The Lists Project

[Mr Sausage]

If we're dealing with proto-fascism, which is to say the elemental stuff from which a fascist mythos can be formed, I absolutely do think both that adventurous tradition of a great man imposing his will on the cosmos through force (certainly, Siegfried was so appropriated by the Nazis) and the modern incarnation of Schwartzeneggars and Stallones gunning down all the bad guys are swimming in it-

Re: the Sigurd/Sigfriend story and nazism. Hitler was a philistine with a striking lack of intelligence. Here is how his appropriation of the Nibelungenlied goes: "Sigfried is a heroic man destined for greatness who must battle evil forces that oppose him. I too am destined for greatness and there are also people who oppose me. I am like Sigfried! And Nietzsche had that idea of an übermensch, which kind of applies to Sigfriend, so I am an übermensch too!"

Know what the above is? The narrative fallacy. And I wouldn't ever trust Hitler to be reading things correctly. He did what every racist does and subordinated the text to what he already wanted to believe through confirmation bias. The fact is that these kinds of archetypal structures are so easy to appropriate for this or that ideology if you're enterprising enough. Wagner turned the Sigfried story into a leftist/socialist allegory, as Shaw rather deftly showed in his book The Perfect Wagnerite (which still didn't stop monomaniac Hitler from also finding a racist way to understand those operas).

Because these are archetypal structures, they're very easily borrowed to tell all kinds of stories. There is nothing fascist about the structure of quest myth. It's just a great structure for telling stories, and if you want to make those stories symbolic of this or that political ideology, you can do that, too. No one ever stumbles into fascism just by using the structure of quest myth. Most of revolutionary Romantic poetry, Shelley especially, used an internalized form of quest myth, and their poetry is most certainly the opposite of fascism and totalitarianism.

But there's the rub: isn't this of one major reasons why real dyed-in-the-wool Fascists are so fond and obsessed with Myth? Which is to say: does the ideal egalitarian and rational society, that we seem to be striving for, have room for "cosmic" good and evil? Does it allow for individuals to "transcend" the rest of society and attain a higher cosmic moral position? Or condemn certain individuals of possessing a cosmic evil? Of course, it would be wrong to describe this particular brand of Myth as being inherently fascist, but certainly fascism is the one form of modern thought that is consistently mobilizing these mythic ideals, and trying to institute them into modern life (a modern life they find decadent and diseased).

As I wrote above, using myths to confirm what you already believe has never been the sole domain of fascists. We can use Freud as a great, mostly non-political example of someone who subordinated certain mythological stories as a way explain through narrative certain processes of the mind. Another great example are poets of all political stripes, who used mythical narratives as symbols and metaphors for certain kinds of mental, emotional, or moral problems. This is all simply making use of essential structures that are so much a part of Western consciousness that it's easy to avail yourself of them. It's poor reasoning to assume that if fascists do it it must be a fascist thing at its core. Only if fascists exclusively do it; and if not, you need to look at who else does it and why.

As for whether or not society has any use for cosmic conceptions of good and evil, probably not. But here the problem is not with the myths, but with those who think real life ought to conform to fantasy, and then seek to impose that fantasy on others. Most action movies I think have nothing to do with that impulse, but are just one more representation of a certain kind of fantasy, and have no expectation that it should or would conform to reality (as I said in my earlier post, most action heroes are freely shown to be impossible, and the movie makes no effort to pretend that this is attainable in real life). Some, like Dirty Harry, may in fact be fascist, but that's a unique situation where its direct follow up, Magnum Force, is critical of the previous film. Others I think aren't very fascist. They're just telling similar stories to Star Wars, only in slightly less fantastical worlds.

[matrixschmatrix]

Re: the Sigurd/Sigfriend story and nazism. Hitler was a philistine with a striking lack of intelligence. Here is how his appropriation of the Nibelungenlied goes: "Sigfried is a heroic man destined for greatness who must battle evil forces that oppose him. I too am destined for greatness and there are also people who oppose me. I am like Sigfried! And Nietzsche had that idea of an übermensch, which kind of applies to Sigfriend, so I am an übermensch too!"

Know what the above is? The narrative fallacy. And I wouldn't ever trust Hitler to be reading things correctly. He did what every racist does and subordinated the text to what he already wanted to believe through confirmation bias. The fact is that these kinds of archetypal structures are so easy to appropriate for this or that ideology if you're enterprising enough. Wagner turned the Sigfried story into a leftist/socialist allegory, as Shaw rather deftly showed in his book The Perfect Wagnerite (which still didn't stop monomaniac Hitler from also finding a racist way to understand those operas).

Well, true enough- fascism is inherently anti-intellectual and thus anything requiring intellectualism performed by fascists is going either to fit only loosely with how fascists actually behaved or to be kind of dimly thought out. But modern fascism was largely constructed using elements of the heroic myth, and many of those elements therefore have an association with modern fascism. Moreover, there are elements of the fascist construction of the world that can only appear plausible in a heroic fantasy- the belief that intellectualism and discussion cloud the righteous instinct of a pure man, for instance, would seem ludicrous in a work of social realism, but it's so encoded into myth that it's become difficult to reverse even when that's the specific intention of the artist.

Again, I'm not arguing that either action or heroic mythology is inherently fascistic- just that it is a genre that is intertwined with fascist thought in a unique way, and which can be easily laid into a fascist mold.

[Mr Sausage]

Moreover, there are elements of the fascist construction of the world that can only appear plausible in a heroic fantasy- the belief that intellectualism and discussion cloud the righteous instinct of a pure man, for instance, would seem ludicrous in a work of social realism, but it's so encoded into myth that it's become difficult to reverse even when that's the specific intention of the artist.

Well, the more abstract and less displaced a myth, the less psychology it's going to have. I guess for facists that's pretty seductive. For non-fascists, I think what tends to happen is those myths receive a heavy psychologization when re-told, if they don't have one already. (It should be noted that ancient myths tend to have a greater degree of psychology and intellectualism than mediaeval myths, the old norse and german myths being notable examples of the latter. As you get farther away from the mediaeval period, old quest myths like the Arthurian legends start to become psychologically complex again, eg. Malory's version. As you reach the Renaissance, you see men like Spenser giving their knights more of a capacity for thought). But it's worth remembering that certain Germanic stories like Beowulf, which were not appropriated by fascists at any time, are read by no one that way now, even tho' the stories have all the same elements (including a hero fighting dragons).

I think the less familiar you are with the myths from their original source, the more fascist interpretations will seem to infect them. The more I read and read about the norse and germanic romances, the more fascist interpretations of them seem stupid and alien to the stories. Incidentally, my favourite version of the Sigurd cycle is William Morris' re-telling, Sigurd the Volsung. Morris was a socialist and a superb fantasist. He thought the Norse myths just then being rediscovered were a tradition that equalled the greek one in power and emotion, and he translated the Volsunga Saga and I think the Poetic Edda before making his own heavily psychologized version of the tales.

[matrixschmatrix]

In a class I took on Chaucer, we spent several weeks discussing some of the intricate and (to me) totally foreign set of signifiers and signifieds in Medieval romances- there's a lot of complexity and depth there, but it's not related to the characters, and I think it's effectively lost in translation in a way that doesn't seem to happen with character depth. Regardless, I do agree that the more rich and invested with meaning and depth a story is, the further it moves from the fascist mindset- I think fascism absolutely requires an almost total lack of complexity. But I also think that a lot of action movie molds also represent a simplification and decontextualization of mythic storytelling, and thus risk appearing or actually becoming fascistic. It's certainly nonsense (and a type of nonsense amenable to fascist thinking) to suppose the myths and origin stories that arose from various cultures are innately fascistic- that would imply that humanity itself tends towards fascism, which is madness.

But Taken? That shit's fascist.

[Cold Bishop]

As I wrote above, using myths to confirm what you already believe has never been the sole domain of fascists. We can use Freud as a great, mostly non-political example... Another great example are poets of all political stripes, who used mythical narratives as symbols and metaphors for certain kinds of mental, emotional, or moral problems. This is all simply making use of essential structures that are so much a part of Western consciousness... Only if fascists exclusively do it; and if not, you need to look at who else does it and why.

But I think it's far to simplistic to simply say that Fascism appropriates the Mythic. Freud is a good counterpoint: he may use Myth, but he treats Myth as construct, stories whose longevity and universality leave them open to psycho-analysis, to demonstrate the way those stories speak to the subconscious. Poets, likewise, do a similar thing, treating them as symbols. Most of the time when politics appropriate Myth, they similarly treat them as a story, a universal point of reference. Fascists tend to treat Myth as philosophy, if not as straight-faced fact (hence the paganist and theosophic inclinations that are still visible in neo-fascism) Myth is part of Tradition, and Tradition, for the fascist, is the antidote to Modernism's degenerate spirit.

It is any coincidence that many of the 20th century's great "Mythographers" have often dealt with accusations of Fascism? Mircea Eliade was part of the Iron Guard. Both C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell have been rumored Nazi sympathizers (if not members, in the latter case). Georges Dumézil was a supporter of Action francaise. Georges Bataille had the crypto-fascist College of Sociology. Rene Girard's career has seen him move increasingly to far-right Catholicism. And that without mentioning flim-flam artists like Julius Evola, Rene Guenon or Miguel Serrano. Myth holds a special place for the Fascist because it is a key to the primitive man, and it's the conflict between modernity and the primitive that largely gives birth to Fascism.

They're just telling similar stories to Star Wars, only in slightly less fantastical worlds.

There are also many people who do consider Star Wars, and its use of myth, fascist. Once again... surprise, surprise... old man Rosenbaum once called the film something like a paen to genocide.

It's certainly nonsense (and a type of nonsense amenable to fascist thinking) to suppose the myths and origin stories that arose from various cultures are innately fascistic- that would imply that humanity itself tends towards fascism, which is madness.

I think there's definitely a lot in human nature that is proto-fascist. And certainly man's origins is closer to fascism than democracy. But let's be honest... no one here really wants to have this argument. So let's bring this back home: I'll admit this is a problematic argument (and not just because it can easily be conducive to fascist thought): One simply can't label everything "primitive" as "fascist", and Sausage is right to take umbrage with it. There needs be a modernity that it reacts against before it starts approaching the fascist. I do think the Action film, as a product of modernism, is vulnerable to this.

And this is a problem: we're getting hung up on "the Quest Myth" and "Fascism", and moving further and further away from the Action Film. Action films are rarely (never?) capital-F, ideological Fascist films. No one sets out or thinks they're making a fascist film (well, maybe John Milius, but he does them so well). Not Dirty Harry, not Rambo, not Commando, not Taken. That's why it's appropriate to call them proto-fascist, or at worst, crypto-fascist: they contain the material and principles and worldview that with a (sometimes small) leap can become fascist, but they bury them, unconsciously or otherwise, in "apolitical" entertainment.

But, that's one small part of it! So, yeah... anyone want to discuss how the Actions films are essentially melodramas... or their relations to the musical... or animation (those are fun!)... anything to derail this conversation from the inevitable, theoretical dead-end this conversation is leading to

[Mr Sausage]

I realize this has gotten far away from action movies, but this is kind of interesting, and your post definitely deserves intelligent response, so I hope you'll indulge me in this long post. I'll let it be my last.

But I think it's far to simplistic to simply say that Fascism appropriates the Mythic. Freud is a good counterpoint: he may use Myth, but he treats Myth as construct, stories whose longevity and universality leave them open to psycho-analysis, to demonstrate the way those stories speak to the subconscious. Poets, likewise, do a similar thing, treating them as symbols. Most of the time when politics appropriate Myth, they similarly treat them as a story, a universal point of reference. Fascists tend to treat Myth as philosophy, if not as straight-faced fact (hence the paganist and theosophic inclinations that are still visible in neo-fascism) Myth is part of Tradition, and Tradition, for the fascist, is the antidote to Modernism's degenerate spirit.

One's bound to be simplistic in a small forum post about a complex issue. But as far as treating myth as straight fact, that would be euhemerism. Whatever fascists take these myths to be, it requires them to, A. decide on what the myth represents as a symbol, and then, B. identify themselves with that symbol. They then attempt to reenact these myths by repeating the rituals, therebye synchronizing themselves with whatever spirit they believe inhabits it.

Freud, tho', treated myth as stories which were literally true of people's minds. The Oedipus story was for him about the literal desire in all of us to kill our fathers and have sex with our mothers. The modern tendency is to take Freud's structures as metaphorical systems, but Freud was trying to use them as literal, scientific models. I'll return to Freud in a minute.

It is any coincidence that many of the 20th century's great "Mythographers" have often dealt with accusations of Fascism? Mircea Eliade was part of the Iron Guard. Both C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell have been rumored Nazi sympathizers (if not members, in the latter case). Georges Dumézil was a supporter of Action francaise. Georges Bataille had the crypto-fascist College of Sociology. Rene Girard's career has seen him move increasingly to far-right Catholicism. And that without mentioning flim-flam artists like Julius Evola, Rene Guenon or Miguel Serrano. Myth holds a special place for the Fascist because it is a key to the primitive man, and it's the conflict between modernity and the primitive that largely gives birth to Fascism.

I don't know. Among major writers concerned with myth, T.S. Eliot showed a proto-fascism and Ezra Pound was outright Fascist (tho' James Joyce was none of those things). Most of the figures you relate were all early twentieth century figures much like Eliot and Pound. If I am remembering correctly, one of the major concerns of this period, especially for the Catholic right, was the problem of order in modern society. There was a question of how a society can function without an authoritative ordering of its parts (usually expressed in a hierarchy). There was no longer the great chain of being, religious institutions had less political sway than previous centuries. Where then are you going to turn for order?

Myths, like all narrative, like all literature really, are a way of ordering reality. Myths happen to be a particularly pure version of this with a heavy emphasis on structural principles. Structural principles, I might add, which are ripe for inserting into one's own already present thoughts. If you wish the world to have an order, do what T.S. Eliot said you should do, what fascists seem to like to do, pick an order, a non-modern one, and use it as the conceptual framework for the rest of your actions. From there, if you're fascist, ritualize it, enact what you think is its meaning. This gives you a pattern that appears to have the weight of tradition behind it while at the same time reinforcing what you already want to believe (nevermind that you may have appropriated a tragic structure like the Sigurd story that ends in disorder, but then perhaps you wanted a grand apocalypse all along). Myths like the Sigurd cycle were a very real reaction to a landscape that was harsh and difficult and required a constant battle in order to live within. This tends to become explained in the abstract with stories of great men of a long dead past defeating agents of chaos and disorder. But surely it's obvious that the fascist's tendency to identify himself with the hero and the agents of disorder with whomever he doesn't happen to like is an appropriation. Fafnir isn't a type of literal human being or political position anymore than Sigurd is literally the Nietzschean übermensch. But if you like the narrative structure, you will make its incidental personages resemble what you wish (easier to do with more abstract myths. Fascists rarely used Greek myth, whose gods tended to act more human, and therefore more fallible. Not useful for fascists).

To return to Freud, one of the reasons psychoanalysis was so popular, especially among the bougeosie, is because it offered what T.S. Eliot and Pound and many other fascists, proto, crypto, or outright, wanted: a framework for existence that was stable, validated by tradition/history, and most important, ritualized. That last bit is crucial. The reason why psychoanalysis as a practise has no end is because the weekly meeting with the psychoanalyst is a ritual, one in which you continually submit your psyche to someone who can place it, you, your life, and your choices, within a clearly delineated stable framework in which to understand it. Freud offered a secular myth for those who wanted stability when god up and died on them. But Freud and psychoanalysis is not fascist nor terribly political.

Many people in the twentieth century wanted a similar kind of stable order, and they turned to certain myths because they offered a high degree of structure and what some thought was the stability of tradition (that last bit was a delusion, myths have less stability than you'd think). Fascists were just the most virulent and insistent. The problem here is with the desire to impose an ultimate order predicated on a dislike for this or that group of people. But there is nothing in well organized narrative structures to induce that (and as we see with Freud, even newly invented secular orders can be popular without leading anyone to fascism). It's a manifestation of the desire for order, but it seems odd to blame literary order for that desire when the desire results in awful political ideas. The other problem is the belief in absolutes in the first place, but that's the problem of treating myth as a religion, another debate entirely.

[Cold Bishop]

Well, without dragging the conversation further into territory that can't be serviced with a message board, I guess I'll make a few more points.

1) Just because I've been put on the defensive, I don't want it to seem that I'm rejecting the power of Myth or it's place in humanity. That's simply not true. Hell, I think most of the aforementioned Mythographers are genuinely great minds, even if you do have to be on your toes while reading them. I don't think you disagree with my point - that in the Fascist conflict between tradition and modernity, Myth had a tendency to become politicized- only the extent to which Myth lends itself to Fascism, and as such, the extent to which the Action film lend itself to Fascism. Fair. I doubt anyone's going to change the other's mind on the issue.

2) While certainly something like psychoanalysis can be said to have filled the void of "the death of God", I don't know if I'd agree that it's a "secular myth". If it is, you could call it a nobler one, seeking to penetrate the fog of the supernatural and the mystic (including making explicit what is latent in Myth). Fascism is a retreat into the fog, even if it's not fair to label the fog itself as being fascist. Anyways, the replacement of the cosmic with the secular is central to Modernism, such as Rene Girard's thesis that our collective belief in a secular judicial system is what ultimately removed religion from the center of society (something that could be tied to the vigilantist strain in Action films).

3) Either ways, I don't think it's fair to wholesale reject something because it has tinges of Fascism. I don't think appreciation of a work of art is always the same thing as admiration or consent. I'm sure if were to make an Action list, there would be plenty of films that could be construed as fascist on my list. And not in a "Fascinating Fascism" aesthetics-over-content way either. Some films are captivating in the same way a particularly troubling case-file is captivating. Which is why something like Opfergang is likely to make my 40s list, despite the fact that it's a deeply fascist film. I don't know if that makes it a "great" film or not, but it makes it essential as a piece of 20th century art.

[matrixschmatrix]

And this is a problem: we're getting hung up on "the Quest Myth" and "Fascism", and moving further and further away from the Action Film. Action films are rarely (never?) capital-F, ideological Fascist films. No one sets out or thinks they're making a fascist film (well, maybe John Milius, but he does them so well). Not Dirty Harry, not Rambo, not Commando, not Taken. That's why it's appropriate to call them proto-fascist, or at worst, crypto-fascist: they contain the material and principles and worldview that with a (sometimes small) leap can become fascist, but they bury them, unconsciously or otherwise, in "apolitical" entertainment.

I take issue with the idea that modern fascist or fascistic art must be self consciously so to qualify as genuine fascism- the term was obviously discredited outside of the extreme fringes after WWII, but that doesn't mean that fascist works have likewise disappeared. Fascism is as fascism does, and if a movie exhibits all the hallmarks of fascism- ultranationalism, rabid anti-intellectualism, a moral compass that is altered from 'right' and 'wrong' to 'weak' and 'strong', the narrative of a great or strong hero once betrayed rising again to impose order, and a generally reactionary and xenophobic mindset- I think it's fair to call it fascism whether the work is aware of it or not.

I do agree that fascism descends from a conflict between modernity and primitivism, but by that very token I don't think anything genuinely primitive- i.e. arising before any concept of modernism- could ever accurately be labelled fascist. Fascism is by its nature reactionary, and thus cannot exist in a vacuum. As such, I don't think man's origins are fascist, and I don't think genuinely historical beliefs are fascist. That, I think, is where the distinction between fascist and proto-fascist becomes useful- proto-fascist being the (generally imaginary) state from which fascists believe society has fallen, and to which they wish to force it to return. In movie terms, I think classical Westerns are often proto-fascist, insofar as they ignore the actual complexities of the settling of the land and create a narrative about creating order from nothing. It's not genuinely fascist- there is no development that must be thrown off to return to a state of rude order, it is not reactionary, there has been no knife in the back, etc etc etc- but it is very much the stuff that fascists thrive upon.

Action movies can I think also fall into the proto-fascist camp, but as you observe, they do have the background of modernism against which to react, and as such I think something like Death Wish- in which all the terrifying disorder of modern pluralistic city life is beaten back at gunpoint- is genuinely fascist, whether it intended to be so or not.

[swo17]

Point of debate for the upcoming '50s list: Is The Human Condition technically one film in three parts (like Bernard's Les misérables) or a trilogy? I'm inclined to call it the former but perhaps someone more familiar with its filming/release schedule would be more qualified to comment? Note that Criterion's recent release never characterizes it as a trilogy, even saying the following in an essay:

Though The Human Condition was made and released as three separate films, it makes sense to treat it as a single work, since it forms a conceptual and narrative unity.

[knives]

It was shot all at once ala Lord of the Rings and the Pirates sequels (to give examples that I think everyone will be familiar with). I'd definitely be happier if they were treated as one very large film, but arguments either way are equally valid.

[Gregory]

For what it's worth, Noel Burch had this to say about it in To the Distant Observer:

The single film which perhaps exemplifies most forcefully the adoption of the Hollywood codes by the progressive Japanese cinema is Kobayashi Masaki's monumental The Human Condition. ... Its running time of nine consecutive hours makes it probably the longest commercial feature ever made. Note: The film is actually divided into six hour-and-a-half episodes, but its structure -- that of the Tolstoian novel -- is such that the ideal viewing is in one sitting.

(Whether or not one chooses to do such a marathon is probably less the point here than what Burch observes about the structure.)

[zedz]

Though arguably any coherent trilogy is best viewed in one sitting. According to the established rules of the project, it's three films. If everyone wants to make an exception for this film, then the rules should be rejigged for all trilogies, or else we're in "But-I-Wanna-Vote-For-Deadwood (stomps feet)" territory.

[domino harvey]

EDIT: Hey dom, should we just PM you when it's over?

For everyone: Think over what genres you'd realistically like to tackle and shoot me a PM with your list of a maximum three genres ranked by preference by the end of the month. No rush, after all

Exactly two people have done this and it's the end of the month. So, uh, PM me

[Gregory]

Though arguably any coherent trilogy is best viewed in one sitting. According to the established rules of the project, it's three films. If everyone wants to make an exception for this film, then the rules should be rejigged for all trilogies, or else we're in "But-I-Wanna-Vote-For-Deadwood (stomps feet)" territory.

I'm not interested in changing the rules, but that's a slippery-slope argument, especially the part about it ending up in "'But-I-Wanna-Vote-For-Deadwood (stomps feet)' territory." Putting aside that not all trilogies benefit from uninterrupted viewing (at least not that I can imagine), as I tried to stress before, marathon viewings aren't the actual issue here. The Human Condition is a six-part adaptation of a six-part literary work that has a unified structure and was made as a single whole. It was broken into three parts for theatrical distribution out of practical necessity. If those practical considerations trump everything else, then I'm not sure why Ivan the Terrible counts as one film (and after some discussion in 2005 Kill Bill was declared two separate films, reversing a decision the previous day of it being one, as far as I can see from a quick search). The Human Condition, as far as I'm aware, has been critically understood as a single work. I guess I'm not familiar enough with past discussions of this to understand where the distinction between "two-part films released separately" and "each entry in a trilogy" came from, given the Kill Bill precedent and doubts over what exactly a "trilogy" is. The Battle of Chile was filmed continuously, then later assembled and conceived as a three-part work due to length and unique circumstances of how the filmmakers saw fit to use the footage (so that's more of a grey area). The Human Condition was much more clearly and intentionally a single work from the get-go. Uncle Tom's Cabin from 1910 was also originally released in three parts, for practical reasons. I doubt anyone in the pre-1920s list project would have objected to my voting for it as a single work. Etc.
(Edited for embarrassing phrasing)

[swo17]

Though arguably any coherent trilogy is best viewed in one sitting. According to the established rules of the project, it's three films.

If it's a trilogy, it certainly counts as three separate films, but my question is whether it technically even is a trilogy. IMDb lists it as three separate films, sure, but the site isn't consistent in how it treats multi-part films. (Bernard's Les misérables, as I mentioned above, is a three-part film that IMDb lists as one film. Something like Les vampires is similarly shown as one film, while Fantômas, in five parts, and Lang's Spiders, in two parts, have separate entries for each part.)

This obviously isn't scientific, but note also that Criterion presents something like the Three Colors trilogy as three separate films with their individual runtimes, whereas Human Condition is presented as one 574-minute film.

Again, I'm not arguing for changing the rules of how trilogies are counted, or suggesting that this comes down to a debate of whether something works best being watched in one sitting. I'm just trying to get my head around how to distinguish between a trilogy and a multi-part film when there are three parts to it. (Or in this case, evidently, six.) I don't envision this issue coming up all that often, and I don't see anything wrong with making exceptions where it feels warranted.

[domino harvey]

For everyone: Think over what genres you'd realistically like to tackle and shoot me a PM with your list of a maximum three genres ranked by preference by the end of the month. No rush, after all

Exactly two people have done this and it's the end of the month. So, uh, PM me

Quoting again for this page

And vote for one film for Human Condition

[swo17]

For everyone: Think over what genres you'd realistically like to tackle and shoot me a PM with your list of a maximum three genres ranked by preference by the end of the month. No rush, after all

Exactly two people have done this and it's the end of the month. So, uh, PM me

Guys, I have it on good authority that "movies about birdwatching" is currently in the lead. So speak now or forever hold your geese!

[domino harvey]

The weirdest suggestion so far is also my favorite, "Sports." I might even vote for it (at the bottom of my three, but still)

[domino harvey]

Followup: Do we just want to go with the aggregate "winner" of all the genres, or make a poll choosing between the top two or three by number?

[Matt]

Runoff! I can set up a poll if you want.

[Shrew]

I say we just do the top 3 or so in order of their ranking instead of running a poll after every list.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha I don't think a poll every six months is going to kill anybody

[knives]

Whatever I just want to write several essays on why A Tale of Two Mice is one of the greatest things ever.

[Matt]

Vote Now!

[domino harvey]

Thanks for setting it up for me, Matt. These were the top two choices, and I figure winner is our next genre project and either the runner up gets thrown back into the pack for re-election next time or we just make it the next one after the next one (y'all's call)