Mark Reads ‘Moving Pictures’: Part 8

In the eighth part of Moving Pictures, Victor tries to fight the pull of Holy Wood as those around him are controlled more by it. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.

Trigger Warning: For discussion of homophobia, misogyny

Buckle in, y’all. This is gonna be a long one again. (Which I love, because I’ve been so surprised at my own response to this book.)

The Value of Hollywood

Now, I think I’ve written pretty extensively about the negative aspects of Hollywood, and I’m sure I’ve got about a million more stories within me, many of which I’m sure I’ll get to tell in the remainder of my reviews. But I feel like I’ve only briefly touched on some of the more joyous and rewarding experiences of that city, and I think this section gives me an opportunity to do that. This opens with a long section from the perspective of two characters hundreds of miles from Holy Wood, Azhural and M’Bu. Contracted (sort of) to deliver a thousand elephants to Holy Wood, the two of them, compelled by the pull of that mystical place, begin to believe they can travel over thirteen hundred miles and gather a thousand elephants along the way. The trek will be treacherous and absurd, a massive risk to their lives and livelihood. And yet, they believe that it is possible. They believe that they can embark on an impossible journey and succeed. And it’s not just that:

“Y’know, I’ve always wanted to do something big with my life. Something real,” said Azhural. “I mean, an ostrich here, a giraffe there… it’s not the sort of thing you get remembered for…” He stared at the purple-gray horizon.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you want to accomplish something meaningful. And trust me, I understand the desire to be remembered for doing something significant in this world. That’s part of my own drive, you know? I’ve got other factors in my life that motivate me, but I also can’t deny that this is part of it. That’s rooted in my childhood and where I grew up. Having come of age in a place like Riverside, which felt so isolated from the rest of the world, I long ago developed an intense desire to be somewhere else. I wanted to have access to so many things that weren’t a part of that city and that culture. I wanted to live somewhere where I could be open about being gay, where I could get tattoos, where I could be who I was without the everyday fear of wondering whether I’d be beat up or terrorized by the police. (Unfortunately, I quickly realized once I left Riverside that I had a misconception about small city police; big cities were somehow EVEN WORSE.)

So I completely understand Ginger’s desire to allow herself to be swallowed up by Holy Wood because… well, what’s the alternative? For Ginger, that was:

“It’s cold and wet and just as you’ve finished the bloody cow kicks the bucket over. Don’t tell me about milking. Or being a shepherdess. Or a goosegirl. I really hated our farm.”

I hated life in Riverside. I hated the worship of authority figures, from the police to shitty, bigoted superintendents who passed one oppresive school policy after another, to the worship of military service, to the adoration of specific forms of religion as the only possible way to survive in the world. I hated the expectation for me to live up to and perform my gender in narrow, misogynistic, and homophobic ways. And most of all, I hated that practically everyone in my life had a specific life trajectory in mind for me. My dad wanted me to join the military; the hounding started at a young age. It’s weird to think back about how my father tried to convince me to choose that life path; he was a big fan of telling stories of the glories of war and the value of camaraderie and discipline. But those stories horrified me; they were so brutally violent and detached. They didn’t convince me to enlist; they pushed me away harder than any of the bleeding heart screeds my father hated.

My mother wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. They were the only respectable professions in the world, and my mom was obsessed with respectability and assimilation. (Those two things ruined me for years, and I’m pretty sure they’re responsible for a great deal of my mental health issues.) She was excited when I became obsessed with Dana Scully from The X-Files because she was certain it would lead to good ol’ American career, a huge house, and lots of grandchildren. So when my tastes changed and I began to openly talk about my desire to write for a living, her disappointment was palpable. Her rage was undeniable. She unfortunately associated these desires with my more “feminine” behavior, and I’m sure you can connect the dots here. It wasn’t a man’s job. I’d never find success. I’d never get a wife. And I would be a failure if I ever pursued that sort of life.

Most of my counselors and teachers wanted me to pursue a career that was dependable, traditional, and would keep the bills paid. They fought me every step of the way, at least until I was a junior in high school and was lucky to get a batch of teaches who saw my passion for writing and fostered it. But for a long time in my life, I believed that my life was being chosen for me.

It was an unfolding tragedy that I was desperate to stop.

“You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?” said Ginger, not paying him the least attention. “It’s all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they’re really good at. It’s all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It’s all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad plowmen instead. It’s all the people with talents who never even found out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it’s even possible to find out.”

I dropped out of college a semester or so before I finished my degrees. It ruined me for years, and I was convinced that my poverty was inescapable. That led to my second bout of homelessness and a sense of loss. It’s been hard putting that into words, but I felt like I’d spent my entire life trying to prove that I could everything on my own. That I could be my own person. That I could pursue my desires and it was worth it. And then I’m making decisions I never would have even considered five years prior, and I was bouncing around L.A. county, uncertain of pretty much anything. It felt like the tragedy that Ginger described here: I was wasting whatever potential I might have had.

I have a lot of negative things to say about Hollywood culture. But Hollywood was how I got back into writing. The start-up I eventually got a job at was Buzznet, a tiny photosharing site that was growing rapidly. I was the eighth employee hired. I got into photography. I got to go to Coachella five years in a row for free. I got to tour with bands like Thursday and AFI, who I had idolized for years, and I got to write about it. I got to start Mark Reads in an office on Sunset and Wilcox, and none of this could have happened anywhere else in the world.

And what’s wrong with someone finding out their potential in a place like Hollywood? There’s nothing wrong with being a really great film editor or actor or writer. There’s nothing wrong with finding your nice in special effects or make-up. That’s the calling of people all over the world! And ultimately, I don’t have a single problem with the world opening up and giving people more opportunities to do something they love. As Ginger says:

“Holy Wood’s like a big bubbling stew but this time different ingredients float to the top. Suddenly there’s all these new things for people to do.”

And there’s no malice in that. For instance, it’s important that Ginger can now act on the Disc, since theaters had never allowed women to do so. So why is it such a bad thing that Ginger has found happiness and purpose here?

Nothing. But, like Victor, there’s still a huge part of this that’s a mystery, and that is worth considering:

“That’s it,” said Victor. “That’s what worries me. It’s as though we’e being slotted in. You think we’re using Holy Wood, but Holy Wood is using us. All of us.”

For what? What’s the end goal here? What happens when reality truly breaks in the Discworld because of all of this?

Ron Swans– er, Ridcully

I am so utterly pleased that Ridcully wants to use Riktor’s device as a weapon. OF COURSE HE WOULD.

Detritus

I think that there’s certainly a culture shock to being in Hollyood that’s specifically associated with dating, and JESUS CHRIST, Pratchett taps into it here so brilliantly that it’s actually eerie. There’s a distinct sense of modernity to dating in that city, and it’s both welcomed and infuriating. There’s nothing wrong with a changing of standards, but often times, there’s a huge clash between what’s considered acceptable by both parties.

In this specific case, Detritus is, more or less, old school. He knows the specific way in which to court women (WHICH IS THROWING A ROCK AT THEIR HEAD, OH MY GOD), but is unaware how offensive that is here. That being said, the changing standards in this situation work in favor of Ruby because… well, this was the alternative:

– in Holy wood she’d plugged into a vast cross-species female freemasonry she hadn’t suspected existed, and she was learning fast. She’d talked at length to sympathetic human girls. And dwarfs. Even dwarfs had better courtship rituals, for gods’ sake. And what humans got up to was amazing.

Whereas all a female troll had to look forward to was a quick thump on the head and the rest of her life subduing and cooking anything the male dragged back to the cave.

This change needed to happen so that Ruby could have some agency, so I don’t want to make it seem like this was just a culture clash. For example, as bizarre, shallow, and intense as dating could be in Los Angeles, it was leagues better than it was in Riverside for one huge reason: you could be gay and out and have places to go on dates without fear of retribution or harm. That’s a culture clash, but it’s one that’s better. So I like that Detritus’s reaction is one of fury and disappointment. Ruby sets the standards higher and his reaction is to meet those standards.

The Cost of Hollywood

The final batch of scenes touch on the monstrous money machine in place in Hollywood. As has been the case throughout most of this book, Pratchett puts the exploitation on the page in extremely plain terms. Dibbler is horrified at the idea of giving someone a day off until Victor passive-aggressively threatens to work for a competing company. Gaspode experiences his own moment of horror when he realizes that Dibbler used him as inspiration to give someone else a job. But it’s not more obvious that this moment:

“Listen, lad,” said Gaspode, “Dibbler’s making a fortune. I counted it. There were five thousand, two hundred and seventy-three dollars and fifty-two pence on Soll’s desk. And you earned it. Well, you and Ginger did.”

“Gosh!”

“Now, there’s some new words I want you to learn,” said Gaspode. “Think you can?”

“I hope so.”

“Per-cent-age of the gross,” said Gaspode. “There. Think you can remember it?”

I worked at Buzznet for nearly four and a half years. I was a contractor at first, then a salaried employee, and in those salaried years, I only got two minuscule raises in four years. I distinctly remember when in 2010, through less-than-ethical-but-entirely-accidental means, I learned how much everyone else made at the company. I was the the third lowest-paid employee out of over 150 people, and the person closest to my salary made TWICE as much as me. At that point, I was running all of Buzznet and doing their support and doing music writing and going on tour and doing Mark Reads Harry Potter for the site, which was the highest grossing blog in terms of traffic and ad revenue. I asked for a raise, at least to something closer to a living wage in Los Angeles.

I was denied a raise and told that the budget couldn’t afford it, and literally days later, found out that my company had paid an ACTUAL MILLION DOLLARS to be the sponsor of a concert. I was denied a raise there seven times and never for performance reasons.

So I fucking left them.

The original text contains use of the words “mad” and “crazy.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU2i2igWV9s

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