For your holiday viewing pleasure

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If you’re looking for a horror movie to watch during this holiday season, then let me recommend Black Christmas (1974), one of the most overlooked slasher movies that preceded Halloween but established a lot of the techniques that John Carpenter used in his much-acclaimed film.

The premise of Black Christmas is quite simple. Directed by Bob Clark, the Canadian horror flick focuses on a group of sorority sisters who are a tormented by anonymous phone calls that put them on edge when all they want to do is make plans for their holiday break. The film is loosely based on the urban legend of a killer who torments a babysitter and tells her to “check on the children,” and it is based on murders that occurred in Montreal.

So what makes Black Christmas different than other slasher films? For one, it predates the slasher wave that started in the late 1970s and peaked in the 1980s. It is generally a more innovative and unsettling film compared to all of the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween sequels, too. Black Christmas is a film heavy on atmosphere, from the location of the house to the squeal of violins in the soundtrack. The sorority sisters are picked off one by one, but the gore is never gratuitous. More unsettling than the deaths are the unnerving phone calls that follow.

The film also established the technique of creating a point of view from the killer’s perspective, which has been used countless times since, most notably in John Carpenter’s Halloween, which opens with a shot from a young Michael Myers’ POV, as he is about to murder his older sister, Judith. Carpenter uses this technique several times throughout the film, as Michael stalks Laurie Strode (Jaimee Lee Curtis) and her friends.

If you’re looking for a horror movie this holiday season, then check out Black Christmas. The film still holds up well and is generally creepy, especially its conclusion. It plays on the worst fears of every babysitter, and it is a lot more original than the nauseating slasher wave that followed.

If you have any Christmas horror movie recommendations, feel free to share!

 

Reconciling the Past: Thoughts on the Last Jedi (MAJOR SPOILERS)

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If Star Wars: The Last Jedi is about anything, it’s about the past and our relationship to it. This especially plays out through the story lines of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Rey (Daisy Ridley), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who spends a majority of the film broken, analyzing his past actions and the legacy of his character. It is only in the third act that Luke wises up, after a visit from Yoda’s force ghost, and decides to join the Resistance as they make a desperate, final stand against the First Order on the planet of Crait.

Kylo Ren, meanwhile, son of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who he killed in The Force Awakens, and Leia Oragana (Carrie Fisher), has more than one string of dialogue in which he renounces the past, saying, at one point, “Let the past die. Bury it if you have to.” When he tries to lure Rey to the dark side, almost echoing word for word Vader’s pitch to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, he tells her to let go of her past in order to become who she’s meant to be. Ultimately, she refuses his offer and stays with the Resistance. It’s clear, however, that Kylo is going to be a different villain than Vader. Fairly early in the film, he even smashes the Vader-like mask he wore throughout The Force Awakens.

As I already noted,  Luke spends much of the film deconstructing the hero mythos of Luke Skywalker, even asking Rey when she first asks for his help if she really thinks it possible that he and his lightsaber can take down the entire First Order. The Luke Skywalker of this film is not the hero from the original films. Furthermore, his action scenes are few. In the last act, Luke, well a hologram/Force projection of Luke, battles Kylo Ren on Crait in order to save his friends and what remains of the Resistance, but that scene is pretty short and not that action packed compared to other lightsaber battles.

Luke and Kylo’s stories serve as a statement that it is time to allow the franchise to grow and stray from the original films. At this point, Han Solo is dead, Luke sacrifices himself at the end of The Last Jedi, and though Leia was set to have a large role in the third and final film of this trilogy, that is impossible now, due to Carrie Fisher’s death in 2016. Even Admiral Akbar  (the It’s a trap guy from Return of the Jedi) dies early in The Last Jedi, during a Resistance attack/space fight gone horribly wrong.

Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, who has been tapped to direct a completely new trilogy in the Star Wars universe, has made it clear that we can’t hold onto the past forever and there are plans to expand the universe. That said, there are plenty of nods to the original films in The Last Jedi. The battle of Crait, for instance, very much resembles the battle of Hoth at the beginning of Empire. There is snow and even bigger imperial walkers. The rebels are drastically out manned and outgunned and forced to escape. Some of the dialogue even overlaps dialogue from the originals films.  But as Luke and Leia acknowledge at the end of The Last Jedi, the Resistance will live on, but with new faces. Cue the close-up of Rey, Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), and Finn’s (John Boyega) faces. This film very much serves as the passing of the baton to a younger cast and new characters.

The original films will always be there for us to watch and re-watch, but it is clear that Disney plans to take the franchise in new directions. We’ll see where they go after The Last Jedi. Here is a general list of what I liked and disliked about the film.

Likes:

  • The character development! Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke were all multi-layered characters in this film, and to some extent, so was Poe and new Resistance fighter Rose (Kelly Marie Tan).
  • The humor! There are a lot of well-crafted jokes in this film, despite how dark it is at times. I laughed out loud more than once.
  • The porgs and snow wolves. They are cute, but they are not overly cutesy. The new creatures/animals also show the connection between nature/the Resistance and preserving the galaxy for all creatures.
  • The battle of Crait. This was my favorite battle in the film, and there are A LOT of battles. The battle between Kyle Ren and Luke is well worth the wait.
  • Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher on screen for the last time together. What else do I have to say about this?
  • The fact that the major Resistance fighters are all ordinary people, not princesses or folks with Skywalker blood. Kylo even admits to Rey that her parents were nobodies, willing to sell her to a junkyard for cash. Finn was a Stormtrooper janitor before joining the Resistance. Rose also comes from an incredibly humble background. The new films are very much the 99 percent against the elite.
  • The number of women in the Resistance. 2017 was the year of the woman/the women’s march/the silence breakers, and women occupy top leadership roles in the Resistance. That’s great to see. Luke also tells Kylo near the end of the film that the Jedi will live on, through Rey.

Dislikes:

  • Some of the plot holes. If Supreme Leader Snoke is so powerful, how did Kylo Ren kill him so easily? What IS Snoke’s story anyways? Now that he is dead, we shall never know. He was quite the big bad in The Force Awakens, only to be sliced in half fairly easily in The Last Jedi.
  • Luke’s sacrifice. I get why this had to be done, but the way it was done still has me scratching my head. Luke does not actually fight Kylo. He projects a hologram and meditates during the projection. Yet, he is killed? How is this possible? How can you kill a hologram? Does he decide to just sacrifice himself to the Force? Will he be a Force ghost in the next film like Yoda? I have no idea.
  • The pace at which Disney is releasing these movies. One Star Wars movie per year is a lot! At one point will there be burnout?

If you saw The Last Jedi and want to comment, feel free!

 

 

 

 

 

The direction of this blog

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If anyone reads this blog regularly, they may have noticed that over the last six or seven months, I’ve mostly written about horror on the small and big screens. Heading into 2018, that will continue. This blog has shifted its focus from poetry-related content to horror. Am I ditching poetry? Heck no! However, I have two main outlets for writing about poetry critically: Schuylkill Valley Journal, where I am focusing on essay writing, and 4 Square Review, where I’ll be a staff reviewer starting this January, when the site launches. I am grateful to write for both of those outlets and to give poetry its due there. I love writing about poetry in the essay form, and of course, I will continue writing and publishing my own poetry. Look for a new essay I have on Robert Bly and environmentalism coming out in SVJ this January.

Heading into the new year, this blog will mostly focus on horror-related content, from film, to TV, to books. I’m sure I’ll write a political post now and then, too, especially heading into the mid-term elections in the U.S. When it seems appropriate, I’ll post events happening in the Scranton area, too, especially the Writers Showcase readings.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

TWD’s Unexpected Death

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rickandcarl

 

Typically, “The Walking Dead” has followed the general arc of the comic, especially under show runner Scott Gimple, who, at times, would have been far better off allowing the scriptwriters to stray more from the source material. Last night’s mid-season finale, however, took a drastic shift from the comic in one of the most jaw-dropping reveals. Carl (Chandler Riggs) has been bitten by a walker. Yep. Carl is going to die, probably no later than the first episode of the second half of the season. This is a major shift from the comics. Following the All Out War arc between Rick’s group and Negan’s Saviors, there is a time jump of a few years. Carl is older and more confident in making strategic decisions in times of crisis. Since Rick is nearly killed by Negan at the end of the war, Carl assumes a leadership position, and to this day,  he takes on some of the most interesting story lines. That won’t be happening on the show, however.

It is unclear why the scriptwriters decided to kill of Carl. Maybe, Chandler Riggs wants to attend college and move on from a show that has consumed nearly half of his life. Maybe, the writers wanted to shake things up and show the audience that indeed no one is safe, including original cast members. Maybe, they wanted Rick’s character to go in a new direction.

Will all hope be lost for Rick Grimes after losing his only son? I don’t think so. Unlike the comic, he still has his daughter Judith to raise. He still has his friends, and it is likely he will be even more emboldened to wipe out the Saviors, who he will probably blame for Carl’s tragic fate, despite the fact that Carl suffered the bite while saving a new character named Siddiq and bringing him back to the community, thus giving him a chance to survive. This happened a few episodes ago when they were in the woods and Carl was ambushed by a walker and knocked to the ground. The bite was not revealed in that particular episode, but there is a reason that the camera didn’t show Carl’s lower half when he was knocked over by a walker. He was bitten, and they kept the fact a secret for a few more episodes.

My main hope for “The Walking Dead” at this point is that it will wrap up the All Our War arc soon, no later than the second half of this season. At one point during last night’s mid-season finale, Carl tells his father that they have to start rebuilding, that they can’t keep feuding with various factions. In other words, there has to be some other purpose to their existence. “The Walking Dead” used to be about the idea of humanity in the face of a collapsed society, but for the last season and a half or so, it’s been one battle after another, an action show with some zombies in the mix. You would think that the bullets would run out at some point!

Carl risked his life to save Siddiq, someone he barely knows, because he didn’t want a human being trying to survive alone in a zombie apocalypse. At one point, when Negan and his goons are about to bomb Alexandria with grenades, Carl asks him, “Is this who you really wanted to be?” Those moments have always been the strength of the show, especially during those first few season, its prime. Maybe, after Carl’s death and after All Out War, the show can shift back to the idea of trying to rebuild and maintain humanity in such a brutal world. That should be the focus again, especially now that Rick is going to lose his only son.

 

 

Can Get Out Snag an Oscar?

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It’s rare for horror movies to be in the running for an Oscar.  The genre has been around since the early stages of film and underwent its first Golden Age during the 1930s Universal Studios run, which were films heavily influenced by the 1920s German Expressionist films like Nosferatu. Yet, despite its connection to film history, it has largely been shut out of the Oscars. IMDB has a list of horror/suspense films that have been nominated over the years, and less than 50 films make the list. Some of the films do not fall directly into the genre of horror, since the list combines horror with suspense, and some of the films, like Frankenweenie, are questionable. The only horror film to win for Best Picture was Silence of the Lambs. The Exorcist was nominated, but it didn’t win.

There is a chance that Get Out can change the trend and snag a possible Best Picture nomination and win. Some buzz has already been building, including this recent article by Slate. Directed by Jordan Peele, the film grossed over $200 million worldwide and analyzes thorny racial issues in the U.S. It is the perfect movie for the era of the NFL protests and Black Lives Matter. Beyond that, the film rewrites a lot of the horror tropes and conventions.

The film centers around college students Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), as they travel upstate to visit her parents in rural America. On the surface, Rose’s parents act progressive and appear happy that their white daughter is dating a black guy. Her father says more than once that he voted for Obama, as though that absolves him of any racial prejudices. The film is unique in the sense that Peele takes supposedly affluent progressive liberals to task for claiming to be social justice warriors, but harboring their own prejudices. The film has its comedic elements, too, especially through Chris’ best friend, Andrew (Lakeith Stanfield), who constantly warns Chris that a black man visiting a white girl’s parents in rural America is a recipe for disaster. Andrew also reiterates a lot of the horror movie tropes, namely that the black characters are often the first picked off, especially in the 1970s and 80s slasher films. More importantly, the film shows how the past constantly  haunts the present, which is a fundamental element of Gothic literature and film. The plantation-like setting and one of the film’s main plot points showcases that idea.

The film has a methodical pace, building tension scene by scene, from the beginning, when Chris and Rose are pulled over by a white officer  who questions Chris for no reason, to the jarring conclusion that echoes a greater fear that police officers can kill young black men without penalty.

I can’t think of a film that better addresses the current racial tensions than Get Out. Great horror films serve as a metaphor for our social anxieties and the cultural fears. Peele’s film does just that, while adding some humor. Get Out is a film that should be analyzed and addressed for years, just like James Whale’s Frankenstein, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. All of those films rewrote the genre, and Peele’s film does that, especially the  conclusion. Normal order is not necessarily restored, a tradition common to horror films, especially during the first wave or two. It is also a film that calls out the progressive left as much as it does the right.

In general, the Academy has had a disdain for horror. IMDB’s list proves that. But every now and then, a film comes along that draws mass appeal and becomes part of the broader conversation. Get Out is such a film.

 

Has The Resistance Pondered Its Next Steps?

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womensmarch

Anyone who was dismayed by the election of Donald Trump last year should feel at least a little better at the end of 2017. If I had any say in picking Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, I would name the organizers of the Women’s March, who I credit for kicking off a major year of new activism and resistance. 2017 started with the Women’s March, a global rallying cry the likes of which we’ve not seen before. I marched on the streets of DC, and personally, I have never seen anything as massive and inspiring as the Women’s March (and I’ve been to a lot of protests in DC and other major East Coast cities).  The march unified the left and featured third wave feminist activists like Angela Davis and millennial organizers.

Following the Women’s March, there were several town hall speak outs, phone banks, and rallies to stop the repeal of the ACA. That worked. Then came the #MeToo Movement and the outcries against sexual assault. Lastly, there were the elections in November, with Democrats nearly flipping Virginia’s General Assembly, winning a historic number of seats, and winning governor races in NJ and VA, too. Dems even won state races in deep-red districts in Oklahoma, Montana, and Georgia. Dems are winning in places they shouldn’t be winning, which should be an indicator that a wave is coming next year and the House and maybe the Senate could flip. As I write this, Dems even have a decent shot at turning an Alabama Senate seat blue, due to the allegations against Roy Moore.

All of this has been inspiring. There is a level of civic engagement and awareness that has not been seen since the 1960s. Now, with that said,  what are the next steps for The Resistance? The right-wing is striking back. For one, Trump has gutted the EPA, State Department, and other government agencies. He is stacking federal courts with far-right candidates that can easily overturn civil rights. I also predict that by the end of his first term, he will get at least one more Supreme Court pick. I doubt Ginsburg or Kennedy will last three more years, thus establishing a conservative majority on the nation’s highest court.

I am not optimistic that Muller is going to bring down the entire administration within the next few months. Obstruction of Justice is not easy to prove, and if he can make the case, it won’t happen overnight. Watergate took over two years. Also, what would happen exactly if Trump is charged?  What would his supporters do? What would it do to this country? Trumpism is not going away. It is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

More concerning is the fact that it has become clear the GOP no longer cares about angry phone calls, speak outs, or the unpopularity of its agenda. As I write this, the GOP’s tax bill looks more and more likely to pass. Yesterday, it moved forward out of committee and will soon come to the Senate floor for a full vote, probably this week, and if it passes, it goes back to the House. One of the GOP holdouts, Bob Corker, voted to advance the bill out of committee. Yesterday, The Daily Kos reported that Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are likely to vote for it because they’ve secured deals they have wanted. If Corker, Collins, and Murkowski are all yes votes, then it is hard to see how the bill fails.

In short, the GOP needs a win desperately, and they very well may get one, at the expense of the working and middle classes, teachers, anyone on the ACA (the current tax plan would repeal the mandate, which may lead to the collapse of the ACA), graduate students, etc. If the bill passes, it means that the GOP, including so-called moderates like Murkowski and Collins, really no longer care about dissent and outcry. They care most about their donors, who have threatened to cut off funds for 2018 if they do not get their tax cuts.

So what is The Resistance’s answer to all of this? What if organizing, phone banking, and canvassing no longer can sway one of the two political parties? Furthermore, how will The Resistance organize if net neutrality is gutted? Net neutrality ensures that internet providers, like Verizon and Comcast, can’t charge more for certain websites. If the FCC undoes net neutrality rules, which seems likely, then it is probable that big telecom will charge more for certain services, including  social media. All of the major movements over the last few years have largely been organized online, from Occupy Wall Street, to Black Lives Matter, to the Women’s March. Without the ability to do that, The Resistance is in major trouble. As it stands, there really is no plan for a post-net neutrality world. Dissent could be crushed, and here will be a crackdown on information because not everyone will be able to afford several internet packages to secure fast internet speeds that they enjoy now at one package and one price.

2018 is a major year. The Senate, House, state races, and governors mansions are all at play. If there is indeed a blue wave, then the Trump agenda will be stymied. Democrats have a better shot at winning the House than Senate, where they have to defend 25 seats, compared to the GOP’s 10, but even flipping one branch of Congress would break the GOP’s lock.  Voter registration and outreach needs to be the most important issue that The Resistance focuses on in the coming year, and it needs to figure out how to organize beyond social media because net neutrality is in peril.

2017 was a year of civic engagement, and now the movements that sprang up this year, going back to the Women’s March, need to figure out next steps, especially since the right has reacted to organizing tactics and will circumvent them at every turn. The push to pass the tax bill proves that.

 

 

 

Writers Showcase All-Female Edition

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Last year, the Writers Showcase Reading Series in Scranton featured an all-female line-up, and we’re doing the same again this year. The event takes place this Saturday at 7 p.m. Here is a flyer with more details. I also posted the bios of all of the featured readers. If you’re in NEPA, I encourage you to come out, hear these women read, and support the local literary scene.

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Jenette Kiesendahl is an English instructor and the Writing Center Director at Lackawanna College. She earned a Masters of Fine Arts from Hofstra University in 2012 where she was the recipient of the Judith A. Jedlicka Endowed Scholarship. She is the editor for both Something Savage Animation Studio and Woodloch Pines Resort. While her most recent publication for the Pennsylvania Association of Developmental Educators is an academic one, her essay entitled “Misconception” can be found in the Narrateur, and she has published several smaller pieces through local publications on Long Island.

Marcie Herman Riebe is a bilingual case worker by day, a university ESL adjunct by night, and an aspiring writer at times in between. An import to northeastern Pennsylvania, she has been active in the arts for many years in theatre, forensics and music. Her interest in the arts continues as founder of Ink, an area writer’s group, a founding member of Voce Angeli (NEPA’s only all-female chamber choir), as a board member of Arcadia Chorale, a part of the Diva Theater Productions family, and as a member of the Northeast PA Creative Writers. She writes online as a scribe for the Rolling the Dice blog, a contributor to Project Wednesday (a self-development blog), and as the columnist of “The Writer’s Edge” for Thirty-Third Wheel. She loves all things Pittsburgh, particularly the University of Pittsburgh where she earned her Master of Arts degree in Linguistics. She lives in Scranton with her hilarious husband, Pete, and their horde of cats:  Napoleon, Gimli, King Ajax, Sam and Dean.

Samantha Patterson is a fiction and poetry writer born and raised in Larksville, Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in online journals, and she is completing her first full-length manuscript as a student in Wilkes University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program. When she is not writing, Samantha spends her time as a soccer coach for Lackawanna College, while pursuing her journey as a registered yoga instructor.

Rachel Luann Strayer is a produced playwright and aspiring novelist with an M.A. and MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. Her original play Drowning Ophelia received its World Premiere production in San Francisco, followed by East Coast productions in Scranton and Philadelphia. Her short plays have been performed locally by Gaslight Theatre Company and Diva Theater. Rachel works at Keystone College as the Director of Theatre and an Assistant Professor of Communication Arts. She is a co-founder of the local theatre company Ghostlight Productions where she serves as an actor, director, and playwright. Rachel and her husband, Jonathan, live in Clarks Summit, Pa.

Emily Vogel’s poetry, reviews, essays, and translations have most recently been published in The North American Review, Omniverse, The Paterson Literary Review, Lips, City Lit Rag, Luna Luna, Maggy, Lyre Lyre, The Comstock Review, The Broome Review, Tiferet, The San Pedro River Review, 2 Bridges Review, and PEN, among several others. She is the author of five chapbooks, and a full-length collection, The Philosopher’s Wife, published in 2011 by Chester River Press, a collaborative book of poetry, West of Home, with her husband Joe Weil (Blast Press), First Words(NYQ Books), and recently, Dante’s Unintended Flight (NYQ Books). She has work forthcoming in The Boston Review and Fiolet & Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulism. She teaches writing at SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College and is married to the poet, Joe Weil.

Rethinking TWD

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Negan-JDM_TWD

A few weeks ago, I criticized The Walking Dead, both the TV show and comic. Namely, I took issue with its recycled arc of good guys finding a place to live, meeting a badie, losing their place to live after a war, and rehashing the same story all over again. How many times will we encounter the same general theme: the humans are really the monsters? The comic has been stuck in this recycled plotline since the prison/governor storyline years ago.

One of my biggest gripes about TWD is the character of Negan, a villain who, while popular, is typically a walking one-liner who swings a barbed-wire baseball bat. He is also sexist (even when he claims not to be and espouses some warped moral code) and utterly violent. Even in issue 100 of the comic, when he is bashing in the head of fan favorite Glenn, which is spread over several panels, he cracks one-liners. I was equally harsh on the last two seasons of “The Walking Dead” because of the All Out War storyline between Rick’s group and Negan’s The Saviors. I had hoped Negan would be more interesting and complex on the screen, but after his prolonged and teased introduction, I had little reason to believe that. I also had little reason to keep wanting to watch the show, especially since the first few episodes of this season have featured long, drawn-out action sequences with some zombies and flying bullets, which never seem to hit any main character, even when they are center frame. Go figure.

The last two episodes, however, were two of my favorites in the show’s eight-year run. The episode “Some Guy,” TWD focused on the story of Ezekiel (Khary Payton), a  cartoonish character who has a pet tiger, Shiva, and lords over a community of survivors named The Kingdom. In the comic, it is revealed that Ezekiel is just a regular dude who saved Shiva from a zoo. He took on the king persona to rewrite his story post-apocalypse and to make himself seem above-average. Much of his real story is shared with Michonne, who becomes his lover, though briefly. On the TV show, he shares his  story with Carol (Melissa McBride), who has long been dead in the comic. On the show, Ezekiel is confident that the Saviors will be defeated, but his overconfidence leads to most members of the Kingdom getting gunned down by a group of Saviors at an outpost. One by one, Ezekiel watches the bullets hit the men and women, and then he watches them reanimate into zombies. After the slaughter, he drops the cheesy king gimmick and is knocked back to reality. To make matters worse, he witnesses Shiva devoured by zombies, after she saves him from the horde. This scene occurs in the comic too, but watching the small screen adaptation was a little more jarring because it comes minutes after Ezekiel loses everything and is forced to drop the king shtick, becoming just “some guy.” The episode contained some of the best character development TWD has had in a long time, even with all of the action sequences.

This week’s episode, “The Big Scary U,” was Negan-centric, and also well-crafted and well-written. Most of the episode’s story is lifted from a graphic novel Robert Kirkman wrote about the baddie entitled Here’s Negan, just released a few weeks ago. Like everyone else, including Ezekiel, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was a pretty regular dude pre-apocalypse, just a gym teacher. Following the collapse of civilization and the death of his wife, he rewrites his story, just like many of the other characters. What the Negan-centric episode contained that the comic has lacked so far is a depth given to the villain. Negan muses that he only kills people when it is necessary to maintain order. In a few episodes this season, he blames Rick and company for the war, thus making the reader question if even the good guy is imperfect, another ongoing theme of TWD. None of the dialogue-rich scenes from this week’s episodes excuse Negan’s behavior, be it towards women or the brutal death he inflicted upon major characters, but it does give him a depth and philosophy that he doesn’t fully have in the comic. It filled in a backstory that made him more than a one-liner in a black leather coat, wielding baseball bat named Lucille.

I don’t know where the rest of the season is going. I do hope, however, that it differs from the comic, at least somewhat, like the last two episodes have done. I hope more depth is given to the All Out War arc and we really feel the causalities of war (poor Shiva) and feel the weight of the decisions that Rick, Ezekiel, and even Negan make.

With that said, TWD still has a problem. It is totally unclear how this entire thing is going to end. I doubt the TV show has THAT many seasons left, and at some point, Kirkman needs an endgame for the comic, too, even if he is planning 300 issues, as he’s said in the past, and has over 100 left to write. TWD needs to break the cycle of good guys encounter bad guys, suffer casualties, lose their community, and then repeat it all over again. In the comic, shortly after the war with the Saviors, the good guys launch into  a war with a group called the Whisperers. Maybe, the show should avoid that arc and focus on life post-war, including rebuilding, surviving, and trying to maintain humanity. Maybe, the zombies should be the threat for a while.

The last two episodes of TWD were the best of the season, a nice balance of character development and action. More importantly, the episodes broke somewhat from the comic. The comic still has a long way to go before its conclusion, but the show probably does not. It would be wise if the show runners differentiated from the comic to show us that there is a clear end in mind here. Maybe, just maybe, they can give us a glimmer of hope that a society can be rebuilt, even after brutal circumstances.

 

 

 

 

What AHS : Cult got right about this moment

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Confession: When I heard months ago that the writers of “American Horror Story” were releasing a season about the 2016 election, I cringed. It  felt too soon, especially since the issues of the 2016 election still loom over us and have dominated 2017 as much as they dominated last year. However, after watching the entire season, including its finale this week, I realized that the horror anthology did a fair job capturing this moment, from the rise of the alt-right/white supremacists, to the power of the women’s movement, to the growing wave of mass shootings. “American Horror Story: Cult” touches upon all of those issues and its finale has an ambiguous ending that questions just where these movements on the left and right will lead.

There are a few spoilers ahead, so if you plan to watch the season, you may want to stop reading here. For the most part, the seventh season of AHS focuses on Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson), a rabid left-winger who catches flack from her wife and friends when she admits that she voted for Jill Stein, and Kai Anderson (Evan Peters), a white supremacist Trumper turned cult leader who paints his face with Cheeto goop and cries victory after the 2016 election results come in and he realizes his guy won. The premiere is absurd, for sure. Some of the dialogue is a volley of clichés on the left and right, but in the age of hashtag social justice movements and 140 characters, maybe that’s the point.

Their ideologies only harden as the season progresses. For instance, there are hints early in the season that maybe Kai Anderson is trolling the absurdity of the online alt-right/white supremacist community, and perhaps he wanted Trump to win because he thought it would embolden and awaken the left. However, by mid-season, he grows an army of alt-righters after winning a city council seat, based on a Trump-like platform. As his followers grow, Kai’s political ideology gets more and more extreme and includes violence against minorities and women (including strangling his sister to death because he thinks she’s an FBI informant) and even a staged assassination attempt to launch a national platform for a Senate seat.

On the other hand, Ally evolves from a leftist cliché character to someone who wields feminism and intersectionality to take down Kai. One of the final scenes of the season includes Ally on stage during a Senate debate for the seat Kai wanted. After he escapes from prison, he tries to assassinate  her and screams that women have no place in power.  Working with other women, including a black prison guard and a black female reporter, Beverly Hope (Adina Porter), Ally defeats him and Beverly shoots him in the head. There are hints that Ally won’t covet power all for herself, as a white feminist, but wants to share it with all women.

While the season was certainly hard on Trump voters, it wasn’t afraid to lampoon the left and pose questions about social movements on both the left and the right, including extremism. The last scene of the finale entails Ally talking to her son, telling him that she hopes his generation will learn from the mistakes of the past and that she, as a newly-elected senator, can help create a world less dominated by sexism for him to inherit. However, the last shot includes Ally wearing a cult-like robe, which begs the question  whether or not she will follow in the footsteps of SCUM manifesto author Valerie Solanos, a radical 1960s feminist who attempted to kill Andy Warhol and whose story was featured throughout the season. The finale leaves the viewer wondering if Ally’s views were hardened and pushed so far to the left, due to her confrontations with Kai, that she too will turn to violence in the same ways that he did.

Any writing on horror theory and structure, be it Stephen King’s Danse Macabre or Robin Wood’s influence essay “An Introduction to the American Horror Film,” stresses the point that the best horror films are allegorical and reflective of our national anxieties. With so much national turmoil, maybe it’s no surprise that AHS found its stride again, after a few lackluster seasons that even Lady Gaga couldn’t save.  Paulson and Peters, two of the only original cast members left, give a few stellar performances, especially in their final confrontation.  There were episodes that made me cringe, especially some of the dialogue (Ally shouting to Kai that she’s a nasty woman moments before he’s shot and killed, for instance), but maybe that was the point. Maybe the season is meant to reflect our divide post-2016 and make us question if we too are falling into some of those ideological stereotypes.

 

 

 

 

Why last night’s election results matter

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Democrats are waking up this morning, one year after Trump’s election, feeling ecstatic. They have reason to celebrate. They swept the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia and won a slew of down ballot races across the country. In short, yesterday was a blue wave, one that might be an early indication of how 2018 will go.

The biggest headline is that Democrat Ralph Northam cruised to victory over Republican Ed Gillespie for the VA governor’s race. Over the last few weeks, this race tightened, but current results show that Northam beat Gillespie by about 8 percentage points, more than anyone expected. This race was given so much national attention because over the last month, Gillespie ran a very Trump-like campaign, accusing Northam of being soft on immigration. Gillespie even brought up the NFL/kneeling issue. Last night, Trump tweeted that Gillespie did not embrace him, and Breitbart accused Gillespie of being an establishment Republican. While Gillespie may have been that in the past, the campaign he ran was Trump-like, and it failed. This should make Republicans consider how they run in 2018, especially with the House now in play, based on the wave of GOP incumbent retirements, many in swing districts, and Trump’s toxic poll numbers.

Even more impressive is the number of VA State Assembly seats the Dems flipped last night, the biggest gain in over 100 years for the party. When the dust settles and everything is counted, the Dems very well may have control of the State Assembly, or inch close enough to ensure victory in 2020. Their gains  last night prove that Dems should compete in EVERY race, even in rural pockets of the country. Furthermore, the VA races were so important because it will allow the Dems to undo the gerrymandering in VA after 2020.

In NJ, Democrat Phil Murphy easily won the governor’s race and will succeed Republican Chris Christie. Murphy was always the favorite in this race, but it should be noted that he ran on a rather progressive platform, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and pushing for tighter gun control laws. In addition, his victory gives the Dems full control of the state government.

Here are some other races of note from last night: Maine approved a ballot measure to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. VA elected its first openly trans state lawmaker yesterday, Danica Roem. She unseated Republican Bob Marshall, who pushed a bathroom bill similar to the one in NC. Transgender activist Andrea Jenkins was elected to the Minneapolis City Council, becoming the first openly trans African American woman elected to the city council of a major U.S. city. Democrat Justin Fairfax was elected VA’s next Lt. Gov, and he is only the second African American to win statewide office in VA. NJ elected Shelia Oliver as its first African American Lt. Gov. Democrat Vi Lyes was elected as Charlotte, NC’s first African American mayor. I could go on and on, but this is a brief snapshot of last night. This very much looks like a rebuke of Trump’s white nationalism.

In my state of PA, there was good news for Dems, too. Democratic Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd was retained, meaning Dems will keep the majority on the state Supreme Court, and she will become the first female PA Supreme Court Chief Justice in a few centuries, yes centuries. Philly elected an uber progressive DA in Larry Krasner.  Last but not least, in my county, Lackawanna County, voters elected the first Democratic DA since the Nixon administration. While Dems have always swept the county row offices here, they’ve always failed to win the DA race. Mark Powell’s election changed that.

As a political junkie, I’m now paying careful attention to the Senate race in Alabama, Jeff Sessions’ former seat. Weeks ago, I didn’t think it would be possible that a Democrat could win that deep-red seat, but recent polling has Democrat Doug Jones pulling even with far-right candidate Roy Moore. The DNC should invest money into that race, as they did with the VA governor’s race. They should also compete in the TX and AZ Senate races next year because what was once out of reach is no longer out of reach. Last night proved that, especially in the VA State Assembly.

I’m also paying close attention to 2020 and Terry McAuliffe. He has reason to be ecstatic that Northam, his Lt. Gov., won the race to succeed him in VA. It will only raise his national profile, and it is likely that he was already considering running for the president in the Dem primary. He will probably make a case that as governor, he worked to protect gay rights and expand voting rights. That will play well with the base. He is also from a state that Dems need to win in 2020.

Heading into 2018, the Democratic Party needs to formulate a concise message, especially for some of the bigger Senate races. They can’t just be anti-Trump. They still need to counter Trump’s faux-populism with a clearer economic message. They have time to do so. That said,  Paul Ryan should be especially worried. While the Democrats path to the Senate majority is much harder, the House is now within reach, especially as more and more Republicans in swing districts announce that they’re not seeking re-election. Last night was a blue wave. Next year could be a blue tsunami.