners didn’t seem to be up to the task, and Leslie fell to the wayside. From what I remember reading the creators decided to drop Leslie because they just didn’t know what to do with her. A shame really.

The power trio of BBT's female characters in a scene without the men.

Not all was lost though. Both Bernadette and Amy, characters seemingly introduced not with any grand purpose but brought on to act as foils to the guys, ended up staying and finding their niche in the Big Bang world. Even better, with Penny they’ve formed a power trio that provides the writers an opportunity to show the women interacting without the guys around. They have their own adventures and fun separate from the men, which I believe no one actually intended when the characters were introduced. Do their scenes pass the Bechdel test? I don’t know as I haven’t tried to apply it yet. Still, how many sitcoms in recent memory that weren’t exclusively focused on a group of women can you name with a similar power trio?

Is The Big Bang Theory now the example of a perfect show that treats men and women as equals and is a shining utopia for us all? No, not at all. At times it does fall backwards, both when dealing with misogyny and when dealing with the other stereotypes that form the basis of its humour. That being said though it does offer me some hope, which is also a concept at the show’s core. Hope is what motivates Leonard from his first meeting with Penny, hope that he can win the heart of his lovely new neighbour. The hope that he can find love even after losing Penny is what sustains Leonard, and hope, from both Leonard and Penny, that they can make it work with a second try is what brings them back together. Hope is what redeems what could have been, in my eyes, a tacky take on nerd culture and makes it watchable.

In the end hope is wall we have when it comes down to the question, will there ever be true equality between men and women? So in the end, let me leave you with the hope that you find something decent to watch on TV. I know I have.


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0

Curiosity is My Apollo 11 Moment

By
Adam Shaftoe
– August 6, 2012Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft, Web Media

The view from Gale Crater

Late Sunday night, or in the wee hours of Monday morning depending on where you are in the world, NASA’s JPL rover “Curiosity” did what Arnie told us to do back in 1990, it got its ass to Mars.

Huzzah for another triumph of humanity over near space.

At 10:32PDT, under the gaze of the internet, the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, the finest faux hawk in the history of space exploration, and a Dr. Carson Beckett body double, a rover that weighs as much as a small car gracefully landed in Mars’ Gale Crater. During Curiosity’s eight month voyage to Mars it covered a distance of roughly 352 million miles. And unlike NASA’s previous two rovers which fell to Mars cushioned in giant airbags, Curiosity employed a controlled descent via detachable rocket pack and sky crane. Landing at a velocity of about two miles per hour, Curiosity touched down on the red planet with more finesse than most of us employ in getting out of bed.

A lot of thoughts passed through my mind while watching NASA’s live web feed. Foremost among them was what the hell is going to happen to NASA if this two and a half billion dollar space buggy crashes and burns? I quickly pushed such thoughts away, instead letting myself reflect on how I would remember this moment if it happened. In a flash it occurred to me that baring something truly extraordinary occurring in the near future, Curiosity would be my generation’s Apollo 11 moment. And damn if we haven’t needed one.

In my thirty years I’ve seen two space shuttle missions end in tragedy, landers crash into Mars because astrophysicists and engineers couldn’t tell metric from imperial measurements, and the over-budget and underwhelming construction of an orbiting space station which is nothing close to the gateway to the moon that we were promised in the late 90s. Where are my generation’s Neil Armstrongs and Yuri Gagarins? What name is more familiar to the public, Chris Hatfield or Lisa Nowak? Where is the BIG THING that in fifty years will let me preface conversations with “I remember when…” My generation’s relationship with space flight has been one of tragedy, budget cuts, and outsourcing to the private sector.

Like everybody else, I made a few jokes on twitter while I sat and waited. When NASA cut to a video that showed how the orbital paths of Curiosity and Odyssey lined up, I cracked wise about Missile Command. For gamers who remember the 90s, I alluded to a nuclear powered rover being a cover for an XCOM Avenger intent on attacking Cydonia. There may have also been a tweet or two about finding Prothean ruins in Gale Crater. But when Curoisty made its final descent into Mars’ atmosphere, I hoped.

I hoped for more than a safe landing. I hoped Curiosity might be the sort of thing people rally behind. I hoped the collective anticipation and enthusiasm of everybody who was flooding my twitter feed might inspire others to remember that optimism and ambition are good things. And I hoped in the fullness of time Curiosity might find evidence of something that will make this world seem like a smaller place. I also got confused about the time delay between Earth and Mars, but that’s neither here nor there at this point. When the seven minutes of terror ended and the words “touchdown” came through the feed, I cheered. Then I broke out my bottle of special fifteen year old “victory” scotch and had a toast to the collective awesome that is the human race.

The shouts from NASA’s live feed, as well as my own, woke my girlfriend. I told her the good news, she smiled and went to check the non-internet news for coverage.

CBC Televsion was revelling in banalities with re-runs of Dragon’s Den.

CBC News was airing a re-run of a picayune documentary on lottery winners.

CTV 1 and CTV Newsnet were showing repeats of Olympic coverage from the day before.

Canada’s national broadcaster and Bell Media’s flagship stations couldn’t be bothered to interrupt reruns and old news to dedicate five minutes to a story that forced us to redraw the frontiers of human experience. How embarrassing for them. How sad for them to have a moment of live news befitting the likes of Walter Cronkite scooped by Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, John Scalzi, David Hewlett, and us common folk who are so paternally labeled as “citizen journalists”. How utterly tragic for “legitimate” media to perfectly prove its disconnection from the reality of our digital culture, despite pretensions otherwise via flatscreens, ipads, and title cards that include twitter handles. While the CBC and CTV slept, we were there.

And those of us who were there, through the benefit of NASA’s brilliantly executed live feed, were part of something fantastic. Who can say right now what that something might turn into, but we were there for the start of it. Generation X and beyond finally has an Apollo 11 moment. And for the benefit of those among that demographic who look at space exploration with all the cynicism this world can muster, those of us who were there will continue to hope.


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2

The Saturday Shaft: Random Thoughts

By
Adam Shaftoe
– August 4, 2012Posted in: Books, Criticism, Movies, The Daily Shaft

On Art,

Minecraft is a fantastic tool for having fun while creating digital art. But creating art with unlimited resources can diminish the experience. Minecraft builders, save for those undertaking “super” projects, would do well to play in survival mode from time to time. For one, there’s a unique satisfaction in creating a piece of digital art when you’ve had to scrounge for materials. For second, defending one’s project from creepers, zombies, and skeletons is much like defending one’s non-digital art. There are always going to be philistines who want to destroy, dismantle, or piss on the things that you care about. Accept that as a reality to be managed, rather than a thing to be avoided, and the experience will be that much more rewarding.

On Criticism,

Every writer a critic, and every critic a writer; that’s my solution to what Jacob Silverman calls an “an epidemic of niceness in online book culture”. Within the academic world, peer review is an essential part of the writing process. The creative sphere needs a little more of that. Granted getting published, save for writing a blog, self publication, or hooking up with a vanity press, is not easy. Once a writer has climbed that mountain the last thing they might want to hear from a colleague is that their work is wanting. But if we maintain that “critic” is the root of “critical thought” rather than simply “criticism”, we should welcome the feedback of our peers even if it’s not quite what we want to hear. In doing so, everybody grows as a creator and consumer.

Every writer a critic, and every critic a writer.

On Film,

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea is terrible; stop making movies that use it as the central conceit. I’ve met/talked to a lot of writers/artists over the last couple of years, and 96% of them are well adjusted and generally pleasant people. They can also be laser focused, incredibly determined, and passionate in ways that some folk might find surprising. This does not make them misanthropic narcissists who are incapable of holding down relationships with anybody who they have not created – I’m talking to you, Ruby Sparks and to a lesser extent Stranger than Fiction.

On America,

There are a lot of things that America does well. There is one thing America does very poorly: leaving issues of civil rights up to individual states and then a popular vote therein. Civil rights should never be a question of popular opinion, that’s why we call them rights. If they are not universal to all, then they are not worth the paper upon which they are printed. Who thinks that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution would have been better left to regional/state opinion? Such is the stupidity of putting marriage equity in a similar light.


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5

The Thin Plaid Line of Negative Reviews

By
Adam Shaftoe
– July 25, 2012Posted in: Books, Criticism, Movies, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games, Web Media

In recent months, I’ve heard a great many thoughts on negative reviews. I’ll credit one of the best ideas to both Ryan Oakley, author Technicolour Ultra Mall, and Leah Petersen, author of Fighting Gravity. During a panel on criticism at Ad Astra 2012, a panel moderated by yours truly, both Oakley and Petersen suggested that leaving an inferior novel/film/game/whatever to languish in obscurity can sometimes be a better course of action than constructing a negative, albeit fair, review.

At that same convention I had a quick conversation with Sandra Kasturi, co-editor of ChiZine Publications, on the subject of criticism. Therein, she told me a critic should not be afraid to speak their mind as it is their job to assign value to a given work.

When I began writing reviews I found guidance in the writings of W.H. Auden, who framed criticism as something most useful when it calls attention to things worth attending to.

In an alternate timeline where I’m a “professional” critic, in the sense that I work for a publication and use words which elucidate critical thought for a living, I think it would be easy to craft the above mentioned philosophies into a set of grand critical principles. As an “amateur” critic, the issue is slightly more complicated.

Where “professional” critics are always going to receive gratis review materials, not to mention a fortified buffer zone from the subject under review via their publication, the amateur critic’s inclusion in the great game is dependent upon the good will of the publishers. Thus the “amateur” must broach the thin plaid line of negative reviews. In theory, a well crafted review, either positive or negative, speaks to the talent, experience, and ability of the critic in question. In reality, the publisher-critic relationship is about advertising, and no publisher is going to want to work with an “amateur” who makes one of their authors/game studios/clients look like a douche.

So that’s when you default to something that resembles the aforementioned Petersen-Oakley approach of occasionally leaving bad things to rot without comment, right?

Well, maybe. If a critic receives unsolicited review materials, they have every right to say thanks but no thanks. I did that once when a porn studio asked me to review one of their movies.

However, if said critic opts not to put pen to paper, then they probably aren’t going to see anything in the future from that publisher. To my previous example, nobody from the adult entertainment industry has solicited me since I said no to writing a detailed review of their Spartacus porno. (Come on, what would I say in a porn review? Offer commentary on the grunting and thrusting?)

If a critic asks a publisher for a review copy of a book/game/whatever, there’s an implicit, bordering on explicit, expectation that the work in question is going to get reviewed. A failure to complete the transaction on the part of the critic will likely yield the same result as producing a negative review: the end of the association between critic and publisher.

The equation is further complicated when self-published authors and independent productions enter the fray. Suppose a self-published author sends an “amateur” critic their debut novel. The critic then uses their review to demonstrate the inherent flaws of the text, warning potential readers away from investments in time and money. Under the Kasturi model, the critic has done their job. In theory, this is a good thing. In reality, a person who can write has held a person who can’t write to task for their inability to write. Some people (friends, family, fans of the author in question, and bored internet trolls) might be inclined to label that sort of treatment as a very public bullying.

Scenarios such as these contribute to what I see as a troublesome culture of positivity among the ranks of “amateur” critics. Beyond tiring both body and mind with a perpetual good will truffle-shuffle, this positive culture can cripple an “amateur” critic’s transition into the “professional” realm. Ask yourself this, how long would a New York Times book critic last if they loved everything? Would Ebert still be writing film reviews for the Chicago Sun Times if he praised every movie? Such a perpetually positive critic would quickly forfeit their perceived position as arbiter of taste, instead becoming something of a fanboy/girl, or worse, a paid stooge. Why would any editor want to hire such a writer? Furthermore, and even if people don’t want to admit it, readers love a scathing review.

A good negative review, that is to say one that knows how to challenge art without attacking the artist, is a spectacle in and of itself. It’s the reader-writer equivalent of a trip to the Coliseum. The negative review allows opportunities for revelling in collective contempt; those requiring evidence on that point should check the view count on Gilbert Gottfried’s reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. Similarly, the negative review can turn fans of the lampooned work into the most fervent advocates. At that point, a debate about the quality of the work often becomes a secondary concern. The focus shifts to proving the critic wrong and in the process mobilizing/recruiting others to that end. Go ahead and call out Stephenie Meyer and see just how quickly the Twihards assemble and more importantly proselytize. The same could be said for Community fans – myself among them. Say something bad about Dan Harmon within earshot of me and I’ll spend the next twenty minutes explaining why he is a visionary.

 

Thus we return to the Petersen-Oakley model where the bad review still promotes the work in question. Despite that reality, and the truism that any press is good press, there exists a limiting structure that shifts dominion over negative reviews to “professional” critics. The internet may have mobilized an army of well trained and highly skilled “amateurs”, but those critics risk biting the hand that feeds them should they dare to do their jobs and write like “professionals”.


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