there's our catastrophe

work is its own cure. you have to like it better than being loved.

⚑ ♀

Posts tagged dystopia

Mar 22

Scientists find visions of a benevolent future society motivate reform | The Raw Story

monetizeyourcat:

great dystopias tend to come from eras of retrenchment and darkness too

leftists have gotta stop promoting doomday scenarios I think

it makes people depressed and anxious and more likely to accept the necessity of, like, radical austerity programs and repressive state intervention and stuff — ads without products wrote a good thing about this

the whole “state of emergency” mentality is not a good place to organise from — it promotes an attitude of DON’T THINK, DON’T CRITIQUE, JUST ACT, KONY 2012 — I believe iinventedeverything has written quite a bit about this

katie mccay bryson wrote a good thing about apocalyptic mentality in environmentalists and population alarmism

I just really think people are most motivated to act by hope, not fear

Posted at 12:14 PM 23 notes Tagged: futurityutopiamovementdystopiascience fictioncatastrophehope
Source: fuzzyhorns

Mar 27
Effie Trinket, Capitol fashionista, introduces the befuddled Appalachian heroine of the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen.  - So: I have a lot of thoughts about The Hunger Games and fashion.  There is a lot of fashion in the series, especially in the first two books, but I never really thought about it until going to see the movie this weekend.  The increased importance of fashion in a visual medium, I guess.  - Down With The Capitol and all that, but honestly, the Capitol fashions are really good.  They’re so sick.  I can’t get over how good they are.  Effie Trinket may be birdbrained and unsympathetic as hell, but she knows shoulderpads.  Politics aside, I can’t believe that most fashion editorials inspired by the series are about Katniss’s damn side braid.  (One exception: the Capitol Couture tumblr.) - Which leads me to: it’s a little annoying to me that the most vapid characters from the Capitol have the most effeminate and stylised fashion.  it’s kinda crypto-homophobic, all this avant-garde gender-bending fashion presented as the height of decadence.  - I mean, yes, totally, the underclass in a dystopian society who spend all their time thinking about their next meal are going to have less time to spend on their fash than the extravagant fashionistas of the Capitol.  But it’s usually the case in our own society that it’s underclass fashion that’s stereotyped as gaudy and monstrous, and the upper classes who have the resources to do classic and subtle styles.  Classic is expensive, and it’s inherently expensive: good classic style is defined not by creativity or colour or anything else that’s accessible to people with no money, but by quality of materials and tailoring. - And indeed, the more eeeeeeeevil and serious of the characters from the Capitol (President Snow and his ilk) have more sober and gender-conforming fashions, basically suit-and-tie stuff.  But also see for example how Cinna — a sympathetic fashion designer who is continually presented as truly cutting-edge, the last person you’d expect to have a conservative dress sense — is coded as sympathetic the minute we are introduced to him by Katniss noticing and approving of his comparatively subdued personal style.  He does have signature gold eyeliner, so it’s all relative I guess. - On the other hand, it appears that Panem doesn’t have the kind of mass production of cheap fashion that we do, or at least it doesn’t reach District 12.  They’re clearly not working within an economy of fashion that’s at all comparable to our own.  Also there’s a subtle French Revolution thing going on with the exaggerated hourglass figures and the white curly wigs, which I like.  - All that aside, I think we can all agree that Cinna is the best. He’s all like, “don’t mind me, I’m just some amazingly creative and talented fashion designer with really good politics and a kind nature who’s going to devote my considerable skills to keeping terrified underclass kids alive by making sure they look so damn cute people can’t bear for them to die”.  It’s one of the only truly interesting depictions of fashion and fashion design I’ve seen in recent Western pop culture.  - While we’re talking visual culture, let’s talk about the whitewashing controversy: Jennifer Lawrence is great as Katniss.  But her best efforts aside, the movie is hurt by Katniss being played by an unambiguously white and also very fair-skinned (freckled, even) actress.  The dynamic where she has less privilege than her mother, Peeta, and the village elite (all fair-complected) is continually reinforced in the books by reference to her darker complexion, like her father, like most coal-miners in her district, and like Gale.  It’s a super-important sign of her underclass roots.  Likewise, the support and solidarity offered to her with little prompting by Cinna, Rue, Thresh (all characters of colour, although I believe Cinna’s race is ambiguous in the books), and District 11 (a predominantly Black community) feels more arbitrary if she’s unambiguously white. (This more in-depth commentary at Feminist Film is good.) 

Effie Trinket, Capitol fashionista, introduces the befuddled Appalachian heroine of the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen. 

- So: I have a lot of thoughts about The Hunger Games and fashion.  There is a lot of fashion in the series, especially in the first two books, but I never really thought about it until going to see the movie this weekend.  The increased importance of fashion in a visual medium, I guess. 

- Down With The Capitol and all that, but honestly, the Capitol fashions are really good.  They’re so sick.  I can’t get over how good they are.  Effie Trinket may be birdbrained and unsympathetic as hell, but she knows shoulderpads.  Politics aside, I can’t believe that most fashion editorials inspired by the series are about Katniss’s damn side braid.  (One exception: the Capitol Couture tumblr.)

- Which leads me to: it’s a little annoying to me that the most vapid characters from the Capitol have the most effeminate and stylised fashion.  it’s kinda crypto-homophobic, all this avant-garde gender-bending fashion presented as the height of decadence. 

- I mean, yes, totally, the underclass in a dystopian society who spend all their time thinking about their next meal are going to have less time to spend on their fash than the extravagant fashionistas of the Capitol.  But it’s usually the case in our own society that it’s underclass fashion that’s stereotyped as gaudy and monstrous, and the upper classes who have the resources to do classic and subtle styles.  Classic is expensive, and it’s inherently expensive: good classic style is defined not by creativity or colour or anything else that’s accessible to people with no money, but by quality of materials and tailoring.

- And indeed, the more eeeeeeeevil and serious of the characters from the Capitol (President Snow and his ilk) have more sober and gender-conforming fashions, basically suit-and-tie stuff.  But also see for example how Cinna — a sympathetic fashion designer who is continually presented as truly cutting-edge, the last person you’d expect to have a conservative dress sense — is coded as sympathetic the minute we are introduced to him by Katniss noticing and approving of his comparatively subdued personal style.  He does have signature gold eyeliner, so it’s all relative I guess.

- On the other hand, it appears that Panem doesn’t have the kind of mass production of cheap fashion that we do, or at least it doesn’t reach District 12.  They’re clearly not working within an economy of fashion that’s at all comparable to our own.  Also there’s a subtle French Revolution thing going on with the exaggerated hourglass figures and the white curly wigs, which I like. 

- All that aside, I think we can all agree that Cinna is the best. He’s all like, “don’t mind me, I’m just some amazingly creative and talented fashion designer with really good politics and a kind nature who’s going to devote my considerable skills to keeping terrified underclass kids alive by making sure they look so damn cute people can’t bear for them to die”.  It’s one of the only truly interesting depictions of fashion and fashion design I’ve seen in recent Western pop culture. 

- While we’re talking visual culture, let’s talk about the whitewashing controversy: Jennifer Lawrence is great as Katniss.  But her best efforts aside, the movie is hurt by Katniss being played by an unambiguously white and also very fair-skinned (freckled, even) actress.  The dynamic where she has less privilege than her mother, Peeta, and the village elite (all fair-complected) is continually reinforced in the books by reference to her darker complexion, like her father, like most coal-miners in her district, and like Gale.  It’s a super-important sign of her underclass roots.  Likewise, the support and solidarity offered to her with little prompting by Cinna, Rue, Thresh (all characters of colour, although I believe Cinna’s race is ambiguous in the books), and District 11 (a predominantly Black community) feels more arbitrary if she’s unambiguously white. (This more in-depth commentary at Feminist Film is good.) 
Posted at 11:45 AM 240 notes Tagged: cinnadystopiaeffie trinketfashionhunger gameskatniss everdeenmoviesscience fictionteam gale btwteam katniss getting some serious therapy and distance really but you knowthe hunger gamesraceclass

Nov 3

man-themed: Trans*, Gender/queer, Gender Variant, Questioning -and generally all around not cis- Sci-Fi Zine Callout

man-themed:

calling all: alien creatures, animorphs, astrologists, bitchy witches, celestial beings, clairvoyants, closet monsters, comix nerds,  cyberpunx, cyborg feminists, deep sea divers, discordians, dungeon masters, dystopian sluts, elves & fairies, evil robots, extremophiles, genderqueer cans o’beans, glam goths, glamarchists, griminals, hackers, horror fiends, intergalactic babestars, kids who read about inanimate objects coming to life, techies, Linux geeks, mad scientists,  pervy bookworms, post-apocalyptic prophets, sexy clones, stargazers, steampunks, superqueerdos, Tralfamadorians, Trekkies,  wizards, wizard’s apprentices, vampire slayers, vamp tramps, superqueerdos, vengeful librarians, zombie survivalists, 1-800-psychics, and lovely so-ons… ***who aren’t cis***

We’re hoping to compile a rag tag collection of short sci-fi/horror/fantasy stories written by trans*, gender/queer, gender variant, questioning, or otherwise fabulous peeps. For the first volume, we’re hoping folks will consider, for your writing pleasure, the vague theme of ‘Solution-Oriented Dystopia’ and anything that may encompass. 

more at the link.  deadline is feb 2. 

Posted at 9:55 AM 111 notes Tagged: I am increasingly sceptical of ~*~radical queer~*~ zine culture but hope springs eternaldystopiaqueerscience fictiontranszinesI mean this could be amazing if done well
Source: man-themed

Apr 26
“

…not all that long ago, it seemed to me obvious that dystopian speculative fiction was one of the genres if not the genre best adapted to a left political stance. The drawing out of the inevitable ramifications of all this, the dramatic revelation of the crisis whose traces were already starting to streak the screen of things-as-they-are, the warning that the relatively bearable everyday was already pregnant with something much, much worse – these seemed to be close to the best one could do with narrative art today.

I even started writing some myself, a project that I’m constantly tempted to return to…. But honestly it’s feeling increasingly wrong-footed, if one would be even a mildly political narrative writer, to head in this direction given the way things are now.

Given that the fact is that the world over austerity measures, privatizations and rationalizations, and other efforts to starve out what vestiges of the welfare state remain are being sold to the public under the very brand of inevitable and interminable crisis. …The generalization of this atmosphere of imminent catastrophe – through films and books, news reports and editorials, the web, whatever – has served as a distributed and as if automatic PR machine better than any the right could have paid for in service of its quest to cut away the remainders of soft socialism.

” don’t need a weatherman//ads without products
Posted at 9:08 PM 6 notes Tagged: apocalypsecapitalismdystopialiteraturepost-apocalypticradical literaturescience fictionthe leftlit
Source: adswithoutproducts.com

Nov 22
resmc: I made it to 2010 and all I got from the SciFi book of my youth was the lousy dystopian government. (white text on a black T-shirt)

resmc:

I made it to 2010 and all I got from the SciFi book of my youth was the lousy dystopian government. (white text on a black T-shirt)

(via so-treu)
Posted at 5:05 PM 1,761 notes Tagged: science fictiondystopia
Source: blendwerk