Laying Walter to rest

I intend to finish with Walter Mitty today, but first, what have we learned?

I keep coming back to something that I saw on the Wikipedia entry for the character (so not the author nor the story nor either movie):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mitty 

"the reader meets well-meaning but insensitive strangers who inadvertently rob Mitty of some of his remaining dignity."

That's a conclusion, not a quote from anywhere, so I don't know who phrased it that way. I question how much dignity there actually was.

That same paragraph refers earlier to the more tragic interpretation, where his last fantasy is going to a firing squad.

I had pointed out earlier that the character himself doesn't seem overly invested in any specific daydream, switching easily to the next one. The details that he retains, like the "ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa" sound changes from cylinders on a plane to medical machinery to flame throwers. The important thing is that others admire him, even if they are going to execute him.

It wouldn't take much to be different.

Someone who was really into WWII or planes might keep returning to the cockpit and imagining different dogfights, enriched by reading and research.

That Walter Mitty might still not be a hero, but he's at least more interesting, and probably more gratified.

Someone who was present in his life might be too much to hope for, but trying to be present allows the opportunity for improvement. Maybe he needs to switch jobs. That could be a frightening prospect, but perhaps there is a different department in the same company that would suit him better.

Presumably he proposed to his wife for some reason; perhaps he could try and remember that and enjoy her company. Okay, she reminds him that he needs overshoes and gloves because he is getting older; that can be taken as a sign of caring.

If getting older is the problem, that happens. It might be best to face that one head-on.

Naturally, over the course of writing about this I have seen many examples of misogyny and racism and other things, but there are correlations in the lack of self-examination. There are things that can be improved where the responsibility can only be yours.

It may be easier to disconnect and blame others, but it doesn't make things better, for the blamer or the blamed.

There is nothing unusual about wanting to be a hero, nor in feeling like there aren't really opportunities for heroism.  

It just works out that petulantly withdrawing from that dissatisfaction is a short path to mediocrity, and maybe even to villainy. 

Or would the villainy be good because it's exciting? 

Walter Mitty in 2013

While the 1947 movie has a gentler spirit, it is very much of the same world as the 1939 story. The jobs aren't that satisfying and the women are domineering.

It's interesting to me that the story is from before US involvement in WWII. A lot of that mindset fits well with the post-war America that saw the first movie. Women needed to be pushed back into being supportive homemakers rather than thinking that they can do anything. Also, Freud-inspired psychiatrists have fled Europe to the States, ready to blame everything on mothers who are either iceboxes or smotherers.

We should have grown beyond that by 2013. In some ways we did.

For 2013 Walter Mitty, the digital world is changing his job and leaving him behind. 

It's not quite the same issue as civilized modern life "emasculating" men (though that issue would still be perceived as a problem by some) and it is much more gender-neutral. If there is still gender bias in play, that's nothing new.

Walter's mother is moving into assisted living, and thus downsizing. This includes having to give up her piano.

He worries over it, and I have sympathy for that. There can be a lot of worry with aging parents. However, between his tendency to feel put upon and to escape it via daydreaming, he misses things like that his mother visited with the photographer that he is trying to track down.

Just to get to the end of it (and here's a spoiler): the reason Walter couldn't find the negative he needed was that the photographer had playfully put it in the photo part of the wallet he left as a gift. Frustrated, Walter had thrown out the wallet, but Mrs. Mitty retrieved the wallet. While Walter was worrying about the problems his mother posed to him, she had the solution to his problem all along.

That makes Walter sound kind of petulant and self-absorbed. He is, but it doesn't necessarily make him unlikable, either. He does care about people, but sometimes the fear or the desire to avoid the problems makes him retreat into his daydreams.

In this case, his loss of the photograph and attempts to recover it become the impetus to learning more about what he actually can do, including things he would not have guessed were options.

It's all right, but it didn't need to be that way. 

Working at Life and processing photos from a globe-trotting photographer, he could have been thinking about places he would like to see all along. He could have taken up an interest in photography or music or some other hobby that he would have enjoyed.

He could have asked the woman out, without trying to set it up through eHarmony.

He could have actively listened to his mother.

Life is hard, but there are things that make it better and things that make it worse. 

Honesty in assessing yourself, persistence in figuring out what you want, and then persistence but also flexibility in going after it... it's a good starting point. 

Misanthropy doesn't negate misogyny

Years ago we had a neighbor, Steve. I remember my father saying that Steve wasn't racist; he hated everyone.

The weird thing about that is I don't remember any conversation leading up to it that would have made whether or not Steve was racist a topic of discussion. That makes me wonder if either my father or Steve had heard it, thought it was clever, and found a way to work it into conversation.

Either way, it's bunk. Having a generally negative view of others does not rule out the possibility of specific bigotries still playing a role.

(I think I also remember my father saying that he himself was not racist; he thought he was better than everyone. While he did think he was better than everyone, he was also racist. He wasn't a worse racist than the average white man born in the '40s, but he wasn't better either.)

Without it undoing any of misogyny in Thurber's works, it seems pretty clear that he didn't have a great opinion of men either.

I was thinking about why he hated the 1947 Danny Kaye movie. Sure, it takes a lot of departures from the source material, but ultimately it gives the meek little daydreamer some real adventure, romance, and a chance to come into his own. Did he want Walter to stay insignificant and miserable?

That's what I suspect.

I haven't read that much Thurber, but the lasting impression was that I hated it. If he hated people, I was probably responding to that.

Something I had read about Walter Mitty and other Thurber characters was that they reflected the problem of modern man being domesticated and hence emasculated.

That's bunk too.

Plenty of modern men did manly things; they built things and fixed things and maybe sometimes they even stopped in at the bar for a few drinks and some fistfights.

Such men were just lower class. The ones wearing suits to work had a higher position socially, but then they carried briefcases into offices. Real social climbers played golf at country clubs, which is no rugby.

Yes, a specific version of masculinity is constrained under those circumstances, but there is a class issue as well, with the country clubs also pointing us at issues of race. That mindset merely gives the people on top a reason to feel sorry for themselves.

For Thurber himself, I suspect he felt superior as a writer. There were people doing office drudgery, but he was above them because he was more creative and clever. 

Therefore, the little office drones should stay below him. 

Of course, much of Thurber's success as a writer came from his first wife's prodding, and then wives are the enemy too.

The attitudes are irritating and still exist, but what really stands out is the lack of self-reflection.

Well, if you want to feel superior to others, the less reflection you do, the better. 

Start thinking, and it all falls apart. 

Happy 50th! Another playlist

Someone had a 50th birthday in March, and I wanted to do a playlist for it.

I knew it would be the March songs, but I wanted there to be fifty songs total. That meant either going beyond March or not sharing all of the songs.

I did go into April, but there were two songs that I did not include. There was also one day at the end that I missed, though I am not sure which one. The dates reflect this ending one day earlier than it did, and I don't know where the gap was.

That was a really busy week.

Having fifty songs was part of acknowledging the milestone, but I also decided to start with the number and then conclude with gold. 

That left only one valid choice for the start. 

3/1 “Hawaii Five-O Original Theme Song” by The Ventures

Obviously, this was a 1976 birth date. There is more significance for us in the '80s, but I wanted to give those first four years their due.

As I had reviewed all of those years fairly recently, it was easy to go back and pick favorite songs from 1976 through 1979. "My Life" and "Right Back Where We Started From" meshed well with a theme of reviewing a life. Then if I was going to use Maxine Nightingale, the 2004 Starsky & Hutch movie has inextricably linked it to "Can't Smile Without You".

Yes, my affinity for "The Rubberband Man" song goes back to the commercial with Eddie Steeples, but I stand by it!  

3/2 “Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale
3/3 “The Rubberband Man” by The Spinners
3/4 “Can’t Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow
3/5 “My Life: by Billy Joel

Killing Joke takes us into the "Eighties"; then it was time to revel in some of that glorious synth pop that was so important to so many of us.

I knew that Mags Furuholmen and Nick Rhodes must be represented, but I had just used "Take On Me" for the Farewell playlist that I used in January. That was the first song that I included in the playlists but that was not a song of the day.  

3/6 “Eighties” by Killing Joke
“Take On Me” by A-ha
3/7 “Just Can’t Get Enough” by Depeche Mode
3/8 “A View To A Kill” by Duran Duran

I felt that Depeche Mode should be included, but I wasn't as sure about "Just Can't Get Enough". Maria insisted on "Get the Balance Right", and she was right, but I didn't get it in until later. Also, later "A Little Respect" made sense, so Vince Clarke may be a little over-represented. I can live with it. 

It gets a lot messier from here on out. 

3/9 “Big Time” by Peter Gabriel
“Together In Electric Dreams” by Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder
3/10 “Pop Goes My Heart” by PoP!

"Big Time" is a song from 1986, but it is there to represent the start of a career, not the middle of the decade. 

"Together In Electric Dreams" is because I suddenly remembered the importance of Giorgio Moroder. Normally I associate his influence with "I Feel Love" from 1977, which was very influential but which I don't particularly like. A little searching reminded me that he had collaborated with Phil Oakey with a song I could use. I had already moved past it in the daily songs, so that is the other one that didn't get posted. 

It took a while to work everything out.

"Pop Goes My Heart" is for fake '80s, in the way that "That Thing You Do" would be for fake '60s. It fits here.

3/11 “Heavy Metal Poisoning” by Styx
3/12 “Get Up (Before The Night Is Over)” by Technotronic
3/13 “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys
3/14 “Hum Hallelujah” by Fall Out Boy
3/15 “Don’t Try To Stop It” by Roman Holliday
3/16 “In The End” by Linkin Park
3/17 “Master Of Puppets” by Metallica

Some of the messiness is that I was using the songs while I was still making choices, but it is not merely that.

From "Big Time" through "Stab My Back" (the longest stretch), there are songs that represent life events, bands, albums, and concerts. 

3/18 “A Little Respect” by Erasure
3/19 “Get The Balance Right” by Depeche Mode
3/20 “29” by Gin Blossoms

Except that this section here, where we get the most Vince Clarke, is sort of putting all of that together. Hard times happen, but you are trying. Maybe your priorities are adjusting -- ideally you are learning -- but the hard times aren't done. After all, so far you're still young. 

3/21 “Paint It, Black” by The Rolling Stones
3/22 “Kickstart My Heart” by Mötley Crüe
3/23 “My Solution Is In The Lake” by Pentimento
3/24 “Time Traveler” by Berwanger
3/25 “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds

For some examples of the general trends, though, Berwanger was at one of the concerts so was likely to be included. For a walk through the past, "Time Traveler" fits the theme, and is a good song. (Upcoming references to bad luck and walking through Hell might also fit this pattern.)

It was not a Simple Minds concert, but there was a concert that had an amazing feeling of connection; their song fit that mood. 

3/26 “Who Knew” by P!nk
3/27 “Blame It On Bad Luck” by Bayside
3/28 “A Walk Through Hell” by Say Anything
3/29 “I Miss You” by blink-182
3/30 “Someone Like You” by Ice Nine Kills

There was an album where it really made sense to reference Adele, but I don't particularly like her. The chance to find a cover where it is a guy unable to cope with the loss of his dog (and with a band whose songs are usually about murdering people) really worked for me. 

3/31 “Don’t Listen To Me” by Household
4/1 “NJ Falls Into the Atlantic” by Senses Fail
4/2 “Howl” by Have Mercy

These all have to do with concerts, but I moved the song order around because "NJ Falls Into the Atlantic" sounded like it could be an April Fool's Day headline, and something bad happening to New Jersey was contextually appropriate.

4/3 “Myth” by The Casket Lottery
4/4 “I Love You” by Sarah McLachlan
4/5 “Stab My Back” by The All-American Rejects

Now the life events are done, but some of them were pretty awful. 

That's where this becomes more universal. By the time you get around fifty, a lot has happened. It's happened with jobs and relationships. There are deaths, of friends and parents. Maybe you kind of understood losing parents, even if it didn't feel good, but the friends your age were surely too young. 

4/6 “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day
4/7 “Regret” by New Order
4/8 “This Is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman ensemble
4/9 “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House

Somehow you are still around, and this time maybe you really are learning more, about your identity and your abilities and your place in the world. And you can keep going. 

4/10 “I Got A Name” by Jim Croce
4/11 “Still Alive” by Social Distortion
4/12 “Cry For Love” by Iggy Pop
4/13 “C’mon Kid” by Dave Hause
4/14 “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam

Hard times are not ended, but there is still gold.

There was one song I wanted and could not find -- maybe I am remembering it wrong -- but still, it's not a bad ending. 

4/15 “Sailing Down This Golden River” by Arlo Guthrie
4/16 “Golden” by Kylie Minogue
4/17 “Golden Years” by David Bowie

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Me7dCNv6KivPOrJ9RGucl?si=2819fdde3e5a4fb5

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWpUCC7Ou33_oN0wLEpPma4L4Koj10AcZ 

Mitty vs Mitty vs Mitty

I was pretty sure that the Ben Stiller version would need to be different psychologically. 

I mean, from the commercials it looked like it would be much more epic anyway, but also, all those years later one would hope for a difference. There was.

Let's review:

In the 1939 story, a man running errands while his wife is getting her hair done keeps lapsing into fantasies of heroism. When people wonder if he is all right or indicate that he is in their way, he feels irritated. Then the next fantasy is different, but none of them have anything really happening. They are just disconnected images of him being heroic.

In the 1947 movie, Walter works as a proofreader of pulp magazines, giving him plenty of fuel for his daydreams. A woman who is rightly worried about being followed kisses him and gets him into a cab, as protection. That leads to danger and complication, but not only does he get the girl, he gets a promotion. His fantasies are more detailed, but that does help open the door for musical numbers, which would not have been a factor for the short story.

2013 Walter works at Life magazine, handling the old school negatives submitted as the world, and the magazine, move to digital. In the final submission from one famous photographer, the negative that he recommends for the final cover is missing. In his attempt to locate it, Walter chases the photographer to Greenland, Iceland, and Afghanistan, then Los Angeles before returning to New York. What he wanted and needed was at home all along. I barely remember his fantasies, except that there was kind of a musical number with Kristen Wiig singing "Major Tom" while strumming a guitar.

1939 Walter is married, and seems to find his wife only a nuisance.

1947 Walter is engaged, but it doesn't really seem to be a love match; just something he got pulled into. By the end he has married the mystery woman, and seems much happier.

2013 Walter has someone he likes. She returns his interest fairly easily once given a chance. Instead of taking the direct approach, he tries going through eHarmony. I assume that was a sponsored inclusion, but it allows him to see how little he has going on in his life, and also how much has changed over the course of his adventures.

1939 Walter seems to have no interest in the people around him. They interrupt the fantasies, which are all that interest him.

1947 Walter is more connected, with a boss, fiancee, future mother-in-law, and a romantic rival, all of whom annoy him and make him want to retreat into the fantasy more. Telling them off is an important part of his hero's arc.

2013 Walter has a terrible new boss, but he has coworkers with whom he relates well, one he really wants to spend more time with, and a mother and sister that he does not fully appreciate, apparently concentrating more on the responsibility than the rewards, though he is missing something really key there. (There are some important details that I think we will get to later.)

The dissatisfaction with life is a common thread, as was the daydreaming as an escape from it. Otherwise there is not a lot in common. 

In all cases, Thurber's original vision is the least appealing. The movie incarnations are at least interested in their jobs. That can be a source of some satisfaction.

For more satisfaction, would there be some more optimal path than daydreaming? 

And might any of this relate to podbros? 

Putting Walter Mitty on the couch

"Anatole of Paris" was written by Sylvia Fine, Danny Kaye's wife.

She was a lyricist and composer professionally, separately from her husband, but she also worked with him, writing some of his most famous numbers.

I suspect that the "I hate women" conclusion was mostly a joke, based on women's fashion often being ridiculously uncomfortable and expensive. If there is some misogyny in the fashion industry, it is not specific to the film.

One point worth noting is that the 1947 movie takes place in a much broader world.

In the 1939 story, there are brief encounters with a parking lot attendant's horn, for example, but they are as undeveloped as the non-Mitty characters in his fantasies. Even the repeated interruptions by his wife have no real detail, just that it is a nuisance, distracting him from his... well, I would say "rich" fantasy life, but it's not really.

There aren't a lot of details; just brief glimpses of something imagined where he is cool, competent, and admired, but without the details and individualization that would make it "rich."

In the 1947 movie, Mitty has a boss who steals his ideas, a fiancee he doesn't really want, a competitor who does want her, and and overbearing future mother-in-law, all before coincidences set him up for a real adventure. 

So the 1939 Walter has five fantasies while doing normal Saturday errands, though as quickly as he falls in and out of them, there will probably be more. The 1947 Walter has some similar fantasies, but also some different ones, and one major real adventure that gets started on his way to work. Then the 2013 Walter has some globe-trotting adventures, but that's not important now.

Watching the 1947 movie it was easy to wonder why Walter was engaged to someone whom he didn't love, but who was also being pursued by someone else whom she seemed to find more exciting. What was in it for either of them?

Yes, you see that under all of the meekness there is courage, but why did he expend the effort to propose to Gertrude? Did she and her mother push him into it before they knew Tubby existed?

That's mainly just set up, and one could assume that 1947 Walter being pressed for help by Rosalind is what saved him from the fate of the 1939 Walter, hating his wife and his humdrum life.

That made me wonder if Thurber hated women.

Based on reading his work, that seemed probable, but reading about his life doesn't indicate it.

Thurber married in his 20s, was encouraged in his career by his wife, cheated on her (but it was mutual), reconciled because she was pregnant, cheated more but apparently had a pretty amicable divorce, then he remarried to a rebound from yet another relationship (though that one was still in contact with him years later). You could argue that behavior is not characteristic of loving and respecting women, but it's certainly not avoiding them.

To be fair, some of his work is not merely misogynistic, but also fairly misanthropic, and yet he had lots of friends. Later health issues led to emotional instability and depression and he tended to drink too much. His work did get darker then, but it seems like it was dark all along.

I have noted that the women he portrays -- in cartoons and in prose -- tend to be large and domineering. There could be an aspect of resenting the influence that women had, even though it seemed to involve things that were helpful, like pursuing writing as a profession and caring for him through his health problems, as well as picking up after him emotionally.

However, there is also a part of me that wonders if it was just going along with the ease of complaining about wives. Apparently, Henny Youngman adored Sadie, even if you would never know it from his act:

https://www.cracked.com/article_41738_take-my-wife-jokes-began-with-a-genuine-request.html 

I also wonder if part of it is when the woman commits the crime of becoming a wife, with all of the interest focused on obtaining her, followed by disappointment in her being a real person instead of a fantasy. 

The fantasy seems to be based on a rather simplistic definition of masculinity and a lot of other nonsense, but then at least it becomes convenient to blame your perceived problems on your wife as opposed to other social forces that would require some level of cooperation motivated by more than self-interest.

Better still than blaming yourself. 

Of course, Thurber says that Mitty was based on Robert Benchley, but I'm not sure the attitude fits. Maybe Benchley actually had a rich fantasy life.

The IMDb trivia page for the film also says that Thurber offered Samuel Goldwyn $10,000 not to make the film. He did not like the film version, as it wasn't his vision, but I don't think anyone would have enjoyed a film of his vision. 

That's show biz. 

Three Lives of Walter Mitty

After writing about The Help and the limited understanding of race relations that went into producing both the book and the movie, I thought I would write a little bit about misogyny. 

There are always so many examples.

I wanted to make a point of how easy it can be for a white woman to be aware of the sexism she faces without being aware of the racism that she perpetuates.

One thing that I kept remembering was a gaffe from Bette Midler back in 2018:

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/news/better-midler-n-word-tweet-apology-brett-kavanaugh-vote-supreme-court-a8571781.html  

I do not hate Bette Midler, I have not cancelled her, but this is exactly the kind of crap that makes it so hard to overcome dominator culture. Awareness of one's own suffering as the most important thing in your world can easily lead to mistaking it for the most important thing in the entire world.

In fact, while progress has been made in some ways for various forms of marginalization, including racism and misogyny, nothing has progressed so far that it can be replaced by others. All of the bigotries still exist. Even when they seem dormant, they are easily revived. Among other reasons, some bigotries being outside the sphere of your awareness does not mean that they are gone.

I wish this wasn't true, but it is.

I was thinking about how to approach that, and suddenly I started thinking about the various incarnations of Walter Mitty.

In the spreadsheet tab where I track my reading for various awareness months and projects, there are a bunch of movies and things that I thought I would write about. Time passed and I didn't get to them, but I didn't erase them either.

With Walter Mitty specifically, maybe what started it was an ad for the video release of the 2013 movie with Ben Stiller, or something related to that.

At that point I had only seen the 1947 version with Danny Kaye. 

I am sure that I saw it back in the '80s on the Disney Channel. They ran a lot of Danny Kaye movies; I also saw The Court Jester (1956) and Wonder Man (1945), though somehow never Hans Christian Anderson(1952), though I remember seeing it advertised. In some ways, it seems like the early Disney Channel did a better job of delivering classic movies to me than Disney content, but I enjoyed it.

Anyway, I had seen the movie, wondered about how different the remake would be, and how different either would be from the original material, then decided to find out.

One motivation was this line that kept coming back to me from the musical number (of course the Danny Kaye version was a musical) "Anatole of Paris." This is one of Walter's fantasies, where -- descended from a long line of disturbed and artistic people -- he designs hats for women.

I thought it was a bigger part of the number, but in fact it's the last line and then the number is over. For all the expensive and ridiculous hats he makes, his reason is...

"I hate women."

Was that going to be a theme? 

As told by white people

I don't really know why I am writing about these now.

This is about two books, neither of them read recently.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Go Set A Watchmen by Harper Lee 

The Help was loaned to us by a friend who was in a book club and often passed books along. I think it was pretty popular; there was a movie two years after the book. We went to see that too; we all read the book and hadn't hated it.

I kind of liked it. It was interesting and the reading flowed and there was humor.

I was also uncomfortable with it. Some of the dialect that was used for the Black characters did not seem right, at least not written by a white woman, and some of the descriptions... I had some concerns.

The movie had things that really irritated me. From the book, Celia was never going to learn how to cook. She had other things that she could do and they had the money to hire people to cook. So when movie Celia's cooking for Minny gave Minny the courage to leave her abusive husband it was glaring.

In addition, while you don't have to hate Skeeter's mother, there was no seeing the light or changing her mind or anything like that in the book. Her being helpful with Hilly toward the end was just her usual insensitivity paying off, and that's fine. It's nice there was a use for it.

That seemed like a matter of soothing egos, making some people look better. I could give lots of examples, but only white characters got any kind of glow-up here.

I believe the movie was helpful for the careers of Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, and Jessica Chastain, so, good. 

Then, seeing discussion by Black women on Twitter, one glaring error in the movie and book was that in addition to the racism and condescension and employer caprice that real domestic workers had to deal with, a noticeable absence was the heavy threat of sexual assault. Someone who really saw that side would have known that. It would appear that Stockett did not, therefore Skeeter could not.

As it is, Stockett has Aibileen describe herself as black like a cockroach, and her husband leaves her for another woman. Minny has an abusive husband. Johnny appreciates Minny's cooking, but that's all the white men are going to see.

On the other hand, Skeeter's big problem is that she doesn't know she's attractive and that being tall is in her favor. That's because Skeeter's mother is mean to her and sent the loving Black maid away when Constantine's daughter embarrassed her in front of the DAR.

But all of these Black women are very supportive of Skeeter. Well, there's one who isn't, but the others say to ignore that one. In fact, Constantine dies of a broken heart after no longer being able to care for her white family and being stuck retired and living with her daughter.

Aibileen prays for Skeeter and tells Mae Mobley -- who also has an unloving mother -- that she is kind and smart and important. 

The Help keeps the Black women firmly into the "Mammy" role. That's not surprising, but it hit differently years later when I read the other book.

I remember people being really excited when there was finally another book from Harper Lee; then having strong reactions against the book. 

The reactions appeared to be to finding out that Atticus Finch was not perfectly noble and not racist. Instead he was pragmatic and fair, but still pretty firmly entrenched in the patriarchy. (Again, not surprising.)

I think what might have bothered some people more is that when Jean Louise goes to visit Calpurnia, there are no warm embraces. No one is exactly mean to her, they don't dote on her the way they did when she was a child. The easy affection turned into a wary caution with the adult white woman.

They are absolutely right to be suspicious. Maybe her motives are good, but that doesn't mean that she understands all of the forces working around her and she is going to leave town again. For Jean Louise, illusions are being shattered left and right, but for everyone else the illusions have long been gone.

Part of that is finding out that the adoration that you once accepted as your due was part of a job, and part of safety. I don't think that has to mean that there isn't any real affection, but if those condescending and capricious employers were also once cared for with great affection by their Black nannies, and then grew into those honey-dripping tyrants, it is inevitable that the situation changes. 

I suspect that's something Lee figured out and Stockett did not.  

If there's a sense of disillusionment with that, change that situation. Do better.

Adoration is not your due. 

Especially not when it's built on racism enforced by law and economic inequality. 

Oh, and this is interesting:

https://abcnews.com/Health/lawsuit-black-maid-ablene-cooper-sues-author-kathryn/story?id=12968562 

Projecting

Now it's time to get back to The Other Bennett Sister, which I still have not watched, though I have seen many more clips.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/03/spotlight-on-jane-austen.html 

From those clips, it looks fairly charming, for the most part. I can see why people are into it. 

The Mary Bennett that you get seems like someone that the Mary Bennett you read about could become, but that is not how the series depicts Mary at the start.

They do the most dirt to Mrs. Bennett, which seems odd because there is never a really flattering portrayal of her; being true to the book is usually mean enough.

With the other Jane Austen discussion that had been going on, I had developed a new appreciation for Mrs. Bennett. Yes, she was a silly, shallow woman, but she understood the need for her daughters to be married for their own security and she was determined to see it happen. She did not get much in the way of thanks for that from her daughters, nor respect from her husband, who was mostly not helpful.

Regardless, she was still never vicious or mean. If anyone had suggested that Mary would be a better match for Mr. Collins than Elizabeth, I can see Mrs. Bennett immediately pursuing that. Sure, anyone with any sense would have figured that out on their own, but sense was not her strong point.

The most interesting thing was seeing how the series portrayed Mr. Collins, as someone timidly trying to understand happiness through reading Aristotle, rather than a self-satisfied sycophant who focused on sermons as befit his role as a man of the church.  

Based on that, I can only assume that the viewpoint behind this -- whether more due to the author or the adaptation -- is that smart, introspective people are not appreciated, especially if they are not particularly good-looking and especially by their mothers; shame on those mothers!

That is a thing that can happen, but that's not what Jane Austen wrote.

It's been close to fifteen years, but there was a time when I was reading a lot of fan fiction, trying to understand why people would write things certain ways. 

There is a lot of variation, including just that sometimes people find things they want to take further. What might be most relevant here is that often much of it was based on a hatred of one beloved character and an overly close association with someone who seemed to be a villain but had obviously just been mistreated and misunderstood.

That doesn't have to be bad, but are those writers missing something?

For example, if you are really smart and introspective, but the things you say to others frustrate and annoy them (Mary after Lydia eloped, or Mr. Collins always), that may be something to reflect on. It may require observing other people as if they are also important.  

It doesn't mean that you will mesh with everyone, or that you have to change your identity to fit in, but at least knowing if maybe you are a little smug or insincere can be useful.

Also worth thinking about; do you read only to project your views over others? If that's the case, you're missing out. One of the really great things about reading fiction is getting to understand other people and other thoughts. Empathy has been getting short shrift lately, but that's a problem.

Let me just conclude with something that came up when others were irritated at new, romantic Dracula ads (it's not just me). I can't find it now ( I think someone copied it from Tumblr), but someone suggested they would like to see a continuation where Jonathan and Mina solve mysteries together.

The end of the book implies that their adventuring is over once Dracula is destroyed; Jonathan will continue to work, Mina will be a wife and mother, and all will be well, happily ever after. 

However, he's still a lawyer who could end up with weird clients and property deals that happen to involve hauntings and she still types and knows shorthand; they have skills.

They also have one friend who's a British peer,one friend who runs an asylum, and one who's a medical doctor familiar with the supernatural.

It could work. 

Vampires suck

This post title was the title of a terrible movie, a spoof that was neither funny nor clever.

For this series of posts, perhaps it makes sense.

I am not completely against attempts to sympathize with the monster. If the monster represents something human in us or something valuable in nature, that can be valuable.

I can also see where certain tendencies now would lead to always casting the humans as the worst in favor of the monster. I don't appreciate it, but I can see how it happens.

I have pretty much lost patience with making the vampire the sexy love interest.

I saw a theory once that this happens because the vampire kills in an embrace. Maybe it helps that the corpse can look still look pretty intact. After all, consumption was romanticized for a while, and was sometimes linked to vampires, so why not the fictional character that you can cast with really handsome actors.

I know I am off-trend here; I have my reasons. 

For a while, I had a real fear of being bitten. When I had nightmares, they were generally about vampires (even though the underlying phobia seemed to come from a dog). Stories and screenplays I have worked on featured vampires. I get the fascination.

Energy vampires -- usually in the form of attention seekers -- are my personal weakness. That may be why I feel the threat so much.

As someone who also usually has a lot of responsibility and can get overwhelmed by it, at times I do feel the appeal of someone coming in and just taking control of everything, removing the problems.

That is not what I actually want, though. Maybe what I really want is more sleep or more money or for someone else to take care of one of the things so that I can concentrate on the others and get in a nap.

Maybe it really is always just a desire for more sleep, but not in a coffin.

Our simple, fantasy solutions are probably not what we really want. 

My solution is not going to be wanting to die, or wanting to be undead or under the control of someone else and certainly not changing in a way that harms other people. 

I may be more frustrated with the current tendency to idolize the evil, especially at the expense of the good.

Yes, trying to divide two sides into good and evil can be reductive and overly simplistic, but subsisting on the blood of others, stealing their life forces, and twisting their souls... it's going to be pretty hard to put a positive spin on that.

First it takes changing the rules and the purposes of how it all works. Then, at least in the case of the Athena Club books, it takes ruining everyone else, making them villains to justify (or nullify) any malice in your hero.

But yeah, it bugs me more because I liked the source material as it was. 

For another take on the cycle of vampire sex appeal, you may be interested in this episode of Monstrum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=demJo-CfGU0 

The sheer, unmitigated gall

In the first installment of The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, it appeared to be making Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward bad people. I didn't love that, but it was a relatively minor part of the overall story. 

There were changes to many characters from many authors' works, but that part bothered me more. 

I love the book Dracula. Because of that affection, I have read it multiple times, as well as having read some of the parts that were written and then removed. That makes departures from the book as written more glaring.

The series revolves around a group of daughters of scientists who experimented on them, giving them unusual abilities. They come together and solve mysteries. 

Those daughters are Mary Jekyll and Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappacini, Catherina Moreau (a puma turned into a woman by Dr. Moreau on his island), and Justine Frankenstein, who was reanimated by Victor after she was hung for the murder actually committed by his other reanimated corpse.

The first novel also incorporates Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. As it progresses, other characters enter from those books, as well as books by H. Rider Haggard and J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

As it is, I don't really like Arthur Conan Doyle's work and I haven't read any Haggard. I have mostly read Frankenstein, but my mind wandered a lot, possibly unfairly. 

I have read Carmilla, though it's been a while, and I might like The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde as much as I like Dracula.

I actually kind of liked Rappacini's Daughter surviving her end, but the price was that her lover died, and her father as well, both of which were sad for her.

The characters from Carmilla don't come up right away, so that wasn't an issue. With the characters from Stevenson, Mr. Hyde himself shows up briefly at the end, but I did not immediately object to either half having daughters. That made the main frustration the maligning of the Dracula characters, and again, it started out small.

It got much worse, including unforgivable Quincy slander. Then Goss blew them all up while they were in pursuit of their evil schemes.

I have some thoughts about why it went down this way; that is one post. 

In addition, there was something else that came to mind more recently when I read the spoiler for The Bride movie.

The tricky part with these posts is that I am going to criticize a lot of things without full or any viewing. I worry that's unfair, but watching them is a price I am unwilling to pay.

Anyway, The Bride apparently starts with the ghost of Mary Shelley saying she hadn't been able to tell the story before. 

When I first read the movie spoiler, the way it was written implied that those primitive times wouldn't allow her to say what she wanted. 

That raised my hackles; I really got the impression that she said what she wanted to say. 

Something else I read made it seem more like she wanted to tell additional story but did not live long enough. That's not quite as offensive, but it's still questionable. Frankenstein was published in 1818; Shelley died in 1851. I think she had time.

Unless it's just that the actual successful creation of the Bride had not happened until well after her death, so only her ghost saw it. THAT makes perfect sense. 

To some extent I had viewed the series as a feminist spin on works like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which leaves out any women except for Mina Harker, and always with Jonathan dead. I can see centering women, and perhaps also making the men less heroic to that end, my personal preferences aside.

However, making Victor Frankenstein sweetly devoted to saving Justine and nurturing, while the monster is pure evil, against the writing of Shelley... that's not super feminist.

I will add to this that I had not been interested in the Emerald Fennell version of Wuthering Heights. It looked like they wanted to take the eating scene from Tom Jones and play it straight. Okay, that's not how the book goes, but okay.

Then a clip happened to come up on my feed of Isabella on a chain -- completely degraded and clinging to it -- and I am just going to be embarrassed for everyone here because they should be.

One of the comments on the clip talked about the courage book Isabella showed in leaving her husband and then raising her child without him. I was mainly glad that her dog survived, and add nearly killing the dog to Heathcliff's psychopathic nature. Like many psychopaths, he could be charming, and that's how he got Isabella, but his cruelty did not keep her.

I am very irritated with all of them. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/04/spooky-season-finishing-up-series.html  

Spooky Season: Finishing up the series

Writing about this has been very drawn-out; there was a lot happening. I pursued different themes, and had other things to write about that were not related to Spooky Season at all.

Really, the only thing left is the series:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/03/spooky-season-series.html 

(Perhaps I should note that I have now read the Universal Monsters Mummy book now and I did not hate it.) 

One thing that is absolutely clear after going through them is that if something bugs you in the beginning of a trilogy, it will only get more frustrating. Therefore...

Iron Tongue of Midnight (#3 in The Forge and Fracture Series) by Brittany N. Williams

Yes, the violent fairy scenes got more frequent and gorier. I think that even got to Williams; after one fight something appears around the corner for a cliffhanger, then the next chapter just says it was quickly dispatched. I was dreading the details, but that was still weird.

After all of that, the ease of the resolution didn't feel real or earned.

Angel of the Overpass (#3 in Ghost Roads) by Seanan McGuire

More lore, more expanding mythology and more teenage attitude from ghost Rose. She periodically mentions that she isn't really a teenager anymore, despite still looking like one. I have an idea for how you could demonstrate that. 

Most of the attitude is shown as a way of adding dramatic tension to things she is going to need to do but does not want to do. We all know you are going to do it; just get to it.

I may not be a young and fun person anymore.

While this is the end of the series, there is a shared universe with other series. If I loved these books I would probably be thrilled by that. Nope. 

House of Elephants (#3 in Witchlings) by Claribel A. Ortega

It still gets overly tween at times, but there are aspects that I do like. 

As it is, this one is definitely not a trilogy. A fourth novel is out, as well as a short story and a fifth novel slated for publication later this year. I may read them, but am currently uncommitted.

The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (#3 in The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club) by Theodora Goss  

Goss is not a bad writer. If she were working with original characters I would probably have been okay. 

I could say that the issue is that she messed with characters that I really like in works I really respect, but I am not a huge fan of Frankenstein or any of the Sherlock Holmes stories and they are part of my irritation, which grew exponentially worse by the end of the series.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I was going to pursue a tangent before continuing in that vein.

This is the reason for the tangent.

It's not just this, but also The Other Bennett Sister and The Bride and Wuthering Heights.

I need to take some time to complain!  

Related Posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/12/ghostly-childrens-picture-books.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-ghostly-movie.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/monstrous-comics.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/ghostly-middle-reader-books-old-school.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/04/spooky-season-new-horizons.html 

Will I celebrate?

There can be a lot more to say about death, disagreement, and disinformation, as well as dehumanization. I will get to that, though I think next week's posts are going to go in a different direction.

First I want to address the other point from the previous post, where part of the justification for Trump celebrating Mueller's death was how hard liberals will celebrate Trump's death:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/04/but-is-that-celebrating.html 

There are a lot of those posts, with non really being that quotable. 

I could be bothered by people making assumptions again, and assumptions that have a vilifying tendency. However, many liberals replied confirming that they will celebrate. Gleefully. 

While there is still a dehumanizing element on the one side, I'm not getting too excited over this one. It was a lie to say that liberals were celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, but the future celebration is only a predication and may well be an accurate one.

(Though if you want to read a bizarre fantasy with replies showing other participants in the mass delusion, here you go: https://x.com/afshineemrani/status/2035869038723887304) 

With all of that being said, I don't picture myself celebrating.

This is not that I am a superior person and above such petty things; if anyone deserves their death celebrated, it's this guy.

He has caused an appalling amount of damage, from physical structures to protocols that acted as guidelines to agreements that increased safety to loss of human life. 

If he has not been the only cause of many people becoming more ignorant and more hateful, he has certainly enabled it.

Therein lies the problem; when he goes, the wreckage will remain.

There might be some sense of relief that he can't do anything else. I find it hard to credit him with any charisma, but there must be some to explain the cult-like devotion. Vance does not have that, but he will still have the endorsement of the evil tech bros that made him the choice, and again, institutions are in ruins.

It would be nice to think that it could help some things, but there will be so much to fix and so many obstructionists -- on the right and the left -- that I don't see any celebrations in my future.

Maybe there will be a shift in the struggle.

I won't begrudge anyone who does get some satisfaction out of it, but I don't think it can be a lasting satisfaction.

I mean, unless it's just joy that someone you hated died. I don't know how much satisfaction you can get out of that. The point is that it won't fix things.

There is a sorrow with that, but that's been here for a while. 

But is that "celebrating"?

I have mentioned hyperbole and exaggeration, but it is probably more of an outright lie that liberals were celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.

I was nonetheless seeing multiple assertions that had happened.

This was happening just after Robert Mueller died, and the president was predictably horrible:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/29/us/mueller-trump-fbi-presidents-standoff 

While it's not worth a lot, there are conservatives who still have a sense of decorum. Because of that, they realized this behavior was not good, but they still didn't want to be too critical of him, which is dangerous. 

Much like leftists, the easiest path is to criticize liberals. This played out in two main ways:

1. This is nothing compared to how liberals will celebrate when Trump dies.
2. What about how they celebrated when Charlie Kirk died?

Laying aside the first one for now, I don't really remember anyone celebrating.

It was not uncommon to point out that he had not been a really good person or a fighter for free speech and open debate.

It was not uncommon to point out that various right-wingers had angry posts about Kirk, most notably Nick Fuentes, though there were others.

After appearing to fall in line that MAGAs should not be pressuring the government for the release of the Epstein Files, Kirk went back on that:

https://www.newsweek.com/jeffrey-epstein-files-update-charlie-kirk-trump-message-2099999 

It was a fairly mild rebellion, but there were people who perceived it as a lack of support and were angry. 

That could have been a motive in the shooting, but with the current FBI's incompetence, I am not sure how definitive an answer we will get. 

Anyway, after the shooting, right-wingers who had posted violent or critical things about Kirk removed them, then started trying to get ordinary people who had posted criticisms of Kirk fired.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charlie-kirk-critics_n_68c5a9b5e4b0efc9da5fea41  

It's the circle of life.

As people were discussing it, a lot of people pointed out his flaws. That conflicted with the quick lionization of Kirk, as they pointed out that he had not really been that big a deal, with a somewhat limited audience. People who had never heard of him before were now heartbroken at his loss. 

There was a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration in that.

From my point of view, Charlie Kirk was the Campus Crusade for Christ version of Steven Crowder.  I would see his face and have to run through my head "nope, not Matt Walsh, not Gaetz... Wohl? Oh, Kirk."

That may sound mean, but is it celebrating? 

Those critical posts tended to state over and over again that Kirk's flaws did not mean that he deserved to be murdered. 

Someone replied to one of the posts with the accusations of celebration, with exactly that point: posts saying that Kirk sowed division or lied or targeted naive young students then said he didn't deserve to die.

The answer (that I should have bookmarked) was a rebuttal that most of those posts reversed the order.

He didn't deserve to die, BUT... then it's a party.  

I mention the lack of intellectual honesty a lot, but we should note that it accomplishes different things.

Sometimes the purpose is continuing to avoid self-examination and to not let logic or perspective interfere, but part of that is also turning the people you disagree with into monsters.

What kind of insecurity do you need to have that vilification of others is necessary?

Xander

Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died on March 20th. He was less than a month away from turning 55.

Xander was a major character on a show that meant a lot to a lot of people. Without any special powers or supernatural traits, he may have been the easiest to relate to. For many he was the heart of the show. It makes sense that people were upset and expressed grief. 

Perhaps less logical but still not surprising, many people swooped in to criticize that outpouring of grief for such a problematic person. That set off additional people swooping in to ask whether we can't just let people grieve.

For Brendon himself, he did have legal and health issues, some of it pretty well-documented.

The cycle of grief, anger at the grief, and anger at the anger is all pretty familiar. I have even written about it before.

However, since we have a lot of people dying around now, and a lot of people being terrible as a matter of course, perhaps this is a good time to review some things.

We should remember that an actor is not the person that they played, even when there are remarkable physical similarities. 

It's okay to care about entertainers. Their faces are familiar, they create work that we find meaningful... why wouldn't we care? And they're still human beings, which should be a good reason to care, though that doesn't always work out the way you might hope.

With social media we sometimes get more personal sides. Those might be carefully curated, but sometimes you can get an idea of a person and like them better. Plus, with conventions, there are often opportunities to meet and have photos and maybe listen to them on panels.

I don't want to discount any of those experiences.

It would also be a bad idea to worship them. 

It is also okay to care about imperfect people. It's necessary to do so. Otherwise your choices are either shutting your heart down completely for a miserable existence or using denial as the coping tool that allows you to enjoy anyone only by ignoring their flaws.

That one gets used more than it should.

When we know someone's flaws and still love them, that love is a love that can last and grow. Necessary for family, but probably less important for celebrities.

I have said before that it is reductive to focus on whether someone is a good person or a bad person. That's still true, but there are people who try harder to do good and people who don't seem to make any efforts at all in a positive direction.

Fame can mess people up, and health issues can take an emotional toll. 

Dominator culture often rewards people for bad behavior, making it seem reasonable and even admirable.

This is not limited to Nicholas Brendon. I don't actually know that much about him. If some people had bad experiences with him and other people had bad experiences, neither side negates the other.

It is unfortunate that often this mostly gets talked about after someone is dead. If it came up earlier -- maybe someone gets called out or called in -- maybe some people would improve and right some wrongs, or at least try.

One can easily try and get nowhere, though. That happens too.

I can't give you any easy answer for any person. There are some things that I think are important.

We need to be able to reject bad behavior, even from people we like.

We need to be willing to allow attempts to change, even from people we don't like.

We need to prioritize the people who are most vulnerable.

We need to care about each other and wish each other well.  

I'm not expecting the world to end tonight, but if it did, all we would have is our characters and the love that we shared, our knowledge and our memories. 

There are lots of good reasons to try and be better. 

Related posts:  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/03/and-i-like-them.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/02/nahm-2017-taking-sides.html 

Spooky Season: New horizons

I know; there was a bit of a gap, as I was last writing about this in January. 

There are always a lot of things to write about. I will try and finish this round next week, with links.

For planned reading that I had mentioned further back, technically there should really only be finishing up the four series I had been reading.

It's never that simple, is it?

I did finish four trilogies, but I was also thinking of other books that I intended to get to eventually that might apply. 

First I should note that there are some books that could go with horror but are Native American written and themed; they don't feel like they belong here so I am saving them. 

Otherwise, I found another three trilogies, sort of.

First off, I have followed Daniel José Older for some time. I actually wanted to read his Bone Street Rumba series, but the library only had that electronically. I do not have an appropriate device, so I started Shadowshaper, the first in the Shadowshaper Cypher series, instead.. 

The setting really feels alive and the people breathe. Well, there are some that stop breathing though they do not stop existing in different ways. Heritage is important, and art, both of which make sense from Older.

There are ways in which it is very beautiful. I probably will read more in this series.  

Maya and the Rising Dark, #1 in the same-named series, by Rena Barron.

I'd added this to my to-read list a while ago, but I can't remember who recommended it. A comic-con was a key factor, so I assume that was part of how it came up.

For the series I was already reading, The Forge and Fracture Series features Orisha as a key part of the world-building, as well as a threat of dangerous foes coming through a breach in what had been providing safety. Those are both true for Maya as well, but the tone is completely different.

While it can feel young, it still handles some complex issues well, including that killing your enemies may be necessary without it being good.

I feel a little less likely to stick with this series than Shadowshaper, but am still not ruling it out.  

I added Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward to my to-read list back in 2016. Again, I don't remember what the recommendation had been. However, I saw it listed as Bois Sauvage #2. A series? You don't say..

Well, kind of. I read #1, Where the Line Bleeds.

Two things about that: while there are three books that all take place in Bois Sauvage -- a place in rural Mississippi -- each book focuses on a different family. 

Having only read one, I do not know if there are characters in common between the three books, though I suspect that does happen.

I can't trust my suspicions, though, because while those two titles and the third, Sing, Unburied, Sing, had me thinking that there would be supernatural elements, there are not. They are just about how difficult and depressing regular life can be.

I may have had a harder time because parents who are present but not (even if it's for the best) may be a harder issue for me right now.

I am not sure if I am going to continue. I might.

I haven't removed number 2 from my to-read list yet, so there's that. 

If I decide to finish these series, or at least read the second offerings, will I decide to do that around October?

That is not impossible.