Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to answer listener questions, including such topics as fan fiction, the Internet on TV, our scriptural bent, procedural television, and the probable casting of the inevitable Catcher in the Rye movie.
We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return in two weeks on Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT). (Next week, we’ll be watching the Oscars, and the livestream will start late.)
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People become fans of what their friends are fans of. Specifically Facebook. Whenever one of my friends becomes a fan of something, it eventually is suggested to me in one of the many side columns. So, you have us, the first 1500 or so, and then you have the 2-3 people per fan that pull some identification from the phrase “Overthinking It.”
I am *so* pissed that a) I missed the Ustream, and b) I couldn’t hear (what could possibly be my) screaming into phones.
I didn’t set the voicemail up right, Greg — so we’ll play the “NNNNNNEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDDDDSSSSSS” phone calls in a couple weeks.
But don’t worry about the Ustream — there’s always next week, after the Oscars!
I still have to wait a week for it, and the reason I missed it is the most upsetting (a nigh impossible calculus test).
But I will be following the Twitter whilst watching the Oscars.
Is there anywhere on the net to read “Red Pants, Blue Pants?”
I noticed the increase in number of fb fans even before this podcast but didn’t give it that much thought, well now I did and I’m pretty confident in rejecting the “gradual spreading of the name through collective consciousness” theory
the jump in the number seemed really sudden and the increase slowed down again for now? I could of course offer several plausible hypotheses…but after a quick search through the actual fans, my educated guess would be the direct cause are the “ke$ha articles” which probably got featured somewhere on facebook
anyway great podcast, ~27:00 I was laughing like madman. keep up the good work (btw. apparently not everything on the interwebs is negative – for instance your comments tend to be full of approval or constructive critique)
@Fenzel: My dad and I used to watch Thunder in Paradise. And Team Knight Rider. Good stuff. Way to reference.
Great episode guys! Loved it.
@Sylvia/Fenzel – Thunder in Paradise was schlocky greatness.
@Interweb in movies – The only movie I’ve ever seen do a ‘good’ job with hacking is the movie Hackers when ‘Zero Cool’ is seen just typing on the computer with numbers flying everywhere and Angelina Jolie et al is looking through print outs. Very stylized but realistically boring. Same movie also has the worst internet hacking with Ghostbusters Vigo singing “Row Row Row Your Boat”
Tangent – Is Hackers the first mainstream Hacking movie, or would that go to Dabney Colemans other Cloak and Dagger Hacking Movie – War Games? I say Ferris Bueller simply called a number, no hacking involved.
@Human Target – Such a great, bad show. It hit my radar because Chi McBride was in it but I decided to DVR it because of said Jackie Earle Haley. I also like it because the action, although bad, is better then most 80’s action movies.
@Indy Jones – First with my Lat/Long, WELL ACTUALLY (First one ever. I feel so dirty) I used the ‘Contact Us’ on the website and not the e-mail [email protected] hence the embarrassing omission ;). For the record, San Diego is 32.73 117.17. Second, WELL ACTUALLY (Once you start, you can’t stop!) according to the novelization and how I inferred the movie, Belloq took the Ark without Berlin’s approval. Heir Fuhrer wanted to crack it right away but Rene ‘Red October’ed everyone to opening it on an island, so if they disappear no one would know other than an abandoned base. Also – all the soldiers were sucked into the Ark, so if someone found it, they would have no idea what opening it would do.
My thought on the purpose of the movie, it was an overcoming adversary/underdog movie. Dr. Jones was always better then Belloq (Got the fertility idol, figured out the well of souls, found the ark) but Belloq always found a way to best him. We’ve all had classmates/co-workers who, no matter how much better you were or harder you worked, was always one step ahead. We rooted for Indy because he was working-class and tried but failed until the very end where he gave Belloq his ultimate comeuppance. Just my internet $.02.
@petrlesy: I came _THIS_ close to commenting with something like, “You guys think too much,” in reading the end of your comment. I cracked me up. ;p
To the podcast itself, now.
Over ten thousand _Hannah Montana_ stories? My soul hurts. A lot.
Wrather, I’d have to insist Romeo and Juliet are STUPID if one reads the text, not “normal” in the sense that Shakespeare’s characters are usually written. They are just what you said, post-adolescent teenagers (although Juliet isn’t even thirteen…)- flighty, impulsive, and willfully naive (or at least coming across that way). Best example: the first time we see Romeo, he’s acting emo over losing What’shername, Rosalin? He’s swearing off love and all that kinda jazz, but then POOF, he sees Juliet and renigs (sp?) on all of that because ZOMG, he’s in lurve! Further, they don’t come up with any of the plans that take place themselves- it’s the Nurse and the Priest and I suppose you could say Mercutio) doing all of the plotting. Now, I suppose if we were to read the play as Willie’s take on teenage love and how ignorant he perceived it as, I suppose *that* works, and yes, they act like “normal” teenagers; but Romeo and Juliet as characters are particularly dumb for leads in Shakespere’s plays- not dumbly-written, no, but unintelligent as characters. (And I do realize there are some instances of love at first sight among Willie’s adult characters, but I don’t remember any of them interrupting lamentations of lost love the way Romeo’s does- or else there was magic involved.)
While you’re talking about the Indiana Jones movies, here’s something I’ve been wondering for a while. Since Sean Connery’s character drank from the Grail at the end of the third movie, shouldn’t he have been alive for the fourth? My only explanation would be that since he was dying, the water he drank from it was only able to sustain his mortality a little longer, not grant him *im*mortality. Maybe this has been covered elsewhere by you, since I do remember the anti-_Crystal Skull_ sentimentality when that movie was new, but I don’t remember it being discussed specifically; so correct me if I’m wrong or revert me to that discussion, if necessary- for lo, I do realize I’m more often than not quite unoriginal.
With regards to FB, is it ironic that my (close) friends and I tend to be rather selective in (read: overthink) what we become fans of, yet all of us are Overthinkingit fans? And another thing, does THIS page somehow keep track of my FB one? Forsooth, every time I look at the FB box over ->there->, I see at least three people I am friends with on display, if not more, and even now that there are SOOOOOO MAAAAANY (5661 as of this moment) fans, it’s still like that. Just wondering.
Romeo and Juliet are dumb? Do you hate adorable kitties too?
There’s a difference between liking adorable kitties and thinking they’re smart. My cat eats plastic and thinks the vacuum cleaner is a demon from hell.
I is very happy that you replied to my email. :) (Sorry, that’s the best I can do at lolcats grammar defiling.)
I accept all of your defenses of your criticisms of ff. I’m just sensitive about my writing in general. And no, I do not write about ninjas having sexy, fun times or explore my sexuality through unorthodox relationships though for some reason I’m always inclined to agree with whatever Mr. Fenzel has to say. I think because “I have sisters” somehow serves as evidence for his points.
@Gab Maybe you should try reading another version of Romeo and Juliet. Sometimes different publishers tweak the story in ways that make it more palatable. I finished a class recently where we read the Arden edition. I recommend it. I don’t think the story is all that stupid and I found things to like about it. If you read Romeo’s shift from Rosalind to Juliet as a shift from youthful indulgence of Petrachan ideals of “emo” love to an actual, fervent love for Juliet…it’s rather more romantic.
My question about “Love Story” was about the use of “Romeo&Juliet” and “scarlet letter” which never makes sense to me no matter how I turn it over in my mind.
I love Burn Notice so thank you for mentioning it again. More people should be watching it.
@Wrather: Stokes said it in a much more amusing way than I would have.
@cat: What do you mean by “version” of a Shaksepeare play? Are you talking about editions with, like, summaries of what happens in each scene or modern-English translations on opposing pages or something? Or are lines actually changed? I feel like if the “edition” or “version” is EDITED to invite a certain interpretation DELIBERATELY, that’s kind of like cheating. In reading the bare-bones version of the text (without cues and such, even, as they were originally written), the kids look like morons. And don’t get me wrong, there is lots to like about that and every one of Shakespeare’s plays… Ah, read Stokes’s comment again.
And to pontificate a bit, a lot of really *good* bits get cut out of productions of R&J (and other of Willie’s works). I actually *really* enjoy reading the fight between Paris and Romeo, but hardly anybody (today) even knows it happens.
@Gab – the exact Last Crusade quote is “But, beware: the Grail cannot pass beyond the Great Seal, for that is the boundry, and the price, of immortality.” From reading the novilization, I remember the knight more implicitly stating that he was trapped because if he took the Grail too far from the watered down ‘Blood of Christ’ the magic would stop working. Basically – it wasn’t a ‘Fountain of Youth’ in the traditional sense, it was more a ‘Fountain of you’re not going to die as long as you are constantly drinking from the cup and don’t wander too far away.’ But that was too hard to put on the literature. ;)
Anyone else think, espically on this episode, when one of the guys starts off with the word ‘Rather’, for a split second they are talking about Matt Wrather?
Thanks. Makes sense.
@Gab I would say that the Arden is “bare-bones” and is definitely not written in modern English. It has footnotes, but it isn’t necessary that you read them. It describes in the preface how it is a blend between the 1599 Quarto and the 1597 Quarto. Looking at my Folger’s, I would say that here and there things are rearranged a bit (not entire scenes), and longer and more developed. It flows better and seems more artfully written in a slight way that makes a difference.
So by “longer,” they added text?
Semantics aside, I’d be okay with a “version” that was edited to make things flow or more sensical, but I guess I get nervous at the idea of the text being manipulated to be “read” a certain way. I’ve seen plenty of STAGED “interpretations” that varied a lot, but they never seemed to try to make R and J as characters smart: they idealized and canonized the love between the two, but they never changed *dialogue* so as to make them sound intelligent. The kids were brilliantly portrayed, but they weren’t portraying brilliance.
The plays of Shakespeare come to us in multiple versions—individual books from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as a compilation from 1623 called the First Folio—many of which vary or conflict. (Romeo and Juliet, in particular, has a very interesting textual history, since its first publication was an inaccurate, pirated version—a “bad quarto.”)
A modern editor uses the available texts and evidence—and sometimes conjecture—to piece together what she believes is the closest text possible to Shakespeare’s intentions (which, of course, is a terribly difficult standard because it’s impossible to verify and what’s more a moving target, since the plays were likely altered in performance).
Editors have different goals as they set to piece together a text. Some are aiming for polish and maximum readability (Penguin, I’d say falls into this camp) and some for scholarly completeness (like the Arden Shakespeare, which offers textual variants and various editorial conjectures; literary, historical, and interpretive notes; a long historical essay; and source materials, if any).
When Cat says that there are different versions, what that means is that editors have come to different conclusions about what Shakespeare actually wrote in certain cases and have published different texts. It’s not manipulation so much as it is a difference of opinion among the experts.
@bob I’d WRATHER not. (Ha!)
Thanks, Wrather. I’d still call it a degree of manipulation, however, since it’s being edited to fit a certain interpretation of accuracy- if there *is* no exact original, what “counts” is still subjective. I’m not saying I think there *is* a “definitive” version, either, don’t get me wrong- the very nature of the text makes that virtually impossible, unless someone finds an old manuscript in Shaksespeare’s handwriting someday. And I’m not disagreeing with the fact that editors are going for accuracy. All I’m saying is that since no one can rightfully claim they have a word-for-word copy of what William considered the final draft, there is bound to be some sort of bias in what and how it’s presented. I’d hope that this means editors stick to the need for accuracy, but I’m cynical enough to be wary of 100% honesty on that front, so I wouldn’t put it past at least some editors to insert their personal interpretations of the MEANING of the text in there with the mask of the accuracy goal. It may not be blatantly obvious, but it really wouldn’t surprise me.
I know I sound like a troll, and I apologize for that. Not trying to be, honest.
A random comment, unrelated to any of the above, but didn’t Jake Gyllenhaal play a very Holden Caulfield-esque character is ‘The Good Girl’? Or am I the only person who saw that?