Takes One To Snow One

I must admit that after watching "The Snowmen," the Christmas special for Doctor Who this year I am damnably curious who (or what) Clara Oswin Oswald really is.  I have settled on thinking she is

• a doppelganger of someone of great import to the Doctor, 
• a being with plural, eternal consciousnesses, 
• an agent of the Great Intelligence, in the sense that she keeps on finding her conciousness in a physical form,
• a Time Lord of sorts, which could be Jenny, River Song, Susan Foreman, Romana, The Master, since a Time Lord can regenerate as a female, in which case, Clara could even be the Doctor himself, which would be very weird but hey, anything's possible
• Or something completely different. 

I thought about the scenes from the episode "Asylum of the Daleks" again: I conjectured that it is possible that what the audience sees as the inside of her imagined pod could actually be a real pod or control room, and that Clara could have been controlling the Dalek body from a remote location.  Hence, the 'ganger theory.  Yes, yes, I know that the Daleks should be able to tell the difference between a Ganger and a real human being, but perhaps Clara's Ganger technology is above that of the Daleks -- if you catch my drift (?).  Ahem.  But I'm not sure who she is and I will not pretend to know; I don't want to turn this blog into one of those speculation websites (which I'm sure I've already done somewhat here).  But in any case, I'm sure I'll find out who Clara Oswin Oswald is in the anniversary special (November 23rd, 2013, the fact of which brings me to another observation --

Clara's birthday is November 23rd.  Hence, the Doctor himself theory.  She dies when she is twenty-six in this reincarnation; and Matt Smith is 26 years old when he started working on Doctor Who.  I'm not saying anything.  :-x

The Amazing Spider-Man

I agree with Jeremy Jahns about the obliviousness of the high school students. It was a bit weird that nobody even suspected Peter Parker was Spider-Man, but I think that's sort of the point -- that identity isn't something that you reveal by virtue of being yourself. Identity is presented through mannerisms and maintained by reputation.  That is, identity is an extrinsic quality, or rather-- I think that is the form of identity that Marc Webb explores here. The appeal of Spider-Man in this movie is the machine of social appreciation and the praise that follows him. His social impact is what frames him as a hero.  We like him for what he represents for us.   Without all the devices, the costume and the public image we cannot perceive him as Spider-Man.  When Spidey takes off the mask to save the child he becomes an individual and therefore disappears in plain sight, just as he does in his day to day interactions with Gwen.

on LizzieBennet vlog

Completely unrelatable adaptation. My parent is just as annoying as Mrs Bennet, but the stakes are different: she wants me to get a mythological job whereby I can support her , buy her a house and a car, so that she "doesn't have to work."   Of course, I have a job, but not one that permits me to pay for her life.  Her fantasies are not at all about my getting married or having a relationship, but about HER, which is what Bridget Jone's Diary focused on as a subplot. And for this reason BJD was a relatable, modern adaptation..  Do all the sisters have to be white girls with auburn hair? I'm in a family where there are two redheads and the rest are not. This isn't realistic or relatable. And yes, you've got the "token" asian girl as Charlotte, but isn't that too patronizing! I think it'd be much more modern, if you chose a family of color so that questions of race can be substituted for questions of wealth. And then have your heroine stand up for herself as a "racial other." Now that would be radical.  Oh, and I'm half asian with dark skin, btw, and I happen to think you could push more boundaries here. This script is not challenging enough. I don't get the impression you're doing something new with the source material; the problem with the lead character is that I don't really care about her and her privileged problems. And yes, I know Elizabeth Bennet is a gentleman's daughter, but we don't need a character who acts so unaware of her own (white) privilege.    And if that speech about being a grad student was supposed to mark some kind of awareness of her posture in life, it shouldn't be a hackneyed speech that we've seen all before.