Your hosts became intrepid reporters, getting in on a Q&A with the creators and stars of the OUTLANDER series on Showtime, and are always happy to find ways to make their obsessions useful for personal and spiritual growth for themselves and others. Since the one-word title refers to people from another land, we thought we’d delve a little deeper into the sense of being an outsider. We’ve all experienced it, and yet we have also seen that special something that an unknown entity brings. Join Malayna and Stacy as they share their insights on outsider-ness!
Notes from Behind the Microphone, the mere seeds of the conversation!
Malayna and Stacy attended PaleyFest’s Outlander preview and panel discussion, which included cast members, producer Ronald Moore and the author of the book series, Diana Gabaldon. They shared what they learned, and a few connecting pieces.
“Ironically, when you do something honestly, it becomes a female point of view.” – Ronald D. Moore about the wedding episode
Wikipedia describes the Outlander Series thusly:
The Outlander series focuses on 20th-century nurse Claire Randall, who time travels to 18th-century Scotland and finds adventure and romance with the dashing James Fraser. Set in Scotland, France, the West Indies, England and North America, the novels merge multiple genres, featuring elements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure and science fiction/fantasy.
Outliers a book by Malcolm Gladwell, was described by Wikipedia as: a journalist for The Washington Post before writing for The New Yorker. The subjects for his articles, usually non-fiction, range from “infomercials to computers that analyze pop songs”.
His familiarity with academic material has allowed him to write about “psychology experiments, sociological studies, law articles, statistical surveys of plane crashes and classical musicians and hockey players”, which he converts into prose accessible to a general audience and which sometimes pass as memes into the popular imagination.
Gladwell noted that “the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work.
When asked what message he wanted people to take away after reading Outliers, Gladwell responded, “What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there’s a powerful amount of truth in that, I think.”
Gladwell repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule“, claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.
Outcasts
This follows nicely on the heels of our previous episode about Spock, and why the character resonates with people across generations. We didn’t plan it! It just happened that way!
To view the Paleyfest panel we attended, just do a YouTube search! You have many choices… we are not alone in our love for Outlander!
Looking back at the history of Hollywood has been a source of inspiration for us at Pop Conscious, so join in on our discussion about our recent outing to the Hollywood Costumes Exhibition at the Oscar Museum. We’ll play the prediction game, Unity-style, and affirmatively declare what we would like to see more of in pop culture and entertainment in 2015. Join us in shaping our collective future!
Titanic, Moulin Rouge, Marilyn Monroe, Wizard of Oz shoes
As You Wish book by Cary Elwes – Heart is the magic ingredient
Downton Abbey ornaments exchanged at Christmas
NEWish shows I checked out and wanna see more like them:
Agent Carter – 1940’s capable woman agent, after Capt American disappears,
Scorpion – geniuses solve real word, real-world problems
Elementary –
Galavant – Timothy Omundson (Psych) – saw him at the Magic Castle (built 1908)
Predictions:
Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media – seejane.org – You have the power to change the face of children’s programming. With your help, if she can see it, she can be it. Your donation will further our research efforts and fund continuing curriculum development for young children.
“In a World” – Lake Bell
2015: The year women take back tech
Hedy Lamarr – Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology – women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lamarr
Although better known as an actress, she was also an inventor and a pioneer in the field of wireless communications, along with co-inventor George Anthiel, she developed a “Secret Communications System” to help combat the Nazis in World War II. Lamarr and Anthiel received a patent in 1941, but the enormous significance of their invention was not realized until decades later. It was first implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequently emerged in numerous military applications. But most importantly, the “spread spectrum” technology that Lamarr helped to invent would galvanize the digital communications boom, forming the technical backbone that makes cellular phones, fax machines and other wireless operations possible.
BFF’s have it all
Tina Fey & Amy Poehler should play us in a new movie.
Bentonville Film Festival – Celebrating Women and Diversity in Film is First to Guarantee Theatrical, Television, Digital and Retail Home Entertainment Distribution for Winning Films – Geena Davis : “my message is to look at the world of the movie and make whatever you were already going to make, already planning to write — maybe it’s already written — but before you cast it, go through and change a bunch of first names to women, figure out where you can add characters of diversity and, bam, you’ve really improved the film and broadened the audience and probably made it much more interesting than it was in the first place.
Shift from lowest common denominator to highest we can reach – celebrating the strength and power within each of us, the heart and the beauty, and not the worst of us. What Oprah did for daytime talk shows, everyone in entertainment can do for whatever media they use. Let’s use pop culture to harness what people are naturally drawn toward and raise them up.
Time Travel and Immortality – These themes are popular because they resonate with people of all ages and cultures. Working with the concept of mortality is something we do throughout our lives, and Pop Conscious is ready to explore that and find other life lessons that can be gleaned from tales of time travel and eternal life. We want time travel! And we want it now and forever! Or do we?
Malayna recently contributed a piece on this topic to Beliefnet.com, and found she had so much more to say about it!
Why the resonance and popularity?
• They allow us to see history with a twist of fictional fun, enjoying the contrast created by the passage of time and sometimes, alternative paths through the evolution of culture and technology. (Steampunk is a genre based in alternative history.) (Fringe has an alternate present with zeppelins! Sliders, and Dr. Who too….)
• It also offers a way for us to grapple with our own mortality. We yearn for the ability to see beyond what our years normally allow, to have more time to travel, and of course, with unending youth and strength to enjoy it all.
• Learn about who we are from our ties to our ancestry — our families, our tribes, and our nations, and the family of humanity.
• Perhaps learn reasons for gratitude for the rarity of this moment.
• What we love! What we’d like to add to our lives in the here and now to live them to the fullest. TV Series Voyagers! – 1982-83 – A member of a league of time travelers (Phineas Bogg) and a boy travel through time repairing errors in world history. (Aaron was stunt double for Meeno Peluce
Quantum Leap is a 1988-1993 NBC Cult Classic series about a scientist, played by Scott Bakula, caught in a malfunctioning Time Travel experiment that bounced him back and forth in the past; the only way for him to move on from any time period he landed in was to change the life or lives of someone there for the better.
Time Trax is an American/Australian co-produced science fiction television series that first aired in 1993.[1][3][4] A police officer, Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) sent through time into the past, has to track down and return convicted criminals who have escaped prison in the future.[5] This was the last new production from Lorimar Television.
Twice in a Lifetime (1999–2001) – Canadian production – Various judges from the Old Testament’s Book of Judges, preside over the court of judgment of the recently deceased. The judge in question evaluates their life and decides their fate, specifically if they deserve a second chance at their life. For those who had a questionable life but whom he deems deserves a second chance, the judge sends them back to a pivotal point in the past where their life path was determined. However they are sent back as someone other than themselves but with the full knowledge of their mission of their own redemption. In addition, they only have three days to change that life path. – GREAT MEDITATION EXERCISE!!! (Other Canadian prod that I love, love, love – Murdoch Mysteries/Artful Detective)
Tru Calling 2003 to 2005 – The show starred Eliza Dushku as Tru Davies, a woman who works at the city morgue. In the course of her job, the bodies of dead people start talking to Tru, asking her for help. Tru then finds herself reliving their last day alive, trying to keep their death from happening. Her morgue assistant: (Zach Galifianakis), her socially-challenged but loyal friend, confidante, and supervisor at the morgue. Timelines of Time Travel Movies & TV!
from Information is beautiful:
• Methods of time travel: Alien tech, Forces of Nature, Time machine, Deep Freeze, Unknown
• Intersections = paradoxes:
• The Terminatrix encounters Evan from Butterfly Effect pursued by Timecop Max Walker
• Marty McFly meets the Star Trek crew and both battle The Terminator (1985?)
• Time Bandits meet Evan from Butterfly Effect
• DCI Sam Tyler (Life on Mars – 1973) arrests Miles Munroe from Sleeper
Pop Conscious 