"Voyage of the Dawn Treader"

I saw an ad for the movie of this (it comes out at Christmas) this morning.

Oh my gosh, I want to see it. It looks so interesting. (Though I will probably cry at the end, if they have the scene of Reepicheep paddling off in his coracle to try to find Aslan's Own Country.)

I haven't seen Prince Caspian (I should probably rent it - I don't have a Netflix subscription, in part, because I'm often busy enough that even the dvds I buy go unwatched), but I have seen the first Narnia movie several times. I know the Narnia movies have been criticized by some, but, like the Harry Potter movies, I love them.

In part, I love them because they're so visually interesting. The screenwriters, working from the book, and the people who set the stages/do the green screen effects/do the CGI have put in so many fascinating things, have created a world so different from our own. And I love movies like that - where I feel like I'm going into a completely different world.

I admit it - I have little patience with the typical "meet cute" modern romantic comedy, or the comedy where a couple of people who are post-adolescent and therefore should know better are prone to increasingly gross slapstick or sex jokes.

Instead, I want to see movies about a different historical time period than my own.Or set in a different culture. One of the reasons I like "old" movies is that, in addition to actually watching the movie, I find myself paying attention to how people are dressed, how the backgrounds are set - and if it's a semi-realistic movie, what brand of soap powder is on the sink in the kitchen, or what is in the bathroom medicine chest.

(I have to say, I also have really been enjoying the current Mystery! versions of some Poirot and Marple stories, for some of the same reasons as I like the Potter and Narnia movies).

I think another reason I like some of the movies - and the Mystery! productions - is that they don't use well-known, big-name stars. I know, some actors are very good at subsuming themselves in a role, but all too often I will see a movie (or, more likely these days, a movie ad) and go, "oh. There's Brad Pitt's newest movie." Rather than reacting to the character, I react to the actor playing the character. In a lot of the British movies, I don't find that to be the case. (I recognize David Suchet but I so strongly think of him "as" Poirot, it doesn't matter). Also, it seems to me, that the people casting some of the movies I like, they're, how do I say it? Willing to cast people who are outside of the fairly narrow Hollywood beauty mode. They're more distinctive-looking to me - not "That's Pretty Lady Actress, but not that other Pretty Lady Actress" where maybe I forget the names or forget who was in what movie because some of them look kind of the same to me.

But even more than appearances, I think there's something about the movies - especially the Narnia movies, but also the Potter movies - about their plot, about the motivations of the characters. Stuff MATTERS in those movies. The characters ultimately wind up fighting evil - there is a good vs. evil battle, and they are directly involved in it. There isn't the same sustained pettiness of everyday life. (Oh, granted - the characters are at times quite petty to one another, but eventually they realize they have to drop that and actually fight evil). And that's what has been wearing me down - well, these past few years, I think. Partly the fact that some people can be just SO petty for SO long and they don't seem to notice how ugly it is, and how sad, and how small. And also the fact that what I'm doing, honestly, isn't that important.

I want to do something that matters with my life. I thought going into academia would do it, at least it would be better than sitting in a cubicle or an office filling out reports or inspecting other people's code or approving expenses or whatever goes on in the corporate world. And I started out feeling like I was going to do something that MATTERED. That I was going to teach biology to an Underserved Population, as our student body is often termed. That I was going to help people become doctors. Or go into conservation work and maybe prevent some kind of ecological disaster like another Dust Bowl. Or something.

But you know, more and more, I'm coming to feel like what I do really isn't that important. Part of it, I'm sure, is hearing some of the populist commentators implying that college profs are "parasites" (and profs at public institutions especially so), that we are people who should go out and get a "real" job.

But I think part of it is the "everybody lies" thing, and also the sustained pettiness of some people. I'm beginning to feel - at times, at least - like I'm just part of a big game that's being played. The students play the game, some of them, by either trying to cheat and not get caught, and thus, wind up getting a degree that (depending on the level of cheating) is basically a fraud and a parody. And the administrators and other faculty play a game, both the sort of petty pissing contests you see everywhere, but also a game to convince themselves that what they're doing is Important! and Valuable! and More Deserving of State Funds!

In reality? If we really faced economic hard times? Shutting universities down for a few years would probably be an easy way to save funds. I hate to say it but there you are.

In a lot of cases, education has become so debased. We sometimes wind up teaching students the reading and math - in our remediation classes - that they should have known as high school freshman. We regularly have to "reassess" what we teach and cut out topics that are deemed "too complex." Even with that, I get complaints on my evaluations that I'm teaching stuff that is too hard.

And in with all of that - with feeling, at times, like I'm operating in a dying industry - there's the feeling that nothing I really do is all that important. Maybe this is what a mid-life crisis feels like.

Sometimes I get the sense that what I should do instead of teaching college is join up with some missionary group, and go to Africa or somewhere, and dig wells or hand out mosquito nets. That's something that would actually make a difference in someone's life, not standing up in front of a room and nattering about predator-prey relationships to increasingly bored students who are interested in getting a degree with the minimum work possible, so they can get out and do a job requiring the minimum work possible.

Oh, yeah, it's true - you get motivated students, students who care, who will go the extra mile. But more and more I find it hard to let those make up for the people who cheerfully say "D is for Diploma!" and then go around talking smack about our program when they can't get a job in the field with their 2.1 GPAs.

I think the other thing is the whole "fighting evil" issue. In the Narnia movies, you see evil - you pick up your sword and fight it, and hopefully slay it. Here in the real world, "evil," or what you might call evil, is not often something - at least on these shores - that you can go out and slay. (And even if you were to shoot a serial rapist breaking into your house, his family would probably take you to trial and make your life miserable for a couple of years at least). I think that's something else that frustrates me. I see things that are wrong, and so often, all I can do is speak out against them. And in some cases when you speak out, you even get shot down - I've heard of cases where faculty brought fairly well-documented cheating charges against a student, and because his or her parents were big donors, the charges were made to go away.

I don't know. I sort of long for a world where things were more black and white. Where having money or power didn't mean that people could get away with doing things that were wrong. Where people grew up when they grew up and didn't spend hours of other people's time talking about how all the bad things going on in their lives really aren't their fault, despite the fact that they were the one who did a lot of the things that brought the consequences down on them.

I don't know. I'm just tired and sad some times these days. I wonder if things are going to get better, or if I'm just going to have to tell myself that I'm part of a "game," and I might as well get used to playing it. Or if I really will bug out some day, leave my job (my secure source of income, health insurance, future retirement) to go do something like dig wells in Africa because it gets to the point where I can't stand the damn game any more.