Episode 631 - Entitlements
Apr 17, 2023
What rights are people actually entitled to? That question is a lot bigger than you think! The Quackcast today is sequel to last week's about entitled people, this one is about actual entitlements- what people SHOULD be entitled to. i.e. rights and such. It's a topic that Banes and Tantz really wanted to do and my purpose was to link it to writing and comics (not just theory and politics), which I think I did ok. This topic turned out to be very interesting.
Topics and Show Notes
Why are entitlements important? Well they inform the basic structure of any relationship between two people and any imbalance in the entitlements actually received VS those that are given is cause for conflict. At a societal level the community should all expect basic rights, if those break down or are removed this can have a shocking, drastic effect- as in Maus, A Handmaid's Tale, or Persepolis.
A red flag for bad writing is when the creator doesn't understand that people in a society have basic rights, as in something like the Deathwish, or Dirty Harry franchises- those are exciting rightwing revenge films but the worlds they depict feel totally “off” and not right somehow, as in a fantasy, because people's basic rights in those movies are suspended at will. The only way they make sense is if you see them as tales by an unreliable narrator; i.e. this is the world as the protagonist sees it, a serial killer perspective.
Different sorts of worlds have different kinds of entitlements based on their structure. Fahrenheit 451 or Logan's Run depict worlds bizarre to us because they're built very differently, one around the criminalisation of recorded knowledge and wisdom, and the other based on extreme ageism, but they are believable and make sense because people have rights and entitlements within those worlds.
Superhero worlds rarely address this aspect of story, what happens to people's entitlements when there are those who have the power of a god? What would happen to the insurance industry? To rescue workers? To the legal profession?
Banes took this topic right down to the ant's eye view:
What to do if you're being bullied at work, or school? What to do when someone's being rude. When someone embarrasses you, or tries to embarrass you, or belittles you? What to do in a disagreement? What are your entitlements in those situations? All that describes the seeds of conflict and suggest action needed to address that conflict
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Guardians of Man - CHA-CHa-Cha-cha… serial killer, slasher music sounds.Echoing reverb on isolated percussion and creepy electronic, scene setting sounds all weave together to create this unsettling landscape of terror. THE KILLER IS BEHIND YOU!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Gamma Blue Smoldering of Creel - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/11/featured-comic-gamma-blue-smoldering-of-creel/
Featured music:
Guardians of Man - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Guardians_of_Man/ - by Gumshoecomix, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 629 - Reevaluation cast
Apr 3, 2023
Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of years later and tried to get into again but this time you look at it with a very different perspective? Or maybe you loved a movie when you were young and decided to watch it again as an adult to see if it holds up?
Episode 626 - I didn't do nuthin'
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Today we talk about an unusual type of villain, a secret type of bad guy and a particularly nasty one: the person who maliciously does nothing. This is a person who COULD intervene to resolve a dire situation or save someone, they could do it easily; they know how, they have the means, they're not scared or unsure, and it doesn't mean much risk to themselves, they just choose to sit back and watch the person die or the situation collapse… either because they know the result will benefit themselves or they're just curious to watch the person die or the everything turn to crap for the victim or whatever. Either way they COULD easily intervene but they choose not to.
Episode 614 - Super groups!
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Episode 610 - Beauty!
Nov 21, 2022
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so the saying goes but it's absolutely true. There is a layered subjectivity to it based on personal preference, the cultural standards of your community, the ethnic traits of you and your peers, prevailing global fashions in appearance, the dominant archetypes in the media and so on. All these things combine to form our personal subjective ideas of beauty. You can see this yourself if you look at paintings, statues, masks, frescoes and other artifacts that have been produced by all the diverse cultures on earth over thousands of years: there IS no standard, eternal, objective of beauty.
Episode 597 - Revelations!
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Today we're talking about a technique in storytelling that we're calling the “revelation”. Inspired by Banes doing an article on the weird trope in movies of having a character discover newspaper stories about the villain that suddenly reveal the true stakes of the story and kick things into high gear. There are other types of revelation in stories though and they're used in different ways.
Episode 592 - Back in MY day!
Jul 18, 2022
History is happening faster now. With the growth of universal high speed communication and cheap world travel, culture and technology move at unprecedented speeds. Because of these factors the rate of change is different to what it was at any time in the past. This is an objective and verifiable truth rather than subjective perception: the current speed and quality of global communication has never been possible before and that has ramifications for how the world changes.
Episode 590 - Fave Superhero Movies?
Jul 4, 2022
I wanted to do an easy and fun one this week and just chat about our fave superhero movies, starting with our firsts! For me and Banes it was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It's a real classic, full of positivity, hope, and optimism, all with bright colours and classic iconic imagery… In that way it's a bit like many of the Marvel films and the more popular DC offerings like Aquaman and WonderWoman, but without the overbuilt and over-defined muscles!
