viernes, 31 de marzo de 2017

REGRESO A LAS LAGUNAS SEMÁNTICAS

Los términos no son ni exclusivamente traducibles ni exclusivamente no traducibles; sería más acertado decir que el grado de dificultad de su traducción depende de su naturaleza, así como del conocimiento del traductor de las lenguas origen y meta en cuestión. A menudo un texto o un acto de habla que se considera "intraducible" es en realidad una "laguna léxica", es decir, no hay una equivalencia unívoca entre la palabra, expresión o giro en la lengua origen y otra palabra, expresión o giro en la lengua meta.



De nuevo recurrimos a René Magritte, cuyo arte plantea la arbitrariedad de las palabras y pone, por ende, buenos fundamentos para bucear en el océano de la semántica/pragmática cognitiva. ¿Llamar "luna" a /la prenda de vestir que llevamos en cada pie, izquierdo y derecho, para protegerlos/? Se puede, pero el problema es que "zapato" y las palabras equivalentes en otras lenguas ya están fosilizadas en cada cultura.
Entonces... ¿"luna" serían sólo los tacones o incluiría también los tenis, las sandalias, las chanclas y las katiuskas -es decir, toda la familia-?

Ya Marco Tulio Cicerón, en tiempos de los romanos, se embarcó en un largo discurso sobre la falta de un equivalente griego para el adjetivo ineptus/a/um (para estudiantes de Ciencias y los de Letras que han olvidado su latín... léase: ineptus inepta ineptum). Llegó a la conclusión -obviamente, al menos ligeramente errónea- de que los griegos eran tan ineptos, tan ineptos, que rara vez por no decir nunca prestaban atención a esta falta y por ende no tenían forma de denominarla.
¿Es la forma en que el lenguaje divide el mundo en conceptos una construcción cultural? Guy Deutscher propone un experimento para imaginar: el experimento de la isla de Zift. No existen palabras en ziftés para el concepto de /ave/ (vertebrado ovíparo y nidícola, cubierto de plumas y provisto de pico córneo y de alas por extremidades superiores, frecuentemente aeroterrestre) ni para el de /rosa/ (flor perfumada y de pétalos suaves, de la familia de las rosáceas, que crece en un arbusto a menudo espinoso...). Tienen, sin embargo, una palabra, "aosa", que designa a las rosas blancas y a todas las aves que no tengan el pecho rojo; y otra, "rave", que designa a todas las rosas de color y aves con el pecho rojo (petirrojos, fragatas, cardenales...).
Digamos que nos han entregado un cuento en ziftés para leerlo:
Una rave de plumas de colores vivos y una aosa amarilla se posaron en una rama y se pusieron a trinar un dueto. Llegaron a discutir en cuál de los dos tenía el canto más dulce. Al no ponerse de acuerdo, decidieron que les juzgaran las flores de aquel jardín. Volaron abajo, aterrizando junto a una fragante aosa y a una rave roja entreabierta, y pidieron su opinión. Pero, ¡oh no!, ni la aosa ni la rave podían distinguir entre las cadencias en cascada de la aosa y la temblante aria de la rave. Grande fue la irritación de los ofendidos cantores: la rave le arrancó a la rave roja pétalo tras pétalo, y la aosa amarilla, igual de ofendida, atacó a la aosa fragante con igual vehemencia. Terminaron ambas juezas desnudas y desprovistas de pétalos: ni la rave era roja ni la aosa era fragante.
MORALEJA: ¡Nunca erres al distinguir una rave de una aosa!
(En "Instrucciones para subir una escalera", de modo similar, Cortázar se refiere a ambos pies como "el pie" a secas, sin añadir nunca los adjetivos "izquierdo" o "derecho", para crear un texto intencionadamente confuso)
Según Deutscher, el sentido común nos explica que la supuesta distinción ziftesa de conceptos es fundamentalmente implausible, que no puede ser más antinatural combinar las rosas de color y las aves de pecho rojo bajo una misma etiqueta ("rave"), y lo mismo vale para las aves sin pecho rojo agrupadas con las rosas blancas ("aosas"). Y, si la distinción ziftesa es antinatural, las de otros idiomas deben ser más o menos naturales. Por ende, el sentido común sano (healthy common sense) sugiere que los conceptos detrás de las etiquetas no pueden ser agrupados así como así. Los lenguajes no pueden arbitrariamente agrupar conjuntos de objetos: cada oveja va con su pareja bajo una y la misma etiqueta. Cada idioma ha de categorizar el mundo de una forma que reúna objetos similares en nuestra percepción de la realidad.
Incluso una observación superficial de cómo las criaturas adquieren el lenguaje confirma que estos conceptos tienen algo de "natural". Los niños necesitan que les enseñen las etiquetas en el lenguaje de su sociedad en particular, pero no necesitan que les enseñen a distinguir entre conceptos. Es natural que una criatura que haya visto imágenes de gatos en ilustraciones y en pantalla, la próxima vez que vea alguno en vivo, lo reconozca como un gato --no importa si este gato de carne y hueso sea un persa negro en vez de un atigrado rubio, si tiene el pelo corto o largo, si es tuerto, cojo, o de cola corta...-- en vez de como una rosa o, digamos por poner otro ejemplo, una rana. La comprensión por instinto de estos conceptos en los niños muestra que el cerebro humano está innatamente equipado con potentes algoritmos de reconocimiento de patrones (pattern recognition), que clasifican a los objetos similares en grupos.
Las etiquetas reflejan convenciones culturales, pero los conceptos detrás de dichas etiquetas han sido formados por los dictados de la naturaleza. Se puede decir mucho de esta partición: es clara, sencilla y elegante; satisface a nivel intelectual y emocional, y, por último, tiene una ascendencia tan respetable como el mismo Aristóteles, según quien "a pesar de que los sonidos del lenguaje puedan variar de raza a raza, los conceptos mismos, las impresiones de la psique (así los denomina el filósofo) son las mismas para toda la Humanidad".
En la práctica, la cultura no solo controla las etiquetas, sino que además asalta sin cesar la frontera de lo que sería el mayorazgo de la naturaleza. Las convenciones culturales se entrometen en los asuntos internos de muchos conceptos, de maneras que a veces perturban al sentido común sano. La cultura permea profundamente el territorio de los conceptos, y puede resultar muy difícil aceptar este orden de cosas. El sustantivo "mind"/"mente" es prácticamente difícil de traducir al francés y al sueco (y otras lenguas escandinavas), ídem el japonés "kokoro", que abarca un abanico de conceptos mucho más amplio que "mind"/"mente". De hecho, incluso "kokoro" plantea dificultades de traducción a casi todas las lenguas europeas. Estos conceptos no pueden ser naturales como el caso de "gato", "rana" o "arbusto"; de otro modo, estos conceptos abstractos serían idénticos en todos los idiomas. Nuestro viejo amigo John Locke reconoció que, en el ámbito de lo abstracto, cada idioma tiene el permiso de "carve up" sus propios conceptos, a los que llama ideas específicas, comprobándolo a través de "la gran lista de palabras de cada idioma que no tienen las que correspondan en otros. Lo que muestra que las gentes de un determinado país, dadas sus costumbres y formas de vida, han hallado la ocasión de hacer diferentes ideas complejas, y darles nombres; mientras otros idiomas nunca las han recolectado como ideas específicas". Locke dixit.
En el momento en que la naturaleza muestra la más ligera duda en su incisión, la cultura lleva a cabo un rápido asalto. Muchas de las partes supuestamente diferentes del cuerpo humano no fueron delineadas por la naturaleza con mucho detalle. El brazo es la Eurasia de la semántica anatómica: igual que se puede hablar de Eurasia, Europa y Asia, o Europa Occidental (a su vez, dividida en Norte y Sur), Europa del Este, Oriente Próximo, Oriente Medio, subcontinente indio, Himalayas, estepas y Lejano Oriente... se puede usar "brazo" para toda la extremidad superior, lo que equivaldría al concepto de Eurasia como un todo, o delimitar las "fronteras" del hombro hasta la muñeca, o del hombro hasta el codo. Resulta que la respuesta depende de la cultura en que uno ha crecido. Hubo un período bien largo de tiempo en que Alma Deutscher, la hija de Guy Deutscher --hablamos de una familia judía británica, la lengua materna del padre es el hebreo, mientras que la de la niña es el inglés-- corregía a su padre cada vez que este empleaba el sustantivo hebreo "yad" (que engloba /mano/, /brazo hasta la muñeca/ y /todo el brazo/) para expresar el concepto /brazo/, habiendo llenado la niña la laguna con el anglicismo ("Eso no es 'yad', papá. ¡Eso es 'arm'!"). El hecho de que sean cosas diferentes en un idioma y la misma cosa en otro no es tan fácil de comprender.
Para poner otro ejemplo del hebreo, no tienen palabra equivalente a nuestro /todo el cuello/, y a propósito de ello también habla Guy Deutscher. "Uno habla de su cuello y yo lo tomo literalmente y creo que se refiere a lo que entiendo por 'cuello,' lo que en mi lengua materna se dice 'tsavar'. Pero después de un rato resulta que ha estado hablando del cuello pero no del 'tsavar', sino de la nuca, lo que llamamos 'oref'. El hebreo no tiene holónimo equivalente a /todo el cuello/ y distingue entre 'oref', /nuca/, y 'tsavar', /garganta externa, parte anterior del cuello/."
Las concesiones de la naturaleza a la cultura parecen ahora ligeramente más inquietantes. Es ligeramente inquietante que los conceptos abstractos ("mente", "kokoro") sean culturalmente dependentes, pero salimos a la frontera de la zona confortable al pensar que por ejemplo, las relaciones de meronimia y holonimia en la anatomía humana dependen de las convenciones culturales de cada sociedad. Las invasiones que realiza la cultura del dominio de los conceptos están empezando a doler un poco.
The way 
our language carves up the world into concepts has not just been deter- 
mined for us by nature, and that what we find "natural" depends largely 
on the conventions we have been brought up on. That is not to say, of 
course, that each language can partition the world arbitrarily according 
to its whim. But within the constraints of what is learnable and sensible 
for communication, the ways in which even the simplest concepts are 
delineated can vary to a far greater degree than what plain common 
sense would ever expect. For, ultimately, what common sense finds nat- 
ural is what it is familiar with. 
Cuanto más compleja la sociedad, menos distinciones semánticas es probable que exprese a nivel léxico (word-internally).




De Konishi a Boroditsky

Para comprobar si las diferencias de género de los sustantivos de una lengua a otra, en 1993 una psicóloga japonesa afincada en California, Toshi Konishi, presentó una lista de 54 de esos sustantivos con géneros gramaticales cruzados a 40 mexicanos adultos y a otros tantos alemanes adultos y les pidió su opinión sobre ciertas características relacionadas con la potencia que asociaban con tales objetos. Comprobó que atribuían a un mismo objeto más fortaleza cuando en su lengua materna era del género masculino (de ahí, por ejemplo, que los mexicanos atribuyeran a los puentes más fortaleza que los alemanes, que dicen "die Brücke") y concluyó, en contra de la tesis tradicional, que el género gramatical afecta al significado que atribuimos a las palabras.
Otros experimentos posteriores ha corroborado ese resultado. En uno de ellos, dirigido por Lera Boroditsky, los investigadores mostraron a un grupo de hispanohablantes y germanófonos 24 objetos con género gramatical distinto en sus respectivos idiomas y, en sucesivas pruebas, les fueron dando nombres propios (así, por ejemplo, a una manzana la llamaron “Patricia” en una prueba y “Patrick” en otra).
Observaron que a los sujetos les resultaba más fácil recordar aquellos nombres propios que concordaban en género con el del objeto en su idioma nativo (así, los hispanohablantes recordaban mejor el nombre de la manzana cuando era “Patricia” que “Patrick”; y a los alemanes les pasaba al revés). Como la prueba la realizaron en inglés, dedujeron que los sujetos atribuían un género conceptual a los objetos basándose en su género gramatical.

El principio de Jakobson

En Through The Language Glass. Why the world looks different in other languages
(Arrow Books, 2011), el investigador británico, Guy Deutscher, incluye ese experimento en su panorama de teorías que han vinculado pensamiento y lenguaje.
Una de las más extremas y desacreditadas fue la que enunciada en la primera mitad del siglo pasado por Edward Sapir, fue desarrollada por su alumno Benjamin Lee Whorf y se conoce como “hipótesis Sapir-Whorf”. Sostiene que la lengua es una “jaula” o prisión que limita nuestra capacidad de aprehender la realidad externa.
En 1936 Whorf pretendió ilustrar su teoría con una singularidad que atribuyó a la lengua de una tribu india del estado de Arizona, los hopis, que –alegaba– no hacían distinción alguna entre pasado, presente y futuro. 
Cuando, años después, otro lingüista más meticuloso, Ekkehar Malotki, vivió entre los hopis y estudió su lengua, comprobó que tenían perfecta noción del tiempo y lo demostró transcribiendo relatos que les había oído. De la desacreditada hipótesis Sapir-Whorf hay ecos en la novela 1984 de George Orwell, en la que describe cómo los líderes autoritarios de Oceanía pretenden erradicar la rebeldía eliminando del diccionario las palabras que podrían alentarla.
Hoy en día los lingüistas rechazan que un idioma pueda ser una barrera que impida comprender o transmitir ideas sólo asequibles en otras lenguas. Baste un ejemplo: aunque en español y en inglés carezcamos de un término equivalente al Schadenfreude alemán, nada nos impide captar su significado de “alegría por la desgracia ajena”.
Ahora bien, Deutscher suscribe la tesis más moderada del lingüista Roman Jakobson de que “los idiomas no se diferencian esencialmente en lo que pueden transmitir, sino en lo que obligan a transmitir”. 

"Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what 
they may convey." The crucial differences between languages, in other 
words, are not in what each language allows its speakers to express — for 
in theory any language could express anything — but in what informa- 
tion each language obliges it speakers to express. 
Así, la expresión inglesa "the boss and her spouse" se traduciría como "la jefa y su cónyuge": revela el sexo de la jefa con el posesivo, pero no obliga a revelar el sexo del o la cónyuge... ergo, he elegido el término más neutral "cónyuge" ya que el que "spouse" no obliga a revelar el sexo es cosa inevitable en español y otros muchos idiomas.
Para Deutscher la lengua puede influir no sólo en la atribución de género a los objetos –como demostraron Konishi y Boroditsky–, sino también en el sentido de la orientación o la sensibilidad a los colores. Así, que en la lengua de los guugu yimithirr, en Australia, las indicaciones de situación física no sean “egocéntricas” (izquierda/derecha) sino que se basen en los puntos cardinales –un nativo yimithirr nos diría, por ejemplo, “hay un hormiguero junto a tu pie norte”–, obliga a quienes lo hablan a tener un perfecto sentido de la orientación, para poder hablarlo y entenderlo con soltura.

 We venture onto riskier 
ground, however, when we move from the facts about language to their 
possible implications on the mind. Different cultures certainly make 
people speak about space in radically different ways. But does this neces- 
sarily mean that the speakers also think about space differently? By now 
red lights should be flashing and we should be on Whorf alert. It should 
be clear that if a language doesn't have a word for a certain concept, that 
does not necessarily mean its speakers cannot understand this concept. 

Indeed, Guugu Yimithirr speakers are perfectly able to understand 
the concepts of left and right when they speak English. Ironically, it 
seems that some of them even entertained Whorfian notions about the 
alleged inability of English speakers to understand cardinal directions. 
John Haviland reports how he was once working with an informant on 
translating traditional Yimithirr tales into English. One story con- 
cerned a lagoon that lies "west of the Cooktown airport" — a description 
that most English speakers would find perfectly natural and under- 
stand perfectly well. But his Yimithirr informant suddenly said; 
"But white fellows wouldn't understand that. In English we'd better say, 
'to the right as you drive to the airport.'" 

And as it so happens, the Yimithirr have exactly this kind of 
an infallible inner compass. They maintain their orientation with respect to 
the fixed cardinal directions at all times. Regardless of visibility condi- 
tions, regardless of whether they are in thick forest or on an open plain, 
whether outside or indoors, whether stationary or moving, they have a 
spot-on sense of direction. Stephen Levinson relates how he took Guugu 
Yimithirr speakers on various trips to unfamiliar places, both walk- 
ing and driving, and then tested their orientation. In their region, it is 
rarely possible to travel in a straight line, since the route often has to go 
around bogs, mangrove swamps, rivers, mountains, sand dunes, for- 
ests, and, if on foot, snake-infested grassland. But even so, and even 
when they were taken to dense forests with no visibility, even inside 
caves, they always, without any hesitation, could point accurately to the 
cardinal directions. They don't do any conscious computations: they don't 
look at the sun and pause for a moment of calculation before saying 
"the ant is north of your foot." They seem to have perfect pitch for 
directions. They simply feel where north, south, west, and east are, just 
as people with perfect pitch hear what each note is without having to 
calculate intervals. 
The Yimithirr take this sense of direction entirely for granted 
and consider it a matter of course. They cannot explain how they know 
the cardinal directions, just as you cannot explain how you know 
where left and right are. One thing that can 
be ascertained, however, is that the most obvious candidate, namely the 
position of the sun, is not the only factor they rely on. Several people 
reported that when they traveled by plane to very distant places such as 
Melbourne, more than a three-hour flight away, they experienced the 
strange sensation that the sun did not rise in the east. One person even 
insisted that he had been to a place where the sun really did not rise in 
the east. This means that the Yimithirr's orientation does fail 
them when they are displaced to an entirely different geographic region. 
But more importantly, it shows that in their own environment they rely 
on cues other than the position of the sun, and that these cues can even 
take precedence. When Levinson asked some informants if they could 
think of clues that would help him improve his sense of direction, they 
volunteered such hints as the differences in brightness of the sides of 
trunks of particular trees, the orientation of termite mounds, wind 
directions in particular seasons, the flights of bats, sand dunes...
If you are a nomad in the Australian bush, there are no second left turnings to guide you, so egocentric directions (left, right... like those of sedentary Westerners) will be far less useful and you will naturally come to think in geographic coordinates. The way you then end up thinking about space will just be a symptom of the way you think anyway.
De forma parecida, la escasez en la Naturaleza de objetos azules –excluidos el cielo diurno y los cursos de agua, lagos y mares– hace que muchas lenguas primitivas o antiguas –incluidos el griego y el latín– no tengan un nombre específico para ese color, considerado en ocasiones una mera tonalidad del verde (son, por ende, lenguas "grue" o "vazules"). Eso explica que Homero, que tanto habla del rojo en sus relatos, no mencione el azul (y hable de mares burdeos o violetas y cielos verdes), sin que sea preciso atribuir ese hecho a su supuesto daltonismo –como aventuró en el siglo XIX Gladstone, el erudito Primer Ministro inglés–.


Sesgos implícitos

Deutscher concluye: “Cuando un lenguaje fuerza a quienes lo hablan a prestar atención a ciertos aspectos del mundo cada vez que abren la boca o aguzan el oído, tales hábitos del habla pueden transformarse con facilidad en hábitos mentales con consecuencias en la memoria, la percepción, las asociaciones o incluso las habilidades prácticas”.



There is 
nothing in the physical environment of the Yimithirr that pre- 
cludes their using both geographic coordinates (for large-scale space) 
and egocentric coordinates (for small-scale). There is no conceivable 
reason why a traditional hunter-gatherer existence would prevent any- 
one from saying "there is an ant in front of your foot" instead of "to the 
north of your foot." After all, as a description of small-scale spatial rela- 
tions, "in front of your foot" is just as sensible and just as useful in the 
Australian bush as it is inside an office in London.

This is 
not merely a theoretical argument— there are various languages of soci- 
eties similar to Guugu Yimithirr that indeed use both egocentric and 
geographic coordinates. Even in Australia itself, there are aboriginal 
languages, such as Jaminjung in the Northern Territory, that do not rely 
only on geographic coordinates. So Guugu Yimithirr's exclusive use 
of geographic coordinates was not directly imposed by the physical 
environment or by the hunter-gatherer way of life. It is a cultural 
convention. The categorical refusal of Yimithirr ants ever to 
crawl "in front of" Yimithirr feet is not a decree of nature but an 
expression of cultural choice. 
In fact, there is one example in our own egocentric system of coordi- 
nates, the left-right asymmetry, which teaches us to be cautious. For 
most Western adults, left and right seem second nature, but children 
have great difficulties in mastering the distinction and generally man- 
age it only at a very late age. Most children cannot cope with these con- 
cepts even passively until well into school age and don't use left and 
right actively in their own language until around the age of eleven. This 
late age of acquisition, and especially the fact that children often master 
the distinction only through the brute force of schooling (including, of 
course, the need to acquire literacy and master the inherent sidedness 
of letters), makes it unlikely that the left-right distinction was acquired 
simply through the requirements of daily communication. 
page 234 Influence of language on thought can be considered significant 
only if it bears on genuine reasoning: See, e.g., Pinker 2007, 135. 














jueves, 30 de marzo de 2017

LA BELLE & LA BÊTE - MMXVII

The first we got to see in autumn last year were some celebrities' names and this crimson rose in a frosted dome (reminiscent of both B&tB and The Snow Queen); details that already got me excited and waiting for springtime. And it has truly felt like a long awaited springtime after an endless winter, to borrow a metaphor from the film itself!

Tale as old as time, true as it can be... I had been waiting until the musical version of the French fairytale that awoke my passion for literature should be brought to the live action format and hoped that said version would not disappoint me. It has not... rather, the whole film, which I have watched this evening, has taken my breath and heartbeat away. It's not a film, it's a MAGNUM OPUS. The setting, the songs, the costumes, the unexpected twists... And this is the reason why I have decided to consecrate a review to it right here and right now... detailing all the things I have adored about this version: loose ends cleared up, animated scenes brilliantly rendered into live action, and some Easter eggs one needs real passion for literature in general and the Bard in particular, like that of Belle and her Beast, to discover!


The all-star cast: Already when it was revealed in autumn last year, it filled me with elation upon seeing a roster full of stars of both the 1990s and the present day, most of which I knew from other films and even from Shakespeare, recreating the tale as old as time. To quote the most relevant, and the ones that made me squee the most and wait the most for springtime, here are they:

  • Emma Watson --Hermione Granger-- as Belle
  • Dan Stevens --Matthew Crawley-- as the Master (Beast/Prince)
  • Luke Evans --Dracula-- as Gaston
  • Joshua Gad --Olaf, the happy snowman-- as Lefou
  • Kevin Kline --the young man in A Fish Called Wanda, Nick Bottom, Captain Phoebus-- as Maurice (Papa)
  • Sir Ewan McGregor --Obi-Wan Kenobi, Christian James, Iago-- as Lumière
  • Sir Ian McKellen --Henry V, Iago, Gandalf-- as Henry Cogsworth
  • Dame Emma Thompson --Beatrice, Sybil Trelawney, Nanny McPhee, Captain Amelia Smollett-- as Beatrice Potts

Seeing those scenes come alive
The old rose-seller revealing herself as a fairy, turning the prince into a beast and the courtiers into objects. Belle walking past the chickens and getting dissed by the other villagers. Belle taking her leave of her papa. The Master Beast capturing Maurice after he's picked that rose. Belle returning Romeo and Juliet to the priest (instead of Jack and the Beanstalk to the librarian!). Belle giving Gaston the axe. The triplets fawning over Gaston. Chip blowing bubbles for Belle. The Master and Belle at first mistrusting one another. Mme. de Garderobe decking Belle in uncomfortable court dress. Belle befriending Lumière, and the extravagant feast for both the lips and the eyes that he prepares for her. The Master saving a runaway Belle from a pack of wolves. Belle nursing the Master back to health. Belle and the Master enjoying the wintry garden, the library, finding a common interest in literature and realising they have both found a well-read kindred spirit with a decent education as a springboard for the fact that there's something there. The snowball fight in the royal gardens, Belle discarding her spoon and drinking soup from the plate like her beau. That dance, both lovers getting prepared for the ballroom; her golden gown and his cobalt blue overcoat. Gaston in scarlet mess uniform drowning his sorrows in the tavern and Lefou bragging about his accomplishments to all the others. Belle scrying into the mirror to find her papa in distress. The Master letting Belle go and regretting it, feeling as if she would betray him. Belle and Maurice locked in the Maison des Lunes carriage and finally escaping. The storming of the castle. Mme. de Garderobe singing her solo as she throws herself down a ledge. Gaston treacherously striking the Master down in the back, and then falling to his death from a parapet. The Master dying in Belle's arms, suddenly disenchanted, as well as all the objects... and that final dance that crowns it all. Seeing all of these scenes take place in live action is astounding, and besides it has also awakened old memories within me...

Winter in the palace grounds
The fairy's spell, aside from enchanting the prince and courtiers, trapped the palace grounds in an endless winter (mirroring the Master's icy heart), while the seasons change in the outside world. This lends the gardens and windows a magical air as well as frosting the rose dome (as seen in this review's title card): each time a petal falls, the frost advances, the château crumbles, and the courtiers-turned-objects become a little more rigid. Springtime does not come until Belle's tears of true love bring on the disenchantment... and it's a truly magical scene, seeing the courtiers change back and make peace with the villagers as the thaw and the warmth finally arrive!

The setting: Villeneuve and the Château de la Bête come alive
Both the quaint village and the magnificent baroque castle/palace we have come to associate with the tale feel like real places. The wintry royal gardens, the well-assorted library, the washer where the village women gather to wash their clothes and gossip, the all-male local school (Belle is chided for teaching a washergirl literacy!), Belle's cozy workshop home in Villeneuve and her lovely bedchamber with a canopy bed... the dragons that flank the entrance staircase... it all feels so lifelike that we are as shuttled into this eighteenth-century world of the French Enlightenment as Belle is to her birthplace of Montmartre using the magic portal book!
The period costumes --for courtiers and villagers, men and women, adults and children alike-- are extremely detailed and add even more excitement and aesthetic pleasure to the immersive eighteenth-century experience that is watching this film!!

Gaston the officer (and General Cogsworth!)
Of course, what would a good early modern period piece be without some men in uniform? Specifically (influenced certainly by the lieutenant who led the hunt for the Bête de Gévaudan!), Gaston is stated to be a military officer with the rank of captain and Lefou under his command during both wartime and peacetime, most surely as his orderly (officer's personal valet). The queued macho, implied to have deflowered women during wartime, gets to wear both his field and mess uniform (the former a café au lait brown with scarlet facings, the latter his trademark scarlet brocade coat!) during the course of the film. Luke Evans implies that his character is suffering from PTSD and putting off a miles gloriosus façade before the villagers, as their local homegrown war hero, to conceal all he has suffered during the wars he has fought in.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Whatever Gaston experienced during the war has greatly influenced his present-day behavior. He treats everything as a military campaign and Lefou would often have to calm his anger by reminding him of the glorious battles. And when Gaston decides to tie up Maurice to a tree and be left to the wolves, the way he describes the scenario suggests that some of his experiences were not all that glorious as he likes to boast.
  • Glory Days: The war was this for him. His military background is implied to have shaped Gaston's ego and personality. According to Luke Evans, Gaston suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and tries to hide it with his popularity and big ego, and when he doesn't get what he wants, his aggressive military persona takes over.
Besides, Cogsworth in object form is a table clock decked with military accoutrements like swords and cannons, and, during the storming of the castle, he acts like a real strategist. When his human form post-disenchantment was revealed, it was (as I suspected) an aged general, with an epauletted coat rife with medals and a monocle on his left eye, wearing a kaiser moustache that looks like the hands of his clock form. Some of his carving reflects the hair and epaulets of his human form, and said human form has Roman numerals on his buttons, like his clock markings, and an uneven mustache like his clock hands. Just imagine Sir Ian McKellen in a period uniform, with a kaiser moustache. The sole appearance of this human Cogsworth reminded me of his Iago in Trevor Nunn's Othello, but as a general instead of a non-commissioned officer! So, is this some kind of wish fulfillment? (For another Shakespearean actor allusion, aside from the equivalent one relating to Mrs. Potts, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this review!)

Lefou (and Stanley) out of the closet
I always had a pair of hunches about Lefou. This version certainly confirms them. That he's illiterate, but especially that he's gay and hangs around Gaston due to a feeling stronger than admiration or even bromance. The pudgy boy henchman in this live action film flaunts Gaston in a queer tone during the tavern song, and he most often wears his shoulder-long hair loose instead of tied up in a queue. The fact that both of them met in the military, and Lefou was most likely to be the manly man Gaston's orderly, is the perfect springboard for such feelings.
Fire-Forged Friends:
  • With Gaston. They fought in the war together, and their close relationship is part of the reason Lefou is mostly oblivious to Gaston's cruelty.
  • Ignored Enamoured Underling: He's this to Gaston in this adaptation.
  • Ironic Name:
    • Le Fou translates to "The Fool", but in this incarnation he's actually the more sensible of the two.
    • It could be ironic in a completely different way - Le Fou also translates to 'madman' and in late 1700s France, any man who admitted to an attraction to other men was considered mad.
Too bad his beloved commanding officer is straight (aside from a total coward and a scoundrel).
  • Later Lefou became fire-forged friends with Mrs. Potts. When he saves her from a height, they work together to defeat the villagers, befriending each other in the process; also to the point where Lefou confides to Mrs. Potts about his problems with Gaston, in which she comforts him by saying that he's too good for Gaston anyways.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Maybe not "evil," but his feelings for Gaston allow him to be complicit in his scheming and to turn a blind eye to some of Gaston's nastier qualities. However, this is subverted, as Everyone Has Standards. Once Gaston threatens to have Lefou committed, and uses him as a human shield, Lefou comes to his senses and switches sides, ditching Gaston for good.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He was already growing increasingly uneasy about Gaston's actions, but after Gaston uses him as a human shield and leaves him without helping him, Lefou officially switches sides. Lampshaded, when he comments to Mrs. Potts, "I used to be on Gaston's side, but we're so in a bad place right now."
During the storming of the Château de la Bête, Mrs. Potts told him "you're too good for him" for a good reason; as soprano Mme. de Garderobe attacked a trio of young villagers by wrapping them in court ladies' wigs and petticoats. While two of them were frightened upon seeing their reflections in de Garderobe's mirror, the third one, in pink, squeals like a little girl in delight, and gives Mme. de Garderobe a "thank you" smile before happily strutting off.
Right after the disenchantment, right after his commanding officer had plummeted to his death from that shattered parapet, during the ball, Lefou ditches his female partner and takes Stanley --the man who had liked wearing pink petticoats--, who had also ditched his lady and taken him out to dance with each other; these two were literally made for each other, and one of them needed (may I make a visual pun) coming out of the closet for this romance to blossom! Definitely, yet another gay OTP right when I expected it the least! SQUEEEE!!!
To start with, Lefou acts as a voice of reason for Gaston, whenever he tries to do (and eventually does) questionable deeds; as Gaston slowly becomes more deranged than usual, Lefou is shown struggling between his loyalty to him and his moral conscience. Finally, when Gaston used him as a Human Shield and leaves him to die, Lefou finally turns against him and performs Heel–Face Turn to save Mrs. Potts' life, and even wholeheartedly joins the servants in fighting off the villagers after being comforted by her words.
Lefou is gay in this version of Disney's take on the story, with the unintentional Ho Yay present in the animated movie being actual Homoerotic Subtext here. Interestingly, this makes the character Disney's first official LGBT character in a work based on their animated canon.
Near the end of the film, when Gaston uses Lefou as a human shield to save himself, he realizes Gaston's true ugly nature and renounces his ties to him.
  • While initially callous and belligerent like his friends, it can be assumed that this was a façade for Stanley to try and blend in with Tom and Dick and to hide his insecurity regarding his (implied) sexual preference which would have been extremely unacceptable in those days. Upon being dressed up in a glamorous pink ballgown, he immediately makes a Heel–Face Turn out of gratefulness at being put into clothes that he feels more comfortable being in. He also attends the ball hosted by Belle and the Prince at the end of the film, which suggests that he is now on good terms with Belle... and especially Lefou! <3 <3 <3 
  • Pair the Spares: Lefou ends up dancing with Stanley, the villager who seemed to enjoy being Dragged into Drag by Madame de Garderobe.
  • Ship Tease: Has this at the end when he dances with Stanley, hinting at developing feelings between the two.
  • Straight Gay: Occasional over-the-top dramatics and nerdy physique aside, Lefou doesn't really display any stereotypical gay behavior. He's even an ex-soldier in this version!
  • UnderstatementAfter he switches sides, Lefou comments to Mrs. Potts that he and Gaston are "so in a bad place right now". This is clearly understating that Gaston threatened to have him institutionalized for protesting, used him as a Human Shield, and left him for dead.
  • Ship Tease: Stanley has this at the end when he dances with Lefou, hinting at developing feelings between the two. He is briefly seen happily dancing with a woman until Stanley cuts in, much to his awe. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 

What ever happened to their missing loved ones? The live action film confirms:
Belle's maman (mum): Died of the plague in Montmartre, when Belle was but months old. That's why she cannot remember (It took a trip to Paris with a magic book in the Château library to find out).
The royal couple (the prince's parents): the Queen died of the same plague that took Belle's mum, while her crowned husband forced the heartbroken boy prince to grow up (Frederick-William-style parenting implied). Remember that in the family portrait, the Beast has clawed at the King's face, but the Queen remains intact? Mrs. Potts: When the Master lost his mother, and his cruel father took that sweet innocent lad, and twisted him up to be just like him... we did nothing.
Mr. Potts: unlike the other missing parents above, he is alive and well, living in Villeneuve all along until the court and village make peace in the end and his wife and child are disenchanted. There is also a Mrs. Cogsworth: that unpleasant Breton shrew that made her uniformed husband wish he were a clock once more!

Beauty and the Bard
This Belle is not only well-read passionate about literature: she's an outright bardolater, her favourite play being Romeo and Juliet. She also quotes sonnets in the wintry palace gardens. The Beast is revealed to be equally-well read, having had an expensive education, and to share a favourite author with her, even making a little pun about the fact that some of the library books are in Greek (referencing "it's all Greek to me!"). Furthermore, the interior of Mme. de Garderobe's upper cabinet which also serves as her face looks like a miniature stage, with curtains, lights, and what appear to be tiny seats. (Considering that she is a primadonna as a human, with a massive ribcage to give her that singing voice, it's no surprise that she became a wardrobe!)

First names revealed (and more Shakespearean Easter eggs!)
When reunited with their estranged spouses, the châtelaine is revealed to be named Beatrice Potts, while the general's full name is Henry Cogsworth. And I just squeed like Belle when first entering the palace library: I recognized actor allusions to Dame Emma Thompson's famous role in Much Ado about Nothing and a young Sir Ian McKellen having played the title role in Henry V (another story with military men and royals set in France) once or twice in his younger years!
This may have something to do with the fact that this film was shot in the UK in 2016 and many of the leading cast (not only Obi-Ewan, Kline, McKellen, and Emma Thompson, but those who played the leading characters' deceased parents as well) are thespians with a Shakespearean background...

THE HAKKENDEN IN THE GAME OKAMI

Nansō Satomi Hakkenden
Scrittore incredibilmente prolifico, Kyokutei Bakin (曲亭馬琴, noto come Takizawa Bakin 滝沢馬琴 o semplicemente Bakin 馬琴) è conosciuto principalmente come autore della lunghissima saga d’ispirazione storica in quaranta libri nota come Nansō Satomi Hakkenden 南総里見八犬伝 (La leggenda degli otto cani dei Satomi di Nansō, noto come Hakkenden, 1814-1842). La saga possiede una trama fitta di personaggi ed episodi minori, ricca di elementi sovrannaturali, meravigliosi e fantastici, tutti rigorosamente regolati dall’imperativo del kanzen chōaku 勧善懲悪, “incoraggiare il bene e punire il male”, concetto fondamentale di tutto il periodo Tokugawa.
La storia parte in seno alla famiglia Satomi. Satomi Yoshizane, signore della provincia di Awa, ha una figlia, Fusehime, alla quale viene consegnato come portafortuna un rosario di cristallo con incisi sui grani gli otto caratteri delle virtù confuciane · · · · · · · (benevolenza, rettitudine, etichetta, saggezza, lealtà, fede, pietà filiale, ubbidienza). Fusehime, simbolo di lealtà, fedeltà e purezza, rappresenta il sacrificio al femminile ed è il personaggio chiave della storia. Disperato per l’assedio nel quale è costretto il suo castello, Yoshizane promette la mano della figlia Fusehime a chi riuscirà a passare per primo il ponte levatoio. Ad avere successo in questa prova è il fedele cane Yatsufusa. Fedele alla promessa del padre, Fusehime si ritira con lui in una grotta, nella quale Yoshizane e il promesso sposo della donna, Daisuke, la ritroveranno misteriosamente incinta. Daisuke spara al cane, ferendo anche Fusehime, che metterà fine da sola alla propria agonia. Gli otto “figli” di Fusehime, i kenshi 犬士 (‘guerrieri cani’), ignari

della propria origine si disperdono per il paese. Bakin segue le loro vicende. Tutti e otto sono accomunati dal kanji di cane nel nome delle loro famiglie, da una voglia a forma di peonia in una parte del corpo e dal fatto di possedere uno dei grani del rosario della madre, ognuno con la virtù che lo caratterizza. Al termine delle loro avventure gli otto kenshi si riuniscono, riabilitano l’onore e le fortune del casato dei Satomi, per poi ritirarsi sul monte dove Fusehime si è uccisa e diventare degli immortali.

Il romanzo ha avuto tanto successo che della trama si sono impossessati miriadi di manga e anime, a volte fedelmente, a volte soltanto ispirati.

In Ōkami, Amaterasu, dopo aver incontrato la principessa Fuse (Fusehime), sacerdotessa protettrice di un importante santuario ed erede della Satomi House, e lo spettro di suo marito Yatsu (Yatsufusa), viene mandata a cercare gli otto cani (Immagini 10, 11, 1213) nei villaggi sparsi per il Giappone, per riportarli tutti dalla legittima padrona e sconfiggere con il loro aiuto il demone che si è installato nel santuario.
Anche Fuse e Yatsu sono ben riconoscibili da un occhio attento: entrambi presentano acconciature a forma di orecchie di cane, e dietro la schiena di Fuse roteano gli otto grani del rosario. Gli otto guerrieri cani sono tutti rappresentati in forma animale, cani appunto, e si riconoscono grazie a un fazzoletto colorato cui è appeso il grano del rosario che corrisponde a ognuno.



Cfr Luisa BIENATI, Adriana BOSCARO, La narrativa giapponese classica, Venezia, Marsilio, 2010, pp. 169-170-171.

2010s: CAVIAR TO THE GENERAL

This weekend, I will purchase the storybook which contained the heartwarming poem "A Ball of Wool," translated into Spanish (with the poem title "UN OVILLO DE LANA") on this blog, just because television and radio have lost their ancient charm and all that remains is the Net, CDs, nostalgia radio, and... good old-fashioned printed books. Definitely, I have been macerating this particularly caustic invective for years, ever since this blog started. But never had the guts to type it down until RIGHT NOW. There was always either a new form of catnip to comment on (a poem, a fairytale, mythology, history, speculative fiction) or nostalgia of the 1990s and early 2000s to evoke.
Today I have published two such posts on nostalgia: one on advert jingles and one on mistakes I made as a child (or even as a teen!). Then I went into my Thursday yoga, but stopped at a particularly tricky asana, one where I had to stand on my left foot, keeping the right leg crossed over the left like a figure 4, and then bend my back, put my left hand on the ground, and Gods know what to do with the right hand... I simply turned my back and went off to lunch at one sharp.
For I thought, wow, I'm burned out and who knows if I may do that aquagym at three! Such a light sleeper going to bed with a mouthguard for the first time in forever... and, obviously, I slept just like the princess on the pea! Lucky you, dear readers unable to see my Kubrick eye bags (or panda eyes, call them whatever you prefer)! Fell asleep around 2 AM and was not woken up until 8:30. Still woozy. So I thought maybe some rest in the form of blogging and gaming may do me far better than physical activity.
And this brought me to... why not that invective on how screwed-up the world of mainstream entertainment has become? On the fact that documentary TV networks have watered all the way down from edutainment to twattical, or "mainstream," reality sitcoms that have little to nothing to do with the networks' name and original purpose (most NOTORIOUSLY, how The History Channel became The Pawn Stars Channel). On how both anime and edutainment have been generally discarded when it comes to televised animation, to be replaced by shows so lame --and screwed-up remakes of classic 90s toons and animesque-- that online fansubs appear at least to me as far more enticing than the idiot slab of plasma. On the rise of electronic music with no to little tunes, throbbing rhythms, and lewd lyrics, and the ostensible Death of Pop, capitalized for a good reason. On how they even got a saga meant to be a deconstructive satire of trash, or "mainstream," reality TV wrong by turning it into a sappy love triangle feud that feminizes the action heroine to the point of a fashion doll and has fans arguing of whether she'll wind up with the boy next door or the tall-dark-and-handsome stranger --when actually... I was and am the fangirl who understood the series the right way and sat on the fence with a third option, the princely/gentlemanly young man relegated by the creators to the role of companion, as I kept on nonchalantly and uninterestingly watching Little Miss Bland, Mr. Betty, and Mr. Veronica go on and on with their daily lives; as I did with another saga specifically meant to be a sappy love triangle feud in my teens (Seriously: I am Team Jasper and Team Finnick since my adolescence, not giving a hoot about the heroines or their cathetes while chilling out with my blond, cultured gentleman on the fence of neutrality as spectators).

TO BEGIN WITH
We people or humans go by the scientific name of Homo sapiens, which is Latin for "wise Hominid" (if genus is surname and species is given name, Latin employs Eastern order, while English employs Western order). Interestingly, the species or given name of every animal, plant, fungus, and micro-organism is in lower-case, while the genus or surname is capitalised. The fact that we are Hominids with a capital H is thus prioritised over the fact that we are allegedly "wise." Nowadays, signs of sharp intelligence can be found in other provinces of the animal kingdom: consider cetaceans (whales and their toothed relatives), corvids (crows, ravens, magpies...), and most relevantly cephalopods. Cephalopods, ie octopi, calamari, and the rest of their squishy family. Invertebrates, since they lack a spinal cord, but showing even more signs of intelligence than hymenoptera -social insects-. Consider the common octopus in particular. Not a lovely sight out of water (and here I am referring to on the ice or under plastic in a supermarket fish stand; cooked tentacles spiced with paprika and served with potato slices, Galician style, are scrumptious!), but in its element (saltwater, what else?), it has demonstrated some really impressive capacities for colour change (far faster than the quickest colour-changing chameleon), mimicry (it can successfully impersonate venomous lionfish and kraits to drive predators away, as well as blend in with the ocean bottom, be it sandy, rocky, or coral reef), even problem-solving (to open boxes and solve 3D puzzles, and even easily open child-proof medicine bottles!)... and a Mrs. Incredible- or Luffy-style elastic frame that allows it to squeeze through holes even narrower than its tentacle tips (its lack of both an exo- and endoskeleton allows for such flexibility). The scientific name of this intriguing species is Octopus vulgaris, which translates to "common Octopus;" ie, the fact that they are Octopi with a capital O is prioritised over how common they are. And the fact that eight of its nine brains are spread across this cephalopod's "shoulders," one at the source of each tentacle (the ninth brain is located in what appears to be the "head," but actually also contains the gills and guts, equalling the trunk or torso of a vertebrate!), may be the keystone to its intelligence. (In comparison, that strange naked ape that has colonized most of the biospheres on the planet Tellus and goes by a name that translates to "wise Hominid," has got one single cerebrum, which has led the species to incredible, impressive achievements... at least until the present decade of decadence.) The talents of octopi are amazing, even more given their lifespan of three or four years (By contrast, we humans live up to nearly a century, yet the artificially gained last decades of most of our lives come at the great price of physical and mental frailty: requiring us to pay less heed to lifespan and more to our current healthspan, which in the West lasts in general until late midlife and/or seniority).
So, are we wise Hominids still? Are you smarter than an octopus? If you swim against the mainstream like yours truly, dear reader, the answer is yes. Unfortunately, we nonconformists (geeks, nerds, hipsters; a rose by any other name...) are a minority, and even more in these current times of mainstream media decay.
The title of this rant is, now that we get down to business, easily broken down into a Kubrick reference that even the Svenssons and Otto Normalverbraucher understand (though they do not grasp the significance of the classical music soundtrack of that film)... and a Shakespearean reference that leaves most of the mainstream bamboozled: shouldn't a general, given his high rank and status as a man of the world, have a taste for caviar? The snag is that the Bard referred here NOT to the general OFFICER, but to the general PUBLIC. Consider it a shibboleth for the cultured: a sign used to tell friend from foe, deviant friend from mainstream foe, by putting their knowledge to the test.
I could as well have said the more vernacular and worldwide spread "pearls before swine" (how little pigs care for gems/jewels/precious stones!), or the Japanese "neko ni kóban," "doubloons before cats" (whether pet or stray, housecats have little use for gold/money), or as good Ser Uttam taught me before moving from Kathmandu to Kutztown, "as an orange to a carrion crow" (corvids being as bright as we have highlighted above, they easily recognize fruit as not part of their diet). Continuing with these animal sayings, we may as well coin a new one for the new decade: "Pawn Stars/Gumball/Electronic Dance before Octopi." But I have settled down for the Shakespearean version of the saying because of how little it is known by the mainstream, which makes it suitable for use as a shibboleth.

CANAL EL PRECIO DE LA HISTORIA (THE PAWN STARS CHANNEL)
There was a time when documentary and animation (children's or not) specialty channels were something you had to pay to have to play and a relatively "poor" lower-middle-class 90s kid could only dream about. It was the golden age of channels rife with anime and edutainment animated series, with wildlife and historical documentaries. Basically, this reality beyond the reach of the average kid millennial was the mediatic equivalent of those days to the belief that the streets of London were cobbled with bars of gold.
THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE DIGITAL SWITCHOVER TOOK PLACE.
At least there were children's interest and documentary channels for free (which also ended the Golden Age of the anime and edutainment that dominated the weekend morning and Monday-through-Friday afternoon programming blocks; see ALL HAIL THE SPONGE below).
Some channels on my own personal list, like the anime-specialty teenage network Animax (at least in Spain, as Animax Iberia) disappeared never to return. Children's interest channels rarely to never broadcast, nowadays, anime (including animesque) or edutainment series. And documentary channels... that is why I begin with this subject.
Before the Switchover, the History Channel of Iberia (Spain and Portugal) broadcast documentaries on the Thirty Years' War, the Enlightenment, the Hellenistic period, literary classics... basically everything imaginable when it came to the excitement of the past, living up to and even surpassing its name of Canal Historia. Post-Switchover, as it even became available to the lower middle class, it became first (during the late 00s) the "Hitler Channel" ("Canal Hitler"), exclusively devoted to Nazis, aliens, and Nazis in space; and is currently the "Pawn Stars Channel" ("Canal El precio de la Historia"). Note that these are fan nicknames, or rather fan slurs, for the network still retains its original name. Discovery Channel, its animal documentary counterpart, became a free digital network in Iberia once called Discovery Max and now simply called DMAX; "Foolhar-DMAX" would be a more appropriate name, since it basically shows reality shows about tough guys trying to survive in hostile environments (deserts, Arctic and Antarctica, jungles, high mountains...), doing tough guy things (bungee-jumping, extreme surfing, industrial lumberjacks, builders...), or both (fishing in the Alaskan ice in midwinter is certainly doing a tough guy thing in a hostile environment). Neither of these genres are exactly my cup of tea. Similar non-free documentary channel Odisea has also drifted towards the realm of EXTREME sports with emphasis on the EXTREME.
Once in a blue moon, the History and DMAX channels go back to their roots and show some edutainment that is truly worth watching. But that lasts ephemerally only as long as the Christmas and Easter holidays last. Even in summer, you get Pawn Stars, lumberjacks, icefishing in Alaska... all the way. Ewww. Add those anticyclones christened Charon, Acheron, Phlegethon, and the rest of their clan to the mix, and those summer days in the Valencia Region turn each year clammier and more tiresome. I wonder why tourists from the Protestant North still come down every summer, anyway; it's far much cooler where they live!
For it seems that the executives of documentary channels currently spit in the dignified face of High Culture. They have switched from entertaining the intelligentsia to appealing the flock of sheep of Panurge (throw some overboard, and the rest of the flock will follow into the ocean!) known as the mainstream or hoi polloi. We want Gabriel-era Genesis, Kubrick, Wes Anderson, steampunk films and series, quality TV series (whether watchworthy anime, historical/fantasy series like Reign and GoT, or The Simpsons), some Liszt and Mozart in the corners, Verdian operas and Shakespearean tragedies. And lots of quality documentaries. Lucky I have Netflix at my loaded dad's to watch as much steampunk, Reign, Lemony Snicket's ASoUE, and Miss Fisher as I please... the problem is dad's going frogman in Australia and I'm staying at mum's this summer, constrained to rant and rave about mainstream television and radio music as easily as other people breathe.
Which leads us back to the ruinous state of documentary channels. And the cause of this nauseating decay can be summed up in two simple words:
FILTHY LUCRE.
Those bloody executives, in Iberia, the US, and elsewhere, have changed their target audience to mainstream in order to increase ratings and revenues.
These corrupt capitalists seem to have forgotten the age-old moral King Midas was taught and a Cree medicine woman told European settlers. You cannot eat money, and most importantly you cannot drink money. If you only had the money and no more cares, you would even thirst to death before you starved. And even kill for a glass of water, or more extremely for the blood of the victim.
Much of The History Channel's (now called "History") programming now consists of docu-soaps (Ice Road TruckersAx Men) and semi-documentaries with some (rather lowbrow) historical content (Pawn Stars and its spinoffs) focused on roughnecks or conspiracy theory "documentaries" about aliens, ghosts, and the end of the world, earning the network the derisive nickname "The Hysterical Channel". Regarding actual history programming, they air, at best, specials on a few major holidays, and only when their big ratings grabbers like Pawn Stars are on season hiatus. The only other time any actual historical programming shows up is to piggyback of any major upcoming films based on historical events. It makes many older fans long for the "Hitler Channel" days when all of their programming seemed to be about World War II and the Nazis
Many cable channels are created to fulfill a specific programming niche, and their name is Exactly What It Says on the TinSome channels, however, are not as wedded to their original concept as others. Meddling executives look at the demographics to whom their channel appeals and decide according to these. 
The fans of the original programming will mind, of course, but the channel tends to keep going regardless. This may show up with only a couple of odd programs in the schedule, but far too often, given enough time, a channel will have pretty much abandoned its original concept. Whether or not the former invariably leads to the latter is a subject for debate.
Since the network is strongly impacted by the ratings, and the highest ratings go to generally the same few demographics, this tends to lead to networks becoming more and more like each other, either in similar programming or outright airing the same shows.
Some changes can be chalked up to the changing landscape of TV. As the number of channels goes up, networks re-align themselves to try and hold some of their market. That, or the parent companies who might own seven or more cable channels each shuffle stuff for "synergy" or to reduce redundancy. Competition with new media is prevalent as well — classic reruns give way to YouTube, DVD box sets... (and the real killer, Netflix and similar streaming services), music-video channels give way to YouTube, iPods, and Spotify, and info-dumping all-text channels give way to the data display in a digital cable box, smartphone apps (once again, the real killer) or some new-fangled webernet site.
Other times, it's just shifting to whatever the network feels will attract the biggest audience — and the audience that lets them charge the most for ads (especially the lucrative young adult demographic, needless to say).
If the decay doesn't work out, however, then it can create a Broken Base among the channel's viewers, and can throw the network into a Dork Age. Even if the decay works, the expanded viewership would come for naught for the various programs now squeezed out of the network's scheduling - once again, pointing out that good and bad can come of it, depending on the viewer. (Good if the viewer is mainstream, in these cases).
All right, some of you may be asking if this excursion into Trope country served as an evasive in case someone said: you cannot drink high culture either. But it's quality entertainment. I mean, high culture, quality audiovisuals, quality music is good entertainment and mainstream media is trash except to the immense majority of sheep led to the abattoir that are the mainstream. You see why the humble printed book, the endearing fictional character on paper, the heartwarming verse or quote, have regained so much charm to me? Because there is at least quality and emotional investment there. I want creators who are Doing it for the Art, and also who fulfil the Enlightenment purpose to instruct and delight. The Beauty and the Beast I will see this weekend or next week will be such an art film, that will hopefully knock all the life-force out of me before I leave the cinema reeling.

ALL HAIL THE SPONGE
Previously on 2010s: Caviar to the General...
There was a time when documentary and animation (children's or not) specialty channels were something you had to pay to have to play and a relatively "poor" lower-middle-class 90s kid could only dream about. It was the golden age of channels rife with anime and edutainment animated series, with wildlife and historical documentaries. Basically, this reality beyond the reach of the average kid millennial was the mediatic equivalent of those days to the belief that the streets of London were cobbled with bars of gold.
THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE DIGITAL SWITCHOVER TOOK PLACE.
At least there were children's interest and documentary channels for free (which also ended the Golden Age of the anime and edutainment that dominated the weekend morning and Monday-through-Friday afternoon programming blocks).
Some channels on my own personal list, like the anime-specialty teenage network Animax (at least in Spain, as Animax Iberia) disappeared never to return. Children's interest channels rarely to never broadcast, nowadays, anime (including animesque) or edutainment series.
In the 1990s and early 00s, edutainment, animesque, and anime were pretty much everywhere on the menu. Now what have we got in the age of the Switchover?
A lazy yellow sponge living in a pineapple under the sea (even the word NONSENSE is highlighted in his opening theme). And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Phineas and Ferb, Breadwinners, Adventure Time (A boy and his pet dog -and gameboy- redux), The Regular Show (a raccoon and a blue jay work as park cleaners), Chowder (I can only say like Schnitzel: Rado rado rado...), Flapjack (a cabin boy who lives with his captain guardian inside a whale; too bad it's not animesque!), the notorious Gumball (an interspecies Griffin-esque family of blue cats and pink bunnies, even with a sapient pet goldfish that isn't even second to Klaus!), Clarence, Uncle Grandpa, We Bare Bears, the nauseating list goes on. Back in the 90s and early 00s, gross-out and absurd Western toons were few and far between: for instance, Cow and Chicken --starring interspecies siblings, a big-assed Satan by many other names whom they often strike deals with (the way it sounds), a loutish and mooning baboon, offensive butch lesbian slur stereotypes, and Cow's superheroine form using her udders (if she were more humanoid, that would be her breast milk) as a firearm--. At least there were magical girl warriors and edutainment series to spare. Now the landscape has changed. Even the 2010s Powerpuff Girls and the Go! reboot of Teen Titans (known for instance on this blog by the derisive slur of Toddler Titans) are dense and wacky takes that rely mostly on absurd and/or gross-out humour; ie caricatures or mockeries of their animesque dark and edgy originals.
The combination of absurd and/or gross-out comedy with the often ugly and lazy-looking thin-line aesthetic is mostly what makes me wince. But equally emetic is the fact that the reason for this shift can be summed up with the same two words I used to describe the decay of documentary channels:
FILTHY LUCRE.
To quote TvTropes once more on the 2010s thin-line style: The need for quicker, cheaper animation after the economic downturn may also drive the desire for more cheap, yet still pleasing animation styles.
The same may be said about episodes that centre on decaying food rife with maggots, injuries full of pus, teeth covered in tartar and cavities, fungal infections (on feet, scalp and facial hair, love handles...), scatology, disliked vegetables such as broccoli and onions, and other triggers (including even male and female private parts!) which, in a sensible person (a real Homo sapiens), are meant to produce disgust rather than joy or laughter. For a comprehensive list, just look at these Nausea Fuel pages (SpongeBob first, since it's made enough nausea fuel to merit its own page):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NauseaFuel/SpongeBobSquarePants
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NauseaFuel/WesternAnimation
None of these 2010s characters I have barely got to know even think of saying, or even feel like saying, "pardon my French" earnestly after a toilet joke. Again, even Mozart did it better because he was more clever and knew how to convey these messages better. Heck, the century before Amadeus, even Shakespeare did his gross-out humour better for the same reason!! Yet I see these prominent traits of 2010s animation as pleasing only to the mainstream crowd and to this new generation that has come after us millennials.
At least there is hope in the form of a new wave of 3D Franime such as Miraculous Ladybug et Chat Noir (and its predecessor Le Petit Prince). Season two of Miraculous will begin to air in France this springtime, and I predict the other European dubs will be broadcast almost simultaneously. I want creators who are Doing it for the Art, and also who fulfil the Enlightenment purpose to instruct and delight. And this 2010s wave of Franime fits in as well as its countrymen from the Enlightenment fairytale musical of this springtime, carrying on with the animesque aesthetic. 
PS. SpongeBob has also had its bright moments. I'm referring in particular to the character songs in a musical episode: Squidward gets his song about visual art (though he is more of a classical musician) and Sandy gets hers about life science, which homage high culture in the process... Curmudgeon Squidward sings, for instance, these verses with some Easter eggs only history buffs will notice:







Ask your mama or your dada
to tell you about the uh, schism
between minimalism and cubism

while science nerd and team smurfette Sandy delivers this gem as she plays a Fantastic Voyage Plot-themed videogame:

Look out, germs! The end is near!
Your days are numbered, 'cause Sandy's here!
I'll get these germs, and make 'em pay,
with some good old fashioned kah-rah-tay! Hi-yah!
If I borrow some elements from the periodic table,
I can mix up a brew that is sure to disable
any virus, bug, or sniffle
that steps into my path,
and make them feel my microscopic wrath!
Hi-yah!
I cannot think of any more Easter eggs for the cultured minority, and thus, think of SpongeBob in general as alternating between absurd (the opening lyrics have the word "nonsense" in them), Kafkian, and nauseating.

POP IS DEAD (LONG LIVE... WHAT THE F!?)
About a year and up to half a year ago, I (convinced since I began this blog and university that Katy Perry's Hear me Roar and Coldplay's Viva la Vida still were the new black), began to hear Don't Believe Me Just Watch everywhere; in the DreamWorks Trolls film trailer, in aquagym classes, on the tram, even in my nightmares. Now it's Don't Believe Me Just Watch, Picky Picky Picky, La Gozadera, All About That Bass, My Anaconda Don't... I went to my first all-nite-out convinced that we would make some nifty 90s/early 00s coreos like Follow the Leader, El baile del Gorila, La Bomba, Aserejé... upbeat, with more or less of a tune, and cheerful lyrics that even mentioned how to do the steps of the coreo. Or 70s disco (or Spanish pop, or upbeat britpop) with more or less violin strings -In the Navy, Ra Ra Rasputin, Mi Gran Noche...- The result: I walked out of the club at dawn with a throbbing heart and a weary soul. The nonstop 10s music had me plunging, to drown my sorrows and pay no heed to what my ears were trying to tell my brain, into a spiral of cocktail binge drinking and EPUB smartphone Renloras fanfiction. Yes, it was a drunken, and later hungover, fujoshi who went wee-wee all the way home that day at sunrise, only to slump down on the sofa without having breakfast lest she could not hold it, while daydreaming of Renly and Loras lying together in the same bed, under the covers.
I've always called electronic music "dunka dunka" because that's how it sounds to me: a loudly throbbing beat, little to no tune, and most frequently salacious lyrics revolving around sex-appeal and/or intercourse. That's both disgusting and a far cry from both 1990s/early 2000 Canciones del Verano and 70s/80s disco, not to mention Spanish 80s pop or britpop. Electronic music wants to rape me, to deflower me, to make my head explode like Oberyn Martell's. In 1000 Ways to Die, I heard some electronic musicians are experimenting with beats that can be used as auditory drugs, the way it sounds! Turns out you don't have to inject, or breathe in, or drink a drug to get it inside your system anymore... even hearing the right frequency can have that effect!
So POP IS DEAD, LONG LIVE WHAT THE F!? Hip hop? Reggaeton? Beatboxing in general, which hasn't literally been in since the end of the Stone Age!?
Heck, even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote better keister-centric songs than All About That Bass and My Anaconda Don't!! He was even inspired by a friend's Bavarian accent to make some Latin chanting sound exactly like "kiss my ass" in Bavarian, the way it sounds! As I have implied before in ALL HAIL THE SPONGE, all it takes is WIT to make good toilet humour. And nearly everyone is misusing or lacking that.
PS. As long as there are CDs and nostalgic radio stations like Cadena Dial or Melodía FM, there is hope for us. The issue of all-pervasive dunka dunka is with physical activities and discos/clubs in nightlife.

IS ALL OF THIS A PLOT TO BREAK MILLENNIALS!?
Millennials. Raised on anime and edutainment shows, britpop and goth fiction, not to mention animated musicals. Trained to think, to feel, and to appreciate earnestly. If not dumbed down, a formidable threat to the powers that be.
So is this a plot made by the powers that be to dumb down and/or break down millennials like us, while also to "instruct" the generation that has succeeded us? Is it the result of the economic crisis we are living in? Or do both factors play a part in the game? Or neither? Is this a more convoluted and sinister conspiracy than meets the eye? So it appears, indeed... why not?