'Swami Ayyappan' rides tigers, fights demons, unites with idol
Anthropomorphic? Noooo … But how can you not like an animated TV movie about “‘Swami Ayyappan’, based on the life story of a boy ‘Manikandan’ who became one with God worshipped by millions”?
That is on Indian TV, of course. Animation Xpress for 2 July reports that,
Swami Ayyappan is slated to premier on national TV channels and subsequently distributed as DVDs during the upcoming Sabarimala season in various languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu & Kannada. [What, no Hindi?]
Sabarimala is a place of pilgrimage that welcomes devotees irrespective of religion, caste or creed. [Not many Christians, I’ll bet.]
The film follows the life of young Manikandan, believed to be born out of the union between Lord Shiva and Vishnu in his Mohini avatar. His life at Pandalam Palace, childhood days at the gurukul and the miracles he performed are all portrayed in the film. It also depicts Manikandan’s fight with Udayana, the slaying of the demoness Mahishi and the instances that lead to his friendship with Vavar, a robber from Turkistan. This friendship is considered to be the epitome of religious tolerance till this day. Once the purpose of his embodiment is fulfilled, Manikandan gets united with the idol in the Sabarimala Temple and is hence forth known as ‘Swami Ayyappan’. [Oh, well, if there’s a demoness, that’s okay.]
…a robber from Turkistan. This friendship is considered to be the epitome of religious tolerance till this day.
Yeah, if Turkestan/Turkmenistan is in the news today, it’s about how they worship horses. This April, Turkmenistani President Gurbanguly Berdymukkhamedov “awarded "the most beautiful horse of the year" prize to a thoroughbred stallion called Khan of the Eagles, which beat the nine other finalists decked in traditional bridles. The leader then pulled off his jacket and leapt onto a horse to ride a victory circuit of the racecourse outside Ashgabat to cheers from the crowd.
The horse beauty contest falls on a national holiday, the Day of the Turkmen Race Horse in the ex-Soviet state, which is home to an ancient breed of horses called Akhal-Teke.”, according to a neighboring Kazakhstani news release, “Turkmenistan president holds horse beauty contest”.
But we’re getting away from Swami Ayyappen. The Animation Xpress article goes on about how Toonz Animation India Pvt. Ltd. in co-production with Mumbai based Animagic have high hopes for this TV feature, which is apparently slated for the other side of India from Hindi-speaking Mumbai if it is in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. No English? Oh, well.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
Okay, the 1 stars are just getting ridiculous now.
There's not even an opinion for you idiots to get mad at in this one, and it's actually about cartoon animals.
Go censor somewhere else, assholes.
Honestly, it seems to be mostly about cartoon humans, maybe with an anthropomorphic bull-god or two thrown in there.
Oh, and there's tigers on the cover.
Especially given that the first line of the article is "Anthropomorphic? Noooo..."
I'm one of the idiots/assholes who gave this 1 star, and it wasn't about opinion, it was about relevance. When even the author of the piece admits the item in question isn't anthropomorphic, what's it doing here?
Well, Swami Ayyappan does have as supporting characters Chandikadevi, a blue, four-armed demoness; Mahishasuran, a black bull-man; and Mahishi, a blue different-kind-of bull-man/demon; I assume as Manikandan’s non-human opponents. They may not be enough to make this TV movie anthropomorphic, but they should make it of interest to Furry fans. I admit that it’s borderline, but I would want to know of its existence, and I assume that some other Furry fans would, too.
Tigers that let people ride them are not realistic, but they aren't anthropomorphic, either.
Fred Patten
Uh, it's about animals, repeatedly and at length, and yes, you are a stupid censoring asshole.
Do you have any fucking idea how humiliating one star oblivion is? No of course you don't, because you don't contribute, you blithering idiot.
If you don't like the article, write a comment; don't fucking censor the author like every other bullshit, hypocritical, drain on society furry in the fandom.
Fuck this shit. Fuck it in the ass.
If what I can expect in response is the sort of juvenile reception you've given in this comment, I really don't have much interest in contributing. And if "one star oblivion" upsets and humiliates you that much, it seems it would be more productive to petition GreenReaper to turn off the article-hiding feature, rather than taking your frustrations out on me or anyone else rating the articles.
So, first of all, I'm going to apologize in case this is a bit disjointed since I'm watching TV while typing it, and babysitting two cats who hate each other. There may be further apologies; I don't know. Disjointed.
Second of all, we're both obviously hurt. Now, you are hurt because, you know, Green Reaper fucked up, and everybody is upset. You don't want non-furry politics in your furry politics, as it were. Since that's kind of what we're discussing. Discussing in this instance means shouting at each other.
But anyway, the point is, seriously, why this article? I mean, I love Fred to death, but, let's face it, he sometimes writes boring articles. About ... stuff. That's kind of what he does. That, and book reviews. Anyway, obviously you (and a lot of other people) are kinda still upset about the whole "let's talk about the Supreme Court!" thing and are taking it out on this article, because if you actually, really gave a shit about this article being off topic, yeah, this would not be the first Fred article I five starred to keep it on the page, you feel me?
Actually, there might have been another, but it really doesn't happen that much.
You're upset. I get it. But this is not productive.
Now, on my end, obviously I'm upset; I actually did privately email and petition Green Reaper to knock this one-star blam shit off ... over a year ago. When he started it. I told him then; bad idea. Somebody is going to get censored for having an unpopular opinion at some. And guess what happened. Somebody got censored for having an unpopular opinion.
That was me.
And, no, don't tell me it was because it was a bad review, because I have written worse crap than that, and no blamming. And don't tell me "it was biased" (fucking Sonious) because that's how I write all my reviews. Nobody cared when I explained how I was biased for The Muppets, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or Star Fox; or biased against Madagascar 3, Rango or Ted. Hell, my very next article was a review of Ted beginning with me explaining, once again, my biases against the movie. And everybody was fine with that bias, because they agreed with it.
But, oh, we like Pixar, God bless our stupid little hearts, so its bias.
No, what happened is I drove 40 miles, bought my own ticket for a movie I didn't want to watch while surrounded by a bunch of whining brats at a fucking theater, and then I got fucking censored for giving my honest opinion.
Where's my under the table rat handjob? (If you don't get that, just ignore it.)
Anyway, I'm in a bad mood, and I was on my way to deserving a goddamned medal for just grinning and bearing it (get it? Get it?) until you had to ruin it.
Sorry. I mean I ruined it.
Anyway, as already mentioned, I knew it was going to happen; I warned the guy it was going to happen. But, you know, it's his website, so whatever.
I hate being right all the time.
Anyway, I'm thinking about taking a break. Seriously, guys, this is my fucking hobby. It should not be this stressful. This is what I do to get away from my horrible job. I need a vacation from both now. Thanks, guys! Honestly, this sucks. For everyone.
Luckily, I'm a good squirrel, and I've stored my nuts, so I think I'm just going to submit a pre-written column, get Green Reaper to email the Newsbytes on the first, and send a note to EquiVamp to please review Ice Age 4, because I'm not fucking watching a movie I don't want to for THAT right now, and she would really be great at it, and she wants to watch the movie. Also, I call Pokemon Conquest review; I bought my copy, and I'll review it eventually, though I guess someone else can do it for the sake of timeliness. Never mind its less furry than this article; nobody's going to downvote because we like Pokemon a lot more than Indian comic books. Unless I say I don't like Pokemon, I guess.
Eh, I'm wandering, and bitching, and wandering.
Hell, I don't know why I'm being so nice. I'm still pissed off. Really pissed off. So be ... happy or something. And stop one starring stuff. It's not nice, okay.
Anyway, see you assholes in August. I'm on vacation.
I could make a TL;DR, but I think the best way to approach this and to note an interesting hy in the argument you made here:
"People are one staring Fred because of the actions of Flayrah! That's not fair to him!"
"I wrote an article that was ranking Brave low because of the actions of Pixar. That's my job."
In other words, you both promote and demote letting the actions of a larger group influence one's view of the individual work in the same comment.
Now I think it was more Fred's wording saying "Well, this isn't really furry" to start with rather then the other articles that caused the down-voting. I think many of our readers are smart enough to discern that Fred had nothing to do with the controversy.
The start of an article should sell the product. If the reader rejects the product take it as a lesson rather then a rejection. Enjoy your break.
Boring? Moi? (really small voice) But I do like Indian comics more than I like Pokémon. (normal voice) Unless you consider that Pokémon is a reflection of Japanese beliefs of Shintoism, in which everything has its own gods -- I mean that I was FASCINATED when "Kamichu" pointed out that there is not only a god of video cassette recorders, but that there are separate gods for VHS and Betamax -- oh, dear, I'm doing it again, aren't I?
Fred Patten
The Japanese anthropomorphize everything. They have separate avatars for each edition of the Windows operating systems, plus numerous supporting characters (naturally, I'm a fan of Firefox-tan).
I'm pretty sure Poetigress was being honest with you about the reason for her vote. This is the simplest conclusion, and it is consistent with voting patterns. I gave it a 2 myself, mostly for the same reason.
Not everything that Fred writes about here is perfectly matched to this site, but I think it's all of value to some readers. At times I have even encouraged him to post material that he felt might not be suitable (e.g. his review of Forest Tails; I have no problem with reviews of older works as long as they're on-topic).
Ratings are primarily a form of feedback to the submitter. Front-page folding has a minor effect; almost half of each article's readership arrives through search, and even more through our feeds, neither of which are filtered by rating. However, it does allow readers to feel they are contributing to the site. It also acts to advise new readers that such material does not represent our best work. The alternative is being stricter about what gets on in the first place.
Opinion pieces are always a risk when it comes to ratings. If an article is strictly factual, there is less to disagree with. However, a coherent piece with reasonable arguments tends to receive a sufficient rating on its literary merit.
I urge all contributors avoid doing things they don't like just to write an article on Flayrah about it. If you're not enthusiastic about what you're doing, it will show in the result. That doesn't mean "no negative reviews"; just that professional reviewers are paid to do them, and we are not, so we don't have to if we don't want to.
For the record, I'm generally a fan of Pokemon. Never quite got around to joining Pokemorph MUSH, though.
Also I should note, you should look twice before you assume being faded by the votes is actually losing you views or silencing you. If you go to the views this month page it seems that if you are stiffled you get MORE views not less. http://www.flayrah.com/admin/reports/google-analytics
1) Fast and furious article with 999 views (rated low enough to 'fade')
2) Your article on Madegascar
3) Your article on Brave(was rated low enough to 'fade', now is visible again)
Sometimes the silence seems so loud. There's more to being seen then stars.
Its a shame its not going to be in english, I hope one with english subtiles is made.
and I dont think your boring Fred I like the stuff you post ^w^
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