I'm bringing silly back.

[thehefner]

Well, I am extremely gratified to know that I'm not the only one in Kate's class at Studio who feels as crazy stressed and uncomfortable with much of Kate's tactics as I do. I'm not gonna drop the class, though, because I *am* learning. That said, I volunteered to be first to go with the animal pantomime so I could fucking get it over with, and ohh man, did she fucking work me hard.

Still, I'm starting to feel like, regardless of what others have said, Studio's approach to teaching is not all that far off from Studio's approach to their workers. Unless this class starts to actually feel enjoyable, I think the next time I wanna take an acting class, I'll try my hand at Shakespeare Theatre.


On another topic, I used to like Elmo, I really did. Back when the star of Sesame Street was Big Bird and the Cookie Monster fucking ate cookies god damn it, Elmo was rather fun and adorable. Not so anymore. Overexposure has killed him, just like it did with the Punisher. Yes, I'm likening Elmo to the Punisher. So I went on youtube and they have a video of the new Elmo toy in action, and I am utterly, utterly horrified here. Holy god, never has Denis Leary's parenting mantra "Don't buy the toys that make the noise!" seemed more apt. I just watched this once, and already I feel like doing the whole sniper in the clock tower bit: "There's Elmo! BLAM! There's Elmo! BLAM! Stop laughing, you spastic bastard! BLAM!"

In a related youtube Elmo video, Elmo meets Robert DeNiro, talks about acting. This video fills me with so many complex and extreme emotions, I'd better just let it speak for itself.


I am so fucking sick of all the Hal Jordan hatred on scans_daily. It really gets me how some fans are so extremely, violently hateful for a fictional character that these otherwise-reasonable people will go out of their way to be assholes. What IS it about Green Lantern that so inspires deep-seated radically divided and vocal fanbases? GL is like the abortion issue of comics.

I just don't get all the Hal hate. I can get someone not being interested in the character, but hate? With the help of kali921, I am going to have to write a big long GL essay ala my in-depth essay on the Joker. It'll be tough trying to come up with scans of Hal that can appeal to people who aren't already fans, to challenge their conceptions of Hal as a boring/outdated/Captain Perfection/whatever character.

This will probably ultimately prove to be an exercise in frustration, I know. But if I can convert just one fan, or at least inspire a bit more respect and civility, I will be content. Hey, if nothing else, it'll be nice to figure out exactly what it is that I like in the character so much.

Comments

[kali921.livejournal.com]

You know my theory, my love. I STAND BY YOUR SIDE!!

The fanboys that hate on Hal are jealous of his perfect hair, good cheekbones, and generally competent-and-non-angsty demeanor.

Some of the fangirls that hate on Hal have 1) never read any older Green Lantern and/or 2) are only interested in him due to a desire to slash him with Ollie and/or 3) may be consequently frustrated because there simply isn't any slashy subtext with Ollie, OMG if you can't slash a character they're JUST BORING, OKAY?!

It's the same people that only love the Authority for Midnighter and Apollo, and, um, totally ignore what kickass characters Jenny, Angie, and Jack are.

Pricks.

Ugh.

I will help you. I'll even make good on my threat to post thirty days straight of Hal in some upcoming month, when I have the time.

So what happened in pantomine class? What did she say? Man, this instructor sounds like the Korean martial arts school of teaching: NO PAIN, NO GAIN!

Addendum....

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Addendum: yep, some people will go out of their way to be assholes to other people who disagree with their fandom views.

This is why fandom is batshit insane sometimes, hon. Try not to let it get under your skin. I've been snipey a few times myself with people on scans_daily that ignore good writing in favor of drooling over a character solely due to their sexual proclivity, but then I realized that there is just no need to make anything there personal. Screw that noise. And you know I have your back, dude. :-)

I mean, there's the passive aggressive Spidey-obsessed chick on scans_daily that alway seems to respond to any Punisher-related post with how much she hates Frank Castle. Why? Well, sometimes it's obvious that she says that because she doesn't like me personally, and she knows how much I like Frank.

But she adores JMS, so....the facts speak for themselves.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well, I am gonna start by trying to appeal to the slashers because, I disgaree, I believe there IS some great slashtastic stuff between Hal and Ollie. Ever read the camping issue of GA? I will soften the blow of the eventual HUGE Hal essay by scanning some classic Hal/Ollie stuff. Hal/Ollie: Their love is whompy.

I will appreciate your help. When I get on it, I'll send you stuff and get your imput.

In the class (it's not a pantomime class, even though that's all we've been doing), no one really had any idea what kind of animal I was, so the teacher made me get on all fours, bend my spine like a cheetah, forced me to think of a way to walk and RUN like a cheetah while on all fours... this whole thing lasted about twenty minutes I think.

I was very sore, embarrassed, and felt rather vulnerable. A number of students afterward shook my hand and commended me for doing that, saying they couldn't have done that and gone through that themselves.

[kmousie.livejournal.com]

Holy god, never has Denis Leary's parenting mantra "Don't buy the toys that make the noise!" seemed more apt.

Oh, Denis. I started watching No Cure for Cancer again the other day but was interrupted. I should get back to it. And watch Lock 'N' Load, too. Yes.

Hope the class exercise at least went well, darlin'.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read the camping issues, finally, and I still don't see it, although I can see how others would take it and run. BUT POST THEM PLEASE.

But you know me: slashing Ollie & Hal destroys the bond of brotherhood and the Tango & Cash dynamic I love so much!

Seriously, sue me, but I don't think best friends = automatic desire to knock boots.

*uses platonic-slash Norrin and Adam icon*

[little-dinosaur.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about any Green Lanterns except that one of them, possibly Kyle Rayner, likes little girls and not just short women. Or maybe it's just the one.
I'm open to being converted, although I bear Hal Jordan no ill will.

[gnort.livejournal.com]

there are only a handful of comic book characters who are worthy of seething hate: Reed Richards, Franklin Richards, and Ch'p. Hal is not. If you read Guy Gardner and certain issues of Green Lantern he does come off like a pompous ass though. JLA Year One was my first Hal read and that put him in a positive light so I know how great the character can be when handled well. There is a lot of Kyle bashing as well, frankly I don't get that one either. It's just the way comic fans are sometimes.

[fishymcb.livejournal.com]

Ehh, I was ALWAYS a Grover man. Forget Elmo. And thank you for not commenting on the fact that the new toy appears to masturbate, since that angle has already been jumped upon by The Soup, Best Week Ever, and the rest, I'm sure.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Nor do I particularly honestly consider it slashtastic either, but you have to remember, this is scans_daily, full of people who'd see a blade of grass touching a telephone pole and spaz out, "GRASS/POLE OTP!!!11!1!"

They'd also totally slash Tango and Cash too, and you know it.

So I'll play their game and try to appeal to them on their grounds. The sickos.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Nah, I was too busy being horrified by how fucking maniacally long and hard he was laughing.

Hey, I meant to add this to my post, mainly since I thought you'd enjoy it. It was in the latest Entertainment Weekly:

"''I heard him go down and I heard him come up and I heard him go out, and I heard him come in. I said, My, my, my, where's he been? Oh, but I know he's been a friend. Oh, that's a sin. But you know, I just looked at him and I just said, Oooh, my, my, my, my. Wooooooooooo!''
-NONSENSICAL JUDGE LITTLE RICHARD, DESCRIBING ALFONSO RIBEIRO'S PERFORMANCE, ON CELEBRITY DUETS

Try reading it out loud. It's fun!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I rather love Lock N' Load, even if this reviewer in London was bitching about how it felt like Denis had gone soft after becoming a parent. Psh, whatever.

Aye, it went... well, I think I'm learning, anyway.

[kmousie.livejournal.com]

Psh, whatever, indeed. Personally, I liked seeing the growth and maturity. Parent or no, you'd hope to see some growth after the five years since No Cure for Cancer!

Learning is good. The whole point of the exercise, in fact!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I never once woulda figured you being anything like those jerks.

As for the little girls one, I refer to Hal's relationship to Arisia, an alien whose physiology made her look like a thirteen year old girl when in fact she was over two hundred years old. She had a crush on Hal and he spurned her advances... that is, until she used her ring to change her body type to a buxom adult. Then came the sex.

I'm just lucky most Hal-haters are people who never took the time to read classic Hal stories, along with things like the Arisia saga. I mean, really, it's not pedophelia. If anything, it's beastiality. ;)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I rip into Richards a lot, but the truth of the matter is that I honestly do kinda like the brainiac. That said, you might love what's going on in CIVIL WAR right now. Never before has Reed ever, ever been such a complete bastard.

And of course Hal did there. It was Guy's book, and you need stuffy Hal as a foil to Guy.

In my years, I've heard WAY more Hal bashing than Kyle bashing (although I've heard my fair share as well). Can't we just all like and respect our things, people?

I'm helping!

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

I do not like Hal Jordan because:

1. I think he's boring. I don't like any of the non-brain-damaged Green Lanterns, and now that they fixed his head I'm not that interested in Guy either.
2. Even though I think he's boring, Geoff Johns obviously does not. Or else he finds that incredibly sexy. Either way, anything that he's written somehow finds a way to talk about how great Hal Jordan is, even when he's being a prick. (cf. in Countdown, when Ted pees himself [just a little] because OMG, HAL FUCKING JORDAN IS HERE AND I COULD TOUCH HIM IF I WEREN'T SUCH A SISSY COWARD.) It tends to grate.
3. He killed a whole bunch of people, and they made it so it wasn't his fault. Because he's so great, or because the terrifying Hal fanboy army made one too many well-targeted death threats--I don't pretend to know why. Likewise with Arisia, who I think was like 13 until they decided she was legal--no, really really legal? The man's done some creepy, creepy shit because of the creepy, creepy people that wrote him, but then other creepy people come along and try to justify it in a way that points up how Totally Awesome he is.

It doesn't rise to the level of hate, though, because I have better things to do than hate on imaginary people. Plus I thought he was keen in the New Frontier.

Re: I'm helping!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yet you *did* find him keen in New Frontier, right? So he's not inherently boring!

But see, yeah, if you don't dig GLs in general, you don't dig GLs, I get that just fine. It's the specific Hal-hate from others that really bugs me, and when they make a real effort to be assholes. It's weird to say so, but it can really put a damper on my day.

And yeah, much as I love the character, even I concede that Johns was totally wanking on him for awhile there. I totally agree; I'd rather SEE why Hal's great rather than be TOLD he is any day. (And come on, EVERYBODY was being a OOC prick to Ted in that story) That said, the last three issues of GL have been *awesome*, partly because they finally faced up to the whole murderer stuff.

And here's my problem... I never bought the mass murderer stuff to begin with. As someone who's seen her favorite characters totally raped by editors, have them totally act OOC and ignore all the great stuff that came before, can you understand if maybe I thought the whole Parallax mess was utter bullcrap?

Honestly, the way REBIRTH was handled was wayyyyyyyyy less of a cop-out than EMERALD TWILIGHT, in my opinion. Look, I can accept Hal going nuts and killing people, but come on, give us more than one fucking issue for him to go from 0 to NUTZOID. It reeked to editorial intervention and shock-value storytelling.

As for Arisia, hey, she's an alien and just changed her body to make herself look a little more like an adult human. I'll say it again, if it's anything, it's bestiality.

Re: I'm helping!

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

Hell, I found everybody keen in New Frontier. Even Wonder Woman. (I think it was the metal skirt.) I think it was just that Cooke is very good, and everyone else not so much.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

My head still hurts from the troll who decided to talk about Superman's possible pedophillic attraction to Shazam.

Ugh.

Make it stop.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really, I know scans_daily was founded to be a slash community, but dear lord, people.

And meanwhile on the Venture Bros community there are fans who are giddy over the idea of Hank and Dean "experimenting" with one another. Gah.

[gnort.livejournal.com]

ew ew ew ew ew ew....ew

[kali921.livejournal.com]

THEY HAVE NO SHAME

[pondering-duck.livejournal.com]

They made a reference to Taxi Driver on Sesame Street...THE MADE A REFERENCE TO TAXI DRIVER ON SESAME STREET!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Trust me, dude, I'm right there with you. The whole thing is just... indescribable on a number of levels.