Why Obama’s win is important, even though little will change.

I suppose the first point to address here is that I live in the UK, so I don’t have any business expressing an opinion on an election that I wasn’t eligible to vote in. But, one, this blog is mine, so I write whatever happens to fall into my head, and two, and, much as many of us wish it wasn’t so, things that happen over there do have quite far-reaching international consequences. So there.

Now, the thing about the US election, is that, in many respects, it doesn’t matter who wins. Not even a little bit. The US (and the UK, to be fair) operates under a system that is closer to an elective oligarchy than it is to a democracy. Although, on the face of it, Democrats and Republicans appear to be bitter rivals, there is collusion to retain power in the form of that unchangeable two party system. The Pres isn’t about to change the corporate love-in that is US politics, nor will he alter the foreign policies or military stance. None of those in power will acknowledge that the American Dream, in its original form, is incompatible with a world with finite resources and a population of 7 billion. Climate policy is unlikely to change. Now, at the risk of being a pot shouting racial slurs at a kettle, I am aware that UK politics, and indeed the politics of many countries continue to act and plan as though social and economic systems built on constant growth are endlessly sustainable, but America is quite a lot bigger than most of those other countries, including my own fair homeland.

But, Obama’s win does matter. It is a good thing, for a number of reasons. One of the parties wants to force women to have their rapist’s baby. America chose the one that doesn’t. One of the candidates posthumously converts dead atheist loved ones to his own religion, violating one of the most sacred cornerstones of the very concept of freedom; that of freedom of religion. America chose the one that doesn’t. On the subject of religious freedom, one of the parties would like to dissolve the separation of church and state that helps prevent religious persecution. America chose the one that doesn’t. One of the parties will not even acknowledge climate change is something that exists. America chose the one that does. One of the candidates thinks 40% of the people he would like to represent are parasites feeding off a too-generous state. America chose the candidate that is able to respond to a person communicating in sign language without missing a beat. One of the parties wants dying people who cannot afford healthcare or health insurance (assuming they could even get cover for pre-existing conditions, which they often can’t) to hurry up and die already. America chose the party that is working towards providing healthcare for everyone. One of the parties wants to stop or at least reduce teaching the sciences in general and evolution in particular in an attempt to keep the population as dumb as possible. America chose the party that isn’t afraid of educating people, even if it means they start questioning the conflicts arising between what their religion tells them and what we now know about our Universe.

While I get the cynicism in respect of the illusion of choice (the same illusion exists here as well), the differences noted above are important. What is more important is the choice reflects an underlying feeling in the US; the feeling that the GOP, the tea-party and Donald Trump (by the way, Mr T – ‘unprecedented’ and ‘like never before’ mean the same thing) do not represent the way they feel. I’m no fool, I know the Republicans will gain power again sooner rather than later, but for the moment, there is reason to be positive.

In the long run, the most useful thing anyone can do, either here or there, in my opinion, is to attempt to effect change at a local level while still partaking in the voting charade that goes on at a national level. But I’d be surprised if even that ever begins to change things.

The horror, the horror...

It’s begun. My eldest daughter is five, and the bollocky, over-sexed, unoriginal pit of fecal aural matter that is our current pop scene is now starting to exert influence on her. She was jumping on our bed, the words “I am Jessie Jay Jay” coming from her mouth. She’s a big Toy Story watcher, so I hoped she might be referring to the cowgirl doll voiced by Joan Cusack in the films. Alas, when I asked her who, she said “Jessie J daddy, she’s a dancer and she dances every day”.

Hearing that sparked an odd kind of horror inside me, in which my mind’s eye showed me my daughter in a ridiculously tight outfit thrusting her crotch in the direction of Brian May’s guitar. Clearly, things are unlikely to ever get that bad, but I suspect I’m not far away from the JLS or One Direction phase, or whatever unshaven ken dolls styled and auto-tuned for the screaming masses they have by then. A band once cleverly prophesied that Pop Will Eat Itself. Pop is no longer eating itself, but is now feasting on its own cannibalised regurgitated vomit and calling it X-Factor.

Is it odd that I’m feeling more confident about handling the drink, sex and drugs phase than I am about the incoming being-fed-this-putrid-ear-shit-and-brainwashed-into-thinking-it-has-any-fucking-value-whatsoever phase? Wish me luck.

But is it art?

Not really. But maybe, in a way. I’ve had conversations before about whether cinema is really art. Well, yes, it absolutely is. Sure, when presented with Transformers: Dark of the Moon it is harder to contend this. But, what about ‘real’ art? For every tortured Van Gogh masterpiece, there is a light switch or unmade bed. Now, I'm not here to tell you that that kind of modern art isn't art, but I am contending that film has as much right, perhaps more, to be called art. Cinema is another form of storytelling, and storytelling is an art form, whether it is in the form of a book, graphic novel, concept album, or simply told around a campfire. If you don’t agree are you really trying to tell me that Tracey Emin is an artist, and yet Terrence Malik is not? Then you are nuts.

But games? Now we’re on to rockier ground. Roger Ebert would say no. There are many others who might tell you yes. Me? As usual, I’m kind of on the fence. Ingenious? Definitely, whether classic or modern – Pong, Pac Man, Tetris, Sonic, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mass Effect, Bioshock, L.A. Noire... on and on the list goes. But art? Stories in games now have a much more cinematic feel, and as mentioned, I believe story-telling is a genuine art form. And some of the concept art and graphical touches are simply phenomenal (just two of many, many examples are shown below). But the stories and the design, which are art, is in service of the creation of an addictive diversion, which is not. So is art employed in the service of something which is not art still art? Perhaps some things man was never meant to know.

Concept art for Gears of War.

Concept art for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

Still fat. But maybe not quite as fat. One colleague referred to me as ‘trimmer’, and more than one family member has commented favourably. Also started up the swimming and the walking again this week. It might actually be working. Might have to have a weekend off soon, though – feeling the wine withdrawal.

Some things hurt my brain.

Philosophy sucks. It hurts my head and finds annoying and unfair ways to win arguments. Arguments are won by being right. Being right is proven by being backed up by facts. Without breaking a sweat, philosophy can tell you that no fact is certain and that there is no possible way to prove you are not merely a brain in a jar being fed electrical signals. Or that some god created everything in the universe exactly the way it is five minutes ago. There is no comeback. However, instead of serving as a reminder not to make too many assumptions about your world, I find it just prevents me from winning arguments, although this might be due to my inability to debate orally in real time. Facts, no matter how irrefutable, become unstable. The certainty that the Earth orbits the Sun melts away a little, because that might be what the nameless scientists want the brain in the jar to think (I do wonder, however, why people who subscribe to this way of thinking don't leave for work via their bedroom windows, if not for the fact that they know they will fall and likely break something).

But that way madness lies, and it is no way to win an argument. The Earth does revolve around the Sun. It is irrefutable, and there should be nothing more than a minor concession to the vanishingly small possibility that we are brains in jars or the butt of a joke played by a bored omnipotent being. It pays to look at my atheism the same way – I don’t know for an utter certainty that one of the vast myriad of gods dreamt up in our history is actually real, but I find the possibility of me being a brain in a jar much more likely.

Sometimes, particularly online, this way of thinking, of disregarding the value of things we know to be true, has a more damaging consequence than annoying me. It creates an environment where a fact is relegated to the status of mere opinion. Where people who simply have a big mouth can command as much attention as genuine experts on a vast variety of subjects and issues. Worse, where those with an agenda are able to take misunderstandings in respect of things we know to be true (yes, yes, unless we’re all brains in jars or whatever) and deliberately use them to foster denial and mistrust and cause conflict. It is that time again, where I sigh wearily, bring out my tin drum and bang on, once again, about two areas in particular where this kind of thing happens: climate change and evolution.

A recent Koch-funded study defied skeptic/denier expectations, confirming that the data in relation to climate change (that it is happening, and that human activity is responsible for much of it) was not only accurate but that the IPCC may have in fact underestimated the effect in some respects. This year polar ice melt is at a record-breaking high. Do you think that this will have anything but a negligible effect on those determined to deny the fact of climate change? Or the Koch brothers themselves? Not bloody likely.

And as for the big E, the very same applies. The fact of evolution is very hard to deny without sounding like a fool. The culprit is usually either a mind enslaved to an outdated religious doctrine, or a determination to stick to a hastily made conclusion and neglecting to look any further. The old erroneous conclusions resurface again and again – if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes, if every living thing on the planet is linked by evolution, why have we never found evidence of a 'crocoduck', why are there no transitional fossils. The first two illustrate the same fundamental misunderstanding of the very concept of the theory – no one living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today evolved from another living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today; they all shared a common ancestor. The third point illustrates the lack of interest in confirming one's own conclusions – there are literally thousands of transitional fossils (fish to reptile). Thousands (reptile to mammal, reptile to bird). Some further reading gives a number of examples of human evolution, too, if you can be arsed to check before talking shite about 'missing links'.

Keeping in mind the philosophy bit, there is, obviously, like every fact, a chance that evolution could be wrong. About as much chance that the Earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun. About as much that all of physics is wrong. The theory of evolution is as sound as the theory of gravity, and like all scientific theories, it started as an idea based on observation. Over 200 years, further observation and testing has established a solid theory that explains, beautifully, the biological state of the world today. Maybe the philosophical brain in a jar approach isn’t responsible for the deliberate and wilful misunderstanding of facts and scientific theories, but it ain’t half an annoying way to bring an argument to a stalemate.

Operation Don’t Die.

I might well be coming off like some kind of Bridget Jones here, but I’m a bit of a fat bastard. I don’t exactly belong in a freak show, but more than one chin is too many, you know? During a recent home movie shot by my parents there is a shot of me sitting in our garden and I look like the king of the toads. Big belly, bulbous chin. Basically, a chubby cunt.

Back when I worked in retail, I was a little overweight, but with a stock room up a flight of stairs and delivery bay down a flight of stairs and a frequently broken lift, I was pretty active, almost every day. Often I would work until 11pm, skipping the evening meal. On the run-up to Christmas I would do 80-hour weeks. About six years ago, the company I worked for went under and, as I had just got married, I scrabbled to get a job as quickly as possible. I’ve worked in offices ever since, and the large amount of sitting I do has seen me chub up.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this, and some time ago I started Operation Don’t Die, figuring if I lost some weight and became a little more active, I might live to see my kids turn 30. To be honest, ODD has so far turned out to be less than successful, the biggest piece of evidence for this being the fact that I am still a fat twat. So, I figured if I made ODD a part of this blog, in the public eye, so to speak, it might pressure me to make more of an effort. Never know – worth a try, right?

Last time it involved eating half the number of sandwiches at lunch, replacing fat crisps with French Fries, and reducing the amount of wine, bread, and general crap I stuff down my gob. Along with that, there was an increase in the amount of walking I do and even going swimming on Monday and Tuesday lunch times. It kind of worked, for a while. Too much work meant the swimming was soon sacrificed, but I have no choice but to keep up the brisk walking, only having one car and a wife who works miles away. Of course, that’s probably not enough, but, if you’ll indulge a cliché, we all have to start somewhere. I’ll let you know how I get on. Whether you want me to or not.

“But they changed it.”

It’s all about the difference. The difference between a book and a movie. Sometimes when a book is adapted into a film I can get annoyed. Sometimes I get annoyed at other people who insist every last detail of the book they love should remain intact. Books can do great things. They can give you a character that is, in a way, uniquely yours, since how you interpret that character; the way they look, the way they sound, the way they walk and a load of other things is in your head. In someone else’s head it will be a little different. Sure, there are descriptions, but they often merely inform how a character is in your head, rather than acting as a complete immutable definition. The same goes for landscapes, architecture and many other things.

Films do something different. They show you, definitively, what that character looks like, how they sound, how they move, what that location looks like, or the internal layout of that building. Books allow you the freedom to create your own picture in your imagination. Films are more visual. They tell you what that picture looks like. There are other differences. Books often give you an insight into the innermost thoughts of a character. They can present an internal dialogue to tell you what the character thinks, and their motivation for their actions. Films give you a chance to apply your own take to the internal workings of character’s minds, using clues given by the actor’s performance.

What this boils down to is that they are very different ways to tell a story. When a book is adapted into a film, it is impossible not to account for this. There are, however, right and wrong ways to do this. If you understand the differences between the two, you could change a myriad of things, even the ending, and still adapt a book successfully. One example: Stardust. Neil Gaiman’s original story has quite a melancholic ending, which suits the story rather wonderfully. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s film version retains much that made Gaiman’s original such a joy, but it is mostly lighter in tone, and a brighter happier ending suits it better.

For the screen, stories generally have to be simplified or changed in some way to make them more accessible to a wider audience. That’s not an insult to film, it is a simple and obvious (to most people) truth. Examples? Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Jurassic Park to name just three. Occasionally, the changes made vastly improve on the source material (The Godfather, The Shining.) Sometimes a valiant attempt is made that just doesn’t come together (The Lovely Bones, Dune.) Sometimes, the changes undermine everything about it and nothing can help it to recover (step forward, The Golden Compass.)  Some would argue Watchmen falls into this category, but I’ve neither seen nor read it, and have heard too many differences of opinion to be convinced either way.

By now, you’re probably wondering what the point of this entry is (none – have you not read this blog before?). Over the years, I’ve had many a conversation, debate and argument of the merits of films, books and the differences between them. Since this blog is a bit of a sounding board for me to make my thoughts and opinions known (or at the very least, to allow me to organise them), what better place for me to air this opinion? The two franchises that come up the most in these debates with both friends and colleagues are Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (infer what that says about me and the people I converse with what you will). I would always find myself in defence of the film versions. Potter, under the guidance of author J. K. Rowling, trims the unnecessary sub plots to squeeze the plots into the running times. Seeing as the decisions are largely made or approved by the original architect of the series, the changes are fairly easy to justify.

Rings, on the other hand, is very different. The original author is dead. Only one person on the entire production ever met him (Christopher Lee). Some major changes have been made. Frodo is much younger. The Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil are cut completely. Elves join the humans at Helm’s Deep. Faramir has a very different arc, taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath. This has annoyed a great many people. Every change, in my opinion, is justifiable and in fact, a film that stuck closer to the novel would have suffered. Scouring happens after Sauron is gone. To have the decoy still posing a threat after the destruction of the main villain wouldn’t work. In the book it has the effect of bringing into stark relief that even the rural paradise of The Shire doesn’t escape the War of the Ring untouched. The film accomplishes this in The Two Towers with a line of dialogue spoken by Merry: “The fires of Isengard will spread, and the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. There won’t be a Shire.” The Tom Bombadil part is frankly the dullest part of the books so I was quite pleased it was cut. With Helm’s Deep, Jackson and co accomplish what is essentially a master-class in building up tension in the run up to a climactic battle set piece, and the arrival of the small Elvish army to join the small human army to take on the huge army of Uruk-Hai is a perfectly judged moment – the book loses nothing from not having it; the film gains a wonderful, perfectly cinematic moment. The Faramir change is a little thornier, because it involves a small amount of criticism of Tolkien’s work. Faramir in the books is a bit one-dimensional. A bit boring. Apparently, the only guy in Middle Earth who can resist the power of the ring without breaking a sweat. There’s barely an arc, no real character development – hell, he’s barely even a character at all. He is so perfect, I think, to illustrate firstly the big difference between him and his brother Boromir, and secondly to suggest there is strength left in men, giving a reason to hope. The films change this. He isn’t so perfect. He is still clearly not his brother, but here he must earn his strength; he can only let the ring go when he begins to understand what it does. Removing Faramir’s nonchalant disregard for the ring and Tom Bombadil altogether, the film-makers have made the ring that much more potent – there is not a single soul in the films who is immune to its effects. This works better for the films, where there are fewer opportunities for depth of subtlety afforded the book.

So, don’t automatically groan when the adaptation of your favourite novel makes some changes. Consider the audience and see if those changes are made for a good reason or not. Or, you know, tell me why I'm wrong.