Princess-like

Let's talk about something I've been avoiding for a while, and that is the name for this blog.

"Princess" has been a self-given title of myself for quite a while. I might not have called myself one in public until last year, but that doesn't mean I didn't see myself as one. Most of my make-believe games while growing up had me being one, as long as I played with myself (while playing with others, I didn't even try for a "prince" title). And my fascination with princesses comes mainly from the place where most girls got their self-deluded idea of royalty as well: Disney.

Nostalgia Chick did a pretty good video on the whole Disney Princess phenomenon. And it's important to mention that the Disney Princess line was sort of an afterthought after one of the honchos at Disney realized that girls really bought into the whole idea (the word "bought" there also refers to how much money they and/or their parents spent on the idea). For me, the Disney Princess was less a merchandise (probably because there were (or are) no items marketed for boys) and more an ideal. Disney Princesses might've started as complex stories of Damsels In Distress (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty), but I grew up with the ones that would fight for what they wanted. I'd finally find my One True Princess with Belle.

Belle was well-read, snarky, and would wear one of the best dresses ever worn by a princess. She was brave, curious, and the kind of boy I wanted to be when I turned 18.

Yes, boy, for you see, it never occurred to me that Princess had a gender limit. As far as I cared at the time, the only difference between Belle and I was that she was a girl and I was a boy and just as Adam (or the Beast, for those of you who do not know the Beast's name) saw her for who she truly was and loved her, someone would do the same with me. I was as sure of being a boy, as I was sure of being a Princess.

Some years later, Cuarón's A Little Princess would come out in movie theaters, and she would deliver onto me (us) the following line.

Miss Minchin: Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.
(dramatic pause goes here)
Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us.

Yes. All of us. Even the ones who are boys.

Sadly, not long after this (which is an event that would later have me wanting to become a filmmaker) I had to face the real world. The real world had very definite standards when it came to its princesses, and I did not even begin to fit any of them.

While the fantasy became silent, it did not become absent. Sometimes things about ourselves that are hidden take on far more power than those that we do acknowledge. The Princess factor in my case sort of helped me through all of my jr. high and high school drama. It was an escape.

It would take until college to retake the whole Princess ideal. What is it? What does it mean for me? How does it affect me and those around me? Am I really a princess?

As the title of this blog might've told you, yes, I do still see myself as Princess-like. At first I commented it among friends as a joke, but it began gaining momentum in my own subconscious. I began to question what it meant to be a Princess, and how my being a male affected it.

My main issue was based on the idea that what is feminine is weak. A Princess can be a strong female figure, but to put any sort of feminine characteristic on a male ideal is to weaken it. Being a feminine boy, I was no stranger to people thinking of me as weak. The only answer to this, I was told, is to become more male (tougher, stronger, less sensitive). But that to me would've meant creating a mask. Strength is not real strength unless it comes from who you are.

But then I realized that for all it's chest-pounding bravado the idea of what is to be "a man" is fueled a lot by fear. Being "a man" is a lot more about what you don't do than what you actually do. So by forgoing that fear I was actually brave and strong. Putting on a mask would only give a face to my fears, showing myself as I am would be to deny fear an entryway.

Right now, what being a Princess means for me is to try and know yourself. It means to keep a sense of wonder about the world. It means to try and be kind to everyone. It means to focus not on the problem at hand but on how to solve it. It means not to underestimate yourself.

I am a Princess, and I say that only half-jokingly.

@spicuzz por que el twitter me da hueva

@mintonarel pues que el cine gringo ha hecho fregaderas por siempre, no se le perdona, ya sabes que asi es.

Hay muchas joyas en el cine gringo. Aún hoy en día hay películas gringas muy buenas. Algunas son independientes, algunas otras logran encontrar el apoyo de una productora grande, algunas son netamente comerciales. No me puedes decir que el cine gringo siempre ha hecho "fregaderas" cuando tu mismo has dicho que hay directores que han logrado "domar" a la industria Hollywoodense. El suceso no es nuevo, y descartar todo el cine gringo como malo es igual de iluso y prejuicioso que pretender que todo el cine mexicano es malo.

Y el decir "así es" es perdonarlo. ¿Por qué aguantamos una película nefasta gringa con excusas como "sólo vine a divertirme", "es mala pero pues se veía desde el trailer", o "es una película dominguera, no la sobreanalizes" pero esperamos que toda opera prima Mexicana sea comparable con Buñuel? Sí de verdad queremos que dejen de traer cine malo (sea de donde sea) lo que tenemos que hacer es dejar de verlo.

@mintonarel y pues la neta ellos tienen más $$ para hacer cine. Aquí es más dificil y está de la shit que se hagan fregaderas.

No es sólo el dinero, es la industria. Estados Unidos tiene una industria cinematográfica estable y por lo mismo se puede arriesgar de manera que el cine Mexicano no puede. Y muchas de esas "fregaderas" que se hacen se hacen por que el director luchó a capa y espada contra fuerzas enormes para lograr hacer su película. La gente que levanta las manos, se hace la víctima, y dice que "es muy difícil hacer cine" no merece hacer cine.

@mintonarel Y lo peor de todo es q basan esas fregaderas en cine gringo esperando recaudar la misma taquilla. Vamos, quieren seguir formulas

No tiene nada de malo seguir formulas, y no es fácil. La gente se las sabe y tiene con que comparar. Además no son formulas que hayan inventado los gringos, sino los antiguos griegos. Se siguen usando por que funcionan.

@mintonarel se hace cine de "formula" para "recuperar" la "inversion". No se hace cine porque se quiera hacer cine de calidad.

Perdón, pero por muy formula que sea el cine, la gente involucrada en general quiere hacer una película de calidad AL MISMO TIEMPO que quiere recuperar su inversión. Se soportan en la calidad de su producto para venderlo. Querer vivir de tu trabajo no es egoísta, es normal.

@mintonarel lo peor de todo es que tambien se hace cine de calidad. Pero los exhibidores no las pasan por miedo al fracaso taquillero.

Lo mismo le pasa a peliculas gringas independientes. El problema del cine en México es que TODO es independiente. No hay industria, y cada vez que se intenta hacer algo para crearla los mismos que trabajamos en el medio parecemos más empeñados en destruir lo que el otro tiene que en ayudar a construir algo de donde todos podamos vivir. También hay mucho cine que no exhiben por que es en verdad malo, y el director automáticamente se pone el manto de la virgen y a llorar como magdalena.

Anyway, cómo dijo @dannker "Esas son pláticas de primer semestre"

I want my money back

It's funny... when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never occurred to me that they might not know how. I figured that once you grew up, you automatically knew what to do in any given scenario. I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.

Calvin's Dad in Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Rant the Second

Here is my thing about blogs, and, well, me. I have a number of obsessions. Blogs are not part of it, but they do help me exemplify some of these obsessions. The biggest one of them being order.

ORDER!

I could blame my dad for this, as he is a total neat freak, but I don't think my dad obsesses as much as I do on the contents of his drawers or closet (also, dad, I was trying to arrange my clothes by color at the age of, what, 8 and you were later surprised by my coming out of the closet?). If I wanted to get all psychological about it I could say that achieving order in those simple things made me feel better about NOT achieving order in other, more important things, but I'm getting off-topic here.

How this affects my relationship with blogs is simple, I want order in them. I DEMAND order in them. I want to know what they are about and how they go being about whatever they are about. I want cohesion, clarity, a topic, an idea that ties everything together, and no funny business about it.

My problem then is that my mind and mood wander so much this cohesion is pretty much on the grounds of "I wrote this stuff" (see exhibit A: my LJ). And what I write can go from Squall x Irvine fluff to really vague love confessions to... erm... more stuff. Also, my LJ did have some "I like this stuff" sprinkled on it.

My second obsession is being liked by everyone. Which in internet is sort of like wanting to come alive out of a forest filled with lions, bears, tigers, wolves, jaguars, badgers, and killer ants. Yes, it would be nice if it happened, but odds are not on your favor. At all. Also, the forest's floor is covered in poison ivy and there's venomous spiders everywhere.

Third and last obsession (I will be sharing with you, at least) is my online persona. I will admit to you people that I want one. But I haven't decided on one, so there's several. There's the quirky one. The woe-is-me one. The bitch. The pseudo-intellectual. And others. And they mix from time to time. It's a work in progress, people.

The point to this rant (and there is one, somewhere, I swear) is that this year I am trying to just quit the whole "I will plan this out better and then do it" thing and instead do things. Writing is one those things and blogging will be part of it. I do not know why I WANT to be a blogger but, apparently, I do. Bear with me people, things might get interesting.

New Year's Revolutions

1. Write more (this blog included)
2. Read more
3. Bake more
4. Exercise
5. Take care of myself
6. Pay attention
7. Learn Japanese
8. Organize myself and my stuff better
9. Manage myself and my money better
10. Reconnect with acquaintances/friends
11. Work.
12. Sing.

Into the Woods

[CINDERELLA]
I've been good and I've been kind, Mother,
Doing only what I learned from you.
Why then am I left behind, Mother,
Is there something more that I should do?
What is wrong with me, Mother?
Something must be wrong.
I wish-

[CINDERELLA'S MOTHER]
Do you know what you wish?
Are you certain what you wish
Is what you want?
if you know what you want,
Then make a wish.

Books Speak to Me

There's this game where you get a red book (any red book, so long as it's red. How red? Just red. If it looks red to you and you're not colorblind, it probably works.) and you put your hand on it (whichever, if you don't have hands, use your feet. If you don't have feet, use your face. If you don't have a face, I can't help you.) and then you ask a question (any question, be it deep or stupid or personal or mean). You open the book to a random page, put your finger in a random place in that page without looking and then you read what is there. THAT is the answer to your question.

YES!

As much as I'd like to take all sorts of games like these with a grain of salt, I have been playing them since I was little and it is uncanny how some answers will sound so right. I know that the human mind is built to make connections, so vague answers are a sure way of getting "right" answers. If the words that you point at in the book are sort of, kinda related to what you asked, your brain will do the rest of the work.

Usually, however, the answer will be so right, so dead on, that my disbelief will not be able to jade me. And that is when I get not one or two answers that speak to me, but many. And the same question asked twice will only be answered with two different ways of saying the same message. The times when books tell me an answer I wanted or expected I am inclined to believe I'm just twisting their passages to my liking, but they have told me many uncomfortable truths, and they all seem to have their tempers. Some will be quite clear, others will be vague, others will simply not answer your questions. They will not show you a rare, inscrutable passage, they will plainly tell you they are in no mood to hear your inquiries.

Poetry books, in general, will be vague, although Milne seems to get his point across whether in prose or verse. And for some reason, no book seems too fond of answering questions about tattoos (something to do with ink, perhaps?). If you want short, simple answers, your best bet is a dictionary.

Now, supposedly it is The Devil answering the questions through the book. Which may or may not be true. I am not a Christian so I'm changing the way I look at this Devil. However it is always best to not take the books' answers for law, and consider yourself what is being said and the consequences of your actions before jumping ahead.

As for me, what is expected of me will not make me happy.