From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V1 #54 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Thursday, November 29 2001 Volume 01 : Number 054 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Threadgill's ["H.J.J. Hewitt" ] [chakram-refugees] OS: D'Aquino on JAG ["Jackie M. Young" > and <> [Lilli Sprintz >, <> [IfeRae] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 23:52:29 -0600 From: "H.J.J. Hewitt" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Threadgill's If you wondered what Threadgill's looks like (or, are interested in research on artificial intelligence)-- AND if it's yet to (re)play on your local PBS channel, try "2001: Hal's Legacy". There's just a brief peek ... but the project featured is something I worked on at one time. TEXena ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 20:55:07 -1000 (HST) From: "Jackie M. Young" Subject: [chakram-refugees] OS: D'Aquino on JAG Just saw John D'Aquino (Mr. Plastic Ulysees) on CBS' JAG tonight. He played another Mr. Plastic Newsman reporting on a controversial JAG case involving a downed US plane in China. Just wonder if his "plastic" technique is *intentional* by now, or if he's actually hired because he does it so well? ;P *Strange* where XWP alums show up.....;) Just FYI, - --Jackie ****************************************************** * Proud to have the same birthday as Lucy Lawless! * * * * "I think New Zealand geographically comes from * * ... Hawai'i." --Lucy Lawless, Late Show, 4/9/96 * * * * JACKIE YOUNG, JYOUNG@LAVA.NET * * * ****************************************************** ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 15:54:57 -0600 From: Lilli Sprintz Subject: [chakram-refugees] X-Files and Violence: Spoilers <> and <> Spoilers for <> and small one <> Hi IfaRae please be advised that this is the last time I will post about this particular thread, unless someone brings it up again. I don't want Meredith to start pulling her hair out : ) >From: IfeRae@aol.com > > >First, there is one statement I must take extreme exception to -- that you >are not eloquent. > Thank you. I worry about my writing skills and causing havoc. There are reasons for me taking so long to get back to people sometimes : ) >You are among a handful of others I've read who obviously >love the complicated wonders of XWP, > Thank you. >The irony is that there are probably a lot of us who are turned off totally by most of the violence-for-violence-sake fare on TV >and in the movies, who watch only such programs which (in our eyes) have some redeeming quality > Yes, I have another friend who, despite her anti-war and anti-violence preferences, also watches Xena...perhaps for the same reason as I do: being powerful as a woman and seeing that acted out regularly on a commercial TV program. >I absolutely agree with your concerns about the prevalent focus on violence in both creative shows and newscasts. It's troubling that violence is often portrayed as not only "necessary," but as the "right" or "only" solution to a whole range of issues. > Right! Yes, however, perhaps one place where I might disagree with you, or at least believe there is another element involved, is that people ARE ANGRY. And, as someone who struggles with anger from my history, I know, I know that anger can make us watch things where we want to take out the same action of violence on people (specific or non-specific) as is shown in entertainment. Although I know it is not that simple. Or, at least, it is a way we deal with, or are attempting to deal with, feelings we are not able to acknowledge or deal with otherwise. Or given the power to. One other thing: not knowing if you are female or male, I have heard it said that the one emotion we "girls" are not allowed to have is anger, and it is, can be a source of power if we learn how to use it, in the right way of course...i.e, Xena. >what we believe in abstractly may be quite different from what we might do in actuality, when we believe ourselves or someone we love to be in danger. > Yes, but there are, I believe, reasons for that. Instead of talking metaphorically, I will refer to myself, which is the only territory I can be certain about. Really, I won't watch bloodshed too much because it reminds me of when I have seen it, either in media, in my own life, in the lives of others. When I do watch it, it feels like I am caught up in a tape player reminding me over and over again of what it is I watched, saw that was happening in real life with others, or experienced. I replay it over and over again in an effort to feel the feelings, face the grace or power or anguish of what it was that I saw. Remember, these are my own experiences. ...But what has happened recently similarly? When the attack on the trade towers happened here in the US., people started watching the replay of this over and over again. I got sick of it enough that I avoided watching it for several days, knowing how it would make me sick, angrier than I was already, and more numbed out and just Goddess scared for "s..t". When I realized I was still pulled to that, I made myself start to watch other things, like cable, accidently (thank goodness) finding a Robin Williams (A zany U.S. comedian) being interviewed on an audience program where I got to laugh for two hours. Then, several weeks or less later, the Red Cross advertising on TV began to advise people not to get caught up in watching, re-watching over and over again, the tragedy of Sept 11. They were thinking what I had already come to believe, that replaying scenes, if we are not allowed to play them out in safe ways (I scream, rage into and beat up my couch pillows at home...poor things, and I cry alot alot) then those scenes of terror just get re-watched without any relief. And that causes damage. When I have watched Xena over the years I have felt an empowerment, even when they talked about Killing, even when killing became the easy way out. The show was still talking about women, we, making decisions we are not allowed to make in most, or many parts of society in most or many parts of the world. That is hurtful. > If I keep coming back to specifics (in this case XWP, Lucy or the recent X-Files eps), it's because I simply don't feel equipped to deal with this subject in a meaningful way beyond that. > Yes, for most of my life I have felt that way. I still impair myself by believing I cannot make the decisions, to take the power back to affect others about this issue. >What I love about show-specific lists like this is that we all have the same context for exploring complicated subjects. > Yes, please bear with me while I make a show-specific analogy. We were watching, two years ago, a crucifiction scene involving Gabrielle and Xena. We "knew" it was going to happen. And we re-experienced it for a whole season watching it until it "actually" happened. How many of us watched it over and over again without getting angry that our heroes, Gabrielle and Xena, were going to get killed off. I was miffed by this. I had this feeling that our dear producers (whom I appreciate immensely for their clear thinking about making one, then two, women this powerful in media) were making changes from the first two seasons. Lots more violence and anguish. In the middle of all of this, a dramatic change took place. We were actually shown blood shed in a very graphic scene that was absolutely unncessary for the plot. In the Convert, at the beginning when the priests of a religious temple were killed off brutally by a warlord, there was blood running down something into something, slowly slowly played on. Made me sick. There was another scene soon after where Joxer got to kill his first person. They played out the knife/daggar in the heart scene over and over again for the gruesomeness of this. It is not necessary. >Like you, I grew up exposed to violence. I hated it and would never >intentionally provoke it, > But I do. Not that I want to. I know that the hatred inside me is old. > but I learned early on that I am not "wired" to "turn the other cheek" if confronted with it. > Neither am I. Like you, perhaps, I know I would have to defend to the death myself or others. But there are other ways. And like Gabrielle suggested in the Price, we just need to keep making the decision to try something else. The unnecessary programming into us of brutal violence may not be the way we get to think clearly about what we need to do. Thanks for discussing this! Lilli ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 23:46:48 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Violence: Spoilers <>, <> In a message dated 11/28/2001 3:59:56 PM Central Standard Time, spri0037@tc.umn.edu writes: > Hi IfaRae > > please be advised that this is the last time I will post about this > particular thread, unless someone brings it up again. I don't want > Meredith to start pulling her hair out : )>> I doubt Meredith would think violence is off topic. Perhaps it's when we get too far off XWP that she might pull her hair out. :-) > When I have watched Xena over the years I have felt an empowerment, even > when they talked about Killing, even when killing became the easy way > out. The show was still talking about women, we, making decisions we > are not allowed to make in most, or many parts of society in most or > many parts of the world. That is hurtful.>> Understood. > > > If I keep coming back to specifics (in this case XWP, Lucy or the recent X- > Files eps), it's because I simply don't feel equipped to deal with this > subject in a meaningful way beyond that. > > > Yes, for most of my life I have felt that way. I still impair myself by > believing I cannot make the decisions, to take the power back to affect > others about this issue.>> Sorry, I didn't mean I feel impaired or powerless to deal with violence or give my views on it. I meant I didn't feel I could do the topic justice by speaking of it too generally -- by trying to discuss it in terms of second-hand or extremely different experiences. XWP provides a common framework, even if each of us experiences it differently or comes away with different conclusions. We can at least debate or clarify what we believe we did or didn't see. I can't do well with world or someone else's very personal experiences that I know little about. I just have to take your word for it. Is that clearer? > Yes, please bear with me while I make a show-specific analogy. We were > watching, two years ago, a crucifiction scene involving Gabrielle and > Xena. We "knew" it was going to happen. And we re-experienced it for a > whole season watching it until it "actually" happened. How many of us > watched it over and over again without getting angry that our heroes, > Gabrielle and Xena, were going to get killed off. I was miffed by this. > I had this feeling that our dear producers (whom I appreciate immensely > for their clear thinking about making one, then two, women this powerful > in media) were making changes from the first two seasons. Lots more > violence and anguish.>> I'm probably going to prove your point here, because you're right -- I personally wasn't angry about any of that. I was nervous and intrigued, captivated. If I had any objections to the crucifixions, it was because I felt it brought too much religious "stuff" into an already mixed bag. On the other hand, there are people who see symbols of that exact violence and anguish in churches and cathedrals on a regular basis. Maybe all that is somehow one of RT's longstanding issyews, which plays out in his "art." (He certainly has a predilection for crosses.) That happens a lot in people's work, but I don't necessarily take the creator's issyews on as my own. > In the middle of all of this, a dramatic change > took place. We were actually shown blood shed in a very graphic scene > that was absolutely unncessary for the plot. In the Convert, at the > beginning when the priests of a religious temple were killed off > brutally by a warlord, there was blood running down something into > something, slowly slowly played on. Made me sick. There was another > scene soon after where Joxer got to kill his first person. They played > out the knife/daggar in the heart scene over and over again for the > gruesomeness of this. It is not necessary.>> Again, I had little problem with this, precisely because it was Joxer. He who played at being a warrior found out the true horror. I in turn felt more for him than I ever had before. I felt his anguish. He became a human I respected, rather than a clown. I don't know how much blood is too much blood in a show where people kill each other. I don't know how much blood makes the violence "real" or awful. I just know that it's hard to portray the horror of violence without showing that people bleed. > Like you, perhaps, I know I would have to defend to the > death myself or others. But there are other ways. And like Gabrielle > suggested in the Price, we just need to keep making the decision to try > something else. The unnecessary programming into us of brutal violence > may not be the way we get to think clearly about what we need to do. What I liked about The Price was that it showed the price both women paid for trying to defend against violence. Gabrielle might not have gotten the chance to show compassion, if she'd marched out there right at the start of the battle. Xena's actions kept them alive long enough to at least try. It was hard for her to question (though she did) putting bodies on display to pretend there were more men, sending wounded men out to fight, or keeping nourishment from the dying in order to save the living. So she did the honorable thing in putting her own life on the line, with little or no negative consequence for others. Xena had the good sense to observe the enemy's response to Gabrielle's actions, thus beginning to see and deal with them as human beings with whom she could negotiate. Unlike Eli, those men in the fort hadn't chosen to become martyrs to peace. I think Xena respected their right and desire to survive as best they could, just as Gabrielle respected the right and desire of *everyone* (including the enemy) to do. The ep didn't answer when/where to draw the line, but it raised some critical practical and moral issues about both the difficulty and need to draw such a line. > Thanks for discussing this!>> My pleasure! I think violence is a very important topic to discuss on XWP lists, precisely because the show did such a phenomenal job of showing it from so many different angles. On most action shows I've seen, the hero is always clearly "right," and the bad guys are clearly "wrong." The particular issues are simply an excuse to show people creaming each other. Do I like seeing "blood" spilled? No. But when it hits me in the gut (like it did when Gabrielle stabbed that cult lady, or Joxer killed the bad guy), I know it's not because I *liked* what happened. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V1 #54 *************************************