Thursday, February 5, 2009
Ugh, the ingenue strikes again.
Yes it's yet another rant on those dratted prolific ingenues. They're so abundant in anime and manga I seriously itch to strike them once! Smack! They just HAVE to be clumsy, they have to be clueless of the dreamboat's affection for them, they have to be completely talentless especially when it comes to food and academics, and of course how can I forget, they have to be pathetic damsels in distress all the damn time. They must get bullied and betrayed by friends and non well wishers alike but look completely shocked and not take any action! Why?! Why could Watase Yuu not stand clear of this stereptype in Absolute Boyfriend after already having created the most legendary of its kind in Fushigi Yuugi! Sigh. Save me from the insufferable "energetic and cheerful" reigning shoujo.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Snarl! I absolutely do not heart the ingenue!
These dashed damsels are littered all through popular culture and have long infiltrated my sacred world of manga and anime, and this lashing out has been a long time coming!
Now I understand the appeal of the genki, spontaneous character, because really, which one of us couldn't do with a good laugh and some cheerful presence around us all the time. OK Pass.
I completely empathise with the disinterested but aware character draw up as well, coz sometimes, you just can't muster up enough enthusiasm to even pandiculate for the ennui around you. OK Pass
And as far as the rest of the heroines go, the ferocious aplha female, the spiteful revenge-obsessed fanatic, the timid albeit ambitious girl next door, the awkward ugly-duckling stereotype, they're all somewhat based in reality and seem to have an adequate level of self awareness as well as goals and dreams, which very much exonerates the tiny annoying peccadillo they may suffer from time to time.
But the blissfully unaware naivete of the aforementioned ingenue is something of a thorn in my side. I don't mind the unparalleled luck this variety seems to have with regards to pheromonal pull with the opposite sex, I'll let it pass that they seem to have the best and most outrageous opportunities presented to their uninterested selves, I'll even overlook the fact that they pass up many such opportunities and even better ones line up, uninterrupted. What I will certainly bear a grudge against though, is the fact that they end up, through no merit or even desire of their own, in the most favourable of circumstances with the most potent of skill set and achieve their happily ever after without one obstacle or heartbreak or even lesson-well-learned along the way!
I can certainly appreciate the appeal of this innocent, stumbling-through-life character. We are drawn to believe life will be kind if we have an unblemished character and we surrender into believing lady luck will smile upon us regardless of the work we put in, so why disgrace effortless reputation by putting in labor at all! Hesitation and diffidence are placed upon a pedestal so we assume these are desirable traits and cling to them unerringly. Oh and yes of course, FATE!, fate plays a very very crucial role in every one's life, so if a situation appears difficult or insurmountable at any point, it's probably not "meant to be", so we move on. Argh.
Do I really need to point out the gazillion glaring faults in this theory? Characters in literature and television will sadly end up influencing a ton of us, in most cases subliminally! We don't realise when we become slaves to our own hazy, unmapped "fate", we cherish the wrong character traits in ourselves, and stop making any proactive efforts in life. Sigh. And I speak from experience. Life will not hand you roses to make a bed (since that's the phrase apparently!), or even lemons to make lemonade. Life hands you nothing. Everything you need, your own hands and wit are your only allies, and any blind belief in an undisclosed fairy godmother otherwise labelled Destiny can only lead to disappointment. I happily concede that some might have already experienced real life enough to lose faith in this skewed religion, but so many more cling to it because unwavering belief and trust are its cornerstones, and sadly girls are more often than not, prize patsies for anything that allows us to sit back and put our life's reins in someone Else's able hands! No more sisters, and as projectile-vomit-inducing and trite as it sounds, time to wake up, ditch that cloying naivete and take control where it matters!
Now I understand the appeal of the genki, spontaneous character, because really, which one of us couldn't do with a good laugh and some cheerful presence around us all the time. OK Pass.
I completely empathise with the disinterested but aware character draw up as well, coz sometimes, you just can't muster up enough enthusiasm to even pandiculate for the ennui around you. OK Pass
And as far as the rest of the heroines go, the ferocious aplha female, the spiteful revenge-obsessed fanatic, the timid albeit ambitious girl next door, the awkward ugly-duckling stereotype, they're all somewhat based in reality and seem to have an adequate level of self awareness as well as goals and dreams, which very much exonerates the tiny annoying peccadillo they may suffer from time to time.
But the blissfully unaware naivete of the aforementioned ingenue is something of a thorn in my side. I don't mind the unparalleled luck this variety seems to have with regards to pheromonal pull with the opposite sex, I'll let it pass that they seem to have the best and most outrageous opportunities presented to their uninterested selves, I'll even overlook the fact that they pass up many such opportunities and even better ones line up, uninterrupted. What I will certainly bear a grudge against though, is the fact that they end up, through no merit or even desire of their own, in the most favourable of circumstances with the most potent of skill set and achieve their happily ever after without one obstacle or heartbreak or even lesson-well-learned along the way!
I can certainly appreciate the appeal of this innocent, stumbling-through-life character. We are drawn to believe life will be kind if we have an unblemished character and we surrender into believing lady luck will smile upon us regardless of the work we put in, so why disgrace effortless reputation by putting in labor at all! Hesitation and diffidence are placed upon a pedestal so we assume these are desirable traits and cling to them unerringly. Oh and yes of course, FATE!, fate plays a very very crucial role in every one's life, so if a situation appears difficult or insurmountable at any point, it's probably not "meant to be", so we move on. Argh.
Do I really need to point out the gazillion glaring faults in this theory? Characters in literature and television will sadly end up influencing a ton of us, in most cases subliminally! We don't realise when we become slaves to our own hazy, unmapped "fate", we cherish the wrong character traits in ourselves, and stop making any proactive efforts in life. Sigh. And I speak from experience. Life will not hand you roses to make a bed (since that's the phrase apparently!), or even lemons to make lemonade. Life hands you nothing. Everything you need, your own hands and wit are your only allies, and any blind belief in an undisclosed fairy godmother otherwise labelled Destiny can only lead to disappointment. I happily concede that some might have already experienced real life enough to lose faith in this skewed religion, but so many more cling to it because unwavering belief and trust are its cornerstones, and sadly girls are more often than not, prize patsies for anything that allows us to sit back and put our life's reins in someone Else's able hands! No more sisters, and as projectile-vomit-inducing and trite as it sounds, time to wake up, ditch that cloying naivete and take control where it matters!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
What's with all the hoopla god damn it?! OR My attempt to be Zadie Smith's fictional hero.
All right, we will all grudgingly concede that he is rather blessed when it comes to the effeminate spindly fingers, those unnatural cheekbones, and those dreamboat gray eyes (so much deeper than that Edward Nobody's mythic soulful ones! Sigh ... *Get a hold on yourself, Woman!*... Right, sorry ...). Yes, he exhibits a fine degree of carefully crafted, yet seemingly ingenuous, self deprecating humor when he claims "Proud of what?! It's just luck!", but what the heck is Robert Pattinson thinking questioning the unscrupulous intentions of his upstanding, and hopelessly obsessed female fan base?! Per usual, I procrastinate writing my graduate school essays by watching some youtube interviews of him yet again, (Try not to rub it in too much, I despise my existence enough for all of us.) and he seems to believe some of us want his autograph for the sole reason of peddling the damn thing on ebay! *African American finger wave: Uh uh!* An ebay search revealed only 27 listings of his penmanship, most of which were reprints. (Autograph reprints are a bit of a slap on the face of the entire concept surrounding autographs I think. Are we really so incapable of dexterity that we would want a computer generated facsimile of someone's name in cursive? I thought the whole point was to own a piece of memorabilia which somehow connects you to the legend, not that RPattz is a legend, but more on that later.) It's a pretty sorry figure I think, even perez hilton shower drain hair resulted in 32 results! So obviously, either people are hoarding said autographs he's clearly been signing by the scores on those million publicity "screaming sessions" that he's done in November to elicit a huge profit when the market is starving for some spunk ransom, or people are keeping those sweet mementos wrapped up nicely in a Ziploc, beneath their own pillows, hoping for sweet dreams at night.
He needs to be a bit more trusting of his audience. People don't stomp all over their own self esteem by pleading "Robert .... Please Robert!", pushing at each other's faces to get 2 inches nearer to him while holding out their promotional photos, successfully vanquishing any vestige of dignity left, to sell the precious article, that shared moment, for a few measly bucks!
While on the subject of his autograph (*Why?!*, I don't know why, my fingers have a life of their own right now!), those of us who see any more than 5 interviews of him, know that he detests that ridiculous misnomer placed upon him, RPattz. I really resonate with how he mentions it sounds like antacid! Then why the dickens does he sign off as an R Patt[illegible letter]?! And lemme tell you, it's a pretty stunted R! I would think with all the experience he has of signing those damn photos, he would have a nice 2 letter doodle down pat, but it looked like he had some candy (and those consequent convulsions) right before each sign off, and couldn’t hold it together the 2 seconds it takes to put pen to paper. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, maybe this is just a thinly veiled attempt at cursing my own fate to not have been one of those lucky few in those stampede prone Hot Topic events he graced! Regardless, you need to give your fans some credit and get your bum down to La La Land and sign some real autographs for all us damsels in wthdrawal Robert!
He needs to be a bit more trusting of his audience. People don't stomp all over their own self esteem by pleading "Robert .... Please Robert!", pushing at each other's faces to get 2 inches nearer to him while holding out their promotional photos, successfully vanquishing any vestige of dignity left, to sell the precious article, that shared moment, for a few measly bucks!
While on the subject of his autograph (*Why?!*, I don't know why, my fingers have a life of their own right now!), those of us who see any more than 5 interviews of him, know that he detests that ridiculous misnomer placed upon him, RPattz. I really resonate with how he mentions it sounds like antacid! Then why the dickens does he sign off as an R Patt[illegible letter]?! And lemme tell you, it's a pretty stunted R! I would think with all the experience he has of signing those damn photos, he would have a nice 2 letter doodle down pat, but it looked like he had some candy (and those consequent convulsions) right before each sign off, and couldn’t hold it together the 2 seconds it takes to put pen to paper. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, maybe this is just a thinly veiled attempt at cursing my own fate to not have been one of those lucky few in those stampede prone Hot Topic events he graced! Regardless, you need to give your fans some credit and get your bum down to La La Land and sign some real autographs for all us damsels in wthdrawal Robert!
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