A really creepy Firefly clip...

[conuly]

It's not creepy in and of itself, just when you think on how River is as we know her.

That said, I have a question.

Oftentimes, in TV and movies, if a character is clearly batshit insane and dangerous, they show this by doing a closeup on their face so you can't not see that their eyes are wildly moving back and forth. And maybe they'll show the Good Guy so we can compare their steady gaze to the scanning gaze of Crazy Ax-Murderer (and you know that's crazy, since axes are nice and sweet, and it's saws you want to kill). They even did that to River Tam at least once that I remember.

Why is this? Is there some sort of correlation between how sane you are and how likely you are to go madly back and forth while looking at people? Is this why the cylons/some cylons have one eye that goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, because they're all nuts?

I'm confused.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

They do it so that people like me, whose eyes sometimes move in weird ways, will be viewed more negatively.

Although usually my peers got upset with me for "staring" which actually meant thinking and not processing my vision enough to move my gaze when someone happened to fall into it for a long period of time.

You can't win.

[conuly]

Actually, I do win, and often. I win spit, I win parcheesi... don't often win scrabble or boggle, but that's because I only ever play those games against my mom, and she's made a deal with the devil or something....

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

I think it's part of an unconscious need to be able to have some way to "tell" that a person is insane by a simple phyical characteristic rather than a more insightful evaluation of thought and behavior patterns.

It's like the tendency to make the "bad guys" ugly and the "good guys" handsome.

[conuly]

Except that sometimes the bad guys are excessively pretty.

[towanda.livejournal.com]

I think Hollywood and film in general sticks to certain standards to get a point across. There are certain things--camera angles, music, etc.--that we, the audience automatically recognize and associate with a particular behavior or action. Because its so ingrained in us and yet so subtle, directors tend to believe that either we won't understand their message without it, or they're just too lazy to try anything new.

[conuly]

Subtle icon appreciation here (that's 1)
As for 2 - you could be right. Damn. Because the eye moving thing really irritates me. If I want to do that, I have to move my head, but does this mean that people don't know I'm nuts otherwise? (Not really nuts, of course - just a bit legumes)

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

One of the supposed giveaways for someone who's lying is inability to look at the person they're talking to. For all I know, it's got something to do with that.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

hey! the boy i babysit is namer River (after his great great grandfather)

[bastardsword.livejournal.com]

Session 2 is even creepier. You can find it at session416.com.

I don't know, I think it's just a cheap trick that is a hold over from the first movies mad and the omnipresent view that having some sort of mental problem immediately equals batshit mad in clearly visible ways. I also think it's a comfort thing, kind of -- well, the people I know can't be batshit, they don't show any of the visible signs.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Cylons?

[conuly]

Robots in Battlestar Galactica.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Okay, that clip seriously intrigued me. I want to see more... Any idea where I can get some episodes (preferably starting from the beginning)?

[conuly]

I used a bittorrent client and downloaded from torrentspy.com

The SciFi channel in the US and Canada is showing it on Fridays at 7, but they've already started.

And you can either buy or rent the DVDs.

[leora.livejournal.com]

They do it so that people like me, whose eyes sometimes move in weird ways, will be viewed more negatively.

Although usually my peers got upset with me for "staring" which actually meant thinking and not processing my vision enough to move my gaze when someone happened to fall into it for a long period of time.

You can't win.

[conuly]

Actually, I do win, and often. I win spit, I win parcheesi... don't often win scrabble or boggle, but that's because I only ever play those games against my mom, and she's made a deal with the devil or something....

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

I think it's part of an unconscious need to be able to have some way to "tell" that a person is insane by a simple phyical characteristic rather than a more insightful evaluation of thought and behavior patterns.

It's like the tendency to make the "bad guys" ugly and the "good guys" handsome.

[conuly]

Except that sometimes the bad guys are excessively pretty.

[towanda.livejournal.com]

I think Hollywood and film in general sticks to certain standards to get a point across. There are certain things--camera angles, music, etc.--that we, the audience automatically recognize and associate with a particular behavior or action. Because its so ingrained in us and yet so subtle, directors tend to believe that either we won't understand their message without it, or they're just too lazy to try anything new.

[conuly]

Subtle icon appreciation here (that's 1)
As for 2 - you could be right. Damn. Because the eye moving thing really irritates me. If I want to do that, I have to move my head, but does this mean that people don't know I'm nuts otherwise? (Not really nuts, of course - just a bit legumes)

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

One of the supposed giveaways for someone who's lying is inability to look at the person they're talking to. For all I know, it's got something to do with that.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

hey! the boy i babysit is namer River (after his great great grandfather)

[bastardsword.livejournal.com]

Session 2 is even creepier. You can find it at session416.com.

I don't know, I think it's just a cheap trick that is a hold over from the first movies mad and the omnipresent view that having some sort of mental problem immediately equals batshit mad in clearly visible ways. I also think it's a comfort thing, kind of -- well, the people I know can't be batshit, they don't show any of the visible signs.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Cylons?

[conuly]

Robots in Battlestar Galactica.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Okay, that clip seriously intrigued me. I want to see more... Any idea where I can get some episodes (preferably starting from the beginning)?

[conuly]

I used a bittorrent client and downloaded from torrentspy.com

The SciFi channel in the US and Canada is showing it on Fridays at 7, but they've already started.

And you can either buy or rent the DVDs.