Fantasy films and Political Thrillers

In my last post, I mentioned "another difference" between films like Divergent and other political thrillers, and I've been trying to come up with a good way of explaining it.  Thanks to a classmate who is working on a different film (one of the Harry Potters), I have a good quotation from a source she found,  a book called Fellowship in a Ring:  A Guide for Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Groups, by librarian Neil Hollands, who says that "Some of the best political fiction written is speculative fiction.  By devising political and sociological systems in alternate worlds or by hypothesizing alternative events in our own world, authors can create a fictional laboratory in which to explore any political question" (233).  Yeah, what he said.
When I was trying to think of how to put this, I kept coming back to how Divergent and other stories like it work is by setting up a kind of closed system.  It almost makes Hollands seem to be referring to Divergent, which is, after all, about a social experiment gone bad.

It's a Conspiracy!

As a result of a lot of family issues, I've been letting this go for a couple of weeks (my aunt is better, maybe, and my uncle is not-- they decided his heart wasn't in good enough shape for spinal surgery), but I've been keeping up with the work otherwise.  My annotated bibliography looked good to me; I just hope that it looks good when it's graded.  I finished revising my review of scholarly literature on the political thriller genre (just in time:  it's due today), so here I am to talk about what I've found.

It seems that the crucial element that defines the genre is the presence of a conspiracy.  This is what puts Divergent into the same category as The Manchurian Candidate and Enemy of the State.  What makes it less obvious to a casual viewer is the presence of kids.  In those films, a single innocent person somehow stumbles upon a conspiracy to overthrow an elected leadership and has to survive numerous attacks while trying to take the whole thing apart.  It's probably needless to point out that this innocent person is usually an adult (and male).  

And, I just thought of another difference, but I'll save that for my next post.

Well, It's Not a Musical . . .But What Is It?

Regarding my last post-- I decided to give up on the hair idea, even though I'm sure that in Tris's position, I would cut my hair immediately.  Not cutting it makes her seem vain, to me at least.  I looked at it again, and that didn't really take me anywhere.

So, I've decided to do my project using genre criticism.  Once I started thinking that way, I realized that Divergent (and a whole bunch of similar films) doesn't quite fit into any of the established genres, except broadly.  You could call it an action film, or a political thriller, I guess, but neither of these is a comfortable fit.  
I'm thinking it's a subgenre of political thrillers at this point; there's not enough action (it's not a "non-stop thrill ride," which seems to be mandatory lately for action films), and it's more about political ideas than anything else.

As I understand genre criticism, I need to identify the characteristics of political thrillers and then figure out how Divergent sets up a set of additional characteristics that amount to a subgenre.  The most obvious other member of this category is The Hunger Games, and I'll be doing some thinking about what other films fit, too.  For now, I have enough to start my research into the overall genre, and I've got a good (I think) draft of a proposal.  

What's in a Title?

Old bottles of wine aging by candle light
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The mouse is dead!  A good thing, too, because I was starting to think that Rebbie needed her eyes (or maybe her mind) examined.  Anyway, I'm still revising my research paper, and I finally came up with a title that I like.  Dr. Toffee wants us to try to use what she calls a "double-barrelled" title, which just means a title with a subtitle, divided by a colon.  And, I guess she's right, because all of the articles I've looked at for my project have that kind of title. 

I was home for dinner last night, for once, and the 'rents were asking me about how my classes were going.  I never know how to answer that in a way that won't have them giving me advice or a lecture (you know what I mean!).  I didn't even mention geology, because that would have brought on the lecture for sure, but I talked about my PJ1 paper to distract them, since that seems to be going okay.  When I explained what it was about, they were both interested, and we talked about neo-mythology until we were done eating.  One of the things my dad said gave me an idea.  He said, "so, it's like new wine in old bottles, isn't it?"  I'd never heard that expression before, but in a way, he's right.  The filmmakers aren't using their old bottles (existing mythology/folklore) to trick the audience, but it is kind of a selling point just the same. 

And, that's why I've decided to call my paper "New Wine in Old Bottles:  Neo-Mythology and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief."  I like it.    

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The Last Neo-Mythology Characteristics

English: This image outlines the basic path of the monomyth, or "Hero's Journey". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been so busy (and grossed out over the mouse, which is still missing) that I almost forgot to finish my model explanation.  So, the third characteristic is that the story using existing mythology is new:  new plot, new hero(es).  This is sort of self-explanatory, isn't it?  Some films that fit into this category have more new aspects than others, but I'm not going to rule any out on this basis. 
The fourth requirement is that the setting must be at least partly in the current reality.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  has Mt. Olympus at the top of the Empire State Building and the entrance to Hades via the Hollywood sign, both of which are instantly recognizable to most people on the planet, I would guess.  Of course, this definitely rules out Tolkein, but I think that's very reasonable.  Yes, it's a new (20th century) mythology, but as for genre, it's traditional fantasy.
And lastly, number 5 is that it must be a quest.  I'd almost have to say that this would rule out the Twilight movies, since I can't see anything like a hero's journey (I can't even see a hero!) in them, but I don't want to argue about it, so if anybody wants to take it on, they're getting a free pass from me.
And that's that.  

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Another "Sword-and-Sandals" is Coming

Gladiator (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been following the Flickering Myth website for a while now, and yesterday they had an item about Hercules:  The Legend Begins (not to be confused with Hercules:  The Legendary Journeys, the '90s tv show with Kevin Sorbo), which is coming out next spring.  The trailer that was just released for the movie bears out almost everything I've been reading in my sources.  It's become obvious to me that this genre is alive and well, and it looks like my research paper (which I need to begin drafting next weekend at the latest) is going to use sword and sandals as a basis for arguing that Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  represents either a subgenre of it or a "sibling" genre to it, which I am going to call neo-mythology.  

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Who Doesn't Love Big Sweaty Men with Swords?!!

Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Warning:  if it seems like I am getting away from Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief at times, please bear with me -- it'll all make sense in the end.

Okay, so now, what about pepla?  I found a terrific article (citation below) by Robert A. Rushing, titled "Gentlemen Prefer Hercules: Desire | Identification | Beefcake."  It looks like Rushing is talking precisely about what my mother meant by "gladiator movies."  And he goes on to discuss them in a way that may be the reason my mom was kind of laughing when she talked about them.  Apparently, the big deal about the Italian pepla is their homoerotic appeal.  I haven't actually seen the movies he discusses, but he explains the genre pretty well, and I can see some/a lot of the elements in movies I have seen, like 300, Conan the Barbarian (the Schwartzenegger one), and The Scorpion King (you gotta love The Rock).  Rushing points out that these films "appear to have been consumed primarily by heterosexual, adolescent male viewers, an audience that would seem to have needed some way of negotiating the highly visible and eroticized spectacle of the male body that these films traditionally presented" (162).  So, the primary demographic here was not gay men, but homoerotic element does not seem to deter heterosexual males from watching them.

Naturally, after reading this, I had to talk to my mom again, and this time she was giggling.  "I knew you'd figure it out sooner or later," she said, which wasn't exactly an apology.

Rushing, Robert A., "Gentlemen Prefer Hercules: Desire | Identification | Beefcake."  Camera Obscura 23.69 (Sept 2008):  158-191.  Print.
(note:  still haven't figured out how to do a hanging indent here.  Sorry for you MLA purists)

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And Then There's the Gladiator Genre

Gladiator fights at "Brot und Spiele", Germany's biggest Roman festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everytime I think I'm starting to get a handle on things, I come across a new source that forces me to rethink everything I thought I had resolved.  This time, it's my mom.  I was talking to her yesterday about how much work this is turning out to be, and she wanted to know all about it.  When I told her about my neo-mythology idea, she said, "you mean like gladiator movies?"  Aargh!  So, I had to ask what that meant, and I'll just summarize her explanation.

Gladiator movies, according to Mom, were all over the place in the '50s and '60s, especially at drive-ins and on late-night television.  The hero was obviously a bodybuilder and was usually dressed in a way that exposed his chest and most of his legs.  He always won his fights through his superior strength, and you could never remember the storyline afterwards.

This sounds to me like what they call pepla, and I'll have more to say about that next time.

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Falling Behind in Mythic Fashion

And I Was There (Photo credit: Brave Heart)

Yeah, I'm behind again.  I've turned in my annotated bibliography, and I'm revising my literature review.  For now, I'd like to talk about one of the books I'm using.  It's Rick Altman's Film/Genre, and it's pretty much invaluable for my project, mainly because he covers all of the issues about genre criticism as an approach.  He's apparently an expert on musicals but writes on other genres as well, including sword and sorcery, but he doesn't say anything about sword and sandal, biblical, or pepla.  I've gotten some good material, and the way he talks about specific films has given me a feel for how to use this approach on PJ1.

Altman, Rick.  Film/Genre.  London: BFI, 1999.  Print.

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What about the fantasy-adventure genre?

Strange Fantasy 01
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The critical approach that I'm taking for my research project is genre criticism, and the film I'm analyzing is Percy Jackson & the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief.  My understanding of this approach is that it looks at how a film fits into an established genre, or doesn't.  Science fiction and fantasy is one of those genres, as is Action/Adventure, and it seems that my film fits into both, but it's not really science fiction or action:  it's fantasy-adventure.  Beyond that, it is also part of a subgenre that features kids as the heroes. 

And there's the problem for me as well as the benefit.  It seems to me that I'm going to be trying to identify and define a new(ish) category, so there might not be a lot of material available on this genre (bad) while I will have to do a lot to explain my model (good, in terms of meeting the length requirement).  Not only that but I have to include a lot of different films if I stick to what I have so far.  The characteristic that all of them share is that the adults are not involved in the stories except as villains or advisors (and their advice is frequently ignored by the kids).  However, I think that I have to exclude all of the teen-dystopia films (like The Hunger Games), because some of them are almost horror films, going all the way back to the first Halloween, which actually is a horror film.  And that's just the start! 

This is going to take a lot of thinking.  I'm hoping to get started on my library research in the next week.

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Smells Like Teen Romance?

City of Glass (Mortal Instruments)
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm supposed to be explaining my critical model right now, but I'm going to save that for next time.  I've just been reading the genre page from the critical model packet for the course, and the example it gives made me think about what I've been hearing about The Mortal Instruments movie.  It's being savaged in the blogosphere for being either a Harry Potter or a Twilight ripoff, which, given the source material (the book by Cassandra Clare) seems unfair to me -- the book is soooooo much better than any of the Twilight series, having solid, interesting characters and a lot of humor, particularly in the dialogue.  Now, I haven't seen the film, but the posters and trailer have me worried -- they're pretty grim, and I'd hate to think that the filmmakers decided to cut all the bantering out.  If they did, then I could see where you might compare it to the death march that is the Twilight saga.
The example in the packet is this: 
"As an example of a potential basis for an essay, consider this question:  although there are vampires in the film Twilight, does it fit the horror subgenre of vampire films in a significant way?  I’d say no, and I’d even go so far as to say that it doesn’t belong to what might be called the sub-subgenre of vampire romance either.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s a teenage relationship drama that just happens to have vampires in it, and that would be my thesis." (7)
The Mortal Instruments books, if not the movie, have more in common with The Avengers than they do with Twilight.  Although there are romantic relationships, these books are mainly hero quests (with multiple heroes, like The Avengers), which is actually something they have in common with Harry Potter.  In any event, I can't afford the time or the money to see the film; I'll have to wait for the DVD, as usual. 
Back to Percy Jackson . . .

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