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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Thanksgeeking

I know I'm not the only one who came up with that term, but I did come up with it all by myself, and I'm pretty proud of that. 

It's that time of year when everyone is telling everyone else what they're thankful for. That may have sounded like it annoys me, but it doesn't. Hearing everyone give thanks always makes me think about what I'm thankful for. Truth be told, I'm thankful for a lot and since this blog has taken a geeky feminist turn the last however long, I thought I'd list all the geeky things I'm thankful for. Well, not all. I stopped at 5 because I wrote a lot for each one and because 5 is a great number to stop a list at (OCD much?) 

1. Joss Whedon and His Creations


There is only one thing that Joss has created that I don't love: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (from Marvel), and I'm blaming that more on Jed and Maurissa and the fact that they just take a while to get a show moving along (re: Dollhouse). But that leaves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, Cabin in the Woods, Much Ado About Nothing, Avengers, Fray, Astonishing X-Men, and a slew of scripts he's fixed and written over the years. 

Buffy will forever be my first pure geek love. I liked geeky things before that of course, but nothing as much as Buffy and I have yet to find something that I love as much as Buffy. From there, my love for Joss only grew. Well, first it was a complicated relationship because characters dying was a new thing for me and I didn't know how to handle it. Since realizing how much more exciting a story can be when that's the risk, my love for Joss has only grown. 

My favorite thing about Joss is he really does write women well. There are those who disagree with me, but they're wrong. I'm not saying he's perfect, but the female characters in his works are characters, not caricatures. It's sadly something we still don't see very often and while I can enjoy TV and film that don't write women well, the vacuum is always there and whatever I'm watching or reading isn't as good as it could be. 

2. Catching Fire


I thoroughly enjoyed the Hunger Games books. The first movie was alright. Catching Fire is a giant step up from that (how do you feel about firing Michael Arndt now, Disney/Abrams, huh?). The production quality was great, the script improved on the source material, and it had the fifth largest opening weekend in history (largest November open ever). 

Oh, and look! Over 40% of those who saw this movie opening weekend were men! Wait, does that mean that men identify with female protagonists? I mean it's common knowledge that women moviegoers identify with both men and women, but so far men have only identified with male protagonists. And, hang on, how much money did the movie make? But the lead is a woman! That's not supposed to happen...  

Dear Movie Executive that I was impersonating in the paragraph above: YOU ARE A COMPLETE WASTE OF SPACE AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE DECIDING WHAT MOVIES GET MADE! 

Let me ask the men reading this a question: have you ever identified with a woman? Movie Executive, take note. Every single man said yes (except the psychopathic sexists, but they don't read this anyway). Chant with me now, Movie Executive - a female lead does not mean men won't go see a movie. A female lead in an action movie does not mean it won't make money. 

I'm thankful for Catching Fire because we FINALLY have a chance to show ass hats like my friend, Movie Executive, that they're wrong. Both men and women will go see a well written film, no matter what the protagonist has in their pants. When you give us garbage like Elektra or Catwoman, of course it won't make money. You didn't try to make it so it would. Give us a film like Catching Fire and you'll make money. I promise. 

3. The Marvel Cinematic Universe


Now remember, I'm not talking about X-Men (as much as I want to) or Spiderman since the movie rights to those characters aren't owned by Marvel. 

Thanks to Kevin Feige (I wrote Paul Feig at first... I'm always doing that for some reason), Marvel is its own movie studio. Granted, they only became so after they had sold off all my favorite characters (namely lots of X-Men) to other studios, but Feige fixed it before they sold off just about every Avenger character. 

God bless Kevin Feige. Cause really, do you realize how big of a thing it is that they're doing? Do you?! Taking four characters and making four movies (well, really three cause I'm pretty sure they didn't have Avengers in mind when they made Incredible Hulk, although I could be wrong) in order to introduce those characters for an ensemble movie. Then they say, "Oh hey, that went well, let's do it again and this time, let's add TV shows to it!" and announce 4 shows for Netflix and one more (hopefully) on the way for ABC, not to mention the other one they already have on ABC. Now, they probably won't all tie together the way Avengers did, but they could be making Avengers movies forever with this model! Kill off Iron Man, throw in Black Panther (although we better get Black Panther before then). Kill off Thor, throw in Captain Marvel (again, we better be seeing her sooner than that). 

Oh! Oh! Not only that, but they're making a movie about essentially space Avengers with a talking tree and a raccoon with machine guns. It's going to be freaking amazing. 

Meanwhile DC makes another movie about Superman and/or Batman. Again. For like, the 40th time because they're scared of taking risks since Green Lantern didn't make money (not that they tried to make it good enough to make money) and Wonder Woman is too "tricky." 


4. Comic-Con (both SDCC and SLCC)

 

I first went to SDCC last year. I won't go into the details of that since I already did, but suffice it to say that it was incredible. I didn't even mind the crowds (and I HATE people) because I saw everyone there as a kindred spirit. Either that or I mentally prepared really well. 

Salt Lake had its very first Comic Con in September and while it wasn't as good as SDCC by a long shot, it was still fun. Although the crowds did bother me more there. But it'll get better. First year meant a lot of mistakes and very poor planning. They initially planned on 2,000 and ended up selling 60,000 tickets. Even with the bigger venue there wasn't enough space. Not many big names, but I did get to meet Nicholas Brendon again and Stan Lee decided to show up last minute. That was pretty fantastic. They're doing two next year, one in April and one in September. Don't ask me why. My guess is anyone who goes to the one in April will also go to the one in September. I doubt they'll reach a wider audience. But whatever. I'm still going to the one in April because James Marsters and Adam Baldwin are going to be there along with about half the cast of TNG so far. *Please get Patrick Stewart... Please get Patrick Stewart...*

San Diego Comic Con is nerd Mecca. I made my pilgrimage for the first time last year and I'll go as long as I have money and people to share a room with. Salt Lake Comic Con was the largest inaugural Comic Con ever and will hopefully keep growing and attracting bigger names. Those are my people and I love it. 

5. Nerdy Family and Friends

Harry Potter birthday party 


My nephew at Halloween a couple years ago


The Justice League


Happy Birthday, Buffy! 


Very tall Ash. 


Two of my nieces (ages five and two) love Avatar and anime in general. My third niece (age three) is going to be a paleontologist when she grows up and knows more about dinosaurs that I do. My oldest nephew (age five) was Yoda two years ago for Halloween, Iron Man last year, and Michelangelo this year (my other two nephews are too new to like anything but food, clean diapers, and sleep). He's also on his way to becoming a Bronie (a cool one. Not the one that asks Lauren Faust for her autograph so the toy she signs has a higher resale value). They are like this because their parents are like this. My family rocks. 

I do not have a shortage of geek friends either. If I want to geek out/geek complain about anything (including feminist geek stuff), I have at least five people outside of my family at any given time I can call or text for that purpose. And if not, my best friend (who is not a geek) will humor me. My friends also rock. 

All in all, my geek life is good. Although it would be better with a Wonder Woman movie. 

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