Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Wait. . . what? The apocalypse was supposed to eliminate all the queers! Censorship and artistic integrity

I walked into Costco a few months ago and was accosted by a couple of young men in white shirts and ties.  Because I have no tattoos or piercings, eschew black eyeliner, and look like the typical middle-aged mom that walks into Costco, it's hard to look at me and see that I am an avid crusader for human rights and politically and socially liberal.

So these two young men practically drag me over to their display.  "We have something you'll really like."

First of all, thanks for labeling me based on my appearance and deciding what I like/want/need, and second, respect my personal space by kindly removing your hand from my arm.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Insightful Student Recognizes Mary Sue from Twilight

I teach creative writing to 7th and 8th graders.  It is a joy and a challenge.

The next few lessons are dealing with character creation and development.  Sadly, too many 7th and 8th-graders are okay with blank, generic characters because they actually want to "step into" the character's shoes.  I hated to burst their bubbles and explain that such characters are the work of writers who are lazy or unskilled or both.  I asked them to name names of specific characters from their reading whom they wanted to bitch-slap (not using those words, of course) at any point in the novel.  Many of them named Harry Potter, particularly at his angsty (super-angsty?  angstier?) period during Order of the Phoenix.  I asked them if they continued to read the books and if they finished the series.  All my students who got to the fifth book finished the series because they cared enough about the characters to see their stories through.

As writers, I pointed out to them, they had to be brave enough to give their characters flaws and weaknesses, and I introduced the terms "Mary Sue" and "Gary Stu."  I don't really like the second one--I would have used a generic name like "Bob" to designate a generic character, but nobody asked me, so we're stuck with Gary Stu.

I didn't want to spend the entire period on Sues, so I just chose the  parts of The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test that deal with name and appearance.  We hadn't even gotten to Item #14 about the character having an unusual scent when a bright student piped up,"You could be describing Twilight." "Thank you!"  was my reply.  "Bella Swan is a classic Mary-Sue."  I hope I didn't ruffle too many feathers.

I had to reiterate that it's okay to like those books, not because I'm afraid of 12 and 13-year-old girls, but if they have mothers who are fans, I don't want those people coming after me with pitchforks.  Their daughters tend to be much more reasonable.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

If you could care less about not caring less. . .

Our children don't like watching TV with my husband and me.  If it's a cop show, he'll be pausing it to point out the flaws in procedures or weapons handling. ("Right.  Send the detectives in suits into a hostage situation before the SWAT team."  Et cetera.) For my part, I am constantly paying attention to words and how they're used.  I seldom pause or shout at the screen, but last night I'd heard this mis-usage so many times in this same program that I reached a tipping point.

I found myself shouting at the TV screen, "It's COULDN"T care less!" after a character tried to express indifference about a particular situation by stating that she "could care less."

If you "could care less" it actually means you are capable of caring less.  In other words, since you COULD care less, you actually DO care about whatever-it-is.

This is not one of those "brain-fart" misusages.  This is people hearing it, thinking it sounds idiomatic or something, and not considering what they're actually saying because they're not paying attention to how the words are used.


To express indifference, if you are fed up, if your givadammer is busted, please use "I couldn't care less."