Tag: movie

Cartoon blog 45: Representation in creators vs representation in characters

Hey here is something that never happens to me. When I’m watching a show like Breaking Bad, I don’t say to myself : “Wow, this is so good, I wish there was an Indian character to represent me in the show.”

I respect representation as long as it comes from the author, or the auteur depending on whether they have an original vision or not. I’ve heard arguments especially for popular intellectual properties that if there is no representation then the show runner, the writers, the director, the creator, etc, must be racist.

Let’s say there was an Indian antagonist, a brutal bad guy, should I be offended that the representation is wrong?

I firmly believe that we should let the people tell good stories. I’ll enjoy good honest stories because it will reflect the human experience accurately without any required filters. And since I happen to be human, so I can relate.

But forcefully inserting characters just to show you are progressive makes me cringe.

OK let’s say representation becomes a requirement for the creative work, for storytelling, how would the creators know what they define as representation is objectively correct or is proportionate to the actual real human population of the world?

And if the studio starts conducting surveys to dictate what characters the author should and shouldn’t use in a story, it stops being true characters, and start becoming ingredients in a product, NOT a work of ART.

Seth Godin beautifully said that ART is what Humans make, well if the ART is flawed, doesn’t it make it more HUMAN?

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again ART is all about how people feel when they create it and how they feel when they enjoy it. If you want real representation I vote for representation of creators, not artificial extracts included in a Art made into a commodity.

If you are fighting for representation, STOP FIGHTING, START CREATING. Create so much and so creatively that they can’t ignore your voice.

Bonne journée.

Cartoon blog day 31: RIP Stan Lee

20181113 RIP Stan Lee

I am still sad. Even before knowing Stan Lee, you sort of knew him. In certain documentaries about comics, people criticized him for taking the credit for solely creating characters like Spider-man when Steve Ditko came up with the brilliant design we now know and love.

But Stan always took the time to mention the talented artists who worked with him Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita and so on.

Everybody loves Stan Lee, he was our link to what people referred to as Golden Age of comics.

I truly mean it, his legacy lives on. An artist always puts a little bit of himself in everything they do, in that way those who looked up to his characters also looked up to Stan Lee, the author.

He taught me that it was cool to be good, you can use your superpowers to help people. When most boys went to the gym to impress girls in high school, the loser I was I went to the gym to look as close as I can to his characters hoping it would give me superpowers.

We have lost a living superhero who made even a skinny, shy kid from India dream his way out of his shell, thank you Stan Lee, Rest In Peace.

Cartoon blog day 23: Talking during movies

20181105 CBD24 Talking during movies

Based on a true story.

This actually happened more than once. I don’t know why but for some reason I like the people reacting, I like watching the Audience reactions on Youtube for the movies I have watched but I don’t want people to talk during movies.

ART is a language in itself where people connect without talking, people debate endlessly about the definition of Art and I think this is a fair definition of it.

As an artist, I can say that a work of art is a conversation between the artist and the audience. Movies are conversations, some of them are more honest than others, depending on how commercially oriented they are.

So I don’t want to hear you talk back to the screen, who taught you that?

Bonne journée.