Category: Uncategorized

General Theory of Media Incompetence

For a very long time I have held what might be termed the Special Theory of Media Incompetence, which is: The mainstream newsmedia is spectacularly incompetent when reporting stories concerning religion, morality, etc.

It's hard to read a story about one of these subjects in the mainstream media without cringing at the problems with it.

For example, consider the following four-sentence story from the Associated Press that appeared yesterday:

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama says human cloning is "dangerous, profoundly wrong" and has no place in society.

Obama made the comments as he was signing an executive order that will allow federal spending on embryonic stem cell research.

Some critics say the research can lead to human cloning. Obama said the government will develop strict guidelines for the research because misuse or abuse is unacceptable.

He said he would ensure that the government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction [SOURCE].

First, there is the second sentence (green quote) flat-out factual error that the new executive order "will allow federal spending on embryonic stem cell research."

WRONG!

President Bush's previous executive order already allowed the spending of tax-payers' money on ESCR. 

What is new is that President Obama's executive order will allow the spending of tax-payers' money on the fresh killing of new babies, as opposed to researching cell lines derived from embryos that had already been killed in the past.

So this is just ignorant reporting by a mainstream media hack.

It would also be easy to be distracted by the reported claim (blue quote) that the president believes human cloning to be "dangerous" and "profoundingly wrong" and ask, "Why on earth would he believe that? If you're willing to munch up babies to get at their stem cells–or even just because they're inconvenient to their mothers–if you're willing to treat human life so cavalierly in the interests of science and expediency–then on what possible ground do you view human cloning as wrong?

Surely such language would be simply that of political expediency rather than an actual moral conviction.

But let's look closer at what actually is being said here.

Is the president really say that he views human cloning as dangerous and profoundly wrong, as the first sentence of the story indicates?

If he did, it would seem there is a significant caveat, because the fourth sentence (red quote) speaks of him restricting the practice of reproductive human cloning (i.e., allowing a cloned human to surv
ive to maturity instead of being killed while still at a gestational stage).

Any way you look at this story, there is a problem.

If the president only said he opposes reproductive cloning but was just fine with human cloning for purposes of experimenting on the unborn then the reporter is at fault for not making this clear. His lede made it sound like the president was opposed to all cloning, and that's not the case.

Also, if the president was explicit in his support of research cloning then the reporter is doubly at fault for making it sound as if the the president is opposed to all cloning when in fact he was explicit about supporting some cloning.

Perhaps the reporter doesn't understand the difference between these two uses of human cloning, or perhaps the reporter was biased, or perhaps both.

Any way you go, I don't know–from the story–what the president actually said or didn't say or what his position on all this actually is (not from the story, mind you).

(I also have no clue why, if the president thinks that it's okay to make babies in petri dishes and that it's okay to genetically screen the ones allowed to come to term–as I assume from other sources that he does–then on what moral grounds would he judge it immoral, the technical problems having been worked out, to use artificial means to produce a genetic twin of an adult and thus deny him the younger twin brother he always wanted to have–but that's another issue.)

So here we have a clear case of mainstream media incompetency dealing with something in the religion/morals area, so . . . a piece of confirmation for the Special Theory of Media Incompetency that I've held for a very long time.

But in recent years, the more I've watched the media work and the more I've been interviewed by it, I've developed a sequel to the Special Theory of Media Incompetence.

I call it the General Theory of Media Incompetence.

It is as follows: The mainstream news media is spectacularly incompetent at reporting stories on virtually any subject.

I just happen to particularly notice its incompetence on the religion/morality ones, because that's my area of expertise.

(Note that I sayd "virtually" any subject. I'm prepared to say that there may be a few exceptions like sports scores or the current average of the sock market–simple, quantifiable things.The kind of thing a chimpanzee could report on by simply looking at a number on a screen and typing that same number a keyboard.)

Addendum: More on adaptation

SDG here with a follow-up to my post below on what makes a good adaptation. In the combox a reader writes:

Personally, I think the idea of valuing faithfulness in “adapting” a work from one medium to another to be wholly without merit. The source a work is based off of is irrelevant to the quality of the work itself. A film based off a book should be judged by how good of a film it is, in and of itself, and not how well it “adapts” the book. A work stands on its own merit, regardless of how it reflects and works that may have inspired it.

I agree with pretty much everything here except for the first sentence (and even there I would caveat rather than completely disagree).

I agree with judging a film on the merits, irrespective of the source material. That’s why I can give positive reviews to adaptations from Neil Jordan’s The End of the Affair to Andrew Adamson’s Prince Caspian even though they all but obliterate the intended meaning of the original works.

At the same time, separately, there is a legitimate critical act that evaluates a work as an adaptation. Art is all about making choices, and the choices the artist makes in regard to following or not following source material are as relevant to the aesthetic endeavor as any other choices he makes.

Look at it this way. If you write an original screenplay about a young man contemplating revenge, and you give him a speech pondering his situation, it would be unfair and ridiculous for a critic to write, “This speech pales by comparison to Hamlet’s soliloquy, so what was the filmmaker thinking?”

On the other hand, if you are actually staging Hamlet, and you choose to dispense with Hamlet’s soliloquy — or, worse, to replace it with an inferior quasi-Elizabethan composition of your own — at that point the critic is well and truly justified in asking “What was he thinking?” Because that was a creative choice.

I’m not going to ding you as a filmmaker for failing to be as brilliant as Shakespeare in an original production. But in an adaptation, your choice to use or not use what Shakespeare did, or to replace something original with something new, is fair game for criticism.

That’s not to say that “fidelity” is “good” and “liberty” is “bad.” Not every original work is Shakespeare, for one thing, and even in Shakespeare not everything that makes a good play necessarily makes a good film.

Either fidelity or liberty can be helpful or unhelpful to the new work of art that is the film. My point is simply this: If you change something, you should have a reason; and if you don’t change something, you should have a reason. Whichever choice you make should at least arguably make the adaptation a better work of art than the contrary choice would.

That’s why I say that a good adaptation is not necessarily a faithful one or an innovative one, only one that doesn’t diminish the better you know the source material. If the more I know the source material, the less I think of your adaptation, then you made poor choices as an adapter, even if the work still holds up on its own.

And, again, it’s not just source material per se, but any relevant context. Citing Ebert again, if you set out to tell a Japanese story that I enjoy less and less the more I actually know about Japan, then you have made poor choices.

That’s not to say a story set in a given culture must always be realistic, i.e., “faithful” to reality. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn’t a realistic portrait of the China of any period, but it doesn’t necessarily diminish the more you know about China. Ang Lee made choices in departing from the reality of historical China — but they were choices that may be felt to serve the story rather than to diminish it.

Make sense?

What is a good adaptation?

SDG here with thoughts on a question that, as a film critic, I’ve been thinking about for years: How should a film based on some preexisting work — a novel, a play, a comic book or even a previous film — be judged?

Does it matter at all if a film is an adaptation? Should a film, whether an original work or an adaptation, simply be judged for what it is? Or is there a sense in which it ought to be measured by the original? If there is, what makes an adapted film a good adaptation or a bad one?

Fans of the work being adapted often have a simple answer: A good adaptation is faithful to the original. This answer is too simple, I think. For one thing, what constitutes “fidelity”? Does fidelity mean following the original exactly, or are departures allowed? What sort of departures?

If the author himself revises his own work, is he necessarily being “unfaithful” to the original? (Consider how obsessively Tolkien rewrote and rewrote the history of Middle-earth.) Or is he often rather trying to extend or develop the vision informing his work, perhaps eliminating inconsistencies that arose as the work developed, or realizing more successfully the possiblities of the premise?

I don’t deny the possibility that such revisions, even by the artist himself, may wind up harming the revised work. But they don’t always — and the very fact that we distinguish between revisions that enhance the work and those that harm it suggests that mechanical “fidelity” to the existing work is not the key.

Can fidelity be a matter of the spirit of a work rather than the letter? Is it possible to make distinctions between additions or changes that are in keeping with the essential spirit of a work and those that mar or disfigure that spirit?

If so, is it possible in principle that another artist, adapting another man’s work, can find ways of revising that work that honor the spirit of the original — possibly even ways that the original artist might approve of, even wish he had thought of himself?

But what if the original artist’s vision is limited, problematic or flawed? What if the adapter doesn’t want to be limited to the spirit of the original — if he wants to improve, go beyond or even potentially critique it? (For example, a filmmaker adapting an older work with racist or sexist elements may deliberately subvert those elements in his film.) This seems legitimate in principle.

So here are my current thoughts on the ethics (or aesthetics) of adaptation.

Strictly speaking, fidelity by itself is neither here nor there with regard to the artistic merit of an adaptation. Whether a film is good or bad, and whether or to what extent it takes liberties from source material, are two separate questions permitting all kinds of possible combinations.

However, in addition to judging a film in itself, it is also possible to judge it as an adaptation — but the most relevant standard is not simply “fidelity” — either to the letter or to the spirit. Here is how I like to think of it: A good adaptation is one for which, the better you know the source material, the more you are capable of appreciating the film.

This has an applicability beyond adaptations per se. Roger Ebert wrote in his (excellent) review of Memoirs of a Geisha that the less you know about Japan, the more you will like the film. I don’t like movies like that — that work best to the extent that the viewer is ignorant of (or unconcerned about) relevant context, be it history, culture or source material.

To the extent that the source material is any good, the adaptation should honor the spirit of the source. To the extent that the source is limited or flawed, the adaptation may transcend, subvert or critique it. Either way, the better one knows the source material, with its good and bad points, the better one should appreciate the filmmakers’s achievement in adaptation.

A good adaptation thus presupposes real understanding of the source material on the part of the filmmakers, for good and bad. Departures great and small can be legitimate, but they should be thoughtful departures. They can honor or subvert the original, but they must interact with it, not just ignore it. If not, they are not worth doing as adaptations. You might as well change the names and call it something else.

The one thing I have little patience for is the sort of “adaptation” that shows little or no interest in or comprehension of the material upon which it is supposedly based. Case in point: The 2004 film King Arthur, which interacts in no very significant way either with Arthurian romance or Arthurian history. It’s just a remake of the director’s earlier Tears of the Sun, dressed up in 5th-century British gear. Why did they think that was more interesting than a thousand years and more of Arthurian legend and scholarship?

So that’s where I am. Any other thoughts?

Decent Films doings, 3/6/2009

SDG here with a quick Decent Films update.

This morning I posted my full review of Watchmen, opening today in theaters.

I also got up three more new reviews today, which is almost unheard of for me — but they’re also the first reviews I’ve posted in nearly a month, what with my trip and other stuff I’ve had going on.

Two of the new reviews are for recent Disney DVD releases. The must-get: Pinocchio, celebrating its 70th anniversary (a year early!) with a Blu-ray release — and even if you don’t have a Blu-ray player yet, it comes with a bonus standard DVD version of the film, so get the Blu-ray anyway!

The not-so-much, celebrating its 20th anniversary a little late: Oliver & Company, possibly the nadir of the post-Walt malaise before the Disney renaissance began with The Little Mermaid. (Another possible contender for nadir: The Black Cauldron.)

Rounding out my four reviews of the day, one I’ve been promising for awhile: Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. Not a must-see by any means, but at least Luhrmann’s trying.

Another post soon.

I have a chapter in a book!

Just received my author’s copies of the first book in which I am
published (not counting being quoted by another writer).

I have
contributed a chapter to Het betoverde land achter het filmdoek: Een christelijke blik op film en fantasy. As you can see, it’s in Dutch, which some of you may know is the language of my forebears (well, some of them).

My
chapter is called “Harry Potter versus Gandalf: het gebruik van magie
in fantasyfilms” (vertaling Bert Cusveller, the book’s redactie). As, again, some of you may recognize, it’s an abridgement of my essay “Harry Potter vs. Gandalf,” subtitled “An in-depth analysis of the literary use of magic in the works of J. K. Rowling, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis.”

If you read Dutch, you can order the book here. Otherwise, well, you’re as out of luck as I am. Despite my Dutch ancestry, I don’t speak or read a word of the language (well, maybe a cognate here and there). (I have occasionally been contacted by Greydanuses in the Netherlands. Our family tree is very well documented back to the first Greydanus in the 1600s, so it’s never hard to figure out how we’re related.)

I have been published in other languages before, but only online. As I mentioned in a recent combox, I have a fan in Slovakia who has translated a number of my reviews into Slovak. (According to Alexa.com, Slovakia is the #5 country of origin for Decent Films readers.)

I’m also a contributor to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, but my article, “Film, The Church and,” hasn’t yet appeared in print (it might be available online; I’m not sure).

Well, that’s all I have to say about that.

Soups Re-Redux

In the combox down yonder, a reader writes:

"The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat."

The phrase "use of meat" includes soups made from meat (no matter how you slice it). By adding "use of" they included both meat chunks on a plate, in a soup, soup that "used" a meat bone, broth, and probably smoking meat under a potato to try to imbibe the flavor into it. They thus clarified by eliminate superfluous language.

Either way, you can go without the flavor of steak for a day.

I appreciate the reader's attention to detail, but this is an artifact of the translation into English. The translator (whoever it may have been) is using an uncommon English idiom to translate what is more straightforward in the Latin, which is:

III. ยง 1. Abstinentiae lex vetat carne vesci, non autem ovis, lacticiniis et quibuslibet condimentis etiam ex adipe animalium. [SOURCE]

NOTE: I've corrected a typo in the Latin passage just given. The word "vesci" is incorrectly given in the source document as "vesei" (not a real word in Latin), no doubt due to a scanning error that didn't get caught.

Here is the parallel passage from the 1917 Code of Canon Law:

Can. 1250. Abstinentiae lex vetat carne iureque ex carne vesci, non autem ovis, lacticiniis et quibuslibet condimentis etiam ex adipe animalium. [SOURCE]

As you can see, the fundamental structure of the phrase is the same:

Abstinentiae lex vetat carne . . . vesci

The law of abstinence forbids (one) to feed . . . on meat.

The infinitive "vesci" means "to feed/eat/enjoy." It doesn't carry the same thought that the English translator's employment of "the use of" does. That's just a stilted translation.

"Vesci" is also exactly the same word that appeared in the prior law (the 1917 Code), notwithstanding the scanner error.

What has changed is that the phrase "iureque ex carne" ("and soup from meat") has been dropped.

Hence the previous answer stands: The new law repeated the previous law except for the soup phrase in what it prohibited. Thus "soup from meat" is no longer forbidden.


Good try, though! Thanks for paying attention to detail!

Welcome to Lent

Between my father's recent death and my own recent battle with a cold, I haven't posted much (thanks to Tim J and SGD, who have!), but with today being the beginning of Lent, it's appropriate for me to put up the posts relating to the Annual Lent Fight (which hasn't been so much of a fight in recent years, since we've been rigorously documenting claims regarding Lent from the official canonical and liturgical sources).

Here goes:

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Scary

What do you tell kids when they wake up in the middle of the night with a nightmare? Especially if they prayed not to have one and did anyway?

My new review of Coraline, opening today in theaters, opens (rather unconventionally) with one way I’ve tried to deal with that question.

The question “What is the point of nightmares?” seems to me related to the question “What is the point of scary stories?” Why are many fairy tales scary, and why do we tell them to our children? Why do many people like scary movies?

Jimmy has touched on this question before, in posts on imagination and imaginative play. (Any other posts I should link to here? Let me know.)

My Decent Films essay on horror, the grostesque and the macabre goes more into it, as does my review of The Wizard of Oz. (I’ve previously linked to some other relevant pieces here, notably an essay on Terence Fisher).

A number of creepy films I admire are animated: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and Monster House. (Much as I love Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., I wish they had taken the figure of the monster in imagination more seriously and tried to suss out what monster psychology would really be like, the way they did so brilliantly with Toys in Toy Story and Toy Story 2.)

Today, add Coraline to that list.