GRandall

By the time I reached my teenage years I made it a rule to ALWAYS read a book before going to see the movie adaptation (e.g. Hunger Games and Fault in Our Stars). The problem with a lot of adaptations is the tendency to emphasise what they want to emphasise in the source materials- usually action and romance. Hence we get something like the hunger games movies, where the actual message of rising against the rich and empowered by the poor, by people of colour, by disabled people, gets completely lost in the Capitol-themed makeup kits and the people who are too lost in the question of which boy Katniss will fill out the baby boomer dream of making pretty little babies with to remember that in the books she was a WOC, she and Peeta were both physically disabled and traumatised- Rue is reduced to a footnote- all the things that apply to our current world and Actual Real Problems (i.e. the things that made the books relevant and good). I can live with awkward script, or if they give a plot role to a different character to move things along. It’s when the actual themes and ideas of the material is lost for marketability or to make the film ‘more interesting’ that I leave the theatre bitter.

Callout culture definitely has its problems- as a tumblr user i’ve more than once seen people I know accused of things they didn’t do, or hounded for simple mistakes. It CAN go wrong- but the fact that actual wrongdoers and bigots try to use those mistakes to cover themselves up or even justify themselves makes my gorge rise. We as humans need to be smarter and kinder to each other than we are, and we can’t get lost in labels of who’s ‘allowed’ to speak up if they’ve been assaulted based on gender, or whether or not they live up to some standard of masculinity, or because we want to believe some actor we like when they say, ‘oh, it was just a game’, ‘I was just flirting’, ‘you’re taking it too seriously’, ‘they’re lying to bring me down’.

The only downside to being an artist with cats is how often my shorthair Paul will see a paintbrush in use and think, ‘Ah! Perfect to rub my face all over!’ and shove the brush halfway across the canvas. Outside of that, the line ‘…the working studio can be isolating and a cat brings life to that space, while still providing artists alone time to thrive,’ is exactly right. I can’t let in my dogs while I work, because they need to be watched to make sure they’re not getting into trouble, nor am I able to much done around human non-artists. Cats (other than Paul, a deeply weird specimen who I adore) have the perfect balance of affection and desire for personal space that lets them keep you company without smothering you or being overly distracting. But if I take a break every now and again to scratch under Paul’s neck when I should be meeting deadlines, that’s between me and him.