Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-5643552-20150313132709/@comment-4849011-20150316003038

Here’s another story I don’t like (and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier)- “Richard Pryor”. It’s in the Historical Archive, but I could swear it was removed from the site at one point. Here’s what I posted in the comments section. “Was this deleted from the site at one point? I ask because I read it and sometime later, when I tried to go back to comment on it, I couldn't find it (Don't ask why I didn't comment on it when I first read it because I honestly don't remember). In any case, I'm glad I'm not the only one with a low opinion of this. Whoever wrote it tried way too hard, especially at the end. If done differently this could have been a good psychological horror tale, a subtle yet effective tale channeling people's fear of aging, fear of disease, fear of losing oneself/one's mind, etc. Instead it's a confusing tale that tries too hard to be scary, or shocking, or whatever. Also, I don't like the part claiming that he had people beaten to death for taking pictures. Did this writer ever consider that Richard Pryor was an actual person whose surviving relatives would be offended by this?”

People on the previous thread mentioned History pastas and Nazi pastas. Roger Ebert gave an unfavorable review to a 1975 film called The Night Porter, giving it only one out of five stars. He opened by saying, “The Night Porter is as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering. It is (I know how despicable this sounds) Nazi chic. It’s been taken seriously in some circles, mostly by critics agile enough to stand on their heads while describing 180-degree turns, in order to interpret trash as ‘really’ meaningful.” A little later he describes the movie as being “such a superficial soap opera we’d laugh at it if it weren’t so disquieting.”  I bring that up because I’d say the same could be said about History pastas that fail- they’re exploitive and are poorly written. I’m halfway afraid to ask this, but how do the writers of badly done History or Nazi stories respond when their works are criticized? In any case, if you want to see a good History pasta, I recently came across an excellent story called “Plague of 1918” about the Spanish Influenza Epidemic. It was well-written and it didn’t exploit the topic.