Nine Lives

She's back!



I knew Joss Whedon hadn't gotten rid of her for good, but damn am I relieved to hear Kitty Pryde's coming back. I haven't been really into comics for that long, and the only X-Men series I've read is Astonishing X-Men, but I absolutely adore Kitty in that and was upset over what happened to her. I'm still really enjoying Astonishing--with Warren Ellis writing it, how could I not?--and I like the current team a lot (especially Hisako and her interactions with Wolverine), but I miss Kitty. I'm definitely picking up that issue of Uncanny.

Fantasty Casting, Marvel Style

Because I'm impatient for the new season of Chuck to start next month, I was watching some early episodes last night and I realized that Yvonne Strahovski would be an amazing Black Widow. I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Her character on Chuck (his CIA handler) is not that dissimilar from the Black Widow (originally a Soviet spy who defected to the U.S.), and she certainly can portray someone that complicated. And she already kicks ass on Chuck, so she's got that covered.

Watching the show again after a few months has reminded me how well-written character of Sarah Walker is--she's incredibly strong and focused on her work without being bitchy or cold, and her vulnerable moments are subtle and genuine. Yvonne Strahovski deserves a lot of credit for that, too. As much as I wish I could see her in Iron Man 2 (or, while I'm dreaming, a Black Widow movie), I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where she takes her character in the upcoming season of Chuck (which, by the way, is a really smart, funny, and emotionally honest show that you should watch, especially since it has undercover government agents and a socially awkward protagonist).

This Is The Dream I Never Knew I Had

Lin-Manuel Miranda's latest project: The Hamilton Mixtape:



For some reason, Alexander Hamilton fans don't appear to be all that common. I know a lot of history geeks (and I'm one myself, albeit a more casual one), but only three of them are passionate about Alexander Hamilton, and I'm including myself in that count. I find that surprising. Growing up in a suburb of Boston meant an overexposure to all things Revolutionary War--I dressed up as a colonial girl more than once in elementary school, I could see a tavern from my house, and on Patriot's Day (you Massholes know what I'm talking about), gunshots from the early morning reenactment would wake me up. Living in all that history got old by sixth grade.

But Alexander Hamilton was different. His background, his determination, and his wholehearted commitment to pretty much everything has always made him stand out to me. There were plenty of strong-willed, brilliant, and passionate men working for independence, but there weren't any quite like Alexander Hamilton. He was badass.

Hamilton's life seems perfect for musical theatre--the man died in a duel!--so it's about time somebody tried making Hamilton sing. Lin-Manuel Miranda seems counter-intuitive; hip hop in the 1770s, really? But after listening to that opening number, I can't think of anyone better. I love the quiet tension underlying the song; it makes me think of a coiled spring that could snap at any moment, and it gives the number--and potentially the whole piece--a momentum and energy that suits Hamilton completely. Having Aaron Burr open the show, introducing the audience to Hamilton and the world of the musical, is a fascinating choice. I'm curious to see how that'll play out--does he narrate the whole show? I love that the music isn't period at all, as well.

In addition to capturing Hamilton's intense and independent personality, the music makes it very clear that this is not going to be a straightfoward look at a man's life. I know nothing of this project other than this song, but the music alone makes me expect a non-realistic world with its own set of rules. The music automatically causes audiences to see the story in modern terms, which I think is really cool. I feel early American history is often preserved behind museum glass. This music and these words shatter that glass and forces our history to live right alongside us, where it belongs.

International City; International Theatre

According to this Washington Post article, Washington D.C. is becoming much more of a center for international theatre. This has me really excited, even though I live in New York. It's definitely a good thing for other American cities to have strong theatre scenes--not everyone can get to New York--and I think it's especially important for cities like D.C. and Boston to have very distinct theatre scenes since they're so close to New York. Between the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, and the Signature, there's a lot of really awesome things going on in that area. Adding international theatre will only make D.C. theatre more exciting, as well as keep it unique. Besides, it's only fitting, given the political nature of the city.

"You Know, I Could Go For A Slice."

As a whole, I'm not much of a fan of metatheatre, but I love metatheatrical techniques that work within the world of the story, instead of ones that remind you what you're seeing isn't real. The new Turtles Forever movie, which aired on the CW a little over a week or so ago to celebrate 25 years of Turtle Power, employs the former with an elegant amount of subtly and respect for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise as a whole.

Briefly, the story centers on the current incarnation of the Ninja Turtles, who recieved a revamped and modernized animated series in 2003. These Turtles sport larger muscles, face off against more serious enemies, and inhabit a far more interconnected world than than their predecessors from the 1987 TV series, with storyarcs running through multiple episodes. Early on in the movie, they rescue another set of Turtles--those from the 1987 series--and realize that the '87 turtles are from another dimension, and came into this dimension accidently. Unfortunately, the same is true for Shredder and Krang...and their Technodrome. Ultimately, all eight Turtles discover that the '03 version of Shredder plans to destroy all incarnations of Ninja Turtles in all universes by destroying the Prime universe.

I was a huge Turtles fan when I was a little kid, so I loved seeing the '87 Turtles intereact with the '03 ones. The juxtaposition of the goofy, pizza-addicted '87 Turtles and the darker world of the '03 Turtles gently pokes fun at how ridiculous the older series was while not making the '87 Turtles out to be buffoons. '87 Donatello's inventions and use of "science" baffles '03 Donatello, for instance, but those inventions somehow work.

When the Turtles reach the Prime universe, they encounter the original comic book versions of themselves--who are significantly darker than the '03 Turtles. It was fascinating to see the spectrum of Turtles, ranging from the original, almost gritty conception, to the silly TV series, to something in between. I think it's brilliant to acknowledge that all three versions--and many, many more--coexist in a greater multiverse. Crossing into other dimensions, as well as traveling through time, has long been a part of the Turtles franchise, so it stands to reason that alternate dimensions would have their own Turtles, too.

I was also struck by the vast difference in tone when both series were created for children. As much as I enjoyed the '87 Turtles series and the live action movies (andI still do), I'm really glad the material is being given a darker treatment, particularly since it's closer to the source material. I think Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited did a lot to redefine what a children's Saturday morning cartoon can do, and I think it's really important to have those sorts of shows out there. Kids can handle more than a lot of adults think they can, and if they're given a show that's slightly more complex, they'll generally be able to keep up. I think that's particularly true when dealing with superheroes; it's hard to invest in a character whose powers give her an advantage over her enemies, since she doesn't have that much at stake. And when the superheroes in question are a bunch of mutant 15 year old turtles, each of them needs to have something worth losing--and be in an environment where that could feasibly happen. In the 2003 series--one in which characters have died--that's certainly the case.

Ethnicity & Writing

One of my friends, fiction writer Stephany Qiouyi Lu, wrote this as a note on Facebook (you can see the original here). It's generated such a great discussion over there that I wanted to repost it here for all of you. This issue has particular meaning for me: I'm white Irish-Italian who writes a lot of Asian characters, and I plan on taking (and writing under) my first generation Chinese boyfriend's name after we're married. So I'm going to be dealing with the flip side of a lot of this stuff.

On ethnicity, writing, and racialized creations as a whole.

What does it mean to be a minority in the United States trying to forge a path in creative writing?

If you are an author from an ethnic minority in the United States, there is an implicit expectation that you will be writing about your ethnic background. It will be embedded in your words: you are expected to write about the [fill in the blank]-American experience, or, if not that, it will be expected that your characters—one of them, at least—will be of your ethnic background. The content of your novel will be predicted on the basis of your last name, or, if your name blends in with the ethnic majority, by the picture of yourself that is included on the back of the novel with a little blurb about yourself—probably also with subtle emphasis on your ethnic background.

A brief glance at Wikipedia's list of Asian-American authors (found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian-American_authors

) shows that almost all of them write about something related to the Asian-American experience, or to Asian experiences as a whole; the number that write outside those topics can be counted on one hand. That's the expectation, and that's the reality.

Many of these authors are immigrants themselves, having been born in another country. With this context, it's understandable that they write about the immigrant experience, or the Asian-American experience—that's made up a fundamental portion of their life. It's an important topic to them. They are the older generation, in their forties or so; they are at the age where they have developed the talent and maturity to get published, so they have shaped the face of Asian-American literature thus far.

But what does this mean for people like me, a first-generation Asian-American?

I fit in in Southern California—I am surrounded by first-generation [fill in the blank]-Americans. Our experiences are not unique. We, the hyphenated Americans, are the majority, not the minority. We are the ones who find ourselves creeping into the "heritage" language courses in college. The ones who feel a sense of embarrassment when we speak in broken Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Hindi, Gujarati, whatever language with our grandparents. The ones who are distanced from the immigrants because we're not "fobby" enough. We are comfortable in a state of limbo.

But what about when I'm taken out of that context? In North Carolina, I have become the minority, not the majority. The people I'm surrounded by have been in the States for generations upon generations. I am inundated by American culture and find that I have to ask for explanations regarding the definition and relevance of many cultural terms; meanwhile, I am expected to know details of the Chinese culture that I was never really taught. When I am in China, meanwhile, I am familiar enough with the culture to recognize the larger cultural symbols. I feel a sense of comfort when I'm surrounded by delicious Chinese food and by the sights and smells of those places. Yet, at the same time, I'm still a minority among the people of my blood. The way I dress, the way I talk, even the way I walk, places a giant label on me that says that I'm not really Chinese—I can be spotted from far away as being an outsider. I do not yet belong in Chinese culture.

But is this what I'm supposed to write about? As a first-generation Chinese-American, born in the United States, raised in a bastardization of Chinese and American culture, am I limited in my topics to just the first-generation Asian-American experience? Is that what I can write with "authenticity"?

When I look through my pieces of creative writing through the years, I've come to realize that I have created perhaps three or five characters—out of the dozens, hundreds of characters that I've dreamt up since when I started scribbling stories at the age of five or so—that can even claim something of a semblance to an Asian background. Their ethnicity is never emphasized. Perhaps the only thing that gives them away is their name, "exotic" compared to the names of other characters.

All my other characters are white. Why is this? Is it that I have been inundated by images from American television, where white actors and actresses are the absolute majority, and where characters of ethnic minorities are added as novelty items to increase an image of "diversity"? Is it because all the novels I read, and enjoy reading, are written by white, British or American authors, who also make the ethnicity of their characters implicit? Is it because all of this culture that I've been immersed in has taught me that white characters are the default and that characters of ethnic minorities are the exception, the novelty? Is it because any character who is not white is immediately labeled with their ethnicity and seen through that lens, with their physical appearance preceding any internal qualities—and who are often expected to fit into ethnic stereotypes?

Is the fact that the majority of my characters end up being white necessarily bad? Is it just as much of a stereotype, an ethnic obligation, an imposition by the majority—my future readers—to say that I must make my characters of my ethnic background, or that I must write about my experiences as a first-generation Chinese-American, so that I can "challenge the hegemony of the white majority"? Are my stories—and the stories of my first-generation Asian-American friends, whose characters also appear to be implicitly white—just meant to be case studies on minority assimilation into a larger, predominantly white American culture?

This is not to say that I want to be white. Although I dissociate myself from campus organizations such as ASA (Asian Students Association) and CASA (Chinese-American Students Association), that is not because of a shame towards my background, but rather because I simply don't hang out with the people who frequent those groups. I have pride in my background, and, the more time passes, the more my ethnicity becomes an integral part of who I am and how I shape myself.

What my fundamental question is is: Must fiction be racialized? Does my last name have to shape the context and content of my novel? Does the way my face looks—eyes where my crease folds back into my lid, a tiny nose, the yellowish tint to my skin that defies the black–white dichotomy—need to shape the way my characters look? Is ethnicity even all that relevant to the topics that I like exploring, such as the relationships (romantic, platonic, antagonistic, everything) between people and the human emotions and thoughts that back those; do human feelings need to be seen through a lens of race? Am I obligated to include a character of an Asian background in my novels—and, if not, why do I still feel obligated to do so? Why is the visible presence of ethnicity that important, anyway?

On one hand, the United States, mirroring other liberal Western societies, strives to be more inclusive of people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. At the same time, there are more and more explorations, academic and nonacademic alike, of the topics of race and ethnicity, particularly in the context of the question if identity—works of fiction, works of art, works of music, anything that a person can possibly do is analyzed through a lens of race. On one hand, it is important to understand people of other cultures—yet, on the other hand, how much of this race-oriented analysis serves to simply heighten the visibility of race and drive more divisions, more classifications, more preemptive judgement and labeling based on one's physical appearance?

Not Since Carrie

This month, there's going to be a private reading of Carrie, which is crazy. The show, a musical adaptation of the Stephen King story, has become infamous as the flop to end all flops. So why bring it back?

I think it's good not to write off a show as being a total disaster so long as there's a compelling story at its core, and the success of the novel and movie alone indicates that's the case with Carrie. The writers have apparently been doing a lot of work on it--not easy to do even when the show in question hasn't been publicly ridiculed for twenty years--and hopefully their changes will enhance the show's effective moments. I'm not sure it'll go anywhere, but I'm glad it's given a chance at all. If nothing else, revisiting Carrie encourages writers not to give up on a story they want to tell. No matter how big a flop the original show may be.