Interesting Links for 25-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• A Hugo nominated short story that nearly made me cry on the bus.
  (tags: scifi shortstory hugo)
• So, is their any research being done into why girls are now ahead of boys for GCSEs?
  (tags: gender education uk)
• The Statues That Walked - The Easter Islanders may not Niue have wiped themselves out after all...
  (tags: archaeology environment EasterIsland)
• Probably the best article on fanfic I've seen in the mainstream media.
  (tags: fandom fanfic culture writing art copyright)
• Your Guide to Disappointing Lesbian Cinema
  (tags: lesbians movies lgbt)
• GameStop removes free offer from inside computer game (Deux Ex) before selling them.
  (tags: computer_games business wtf)
• 10 Totally Different TV Shows that Doctor Who Has Been Over the Years
  (tags: doctorwho drwho tv)
• UK signs agreement to tax Swiss bank accounts
  (tags: tax switzerland uk)
• How games saved my life - testimonials from people whose lives were changed by video games (for the better)
  (tags: computer_games technology)
• Boobs Don't Work That Way
  (tags: art funny women gender comics anime)
• Naked rambler goes back to prison for anothe 657 days. Over five years now.
  (tags: Nudity law scotland)
• How the brain stores information for short periods of time
  (tags: brains memory)
• Are books dead, and can authors survive?
  (tags: books writing ebook future publishing)

Comments

[birguslatro]

"He has been repeatedly arrested in the street outside Perth Prison by police waiting for him to be released at the end of each sentence."

I'm kinda speechless. They've no real crime to deal with?

[fjm.livejournal.com]

There are a number of commentators from various periods who note how much easier girls are to teach than boys. In Birmingham one of the scandals of the grammar school system when I lived there was that the girls numbers were kept small thank to restricted places. Take away all the discrimination, the extra housework girls used to have to do, etc, etc.....

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

When I studied Sociology at A-Level, one of the things we had to learn about was gender divide and why girls were doing better than boys in the classroom. I assume there is research on the topic, if at least 10 years ago they were teaching it at A-Level.

They said that classrooms are more geared to girls (who are better at conversation than boys). I think they also said that coursework also helped girls, I can't remember but something tells me that boys were better at exams, but girls were better at steadily working throughout a school year, and were rewarded by high coursework marks, which in turn contributed to better overall grades?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

(Alert, typo in second link. Feel free to delete my comment once you've fixed.)

[andrewducker]

Cheers, fixed.

(And there's a comment just below that you might want to respond to)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I would love to know what that woman thought of "Bound" - since it's nothing like any of the lesbian movies she talks about.

Also - if you haven't read "Tipping The Velvet", she's right, you should. It is a fucking awesome book (and she's also right that the movie is lame.)

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Bound is an awesome movie, and Gina Gershon as Corky is definitely a lesbian icon. However, it's not really a 'lesbian movie' per se. It's more a mob thriller where the protagonists happen to have had an excellent but extremely brief bout of hot lesbian sex at about the 20 minute mark. There's a good 2 hours after that in which it wouldn't matter a damn who the leads were. As such, although it might be up there on lists of 'hottest lesbians in film' or 'hottest sex scenes in film' it's rarely mentioned in lists of 'good/bad/whatever lesbian films'.

I think Fingersmith and The Night Watch are both better than Tipping the Velvet but I certainly agree that while the book was a lovely period piece, the miniseries was a ridiculous pastiche. Which I still enjoy because c'mon, Anna Chancellor wearing corsetry and riding a girl in a soldier suit. But it's not the book.

[andrewducker]

Question for you:
What (for you) makes a "lesbian movie"? Is it one where the main characters are lesbians? One about lesbian issues? Something else?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that's really an answerable question. I think maybe that if the leads are girls who like girls (who're with girls in the movie), and the movie doesn't have any other definable genre (other than, perhaps, 'drama' or 'comedy'), then it's a lesbian movie. Mainly it's a suck it and see thing though. Show the movie to a lesbian. Ask her if it's a lesbian movie. If she says 'yes', then it is.

[andrewducker]

So if the leads in Bound has been lesbians, rather than there just being a lesbian affair going on, then that would have made it more like that, I assume. Makes perfect sense to me.

*isn't going to make a joke about you saying "suck it and see"*

[marrog.livejournal.com]

The leads in Bound are both lesbians. But the film is a Thriller.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

What about we compromise and call it a "lesbian thriller?"

[andrewducker]

Is Violet a lesbian? I figured her for bi, but it's been many years since I saw the movie.

And I don't see a reason why a film has to be one thing. You can tag something "thriller" and "lesbian", after all.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Vi's a lesbian; she says as much in one scene.

Sure, but the term 'lesbian movie' means more than just 'a movie with lesbians in'. Just because something can't be concretely defined doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think you're right that a film can be two things, but in a list of 'lesbian movies' that are good, bad, sexy, icky, whatever, Bound isn't likely to feature because most of it is about stolen money and Joe Pantoliano going batshit crazy, not lesbians.

[andrewducker]

Gotcha, so because the focus is not on lesbian issues, it's not primarily a lesbian movie.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Not really. But close enough, I guess.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

What about The Runaways? Lesbian heartbreak is at the heart of the film, even though that's not the general plot.

Lesbian movie or not?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I am not the boss of lesbian movie taxonomy! Also I haven't seen it yet, and seeing it would be the only way to know.

[andrewducker]

I'm sorry, but as the handiest member of a minority group you are required, by internet law, to represent all members of said group when questioned by any other member of the internet on any forum, blog, or other social network.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Ha!

I didn't even realize she was lesbian.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I once couldn't find a film in HMV (quite some years ago) and ended up finding it in the Gay Cinema section. I guess that film was pretty clearly a lesbian movie.

I always think it's odd to have sections like that. "Gay" isn't a genre, and nor is "World". If I like Fellini films, it doesn't mean that I'll enjoy Tetsuo. Although I guess a lot of straight people seem to be scared that if they watch a film with gay people in and they're not comic relief or Trusted But Gay Best Friend So Thank Heaven They're Not After My BF/GF then they might turn gay themselves or something.

[andrewducker]

If I like Fellini films, it doesn't mean that I'll enjoy Tetsuo.

There is only one group out there that enjoys either, and it's "film and media students that shared a flat with Adam".

Genre is, a lot of the time, a marketing term. And there are lesbians out there looking for movies about people like them, so it makes perfect sense to me that you'd advertise movies like that.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

The mini series tried to play it too "safe" - it's the boundary crossing that makes the book interesting and there are just some things in the book that the mini series just wasn't willing to go deal with.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

That 'death of the author' thing is just as nonsensical as 'death of the musician' things written about MP3s. Plenty of people will pay for content even if it's given away for free, unless the 10% of my income that comes from books I've previously serialised on my blog is a lie.

At the moment, at least, ebook royalties pay *massively* better than those from publishers - I make 70% on my Kindle books, for example - so if (BIG if) that doesn't decrease, then there's no reason why authors can't start living primarily off royalties.

In fact there's so much wrong with it that... it's just absurd. But take this:

"Is there an alternative to this catastrophe? If so, it cannot lie where Chris Anderson recommends, in having what he terms "freemium viewing" – locked or extra content for subscribers (a system devised for newspapers and computer games). What would this mean for the book? An extra chapter? An author's commentary? The final sentence if you pay more?"

For my books (non-fiction, but a very similar thing will apply when I finish my short story collection - I'm currently selling the stories too cheaply for this to matter) you can read the main text, in full, on my blog for free. Or you can buy them, and have an index (in the print version - no need in ebooks, obviously), nice typesetting, an introduction, additional footnotes, acknowledgements, better proofreading/editing (I get four or five people to check the books over before publishing them, and make adjustments accordingly) and a cover. They also (if purchasing from Lulu) get a thank-you email. That's precisely that kind of 'freemium' content the writer dismisses as impossible.

There are, of course, good arguments for writers still using publishers (Charles Stross has outlined them very well on his blog, for example) but that article just reads like FUD.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

regarding that fanfic article:

"It challenges just about everything we thought we knew about art and creativity. "

This is absolute bollocks. I mean seriously, what an arse.

Perhaps if you have never heard of Dada, Gysin, Burroughs, Warhol, Lichtenstein and others then yes, it'll challenge what you knew about art and creativity. On the other hand, if actually know something about art over the last nine decades and creativity, you'll have a framework to put things into and won't just scream HOLY SHIT REMIXING IS NEW ART STOP THE PRESS

All that said, yes, it is a well-balanced mainstream article about fan fiction. I guess when you can buy fan fiction in Waterstones, the mainstream media have to notice it.