V: Lizard Aliens as a Social Reminder

Screening Room
May 13, 2010 | 10 books mentioned 15 6 min read

Related Books:

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coverThe revamped V (for those who don’t tune in: V stands for Visitors) on ABC has me completely hooked. Crazy but true, I DVR Giada De Laurentiis cooking shows in the same click as human-munching reptile aliens. And I’ve got my husband addicted too. He’s been away in Salt Lake City since the show’s March return. During the commercial breaks, we dial each other like high school kids.

Me: “The kid just got lizard licked!”

Hubs: “Whatever, that’s a hot alien. I’d let her lick me.”

Me: “That’s her candy coating. Underneath she’s got snake eyes.”

Hubs: “Still, she’s hot.”

Me: “You’re despicable. Don’t you have any human pride?”

These are the not-so-adult conversations between us.

I grew up in a sci-fi loving home courtesy of my dad who’s a product of the Final Frontier generation—Shatner and Nimoy and the Lost in Space Robot. A child of the 80s, I was suckled on Star Wars and Quantum Leap. However, as I grew into adulthood, I became something of a sci-fi snob, rolling my eyes and shaking my head at laser beams and the Galactica crew heroics. I acquiesced to my dad’s 24/7 Sci-Fi Channel whenever I visited home, but beyond that my interest in extraterrestrials and spaceships was nonexistent. Until now. Like I said, I’m completely bewitched. Some of this could be blamed on my aforementioned childhood.

coverThe original V miniseries aired in 1983. I watched it, snuggled beside my dad who attempted to cover my eyes during the “bad parts.” To this day, my mom denies this memory—because she would never, never have allowed such a thing. And maybe so, but obviously she wasn’t invited to the daddy-daughter sci-fi party. I distinctly remember burying my face in my dad’s arm when Diana (the V leader) expanded her jaw and swallowed a guinea pig whole. My dad yelled, “Dadburnit, she’s a snake!” (Note: This is probably the basis of my fear of snakes, lizards, frogs and turtles.) It was terrifying! Yet even then, I was completely captivated.

coverThere was something about the miniseries that transcended the average “Beam me up, Scotty.” Despite the lizard thing, it was intellectual and deeply affecting. So it comes as no surprise it was inspired by Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. A novel chronicling fascism in the United States. According to television lore, the director-producer Kenneth Johnson wrote an adaptation of the book entitled Storm Warnings in 1982. NBC executives rejected it. Too heavy for average American viewers who were lining up at the box office for films like Tron and E.T. So they dumbed it down: made the American fascists into man-eating reptilian humanoids, and the show premiered to rave reviews on May 3, 1983.

Johnson later explained that the series was intended to be a political thriller and a Nazi allegory. From the Swastika-like emblems on the Visitor’s uniforms and the “Friends of the Visitors” youth movement to the mass broadcasting of messages mimicking Nazi radio propaganda. Humans in the show were forced to choose sides: collaborate with the occupying forces or join underground resistance movements, like the Fifth Column. While the brunt of Nazi persecution was targeted at Jews, the Visitors attacked anyone opposed to their dogma. Their infiltration of human society begins as a subterfuge but eventually transitions to a full-fledged military coup d’etat. The original series went so far as to incorporate a Holocaust survivor, the grandfather of Daniel Bernstein, who duly noted history’s repetition.

covercoverV ran roughly three hours and twenty minutes and was so successful in the ratings that the 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle was produced, supposedly to conclude the saga. But viewers couldn’t let go and the network wouldn’t pass up capitalizing on its popularity. V: The Series ran from 1984 to 1985 without Johnson as director. He left during The Final Battle after a disagreement with NBC executives on how the story should progress.

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Twenty-seven years later, the story is as fresh as it was in 1983. As fresh as it was in 1935.

Let’s face it—fascism still scares the hell out of us. The idea of social interventionism to promote the state’s interests is terrifying. Social indoctrination by way of state-regulated education and media propaganda makes our skin crawl. Eugenics for the purpose of social hygiene is monstrous. Discrimination based on culture, gender and sexuality is a nasty battle we fight daily. A hunger for expansionist imperialism, ideologically and physically, lingers on. Turn on the nightly news, tune into reality, and notes of Lewis’s novel and Johnson’s script continue to echo.

This may be exactly why V has seen such popularity with the 2010 audience. We live in a world where history repeats itself; where old ideas cloak themselves in various contemporary skins and pretty packages for each budding generation. The series continues to strike a chord because in a non-didactic way, it reminds us that the catastrophes of our past are but a handful of forgetful seasons away.

3.
Currently on the show, V spaceships loom over all the major cities. Anna (the 2010 V leader) promises peace, opens cure-all health centers and introduces advances in technology that surpass anything the world has ever seen. Using mass media, she seeks to indoctrinate a devoted following of humans involved in her Peace Ambassadors program. From the outside, the arrival of the V’s looks rosy, but beneath is a diabolical agenda to take over the Earth.

The updated series has been hit by a tidal wave of controversy. Rumor has it that it’s an allegorical representation of President Barack Obama’s administration. Many critics have pointed out the subtextual nods. In her review for The Washington Post, Lisa de Moraes noted that the series debuted on the first anniversary of Obama’s election, and that carefully embedded catchphrases like “hope”, “change”, and “universal health care” are frequently used by the Visitors.

Glenn Garvin of the Chicago Tribune wrote that the show was a “rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it’s also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president’s supporters and delight his detractors.”

Additionally, critical bloggers were quick to point out lines that hold an uncanny resemblance to quotes by Obama staff members. In one episode about a natural disaster that the V’s intervene to solve, Anna tells a news reporter, “There’s tragedy every day, all over your world—so many opportunities to help.” Likewise, Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste… it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

At the 2009 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour session for V, the three producers Scott Peters, Jace Hall and Jeffrey Bell discussed the controversy. Peters explained, “Listen, I think that shows are open to interpretation. People bring subjective thoughts to it. And if you want to ascribe those words to the Visitors or to whatever is going on in our society, that’s sort of up to the viewer, but there’s no particular agenda to hone in on those specific things.”

Bell followed up, “We are talking about the metaphors and allegories here, and at a certain level, I just want to remind people it’s a show about spaceships on ABC at 8 p.m.”

Peters went on to clarify: The show is about the dangerous side of blind devotion. “ What happens when you don’t ask questions about the things you believe in?” he said. “And I think that can be applied across the board whether you are talking about a political issue or a religious issue or a relationship issue, any number of things.”

Alien spaceships making us pause in our prime time television consumption and (gasp!) think? Wouldn’t that be revolutionary! The producers’ comments may not lay the Obama controversy to rest, but we could use a little social reminder these days—even if it comes as science-fictionalized reptile aliens masked in hot human form plotting world conquest and mankind annihilation. Like the namesake characters, there’s more than meets the eye in V.

is the author of the international bestseller and 2012 Goodreads Choice Award nominee The Baker's Daughter (Crown) and The Time It Snowed In Puerto Rico (Random House). Her novella The Branch of Hazel will be a part of Grand Central anthology (Penguin, July 2014). She is currently working on her third novel, to be published by Crown in 2014. You can learn more about Sarah at www.sarahmccoy.com or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.  Married to an Army doc, she currently lives in El Paso, Texas, but calls Virginia home.

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Screening Room

Family ‘Tree’

Screening Room
June 9, 2011 | 10 books mentioned 4 3 min read
I recently had the opportunity to see The Tree of Life while sitting two rows in front of Terrence Malick’s 99-year-old mother. The special screening took place in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a small town north of Tulsa. Malick spent part of his youth in Bartlesville and recently returned to film his still-untitled next project (though some have called it The Burial) starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. The film was screened in a fairly unassuming shopping mall located just off of state highway 75. Okay, so it wasn’t the most majestic setting possible, but it was good enough. Not scheduled to be officially released in Oklahoma and the surrounding region until later this month, I heard about this “secret” happening a couple of days before from an acquaintance that lives in the area. It was touch and go until the day of the screening as to whether or not I would be able to attend, but I was greeted with an early morning text that simply said, “You’re in.” I’ve been a Terrence Malick fan since my late teens when my father, having loved Badlands since its original release in 1973, took me to the video store to rent a somewhat-scratchy VHS copy of that landmark road movie.  The films that followed, Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), and The New World (2005) all mean a great deal to me both artistically and personally. So it’s no surprise that I was just a little excited several years ago when word first began to circulate about The Tree of Life.  I followed the rumors, the casting changes, the false starts, and the rest with a great deal of attention. With each new morsel of information (dinosaurs, space, asteroids) my hunger grew. It’s hard to explain, but I wanted to both know everything and absolutely nothing about this film before I saw it. I left work a little early the day of the screening, giving myself ample time for the 45-minute drive from Tulsa to Bartlesville. The road between is straight and flat, peppered with occasional cattle, goats and abandoned cars. I blasted classical music, recalled my previous experiences with his films, and pretended the late evening light was meant just for this moment. I sat in the second row back from the screen. The theater was small and I wanted as much of my field of view as possible to be taken up by the film. Among the other attendees were relatives and friends of the Malick family, none more important than the director’s mother, Irene, sitting behind me in a wheelchair. According to Malick’s wife, Alexandra “Ecky” Malick, who spoke briefly before the film, this was Irene Malick’s first time seeing the film. Malick himself was characteristically absent, as was his father, Emil. If you’ve seen or even read the copious amount of press this film has already received, you know what a personal statement it is. The central story is set in Waco, Texas in the 1950’s and follows a father, mother and three brothers through the eyes of the eldest boy, Jack. Terrence Malick was the oldest of three brothers. He lived as a boy in Waco. One of the brothers in the film dies at 19 under mysterious circumstances. Malick’s brother, Lawrence, is said to have taken his own life around the same age. Terrence Malick’s remaining brother, Chris, died in 2008 at age 60. A cause of death was not released. Though it’s been portrayed as obtuse in its telling and abstract in its ideas, this film is as starkly autobiographical as any by Fellini. On the drive back to Tulsa, completely wrecked by what I’d just experienced, I couldn’t get Malick’s mother out of my head. What did she think? Was it obvious to her? Did she get it? In the film, the mother is portrayed as an ethereal, almost angelic archetypal figure of grace and beauty. Yet sitting behind me, in a stainless steel wheelchair, having lived on this earth for nearly a full century, was the woman herself in flesh and blood.  As images of an imagined afterlife flickered on the screen, I wondered if it would ever cross her mind that her son may have created for her, the only true afterlife that really exists.
Screening Room
| 10 books mentioned 4 3 min read
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Screening Room

Winter Is Coming: How HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Is Going off Book and Breaking All the Rules

Screening Room
April 9, 2015 | 10 books mentioned 4 5 min read
All readers have seen literary works they adore adapted for the screen, cataloging, scoffing, cringing, and wondering at changes to the original narrative -- or, if lucky, delighting in them. No readers, though, have had the experience that devotees of A Game of Thrones, or more specifically, of George R.R. Martin's in-progress suite of novels A Song of Ice and Fire, are about to. The upcoming season of HBO's Game of Thrones will reportedly push past Martin's fifth and most recent book, extending numerous plotlines beyond where readers last left their heroes. The series will continue to do so until it concludes, presumably reaching its denouement long before Martin can publish the two remaining novels he plans. Fansites are abuzz with virtual hand-wringing about this, their anxiety different from the usual panic about a screen version's faithfulness. Game of Thrones is about to go where no adaptation has gone before, into the realm of the unpublished source, adapting books that do not yet exist, that will become available later­ -- thus undercutting the very premise of adaptation. Anyone fatigued with Game of Thrones, the socio-technological phenomenon -- most illegal downloads! most on-line videos of viewers watching characters die! -- may find their interest piqued by the show's challenge to modern assumptions about adaptation and the idea of canon. Our notions of original and adaptation logically privilege chronology. We call the first published version of a narrative the original and consider the versions that follow adaptations -- less definitive, and somewhat degraded. We make exceptions, of course: William Shakespeare's plays are adaptations, but their stature is elevated by his genius and cultural context. (For Shakespeare's time, indeed, notions of originality and adaptation would have made no sense.) We are also used to privileging print above screen, but chronology seems to takes precedence: nobody gives a darn that Graham Greene's screenplay and subsequent novella of The Third Man call (absurdly) for the hero to get the girl at the end, because nobody saw his screenplay before the film came out; the novella also arrived afterwards. These principles lurking in our thoughts, we usually watch screen adaptations of our favorite books with a kind of dual consciousness, what adaptation theorist Linda Hutcheon calls (with a nod to Mikhail Bakhtin) "an ongoing dialogical process," and "an intertextual pleasure that...some call elitist and others enriching." That is, we watch adaptations and enjoy comparing them to the source, perhaps thinking That's not what happens in the book or I caught that in-joke. The adaptations I have in mind here are neither the inspired by kind, nor the let's focus on two minor characters instead of Hamlet kind. Productions like Game of Thrones are predicated on a large degree of faithfulness. Sure, the series has deviated and bastardized -- every season moves further afield of the books -- but it does so largely in order to keep protagonists in the foreground and Martin's structure intact. Until now. The producers, to whom Martin has revealed his plans for the conclusion of his books, have announced that henceforth the adaptation will diverge significantly. Naturally, they have not announced how much, or starting when, or with which plotlines and character arcs, and that's where this gets interesting. Devoted readers' "intertextual pleasure" will be tempered with uncertainty, as they may find themselves thinking: That's not what happens in the books -- yet! or I don't know any more about this than my idiot friend here does. The commentariat has expressed concern about spoilers for the books, but the fact is, no one will know when the show is revealing Martin's plot and when it is telling a different story. As a corollary, when readers finally receive Martin's sixth and seventh novels, they may be discomfited by literary narratives contradicting the screen version. This reversed chronology of print to screen destabilizes categories of original and adaptation. Yes, the next three seasons of Game of Thrones will still spring from Martin's fictional world, but when the series becomes first to portray developments beyond the books' chronology, when its narrative unfolds in dialogue not with a prior text but only with fan speculation, labeling it an adaptation will seem wrong. What if Martin revises his plot under the influence of the show? (Will anyone know that he has not?) Which then becomes original, and which adaptation? The conceptual binary is inadequate. Similarly disrupted by the particularities of Game of Thrones is the notion of canon, the designation of certain texts as authentic at the expense of others. The term dates to the early Christians, who felt the need to legitimate the real gospel created by the right people under divine guidance, as opposed to apocryphal spin-offs. Our current idea of canonicity derives from this sense of a unified and godlike authority. Its 20th-century paradigm is perhaps the case of Sherlock Holmes: when Arthur Conan Doyle, tired of churning out detective stories, killed off the beloved sleuth in 1893, readers filled the void with fan fiction and biographies, even after Conan Doyle bowed to pressure and resuscitated -- and copyrighted -- the character in 1903. The preponderance of Sherlockiana was termed non-canonical by the literary industry, despite much fan dissent. It is an example that highlights canonicity's deference to the powers of the creator, authorial intention combined with intellectual property law and the marketplace. In recent years, the deployment of canonicity has resurged as technology has exponentially expanded the dissemination of texts. It is especially present in the context of science-fiction and fantasy, genres that are set in fictional realms, worlds subsequently used in adaptations and continuations, whether licensed (such as recent novels depicting Isaac Aasimov's Foundation world, or commercial video games, role-playing games, etc., based on film and book franchises) or unlicensed (fan fiction, costumed play). The idea of canon helps those who care maintain clear divisions between what really happened in that universe, according to its creator(s), and what is some loser's version of what could have happened. Of course, there are disturbances in the force: the Star Wars films re-edited and revised by creator George Lucas in the 1990s have been anointed by their creator as canon. But so many enthusiasts publicly denounce Lucas's rewriting of specific moments -- such as when Han Solo is fired upon by Greedo first, and only then shoots back -- that the significance of canon diminishes. Lucas's reaction has been to make the revisions the only versions commercially available and claim that the original reels are ruined. The canon, it turns out, is auteur theory beholden to intellectual property rights and to estates covering their assets, but may be challenged by audiences voting with their mouse-clicks and wallets. Game of Thrones makes all this clearer, even as it offers the possibility of a less monolithic sense of canon. It may be, years from now, that the novels will be seen as canon, that audiences will instinctively defer to Martin's vision. But Martin himself, by inviting the show creators to deviate from his plot, has opened up the possibility that two versions can exist on equal terms. Then, as now, more people will have seen the series, and seen it first, than will have read the books. Someday it may be considered as canonical as the second of the two Adam and Eve stories in the Old Testament.
Screening Room
| 10 books mentioned 4 5 min read
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15 comments:

  1. I am more curious than ever to watch this show now that I have read Sarah’s comments. Thank you for your insightful take on this series.

  2. Pingback: Essay on The Millions: Reptilian Humanoids! « sarahmccoy.wordpress.com

  3. One vital aspect of the original miniseries: Kenneth Johnson had read WAR AND PEACE before starting work on the script, and the alien component came later. In other words, Johnson had always planned grand things to say about the human condition (and he would later go on to produce the ALIEN NATION television series with similar success). So for Peters, Hall, and Bell to declare their vile remake merely “a show about spaceships” says more about their chicanery, their lower artistic ambitions, and their capitulation to market forces. You also have to remember that in the 1980s, it was still possible to sneak subversive subtext into genre television. But it was becoming less possible, as Harlan Ellison learned with his infamous “Knackles” script for the 1980s Twilight Zone series. At least you didn’t have producers outright denying their artistic intentions the way they do today — whether it’s the V bunch outright denying their reactionary agenda or the LOST producers claiming that they always had a grand masterplan.

  4. One more thing (while I’m on the subject). Sam Egan, one of the writers for the 1990s OUTER LIMITS series, has worked on the V remake. (Curiously enough, he also worked for Kenneth Johnson during THE INCREDIBLE HULK.) He wrote some of the best episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS, including “Tribunal,” which dealt with Auschwitz., often embedding his scripts with interesting moral questions. That a writer of his talent hasn’t been permitted the same degree of latitude with the V remake says much about how genre television has drastically changed in the past twenty years.

  5. I get the subtext, the subversiveness, and the scaly satire. What I can’t get past is the bad acting and even more dreadful dialogue.

    That being said, my wife and I religiously TiVo “V,” unable to resist the embedded subliminal messages to “Watch or Die.”

    We don’t however, sit on the couch and give each other lizard licks.

  6. I’m with David on this one. My husband and I watch it weekly–we even started watching it with friends lately. But that’s only because we’ve started to play a V drinking game along with it: drink when Tyler gets HUGZ, drink when someone talks to a marble, drink when there’s obvious CGI (clearly, we drink a lot!). The concept is great, but the execution is just resoundingly terrible, and the science fiction conceits are very poorly thought out. As a fan of Kenneth Johnson, I’m afraid, very afraid, for what’s coming with the Alien Nation reboot.

  7. Holy wow do I ever have an issue with how this new twisted V has caused you to have a majoy lapse in terminology. This may be a very small point but it is one Kenneth Johnson has loudly defended. It’s in this sentence:

    “when Diana (the V leader) expanded her jaw”

    The V leader? Good lord, V never ever was used in the ridiculous way the new series uses it! Are you assuming your readers have bought into the ridiculous notion that these aliens were called the “V”s in the original? It’s a term MANY old time fans (and many new comers from what I read all over the web) still finds sounds absolutely laughable! (oh and I could go on and on and on about how they’ve completely twisted his story into a senseless pile of…)

    They were the Visitors in the original, plain and simple without a species name. V always and always has stood for Victory- as in the “V” that was flashed throughout the world for Victory during the second world war, which was what V originally was an allegory for!

    You do Kenneth Johnson’s brilliant V a huge disservice by applying this nonsense when describing his V.

    It’s a quibble I agree but it strikes at the very heart of why many, many see this new V as a piece of garbage (and I’m not even talking about the horrible plotting, acting, 2-dimensional characterizations and shockingly bad green-screen effects!).

    On this one, I stand firmly behind KJ and his attempts to bring his V back to the big-screen.

    Sorry for the little rant but I’m such a huge fan of KJ and his V that it breaks my heart seeing what they’ve done to his amazingly dark, adult and complex vision!

  8. also… “This may be exactly why V has seen such popularity with the 2010 audience” ummm where did this come from? It’s on the verge of being canceled with consistently under-performing ratings. How does that translate into being popularity with the audience?

    If ONLY what the producers squawk about constantly in articles (and as quoted above) actually showed up onscreen! They go on and on about social commentary this and WTF moments that but it’s all ends with cardboard characters, painfully obvious cliffhangers and “just HOW many times can we fit v-daughter into her underwear in an episode” moments!

    Hopefully by next Tuesday it’ll all be over with it’s cancellation and maybe, just maybe some intelligent sci-fi can take it’s place.

  9. Thank you to everyone for your comments! I knew this topic would illicit some impassioned responses.

    Lady by the Lake, I’m happy you enjoyed reading!

    Edward, Great information. Thanks for adding to the dialogue!

    David, Glad to hear you and your wife don’t lizard lick. I imagine it’s a good way to get a wretched hairball.

    Phoebe, Hilarious! I may have to give your game a shot.

    Christopher, You are a true V aficionado! The 2010 series has obviously not stood up to your expectations. So it is with many remakes of 80s classics. (I hear they are remaking The Karate Kid and I balk!) Actually, V did well enough in its January 2010 premiere to solidify a March comeback. And, yes, while longtime fans might despise it, V has captured the attention of a new generation, applying many of the fundamental issues of Sinclair Lewis’s novel to today’s society. As bad as the show may be in some opinions, it is stirring emotions, thoughts and perhaps even action, which is never a bad thing.

    I hate to point this out, but I see a pattern in sci-fi TV history. Shatner was criticized as ridiculous; Star Trek was panned and canceled after only three seasons. They ran it in syndication through the 70s and now look at it. I’m not saying V will have the same good fortune, but you can’t discount that it has an audience that for one reason or another simply can’t turn it off.

    It’s great to hear so many people’s opinions. Keep them coming!

  10. And, yes, while longtime fans might despise it, V has captured the attention of a new generation, applying many of the fundamental issues of Sinclair Lewis’s novel to today’s society.

    Sarah . . . really? Where are you seeing/hearing this? I’m genuinely curious (and as a Trekkie and a huge SF fan generally, I don’t think you can accuse me of anti-SF bias!), as even my 20-something, LOST loving peers seem to view V with either complete disinterest or derision. I mean . . . action?! What action has it inspired?

  11. Shatner was criticized as ridiculous; Star Trek was panned and canceled after only three seasons. They ran it in syndication through the 70s and now look at it. I’m not saying V will have the same good fortune, but you can’t discount that it has an audience that for one reason or another simply can’t turn it off.

    First off, Roddenberry, for all of his faults (and there were many), was careful to hire Grade-A talent to write the scripts (Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, just to name a few) in the first season. And it was the WRITING that caused Star Trek to endure. Just as it was the WRITING that causes the original V to be remembered s fondly in this thread. Just as it is the BAD WRITING that causes the V remake to be roundly ridiculed and not particularly likely to find some future syndicated gold.

    As Ring Lardner once pointed out, it is the writing that matters first and foremost THAT is the pattern to study. And it is the basis for all the complaints in this thread.

  12. Phoebe, Maybe I hang around too many sci-fi lovers bantering about the show. When I say “action” I’m referencing this very moment if nothing else. The fact that people are willing and wanting to fervently discuss, defend and/or criticize the series. That fans and anti-fans are looking past the cartoonish CGIs to the message–to the writing! As Edward so wonderfully pointed out.

    Edward, Bravo! I wholeheartedly agree. As I wrote in the essay, the original V rose above the average because of its underpinning–the excellent script inspired by Lewis. I’m no fortune-teller. I can’t foresee how history will remember the revamped series. What I can say is that it’s caused a ripple, however small. It’s been controversial and brought the original series with all its inspirations back into the momentary spotlight. I can’t help but be excited by that.

    Note: I’m somewhat playing the devil’s advocate. I’m interested in hearing all sides–lovers and haters. So THANK YOU for your thoughtful comments. Nothing beats a witty parley with intelligent readers!

  13. But Sarah, regardless of what history will remember about this series, you’ve yet to say anything about what makes the series compelling or interesting beyond its concept (which, of course, is a retread, and thus you’ve got to wonder why you’re not just recommending that we watch the original on DVD or something). I don’t mean to come poop in your blog entry or anything, but it seems like you’re being a bit obtuse about the show’s very obvious flaws, instead choosing to talk in broad strokes and platitudes about history repeating itself and people “taking action.” I mean . . . do you find the characters interesting and believable? The writing well-thought out and well-developed? The concepts firm, the science fiction conceits effective?

    I hang out with sciffy folks, too (proofread for the mag Strange Horizons, for one), and I’ve yet to hear any banter about it, impassioned or not; in fact, this, and the equally baffling, but at least more explicitly explained, fairly positive recaps over at tor.com (which frequently get a resounding lack of comments) by Mur Lafferty are pretty much the only positive reception I’ve seen of the show by SF fans. I can’t help but shake my head, mostly in disbelief.

  14. I think Phoebe nailed it. To praise the new V series without citing specific examples why it is so compelling (which I would likewise be curious to hear), while simultaneously suggesting that it will be a big hit in years to come is a very disingenuous position, regardless of your amicable intentions. The “controversy” you purport to identify here has less to do with something vanguard or revolutionary (such as Ralph Bakshi’s films, PINK FLAMINGOS, Bret Easton Ellis’s AMERICAN PSYCHO, Lars van Trier’s films, et al.), but more to do with derivative writing or pedestrian filmmaking that props up a facile reactionary viewpoint that the very producers don’t possess the guts to address. So explain yourself, Sarah. Why is the V remake the best thing since sliced bread? Where is the vital “social reminder” that these new folks have cooked up? Is there any indication that they’ve even read Sinclair Lewis?

    “Revolutionary” art doesn’t reinforce the artistic status quo. It advances the form with a fresh take. It need not even be left-wing. (TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and THE BIRTH OF A NATION are both revolutionary films, even if the intent is reactionary.) But there’s no such advancement of the form with the V remake, despite its second season renewal. Nor, I would argue, is there much in the way of a “social reminder” other than the entrails taken from the original. Rather than err on the side of caution, as you have in this essay, I’m wondering why you can’t just tell it like it is.

  15. Folks…
    Let’s not get too haughty with our exhaustive critiques of a sci-fi, pop culture resurgence. Apparently the slouches at salon.com don’t castigate the retreaded “V’s” as such an abomination ( http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/v/index.html?story=/ent/tv/feature/2010/05/18/v_original_vs_remake_open2010 ). So let’s call a spade and spade and not seek the panacea to moral turpitude in a prime time show about reptillian world domintation.

    Thoughtful piece, Sarah, and a nice throwback to my youth.

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Screening Room

All That’s Missing is the “Screenplay”

Screening Room
January 23, 2007 | 10 books mentioned 2 min read
With the announcement this morning of the Academy Award nominations, I looked to see which films were nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. None of the nominees are all that shocking. The contenders for Best Picture are all up for awards in their respective screenplay categories (which means Supreme Hack Paul Haggis is nominated once again. Terrific.)The most interesting nomination by far is for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, not so much because it is a comedy (after all, Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy), and not because it is offensive (frankly, so was last year's Best Picture winner). What's compelling to me about this particular nod is that, well, there was no script for Borat. According to the filmmakers, there was an outline, but then they let Borat loose and filmed what happened. Almost everything in the film is improvised. As Slate points out, we can't blame the Academy for this one, as the Writers' Guild actually nominated Borat for Best Adapted Screenplay and United 93, Paul Greengrass' brilliant portrayal of the doomed 9/11 flight, for Best Original Screenplay. Why would the Writers' Guild nominate two films that don't have scripts? It has something to do with "America's Next Top Model":It might seem that members of a writers guild would recoil from screenplay-free movies. But the guild is trying to expand its jurisdiction to reality shows. The production companies say those shows have no writers but the guild counters that those who shape the stories are in fact writers and deserve to be compensated as such. So, perhaps Fox should demand that Cohen withdraw Borat from consideration. Accepting a writing award for a film that is made for "an age in which reality and entertainment have become increasingly intertwined" might suggest that the guild's argument has merit after all.All of this further calls into question the Academy's division of the screenplay category into only two parts. It seems obvious that the Academy believes original scripts are a slightly different animal from those adapted from an existing source, but do they feel that something like Borat is really comparable to more traditional literary adaptations like Children of Men and Little Children (It was a good year for films with "Children" in the title)? I'm not sure there's an easy answer. With the immense financial success of heavily improvised films like Borat, United 93, and the Jackass movies, it seems we will be seeing more of this style of narrative. Can the Academy adapt?
Screening Room
| 10 books mentioned 2 min read
Screening Room

Think of Bread in General: On Making Books Into Movies

Screening Room
January 29, 2013 | 10 books mentioned 12 7 min read
1. When Christopher Tolkien recently broke a 40-year public silence in Le Monde, he did not have kind words for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: “They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25, and it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.” Tolkien snubbed an invitation to meet with Jackson, and, as his father’s literary executor, he has sworn not to allow adaptations of material over which he has control (like The Silmarillion). Had it been his choice, Jackson’s blockbusters would likely never have been produced, and certainly not in their present form. But it wasn’t his choice. In 1969, United Artists made a prescient purchase from the elder Tolkien: £100,000 for full rights to movies and derived products for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And that was that. The result, according to Christopher Tolkien, was nothing less than disastrous: “[J.R.R.] Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing.” Admirers of Jackson’s work may find such comments a touch melodramatic, if not downright inaccurate. Salman Rushdie, for instance, appears to favor the films over the originals: “Jackson’s cinematic style, sweeping, lyrical, by turns intimate and epic, is greatly preferable to Tolkien’s prose style, which veers alarmingly between windbaggery, archness, pomposity, and achieves something like humanity, and ordinary English, only in the parts about hobbits.” Then again, there's A.O. Scott on The Hobbit: “Tolkien's inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle.” Taste is a difficult thing to arbitrate, making debates like these fun but virtually irresolvable. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the participants all share a common assumption, which often remains unexamined. Rushdie puts it simply: “Everyone accepts that stories and movies are different things.” Indeed. But how, exactly? Is one a higher art form than the other? More illuminating? More demanding? Does one strengthen children’s brains while the other is more likely to rot them? Perhaps it would be best to leave pronouncements of relative quality to the critics, and instead take this opportunity to reflect on the objective differences between books and movies. 2. There is no better place to start than with J.R.R. Tolkien himself, who analyzes precisely this issue in his essay “On Fairy Stories,” which appears in Tree and Leaf. Concerned about the potentially deleterious effect of illustrating fantasy, he devotes a long footnote to the difference between “true literature” and all art (including drama and the “cinematograph”) that offers a visible presentation: Literature works from mind to mind and is thus more progenitive. It is at once more universal and more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas; yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination. Should the story say “he ate bread,” the dramatic producer or painter can only show “a piece of bread” according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own. If a story says “he climbed a hill and saw a river in the valley below,” the illustrator may catch, or nearly catch, his own vision of such a scene; but every hearer of the words will have his own picture, and it will be made out of all the hills and rivers and dales he has ever seen, but especially out of The Hill, The River, The Valley which were for him the first embodiment of the word. This is strong language from a man whose color illustration of The-Hill-at-Hobbiton served as the frontispiece for most early editions of The Hobbit. Was Tolkien ruining his own book, forcing impressionable readers to accept his picture, denying them the opportunity to exercise their imaginative capacities? The idea that books leave more room for the imagination is a commonplace, and this quality is usually understood as a virtue. Books, even trashy ones, require some effort from the reader, while movies allow for unadulterated passivity and laziness. Tolkien’s so-called “dramatic producer” does the work for you, making the artwork easy and less personal. Yet the notion that movies are by nature limiting needs to be nuanced. Sure, there are no visuals in an unillustrated book. But it is not therefore true, as Jen Doll asserts at The Atlantic Wire, that books are simply “a compelling descriptive outline,” which you can “play your own way, seeing the characters and their motivations exactly as you like.” One virtue of books is that authors can reveal characters’ inner motivations in great detail — a virtue that limits the readers’ ability to speculate about those motivations. (Proust’s Narrator isn’t exactly up for grabs in In Search of Lost Time.)  Another virtue of books is their length — which allows authors to narrate scenes that in films must be left to the readers’ imagination. And while we’re on the subject, what’s intrinsically great about freedom? If we push Tolkien’s logic a little bit further, authors do readers a disservice whenever they narrow the scope of imaginative possibilities. James Joyce turns me into a passive lump of receptivity when he describes his protagonist, Gabriel, in “The Dead”: He was a stout, tallish young man. The high color of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead, where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes. Better: “He was a young man.” Now my imagination can run wild! Similarly, dramaturges would be doing us a disservice by putting on plays, directors would be cheating us by bringing screenplays to life, and chefs would be destroying the pure literature of recipes by specifying both appearance and flavor. One rarely hears complaints about vividly detailed descriptions as such. Nor do people assert that “adaptations” of screenplays into movies or plays into stage productions somehow reduce aesthetic and philosophical impact. The upshot of all this is that exercising the imagination, whatever that means, is not always best, and books aren’t necessarily better at doing it than movies. (Which is a great relief to me, since I don’t want to feel bad about passively populating Roald Dahl’s entire universe with Quentin Blake’s fantastic illustrations.) 3. Even the most die-hard critics of cinematic adaptation have their own favorite exceptions. I love Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest so much that I don’t want to risk ruining it by reading Kesey’s book. And so, if we accept that books aren’t formally superior to movies and adaptations aren’t necessarily ruinous, a new question arises: what is it about the process of adapting a book that so often leads to disappointment? Part of the answer is that Tolkien is wrong: when we read about bread, we don’t just think of bread in general. Our minds fashion a specific image of the bread upon first encountering it, and then that image stays with us, in all its specificity, as we continue reading. The Elvish bread known as lembas does not change form each time it appears in Tolkien’s ouevre: my mind decided what lembas looked like when I first read the word, and it supplies that initial vision whenever I read it again. These fixed images then compete with the fixed images provided by a director, and the power of first impressions is difficult to overcome. For that reason, even skillful novelizations of good movies (like Alan Dean Foster’s Star Wars novels) can feel like they miss the mark. Attachment to original experience is a powerful force. Another problem is that adaptations are usually inspired by masterpieces. Richard Brody puts it well: “A director is likely to stumble when taking on the work of a writer who is a greater artist. Many directors of moderate merit do well in capturing their own experience or that of others... but when they lay hold of works of genius, they simply aren’t up to the material and reveal not the vastness of the author’s imagination but the limits of their own.” Asymmetry of ability favors the more talented artist, regardless of form. That’s why Orson Scott Card’s novelization of The Abyss is better than Cameron’s original. Arthur C. Clarke + Stanley Kubrick = Great. Arthur C. Clarke + Pretty Much Anyone Else = Doubtful. That said, there is one quality of films that makes them susceptible to being lousy. They are expensive. Studios must ensure the profitability of their product, and when it comes to good art, the customer — or the product placement sponsor — is not always right. Limiting artists with the demands of consumers often hampers the creative process and product. (In a similar vein, the limitations on filmmakers imposed by MPAA ratings are nicely documented in This Film is Not Yet Rated.) In this sense, Christopher Tolkien is right to bemoan commercialization. The upcoming adaptation of Candyland from board game to film will undoubtedly fail to do justice to the original. Why? Well, I don’t think I’m remiss in suggesting that Hasbro Studios, the force behind films like Battleship, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Candyland, might be less concerned with good art than with profit. The same principle explains the frequency of bad film sequels (a phenomenon that is substantially less common with books). The recent explosion of extraordinary graphic novels is evidence that bias against a particular art form is likely unjustified. (A comic book? scoffs my mother when I recommend Chris Ware’s Building Stories.) Contra Tolkien, “true literature” is not inherently more progenitive. Great art of any kind can work from mind to mind. And, in the end, it is not books but great art that is sacrosanct, and it is great art that is threatened by adaptation. That’s why the goons at Hasbro would do well to heed Brody’s cautionary words before reducing the aesthetic and philosophical impact of Eleanor Abbott’s Candyland: “Those of us who are standing on the shoulders of giants shouldn’t try to wrestle with them; only giants can wrestle with giants, and adaptation, if it’s any good, is no mere mark of respect but an active and dangerous contention, an assertion and self-assertion that is as brave and as daring as it is potentially catastrophic.”
Screening Room
| 10 books mentioned 12 7 min read
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Screening Room

How Joe Wright Got Anna Right, and the Critics Got It Wrong

Screening Room
February 8, 2013 | 10 books mentioned 7 6 min read
I’ve read Anna Karenina countless times, published articles, and dedicated two chapters in my book Understanding Tolstoy to the novel. So it is particularly exciting for me when an adaptation comes along that allows me to see the novel in a fresh light and even stirs me to tears over moments I thought I knew by heart. That happened to me a number of times while watching Joe Wright’s 2012 adaptation of the work. Which is why I was disappointed when the movie was nominated for Oscars in what amounts to the consolation prize categories, the ones having to do more with the style than the  substance of the film: Cinematography, music (original score), costume design, and production design. But then, I’m not surprised. Most criticisms of the movie have focused on the idea that it’s long on style, short on depth. Robert Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times writes, “This is a sumptuous film -- extravagantly staged and photographed, perhaps too much so for its own good.” “Visually stunning, emotionally overwrought, beautifully acted, but not quite right,” claims Betsy Sharky of The Los Angeles Times.  And yet, I would argue, that it is precisely by means of its stylistic prowess that Wright’s film captures the deeper truths about Tolstoy’s novel as successfully as any other adaptation I’ve seen. One of the most controversial aspects of the movie is the filming of the whole thing in a dilapidated theater. In making “the radical artistic choice to tell the story as if it were being enacted by players on a stage,” writes Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly.com, “Wright falls passionately in love with his own fanciful artifices.” Maybe, but he also gets at one of the novel’s central ideas: that this is a spectacle society concerned more about show than substance, with tragic consequences. Two thirds of the way through the novel Anna goes to the opera. By this point, she’s deep into her affair with the juicy cavalry officer Vronsky and has left her husband Karenin, who refuses to give her a divorce, making it impossible for Anna to remarry legitimately. A woman without social standing, Anna is the talk of the town, and, apparently, the main attraction at the opera that night. A woman sitting in the box next to her makes a scene after the woman’s husband exchanges a few polite words with Anna. Here’s what Wright does with that moment: A hush comes over the theater and all eyes turn from the stage to Anna, illuminated by a spotlight as she sits there in her light-colored gown of silk and velvet with a low-cut neck, in her glittering necklace, with expensive lace in her gorgeous, black hair -- and utterly humiliated. That shot says it all: There sits the real diva of the night, the grand dame of Petersburg high society whose titillating story of adultery, self-destruction, and pariahdom those leering theater-goers thoroughly enjoy from behind their lorgnettes. That they, too, may be complicit in Anna’s sad tale is a possibility none of them bothers to consider. But if Wright doesn’t demonize Anna, nor does he glamorize her, as is so often the case with filmmakers and readers alike. When Tolstoy first started working on the novel, he envisioned Anna as a kind of empty tramp, but the more he wrote, the more sympathetic he became to her plight. Still, at no point does he absolve her of moral responsibility for her own decisions, as some readers are too apt to do. Anna is a tragic figure, not merely because she is an emotionally deprived woman in a loveless marriage surrounded by empty hypocrites. She is also a victim of her own her romantic illusions, of making, in Tolstoy’s words, “the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires.” By giving herself over to the fantasy of complete liberation, Anna becomes a slave to her passions, a star in a tragic story partly of her own design. She is a stark illustration of  Tolstoy’s belief that one of the central problems of modern social life isn’t just that we’re all playing roles on a stage, but that those roles often end up playing -- and destroying -- us. Wright (and Stoppard) might have made a safer bet by focusing exclusively on the sexy Anna-Vronsky plot, as other movies have done, but they instinctively understood this to be counter to Tolstoy’s intention. Anna and her tragic story reflect the truth that broken families, ungrounded passions, and human isolation are central to the modern experience. It is against these realities that the autobiographical rural landowner Levin, with his questing spirit and commitment to higher ideals, must fight. He belongs to a minority in his time -- as he would in ours, which is why his story is vitally important today. Levin strives for meaning that neither the social artifice, the reductive scientific world view, the moral relativism, nor the pseudo-religiosity of his era can provide. Dostoevsky called him one of those “Russian people who must have the truth, the truth alone, without the lies we unthinkingly accept.” The director’s choice to film the Levin scenes at his estate in the countryside in a realistic as opposed to a stage setting is actually quite brilliant in communicating the impression Tolstoy gives in the novel that Levin is one of the few characters in his world who is connected to something real and authentic. Then there’s Karenin, whom Wright correctly senses is a lot more like Levin than most readers ever suspect, at least when it comes to his uncompromising belief in ideals and principles. Wright doesn’t reduce him to the mean-spirited, rational machine so many filmmakers have made him out to be. Karenin is a deeply principled man who is simply incapable of accessing or expressing his emotions. But they’re there, all right, and Jude Law makes us feel them. When Karenin is sitting alone at the front of the stage before the dimming flood lights, having just learned that Anna is pregnant with Vronsky’s child, he turns slightly towards his wife (and the viewers) and says, “Tell me what I did to deserve this.” That heartbreaking moment reveals all the depth of his confusion. Like everybody else in Tolstoy’s novel, he has been thrust into a tragic situation beyond his capacity to understand. Do I think this is a perfect movie? No. Keira Knightley is a little too young-looking and too thin for Tolstoy’s voluptuous, 28 year-old Anna. The movie could have made the connection between Anna’s and Levin’s storylines even more explicit, as Tolstoy does when he has the two meet near the end. There are moments here and there where the acting doesn’t quite ring true, as in that scene when Vronsky reacts to the news that Anna is pregnant with his child. And maybe the British tabloids had a point when they wondered why Wright decided to turn the dark-haired Vronsky into a blond. But to criticize is easy. To create is hard. And Wright has shown himself to be every inch the creator, not on the level of Tolstoy, of course, but certainly on the same emotional and philosophical wave length. A literary adaptation, in my view, shouldn’t be an imitation, but an interpretation. And a good interpretation, as any literature teacher or literary critic knows, is one that doesn’t cover a book, but uncovers it. For me, Wright’s film did that. The power of this movie isn’t merely in the fact that the director has willfully re-shaped Tolstoy’s classic according to his own bold, wacky conceit, but that in his very stylistic quirkiness he has actually brought us surprisingly close to the philosophical vision of the original work. For that even the most dedicated Tolstoy aficionados can be grateful. The Academy should have looked a little bit deeper.
Screening Room
| 10 books mentioned 7 6 min read
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