Links
* Confessions of a Hate Reader, or Bad Writing Habits I Picked up from Bad Criticism by Jeannette Ng
https://medium.com/@nettlefish/confessions-of-a-hate-reader-or-bad-writing-habits-i-picked-up-from-bad-criticism-190ef2aa2373
Another thing I’ve internalised is an obsession with the logistics of the plot at the expense of larger themes or structural awareness. The Critical Voice is deeply unforgiving about inconsistencies and anything left unexplained is a plot hole (though at the same time, the Voice hates “exposition”).
There is more to a narrative than the events that happen within it, how it is told shapes the story and the meaning audiences are meant to take away. They’re not just puzzle boxes to solve and unravel. But the Critical Voice wouldn’t allow that, it wants everything to clear and simple and explained.
CinemaSins is notoriously bad at understanding the films they’re scrutinising. They approach media in a fundamentally literal way and see no meaning in a story beyond what is happening on the screen. Numerous other commentators have tackled how illiterate they can be, but it is just nonsense to talk about Snowpiercer without understanding that it’s an allegory about capitalism. The point of the film isn’t to exhaustively explain what fuel the train is running on and the various circumstances of that; it’s to explore class dynamics under capitalism through the passenger classes within the train. This isn’t to say the film is good, or succeeds at doing that, but it is core to the film itself.
As an aside, I've also run across the idea that major changes to the character's lives, like life-changing decisions or say, having babies, somehow don't count as part of the plot.
* Cool fun thing: Zen Cho wrote a post-canon treat for Yuletide for her own novel, True Queen! https://twitter.com/zenaldehyde/status/1220321970539110401
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315
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https://medium.com/@nettlefish/confessions-of-a-hate-reader-or-bad-writing-habits-i-picked-up-from-bad-criticism-190ef2aa2373
Another thing I’ve internalised is an obsession with the logistics of the plot at the expense of larger themes or structural awareness. The Critical Voice is deeply unforgiving about inconsistencies and anything left unexplained is a plot hole (though at the same time, the Voice hates “exposition”).
There is more to a narrative than the events that happen within it, how it is told shapes the story and the meaning audiences are meant to take away. They’re not just puzzle boxes to solve and unravel. But the Critical Voice wouldn’t allow that, it wants everything to clear and simple and explained.
CinemaSins is notoriously bad at understanding the films they’re scrutinising. They approach media in a fundamentally literal way and see no meaning in a story beyond what is happening on the screen. Numerous other commentators have tackled how illiterate they can be, but it is just nonsense to talk about Snowpiercer without understanding that it’s an allegory about capitalism. The point of the film isn’t to exhaustively explain what fuel the train is running on and the various circumstances of that; it’s to explore class dynamics under capitalism through the passenger classes within the train. This isn’t to say the film is good, or succeeds at doing that, but it is core to the film itself.
As an aside, I've also run across the idea that major changes to the character's lives, like life-changing decisions or say, having babies, somehow don't count as part of the plot.
* Cool fun thing: Zen Cho wrote a post-canon treat for Yuletide for her own novel, True Queen! https://twitter.com/zenaldehyde/status/1220321970539110401
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315
***
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message 1:
by
Ariana
(new)
Jan 27, 2020 11:46AM
Oh, wow, thank you so much for these!
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