Tag: mythpunk

Why I’m already concerned about the Starz TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

Posted on by blablablaandgabbler

Hi. BLA here. Coming to remind you of what Neil Gaiman said back in 2010 about not setting one of his books in “America”:

“The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America, you go back 250 years (in a cemetery), and then suddenly you’ve got a few dead Indians, and then you don’t have anybody at all, unless you decide to set it up in Maine or somewhere and sneak in some Vikings.” [Via]

A “few dead Indians” is what you’re supposed to pay attention to here. Now, surpassing debates on what he meant or didn’t intend to do in that interview, we can look at his colonial mentality in his work itself. Take this statement about American Gods:

And perhaps most offensive, we’ll get the book’s Big Statement About America, which is bizarrely insulting to Native Americans. Near the end of the novel, a Native American with magical powers named Whiskey Jack tells Shadow he’s not a god, but rather a “culture hero,” because the land we call America “is not a good country for gods.” [Via]

Neil Gaiman consistently glazes over Native Americans/Indigenous peoples and their cultures. Something I’m sure he has learned to correct by this point, but it was something I had hoped the creators of the new TV show adaptation would rethink in the story. However, it doesn’t seem likely. Sure, sure, they can update Technology Boy to not be so technologically illiterate or culturally offensive, but this recent EW article doesn’t give me hope for the story’s cultural literacy:

“Neil created this wonderfully stuffed toy box filled with all sorts of cultural points of view on how American operates as a system, and that was so fascinating and mythological in and of itself,” says Fuller. “It’s really much more of an immigration story than it is a god story.” Green adds, “One of the biggest challenges was stripping the idea of gods as X-Men or giant empowered creatures who stomp on cities and throw the oceans. We wanted them to be people with problems. It’s not about lightning bolts – it’s about the question of day-to-day survival.”

So, we’re still talking about immigrants? Colonizer problems? Nothing has changed. Dear Hollywood and Neil Gaiman, just because your story doesn’t whitewash doesn’t mean it’s not racist.

See also, The Gods Don’t Need Your Worship. 

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

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Read it for free on Goodreads:

Posted on by blablablaandgabbler

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[Read the entire novel for free.]

The gods don’t need your worship

Posted on by blablablaandgabbler

There is something even more narcissistic than post-apocalyptic literature. It’s modern takes on mythology.

In Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, the gods need more believers. They are shadows of their once-selves. And new gods are forming—gods of the Media and the Internet—simply because humans pay more attention to them. This puts a lot of power in the unknowing hands (or heads) of mortal humans.

This plot point is what’s called “The gods need prayer badly” and it occurs so often in mythology stories that it’s become a trope on TVtropes.

In the 2010 reboot of Clash of the Titans, humans need to be reminded of “the order of things” because the gods can “feel their power draining”—as if their existence depends on humans in the first place (never mind that the gods created THEM). See deleted scene:

TVtropes even comments on the sequel:

“In the sequel Wrath of the Titans, prayers have dwindled so much that the gods have all lost their immortality and many have died before the movie even started. They still have most of their powers, but they are fading. Thus, the Titans are breaking free. On a Fridge Logic note, why are the Titans still around? The gods fuel their immortality with worship, what do the Titans use? And before there were humans to empower them, the gods took down the Titans, didn’t they?”

I could continue to list where else this lazy trope shows up, but I think you get the point. It simply doesn’t make sense and it cheats the audience out of an honest look at why myths exist. I’ll explore the following reasons:

  1. If gods exist because you believe in them, then how are they said to create man and other worldly things/creation itself? When talking about creation myths, it’s not a “chicken before the egg” dilemma. If using myth-based facts, then MEN CAME AFTER GODS. The very thought “gods exist based on human worship” (Read: American Gods) is stocked full of more hubris than the idea you’re just as powerful or as good as them (Read: Andromeda’s beauty in Clash of the Titans). HOWEVER, I will admit that the plot of “humans overthrowing their creators” (paralleled to robots vs. humans, Zeus vs. Cronus) is entirely legitimate. See number three.
  2. It’s one thing to say that the gods require worship and sacrifice for attention or for additional power. It’s entirely another to say it’s what sustains them. The gods don’t need you. You need them. That’s why you keep them happy. At most, they need you like a human needs a pet. How does prayer/worship/sacrifice legitimately feed them? Sure, it might fuel them. Their egos. But it’s not what keeps them alive. What were they “eating” before humans came along? Instead of them somehow farming humans as a concocted food immortality supply, it’s a much stronger plot point to suggest that gods created humankind out of boredom—out of wanting someone to play with—loneliness—to give themselves purpose. Thus, when that purpose is threatened, of course they’d be upset. Every parent or authority figure wants to be respected.
  3. Man may be responsible for creating out of belief, but that doesn’t mean he can kill out of disbelief. Just like believing in Santa Claus doesn’t make him real (sorry kiddos–and what the hell are you doing reading this blog?), disbelieving in gravity, that the earth is round, in global warming doesn’t make it less real. No, I’m not going to dissect Nietzsche‘s “God is dead” argument for you (in fact, Gabbler told me not to—told me to focus only on the literary points, not the philosophy), but sure, let’s go ahead and pretend that we are a threat to gods. But what kind of a threat—on what level? At the basic level, our disbelief threatens our need of them. We become self-reliant. But that could hardly be seen as an entirely bad thing for ALL the gods (for example: some of the “good” gods having to clean up our messes like 1) wars and 2) general human horribleness must get tiring). Gods only “need” us in so much as as we fight their wars for them, hurt others for them, are entertainment for them. We may not need them, but we cannot kill them from it. Sure, there may be a constant fear within every creator that they will be overthrown or overshadowed by their successors. But even when Cronus overthrew Uranus, did he really die? Indeed, in some accounts he was was merely castrated. Changed. Overthrown does not mean death.

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“Gods need prayer badly” is wearing thin—to the point of ignoring entire historical cultures and tradition. Not only is it a lazy excuse for why the gods don’t get involved in our affairs anymore (i.e. because they’re dead or weak), but it assumes that these “old gods” have lost their inspirational powers. Which isn’t so. Otherwise, we’d stop talking about them in our stories so much.

By BLA. Edited for curse words and self-righteousness by GBG (without a single footnote!).

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

all yellowB&N | Amazon | Etc.

Post updated on 4/30/17

#BLAThoughtOfTheDay: Only dipping your toe

Posted on by blablablaandgabbler

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Gabbler recently recommended Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis. I, however, have reservations about recommending the book (yes, I have read it too).

As someone who may be particularly knowledgeable about what it is to be a non-human animal, let me say this. While the fable itself is fine, and the scenario is certainly interesting (Hermes and Apollo give human intelligence to fifteen dogs they find at a veterinary clinic for a bet to see whether or not even one of those dogs will die happy), the story ultimately has little impact on how we understand our own said “intelligence” or the human-animal relationship.

Dogs were chosen as the subject for the experiment, and, since so, a population from a more diverse pool should have been employed. I was disappointed that no dogs from, say, a kill shelter were involved, no dogs from a dog fighting ring were involved, no dogs from the meat trade were even thoughts. The dog characters did not have diverse backgrounds, and how might that have changed the story? This was one way Apollo, Hermes, and Alexis himself avoided real dog-specific issues. None of the dogs really had to grapple with the higher forms of exploitation and oppression their own species faces every day at the hands of human intelligence. Instead, we get a thought about what dog culture might be if dogs could analyze it as such. But what is culture when in reality there are so few instances of allowing them to even exist together? Perhaps Alexis should have considered rez dogs or even wolves. They already have a social structure that need not be contrived.

The story focuses on the symbol of the collar and leash, dominance in a pack/household, the existential nature of dogs trying to be dogs despite a human mind. This dance around the real plights a canine faces in our world ultimately made it a too-comfortable read, and, I think, kept the humans in the story (and the humans reading the story) from being confronted with the evils and sadness “human intelligence” is capable of.

But the bet itself was cool. Gods should gamble more often. Oh wait, that’s all they do.

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

all yellowB&N | Amazon | Etc.

 

This post was updated in 2024.

Mythpunk

Posted on by blablablaandgabbler

Quote:
‘Do we really need all these labels, all these punks? We probably don’t need them. But because of them, certain writers and works are talked about. So they enable us to have conversations we did not have before. They allow us to notice writers we might have overlooked. And they allow those writers to speak and say, “This is what I am. Or am not.”’

Theodora Goss's avatarTheodora Goss

I’ve been wanting to write about Mythpunk since JoSelle Vanderhooft’s interview of Catherynne M. Valente came out.

But I didn’t have time. And then a week later there was a Mythpunk Roundtable with Amal El-Mohtar, Rose Lemberg, Alex Dally MacFarlane, and Shweta Narayan, moderated by JoSelle.

And at some point I found Niall Harrison’s blog posts: Mythpunk and amimythpunkornot.com. All on Strange Horizons.

It was interesting to see that several of the above mentioned me. I also ended up in the Wikipedia definition of mythpunk:

“Described as a subgenre of mythic fiction, Catherynne M. Valente uses the term ‘mythpunk’ to define a brand of speculative fiction which starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodern fantastic techniques: urban fantasy, confessional poetry, non-linear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, worldbuilding, and academic fantasy. Writers whose works would fall under the mythpunk label are Catherynne M. Valente, Ekaterina Sedia, Theodora Goss, and…

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