They re-made the movie "Fame," while I think this is an extraordinarily bad move, I started thinking to myself how tired I am of all the "re-makes" and "re-imaginings." See, now I hear that they are remaking the "Highlander" film. My question: Why couldn't they have taken both of them, and just mashed them up? Imagine it, a bunch of immortal dance students that have to decapitate each other in order to become the best...You wouldn't even have to change the lyrics too much....
"Fame! I'm gonna live forever, there can be only one!"
I know I don't get a whole lot of readers, but for those of you that do, what would you like to see Hollywood "re-imagine" together?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Photoshop, self-confidence, and gender equality
France to ban Photoshopping? Because people don't have enough to worry about, the French have decided to step in and say "Enough is enough! Photoshopping is wrong!" They believe that the images that are displayed cause young girls to have an unrealistic body image, and thus resort to anorexia and bulemia. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but I'm sorry kids, it's human nature to idealize and idolize. As long as there has been artists in the world, there have been idyllic models. Yeah sure you don't see a whole lot of people whining and moaning about the work of Botticelli giving women an unrealistic expectation about the female form. At the same time, that was the image of beauty THEN.
Guess what? These things CHANGE. That's right, what we consider beautiful now will be different in another ten years. If you don't believe me go back and look at your grade school yearbooks, then your high school yearbooks. Look at your hairstyle, do you really believe that looks good? You might've when you did it.
So basically, they're saying that they'll be charging close to $50,000.00 to anyone who creates a Photoshopped image in: "newspaper and magazine advertising, press photos, product packaging, political campaigns and art photography."
Translation from the bullshit: Anywhere.
And so, if you want to create an image in Photoshop and display it in France, it will be required to have a warning on it saying that the image was edited using graphic software and that "Objects in the Print may be larger than they appear." God, do I love the stupid people, they make the world go round. To boil this down even further, if you send an edited image into France, it has to have a warning on it, like a pack of cigarettes. I've got a better idea, how about we just change our standards a little bit and promote intelligence? Teach our kids that not everything they see is real, and give them a little self-respect to be who they are as opposed to the clones they strive to be?
Eh, I know it'll never work. That would require parents to talk to their kids for a change.
Something else that bothers me: Everyone is so focused on little girls having a bad body image. What about the boys? As we grow older, we understand that we're less desirable than whatever putz is on the screen showing off six-pack abs. They Photoshop men in the Fitness magazines too. You think they stay in business because they have a new "Flat-abs in six weeks." diet every month? Jeezus, they don't even have time to get the first flat-abs diet done before they're posting the new one, so you really think guys are all that self-confident? Nah we hide it under a false showing of bravado; we're just as insecure, maybe more so, we're just better about lying about it. I mean hell, look at all the advertisements we're exposed to about the size of our genitals! I get 50 emails a day that want me to extend, expand, lengthen, widen, harden my penis. If I listen to the radio, I hear a sultry voice telling me that I need to increase my girth, and I hear a guy talking about how taking another product has made him dependent on taking this product to perform sexually (I'm not sure that's such a great selling point). Granted the media doesn't really like men to begin with. Look at gender roles in advertising: You see a man, vexed at his health problems attempting to figure out why it is he must eat a bowl of high-fiber cardboard first thing in the morning so that he can be regular. In walks his beautiful and intelligent wife. He is flummoxed by the sheer concept of fiber=regularity, she has all the answers. Man dumb, woman smart. Later, they'll show a man attempting to do work on his home. He is clumsy, awkward and obviously incapable of performing the task at hand, so what do they do? Cut to the beautiful, intelligent wife, that has all the answers and knows which professional to call because her idiot husband is obviously so out of his element he would never think to call a professional on his own. Advertising isn't the only one that displays this. Look at the sitcom. Over the years the father figure has been increasingly reduced in his role, and instead of the person that the family looks to for answers, the man is reduced to being the punchline. Usually, the situation the family is placed in is because the male head of the household is incompetent, greedy, lecherous, and needs his wife to save him from himself.
So I propose this: If France does, in fact, require a warning label stating that an image has been enhanced in Photoshop or some other digital editing device, we require all advertising to say "You're okay exactly the way you are." Or "All men are not morons, they are simply depicted in this way because the writers are too afraid of feminist groups complaining about the female lead occasionally making a mistake."
Just my two cents and I'm hoping for change,
X.
Guess what? These things CHANGE. That's right, what we consider beautiful now will be different in another ten years. If you don't believe me go back and look at your grade school yearbooks, then your high school yearbooks. Look at your hairstyle, do you really believe that looks good? You might've when you did it.
So basically, they're saying that they'll be charging close to $50,000.00 to anyone who creates a Photoshopped image in: "newspaper and magazine advertising, press photos, product packaging, political campaigns and art photography."
Translation from the bullshit: Anywhere.
And so, if you want to create an image in Photoshop and display it in France, it will be required to have a warning on it saying that the image was edited using graphic software and that "Objects in the Print may be larger than they appear." God, do I love the stupid people, they make the world go round. To boil this down even further, if you send an edited image into France, it has to have a warning on it, like a pack of cigarettes. I've got a better idea, how about we just change our standards a little bit and promote intelligence? Teach our kids that not everything they see is real, and give them a little self-respect to be who they are as opposed to the clones they strive to be?
Eh, I know it'll never work. That would require parents to talk to their kids for a change.
Something else that bothers me: Everyone is so focused on little girls having a bad body image. What about the boys? As we grow older, we understand that we're less desirable than whatever putz is on the screen showing off six-pack abs. They Photoshop men in the Fitness magazines too. You think they stay in business because they have a new "Flat-abs in six weeks." diet every month? Jeezus, they don't even have time to get the first flat-abs diet done before they're posting the new one, so you really think guys are all that self-confident? Nah we hide it under a false showing of bravado; we're just as insecure, maybe more so, we're just better about lying about it. I mean hell, look at all the advertisements we're exposed to about the size of our genitals! I get 50 emails a day that want me to extend, expand, lengthen, widen, harden my penis. If I listen to the radio, I hear a sultry voice telling me that I need to increase my girth, and I hear a guy talking about how taking another product has made him dependent on taking this product to perform sexually (I'm not sure that's such a great selling point). Granted the media doesn't really like men to begin with. Look at gender roles in advertising: You see a man, vexed at his health problems attempting to figure out why it is he must eat a bowl of high-fiber cardboard first thing in the morning so that he can be regular. In walks his beautiful and intelligent wife. He is flummoxed by the sheer concept of fiber=regularity, she has all the answers. Man dumb, woman smart. Later, they'll show a man attempting to do work on his home. He is clumsy, awkward and obviously incapable of performing the task at hand, so what do they do? Cut to the beautiful, intelligent wife, that has all the answers and knows which professional to call because her idiot husband is obviously so out of his element he would never think to call a professional on his own. Advertising isn't the only one that displays this. Look at the sitcom. Over the years the father figure has been increasingly reduced in his role, and instead of the person that the family looks to for answers, the man is reduced to being the punchline. Usually, the situation the family is placed in is because the male head of the household is incompetent, greedy, lecherous, and needs his wife to save him from himself.
So I propose this: If France does, in fact, require a warning label stating that an image has been enhanced in Photoshop or some other digital editing device, we require all advertising to say "You're okay exactly the way you are." Or "All men are not morons, they are simply depicted in this way because the writers are too afraid of feminist groups complaining about the female lead occasionally making a mistake."
Just my two cents and I'm hoping for change,
X.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Where was I?
I made the mistake of turning on my radio at 8:50 this morning, but instead of the usual radio antics I am accustomed to, I was met instead with somber voices re-telling the tragedy that happened eight years ago. There are very few moments where you remember exactly where you were:Pearl Harbor, JFK's assassination ( I hadn't been born yet), The Death of John Lennon ( I was two years old at this point, and my parents weren't huge Beatles fans), and then there was 9-11-01. At the moment of impact, I was in my office, doing some paperwork, while the television in my office crackled and showed images of the towers through "snow" (To those of you not old enough to ever remember getting anything less than a digital signal via cable or satellite, snow is interference in the signal, usually due to atmospheric conditions.) When I saw the first plane hit, I literally dropped everything I was holding. Papers scattered everywhere and my knees buckled and I fell backwards into my desk chair and reached for the remote to turn the volume up, to find out what was going on. I watched, dumbfounded, as the second plane hit the second tower, and shuddered as I watched all those people falling or leaping to their deaths. I felt truly helpless, I didn't know what to do, who to call, or what to expect next. That was when Tony walked into the office. I fought back tears as I tried to explain to him what had happened, he was stunned, and didn't believe me, so we turned on the television in the front office so he could see for himself. As I watched the second tower crumble, I thought out loud that this was not the end of this, and minutes later a third plane hit the pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field 80 miles from Pittsburgh. I felt helpless, and I didn't know what to do next. My first instinct was to try and call all of my friends in New York and New Jersey, because they all lived or worked near the towers, and to call family friends that live in DC because they work so close to the Pentagon. I couldn't sit through work that day. Shortly after the last plane crashed, I went home, curled up in the corner and did what most of us did, I watched close to 24 straight hours of Cable News. I would have liked to gone back to New York, and volunteered, but I really had no means of getting there, or back, nor did I have any search-and-rescue training. I felt helpless, and it made me angry. Before I did any of these things though, I called and wished my kid sister a happy birthday.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Cinema
I'm a visual artist, so naturally, I love movies. I'm not a huge fan of movie theaters though. There's nothing like spending an arm and a leg at the local megaplex so that some obnoxious people can spend the entire time either talking, texting, or just generally being a pain in my arse. Don't even get me started on people who bring infants to a movie. I'm not talking small children, sometimes smaller children can behave if they're interested enough in the film. I'm talking about the morons who took the 9-month-old to see Blade:Trinity. That's right sitting two rows in front of me, in an action movie, with lots of gunfire and explosions was a child in a car seat. How do you think that fared? I know that at that age they probably aren't processing the images they see on the screen, and forming a fight or flight response, but the sounds have to be absolutely terrifying.
Occasionally, I'll score passes to see a sneak preview to some film that hasn't been released yet. This was the case with the movie "State of Play." these things are always packed solid, there's no room to even breathe and inevitably you will have every possible movie-going stereotype in the theater with you. I was sitting next to the "Tech-addict." this was a woman in her late thirties, early forties who spent the entire movie with her cell phone in her hand, TEXTING. Her blistered thumbs slapping the keypad through 90% of the film with that little LCD screen shining, a major distraction from the screen itself. A few seats down from my wife was the person that spoke to the screen, as though this was not art imitating life, but life itself, and that somehow, we were able to offer input on what direction the characters on the screen would take with their lives. I'd like to offer an opinion on this: If this were possible, then movies would be MUCH SHORTER.
"Don't go in there! You'll get your ass killed!"
"Killed you say? Well, I'll go off and have a cup of tea instead, and you can sit and watch me write my memoirs."
Somehow, it just doesn't have the same impact.
I prefer the cheap theaters. They're usually pretty empty, and the tickets are only three bucks apiece, so if it's a real piece of cinematic garbage (I'm looking at you, Babylon A.D.) I don't feel as though I've lost all that much. Sure you have to wait a little while to see whatever movie it is you've been waiting for, but you know, the less hassle I have in the theater, the better.
Other than that, I'm a huge fan of the Drive-In Movie. We have one only one exit away from us and they usually have first run films, two for the price of one, and often times they'll have triple features. Sure you don't get out of the movie until about three in the morning, but it's great fun, you're in the comfort of your own car, the movie's volume is controlled by your car stereo, and it's very compartmentalized, the most distracting it gets is when some jerk doesn't turn his lights off when he's sitting behind you. The best part of the Holiday Drive-In in Hamilton is the fact that they're open year round. My wife and I loved going there mid-winter. Sure we'd freeze our asses off, but it was still a lot of fun, and in the winter you wouldn't get out as late.
Occasionally, I'll score passes to see a sneak preview to some film that hasn't been released yet. This was the case with the movie "State of Play." these things are always packed solid, there's no room to even breathe and inevitably you will have every possible movie-going stereotype in the theater with you. I was sitting next to the "Tech-addict." this was a woman in her late thirties, early forties who spent the entire movie with her cell phone in her hand, TEXTING. Her blistered thumbs slapping the keypad through 90% of the film with that little LCD screen shining, a major distraction from the screen itself. A few seats down from my wife was the person that spoke to the screen, as though this was not art imitating life, but life itself, and that somehow, we were able to offer input on what direction the characters on the screen would take with their lives. I'd like to offer an opinion on this: If this were possible, then movies would be MUCH SHORTER.
"Don't go in there! You'll get your ass killed!"
"Killed you say? Well, I'll go off and have a cup of tea instead, and you can sit and watch me write my memoirs."
Somehow, it just doesn't have the same impact.
I prefer the cheap theaters. They're usually pretty empty, and the tickets are only three bucks apiece, so if it's a real piece of cinematic garbage (I'm looking at you, Babylon A.D.) I don't feel as though I've lost all that much. Sure you have to wait a little while to see whatever movie it is you've been waiting for, but you know, the less hassle I have in the theater, the better.
Other than that, I'm a huge fan of the Drive-In Movie. We have one only one exit away from us and they usually have first run films, two for the price of one, and often times they'll have triple features. Sure you don't get out of the movie until about three in the morning, but it's great fun, you're in the comfort of your own car, the movie's volume is controlled by your car stereo, and it's very compartmentalized, the most distracting it gets is when some jerk doesn't turn his lights off when he's sitting behind you. The best part of the Holiday Drive-In in Hamilton is the fact that they're open year round. My wife and I loved going there mid-winter. Sure we'd freeze our asses off, but it was still a lot of fun, and in the winter you wouldn't get out as late.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
What happened to customer service?
The other day I went into a discount store and purchased something small. This was the discussion I had with the small oddly-tattooed man behind the register.
X:Hey how you doin'?
M:(annoyed) I'm here.
X: Well it could be worse. (This was meant to say, "hey look at least you've got a job, and even though it's most likely a pittance, at least it's income)
M: Yeah I could be in the back of a squad car again after punching somebody out.
X:Oookay
M: And being tased a couple of times...
X: Uh-huh
M: Jeezus I would have been better off if I stayed home today, it'd be safer for me and the general population.
X:(after quickly stuffing my change in my pocket, and grabbing my merchandise) Okay, well take it easy.
M: Sure.
Such is life for me I guess, here I was trying to make polite conversation, and then here's this guy, who's just aching to get into another fight (Body language screams volumes). I mean yes, I'll admit that my shaved melon makes me look a little like a homicidal maniac, but my teddy bear-like demeanor most times diffuses this. Did I come across as angry? I don't think so.
The other thing: Why in the hell would anyone tell you they spent the better part of the previous evening being repeatedly electrocuted by the local constabulary for attempting to pummel the living excrement out of someone who may or may not deserve it (who am I to judge?). Isn't this something that any sane person would keep to themselves? Or, you know, anybody that may want to stay employed?
I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but perhaps this is an issue of the media, we've come to a place in history where we have instant access to information about just about anyone, or anything from the moment it happens. It used to be that reporters followed around celebrities in order to get the most recent scoop. Now the celebrities do it themselves via Facebook and Twitter. The question is, do we still have any expectation of privacy anymore, or have we abandoned it in order to make ourselves more accessible to other people, to make ourselves "more popular," as though somehow by having people connect to you on Facebook, or having people "follow" you on twitter somehow means that you are actually a part of this social circle of people that you wouldn't necessarily give the time of day to in real life. We've all had that friend who claims that they have "like 5000 friends" on MySpace. How many of them are really their friends? We've somehow managed to turn the internet into an extention of high school...a giant popularity contest to see who can get the most people to attach themselves to them.
I admit though, I'm no different, after all..Mr. X is blogging after all, and that's no more than creating an online editorial page, and I'm also on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, and LinkedIn so I can keep track of various former classmates and business associates, not to mention keep abreast of the trends, so I'm as guilty as anyone else. But where do we draw the line as to what we broadcast about ourselves? Think about it..I'll get back to this later...
X:Hey how you doin'?
M:(annoyed) I'm here.
X: Well it could be worse. (This was meant to say, "hey look at least you've got a job, and even though it's most likely a pittance, at least it's income)
M: Yeah I could be in the back of a squad car again after punching somebody out.
X:Oookay
M: And being tased a couple of times...
X: Uh-huh
M: Jeezus I would have been better off if I stayed home today, it'd be safer for me and the general population.
X:(after quickly stuffing my change in my pocket, and grabbing my merchandise) Okay, well take it easy.
M: Sure.
Such is life for me I guess, here I was trying to make polite conversation, and then here's this guy, who's just aching to get into another fight (Body language screams volumes). I mean yes, I'll admit that my shaved melon makes me look a little like a homicidal maniac, but my teddy bear-like demeanor most times diffuses this. Did I come across as angry? I don't think so.
The other thing: Why in the hell would anyone tell you they spent the better part of the previous evening being repeatedly electrocuted by the local constabulary for attempting to pummel the living excrement out of someone who may or may not deserve it (who am I to judge?). Isn't this something that any sane person would keep to themselves? Or, you know, anybody that may want to stay employed?
I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but perhaps this is an issue of the media, we've come to a place in history where we have instant access to information about just about anyone, or anything from the moment it happens. It used to be that reporters followed around celebrities in order to get the most recent scoop. Now the celebrities do it themselves via Facebook and Twitter. The question is, do we still have any expectation of privacy anymore, or have we abandoned it in order to make ourselves more accessible to other people, to make ourselves "more popular," as though somehow by having people connect to you on Facebook, or having people "follow" you on twitter somehow means that you are actually a part of this social circle of people that you wouldn't necessarily give the time of day to in real life. We've all had that friend who claims that they have "like 5000 friends" on MySpace. How many of them are really their friends? We've somehow managed to turn the internet into an extention of high school...a giant popularity contest to see who can get the most people to attach themselves to them.
I admit though, I'm no different, after all..Mr. X is blogging after all, and that's no more than creating an online editorial page, and I'm also on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, and LinkedIn so I can keep track of various former classmates and business associates, not to mention keep abreast of the trends, so I'm as guilty as anyone else. But where do we draw the line as to what we broadcast about ourselves? Think about it..I'll get back to this later...
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Events
I like being on-hand for events, particularly when people are doing things that most people would consider insane. The guy in the red is Nik Wallenda. His entire freaking family does this for a living, and they have for seven generations. How rough do you think it would have been for the "black sheep" of the family to tell his parents that he wanted to go to school for accounting?
Anyway, he broke a record at Kings Island today with a tightrope walk at 262 feet above the ground, for a distance of 801 feet (that's the distance from just outside the Main Entrance to the observation deck on the Eiffel Tower).The rope he's walking on is just slightly thicker than the diameter of a nickel.
In a few weeks he's going to attempt a tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon.
I like records. It gives people something to aspire to. We've hit a time where we're actually lowering our standards in order to make everyone feel equal. All this really does is hold back people with exceptional abilities, in order to give the people that lack exceptional abilities a confidence boost. Overall, I'd say that's a bad idea, because it means that the absolute best you strive for is mediocrity. The worst thing about that? Nobody ever excelled at anything while attempting to be mediocre. You don't make amazing discoveries while "just hanging out." You have to work for it!
What have you done lately to excel?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
