Bates Motel

Trying to get into the television series, but have so far bounced pretty hard off it. It's decently well acted, and the script is intriguing, playing around in very interesting ways with the concept of Norman's increasing mental instability causing you to question what is real in the scenes which are just him. The supporting cast is also interesting, and there's some subplots and themes that have a lot of promise.

The thing is that the choices by the director to make his framing of Norman and his mother so disassociative and off feeds the overall theme nicely, but really blocks the chances to build any empathy towards them. Without empathy, the viewer is insulated from any kind of emotional reaction in response to the things they experience or suffer through. For example, there's a rape sequence which is told in a fairly bleak and brutal fashion, but really, the only thing that comes through as an uneasy story element to react to is the interplay between Norma and Norman following it.

In short, the show spends so much time reminding you that these are people who are already too broken to ever heal that you're not waiting for the possibility for redemption with either of them, but instead killing time until the inevitable transition from victim to monster is complete.

EDIT: That would be a 'rape sequence'. A 'rap sequence' would be if this series had been shot in the 90s with Will Smith as a wacky young Norman Bates and Alaina Reed-Hall playing his sassy 'moms' Norma.

Opening Day

For once, all my slash friends will agree with me:

Dickey Da Best

Go Jays.

( Bonus content )

Chatty Today

I'm stuck in hurry up and wait mode at work today. So obviously time to catch up on things.

There's an interesting letter floating around regarding a letter from a couple in CT regarding a decision not to hire a contractor for their home. They planned to add a room to their house, met with a number of contractors for estimates, and the one that seemed to meet the requirements best turned out to have an NRA sticker on his bumper, which led to their decision not to hire him to do work on their house. This has led to the typical range of responders to people asking if they thought it was okay if employers fired Obama supporters after the election (it's not, it happened, and thanks to right to work laws, it's legal in many states) or that they were being discriminatory in the same way they accuse Republicans of being. I'm not going to get too far into the actual leyyer, because no doubt it will be on tumblr and Fox News soon enough.

However, it got me thinking that from the responses I read, most really missed the mark and there is an interesting takeaway from it. Hiring a contractor is the act of a consumer, not an employer, so let's just remove those parallels from the discussion now. If you look at a contractor's vehicle as his place of business, it suddenly makes it more a question of what influences your decision to patronize any business? For example, I wouldn't shop or eat at a place displaying a giant Confederate flag in the window by choice. Ditto a place that was decorated to emphasize a specific religion that was unrelated to the business itself. I wouldn't shop at a place that proudly displayed support of intolerance or racism. Those in favour of strawmen are quick to equate this to a form of prejudice, no different to choosing not to shop at a store with a black owner or clientile. However, that argument is flawed; the decision to avoid a store with a 'Marriage is between a man and woman' sign is not a rejection or penalization of a people because of their religion, race, gender, or politics. It is a decision to reject their services based on the advocacy of those views.

Even something as simple as a bumpersticker that says 'I'm a member of the NRA' or a little box of phamphlets for the local 'Defend Traditional Marriage' meeting is a form of advocacy, no different other than by degrees to holding a sign or marching in the street. It is allocating part of your professional space to announce this element of personal support. Once you place that in the public sphere, you have to accept responsibility that your business will be judged in relation to it. There's the other side argument that such and such a person may have an entirely different meaning for his Confederate flag or his struck out rainbow sign, but that's irrelevent. As a customer, whatever your symbol means to you is less important than what your symbol means to me in choosing where to spend my money.