To a fellow blogger and his cause (once more with feeling)

Dear Joe Peacock.

You recently wrote a blog post at CNN.com called Booth Babes Need Not Apply. It is a piece that accuses women of both acting like real geak girls even though they are actually fake, and ruining all the nice things by poaching men at cons. I'd really rather not recite the whole thing, since it's right there behind that link to read for all that are interested. Although a lot of people have already responded to this particular text, I think there are still certain things that need to be said. Fakeness as an "issue" is dealt with in my blog post here. Your accusations considering women will be dealt in this one.

This is both a response to the original text and the so called aftermath, and my take on the subject "what is wrong with geek culture and what can we do about it". I think you are missing the real evil here, and I think you should know why.

1. "The problem is that there are pretty women who aren't interested in our culture trying to gain stuff via their looks. They are the pox of our culture!"

No it isn't, and no they aren't. Your problem is that you're annoyed that (you think) there are fake geeks at your presence. Better yet, you seem to resent the possibility that they're benefiting from our pure and undamaged geek field in some ways. Hmm. It might come as a surprise to you, but our culture, the geek world, is in no way pure of people who aren't fans. At cons alone there are booth babes, the staff, the actresses and actors and other performers to mention few. 

You do understand this right? Not all actors in geeky shows are geeks. They are in fact using your precious culture to get money and even - gasp! - attention. You have even mentioned one yourself: Jeri Ryan. And booth babes. Although they are hired to be there, some of them actually use cons to level up in their career, maybe even on a geeky one. They're gaining from the attention they get in one way or another. Even your geek godess Felicia Day has gained stuff from this culture. Or is it allowed only if the person's geek cred is certified somehow? Why? How? By who? You?

2. "They are causing disturbance!"

Are they? Are they causing problems at cons? In your original text such were nowhere to be found. According to you the girls were present at the con. They were trying to get attention at the con. So what? You don't have to give them attention. Don't. If they truly would have been disturbing with their performance (wearing too little for the con standards, sexually harrassing people or, I don't know, prostituting?) they would have probably been thrown out, right? Cons can do that. They have security. Adrianne Curry was thrown out of a con for wearing too little. So was a Finnish cosplayer I personally know. You mention nothing of this sort of behavior in either of your posts. 

In your response to the people who critized your post other people stated (in the comment section) that the people who are present might be ridiculing the geeks they find to be freaky. Now THAT is a problem if true. THAT should not be tolerated at all. Not by con organizers, not by anyone. 

But that's not what you're really worried about, is it. From your texts it came across very clearly that these women are disturbing because they are beautiful (or better yet, not even that pretty they think they are) and because they apparently try to act like "us real authentic geeks". That justifies you being sexist towards them and guessing their motivations.

I could say the pox of our culture are the people who stare and comment on other geeks looks, but I suppose complaining about that in the internet seems kinda pointless, does it?

3. "They don't care about our culture!"

I have read your other posts of how awful it is to you that your hobbies are now popular, and that people can buy Batman-shirts from local stores and that sort. That is truly a tragedy. The opression, it must stop! Well no, not really. I really don't give a shit. And I don't understand why this keeps being such a big deal to you. "Our" geeky things are offered to all people now, consumers. Or am I mistaken? Comic book movies, are they really just for geeks? Can't I buy a pretty thing like a Pacman bag just because I like its design? Should vendors start asking people's credentials before accepting their money? Have you not ever just done a thing, bought a product or enjoyed something without truly understanding its meaning? Please, you who have never sinned, go ahead and throw the first fucking stone.

Our culture is commercial as shit. You didn't see this at Comic Con, the most commercialized event of the geek world? Seriously, even though I don't agree with the definition that this guy makes (mostly because definitions are more or less pointless if you use them to alienate people), I agree that he has a point when saying that what you consider geeky and pure is nothing more than tools to those who produce merchandice after another and grind these things dear to us into big piles of money. And you know what. They don't probably care about the geeky stuff either. But then again, is your geek identity really reliant on what other people do?

4. "It was understandable that Felicia Day was accused for nothing and that I accused Frag Dolls with no reason!"

No it wasn't. Bad journalism is bad journalism. Both cases require you to go as far as Wikipedia and check out what the people in question have accomplished. Maybe next time research first, rant later? Or better yet, don't judge people based on things you THINK you know about them.

5. "They deserve to be harrassed in Xbox Live!"

For first. Are you saying they are still fakes even though they play online? You know, in a place when no one can see their (not even that) sexy poaching bodies? This alone proves you don't really know what you're talking about. That you think that people are fake because they don't reach your criteria or behave in a certain way, not because they aren't actually interested in the thing you say they aren't. 

For second. No one, absolutely NO ONE deserves to be harrassed. Not anyone. Not even a person that you, the mighty geek king find annoying. Not even a person who dresses sexy to a club or a con. It is clear that you have no idea what online gaming harrasment, or harrasment in the internet, or IRL, or inside a geek community means. Despite of your so called apologies you never ever apologized for this. So, don't even try to jump into the shoes of us geek girls, because it's obvious you will never ever understand a single fucking thing what it feels to be one. I know what it feels like to be harrassed, you don't. And seriously, I wouldn't wish that to my worst enemy.

6. "I must tell how much I despise them in my blog!"

Yeah, no. While you concentrate trying to fix things by busting the fakes and spotting the realz (along with Suicide Girl fans), there's better ways to do it. Why are there people who try to use our geek culture for their own personal gain? Because we let them. It is pointless to start pointing fingers to single con-goers or consumers (especially when it's so difficult to say who is or who isn't "genuine", "authentic", "real" or whatever you choose to call them). There are however companies and organizations we can hope to plee for things. I don't know if it will help since our culture, the geeky one, is, as said, so deep in all of this. However we can try. 

I don't have to repeat what is already said so throughly about the use of booth babes, but in short it is insulting to men, alienating to women, lazy, and most of all degreading towards the female body. All and all booth babes increase the amount of sexual harrasment in cons towards the regular con-goers. It is also harmful to those who are trying to have an informative booth, and who are (because of babes) assumed to be babes. Thus booth babes can certainly be critizised as an phenomenon, a marketing choice, and thus we could actually try to do something about the booth babe use in cons by aiming our critizism to the people who demand the use of booth babes, the people who hire them, and to the cons that have no regulations against them. PAX has already stepped up and put limitations to booth babes. (Thank you PAX.) I would hope that booth babes would eventually disappear and that they would be replaced by informative booths and people who know their shit instead. You know, because that would give so much more than just eyecandy to all. It might limitate sexual harrassers. It might change the whole field. If we want more "real" gamer or geek people in our cons and expos, we should demand so. So, less empty marketing, more awesome stuff, yeah?

If we want to go one step further however, we should be go and question the whole "putting sexy geek girls on a pedestal" idea. It has gotten out of hands and causes only harm to everyone, including you, I guess. As long as there is a "geek girl sex goddess" fantasy out there, it will be used to a lot of people's gain and thus it will continue to annoy us. This fantasy is constantly being pushed to us by a) media, b) industries, c) people who contribute to it and d) people who buy it. If women were treated like normal people, even though they might be sexy, they would probably be taken more seriously (what most of us want), harassed less and suspected to be "fake geeks" less (which is an actual problem). The equality that so many women want is constantly being caused damage to by this unhealthy fantasy that needs to boost the sexiness of geeky girls in every given opportunity. "Geeks, sexy - not geeks, not so sexy". That is exactly it. That is the goddamn problem, man.

So maybe next time a geeky woman appears in a magazine, just maybe we shouldn't take pics of her half naked body, or worse yet, when she's talking about her geekiness in a totally non-sexy situation, make it a sexual thing by force (as seen with Megan Fox). Maybe we also shouldn't give women the special attention that we accuse others whoring for. Maybe we shouldn't be creepy. And maybe if we want to advertise something, maybe we should think other ways to do that than via a sexy woman with glasses or a controller. This applies to anyone producing any visual imagery to geek culture (including the women). That would mean, at the end, people would be there because of their own interests, not because there is something to gain. To be there to express themselves and not to want "attention" from us. Wouldn't that help you with your problem as well? 

Or you can continue dividing women into imaginary groups, putting them against each other and using them as an instrument of useless rant, too. It' entirely up to you.

With love,
Fantagonist

How to crappify a francise: A tour with Tekken

The Tekken movie. Yes, the movie came out two years ago, and it's been a while since I decided to write about it. But somehow I couldn't quite do it. You know, because sometimes you really really want to like something. "Maybe it'll get better the second time you watch it", you think. Yeah, I'm an idiot sometimes.

It is a known fact that video game movies are doomed to be awful. A curse that can't be lifted. To be fair I think there are entertaining ones, like Mortal Kombat, DOA, the first Resident Evil (which however has not aged well), and yes I kinda liked Prince of Persia despite of...things. Still, most of the stuff we get is crap. And the gaming crowd must be the most optimistic people there is, since every time a new one is in town they're all excited to see how it turned out (unless it's a Boll production). The Tekken movie was something I waited, anxiously, as a fan of the games, and also because I honestly thought it would be done well. It was such an epic setting, such a simple concept. How could it fail? 

Well, quite easily actually. Just do all the wrong things.

Step 1. Add unnecessarily complicated plot elements

What is this I don't even

As you may know Tekken is a game about fighting. And an incredibly inbred community on the side. I believe most of us fans wanted to see some over the top ridiculous interpretations of the given backstories, total tongue on cheek experience with some impressive ass kicking as the meat in that awesomesauce. Something fun. You know, like the games. Pretty low on our wishlist were shady as hell technology-corporation-bullcrap and post-apocalyptic symbolism. Which we got anyway.

So, yeah. That's this movie. Our main character is, to no one's surprise, Jin Kazuma, who lives in a slum in some weird dystopian world, with his mom Jun. (Who is surpisingly well casted with Tamlyn Tomita, mind you.) During the first 15 minutes we lose Jun, who though later appears in the form of flashbacks to Jin. For a reason unknown Jin now wants to avenge her death to the Iron Fist tournament by... entering it. All right. And so he does that. And he fights, wins, gets his revenge, meets a girl, unites the opressed people, you know the drill. Jin is the man.

It's not a bad plot itself, that heroic rags to riches one, although definitely soooo overused. I just can't wrap my head around why the futuristic fallen society and the Umbrella crap had to tag along. Is there actually someone keen on such clichés? It’s not very interesting, and it brings nothing at all to the plot. It's simply a cheap motivation to achieve the equally unoriginal revenge part without much effort. It's such an attention hog too, as it takes all the room and glory from the fighting. Even in the middle of the fights we just have to zoom in to some evil scheme being planned in the back or some shit. So what we get is the fighting forcibly connected to Jin's plot, as he is the Bambi, Jesus and Rocky in all this, while Huge Heihachi heads cover the earth, there's underground movements running around pressing money and listening to Beatles, et cetera. It’s all very weird in a bad way.

And guess what, Tekken didn't need any of that nonsense. There's enough plot lines already. You could have made five movies with the existing content itself. The content that's been build up for almost 20 years. Look no further than Jin's own family. You remember what a magnificent bastard Heihachi, Jin's grandfather was? If you don't, a brief case note straight from Wikipedia:

"In an attempt to eliminate his son's "weakness", Heihachi tossed Kazuya, his then 5-year old son, down a deep ravine, claiming that if he were truly his son, he would be able to survive the fall and climb back up. To further motivate Kazuya, Heihachi adopted Chinese orphan Lee and raised him as a rival to his true son. After Kazuya had traveled abroad and became an undefeated champion, the 52-year-old Heihachi announced the King of Iron Fist Tournament in order to test him. Kazuya won the tournament, tossed Heihachi off the same cliff and assumed control of the Zaibatsu.”

Who's the homicidal madman? You are!

Not enough drama for you there movie? Nope, since none of that or other Teken lore is present here. In fact, Heihachi’s a good guy. Not even kidding. This Satan's hairstyle adapted grandad is actually cuddly now. And like many others, we don’t see him fight. He's just…there. Standing. Not killing anyone. Like any regular 76-year-old man who isn't Heihachi.

Step 2. Fuck up all the characters

She WAS a world-class assassin. In the games.

Now, people who made this movie, think about something for a moment. Why do you think people would want to go see a _Tekken_ movie? Why do you think there has been ten games with mostly the same characters? From the very first reveal of the movie Youtube was instantly filled with predictions about the characters and the cast. Fans seemed to have a pretty solid idea about the movie that way, and it was easy to see who the popular ones were. Thus, the whole meaning of the movie was to fans to see those characters brought to life. It's really quite that simple. Instead the movie producers once again decided not to find out who the fans wanted and made some very interesting choices.

To me the picks are random to put nicely. I mean who cares about Miguel? And why such new characters like Christie, but no old and loved like Xiaoyu, King or Paul Phoenix? Sure they're plenty fan favorites still, but that's not, still, necessarily better. See, gamers are sometimes quite conservative, they don't like changes with no explanation. So if you're a film maker and want to experiment with the original material, don't do it with a game adaptation! 

One of the predictions I'd loved to see: Chiaki Kuriyama as Ling Xiaoyu.

For first, there are whole lot of people (in addition to Heihachi) that don't do anything. Steve Fox looks good and is present, but uh-oh, he’s not into fighting anymore! He’s a life coach now. Yes, he’s Jin's pal, but not actually teaching any moves to him (how could he, as a boxer). No, he’s more of a “you can do it” sorta fellow. Nina and Anna Williams appear with very little motif or screen time, except to show their "other talents". Nina is also completely butched. I'm sorry, but she is. One of the most memorable characters of Tekken now looks like a porn star in a bad rubber suit, and is played by Maxim girl Candice Hillebrand. And the totally not funny part is, Maxim already did Tekken before, and it's about the same level of quality than this. And Anna. Poor Anna doesn’t even get to fight, so she just cheers for her sister from outside the ring. A proud day for strong female characters indeed.

Speaking of which, Christie Monteiro is our female lead. Wow, a skilled capoeira fighter, I can't wait what she brings to the mov... 

Asscrack pants. Powered by Female Armor Industries.

Oh. Umm. Yeah, so there's Christie. She was a capoeira fighter in the game like Eddie, but I have hard time seeing any of that in this movie. I'm sure it's there. Somewhere. And she's white. Not as white as Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, but whiter than the Christie in the games. I'm pointing this out because it actually was a huge big deal to the fans that Christie wasn't potrayed by someone a bit more exotic, since she's supposed to be Brazilian. Comments like "Hollywood is racist" spawned immediately. Same comes with her romantic relationship with Jin, since they couldn't stand each other in the games. Again something they just decided to do because they needed a romantic interest. Roger that.

What comes to Jin's father, Kazuya, that's were they really messed up. Nothing wrong with the actor, but oh boy oh boy, that character. Like this wasn't a cliché after a cliché anyway they had to make him PURE EVIL. No explanation. And he couldn't even have been with Jun like a normal person, he had to rape her. Of course. 

Why do I wanna say... "Kali Ma"?

Step 3. Make sure the main focus sucks

Didn't he have a sword?

And now to the good part: fighting! Which, I'm sorry to tell you, isn't much. Instead of fight scenes we get to experience a lot of talking, some fucking, and that goddamn corporation shit. Exciting! Seriously, let me count the fight scenes for reals.

1. Jin versus Marshall Law. Jin wins.

2. Raven versus Eddy Gordo. Raven wins.

3. Jin versus Miguel. Jin wins.

4. Christie versus Nina. Christie wins.

5. Jin versus Yoshimitsu. Jin wins.

6. Bryan Fury versus Sergei Dragonov. Bryan wins.

7. Jin versus Bryan. Jin wins.

8. Kazuya versus Jin. Jin wins.

That’s eight fights (of 16 fighters) of which 5 consist Jin, 2 Bryan and massively 9 other characters including Kazuya as the big old baddy. To consider Jin’s fight moves are pretty similar, so it’s not very eventful nor interesting to watch him most of the movie. Also, I’d really like to understand how this works. The fighters are selected randomly, yet the winner continues on (mostly because the loser DIES). Jin gets to fight 5 times, once with Bryan who defeated Sergei. Well Christie won Nina, where’s the rest of her opponents? As usual women fight women only, unlike in the game, but isn’t it slightly pathetic that if they’re no more than two women in the tournament, you only get to fight once? No chance of winning there either I suppose, since both Bryan and Kazuya are off the charts finalists. Logic remains absent in Tekken the movie in so many ways.

Even Anna is confused.

In addition to styles, were signature moves really too much to ask for? I mean why the hell not? Too much trouble to find out what the characters actually do? You casted a guy for Yoshimitsu, and there's none of his cool stuff on screen. What, too unrealistic for your fancy schmancy corporation setting? Of course, you are only making a movie of a fighting game where Pandas are accepted to tournaments... Still the worst of all sins is that the fight scenes don't even last that long. Jin's match with Miguel? 30 seconds. Nina vs. Christie? Approximately 50 seconds, of which half is shots of people's faces watching the fight. So yeah, if you think eight matches is enough, think again. That barely counts as a warm up.

The fight scenes suck partly because of the characters suck too. For some reason they chose such fighters and styles that I personally can’t tell any apart. The original games had loads to choose from, such as sumo (Ganryu), Taek Won Doo (Hwoarang), and several different boxing, kung fu, aikido, kempo and judo variants, all really imaginative stuff. What we see now is the Kazuya's karate, Yoshimitsu’s ninjutsu and sword fight, and Fury’s rage attacks. And for some reason still, there’s BOTH of the capoeira fighters in this movie. That is totally unbalanced. What's the point? If you wanted Christie to be in the center role she is, why not cut Eddie and make Christie do all the impressive stuff she's supposed to do. I'm sure you could've found someone who knows their shit. They don't even interact in the whole movie, so make your goddamn pick. Unless it's the pants you wanted to cast.

I'd rather a little Hwoarang anyway.

Step 4. Profit!

Or no. It bombed, of course, barely beating Postal with $967,000. The cost of the movie however was astonishing $30,000,000. I'm not quite sure if they accidentally ate the money or if it was thrown off the cliff by Heihachi. Maybe the ten thousand times of Jin's mom appearing Mufasa style was especially costly. However I do know this movie went straight to DVD and that's where it's been for the last two years. As much as I'm hoping someone to reboot this properly, I'm not going to hold my breath. The games rule, I'm sticking with the games. This movie blows and deserves to exist only as another warning to others who will try to film a video game movie, again. So back the fuck off, film makers, you're trying something that can't be done. Leave the games be.

Although there are worse things... Dear god are they worse.