[16 Dec 11] The Myth of the American Sleepover

[CEOIII]

As for Lisa's "gay romance in Dachau", the idea that she'd have the rights sold by Friday actually made me picture a cross between "Brokeback Mountain" and "Schindler's List".

Hitler's Final Solution was their final chance at romance.
Adam Lambert and Justin Bieber star in "The Bois in the Striped Pajamas".

Tagline: You are being foolish, we have ways of making you love.(said in a German accent)

I laughed out loud at this. Does that make me a bad person? I guess it does.
That being said, I have seen neither Brokeback Mountain nor Schindler's list but I think I might watch a cross between them.

Hey, I wrote it, so if you're going to hell for laughing at it, see you down there.

Brokeback is a little overrated. Schindler's List is VERY hard to watch. But, once I am declared absolute ruler of the planet, they both go on the list of "Movies everyone has to watch at least once". Along with Mississippi Burning.

[IS_Wolf]

Dachau, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka are probably the four most well known camps, although only the latter three were fully intended as Extermination Camps.

Together with Chełmno, Belzec and Majdanek. Those 6 camps were all in occupied Poland.

Dependent upon one's nationality, and familiarity with WW2, names like Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt may also ring a bell.

[Ameyal]

I agree, Sara looks nice when she's genuinely enjoying herself. I hope we see that look more often.

Ameyal: Dachau was the worst of the World War II concentration camps.

Thanks, I was kinda guessing that from the responses.
Which makes me think that if Sara is right about Lisa's writing, she's being rather foolish, as she don't know that well the teacher(And neither we do)
Best case scenario, he doesn't actually mind and just criticize for what it is.
Then, due to the nature of her work, there are several ways the teacher could take the work in a negative way.
* The teacher is gay and thinks Lisa is of the mentality that all gays belong to concentration camps.
* The teacher is a holocaust survivors, or has relatives that were and thinks Lisa is trivializing their experiences.
* The teacher is homophobe and doesn't like Lisa's work just for that.
* The teacher thinks Lisa is an attention whore and just wrote the most controversial thing she could think out to start an argument with the teacher.

I've actually thought about doing a gay romance fic as a writing exercise, both for the fandom the author was involved in, and for the Bulletstorm FPS, but I'm worried that any romance or sex scene I'd write would come off as IKEA Erotica.

LMAO!
Practice makes everything better. The first time I wrote a romantic scene I was very... I dunno the word... ashamed? blushey? anyway, the point is that I can write sex now.

I didn't recognize it, either. I also assumed it was a prison story. My dad's a history buff, he would kill me, please don't tell him. D:

That. I have only heard of Auswitzch, and that's mostly because pop culture.

and because I have the attention span of a goldfish

[FrozenPeas]

There IS a play (and a movie) about a gay romance at Dachau. It's called Bent, and it was written in 1979 by Martin Sherman. The movie was made, from an adapted script by Sherman, in 1997. They are both excellent.

[Ameyal]

There IS a play (and a movie) about a gay romance at Dachau. It's called Bent, and it was written in 1979 by Martin Sherman. The movie was made, from an adapted script by Sherman, in 1997. They are both excellent.

SO the teacher can also accuse Lisa of plagiarism

[oddtail]

Then, due to the nature of her work, there are several ways the teacher could take the work in a negative way.

* The teacher is gay and thinks Lisa is of the mentality that all gays belong to concentration camps.

That would be... very unusual. I assume gay people tend to know that homosexuality was a big no-no in Nazi Germany, and how many gay people were imprisoned and killed just for their sexual orientation. Especially since an academic teacher is supposed to have a decent amount of general knowledge. The reaction "this student wrote about a gay person in a concentration camp, therefore she must think all gay people belong in concentration camps" is pretty much the same as a black teacher assuming "this student wrote about a black slave in mid-nineteenth century, therefore she must think all black people should be slaves". I don't see such conclusion-jumping as very likely.

* The teacher is a holocaust survivors, or has relatives that were and thinks Lisa is trivializing their experiences.

Well, Lisa *is* trivializing the experience, but - what tends to be the average age of an academic teacher? Assuming the teacher being, say, 3+ years old when WW2 started, a Holocaust survivor would have to be at *least* 75 years old. Isn't that a bit old for a college professor, especially one teaching an introductory class in creative writing?

* The teacher is homophobe and doesn't like Lisa's work just for that.

That I can see happening.

* The teacher thinks Lisa is an attention whore and just wrote the most controversial thing she could think out to start an argument with the teacher.

To be fair, I do think Lisa is/is being an attention whore. Whether she realises how controversial the topic is - that's another matter. We'll probably learn soon enough.

[Adrishiana]

* The teacher is a holocaust survivors, or has relatives that were and thinks Lisa is trivializing their experiences.

Well, Lisa *is* trivializing the experience, but - what tends to be the average age of an academic teacher? Assuming the teacher being, say, 3+ years old when WW2 started, a Holocaust survivor would have to be at *least* 75 years old. Isn't that a bit old for a college professor, especially one teaching an introductory class in creative writing?

Eh, I had a few older professors (but not teaching introductory creative writing, no).

The relative thing is probably more possible, overall. I could also see a relative of someone who fought on the US side in WWII finding it more... insensitive and poorly handled than the average citizen might. (Agewise, my late grandfather (who did not talk about his experiences until close to the end of his life) was in WWII, and his kids range from early fifties to early sixties. A friend of mine who was raised by her WWII veteran grandfather is in her forties.)

[Alice Macher]

On reflection, my reaction now to Lisa's writing exercise is more one of confusion as to what her feelings for Hank actually are. The strip where she eavesdrops on his conversation with his mom suggested to me, as it did to others, that she'd fallen for him in a "Florence Nightingale effect" kind of way. But if she's now picturing him as a gay romantic lead, does that mean she doesn't in fact see him as a romantic prospect? That, rather, she feels compassion and tender concern for him, but in a non-romantic way? But then why the little heart above her heart, in that earlier strip?

Confuzzled Alice is confuzzled.

[Ameyal]

That would be... very unusual.

I just listed possibilities, not that ALL are going to happen. Some more probable than others, than a random teacher might react with a subject like Lisa's has chosen.
We don't know anything about this individual, s/he can be a reasonable person and judge the writing on the merit they each deserve, or s/he can be a practitioner of insane troll logic. Since the last panel is a completely different scene, I'm assuming nothing came from the essay.

To be fair, I do think Lisa is/is being an attention whore. Whether she realises how controversial the topic is - that's another matter. We'll probably learn soon enough.

I'm not saying Lisa is being one. I'm just listing every possibility. This is a first assignment and she decides to go for that kind of subject? Something liek that would be my first reaction if she was my student("I probably will have trouble with this one")

[Davidj]

On reflection, my reaction now to Lisa's writing exercise is more one of confusion as to what her feelings for Hank actually are. The strip where she eavesdrops on his conversation with his mom suggested to me, as it did to others, that she'd fallen for him in a "Florence Nightingale effect" kind of way. But if she's now picturing him as a gay romantic lead, does that mean she doesn't in fact see him as a romantic prospect? That, rather, she feels compassion and tender concern for him, but in a non-romantic way? But then why the little heart above her heart, in that earlier strip?

Confuzzled Alice is confuzzled.

Lisa has harboured romantic feelings for a lot of guys who are unlikely to return the sentiment. In fact, so far she's never harboured romantic feelings for any guy who is likely to reciprocate.

[Alice Macher]

Good point, Davidj. Even if she is smitten with Hank, she may have no intention whatsoever of pursuing him. Although I'm willing to bet she'll be kinder to him from now on. (And won't that confuse him. )

[Ameyal]

On reflection, my reaction now to Lisa's writing exercise is more one of confusion as to what her feelings for Hank actually are. The strip where she eavesdrops on his conversation with his mom suggested to me, as it did to others, that she'd fallen for him in a "Florence Nightingale effect" kind of way. But if she's now picturing him as a gay romantic lead, does that mean she doesn't in fact see him as a romantic prospect? That, rather, she feels compassion and tender concern for him, but in a non-romantic way? But then why the little heart above her heart, in that earlier strip?

Confuzzled Alice is confuzzled.

Lisa is... complex not Zii complex, but complex nonetheless... even if she harbors perverse sexual lust for Hank, she might be of the mentality that Het is Ew, or thinks male-male stories are more interesting... or is a Yaoi fangirl... Hell, it could even be that,w hile she's not uncomfortable with sex in itself, she's uncomfortable with writing about sex(*taht* would make an interesting quirk in Lisa

Good point, Davidj. Even if she is smitten with Hank, she may have no intention whatsoever of pursuing him. Although I'm willing to bet she'll be kinder to him from now on. (And won't that confuse him. )

Well... other than "Are you not being a dick now?" comment to him, we haven't seen her acting like a d-bag around him, so he might not even register the change in attitude

[strangled]

Is nobody else kinda concerned with the idea of Lisa fetischizing both the concentration camps & a guy she just met that may or may not be queer? I dunno, if somebody I had just met caught a whiff of my non-normative sexuality & wrote me into their romantic/erotic creative writing assignment, I would be a little put off.

[CEOIII]

Is nobody else kinda concerned with the idea of Lisa fetischizing both the concentration camps & a guy she just met that may or may not be queer? I dunno, if somebody I had just met caught a whiff of my non-normative sexuality & wrote me into their romantic/erotic creative writing assignment, I would be a little put off.

Eh. I'd want to read it first before I got mad. Since Lisa's thought bubble has Hank as a prisoner and not a security guard, she's not making him the villain. At a minimum, I'd suggest a few things. "Um........could you make my cellmate brown haired? I've dated 3 guys with black hair, they've all ended badly."

[Valerie]

I thought she was assuming Hank to be bi, if she's intentionally modeling this character after him. She originally thought his problem was with bisexuals. In which case, she can write her story of him with a guy and still have a shot at him herself.