Topics: Sunni Ago

Happiness is a vampire manga by Shūzō Oshimi. While on the surface it is a supernatural story it delves quite readily into not just other genre conventions such as science fiction body horror and coming of age romance, but examinations on the very concept of humanity, the nature and purpose of suffering and if meaning can ever truly be garnered from horror.

The protagonist is spared from death on the whim, his friend and his friend’s lover, not to mention her family, are much less fortunate. The protagonist and his love interest are subjected to grotesque trials for 50 years only for them to escape and resolve to live apart from humans, which begs the question, both textually and metatexually, what was the purpose of this?

Analyze the variation versions of some of the mediums’ most popular characters and the narrative through lines (canon events) that define the character despite the other notable shifts between the character’s developments.

A good example of this is the contrast between Communist Superman in Red Son vs. Criminal Ultraman in Justice Lords vs. Tyrant Superman in Injustice vs. All-Star Superman va Mainline Superman.

What makes the character the character when a comic’s multiverse can extend infinitely? What traits define the character in relationship to their world and their readers?
What makes a Superman a Superman?
Strictly within DC of course, no pastiches such as Homelander and Omni-Man.
What is the distilled version of Superman and what does it mean when the character becomes alienated from that "ideal" ?

Superman is a hero routinely derided as one-note. A good boyscout who is always by the books. For this topic the writer should look into the myriad supermen.

Mainly focused on characters such as Man of Steel Superman, One Punch Man’s Saitama, and Watchman’s Dr. Manhattan.

Shared between these characters is a distinct sense of alienation. Not just from their friends but from the people they protect as "heroes"

Understanding the origins of each of their alienations and possibly comparing them to "evil" over powered characters such as Plutonian (Irredeemable), Homelander (The Boys) and Omni-Man (Invincible)

What elements make for a character’s alienation that wouldn’t lead into their collapse into villainy?

One of the most controversial endings in television is the ending of The Sopranos.

A jarring cut to blackness and silence.

Much can be speculated about the life that Tony has leading to a sudden and violent end vs. the contrasting position of a secularized hell. The core premise is, that Tony is in a constant state of death and undeath as he awaits the ending. The unending pain before it ends is as much of a torture as any demon could imagine putting him through.

The writer should probably include a synopsis of the plot of The Sopranos along with other interpretations of the ending.

Uncut Gems is a Netflix original film about a jeweler Howard Ratner played by Adam Sandler who makes a high-stakes bet that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime but simultaneously could end up in his death.

We see throughout the film, Howard takes numerous unnecessary risks as a gambling addict. In the end, even as he wins, he is murdered in cold blood. In a traditional story, this would be a sad ending, a tragedy.

But, viewing the film in the modern era, as a tale not about flying too close to the sun and instead about the greatest catharsis, an ultimate victory, and the immediate cessation of future suffering.

Howard if he continued living would have inevitably found himself in trouble, his addiction had led him to his death after all, but in the film during his greatest high, he is quickly and painlessly removed from any potential of that feeling to be lost by. He dies with his victory.

Is that not a happy ending?

Black Swan, the obsession with being the best at the cost of all else.

Tar and the abusive teacher

Whiplash, the synthesis of obsession and abuse leading to a sort of harmony.

The films concern the performing arts in their various forms, each taking a distinct POV. But all of them run a similar line of thought which is "But at what cost"

At what cost do we sacrifice our essential being to become, "a great" in Whiplash?

Consequently what price is too high for "perfection" in Tar, and who pays when the tab is due?

If we aren’t our accomplishments, who are we in Black Swan?

In a society driven by a consumptive need to be the best, how much is too much to attain it?

Batman as a character is one of numerous contradictions. He’s a normal human but a superhero. He’s a vigilante who fights crime. He’s a hero who fights in cruel often dark and unethical ways. Batman is often criticized for not taking more systemic solutions to the problems of crime within Gotham. This is not without merit as a billionaire with virtually limitless wealth when it comes to supplying his crusade of crime and punishment. But, at the same time, what actually can be done within the continuity of DC comics to counteract the criminal element in Gotham? He’s just as likely to fight a woman with the power to control every nearby plant as he is to fight a carjacker. Even if he was able to use his liquid funds to curb homelessness and food insecurity, he’d still have a killer clown shooting poison gas. How does one reform that?

At what point does the reality of comics diverge from the goal of realism many fans and writers desire?

Media literacy is the ability to understand and analyze works such as movies, television, books, and even video games. That said in recent years there’s been a notable lack of nuance in media discussions and even worse a rise in pushback against anything that challenges the audience’s comfort,
claims such as "All sex scenes are useless", "protagonists shouldn’t be bad/do immoral things" and "There should be a clear lesson in a story"

46% of American adults in a survey say that they didn’t learn media literacy in schools, which begs the question of why not? What consequences have arisen due to low media literacy and how can they be corrected going forward?

"The Idiot Plot, of course, is any plot that would be resolved in five minutes if everyone in the story were not an idiot."
— Roger Ebert in his review of Narrow Margin (1990)

The 2008 black comedy "Burn After Reading" by the Coen Brothers is a film of fools doing foolish things to disastrous consequences. Each character for the most part overestimates their own standing and refuses to see the world as it is, but is that ideologically driven, do these people within the story have ideologies? For a film that is based in D.C. and told from the perspective of a C.I.A operative it’s politics are remarkably scant, so then what drives each character to behave the way they do?

A comparison of characterization, compatibility, and narrative function of the Robins within the Batman and greater DC universe.

The writer has five potential options to choose from, Dick Grayson a.k.a Nightwing, Jason Todd a.k.a Red Hood, Tim Drake a.k.a Red Robin, Stephanie Brown a.k.a Spoiler, and Damien Wayne.

Each served as Robin for an extended period and all contrast Batman in their own ways. The writer can present a case for and against each of them both from the text and metatexually such as referring to sales or fan receptions.

Jack Horner and Death

Of the antagonists in The Last wish, these two stand head and shoulders above the rest. But between them who can be argued to be the "better" villain.

Horner is a throwback, an old school villain, evil at his core. Unrepentant and callous his simplicity lends itself to easily understanding why he’s a villain but, that same simplicity could be critique as lazy or unoriginal due to him always taking the worst most inhumane option.

Contrasting him is Death.
Death plays with Puss in Boots but is solely focused on him. It could be argued he is cruel and unfair but he’s literally death and that is his nature. Is his simplicity better than Horner’s due to him being more of a force of nature than an character.

What elements make each villain unique?

With the rising discontent with the MCU as seen on many social networking apps and film and television critics, a revisiting of the last truly dominant Genre of Westerns which held control of the box office landscape never before seen and only really eclipsed by the current superhero/comic adaptation market.

What in particular made the western so popular and what in specific lead to the box office death of the genre? What were the politics behind the genre, the economics, and actors both in a gamesmanship context and a performative context.

The slogan "art for art’s sake" arose in the 19th century with the core ethos being that art, true art is divorced, separated, alien from function, any and all functions.

But with this philosophy, there is room for critique, after all nothing is created in a bubble and artists are influenced by their society and as such so are their works.

Does art always have a message? Should it?

Many Marxist thinkers would argue art must have a meaning and purpose but even non-Marxists have levied criticism at this school of thought.

Is Art for Art’s sake a philosophy that is unfairly maligned? Is it a cynical defense from critique?

Analog Horror refers to the genre of horror created with the aesthetic of Analog technology, that is to say shot on video, "found footage".

Within the subgenre there exists quite a number of breakthrough hits such as "Backrooms" "Local 58" and "The Mandela Catalogue"

What draws people to this genre and what can be said about the genre tropes and themes? What is the appeal and is there a lesson that can be garnered from the creation of these works?

Bloodborne, the 2014 game from FromSoftware is a game ripe for exploration. One element worth delving into is the nature of femininity within the world.

The ways in which the player is force to confront the cruelty in which women and female coded NPCs are treated with regards to the game’s world. Elements such as the "blessings" of the old ones force the player to view the horror of a world where women are specifically targeted for cruelty.

The nature of the blood within the universe is also worth exploring with regards to origins of the blood and the people born of it.

The discourse surrounding sex scenes in media has risen again and this time to much more of a pushback.

Starting with the origins, who are the people criticising the existence of sex in media and what are their reasons?

From there, what are the arguments against limited sex in media?

What can come from this repetitive discourse and why does it seem to be such an enduring topic for discourse?

"The Death of the Author" is the title of an essay literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes.

The term itself has been argued to mean that the work should be judged wholly on its own merits despite problematic origins. But, was that the intent of the framework or is it a post hoc justification for supporting creators (and thus their creations) who would otherwise be maligned?

With regards to fandom, how much can be said to be justified under this framework and as consumers should there be a limit to where and how this framework is used as a defense?

"I Don’t Like ****, I Don’t Go Outside" is the sophomore album by Odd Future Alum, Earl Sweatshirt. Despite maintain a level of darkness in his tone and instrumentation, Earl is distinctly alien from his former self. Gone are the edgy shock-lyrics of cannibalism and murder, replaced instead by a vulnerable young man drowning in depression reliant on drugs and alcohol to keep himself going.

What is it to be a celebrity? A chosen one at that, to be the idol of millions of people you’ve never met while isolated from your friends and family. The album speaks to the thin veneer of happiness success can really be.

Earl was often a center piece of the fandom from the "FREE EARL" days and yet it doesn’t seem as though the freedom was very liberatory. The lack of hope and overwhelming sense of abject bleakness from Earl speaks to the hollow nature of what was gained by his fame and his regrets seem innumerable as each song on the album falls further in further into an inky blackness of despair.

That then begs the question, what does this album serve? Is it just a self-exploration or can there be some universal message garnered from the album? What can be said of Earl and his developments as an artist? What of the raised awareness about depression and how it can shape and distort a person’s view not just of themself but of the world around them.

Superheroes, are presented as by their nature disruptions to the "natural order" of the world. That is to say many are presented in worlds more or less analogous to that of the reader, either in the urban setting or something that perceivably realistic. But, this presents a disruption to the world they exist within.

Many heroes are, in some interpretations, read as virtual gods amongst men, invulnerable, nigh unstoppable, with only "benevolence" as the check against them dominating the world. How does a world function similarly to our own while also inhabited by a living god or gods?

Many exist only in reactive states, that is to say, many heroes and their stories are written to respond to "crime" or "disasters" but rarely are we presented with them proactively pushing for some sort of shift. How does this materially affect their world? How does a world of heroes and supervillains, one of constant impending doom have any sense of normality? How can that world even function?

Part of this can be blamed on the medium, crime being punished is an easier comic to sell than crime never happens, but that reinforces the idea of crime without interrogating the why of crime. The material conditions, not to mention the motivations of criminals within worlds of sentient nuclear weapons is rarely examined.

Returning to the core question, superheroes exist in worlds similar to our own, but how in fact is that possible? How is it that a world where Superman and Batman exist is virtually the same as a world where they don’t. How is the world of Marvel, with aliens and spirits, and devils, and sentient robots not dissimilar entirely to the world that exists today?

How do writers square the circle that is the "status quo" ? Status quo being read as a world that has enough parallels to the real world to be read as similar to our own. A sense of normalcy that can allow for the reader to feel connection with the world of the heroes. How can you reckon with the fact that the existence of these walking myths has little impact on their worlds?

The writer could interrogate the idea of the superhero as it compares to the prior age of myth, but the more challenging question would require some understanding of the main universes of some of the major comic book publishes and their distinctions and similarities from the real world along with speculation/analysis of why or even how those similarities exist.

Shooting the shaggy dog refers to a bleak ending at the end of a drawn out story. Doing so can create a sense of realism as seen in movies like Chinatown but can also create a sense of apathy in the audience if every turn makes the world worse and the the stories conclusion is just more of that.

For the writer, the Manga Gilgamesh is a pure example of shooting the shaggy dog. The plot is a world of darkness and depravity and the story’s conclusion leaves off with the question what was all of the suffering for? What was the purpose of the story if the ending doesn’t just drive home the point that the world is bad, but makes it clear that it can never be good?