9/14/2018 Ferretbrain - A Successful Audition for the Darwin Award

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Playpen by Raymond H
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Tuesday, 05 June 2018
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Recently Active Or, why Shigeharu Aoyama is the stupidest horror movie
protagonist Raymond has ever seen
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About
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Let me tell you a
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tale. It all started in
  the summer of ’17.
That was the
© 2006-2015 summer I was on a
FerretBrain.com horror movie binge,
Legalese - Mobile Site
when I watched such
greats as The Shining
and Rosemary’s Baby
for the rst time.
And then one day,
purely by accident, I
stumbled across a
little horror movie
called Audition. Hey,
this looks neat, I thought. It was by a famous Japanese
director whose lmography I’d barely viewed, it was going
for cheap at the local rental place, and my parents seemed
enthusiastic about it. Why not? So Friday night, with
freshly-made popcorn and bright-eyed enthusiasm, my

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parents and I sat down to see what Audition had to o er.

What followed was the worst family movie night

experience since The Lobster[1].

First o , I should admit the role of some bias on my part.

You see, Audition, whilst ostensibly horror, happens to be
my absolute least favorite type of horror: the gross-out
gorefest. It is my rmly-held belief that the best kind of
horror elicits dread, a suspenseful buzz that quickens the
pulse and heightens the heartrate, a steady ow of unease,
if you will. To break that buzz with jump scares and
shocking imagery is bad enough, but to completely
transform it into disgust and nausea utterly defeats the
point and demeans the genre, in my humble opinion.

My own snooty genre proclivities aside though, there is

another, far deeper problem with Audition, that being its
protagonist. You see, he is an idiot. Now, you gotta
understand, I’m not talking about your average, run-of-the-
mill moron. No no, I mean he’s a grade-a, stone-cold, dyed-
in-the-wool dingbat. He’s a nitwit, a ninny, a schnook, a
schlemiel. Why he’s the stupidest horror protagonist I ever
done seen, and I’ve seen a fair few in my day.

Now come on Raymond, you sigh. You’re not being very

sporting here, are you? You say this man is an idiot, and yet
you’ve given no evidence to back this up. And besides,
horror protagonists get accused of being stupid all the
time. What makes your criticism any di erent from those
butthurt dudebros complaining about those waily slasher
protagonists, apart from the blonde hair and pom-poms?

To this I say, good, ne, a well and valid point. But

remember, the entire premise of those slasher lms is that
a group of young, hormonally addled teenagers are
systematically hunted down and murdered one by one,
oftentimes within a secluded and isolated environment.
Given such circumstances, I can at least suspend my
disbelief enough to buy a high-school cheerleader acting
somewhat irrational once she realizes she’s next on the kill

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list. What I can’t accept is this baka acting just as irrational

and clueless, if not MORE so, than said cheerleader even
BEFORE anything weird or horrifying happens.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain

the plot rst. Okay, so there’s this guy, Aoyama. He’s a
middle-aged widower and single father, who keeps getting
pestered by friends and family to get back in the dating
game. He’s reluctant at rst, but then one day a friend of
his, who just so happens to be a television producer, comes
over to him and says “Hey! Guess what? We are currently
holding auditions for the new leading lady in our latest
teledrama, and I want you to show up. See, in these kinds
of things, we go through hundreds of applicants, many of
whom are quite nice and very attractive. And I gure, hey,
only one woman can get the part, but there’s no reason the
other girls should go home empty-handed. Eh? Eh? Come
on, surely there’s gotta be at least someone there you’ll hit
it o with.”

Aoyama, in his usual fashion, responds with an “Um, uh,

well, um…” This will be a recurring habit of his.

So nally, after being dragged to the audition (ah, d’you

seee?)[2] Aoyama sets his sights on one lady in particular,
Asami, a beautiful (albeit kind of creepy), young (to an
ephebic degree), and soft-spoken (you can never tell what
she’s thinking) ballerina (whose teacher disappeared under
mysterious circumstances). Now, you or I can easily see
that, despite being quite a catch, Asami is setting o a few
red ags right from the get-go. And indeed, Aoyama’s
buddy explicitly says “Hey man, I know she’s cute and all,
but like, you might want to be careful going into all this is
all I’m saying.” But Aoyama is of course having none of that
and completely ignores all the other candidates.

Now, okay, I could possibly forgive that. Lord knows

countless men and women have taken similarly stupid
plunges in the name of getting nookie, and hey, if Aoyama
didn’t go for Asami, we wouldn’t have a story, would we?
Here’s the thing though. This is not the only warning sign

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he receives over the course of the movie. Indeed, you could

reasonably say that the rst 90 minutes of this lm are
nothing but a series of increasingly disturbing warning
signs which Aoyama ignores. And not only ignores, but
outright fails to even react to!

Let me break it down for you. Pretty early on, Aoyama’s

buddy pulls him aside and says “Hey man, c’mere, lemme
talk t’you fer a sec. Listen, I dunno how t’tell y’this, but
none of the gal’s references check out. Like, none of ’em.
At all. So like, I think you should maybe just, like, be careful
or something. You know, just exercise a little caution,
maybe wait a while before you call her next.”

Aoyama, in his usual fashion, responds with an “Um, uh,

well, um…” and then immediately proceeds to call Asami.

We are then treated to this.

Now, to be fair, Aoyama doesn’t see the bag-man, so this is

entirely within the realms of information given to us the
audience which is not given to the protagonist. But you
know what is given to him? Well for starts, there’s his son
saying “Hey dad, listen I’m real happy for you and all, but I
just feel like maybe you’re rushing into things a bit.”,
there’s his friend (again) saying “Dude! Seriously! This girl is
bad news! Abort! Abort!”, oh yeah, and there’s the GHOST
OF HIS DEAD WIFE coming to him in a dream and explicitly
screaming “RUN! IF YOU VALUE THE CURRENT
ARRANGEMENT OF YOUR TESTICLES RUN! RUN THE FUCK
AWAY FROM THIS BITCH! SHE’S CRAZY I TELL YOU!
CRAAAZYYY!!!”

Now, if you or I were faced with such advice from friends

and family, we might stop and think “Huh, maybe I should
reconsider the current trajectory of this relationship.” If an
ordinary horror protagonist was faced with it, they might
stop and think “Huh, maybe I should reconsider the current
trajectory of this…nah, let’s give it one more date.”
However, Aoyama is no ordinary fellow, nor is he an
ordinary horror protagonist. He’s the stupidest horror

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protagonist I ever done seen, and his reaction to all these

warnings is to try tracking Asami down to her house. There
are many ways to deal with a potential serial killer. Going in
alone and unprotected into their headquarters without
backup or even telling anyone is not one of them.

Of course, there is one slight problem with Aoyama's plan.

Remember, none of Asami’s references check out, so
Aoyama only has a few tenuous leads to go on in his search.
Fortunately he nds answers pretty quickly.
Unfortunately…ugh…

So he goes to this bar that Asami says she works at. He

nds it abandoned. When he asks about, the local
expositor explains “What? That bar? Oh, yeah, there was a
really gruesome murder there, a while back. Yeah, there
was a young woman, and a guy, and the guy slept with the
mama at the bar, and then one morning the cops found the
bar drenched in blood. It’s weird, they didn’t nd any
bodies, but they identi ed the blood as belonging to the
guy and the mama. Oh yeah, and they found an eye and
three ngers. The young woman disappeared. Man, it’s so
weird, but I mean, it’s not like the young woman sounds
exactly like your girlfriend or anything, hahaha! Hohoho!
Peace.”

Now…if you were in that position, what would you do?

Run? Forget Asami? Plunge forward for the sake of getting
some? All ne and good responses. Now…now uh, now tell
me…what do you think Aoyama, in his…in nite wisdom,
does? Hm? HMM?

“Sigh”

Aoyama, in his usual fashion, responds with an “Um, uh,

well, um…” And then…then he goes to a dance studio that
Asami supposedly frequents. Only to nd, oh, wow, it’s
completely abandoned and boarded up. Who could have
possibly seen that coming?

So anyways, Aoyama hears piano music coming from the

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studio, so he breaks in, and inside he nds an elderly man

sitting in a wheelchair, playing the piano in the corner of a
darkened dance-room. No-one else is around. The man
looks like he’s been there for who knows how long.
Suddenly, as Aoyama steps into the room, the man halts his
playing, and glances up. Slowly he turns, and sees a
frightened Aoyama, breath bated in surprise. Then, a sick,
slimy grin splays across the old man’s face, and with
teetering, arthritic hands, he rolls his way over to our hero.

“So…tell me,” the old man rasps, his voice cracked and
hoarse with perverted delight. “Did…you taste her esh?
Mehah. Mehahahah! Mahahahahah! Did…you smell her
skin? Mahahah! Mahahahah! Meheheheh…fool. You are
doomed. Doomed! DOOMED! MAHAHAH! MAHAHAHAHA!
MA-HAHA-HAHAAAH!”

This time Aoyama doesn’t respond. No, seriously. Where

others might ee in terror or proclaim “Old man, you be
tripping.”, Aoyama…does nothing. He exits the ballet
studio in the exact same state of mind as when he entered.
He completely, utterly, and inconceivably refuses to even
acknowledge what just occurred. Great Belin man! Are you
for real? Give us something, anything! Even an “Um, uh,
well, um…” would be satisfactory. But no, no! Instead
Aoyama’s only thoughts are “Huh. I wonder where Asami
is.” Are you serious? Are you genuinely, legitimately serious
at this point, Aoyama? Sweet baby Jesus man, no amount
of half-your-age nookie can possibly justify this level of
willful stupidity! Are you really, really going to do this?

Aoyama, in his usual fashion, responds with an “Um, uh,

well, um…”

It was at this point my parents and I began exchanging

bewildered glances.

Then he comes home and nds Asami’s killed his dog and
OMIGOD NO! NOOO! HOW COULD YOU TAKASHI MIIKE?
HOW COULD YOU? GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! I FUCKING
REMEMBER WHEN THE DOG FIRST APPEARED IN THIS

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GODDAMN FILM AND MY HEART SKIPPED A LITTLE BEAT

AND I PRAYED “Oh please Lord. Please, kill the boy, kill the
housekeeper, kill the protagonist for God’s sake, but don’t,
for the love of God, don’t kill the dog.” AND THE DOG IS
THE ONLY ONE TO FUCKING DIE IN THE WHOLE FUCKING
MOVIE AND

Oooh, you cry. Duh! Buh! Raymond! Ssspoiiileeers! For a

movie that was released in 1999! Which is mostly known
for the massive orgy of death and violence in the last 20
minutes of its runtime! Well fuck you! This is a tale,
goddammit! I’ll spoil whatever the hell I like! You want a
review, go read Armond fucking White!

Anyways, where was I? Ah yes, so Asami slips something

into Aoyama’s drink, he trips balls for a couple minutes,
during which time we are treated to the fate of that guy
(you know, the one in the bag who slept with the mama),
the old man, oh yeah, and we nd out what the deal with
Aoyama’s secretary was. For real dude, what the hell? Oh
yeah, also we get to witness the most uncomfortable
blowjob scene in the history of cinema! Nobody enjoyed
that scene, least of all you. What else? Ah, of course, how
stupid of me. Asami cuts o Aoyama’s foot in lovingly
rendered, crystal clear, high de nition.

It was at this point my father left the living room.

My mother and I, more out of spite than anything else at

this point, gured we’d see the lm through to the end,
and honestly, even in my current, spoilery mindset, I can’t
be bothered to give the ending away. Partly because I still
have some spoiler scruples, partly because it’s so bland and
predictable you can see it coming a mile away, and partly
because…I just don’t want to. Su ce it to say, things turn
out alright in the end. I mean, there was all that gross-out
stu , which I don’t recommend even for you gorefest
a cionados, but apart from that, and, y’know, the whole
foot thing, Aoyama is none the worse for wear, and is
already planning to tell this latest crazy ex story at the next
work outing[3].

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Normally after a family movie night, my family and I like to

chat about the movie. You know, what we liked, what we
didn’t like, that sort of thing. This time, my mother and I
remained in silence as we took the disc out, put it back in
the case, and turned the tv o . When we walked upstairs
to the dining room, we found my father sipping a mug of
tea, like some men would swig a ask of brandy after a
harrowing day’s work.

“So,” he grunted. “Did we ever nd out why she was…

y’know, the way she was?”

And, strange as it may seem, it wasn’t until then that I

realized, Audition isn’t actually a good movie. Seriously, my
own distaste for gorefests aside, this is a bad lm. I’ve seen
plenty of people say this is a feminist movie, which casts a
critical lens on the patriarchal society of Japan and like,
smashes all these preconceptions about women and ghts
for their rights and I call bullshit, for three main reasons.

Number one, the only thing Aoyama is ever really punished

for is getting involved with the wrong sort of woman. Not
the audition itself, not the way he treated the actual nice
women that he said he was looking for, not for wanting to
bang an ephebic ballerina or his son’s teenage girlfriend,
no, simply for getting involved with a “crazy” girl.

Number two, Asami doesn’t seem to be motivated by

anything other than petty jealousy in her revenge
methods. Remember, she killed the mama at the bar, whom
you could reasonably say was as much a victim of the guy’s
womanizing ways as Asami was. And as for the guy himself,
Asami’s torture of him is expressly designed to make him
totally dependent on her, not to punish him for straying,
but to make herself more valuable to him so that he won’t
ever want to stray. And nally, this leads to the biggest
reason.

Number three, we never get any explanation for why Asami

is the way she is. There is a cursory comment about how

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because she was abused as a child she came to believe that

love and pain were inseparable and can you see how deep
and philosophical this movie is but it’s an esoteric blu . At
the end of the day, it doesn’t alter our perception of her in
any meaningful way. She’s still a crazy serial killer, who kills
dogs and mutilates men for shits and giggles. This
explanation doesn’t serve to make us empathize with her.
Just the opposite, it makes her even creepier, and drives
the point that she’s a villain that needs to be stopped even
further home. In the end, the only explanation we really
get is that same, old, tired cliché: That bitch is crazy.

In the end, there are some interesting themes and

concepts in Audition, but the movie never really goes
anywhere interesting or says anything meaningful with
them, instead always choosing to take the easiest, goriest,
most juvenile way out. Anything great in the movie is
snu ed out by disinterested shrugs and handwaves, and all
that’s left is sex and violence. It’s rather like going to a
classical music concert, where midway through the
concerto the pianist suddenly screams “FUCK
EVERYTHING!”, throws a cat onto the keyboard, sets the
piano on re, guns the remaining orchestra down, cackles
as the concert hall explodes, and then shoot the cat in the
knee after it tries to sue[4]. I know the movie is based o a
book, and maybe that does a better job handling the ideas
the story puts forward, but honestly, with an audition like
this, I don’t think I’m gonna call this story back anytime
soon.

It’s funny. I’m sure there’s a moral to be learned from this

tale. I just have no idea what it is. Maybe it’s don’t
disrespect women. Maybe it’s bitches be crazy. But
personally, I think the best moral this tale has to o er is
this: Know what you’re getting into. Please, if you take
nothing else from this, just remember that. Know what you
are getting into.

[1] We thought it was a romantic comedy, okay? The

synopsis made it sound like a wacky romantic comedy!

[2] Yes, yes, YES! Since day ONE I have been waiting to say

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that and now I've nally done it! Haha! やった！

[3] Where he’ll probably sleep with his new secretary and

toss her aside just as callously seriously what the hell

dude?
[4] Seriously, in all its 60 cat years in the industry it’s never

been treated this badly, not once! 60 cat years! And that’s
like, 11 human years!

Themes: TV & Movies, Horror, Minority Warrior, Romance,

Crime Fiction
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Comments (go to latest)
Arthur B at 10:56 on 2018-06-05
See, I have a di erent take on Audition.
Yes, Aoyama acts like a fool. On the
other hand, he acts like precisely the
sort of fool patriarchal society has set
him up to be.

There's a cliche in discussing dating and

the risks people face in that context of
"Men are afraid of being embarrassed;
women are afraid of being murdered",
and there's quite a big chunk of truth to
it: women are by far the targets of
violence more than they are the
perpetrators of it in dating contexts,
and I know numerous women who feel
that they have to take various safety
steps when going on a date in the event
that the person they're with turns out
to be some form of abuser - the classic
full-blown serial killer being an extreme
example, but hardly an unknown one. I
don't think I've ever known a man to
express the same fears about meeting
up with a woman.

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So far as I can tell, the whole point of

Audition is to depict a man who, for
once, is actually subject to the same
danger that women are routinely
subjected to in dating - and because
he's a privileged little patriarch, he
doesn't recognise the danger at all.
That's part of how privilege works - it
insulates you from the very idea that
someone might dare to harm you. (As a
bene ciary of that privilege, I often
nd it eye-opening and startling how
much others who don't get the same
bene ts have to be wary.)

So sure, he gets all these people

suggesting that he should distance
himself from Asami, but when has the
disapproval of one's peers ever
prompted anyone to break o a new
relationship? And sure, he investigates
Asami's background and nds out that
something is up, but I think it entirely
makes sense for him to decide that
whatever that is, it surely can't be her
fault - that if anything, she's in trouble
and she needs a doughy patriarch like
him to save her. The possibility that she
might be the trouble doesn't occur to
Aoyama because he doesn't conceive of
young, pretty girls as being capable of
being trouble. And you know how the
saying goes: when you assume, you
make an ass out of yourself and lose a
foot.

As far as Asami's apparent lack of clear

motivations go, I don't consider them a
problem. The stated motivations of real
life serial killers aren't especially
narratively satisfactory either, in most
cases. Again, so far as I can see, the
whole point of Asami is that she is (on a
somewhat grand guignol scale) exactly
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the sort of sadistic abuser that women

have to be afraid of on a regular basis,
but which men are rarely in danger
from. Plus, giving her actions a
convincing rationale would run the risk
of, if not excusing them, at least making
them somehow sympathetic.
permalink - go to top
Raymond H at 12:02 on 2018-06-05
...Okay...I see what you're saying...and I
half-agree, but I still don't quite see it
that way, and it all boils down to that
word you used "sympathetic". I think, if
you are trying to point a lens at a put-
upon group of people, then you need
to paint that group with at least some
degree of sympathy, but from my
experience, the audience's sympathy
seemed intended for Aoyama all the
way through, even when they
demonstrated some of his more
reprehensible thoughts and actions.
Ultimately, even if this lm was
intended to subtly mock viewers'
patriarchal prejudices, it still set about
doing it with a scaaary woman that
needed to be killed. So it's kind of like
reading Dracula as a subtle critique of
Victorian pomposity and prejudice.
Considering that Stoker was himself an
Irishman, that's an entirely valid
reading, but because Dracula is a blood-
drinking, soulless abomination, it
somewhat shoots the message in the
foot. Maybe it's because of my
experience reading Naomi, which
seemed like it's criticizing its patriarchal
protagonist, but then was actually just
about how if you let women have male
friends or talk back in any way it'll
destroy society.

You are right, unless there's a clear

power imbalance, when women are

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abusive to men, they go for emotional

and psychological abuse, rather than
physical, at least from my experience.
And maybe it's because of that
experience that I'm bitter and cynical,
and was thus more receptive to the
warning signs Asami exhibited.
However, by making Asami, as you said,
a female version of the sort of serial
killer a woman might encounter on the
dating scene, I think the lmmakers
went too far, from satire to farce. I do
like what you pointed out, that
Aoyama's stupidity can be chalked up
partially to how he never suspects
Asami might be the trouble, and I know
that can be a blinder. But again, I think
without any sympathy, Asami's
excessive psychopathy ended up
hurting any potentially anti-sexism
message the lm had. By making her
the abuser, and making Aoyama the
victim, it makes it di cult to see
beyond that evil woman / good man
dynamic. Maybe it worked better in the
book, maybe I'm too distrustful to put
myself fully in Aoyama's shoes, but I
don't know.

Geez, that was long-winded and messy.

Sorry. Uh, I guess, in summation, I think
you make several valid points, but I just
can't agree %100.
permalink - go to top
Ichneumon at 04:33 on 2018-06-08
I dunno, I think you can write and
e ective horror yarn around a largely
unsympathetic cast. The point of horror
isn't necessarily to re ect empathy with
the characters themselves; rather, as
Thomas Ligotti has argued, horror is
about empathy with a set of shared
fears and a shared understanding with
the author. The shared fear here is not

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that of the protagonist person see,

pathetic though he is, but of women
within a patriarchal society which
objecti es and abuses them; the
empathy may in part be with the victim,
made a patsy by societal expectations,
but also with the author's dim view of
said society.
permalink - go to top
Raymond H at 12:58 on 2018-06-11
Okay! So, uh, I guess I ought to start
with some kind of disclaimer or
something. This article was simply
meant as a means to laugh at a bad
family movie night experience. By
laughing at things, we often are able to
deal with and process them better,
after all. However, Arthur's initial
comment struck a chord with me. Not
because he disagreed with my opinion
on the internet (the unforgivable sin),
but because his comment
As a bene ciary of that privilege, I
often nd it eye-opening and
startling how much others who don't
get the same bene ts have to be
wary.

made me realize that my own

experiences with dating and romance
may not have been, for lack of a better
word, "normal". I've always laughed at
the things that happened to me,
because, again, that makes them easier
to deal with, and I'd always thought
that, because I was a straight, cis guy,
whatever had happened to me couldn't
possibly measure up to what women or
trans people face on a daily basis. And
it doesn't. But after talking with friends
and family, I realize it does matter, and I
can't just keep laughing it o . Just
because a disease isn't cancer or AIDS
doesn't mean it isn't fatal if left

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untreated. And I need to treat this. So,

uh, thanks Arthur, I guess.

Hoo! Okay, that was...man! I'm glad you

convinced me to use a pseudonym,
Arthur, because without that I'd
probably have kept all that under a
pickle-jar-tight lid. But ironically
enough, an internet-based mask let me
open up and deal with a deep-rooted
issue in my life. Tell everybody what,
next article I write will be about a
happy romantic comedy.

Okay, now to address Ichneumon's

comment, and Arthur's comment
correctly this time! What bugged me
about a lot of reviews that praised
Audition's supposed feminist
credentials was that they operated
under the logic of "Asami tries to kill
the guy that objecti ed her, ergo she is
a feminist hero, ergo this is a feminist
lm". I don't agree with that line of
logic, for the reasons I listed in the
article. However, re-reading Arthur's
comment, I see that you're actually
going down a di erent logic route.
"Asami is a re ection of the worst fears
a woman in the dating scene can face,
ergo by making her a her and her victim
a him, it ips the power dynamic of this
traditional, real-world horror and thus
casts a lens on said real-world horror."
Ichneumon, your comment, if I
understand it correctly, is basically
"Even if you don't like Aoyama, you can
still empathize with his fear, and thus
even if the movie seems to be
'sympathizing' with him, it could still be
deeply criticizing him."

Thinking about it, I would say those are

valid "readings" of the lm, and again,
maybe my own experiences have
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clouded my own reading. Even

accepting your readings though, I stand
by my judgment that Miike went for the
most gratuitously violent and juvenile
route when dealing with these issues.
Even thinking back on the lm and
going "Oh yeah, I guess that's right", I
still think Miike was too focused on
"Whoo! Blood! Guts! Fuckin' gorefest
maaan!" for me to consider this a good
lm. Genre ction, in my opinion, is
used best when wrapping real-world
issues and problems in a creamy, more
easily-digestible genre coating. In the
case of horror, no boogeyman or
monster under the bed can compare to
the myriad ways that human beings can
hurt you, but personifying real-world
fears as boogeymen and monsters can
make them or their memory a little
easier to confront. But I think Miike was
too rmly focused on the
personi cation of Asami to really give
the real-world fears behind her
conception the focus and subtlety they
deserve. I don't think horror should be
"feel-good", but it should give you the
courage to face your fears. This lm
seems more focused on making
patriarchally-insulated men as scared as
women are when it comes to dating,
and it stops at that point, rather than
going on to make the male audience
think about how to change this
patriarchal system. And that, I think, is
why I still can't bring myself to like this
lm.
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Arthur B at 13:39 on 2018-06-11
Yeah, I think any reading of the lm
where Asami is any sort of "hero" is
simply untenable - when you take into
account more or less every aspect of
how the movie frames her actions and

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their e ect on people, the argument

simply doesn't have a leg to stand on.
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Ichneumon at 02:59 on 2018-06-12
Oh, I agree. But I do think the subtext is
quite important here in terms of the
mechanics of the horror even if one
does not care for the execution. Asami
is a ghoulish subversion of the
assumptions of a patriarchal society
made esh; her existence as a concept
may resonate, but that does not make
her anything resembling a sympathetic
character—if anything, that type of
character is more a force of nature, an
emanation of the malevolence or
harrowing indi erence of greater
forces rather than a person in
themselves.
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Robinson L at 15:00 on 2018-08-15
apart from that, and, y’know, the
whole foot thing, Aoyama is none the
worse for wear

Doesn't that invalidate him being a

candidate for a Darwin Award?

Also, do you think you could edit the

footnotes to make them links. It would
aid readability, and I'm pretty sure it's
in the HTML guide for articles.

I don't have any comments on the

actual movie, as it's so far removed
from my interests. *shrug*

I've always laughed at the things that

happened to me, because, again, that
makes them easier to deal with, and
I'd always thought that, because I was
a straight, cis guy, whatever had
happened to me couldn't possibly
measure up to what women or trans
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people face on a daily basis. And it

doesn't. But after talking with friends
and family, I realize it does matter,
and I can't just keep laughing it o .
Just because a disease isn't cancer or
AIDS doesn't mean it isn't fatal if left
untreated. And I need to treat this.

Oh, wow. I'm so glad this conversation

led to such a positive revelation for you,
and you're absolutely right. A couple
months ago, I saw something reposted
on Facebook, originally from a
counselor who's worked with survivors
of severe trauma, extreme childhood
abuse and the like, and noting that
even they are quick to say, "there are
other people who have it worse than
me." The originally poster's point is that
everybody downplays their own
woundness in contrast to someone
else's experience, and even if the
contrast is true, that doesn't mean you
don't also need help and healing. Your
disease analogy reminds me of a similar
comparison I came up with a few years
ago, about medical patients, one with
severe burns, and multiple broken and
fractured bones, and the other with a
broken arm. Sure, the former has it
worse o and should probably get
higher priority in treatment, but that
doesn't negate the latter's need for
help and healing also.

ironically enough, an internet-based

mask let me open up and deal with a
deep-rooted issue in my life.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a

fairly common experience for people
dealing with some heavy shit online?
Isn't the anonymity one of the major
contributing factors to many people's
ability to process issues of trauma,
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sexual orientation, gender identity,

mental illness and a host of other
taboo/stigmatized subjects? Doesn't
strike me as particularly ironic at all.

In any case, I'm so glad your

participation on the site, and this
conversation in particular, helped you
come to this realization and start
working on getting yourself the help
you need. I know it's been a while
(chronically behind on articles, me), and
you're still working out the
employment situation, but I hope
you've managed some progress here,
too.

This lm seems more focused on

making patriarchally-insulated men as
scared as women are when it comes
to dating, and it stops at that point,
rather than going on to make the
male audience think about how to
change this patriarchal system.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that

true of a lot of social commentary in
ction? I mean, that it shines a light on
a particular problem without really
pointing towards potential solutions? It
seems a fairly common phenomenon to
me.
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Arthur B at 15:50 on 2018-08-15
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that
true of a lot of social commentary in
ction? I mean, that it shines a light
on a particular problem without really
pointing towards potential solutions?
It seems a fairly common
phenomenon to me.

Agreed, and to be honest neither

ctional nor non- ctional statements
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need propose a solution to be valid. I

don't need to propose a potential
solution to homophobia to point out
that Orson Scott Card is a homophobe,
for instance.
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Raymond H at 05:04 on 2018-08-24
Doesn't that invalidate him being a
candidate for a Darwin Award?

You just want the world, don't you? In

all seriousness, the title was more to
indicate Aoyama's stupidity than his
dying or being rendered sterile, since
the whole point of the Darwin Award
and the reason we laugh at the winners
is less to do with the results of their
actions and more the fact that
someone would take those actions to
begin with.

Also, do you think you could edit the

footnotes to make them links.

I... don't... know... how... I couldn't nd

anything about it in the HTML Guide,
except for the bit about putting links to
outside websites in the article, which I
thankfully know how to do.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't

that true of a lot of social
commentary in ction? I mean, that
it shines a light on a particular
problem without really pointing
towards potential solutions? It
seems a fairly common
phenomenon to me.

Agreed, and to be honest neither

ctional nor non- ctional statements
need propose a solution to be valid. I
don't need to propose a potential
solution to homophobia to point out
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that Orson Scott Card is a

homophobe, for instance.

I guess this is just another matter of

di erent personal experiences. I just
think that if you're going to go to the
trouble of making a whole piece of art,
as opposed to a simple critique or
internet comment, to address a
particular social issue, you should try to
discuss the issue more comprehensively
than simply going "Man, I am so woke
for knowing about this issue! Bask in my
wokeness." I've run into too many
people who think all that's needed to
change the world is to smoke weed and
brag about how aware they are to nd
that attitude anything but insu erable.
And again, this is all reliant on the
axiom that such social commentary was
intentional on Miike's part.
I really hate to be that guy in this
situation. I myself have tried for years
to get friends of mine into things that I
like, where my best-reasoned
arguments and most-impassioned
treatises are apathetically de ected by
said friends' simple inability to enjoy
those things. And I can tell from the
comments section that now I'm the one
who just doesn't get it. But I'm simply
not feeling it like you all are. I wish that
I was, but I just...can't. I'm sorry.
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Robinson L at 18:30 on 2018-08-28
I've never really followed the Darwin
Awards, so I wouldn't know.

Oh yeah. I remember guring out the

html code for footnotes was a little
weird for me. I've just looked back at
my very rst article, and it turns out I
submitted it with a footnote, which got
coded when the article was transferred

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from my original text submission into a

Ferretbrain article, by Kyra or Rami or
whoever would have done that. I must
have accessed it that way.

Anyway, at the risk of pulling away the

curtain for non-contributing readers,
here's the html code I use for
footnotes:

< sup >< a href="#ftnote">[1]< /a ><

/sup >
< sup >< a id="ftnote">[1]< /a >< /sup >

(Just remove the spaces before and

after the < and > characters - added to
prevent auto-formatting - and replace
the "1" inside the square brackets with
the desired number for both parts after
the rst footnote.)

I just think that if you're going to go

to the trouble of making a whole
piece of art, as opposed to a simple
critique or internet comment, to
address a particular social issue, you
should try to discuss the issue more
comprehensively than simply going
"Man, I am so woke for knowing
about this issue! Bask in my
wokeness."

Huh, I don't know about that. I mean,

absolutely, yes, you should try to
discuss the issue comprehensively in a
piece of art - but it doesn't necessarily
follow that you should suggest a
solution. Maybe you think you don't
have the answers; or at least aren't
convinced your answers are right. Or
you think there are too many answers
to t into one piece, and don't want to
privilege one or two answers over the
others. Or you think it's more important
to get your viewers to come up with
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their own answers.

There have de nitely been times when

I've seen a piece of art address a given
di cult social issue without suggesting
a solution, and it felt like a cop-out. But
I've also seen plenty of examples which
work so perfectly as what they are that
putting in a part about "this is how we
could x this problem" would cheapen
the result. Doctor Strangelove doesn't
fail as a critique of militarism and the
nuclear arms race because it refrains
from putting forward a comprehensive
program for phasing out nuclear
weapons, or war in general. Indeed, it
would likely be a far inferior lm if it
tried. Likewise, The Lorax doesn't need
to propose a solution for
environmental devastation to make the
point that environmental devastation is
a serious problem that we should work
to solve.

I can believe that, if Audition is indeed

trying to make a serious point about
rape culture and male violence, it does
so badly. But I think if so, then I don't
think "it fails to propose a solution to
these problems" is the reason.

And I can tell from the comments

section that now I'm the one who just
doesn't get it. But I'm simply not
feeling it like you all are. I wish that I
was, but I just...can't. I'm sorry.

I hope you're kidding, because a piece

of art working ne for other people is
no reason to expect it should
necessarily work for you as well.
Personally, I've never seen and with
luck never will see Audition, because, as
I've mentioned elsewhere, horror is

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decidedly not one of my preferred

genres; especially not lm/tv horror.
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Raymond H at 13:11 on 2018-09-01
Comments: Ooh, thank you!

Commentary: That's... a good point.

Concern: Oh. Well... I mean... this is the

internet...
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Robinson L at 22:02 on 2018-09-10
You're welcome, thanks for cleaning up
the formatting, it looks much smoother
now.

Well... I mean... this is the internet...

Yeah, plus, I screw up reading others'

moods in person often enough - I'm
hopeless at it online, so I thought I
should check.
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