The Princess and the Punk

DISCLAIMER:

Before I begin, I'm being ranty, opinionated and probably relatively misogynistic. In real life I am a woman, I have gone through all sorts of ego busting, self-doubt, self-hate, hating on everyone else, low self-esteem and pretty much any negative aspect you can throw at a girl in general. I'm not writing this to pick on anyone. I'm writing this as a commentary on the way I view the media since I'm working my way into it slowly. Feel free to argue with me in the comments or wherever you feel most comfortable contacting me. I'm cool with that. I want to see your opinions, read your thoughts etc. I don't care if you're male, female, transgendered, alien, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Atlantian, zombified, rich, poor, famous, obscure, or any combination of adjectives you care to throw at me. I'm observing, and commenting. And I have no problem in arguing with you 'till we're both blue in the face. However, I will not tolerate demonizing or invalidating my opinions, so let's keep it civil. Cheers.

Now, read on.

*****

I love the fact that there are such eager stereotypes that women in [the media] are thrown into. In my opinion, it boils down to three or four distinct types that are essentially broad generalizations, if not outright Tropes. There's the Princess, the Sweetheart, the Diva, and the Punk.

I find that these broad generalizations happen regardless of what you're doing. You're a woman, you're in any form of media and you're pretty much typecast. There are probably a hundred variations and sub-classes but for now, I want to focus on these four major stereotypes.

First off, there's the Princess. This is the golden child, the royalty of the media world. This is the girl who can do no wrong, and if she does, there will be another chance, another book, another film, another sex tape, etc ad nauseum. I find that this is where the up and coming stars fall once they "make it big". Kirsten Dunst, Reese Witherspoon, Lindsey Lohan, Drew Barrymore and so on and so on. They have all been in this spotlight at one point or another. They are (or were) the royalty of the silver screen for a time. These are the women who make headlines and are on the cover of every rag mag forever -- regardless of what sort of crazy fabricated drama is happening -- and are still making movies/books/music whatever. The Princesses are the cash cows, the golden calves, the most sought-after young talent who will annoy you forever. The Princesses will go one of two ways, typically: they either stay in Royalty mode, appearing to make headlines when they get another deal, or the turn into Divas. Princesses who remain Princesses are the women who will show up in a major blockbuster five years after we've forgotten about her without the typical downward spiral that we (as an audience) come to expect. Scarlett Johannsen is prime example of movie royalty. Emma Stone is a current Princess as well, in my opinion. They are sought after by movie executives and producers and star in amazingly big roles consistently without the drama of a drug binge or whatever sort of drama you're likely to see on the internet or in the rag mags. Very much royalty in that sense.

Then there's the Sweetheart. These are women who are very much like the Princess, but are generally super bubbly and cute. Some people call them "Manic Pixie girls" which I can now understand. Zooey Deschanel is the biggest perpetrator of the Sweetheart stereotype. I use the term stereotype as there is no better way to describe this. I'm sure all of the women I mention are decent humans, but for the sake of argument, these are all stereotypes that we've been given to digest. Sweethearts are the ones who show up on talk shows and are all manners and soft spoken or bubbly. Exactly what you think a 'Sweetheart' would be if you called your friend that. These are the women who are expected to be super nice all the time forever and who rarely hit tabloids for fabricated drama (unless there's a divorce/romance involved) and even then, it's usually fabricated or blown out of proportion.

Divas, on the other hand, are the women who you EXPECT to be on the cover of tabloids. Any Princess can turn into a Diva by having a fit. Diva is not used in the old-school term here, more in the way that they will throw a fit if everything isn't perfect. These are the women who can't handle the Princess lifestyle and tend to end up photographed drunk, doing drugs and generally being bad for publicity. This is not to be confused with Punks, which I will get to in a moment. I find that anyone who falls into the Diva category is someone who either shouldn't be famous but still is, is only famous for being rich/having a sex tape/ etc, or is so over the top that you can't help but allow them to be famous for whatever they're doing. You can figure out who's a Diva int his sense on your own.

Finally, we have the Punks. These are women who stand up and out and will not be conformed by wearing pink and relying on men/fate/whatever to dictate their shit (within reason of remaining in their current profession.) Although, I suppose that with today's technology and things like Kickstarter, the true Punk women are taking a lot more control over things. My biggest examples of successful Punk women are Amanda Palmer and Avril Lavigne. These are women who do what they want, when they want and give a big ol' middle finger to the expectations of the media and have made a successful career for themselves.

Having said all of this, I get to the overall point of this rant.

I find that women who fall under the Princess or Sweetheart category are typically more successful than Punks. Divas are successful for reasons beyond my worldly comprehension and I assume black magic is involved with anyone who ends up like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears.

I can respect the women who fall under the Princess or Sweetheart category. I really can. In my opinion, some of my favorite female actors fall into one of those two categories. And I applaud their success.

Now the question is: do you HAVE to start out as a Princess or a Sweetheart to make it anywhere these days?

I'm definitely not a Princess. I'm a genuinely nice person in real life, but I do very much appreciate the word "fuck" in everyday conversation. Does that make me less of a Sweetheart? Probably. I love action movies. I love fight scenes, I love "guy" movies. I love to read books that involve adventure and fighting and pillaging. I'm turned off my chick lit or chick flicks or romance. Hell, I don't even read erotica. I listen to punk music, and heavy metal, and I will happily drink beer over a Cosmopolitan any day and yet, I can cook, clean, sew, crochet and generally run a house like any good wife should be able to do.

But what I write is definitely not what you'd expect from a Princess or a Sweetheart.

I march to the beat of my own drum (and that drum typically sounds like a rowing beat on a Viking longship) and I don't let the opinions of the general public get to me. I wear my hair short and would rather pull on a pair of jeans than a dress and flip off the camera instead of blowing a kiss to the photographer. 

But is my Punk nature going to make me second fiddle to the literary Princesses? Is my Vikings-versus-Aliens intentional B-movie going to be rejected in exchange for a Sappy Romance Drivel B-movie?

I'll never know until I try, but right now, it feels like there's very little hope for women who refuse to play the Tropes,

Never afraid of a bit of controversy, Kai lives in Canada in a stuffy room with her laptop and too much caffeine. She spends her days performing menial and mundane tasks that her so-called real-life demands and spends her nights not sleeping due to chronic insomnia. 

Kai is also a contributor to Zombie Training Magazine. www.zombietraining.com

Kai loves to chat (and she loves a challenge). If you wanna get in touch with her, you can do so at the following places:

Email: thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com
Twitter: @thekiriyamaheir
Facebook: facebook.com/authorkaikiriyama

Degrees, Diplomas, and Daydreaming

I got into an argument with a friend of mine recently.

Not so much of a surprise there, I argue with everyone. And I mean everyone. If you say something I think is dumb or incorrect, I'll argue with you. If  you say something that I know is incorrect, I'll fight you harder. I'm a Gemini, and a Tiger in the Eastern Zodiac. It's just the way I am.

But I digress.

I got into an argument about whether having a degree in writing - whether for film or television or just literature in general - is an absolute necessity for making it in the writing world.

They think it is crucial that you go out and spend $30,000 or more and 4+ years on a piece of paper that says you are capable of writing fiction to a specific format.

I laughed at them.

Then I showed them my bookshelf. I have books from the same sort of classes, plus scripts for television and stage and film, as well as workbooks for literature. My collection is more succinct and to the point than the books this friend has for school.

I spent under $250 to acquire all of these things. I've read most of them at least twice. And I reference them when I'm looking for specific answers to things I'm unsure about.

Neither of us are published, so if that was your next question, no. At this point, I don't think either of us are closer than the other, so it's not like that's a factor either.

Am I a better writer? I think so. Why? Because I haven't had professors breathing down my neck for 4 years telling me how to write. I have found my own 'voice' in literature, and have picked up the format for screenwriting again after 10 years of neglect. I'm comfortable with how I write and I am comfortable with my stories. I know that this person in question can't say the same thing.

What I will concede to, however, is the hands-on. Personally, I wouldn't know the ass end of a camera from a chocolate bar, or some other sort of simile of equal ridiculousness. Well, okay, I know where to look into a camera, but I wouldn't be able to operate it with any level of proficiency. And that's okay. I can learn.

I think it's sad that we have put a price tag on the arts. at least on the things like writing that anyone should be able to do with a relative knowledge of story structure and grammar. Oscar Wilde didn't have a degree. Neither did Shakespeare.

I guess time will tell us who gets published first.

Cocky bitch. I'm gonna win that race.

Kai Kiriyama should know better than to write blogs under the influence of alcohol. She is currently having a mental breakdown and drinking beer. It's pretty amusing to watch.

As always, follow her on twitter @thekiriyamaheir
Or to argue with her through email, you can reach her at: thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com 

Screenwriting and the Pen

My first love was writing for film.

No, that's a lie. I used to write stories for comic books - usually involving Spider-Man - and stories in general for all sorts of things for school. (One year, I wrote strictly X-Files fan fictions [not knowing that 'fan fiction' existed back then] for every writing assignment I was given. I never got a mark lower than 98% on any of those assignments.)

But I really got hooked and decided to pursue writing as a career when I started writing for film.

I don't know how I did it as a kid. I was 11 when I decided I wanted to write professionally and 13 when I started writing for film. Maybe I had a better attention span back then? I can't say, but I wrote scripts ALL the time.

And I mean ALL the time.

I was consumed and obsessed with it. I started buying books, borrowing books, doing internet research and writing all the time.

I started with writing a Fantastic Four film script and a script for either Cable or Bishop, but I can't remember which now. I never did finish that Fantastic Four script because the movie was announced when I was about 45 pages in and I raged and deleted it. Which was a shame because I had the story translated into modern-day way better than the actual film did. (I'm so humble.)

So then I started writing my own work into a script.

I completed my first draft of my first script when I was 14 and was ready to be published at 16 and chased that dream for 3 years, going so far as to contact agents, critics, editors and certain celebrities. (Best day of my life, man, getting approval from one of my heroes.  But that's neither here nor there.)

But I didn't get published. Obviously, that never happened. Thank GOD. That script is terrible, and I'm pretty sure that the hard drive it was on crashed and was corrupted.

Not a big deal, really. It would've been a B-movie at best.

The point is that now I am getting back into the swing of writing for film and television.

And I forgot how hard it is!

I have so little attention span for the formatting. It drives me insane. And the program I am using to format (Celtx) is driving me even more insane. I dunno if there's a secret to making this program work better, but I'm going batty over it. Not to mention that during the Week from Hell, I lost 8 pages and 2 scenes that were emotional and had amazing dialogue that I will never get back in this 40 minute spec script I'm writing.

Oh yeah. I'm writing SPEC SCRIPTS. These aren't even my own work. I mean, okay, the stories are, but the characters aren't. It's like a more technical version of a fan fiction. (I feel like I'm 12 again and writing those X-Files stories.) Except I'm not.

And the formatting is irritating me. I'm not the director, why do I HAVE to put these stage directions in? I'm just a writer, the actors and directors should deal with that. HA!

Anyway, it's a long and tedious process and I'm none to impressed with the way I've been handling it. It's sad and I've been really quite lazy about it. Lazy and frustrated.

There is another point to this.

I used to write EVERYTHING longhand and edit as I typed it up. Then, when I had the first draft typed, it was really the second draft and was ready to be polished and edited a third time to make my 'final draft'. Yeah, it was a longer process in reality, but I felt that it was much more efficient than typing as I go.

Also, when I started this I was still living in my mom's house and sharing a single computer amongst my family. So writing in notebooks by hand made so much more sense to me. I got so much more accomplished. Plus, it made me feel cool in a totally pretentious and what would now be called 'hipster' kind of way.

I could get SO INTO my writing when I was sitting there writing by hand. I would take it with me everywhere and write whenever I could. At work, on my breaks, I was writing. I would have a granola bar and a fizzy juice drink of some sort and write for half an hour. It was amazing. I would be up all night writing in bed because I needed to get the ideas out.

Now I'm a grown-up and I have my own lap top, so I have been neglecting my hand writing.

Thinking about it makes me sad, really. I still have a billion notebooks, and some really awesome binders. And I buy thousands of pens (I buy some almost every time I'm in any place that sells pens... even the grocery store and stuff, it's an addiction!) So why don't I still hand write all my work? I dunno. But I seem to think that I might be more productive if I did.

Hmm...

Kai Kiriyama lives in the frozen North - otherwise known as Canada. She isn't kidding when she says she has a billion pens.
You can follow her eon twitter: @thekiriyamaheir
You can email her at: thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com
And you can find her on facebook here  

Dear Murphy: Several things We May or May Not Need a Stupid Fuckin' Rope For

Dear Murphy,

You still seem rather skeptical about Connor's insistence on bringing rope to every job, to every event, and to every place you go that isn't in and out.

You seem to be convinced that rope is a non-essential item in our day to day lives.

Now, I'm just a writer, what do I know about the ins-and-outs of your specific job? But I think that there are a few things you are overlooking in your dear brother's insistence of having what you refer to as "stupid fuckin' rope."

Let us first consider that there are many different kinds of rope. There are different materials and textures, gauges and thicknesses. Hell, you could consider twine a kind of rope, or yarn for that matter, depending on how you want to define it.

But for your consideration, we shall just stick with the thick, black nylon kind of rope that you always seem to end up lugging around.

You should first and foremost consider yourself lucky that you're not a pirate. You'd have to spend all day lugging rope around. And half the damn ship is made of rope, you know. All the rigging is rope, all the ropes in the sails. And you always need extra rope to tie down loose cannons - and people - in violent storms. You'd swing across the ropes to board another ship, just like in the movies. And when the ship crashes and sinks and you are stranded and your clothes have become to big because you've lost so much weight and are starving, that rope will be your belt.

Or you could hang yourself. Or the mutineers who crashed your ship in the first place.

I think thirty pounds of rope is getting off lightly when you consider that you could be a pirate.

I grew up on a farm, Murphy. Trust me when I say that a good piece of rope can come in so handy for things like tying equipment and tarps down on the back of my truck. Or for making a makeshift halter to lead my horse. Or worst case scenario, a quick fix for lashing together the fence posts while we bring the materials to fix them properly. The same idea goes for working construction. Again, we see tarps and tools and heavy things that need to be lifted - what else are you going to use on the pulley?

You could also be a rock climber. They rely on rope to make sure that they don't fall to their untimely and ultimately gross demise.

Or you could be a mercenary. (Or is that what you think of yourself as, already?) You could use your rope to set traps. Again, with these things that we see in the movies! But you're considering it now, aren't you? A rope trap, or a string of rope with tin cans attached to warn you when someone is coming. You can stop the ambush that way. (Watch out for the zombies.)

You've done some insane things (shall we refrain from mentioning Copley Plaza?) and have been very lucky to have rope on hand. That in itself should be enough of an argument in favor of having rope.

But I know you. It never is.

So what else can you use this rope for?

For starters, I will suggest that you could use it as a whip. Because it's honestly the first thing you do when you have a piece of rope. Not you, specifically, dear Murphy, but the general 'you' in reference to anyone who may or may not be reading this. Admit it, you've done it.

And now you have a piece of rope for which you have no use. You've whipped it around like Indiana Jones and you're bored holding your piece of rope.

Save your rope, dear Murphy, you do need to keep yourself in top physical condition. Use it as a jump rope, you have it anyway. And I know that the thick black nylon rope you have is an excellent weight. You can also use it for resistance training. Those pitiful elastics the gyms overcharge you for ain't got nothing on a good piece of rope. And you could always try climbing the rope to build your upper body strength. But you won't, 'cause that was the worst part of grade school gym class.

And you're giving me that look that says I'm insane.

We could always use our imagination a little more, couldn't we? Do you truly want me to go into kinky details about what you could do with that rope?

...too bad. I'm not going to. But your mind went there too. So maybe reconsider your rope.

Besides, Murphy, you never know when you'll have to save a damsel from her tower. Not everyone can grow hair long and thick enough to hoist you into a tower. You'll be thankful you have your rope then.

I think I have made my point quite clear, dear Murphy.

So quit arguing about what you're going to need the stupid fuckin' rope for.

You could be a pirate.

Sincerely,
Kai.

Criticism, Television, Walkers, and Superviewers

I learned a new word today. "Superviewers". I don't know how I feel about this word.

I was reading an article online from the New York Times that Glen Mazzara (Show runner for The Walking Dead) tweeted earlier in regards to the season finale of The Killing. In it, the writer referred to a certain faction of viewers as "superviewers".

I think the easiest way to sum up the phrase is by describing these so-called superviewers as "fans [of whichever show, movie, media etc.] who use social media as a megaphone and/or mouthpiece to express their extreme emotions towards said media."

And this can be done for positive or negative.

I think it was a very good move for Mr. Mazzara to point this out because, in reality, the majority of the fans of The Walking Dead are extremely intelligent. At least, I like to think so, being one of those fans myself. I assume that there will be a lot more fans of The Walking Dead actually taking the moment to read the article. Whether the same fans take anything away from the article is a different story.

But I did, and that's the point.

I don't really comprehend the concept behind what makes a "superviewer." I use my social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to connect with other fans and friends who are also fans. (Most of my real-life friends aren't Walking Dead fans, so I take what I can get. And that is not to downplay the awesomeness that is my internet friends. You guys fuckin' RULE.) I have had some really great, intelligent conversations with people online, especially on Twitter, regarding The Walking Dead. However, I've never expressed disappointment or any negative criticism towards the show. I admitted to crying and feeling very upset over the show, but I would, if I was involved with TWD,  take that as more of a compliment than anything else. I don't understand when people get up on a soapbox and complain about the "pace" of the episodes (or season) or "the lack of zombie mayhem." The writers and producers have a very clear vision of what they want this show to be and I feel that they have done an excellent job of showing us, as viewers, that vision.

I don't personally watch The Walking Dead to get a fix of zombie mayhem. I watch the show because it goes deeper into the psychological aspect of what would happen to the survivors of the zombie apocalypse. I like the fact that it is full of angst and drama. In fact, seeing these characters break down emotionally and try to recover while there are other people's lives depending on them is what makes the show seem more realistic and far more entertaining to me than if it was the same "see a zombie, shoot the zombie, hide from the zombie, scavenge some food whilst running from the zombies, regroup and hide some more, end with a BANG" formula that every zombie movie seems to employ.

I think that this is the problem with the fandom of zombie apocalypse things in general: we have grown accustomed to a one-shot movie that is no more than two hours long that takes us quickly through the emotional degeneration and survival-instinct kicking in phase, through the zombie mayhem and killing and typically ends with a punch and/or a bang.

When you draw that out into a season's worth of television programming, we lose track of how long has actually elapsed in the world. In The Walking Dead, it has only been about 2 months since the outbreak - and Rick was in a coma for the first few weeks of it! Of course these people are still going to be reeling about what's happened and the degeneration of civilization as we know it is still happening. They're not entirely sure how to cope with the losses of... well, everything. They are still trying to figure it out. And this is where the drama comes from. You can't expect everything to work perfectly, people die, zombies show up, everything goes to hell. You have to consider - and this is what I really loved about The Walking Dead - that stereotypes, racism, misogyny, gender roles, psychopathy, and all the other negative stuff that society keeps in check (usually) still exists. Without actual laws and law enforcement in place to keep these things in line, it's all going to run rampant. We have seen it happen in the show. (Merle, Ed, Lori, Shane all show off the things I just mentioned in the first 6 episodes...)

I don't get it when fans criticize the work that these people these PROFESSIONALS do. Weren't you entertained? Did you feel anything for the characters? You know you're coming back next week to watch it. And the week after. And the week after.

The season 2 finale had 9 MILLION viewers.

You watched it every week. Don't deny it. You probably watched the encore too. I know I did.

And The Walking Dead got me to bond with my 14 year-old sister who is also a fan. I go to mom's place to watch it with them every week during the regular season.

I don't have cable TV. I cancelled my subscription almost 6 months ago because I was tired of paying insane amounts of money (it was almost $80 a month for a  basic cable package) to watch Star Trek reruns and Doctor Who, if I was home in time to catch it. Which I never was. Because I work on Saturdays which is when it airs in my hometown.  And I am not a fan of most of the shows on TV these days. I have a very dry and "British" sense of humor. Sitcoms do not appeal to me.



I loved AMC, however. My partner and I would spend days off watching movie marathons and AMC's original programming for hours. AMC got me hooked on Westerns, namely Clint Eastwood's works. Hang 'em High is my favorite.

So please, if you're going to criticize the producers, don't harass them on Twitter. They have made themselves SO accessible to us, the fans, the viewers. So have the actors. Personally, I follow 3 writers, 2 Executive Producers, and 5 of the actors who I can think of off the top of my head on Twitter. I would hate to lose those privileges of being able to get my questions answered, or to see behind the scenes pictures that they share with us because of the soapboxing and the so-called "Superviewers".

I suppose that by writing this I am toeing the line of becoming a "superviewer" myself. But that's okay, because I'm done my soapboxing.

I'm really just looking forward to Season 3.

Kai Kiriyama is a novelist who has several books in the works and is hoping to write scripts for film and television one day, despite being unpublished outside of the internet. She lives in the frozen North with her hedgehog Odin, her snake Rhaegar and her laptop.

 You can find her on Twitter at @thekiriyamaheir and you can email her your arguments if you need more than 140 characters at thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com

Creativity Killer...

(Or, why I'm happy to have canceled my cable subscription.)

So, my fiancee and I made the joint decision about a week ago (as of this posting originally) to cancel our cable subscription. The decision came about after months of me talking about it. Personally, I don't watch television as it airs. My lifestyle, job(s) and hobbies don't work well with the rigid implementation of watching X number of hours of television programming per day in a futile attempt to catch all the shows I want to watch where X is directly proportional to how many reruns of Futurama play in a row either before or after my prime time television shows are aired.

Yes, most of our television time was spent together late at night (when my fiancee should actually be sleeping because he is up early every morning to go to work - he works as a drywall installer) watching reruns of Futurama, Robot Chicken, American Dad! and Family Guy on Teletoon at Night. The prime time shows I was (and honestly still am) interested in were Castle, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Eureka, The Walking Dead, Hell on Wheels and Sanctuary. I typically caught one of those shows on television 1 week out of 4 each month, and watched at least 2 of the aforementioned cartoons every night when we were both trying to 'wind down'. Quality time had become a shell of what it could have been, and we dulled our minds watching reruns of programs that we had already seen.

In the past few months (especially in the 2010-2011 television season) I haven't been able to catch more than one show during the originally scheduled airing time. And consider that with the cable package that we were paying for, Supernatural aired on 2 separate channels, but one was a week behind the other in sequential order, I STILL only caught 1-2 episodes per month, if I was lucky, and they were usually the same bloody episode.

I've become pretty much dependent on streaming, PVR, and other means of watching television shows, but never really on the television when they were on.

The other big factor in making the choice to cancel our cable subscription was the price.

We were paying almost $80 per month for basic cable. No HBO, no Movie Central, nothing special. $80 per month to watch Futurama reruns. It seemed like a logical choice.

But now! It's been amazing. I feel like my productivity has skyrocketed, I feel like writing, sewing, painting, learning to play musical instruments... Studying! Learning! And, I've rekindled my love affair with books. It's great, instead of turning on the television for three or four hours at night, after dinner my fiancee and I either do something together (sewing, artsy stuff, video games, movies etc.) or we each go our separate ways for the evening and do something we like (reading, writing, single player video games or Minecraft etc.) AND THERE'S NO PRESSURE.

We didn't like some of the same shows (I can only watch so many episodes of How it's Made before I want to burn all of my possessions in defiance) and we certainly didn't really talk about the shows we just watched. But now, we talk more. We visit more. There's more creativity and passion in what we do. We take an avid interest in what the other is doing and we have the attention spans to talk and ask questions about the activities the other is doing, or to do something together that doesn't involve the glow of the television and bickering over what channel has better programming.

I'm not against television. I love it. I love the stories and I love the programs, but I personally feel so much better now that there isn't the feeling of pressure to make the most out of the cable subscription simply because we're paying so much for it. Maybe, in the future, when I'm not so uptight about money, I will consider paying that much for my entertainment. Maybe I will be more open to watching hours of television, or turning it on for company. (I get lonely being home alone all day.) But for now, I'm going to settle myself contentedly with my hobbies, and without the glow of the television.