On Star Wars, the Force Awakens, and Sharing Bad Literature with your Children

Warning: Herein lie spoilers for The Force Awakens. Proceed at thine own risk!

Yesterday I finally saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. While it was not, in my estimation, a particularly good movie, it is a good Star Wars movie. A series of discussions I had with Chloe (regular readers of this blog know of Chloe, the now-nine year old with whom I've been sharing my love of fantastic literature), I was pondering how some (but not all) of our beloved classics are, in various ways, deeply flawed. Can you still love something with problems?

The initial discussion was about Return of the Jedi, particularly the revelation that Luke and Leia are brother and sister. Her question (as she saw a part of it out of context) was WHY this was. It lead to a nice chat about the love triangle between Leia, Luke, and Han along with what a love-triangle does in fiction in the first place. I then pointed out that making Luke and Leia siblings after teasing the relationship for the first two movies can be read as a cheat. It resolves the conflict without having to have one of the two rivals "lose". It was a nice discussion that lead to more of a chance to teach about the shape of stories. And this brings us to The Force Awakens.

The biggest and most obvious weakness, to me, is how closely The Force Awakens tracks the plot details of the first trilogy. It's almost as if someone made a checklist:

• Black-masked, lightsaber-wielding supervillain
• Killing a beloved mentor (repeated in Ep IV, I, and and now VII. With a scream of "NO" each time)
• Stormtroopers
• Young dreamer on a desert planet
• Hot-shot pilot.
• Death Star. Even bigger death star!
• With a small vulnerability
• Destroyed moments before obliterating the Rebel base.
• (Death Stars were destroyed in Episodes, IV, VI, and VII. A droid command ship was destroyed in similar circumstances in Episode I)

we also get Han Solo, the Millenium Falcon, Princess Leia, a new Emperor-like figure. It is, in its way, a better film than A New Hope; most notably, the acting and dialog are far better (although there are a few parts - especially near the beginning - in which it's a bit too far on the snappy side). Kilo Renn is a more interesting character than Darth Vader, yet he's less menacing. Vader was, in some ways, more of a force than a character. He had no facial expressions, showed no emotion, existing as a pure threat to the heroes. Renn, on the other hand, is emotional. In the Star Wars mythos of the "Dark Side" of the force being fueled by negative emotions, he's the first we've seen really feed on uncontrollable anger. It also makes him less of a credible threat, but more of that later.

As in all Star Wars films, the plot in  The Force Awakens relies heavily on coincidences. Landing in the one part of the planet where another important person lives. The one dessert scavenger who can use the force stumbling across the macguffin. Etc.

It's not without its charm. I LOVE the new "Jedi to be" character Rey; there was a moment early in the film in which she was in danger and it appeared that the male lead was going to rescue her. He then watched, almost slack-jawed, as she fought off multiple attackers on her own. Less convincing is her emergence as a budding force-user. We see some tricks from the standard Jedi playbook: the Jedi mind trick, the grabbing something from a distance with her mind, fancy lightsaber fighting.  Where it breaks suspension of disbelief (for me) is that she does all of these things almost instinctively, after revealing earlier in the movie that she didn't even believe for certain that the Jedi were real. We even saw her sneak through an enemy base in a scene very reminiscent of Obi Wan Kenobi on the Death Star in Episode IV.  It was, from my mind, too much from this character too early.

This was echoed in my mind later when she fights Kilo Renn. It's a great lightsaber battle in which the untrained, young woman who has never before held a lightsaber defeats a foe who had destroyed the new Jedi order and sent Luke Skywalker into hiding. It's a moment which, to me, not only did not feel "earned" but is the wrong shape for the story; I'd rather have seen the hero defeated in a hard-fought battle rather than emerge triumphant. This leaves something more to which to build for their next encounter. As things stand, he's been beaten once. That will make it mean less when he is beaten again. 

Was the movie fun? It absolutely was. It looked like Star Wars, with all the rough edges and beautiful decay we've come to expect. Harrison Ford gave a very memorable performance as Han Solo and, sentimentality aside, did an excellent job showing us the once-swashbuckling hero as an older man, hanging on to the things he knows how to do after facing a tragedy. Ditto for Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia. Overall, though, what bothers me the most is how safe it felt. It's like a once-great band on a reunion tour playing their greatest hits from back in the day. Yes, we still like them. And yes, it's fun while it is happening. At the end of the day, though, it's not "art" so much as a package: as what we expect wrapped up in a pretty box for us. Disney spent four billion dollars on Lucasfilms. 

 What they got is a cash cow to milk, nostalgia to sell back to us. 

Was it a good Star Wars movie? Ultimately yes. A good movie? For that it would have had to take more risks, break more new ground, give us something to say.

And that is today's lesson: it's one which would be harder to tell with a better movie. To look critically at film and literature and see it for what it is, not what we want it to be. 

So endeth the lesson.

May the force be with you.

In Defense of the Participation Trophy

NFL player James Harrison recently made a splash with a bit of stunt-parenting in his public decision to take away the "participation trophies" his two children were given in a youth league. It was his insistence that the children earn any award they are given and that absent an actual victory the acceptance of a trophy for participation runs contrary to, as he hashtagged it, #HarrisonFamilyValues. You all know that your humble pixel-and-ink stained wretch is also a father, coincidentally of two children roughly the same age as Harrison's (his are, as we write this, six and eight. Mine are four and eight). This makes parenting one of those issues which resonates with me, and one to which I give a great deal of thought. My thought on this is that Harrison is twice wrong.

Stunt Parenting 
In my opener I referred to this as a bit of "stunt parenting"; my word for disciplinary choices made publicly and loudly as what almost becomes a kind of performance art. You've seen them before over the years; the woman who wrote the needlessly confrontational "contract" for her daughter's use of an iPhone. The redneck idiot who literally shot his daughter's laptop. The halfwit who dressed in a pair of micro-shorts to shame his daughter for what he saw as her poor choice of attire (thought I will concede the possibility that the latter really just wanted to show off the results of all those squats he did at the gym).  There aren't many people who do things like this, but the ones who do get enough attention that public shaming of our kids as punishment has become a bit of a mini-trend.

This is, to my mind, wrong. It make ones kids a prop in a social statement, involves them in a conversation which they didn't ask to join. If the very idea that a six-year-old e given a trophy that he didn't earn with a win is so anathema to Harrison then he has the option of writing a letter to the youth league in which his children play or even in talking to their coach. This is everyone's right as a parent, and given his status as a professional football player there's even a chance that they'd listen to Harrison. He also has the right to quietly take the trophies away from his six and eight-year old sons and tell them that he doesn't believe that they deserve them, and one should only get what one deserves. He'd be wrong to do so, but there's no manual for parenting; on some days it seems like a decades-long journey into all of the ways a human can be wrong about things. We all have to take things away from our children in the name of discipline, safety, or - in this case - values. There's no need for our children to have to be publicly seen losing something.

Everything Must Be Earned - with VICTORY!
I'm sure that some of you think I'm crazy (OK, more crazy than usual) and that the idea that trophies are for winning isn't such a bad one. Why do I disagree on the substance as well as the public nature of it? First, remember, the children are six and eight years old. These are young children just learning about sport and competition. One of the first things they need learn is to participate, to put in effort, to try. They need to learn to listen to the coach, to practice, to win and lose with grace. Rewarding a child for participation encourages the child to keep participating, to come back next season, to keep learning. One gets more of the behavior which one encourages. At such young ages, it is right and appropriate to encourage participation.

Yes, this will mean giving awards to some children who aren't winners. Who are those children? They might be the ones not fortunate enough to be chosen for a more talented team. They might be the ones who are a bit smaller, who are developing at a bit of a slower pace than their peers. They might be the ones whose parents work longer hours and don't have the time to throw a ball around the backyard with them. My point here is that "trophy only for the winner" leaves quite a few kids with the impression - and an accurate NFL player James Harrison recently made a splash with a bit of stunt-parenting in his public decision to take away the "participation trophies" his two children were given in a youth league. It was his insistence that the children earn any award they are given and that absent an actual victory the acceptance of a trophy for participation runs contrary to, as he hashtagged it, #HarrisonFamilyValues. You all know that your humble pixel-and-ink stained wretch is also a father, coincidentally of two children roughly the same age as Harrison's (his are, as we write this, six and eight. Mine are four and eight). This makes parenting one of those issues which resonates with me, and one to which I give a great deal of thought. My thought on this is that Harrison is twice wrong.

Stunt Parenting 
In my opener I referred to this as a bit of "stunt parenting"; my word for disciplinary choices made publicly and loudly as what almost becomes a kind of performance art. You've seen them before over the years; the woman who wrote the needlessly confrontational "contract" for her daughter's use of an iPhone. The redneck idiot who literally shot his daughter's laptop. The halfwit who dressed in a pair of micro-shorts to shame his daughter for what he saw as her poor choice of attire (thought I will concede the possibility that the latter really just wanted to show off the results of all those squats he did at the gym).  There aren't many people who do things like this, but the ones who do get enough attention that public shaming of our kids as punishment has become a bit of a mini-trend.

This is, to my mind, wrong. It make ones kids a prop in a social statement, involves them in a conversation which they didn't ask to join. If the very idea that a six-year-old e given a trophy that he didn't earn with a win is so anathema to Harrison then he has the option of writing a letter to the youth league in which his children play or even in talking to their coach. This is everyone's right as a parent, and given his status as a professional football player there's even a chance that they'd listen to Harrison. He also has the right to quietly take the trophies away from his six and eight-year old sons and tell them that he doesn't believe that they deserve them, and one should only get what one deserves. He'd be wrong to do so, but there's no manual for parenting; on some days it seems like a decades-long journey into all of the ways a human can be wrong about things. We all have to take things away from our children in the name of discipline, safety, or - in this case - values. There's no need for our children to have to be publicly seen losing something.

Everything Must Be Earned - with VICTORY!
I'm sure that some of you think I'm crazy (OK, more crazy than usual) and that the idea that trophies are for winning isn't such a bad one. Why do I disagree on the substance as well as the public nature of it? First, remember, the children are six and eight years old. These are young children just learning about sport and competition. One of the first things they need learn is to participate, to put in effort, to try. They need to learn to listen to the coach, to practice, to win and lose with grace. Rewarding a child for participation encourages the child to keep participating, to come back next season, to keep learning. Yes, this will mean giving awards to some children who aren't winners. Who are those children? They might be the ones not fortunate enough to be chosen for a more talented team. They might be the ones who are a bit smaller, who are developing at a bit of a slower pace than their peers. They might be the ones whose parents work longer hours and don't have the time to throw a ball around the backyard with them. My point here is that "trophy only for the winner" leaves quite a few kids with the impression - and an accurate impression at that - that the trophy and recognition are beyond their reach for factors over which they have no control. Absent the promise of reward there's less incentive to keep coming back and keep trying. Yes, some will - but some will feel dejected and grow resentful. Remember these are children under the age of ten about whom we're talking, including a six year old. That anybody would take a trophy away from a six year old with the words "you didn't earn that" is, to me, bizarre and cruel.

This leans towards the political for me because it plays into the libertarian fallacy that we live in a perfect meritocracy in which the winners are those with the drive and skills and effort who deserve to win. It ignores chance (the luck of the draw putting a slightly awkward kid on the same team as a few budding superstars), and privilege (the ability of some to afford equipment to practice at home, private lessons, or even extra time with the parents). It sends a poor message to those not getting a trophy that their effort is not appreciated, but it sends an equally poor message to the winners that they're better than the losers, and that they deserve more based on their being on a winning team.

There was a scene in George Martin's A Game of Thrones in which Jon Snow, a the bastard son of the powerful and honorable Eddard Stark, gets into an altercation with his fellow soldiers on the Night Watch. He easily bests one in a duel, and is asked by his commander if he thinks the men he beat had had lessons in swordplay, time to train and practice, and even a proper sword at an early age. Snow was shamed, and gained a measure of humility in his dealings with those from the lower classes. The idea that winning is everything worth rewarding is a complete reversal of this lesson.

But....that's not how the real world works!
The biggest argument I see against participation trophies is the idea that kids need to learn "how the real world works". Setting aside for the moment the question of whether or not taking a trophy away from a six-year-old is a reasonable way to teach such a lesson - or if such lessons need to be taught at all - I'd argue that for the majority of us this is NOT how the world works. The real world can be competitive, yes. But it can also be collaborative. Yes, in the workplace an employer will expect results but in my experience they will give those who show effort and a positive attitude more chances to learn to succeed. It's also my experience that those who do keep trying often do, in the end, contribute something of value.

I'll close with a true story. In September a few years back I was hired for my current position at the firm of Shen, Milsom and Wilke. IT was a good start for me in which I made some friends on our team, joined in the effort to complete various projects, and overall started learning the ropes of the consulting side of the AV business. In January, four months after I'd started, the department head called me into his office for my review. At the end he said that this is when year-end bonuses would be given out and that the department had done well enough that year to merit bonuses for the staff. When I told him that I understood that I'd only been there a few months but looked forward to helping earn a bonus the next year I was told that at present I was a member of the team, and as a member of the team would share in the bonus with everyone else. It was, arguably, a participation trophy in real life; I was the junior-most member of the staff and am sure that whatever success the department had it could have had without me. What it did was send a message that I belonged, was accepted, was valued. It gave me something to work towards earning the next year and the year after that, and is one of the many reasons that I don't take return the call if I'm approached by a recruiter or headhunter.

The real world is like that. Sometimes someone ends up on the winning team without having earned it. Sometimes one ends up on the losing team and deserved to win. What's important - what we need to encourage with praise and awards and even trophies - is showing up every day, putting in our best effort, and showing grace and class in both victory and defeat.

So if your kid shows up to the game, is focused at practice, and seems to care then by all means feed and encourage that effort with whatever means you can. Don't tell him by your actions that  just because he's a loser if he's not on the winning team.impression at that - that the trophy and recognition are beyond their reach for factors over which they have no control. Absent the promise of reward there's less incentive to keep coming back and keep trying. Yes, some will - but some will feel dejected and grow resentful. Remember these are children under the age of ten about whom we're talking, including a six year old. That anybody would take a trophy away from a six year old with the words "you didn't earn that" is, to me, bizarre and cruel. It also risks driving away those who can't see a path to victory for themselves, robbing them of the chance to grow into the sport and perhaps even later earn some wins.

This leans towards the political for me because it plays into the libertarian fallacy that we live in a perfect meritocracy in which the winners are those with the drive and skills and effort who deserve to win. It ignores chance (the luck of the draw putting a slightly awkward kid on the same team as a few budding superstars), and privilege (the ability of some to afford equipment to practice at home, private lessons, or even extra time with the parents). It sends a poor message to those not getting a trophy that their effort is not appreciated, but it sends an equally poor message to the winners that they're better than the losers, and that they deserve more based on their being on a winning team.

But....that's not how the real world works!
The biggest argument I see against participation trophies is the idea that kids need to learn "how the real world works". Setting aside for the moment the question of whether or not taking a trophy away from a six-year-old is a reasonable way to teach such a lesson - or if such lessons need to be taught at all - I'd argue that for the majority of us this is NOT how the world works. The real world can be competitive, yes. But it can also be collaborative. Yes, in the workplace an employer will expect results but in my experience they will give those who show effort and a positive attitude more chances to learn to succeed. It's also my experience that those who do keep trying often do, in the end, contribute something of value.

I'll close with a true story. In September a few years back I was hired for my current position at the firm of Shen, Milsom and Wilke. IT was a good start for me in which I made some friends on our team, joined in the effort to complete various projects, and overall started learning the ropes of the consulting side of the AV business. In January, four months after I'd started, the department head called me into his office for my review. At the end he said that this is when year-end bonuses would be given out and that the department had done well enough that year to merit bonuses for the staff. When I told him that I understood that I'd only been there a few months but looked forward to helping earn a bonus the next year I was told that at present I was a member of the team, and as a member of the team would share in the bonus with everyone else. It was, arguably, a participation trophy in real life; I was the junior-most member of the staff and am sure that whatever success the department had it could have had without me. What it did was send a message that I belonged, was accepted, was valued. It gave me something to work towards earning the next year and the year after that, and is one of the many reasons that I don't take return the call if I'm approached by a recruiter or headhunter.

The real world is like that. Sometimes someone ends up on the winning team without having earned it. Sometimes one ends up on the losing team and deserved to win. What's important - what we need to encourage with praise and awards and even trophies - is showing up every day, putting in our best effort, and showing grace and class in both victory and defeat.

So if your kid shows up to the game, is focused at practice, and seems to care then by all means feed and encourage that effort with whatever means you can. Don't tell him by your actions that  just because he's a loser if he's not on the winning team.

Summer Projects

It's been a quiet few weeks here on the blog, mainly because it's been a loud few weeks in real life. Some news on what's to follow:

1) Flash Fiction Fridays - each Friday I'll post a short or super-short here, in this very space. Some might follow a theme, some might stand alone.

2) Technology/AV  - I've finished all of the training requirements for my new Project Engineer position. Hooray! Expect another AV post next week, and bi-weekly from there.

3) Literary+ -- this is a group of writers on the Google+ social network. They share encouragement, writing tips, cross-promotion of work, and even little projects and excersizes. I'll be participating in a serial with them, and will likely write something for an upcoming anthology (theme: The Stranger. I already have an idea or two).

3a) Literary+ Serial. Smoke and Shadows. Start following now. I promise I'll be along soon!

4) Blog-hop collaborative story - Remember Riley's story, co-written with Carrie K Sorenstein, Nicole Pyle? We're starting another one, this time with additional participants. First part is already upon Carrie's blog  here. I'll keep you posted.

There's also going to be at least one special guest poster here this summer! Stay tuned.

Summer Collaboration Challenge!

My more personal summer project isn't going to be on the blog; Chloe and I are working on a shared story together. They've just been learning to write stories in kindergarten, and I wand to give her the chance to practice over the summer so first grade won't be a complete "starting over". Her big passion at the moment is drawing, while mine is writing. So, to step each of us out of our comfort zones, I promised to illustrate each of my pages if she'll write a line on each of hers. The story so far - about a princess and her friend the dragon, is starting to take on a kind of meandering charm. Last night at bedtime when I asked her to name one thing about herself that makes her proud, she said that she's creative. Hopefully we can nurture that feeling.


Tomorrow I'll be back with a post about language, feminism, and breakfast food.

See you then.

W is for work, to which I took my daughter

It's "Take your children (formerly take your daughters) work day. My employer, AVI-SPL, invited us to participate with our children. Given the greater presence men still have in the workplace, part of me wishes this were still a day for just girls, but it's still a worthy idea to let our children see another part of our lives. I do think it's important for girls to see the workplace as an option for them and am very disappointed that they can't have something for themselves. To not allow special opportunities for girls is, in my mind, an ill-advised commitment to formal equality as opposed to actual equality.

As an AV project engineer, my actual work activity isn't all that much fun to watch. Most of my day is spent sitting at a computer drawing on a CAD program. We do have more "hands-on" parts of the operation with our in-house fabrication and testing, fancy equipment in a couple of video-conference rooms, and a sense of how we work together as a team to get our collective jobs done. Someone at AVI-SPL also came up with the clever idea of creating an "autograph" sheet for the children to get the signatures of all of our local employees. This was a nice way to make introductions and explain what everyone does. When I was young, the grown-up world of "work" was a complete mystery to me. It's nice to make it something else.

Was this a successful experiment? On the down-side, most people's schedules and situations didn't allow them to bring kids. In fact, aside from Chloe the was only other participant was our general manager's nine-year-old daughter. They got along quite well, but it would have been nice to have a broader range of kids to interact with. The best part? That it's a different kind of moment we got to share. Will it give her an example of what the workplace is like, give her inspiration to try her hands at the field of technology, or teach her any other life lessons? Perhaps not. But one can't mistake her pleasure in  getting to take the trip into work with me, and mine at sharing a moment with my daughter.