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firstpuffin · 6 years

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“It’s just a movie”: Does quality of writing matter?

-Note= minor Avengers: Infinity War spoilers.

As an aspiring creative writer who really cares about writing something fun, internally consistent and plausible, the one phrase that irritates me the most is “It’s just a movie” or some equivalent. It’s dismissive of the efforts of everyone involved, and of fiction in general and it is being said by people who spend money to consume this, for lack of a better word, service. Don’t people want quality in their product?

I’ll try not to be too serious, or rant and whatnot, but this is a concerning subject matter for me. After all, who wants to spend money on something sub-par?

I have a friend who watches some of the same stuff as I do and he once responded to my criticisms of a character with “well she’s hot”. I was watching one of the Hobbit movies, doesn’t matter which as I found them all terribly boring, with my mother and when I pointed out some flaws that really grated on me, she responded with “it’s just a movie”. I’m pretty sure I was lost for words and it kinda hurt; given all of her support for my own writing, what does she actually think of my chosen path?

An uncomfortable amount of television that I watch is honestly quite poor and I justify continuing this by saying that I’m learning from the mistakes being made but when I see a fellow aspiring author who loves a series that is pretty terrible, I become concerned. Let’s take The Flash as an example: in the television series that follows the titular super-powered runner, major plot points are also often major contrivances. The events of the second season only happen because the main character goes back on a promise and lashes out at the villain who was about to leave forever, and earns his eternal hatred. This screws things up, killing one of the teammates (which conveniently leaves his wife free to pursue a new love interest for the next series) and allowing for a new villain.

But okay, he was new to the hero scene and it was an emotional situation so I’ll let that slide. But then he does something equally stupid at the end of the next series. You see The Flash has had time to mature and has discovered both time-travel and its dangers, so naturally when he gets the girl that he has been chasing from the beginning, he proceeds to go back in time to do what he deliberately chose not to do at the end of the last series, potentially losing everything. But you know what? He had just lost his father who had finally been cleared of murder so I’ll, reluctantly, let this slide too. Even if it, conveniently, sets up the events of the next season.

So we can’t blame The Flash for the events of series four because he nobly sacrifices himself in series 3. Instead, his friends decide to stumble all over his sacrifice and bring him back at the beginning of series 4. This is getting old. All I can say is that at least season 5 isn’t going to be his fault.

It’s going to be his daughter’s. I guess bad decisions are genetic?

So let’s change things up and talk about less forgivable contrivances. It is established repeatedly and early on that The Flash can move so fast that he can have an entire one-sided conversation with somebody who won’t have the faintest idea that it has happened due to the speed with which it happened. So how does anyone stand a chance fighting against someone so incredibly fast? Urm… ice guns? No. I mean yes, but that’s because the hero apparently just isn’t as fast for some reason, not because it’s a legitimate weakness. They don’t give a reason why.

So once these absurd levels of speed have been established and he’s supposedly gotten multiple times faster since, he is framed for murder in series 4 when he finds a body in his apartment with one of his knives stabbing it and armed police at his door. We know that he could 100% clean up the body, have a bath and probably even read a newspaper on the toilet before the police enter his apartment and find nothing there. Does he? No. Because earlier in the episode he told his wife that he wouldn’t run away.

Do you know what’s not running away? Cleaning up evidence of a false murder of someone who isn’t actually dead so that you are free to save lives and not rot in prison.

So why is The Flash such a popular show? And it’s not just people like me who watch it because it’s bad, the show actually gets praise.

This is my question: what actually matters in fiction? Should I write a screenplay for attractive actors and flashy fight scenes and just ignore character development, motivations and dialogue? Or should I continue writing in the hope that people will appreciate the effort I put into making a complex character involved in an internally consistent narrative?

So I’ve given examples from a series that I feel is particularly bad, so where do I go from here? I could mention how when I was a child I loved the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies purely because it was my favourite superhero, but I was a dumb kid who honestly got a lot smarter after I left school and had to learn things for myself and so that particular anecdote would go nowhere. I could find more examples, particularly from the Arrowverse that spawned The Flash, but what is the point?

I’m not very good at online research, I can’t google to save my life, and nobody thinks that the poor television that they watch is low quality because that reflects badly on them. This means that I am going to have to form my own counter arguments. One, people don’t realise that what they are watching is badly thought out and contradictory and if I am to be honest, why should they? I only do because I am looking for it. Two, they are more forgiving than I am of flaws which is… fair. I can be way too unforgiving. And three, most people aren’t nitpicky bastards like I am.

-Note= I’ve been working on this piece for a couple of weeks now, unsatisfied with my one-sided tirade, and as I often find, time has given me an answer. I googled “do plot holes matter”. A simple solution that took far far too long for me to think of. Still, this gave me some rather useful, and sometimes distressing, opinions on the subject of plot holes and thus quality of writing.

So, what is a “plot hole”? One of the sources I found took this definition from Google:

“In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot.”

To summarise, those moments where you go “that don’t make sense” are plot holes. As I have complained a lot already, I might as well continue for a bit longer. The very first source that I found, and the same one that gave the above definition, provided a list of times where a plot hole doesn’t matter and would you believe it, I disagree vehemently with the first one. The author says that a plot hole doesn’t matter if there wouldn’t be a story without it, which I can accept only in those action films where the action is what is important.

They use The Matrix as an example: why have a matrix at all? It seems the machines don’t need people to be conscious or something. Unfortunately it has been far too long since I watched it for me to comment, but like an uncomfortable number of the points made in their article, their argument is basically “it’s not real so don’t think about it”. The trouble is that while some “plot holes” are merely people taking things too seriously, an inconsistency in the story itself is worth pointing out. A personal example of this came from when Infinity War came out and people asked “why is Thanos trying to destroy half of the universe when he can just make more resources?” and this could fit into “there wouldn’t be a movie without it”. But this is complete balderdash.

Ignoring the fact that the makers were trying to stay true to the source material, I always have to ask “when did we see Thanos create anything?” We didn’t. Well, there were illusions, but even if those were physical, they were also temporary. We didn’t see him create and we didn’t hear anyone say that he could. And if those don’t appear in the movie, then we have to assume that he can’t. It doesn’t matter what the source material was (y’know, those comic books where Thanos wanted to date the anthropomorphised Death), but instead it is what the movie itself has established.

A Quora user called Sam Morris posted an answer to this question which kinda hurt my pride as a writer, but it made sense. He pointed out how it depends on the medium: novels and such need to be consistent because the reader will be paying more attention to the story and events, while television intends to serve a different goal; he describes watching television being like zen meditation, where the watcher clears their mind while the television stimulates the more excitable parts of their brain. On top of this, a television writer has to be able to work with what the producers want and sometimes cannot account for the inevitable holes that appear. This might well explain my problems that I mentioned with The Flash, although I am loathe to admit it.

Finally, a writer for screencraft.org tried to categorise five different types of plot holes. His first type can basically be summarised with what I said earlier: we can only know what we have been told, with a slice of “roll with it”. His second type covers holes that are inconsistent within the story so again, we only know what we are told, although a better way of saying it in this case could be: rules are made within a story, so anything that goes against those rules is a plot hole.

I could keep going and explain all of his five types, but that isn’t the point of this article. Instead, I will try to summarise everything I have found so far: quality of writing does matter, to different people. An unsatisfying answer, right? One source basically doesn’t care, while another obviously does and has categorised why. I think that it was Mr Morris who really got it right. As an aspiring novelist, I should definitely be concerned about quality because readers will be paying attention; they will notice and be brought out of the moment by a glaring mistake. But should I delve into screenwriting, I should be prepared to deal with temperamental producers and try to write with as few obvious flaws as possible.

On a more personal note, I feel motivated to keep the quality of my own writing, whatever the medium, as high as my skill level allows. Of course I wanted to anyway, I have long intended to write for children and I feel that anything relating to children should be top quality; high expectation results in high results, and quality writing has been shown to have various benefits on children. Regardless of what you think of The Guardian newspaper, their article on this study provides links on how reading effects children, increasing empathy and is not alone in their findings. There has also been talk of there being other benefits, such as improved critical thinking and can help to deal with serious themes such as coming of age etc.

So while I was always intending on aiming for quality, my findings from this brief search are reassuring. People do care about quality, and yet are willing to let some flaws slide under the right circumstances, although this does not mean that they do not care in general.

-Note= What with a review of the first two Predator movies in the works, I feel like this blog has been quite negative, so I’m going to try and put something positive out soon. Maybe an Alien review; I watched it for the first time recently and I loved it.

#first puffin opinion the flash fiction plot holes quality television movie

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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Men, Isn’t It Time We All Accepted That We’re A Bit Inadequate?

http://fashion-trendin.com/men-isnt-it-time-we-all-accepted-that-were-a-bit-inadequate/

Men, Isn’t It Time We All Accepted That We’re A Bit Inadequate?

Once you hit a certain age, say 40, it feels like a big deal because A) everyone tells you that it’s a big deal, and B) you probably remember your dad turning 40 and thinking what a real man he was. Just pure guy, 100 per cent bloke. The patriarch, the provider, the professional. He was probably good at football (or some other sport), confident, authoritative, an alpha male – everything a man supposedly should be. He was 40, and he encapsulated ‘dadness’.

Now you’re 40, maybe approaching it, maybe giving it the stare in the rear-view mirror. Maybe you’re a dad, too. Only what you see staring back at you each morning is something less certain, less overtly masculine, less blokeish. Sure, you’re a patriarch, but only in the biological sense; and you provide for your family, but so does your other half. This immediately presents two realisations: the first being that our expectations of masculinity might have shifted somewhat in the last twenty-something years, and also that your dad was probably blagging it anyway. Turns out he’s shy and kind, and he works hard, but a macho man, he is not.

Whatever overtly masculine vibes you saw him to be giving off had been fed to you. Fed by various suppositions that were nurtured in your head, passed down through the generations, and then passed through a basic set of childish filters. Because you saw him only in ‘dad’ terms, all you saw were the traits that dads were supposed to have. But the more you talk and reminisce now, the more he likely alludes to his uncertainty and insecurity as a young father. Of being a man.

The lesson here being that ‘masculinity’ in its most draconian sense isn’t something that’s easy (or even possible) to live up to. It’s long been absurdly defined as something stoical, successful, strong. Few of these traits honestly point towards the reality of being a man. Even the archetypes of brave soldiers coming home from battle belie a hidden truth of generations surely crippled by post-traumatic stress, numbed by war.

For every Gazza scoring an iconic goal against Scotland, thousands more Gazzas are looking lost and bewildered in the street. And as you lie on the beach during the summer, scroll through Instagram or sedate yourself with another episode of Love Island, it’s not hard to notice the hordes of guys who have succumbed to a social trend that requires normal people with normal jobs to have Olympian bodies. What the hell is that all about?

“Work was always the central way men could define themselves, their identity depended on it,” suggests sociologist Robert Proni. “Now, with the feminisation of the workplace, you could argue that there is more pressure to express masculinity through body image.”

Whatever it is to be a man right now, it all looks quite complicated and contradictory – gentle and sensitive but also beefy and strong, self-confident and go-getting yet humble. To put a positive spin on it, each of us has a chance to be a modern-day Renaissance man, open to and capable of anything. But it’s also little wonder men are having greater struggles with their mental health than ever before. We’ve forgotten that it’s okay to be inadequate, it’s fine to be unheroic, it’s no problem to like yourself in spite of all of the things you’re seemingly getting wrong.

“I’m not sure that the strong and silent stereotype for men holds true anymore,” starts masculinity expert, author and journalist Mark Simpson. “They perhaps don’t always express themselves in the same way as women, but that doesn’t mean they don’t express themselves. Perhaps people need to listen more.”

Mental health, certainly amongst guys, seems to be on the social agenda in a big way, with men talking about it on a bigger platform. Everyone from Dwayne Johnson to Stormzy has opened up about their experiences with depression. Even the Royal Family – notorious for centuries of oil paintings depicting them as noble warriors (or, at least, as better looking than they are) – have entered the debate. Princes Harry and William have taken to encouraging the nation’s menfolk to address their inner struggles and to tackle mental health head-on. This, it has to be said, can only be applauded, because the topic of depression has long been an absurd taboo, seemingly viewed as a sign of weakness.

However, the statistics tell a story of a society struggling to do battle with its demons. In the last couple of years, it’s been reported that suicide is now the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK. Anxiety, depression and eating disorders have also skyrocketed by over 600 per cent in younger men over the last decade.

It’s impossible to say whether this is the result of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ — a phrase that seems to be wheeled out every so often at our convenience — or whether men are simply finding it easier to be open and, as a result, the reported cases are causing a spike in the stats. Whatever the underlying reason, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that men are becoming humanised in a way that makes for shocking reading, but also in a way that can ultimately benefit not just men, but everyone. Because once age-old notions of men being one way, and women being another, are finally laid to rest, society can edge closer to total equality.

Perhaps, though, any male ‘crisis’ is simply down to men being required to give up their privilege and reprogram their outlook. “Masculinity has been in crisis forever, but I don’t believe that masculinity is ‘in crisis’ today,” agrees Simpson. “On the contrary, it’s probably in less crisis than it has ever been before – masculinity has been liberated by a metrosexual revolution, from oppressive and impossible expectations of what ‘being a man’ is.”

So what are we left with? A society where men are being alleviated of (or stripped of, depending on your outlook) their old purported responsibilities. It’s no longer set in stone that you must be the breadwinner; you are no longer required to hunt and gather; you are allowed to feel weak, or unhappy; you have permission to share your innermost workings. You are not the king of your castle. Instead, you are a cog in a much bigger machine than you, sharing all of the duties and responsibilities that come with it, and you’re allowed to identify as a child of the universe – lost, uncertain and imperfect. Now, this all might sound a bit negative, but in reality, it’s brilliant. The freedom to embrace your inadequacies and to aspire to something other than being respected and stoical? Bring it on.

“Truth is, nobody knows what being a man involves today, and that’s actually rather good news, not a cue for ominous music and scary statistics,” continues Simpson. “Most of the ideas about masculinity, back when we all knew what it was, were prohibitions: not sensitive, not gay, not passive, not girly, not good with colours. Repression was an essential part of old-school masculinity, including the part of it that everyone misses: self-sacrifice, strength and stoicism.

“Essentially, being a man was sold as a form of heroism – a ‘man’ was a heroic ideal, something almost impossible to embody. That isn’t to say that everything is hunky-dory now, but on the whole, things are a lot better – we can actually talk about men’s ‘failings’ and problems now.”

Another area that has shifted markedly in recent decades is the come about of social media. In the same way you were not privy to your father’s inner workings, neither were you tuned into his brand ideals – he didn’t have a preferred Instagram filter and, in general, you didn’t see men on holiday turning their disposable cameras around and sucking in their cheeks and puffing out their chests.

In fact, when you look back at the men that defined masculinity around that time – Sean Connery, Tom Selleck, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Bruce Springsteen – they weren’t sculpted and shaven, they weren’t even particularly shredded. Instead, that absurd subsection of muscularity was left to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers, who were far from the norm. They were the exceptions, walking testosterone, something to be exhibited rather than aspired towards.

Skip to now, where everyone from boyband members to reality stars to A-Listers like Ryan Gosling and even Justin Beiber is seemingly expected to have Adonis bodies that tell a story of a lifetime spent in the gym. Add to that the occasional gigantic beard and the epidemic propensity towards getting multiple tattoos, and you start to wonder if these things might have a more profound message, that they might be totems of a lost masculinity. A desperate lunge towards validation as ‘men’.

“In terms of body image, any shift can be related to the consumer culture of today,” says Proni, who lectures at Kingston University, London. “The commodification of our bodies – the cultural emphasis on youthfulness, desire and pleasure – this doesn’t just apply to men, the media images for all of us are now woven into the fabric of our daily life. And unfortunately, this notion that we are all responsible for ourselves can lead to depression, confusion and anxiety in men. Instead of finding ourselves, we lose ourselves.”

Indeed, in the quest for validation and approval, it seems that many more men are going under the knife – presumably, in a bid to provide the world with the fantasy version of their masculine selves they would urge you, and probably themselves, to buy into.

“I’ve always had a high proportion of male patients in my practice,” says cosmetic surgeon Dr Jonquille Chantrey. “But there are definitely more men attending now than ever before. Their top reason for coming is to ‘look less tired’, but lots of them are also interested in non-surgical body contouring procedures to get rid of stubborn fat that won’t shift, even with their gruelling workout regimes.

“The pressures to look a certain way have been there for some time in terms of body appearance and grooming, but it’s quickly transgressing into face and health – most of the men we treat work hard to keep up their fitness, which can ironically make them look gaunt and haggard.”

“Modern men definitely feel pressure to be looked at and ‘liked’,” continues Simpson. “But that’s because we live in a hyper-visual, social media culture. I don’t think this is necessarily bad. It’s good that men no longer look, and women are no longer simply looked at. Men have discovered the desire to be desired – which was always at the heart of metrosexuality. It’s no longer something just for gays and girls.”

So, all of this would suggest that, with the diminishing gender divide, men are now essentially experiencing the same pressures to look a certain way that have been dogging women forever. The patriarchy is dying, the shoe (or heel) is on the other foot. Masculinity is reshaping itself, and presumably, some men have been left feeling confused, exposed, discombobulated and uncertain about their place in the world.

But don’t confuse this as anything other than positive. Men have been shackled by old notions of masculinity for way too long, forever urged to be part of a gang, or to fit into tired stereotypes. Now we can be honest, open, and complex individuals – we can unashamedly (or ashamedly, it’s up to you) be ourselves. We can dress how we want, we can be candid about our desire to become better people, healthier people, and we can even be truthful about the things that make us feel inadequate. We’re basically Eminem at the end of 8 Mile, listing our faults in a bid to become glorious and triumphant. And the nicest part is that we can now work on becoming genuinely brotherly with one another in a way that women have been supporting one another for years.

“Self-confidence is more powerful when it comes from a healthy inner perspective,” says Dr Chantrey.

We’ll drink to that.

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