Returning to Jellystone for Christmas

  Growing up, my grandparents had satellite which meant that they had access to Boomerang.  Now, after pestering my parents, my family has the Boomerang streaming service with a variety of different content that I would have seen either growing up or on Netflix DVDs they used to rent for long car rides.  So needing to catch up on Christmas specials, I decided to watch Yogi Bear’s First Christmas, a 1980 film I saw from time to time on the network around the season.
As stated, the film follows noted forgotten cartoon icon Yogi Bear as he celebrates Christmas for the first time.  Normally, he and Boo Boo are asleep this time of year due to hibernation, but since the rest of his usual friends were hosting an extremely loud Christmas party, he was woken up and decides to stay up long enough to enjoy the holiday.  Thus, the special follows his antics of experiencing Christmas traditions like skiing, ice skating, Santa Claus, and others while trying to save the Jellystone Lodge by pleasing the owner, her spoiled brat nephew, and stopping an anti-Christmas hermit from ruining the holiday.
Rewatching this so many years later, there’s something nice about watching an innocent character get to experience the season of joy for the first time.  Everything is new to him so he gets to experience everything in the same way a child would.  Though hardly original, it is a well suited plot for a character that emulates that kind of childlike innocence while being completely devoid of cynicism.
From watching him save the lodge owner multiple times to stopping either her nephew or the hermit from ruining everyone else’s joy to just trying to enjoying Christmas traditions like avoiding mistletoe all the while trying to save a lodge.  Really, it does capture the feeling of the holiday while still making you actually care about the place he’s saving.  It’s still cheesy and simple, but there’s a lot to appreciate if you’re in the mood for simple holiday cheer.
I guess this still resonates because the special celebrates life during Christmas.  There’s still basic celebrations, still people understanding the “real meaning” of giving, and more importantly it’s not the 3000th ripoff of A Christmas Carol.  If you don’t immediately hate Yogi Bear like the rest of my family, it’s probably worth a laid back watch.
So, as I get ready for Christmas, I look back fondly on my own childhood and the optimism of what is yet to come.  For that reason, I’ll probably keep watching older cartoons that can promote that.  So Merry Christmas everyone, enjoy the time you have with your loved ones.

Taking a Break from Blogging

         I'm working on some personal projects going forward so I'll be walking away from Blogging for a while.  Hope to return but will see what happens next.

Go Read Booker T. Washington

  During some finals week of a year I no longer remember, I was passing through the bookstore at the Indiana Memorial Union and found the autobiography of one of my heroes, Booker T. Washington, on discount.  Booker T. had always been a hero of mine due to the strength of his ideals and the fact that he was underappreciated as a civil rights leader, so I got it.  It took a couple years, but recent events finally made me get around to reading it.
Booker T. was a prominent civil rights leader in the 1800s who had been born into slavery and eventually went on to lead the Tuskegee Institute.  He was a believer in the concept of black excellence, that African Americans should constantly better themselves and learn the skills required to go into and potentially create the industries that would better society.  From this, equality would eventually be achieved through self-improvement and education.
His autobiography starts about the feelings of what it was like to be freed from slavery when he was a boy.  The feelings of jubilation and the knowledge that the worst of their lives was over is well documented in the book as well as what it would mean going forward.  This inevitably led to opportunities, but hardships as well.
From there, he travelled with the support of his family to look for work before he ended up teaching at the Tuskegee Institute.  From there, he impressed people to the point that he was made the head of the Institute.  The rest of the book chronicles his work from going to conferences to getting talent to work at the institute to his personal life to fundraisers to working with various Presidents and more.
The book is an excellent chronicle of his beliefs in how to uplift African Americans during the worst of segregation and a chronicle of what he was up against.  From lynchings to white supremacy to southern politics, his autobiography gives an overview of life during this time and the struggle for civil rights.  It is a time period not as often talked about during the discussions of racism in the United States so it is good to have a primary source on it.
Booker himself gives a good overview of how to face challenges when there is little support from the establishment.  Often one cannot overwhelmingly defeat the system alone, but they can improve themselves and give the best impression of what they believe.  It is something important that anyone should consider.
The book is both a good look into the views and issues of the time as well as his philosophy.  I highly recommend it as his values are still applicable and have the potential to improve the lives of those interested.  Without any hindrance of a doubt, go give it a read.

No Blog Post This Week

    Sorry to admit that there will be no blogpost this week.  I have been rather busy with professional and personal projects so I have not had time to give one the time it deserves.  Rest assured, a new one should be back up on Tuesday.

Profiles in Heroism: Charlie Brown

 

(Spoilers for Various Charlie Brown Specials and Films)

Though unusual for this series, today’s profile will be focusing on a fictional character.  After all, plenty of fictional characters have served as inspiration for many people.  So today, the post will focus on someone who is known for his boundless struggle in the face of certain failure and still getting through it.  That character is Charlie Brown.

One of the Pixar Rules of storytelling (and my own second key rule) is “You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.”  Struggle remains the heart of any story and a character’s ability to face that struggle is what defines them as the hero more than where they end up when the story ends.  Often, their prudence in that regard is what inspires us when we find ourselves facing our own struggles and demons.

More than anyone, Charlie Brown faces struggles throughout his day to day life.  He is extremely unpopular among his fellow classmates, he struggles to fit in wherever he is, he often makes blunders that put him at odds with accomplishing his goals, and sometimes the universe seems stacked against him.  Be it failing to win the spelling bee, receiving no cards on St. Valentines Day, getting nothing but rocks on Halloween, the overwhelming disinterest he receives from his actors while directing a Christmas pageant, or his never ending attempt to gain the favor of the Little Red Haired Girl, often Charlie faces more failures than triumphs, even if he does not succeed at the end.

Yet, he never gives up nor ever loses hope.  Whenever a new opportunity or adventure arises, he still goes headfirst into it as though success is still possible and he will see it to the end.  Charlie Brown is amazingly resilient.

Throughout “The Peanuts Movie,” he continues to pursue goals that will win the affection of the Little Red Haired Girl across the street.  He enters a talent show but dumps his act in order to help save his sister’s act, he writes an entire paper analyzing “War and Peace” before it is torn to pieces by the Red Baron, he bombs at the dance competition despite this being his best chance to dance with his crush, and he admits that there was a mistake made grading his test despite the fact that he became a local celebrity due to the incorrect high rating.  In the process, he fails to win at any of the smaller goals he is set forward to do.

Yet, despite not being the best at any of these, Charlie Brown gains from each interaction.  From the talent show he realizes how important his relationship with his sister is, from the paper he proves he can actually write that and is smarter than he gives himself credit, the same is true for the dance competition, and from admitting that he did not get a perfect score on the standardized test he proved his honesty.  This is what wins the affection of his crush as he proves that he may not be the most capable, but he is the best person.

Charlie Brown’s struggles and mistakes remain what we learn from each story.  His picking a Christmas tree that was unpopular led to his friends coming together to discover the true meaning of Christmas, realizing they had forgotten to give him a valentine lead to them realizing he deserved one after St. Valentine’s Day, and failing at the spelling bee reminded him that the world does not end just because we do not always succeed.  Each time, his struggle reminds us of what is good in the world and the audience learns from.

There are probably many reasons why the Peanuts endure, but that simple truth remains a big reason why Charlie Brown endures.  The fact that he tries and never gives up until he loses is why we are endeared to him and what makes him a hero.  So never forget, even in our darkest moments, seeing to the end is better than not showing up.

The Inconsistent World of Dead Island

  When constructing any story, the one important goal is to immerse the audience into the world that is created.  Everything must flow in a way that makes it feel natural to the story, characters, and the world that they exhibit.  One example of something that failed to accomplish exactly that would be the video game Dead Island.  Despite large locations, beautiful visuals, and fascinating subtext, they largely fail to mesh together in a coherent fashion.  This gives the game the impression that Dead Island is less a properly planned out location and more collage of different elements that were thrown together during the writing process.
The game takes place on the fictional resort island of Banoi, which is off the coast of Papua New Guinea.  The levels on the island themselves are broken down into four key regions of the resort, the city, the jungle, and the prison.  Throughout the game, the protagonists go through all four regions in a search for a way to get off the island, mostly being motivated by “The Voice” on the radio, while helping survivors by getting them aid or supplies.  Overall, this is a very simple setting for a sandbox style zombie that provides opportunities for exploration and fighting the undead.
One of the more interesting points of the game actually is the location.  Although zombies have been overused in culture and in different stories, the concept of doing them in a tropical resort is not as overdone so there is more merit in the location.  In addition, it provides an interesting contrast between the resort and the inevitable death zombies represent.
As was noted by author J.P. Beaubien, zombies represent the slow, inevitable march of death that we all fear.  They are literal walking corpses, people who were once alive but no longer, coming to takes us with them to the after life.  Even if we do manage to outlast them, one day we will join them as none of us can escape death’s embrace.
The resort area is an excellent representation of this.  Most of the zombies were actually people that had just come to have a good time and enjoy a vacation, only to become the vile undead that all people fear.  In a way, it represents the harsh reality that even in the best of places, the most beautiful of locations, none of us can escape the hard reality of pain and suffering.
After that though, the next regions go to a run down city, the jungle, a lab in the jungle, and a prison.  The theme of that as well as the uniqueness of the setting disappears as we go to regions unrelated to a resort and are seen far more regularly in other games.  The uniqueness of the original setting is lost as the game progresses to more familiar locations.
To an extent, it is also worth asking what the regions have to do with each other.  It makes sense that there is a city on the island as it is unlikely a place could exist without a working population, but a jungle loaded with natives (who randomly appear out of nowhere with no foreshadowing), a government lab, and a high security prison surrounded by mines with the world’s foremost criminals seems odd to put next to a resort.  One would wonder why someone would build a resort next to potential lawsuits waiting to happen.

Well, fortunately, a coworker of mine who has family in Jamaica did actually have an explanation of how a region like that could theoretically exist.  The resort could have an airstrip which would allow guests to avoid the other parts of the island, the city would provide workers and potential shops for interested patrons, the jungle could provide camping and hiking opportunities and be ignored if it was particularly remote, and in game the island was originally a penal colony.  All these explanations do provide a sense of connection.
However, the game itself did not properly give a feel of how it is all related.  Instead of naturally continuing from one region to the next, everything is largely separated as different zones when continuing through the game.  As a result, the coherence is weakened when there could be a narrative fit.
Overall, there is a sense that the game was largely a mishmash of different elements that don’t always fit, as though the writers were trying to weave a story or location together instead of actually making a coherent story around the setting.  The best description would be they came up with the idea for zombies at a resort and then just added whatever they felt like to actually have a purpose for the game to exist.  Not helped by this is the fact that none of the main characters have an arc or the fact that a third of the game is spent at the resort while the other regions get progressively less screen time.
In the end, that becomes the problem with world building in a story.  Everything should have a flow around the main setting.  If we are skipping from place to place, we should be actually going to different locations far away from each other instead of feeling like there are a bunch of unnecessary locations next to each other.  Otherwise, this can break the immersion.
There are plenty of examples of proper coherency, but the best would be a comparison to another zombie game such as Resident Evil.  It is weird that the Umbrella Corporation would build a mansion to hide a lab, but if you can accept that as a possibility, then the layout of the mansion is coherent.  The mansion disguises the lab from unwanted travelers while the lab is specifically out in the middle of nowhere to hide it from large populations should something leak.  This narrative is cohesive and makes sense.
This becomes an issue with over focus on one element and not the rest.  Every story that progresses should feel like the regions are connected properly and not hastily thrown together.  Connecting it can give a sense of world building, while adding it for the sake of adding it will make it feel forced and disconnected.  Remember that when crafting a location.

The Importance of Objectivity

  Objectivity is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the fact of being based on facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings.”  In appliance to ideas, opinions, and decisions, that would mean defining things based on independent criteria.  What rarely gets discussed anymore though is the need for objectivity standards in morality and purpose.

The last several decades have seen the slow erosion of any semblance of religion and with that, values that were once the bedrock of western society, culture, or law.  Though one may debate the merit of religion or morality in the public space, there has been nothing to replace it in the public sphere.  As a result, the push has come towards the belief that morality is primarily subjective.
Subjective morality is pointless because if two ideas that are at odds with each other are given equal weight, then they are both worthless as they cannot be true at the same time.  From the immortal words of the film The Incredibles, “everyone’s special...which is another way of saying nobody is.”  Without standards to actually determine which is good and which is bad, what is well made and what is shoddy, everything lacks value.
Objectivity allows us to critically evaluate concepts, art, work, anything under the sun for its purpose and the impact it has.  After all, Christ has said “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.”  One can only determine whether or not something is good then if one has an objective set of standards to determine them by.
The past few years have seen crusades against a myriad of concepts, such as “racism,” “sexism,” “inequality,” and other such problems that members of our society seek to address.  However, lacking objectivity, we have no definition of what those words mean and therefore no way to actively address them.  We would need those standards to determine what success would look like in addressing them.
“Inequality” provides the best example of the need for objective clarity.  Afterall, in terms of wealth inequality, the difference between rich and poor could just as easily be solved by making everyone poor as it would by making everyone wealthy.  Those reading this are likely revulsed by the former notion and that shows the problem with a lack of clarity in objective standards as that revulsion suggests inequality elimination may not be the actual goal since that would be an unpleasant outcome.  Therefore, the objective goal is actually the elimination of destitution and eliminating inequality is only a means to accomplish that.
Without objective standards, one cannot know what success looks like, what our goals are, and how we know what we are doing accomplishes those goals.  After all, many different goals may be accomplished by different methods than what was expected.  The focus on method instead of those goals then can lead to disastrous results.
Look no further than Trump’s famed border wall, which he repeatedly promised to build in 2016 to reduce illegal immigration.  At the time of writing this, the wall is still not built, but illegal immigrant border crossings reduced 78% over seven consecutive months in 2019.  If the goal was to build a wall, Trump objectively failed, while if the goal was to reduce illegal border crossings, Trump succeeded (I take no stance on that, merely use it as an example).  One needs to be clear on the goal or else the end results will not make sense with it.
Having these standards, more than limiting us in archaic beliefs, actually allows us to accomplish good and push closer to it.  This allows us to make decisions and progress forward on the right path.  After all, C. S. Lewis once noted “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.”
Now reading this, one might wonder what is objectively good or for the definitions this blogpost discussed.  Well, that is another matter worthy of its own discussion and blogpost.  In the short term though, remember that it is important to push for the truth (not YOUR truth but THE truth) as that is the best way to find it.
In the meantime, getting to the need for objectivity is important in and of itself.  If we do not have that realization, we will not pursue objectivity.  Once that is determined, the truth and objective reality can be accepted.
Therefore, as society pushes forward in its quest for morality and purpose, it is important to understand the reasons for why and what they hope to accomplish.  If the end result is purely subjective, then the end goal and the methods to accomplish it are meaningless.  We need objectivity and objective morality or else everything is equally worthless.