Forum - View topicANNCast - Late Night with Helen McCarthy
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Cheesecracker
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I also love how the podcast was turned into a time machine...everyone got sent back to school.
 It's like she took your black and white TV(yes, there was such a thing) and replaced it with a color TV(I considered a 2D to 3D analogy but no one seems to be that impressed with 3D).
I don't mean it as a bad thing, I think it's good for everyone to have a eye opener once in a while. Depth of understanding isn't a given, no matter your age, schooling, and or IQ etc. It certainly seemed welcome or at least was well received. My first attempt as a 2-3-2 haikuter: Bertschy Sevakis EF Yeah! or if you don't like it: Bertschy Sevakis EF You (I think it would have been funnier if she had said it, I literally thought it up before she finished hers)
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MeggieMay
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I listened to the podcast this weekend while driving and I had a few things to say about it. The main thing I wanted to say has to do with the commentary on Arrietty, The Borrowers, and the commentary in them on the English Class system. I have to say that what Helen had to say on this and Arrietty actually made my jaw drop, as well as being the first time I've heard a good explanation of how The Borrowers is seen on this subject from the U.K. What made my jaw drop about what she had to say is what I had to say about Arrietty to my friend I saw it with earlier this year -I took a over night trip out of town to go see it and took a friend I stayed with (who's not a anime fan - the only thing she's ever seen she really likes is Howls Moving Castle, for what it's worth, but most of my older friends aren't anime fans) was how I liked Arrietty better than any other Borrowers adaption I'd seen because I felt it had cut out a lot, if not all, of the hard to follow/outdated Class system crap from the material and how it helped make it a more interesting movie!
Now to explain my history with The Borrowers - I'm in my mid 40s and when I was young a version of The Borrowers from Hallmark aired on U.S. TV Because of this a big thing was made of the book series and I bought the first one and read it. It turned out to be one of the worse books I've ever read and the TV version wasn't any better (though it was fairly true to the book, IIRC). Yet I remember both of them pretty well so the material wasn't "bad" in "it's junk" sense, but more I didn't like it (the writing style left me flat, for one thing) but I understood it to a point and realized it was speaking to someone, somewhere, but for me it was outdated and didn't speak to me, at age 10 or so, at all. Yet I got the Class situation in the book, at least to a point (I watched a lot of PBS as a kid with my mom). The thing I actually mentioned to my friend was one thing I remembered from the book was how much the Borrower's Mother had class issues and how one reason she didn't want to leave the house they were in was that to move to the country was to move to a lower class situation she'd escaped from and how she felt she was better than they were (this is a memory paraphrase of the plot situation - it may not be even the intent of the Mary Norton but it's what I got out of it). Anyway, the Class issues brought up in The Borrowers just wasn't handled well in the adaptions I'd seen before. It was expected of young viewers to just know what was going on and for me it came off as boring and plot stopping. With Arrietty I didn't find this to be a issue for the first time. Yet I think I understand where Helen is coming from with what she said and she made a case for the Class system material still being in there but it a different way and it still being relevant and subversive. More importantly to me was it was the first time I'd heard someone who was English speak about this issue in context with The Borrowers and I found it fascinating! Hearing someone explain what exactly it is about The Borrowers that makes it loved by it's UK readership is something I've always wanted to hear about and the way Helen did it was impressive. It's one thing to read about things like this and another to hear about it from someone who lived in the culture and understands it on a personal level. The U.S. has it's own issues similar to the UK on Class, as does Japan. Yet they aren't 100% the say issues and it isn't always easy to really get what the issue is from the perspective of those who actually live it. Helen did a good job with jumping the barrier on it, at least in my opinion. Anyway, I could rattle on here but ANN isn't a good place for it (I've never found super long posts to read the easiest thing to deal with here, myself). I think the other issue I wanted to mention was Helen's comments on people not using their real names online. At least one other poster mentioned this but basically if you're a female internet user in the U.S. you are told by experts NOT to use your real name. It's also told to males but not for the reasons of protecting yourself from sexual predictors. Other reasons to not be open about who you are in the U.S. is that in many States in the U.S. you can be fired and/or discriminated against for anything you say, online or off. The only rights people have are the ones spelled out by the Federal Government but that is ONLY if those rights/laws are enforced. They often aren't due to conservative attitudes and/or lack of money. American posters just don't have the protections you seem to do in the U.K. against things coming back to haunt them. Yet this is fandom, why should it matter in this type of forum? Well it's best, at least IMO, not to get out of the habit of anonymity with online names than risk someone connecting the dots between who you are in real life and your online interests. It's sad that people abuse the anonymity issue with nicks online but I don't think there is a perfect way to deal with it. That said, I personally tend to use the same nick and icon everywhere just so it's clear I am the same person. More importantly, I think when you are having a series debate you have the right to ask who someone really is. If they don't wish to tell you, so be it, but the fact they won't say should be allowed in as a factor of how serious you take a persons opinion. Freedom on the Internet works both ways and if the person doesn't like the fact they aren't being taken seriously if they don't say who they are, when asked, that's just their problem. Of course, interestingly most people who've responded to this entire subject in this podcast aren't the people who abuse their anonymity, from what I'm seeing. I have a feeling if you're the type to troll around, you don't worry about the issue and would find a way around using your real name if that was the norm to begin with [Is the problem really anonymity you gain with using names that aren't your own or the lack of a way to truly control the internet as if it was the real world where discussions would be more localized and you know the people you're talking to due to the smallness of the community? I think the size and diversity of the community is also a big factor in all the posters who feel they can say anything and get away with it.] Meg Lahey (I'll sign my name for real here because you asked Helen  )
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walw6pK4Alo
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Maybe people don't watch "every single episode of every single anime" that's airing, but if you have 10 hours a week of free time, it's not exactly painful to follow 20 series at a time. Maybe others have literally no time to devote to themselves, so they can't do that.
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NeySnow
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I think Arrietty and Poppy Hill are both fantastic films and really gives hope to future movies by the younger ghibli generation.
I love the music in both movies, great atmospheres. |
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