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lydia-can-live · 6 years

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Tired of Outlander Drama

I’ll always have the books, which I love, even though DG is problematic as hell. I’ve been here for years. Sam’s casting? I had doubts (this guy? really?...But that “Come on, Sassenach” in the promo was pretty good. Really good.) and Cait? (I thought, “she’s too tall” but then I heard her answer Dougal’s question: “what’s your name lass?” “Claire. Claire Beauchamp” and she was Claire to me. When J&C had their first stand off after she ran away from the highlanders, S&C embodied J&C, for me. “I Guess then that means you’re comin’ w’ me.” Yeah, they got it right. Didn’t we all fall in love with them? I did. I freaking loved it all. Isn’t fandom freakin’ great? I’ve been on every FB group out there (ousted out of the big, nefarious one for talking back to the asshole in charge-kiss my arse, weirdo). I’ve left most of the groups because all they post is Jamie coming out of the Mill Pond. I like to see the BTS Shots. The first time I thought there was something interesting going on between S&C was the pic of them on a horse and he’s talking in her ear and she’s laughing. Hmmm. What’s this? Then the sexy photo shoots. Heart eyes and fingers entwined around awards and C wearing 2 gold rings and their hands joined impossibly together on an antler behind them in a bar? Why do they do this stuff? (I’m just imaging things, right?)

So yeah, it was fun to follow, for awhile. S&C were certainly having a lot of fun. That ping pong paddle Q&A? “You are!”” You are!. “She’s got wifi on set, she’s got wifi in the make up chair....” They were adorable, unfettered, and joyous. We have not seen that version of S&C in a long while. What happened? It just abruptly stopped. The last SDCC? Painful. People love that Josh Horowitz fake therapy session thing? I think it’s forced and weird. The last FB live! thing? Sam and his lame phallic innuendo? Nope.

Anyway, I don’t post much but I read everything. On both sides. Here’s what I think: The anti’s, NST’s, whatever they call themselves are comprised of two levels. The first is an all out PR assault to dissuade people from thinking S&C are together and encourage (through long, lengthy, posts and CAPS, and FACTS, etc.) people to consider another story line. When someone bites, they get rewarded. “Thanks for your input, @blandfollower” or they share the screencaps that thirsty followers submit to “turn in shippers”. Bloggers get a rush from the recognition, they are part of the shake down and keep contributing. It’s an all out war for fandom truth. It’s droll, boring, tedious, and uninspiring. Shippers are the other side. These are primarily women who want to believe in hetero love. That’s not wrong. When I see C hugging S in that chemistry test video I imagine vividly what he feels like, what he smells like. Yes, the pheromone theory certainly applies here. He is a gorgeous man. She is a gorgeous woman. Wanting there to be something between them is natural for some people. If you spoon feed people (women) this romance they will buy it because if you are a cis hetero woman this feels good. You want more of it. S&C and their little videos talking about “do you believe in love at first sight?”, and “ “He’s perfect” and ”So is she” perpetuate the idea of the ultimate heterosexual love and they capitalized on that every step of the way. Think of C feigning jealousy over other “actresses!” Why did she do that? Act jealous of KDS during interviews? It’s all PR. All of that was designed, maybe innocently in the beginning, to draw us in, and then it abruptly stopped. The IFH and all that came with it followed. I don’t have an answer for this. I can’t see T putting his high heeled foot down and saying “no more! She is my woman!” Gah, come on. No matter how many photos of “Tony’s Greatest Hits” are blogged it doesn’t create chemistry. I don’t know what this engagement is but it is weird. As weird as S being in love with a young, conservative, woman who lives thousands of miles away. All of it is PR lies, initiated by Starz and fed through the PR feed hole and propagated by various blogs. Here is what I’ve pondered on regarding people needing the support of a team mate. I had a male co-worker I loved very much. We hugged when things were tough, he was always there for me when I needed anything. He could tell if my mood changed and he wanted to help me sort things out. He was engaged to his girlfriend. He was just a good guy.

That’s what I think Sam is. Just a good, attentive, sweet, masculine (in his own way) kind of guy who offers his large shoulders to lean on for warmth or support. S&C just want to enjoy the fun that is acting. So, they played it up. They saw the hungry women for J&C and they played into it because it was good for the show and good for them and so many of us got caught up in the ride.

Think of what S&C had to deal with when OL first came out. Their first fan event was like “whoa! where did that come from?”. If I had a solid dude to hang on to during something like that I would have stayed close as possible at all times. They have obviously been each other’s champions in all of this from the start. They bonded from the very beginning. They held on to each other as best friends throughout all of this craziness but they went too far with innuendo to sell the show, DVDs, cons, etc. (“hope you find your own sassenach”) It got out of hand and then they had to shut it down. IFH, bearding, Shatner, increased Tumblr opposition, photo ops, pap walks. I’m not going to say much about the whole Shatner thing because I think “JMIAD” had that nailed down with her Camuso post. His part in celeb PR is not exclusive to OL, he’s been trashing celebs and fandoms for years. It’s repulsive and is PR at it’s worst.

But that is how we get our Outlander information now, through PR. PR on TW, JJ, Daily Mail. Fan interaction is shut down. The most popular OL blog has been silenced. You know everyone checked Jess’s blog everyday. Jess was pushed out by aggressive PR that bullied her and her followers. That is how I see it. That is what I have observed. It was shut down to stop the S&C are together story line but it also shut down a huge portion of the fandom. Who cares anymore? These new story lines that CO and Purv are AGGRESSIVELY pushing (see the caps for emphasis? That makes it TRUE!) are boring. Uninspired. They push their story lines so hard it makes me want to take off the painful shoes I’m not wearing. Why are your trying so hard??? I suspect you’re being paid so if you can’t take a break from your PR nonsense just know that there are loads of people who see your “doth protest too much” machinations, and most people think you’re way overselling. And also, yawn. I’ve been gaslighted. I thought about all the times I was accused of “being crazy” because I felt strongly about something my husband couldn’t understand and I thought about my experience in the OL fandom. I’m a fan of many things but this is the first time I engaged online with other fans. What makes it confusing is that in the beginning it was an organic experience, and it was all new for them, That’s why it felt personal for so many people. But assholes overstepped boundaries and fans got weird. People with too much time on their hands ruined this fandom and it was all blamed on shippers because it was the easiest, most effective way to shut down relationship talk. The talk that production and the actors perpetuated for years. S&C are friends but lead people to believe it was something more and then chastised those fans for believing the bullshit they were served up. It’s abusive. Anytime you tell someone they don’t feel what they feel, that is abuse.

TL:DR S&C aren’t a romantic couple. They played it up for years because it sold the show. They aren’t into each other romantically but they love and look after one another. People read into it because people want to believe in the power of love...but love comes in many forms. It doesn’t have to be between a man and a woman and it doesn’t have to be romantic. Production exploited our emotions; S&C exploited our emotions and I’m just sitting here thinking: I’m sure they will enjoy their next holiday. In the meantime, I’ve cancelled Starz. Cheers! Ach, what shite.

#loveislove

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missanthropicprinciple · 6 years

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Super-long rant-review post about Werewolf of London (1935) with images and spoilers...

I love Werewolf of London, this 83-year-old film. It’s got some problems typical of 1930s Hollywood, but I still find a lot of value in it.

The setting, the moonlit hills of Tibet. Accuracy? not so much.

Apparently the “Tibetans” are actually speaking Cantonese...and the white actors are clearly not speaking anything. 30 years before Star Wars and it honestly sounds like they’re speaking Ewok...but it’s just gibberish. I think the only realistic part of this scene is the fact that there actually are bactrian camels in Tibet. At least it’s quite well filmed.

The sequence where Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked by the werewolf is really eerie and holds up well.

The actual bite is so quick but if you screencap that second it’s creepy AF.

Despite the attack, Dr. Glendon gets his coveted “Mariphasa Lupina Lumina” flower (sadly, completely fictitious) and heads back to England.

In his lab, Dr. Glendon lives out his mad-scientist aesthetic surrounded by some high tech equipment. He even gets buzzed by his wife on what is basically an old-timey FaceTime device that lacks audio. Even though we know it’s superimposed footage it’s fairly seamless.

Next we get a little portrait of a marriage. He’s working on an experiment with flowering and artificial light and his wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson) wants to know what the hell he’s up to. He’s secretive and she’s understandably annoyed. But she calls him “dear old bear” which is quite sweet but ironically hints at the animalistic transformation to follow. He says that after the experiment he will try to be more “human” but we know that ain’t gonna happen.

Henry Hull’s accent. It needs its own paragraph. It’s not bad for someone from Louisville, Kentucky, and in fact sometimes it’s really amazing, but other moments it crosses your mind that the dialect coach was out sick that day of shooting. He enunciates very strongly. His jaws much have hurt him a bit. He’s fun to listen to though and you gotta give the guy credit because he doesn’t shy away from being über-Brit.

Enter Lisa’s old childhood sweetheart Paul, played by the adorkable yet suave Lester Matthews. He and Lisa, whom he refers to as “Lee”, reminisce about their joint childhood exploits.

Cue Dr. Glendon’s jealousy:

Understandably, Dr. Glendon is quietly dying inside because he hates all the socializing that comes with being a world-renowned botanist. Seeing another man making his wife smile does not help his mood.

Lookit ‘em; holding hands for heaven’s sake. Aunt Ettie also likes to stir up trouble and add to Glendon’s jealously which isn’t very nice of her.

Side note, Dr. Glendon has some tricked-out plants:

Now we meet Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland).

Warner Oland, who was often cast as Asian characters because he “looked Asian”, was actually Swedish. (One would think that 80 years later this casting of white actors in non-white roles would have come to an end but we’re still dealing with this crap.) While Oland is a fairly good actor, he’s still NOT Asian and it would have been so much better if they had cast Sessue Hayakawa as Yogami as he was not only gorgeous but a better actor.

However, Yogami is implied to be Chinese or Tibetan and Hayakawa is Japanese. Still, if the character was stated as Japanese it would have been perfect. Ironically, later on in the film Aunt Ettie keeps calling him Yokohama which is the second largest city in Japan. And I can’t find the surname Yogami anywhere. I can find Yagami and that’s a Japanese surname, not Chinese or Tibetan as far as I can tell. Oh, Old Hollywood and your stomach-churning whitewashing.

Dr. Yogami says that they met before in Tibet...in the dark. He’s giving him a really big hint that he’s the one who bit him (...either that or he’s implying they met for an evening liaison). Dr. Glendon is trying to piece it together.

Dr. Yogami says, “The medical term is ‘lycanthrophobia’.” WRONG. The medical term is lycanthropy, if being a werewolf was actually real. (The uncommon thing were people grow all the excess facial hair is hypertrichosis.) Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychological condition that is linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and/or clinical depression. (More on that later.)

Here’s a cap of Dr. Yogami intimately stroking Dr. Glendon’s injured arm while making hella awkward eye contact. As modern viewers we may or may not have a strong impulse to read this as somewhat sexual, or maybe as an identification of repressed homosexual desire. Lycanthropy in literature and film mythology has occasionally been used or identified as a metaphor for homosexuality.

In a world where stabbing yourself with a plant gets rid of monthly hair growth. I’m curious to know why it looks like his stabbing it into a dorsal metacarpal vein and not the palmar (inside) side of wrist....medical side of Tumblr help me out here. Maybe they just wanted to feature the hairy hand.

Dr. Yogami essentially asks Dr. Glendon for a blossom of the glow-in-the-dark flower to save his soul (and his fellow botanist as well), albeit in a cryptic way. He says “But remember this Dr. Glendon, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.” Sadly, Dr. Glendon thinks he’s full of crap and ignores his warnings despite knowing that stabbing himself with this rare flower magically makes his moon-grown hand-hair disappear. Dumb or in denial?

So of course Dr. Yogami steals not one, but two flowers. For two of the four nights of the full moon. Technically there is only one night of full moon at any given time but I’m going to give this a pass. Maybe during the time that the moon is still almost full, though waning, it still have the power to change man into the “satanic creature.”

Meanwhile, skeptical Dr. Glendon does a little lycanthropic research:

Lisa drops by and asks him to join her and Paul at a society party but he pegs out or course, and then adds a jibe about not wanting to hear anymore childhood memories. Is the werewolf infection making him bitchy or is he just like that? Hard to tell.

Lisa is hurt. But he says she should go out and enjoy herself. She tries to show him this brocade he bought her but he flips out when she turns on the lights. Presumably being a werewolf makes you sensitive to light.

He responds with the “I put some medicine in my eyes” routine and they clearly don’t buy it.

Seems fake, but ok.

I feel like this is one of many allusions to depression in this film: sensitive to light, wanting to be alone, disliking small-talk and society parties, general introversion and distrust of others. We get a sense that he’s kind of this way anyway at the core of his personality but the werewolf contamination has made that all worse.

Dr. Glendon may be a jerk but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. He really does love her. She’s still too annoyed to reciprocate.

Even his cat’s pissed at him.

When animals start rejecting you, ya know you got problems.

And lo, he thought, “oh shit.”

The moonlight transformation sequence is quite simple by today’s standards of physical and special effects, but it’s still effective. Using the shadows to break up the footage isn’t fooling anyone, especially nowadays, yet it has a kind of fluidity that makes it oddly very evocative.

A word about Jack Pierce’s makeup. Believe it or not it was originally going to look like this:

Oink oink. Thank heavens someone talked Jack into a more minimalist look. Jack Pierce, known for his incredible work on films like Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Wolf Man (1941), to name but a few, appears to have been a tad stubborn depending on the actor he worked with. He had a great relationship with Boris Karloff as far as I’m aware but the harmony working with Hull didn’t last long. There was a rumor going around that Hull was super vain and didn’t want the makeup to obscure his face. The truth of it was there are a couple scenes when Lisa and Paul both recognize him and if the werewolf makeup was applied too heavily, this part of the plot just wouldn’t work. Apparently Hull went over Pierce’s stubborn head straight to Carl Laemmle to fix the problem. The book Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946 by Tom Weaver and John Brunas has more on this. (And in the Svengoolie intro to the film featured on ME TV.) The incident paid off because the final makeup was stellar.

That awkward moment when someone steals your flowers:

Suddenly filled with jealous rage...

...but wait lemme just put my hat and coat on first. If he does that when he’s full-on werewolf can you imagine how much time it takes for him to get ready normally? Diva.

The obligatory party scene...

...with a comic interlude from Aunt Ettie who drunkenly says to “Dr. Yokohama” as she calls him, pointing to a dodgy district visible from her flat, that people there would “knife you for a shilling.” But then they hear the howl of a “lost soul” which is the chilling call of Dr. Glendon and it’s time to go inside.

Drunk lady trope scene. No point in rescuing her she already made a fool out of herself but off they run:

There is a ring of sadness to Aunt Ettie’s drunk scene because she says “she gets so nervous.” Hello social anxiety. She is a tad obnoxious as a character but this part makes her seem so much more sympathetic.

“A-woooooooooooo!”

Ok, that’s not a dog.

Dr. Yogami is quaking in his spats at this point.

Even though you know that this is Dr. Glendon, this remains creepy. Who hasn’t thought of a monster clawing their way into your bedroom late at night? They really milk the suspense in this scene.

Lisa is offended by Dr. Yogami’s seemingly sexist and controlling behavior but in reality he’s trying to save her life. He knows that Dr. Glendon is on the loose and can probably smell her and will likely kill her. But she goes up to comfort her friend anyway.

Cue the “you just had a bad dream” scene. For once Ettie isn’t full of hogwash.

Poor Ettie. Seeing a werewolf will sober you up pretty quick.

Mr. Hyde? Oh wait, wrong movie.

Apparently all young women of a lower class looked like Hollywood starlets back then. Pretty stylish.

This is why I don’t have a Tinder.

Dr. Yogami executes an A+ facepalm. His wrist-leaning skills are classic. 10/10:

I mean, what did he think was going to happen? You can’t blackmail a guy who’s in denial about being a werewolf, it doesn’t work. But then, if he left one flower there you wouldn’t have a second act.

Paul says that it might be a werewolf attack. He’s almost joking but he makes the suggestion anyway. His uncle, head of Scotland Yard no less (now that’s convenient) thinks this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile Dr. Glendon reads about how he accidentally murdered a woman last night:

“You’re being utterly hateful, Wilfred.” She sees that he’s not happy and we all know that he’s past the point of no return. Someone has already died. His bitterness at her relationship with Paul is exacerbated by this revelation. But he doesn’t storm from the room or hurt her. He actually acts like an adult, says he’s sorry, and says that he will go out horseback riding with her after all. A lot of reviewers don’t like his character but I find him continually sympathetic.

Again, it’s a realistic portrayal of a marriage. Dr. Glendon “forbids” his wife to go out on a midnight horseback ride with her ex. As sexist as his I’m-the-man-putting-my-foot-down-with-the-wife routine is, he has a couple genuine reasons for acting this way. He’s worried about her safety cause he knows the moon is gonna make him crazy and he could unintentionally kill her in a fit of jealous rage. And of course he’s ticked off that Lisa is galavanting around with another man. She in turn is appropriately angry with his controlling remarks without having good reason for his concern...plus she wants to prove a point that he’s not making enough time for her in their marriage.

Mrs. Moncaster explains how decking her “dearest friend” Mrs. Whack was an appropriate action to take in the sake of business.

Dr. Glendon calls himself “Singularly single, madam. More single than I ever realised it was possible for a human being to be...” Which seems to evoke qualities of his situation and depression. He feels so isolated.

He prays that this transformation won’t happen again but it does.

“If I ran the zoo I'd let all the animals go” - Dr. Seuss. This is Glendon’s way of causing a distraction so that he can attack another woman but it’s also symbolic of him releasing his inner animalistic nature.

Ya gotta appreciate the special effects:

Dr. Yogmai hails from the University of Carpathia. Here to represent.....an institution that I’m fairly certain doesn’t exist. Unless they mean Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University but that wasn’t established until 1940. Still, he’s a professor of botany so that’s cool. Kind of like Professor Lupin.

Presumably, Dr. Yogami goes to Paul because he’s well connected and he wants to prevent Dr. Glendon from doing anymore damage.

A+ usage of the scary uplighting effect.

Dr. Glendon instructs a servant to lock him in until sunrise. Oh the upper-classes and their odd demands.

Paul still loves her. Duh. She can’t reciprocate because she’s married.

Those bars are toast.

Henry Hull does a great job of prowling with just the right balance between animal and man.

Now that’s a scream:

Paul to the rescue.

Paul recognizes Dr. Glendon. (Thanks, Mr. Hull.)

Dr. Yogami’s rooms “smelled like a kennel" when they found the mutilated maid. Yuck. Did he pee all over the room? Not something anyone likes to think about for too long. Especially the head of Scotland Yard. Just look at his face.

Paul digs through the trash and finds the discarded flowers.

Maybe Paul should work for Scotland Yard instead of his uncle.

Hey how was your trip? So, Hawkins (J.M. Kerrigan) doesn’t think it’s odd that Dr. Glendon is hiding from the police? Does he even know why? Did Glendon tell him “hey I’m a werewolf and I accidentally killed people?” or does Hawkins just give him a pass like “it’s his life and none of my business.”? Well, as the scene suggests, Hawkins clearly does not know because he’s confused by how important this damn flower is to Dr. G.

I have to say, I get this excited about my sweet peas every year so I totally identify with his reaction. #humor

How does he even get into the lab?! Dr. Glendon needs better security or just, ya know, locks.

Somehow Glendon doesn’t see Yogami tip-toeing down the steps. How bad does your peripheral vision have to be?!

"You brought this on me that night in Tibet!” (You don’t say.)

The problem with stealing a plant that only blooms as the moon emerges is that the werewolf might kill you mid-transformation. Exhibit A:

They were both doomed anyway.

Dr. Glendon goes looking for Lisa.

Lycanthropy makes Dr. Glendon strong. Those chintz curtains and flimsy doors are no match for him.

Paul also lacks clear peripheral vision, apparently. Funny how ya don’t see a werewolf perched above a door you’re about to go into.

With all that jumping off buildings, werewolves must be prime candidates for knee replacement surgery.

More great uplighting to do justice to some remarkable makeup:

“It’s Lisa!”

Who the hell is Lisa?

Maybe he remembers at this point. Hard to tell.

A regular bullet does the job. The myth that a werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet most likely dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a humungous wolf is killed by a hunter named "Argent" which is Latin for silver, who uses a gun loaded with silver bullets. The filmmakers clearly don’t feel that this is a necessary part of this movie’s mythology. And in a way, this is a good decision because it makes the werewolf more pitiable and certainly less mythological. If a werewolf has most of the same vulnerabilities as a human, most of the same human rules of existence apply because werewolves are not semi-indestructible. It also just makes werewolves more human and more sympathetic. Werewolf!Glendon is basically afflicted with a kind of disease that could hypothetically be explained by medical science; he isn’t some mythological beast.

We can presume his soul is saved. “Thanks...thanks for the bullet. It was the only way. In a few moments now, I shall know why all of this had to be.”

“Good-bye, Lisa. Lisa – good-bye...I’m sorry...I couldn’t have made you...happier...”

(This is immediately followed by the sound of my heart breaking.) Seriously, this isn’t a guilt trip like he thinks Lisa is some overly-needy wife. He knows that he’s not always equip to give Lisa what she needs out of a relationship. He genuinely feels bad. It isn’t because of the lycanthropy, he was like this before, as a scientist. Did he have depression anyway? He might have. He really does love her and they have an understanding. This is probably some of the best acting in the film, the way that Hull delivers his lines and the look on Valerie Hobson’s face tells you so much.

Thankfully, his death means that he is free of lycanthropy.

The sun comes up.

A plane is in the air, presumably Paul and Lisa are off to California.

And then we get a nice transition into the Universal Studios plane.

What a trip. Hope you enjoyed my rambling. Until next time.

#Werewolf of London #this took me a month to compile #1935 #Henry Hull #Warner Oland #Valerie Hobson #Lester Matthews #old hollywood #whitewashing #classic hollywood #Jack Pierce #werewolves #film reviews #my reviews #long post #movies #films

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