| Why I never discuss politics . . . |
[Sep. 10th, 2004|06:24 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: Religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin." -Linus Van Pelt, Peanuts
Yeah, my current mood is "sick" (as I'm not feeling well today), but this is so annoying that I should've just changed it to "enraged."
Politics are stupid. I know a lot of knuckleheads who use politics for personal or political gain, especially to push people around. Especially in fandom. (You know who you are.)
Personally, I don't care for either Bush or Kerry (eh, maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger if he ever gets elected; Better to have a tough action star than a couple of bickering wimps). Bush is totally unremarkable, and Kerry is just being a schizophrenic creep. I don't care who ultimately gets elected. But you know what? Those two guys are the least of my problems, even now . . .
Just recently, James D. Hudnall, one of my favorite comic-book writers, got criticized in a Las Vegas City Life article for being a "war-blogger." To add insult to injury, this is how he is portrayed on the cover (and, of course, he looks nothing like that).
This is just because of his recent criticisms of Kerry in his blog. Thus, they think he's pro-Bush and is conservative. But here's what they fail to realize: Hud doesn't care for Bush either, much less conservatives! In fact, his family comes from a long line of Democrats (his father is a Democrat), and he's a US Air Force veteran (he enlisted after the Vietnam War was over) who hated being in the service because he became a victim to the same idiots who use their power to put others down (the thing he liked about his time in the service was his visiting England, where he always wanted to go). Hud doesn't care for politics, as he's a free-thinker, and not a war-blogger (a war-blogger is someone who devotes his entire blog to the War on Terror). In fact, this whole presidential race sickens him to no end. So he can't help it if he even posts about things that annoy him. He can post about whatever he feels like. He's allowed to tell right from wrong.
The same article criticizes another Las Vegas blogger, Darmon C. Thornton, who is a black conservative/libertarian. He's no war-blogger either, but he stands out, as he is criticized by the writer for being conservative, just because he is black. This is what annoys me about some liberals. A lot of these creeps think that we should be seperated in some way, be it race, color, culture, etc. (And this kind of coddling is supposed to be "special treatment" for minorities!) They're acting just like the conservatives they criticize! It's just so damn patronizing and it's creeping the hell out of me!
Next thing you know, Marc Hideo Miyake (Amritas) will be criticized for hating Kerry just because he's "Asian American!" I can't blame him for how he feels about this whole thing!
In relation with politics and tokusatsu fandom, in the newsgroup alt.tv.sentai, there was a report that Toho's cool recent superhero show, Super Star God Gransazer (2003), is being picked up by Lion Gate Entertainment to compete with Power Rangers (hacked from Toei's Sentai Series since 1992's Zyuranger), but that's all the details we heard. Already, there are some speculating that it may be Americanized like PR (I'll only use initials from now on; Saying the full title is like saying a curse word on this blog), and what insulted me was that some people are cool with it! I mean, they're "thinking realistically," because a Japanese TV show can never have a following in America. Yet anime is allowed to!? That's a double-standard if I saw one. Which is why I hate some anime fans (especially the ones who berate tokusatsu with extreme prejudice, as if tokusatsu was something to be ashamed of; Then again, without some tokusatsu shows, they wouldn't even be having some of their favorite anime series, like Yoshiki Takaya's Bio-Booster Armor Guyver, which was inspired by Shoutarou Ishinomori's revolutionary Kamen [Masked] Rider; Even the Megaman video game series had Ishinomori influence). Americans are falling behind the rest of the world, where tokusatsu movies & shows (as well as anime) are phenomenal, and that bothers me. But a small handful of brand-new (and sucky) anime shows are OK with them, because they think this is representative of Japanese pop culture as a whole.
It's like taking a small handful of Jelly Belly jelly beans from a HUGE BARREL of Jelly Belly jelly beans.
This is what one person (ShadowForce) said:
I only watched one episode, if even that much, of UT. I just remembered what most people thought about it, and figured I'd use it as a worst-case-scenario example of dubbed-Japanese productions. Look at Pokemon, Digimon, etc.: They're full of one-liners, especially Digimon. Sailor Moon was not only dubbed, but edited in addition to that. (Some later edits between syndication and USA include the removal of Lita's "I'm gonna blow this broad all the way back to the Negaverse" line in the episode "Too Many Girlfriends," for example.)
I'm just saying that, if it's dubbed, expect the worst, but hope for the best. If it's given the PR treatment, it can't be any worse than any of the Saban spinoff live-action series, or, at an extreme, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills.
To which, I responded:
Sorry, but I'm not hoping for the latter at all. It's totally underhanded and it must stop. I mean, how would anime fans like it if some company purchased some popular super-robot anime, kept all footage with the robots/costumed characters, and added new, poorly animated footage with ethnically diverse, politically correct main characters that look like fugitives from Captain Planet and the Planeteers? Hey, at least they won't have angular-shaped heads, cookie-cutter hair or big Bambi-eyes! :)
FYI, there were things I liked and *didn't* like about 4Kids' Ultraman Tiga dub. But guess what? Despite its shortcomings, it was still my favorite show on TV! I don't care if they have one-liners, but even dubbing can be handled tastefully. But come on! Kids in America watched Space Giants, Ultraman, Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot and Spectreman (the latter had some well-handled one-liners in the English dub) and had no problem, until a wussy anti-Japanese American public that flinches at violent programs tried to ruin everything and patronize its audience. That's the impression I get from PR and its ilk.
Considering that Jet Li's Hero just became a box-office blockbuster last weekend, America can handle Asian heroes. And back in the good ol' days, kids in the Bronx (myself included; I'm a Bronx native) always used to watch HK chop-socky movies every Saturday afternoon (mostly on WNYW Channel 5's Drive-In Theater), and my friends and I chatted about them during recess at school! I don't need assholes patronizing me and telling me what to watch based on race or what not. And you don't either. Nobody does.
It's like saying that all Godzilla movies have to have Raymond Burr in them to be good.
I'm at least hoping that Gransazer is dubbed (and dubbed well!), whether its edited or not. Better to have a dubbed, edited show like in the old days than some half-assed version with poor new footage that detracts from the original.
I feel like I'm the smartest guy in the world . . . :(
Another reason I refuse to talk about politics is because even though my big brother ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) wolfchylde hates politics, he understandably has different views with me on Kerry (he hates Bush). I respect that, and I love him too much to want to argue with him over stuff like this, so I best not bring it up.
Let this be (hopefully) my only post on politics in this blog.
Until next time, enjoy those Jelly Belly jelly beans! |
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