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FlickrWhither the Trenchcoat?
I have previously ranted about cartoonish magic, people who think "ridiculous" means "epic", and the half-dozen things that need to leave my genre right now. I also found time to rant about dragons. And you are probably thinking to yourself, what right do I have to question these things? Okay, hopefully you're just thinking I'm amusing, but I need to take a moment. The truth is, I don't think I'm the greatest writer in the world; but I am a reader. And that means, if you're writing, I'm one of the people you're aiming for. So, that's really all the right I've got, and that's really all the excuse I'm going to give; I in no way claim final authority.
There. Now. Tonight, I'm ranting about fantasy and fashion.
Allow me to say it, as many, I've sure, have said before: stop it with the god-damn trench-coats.
You can call it the trench-coat; the long coat; the duster; you can dissemble about lapels and buttons; you can attempt to justify it however you want, but the truth is, the trench-coat, long, flowing, and just a little cowpunk, is on a literary ship that has long since sailed.
I mentioned cowpunk, and yeah, it probably starts with cowboys. The duster is standard wear for a high noon showdown. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett probably helped, too (though off the top of my head I'm not remembering either Marlowe or Spade wearing the long-and-flowy). And I can think of plenty of fantasy stories where the main character wears a dark cloak. But whatever brought it to life, you know what killed it? The Matrix.
The rumor, at least as presented in Coupland's JPod, is that the coat was used for one purpose: shortening the render time on the CGI sequences. And in so doing, the brothers Wachowski managed to trigger, or at least feed into, an obsession with the trench-coat.
People think trench-coats are macho. They think trench-coats look awesome. I own a trench-coat, a black one, and I enjoy wearing it, because it is warm and has big pockets. But it has been a long time since trench-coats looked awesome, and the Matrix is why, along with the Matrix's fans, Casablanca's fans, Joss Whedon's fans, and, ultimately, gamers.
I am a gamer. I've done the board game thing, the pen and paper thing; I've walked around at night pretending to be a vampire; I've hit people with padded sticks and shouted out how much damage my magic weapon did. And you know what I've seen tons of? So many tons of them that it has become a running joke? The trench-coat. In particular, the black trench-coat, often the black leather trench-coat. Some of us have dusters. But when I see a trench-coat, I do not think of cowboys, or vampires, or hard-boiled detectives. I think of Vampire LARPers. The symbolic cachet of the trench-coat is not gone; it's just shifted. It has left the shoulders of the badasses and moved to the shoulders of those who want to be them.
There are subversions possible, of course, some of them even clever. Simon R. Green has a main character who is sort of famous for wearing a white trench-coat; and Firefly brought them back around by using them to invoke the image of cowboys. But for the most part, when I see them, I think of guys with inappropriately long hair and a bad dice habit, who are probably using that trench-coat to store a bottle of Coke; and while that image is not there for the population writ large, they are likely to think your main character really, really wants to be Neo.
So if you want to invoke that imagery; or if you're setting it in the Wild West; or if your main character is a nerd or a goth kid or a LARPer; then by all means, go ahead. But otherwise, the trench-coat and the duster are probably not your best bet. And don't go trying to sneak in a greatcoat either; it's really just a trench-coat with muttonchops.
There. I said it. I'm done with telling you what not to write until the end of January, at least; I can't promise much more than that, though. These posts are just so much damn fun, like a class on literary theory wrapped up in razor blades. (I'm also done with similes like that until at least next Friday...)
There. Now. Tonight, I'm ranting about fantasy and fashion.
Allow me to say it, as many, I've sure, have said before: stop it with the god-damn trench-coats.
You can call it the trench-coat; the long coat; the duster; you can dissemble about lapels and buttons; you can attempt to justify it however you want, but the truth is, the trench-coat, long, flowing, and just a little cowpunk, is on a literary ship that has long since sailed.
I mentioned cowpunk, and yeah, it probably starts with cowboys. The duster is standard wear for a high noon showdown. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett probably helped, too (though off the top of my head I'm not remembering either Marlowe or Spade wearing the long-and-flowy). And I can think of plenty of fantasy stories where the main character wears a dark cloak. But whatever brought it to life, you know what killed it? The Matrix.
The rumor, at least as presented in Coupland's JPod, is that the coat was used for one purpose: shortening the render time on the CGI sequences. And in so doing, the brothers Wachowski managed to trigger, or at least feed into, an obsession with the trench-coat.
People think trench-coats are macho. They think trench-coats look awesome. I own a trench-coat, a black one, and I enjoy wearing it, because it is warm and has big pockets. But it has been a long time since trench-coats looked awesome, and the Matrix is why, along with the Matrix's fans, Casablanca's fans, Joss Whedon's fans, and, ultimately, gamers.
I am a gamer. I've done the board game thing, the pen and paper thing; I've walked around at night pretending to be a vampire; I've hit people with padded sticks and shouted out how much damage my magic weapon did. And you know what I've seen tons of? So many tons of them that it has become a running joke? The trench-coat. In particular, the black trench-coat, often the black leather trench-coat. Some of us have dusters. But when I see a trench-coat, I do not think of cowboys, or vampires, or hard-boiled detectives. I think of Vampire LARPers. The symbolic cachet of the trench-coat is not gone; it's just shifted. It has left the shoulders of the badasses and moved to the shoulders of those who want to be them.
There are subversions possible, of course, some of them even clever. Simon R. Green has a main character who is sort of famous for wearing a white trench-coat; and Firefly brought them back around by using them to invoke the image of cowboys. But for the most part, when I see them, I think of guys with inappropriately long hair and a bad dice habit, who are probably using that trench-coat to store a bottle of Coke; and while that image is not there for the population writ large, they are likely to think your main character really, really wants to be Neo.
So if you want to invoke that imagery; or if you're setting it in the Wild West; or if your main character is a nerd or a goth kid or a LARPer; then by all means, go ahead. But otherwise, the trench-coat and the duster are probably not your best bet. And don't go trying to sneak in a greatcoat either; it's really just a trench-coat with muttonchops.
There. I said it. I'm done with telling you what not to write until the end of January, at least; I can't promise much more than that, though. These posts are just so much damn fun, like a class on literary theory wrapped up in razor blades. (I'm also done with similes like that until at least next Friday...)
Labels: criticism
posted by Tyler at
8:04 PM
2 Comments:
You know...there are a great many differences between a trenchcoat and a duster and a greatcoat, most notably that the trenchcoat is doublebreasted and the others are not.
But without getting too deep into squabbles about fashion semantics, what would you suggest for an author to have a character don if, for example, they reside in a location that gets cold in winter?
I mean not everyone has a true double-button breasted veleveteen coat with princess seams and a standing collar that when fully button makes one look like Dr. Horrible's gothy little sister.
What do you suggest characters wear instead?
The Chesterfield is a nice coat, but I think the Inverness might be a tad played out (if Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper have anything to do with it!).
Yes, there are differences, but I have seen all three used with an eye toward the same effect--that being, trying to invoke the general air of power or "cool" inherent in figures like Sam Spade or Neo. My point is not that the trenchcoat and its single-breasted cousins are not acceptable outerwear in the right situation; certainly, if your character lives somewhere that a Gore-Tex coat is going to be the ideal way to stay dry, or where a long double-breasted coat is of use, then they can put it on. It's when characters are given them as a clear image decision on the part of the author that I get annoyed; the vein of symbolism people try to tap with them has been milked dry, and in a way, subverted.
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