I’m not one for tabloid media nor do I really care about Miley Cyrus, but this story is everywhere and everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Bill O’Reilly are weighing in on the issue, so I might as well throw my two cents on top of the change heap.

Miley Cyrus and Vanity Fair

Miley Cyrus - who’s currently in the process of legally changing her name from Destiny Hope Cyrus (can you blame her?) - is 15-years-old. She is probably best known for playing Hannah Montana on Disney Channel’s original series by the same name. She was invited to be in Vanity Fair and work with the famous Annie Leibovitz, who is arguably currently the best photographer in the world, known for her tasteful and creative photos of celebrities. The above picture of Miley graces the current issue of VF and seems to have parents, fans and Bill O’Reilly up in arms.

Reeling from the backlash, her handlers no doubt forced her to issue this statement yesterday:

For Vanity Fair, I was so honored and thrilled to work with Annie. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed.

That just sucks. I can understand damage control - you make a PR move, it backfires, you want to save face - I get that. What I don’t get is throwing other people under the bus who you approved to help you. I also don’t understand who thought it would be a good idea to blame Annie Leibovitz of all people, who is essentially infallible in her arena.

Personally, I think the photo looks great. Annie has managed to make an otherwise plain looking girl look beautiful with this classic pose. I don’t think it’s very erotic at all. People think that Miley was completely nude underneath the blanket, when in reality she was wearing long, black pants. If we replace the blanket with a backless gown, which would show about as much skin, would Miley be condemned as she is?

Sexualization is in the Eye of the Beholder

It’s a funny thing about sexuality. In many cases it’s more about how the viewer sees the subject and less about how the subject projects him or herself. Imagine, if you will, taking 10-years off Miley’s age and make her a 5-year-old who’s just had a bath. She’s wrapped in a blanket, she has wet hair and she’s staring at the camera. Aw, cute picture.

Now add 10-years to Miley’s current age and make her a 25-year-old in the same pose for Vanity Fair. Wow, beautiful, Annie’s done it again!

But at 15 it’s apparently embarrassing, because people fear that pubescent boys and lonely men will ogle her…back…? Society needs a reality check. Is the problem the subject or the viewer’s inappropriate response to the subject?

If the problem is the former then we as a society need to do something about all of those inappropriately dressed cheerleaders, French maids, Girl Scouts, and Japanese and Catholic school girls.

If you ask me, this photo is much racier and provocative than the Vanity Fair spread.

Edit: This post originally stated that Miley Cyrus was on the cover of Vanity Fair, which is incorrect. Working Author regrets the error.

Uwe Boll the Director

If you’re an avid moviegoer you’ve probably seen previews for Uwe Boll films. This goes doubly for moviegoers who are also gamers. Boll is known as the German filmmaker who adapts video games into movies. Unfortunately, these films are mere shadows of their source material and not very enjoyable to watch, to boot.

In recent years, Boll has created visual disasters such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Bloddrayne II and In the Name of the King. To be fair, I haven’t seen the last one, but I imagine it to be of the same caliber. Not only are the plots ridiculous, the acting hammy at best and the dialog cacophonous, but the directorial choices are just mind-boggling. Cameras spin wildly around actors. Shoot’em up scenes last entirely too long. Flashback sequences recap bits of the film we just saw five minutes ago. There are numerous editing issues as well. In Alone in the Dark, a dead character can be seen getting up before the scene ends.

Amazingly, Boll kept making movies. With each incarnation, he seemed to get a bigger budget and bigger name actors, which left audiences scratching their heads in wonder. How the heck was he getting the funding? It turns out that Germany offered a tax shelter to investors who funded a film that lost money. In his recent interview at Fearnet.com, Boll explains:

They did, in the beginning, leverage the tax loss in Germany in a major way so you were almost covered by the tax loss. When I started raising money, it was not the truth anymore. So with my movies they have to make at least fifty percent back to get the recoupment of the investment after taxes, so the idea that was written in the U.S. press over and over again was not true—the idea like Uwe is shooting movies to destroy the money. If you see the numbers, a lot of people on the internet are writing only about U.S. box office. If you see Alone in the Dark or Bloodrayne was like number one or number two at the box office in, like, 15 other territories, like Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Thailand. And now, In the Name of the King was nearly everywhere two to three weeks in the top ten, only not in the U.S. So this together with the DVD and TV revenues is not that the movies are a total financial disaster.

Video gamers around the world despised Boll for essentially butchering the games they loved, nicknaming the director Toilet Boll or Uwe Bollocks. The name calling reflects the general age of Boll-Haters, which the director claims is a “vocal minority.”

Petition Against Uwe Boll

Earlier this month, Robert Harvey created an Online Petition, calling for Uwe Boll to stop making films. Boll touched on this topic as well during his interview with Fearnet.com:

Are you aware that there is a petition online, signed by 18,000 people, requesting that you stop making movies?

Yeah, I know that. 18,000 is not enough to convince me.

How many would it take?

One million. Now we have a new goal.

At the time of this writing, the petition has 191943 virtual signatures.

The Genius of Uwe Boll

Following the interview, Boll filmed a video response to the Online Petition. In it, he lambastes prominent Hollywood figures and dubs himself a “genius.” Here’s the full clip:

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

The Pro-Boll Online Petition has 1643 virtual signatures at the time of this writing.

Not fully realizing his catharsis, Boll created an addendum response, this time directed at Boll-Haters. Ironically, Boll’s ire seems to focus on burgeoning filmmakers rather than gamers.

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

Rip you apart? Wow. Violent thoughts aside, I can’t help but think that Boll might be on to something with his films. After watching Alone in the Dark I found myself anticipating the next Boll movie, because there was a certain “train wreck” appeal to them and I was curious to see the innovative ways that Boll would disappoint me in the next film. When it comes to movies, we want the characters to succeed, because we identify with them. When it comes to real life, there’s nothing more delicious than watching someone else fail. Is it any wonder why the viewership for American Idol drops severely after auditions? Furthermore, Boll feeds the frenzy by lashing out at his critics, which can only drive those critics to the theater or rental store to watch his next film for more ammunition. He makes a pompous remark about being a genius, challenging audiences to prove him wrong by watching his next film. Audiences go, feel validated in hating Boll and then flood the Internet with hate speech. Meanwhile, Boll has their money. Considering that people will slander you on the Internet regardless, Boll has actually managed to create a business out of it. If that’s not genius, I don’t know what is.

A Little Respect for Uwe Boll

Boll has set himself up with a win-win situation. He’s either purposefully making bad cinema and acting upset about it, which increases sales and ultimately profitable movies or he’s just a hated, sub-par director who gets paid to do what he loves. That ain’t too shabby.

The only problem I see is that Boll is slowly getting better. His movies are backsliding from “so bad, it’s good” to “so bad.” I hope he can refocus his efforts and get back to what we all know and hate him for.

I hope everyone in the States has recovered nicely from Thanksgiving and detoxed all of the tryptophan out of your systems. As for everyone else, I hope your Fridays were quick and you enjoyed your evenings. As you can see, I’ve made some major changes to WORKING AUTHOR. Now that I’m starting to get a decent amount of hits a day, I’m paying more attention to my Web reports. Seems like the majority of visitors are browsing at 1024×768. My last layout catered to an 800×600 resolution as a kind of catch all. Unfortunately, the lowest common denominator has to be catered to when it comes to Web development. On the other hand, sometimes that group is in such the minority that it becomes more beneficial to say, “Oh well for them.” That’s why I’ve maximized my layout for the larger resolution. This way I get to add new features without visitors having to scroll for days just to see what’s available.

On the third hand (if you’re a mutant), I think there’s a way to have the best of both worlds. The way it works is like this: People running resolutions at 1024×768 obviously get the full experience, however, 800×600 resolution people can still have a nice display when they arrive without feeling like the short guy at the back of the crowd. When an 8×6er comes to my page, what they get are the left sidebar, the wide column in the middle and the middle-right sidebar. It’s all of the necessary stuff before the horizontal fold. I think it’s a pretty cool idea.

Anyway, as with all things Web, it’s a pain in the butt to code for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I’m no professional, mind you, so I’m running into walls trying to get the IE version to behave. If you’re rocking IE, you’re probably seeing some extra fat on the width of my blog. I have no idea why that’s happening. Woe to the Internet Explorer 6 user for whom my layout completely breaks. The best bet is to switch over to Firefox 2. It’s a free download, safer than Internet Explorer and gives you access to a bunch of cool addons.

Download Firefox 2 today. It’ll make your life and mine a whole lot easier.

As a copywriter, I spend the majority of my day staring at a monitor, typing stuff. Unfortunately, my job still hasn’t gotten me the ergonomic keyboard tray that I asked for like four months ago, but that’s another story. Anyway, ever since I took down my old sites, I’ve been working feverishly to get this one up and running and working the way I want it to. I’d forgotten the joys of Web development and the unending torment of developing for one browser type (Mozilla) only to have the site break for another browser type (IE). Woohoo! In this manner, I am effectively staring at a computer almost every waking moment. Coming home is like having another job, I’m telling you.

So I’m about to hit the hay, but I know it’s gonna be fitful because for whatever reason I have this weird 5 pixel (or so) margin on the bottom of my page when you view my site through Internet Explorer. I have no idea how that got there. They only way for me to remedy it is to remove that black strip that runs across the bottom, but I don’t want to. Nor should I have to! So if any passing readers should know the answer, by all means, send it along.

With that out of the way, no doubt you’ve heard something or another about the crazy fires Southern California is having and how all the Malibu mansions are going up in smoke. The problems are further compounded by the Santa Ana winds blowing down from the mountains. The other day, it was so windy that the tops of 50-foot tall trees were bending horizontal and you couldn’t see clearly for more than half a mile because of the dirt flying through the air. And, lucky me, my apartment complex is flanked by two dirt fields. I went outside to enjoy my patio furniture and found this:

Now all I need is for it to rain and have the wind stir everything up nicely in my patio into a thick, mud tempura batter.

And in case you were wondering, I was the one who drew the face in the dirt.

Star Wars fans can rejoice! Looks like George Lucas is bringing the Star Wars universe to television. Don’t expect to see any major characters from the films, however, since the plot is planned to focus on minor characters. Cameos by major characters has not been ruled out though. Supposedly, the show will be similar to Lucas’ Young Indiana Jones series.

This is just the sort of thing that SW fans need to continue the war with Star Trek fanboys. Still, I’m worried about how it’ll all turn out, considering that Lucas plans on writing the entire first season himself and then handing off the writing responsibilities to staff writers. I wasn’t too impressed with how the prequel trilogy turned out, writing-wise. In any event, this could eventually lead to more Star Wars films and even the possibility of Lucas opening up the license to independent writers.

When I watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I couldn’t help but think that that was how the Star Wars trilogy should have been treated: with respect. Now that Lucas is getting older, perhaps he will turn the mantel over to the throngs of rabid fans that maintain the original vision he seems to have lost.