The Tinder Box (This Fantastic Week!)

Subscribe via: RSS EMAIL

Categorized | Latest

Tags : Battlestar Galactica, Halloween, haunted houses, The Tinder Box

The Tinder Box (This Fantastic Week!)

Posted on 29 October 2009 by Brent Hartinger, Editor

Back again for another highly opinionated — some might even say downright cranky — look at the week in fantasy. You’ve been warned!

THIS IS HALLOWEEN, THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

If it wasn’t clear from all our Halloween coverage this week, I’m a real fan of the holiday.

And if it wasn’t clear from my article on how to make the “perfect” haunted house, I’m a real fan of haunted houses too.

In fact, I’m reminded of the very confounding dilemma I had every year as a kid on Halloween: do I want to create and control an elaborate Halloween display for the trick-or-treaters who come to my house, or do I want to go out trick-or-treating myself?

Experience the joy and satisfaction of creativity and self-expression — or eat candy?

It’s a dilemma I still find myself wrestling with today as editor of TheTorchOnline.com: Do I want to interview Lucy Lawless or Craig Horner or Anthony Stewart Head or Lynda Carter? Or do I want to eat candy?

The ideal solution? Eat candy while editing TheTorchOnline.com! Which I do.

THE WORST HALLOWEEN CANDY

Speaking of Halloween candy, does anyone really like Kit Kats? Or Heath bars?

Here are my choices for the very worst Halloween candy:

Raisins. Seriously? What do you not understand about the word “candy”?!
Wax anything.
Candy corn. Tastes as waxy as wax lips.
Dum dums. Honestly, how cheap can you be?
Chick-o-sticks. I don’t think anyone ever ate these. I think they’re putting us on.
Milk Duds. Impossible to eat without losing a filling.
Dots. See “Milk Duds.” Plus, they have no taste.

All this said, I’ve noticed my candy tastes are changing over the years. I used to say, “Don’t waste my valuable candy real estate on nuts or peanuts!” But the older I get, the more I realize that, hey, peanuts are pretty good in chocolate.

Which doesn’t mean that the inside of a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup doesn’t still taste like dog vomit to me.

THE “FEMINIZATION” OF SCI-FI, OH, MY!

Earlier this week, I linked to a horse’s ass upset that science fiction, which he terms “a very male form of fiction,” is becoming more inclusive:

There is an undeclared war on real science fiction on TV and in movies. The former Sci-Fi channel, now “Syfy,” is a good example of what has been happening to science fiction on television. In 1998 Bonnie Hammer took over the Sci-Fi channel and declared that “more female viewers were needed.” Over the next several years, the Sci-Fi channel became increasingly feminized, losing many of its traditional male viewers in an attempt to go after female viewers….The re-imagined re-delusioned Battlestar Galactica is a good example….While the original series had its problems, it was standard science fiction with men doing and accomplishing things. The new series instead had a lot of relationship drama and whiny men who were generally unable to find their way out of a wet paper bag.

Later, he goes on:

This season three gay characters will be added to various shows on “Syfy”, one of which will be part of a “communal marriage” with “heterosexual and homosexual couplings.” This will mean less programming where men actually get things done and more relationship drama, which will inevitably drive even more men away from the channel.

For the record, I still think this might be parody. But if it’s not, it goes way beyond sci-fi. It’s part of this infuriatingly stupid attitude that the world has somehow been “invaded” by women, racial minorities, and gay people, to the exclusion of white men.

News flash: women, racial minorities, and gays have always existed. They just weren’t allowed to fully participate in society until very recently. White men did control everything, but not because they were doing it better: it’s because they wrote the rules and refused to play fair!

Affirmative action, indeed.

But the greater picture is that full participation by minorities isn’t just good for minorities; it’s good for everyone! At the very, very least, it makes for better, more interesting, more realistic, much more sophisticated science fiction!

(Incidentally, anyone who thinks that the horrible, hackneyed Star Wars knock-off that was the original Battlestar Galactica is better than the sublime remake … well, wow, I’m not sure how to respond to that. That person is either (a) completely blinded by irrational prejudice, or (b) experiencing a different reality than the one I’m living in.)

The thing is, I hate to pit “white men” against “everyone else,” even rhetorically, because I absolutely believe that most white men can see that all these social changes are far and away a good thing. It’s only idiots like Glenn Beck and this writer who think otherwise.

And they sense that their sad, tired way of looking at the world is quickly ebbing away, which is why they’re so angry.

THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX

This upcoming week is all about V, the remake of the 80s mini-series and series. I’ve seen the pilot, and I’ll have a full review on Monday. But suffice to say: I loved it.

And we also have Sam and Dean getting stuck in TV hell in “Changing Channels,” this Thursday’s episode of Supernatural, in which the Trickster sends them into an alternate universe where they’re characters in various TV shows. This show does like their “gimmick” episodes, doesn’t it? But you know what? For the most part, they work.

THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE

Opening in theaters this weekend, perfectly appropriate for Halloween weekend, is The House of the Devil, which is getting great reviews. Here’s the trailer:

Still playing in theaters is The Vampire’s Assistant and Where the Wild Things Are, both of which I hated (I couldn’t help but notice that Wild Things’ box office is down 56% from last week, as word-of-mouth gets out about how self-indulgent and over-rated it is).

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?!

Similar Posts:

Tim O'Leary, Associate Editor says:

October 30, 2009 at 12:18 AM

Ahem.

I love Kit-kats.

Seriously. Break me off a piece of that Kit-kat bar.

‘Cause I’ll eat it.

Reply
- Brent Hartinger, Editor says:
  
  October 30, 2009 at 12:19 AM
  
  This is what I mean by “valuable candy real estate.” I want CHOCOLATE in my chocolate — not crunchy, cracker-like sawdust.
  
  Reply
Ralph says:

October 30, 2009 at 2:45 AM

Tony Head ….please? Ripper is just itching to be interviewed!

Reply
R.E. Blakeslee says:

October 30, 2009 at 5:25 AM

Hey, I like Chick-o-sticks!

Reply
- Brent Hartinger, Editor says:
  
  October 30, 2009 at 10:24 AM
  
  I knew someone was going to say that…
  
  Reply
  - James H. says:
    
    October 30, 2009 at 4:36 PM
    
    I used to eat chick-o-sticks when I was a kid, but not since I was about eight. If you look at the comments on the horse’s ass post, I don’t think he was joking around. They’re either mental or too much up Ayn Rand’s Objectivist rear.
    
    Reply
Rob Hansen says:

October 31, 2009 at 2:24 AM

Am I the only one who, on reading that nitwit going on about manly men accomplishing square-jawed manly things in sci-fi shows, immediately flashed to Futurama’s Zapp Brannigan?

I’m perfectly happy to watch sci-fi shows in the heroes are macho, gun-totin’ types, but my favourite TV sci-fi character has always been the mostly non-macho Doctor Who.

Reply
ihatelibs says:

December 2, 2009 at 12:16 AM

Hey Brent, I consider the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TO BE MUCH BETTER, than the politically correct, feminized version that you consider to be superior to the original. By the way, Dirk Benedict detests the feminized version also. I am not surprised that you sneer at people who don’t agree with you, because you are a LIBERAL. Yeah, you Libs profess to be tolerant, so long as people agree with you. Otherwise people of your ilk become condescending and downright nasty. Double Standard, Brent boy! If you don’t like what I have written, then you know what you can do about it: Cry on the shoulder of your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Reply