Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friar Tuck: The Original Gandhi?
So, BBC One has a new production of Robin Hood, and it's incredibly absurd. I love it. Robin Hood has emo hair and refuses to kill anyone. Guy de Gisborne wears eyeliner and leather pants. Marian wears pants and sneaks out of the castle dressed as "the Nightwatchman," distributing food to the poor. She was killed by Guy in the second season finale. There's a Muslim girl named Djag in the band of Merry Men. She and Will Scarlett fall in love and get married when the whole crew takes a quick trip to the Holy Land to save King Richard. Basically there are anachronisms galore, all to appeal to modern audiences, I guess.
This fall BBC America started airing the third and final season, and they've advertised from the start that Robin Hood will die in the final episode. The penultimate episode aired Saturday, and Robin and Guy, now working together to defeat the new Sheriff, Guy's little sister Isabella, took the castle with help/hindrance from Archer, their shared half-brother, and Robin's new girl, the working-class Kate. Also, Alan of Dale was killed by the original Sheriff of Nottingham after being falsely accused of betraying the gang. Yeah. Fans of the original legends might want to avoid the series. The one thing that really made me go hmmm, though, involved Friar Tuck and Little John.
Friar Tuck arrived on the scene fresh from the Holy Lands in the third season premiere. Interestingly, in this iteration, Friar Tuck is a preternaturally wise black man, not the jolly wino of movies past. He is very serious and very focused on teaching Robin that the people need inspiration as much as they need his ill-gotten riches. In this episode, he rallied the men of Locksley to take up arms to block a supply train Isabella was sending to Prince John. Everyone marched on the castle, and Friar Tuck got them to...sit down, blocking the path of the supply train. Yeah. The world's first non-violent protest?
It's always surprising the way that we ignore history when we tell the Robin Hood legend, especially since the actual history is so fascinating. King Richard was a more inspiring king than John, perhaps, but better? He spent less than a year of his reign in England. His vast French holdings were more important to him than his English lands. The sheriffs were patrolling the forests on his behalf, not Prince John's. The massive taxes were being raised to pay his ransom after he was captured returning from the Crusades. In fact, the stories of Prince John's treachery come from his not raising enough taxes; it looked as though he was hoping to leave Richard locked up forever. John was a much weaker king, it's true, but England should be eternally grateful for his weakness. His losses in France made England the centerpiece of the Angevin empire. And never forget that he was the king who signed the Magna Carta, limiting his own power and establishing the writ of Habeas Corpus, the foundation of English common law.
Friar Tuck's tactic worked, in total defiance of the brutality that was really the order of the day. Isabella's men refused to massacre them, and Robin Hood's men took the castle, while the original sheriff began to lay siege. It looks like it'll be a tough situation next week, and I'm hoping that at least a few of the Merry Men will live to the end of the episode. Robin will die a noble death, I'm sure, although if they really wanted to be subversive, maybe the writers should turn him into a traitor, hanged by his own men, or perhaps just an ignominious death, hiding in a hole, crying and praying for it to end quickly. That would really turn the legend on its ear.
This fall BBC America started airing the third and final season, and they've advertised from the start that Robin Hood will die in the final episode. The penultimate episode aired Saturday, and Robin and Guy, now working together to defeat the new Sheriff, Guy's little sister Isabella, took the castle with help/hindrance from Archer, their shared half-brother, and Robin's new girl, the working-class Kate. Also, Alan of Dale was killed by the original Sheriff of Nottingham after being falsely accused of betraying the gang. Yeah. Fans of the original legends might want to avoid the series. The one thing that really made me go hmmm, though, involved Friar Tuck and Little John.
Friar Tuck arrived on the scene fresh from the Holy Lands in the third season premiere. Interestingly, in this iteration, Friar Tuck is a preternaturally wise black man, not the jolly wino of movies past. He is very serious and very focused on teaching Robin that the people need inspiration as much as they need his ill-gotten riches. In this episode, he rallied the men of Locksley to take up arms to block a supply train Isabella was sending to Prince John. Everyone marched on the castle, and Friar Tuck got them to...sit down, blocking the path of the supply train. Yeah. The world's first non-violent protest?
It's always surprising the way that we ignore history when we tell the Robin Hood legend, especially since the actual history is so fascinating. King Richard was a more inspiring king than John, perhaps, but better? He spent less than a year of his reign in England. His vast French holdings were more important to him than his English lands. The sheriffs were patrolling the forests on his behalf, not Prince John's. The massive taxes were being raised to pay his ransom after he was captured returning from the Crusades. In fact, the stories of Prince John's treachery come from his not raising enough taxes; it looked as though he was hoping to leave Richard locked up forever. John was a much weaker king, it's true, but England should be eternally grateful for his weakness. His losses in France made England the centerpiece of the Angevin empire. And never forget that he was the king who signed the Magna Carta, limiting his own power and establishing the writ of Habeas Corpus, the foundation of English common law.
Friar Tuck's tactic worked, in total defiance of the brutality that was really the order of the day. Isabella's men refused to massacre them, and Robin Hood's men took the castle, while the original sheriff began to lay siege. It looks like it'll be a tough situation next week, and I'm hoping that at least a few of the Merry Men will live to the end of the episode. Robin will die a noble death, I'm sure, although if they really wanted to be subversive, maybe the writers should turn him into a traitor, hanged by his own men, or perhaps just an ignominious death, hiding in a hole, crying and praying for it to end quickly. That would really turn the legend on its ear.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Okay, FINE! Harry Potter Is Kind of Alright
I was starting high school when the Harry Potter mania hit. And it was mania. And I was repulsed. Seriously, it was a children's book about wizards and people were going on about it like it was the Second Coming of the McDLT. It was the most creative and original book ever! It saved a generation from illiteracy! By the time a college pamphlet arrived in which a dean (a dean!) proclaimed, "J.K. Rowling is the Shakespeare of our time," I was pretty much ready to do violence on anyone who even mentioned the books to me.
After high school graduation, I went on a cruise with my grandma. The other young person at our dinner table, Nick, was incredulous at my refusal to read the accursed books. After significant badgering, I struck a deal with him: I would read the first two books. Nick was certain I would love them and continue; I was certain I would not. And guess what? I was right.
I really did try to give the books a fair shake, honestly, I did. But in like, the second paragraph, Dumbledore takes out a handy little device: it looks like a cigarette lighter but actually turns off all the streetlights. Rowling has ingeniously named this a "put-outer." I was done right then. I kept reading of course--I'd made a deal, but I'd already decided: strikingly unoriginal. As I continued reading, I found more evidence to support my claim: a great evil who was defeated but not destroyed, an unlikely young boy sharing a connection and a destiny with said evil, the never quite healing injury linked to their mindmeld thingy, and a confrontation with his parents' murderer that has an unexpected outcome. They'd all been done before.
Then the third movie came out, and it was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, a director I really admire. And I surprised my self by wanting to see it. And I did see it (on TV), and I kind of liked it. Just a little. Then I caught the fourth, which was even better. And the fifth. And then this summer I saw the sixth and decided I wanted to read the book. I wanted to learn about Voldemort's backstory, and people said it was covered better in the book. So I read it, and I liked it and read the fifth, then the fourth, and finally the seventh. In a week.
I kind of loved them. Yes, they were derivative. A lot of it was the same old sci-fi fantasy cliches repackaged into an English boarding school experience. And I will never believe that anyone would join a group called the Death-Eaters and follow someone called the Dark Lord. But I found the connection between Voldemort and Harry and their wands really interesting, and I liked the imaginary lore of the magic world.
The thing I liked most though, is that in the end Harry wins because he is kind and always tries to do the right thing. Dobby gives his life for Harry and Kreacher switches sides because Harry treats them humanely. Narcissa Malfoy betrays Voldemort because Harry didn't kill her son. Harry's greatest personal crisis comes when he discovers that his father was kind of a jackass in school. And when Harry believes that Dumbledore was manipulating him into dying to defeat Voldemort, he goes, terrified, into certain death to save his friends.
On tv and in books and movies we are constantly barraged with precocious smart-alecky kids always looking for an angle. It's really nice to see a kid get ahead by being, well, nice.
After high school graduation, I went on a cruise with my grandma. The other young person at our dinner table, Nick, was incredulous at my refusal to read the accursed books. After significant badgering, I struck a deal with him: I would read the first two books. Nick was certain I would love them and continue; I was certain I would not. And guess what? I was right.
I really did try to give the books a fair shake, honestly, I did. But in like, the second paragraph, Dumbledore takes out a handy little device: it looks like a cigarette lighter but actually turns off all the streetlights. Rowling has ingeniously named this a "put-outer." I was done right then. I kept reading of course--I'd made a deal, but I'd already decided: strikingly unoriginal. As I continued reading, I found more evidence to support my claim: a great evil who was defeated but not destroyed, an unlikely young boy sharing a connection and a destiny with said evil, the never quite healing injury linked to their mindmeld thingy, and a confrontation with his parents' murderer that has an unexpected outcome. They'd all been done before.
Then the third movie came out, and it was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, a director I really admire. And I surprised my self by wanting to see it. And I did see it (on TV), and I kind of liked it. Just a little. Then I caught the fourth, which was even better. And the fifth. And then this summer I saw the sixth and decided I wanted to read the book. I wanted to learn about Voldemort's backstory, and people said it was covered better in the book. So I read it, and I liked it and read the fifth, then the fourth, and finally the seventh. In a week.
I kind of loved them. Yes, they were derivative. A lot of it was the same old sci-fi fantasy cliches repackaged into an English boarding school experience. And I will never believe that anyone would join a group called the Death-Eaters and follow someone called the Dark Lord. But I found the connection between Voldemort and Harry and their wands really interesting, and I liked the imaginary lore of the magic world.
The thing I liked most though, is that in the end Harry wins because he is kind and always tries to do the right thing. Dobby gives his life for Harry and Kreacher switches sides because Harry treats them humanely. Narcissa Malfoy betrays Voldemort because Harry didn't kill her son. Harry's greatest personal crisis comes when he discovers that his father was kind of a jackass in school. And when Harry believes that Dumbledore was manipulating him into dying to defeat Voldemort, he goes, terrified, into certain death to save his friends.
On tv and in books and movies we are constantly barraged with precocious smart-alecky kids always looking for an angle. It's really nice to see a kid get ahead by being, well, nice.
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