Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, which I shared some love for earlier, won Best Reality-Based Work. Another title I was pulling for American Born Chinese won for Best Graphic Album - New. It's nice to see an industry award the great stuff unlike say the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys.

And my favorite writer, Grant Morrison, picked up an Eisner for Best Continuing Series for All Star Superman. I'm glad that Morrison and Brian Bendis keep things interesting at DC and Marvel.

2007 Eisner Winners

I'm back from a trip to Huntspatch for Emily's twelfth birthday. It was one of the best times I've ever had with her. One of the things I noticed is just how much more agile her creativity is.

Emily innovated her tactics in Hive and won despite my best efforts. Her use of the spider to isolate and pin my pieces was particularly novel. In Super Paper Mario she came up with a technique for flipping enemies into a new 2d orientation that I'd never thought of.

We each brought a camera to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. After looking over the pictures we took hers are so much better. She found much more interesting angles. She compensated better for the difficult lighting situations. Mine have a much more documentary and static feel.

I think some of it comes from the holistic school program she's been in, and the virtue of being young. Next year she starts at a Catholic school and I fear this may spark a decline since they have a different mission that is limited by what the Catholic Church allows. However, I sometimes wonder if the limits Emily has (financial resources, tools) actually stimulate the creativity.

I might do better with more limits.

I knew things were going well when a cabbie motioned me over and gave up his spot in front of city hall, and the meter had over an hour left on it. Dallas cabbies earned quite a bit of good karma with that movie.

I had prepared a bunch of notes for my hearing about a red light violation. I was looking forward to dazzling the hearing administrator with my defense.

• HB 922 had been made effective four days before my violation. It outlaws automated traffic control systems by municipalities at highways.
• I was ready to request a continuance while I sought calibration records for the red light camera to make sure it really was accurate down to 0.16 seconds.
• I was also going to get the details about traffic light height requirements in relation to road incline, I think mine may have been too low.

I had still more questions to present.

But all for naught because after about 20 minutes of waiting in the hall the hearing administrator came out and said my violation was dismissed. The disposition is "OFFICER ERROR" and I'm not liable because I was already in the intersection when it turned red.

I'm excited it was dismissed but a little let down I didn't get my Hollywood courtroom showdown.

I just caught the pre-code Stanwyck film Baby Face (1933). Turner has put out a DVD with both the censored and uncensored versions on it. I am thoroughly impressed. It's a melodrama but with a good story that was hacked up by the Hayes code for the theatrical release. It's fascinating to watch both versions and see what changes the censors wanted.

Stanwyck plays a woman who has been prostituted by her father since she was 14. After her father is killed in an accident she decides to go to New York and use her feminine assets to climb the corporate ladder and exploit weakness in men for her own material gain. If you've seen the recent French film Secret Things you've seen a watered down version of this story that plays up the sexuality, and creates an overt sexual relationship between the two women.

First off I was completely taken by surprise with the Nietzsche quotes. Mention of Nietzsche is absent from the censored version. After her father dies she goes to a German friend of hers to tell him she's got some dead-end job prospects in Erie, PA. He is upset that she would ignore her potential and not go to a big city. He starts telling her about Nietzsche's "Will to Power" (the shot of the book is absent from the censored version). But the dialogue gets butchered even more.

The following lines are cut from the theatrical release

But you must use men, not let them use you.

Look. Here. Nietzsche says: All life, no matter how we idealize it is nothing more, nor less, than exploitation.

They changed this

Use men. Be Strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!

into

Be clean, be strong, defiant and you will be a success.

The censored version completely cuts out the idea that she is the stronger sex and that men can be molded to her needs. In the censored version she's told to be virtuous and clean and that men will reward her as they see fit.

Later on after she has been very successful in New York he sends her another Nietzsche book "Thoughts Out of Season." He's marked the passage

Face life as you find it - defiantly and unafraid. Waste no energy yearning for the moon. Crush out all sentiment.

In the censored version this becomes a book called "Stanley's Christian Institutions" and there is no highlighted passage. Instead it contains a letter to Lilly by her German friend. He is very upset she has chosen the wrong way (exploiting her feminine assets) and calls her a coward. He tells her she needs to regain her self respect and hopes she'll allow the book to guide her.

The movie doesn't point this out but Stanwyck's character is named Lilly. The most famous Lilly I know is Adam's first wife Lilith. The one who was made his equal (Eve is beneath Adam because she is made from his rib), and maybe created before Adam depending on which bible story you read. Lilith gets kicked out of the garden of Eden for not submitting to the patriarchy. From what I remember she goes to the Red Sea and copulates with demons and this is where we get vampires and stuff. I don't think its a stretch to see Stanwyck's Lilly as following a similar path. I suppose it's little details like this that filmmakers used to get things past the censors.

Finally Lilly has a very close African-American friend named Chico. There are two scenes where men tell her Chico needs to go (one her father, the other a VP at the bank she works at) and she is very adamant she and Chico will never part. Considering Stanwyck's membership in "The Sewing Circle" with other lesbians like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn I wonder if her character's relationship with Chico was more intimate. The movie doesn't clarify this. But Lilly has a warmth and affection with Chico that is missing from her relationships with men in the movie. Chico is played by Theresa Harris who is great in her small role. She sings Louis Armstrong's "St. Louis Blues" in the background in a few scenes which also forms the basis of the soundtrack. Apparently the Hayes code killed off her chances of getting good roles later in her career.

The movie isn't perfect. Most of the men are kind of stupid. The censored and uncensored versions both have endings that don't make much sense. Well, the censored one makes sense if you look at it through the eyes of the Hayes code. Stanwyck is pretty good at exploiting her sensuality but nowhere near her peak in Double Indemnity.

It also interesting to compare this to critically lauded and Academy Award nominated Mildred Pierce (1945) with Joan Crawford in her Academy Award winning performance. That movie also features a woman with career ambitions who doesn't want to settle for what men are willing to hand to her. Once she transitions from suburban house wife to independent business woman her life is portrayed in a dark light. Her decisions corrupt her daughter and lead her into financial disaster. The Hayes code had their fingerprints all over this one too, and it is clear that they wanted to further their pro-patriarchy ideals even 10 years later.