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?