Friday, April 13, 2007

Batman wears rainbow

The reading that I did for this week was about Batman and his queer tendencies. I must say I found pretty interesting as I have never considered Batman to have homosexual innuendos or symbols. This reading kind of reminds me of the one about Seinfeld and the hidden homosexual symbols in that show.

I liked how the author's style and tone of this essay. However, parts of it did seem to come across as, "Well, duh, if you people would pay attention, you'd notice these things." Also, her reading kind of ruined the childhood icon of Batman for me. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, one of my closest friends is gay, but as child you think, "WOW! Superhero man is tough." And now every time I'll see Batman, I'm going to scrutinize his actions and think, "Gay!"

Ok, I guess I couldn't leave the Batman thing alone because I asked my gay friend Audrey to read the essay. She totally agreed with what the author wrote. She also said something interesting. When a director or author has their character have gay tendencies that straight people wouldn't pick up on, they are doing it as "secret" message to all other homosexuals that they are on their side and that it is okay to be gay. Hmm...never even would have thought that.

So, all in all, I think if Audrey's right about the secret message thing then by all means let Batman be gay.

Hero Love

The episode of Heroes that I watched mainly revolved around the character Hiro. He is the character that is able to control the time space continuum. Be able to do allows him to stop time, go back in time, and travel to the future. Quite handy when you want things to work out in your favor.

Anyways, the episode starts off with Hiro in a diner known as The Burnt Toast. He accidentally (he still doesn't have full control of his power) traveled back in time 6 months. The cause for all of this is because he has fallen in love with a waitress, Sandy. If you watch the episode right before this one you'll learn that Sandy gets her head cut in two (gross, I know) by the mysterious killer, Sylar. Hiro traveled back in time to warn her and save her as well.

As the plot progresses, Hiro and Sandy start falling for each other. Sandy then tells Hiro she has terminal cancer is going to die in six months, but also that she is in love with him. Hiro returns her love and just as they are about to kiss, he is returned back to the future and the diner.

This episode made me think that what is it about love that makes people take the actions that they do. And how can you describe love? I mean just because Hiro held Sandy's hand and looked into her eyes and said he loved her, does that make it love?

Something to think about for a rainy day.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Heroes among us

Gilmore Girls as sort of taken a hiatus from my blog entries since I loaned out my DVD box sets to a friend, and I have gotten a little bored with it.

The show I want to write about is Heroes. The cool thing about this show is that you can watch all the episodes on-line from the network's website for FREE.

I watched the first two episodes last night and they were pretty amazing. I know the story plot may seem a bit outlandish because five of the characters have "powers" that aren't realistic such as the power of flight.

As I mentioned earlier, the show is centered around five main characters. Your first hero you are introduced to you Peter Petrelli. He is a male nurse and has an older brother, Nathan, who is running for Congress. Seemingly normal, right? However, Peter has reoccurring dreams that he can fly and so can his brother. A series of events, which seems to most like a suicide attempt by Peter, leads the brothers to discovering they both can truly fly.

The second hero is Issac Mendez. He is a heroine addict who can paint the future. The question seemingly is: does he truly see the future or is it just the heroine doing it? The creepiest part about this is that Issac has painted a huge skyline of New York with an atomic mushroom cloud over it right on his loft floor.

The next hero is Nikki. She is a single mom who owes 30 grand to the mob. They are after her and her son. When two mobsters come to threaten her, she passes out and when she comes to, realizes they are dead. She then looks at her mirror and sees her reflection smiling and puts a finger to her lips and says, "Shh." Apparently, her power is use her reflection to do whatever she wants.

I would have to say my favorite hero is a Japanese office worker named, strangely enough, Hiro. He is hilarious because he is the only one out of all the heroes so far so far to embrace his power. Hiro's power is the ability to teleport, stop time, and travel back and forth through time. In episode two, Hiro teleports himself to New York, which resulted in him being missing for FIVE WEEKS in Japan. However, when he is in New York he experiences the nuclear bomb that Isaac painted, but teleports himself just in time back to Japan and in the time where he left off.

The last hero is Claire. She is a cheerleader who has attempted suicide SIX times. You'd think she was depressed, but, no. She has the nasty ability to go through any harm or pain and not be affected. She is indestructible and doesn't want to be.

All these characters are intertwined with each other, but they don't know it yet. Plus, they are being sought out by a genetics professor named Suresh whose father wrote and studied about people with new genetic codes that may lead to the new human evolution.

After watching this show, it made me think, why do people who ARE different and unique long to be normal, and why do normal people want to be different? Well, the second question is pretty obvious to answer. Being different is a lifestyle that isn't mundane. But why do unique people want to be the same? Is it too hard to be different? Why wouldn't you want to live a life with meaning?

Thoughts to ponder on a rainy day...or a snow day considering this is Michigan.