[PREV - THE_ILIAD_AND_THE_PROTESTANT] [TOP]
IDIOTS_LAMENT
May 10, 2022
There's a puzzle (for me) concerning my own
responses to stories-- writer's often have the IDIOT_PLOT |
characters on stage behaving insanely stupidly, and
sometimes I just nod and let it go, but other times
I find it outrageously offensive, if leaves me
fuming and ranting-- are the writer's idiots? Do they
think this is even halfway reasonable or plausible?
Do they think I'm stupid enough to think so? Are
they just lazy and contemptuous of the audience?
Some of it has to do with whether they've
succeeded in raising my expectations to
expect something better--
Sometimes, e.g. with movies, the anger is
outrage that they've wasted the resources
invested in the project.
In the kdrama series "Mrs Cop" from 2015,
there are some things to like about it-- KDRAMA
the female lead can act, she's well cast
to the part and in the first few episodes
they do some well put together chase
scenes on foot (almost always preferred to the
dreaded car chase), and the location scouts
have done a good on these--
One setting in particular I thought was
pretty interesting: a park along the banks of This one sent me to
a stream, with an elevated roadway over it-- google maps and
streetview-- route
But to get this chase scene to happen, number 66 in the
the police had to repeatedly behave like north/central region of
complete fools, challenging the bad guy seoul has a park under
verbally from thirty feet away, giving it much *like* this,
him opportunities to break and run-- though I couldn't find
rather than, say, creep up behind him an anything that looked
throw him to the ground and get him in like the cross streets
cuffs before he has a chance to react. featured in the show.
Holding a gun on a dangerous
suspect who's resisted arrest
a few times already-- the lone
cop creeps up to him intending
to cuff him with his left hand.
American style would be more
like: "Lie down on the ground!", In general, this show conforms to
(when not just "shoot first"). the standard for copaganda-- which
could be an identifiable sub-genre
of it's own. Our brave heroes do
their best to find and subdue
My reactions: the first few dangerous, violent criminals while
times they did things like this following the rules, but they're
I was yelling at the screen, but tripped up because the crooks have
after that I treated it as just *rights* damn it! And their bosses
more of the same-- though I are always playing politics and
eventually gave up on the show getting in the way.
out of boredom-- typically these
things shoot their budget in the Though actually, in Kdrama,
first few episodes, then the boss is typically
afterwards they stall corrupt and in bed with the
shamelessly while the writer is worst of the bad guys.
scrambling to find enough
material to fill all the That's a difference from
episodes without bringing the the American variety of
overall arc to a conclusion too copaganda, I think.
soon. Then there's also the
need to supply appropriate
"cliffhangers" without actually
letting anything much really
happen-- this is too much of a
challenge for most of them.
In comparison, while watching the
show "Sketch" I kept finding rage
reading to bubble over at any time
because of the near complete
inability of anyone in the show to do
anything that makes any sense. I was
on edge the entire time, ready to
throw something at the screen at any
moment.
In comparison, my reactions
The premise of "Sketch" is more when watching and old
creative: a female cop has an odd Republic serial, like the
talent, she goes into a fugue state Shadow vs "The Black Tiger"
where she draws prophetic sketches that are nothing like this--
her team then has to try to make sense these are famously cheap
of over the next few days; and the and trashy, where the
acting talent is even stronger than various bits of incoherent
"Mrs Cop", and the visual look of the craziness and shameless
show is more impressive... raising the faked close calls just
bar like this evidently left me in a register as cute.
constant state of frustration because
they couldn't do the intelligent A typical cliffhanger in
writing they would need to live up to that series has the
the potential. Shadow trapped in an
exploding building where
they show the roof caving
in on him-- and in the
next episode we find that
he's escaped harm through
sheer luck, he stands up
and dusts himself off and
staggers away.
This isn't even up to the
standards of pulp writing.
CHANCES_ARE
In thinking about these shows of late,
I repeatedly come back to:
"While You Were Sleeping" (2017)
This is one where several people gradually realize
that they're having prophetic dreams about each
other, warning them about upcoming dangers.
In the early stages, they have to use reasoning like
"She's wearing the same outfit as in my dream, maybe
it's going to happen today."
Then, they *react intelligently* to this strange
situation, and adopt a policy to deal with it: if
you're in trouble, recite the date and time and your
location-- they begin *trying* to send messages into
the past, with enough information that their cohort
can plan to save them from the problem.
They may not sound like much, but they at least
engage in some second-level reasoning, looking a
move ahead.
And not incidently, this sets up some
interesting scenes where they use this trick--
After all, generating scenes is what they
*really* care about in these things, which is
probably why they think it's fine to hit us
with a parade of idiots. Whatever it takes to
generate some dramatics, forced if need be...
Between the willingness to ignore problems and
"just go with it" and the actual prevalence of
idiocy in the audience, there may not be much
incentive for them to do much better.
But then, there *are* award winning shows like
"Stranger" that are remarkable because nearly
everyone intelligently through out the story.
--------
[NEXT - DREAM_OF_RENEWAL]