My "George and Tammy" DVD duly arrived, just days after I finished
streaming. I should have waited for physical media! Not too many
extras but one is grateful for any DVD at all in this day and age.
The video bio for Billy Sherrill claims that "He Stopped Loving Her
Today" is the greatest country music song of all time. I know nothing
about country music but won't disagree here. The scene where the
Sherrill character brings Tammy Wynette (estranged from George Jones
then) to get Jones to finish recording the song is simply an amazing
scene. So many of Chastain's great scenes are reaction shots of hers,
often watching Jones sing. The DVD doesn't offer an rationale for
putting "George" first in the title. The book on which the miniseries
is based, _The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George_, has
the reverse order. Since Chastain is the producer and an ardent
feminist, she must have at least approved this change. I wonder if
it isn't her deep admiration for costar Michael Shannon that triggered
this.

Watching the fascinating dynamics between the two singers and their producers/song-writers, I was struck by the difference between the US
country music world and the pop music industries elsewhere. Cantopop,
was once a mainstay in Hong Kong. It owed much of its popularity to
TV series which commissioned theme songs (as opposed to US series
which have theme music). Two TV stations, with one contract composer
each and a few lyricists, dominated the early music landscape. The
composers must have wielded amazing power, including veto authority
over who gets to sing which song. One of lyricists James Wong,
who doubled as composer at times, wrote a fascinating PhD thesis
about all this after he retired. Other noted lyricists were high school teachers writing elegant verses -- they cannot be further removed from
the drug heads of US/UK music scene. The HK pop music world was
corporate and buttoned down; the kind of booze-and-womanizing scandals
in "George and Tammy" would have been unimaginable. (One heartthrob
type said something mildly offensive as MC in an award ceremony, and
he was famously drummed out of the industry. I wonder if the K-pop
universe isn't similar.

Why aren't there more comparative studies of popular culture? There
must be fascinating similarities and differences between, say, comic
book superhero films in the US, and Chinese/Korean martial art fantasies.
In several respects they are identical. They take an inordinate
amount of time rescuing and re-rescuing the "good guys." The heroes
are often lone swordsman who take pride in getting drunk, and women
die as faster as in Christopher Nolan movies, to the apparent sorrow
but secret satisfaction of our heroes, who would rather feed their
wanderlust than settle down and spend weekends at the mall, if we
are being perfectly honest here.

One difference is obvious: a significant chunk of Chinese martial
art fiction lacks the minimal capacity for self-reflection --
something even the DC and Marvel comics manage. Valorizing the
ethnic Han heroes defending against "barbarians" outside the Great
Wall becomes a standard trope; in fact China has historically been
an expansionist empire. During the Qin Dynasty, when the north-
facing wall was assembled, the empire was a strip straddling the
Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, bent on expansion to the south and west.
(Hence the absence of walls in those directions!) The flashpoints
of today -- Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and needless to say Xinjiang
(which means "New Territory," the name acknowledging the annexation)
were never part of the "Our Land" depicted in Zhang Yimou's Fascist
_The Hero_. There are almost 200 "autonomous" minority enclaves
and provinces in the PRC, according to wikipedia. That tells you
how many native tribes China has subjugated in the past.

Speaking of DC comics: _Dawn of Justice_ is the first Zach Snyder
film I regard as an unquestioned masterpiece. Snyder's films have
always struck me as overwrought and corrupted by steroid-man fetish
(not that Delacroix and Caravaggio are any different of course).
This one is sufficiently muted that the exquisite craftsmanship
shines through. Every shot is so well composed and edited together.
It is also nice to see Superman getting beat up ... he is such a
smug bastard.

Finally, about fantasy and sci-fi: the best anime I saw growing up
was the Japanese "Gundam" TV series, about a civil war in mankind's space-faring future. The war has killed and exhausted civilizations;
teenagers (the protagonists) are press-ganged into combat duties,
piloting giant robots. The original 43 episodes dating from 1979
have been edited into 3 movies, occasionally available on Netflix.
Rewatching the abridged version I am struck by how sophisticated
they are. The hero Amuro Ray must be Hispanic. While there is no
shortage of stock Japanese characters (sloppily dressed and wearing
sandals), there are Caucasians and even Asiatic Indians on both
sides. Often the line between good and evil gets blurred, and
Amuro's pacifist mother almost disowns him upon seeing how adapted
he has become as a killer. It has a powerful antiwar, multicultural
message, especially considering that its contemporaries can be
ethnocentric and jingoistic. (Another series involves refitting
the Imperial Japanese Navy's sunk battleship Yamato into a space
ship!) It is also light years ahead of the Marvel films of today, or the
Star War films which inspired "Gundam."

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