The Humans Are Dead
Jul. 17th, 2009 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meddowI'm sure I'm not the only one out there a little miffed that the show had ended and the are no more chances and neither BSG, Mary McDonnell nor Bear McCreary ever once got a nomination for an Emmy (for Best Drama Series, Best Actress and Best Composition respectively). There's a whole bunch of other awards BSG's missed out on nominations for over the years, but those are the three most glaring. Saying that, I wonder what the Emmys and it's anti-sci-fi stance will make of Caprica. I've watched the pilot and if I had to make it into an equation, it would be (Mad Men + The Sopranos + Rome + Gossip Girl) x (Blade Runner + Frankenstein). So it's almost half Emmy bait, half Emmy poison.
On the other hand, yay about Flight of the Conchords getting a bit of love!
Torchwood has left me wanting to write a brief thing about darkness in story telling and 'dark' premises for stories and why I like them. So here I go. I don't like the term 'dark' namely because it the way it's banded about in fandom it implies that something with a 'dark' ending is not realistic, in that it's purposely hyper-depressive. I think that's because dark fic is a genre of fanfic in which the writer often does make it deliberately and ofter unrealistically depressing for misery's sake. Whereas – and maybe this is a result of my outlook on humanity – I tend to find entertainment labeled 'dark' to be just more realistic than usual entertainment. People hurt others, people die and bad things sometimes happen to good people, and good things sometimes happen to bad people. That for me is what the world is like, and when that happens in something I'm watching or reading, I just see it as a reflection of life.
I fully understand why people don't want realistic in their entertainment and particularly the entertainment that doubles as their fandom, since often it acts as an escape. But I often find dark programmes more uplifting, because at the same time, while I don't like the term, the term 'dark' does conjures up an image which explains why I do like 'dark' things (i.e., it's metaphor time!). If you light a candle in a room with the lights on, the light given by the flame is lost and unnoticed. If you light a candle in a room in a dark room, you notice the light given off by the flame. I like 'dark' things because it places the good things - heroic actions, love, happiness, quiet moments, etc - in greater relief making them feel more important, more uplifting and be more appreciated.
On the other hand, yay about Flight of the Conchords getting a bit of love!
Torchwood has left me wanting to write a brief thing about darkness in story telling and 'dark' premises for stories and why I like them. So here I go. I don't like the term 'dark' namely because it the way it's banded about in fandom it implies that something with a 'dark' ending is not realistic, in that it's purposely hyper-depressive. I think that's because dark fic is a genre of fanfic in which the writer often does make it deliberately and ofter unrealistically depressing for misery's sake. Whereas – and maybe this is a result of my outlook on humanity – I tend to find entertainment labeled 'dark' to be just more realistic than usual entertainment. People hurt others, people die and bad things sometimes happen to good people, and good things sometimes happen to bad people. That for me is what the world is like, and when that happens in something I'm watching or reading, I just see it as a reflection of life.
I fully understand why people don't want realistic in their entertainment and particularly the entertainment that doubles as their fandom, since often it acts as an escape. But I often find dark programmes more uplifting, because at the same time, while I don't like the term, the term 'dark' does conjures up an image which explains why I do like 'dark' things (i.e., it's metaphor time!). If you light a candle in a room with the lights on, the light given by the flame is lost and unnoticed. If you light a candle in a room in a dark room, you notice the light given off by the flame. I like 'dark' things because it places the good things - heroic actions, love, happiness, quiet moments, etc - in greater relief making them feel more important, more uplifting and be more appreciated.
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Date: 2009-07-17 06:37 pm (UTC)Doctor Who fandom in particular is somewhere where I came and discovered that people REALLY DON'T LIKE "DARK" STORIES. And in reaction, I've seen many rationalize about the ways in which a dark story is wrong and should've happened differently instead of just saying it isn't their thing.
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Date: 2009-07-17 09:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've seen discussions about lately arguing in the context of Torchwood that a story with an unhappy ending has just as much right to exist as one with a happy ending, when really, that should have to be argued at all. Of course stories with an unhappy ending have a right to exist and be told.
And, I really don't get it when people argue that Doctor Who should not be 'dark'. It's not particularly graphically violent, but it's always had plenty of death and destruction, and while the threat is defeated and the Doctor and Companion(s) are usually left standing, the endings are rarely happy (which is why Nine's cry of 'just this once, everybody lives!' means so much).