Art is Subjective

Not the best title, but it works. Yes, this is again about Chuck Tingle's Hugo nomination (go, Chuck!) and about art and subjectivity in general.

One of the things you don't know about me (but soon will) is that Tommy Wiseau's The Room is one of my favorite movies. It's hilariously bad. It's been lampooned and reviewed so many times, and those reviews are hilarious, but the movie itself is a spectacular piece of terrible film... and I fucking adore it. It's a matter of taste. I admit to having some simple tastes at times, and what I like for art is often a big part of that simplicity. It comes down to this one thing:

I enjoy laughing.

That's it. That's why I like some really terrible stuff, which isn't put together the best, or has obvious errors, or other people would look at me like I'm crazy and be like "WTF". It makes me laugh and smile. It pulls from me a stronger reaction than even my FAVORITE movie of all time, and just about every other movie I've ever watched. I never laughed so hard in my life than when I got stoned and watched The Room. (*gasp* Yes, I smoke "the refer" recreationally, sue me) Even watching it sober makes me giggle like a giddy schoolgirl.

For this reason, I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax. They make bad movies really damn funny. It's not really done out of a sense of meanness for the movies, but rather a certain kind of love for them. Only people who love movies that much spend that much time watching them, bad, good, mediocre... all kinds.

So it is with Chuck Tingle. The Tingleverse makes me smile. It makes me laugh. It makes me shake my head and go "WTF did I just read?!", and these are all good things. Of the writers I've read, so very few pull a real emotional reaction from me. And of those that do? Not many of them the level of sheer giddy joy and amusement Mr. Tingle brings me. It's all subjective. What works for me may not work for you.

He's this sort of comedic genius which comes along a couple times in a life, that strikes you just right, and makes you happy because you laugh when you read his stuff. His Twitter page is hysterical. And behind it all, behind all those silly books and unreal circumstances and outrageously crazy tweets, there's a few real messages there. He tells us in his way to love people, to accept them for who they are whether they are unicorns or raptors or not, and he points out in hysterical ways the hypocrisy of folks who butt in other people's business, and he comments on current events in a way which often flies right over the head of the people he's satirizing. He's clever and funny and good-hearted. Even if it's all fake, fake name, fake humor account, fake everything... who cares? The persona created is good, and wants to bring good things to people's lives, and for that, if nothing else, I admire the fuck out of him. Me? I'm too full of hate and spite to bring about messages of love and shit.

I know not everyone is going to agree with me, but that's fine. He's one of my favorite authors right now because I know I can pick up one of his short stories and come out the other end with a smile. I can't say that about any other author I read. Not a one.

Erotica and Silliness

I just spent the last half hour going over my personal hero's Amazon page, Chuck Tingle. For those who don't know who Chuck Tingle is, he's an erotica author who specializes in gay sex, and ultimately silly scenarios which are somehow heart warming and deep. I'm not quite sure how he managed that, but reading about space raptors invading butts is what convinced me to start writing erotica.

I started with the Janus Key Chronicles... which was MY attempt at silly erotica. Now that I'm writing the next installment of it--formerly "Jerked by Jesus" but now titles "Manhandled by the Messiah"--I turn my mind to silly erotica... is it worth it?

Well, duh!

Maybe not monetarily, unless you are like Mr. Tingle and create a whole persona. He sells his books... some fairly well and some not so well... and I'm sure he's making cash. He's even got merchandise now! The thing about being an erotica writer, or a short story writer, is that you can keep things up to date. Starbucks gets reamed for daring to have an inclusive holiday cup? Here's the book to go with it!

I don't know if I could keep up that... scratch that, I KNOW I can't keep up that level of silliness all the time. These are all satirical writings I fucking love satire. Some people might say that's awfully high brow of me, but it's true. They are satire, which happen to also be erotic. Maybe not quite all of them (as of this post, Mr. Tingle has 67 shorts out--I've read like 5), but a lot of them are.

I can't do that. I just can't. It's not my style. I do, however, love pulp adventure and the silly situations heroes can get themselves into, and how they get themselves out. So, I view the JKC as more of a pulp serial, which is silly, true, but it has adventure in it as well. I got reviews for the first thing on the Lover, Raptor, Gentlemen blog which was fantastic... as well as for Living Spaceship. One thing niggled me about the Spaceship review which was dead on... basically... I didn't go far enough. That's so true. I could have approached it differently and made it more pulpy and funny, but I didn't. I took it seriously. I started to do the same with the JKC... and I have to stop to remind myself that it's SUPPOSED to be silly. It's supposed to be unbelievable adventures, one after another, and it's supposed to be monsters who ravish my protagonists.

I wrote away from that. You see, my heart lies with dark things... as you can tell with Villainess and Delilah. But the JKC is my fun side, and I forgot that. It got a bit grim with Thunderstruck by Thor, and Dirk got cursed by Poseidon in Pooper Probed by Poseidon, but I'm writing this... sacrilegious one now about Jesus and I'm like, "Oh my god, people will hate me."

That's... not the point. The point is to take a premise which is outrageous and make it fun and funny. So, as I write I am trying to be sensitive to people's beliefs, but also to make it funny. After that, we cross over to Debbie in Reamin' Demons, more monster erotica... in a way. And then I promise, monsters over and over again! Fun, pulpy adventure will be back!

I could probably write these over and over, but I'm sensing an end. I know HOW it's going to end. I just don't know how long it will take to get there.

So, is there a place for funny erotica? Absolutely. Nothing is sexier than laughing.