The Writers’ Roundtable discusses Inspiration [livestream clip]

In yet another clip from the Omni Viewer’s writers’ roundtable livestream, we discuss the sources of our inspiration for our projects. I hope you find encouragement in it!

The roundtable consists of of:
-Ryan Collins
-Nathan Marchand
-Daniel DiManna
-Neil Riebe
-Karl Dutton
-Christopher Nigro
-Matt Dennion

Watch the full livestream here.

Enjoy!

How Writers Overcome Discouragement [livestream excerpt]

In this excerpt from Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins’s Writer Roundtable Livestream from September 20, 2024, he, myself, and our fellow writers discuss how we encourage ourselves to keep writing when it gets difficult. I hope it gives you the emotional boost you need to keep writing!

The roundtable consists of of:
-Ryan Collins
-Nathan Marchand
-Daniel DiManna
-Neil Riebe
-Karl Dutton
-Christopher Nigro
-Matt Dennion

Watch the full livestream here.

Enjoy!

But I Digress…, Episode 50: Tales from Gen-Con 2024 | Ft. Eric Anderson of Nerd Chapel

Nathan is joined by his friend, co-author, and college friend Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel, to discuss their adventures at Gen-Con in Indianapolis. It’s “the best four days of gaming” and the biggest vendor hall they’ve ever sold books in.

My apologies for not posting this sooner.

Giant Monster Fans All-Out Attack: My Recap of G-Fest XXIX

From July 11-14, I attended one of my favorite conventions, G-Fest, in Rosemont, Illinois. Godzilla and kaiju fans from all over the world converge here for three (well, technically four) days of monster-sized fun. As usual, I was a panelist, including serving as a co-moderator for the Kaiju Writers Panel with Daniel DiManna of the Godzilla Novelization Project. While I discussed the convention on a livestream with Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins July 20 and will do so at least a bit on my podcasts, The Monster Island Film Vault and Henshin Power V3, in the coming weeks, here’s a rundown on what went down at that con.

Day “Minus One”

The lead up to the con was a bit stressful. I wasn’t able to save up as much money for it as I wanted, and my attempts to get a fourth roommate for me, my brother Jarod, and my friend/HPV3 co-host, Jake Hambrick, fell through—until my friend/MIFV patron Matt Walsh (no, not that Matt Walsh) called me a few days beforehand to say his friends had booked different rooms without him, and he needed a new place to stay. So, he joined us. That made the math easy: we’d each pay for a night at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, where the con was held.

After an early morning plasma donation for some extra cash and a quick trip to the bank, Jarod and I piled into my car and made the three-and-a-half hour drive from Fort Wayne to Rosemont. We had only one minor snag, which was that I put “Hyatt Rosemont” and not “Hyatt Regency” into my phone’s GPS, so we were slightly delayed arriving. After meeting up with a few friends like Elijah Thomas (Kaiju Conversation), Kaiju Kim, Daniel DiManna, and others, we rushed to the Pickwick Theater for the first of G-Fest’s trademark double features: Mothra vs. Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). Thankfully, unlike years past, there wasn’t an event happening at the local park, so finding parking was easy. Afterward, we went to Giordanno’s for some true Chicago-style pizza. It’s a little less special because there’s a Giordanno’s in Fort Wayne now, but it’s my G-Fest tradition. We had a charismatic waiter (whose name I wish I could remember, because he was my favorite in my years at G-Fest), which made it an even better experience. Then we rushed back to the Pickwick to see the second double feature, albeit late, which included The Return of Godzilla and Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla. I won’t get into much here, but SpaceGodzilla is a lesser entry in the franchise, to say the least, but I did gain a little more appreciation seeing it on the big screen. I’d forgotten the blu-ray, which is what was used to screen it, had dreaded “dubtitles,” though. I and a couple friends kept correcting the subtitles as we watched.

Then we checked in at the hotel, unloaded my car, and turned in for the night.

Day 1

With maybe six hours of sleep and 200 milligrams of caffeine to fuel me, I got up bright and early, ate breakfast, and then Jake and I jumped into the kaiju-sized snake of a line for registration. Seriously, it went all the way down the hallway into the main lobby and around this huge dining room. Thankfully, it moved fast, and we got our badges and programs inside of 15 minutes. Sadly, it was while standing in line that we learned how terrible the Hyatt’s wifi was. I know, “first world problems,” but it hindered some communication. It’s the main reason, aside from sheer busyness, why I didn’t post much on social media about the event.

At 10AM, I helped kick off the convention with one of its first two panels: The 40th Anniversary of Return of Godzilla. This was organized by Autistic Lizard Pro and included several great friends. It, like most of my panels, was stacked. Here’s the video:

The MIFV upload of the panel video.
Autistic Lizard Productions’ upload of the panel video.

I attempted to enter the dealer hall afterward. Keyword: attempted. The dealer hall is one of the con’s biggest attractions since it always has exclusive merchandise. It was so crowded, it needed “bouncers” to monitor how many could enter. I just did a quick survey to locate my favorite vendors, which included Seismic Toys, Beast from the East, and Toku Toy Town, with the latter two being next to each other, which was great.

Speaking of Seismic, Alex Rushdy, who helps run the shop, gave a panel at noon about every Godzilla video game ever. I love his video game panels, because he knows more about kaiju video games than anyone else.

I then returned to the dealer hall to actually talk with some people, like Jay Key from Toku Toy Town, and do some networking. I say that because I met Jeff Gomez from Ultraman Connection. I’ve had him on MIFV a couple times, and he’s a big fan of my podcasts. I got some inside info from him about a “lost” American-made Ultraman movie from the 1980s that was being screen as part of the film festival at the con as well as learn that his website is looking for writers, so hopefully I’ll have a freelance gig with him.

I then hit up a couple panels that featured some friends: namely 50 Years of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Godzilla Minus One. I’d have loved to be a part of either, but it was great being there and seeing the love the fandom has for Minus One.

Next up, I and a few friends, including Ryan Collins, got an early dinner at the hotel restaurant, the Red Bar, so we could go downstairs and watch the premiere of crowdfunded indie film Kaiju Glam Metal Shark Attack. Yes, that’s a real movie made by SRS Cinema. It was…something. If and when it gets released on blu-ray, it may end up on MIFV.

Following this, we all gathered in three ballrooms for the customary opening ceremony, which introduced the special guests, among other things. What surprised me was I bumped into none other than Linda Jo Miller, one of the stars of King Kong Escapes! She was there “secretly” as an attendee and not a guest! We had a nice chat about the article I published in Kaiju United and Kaiju Ramen about her and the other leading ladies in Kong films, and I confirmed I could interview her for the show. (Score!) Anyway, the opening ceremonies were shorter than I expected. I chitchatted with one of the other guests, Dr. Jeffrey Angles, who translated the first two Godzilla novelizations by Shigeru Kayama into English. We’d been corresponding for a bit, but I was able to solidify an interview with him for MIFV. I could talk to him for hours about literature, teaching, and Godzilla.

The day concluded with an epic screening of Godzilla: Final Wars. I’ve never seen the Pickwick so full before. They had to usher people in to find seats. There were rumors that the screening would sell out. I don’t know if it did, but it was so crowded that it started 30 minutes late. (I got tired of seeing the same trailers for Twisters and Deadpool and Wolverine all weekend). If ever there was a Godzilla film where the crowd could get rowdy, it was this one. And they certainly did! I’ve always unabashedly loved that film, and seeing it on the big screen was one of the highlights of all my G-Fests. I hope someone sends a photo and/or video of that crowd to the film’s director, Ryuhei Kitamura, for some validation, since it was popular to hate Final Wars for a while.

Day 2

Saturday, like with any multi-day con, was the biggest and busiest day. I went downstairs to the Film Festival room to at least watch the first 30 minutes or so of Ultraman: The Adventure Begins with its “new dub.” All I’ll say for now is these actors do work hard to sound “of the era.” I wish I could’ve stayed longer, but I had a panel at 11AM, and I always work hard to keep my commitments.

The Kaiju Writers panel was great, as always. We had a bit of a snag because the previous panel went over, and one of our panelists was a bit late, which seems to be tradition. It was the first year where Daniel DiManna and I were the official co-moderators. The original moderator, Neil Riebe, was still on it, though. This year we included poet Donny Winter and Goryo author Dane Kroll. You can watch the video taken by my brother Jarod below.

Most of my afternoon was spent attending panels. First was the Rie Ota interview. She famously played Baragon in Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. She’s a rare female kaiju suit actor. Sadly, the panel was a bit of a mess. Only one interviewer asked decent questions, and the interpreter struggled a bit. I’ll leave it at that. Next, I went to the Creating Original Kaiju panel. It was okay. I didn’t get as much out of it as I expected. But I wanted to support Dane. I missed out on Jeffrey Anglers’ interview and him reading a passage from his translation of Luminous Fairies and Motha (the source material for the 1961 film). Darn. After a stint in the dealer room, I went to Allan Henry’s interview panel. He’s a mocap actor who, among other things, played Kong in the last two MonsterVerse movies. This interview was much better than Ota’s. It helped he didn’t need an interpreter despite his Kiwi accent. 😛

After this, I started organizing a big get-together for dinner at Caddyshack, a restaurant at the Crowne Plaza hotel down the street, where G-Fest took place before outgrowing it in 2020. There was a bit of a misunderstanding, which hurt someone’s feelings, but thankfully it was resolved by the next day.

Following this was the traditional award ceremony and always-popular costume parade. The fabled Mangled Skyscraper Award went to Toshio Miike, a designer on many tokusatsu projects, who was a guest at the show. If you’d like to see the costume parade, which includes one of the best Mechagodzilla cosplays I’ve ever seen, watch this video:

Jarod and I then went to the final Pickwick screening of the weekend: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which is the latest MonsterVerse flick. Jarod hadn’t seen it and told me he wanted to see it at G-Fest, so I made sure to go for him. I was a little hesitant because the last time I saw a MonsterVerse movie at the Pickwick, Godzilla vs. Kong, it was a bad experience thanks to an obnoxious crowd. I’m happy to say this was better. Yes, the crowd was largely teenage boys, so while it was slightly smaller than the Final Wars screening, it was louder. However, they didn’t just cheer for the monsters: they cheered for the human characters and their sentimental moments. This along with Allan Henry, who introduced the movie, being at the con and several cosplayers wearing costumes of the movie’s villain, Skar King, showed me how popular certain monsters were. It got my English major brain going. I’m mulling over a potential think piece for Kaiju United based on this experience.

Day 3

I was surprised to see that G-pardy, G-Fest’s trademark quiz show, was moved from Saturday night as the warm-up to the costume parade to its own event on Sunday morning. It was also under new management from Skip Peel, who wasn’t in attendance. The program said to come 30 minutes early for qualifying questions, so I and many other people did. Unfortunately, the host didn’t show up until the scheduled start time of 10AM. While I appreciated that his prelim questions were easier and more reasonable than Skip’s (i.e. they were softballs by comparison), I still missed one question and blanked on another. So, my dream of competing was dashed again. But the game itself was rushed, and I still don’t know who won because I had to leave early.

I made another trip into the dealer hall and, more importantly, downstairs to Film Festival room for the premiere of Elijah Thomas’s new short film, Edo Kami No Gyuakushu. Lucky for me, it was the first of the short films to be shown for the video contest, which gave me just enough time to rush back upstairs to the main ballroom for the Kenpachiro Satsuma Tribute panel. (Watch my interview of Elijah about his short film here). Anyway, I was joined by Nick Huber for it for the Satsuma panel. Satsuma was a suit actor who, among other things, played Godzilla in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I met him at G-Fest in 2018. Sadly, he died some months ago. We all shared some experiences we’d had with Satsuma and discussed his work. About halfway in, I opened it to the audience to share. It made the somber panel more meaningful. Sadly, this panel wasn’t recorded, as far as I know. If it was, I’ll update this blog.

I ran to autograph room after that to get a picture with Allan Henry, who chatted with me a little bit and agreed to be interviewed on MIFV. (Score!) He’s a great guy to talk to and a huge nerd, himself.

Finally, we got to the stacked panel that I expected to be one of the biggest of the weekend: Godzilla Turns 70. To discuss that iconic film, there was myself, Daniel DiManna, Elijah Thomas, Kevin Horn, and Dr. Jeffrey Angles. It was wonderful. Watch the video of the whole thing below:

I hung out with my friends for a bit after that, but I did take Jake to see the end of Kaiju Konfessions, a sing-along event hosted by Stan Hyde, because it was worth seeing once, and it’s always felt like the right way to end the con.

We all then walked to the Crown Plaza for one more dinner at Caddyshack, but it was closed for the “official” afterparty, so we returned to the Hyatt for dinner at the Red Bar. A surprising moment for me was a tall black man walked up behind me as I entered, grabbed my arm, and told me how much he appreciated my panels that weekend. (I say it was “surprising” because he grabbed me from behind). We then had our own “wholesome” afterparty by hiding in a room and playing board games like Horrified and Transformers Uno Flip.

Jarod and I left bright and early the next day to get him home for work.

Conclusion

While this wasn’t my overall favorite G-Fest, it still had plenty of highlights. The con is still having growing pains as the new generation of management continues to modernize the show. They’re also dealing with space issues. Rumor has it attendance doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 this year, which is insane. They’ll either have to move to the convention center next door to the Convention Center or take over more of the hotel going forward. I also think they should go back to three panels at a time. Regardless, the show remains the premiere con for kaiju and tokusatsu fans, especially now that more things Kamen Rider are finding their way into the con.

I look forward to next year. I already have at least six panel ideas. Haha!

See you then!

NEW VIDEO: Omni Viewer x MIFV x But I Digress…: Writers Righting the Wrongs of Heisei Gamera Hot Takes

“But IDigress…” returns (again)!

This week, another YouTuber published a bad faith video full of kaiju hot takes. This time it was GSTE making unfounded criticisms of the masterful Heisei Gamera trilogy. Such a hot take requires the combined powers of Nathan Marchand and Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins to rebut it.

This video proved controversial after GSTE got wind of it and bombarded it with comments. See and read for yourself.

All My Podcast Appearances (Feb. 2024)

It’s been five years (crazy, right?) since I updated my podcast appearances for y’all. Being that I’ve (co-)hosted three in almost five years, there are a lot more to discuss! Before I add some more, be sure to read my previous posts here and here and here for my first lists. I’ll do my best to include every appearance, but I may miss one or two. If I do, let me know.

My Podcasts
These include The Monster Island Film Vault, Henshin Men, and The Power Trip: A JOurney through the Power Rangers Franchise.

All My MIFV/Tokusatsu-related appearances
This is a full list of my guest appearances related to my shows.

Strangers and Aliens
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS – SA315
June 7, 2019
Just a few short months before I started my own kaiju podcast (again), I was featured on Strangers and Aliens to discuss the second entry in the MonsterVerse.

STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan and William Shatner Live – SA401
February 21, 2023
Official description: “Recently, Ben joined his friends William and Nathan Marchand to see a theatrical showing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which also had William Shatner do a live stage performance that was sort of a Q&A session. But it was really just an excuse for Shatner to tell some hysterical stories from his long career. For over an hour.”

Up From the Ashes
“Lazarus from the Mist”: THE STARLOST Ep. 2 – UFTA 003
September 21, 2023
I make my first appearance to discuss an episode of an obscure and infamously bad canadian sci-fi TV series from the 1970s.

“The Alien Oro”: THE STARLOST Ep. 7 – UFTA 008
November 2, 2023
In my second appearance, I discuss one of two episodes of The Starlost to feature Walter Koenig of Star Trek fame.

X-Men: The Audio Drama
Season 3, Episode 10: “The Trial of Magneto”
March 23, 2023
After playing Rito Bandora for most of season 3 of Scyther’s Power rangers: The Audio Drama, I make my debut on their X-Men show as, of all people, Deadpool. I’m a post-credit gag.

There’s plenty more forthcoming! Stay tuned!

A Crisis of Ownership: Copyright, Censorship, and the Public Domain in 2024

“Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 Disney short that featured the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, fell into public domain Jan. 1, 2024.

Perhaps I’m a bit late to the whole “public domain” discourse. It’s February, after all, and everyone is over “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 Disney short that features the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, falling out of copyright protection. But as the first weeks of 2024 have passed and I’ve watched a ton of YouTube videos on physical media (thank you, Almighty Algorithm!), it’s brought to mind a lot of my thoughts on censorship and how it all connects to all of this.

The public domain is a double-edged sword. As a creator, I believe artists are entitled to copyright protection; it allows them to profit from their creations because that’s their trade. It’s no different than a fisherman who needs laws against stealing fish to maintain his livelihood. However, copyright in the United States has been extended to an almost absurd extent, with it now lasting 95 years. That’s well beyond the lifetime of (most) creators. Perhaps it can support his estate after his death, but that’s the most reasonable justification for such a timeframe.

The issue, I argue, is when mega-corporations get involved. They see their IP’s as only a means to make money, and they’ll be damned if they allow anyone but themselves to profit from them without permission. In the “old days,” actual people in these corporations needed to discover these unauthorized uses, but today it’s done through automation. That’s why YouTube bots constantly flag user content for copyright infringement. The problem is it ignores context and/or misidentifies the material in question. I know this firsthand because the remix I use as the theme song for my podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, is now being flagged on YouTube as a completely different song by a record company I’ve never heard of. The whole system reeks of greed and even a bit of paranoia. In most cases, users are creative fans engaging with the content they love. They shouldn’t be punished for that. If anything, it’s free publicity for the studios.

Falling into public domain allows a piece of media to be used by anyone—which is both good and bad. On one hand, that can break an IP out of restrictive molds that have stagnated it or save it from mismanagement by the powers-that-be. (Just look at what Hollywood and other creative industries have been doing to beloved franchises the last 15 years or so). In some cases, it might be the only option to save something from ruin. I can tell you that I will jump at the opportunity to legally write and publish my own Superman stories in ten years since DC Comics likely won’t hire me. (I’ll leave it at that).

But, as a great man said, with great power comes great responsibility, and some creators have no business mucking around with public domain IPs. A.A. Milne’s beloved Winnie the Pooh books fell into public domain in 2022, and five seconds after that honey-eating bear was released into the wild, the movie Blood and Honey was revealed. Yes, a slasher flick about a guy wearing a Pooh mask. Now, sadly, it seems to have started a trend. On January 1, not one but two horror films “based” on “Steamboat Willie,” were announced: Mickey’s Mouse Trap and an “untitled horror-comedy.” There are also two survival horror video games in the works! I understand the creative drive to do something completely new with established characters. I can even understand the desire to stick it to Disney. But these? They strike me as uncreative and, at points, repugnant cash-grabs. Slasher movies, especially, are stupid-easy and require little thought. They flooded the market in the ‘80s and, with few exceptions, offered little value. Give someone a mask, a knife, and a bunch of top-heavy co-eds to chase and butcher, and you have instant “movie.” Boring. If a creator must make a horror film, why not lean into the unique features of the IP? For example, make “Steamboat Willie” a ferryman to the underworld. (You can have that one for free, writers!) Instead, they take the easy route. More than anything, though, this just seems corruptive. These are children’s icons, and these creators seem hellbent on destroying their innocence. I daresay it’s evil.

This brings me to the virtues of physical media. I’ll probably end up writing a whole other blog about this, but suffice it to say, in this case, it provides a means of protection and preservation for IPs in these culture war assaults. Unless Fahrenheit 451 happens and govern-controlled firemen are sent to people’s houses to collects books, DVD’s, and vinyl records to burn, those stories will remain as originally intended. No amount of censorship can completely destroy them. They can’t be removed or edited with a few keystrokes. Physical media, in a way, is like a halfway house between copyright and public domain. You’re granted a “share” in the ownership of something. Ownership grants you power. The power to control when, where, and how you partake of a story. The studios and publishers can’t decide that for you. It shows that you’re invested in the story, which will motivate you to protect it; it gives you skin in the game.

Is copyright a good thing? Yes. Is the public domain a good thing? Also, yes. But both can be abused. That’s why we must learn to use both wisely—but we’re in short supply of wisdom these days.

Perhaps we should cultivate that first.

Preferably, by reading some good books.

Re-Enabling Davros: A Classic Case of Missing the Point

Julian Bleach as Davros in 2023 (left) and 2008 (right).

While I still consider myself a Whovian, I haven’t watched “Nu Who” for several years. To put it succinctly, Chris Chibnall was Doctor Who’s worst showrunner ever, and Jodie Whitaker’s 13th Doctor has proven to be as unlucky as her numbering. That’s why I had some hope when Russell T Davies, the man who successfully revived the franchise in 2007, was announced to be returning, although I found the return of David Tennant to be a desperate gimmick to bait the show’s lost audience into coming back. Still, I was willing to give it a chance.

Not anymore.

The 2023 Children in Need special.

Recently, a Children in Need special was published on YouTube that shows an able-bodied and unscarred Davros, the iconic creator of the evil Daleks. While I thought the special’s comedic tone toward the “genesis of the Daleks” undermined the threat of the Doctor’s archenemies (a whole blog unto itself), fans, including myself, assumed Davros looked like this because it was a prequel, but Davies revealed this will be Davros’s look going forward.

In his own words:

We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he’s a fantastic character. Time and society and culture and taste have moved on, and there’s a problem with the old Davros: he’s a wheelchair user who is evil. I had problems with that. A lot of us on the production team did too, associating disability with evil. Trust me, there’s a very long tradition of this.

I’m not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes. And when the world changes, Doctor Who has to change as well. So we made the choice to bring back Davros without the facial scarring and without the wheelchair – or his support unit, which functions as a wheelchair.

I say, this is how we see Davros now. This is what he looks like. This is 2023. This is our lens. This is our eye. Things used to be black and white; they’re not anymore. Davros used to look like that, and now he looks like this. We are absolutely standing by that.

Ignore Davies’ hypocrisy of create a villain who was motivated to make Cybermen so he could develop technology to get him out of a wheelchair. I’m here to show that he is missing the point.

It’s well-documented that the Daleks were inspired by the Nazis. These pseudo-cyborgs were created in the 1960s by filmmakers who still had fresh memories of World War II. Davros first appeared in 1975’s “Genesis of the Daleks,” which was written by Dalek creator Terry Nation. In keeping with the Nazi inspiration, Davros bears mannerisms often associated with Hitler and the SS. (In fact, he reminds me of Peter Sellers’s Dr. Strangelove, only not satirical). He is blind and disabled due to constant eugenic experiments he, in true mad scientist fashion, conducted on himself. This eventually led to the creation of the Daleks. In other words, Davros being confined to a wheelchair is a consequence of his attempts to make a master race.

The problem is Davies is concerned with optics. The image of a villain in a wheelchair, he fears, will make the audience assume all disabled people are evil. This ignores the clear origins of and creator intentions for Davros. His disability was self-inflicted and motivated by racial supremacy. So, by curing Davros to avoid “ableism,” Davies is removing the consequences of a far greater evil and disrespecting the creators who came before him. He has made a Nazi pastiche look more like the so-called “Aryan ideal.” Doesn’t this validate that evil ideology? Isn’t it, in some bizarre way, actually ableism?

If Davros must be able-bodied to avoid portraying disabled people as evil, then other iconic villains must be changed to remain consistent. Villains like:

  • Doctor Doom, who has a disfigured face.
  • The Weird Sisters of Macbeth, who are blind.
  • Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, who is a burn victim.
  • Baron Harkonnen from Dune, who is morbidly obese.
  • Darth Vader, who is a burn victim, an amputee, and an asthmatic.

In all of these cases, these disabilities are the consequences of their evil actions and often motivate the evils they are now committing. We fear them because they’re stark representations of the true face of evil and its consequences (and also the fear of the unnatural or abnormal, but that’s a blog for another day). Removing these disabilities fundamentally alters the characters to the point that they are no longer those characters. It also implies that only “perfect” or “able-bodied” people can be evil, trading one prejudice for another.

There are plenty of counterexamples with disabled heroes. Characters like Marvel’s Daredevil (blind), Zatoichi the blind swordsman, Jonah Hex (disfigured face), and even Spawn (burn victim). Characters like them either use or overcome their disabilities; their disabilities motivate them to be heroic. In other words, it boils down to virtue vs. vice. Contrary to popular belief, these are not exclusive to particular groups. As a Christian, I believe “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), which means all people are on equal ground before the Almighty. Sadly, we will in times that deny this reality. Instead of understanding the deeper motivations and philosophies at work in disabled villains (and heroes), creators look only at the surface and/or see them as representative of entire groups of people instead of as representatives of themselves. It’s the definition of “shallow.”

All that to say, I won’t be watching the new Doctor Who anytime soon.

A Man from Another Time Exploring Another Universe