The Moth Chase

Dear Kathryn (“with a K”),

At first I was a little bored by this episode; it didn’t feel like all that much was happening. But then I realized that things weren’t moving because we were instead getting a full, fairly detailed narration of the tension that is going to lie at the heart of every story from now on – the poison that hovers outside the safe spaces. Perhaps the show’s title, “Dark Shadows,” should have clued me into this from the start! But this tension between the threat outside vs. the safety inside was played with in numerous ways – Megan’s reference to Betty poisoning them from 50m away, her concern about the toxins in the smog, and Betty’s sad realization that while she’d had a good week with her Weight Watchers friends, “in here,” she’d had a bad week with everyone else, “out there,” perhaps even the references to the Devil…And so with this theme established, we saw the threat Ginsberg poses to Don, and the almost Betty-like move that Don pulled to avoid that threat. We saw the threat of a younger man who could nab Jane, and Roger’s realization that his selfishness is at the heart of his own sadness. We saw Pete’s fantasy and explosion about Beth on the train – indicating that that story is not going to fade away. And, most exciting of all – we finally got to see Meghan and Betty in the same room…and feel the type of tension that you’d need a damn sharp knife to cut. And I think that’s where I need to start! Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Natalie,

What a fantastic episode! It was one of those gems that managed to pack so much into 47 minutes, while also keeping to a strong central story line. Like the last several episode, particular historic events framed the episode and infiltrated the consciousness of our characters. In this case, the Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas, and to a lesser degree by Britain’s defeat of West Germany in the 1966 World Cup (still a central moment in British self-consciousness marked by the little ditty my English friends like to sing about Germany: “Two world wars and one world cup, do-da, do-da”). Pete’s young co-ed summed up the general reaction with her lovely quote that I stole as the title of this post: “things seems so random all of a sudden.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hi all,

I’m under the impression that this is an unpopular opinion, but I found this movie so much more moving than the book on which it was based. Throughout the entire trilogy, I found myself utterly unsympathetic to Katniss. I wanted to interpret this as my own Capital-esque inability to engage the suffering of trauma when it was on display before me. Despite buying the fact that this was Susanne Collins’ intention, though, the writing never quite let me feel it. The film, on the other hand, captures this theme perfectly, in my view. First of all (as my sister texted me right after she saw it) it’s a lot harder to watch children get killed than to read about it (at least when it’s not Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor sequence, or some other such writing of breath-stealing terror, that is).  And so, when Rue is killed, and we watch Katniss bury her in flowers and then just break down in agony…we actually see her psyche shatter.

What I loved about the movie (in contrast to the book) though, is that it reminds us consistently that this is not the first time Katniss’ psyche has shattered Read the rest of this entry »

Travis,

Wow…what a crazy two weeks in SoA land.

I have mixed feelings about these episodes. Obviously, they’re sort of awesome…but in a sense, they’re also incomplete emotionally. So much has happened and so much has been revealed to and amidst our various characters, but so little of (aside from Clay being shot) it is new to us as the viewer. This, of course, isn’t really a problem–at least not in any traditional sense, but it does suggest an interesting sort of relationship between us as viewers and our material. Read the rest of this entry »

Kathryn and Natalie both posted separate “takes” on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I. Below is Natalie’s post. You can read Kathryn’s post here. And check back soon for a conversation where they respond to each other.

Oh my, Kathryn – I cannot wait to hear what you thought of this film!

You might remember that while the rest of the Twilight fanbase HATED the final book, it was – and remains – my favourite. There is more than enough ink spilled (keys stroked?) on the conservative sexuality agenda buried (not that far beneath the surface) in the Twilight universe, and there is definitely plenty of evidence for that agenda in both book and film. But what continually intrigues me about the whole Twilight empire is how by the end of it all, we have this constant unraveling of the conservative themes through the strange – certainly abject – empowerment of the central figure, Bella. Read the rest of this entry »

Sons of Anarchy - episodes 8 & 9, “Family Recipe” & “Kiss”

Martin,

So I’m watching Deadwood right now, and was struck by how this extraordinary show (Deadwood, not Sons, which is a good and sometimes great show) began its second season with a bold declaration of how the heart of narrative, both historical and fictional, is a “lie agreed upon.” It’s a quote often attributed to Napoleon, whether apocryphally or not, something which gives it a nice irony: history is written by the winners, necessarily, but always at the cost of certain repressed memories that press upon the coherence of our narratives and undermine their pretense to normalization. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Kathryn,

In the past few weeks, we’ve complained some about the heavy handed ways the show is unpacking its religious symbols. Between my own scrambling to remember the various scenes from Revelation and Quinn’s hilarious, drunken, bemused confusion at a student plagiarizing C.S. Lewis (“Who!?” his eyes bluffed), I began to wonder something: have we actually been somewhat unfair in thinking a general populace should be able to recognize these symbols? If the show wants to play with religious imagery, do we live in a culture that can actually recognize that imagery anymore? I’m not quite sure we do. Read the rest of this entry »

The Moth Chase welcomes a new friend to our conversations, Michael, to respond to Travis’ previous post on Dr. Who – click here see Travis’ original post.

Hi, Travis,

I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to reply, but you’ve given me a lot to think about. Like you, having grown up in the United States my childhood was deprived of Doctor Who. I first encountered him while in graduate school in New York City, when PBS affiliate WNED was broadcasting some of the 1960s episodes. I think my first Doctor was the fourth (played by Tom Baker), and I’m pretty sure that he and his companion were being threatened by Daleks. It’s a safe guess, anyway. That was about twenty years before the series reboot, which, unlike you, I watched from the beginning. Perhaps it was more accessible from the start here in Canada, being broadcast (at least initially) on CBC. In any case, being a sci-fi geek longing for good sci-fi on TV (to my everlasting shame, I entirely missed the reboot of Battlestar Galactica), and knowing a bit about the Doctor from my first encounter and from a few other bits of information I’d picked up over the years, Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Natalie,

Dexter’s journey to understand religious faith continues with a new potential guide in the earnest face of Mos Def as Brother Sam. Throughout all six seasons Dexter has been asking the question “can humans change?” And then even more importantly for him, “can monsters change?” Last season he began to think that perhaps love – genuine understanding, vulnerability and transparency with Lumen – could change him, or was itself proof that he was more than the monster he had been raised to think he was. With Trinity, he wondered if family bonds could temper monstrous impulses. In both cases he came back to his rather fatalistic conclusion – once a monster, always a monster. Though in both cases, he also accepted that he was capable of more than he had ever imagined and that he could in fact accept love and family in his own terms as part of his life. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Kathryn,

We’ve spoken often of the religious imagery in Dexter, how we actually enjoy that they poach Christian imagery without feeling the need to connect strongly with the meanings inherent in those symbols. It’s fun to see how symbols that we might know well (as theologians) play out of context. But this one just went too far…not that I’m offended or anything. Do what you want with my symbols. But please keep my Sunday night viewing pleasures at the high quality I expect. Really, in our post-Christian, in many ways, post-religious society, are people really shocked – as Battista and Deb both were – that someone might not (gasp!) believe in God? I tend to think it’s more shocking when someone does!  Moreover, do people with little to no faith commitments really think Read the rest of this entry »