Red Tails Gets the Red Pen

I saw the new Hollywood film Red Tails earlier this week. I really wish I hadn’t. It’s a dreadful, repugnant, insultingly, appallingly bad film. I was insulted–I, the middle class white guy–sitting in the theater. Please, for the love of anything and everything holy, someone keep George Lucas from making any more movies. Star Wars Episodes 1-3; Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull; and now Red Tails. George, you may have made some of the seminal movies of the ’80s. But it ain’t the ’80s no more.

Red Tails is supposed to tell the stories of the 332nd Fighter Group, the first combat group of African-American fighter pilots in World War II. It’s an inspiring, worthy story and I’m more than a little surprised there have been so few films made about them. If for no other reason than greater awareness and a damn good story I’d suggest more movies get made. But for the next couple, let’s concentrate on making them good movies, okay?

Here’s why this specific film sucked giant hairy donkey dong.

• Horrible writing. I mean, really horrible writing. Even the stereotypical characters were flatter than necessary–it’s like every third line of dialogue was taken from a ’50s newsreel out of context and and tacked in. If you imagine characters on storyboards–the cocky pilot, the worrisome commander, the sagelike senior officer, the dirty German bad guy, etc.–and then think that maybe they lifted the dialogue from the pitch session instead of putting some effort into something realistic and not stilted, you might not be too far off.
• Crap word-building. We’re to assume the Tuskegee airmen are the best simply because they’re black. In other words, since the film opens with one of those disgustingly racist quotes about African-Americans being unsuitable for combat because they’re somehow less than white Americans, the film is going to refute that simply by example. I don’t make this example to suggest they weren’t talented pilots or as able as any other men on Earth–the combat record of the 332nd proves that argument false all by itself. They were damn fine soldiers and airmen. What I’m saying is that it would have been far better for the filmmakers to show how the Tuskegee pilots overcame institutional racism and other badness to still learn what they needed to know to survive and succeed in combat. Instead, Red Tails just says “assume it.”
• Crap Consistency. It’s damn hard to “assume it” about talent and skill when the characters are going around contradicting their own dialogue. One character will lecture another about the importance of discipline and doctrine in combat; and then in the next scene show those same characters ignoring that doctrine and discipline to succeed. If there were military advisors on this film I’m certain they threw up their hands at some point and said “Fine, we’re just going to stop going for any sense of realism at all. Sure, solid bullets make ships explode. Yeah, you just let pilots wander off  with their planes in combat zones whenever they want…”
• Assume the Romance. There’s a romance subplot between David Oyelowo’s Lighting and Daniella Ruah’s Sofia. They go from the standard fumbling move meet-cute to becoming engaged to marry. Which is fine, except the whole relationship happens off-screen. We see him fumble an introduction when neither of them speak each other’s language. They kiss once or twice. And suddenly they’re engaged. It’s a great romantic subplot and the actors involved do a very good job, but the whole bloody thing happens off-screen. They love each other. No one knows why–least of all the audience.
• No elegance. At all. It’s a movie that feels like it was made by 12 year olds for 12 year olds. Almost all the characters are caricatures of themselves, even the Germans. The head bad guy growls racial slurs and — dum dum dum — has a huge facial scar, because Bad Guys Have Ugly Scars. The hick pilot has an accent, plays guitar and dispenses the down-homey-time wisdom. I’ll give the actor, Ne-Yo, his due–he did it well. But it’s like casting checked a box marked “Supporting Character, Hilljack, Musician, One Each.”

But this is a George Lucas movie. And although he only produced and financed, not directed, it’s not difficult at all to see his hand in the production. The special effects are, as one might expect, top-notch. But in a world that’s seen and embraced war filmmaking on a scale of Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Band of Brothers and The Pacific, the realism in Red Tails is a joke. And the subject of this film is worth far more than a joke.

A Series of Essays at Tor.com on Military Science Fiction

Over on Tor.com they’re doing a series of military science fiction. I’ve been reading the columns at work as they come out, and sometimes logging on at night to see if anything knew is out. So far they’ve been about half-and-half; I like several of them very much, and a couple are (from the mistakes in them) the result of a quick skim-and-judge.

I have friends that read military SF. I have friends that read nonspecific SF. I have friends that do not read SF, and I have a few friends that don’t read books at all. Excepting that first group, I doubt many of them really understand what military SF is. There’s a link to the wiki up at the top; you can read that, it’s not bad. But thanks to this Tor series, there’s a good indicator, too.

In “A Kind of Humor” David Drake, whom I consider perhaps one of the finest prose writers in the genre, offers an essay on why military science fiction is so young, in genre terms. In my experience–which is in no way military, since I have never served–he portrays men and women in combat in what seems to my uneducated guess to be the most realistic fashion. “A Kind of Humor” is an essay more about history and reader attitude than anything else; if you accept the validity of Drake’s statements, and you can understand the black humor and the coping mechanisms he describes, you’ll very likely understand military science fiction.

Another good read is Myke Cole‘s two-part “Why Every Writer Should Join the U.S. Military” (Part 1 and Part 2). In this essay Cole describes the lessons he learned about discipline and expectations while in the military, and how he has applied those lesson to his writing career. I could explain it in detail, but instead I’ll excerpt this bit from Part Two that I think is more or less the money shot of the whole essay:

Writing is like that. It is an absolutely binary and unforgiving process. The community is full of wonderful people who will smile and make sympathetic noises. They will drink with you and be your friend. All of this is absolutely genuine, and none of it changes the fact that the serious gatekeepers, like military officers, put the mission first.

They must buy manuscripts that will sell and make their companies money. If that means you have to suffer and be in pain, then too bad, so sad. They will again smile and make sympathetic noises, but they were looking for the 1, not the 0, and all the kindness in the world isn’t going to change that one iota.

The universe doesn’t care if you’re sad, or lonely, or having a tough week. You either sit down and put the requisite words on paper to finish your novel, or you don’t. You either take the hard look at your craft and study those writers you admire and make changes as necessary, or you don’t.

Now, having said that I have never served a day in uniform, I get a feeling I might get along all right with soldiers. This is more or less my outlook on life–you either do it, or you don’t. If that’s the lesson that Mr. Cole took from the military, then so much the better. I will happily be reminded by him, and rededicate myself to promoting it in others. I’ll also be buying his book as soon as it comes out.

In addition to the essays are a number of book reviews of seminal militar SF texts. I enjoyed both Ryan Britt’s “For Whom the Space Beacon Tolls: Another Look at Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers” and Michael M. Jones’ “Future Shock: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman,” both of them writing in somewhat literary terms about classic works. The more reviews of more recent works I enjoyed less–in several cases I outright disagreed with the writers in their conclusions, but didn’t care enough to brave the comment threads to argue–largely because they kept raising issues that I didn’t think were terribly germane. In particular, the specter of gender equality in militar science fiction continues to rise, and I really don’t want to be a part of that argument. I’ll probably have a separate post on that topic, but that’s for later. I’m sure I’ll be crucified.

I mention this series on Tor because I’m quite pleased, whether it turns out that I end up agreeing with more of the essays than I disagree with, because I’m pleased to see the genre get more exposure. It’s the genre I most often write in, and the one I most often read in. I enjoy writing it–few themes and tropes are as much fun to play in as life or death, after all–and if this helps draw more readers to the genre, I’m not too proud have mercenary interests.

Go on over and read some of the articles. You won’t like them all. But it’s never a bad idea to learn more about something you may not understand.

Crusades

The other day at work I had a momentary moral crisis. I was assigned a project to essentially promote a book that espouses that homosexuality, being a silly choice, can be cured through the power of the Lord, if only the misguided homosexual-minded person prays hard enough and finds a spouse of the opposite sex to help them through it.

Leaving aside several paragraphs of exactly how that offends me, is almost certainly wrong, and patently ignorant, my conundrum was at what point do I stop sacrificing my moral standards for a paycheck? I had a moment’s thought experiment about refusing to do it, being fired, and calling in the ACLU or someone. But since I have bills, and a cracked tooth, and a nine-year-old, I just polished off the thought experiment and forgot about it. I write about distasteful or outrightly stupid subjects all day long. This is not new. I’m a grown-up.

And besides–despite being an admitted hypocrite–I can’t rightly go around lecturing people about how valid my offense at their offense is if I can’t allow things offensive to me to be said. After all–I’m not saying people don’t have the right to say pretty much anything they can get away with. I’m just reminding you that I have the perfectly valid and equal right to think its stupid and rail against it.

In my case, that often seems to be not that something I said offends people, but rather than I have the perfectly valid response of being offended by their offense at my remarks. My offense, after all, is just as valid as yours.

So. I was already thinking about that. And then I had to stop on the way to pick up Nora from school to get food; and of course I saw tabloids, and two subjects stick in my mind:

1. Some inane nonsense about Kim Kardashian’s publicity wedding, and
2. Some close-minded polemic rant about the hideousness of gay marriage.

Which leads me to here.

I don’t begrudge you the right, if you do, to believe that gay marriage weakens the institution of marriage. I will insist, however, that–as we’ve already discussed–you allow me the right to insist that position is ridiculous.

Only one thing weakens the institution of marriage: the failure of that institution. Divorce weakens marriage. It’s really that simple.

Consider the vows (well, most of them) that seem to include some variation of “til death do us part.” They don’t say “until you get bored with your spouse and decide it’d be more fun to get a leg over with the hot guy at work,” or “only so long as she keeps that hourglass figure and likes to have sex five times a week,” or “given that the median household income never drops below $64,000 per year.”

Til. Death.

I don’t care why you agree to it. Because you’re in love. Because you’re religious, and you’re worried about your eternal soul. Because you need a green card. The why doesn’t matter. The what matters.

You said forever. It’s that simple.

Now, I expect I’ve got -ists of all sorts rallying the arguments–what about abusive relationships? What about adultery (let’s be fair–that’s abuse)? What about [insert rallying -ist cry here].

I didn’t say divorce was wrong. I said it weakens marriage. And it does. But nothing stands like bedrock–not even bedrock–against every tangible circumstance. Things change. People change. Divorce is often necessary, even  intelligent. It’s not going away. If the goal is a stronger “institution” of marriage, then a defense against divorce should be enacted.

Let us look at the popular (of the many, many, many spitballing celebrity divorces popping up right now) example: Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marriage. 72 days. That’s less than three months. That’s shorter than the common 90-day “probationary” periods most of us go through in new jobs. 72 days. If you can’t stay married 72 days–and let’s be realistic, given the legal realities it was probably more like 50-something days–then you don’t have any business getting married, because you don’t have a fucking clue what it is and what it means.

When you stand up–be it in front of a legal official, a religious official, everyone you know and treasure in the world, or a combination of all three–and say “this person, and no other, for the rest of my days,” you should probably think about the words. You should know that people change, and are changed. Where and how we live, jobs and coworkers, children, diseases, accidents, acts of randomness, whatever–all things change people. You have to be willing to accept that change. I am a perfect example–I am very little, at 35, like the person I was at 25.

I had considered these things, before I climbed that altar and said the words in front of everyone I cherished in the world. My marriage failed. I failed. I believe people when they tell me it wasn’t my fault, but I refuse to surrender all complicity. There was a point where I had to concede there was no further benefit to continuing to try. In retrospect, I almost certainly should have never gotten married.

But that’s the reality: if you want stronger marriage, you need to educate people about what they’re agreeing to. Given the radical changes we experience as individuals today, in a global world, I’m not certain marriage is honestly wise. We change, as persons, far more often and more quickly today than people did 100 or 200 years ago. I certainly don’t believe marriage is necessary. Far too many of us get married because it’s what you do. We grow up, we go to school, we go to college, we meet someone, we get married, we have kids. Happily ever after. And for many, many people that’s exactly what they want and what they’ll get.

But for an equally large number of people, it’s not what they want, and it would be a mistake to force it on them.

I don’t care, particularly, about marriage “as an institution.” If two–or more–people are competent to get married and want to, then let them. In fact, where do you get the balls to insist you have the right to deny other people anything? What does it possibly matter if they have the same or different chromosomes? The operative word there is “competent.” If you believe marriage is an institution and should be protected, fine–but protect it by its own values, not those you append to it because of other beliefs.

You don’t like gay people? Good for you. You’re entitled to your beliefs. What you’re not entitled to do is impose your beliefs on me or anyone else. I dislike–hate, despise and loathe, even–a great many people. I hate them because they’re loud, or because they smell disagreeably, or because they make remarks I disagree with, or because they believe things I think are morally, socially and intrinsically offensive. This is America (where I am, at least, for my overseas readers);  you’re allowed to think those things. I’m also allowed to think you’re an idiot for thinking that way. True story.

Let me say it again: you’re not entitled to  impose your beliefs on me or anyone else. I don’t get to smack, cut or annihilate the people I hate, no matter how much I may want to, or the compelling reasoned arguments I can make for their extermination. So you don’t either. Denying two people the right to join their lives in the same way that people have been doing literally for millennia because they happen to both be the same gender is just silly. Be honest. You don’t fight gay marriage because you think it threatens heterosexual marriage; you fight it because you don’t like homosexuality. Because you think you have a right to decide for other people how they live their lives, what they do in their bedrooms, and who they spend their time with.

How dare you. That’s right, how dare you.

I don’t think stretch pants should be manufactured in a size larger than 6. I don’t think smokers should get access to government funds for lung cancer treatment. I think rape should be a crime punishable by public crucifixion, and people who drive slowly in the left-hand lane should be flogged. These are all beliefs that I’ve adopted based on my own view of the world. I believe these things just as strongly as you believe the things–good or bad–that you believe. I’ll happily bring them up in conversation. I’ll try to convince you. But I don’t for a moment imagine I have any more right to insist you think like I do than you have to insist I adopt your beliefs.

It’s perfectly acceptable, and might even be necessary, to tell people they shouldn’t do something. Enough people saying “maybe this shouldn’t be legal” is what creates law, after all. But you should not be–and I’m not, none of us are individually–allowed to say “No, you can’t. Because I say so.”

So, to bring all of this around to the beginning, I realize that it would have been wrong for me to not do the work assignment. It’s not my place to stop anyone from saying anything and, if we’re being honest, the idea at question was so patently stupid that no one will be convinced in any case, unless of course they already believe that–which isn’t really any manner of convincing at all.

Knowing When to Let Go

I was working on an outline today, and I had to stop and work out some world-building. And I got stuck. Which sucked up my day.

If you’re reading this, and you don’t know what world-building is, this is the part where you stop reading. But if you don’t, let me sum up: in fiction writing, world-building is just that; creating the world. In SF, we’re writing in a world that is not our own. Maybe it has spaceships. Maybe it has magic. Maybe the Red Sox have won every World Series for 100 years. Something is different.

The secret, then, is defining the different. Because nothing exists in a vacuum. So the Red Sox are winners; what does that do to baseball? What does that do to Boston? Do little boys in Ohio grow up emulating that Boston accent because that’s what champions sound like? These are the kinds of questions you have to answer. Maybe the answers don’t make it into the story, but you–the writer you–has to know.

I was working on a series idea for a military-SF series. I was thinking battlesuits–walking combat armor. And I was trying to reason out, “Okay–assume we find the power source; assume we find a way to carry the ammo; inertia remains in effect, so it’s not going to be all anime and walking into tank rounds. Iron Man is cool as hell on the screen but Tony Stark would be strawberry paste on the inside of that hotrod-red suit.” Unless you can dampen inertia (which means, more or less, antigravity, in which case the whole scheme of economics changes) it’s just better body armor and load-bearing equipment. Which means it’s just a really, really expensive alternative to roles a basic infantryman fulfills all by himself.

Long story short, I’d argued myself right out of the conceit of my what-if. If it can’t turn an infantryman into a tank, why bother with the expense? How do you get a Defense Department to fund a F-22 cost scale battlesuit for a role a dime-a-dozen infantry platoon can fill for a fraction of the cost? I still don’t have the answer to that.

Now, some of you are undoubtedly going “Oh, you dumbshit, it’s a story. Worse, it’s a sci-fi story. Why are you worrying about this?” And the answer is, verisimilitude. And the reality that written science fiction is not Star Trek. You cannot explain away reality and physics with special effects. Readers will abandon you.  Which means, I spent an afternoon weighing personal protection against shock and awe and finding niche rolls where a battlesuit (really just impenetrable armor with no superpowers) would be useful. Maybe urban combat? Crowd control? If we can make it fast without beating the literal hell out of the dude inside, penetrations?

An example: “Okay, let’s make them fast. Rocket-assisted jumps. Sixty kph ground speed. Oh, wait–you can’t move a man’s legs that fast. And even if you train them to relax and let their legs be moved, they’ll still get sprains and bruises and bed sores. Okay, so move them into a seat in the body–make them taller–and then–shit. If I do that, why bother? Wheels are probably better in that situation… DAMMIT.”

When I finally gave up, I’m leaning toward using the “there’s no financial reason” as a story plot. I mean, we no longer need $2 billion Stealth bombers.  We pay fucktons of money for prestige. This might work.

Now comes the fun part. I get to think about how to kill them. And where to send them. And tactics. And deployment. And service (I like Marines, ooh-rah).

But it took me too many hours to get here.

First-world problems. I has them.

Ranty Time

//start rant//

How many people do you know who’ve said at some point “I’m going to write a book someday,” like they’re qualified to do so because they can almost, sometimes, spell difficult words like “the” and “and?”

You know a lot of those people. Because they’re everywhere. And a whole great horde of them actually compile those books. I’d say write, but that hurts my soul.

And you know what? It irks me. Because that’s my job. I take it seriously. I’ve worked hard at it, studied it, practiced it, failed horribly at at and discovered new things about it. I don’t pretend that it’s easy to do well.

But, apparently, because everyone learns how to “write” in school, anyone can do it, right?

Right?

So here’s what I’m thinking. I can cut a steak with a knife. That means I could totally be a surgeon, right? How different can it be? I’ve peeled the skin off a chicken breast.  And I can count–mostly, but hey, that’s what calculators are for, right?–so I’m also going to someday be a banker–maybe on Wall Street! I’ve seen Fox News–all those guys do is buy Jaguars and make eleventy bajillion dollars a second.

Oh! My phone takes pictures. I’m totally going to be a professional photographer.

I can drive my car on the interstate, too–so I have a sterling future in NASCAR! I can learn to speak Tennesee, I’m sure, so I’ll fit right in. Y’all.

I have painted the wall of my house before–so I can be an ARTIST, too! This just gets better and better.

Fuck.

Here’s all I ask: I’m a firm believer than anyone can try to do anything, so long as they’re willing to work hard, learn, and accept that they might fail. But not everyone *can* do everything. I will never be an astronaut. I’ll probably never be a pilot, and I’ll for certain never play professional sports. I don’t pretend that I will, despite the fact that I write science fiction, have flown in a plane and understand the science, and have, in the past, played Horse with a basketball.

Don’t pretend you’re good at something you’re not. I can pick dandelions out of my yard and put them in a cup and set that cup on the table, but I don’t pretend I’m a florist. Knowing the motions does not make you a professional.

//end rant//

January 2, 2012

1,000 + words written. No work-for-hire to report today. Workout completed early.

Protein remains nasty. Did some grocery shopping–may help. Bought responsible food.

More tomorrow.

January 1, 2012

So far my record is 1/0.

I have written my 1,000 words of original fiction. In addition to the 3,000 words of work-for-hire work I did this morning. And I did my hour of exercise. So, for if only one day, the first day, I’ve met my New Year’s resolutions.

And, oh holy Gandhi, it hurts.

The work-for-hire came out okay this morning. And the exercise wasn’t too bad. I made a run at a proper diet, but…

… protein drinks are NASTY. Nasty. As in, awful disgusting gut-wrenching penis-shriveling nasty. I want to be fitter. I can show you pictures of what I want to look like, the clothes I want to wear. I want it so badly I can taste it, and I’m starting from worse than nothing. A desk job and poor eating habits have undone everything I’ve accomplished, weight-wise, in the last five years.

But there’s got to be a better way. Because protein is NASTY.

So I tried to eat well today; I failed. At this point I’m more or less depending on the willpower to only buy diet-centric foods. And stop taking money for the vending machine at work.

So. I’ve written, I’m sore as hell. That’s my day.

FY 2012

So. I have resolutions and shit…

(I know–you’re saying “… and shit? Really, Jason?” And it’s okay. Because really. And. Shit.)

I have simple New Years resolutions for 2012.

1. I will exercise for one hour every day (60 minutes–maybe, hopefully even, 60 all at once). Cardio, weights, whatever. 1 hours. Every day. In this way habits are formed.
2. I will, in addition the already-staggering amount of work-for-hire I’m contracted for, write at least 1,000 words of original material for eventual publication. Pages of a novel; pages of an ePub project; it doesn’t matter. It will be content not intended for any of the several work-for-hire universes I currently work in.
3. I will hug Nora as often as I can.

Okay, that last one? I do that anyway. But it looks all pretty, there on the list.

Count Again

It’s Scientifically Proven…

Barney Stinson can't be wrong...