This week I realized something that made me squirm; there’s a sacred cow in movies that I hate. And I’m ashamed to tell people. I’ve never heard of anyone disliking this movie. When I mention I don’t like it, people act like I’ve kicked Mother Teresa in the mouth. After I shot her. And peed in her shoes.
Cow!
It got me to thinking that we internalize our media, our consumption of things, so much that when someone doesn’t like our sacred cows, be they Star Wars or the Boston Red Sox or Ford or Apple, it’s a direct attack on us. This wonderful thing is so much a part of me, we think, that clearly you can’t understand me if you can’t understand it.
Of course, that’s where it falls apart. I went to UNC-Chapel Hill and one of my best friends went to Duke. I didn’t read The Lord of the Rings until my adulthood and couldn’t really see the OMG factor that others hold so dear, but my husband still manages to love me. (Incidentally, I showed my husband Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, a sacred cow from my childhood, and his response was, “This is horrible! It’s like a selfish, twisted, ‘Gift of the Magi!’” He was right, but little Mur hadn’t seen it that way.) I own an iPod Touch AND a Blackberry and manage not to punch myself in the face. People are multi-faceted; I am more than my love of Star Wars, Neil Gaiman, Connie Willis, video games, sushi, and cheesecake.
But that got me thinking. Fuck logic, we still get into arguments when a new Apple product comes out (iPad anyone?) and people have died in arguments about sports. I’ve had friends walk out on me for mentioning that the Star Wars dialogue could have been a little tighter. People care about these sacred cows; for some, insulting The Princess Bride is akin to insulting one’s mother.
So everyone has their sacred cows. But what makes them? Cause I sure as heck would like to write something that people want to punch others for insulting. And yes, I know if there was a formula for a bestseller or a sacred cow, we would all be cranking them out. There’s certainly a nebulous something that, if right, makes the people give a damn, and if missed, creates nothing. So we don’t know if we hit that bullseye when we throw the dart in the dark room, but what do we know, what can we maybe have a little control over?
- The work creates emotion: The more we care about the characters, the more we like the work. Although I’ve not read it, I understand that despite what people say about the writing quality of Twilight, people fall in love with it because it taps perfectly into the heady rush of adolescent love girls experience. She made millions remember that feeling, and heck, that feeling was almost like a drug. Remember? With the Harry Potter franchise, I wanted Harry, Hermione, and Ron to be my friends, and I longed to visit Ron’s house, no matter how many adverbs JK Rowling used. (On the other hand, I hated all of the characters in Geek Love and still managed to greatly enjoy the book. But it ain’t no sacred cow.)
- A rivalry stems from it: Would Apple have such fanboys if people weren’t fed up with Microsoft? If Apple hadn’t been the underdog for so many years? I doubt it. While all sports teams have fans, I do know from first hand experience that teams with strong rivalries have a much stronger following than teams that just hate everyone. Red Sox/Yankees, Carolina/Duke, Army/Navy, even if the other team is having an off season, those are still THE games to watch. But with media, do we have such rivalry? We have Star Wars/Star Trek, and DS9/Babylon 5, but those, like sports teams, come from long-running media licenses, not one-shot movies or novels. Incidentally, the Star Wars/Star Trek rivalry seems odd because one is largely a TV show and the other is largely movie properties. Would the rivalry be the same if they didn’t both have “Star” in the titles?
- It breaks new ground: I know that The Lord of the Rings and many other classics of SF/F are considered so not because they were best, but because they were first. I’m not saying they’re bad, but I’d bet that if LOTR was written today, the editor would send it back, begging about 100K words to be cut from all the wandering ’round bits. This breaking new ground reason is why Avatar is doing so well with a tired, unoriginal script: it’s shown to us with mind-blowing visuals. But will it be a sacred cow? Sacred cows stand the test of time, so we’ll have to check back in ten or so years to see.
There are speculations, but certainly things I’ll be carrying with me into my next creative project. Breaking new ground is hard. Writing things that people care about requires practice and attention to detail. And setting up a rivalry in fiction? With social media, that’s more possible, at least through creators, if not their work. I’m not good at public arguing, so that might be out. But you never know.
This is just me speculating; what do you think makes those sacred cows?
(And the sacred cow I don’t like? The Princess Bride. It’s got three women in the movie: two hags and a “pair of perfect breasts,” the latter of whom spends most of the movie being led around like a drugged sheep. Marry someone I don’t want to? OK. Get kidnapped? Sure. Get kidnapped again? Why not? Get caught by the king and then led to the altar? OK… Yeah, brilliant dialogue, awesome supporting characters, but overall, I can’t get past the fact that Buttercup is a macguffin at best. Whoever holds Buttercup holds the power! Oh no! We lost her again! Must get her back! Bleh. There. You may hate me now.)
See, I’ve never allowed myself to hate movies for that sort of reason. It leads to the “we have to have a strong female character in everything” argument, which makes me shake my head. We don’t always have a good strong male character, or a female character, we don’t always have a fat butcher, or a skinny undertaker…we don’t always have multi-racial characters and themes in everything we create, and we don’t have to. Life isn’t that way.
Buttercup is brilliantly vapid, and the dialogue is hilarious…I will always love The Princess Bride…
Long life the Dread Pirate Roberts…
I already liked you, Mur, but now I think I love you. I didn’t fully understand the passion surrounding sacred cows until I said on a podcast that I didn’t think “The Princess Bride” was all that. I’m glad that there is a certified geek out there who agrees with me.
I was all set to blast you with my offended vitriol that you dare not to love something as much as I do, but then you rolled Logic to save, and I dealt zero damage.
I’m being flippant there, but I think that might say something about why I so rarely get defensive or annoyed with people about my own sacred cows. Occasionally I’ll get riled up when someone is simply moaning (which is never fun to listen to anyway) about how awful something is, in a way which carries intense disdain for anyone who could enjoy such trash – but if there’s logic behind it, it’s hard to really take offense at that.
I really enjoy The Princess Bride, but when you point out what you find aggravating about the female characters… yeah, I don’t really have an answer to that. It’s pretty accurate, and I can understand it putting you off; I just don’t seem to have had my enjoyment of the overall work so disturbed by that factor myself. Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.
Ah, but I didn’t say I wanted her to be a kickass heroine. Even the prissiest “lift that for me else I break a nail” princess will have something to say about marrying someone she doesn’t want to. Someone may struggle and kick their feet ineffectually when being kidnapped. Buttercup is, as I said, a drugged sheep. She wakes up from her stupor three times- jumping overboard, pushing Wesley down the hill, and taking her own life. She’s utterly boring. And the fucking movie is named after her.
And who was talking about life? I thought we were talking about stories.
Oh, no, you’re exactly right. Buttercup has little to no agency at all. Replace her with a particularly delectable cheeseburger, and the story stays essentially the same.
Man…it suddenly occurs to me how awesome The Princes Bride would have been if Inigo had been a woman. I mean, I love Mandy Patinkin in the role, but can you imagine the story of a girl who devotes her life to swordplay in order to avenge her father, becomes a slobbering drunk only to pull herself out of the bottle in order to save a princess, kill her father’s murderer and become the latest in a long line of pirate kings?
…
Excuse me, I’ve got to go write something…
I would say teh sacred cows come from something having some part that you REALLY like. If that one part is good enough, you can ignore the other parts. Conversely, sometimes one bad part can ruin something that is otherwise really good, if that bad part bugs you enough.
Princess Bride is a good example. You see Buttercup the wuss. Ophelia runied Hamlet for me in the same way. When I think Princess Bride, I think “Swordfight”! Different people latch onto different bits, and judge the whole thing based on that one bit.
LOL @ Jared. Was talking to a friend yesterday about how hot the scene with Wesley and Indigo was. Now THAT would have been a romance worth writing about, whether Indigo was male or female!
Good point…but still, one character (and she IS funny) couldn’t ruin a movie that funny for me….
Now I’m thinking I want to see Jared’s version – just can’t figure out what it would be called…
@David @Jared well, considering the originality behind name “The Princess Bride,” I’d say Jared’s story would be called The Drunken Swordswoman.
No hatred for you Mur. I love movies people hate and hate movies people love and I get your reasoning even though it doesn’t make me love that mess of a movie any less.
I think sacred cows are perfectly okay to have and I can’t agree more with the notion that I want to write one one day. Thanks for detailing what that might take.
And Jared, can’t wait to read that story (or perhaps write on better).
I feel like, as a feminist, I SHOULDN’T like the Princess Bride as much as I do, because not only is Buttercup a spineless nothing, she puts up with near-abusive behavior from WESLEY, and is still all starry-eyed.
That said, I can’t get past the fact that I love everything else about the movie. I end up quoting it at least weekly.
As a Giant-American, I resented the portrayal of Fezzik. Am I not allowed to be bitter and misanthropic just because of my size? Are we all just big-hearted teddy bears to you people?
“They call me ‘The Midgett’ down here. I love it. It’s bliss.” — Albrecht
@Jessica- HAH! I wasn’t even going to get into Wesley, who treats her like shit for doing the logical thing of moving on when *she thought he was dead.* (No one remembers he didn’t know she wasn’t going into the marriage willingly.)
“Sheathed In A Bottle,” mayhaps.
And naturally, there has to be a romance between our farmboy-turned-pirate and our good-girl-turned-swordswoman. They are far too much alike not have the makeouts.
I hate many movies/books that it seems everyone else likes, so I’m with you here 100%. And I make the following recommendation not because I think you ought to have liked TPB (which I don’t, even though I do like it), but because I actually think you might really enjoy it: try reading the book, by William Goldman.
It’s very different in many ways from the film, and written very cleverly. Buttercup is still an idiot, though.
Wow, after all the lead up, you’re worried people will hate you because you hate the Princess Bride? You bring a valid criticism to the film, however it is a take-off on fairy tales and female characters do not do too well in them (as in your criticism of the picture of Disney Princesses).
Though I love the dialogue and acting, and Bob Anderson‘s sword choreography is his second best (<i<Highlander is first), I’ve always had issue with us jumping from character to character—Wesley > Buttercup > Inigo > Wesley > Buttercup > Inigo > Ensemble. This can work in print, but is jarring for film.
As for what makes a sacred cow?
1) Time. Rarely is something sacred right away. We need time to get used to, re-read/re-watch it, talk to friends about it, and let it seep into our thoughts.
2) As you’ve said, original. It is the point from which the line (OK, “ray” is you remember 9th grade geometry) begins, not another point on the line.
3) Having a personal stake in it. Star Wars wasn’t a a sacred cow when it was released. 30+ years later, you have a small minority of people who, over three decades, incorporated it into their identity. And the more personal, like a book that mirrors one’s life, the more sacred. Catcher in the Rye fits in here.
4) Exclusivity. Most sacred cows are not beloved by almost everyone. We grab onto our sacred cows and say “This is me! I’m different!” Be they bands, songs, movies or books. This is why fans of indie bands suddenly abandon them when the band has a hit song.
@Mur — I was a little disturbed by the “Where I come from, there are consequences when a woman lies.” Whenever I hear that line, I’m like, “WTF? There aren’t consequences for men?” I tried to imagine being angry at my boyfriend for lying, and what I’d say, and it always came out, “There are consequences when PEOPLE lie.” So, ugh.
I’m still not sure why people like to get so fanatical about things like movies, sports teams, political parties and such. I was very heavily influenced by Star Wars for most of my life — my earliest memory in life is seeing it in the theater in `77 — but I understand that it has flaws. I might have held it and other things sacred when I was a kid but I grew out of it. I’ll still defend things I like but I can’t imagine why I should be offended by criticism of them. Maybe people are using things like Twilight, the Lord of the Rings, etc to fill in holes in their identities, like you’re suggesting. That’s something that probably happens much more easily when a person is young and impressionable (or old and impressionable, as the case may be — let’s face it, some people’s personalities were just never quite done cooking).
As for The Princess Bride, I liked it quite a bit, but not to the extent that I feel the need to quote it constantly (occasionally, yes – constantly, no — though these days I hardly ever NEED to quote it in conversation since someone else usually does it for me first). And you’re right about Buttercup. I think maybe Goldman was trying to use the character to make fun of the “damsel-in-distress-as-McGuffin” in a lot of action/adventure stories but I can’t be sure.
Buttercup wasn’t a character in that as much as she was a enabler for the hilarity that surrounded and pursued her throughout the movie. If she had been written as a character the movie would have been longer and likely quite different. For what it’s worth, I loved ‘The Princess Bride’, but then I loved ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ as well and I’ve found I’m in a minority on that one.
What irritates me about the things we hold in such regard is not that other people don’t like them, it’s that other people will try to persuade me that I shouldn’t like them. They don’t just mount arguments to defend their dislike, they seem to think that I’ve somehow missed some fact that, if they could only enlighten me, would cause me to realize I don’t like that thing either.
If someone doesn’t like what I like – I respect them for their opinion and that it’s right for them, but please, please don’t anyone try to convince me that my opinion is wrong.
A minority of two then…I thought A Fish Called Wanda was brilliant.
“What’re you gonna do K-K-Karl? K-K-K-Kill me?”
How about this, Mur … I’ll punch anybody who says anything bad about this essay. This is great.
One more suggested factor in true sacral bovinity: It has to achieve a certain critical mass of fanbase and recognition in the general population. How to judge where that threshold lies, well, I have no idea.
But it seems like you should be able to go most anywhere in your overall culture and not have to work too terribly hard to find a member of the tribe. And two other someone elses who at least understand the why of your attachment, without necessarily sharing it: “Oh god. You’re one of THEM.”
As for an admission of heresy: Lord of the Rings, print version … yeah, I don’t think it would suffer from some trimming here and there. I mean, all the lyrics to Bilbo’s favorite bath-song…? Am I a Philistine for thinking it would’ve been sufficient to simply know he had one?