Michael Offutt's Blog, page 26

Outer Range on Amazon is as weird as it is uncompelling.

I recently watched Outer Range on Amazon with a friend. After we finished the final episode of the first season, both of us turned to each other and (essentially) said, "This show was weird. I feel like it wasn't really all that compelling. And it was a lot like 'Dark' but without the stunningly beautiful male characters that show had." That being said...it was all right if you like David Lynch-ish shows that have very few answers, and if you like westerns and cowboys.

When I first heard about this show, I don't really know what I was hoping for. The catch was compelling: a mysterious hole that is apparently bottomless and supernatural in origin appears in the west pasture of Royal Abbott's sprawling ranch of thousands of acres. As the show unfolds, we find out that Royal knew what this hole was. In fact, he's a man that is hundreds of years old, as he threw himself into it when he was about ten years old (and the year was like 1886 or something like that). It's a hole that goes through time with no apparent rhyme or reason as to how it works other than 1) things can come from any era and 2) it grants visions of what might be if you interact with the rocks that form its "substance" and get that on your skin.

I wanted to like the Abbotts, who were the stars of the show. But they were killers, and most of them were just not anyone I'd really care to associate with. By the end of this show, I was only kinda/sorta rooting for acting Sherriff Joy. And this series overall felt ponderous when it was trying to be atmospheric, clearly lacking the brilliance of someone who does this kind of show well: David Lynch. So it was like Twin Peaks without the charisma of those stars, if that makes any sense.

From the beginning episode I thought that Outer Range would have some kind of payoff. But when I finally understood most of what was going on, it felt like the big reveal wasn't satisfactory. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this show unless you are bored and just want something to watch that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and has sweeping Wyoming vistas and cattle ranchers. There is talk of a season two, but I don't know if I'd watch it. Sometimes, experimental science fiction shows just land flat, and this feels like one of those times.

The Orville is not more Trek than Trek.

With the release of the third season of The Orville, the discussion among some people who love these kinds of shows (nerds like me) has often boiled down to: "It's good to have Star Trek back." The thing is...The Orville isn't Star Trek, and trolls like to use this line to bludgeon the legions of new fans who absolutely love the diversity and woke-ness of new Trek as if (in doing so) we don't know what proper Trek looks like or (for that matter) everything was better when women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people were shunted into minor roles.

For me...The Orville always seemed like it was a kind of love letter to The Next Generation. This is similar to Michael Chabon's take, whose Picard series seems like an unnecessary addition to the story of Picard. Don't get me wrong...it's Trek so I watch it. But there's very little in the unfolding of the twilight years of Jean-Luc that feel like new ideas. There is no Species 10C like we got in Discovery. There are no strange new vistas that I haven't seen before. Instead, the majority of season 2 of Picard just spent its time in Earth's past in a deep dive into nostalgia and perhaps rewriting what the Borg were/are, which just seems unnecessary.

The Orville is also filled with a lot of ass-hattery and dick jokes. Even though I did think they were funny, dick jokes are not a sustainable thing you can do with a show for season after season. McFarlane clearly acknowledges this as they tapered off quite a bit in the first season and then became a more serious show when they introduced the Kaylon in season two who wanted nothing more than to wipe out all organic life. The mountains of skulls on their home planet were anything but funny (pure horror, folks).

The reason why The Orville could never be more Trek than Trek is because it relies too heavily on psuedo-nostalgia with everyone looking and talking and reminiscing about all the great things they never experienced during the world as we know it today. The haircuts, the slang, the worldview. You even get the 1980-2000-ish playlists, which seems like a crutch to draw in viewers who hate on anything new and different that takes a chance with its content. The far future should not always hark back to the distant past, and this type of thing is on the verge of becoming a science fiction cliché. Regarding the comedy aspect, it's not well-defined. The show goes from a dramatic futuristic show with awkward comedic aspects that oftentimes come across as half-hearted attempts sandwiched between serious situations. Some of it makes me cringe.

Where the show does tend to succeed is by using the exact copy of the playbook of ALL TREK: hope and human foibles. This takes its shape in watching humans struggle to answer questions to which there is no answer, and watching people do their best work together and to try and solve problems with the help of others. Along the way, they create unity, support, and communication. That message is something that we need now more than ever in our society, because it's a struggle out there. Y'all know what I'm talking about here.

I'm looking forward to watching The Orville season 3. However, it's not more Trek than Trek. If you are one of the people saying this, I wish you'd stop.

What is Mad God about?

The title of my blog post today says it all lol. I actually don't really know, other than I learned about this project in the last few days. But for sake of coming across as completely ignorant and thereby making it a waste of time for you to read my blog, I'm going to tell you what I do know about it which may be a little more than most. First, it's a passion project by a guy named Phil Tippett who is the founder of Tippett Studios. They specialize in stop motion animation. Tippett has previously won an Oscar and an Emmy for special effects. He's worked on RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Jurassic Park, and the original Star Wars trilogy. It also has taken Tippett thirty years to make this movie. Yes...I said 30 G*Damn years. I can only ask myself...why would anyone spend 30 years of their life working on a thing off and on? But it doesn't matter, because it is finished. Now it just needs to find its audience.

Here's the full synopsis: "Mad God is an experimental animated film set in a world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs. A corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city, settling down upon an ominous fortress guarded by zombie-like sentries. The Assassin emerges to explore a labyrinth of bizarre, desolate landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens."

And here's the catch...you have to subscribe to Shudder in order to see it. Look...I get launching it on a streaming service. That is what everyone is doing these days. But I'm never going to subscribe to Shudder. I don't like scary movies, though this one (which seems to be pegged in the fantasy/horror genre) is right up my alley. It's not real enough to scare me, therefore, I think I'd enjoy watching it. At least...that's what I'm convincing myself at this time (it's the reason I avoid scary movies). When I watch scary movies, I don't have much fun. I'm hoping that it comes out on blu-ray or some other old format later this year, and I can watch it. In the meantime, I have only testimonials from super famous people I like weighing in on this thing. 

"Phil Tippett is a Master." -- Guillermo del Toro

"Phil brings humanity and empathy to every character." -- Kathleen Kennedy

I guess I should probably see this thing. Who am I to question Guillermo del Toro or Kathleen Kennedy? I'm not kidding here, these are two of my favorite people in the entertainment industry. Anyone subscribed to Shudder out there that might share their password with me so I can watch this thing? LOL, just kidding. Do yourself a favor and click on the trailer below. It's a real trip.

It seems weird for it to only be mid-May and to make an Oscar prediction, but here goes. I think we shall see Phil Tippett win his second Oscar next year for this thing. Why? One doesn't work for thirty years on something and not win anything for that kind of meticulous attention to detail. That would be barbaric, and the art industry is anything but.

Let's discuss Marvel Incursions which we learned about in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

There are plenty of discussion threads and articles now on the internet that are talking about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In this blog post, I'm not so much going to talk about the movie, as I'm going to talk about incursions (which are a big part of the movie), and what they mean going forward for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So here is your obligatory "spoiler alert."
So, the movie introduced the concept of incursions. You may be wondering, what exactly is an incursion? Although the film performs a decent explanation of this concept, the comics have additional insight. And most of this comes from Jonathan Hickman, who wrote a series for Marvel about a decade ago called Secret Wars. Jonathan Hickman, by the way, has been hired on as a consultant to Marvel (so we know that this is probably where the MCU is going post Thanos) and Jonathan Hickman is lauded by one of my close personal friends as being the greatest comic book writer ever. Take that as you would any other claim, but if not the G.O.A.T., then maybe we could agree that he would be on the small team photo of greatest writers of all time.
A multiversal incursion is an event where two universes crash into each other. There are also ways to prevent or stop an incursion, and to prevent two realities from collapsing on top of each other and thus destroying one or both universes involved in this event. The comic books by writer Jonathan Hickman say that incursions are the result of multiverse timelines contracting. Think of it this way: even though every universe has infinite outcomes built within it, each universe has the same fate in the grand scheme, i.e., a final death moment. In Jonathan Hickman's story, it was revealed that a character called Molecule Man destroyed a universe prematurely. In the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it is an organization called the Illuminati that informs Doctor Strange that another version of him did a similar thing and destroyed a universe prematurely. And the thing is, all of these universes are interconnected. So when one goes, it affects the ones it is linked to in unpredictable ways. There is also another rule to these incursions: when universes collide, Earth is the collision point in all instances. That makes Earth the center of the story. Follow me so far?
So how do you stop an incursion? Well that all depends on the writer. Instances that have popped up in the comics include destroying one Earth to save the other one. The Avengers once used the Infinity Gauntlet to force an approaching Earth away, although this destroyed multiple Infinity Stones. Now you may be asking: why would Disney and Marvel want to use this kind of plot tactic for forthcoming movies? Well...because it is exciting with lots of potential for some really huge special effects rich storytelling. And what is a Marvel superhero movie without special effects?
Having multiple universes collide also solves bringing in the X-Men and the Fantastic Four and Sony's Venom-verse, and every other thing that they've wanted to lasso into their huge story. It sets the stage for big heroes and just hugely powerful villains or entities (The Living Tribunal comes to mind who is...essentially...god). I mean...you get to destroy Earth in one example while still having Earth be saved in another. So you get all the fireworks of annihilating a planet without really harming the ability to tell future stories on the same planet. Weird, right? This is the absurdity and entertainment of comic book movies. Everything just keeps going on and on and on and it all makes sense because in the end, everything is possible with a multiverse and a multiverse incursion.
Anyway, I have no idea where they are going with any of this. I'm just reading the tea leaves, but I'm sure it may resemble something of Jonathan Hickman's storyline in Secret Wars. But there will be things cut out and changed. That shouldn't keep it from being entertaining, which is what counts in these kinds of things. It will also allow them to go bigger than the Thanos snap, which only affected one universe. In this kind of storytelling, many (more than one universe certainly) can and probably will be affected by devastating consequences. It's actually kind of exciting, once you think about it (and if you've been a fan of comic books). We are about to experience a studio going big in a way that has never been tried before, and either it will be great, or it will be ridiculous. I guess it's just a waiting game at this point.

George Pérez has died. This one hurts a lot.

George Pérez was my favorite comic book artist. I think he was the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). If not the G.O.A.T., then he's certainly in the team photo. Anyone who knows the industry knows this as a fact.

He retired from the industry in January 2019 due to various health related issues. I got to know him back in the day as he worked with Marv Wolfman to create an epic run of the Teen Titans. Then he worked with Marv again on the fiftieth issue to reboot Wonder Girl with a five-part series Who is Wonder Girl? This is how we got Troia out of Donna Troi.

He also rebooted Wonder Woman. His run on that was epic too and it really cemented the things that I loved about the character. He drew for both Marvel and DC, he created Crisis on the Infinite Earths which is a kind of legendary storyline. He drew Jim Starlin's 1991 limited series Infinity Gauntlet.

Pérez's drawings were beautiful. There's no other way to describe them. Plus they featured anatomically correct people without being overtly sexual like so many of his contemporaries. And the man could draw hair wavy or curly without it looking like a caricature.

George Pérez has died. Oh man...this one hurts a lot. Screw you, 2022.

In the May Insecure Writer's Group we talk about writer highs and lows.

Today is Wednesday, May 4, 2022. I've been blogging some twelve years now? That seems strange. I never thought I'd be at this more than ten years, but it turns out I like blogging. Anyway, those of you who visit me know that the first Wednesday of every month is Insecure Writer's Support Group day. I'm really not insecure anymore, but I still like to participate. This thing was started by Alex Cavanaugh who is still a very avid blogger over at his site. So, I think he's probably going on 13 years? I know that we both started at similar times. Boy, time sure does go by fast. Anyway, I'm going to borrow some words from the IWSG sign-up page to explain what this thing is (in case some of you are new).

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: That's easy! It's to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

When do y'all post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

If you are still on Twitter post-Elon Musk buyout, their Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 4th posting of the IWSG are Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon!

Every month, the IWSG Board of Directors announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. And please remember that the question is optional.
So without further ado, here is the May 4th question:

It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)?
For me, I think the writer highs that I experienced happened when I realized there was a community of people who liked writing that had organized online. There were blogfests I could join, and people I could meet. I scored free books to read and reviewed quite a few (I still review books from time to time, but everything has slowed down with age I suppose). And there was all this knowledge that was readily available. People talked about agents and how they got them! Like...what?! And I corresponded with some really interesting people. For example, I've corresponded with John Scalzi and Tahereh Mafi via blogging, and it wasn't some agent or some designated spokesperson. It was the real person dispensing advice directly to me. Another really positive thing that happened was that I felt a lot more connected to the industry. I kind of new what people in power were looking for. Doing some self-publishing helped me to feel empowered, and to realize what kind of hard work went into actually putting a book together. I think it's important for anyone who is passionate about a thing to know exactly how the sausage is made. Publishing and writing so often are just thought of as this art form that people do in the quiet of their homes. That is only partially true. The incredible writers living today must be more than that. They must be savvy at social networks, they need to put themselves out there, and they need to do uncomfortable things. Look at Brandon Sanderson. In his latest Kickstarter he was clearly uncomfortable in front of the camera so he hammed his way through it to some $41 million in riches. But if he couldn't bring himself to crawl out of his hole and maybe face some inner doubts about himself, he wouldn't have made a dime.
I think the crappy times are few, but one I focus on particular has to do with reviews, either by me for someone else or from a person reviewing my work. I had to get used to that criticism, and sometimes it was pretty bad. But I had a thick skin, and I got way more positive reviews than negative ones. It's just how people are, and you need to find the audience you are writing for. A lot of people who are reviewers, only like a certain genre or kind of book even though they may not be completely honest with themselves about that truth. So, my best advice on this (to avoid a writer low) is to find your audience that likes the kind of thing that you like to write. Trust me, they are out there. Additionally, there's the minefield of authors that may not like what you have written about their work. Sometimes they have big platforms (at least compared to me), and I feel like my words (although accurate and I stand by them) may have tweaked a nerve and caused some people to come back at me with a "how dare you write this about my book?" kind of thing. It's sometimes difficult to remember that the internet is one big bathtub, and at the end of the day, y'all are just marinating in it, and a person on one end of the tub can easily slide over and get in your personal space because you said something they don't like. That's just the way the internet is. And this can happen to anyone. I once tweeted about Demi Lovato, and she actually responded. The same goes for other stars like Gregory Smith (Everwood and Rookie Blue). I've had people respond to things I've said, and it wasn't their agents. None of this was a bad interaction by any means, but it's a reminder that things can blow up when you least expect them to, so be careful about what you put out there, and remember, even if a person is famous they are human too and they have feelings.
Thanks for stopping by, and until next time, adieu.

Tokyo Vice on HBO Max is a solid Japanese crime story based upon a famous memoir by Jake Adelstein

When I was thirteen years old, I visited Japan with my mother. My memories from that time period are still quite clear, and I remember that she would always point out people who had tattoos and say, "We shouldn't go into that restaurant. It is frequented by the Yakuza." I really didn't know what she meant other than they were "bad people" or "People to be avoided." Even though she had married an American from Texas, my mother's ability to navigate the shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train) and go from city to city in Japan with ease always impressed upon me that she had come to power within big cities. Tokyo was the biggest city I'd ever been in at the time, and I remember that the streets were narrow, everything was very crowded, and the heat was as oppressive as a sweater with very little relief due to an astounding amount of humidity.

With that in mind, it has been a delightful experience to watch Tokyo Vice on HBO Max, because (for one) it answers exactly what there was to be feared when thinking of the Yakuza. Coming away from this show, if I had to describe the Yakuza, I would say its similar to the western Mafia, only with an injection of an ancient Japanese cultural obsession with honor and duty to one's organization. The setting is in the nineties, so well past the time when I visited Japan in the early eighties. Some of the story concerns itself with Kabukicho, which was considered an entertainment and red-light district in the heart of Tokyo that had/has such things as "Love Hotels" which are not really found so openly in America. The story itself is based on a memoir written by Jake Adelstein, who wrote about his experiences covering Japanese gangsters when he was covering crime for The Yomiuri Shimbun from 1993 to 2005.

I've not read the book, but it isn't difficult to get details off the internet about it. The most important takeaway from the memoir is that it talks about Adelstein's expose that was published in Japan abaout Tadamasa Goto, the head of the yakuza family Goto-gumi who was known as the "John Gotti" of Japan. He sold out his gang to the F.B.I. in order to jump the queue and get a liver transplant in the United States, ahead of U.S. citizens. And of course, Adelstein got death threats because of this. I'm sure it was a very scary time, and it shows the kind of courage it took to be a journalist rubbing elbows with everyday criminals who very much could just do what they wanted to in Japan.

Tokyo Vice is a show that is richly detailed. The main character played by Ansel Elgort does a fine job speaking Japanese (there are lots of subtitles), and Ken Watanabe plays a high profile police detective that becomes friends with Ansel's character and begins to show him how the Japanese approach the Yakuza. This was a shocking thing for me to come to grips with, but the police in Japan approached gangsters very carefully. In one scene, Ken Watanabe tells a Yakuza that he has gone too far, and that he will need two people to take the fall for this. It's essentially asking him permission to arrest two people. But when the Yakuza refuses and gives only one, then Watanabe tells him that won't do. There's a lot of intimidation, and staring, and finally the Yakuza orders another of his men to be arrested to satisfy the police. I was like...what in the hell? This is NOT how it is done in America.

Additionally, people aren't "murdered" in Japan. Even when a corpse is found with a sword thrust all the way through him, it is not seen as murder. Instead they have copious euphemisms to beat around the bush on what exactly happened to this guy, and the local newspaper is forbidden to print anything except what the police say happened, which hides about half to three-quarters of the truth.

The crux of Tokyo Vice pivots around a thing that was happening in Japan at the time concerning lots of suicides, and this is what the reporter uncovers during the story. He finds out that a lot of financially distressed couples are going to shell companies offering loans of cash to people who cannot qualify for cash from any other institution. They are then forced to sign papers which turn over any life insurance or other kinds of insurance on them should they die before the loan is paid back. Then they issue tremendously high interest rates on the loans, take out an insurance policy on the individual in question, and when they inevitably default on the loan, they pressure that person continuously day and night to commit suicide or their family will suffer. When they commit suicide, sometimes in the most gruesome of ways (one person burns himself to death by soaking his body in gasoline and then lighting a match), the Yakuza collect on all the life insurance and make millions. When I realized what was going on I was like, "Oh wow...that is truly evil and diabolical." But...we only need to look at someplace like Ukraine and see what's going on there to realize that people, whether they are Japanese or Russian, can be the absolute worst.

Tokyo Vice is a thriller that does what it's supposed to do. It takes us (the viewer) through the bars, alleys, offices, shops, and homes of a Japan that existed before ubiquitous cell phones and internet blanketed our world. There's a kind of energy of exploration and discovery to that, which may be the best parts of good journalism. And aside from that, who doesn't like a good Japanese crime story?

I have a strange theory that might explain what I'm seeing with inflation today.

I had an epiphany about inflation. I actually know a lot of people who make $120,000 a year. I know even more people who have a household income that exceeds that threshold. None of these people can afford a home now, because in the Salt Lake area, you need to make $90.00 per hour just to afford an average house. This is becoming ubiquitous across the nation.

However, this doesn't change the fact that people who make $30, $40, $50, and $60 per hour doing whatever it is that they do, are not (in fact) still bringing in that money. They just can't afford to buy a house. So they are stuck renting, which drives up the price of rentals as they seek out luxury apartments that they can afford because (again) they are not millionaires who are able to afford a regular old house.

This also means that all of this income is flooding the market, and they are buying everything they can afford. Cars? check. Luxury goods? check. Vacations? check. All. The. Things. And this is making inflation crazy hot. I don't think higher interest rates are going to do much against this weird circumstance. You've got an entire group of people who can't leap up to the next level because the gap has grown so wide to home ownership. So instead those people are awash in cash, and they're going to spend it. On everything except a home (because they can't find one in their price range). 

I know this kind of anecdotal point-of-view is crude at best. I am not an economist. But the internet allows me to voice my opinion on what I'm seeing, and this is what I'm seeing. People driving $75,000 cars and going on vacations to Hawaii while living in a one-bedroom basement apartment that they will never escape. Meanwhile their rent keeps going up, because landlords know they can charge more and that their renters can pay because they see all that cash sloshing around. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's easy to do, and just so long as you keep the price of renting barely within reach (and owning a house is outright unreachable), they can just keep raising the rent, and everyone can charge more for everything. 

It's a super weird capitalist dystopia, because high home costs are pricing people out of the market. But everything else costs so much less than a home...so everything else is suddenly affordable. I think the only fix is to make housing affordable again. Then that can soak up all the extra cash, rents will fall because people can suddenly own, and we'll finally get a decrease in inflation. Until that happens, I think inflation is here to stay because people will not ever do the right thing (so businesses definitely won't). I guess my second epiphany about all this is how stupid it is to have an economic system where owning a home is the bedrock. Why is housing (a basic need) seen as the ultimate asset and investment? Whose smart idea was that (I'm being facetious)?

In the near future, we are going to see a dramatic rise in hedonism. People have tons of money that is not enough to buy a home. But it can still buy plastic surgery, fitness equipment, crossfit memberships, concerts, and party, party, party. Want to go to Ibiza? That's easy. I live in a shitty one-bedroom apartment, but I can afford that. Ibiza here I come! Want to buy a Land Rover by Jaguar? Sure. It'll be parked outside my mobile home. How f'ing weird...but that's where we are headed. These times are sure strange. And in the meantime, the people who were priced out of the market even when houses were like $300,000? Those people are screwed forever, because they can't afford anything now. And no one cares, except, you know...when church is in session. Then the caring can last for a little while, until the grifting gene takes over.

I binged Heartstopper in one sitting and I'll probably do it again soon.

The week in queer television reviews continues! This time I'm going to talk about Heartstopper, which is on Netflix and is an adaptation of a graphic novel. Heartstopper caught me by surprise. I expected a romantic comedy, but what came across my screen was a story that was remarkably free of drama, and was just a budding love story between two kids that came from different worlds. It was allowed to unfold without manufactured breakups, terrible tragedies, and without the expletives and nudity of Euphoria or Sex Education. In a word...it was just wonderful and pretty grounded in actual reality.

This is another show that was everything that I've wanted and couldn't express. It's so wholesome and heartwarming. The fact that Charlie and Nick have this chaste relationship is part of the absolute charm of the whole thing. Queer culture is drenched in sex, and it's pretty much ubiquitous among young gay men on the verge of adulthood (which happens at different ages around the world). I follow an Instagram couple (for example) that look like they could be 19, and they're porn stars flying to Ibiza to party, London, Manchester, Hollywood, and you name it. They are awash with money and about as dumb as rocks because the only things they seem to do is spend money and have sex to post online to fuel their expensive lifestyle. Then there are the other gay men (also 19) putting on makeup and clay masks to (I guess) plump up their already young skin. It feels a lot like water just trying to be wet when water is already wet. What's the point? Heartstopper in contrast to this dares to tell the story of love without all that garbage. It's just two boys who really like each other, seeing each other, and then saying "hi" in a way that makes me verklempt. Seriously, the word "hi" becomes so romantic and good that I was just swept away by it whenever Charlie or Nick took the time to say it to one another.

The main romance of the show is pitched perfectly. Even in "straight" love stories, it's so rare for the athletic love interest to be an insecure character of pure heart who doesn't make some terrible mistake to introduce drama. Nick (in this role) is such a refreshingly likeable and relatable boy. Loads of people on Facebook are saying that they wanted something like this when they were young. If I'd had access to this when I was a teen, I absolutely would have realized some things about myself that took a lot longer to crystalize. That being said, everyone wants something like this. But I know (because I've been around this racetrack called life a few times) that it is exceptionally rare kinda like the fabled blue rose of fairy tales. That doesn't mean we shouldn't believe it could happen, which is why I love this story so much. It reminded me of why I became a writer in the first place: I like to dream.

I thought the homophobia they showed in the story was very accurate as well. There are so many characters saying, "I'm not homophobic, but..." or something like, "I'm an ally," and then they do something to diminish the main character (or commit some micro aggression). We also get very accurate and real comebacks for these people from characters who have learned to have tough skins and to draw boundaries. They snap back by saying things like, "Thank you for your service, but please move on," and it feels so great. That's kinda what homophobia is like in modern times. People aren't so brazen anymore that they threaten you with fisticuffs or other forms of violence (sure those still exist, but they are becoming more uncommon). Instead, homophobia has entered a passive/aggressive stage. It's morphed, kinda like the variants of the Omicron virus, and attacks gay people through innuendo, or backward compliments. This is what we all now have to deal with in America (especially).

Anyway, all that being said, the actors who played Charlie and Nick absolutely nailed the nervousness and butterflies moments. The lesbian couple was also well-scripted, and I found myself getting invested in their story arc as well. The one thing that bugged me a little was Tau, who was very defensive of Charlie and always threatening to hurt Nick if he hurt Charlie...it was a bit heavy-handed and was really the only source of tension in the show. And as it turns out, Nick had purely good intentions with Charlie and was in a process of realizing a great truth about himself, and he had the courage to show it to the world once he figured it out. Tau (I think) was just feeling lost because his friend group that very much had Charlie at its center was splintering into relationships in which he was no longer a priority. All of his friends were getting together (except for him) and they no longer had time for movie night at his house or for hanging out and having those long, meaningful conversations that friends of the same age tend to have. So, of course, Nick Nelson (Charlie's boyfriend to be) was very threatening to that, and Tau attacked him with claws out until Nick showed Tau that he was a good person and could be Tau's friend too (Nick's a puppy dog masquerading as a human...I swear).

This year we are getting so much gay! I love it. I'm just a little worried about getting attached to it all. For example, I feel like this show (Heartstopper) only got made because it was already in the pipeline before Netflix started hemorrhaging subscribers. I think they're going to think that woke content is dead weight, and anything that isn't Stranger Things won't help slow their decline in subscribers. Ahh well...it was a beautiful moment while it lasted. My favorite moment? When Nick runs to Charlie's house in the rain and stands outside all drenched. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  Y'all seriously need to watch this show.

Our Flag Means Death dares to tell a pirate story that no one has ever touched and it's incredible.

Our Flag Means Death is a show on HBO Max that I absolutely loved. It's a queer pirate story told through the brilliant eye of Taika Waititi, who stars as Blackbeard in the first season. And I just want to emphasize that I loved this show even more as a gay viewer. After finishing the first season, and desperately wanting more, I realized something about modern queer representation. It's so rare that audiences who are interested in seeing it have essentially been trained to look for these tiny little clues of queer coding.

I mean...just think back to Disney celebrating its "First gay character" and then it's a guy dancing with another guy in the background or a line of dialogue that could easily be missed. It's like the glances between Finn and Poe in Star Wars...what do those glances mean? Or Dumbledore is gay...but it is mentioned (by the now shamed author) years after the original series in which she made her fame, and it has been printed and minted billions and there is literally nothing to lose.

This (of course) then clashes with tropes like the infamous bromance. This is a plot device where two dudes are shown to be close, often even using typical romance imagery, but they are never actually allowed to be in love because they're quick to push the "no homo!" panic button. "He's like a brother to me!" is the new "no homo" because it is ubiquitous today.

So, viewers like me experience a lot of queerbaiting as a result. If you are unfamiliar with this term, it's when a show/film/whatever is building up the expectation of a queer character being in there somewhere and then not delivering on that in a satisfying way (if at all). To be fair, it can happen a bit unintentionally, like when two actors have surprisingly amazing chemistry, and they're even up for something more to happen between their characters. But...then the writers refuse to do anything with it. In the meantime, you put a man and a woman next to each other, and that's pretty much all there is to the gazillion paper-thin hetero love stories.

Our Flag Means Death even went beyond this though. Not only did it show a complete homosexual love story between Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet (played by Rhys Darby), but it also allowed fat characters to be fat without that "being" their character or the butt of jokes. The show also had characters with speech impediments and other "often mocked" traits and behaviors. And the main characters were middle-aged men who just got to live in their emotions and express what they felt for each other.

And apparently, it's all based off a true story. If one researches the actual Stede Bonnet history, you'll find that it is surprisingly ample online and in history books, and the whole gay innuendo really leaps out between the cracks of the narrative. As people did back then (and they still do), the gay aspects are danced around and waved away, but there are clear subtext once you decide to look. Stede left his marriage due to a "mental issue," and he and Blackbeard did indeed share years of their lives together. They were clearly drawn to each other and each featured aspects that were admired by the other.

I was already a huge fan of Taika Waititi after Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit. However, Our Flag Means Death came as a total surprise...like a present...from a legendary director that sees me and my community clearly enough and who has the guts to be extra as hell. The show is hilariously funny, and it is full to bursting with the kind of storytelling that one can feast on. If you are looking for something to watch, and you haven't heard about this one, I'd urge you to give it a try.