Today’s Rhapsody is Rhapsodie by Marcel Grandjany for Harp. Performed by Sivan Magen winner of the 2006 International Harp Contest in Israel.
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For a while I’ve been a fan of the webpage, Racebending, their blog and their Tumblir account. Occasionally there are times I wonder if they are overreacting about some of the subjects they bring up but then I remind myself that I’m thinking as a sheltered white boy who wouldn’t even notice the worst of these things.
Last week they had a link to a list of famous examples of minority characters being “whitefaced” in Hollywood. Most were in the list were the ones you would expect most notably John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Charlton Heston as the Mexican Detective Mike Vargas in A Touch of Evil and many more. The one item on their list that surprised me was Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra it went into some detail about how this was an example of having a white woman playing one of the most famous women of color in history.
Immediately I went into history Nazi mode. “Hey wait a minute,” I said, “Cleopatra was Macedonian! The Ptolemys virtually invented apartheid…” In other words she shouldn’t be on the list.
But then it hit me. The creators of the film probably didn’t know this either. This was the story of the exotic oriental Queen who seduced both Ceaser and Mark Anthony from the Shakespeare play not Cleopatra VII last of the Ptolemy Dynasty. So based on this, the article’s criticism holds and is very, very valid.
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Last night continued my viewing of the third season of Game of Thrones and my first viewing of the History Channel’s Vikings.
Episode two of Game of Thrones show the high standards set by the first episode have not gone away. Once again I found myself focusing on all of the things that made it different from the book. I had mentioned more than once that I was interested in the way all of the changes from the first two seasons were beginning to snowball and this episode was an excellent example of this. The most notable thing about this was the introduction of the Reeds who appear far later than they do in the book. The other is the first appearance of Sandor Clagane, the Hound who appears much earlier than he does in the book and serves the purpose of outing Arya to the Brothers without Banners instead of a former Stark retainer. Also while the book has a cast of thousands HBO can only afford hundreds because of this many minor characters are removed or merged together. The biggest example of this was mixing the Brave Companions with House Bolton (a side note on that one; whoever designed the Bolton’s flayed man banner for the show was brilliant!)
The list goes on. Not in a bad way… Just interesting.
Other interesting scenes abound most notably the interplay between Margery Tyrell and King Joffrey (considering I had to have nearly half of the ways she played him I have to pray I never fall in love with a woman like her.)
Vikings was a case of letting my interest in history, especially an era of history I was familiar with, took away from my enjoyment of the show. While the story was good this show was about Vikings the way Xena: Warrior Princess was about ancient Greece. There were so many details they were getting wrong that I couldn’t focus on it. (To the producer’s credit there were no horned helmets but unfortunately that didn’t help them)
All in all Vikings was enjoyable as a fantasy piece, which is being passed off as historical fiction. But if I wanted televised fantasy I’ll stick to Game of Thrones.
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Today’s sketch is from the Asian Art Museum and is a stele of Maha Devi Durga (The supreme goddess Durga) made in central India during the 11th and 12th century out of sandstone. (The god Ganesha makes a nice little cameo over her right shoulder)
I did this one after two days of doing two minute poses at Sakura-Kon so doing this one in 45 minutes in a comfortable chair was like taking the weights off and sprinting to the finish line. 
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When I was mulling around Sakura-Con this weekend.I picked up a flyer for a new anime called Vividred Operation. having not seen any new Anime for a while I decided to check it out when I got home expecting what looked like a science fiction version of magical girls. What I got was the most blatant example of fanservice and objectification in the first minute alone. After watching it for another five minutes where we are introduced to the main characters… er assets I lost interest.
I have to confess I’m probably a complete hypocrite on this subject. I am not blind and since I’ve been single for a little too long I will not deny that I enjoy sexy pictures. But when it’s like every franchise thinks everyone thinks with their glands and makes their product nothing but pinups it just annoys me.
The most blatant example I’ve found (after the one I’m showing) Is in the current Catwoman run which had a cover that tried to show both Selina’s chest and ass at the same time making it look like she had broken her back. The list goes on.
I think what sums it up the best is from one of my favorite quote from Terry Pratchett.
“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”
“No it ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes-”
“But they Starts with thinking about people as things…”
And just showing a woman as a package of parts sums that up perfectly.
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Today’s Rhapsody is Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Russian Rhapsody for two Pianos
http://youtu.be/_vL_eAb_hS8
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