Sailor Moon and cultural osmosis

Its odd how much information you can just passively absorb. I don't know if its just because of the internet and how nothing is really niche anymore but its an interesting phenomenon. For instance, I have never in my life watched an episode or read an issue of Sailor Moon in any of its incarnations but I am 90% sure that the following are all true facts:

The main character is a bit of a crybaby and has a magic wand.

She owns a talking cat who keeps fat-shaming her.

Her love interest is called Tuxedo Mask and he is a bit of a git in his civilian identity.

The green-haired Sailor and the androgynous blonde Sailor are lovers and the US translators tried to cover up the lesbianism by claiming they were cousins but didn't edit the footage well enough and so managed to broadcast incest they created themselves on a children's television time slot.

Just think about that last one. That's not a fact, that's trivia. That's the sort of information that would once have been the province of the longtime and attentive fan who went looking for the series' back stage arcana. Now its just something that a random schmuck like me can find out by scrolling through a few anime tumblrs.

Its a silly example but it shows how the internet has basically destroyed any knowledge-based barrier to entry on any form of entertainment.

Multiple versions of the series? You can find out the critical consensus on which is the best in minutes. Want to skip the filler episodes in an anime? Wikipedia will have an episode list telling you which episodes are based on the manga and which aren't. On a related note: if you're getting burnt out on an arc, the same episode list will also probably tell you at a glance (no need to read episode description spoilers) when the arc ends. A series has characters with complicated backstories spread over several other series before they appear in the one you're interested in? Full character biography is just a Google search away.

Its fascinating as a social phenomenon and not at all a sleep deprived rationalisation for why I'm considering watching Sailor Moon: Crystal. 

I may finally watch Steven Universe

I have been aware of this series for a while now and the buzz around the episode Last One Out Of Beach City (from which the above images are taken) has finally convinced me I need to watch this show. The episodes are only about ten minutes long so its not that much of a time investment.

And having decided to watch this thing I suddenly realise how much information I've absorbed just through osmosis. I'm not coming to this fresh. If I decided to watch from the beginning (I'll probably go the edited highlights route) I'd know about the relationship that underpins Garnet's existence; I know that Peridot and Lapis will be redeemed; I'm pretty sure there are no surprises for me in Jasper's motivations; and, how good Pearl looks in a tuxedo.

Obviously, this is all down to the internet. One of the brilliant things about this here medium is that it allows you to research just about anything. Any show or comic or music genre, with a little effort you can get a decent grounding knowledge in just about anything.

This is great because, frankly, without the internet and the way it just delivers discourse and fan art to me I would probably never have even heard of this show that isn't aimed at my age group or carried on any channel that I can readily access. Judging by the buzz (and the utterly amazing fan art) this is a show I'm going to want to see at least a bit of between the fun plot synopses I've read, the rather charming animation style and how people rave about the characters.

Oh, and it apparently really, really gay. When an Englishman of my leanings watches something like this we can basically feel Mary Whitehouse turning in her grave and we take joy in it.

Creators and the Progressive Pedestal

The Joss Whedon thing is still young but there are a few things I want to tease out of it because I think they have value in a broader context. As I said yesterday I don't want to dive too far into the specific scene that started all this because I've only seen it once whilst half-distracted by people around me texting, eating and being generally annoying. No, I want to discuss some more peripheral aspects of this whole thing, first of all the tendency we have to put creators on an unsustainable pedestal.

Let's get some distance from Whedon first because emotions there are running hot and that's never useful to a conversation. One of my favourite webcomics is Go Get A Roomie by Belgian writer-artist Chloe C. One of the most notable aspects of the series is the amazing diversity of its cast which features a surprising variety of sexual and gender identities, each explored in interesting and considered ways. There's even a character (currently) portrayed as asexual and, let me tell you, as someone who identified as asexual for years it is refreshing not only to see that identity portrayed but portrayed with a clear understanding that there's nothing socially or medically wrong with the character. Once the context of her sexuality is understood by the other characters its accepted and any “pushing of boundaries” is either done by her own agency or in reference to the still open question of whether she's aromantic.

(I'm summarising hugely here, by the way, and the character may turn out not to be as asexual as she currently seems but, hey, I'm intimately aware that sexual identity can change so yet again we're in “Yay! Representation!” territory as far as I'm concerned. Seriously, read this comic, its cool.).

Okay, so apart from a two paragraph fanboy plug how does this relate to our subject today? Well, because Chloe C. has several times addressed concern about how people put her on a pedestal when it comes to queer issues. It isn't hard to see why people are inclined to do this, she's a fantastic author and I've learnt things as a direct consequence of her work so I definitely see why its happened. For the record she's expressed her discomfort with the pedestal both on her Tumblr where she's cautioned people that any advice she gives on these issues should not be taken as a definitive statement and in the strip itself through the title character Roomie having insecurities surrounding other idolising her.

(Tumblr, by the way, is probably the worst blogging system that exists for when you want to quote something: posts don't have titles and the archive system uses this not all that useful thumbnail method and though I can't find the post I want to quote, this Ask one pretty much sums up the whole shebang).

So what's wrong with the pedestal? Well, its unsustainable, frankly. People screw up. Everyone. You, me, Chloe C., Whedon, the lot of us. There's no amount of editing or self-critique that's going to stop someone someday putting out something that will play poorly to someone out there, maybe to a lot of someones. To use another example, one of the braver creative acts I've seen on the internet was when Jeph Jacques, writer-artist of Questionable Content, revealed one of his characters to be trans and openly said in a news post:

“I have to admit, I am nervous about posting this comic, because including a trans person in my cast is something I have wanted to do for years and I really, really want to do a good job of it. One of the major themes of QC, I think, is of inclusion, and this seemed like a pretty important thing to include. I have given it a lot of thought and done a lot of research, so hopefully I won't screw up. I'll do my best, anyway.”

(Link.Spoilers in comic)

This brings us to a second issue I want to bring up, a sentiment that I've seen in a few quarters and that I'm going to paraphrase because I don't want to look like I'm calling anyone particular out. This has been expressed in a lot of different ways and to a lot of different degrees but the basic sentiment is this:

“If Joss Whedon can't write good female characters he shouldn't bother.”

Sidestepping the question of what “good” even means in this context because I could write a dozen posts on that alone, the idea that a perfect portrayal is the only one that can be worthwhile is intensely problematic. Jacques introduced a trans character and expressed his concerns that he might not be able to do the idea justice and in other places he's solicited criticism to help him improve that portrayal. In an ideal world criticism is about a social conversation, not necessarily involving the creator under critique but that's a nice bonus if you can get it, about how art can be improved. Just yelling “Stop!” when something isn't perfect defeats the whole point because how does anything ever improve under those conditions?

Also, why would anyone create under those conditions? There's no incentive to take risks there. All the creatives I've mentioned in this post have one thing in common: they're progressives (or liberals or social justice types or however you want to express it). Jacques and Chloe C. identify inclusivity as a central tenet of their art and Whedon came to prominence through creating Buffy The Vampire Slayer which is perhaps most notable for its female and queer characters.

As a not unnatural consequence the fans of these peoples' work are also generally progressives because people tend to latch on to things they agree with. In the dim mists of long ago when I started writing this post I mentioned how I identified with the sexual identity of one of Chloe C.'s characters and that's a big part of why she became a creator I took an active interest in to the point of, say, reading her tumblr and looking up her Deviantart page instead of just reading that one project of hers.

And because progressives are interested in progress (not, y'know, unnaturally) when one of these creators takes a retrograde step, intentional or not, it can make the progressive fan very angry. Progressives are usually politically engaged and by the nature of that we're often politically enraged in what feels like an increasingly conservative culture. So when one of our heroes, one of the people we've emotionally invested in for agreeing with us when so much mass media doesn't, makes a mistake we can take it as a very personal betrayal.

We're not unjustified in feeling let down, I'm not suggesting anyone gets a free pass here. Criticism is an important force that should be applied to all art as a matter of course. Its just that I think we would all (creators, critics and consumers alike) be better served by remembering that no one and nothing is perfect and never will be. Mistakes should be brought up and discussed but by no means should they be reason to disregard all work of the author, let alone future work that could be improved by a reasoned conversation about those mistakes the creative could learn from. 

Extra History and the GOOD side of the internet

The internet is a shitty, shitty place at times. Just this week controversy over a character beat in Avengers: Age Of Ultron somehow snowballed over social media into Joss Whedon receiving death threats and shutting down his Twitter account. That controversy is certainly worth discussing because that discussion could take in a lot of larger issues of female representation in film and also works as a good case study in why we shouldn't put creators on a political pedestal that they'll inevitably fall from because they're human and unable to consider every socio-political angle of their work.

But, of course, this is the internet and so a section of this debate gave in to the human tendency towards extremism and starting screaming threats. This, however, is a discussion for another day, in my case preferably a day when Whedon has released more details about what was said to him and when I've viewed the scene in question more than once.

Today I want to cheer myself up by talking about something good on the internet, something educational that gives me faith that the average person on the net isn't just there to make themselves feel big by screaming their views at the top of their capslocks with zero critical thought applied to themselves.

I want to talk about a little Youtube series called Extra History.

I've written in the past that I believe strongly in populist history. Not dumbed down history, not inaccurate history (though small inaccuracies are sometimes a necessary evil which we'll get to later) but presenting history in an accessible way.

I love history but the history I love isn't the history I was ever taught at school. History at school was very dry, a list of facts that create a very clean and ordered narrative leading from A to B to, about 70% of the time, a World War. The other 30% of the time we were doing the later Tudor monarchs. We didn't get much context outside of the big facts we'd need to know for the exam.

So that's why I love populist history series like The Mark Steel Lectures and the series we're talking today: Extra History.

Let's take one of the subjects I allegedly “learnt” about at school: the outbreak of the First World War. As far as my teachers and, sadly, I was concerned how it went was Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand was shot in a way presented as a sort of dress rehearsal for Dallas 1963 and a few weeks later the war began. We were given no context, no details of the politics that led to the assassination. All we were told, all we were judged to need, was that Ferdinand's death was categorically the spark that ignited the war. I don't even think it was a whole lesson.

A couple days ago Youtube threw Extra History at me in my recommendations and they had a series of five videos called World War I: The Seminal Tragedy. Two things were important about these videos. The first was that it covered the assassination of Ferdinand and the other events leading into the Great War in greater detail than I'd ever heard. They presented the story as grand tragedy, which it obviously is but which school failed to fully clue me in on. The players are presented briefly but concisely and I was startled by the fact that several attempts to kill Ferdinand that day failed and how he eventually died only through a startling coincidence.

The second thing that was good about the series was the final video, subtitled simply “Lies” in which the series writer James Portnow corrects some artistic mistakes (anachronistic flags), common mistakes he made (saying “Moscow” instead of “St. Petersburg” in reference to the Russian capital of the day), confessing that some incidents in the video were based on common readings of events rather than absolute facts and offering some extra context that couldn't fit in the previous episodes due to time considerations. Portnow gains great respect from me for then saying “don't trust us […] don't trust any one source”, which is one of the most important things to learnt about history.

I actually took the fact about Britain's national debt in yesterday's post from the Extra History series on the South Sea Bubble, something I'd heard the name of but had absolutely no idea what it was even though it continues to affect our country's economy. I did make sure to do a little reading before citing it and, though some details were glossed over in the video, the fact was sound enough to use as the basis of a post.

I guess this brings us to the “necessary evil” of small inaccuracies, which Portnow admits to in that one episode. First off these videos are made by a staff of three people and he's the sole writer so there are going to be things he misses. Second is, as he says, its good practice to check you've been told the truth or if there are other interpretations, which the day before a general election I think is a lesson worth teaching for a lot of other aspects of our lives.

But why does this restore a little of my faith in humanity after the Whedon thing? Because Extra History started off as a marketing thing: a series on the Punic Wars paid for by the makers of Rome: Total War but now its paid for, and the subjects voted for, by Extra Credits' Patreon backers. Those backers voted for the South Sea Bubble over the campaigns of Julius Ceasar. They chose an obscure event over one they would have known to be flashy and exciting. Its a decision that was considered and driven in the majority of cases by a genuine desire to be educated. That version of the internet, a tool for education used by people who want to be educated, is one I wish I had more examples to crow about.

[Extra History is hosted on the Extra Credits Youtube channel here.]