Ramblings Part II: This time it’s whimsical

Not got much in the way of creative stuff to offer up once more; being as I only have one thing in the pipeline right now, and that’s being saved til after my exam. However I’m pretty excited about it, it’s something a lot different from what I’ve done before, and should be pretty cool, if I don’t get hacked off and give up on it. Fingers crossed and so on.

As I haven’t updated much recently though (sorry), I know I need to fill this space with something, so I’ve decided to favour you with another of my ridiculous musings – one with a bit more structure maybe than last time, as I kinda exhausted my supply of cool things to wax lyrical about, and if you know me, which most of my loyal fanbase already do, you’re probably tired of me pestering you about good books and games and anime and so on. But you know you love it really.

Speaking of which, something that has got me thinking was getting a friend in my halls here into Avatar. Now as I’ve said, I’m not going to talk here about whether it’s good or not. I think it’s good. If you want to know exactly how good, ask me in person, and I will talk to you at great length about its virtues.

What it got me thinking about, or rather re-thinking, was the idea of certain mediums getting pushed out of the spotlight. Not only that, certain genres too. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Avatar is an American animated series, which takes a lot of influence from anime, as well as other sources, such as martial arts movies and western influences.
Now, this could be as a result of my upbringing, but I can’t, I simply can’t see why this series, for example, is not held up as exemplary by all the right-thinking TV viewing public of the world. I realise in this case, it could be because the series was designed with “a younger audience” in mind, and so the massive cult fanbase of the show is a pretty good achievement. But it’s no more infantile than a lot of stuff that airs pre-watershed. Hell, Doctor Who seems to scrape up pretty damn good ratings every episode, and that’s hardly a cavalcade of gore and nudity.
To me, the ‘problem’ seems to be that its an animated series. The live-action movie rights to this have been snapped up by M. Night Shyamalan, who will have to restrain his urge to tack on a phony twist ending somehow. And do you know what? It might be good. I really mean it. But if it is good, it won’t be because it’s live-action. In fact, the fact that it’s live-action throws up more problems than solutions. In animation, you can do literally anything, and herein lies the point I’m trying to make, such as it is. There’s no problems with special effects, because everything is created on the same plane, more or less. Want this guy to shoot fire, have his soul jump out of his body, fly through the air? No problem. If everything is animated, nothing looks out of place.

Now I’m not saying that animated stuff is the perfect medium. It all depends on the story you want to tell. Sometimes, you really do need a real-life person to connect with. Sometimes a story works better drawn in a comic, and sometimes you need to have it on the big screen, nothing else will do.
However. It’s all fiction. All the stuff I’m talking about here anyway. What I can’t get straight in my mind is, although I can see the divisions, I don’t understand why one medium gets more or less attention. They’re all just telling stories, right? Sure, genres are a matter of taste, as are specific stories, but why are some entire mediums, ones with so much art and beauty and poetry and promise to offer the world, cast out from the spotlight? I realise that there are reasons why certain people might not read a comic book, or play a video game, generational and cultural stuff comes into play, but surely, for the vast majority, the sheer staleness of what’s being offered in the mainstream right now must be enough to drive them to different forms of art, right? (On a side note, I’m also heavily restraining myself from talking about the virtues of video games as art. Maybe in another post )
I can see the blocks at play here, that stop people from experiencing an entire range of fiction, but I can’t help but wish more people would see “fiction”, rather than a blinkered view of the medium the story is told in.

I’d be interested to know what other people think about this; I’m sure I’ve missed some crucial point in my biased and foolish meanderings. But anyhoo, well done and thank you if you’ve made it this far, I’ve written a mini-bloody-essay here, so thanks for reading, unless you skipped to the end, in which case I forgive you

Until next time,
Jake.

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~ by tanquill on May 23, 2009.