I had heard so many of those complaints by the time I saw Avatar that I didn't even care anymore (not that I liked Avatar; as far as I was concerned the Navi and the Americans could all go down a black hole and leave the Super Cool Sentient Planet to the Super Cool Animals). And you know, part of it is this feeling I get that Avatar, etc., are just easy targets - where the hell is all the outrage for things that are still on the "approved" list, but equally problematic? I was just complaining to my mother last night that among the LJ community of progressive/enlightened 20-year-olds, there is still universal cheer for Law & Order: SVU. I think this applies to books as well - everyone points at LOTR and Narnia as "ooh! trope-ridden! shame! shame!" but I almost want to shake fantasy readers and say "come on! you think this isn't in your favorite escapist books?"
I feel like horror doesn't have this problem, and I don't know if that's because we don't want escapism or our escapism is very very strange or what. For sure, there are problems in the genre; maybe I'm just lucky to have fallen in with the right crowd.
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Date: 2011-02-01 08:06 pm (UTC)I had heard so many of those complaints by the time I saw Avatar that I didn't even care anymore (not that I liked Avatar; as far as I was concerned the Navi and the Americans could all go down a black hole and leave the Super Cool Sentient Planet to the Super Cool Animals). And you know, part of it is this feeling I get that Avatar, etc., are just easy targets - where the hell is all the outrage for things that are still on the "approved" list, but equally problematic? I was just complaining to my mother last night that among the LJ community of progressive/enlightened 20-year-olds, there is still universal cheer for Law & Order: SVU. I think this applies to books as well - everyone points at LOTR and Narnia as "ooh! trope-ridden! shame! shame!" but I almost want to shake fantasy readers and say "come on! you think this isn't in your favorite escapist books?"
I feel like horror doesn't have this problem, and I don't know if that's because we don't want escapism or our escapism is very very strange or what. For sure, there are problems in the genre; maybe I'm just lucky to have fallen in with the right crowd.