The Truth About Santa Claus

A note for any young eyes that come across this blog:

The following is about my personal experience with the Spirit of Christmas.  You should not let it affect your experience.  If you believe in the magic of this Season (and you should, I do!), perhaps you ought to go to another page.  This is boring, adult nostalgia about the holidays and you deserve to being reading more exciting material.  If you do decide to read further, please keep in mind that I am a grownup and don’t really know anything about anything.

A couple of friends of mine recently posted on Facebook about their sons learning the “truth” about Santa Claus’ existence and the difficulties surrounding that particular loss of innocence.  The sons were 14 years old.  I started to respond and it became utterly necessary to write about it at further length.

I am not sure that any child believed in Santa Claus quite as much as I did as a child.  I thought about Christmas darn near the entire year with the kind of fervor that nowadays is relegated to nuts and people with OCD.  I was the kid who insisted upon a real tree and insisted that we keep it up well into January and, to this day, there is a song that I wrote to Santa that sits in my box of ornaments.

I wrote that song during Spring Break when I was seven.

I never questioned that we made Christmas cookies in my mother’s favorite flavors or that the notes thanking me for leaving a snack for the reindeer were written in that same loopy handwriting that wished me a “great day” in my school lunch box.

I never questioned until I was about ten and a woman at church asked my mom about where she had gotten the leather bomber jacket I was wearing.  Mom had forgotten that the jacket was from Santa and told her that it was from Hamricks.

It was at this point that my literal belief in Father Christmas began to adjust.  I never had a “Eureka!” moment, as it were.  It just, sort of, morphed into realization, but I didn’t ask my mom about it at this time.  You see, somewhere during this mess of innocence lost, my parents began the process of getting a divorce.  I didn’t think my mom needed any more big changes, so I kept the secret a few more years.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I also was afraid that letting Mom know might cause a decrease in overall gift profits for the final quarter.

When I finally asked her at about age 14, it was fairly anticlimactic.  We discussed at length the Spirit of Christmas and whether I still wanted her to put gifts out from Santa (I did and she still does, by the way).  It was, for the most part, not that big of a deal.  I told her that I had known for awhile and she said that she had guessed it.  She asked me why I had chosen that moment to tell her and I couldn’t really put it into words.

I think I can now.

I came to understand that my mom gave of herself without considering the reward of being recognized.  Santa always left the favorites of all my gifts.  My mom sacrificed the best to the spirit of the holiday.  I came to understand that the real magic of Santa Claus was not in the man himself, but in a parent staying up late to build a toy with too many pieces and not enough instructions so they can wake up early and see wonder in their child’s eyes.  I came to understand that it was more important to my mom to hear me tell the story of how Santa left sooty footprints on the rug than it was to keep a clean rug.

Now, before the cynics out there begin to holler about how creating the mythos behind Santa is just us lying to our children, I want to tell you something: 

Children are naturally apt to believe in magic and monsters and spirits and fairy dust.  They will believe in the monster in the closet regardless of your insistence.  Why not let them have something good on their side?

Realizing that Santa and my mom were the same person never felt like a betrayal.  It was a coming of age for me.  We were allowed to share in that moment when I started to think like an adult.  We celebrated it and mourned it in our own ways and I wouldn’t give it up for a million dollars.

To my friends whose sons now know the “truth” about Santa, here’s what I know.  In 2012, a time when cynicism is prized and information is accessible everywhere, your sons believed in Santa Claus for 14 years because your love made it plausible to believe in magic.  No parent could ask better for their child.  Merry, merry Christmas.

Cleaning Blood Off the Bat: My Thoughts on Facebook's Treatment of the Aurora Tragedy

I have had a full day to gather some thoughts on the Aurora murders.  I have been shaking my head trying to wrap my head around what it takes for a person to decide that someone else no longer gets to live.  Those people were there to have fun at a movie and were met with chaos.  The audacity of anyone to ruin the precious joy it is to experience art with a group of like-minded people by staining it in blood is reprehensible.

I find myself on Facebook a lot when these things happen and, usually, have to run away because the general reaction becomes so idiotic and infuriating that I risk saying something I regret.  Therefore, instead of going on a status posting rampage, I’m just going to blog about what I’ve seen and why it makes me angry.  Feel free to hate me for it, but this is keeping me sane.

“This is why guns should be outlawed/If someone had had a gun, they could have done something about it.”

There’s been a tragedy where freaking children were shot.  Could you wait five minutes before you start using this for your political agenda?  Could you maybe just mourn the tragedy or keep your mouth shut?

“There was a baby and a four year old there.  What kind of mother takes her baby to a midnight show?”

Yep, she was totally asking for a crazed gunman to walk into the theater and murder people.  We should be pressing charges against her for causing this incident.  On a similar note, if that 19 year old hadn’t been illegally drinking beer, she wouldn’t have been drugged.  She practically raped herself.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea to bring any child to a midnight show, particularly if it’s a movie for adults.  In fact, please don’t.  I will hate you for it if I’m in the audience.  However, let’s not talk about the woman who just got shot at with her babies as though she bears responsibility for the tragedy.

Various petitions to get Christian Bale, dressed as Batman, to visit the kids who got shot in the hospital. 

I get what you’re saying here.  You’re trying to get something good to come out of something bad, but, honestly, I think a fully Batmanned Christian Bale visiting the kids who were shot at a Batman movie is about as good of an idea as putting up a poster of “Scenic Vietnam” in the PTSD ward of the Veterans' hospital.  Also, I kind of hate all of the posts that try to blackmail someone into doing something.  “You have the opportunity to be a real hero, Mr. Bale” rings with the same dissonance as “if you love Jesus, you’ll repost; if you love Satan, you’ll keep scrolling.”  

Pictures of Batman with an assortment of “In Memoriam” things

I generally dislike the ribbon movement.  I’m not going to lie.  They kind of scream “LOOK AT ME!  LOOK AT HOW FREAKING MUCH I CARE!!  I AM SUCH A GOOD PERSON FOR HOW MUCH I CARE.”  I’m not saying I’ve never displayed one, but there’s a tendency when the least a person can do is the also the most visible way for them to do it, it becomes the only thing that person does.  I can’t emphasize enough that this doesn’t apply to everyone.  I’ve seen many a friend who posts an awareness ribbon who also raises serious money for the same cause.  I’m just saying that they tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

In this case, I know that some of you are just looking for a security blanket, a symbol to make you feel better about the event, but I feel that including Batman creates two problems.  One, and I can’t quite explain why, creating a mascot trivializes the event.  For the same reason we don’t have “Tradey, the Ground Zero Bear”, we don’t put the Bat symbol on a memorial sign.  Also, putting Batman on the memorial signs seemingly imbues the property with responsibility.  This had nothing to do with Batman, with DC Comics, Bob Kane, or the movie industry.  It had everything to do with a man who had no respect for the sanctity of life.  When we reflect the incident away from that, we are doing a disservice to the people who were a part of this tragedy.

And Finally,

“The world is going to hell/No one is safe anymore/Fear, Fear, Fear”

Guys, it’s always been this crazy.  Hell, it’s been worse.  Anyone who lived in the Old West could tell you that.  When we allow fear to take over, we castrate our ability to live full lives.  If every person took the time to say, “I am not afraid”, then we’d be the ones in power.  There would be no more terrorists.  There would still be bombers now and then, shooters, but no terrorists, because terrorists imply fear and we don’t deal in fear.  Fear is an abstract concept.  We walk down the streets because we can and nothing can stop us because we can’t be stopped by abstract concepts.  It’s not because we are American, because it’s so much more than that.  It’s because we’re human and humans are brave.  It’s because we contain within us an irrepressible fire that cannot be quenched.  So don’t say that you’re not going to the cinema this weekend because of Aurora.  You’re better than that.  Say that you are going and no one will stop you because you want that man with a gun to fail.  And he will fail.  He already has.  My friends just got their tickets this afternoon.

Mr. Nolan, Trust Your Audience! My Thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises (SPOILERS AHEAD)

I’ve always been a fan of the Batman, the intrigue, the over-the-top villains, the detective tale in costumed glory.  In fact, I think the comic book medium is (or at least can be) one of the most effective storytelling techniques out there.  That said, I probably should have been more excited these last seven years about Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight saga.  The truth is, I enjoyed all of these films, but neither of the first two really felt like Batman movies to me, so I haven’t really treated them as such.  They’re good, mind you and I rushed excitedly to see each of them.  The experience of seeing the first two and picking them apart critically was a joy.  It was more than a comic book movie; it was an artistic experience.  Batman Begins was the first time that I could remember a comic book story being treated with the same depth and care as one would treat a Tolstoy novel.  Even though neither BB nor TDK were my favorite incarnations of Batman, the respect that was given to telling a more realistic Batman story was refreshing to this fangirl.

Last night’s viewing of The Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a departure from that.  It was entertaining, but not as good of a film as the other two.  It lacked the finesse of the first and the passion of the second.  It just wasn’t as good of a movie, but it was still good.  It’s unfair to compare it to Marvel’s most recent endeavors, so I’ll keep that to a minimum except for in the few places where it applies.  Here’s the deal, good, bad and otherwise:

IT’S NOT A BATMAN MOVIE, IT’S AN EVERYONE BUT BATMAN MOVIE (AND THAT’S NOT A BAD THING)

Most of the movie doesn’t focus on Batman.  In fact, it might be almost an hour into the film before you see the titular hero.  The World’s Greatest Detective is the one doing the least detecting in this one.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes on that role and carries the movie, in my opinion.  Hathaway’s Catwoman gets to subtly show her protective, maternal side (without it getting too heavy handed) in her relationship with a street girl who I am guessing was supposed to be Holly Robinson.  Jim Gordon takes a bit of a backseat, but still provides a critical point of view.

In the first two movies, you see Batman creating a world from his point of view.  In Rises, you see the point of view from the world he’s created.  It was smart, if not well executed.

ANNE HATHAWAY IS MARVELOUS.  IT’S TOO BAD SHE HAS NO SEXUAL CHEMISTRY WITH CHRISTIAN BALE

I heard such tales about Hathaway and Bale on set that I expected there to be a palpable heat between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne.  There wasn’t.  They bantered at each other with the approximate sexual tension of a fifteen year married couple who were staying together for the sake of the children.  There was a strong sense of “like” between them, just not the sense that they could find themselves unable to decide whether they should hit each other or kiss.

This is not to say that Hathaway’s Catwoman isn’t good.  Her performance is one of the most compelling in the franchise, possibly as good as Ledger’s Joker, though her current state of being alive and her gender will easily prevent her for being recognized as such.  She performs the role with expert vulnerability and is absolute sex on screen.  However, I fear she’ll have to commit to some major partying with Michelle Tanner before she will be given the props she deserves for this role.

GOTHAM DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ONE CITY.

In the previous movies in the franchise, Nolan has used the looks of several cities to create a blended and unique Gotham.  He does the same in Rises, but this film isn’t as smooth in its visual transitions.  I often found myself saying, “Now we’re in Pittsburgh.  New York.  Pittsburgh.  Soundstage.”  It wasn’t the seamless Gotham of the previous films and the cinematography visually suffers for it.

MARION COTTILARD IS TERRIBLE.  SHE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CAST.

I say this as someone who recognizes Ms. Cottilard as a brilliant actress.  She’s not that in this movie.  Her character of Miranda Tate is so unbelievably boring that it becomes impossible to believe that Bruce Wayne would ever sleep with her.  She appears first at a party at Wayne Manor and is so utterly forgettable that when she showed up again a few scenes later, I thought “Crap. This is going to be Talia, isn’t it?”  Then I thought that maybe it was a brilliant sleight of hand by Nolan.  Keep her boring until she’s revealed as Talia.  That would have been amazing.

But it wasn’t amazing.  She wasn’t interesting as Talia any more than she was as a bland socialite stepping stone.  Her lines were delivered so poorly that I was trying to remember if I’d ever seen her in an interview in English.  I began to wonder if she actually knew the language or was simply given a phonetic script with loose descriptions of meaning.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN DOESN’T TRUST HIS AUDIENCE.

As an actor, I’ve always been told that you have to trust your audience.  If you present a moment honestly, then you don’t have to explain it.  The audience is smart enough to figure out a lot of things. 

Christopher Nolan clearly doesn’t think that we are that smart.  In this film, he plays so many moments like a bad comedian who explains each joke to his audience.  An example:

Early in the film, Alfred (Michael Caine) says that he used to spend time in a Florentine café hoping that someday he would see Bruce there, perhaps with a family of his own, having left his life of darkness behind.  They wouldn’t speak, just nod in acknowledgement and that would be enough for Alfred to know that he had done right by his young master and that alone would clear his conscience of any failure to the Waynes.  They show Mr. Pennyworth in that same café at the end of the film, the focus is on his face which changes as he spots someone, smiles knowingly, and nods in acknowledgement. 

That was all we needed.  We know who Alfred saw.  Michael Caine’s a good enough actor for that.  We didn’t need to see a happy-go-lucky Bruce sitting with Selina Kyle at a table across the way to know that Alfred could finally be at peace or that our hero lived.  Nolan showed it to us anyway and completely diffused what could have been a beautiful moment.  The movie is filled with those.

IF YOU’VE EVER READ BATMAN, EXPECT FEW SURPRISES

Where the Marvel movies of the past few years are chock full of Easter eggs and surprises to make the diehard fans squeal, the Dark Knight Rises does very little to bow to the fanboys and girls.  In some ways, this is good.  It prevents the movie from devolving into the wink and nod camp that has plagued other Batman films.  In other ways, it ignores a lot of the details that make the Batman universe great.

There’s a brief nod to a panel from Kingdom Come that was a delight for me and a cameo by someone who made me happy, but other than that, the story is unbelievably predictable.  Dark Knight diehards will quickly realize that Miranda Tate is Talia.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt has to be some incarnation of the Batman’s oft ill-fated sidekick Robin.  The predictability is not necessarily bad (these characters are pretty well known, after all), but Nolan’s storytelling in Rises does nothing to make it feel new.  There’s little about this story that felt like it needed to be told, which is problematic.  It plodded on, with little drive or focus.  It was a long movie that felt long.

A FEW MORE THOUGHTS…

British people with Am-eh-RI-CKAN accents.  There’s a TV Tropes article about this and for good reason.  It’s all over this film.  Even Oldman’s first two lines sound more like a wizard from Hogwarts than a grizzled cop on the streets of an American city.

When Bane sets the Blackgate prisoners free (and presumably Arkham because Scarecrow got out), I was hoping to see more nods to characters from the Batman universe.  When they were showing the chaos, I would have loved a silhouette of what could be the Joker walking down an alley or maybe a tall, skinny man spray painting a question mark on the side of a building.  Something to indicate the world thrown into chaos by having these psychopaths loose.

The casual nature in which Bruce Wayne mentors John Blake about being Batman made if feel like becoming a superhero was as easy as getting your degree in Batmanning from the University of Phoenix Online.

If you can, go see a showing of this movie that is subtitled for the hearing impaired.  Bane’s mask and accent make him sound nearly unintelligible.  Seriously, they should have just called this character Darth Connery.

I wanted to see a teenaged Barbara Gordon.  It’s been eight years since Dent died.  I wanted to see the beginnings of what would become Batgirl.  Even if she’s just visiting her dad when Bane cuts off Gotham from the world and we only see her for half a second, I would’ve liked it.

Matthew Modine’s story was superfluous.  It was in no way important to have a half-baked storyline about some guy who wanted Gordon’s job.  Speaking of superfluous, the contrived way they bankrupted Wayne was ridiculous. Shave ten minutes off the movie by not having one of those storylines there or replace it with a character someone gives a darn about.

If Bruce Wayne was so completely bankrupt that they turned off the power to his house, how did he afford the travel expenses from the Pit prison to Gotham?

Those are just my first impressions.  Despite the flaws in the film, I enjoyed the experience and would like to see it a second time.  Now that the Nolan saga is over, I look forward to seeing what new incarnations of the World’s Greatest Detective will come to light and will look back on these films as a fascinating experiment on what a hero movie can be.  It doesn’t have to be campy.  It can be every bit as deep as the deepest drama without sacrificing the things that make comic books great.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

With Friends Like These...

I think that it is safe to say that there have been many strides forward for the GLBT community over the past few weeks.  Between President Obama throwing in his support for gay rights and various groups following suit, we’ve seen more progress in the past two months than some civil rights movements have had in an entire generation.  Personally, I think it is wonderful.  Even more recently, Anderson Cooper became more vocal about his sexuality and has gotten a great deal of press, mostly good, from his followers and the media.

However, I found myself shocked with the number of people on Facebook who were less than supportive of the Silver Fox’s public statement, particularly since most of them are on the side of progress in this case.  If I saw one “Anderson Cooper came out.  In other news, Rush Limbaugh is white” type of status update, I saw a dozen.  Such comments are derisive and do nothing to support the cause of equality.

In fact, it perpetuates the problem.

I would like to go ahead and clear something up for the people who do not have the ability to read an entire article without needing to post about it first.  To say that Anderson Cooper “came out of the closet” in this way is fallacious.  It makes the assumption that Mr. Cooper was hiding his sexuality from anyone.  He wasn’t. He didn’t hide his sexuality.  All of the people in his general vicinity know that he is gay and have for a very long time. He, as a journalist, makes his living giving information about other people and events, not about himself.  Anderson Cooper talking about his sexuality on air would have been as ridiculous as an anchor talking about her newest boyfriend or how her baby cried all night the night before.

The fact that public figures still need to come out of the closet is offensive.  It is unfair that heterosexual celebrities can be given respect when they keep their private lives private, while homosexuals are expected to put all of their information out there, like they are some commodity, owned by the public.  They aren’t.  They deserve to be treated with the same respect and privacy as anyone else.

I have no doubt part of the reason that these celebrities keep their gender preferences to themselves.  With supporters like us, who needs enemies?

A Liberal Christian Looks at Gay Marriage

There is a good chance that what I’m about to write will alienate me from a lot of people who I care about. I have never been one to do anything that will make people not like me. I will push the limits. I will make veiled, witty references, but I rarely come right out and completely take a side because, as much as I hate to admit it, being liked is a big deal to me. So know that in saying the things I am about to say, I understand the consequences and I don’t take them lightly. I’m here to talk about my faith. I’m here to talk about religion. I’m here to talk about sin. I’m here to talk about homosexuality…and heterosexuality.

I’m also here to confess.

Perhaps the confession is a good place to start. It lets those who know me now know that I wasn’t always as open-minded, which might give some of my friends hope in the human capacity for change. It lets those who knew me years ago know that I have changed my mind about a great many things. My confession is that I used to believe that gays should not be allowed to marry. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. I didn’t see what the big deal was. In my mid-teens, I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal for two people of the same gender to be able to have their relationship honored in the eyes of the law. It was just a piece of paper, wasn’t it? If the relationship was sound, why did it need legality? To be fair, I didn’t understand the idea of anyone who wasn’t of a faith getting married. If it wasn’t for God, why do it at all?

Well, I was wrong. I was wrong because I was too young to have any concept of a legally recognized union. You darned well do need the law on your side. Being married for three years has taught me some things that have nothing to do with my being a Christian or the love I feel for my husband. You need to know where you stand on mutual assets. You need combined credit scores to buy property. You need the right to be in the hospital with the person you’ve spent your life loving. You need to be able to sign for things. There are so many things that the law can help or hinder based on your marital status and I’m not willing to keep that law from anyone who can legally make decisions for themselves.

None of those things have anything to do with my being a Christian, which I am. I am a Christian because I believe in Jesus as Messiah, which is the primary requirement of my faith. It is nearly the only thing that ties all sects of Christianity together and I can put a checkmark in that box. However, it has recently been implied that I cannot be a Christian if I choose to tolerate homosexuals. I believe this is wrong on many levels. First of all, tolerate is the wrong word. It implies a benevolence on my part to allow certain undesirables in my presence. I am not so vain as to think that I have that right or so self-righteous to think that any child of God could be considered an undesirable. I can tolerate a child screaming on a bus or a long wait at the doctor’s office. These are things that are happening to me. Homosexuals are not happening to me. They aren’t trying to send “extra gay” in my general direction. They just want to be. They are an entire group of people who need neither my tolerance nor approval. The word you are looking for is not tolerate. The word you are looking for is respect. I choose to respect homosexuals as people who are no different from me because they are no different from me. The other word you are looking for is love. I choose to love homosexuals because it is the right thing to do and because Christ absolutely requires it of me and all Christians. Those non-homosexuals reading this, I love you, too, even when your opinions differ from mine and even knowing that some of you are wondering what special part of Hell I get for being such a hardcore “sin tolerator”.

Speaking of sin, I know that some of the other Christians reading this might be thinking the obvious rebuttal,

“What about all the things that the Bible says about homosexuality being a sin? You can’t just pick and choose what you think are and aren’t sins.”

Believe it or not, this is the one place where you have me pinned. I struggle with this question every single day and not just because of homosexuality. I could use the Leviticus shellfish defense, but you’ve heard it and, at this point, it just sounds cheap. I’ve eaten buckets upon buckets of crab legs with a girl who has multiple tattoos who has had sex with a woman and a man at the same time and has been the other woman a couple of times in extra-marital affairs. Last time I spoke with her, she was married and she referred to homosexuality as an abomination before God. If I were to bring up her past, she would likely say that she’s repented her sexual sins before God and those things no longer matter because they’ve been forgiven and she’s now living the life that God has chosen for her. She would also say that her repentance is the difference between her and the homosexuals.

She is using an unfair argument.

If she’s truly with the person with whom she’s going to spend the rest of her life, there’s way less pressure in the realm of “sexual deviance”. Yes, there’s always going to be temptation about, but you are far less likely to engage in casual sex when you are in a happily committed relationship than when you are sailing without an anchor. I would have more respect for her argument if she were single and not pursuing any kind of relationship. Also, and she’ll be the first to tell you this, she’s not gay or bi. She only had sex with a woman that one time because it was what the guy wanted to do and, in her mind, that made it okay. We actually live in a society where people think more highly of a girl having sex with another girl to satisfy the needs of a man than we do of two women having sex because they love each other.

Something doesn’t add up here, which brings me to a story…

In 2002, I moved to Richmond, VA to become a touring actress. I was right out of college and was not looking to settle down any time soon. I mean to say, I wanted to find the right guy and get married someday, but I wasn’t in any rush at that point. I spent my first month in Richmond really stretching my wings. I went to off-the-wall theatre events, hit the bar scenes, and became a karaoke regular at a couple of clubs. I was learning about life and was in no way looking to settle down.

Then my housemate Chad invited me to go to Chuggers with some other casts. Chuggers was a great little bar in one of Richmond’s older districts. It had all the ambience of the best movie bars you’ve ever seen and the bartender made really good chocolate martinis. I was ready for a fun night, but not a life changing one.

As we got settled at the table, I was introduced to the man sitting across from me at the table. His name was Lucas and he was working as a house tech for one of the tours. After the introduction, I’m pretty sure the rest of the people disappeared. Lucas and I became engrossed in conversation for the rest of the evening. We talked about everything under the sun for hours. I remember the feeling, that pit of the stomach flutter that lets us know that we are attracted to someone. Then I felt something else, a calm and warm feeling that encased me like sunlight on a beach. I was going to marry this man. This was my rest-of-my-life guy. It wasn’t lightning or lust (though I’m sure both were present), it was a sense of peace, a perfect calm. We’ll celebrate our eighth year of being together in January.

I tell this story for two reasons. One is to tell you that I have never, ever felt anything like that for a woman. I’ve been attracted to plenty of men in my time, but never once has a woman made my breath catch at an accidental brush of skin. Never have I broken eye contact with a woman because I feared that she would see right through me. And never can I imagine ever feeling that way for a woman. I can’t imagine satisfaction at holding a woman in bed or kissing a woman, yet all of those feelings are things I have felt for men at some point in time or another. I am not straight because I choose it or because it is “right”. I’m a heterosexual because there is simply no other way that I can be.

The second reason I share this story is this: I love my husband regardless of how others feel about it. If a group of people were to come up to me and tell me that I wasn’t allowed to be with Lucas, I would recommend that they invest in a good mirror so they could properly screw themselves.

This has become wordy, so I’ll try to make the rest of this as succinct as possible. What I’m saying is that I absolutely have problems identifying what is and isn’t a sin using only the Bible as a guide. To pretend otherwise would be utter hypocrisy. I don’t know in absolutes what is completely right and completely wrong and part of that is because the Bible seemingly contradicts itself in many places. I am starting to think that the contradictions are part of the beauty of the Bible itself. Parable and metaphor are the staples that hold my faith together. We ask the question “how do we earn salvation”, the Bible answers back in contradiction. It becomes its own divine parable. We are physically incapable of following all of the laws within the pages; therefore, it’s what’s beyond the laws that’s important.

I don’t pretend to understand. A lot of what I’ve written here is a way for me to further understand what I do believe. The best I can do is pray and offer love to everyone I can. Right now, the answer that I keep hearing has nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with love and so that is the path I follow. God bless you all and I hope that you can read this with an open mind and heart.

Your Facebook Politics Bug Me And I Don't Even Care What Your Actual Politics Are

Yep, I'm in a mood. For the past year+, I have been seeing irrational political ranting on Facebook. Yes, irrational political ranting is everywhere, but it's on Facebook where it seems to bother me the most. It's stupid and I get that. It's essentially a website that specializes in sending people who kind of know each other pixelated farm animals, right? Well, here are the two things that have bugged me lately:

"Let's see if this llama can get more fans than Barack Obama."

My glib response: First of all, no, it can't. No one gives a crap about your llama. Your llama isn't offering us change nor is it in the company of a variety of fun characters voiced by Patrick Warburton and Eartha Kitt. There isn't a picture of me and llama sitting on my mantle. Why? Because a llama wasn't the freaking senator of Illinois in 2006.

This was the freaking senator of Illinois in 2006.

Why it actually bugs me: It's the stupidity of it. When you post something like that, you're making the statement that you think a llama is better than the man that more than 50% of your fellow Americans thought capable of doing the job. It's insulting to those people. It's insulting to me. It's insulting to me because I respected the office of president even when it wasn't who I voted for, even when I disagreed with the politics of the man in that office. Did I ever express my disagreements? Heck, yes, I did, but I did so in a way that was productive by writing to my representatives or signing a petition.

"Farah Fawcett was my favorite actress and God took her away. Michael Jackson was my favorite singer and God took him away. I just wanted to tell God that Barack Obama is my favorite president."

My glib response: Choosing Farah Fawcett as your favorite actress indicates to me (and, let's face it, just about everybody) that you do not have the discretionary skills to make an educated vote. Frankly, I'm not sure that you should be allowed to choose a cat toy much less the leader of the free world. Really, what person saw Cops and Robbersons and thought "Hey, that's acting! I really enjoyed her vulnerability as the single mom of the kid from Free Willy." Choosing Farah Fawcett as your favorite actress is like choosing Mickey Dolenz as your favorite Beatle.

Your favorite Beatle.

What actually bugs me: You know what you're saying, right, when you post something like that. You're saying that you wish death on someone. It's not a statement about your politics; it's a statement about your morals. You just said that you wish the president was dead. That is in every way unacceptable to me.

How I End This: I don't care what your actual politics are. I don't actually consider myself Democrat or Republican. In the near 12 years I've been eligible to vote, I've voted for both sides in one way or another. I can't help but remember being inspired when I heard John McCain speak at my college in 2000. I also remember 2008 when he retracted much of his old self. It was like I was Paul Pfeiffer and Kevin had broken my glasses to get more popular with the cool kids. No amount of Daniel Stern's mellow voice acting would make things the same again. I fear that will be a trend as I grow older and more experienced.

Truthfully, I don't care what your politics are as long as you know why they are your politics.

I was saying the same things to my friends back in 2000 and 2004 when folks were venomous towards Dubya. It's not about whether or not I am in your particular political boat. It's that this kind of ignorant fluff on Facebook is a telling statement about how healthy our minds are politically. I'm not seeing fan groups that say things like "Americans for Veterans' Hospitals that Are Better Equipped for our Female Soldiers" or "People against (specific point or bill)". I'm not saying those group don't exist. I'm saying that too many people would rather make a glib comment than state their actual opinion and that's probably because they don't know what their actual opinions are. That's truly terrifying to me.

Lots of love,

Stacie Rearden Hall

Demigods and Mortals: A Closer Look at the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Genre and the Accountability of the Actions of Heroes

The moral messages in "Star Wars" aren't just window dressing. Speeches and lectures drench every film. They represent an agenda. ~David Brin, "Star Wars" Despots vs. "Star Trek" Populists (all centered italics in this post are from this article)

An article by David Brin talks about the flawed nature of the Star Wars universe because of its misguided ideologies and roots in the Homeric Saga. I'm exploring some of the ideas Brin presented and adding some of my own. I would read what he has to say before continuing this post as I tend to lack in the skills that have made Cliff Notes so popular. Also, I'm not so much addressing all of the things with which I disagree as much as I'm adding a counterpoint to some of the ideas presented.

To be honest, I tend to fall in line with most of Brin's article. I, too, think that Star Wars does have a great deal of focus on its larger than life characters. Though they seem to have humble origins on the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine, both Luke and Anakin are born to be superior simply because of their supernatural abilities. They are both pulled into greater things by destiny, a theme that permeates the Sci-Fi and Fantasy universes. Frodo gains his mystical destiny through an inheritance left by his uncle. Whedon explores that theme with Buffy, the cheerleader who is chosen to save the world. Even Star Trek has its own Wesley Crusher, his intellect so great that he can bend time and space. Though each of these characters shares a certain archetypal quality with the ancient ideals of the epic hero, they also feed into the fantasies of the entertained. It's the idea that though one's life seems boring and simple, at any time someone could show up and reveal their destiny to them, taking them away from from the everyday mundane into the world of the fantastic. "Maybe I never met my dad because he's actually a god" is a lot better to imagine than "maybe I never met my dad because he's actually a jerk".

However, some of the most beloved characters in these genres are the everyman characters. The article ignores that Han Solo (the movie Han, not the one that gets expounded upon in the books) is anything but a demigod. He pretty much goes from the lowest common denominator in space society to a hero by the merit of his own values and earned skill. He does this with a general disbelief towards the central belief system of the original three films. He's an atheist in a universe of believers and still makes a successful life for himself. You also have Wedge Antilles, who appears in all three films as an everyman. He has a handful of moments on screen, but manages to become the anti-redshirt of the sci-fi universe. Even one of the most disliked elements of the series, the Ewok race, imbues the message that the smallest of us can make a difference. Ironically, the argument for the Ewok hatred is summed up in this quote from a friend of mine: "The evil Empire brought down by a bunch of cave man teddy bears? I don't think so."

"Some people say, why look for deep lessons in harmless, escapist entertainment?

Others earnestly hold that the moral health of a civilization can be traced in its popular culture."

A point Brin makes is that the Jedi principles taught by Kenobi and Yoda are "The biggest moral flaw in the Star Wars universe", specifically the Jedi tenet of fear leading to anger, anger leading to hate, and hate leading to the Dark Side. He says:

"...in Return of the Jedi, Lucas takes this basic wisdom and perverts it, saying -- "If you get angry -- even at injustice and murder -- it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won't be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes."

Uh, say what? Could you repeat that again, slowly?

In other words, getting angry at Adolf Hitler will cause you to rush right out and join the Nazi Party? Excuse me, George. Could you come up with a single example of that happening? Ever?

That contention is, in itself, a pretty darn evil thing to preach. Above all, it is just plain dumb."

I don't disagree with Brin here, per se. I do argue that Skywalker, whether intentionally or by the sheer dumb luck of Lucas, actually recognizes the fundamental flaws in this dogma and tears them apart. Luke does a pretty good job of showing that both Force-based religions have major issues. He makes decisions based upon anger and fear, some of which leave his mentors Obi-Wan and Yoda fearing the worst. BUT he doesn't let the anger and fear take over. He engages those emotions, even to the brink, and comes back several times over in the series. While the Old Republic Jedi believe that fear leads to a slippery slope to the Dark Side, Luke instead uses his "darker" emotions as a barometer to prevent succumbing to evil. It's an unspoken lesson that's often ignored in the saga. Luke is the balance to the Force that the galaxy was waiting for, instilling the idea that no emotion itself is wrong, but that allowing those emotions to fully control a person is.

"Lucas wants us to gush with warm feelings toward a cute blond little boy who will later grow up to murder the population of Earth many times over?"

"...he holds up his saga like an agonized Greek tragedy worthy of "Oedipus" -- an epic tale of a fallen hero, trapped by hubris and fate. But if that were true, wouldn't "Star Wars" by now have given us a better-than-caricature view of the Dark Side? Heroes and villains would not be distinguished by mere prettiness; the moral quandaries would not come from a comic book.

Don't swallow it. The apotheosis of a mass murderer is exactly what it seems. We should find it chilling."

Yes, Vader does some unspeakably grotesque things in his life. However, before discussing Vader, I'd like to point out some other instances in popular fiction where characters aren't quite held as accountable as they should be. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy's emotional inability to kill Angelus when she has the chance costs many lives. Xander casts the musical spell that kills several without any kind of emotional or otherwise negative consequences other than a shout of "Oh, all of this angst that we've been keeping in has been revealed. Boo hoo".

Every other season on Star Trek: TNG showed some kind of malfunction with Data costing lives. Why doesn't the consistency of problems with the android cause Data to be decommissioned until further notice? Well, the lives he took weren't main characters, that's why.

"Those red shirts didn't really matter, Data. Now let's go play some poker and share humorous anecdotes about how you don't quite understand human nature. Ha ha!"

In fact, the only series in the Star Trek universe that seems to value the lives of crewmen who don't have their names in the credits is one of the most poorly received: Enterprise. Interestingly enough, it's also the only one that doesn't have a captain who is infallibly good, but that's a discussion for another day.

Back to Vader...

Brin makes many compelling comparisons between Vader and Hitler and I do like what he has to say. However, it was the perspective of a stand-up comedian making a joke about workman's comp who made me expand this concept to include another character in that universe. It can be summed up in one question:

HOW MANY INNOCENTS DIED IN THE DEATH STAR EXPLOSIONS?

I can already hear the arguments. "The Death Star wasn't a civilian base!" "It destroyed a planet!" I get that. I understand the "them or us" mentality that made it necessary to neutralize the weapon. However, it was also the size of a small moon, housing thousands, maybe even millions of people, many of whom were probably civilians. I'm guessing that there were hundreds of contractors, food service, and other personnel. Considering the size of the base, it probably also contained schools and military housing for the families of the Imperial Troops. Was the destruction necessary? Probably. However, Luke Skywalker (and Lando Calrissian) are responsible for thousands of deaths. The utter annihilation of that many lives in one swift stroke must make us consider that mass murder was not simply a trait of the father, but one of the son as well. Why must we do so? Because making characters accountable for their actions makes them more human.

However, in recognizing their flaws, we make their redemption that much more powerful. There is nothing in Star Wars to indicate that the galaxy forgives Vader for his crimes. Yes, there's a funeral pyre, but it's in the distance with Luke alone mourning the loss of his father. You can see the confusion in his face, the love, and the burden of the loss. You can even hear the sounds of celebration in the distance, many, I'm sure, celebrating the very death that Luke was mourning. At that moment, it's not about a galaxy that forgives a mass murderer for his crimes against humanity (because they probably won't). It's about a son who stands alone, loving and forgiving his father despite all of that father's sins. There's beauty in that I think resonates with all of us at some level.



So, I guess the question is "what do we do with this information?". It's not easy. When you open your mind to humanizing archetypal characters in fiction, there are a lot of flaws to be seen. It's important to remember that iconic characters, for the most part, are just that: icons. They're not meant to fully represent the entirety of the human experience any more than we are meant to single-handedly fight ancient monsters and evil empires. What I recommend is that you enjoy the good, recognize the bad, and try to find some balance in between the two extremes.

May both sides of the Force be with you.

~Stacie

*Seriously, read the linked article. It's awesome.