Film | The 94th Academy Awards

Dune 

I watched Dune months ago, in the theatre, and I wish I could have seen it again this week, closer to the other movies. I liked it a lot when I first watched it. The music was great, the sound was great, the production design was so awesome that made me put pen to paper and start writing down notes on effective worldbuiding... I had some problems with it though, particularly with the way Jessica Atreides was adapted and played. I didn't think it would win Best Picture or Best Script, but it's awesome to see a science fiction film in the Oscars, and I was happy to see it crushing a lot of other categories :) 

Opinion | On Bill Maher's "Make America Grind Again"

I like to watch Bill Maher's segment "New Rules". He has interesting points and I agree with a lot of what he has to say... But I disagree with his arguments this week, and though it was worth writing a few lines about it. 

Bill starts his monologue by stating that "you can go on about how masculinity is itself toxic or you can be horny for Volodymyr Zelenskyy but you can't do both." He mentions that the internet is flooded with social media posts and memes about women having the hots for the Ukrainian president (he even shows a handful of these posts), and goes on to say that the reason is that  Zelenskyy is what used to be called a "man's man" and that this is entirely incompatible with women wanting to "retrain men" and "turn them into their favourite Twilight character. He posits that women may "want to create the perfect man" but that there will always be "a bit of toxic in the mix". Well, I don't subscribe to the notion that masculinity is toxic, nor do I want to create perfect men (and if I did, I would certainly not look to Twiligh as a guide book). While I can certainly understand a man's impulse to defend himself from these perceptions I don't agree with the way in which Bill defended his position. 

Personally, I don't think twitter (a medium that encourages repetition and regurgitation) can be used to take the temperature of the general population. Putting that aside though, Bill credits the brutality inherent to masculinity as the reason why we, as a species still alive. He concedes that there are brave women fighting in Ukraine, but, in his words "the images of people fleeing all seem to be of women and children while every able-bodied man in Ukraine is sticking around to fight and maybe die."

Men of conscription age, aged 18 to 60, were banned from leaving Ukraine after the Russian invasion on 24 February. It seems to me that is is more likely that this ban is the principal reason why most refugees now are women and children, not some innate quality of masculinity that makes men, in Bill's words, "stick around to fight and maybe die." In fact, the guardian reported on how, even after the ban, many men were trying to cross the border. Furthermore, Bill completely disregards the difference in societal attitudes towards men and women under these circumstances. During war, men are shamed for not volunteering to the fight. For a man, joining the war means honour, courage and glory. Our literature is full of examples of this (think of how the boys are encouraged to join the war effort in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, for instance). I am not saying this is wrong. I can centainly understand why these attitudes developed, the need to make going to war see desirable, in order to encourage the soldiers and save the country. But it is a mistake to assume that these social pressures have nothing to do with the reason why there are more men in the military for instance. Women on the other hand are expected to flee. A woman is shamed, not for fleeing her country, but for not sacrificing her desire to protect her land, and staying with her children instead.

Ukrainian refugees around the end of February. source of images: https://www.kpcc.org/npr-news/2022-02-26/people-fleeing-ukraine-cross-into-romania; https://missouriindependent.com/briefs/u-s-to-accept-100000-ukrainian-refugees-levy-more-sanctions-on-russia/; https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-120000-ukrainians-have-fled-the-country-so-far-seeking-refuge-from-fighting/; https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-of-ukrainians-inquire-about-moving-to-israel-jewish-agency-official-says/ ; 
 

Personally, I think staying around to fight for one's freedom is admirable. But I don't think Zelenskyy is doing it because he is a man. I think he is doing it because he is a good leader, and I can see a female leader doing exactly the same in his place. What is more, I would hope most men nowadays would find that attitude just as admirable in a woman, as women find it in Zelenskyy. 

It is easy to describe the general differences between men and women in biological terms. It becomes much harder to do so in terms of character, personality and psychological make up. Most of the stereotypes that seemed to defined each gender are falling. What are the qualities of a man? Courage. Strength. Intelligence. What about a woman? Shouldn't a woman also be brave? Shouldn't she be strong and intelligent? I certainly hope to possess all three of those qualities in sufficient amount. Sensitivity is not a quality generally associated with manhood. But most of the greatest writers that ever were are men, and you can't produce great literature without a good dose of sensitivity. What about it then? 

The biggest problem I have with Mr. Maher's argument is that it implies that these qualities - the qualities that inspires a person to fight for their freedom instead of fleeing to safety - are inherently masculine characteristics. It doesn't seem to me that bravery is gendered at all. There is certainly no biological basis for that argument.  And it's personally offensive to be labeled as the coward sex. 

I am not what is called a "radical feminist," by any means. But I recognize that, despite the strides made by recent changes in societal attitudes towards women, true equality is more an idea than a reality. Even in our world, the value of a woman's individuality is secondary to motherhood, and a woman's personal freedom is conditional. I am not myopic enough to deny that there are biological differences between men and women, and I have never been offended by the small rituals derived from traditional gender roles, such as allowing a man to open a door or lead in a dance. But I do hope for a time when the word woman isn't synonymous with inferiority, and the qualities associated with womanhood are not agreeableness and sweetness, but assertiveness, intelligence and courage.

Star Trek | My Top 10 favourite episodes in Voyager season 4

Before writing this post, I took a look at some lists of "best Star Trek Voyager episodes" or "best episodes in season 4", and I have to say, my list will look nothing like those. Those usually include include iconic double episodes like "Year of Hell" (which I actually have a lot of issues with), or  high-production-value episodes like  The Killing came (which, however cool, didn't crack my top 10). When I am choosing my favourites, I take other things into account. 

First of all, I am a big fan of the episodic nature of Star Trek, and I tend to enjoy single episodes with a self-contained story, in which only the characters and their relationships with each other demonstrate the continuity of the show. I love episodes that explore cool science fiction ideas, such as an unusually intriguing concept for an alien species (cool make up definitely adds bonus points) or a particularly fascinating premise. In the case of Voyager, I also favour episodes with a high "Voyager Factor", that is, episodes that could only be told in Voyager, and therefore contribute to fully exploring the show's unique premise. Finally, I appreciate good  characterization and dialogue, and the only reason this is third on my list is that I realize it is possible to have brilliant character moments in otherwise lack-luster episodes. 

The fourth season of Voyager was particularly good. I liked Kes, but Seven of Nine is my favourite character in the show and her addition to the crew fixed something I didn't even know was broken before. I think I liked almost every episode in the season (though one or two had moments and elements I particularly disliked), and compiling a list of the top 10 was definitely challenging. These aren't reviews. Just my impressions of the top 10 episodes, and, be aware, there may be spoillers ahead. Without further ado, here are my top 10 episodes in Voyager's season 4 : 

 

Books (Reading Wrap-up) | February Reads...

After a slow start, my reading rhythm finally picked up a little bit in February. These are not reviews, just my impressions about a selection of the books I read this month: 

1. Toilers of the Sea, by Victor Hugo

In recent years, Victor Hugo has become my favourite author, and a person I would go back in time to have a cup of tea with. I'll be the first to say his style is not for everyone - he tends to deviate from the pot quite a bit in favour of lengthy explanations about the historical context or local geography of the scene - but he writes so beautifully it entirely makes up for the lack of objectivity in my mind... After I read Les Miserables for the first time, for several months and actually to this day still, little excerpts and fragments of the text come back to me when my mind is distracted, and again and again I am at awe at the power of Hugo's words to create such a lasting impression in my brain. 

“Dissimulation is an act of violence against yourself. A man hates those to whom he lies.”

The toilers of the sea was similar in this regard. The story concerns a misfit named Gilliat who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of Mess Lethierry, owner of the island's only steam ship. When his ship is  wrecked in a nearby reef,  Gilliat fights the sky the sea and its creatures to recover the machine and be worthy of Deruchette´s hand. Be that as it may, nearly half the book goes by, before the story can actually start, and the first 300 pages have little but set up, background and characterization... But it's beautifully written, so I didn't mind. 

I will say, however, that this is probably my least favourite book in Hugo's body of work, at least considering the ones I've read so far (Notre Dame de Paris, Les Miserables, The man who laughs, The last Day of a Condemned Man). The tribulations of Gilliat in the reef were infinitely less interesting to me than the relationships between Valjean and Cosette in Les Mis, or Frollo and Quasimodo in Notre Dame de Paris. Actually I was far more entranced by the earliest portions of the book, with the descriptions of Gilliat's background and the "undeserved opprobrium of his neighbours". I enjoyed the use of language, and it only added to my desire to learn French, if for no other reason than to be able to access Mr. Hugo's works in their original form. 

"Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. He is weighed down by a triple kind of fatality or necessity. First there is the fatality of dogmas, then the oppression of human laws, and finally the inexorability of nature. The author has denounced the first of these fatalities in Notre Dame de Paris, the second was fully exemplified in Les miserables, and the third was indicated in Les Travailleurs de la mer. But with all these fatalities there also mingled that inward fatality, the supreme agonizing power, the human heart."

2. Star Trek - Q in Law, by Peter David

One small secret? Sometimes I have a blast reenacting scenes from Star Trek episodes with action figures of my Star Trek collection...

In February I got really into Star Trek Voyager for the first time in a long, long time. Don't get me wrong, I am as big a trekkie as you'll ever find and I love all things Star Trek, but Voyager has always been my least favourite Star Trek show, for a variety of reasons (that is no longer the case). I certainly didn't understand why so many people prefer it to Enterprise for instance, which I always enjoyed a great deal. Re-watching voyager made me want dive into my small Star Trek Library, and since I have hardly any Voyager books, I decided to pick this one up, by Peter David. 

This book was funny. I could hear Lwaxana and Q's voices as I read, and there was a plurality od delightful moments, such as  Worf protesting that the Enterprise shouldn't be a "catering hall" when they're assigned a mission that involves hosting a wedding, and Captain Picard's embarrassment upon admiting that in a school production of Romeo and Juliet he played Juliet's nurse. I did have a few issues with the plot though... In the best Star Trek episodes, Q's actions, however arbitrary they may seem, always have a purpose. He took the Enterprise several thousand light years into uncharted space, to have Picard confront the Borg and challenge his bold claims of preparedness for the unknown. I Tapestry he pretended the Captain had died to give him a better appreciation for his young self. In this novel though, Q's motivations seemed as simple as to cause chaos, which felt a bit empty in the end. Also, the plot made me realize how many of Lwaxana's stories in TNG focus on her being made a fool of in some fashion or another... I wish that hadn't been the case. 

I have an audio book of this novel also, in tape format. Maybe it will feature in my March reading hall. 

3. Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

Got this little copy in São Paulo, at Livraria Cultura (Av Paulista) after watching to My Fair Lady for the first time... I used to go to that bookshop on Saturday Mornings, for purchases like this... Having lived in a small city for such a long time (where I could only get foreign language books from a small selection in a second hand bookshop), I really value the ability to get books in foreign languages with relative ease, as it happened in SP

Pygmalion was a mysoginistic sculptor who vouched to remain celibate and detested "the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women", only then to sculpt a woman of ivory whom he found so perfect he could not but fall in love with it. The play by George Bernard Shaw write a XIX century version of this modern myth, by creating a pronunciation professor who helps a common girl from London learn to speak like a lady of the aristocracy, only then to fall in love with his creation. Sort of. 

This play was amusing, though I imagine it must be more satisfying to watch it on a stage than read it in a book. Having seen the movie adaptation, though (My fair lady, 1964), I was not prepared at all for the ending. You see, the book doesn't end as one would expect it to, and in many ways, the central point of the story remains an open question. Apparently this play was immensely popular at Shaw's time, and the fans pressured him to give the characters a proper conclusion. Instead of writing another act for the play, though, Shaw wrote a long epilogue/letter telling what happened to each of the characters in the years after the curtain drops, and explaining exactly why certain characters could never be together romantically and why there was nothing but unhappiness in the paths that they chose. The whole thing was a little too passive aggressive, I think, and I have to say, I don't think this excessive realist/pessimistic views have a place in fiction, at least not in the fiction I want to read... 

Had this happened in our time, he probably would have simply written a sequel. 

4. The Sorrows of Empire, by David Mack

The most recent addition to my Star Trek Library

In the fourth episode of the second season of Star Trek, The Original Series, the Mirror Universe was introduced to Star Trek canon: A parallel universe in which things are like they are in our universe, but not quite. Everything is the same, but everything is different, giving truth to the notion according to with "there is more than one of everything". Crucially, while the United Federation of Planets is a pacifistic alliance of civilizations cooperating to explore the Galaxy, its mirror Universe counterpart is the Terran Empire, focused on conquest and exploitation instead. Mirror Universe episodes are always a lot of fun, giving us a chance to see another version of each of the characters.

In the Original Series, the Kirk from our Universe planted the seeds of revolution in the Mirror Spock's mind. He says: "The illogic of waste, Mr. Spock. A waste of lives, potential, resources, time. I submit to you that your Empire is illogical because it cannot endure. I submit that you are illogical to be a willing part of it." Essentially he tries to convince Spock to turn his Universe into something more like our own. After that, we didn't have Mirror Universe stories for a very long time. There were no Mirror episodes in The Next Generation and when it finally made an appearance in Deep Space 9, we learn that Spock's actions caused the fall of the Terran empire and humans are now slaves to the Klingon-Cardassian alliance!

The Sorrows of Empire is an attempt to tell exactly what happened after the first clash between the two Universes, showing Spock's actions and how they led to the inevitable fall of the Empire. 

This book was a very enjoyable read. It's written in small chapters, that span a period of several years, with one or two chapters/events per year. Many characters from the Original series make appearances and we see how the events of some episodes unfolded differently in the Mirror Universe. I read reviews with people calling it "fanficky" but I actually enjoyed it, and thought the pace suited this sort of story well... 

The one thing I have an issue with was how everything felt a bit contrived. One of the reasons why the reintroduction of the mirror  Universe in Deep Space 9 works so well, is because we discover that Kirk's good intentions had disastrous results. Because Spock made a mistake somewhere. In this book, Spock never errs at all. Everything, even the eventual fall of the Empire is meticulously calculated, and I just don't buy... It's like... Like playing chess and being able to see sixty moves ahead... It's not believable because there are so many moves, so many variables, the plan will invariably have to change and have unforeseen consequences. Pretending this isn't so feels... contrived. At lest to me. I would much rather read about Spock making mistakes and coming up with new plans to cope with these mistakes, than read about him making no mistakes at all.. 

Despite these shortcomings though, I really enjoyed reading it, and I look forward to reading more trek books by this author, and more books set in the mirror universe. 

Overall, I am pretty happy with my reading month in February. I hope March is even better, and I plan to continue tackling the books I haven't read from my classics and Star Trek shelves.