Where's My Montage, Damn It!

Once again I have come to the conclusion that screenplay writers have it too easy. They don't have to provide explanations for things, things just are the way you see it. They can work deus ex machinas like a stage hand in ancient Athens, and if that isn't enough, they get to use montages all the time, complete with awesome music.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love writing the middle of my romances. I love the building a relationship moments, but when your characters are in a holding pattern and you just want to show the passage of time, nothing beats a montage. You can't shift settings and time and make two sentences of dialogue work like that for you in text, you just can't. Plus, like I said, the soundtrack is an amazing bonus.

I can see a dozen scenes quick cut right here in this WIP, set to the jaunty beat of "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols. Trust me, it would be perfect. Instead, I'll spend the next two days ripping out my hair as I try to figure out how to condense what I see in my head into the right two or three scenes to convey all that passage of time and incremental shifts in intimacy until I get to this next big show down. See, look at that bald spot. Man, screenwriters have all the luck.

Of course, when it comes to that next big scene, I don't have to pull a fade out, use tricky camera angles, or worry that my actors are going to lose their privacy socks. (See what kind of scene I'm eager to montage my way through to?) Hmmm. I'm thinking maybe being able to get extremely up close and personal—without a cheesy bow-chicka-wow-wow for the soundtrack—is a big point in an author's favor. And in keeping with the season, something I'm thankful for. What say you? Any screenwriters care to tell me I've got it all wrong?

Happy Heteronormative Endings

After a disappointed viewing of something, I'd like some help making a list of classic movies with non-heteronormative endings.
Thelma and Louise Okay, but dead.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Dead. Again.
The Thing (1983) Mac and Childs will freeze to death and there were only male characters to begin with but still, not yet dead.
Casablanca At least when Louis and Rick walk off to begin their “beautiful friendship” they are both still alive. Do I really have to go back to 1942 to find something?

One of my favorite movies is Aliens (1986). It combines my two favorite genres: science fiction and horror. Marines, a kick-ass heroine and Vasquez. (I know this is a blog celebrating the beauty of men, but damn, Vasquez was hot.) I loved the movie even after Vasquez had to blow herself up to keep from being made into an alien host. Where I stopped loving it, is at the end, when Ripley and Newt and Hicks are all tucked snugly away in their pods. He and she and a baby makes three. The classic and disappointing ending.

I expect it from romance and even action adventure, but why does a forward thinking genre like science fiction still cling to heteronormative endings? If there is a gay character who survives, he or she must be alone and suffering. Is it the 50’s? I just watched something that sparked this blog and I don’t want to get overly specific in case people haven’t seen it, but when the executive producer is gay, can’t we expect something beyond he+she+baby, gay-character-alone-and-miserable ending?

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, and I apologize for my rant, but I’m tired of these mainstream stories that write gay love as a tragedy, even when it’s couched in noble sacrifice. Tara and Willow anyone?

Science fiction as a genre usually tries to offer a suggestion of hope in the future. It’s as if we can’t see past procreation with heterosexual parents as hope for the future. And while it takes a damned good writer to lure me into the mpreg of slash fanfiction, there are other alternatives for the next generation. It’s as if people are caught in some kind of retro mind-trap. I’m dating myself again, but when Anita Bryant was “Saving Our Children” I was just heading into my teens. I got into heated arguments with people, including my dad. “Gay people can’t have kids and that is a threat to me as a teacher,” he said. Even at thirteen I called bullshit. “Gay people can have kids. They just go about it differently.” (Dad’s come around nicely, btw).

So is it too much to ask for a mainstream horror or science fiction movie where while the focus may be on the happy couple and their little promise of the future, there’s a same-sex snuggle off to the side? One where they didn’t, you know, die?

He Tastes Just Like...?

Oh my, it's my day already. Honestly, I do wonder how time flies like that when I'm trying to get things done. I'm not of course but it's all about trying, right? Hehe. So, today, like always, I come to you with a topic that has been in my head for quite some time but needed a good hard shove to finally come out.

That shove came by Emmy Jag. For those who haven't heard of the illustrious Lady Emmy, she's a straight-shooting kind of reviewer, much like Mrs. Giggles. Emmy, however, is perhaps even more blunt, if that's at all possible. I have a healthy dose of fear and respect for both reviewers. Emmy did a recent review and a comment she'd made had me thinking. With her permission, I'm reposting that bit from her review (I'm not linking to the review to avoid wankery and because I'm not picking on this author at all nor do I believe Emmy is. She was just the catalyst to the discussion. The link above is to Emmy's general blog):

"Ok, can we please stop referring to black people as chocolate flavored? Nobody calls white people vanilla flavored, or asians...banana flavored (sorry, ran out of flavors), do they??? It's an old and overused cliche, and entirely inaccurate to boot."

A perfectly fair plea to my mind. I know I tend to come up with the racial issues in stories but honestly, if there weren't so damn many, I probably wouldn't open my mouth about it. These things are annoying, folks. Perhaps it bothers Emmy and I more because we are both black women. That could mean our ire lights up a little faster. But I find this aggravating when it happens to any color.

Maybe we need to stop with the food references all together. No? Okay, I'll relent on that because I admit that it's hard sometimes. Mocha-skinned, honey brown, cafe au lait --I guess we just can't help that and really those don't offend anyone. Frankly, I use food and drink references in description of skin and it's a habit I don't think any writer will ever be able to break. I don't expect anyone too. But the chocolate thing has reached a ridiculous level.

Again, not picking on that author but the chunks Emmy pulled out of that story drove me nuts. The skin thing...is it really so hard not to go there? Brown skin is brown skin is brown skin. And yes, I know who to blame.

The worst description I've ever read was "Hershey nipples" in a het contemporary by a black author. So maybe we're not setting the best example here but c'mon, use your common sense too, authors with characters of color. And yes, this is for any race outside of white, not just black. But I'm using black because one, I am black therefore, I know how damn exasperating this is. And two, it happens mostly to black characters.

I've had white authors tell me its hard to walk the line of not being offensive and I understand. But let me tell you this folks: this. is. offensive. It's also overdone just like the damn ghetto black guy is but I've already done that rant, I won't do it again (maybe).

He's not food, I don't give a damn how edible he may look. He's got dark brown skin, pale brown, creamy coffee...just avoid chocolate, please. Like Emmy pointed out, there's no vanilla-skinned or white-chocolate men running around.

So what's with (I'm stealing another quote) the "Chocolate Easter Bunny"?

Ally's Rant-of-the-Week

Okay, so we were discussing what constitutes a Real Man on the Samhain blog the other day. Which was my fault, as I just had to ask that question *g* And one of the folks who responded made a point about women not always fitting the gender roles people assign us either. That, in turn, brought to mind one of my pet peeves, and I decided to rant about it here rather than rant internally like I usually do. So here goes...

WHY, oh why, oh why, do people seem to equate being female with being weak??? Kick-ass heroines notwithstanding (and thank FSM there are plenty of them out there in Fictionland these days), there is this nearly subconscious belief -- at least in the U.S., I can't speak to anywhere else really -- that having girl parts = being weak, easily flustered, and basically unable to stand on one's own. It's not overt, usually. But it's there. If you want to say someone is spineless and cowardly, what do you call them? A pussy. If someone throws the baseball and it doesn't go anywhere, what are they told? They throw like a girl. Likewise, someone who cries out in fright when they are startled by something screams like a girl. If a guy dares to shed tears or show emotion (other than anger, of course, which is okay for some reason), he is called a girl.

None of these are compliments. All are insults.

Again, I ask, WHY????? Why is it assumed that females are weak? History has proven that we are NOT. Also, why is showing emotion or, heaven forbid, wanting to talk an issue out rather than pummel someone, considered to be a weakness at all? I don't get it. I really, really don't.

Sorry this has nothing to do with manlove, it was just on my mind :D
Or, hell, maybe it does have to do with manlove, since so many people seem so willing to apply the dreaded label of "girl" to some of the men in gay fiction. I don't get that either...

Rant over. You may return to your evening, and thanks for listening *g*