Out of the Chaos

A Companion Piece to Episode 3: Detected

Written by Derek Jones 

    At many points in life, I sit back and gaze at the stars. Sadly, I've been a city guy for the past 15 years, and star gazing often doesn't work well. The glow of the city is just bright enough to dim out the diamonds of the night sky. However, when I'm under a clear night sky and I can witness the awesome beauty of our galaxy, I'm overwhelmed about the sheer size and scope of existence. Sometimes (but not always), I get an extreme sense of anxiety because the night sky reminds me that Earth is simply one small rock of billions floating around stars. The universe often feels like a chaotic place, where natural forces determine the destiny of us all. The feeling of dread when one contemplates their own cosmic insignificance is fairly universal. It fuels and drives us all. Some go mad under the weight of it, some are driven to unusual and dogmatic doctrines, while others choose to stifle this dread in blissful ignorance. I think this anxiety of awareness, the dread of knowing that I am just a minuscule part of a cosmic play that may or may not have meaning, drives me to stories. Stories can offer escape, but more often offer something more valuable: psychological sublimation. I can sublimate this dread into a story which has a definitive temporal framework. Stories begin, have middles, and end. Within the temporal framework, there is always a high degree of control. Regardless of the medium, the story is always within tight control of the story's author/director. In this way, the end of a story is always a foregone conclusion, a representation of a type of imaginary determinism one where the audience scribes a character's illusory freewill.  
    This gets me to Sherlock Holmes and the narrative of the detective. To understand Holmes, we must first ask, what is a detective? A detective, as defined by the dictionary is: "a member of the police force or private investigator whose function is to obtain information and evidence, as of offenses against the law" (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/detective). To put it differently, a detective brings justice to right injustice by collecting verifiable data gathered scientifically (evidence) which will stand up under intense scrutiny (a court of law). A detective brings order to chaos. When a crime is committed, the victim has fallen to the chaotic elements of human society. No one chooses to be victimized by crime, and often times the victim is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Out of the chaotic event, the detective analyzes the situation, looks for evidence in precise and exact details, and brings order to the situation. Based off of the evidence, a determination is made about who perpetrated the crime and an arrest is made. If the detective did his/her job correctly, the evidence will lead to the criminal's punishment in the form of a conviction in court. Out of the chaos of the crime, comes order. Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating character, one whose brilliance has entertained generations of people. But I would surmise that it is his ability to bring order to chaos that gives him such a longstanding and widespread appeal. The interpretation of Holmes is very diverse, but what prevails in every iteration is his ability to see clues where others cannot. He effortlessly sees order where everyone else sees chaos, and it has fascinated audiences since the 19th century. 
    So remember the next time you feel small, it's because you are. But that's ok. Chaos is so intermingled with order that even a drug addicted genius can become the greatest detective in popular culture. I don't pretend to have any answers to the great questions that accompany humans on our journey through this thing called existence. But chaos is manageable, and from the utterly unpredictable there comes predictable, just as in the eye of a hurricane. Perhaps detective stories live in that calm, reassuring all of us that knowledge can bring justice to the unjust.    
    

Princess: Blowing up the template

A companion piece to The Midnight Myth episode 2: Princess Theory. Written by Laurel Hostak.

Princess is a complicated word for me. I was raised on the Disney animated classics, and I love them. I looked up to Belle and Ariel and Jasmine. It was very important to me to see these beautiful, charming women who were more than just their looks. Belle is smart, she reads. Ariel is curious, she seeks out adventure and questions authority. Jasmine is restless, she longs for autonomy. But at the end of the day, these were love stories. They were about scoring the handsome prince (or peasant) who might give her what she's missing. I think of Shakespeare's comedic cross-dressing heroines--Viola of Twelfth Night, Rosalind of As You Like It. Those girls ride off into the sunset with a handsome hubby too. But does anybody really think the self-involved men of those stories are going to keep such headstrong, resourceful women satisfied? Are they going to settle down and be good little wives?

Looking back, with all the Bechdel-test-failing, romance-obsessed, two-dimensionality of those Disney princesses, it's important to remember that they're actually an improvement on some of the earlier ladies. I'm looking at Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora. I'm not trying to shit on any of these movies, they're from a different time and they were absolutely revolutionary in terms of their technical and visual achievements. Creating realistic and fully dimensional characters wasn't necessarily priority numero uno for the company pioneering cel animation in feature films. Hats are, and will always be, off to you, extremely talented artists and technicians. But it's been a long road to gender equity in storytelling, and there's still so much work to be done.

Obviously, Disney didn't invent princesses. But the word "princess" and Disney are inextricably linked in modern culture--it's hard to think of one without thinking of the other. And the thought takes you to familiar images. Ball gowns. Tiaras. Sparkles. Bows. Ponies. Pink. They are the ultimate study in femininity. They are, for too many young girls, the definition of female.

This is why Princess Leia is important to me. I first saw Star Wars when I was maybe seven or eight. She's the first face we see, and she's on a reconnaissance mission, wielding a blaster on a ship full of armored imperial dudes. She wears a modest white dress, a symbol of her purity. She talks back to the big guy. Leia's utmost allegiance is to the rebellion. She is here to shut you down. She is here to blow up the patriarchy. She happens to be a princess.

I don't think it's a mistake that the details of Leia's royalty are pretty scant. It doesn't really come up too much over the course of the films. She is Princess Leia and that's that. We do see her consistently assume responsibility in any situation. She shows extraordinary leadership, from her "don't just stand there, find something to brace it with" moment in the trash compactor to the Battle of Hoth, where the rebel general defers to her authority. She is the most important person in any room. But is that because of the title? I don't think so. I think Leia would be who she is with or without the hypothetical crown. The title isn't for her--it's for me.

After Carrie Fisher's death, Twitter user @anne_theriault posted a stream of tweets explaining her belief that "General Organa was Carrie Fisher's Most Important Role." It's a beautiful tribute, and I don't disagree. Anne writes "She's not young. Not wearing a gold bikini or a robe. She's dressed to do what she's been training her whole life to do: lead the rebellion." If you want to hear me pick apart the objectification of women in the Star Wars universe, I can do that. I could discuss the slave bikini until the sun blows up. And I could go on for days about poor George Lucas decisions. But I'd argue that calling her Princess Leia was a good one, and that title means something really powerful to me.

I've read a lot of Czech fairy tales and legends in exploring my national heritage, and it strikes me how many of them center around princesses. And these are not just king's daughters who pine for true love and go to royal balls. These are girls who rule countries, unite warring tribes, and outwit the devil himself. Studying these stories has made me realize that the word Princess means different things to different cultures.

The simplest definition: the daughter of a king and queen

The American definition: the beautiful daughter of a king and queen, who embodies quiet femininity and probably requires the love of a prince to reach her full potential; also a derogatory term for an effeminate male or a spoiled young woman

The Czech definition: the daughter of a king and queen, who has serious power

There's a petition circulating these days (I first saw it on Nerdist) to make Princess Leia an official Disney princess. At first I was kind of tickled but not particularly interested in signing it. It kind of reminded me of posthumous canonization. A symbolic gesture, but would it mean anything to me? Probably not. Yet as I write this, I find myself wanting to seek out that petition and add my name. To see my blaster-wielding, force-sensitive, leader-of-the-resistance, haver of the tumultuous, epic love affair with Han Solo (because sometimes women really can have it all!) heroine alongside an ever-growing, ever-diversifying cast of fierce females would be significant. It would help to expand the definition of princess.

Create your amazing female character. Give her a blaster. Or let her wear pants. AND a dress. Let her sparkle if she wants or command rebel armies if she wants. She can even do both and it's not a contradiction (Princess Bubblegum, anyone?)! Figure out who she is and THEN call her a princess. That's how we rewrite--or maybe even destroy the template. Blow it up like the Death Star. That's how we change the definition. That's how Princess Leia did it.

Villains, Podcasting, and Elections

    Podcasting has been on my radar for awhile. When I first learned of the medium, I instantly knew that I would one day start my own. I have a background in audio, from years of being a unsuccessful punk and hard core drummer, I love to write, and I love the sound of my own voice. Doing a podcast seemed like the natural culmination of my previous creative endeavors. It wasn't until I met Laurel, when I realized that making a podcast was do-able. In Laurel, I met my ultimate partner, someone who's intelligence and talent challenged me while simultaneously being the most supportive partner, friend, and lover any man has ever had. Together, we both love stories, and believe that stories have to power to influence, mold, and change our lives. Life often feels like one is a log floating down a vast and rock laden river, with no guarantee that the current will avoid smashing us into oblivion. To me, a good story is the lifeline that helps me steer through the rocky current of life. It keeps me from hitting the rocks, and when I inevitably falter and find myself off course, it's stories that get me back on track. I'm also a student of history and everything I'll talk about in this podcast will have that filter on it. A great work of history blends finding the fundamental causal veracity of human events with a narrative prose that delights the imagination as much as it feeds the intellect. A historian is equal parts philosopher, detective, and story teller. Each part of a story is tied to it's other parts-- there is no beginning without a middle and an end-- in the same way human events are linked to our history. In this respect, I believe understanding stories, who tells them, how they tell them, and when they tell them, gives us a unique insight into ourselves. To the best of my knowledge, all human societies have had storytellers to impart wisdom, delight and inspire imagination, cathartically help cope with loss, and help us remember why we are the way we are.
    So this first episode is about villains, and Laurel and I were inspired by the 2016 US presidential elections. As we watched Democrats and Republicans make the case to the American people to vote for their candidate, one thing became increasingly clear: no matter who won, one side believed the other was villainous. President Elect Trump made the case that Clinton's life was one of exploitation and self-aggrandizement at the expense of the American people. Meanwhile, Clinton made the case that Trump was a womanizing narcissistic businessman who could not be trusted with the power of office. This left me asking, who was the villain in the story of the 2016 election? I started doing some reading on how a villain is constructed in melodramatic story telling. The melodramatic villain is signaled to the audience by a visual or audio cue, such as a man in black twirling his mustache to dark music. But it isn't enough to look or sound evil, a villain has to have some type of action that hurts someone or something. In other words, the audience only knows who the villain is when they have a victim, a person or persons caught in the villains path. The victim's suffering makes way for a hero to avenge and right the wrong done by the villain. The hero can sometimes also be the victim, who in the face of suffering takes matter's into their own hands and restores balance by defeating the villain. But in all cases, it's the villain's actions of hurting another that calls the hero into action. Think of it like a triangle, with the hero at the top of the triangle, connected to both the villain and the victim. Every story doesn't follow this exactly; sometimes there are anti-heroes (like Tony Soprano from HBO's the Soprano's or Alex, from A Clockwork Orange). But most stories adhere to this basic principle on some core level. Looking back at 2016, it became clear to me that Donald Trump was able to create this kind of a narrative. Trump argued that Clinton was a villain, a selfish establishment political force, and the victim was the American people. Trump argued that Clinton, as the ultimate face of Washington elites, had allowed American jobs to disappear. Trump time and again reiterated that America was losing because of Clinton and those like her, making him the hero that could avenge the victimized American people. He did this so effectively, that his base of supporters stuck with him despite many political gaffs, allegations of misconduct, and evidence of avoiding taxes (to name just a few). It was precisely this rhetoric of melodramatic villainy that helped him carve a path to the White House.
    One final thought: elections are complex and I'm not an expert on politics. Sometimes villains look the part, other times it isn't clear who the bad guy really is. All of us get it wrong from time to time. I'm not trying to argue that Trump was right or that Clinton was right (just to be transparent with those of you reading my blog, I voted for Clinton). I think what matters is that understanding stories can help with navigating the complexity of political rhetoric. Thinking critically takes practice, and it's important in all aspects of life.