I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I finally watched the two Evangelion Movies a while ago. They’re certainly very interesting as entertainment, but even more so as art. It’s amazing the way the series as a whole creates expectations in the viewer, and then turns them on their head.

Hideaki Anno, the directory, was quoted as saying:

Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give his/her own answer. In other words, we’re offering viewers to think by themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the ‘all-about Eva’ manuals, but there is no such thing. Don’t expect to get answers by someone. Don’t expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to find our own answers.

quote from EvaOtaku.com

That is definitely an attitude I wish more producers of entertainment would take. By not forcing a particular message down a viewer’s throat, while making it clear that there is a message to be found, the viewer can get as much or as little as they wish out of their entertainment, by constructing their own idea of what the message is.

I guess it’s almost like postmodern criticism for people who don’t like postmodernism…

Thank you Miranda Devine.

Now people who protest against globalisation are in league with terrorists. Oh there’s no proof, but many, many, carefully written insinuations. All of this based on the fact that anti-globalisation activists didn’t like the World Trade Centers, or the WTO. Actually, here’s a paragraph well worth quoting:

Against such a backdrop, it’s worth pointing out that the so-called “peace” movement gathering steam in Sydney is organised by anti-globalisationists. Those well-meaning people who swell their numbers should ensure they are not “useful fools” for a more sinister cause.

Thanks again, Miranda, for confirming my boundless cynicism about human nature.