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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

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Well, it’s not quite a master’s thesis, but this is (the first of) a series of posts on why Catra and Adora are the best love story in the history of kids TV animation and maybe the greatest love story in the history of TV. This may in some ways be faint praise - romance on TV is generally not very good compared with books or movies. Often it’s just some will they/won’t they sexual tension that is defused by getting characters together and re-heightened by breaking them up. TV is full of nearly shark jumping pointless dramas like Sam and Diane (Cheers, holy fuck am I dating myself, though that was technically before my time), Ross and Rachel (Friends, which was no Cheers) etc, but also some less annoying couples like Ben and Leslie (Parks and Rec) or Amy and Jake (Bk99) who are mostly just kind of cute and fun. Other shows, like the X-Files, teased viewers for years with unresolved sexual tension. In kids shows most romances are, appropriate for their target viewers, mild, sweet relationships based more on self-conscious flirting and blushing than on complex and conflicted feelings or deep passions - which is pretty realistic when the characters are young teens or even mid-teens. Some of these relationships are really well done - Finn and Flame Princess, Dipper and Pacifica (yeah I ship them), the early stages of Katara and Aang (before the showrunners imbued this childhood crush with cosmic significance), Steven and Connie, etc. Catra and Adora, though, are different. Their love story is not a side plot or a sub plot, it’s the heart of the show. It isn’t a childhood crush, it’s a very messy and passionate relationship between two young adults. She-Ra is an emotionally complex lesbian romance just as much as it is a thrilling action/adventure show. Everything about their relationship is baked into the show’s plot, its themes, hell even its musical score. The dramatic tension between Catra and Adora is not the result of stretching out a flirtation for ratings, but a coherent dramatic arc that runs through the entire show. As Noelle said, he made Catradora so central that execs couldn’t take it out without ruining the show. And the show is better for it. In this series of posts I’m going to try to show why, as well as showing why She-Ra is such a fantastic love story.

First off, let’s talk about how Catra and Adora’s character arcs are foils for each other, and how they come together and apart through the series. This is actually a post that I’ve been working on for a while but I keep summarizing the show rather than cutting to the chase, so I’m not going to recite many plot points so much as sketch out what’s going on with the dramatic structure at the time. But also, let’s talk about what each character’s arc is saying, and how they are commenting on each other. Spoiler alert: Catra’s arc is a subversion and critique of stories of empowerment through ruthless self-assertion and revenge, while Adora’s arc is a subversion and critique of chosen one narratives and stories of self-denial and self-transcendence.

When the show starts, Adora and Catra are shown as rivals and friends - their first scene starts the recurring motif of them reaching out for each other as one of them dangles above an abyss, as well as establishing their flirtatious banter and easy camaraderie. We quickly learn that these two young women plan to conquer the world together. These scenes and later flashbacks show Catra and Adora as deeply enmeshed in each others lives, to the point where neither of them (but especially Catra) have clear identities outside of one another. There is so much genuine love on both sides before Adora leaves, but also resentment, envy and fear, especially on Catra’s side, as well as a protectiveness on Adora’s side that deprives Catra of her autonomy. They are both being abused by Shadow Weaver - Catra physically and emotionally, Adora emotionally. It wouldn’t be too much to say that Shadow Weaver holds Catra hostage to control Adora (this is why critiques that Adora abandoned Catra to be abused are actually kind of messed up, since they accept Shadow Weaver’s premise that Adora is responsible for what Shadow Weaver does to Catra). In addition, Catra and Adora actually see the world incredibly differently. Adora already sees the world in terms of right, wrong and her destiny to right wrongs - this is why it’s important for her to accept the Horde’s obvious lies - she couldn’t keep living if she didn’t. Catra, on the other hand, sees the world solely in terms of survival and personal loyalty - everything for her is about preserving herself and the person she cares about - Adora.

Then, when Adora finds the sword, she leaves because it’s the right thing to do. Catra doesn’t even have a concept of ‘the right thing to do’ being something she should care about, or perhaps, something she can care about as an irredeemably evil, awful fuck-up. So at Thaymor neither one understands where the other is coming from, and Catra and Adora begin to part. This is the first turning point in their relationship. Adora chooses duty over what she desires, Catra chooses to protect herself (such as she sees it) and nurse her sense of betrayal and abandonment.

Their relationship until Promise is a kind of weird Frenemy thing that is fascinating to watch and sold me on the show. Neither one wants to fully admit to themselves that the other is now their enemy, neither one has given up on changing the other’s mind. Each is furious at the other, and desperate to see her again at the same time. There’s a lot of heartache and just as much sexual tension, especially at Princess Prom. Both of them come alive when they fight each other (more about that in a later post). But they’re already growing apart - Adora embracing her destiny as She-Ra, Catra rising in the ranks for the Horde. Adora now has the purpose she always wanted, plus other friends and a sense of being chosen to do something great, while Catra now has power - the means to protect herself from people like Shadow Weaver as well as the vindication she had always been denied, and even the opportunity to beat Shadow Weaver at her own game.

The next turning point is Promise. Holy fuck, this episode. It’s an episode that is even more heartbreaking after you’ve watched the show because you know just how much worse things are going to get, and yet, it’s a necessary part of both of their character arcs. Even through season 1 Catra and Adora had remained very much enmeshed in each others lives in an increasingly fucked up way as they grew apart but refused to turn away from each other. Even though they aren’t -exactly- a romantic couple (Adora doesn’t recognize and acknowledge her feelings until the last episode of Season 5), Season 1 of She-Ra is one of the worst breakups I have seen on TV. As I said in a couple of previous posts, this is the kind of shit that the Mountain Goats write songs about. Everything that was poisoning their love for each other even before episode 1 bubbles to the surface and combines with them fighting on opposite sides of the war to make a truly fucked up situation. In the end, it’s Catra that makes the choice to turn away from Adora. This isn’t a -good- decision. It’s spiteful, and destructive, and based on an outright deluded understanding of their relationship (inspired by Light Hope’s manipulations and her own issues), but it’s in some ways a necessary decision. Catra has been so wrapped up in Adora for so long that she isn’t going to be able to figure out who -she- is without cutting Adora out of her life. And the same is true of Adora.

But each of them do this in about the worst way possible. Catra embraces destruction, ambition, manipulation and outright cruelty, turning the tactics of her abusers against them and against everyone around her. She first triumphs over Shadow Weaver and manipulates Entrapta into trying to corrupt Etheria itself. Meanwhile Adora ‘lets go’ and commits herself to the self-denying mantle of She-Ra. Over the next several seasons, their respective paths will nearly lead both Catra and Adora to their deaths (in the Season 4 finale).

For the next season (counting season 2 and 3 as one) Catra and Adora are still closely linked, but as enemies. Still, there’s more than enough flirtation between them (that ‘Hey Catra’ in the first episode of Season 2 is something else), and especially on Adora’s side we see her hold back with Catra, and often take responsibility for the harm Catra inflicts, just like she had when they were kids. Yet they still drift apart - after facing off every other episode in Season 1, they spend less and less time on screen together through season 2 and 3. Catra continues her ascent to power and descent into villainy while Adora becomes more of a stressed out mess as she takes the fate of the world and the wellbeing of everyone she cares about on her admittedly broad shoulders. Catra’s one moment of vulnerability is rewarded by Shadow Weaver’s betrayal and her exile, then Catra triumphs in ruthless badass fashion through sheer desperation and aggression. In the Crimson Wastes, we see Catra at her most independent, and she almost seems happy. But once Adora shows up and Catra hears about Shadow Weaver, she’s sucked back into the worst of her resentments, and she makes very clear that being happy is less important to her than making sure Adora is miserable.

This changes everything. Catra completely breaks with reality and tries to kill Adora, herself and the world rather than lose to Adora and Shadow Weaver (I do think it’s important to remember that she does that after Shadow Weaver nearly kills her). Catra betrays everyone around her when she exiles Entrapta, threatens Scopria and lies to Hordak. Then she flips the switch. When Adora tries to fix things, Catra fights to her own death to make sure that the world disintegrates with her. For her part, Adora fights first to understand what is wrong with the world and then to fix it. Finally she tells Catra that destroying the world is her choice and she has to live with it, decks her, and then sees her off with a death glare once the portal is closed. With this, Adora writes Catra off even if, as she says later, she never never hated her. By doing that, Adora casts off the guilt that had dogged her and takes responsibility for her own life rather than someone else’s - this is actually a huge step for her, and one that will become more important in Season 4.

Season 4 is in many ways the nadir of their relationship. They only see each other once during the entire season, in Fluterrina, when Adora tries to blast Catra, much to the latter’s shock. There’s a sense in that scene that Catra is trying to have the same flirtatious enmity she used to have with Adora, and Adora is having none of it. Catra almost seems hurt by this, which is an early hint at how isolated Catra is beginning to feel. Catra spends the rest of the season at her highest and lowest. On the one hand she spends most of 12 episodes winning by every standard she has ever claimed to care about, besting Hordak himself in single combat and making herself co-ruler of the Horde and coming within a day’s march of ending the Rebellion. In many ways it is the ultimate empowerment fantasy - the abused young woman has defeated her abusers, showed up everyone who doubted her and forced everyone to respect her. But I think it’s striking that the show starts with her and Adora dreaming of conquering the world together and in Season 4 Catra nearly succeeds in conquering it alone, almost like she was trying to live out her old shared fantasy while proving she didn’t need her former best friend.

At the same time, Catra is clearly miserable. She’s always been unhappy, but in Season 4 we see her completely isolated and lying to herself and everyone who will listen in a desperate attempt to justify her actions. Turning the tactics of Hordak and Shadow Weaver against them to gain power and then against Scorpia and Entrapta to maintain it haven’t vindicated Catra, they’ve made her more and more alone as Entrapta is exiled and Scorpia drifts away. Meanwhile Catra reaches out to Double Trouble, and her interactions with them reek of a kind of desperate desire to have someone in her life (the feeling of their interaction is of an unhealthy casual relationship where one partner becomes emotionally invested and the other takes advantage of that while denying the other the closeness they desire). As people leave her, one after the other, it becomes clearer and clearer that Catra doesn’t want power at all - she wants connection, friendship, love, and power is a very poor replacement. As I said in my long Catra rant, Season 4 is both her ‘Walter White as a Catgirl’ season and the beginning of her redemption. Everything comes to head when Sparkles destroys everything Catra has tried to achieve, Double Trouble delivers those harsh truths and Horde Prime shows up and makes it all irrelevant, just highlighting how futile all her struggles and sacrifices and crimes have been.

Meanwhile Adora spends Season 4 becoming her own her and her own woman. After telling off Catra, she grows more and more disillusioned with Light Hope and critical of Glimmer (though the latter has more than a shade of her old habit of taking responsibility for others - Adora’s development is not linear). She’s gained the courage and confidence to strike out her own path, not just follow a destiny. At the season’s end she once again breaks with her best friend to do what is right, and discards the destiny that she was being prepared for. But in this case she isn’t chasing one packaged destiny for another, instead she’s making her own choice and literally shattering the thing that she thought gave her life purpose. It’s badass, and heartbreaking, and along with decking Catra and jumping after Catra into the abyss (see below) it’s the perfect Adora moment.

In many ways Season 5 starts with Catra and Adora farther apart than they have ever been. They aren’t even enemies anymore, they’re completely out of each other’s lives. And both Catra and Adora are lost at the beginning of Season 5 - Catra is useless and alone on Prime’s ship, completely defeated despite ostensibly being on the winning side, and she goes through the motions of her normal plotting without any particular conviction and none of her normal flair. Meanwhile Adora is even more miserable and self-destructive than usual, throwing herself at Horde Bots and working herself until she drops of exhaustion. In a very real way they both stay lost until they have a chance to help the other. Catra takes responsibility for what she’s done and what she can do, saves Glimmer (at least partly for Adora’s sake), apologizes to Adora, and sacrifices herself. Adora only seems to come alive when she decides to turn around, face Prime, and save the cat. And when she does, Catra and Adora’s arcs, which had separated so completely in season 4, come crashing back together to end the series.

Adora during Save the Cat is such a contrast with the uncertain, hesitant and self-destructive wreck we’ve seen so far in Season 5. This is possibly her craziest plan in 3 years of mostly cazy plans, but she never wavers or questions herself. Even when Chipped Catra appears and we see Adora’s heart break while we watch, Adora doesn’t back down or relent. She keeps at it even as the tears stream down her face. She fights better trying to save Catra without She-Ra’s powers than she fought at the Battle of Bright Moon with them. Catra’s just about as desperate - we see her cry and plead, and now is probably as good a time to any to point out how amazing a job both VAs did throughout the show, but especially in this episode, and how good a job the board artists did.

Seeing each other for the first time in a year, and only the second time since Catra blew everything up, Catra and Adora are probably the rawest and least restrained we’ve ever seen them. There’s barely any banter, no bravado, and no pretense that they are anything other than two women who desperately need each other (Prime doesn’t help with ‘You broke my heart’.) Then Catra is flung to her death, Adora jumps after her, breaks both her legs in the fall (we see her crawl to Catra, as though she couldn’t walk) and becomes the real She-Ra. It’s such a triumphant and deeply queer moment seeing a woman transformed into a warrior goddess to protect the woman she loves, and it’s the reason that, as dark as it is, Save the Cat is my Comfort Food episode.

Let’s not sleep on Taking Control, though. This episode is like a microcosm of what this show does best, especially the A plot with Catra and Adora. Catra’s reversion to lashing out at everyone and her refusal to be open to Adora shows just how much of a struggle this whole ‘being good and trying to connect to people’ thing is. Catra’s outburst gives Adora a chance to stand up for herself and refuse to be Catra’s punching bag, while also not trying to control her. Adora’s ultimatum gives Catra a chance to reach out to Adora (quite literally), and allow herself to be vulnerable. In this episode, we see just how far Catra and Adora have come since the messed up stew of their relationship in Season 1. Adora lets Catra be responsible for her own actions; Catra lets herself be vulnerable to Adora and takes responsibility for her actions. They’re both better people and better friends and better partners than they were, and the show has shown this in a strikingly nuanced and realistic way.

The important thing to note in the next few episodes of Season 5 isn’t just how much closer Catra and Adora get to each other and how much they flirt (So much. So much, y’all) but just how -happy- they are. We see both of them transformed in the other’s presence. Basically, since they’ve parted, both Catra and Adora have been defined in no small part by how miserable they often are. They have both had their triumphs and their lighter moments, but there’s been a sense of melancholy dogging both Catra and Adora since episode 1. And now that they’re together again, that lifts, somewhat. Catra’s verbal barbs have lost their venom, and she can openly show how much she cares for Adora and even Bow and Glimmer. She’s still herself - snarky, cynical, somewhat devious - but she’s not engaged in a self-destructive zero-sum struggle with everyone around her. Meanwhile Adora has spent 4 seasons being a neurotic and sometimes nearly joyless mess who takes responsibility for everything and often doesn’t let herself enjoy anything other than the odd BFS group hug (exceptions include trying to uh...impress Huntara and reveling with the butterfly ladies of Elberron in Flutterina). Around Catra, though, she’s a cocky, swaggering jock who gives as good as she gets. It’s a side of Adora we’ve only seen hints of before, and one that’s so much more confident and joyful even as the world is ending around her. Apart, Catra had tried to protect and vindicate herself with power and conquest, while Adora had tried to forget herself in duty and sacrifice. Together, they can be themselves again. This dynamic is crucial to the show’s portrayal of Catra and Adora’s romance because it doesn’t just show how much they love each other, but how they’re -good- for each other now that they’ve grown as people, and that they are so much better than they were when they were apart.

Until Shadow Weaver shows up. Their old abuser reintroduces tensions but even then things are different than they were. Now Catra isn’t just resentful of how Shadow Weaver prefers Adora - she’s protective of Adora, which is clearest in Failsafe when she calls Shadow Weaver out for being willing to sacrifice Adora. And while Adora takes the Failsafe, it isn’t to follow her destiny or because she has a death wish - it’s because she loves her friends, and she is the only one who has any hope of doing this and living (though Catra’s suggestion that Shadow Weaver take it is a good one). And finally, when Catra leaves Adora, it isn’t because she hates Adora, nor, despite what she says, is it because she really thinks that Adora chose Shadow Weaver. At least, not exactly. It’s because Catra loves Adora, and can admit that to herself, and can’t stay around and watch the woman she loves sacrifice herself rather than choosing Catra. Before Catra leaves, she asks Adora ‘What do you want?” It’s a question that echoes Shadow Weaver’s speech in Episode 1: ‘isn’t this what you always wanted since you could want anything?’ As much as Adora has grown as a person, and defined herself and stood up for what she thinks is right, she still has never answered that question - it’s never been ‘what do I want’ but ‘what do I have to do?’ and that’s how Adora answers Catra’s question. This is Adora’s last gasp as a self-transcending hero, letting go of what she wants (not that she ever dared articulate what that was) in order to do what must be done. And it nearly kills her and dooms the universe, because Adora can’t be the hero that she needs to be by being anyone less than herself.

But it’s losing Catra that inspires Adora to tell off Shadow Weaver for good (not that she’d ever really warmed to her after season 1). And it’s love for Adora that inspires Catra to stand up to Shadow Weaver and demand that she do the right thing. In both cases, Catra and Adora aren’t just standing up to their abuser, but holding her to account for the harm she’s caused, and it’s the love that they have for each other that inspires them to do this. In Catra’s case in particular her refusal to let Shadow Weaver weasel out of finding Adora is a much greater triumph over Shadow Weaver than beating her up and breaking her mask in Season 1 - it’s proof not so much to Shadow Weaver but to Catra herself that Catra really is better than this and that she deserves better than this. It’s not turning her abuser’s tactics against her, but truly holding her to a moral standard and demanding that she do the right thing.

And then there’s Catra and Adora together at the heart. Catra has already come back for Adora and stayed to the end, choosing to die with her even if she can’t share a life together (not out of some death wish, but because Adora needs her). And Adora, who’s been avoiding answering the question for three fucking years, finally let’s herself want Catra when Catra finally confesses her love (breaking the last of her self-protective shields) and asks Adora to stay -for her-. And by admitting what she wants, Adora can truly be at peace with herself and be the hero she needs to be, lesbianism saves the universe, The End.

So anyway, that’s how Catra and Adora’s stories are woven together and how they compliment and comment on each other. Narrativiely, Adora and Catra start together, come apart, find something of themselves, and truly find themselves and each other when they are reunited. Thematically, they are critiquing seemingly opposing narrative tropes - empowerment narratives and narratives of self sacrifice. But by showing the flaws in both types of story and showing how neither self-seeking empowerment nor self-negating self sacrifice can actually make us happy, She-Ra asks and answers more profound questions than most prestige dramas for adults do. I’ll get into how the show sells the idea that the power of love can bring us happiness (and save the world) in a future post. But next up, I’m going to celebrate just how much Catra and Adora’s relationship revels in ambiguity, complexity and contradiction and so tells a grown up love story in a kid’s show.

#she ra #she ra spoilers #she ra adora #spop #catradora #she ra netflix #she ra and the princesses of power #goat ship #long #meta

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kaleidoscopic-quiddity · 2 years

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things i really loved about episode 10

(in no specific order because i can’t choose a single favourite thing)

the fact that homophobia is still nowhere to be found in bad buddy! i was worried it was gonna become a thing in the plot now that the parents have found out about pat and pran but i was happily surprised. i know stories about homphobia and the real lived experiences of mlm are both important and relevant, and absolutely deserve to get told, but its just nice to see a queer story that’s still engagingly dramatic without needing to use bigotry to create said drama

ink and pa getting together!!! congratulations lesbians i am so proud. i was kinda worried that inkpa would remain as just a teased relationship that would never actually come to anything but im so happy that bad buddy took the plunge and had them explicitly state their feelings for each other, and in the cutest and sweetest fuckin way possible

pa’s coming out scene with pat. i love that a big deal wasn’t made of her sexuality, no ‘have you always liked girls?’, no ‘ but i thought you were straight?’, just pat being a supportive big bro and telling her ‘you like anyone you want’

bad buddy once again subverting old and tired BL tropes by having the whole ‘unsupportive parents find out about their sons’ relationship’ bring pat and pran closer together, not split them apart in a dumb last minuet breakup for extra drama

speaking of the parents: chai was the underrated king of this episode, whilst i do thing he couldve done more to support pran and stand up to dissaya, i love that he was aware of pat and pran’s relationship and was chill and supportive about that, especially since in the BLs its usually the father’s who are the most vitriolically homophobic

korn blatantly fucking flirting with wai, i was laughing my way through that entire scene and im so happy pat and pran’s friends are finally getting along

pat declaring his love for pran in front of the entire architecture faculty, we stan a lovestruck himbo

all the fucking allusions to marriage/engagement this episode??? like i see you 👀 you aint subtle 👀

bad buddy clowning on dumb BL tropes yet again by directly making fun of the ‘they’re in love but are actually secretly brothers thing’, i just love how clear the production and actors are about how they find stuff like that just as stupid as we do

pat and pran’s visit to the high school being interspersed with ‘aw babe you had a crush on me? thats so embarrassing’ ‘we’re dating’ ‘still’ vibes, i completely love how even tho theyre together now pat and pran still love teasing each other and competing over sily things like who fell first

god i know it was a heart breaking scene but pran breaking down in pat’s arms really speaks to his character development, the fact that he no longer feels like he has to hide his pain and that he willing lets himself be supported by someone who loves him, i was also totally crying

also!!! pat’s silent tears? the way he was clinging to pran just as tightly as pran was cling to him?? the head/neck caressing? the ‘lets get away from here?’, my heart hurt so much i was literally clutching my chest

the fact that wai finding out pa already liked someone (and that that someone was a girl) wasnt used to create another jealously plotline or to make wai into a sexist/lesbophobic/incel antagonist but was instead a comedy beat was so relieving for me

pran standing up to his mum had me cheering out loud, hes literally come so far in these 10 eps

and the fact that what she’s done to him, plus the fact that she hit him, wasnt played off as just ‘oh thats how asian/strict parents are’ or ‘well it wasnt even that hard of a slap’ but was instead clearly shown as something serious and genuinely detrimental to pran

he was only there for one scene but korn stole this episode for me, literally every moment hes on screen is hilarious and drake brings such a fun energy to his character

pran’s love song!!!! nanon’s singing voice is so beautiful and im betting now a complete version of the song is going to be used during a big romantic moment (perhaps a proposal???)

its little thing but the way that ink, a taller and older upperclassman giving gifts to pa and flirting with her is very clearly shown as cute and flirtatious and well received by pa, not as a creepy or predatory behaviour, bad buddy rlly said ‘we’re gonna have our sapphics be just as dorky and sweet as our main boys’

the fact that dissaya and ming’s dispute wasnt over a bad break up, or being cheated on, or some other lowkey sexist reason (crazy ex gf trope anyone?) but instead was about a very real issue that effected dissaya’s future

and, the fact that all of that is not used to excuse how she treats pran or to try and suddenly make her ‘sympathetic’ or ‘understandable’ in her awful parenting

this one’s technically episode 11 but pat asking ‘can i kiss you?’ is genuinely so important to me. itd be so easy to have a big dramatic scene where pat pulls pran into a surprise kiss and the music swells and blah blah blah but instead its shown that even in well established relationships consent is not only still important, but can be very sweet and romantic too

#bad buddy #patpran #pat napat #pran parakul #bad buddy spoilers #bad buddy the series #bad buddy ep 10 #og post //

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walkuntilthedaylight · 3 years

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The people have spoken! How can I not give them what they want?

I'm gonna put this all under a cut, since it's a bit long, and also because it's highly interpretative/speculative and not everyone likes those kinds of posts as they can be rather subjective and, I suppose, invasive. I want to give two major caveats to my thoughts below: first is that I tend not to buy the idea that Paul was the "stable/normal" Beatle, mostly b/c I view marijuana dependency and workaholism as addictions and I take them pretty seriously. Second is that I really do love this kind of tabloid/gossip/personal account shit; I think it should be taken with a handful of salt, but I don't think it should be entirely dismissed out of hand either. I read this stuff like I'm piling up sheets of stained glass: I'm intrigued by the places where the colours blend and overlap, and ignore things that fall outside the prism. Anyway, let's dig in:

Okay, so what I found fascinating about 'Body Count' is that it's one of the only sources which observes Paul McCartney's mental health during the period between the India trip and when the band breakup really got rolling. I think it's overall a fairly self-absorbed text that definitely has some lies and exaggerations peppered in there to make things spicier and more dramatic, but its broad characterization - as I mentioned in my first post - isn't exactly libelous or out of left field. Some elements that make me think it's generally if not wholly authentic are: Paul's simultaneously forceful and dorky seduction style, his terrible Liverpool diet and poor housekeeping, the bouts of thrill-seeking recklessness, avoidant adventure crafting, dark moods when drinking non-socially, the occasional hot and cold bouts with the Apple Scuffs camped out at his gate, and the way in which he underplays his drug habit, which is SO "in truthfulness we spent most of the filming of Help! slightly stoned":

These details are so bizarrely specific and have significant overlap with both sympathetic and spurned personal accounts of Paul I've read in the past, so I believe Francie is just telling "Her Version Of The Truth" here rather than crafting a piece of pure fiction. The most important and revealing anecdote in the book is this one.

There's no reason not to believe this is a fairly accurate representation of something that actually happened, imo, since we know that anxious purse strings were an ongoing issue in the unusual turnover rate within the band Wings, and there are plenty of confirmed and rumoured cases alike of extended family members feeling entitled to a "piece of the pie"; this is just like, the kind of thing that happens to working class people who get catapulted into fame and fortune. And Paul in particular already had deep-seated financial anxiety for whatever reasons he'll never fully admit (as is his right, but I think his offhand claim that he "once heard some adults arguing about money and that's why" might actually be alluding to having heard some adults - y'know, like his parents - arguing over money fairly frequently). What esp interests me about the anecdote is the way Paul seems to connect the conflict b/t his dual "identities" with these financial expectations. Perhaps the CAPSLOCK emotional hysteria related in the book is puffed up for drama, but it does bring to mind one of the most revealing comments Linda ever made about their relationship, which is that Paul needed to be told he would still be loved when the cameras weren't rolling. And that's the thing: Francie caught Paul at the exact moment that the pillars of his Smile-For-The-Camera "Beatle" identity were collapsing; the dissolution of his relationships with John and Jane.

Whatever all this could possibly mean re: the breakup of the Lennon-McCartney partnership is a post for another time. What I wanna do instead is apply the level of speculation we usually reserve for that relationship to the endpoint of Paul and Jane's courtship.

So like, Paul and Jane: I know people are resistant to this specific POV, but I honestly just don't... think it was that deep? "Not deep", mind you, doesn't mean "not significant". Paul was obviously Jane's first love (u never forget), but the feeling I get from Paul's side (as a subconscious process I mean) is that Jane's importance was primarily as a lynchpin in his London Socialite persona. He loved her family, he loved the friend group, the artistic scene dating her gave him access to, as well as the leg up he got in the class system, etc. He liked to be the kind of guy who was dating Jane Asher. But I don't know that he was the guy who was dating Jane Asher, you get me? When people describe their "great love" they accidentally tell on them (Cynthia innocently describing Paul as being pleased to have her on his arm like a trophy; John: "it was an ordinary love scene"; Alistair Taylor noting that Paul was humiliated by the breakup). Paul's a serial monogamist who U-Hauls like a lesbian, of course, so he definitely took the relationship VERY seriously, but it's telling that all of his love songs to her were either about hitting a brick wall in arguments (certainly not dreamy, fond, yearning of "sunday morning fights about saturday night"; and occasionally expressing hints of class tension too), or completely non-descript Guy With A Guitar Trying To Get Laid shit. I could extrapolate a lot about Linda just from listening to McCartney I/RAM and the Wings discography, but 'And I Love Her' doesn't tell me a single thing about Jane besides that she's pretty. It could be about literally anyone the same way 'My Love' or 'Maybe I'm Amazed' could only be about his dynamic with Linda. Some of this is obviously the natural result of getting older and gaining emotional maturity; what I'm saying is that Paul's behaviour and self-expression in this relationship does not suggest to me that it was one in which his emotional maturity was able to develop or flourish.

I want to stress again that I don't think this belittles the significance of the relationship or makes it "bad" or "fake". Like, sometimes hot people just date for a while in their teens and twenties and love each other without necessarily unlocking their inner emotional cores, usually because they don't know how to. It's, like, fine. You need to experience relationships like that as stepping stones. I simply believe that this sort of front-facing social importance being prime in the romance is a major factor in why it ultimately didn't work (and probably in Linda's reported lingering jealousy of Jane, who wasn't just an ex, but also a symbol of the life Paul ditched to build a new identity w/ her, and sometimes still pined for). With Jane, Paul was dating the "right" kind of girl (didn't put out on the first date, erudite and middle class, as serious about her career as he was, a good "celebrity" match), but the relationship often wasn't doing what he wanted it to do. Francie's observation is that by 1968 it also wasn't doing what he needed it to do either. This is the overwhelming "mood" in her affair with Paul McCartney: that he needed something very badly from a romantic partner that he just was NOT getting, and Francie couldn't figure out what it was either:

(note that she means "queer" as in "mad", not "gay")

This was an EXTREMELY roundabout way of asking: well, what WAS it that Paul needed a relationship to do for him? And I think this is Francie's big, accidental insight. The most scandalous claim in 'Body Count' is that Paul told Francie that he hit Jane and it "turned her on".

I personally think this is p. absurd absent any real proof to back it up, but like, what is Francie actually saying HE'S saying here? If she's exaggerating or lying, she's trying to make it believable within the psychological parameters laid out, right? It's not an expression of some secret desire to dominate women she's accusing him of, but emotional disturbance and confusion at the idea that the woman he was with might like that sort of forceful, masculine violence more than his softer, feminine side, which he was - yeah, we all know it - deeply insecure about.

Regardless of whether specific details are true or false (and I think there's both in this story, all hyper-magnified to make it, y'know, a ~STORY~), I think what might be true is the emotional undertow of the retelling, that this all taken together is actually representative of the side of Paul McCartney she was exposed to, at a time when his public and private facades had both become unbearable to the point of cracking and the drug-fueled optimism of the Summer of Love was getting scrubbed off of everyone and everything. It's the Paul McCartney who eviscerated frogs because he was worried he was too "soft" for compulsory military service. The Paul who modelled his masculine teen behaviour off John Lennon's fake "Marlon Brando" swagger, but was actually more fond of the velvet "Oscar Wilde" interior.

What's SO FASCINATING about all this to me, is I deeply believe that one of the key factors in what makes The Beatles music so unique and compelling is that both the songwriters experienced psychological strain from the tension b/t their parochial socially-defensive "masculine" pride, and their sensitive "feminine" core, the latter of which they were able to express in the unburdened emotionality of their music. The reason I care about doing these totally unhinged psych analyses is because I do think it reveals something about the underpinnings of the music, as well as the reasons why the band was such a hysteria-inducing phenomenon (the rise of psychology, imo, is almost as important as the rise of industrialization as a defining factor of the modern and postmodern eras; mass psychology can be understood and wielded in precise ways, and The Beatles were one of the first empires built on that). The subconscious drives caused by this tension have been ENDLESSLY picked apart re: John's psyche, but Paul's "mirrored" issues are very under-discussed (mostly b/c he's still alive so people are a little more leery about putting him on the "couch" as a historical figure). 'Body Count', intentionally or not, painted a portrait to me of someone who was drowning in their own ill-fitting celebrity "suit", collapsing under the weight of "Being" "Paul McCartney". A guy who desperately needed some sort of space to be vulnerable without feeling emasculated for doing it. By 1968, there was no one in his life anymore - and maybe there hadn't been for a while, or ever - who was giving him this space.

In other words: the thing he needed to avoid going "stark raving queer and killing himself" was simply someone who would love him 'after the ball'.

EDIT: read the comments for further clarification and discussion! ;)

#/#//#///#////#/////#the beatles #mccharmley #analysis #long post #Talking About Paul The Way I Talk About John lmfao #Taking Tabloid Bullshit Seriously #(if not literally)#*gets out my fake spectacles and jumps into the psychiatry armchair*#idk if i laid out my thoughts v well here but i hope it satisfied all the people who asked #i also tried to warn what genre of post it was for those who hate this kinda thing lol #i feel like i have more to say re: how toxic 'The Beatle' facade got for all of them by this point #and paul and john's mirrored post-india breakdowns #but francie's perspective is specifically on how it felt to be the girl he used to divebomb his relationship with jane asher SO

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embershroud108 · 2 years

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Thank you so much for taking your time responding me ! I love your analysis so much ! If you don't mind me asking other asks I was wondering if you could make a post with the breakup scene under the rain between Vi and Caitlyn because I still can't understand why they decided to make such a scene ? Why Vi had to tell Cait such things ? Also I I don't play LOL but you seem to have lot of infos concerning the characters like when you write about the time Vi spend at Stillwater.Where have you find?

Sure, I don't mind :) Ahhh the angsty rain breakup scene! Yeah, so initially when I first watched that scene it reminded me of a line from a Chris Isaak song ("there will be no soft goodbye, no slow walk in the rain") and I just started laughing which is not the reaction I think the writers were going for. xD But I just found it so funny because of how tropey and stereotypically romantic that scene was, like we were suddenly watching The Notebook or something. But see the thing is Arcane leans heavily on a lot of tropes, but for the most part it's able to execute them well AND subvert them in really interesting, and usually emotionally devastating, ways. The CaitVi breakup scene is drawing on and invoking a tried and true key structural element of a lot of romantic stories, or stories with a significant romantic subplot (especially in movies) where two characters who have a blossoming romance hit some kind of serious roadblock in their relationship. Something comes between them, like there's some sort of misunderstanding, one character feels like the other has betrayed them, the stress of the events of the rest of the story drive them apart, etc. This is the Lowest Point of their plot and it's used to build dramatic tension which will then be cathartically resolved when the lovers end up overcoming their obstacles and triumphantly getting together at the end. So the rain breakup scene is Vi and Caitlyn's Lowest Point, because Vi is basically giving up on the relationship (I'll get more into why a bit later) and it looks like they're going their separate ways never to see each other again. It's also the point at which their romance goes from subtext (which had been building since episode 5) to full on text. Like they basically smack the audience in the face with how much these two are in love with each other in such an obvious way I think at least partially because a significant portion of audiences often miss (or are willfully blind to) romantic tension between characters of the same sex (I think this is particularly true for lesbian couples). And then, as if the rain scene wasn't enough, on top of that later in the episode, as a kind of thematic continuation, they had Caitlyn's angsty thirst scene in the shower to make it as obvious as possible that these two, or at the very least Caitlyn, is very much in love. Another thing I think the rain breakup scene (as well as the shower scene) does is it very strongly suggests that Something happened between the two of them in the first half of the episode. So, on the morning of the day that episode 8 takes place on, after Caitlyn gets her wound treated, she comes back into her bedroom where she and Vi have a heart-to-heart, the most tender moment between them to date, Caitlyn brushes Vi's cheek, Vi takes her hand and then....there's a hard cut away and we don't see the two of them again until several hours later when they go to address the council. Amanda Overton confirmed on Twitter that this time gap was intentionally suggestive. I've said before that it's basically missing scene fanfic bait. But my main point here is that, the way Caitlyn and Vi act towards each other ("what about us" "wasn't meant to be") during the rain scene does not really make sense unless there was more significant physical affection between them during those missing hours. I'm not saying outright sexual since they would both have been exhausted from their adventures in the undercity and the fight on the bridge, but I think at least very intimate sleeping together (and I mean actual sleeping here lol). Now, like I suggested before, the breakup scene (and by extension the Caitlyn shower scene) is largely meant to build dramatic tension which is further built on and ratcheted up when Jinx kidnaps Caitlyn. Jinx's later threats to kill Caitlyn have so much more impact because we know (more or less) how Vi and Caitlyn feel about each other as established during the breakup scene, and further reenforced by Vi's panicked reactions to the head-on platter fakeout, and Jinx's threats to shoot Caitlyn. Also the fact that Vi left Caitlyn basically heartbroken makes Caitlyn's possibly imminent death even more scary and potentially tragic.

I could say a lot more to say about how the ViCait romantic subplot is tentatively resolved in the final climax of the season, but that will have to wait for a part 2, if you're interested. Earlier I said my initial reaction to the rain scene was (inappropriate) laughter because of how blatant the romantic tropes were. On repeat viewings I did end up connecting to the sadness and tragedy of that scene (which is probably more what they were going for) because it does reveal a lot about especially Vi's (bad) headspace, especially in light of what she does later in episode 8 and 9. I've argued elsewhere that Vi has been thoroughly conditioned to accept the pathological, systemic social inequality between Piltover and Zaun, first by Vander's mentorship and then later by her experience in prison. Her "oil and water" speech here drives that home because she compares the social system to an immutable physical law. This makes her think that on some fundamental level she and Caitlyn are incompatible as a couple, which is a staple of Lady and the Tramp-type romances, where two characters from wildly different socio-economic backgrounds end up falling in love. At some point in stories like that at least one of the characters starts to feel like the differences between their backgrounds are insurmountable. Secondly, and more subtly (much more on the level of subtext), and I think more interestingly, you can really feel Vi's past mistakes and self-contempt weighing on her during the rain scene. Everyone in her life she has cared about is dead or horribly corrupted and it's her fault (or at least that's what I think she thinks). Now just as she's developing deep feelings for Caitlyn, it scares her because she thinks Caitlyn will also end up dead or corrupted if she sticks with her, which I think is what's partially behind her telling Caitlyn to just go back to her house and forget her (Jinx isn't the only one who feels like she destroys everything she loves). As part of that I think Vi, after the failure with the council, is mentally preparing herself to make one last ditch attempt to save her sister, or failing that, at least exact revenge on Silco, which may be a suicide run, and she doesn't want to drag Caitlyn down with her and get her hurt or killed in the process. Also, you asked about my reference to Vi's prison records. Those are included in the "Council Archives" which are basically extra materials Riot released alongside the show that give further insight into Jayce, Vi, Caitlyn, and Jinx. Found here: https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Council_Archives

#arcane #spoilers #piltover’s finest #analysis #council archives #ask

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wings-of-a-storm · 3 years

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One of the things I hate most about the way the love triangle was handled, other than the fact that it literally came out of nowhere, is the fact the writers decided to throw all these (real) relationship problems at Venji to give Victor the excuse to get close to someone else. Plus the fact that Rahim said he didn't mean to get between them, but he had no problem sweeping in and telling Victor how he felt and kissing him after witnessing Venji arguing. He saw his opportunity and he took it.

Anon, I love your passion.

To start with, yeh, I think it was a disservice to Victor and Benji to skip over a lot of their honeymoon period just because it was too smooth-sailing and not dramatic enough for television. To start the season focusing a lot on the outside forces making them sad and putting strain on their relationship pretty much biases people against Venji before they’ve had a fair chance to show their strengths. The average viewer isn’t going to spend time imagining the good stuff but will only focus on the emotions right in front of them -- the tough stuff. It gives an unbalanced perception that their relationship is just full of tension from the get-go. Throw us a bone, writers!

The Love Triangle:

Okay, to be fair to Vahim, I don’t think the love triangle completely came out of nowhere. The direction/camera-work did show us a lot of small breadcrumbs leading up to their day out, like prolonged stares and white privilege connection and Victor openly oogling Rahim’s naked torso. But that being said, an attraction to another human and a new friendship that covers a few areas that weren’t previously being covered does not automatically lead to a love triangle dilemma. It just means Victor has eyes and room for all sorts of friendships, you know? So in that sense, it did feel (for me) like the love triangle was kind of an over-the-top reaction for Victor once it eventually appeared…

I really feel you with the frustration of the writers throwing ‘challenges’ at Victor and Benji, not so they can work on them like all new couples, but to justify space for a third party to wiggle through for dramatic purposes…

Like, a few times the situations felt less like an organic occurrence and more like a plot device -- namely whenever Victor had to explain anything to Benji without actually explaining anything. The ‘lesbian aunt with a thing for dachshunds’ was meant to mean something obvious to Benji, same with Adrian referring to Benji as Victor’s ‘french toast’ as a sign of acceptance. Would Victor really be that continually obtuse as to explain things only via in-joke phrases that Benji obviously was never present for to de-code?? I kept having to suspend my disbelief for that level of ineptitude and vacancy…

I also had to suspend my disbelief for the climax of Victor’s dilemma in the final episode. Like, it is canon that Victor made a hell of a lot of deep and varied memories with Benji throughout season one, over the summer we never got to see much of between seasons, and then throughout season two (eg. the secret hand signal of epic sappiness that contained Benji’s patience and sacrifice and touched Victor enough to come out at school; the peaceful and meaningful I Love You exchanges in the early morning light, etc).

These were Moments and they happened over months. And yet we were meant to organically believe that the very recent memories with Rahim, as charismatic as he is, would be on equal footing with a developed relationship? Even just with memory recall, wouldn’t that be like short-term memory versus the deeper retention of long-term? So I could understand Victor’s confusion while he was still in shock/processing the kiss, but it felt a bit forced to have that lead to an actual Dilemma of who to choose that very night…

Rahim S2 VS Victor S1:

Ah yes, Rahim making his move was an interesting one… With only season two in mind, I confess I can’t really blame Rahim for making his move. He was longing to experience a relationship, he really connected with Victor, he saw Benji was probably prepping for a breakup and the time was near, and he is a romantic who saw his chance to confess his feelings instead of always regretting staying silent. And since he is a romantic, notions like ‘fate’ and ‘timing’ would inspire him to want to go for it in case it was fate that Benji and Victor were having problems because Rahim is The One meant for Victor. Like I totally get that mindset, especially in high school where anything feels possible.

But with season one in mind, where we had a parallel of this kind of moment with Victor in Rahim’s shoes, you obviously can’t help but compare Victor’s choices compared to Rahim’s. And yeh, I agree that Victor’s come off in a far better light -- Victor didn’t want to cause problems between Benji and Derek when he was forced to see the reality of the mess with Derek and Benji fighting in public. He didn’t want to put Benji through a ton of stress. He wanted Benji to be happy. So he stood in front of Derek, rather like an unarmed man facing a sword pointed at his throat, and defended Benji and tried to compliment Derek’s and Benji’s supposedly amazing relationship to patch things up. He then surrendered and left them alone to their relationship.

Rahim…didn’t do that. He didn’t try to chase after Benji to reassure him about the slow-dance despite knowing how sad Victor had been without Benji. In fact, he made it harder for Victor by escalating the unnamed thing between them right into cheating territory. And that sequence did rub me the wrong way because from my own experience, when you really like someone, like truly like them, you want them to be happy, even if that isn’t with you. You don’t want to get between them and the partner they are in love with and take that away from them. You feel all of that because the person you adore deserves the world, you know? And yeh, Victor did that for Benji but Rahim didn’t do that for Victor… (And Rahim saw Venji’s good moments together at school and envied them for it and photographed it, so he knew how happy they were together when they weren’t fighting so…no excuse, bro...)

I think you summed everything up nicely, Anon, with a simple but efficient: I hate it! XD

#LV ask #Love Victor #LV S2 analysis

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toonstarterz · 5 years

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BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #163

Ah, summer. The season of no school, bright skies, pools, barbeques, and brief teenage romance.

Okay, so it’s not quite summer vacation yet. But nonetheless, the new season gives way for all sorts of fun shenanigans. None of it ever really enters “drama” territory (as dramatic as this series can be, that is), but as Tomoko’s last year of high school nears the halfway point, we discover that there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about our cast of knuckleheads.

Chapter 163: Because I’m Not Popular, It’s Summer

I think it can be inferred that Tomoko is not a morning person, is she?

I think it can also be inferred that the once-aspiring NEET Tomoko is not a fan of hot weather. Better soak up that Vitamin D, girl.

Parasol Lady Asuka would like to battle!

Are parasols more prominent in Eastern culture? They’re not too terribly common where I’m from, but I imagine that may be a result of Japan having more of an aversion towards anything that would result in darker skin. Though I can also see it as a sort of fashion opportunity as well.

I believe those were umbrellas you used, Tomoko. But semantics aside, It’s pretty neat to see that Tomoko has finally reached that stage in her life where she can recognize her cringy chuunibyou phase. Long live those days of failing miserably at being a cool anime character.

Remember when Tomoko used to slut-shame the girls in her class? I detect a hint of hypocrisy there...

Gyaru!Asuka has already exploded on the imageboards, I guarantee it.

A part of me wonders why Tomoko grouped Kii-chan and Yuri specifically. They don’t have similar personalities or anything, but I see two possible reasons for it. One, Kii-chan and Yuri both got that mild-mannered, “exotic” look going on. But also, it may who Tomoko subconsciously believes she’ll see the most of over the summer.

We’ll, I mean...yeah. They would. It probably doesn’t help that Tomoko, with her lion’s mane, gives the impression of someone too physically active to care much about grooming. But as much as Tomoko derides the possibility of looking like a “sweaty day laborer”, I can’t deny that it’s not a bad look on her.

The reason for that should be dead obvious by now.

The thing that amuses me is that Tomoko had no basis to start insinuating that Yuri’s a pervert. She just did, and has latched on to the idea ever since. While no doubt annoying for Yuri (even if it’s true), it’s kind of sweet if you see it as Tomoko wanting to have a shared interest with her.

I’m sure that compared to your freckled, “crazy lesbo” best friend, it isn’t.

It’s funny how Nemo used to give off an air of someone who’s sexually acknowledgeable (at least to me) by virtue of being semi-popular. Now that we know’s she’s relatively pure, Tomoko will never let her live it down.

Komiyama really is the most two-dimensional character in the series. And you know what?

It works.

In the education industry, we call it the “Perv Curve”.

Komiyama: Self-explanatory.

Hatsushiba: Anatomically-correct BDSM art must have originated from somewhere.

Katou: Yet even more evidence for the almost-openly perverted girl who casually says “vagina”.

Mako: ...wait, what?

I’m so used to perfect scores being a badge of honor in Japanese media that it through me for a loop to see it suggested as anything else. Perhaps it’s an issue similar to Home Ec in that it’s not seen as educationally significant and only those really invested in the subject would master it. Either way, how lewd.

Going back to Mako, I am genuinely shocked. Could Yuri’s oh-so-sweet bestie actually have a dirty side? Just when you think you know a gal! Naturally, she has just enough to shame to be embarrassed when its brought up, and I’m not ready to call out Mako as a pervert just yet. At least she has Yoshida to pat her on the back (ironic given the delinquent is now officially the purest one of the Kyoto Group).

My Pokémon-obsessed mind can only see them as the Haramaku Elite Four, which, given the segment’s title, is highly unoriginal of me.

I’m 97% sure that Kawagoe’s that old geezer teacher we saw during Tomoko’s suspension. We even got that “strict about textbooks” continuity from way back when Tomoko forgot hers.

All signs point to Minami’s-Faceless-“Friend”-#1 recognizing someone, most likely Yuri, during this little intersection. Curse you, Nico Tanigawa and your wonderful vagueness.

Nope. It’s not gonna work. Nuh-uh. Absolutely not. You aren’t going to make me feel sympathetic for Minami.

...

drat.

All that speculation has finally paid off cause we now have confirmation that Minami did(does?) in fact backbite Tomoko and Yuri. Thank goodness for Tomoko’s mental health that she never knew. But Minami’s got some nerve teasing Yuri when she’s actively Mako’s friend. Even more disturbing if Mako doesn’t realize it...

Between that tiny smile in the last panel and her wanting to tease, it’s pretty much certain that Minami’s-Faceless-“Friend”-#1 is not a pleasant person.

Birds of the same feather truly do flock together.

Okay, I cracked. Minami’s too adorable (and pitiful) right here.

I find it telling that even Minami’s “friends” know she’s a jerk. But if what goes around comes around, then Minami’s-Faceless-“Friend”-#1 might not realize she’s a jerk, too. Are most terrible people aware of their own terribleness?

I don’t want to correlate jerkiness with irresponsibility but...here we are.

Man, that’s playing dirty. Suzuki is more than likely not that close to Minami, but any decent person wouldn’t just outright say “no” to a request like that. Of course, playing up her own supposed likeability through other’s basic kindness is Minami’s M.O.

In manga and anime, that sort of haughtiness from cute, snaggletoothed girls is adorable in that “sigh, there she goes again” way.

In reality, it’s just annoying as shit.

At first glance, Kayo’s just making an off-handed question, but my nit-picking mind says otherwise. I’m not sure how insistently heterosexual/romantic Japanese culture is towards male-female relationships, but would most teens show interest in a friend’s opposite gendered sibling? If say, Miyazaki had a little brother, would Kayo even ask Ucchi a question like that?

My theory is that Kayo is subtly trying to ascertain Ucchi’s sexuality. If the idea of Ucchi being gay for Tomoko is already planted in her head, then Kayo is using Tomoki as a “male version” for comparison. Ucchi’s already admitted to the Kuroki siblings being physically similar, so supposedly if she feels nothing towards Tomoki, then it’s Tomoko’s “femaleness” that attracts her.

This wouldn’t even be half as funny if Ucchi didn’t have an emoji face.

If only Komiyama could see this now...

Or, you know what? Maybe gender is irrelevant and Ucchi just has an indiscriminate gross fetish.

Nemo’s ultra-realistic thoughts behind her cheery demeanor are always welcome.

For all those times that Tomoko pokes fun at Nemo for wanting to live out a slice-of-life school anime, she’s not exactly innocent either. More and more we see Tomoko trying to invoke those cliche moments, usually with little fear. It’s a rather far cry from when she’d try to pull anime tropes as a means to an end. Now she tries them out just for the sake of having fun, which is much more endearing.

In this particular trope, however, normally you’d have a guy and girl stuck inside, where they’d ultimately become more attracted to each other through the suspension bridge effect.

Of course, that’s assuming the boy and girl aren’t already together. If they are, then storage rooms are usually used as a hiding place to make out, but that obviously would never hap–

Oh.

FUCK.

If memory serves, this is the same couple who were flirting(?) back in the head patting chapter. A whole lot must of went down since then, eh?

Murphy’s Law.

It’s been quite a long time since we’ve had one of Tomoko’s infamous freakouts. And they say this series lost its roots.

A part of me wants to think that Nemo hears Tomoko but is pretending not to just to screw with her, but I don’t think she’d be that cruel. Even if it would be hilarious.

Just how far is your “it”, Tomoko. Making out? Groping? HANDHOLDING!?

What am I saying–she’s totally thinking sex.

It’s interesting to note that Tomoko just assumes that Yuri and Mako have never had a boyfriend. Sure, it may be implied given we’ve never seen them have this discussion before (that we know of), but it’s still pretty presumptuous on Tomoko’s part. My only reasoning is that Tomoko is trying to ally themselves over supposed “undesirability” like many self-deprecating friends do.

First off, I am not at all surprised given Mako’s personality.

What does surprise me is how totally betrayed Mako sounds. I can only assume that it’s a part of Mako’s past that she’d rather not reveal. While I don’t think Yuri meant any harm bringing it up, that kind of miscommunication goes to show that even though they’re best friends, Yuri and Mako don’t always see eye to eye.

Sounds like dating to me. Or rather, sounds like dating between high schoolers. At the risk of sounding like an old-ass millennial, dating between high schoolers rarely last, despite what shoujo manga suggests. Casual dating is exactly that–casual. They’re attracted to the novelty of dating, but once that initial thrill wears off, cue the breakup.

Side note, I just realized that Yuri loosens up her tie. I love small details like that.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but Mako seems to be suggesting that girls, on the other hand, aren’t as desperate to get boyfriends. While that isn’t necessarily true, I do see that answer as mostly a convenient excuse for Mako, who may simply just not want to be in a relationship right now.

I can see the “Mako is straight/Mako is lesbian(for Yoshida)” War right now...

Boy, it’s been a while since Tomoko has contemplated her own popularity, let alone try to be more popular. I guess it goes to show that even though Tomoko is more or less satisfied with her current status, she still sees herself below the bar of what constitutes “popular”. She does perpetuate feminine “purity” as an indicator of her societal value, but I’ll let it be–reality is not so kind, after all.

One of the more prominent questions that Yuri’s fanboys have is “How come someone as pretty as Yuri isn’t more popular with the boys?”

Well, there you go.

In terms of looks, I never thought Yuri was that unattractive in-universe. She’s in that small niche of “plain and generic, but just cute enough that fans feel they could feasibly ask out a girl like her in real life”. So while it's reasonable to think that at least one person would show interest in her, it's Yuri’s personality that ends up putting them off. She probably isn’t ready to commit to the effort of dating and being someone’s girlfriend. nor does Yuri seem that interested to begin with if her texting habits are anything to go by.

I can’t for the life of me remember the name for it, but I believe that there’s this belief in Japan that says everybody (mostly boys) has that brief period in their life where they’re suddenly attractive and people want to date them. I imagine that Tomoko may actually reach that time in life sooner than she thinks.

PTSD TRIGGERED!! For the readers, I mean.

For real, though. What a comeback. Who would have thought that Kosaka, that guy who was introduced in Chapter FIVE would make his grand return? Normally, making a reappearance this late in the game would feel like an asspull, but it works because he was never meant to drastically affect Tomoko’s growth. He was just the spark, the first hint to show that people could actually befriend her. And for that, we salute you, Umbrella Dude.

It’s been, what? About two years since they last spoke, and he still remembers her? Impressive! Then again, I don’t think you're about to forget the girl who gave you a dogeza.

Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Tell Lies.

These moments where Tomoko is unabashedly a blushing schoolgirl are really precious because she isn’t “perfectly ditzy in that moe sort of way” about it. She gets riled up, sweaty, and unpleasant to watch. Which, ironically, is even more adorable just for how genuine it is.

Yeah, I’m sure the original said “dogeza”, but since there isn’t really a good English equivalent for it, I think “genuflect”...is still an odd choice.

Yuri, who always has her “Tomoko’s BS” meter on high, knows that Tomoko is screwing around when she calls it her “first”. Poor Mako, a now confirmed pervert who still thinks Tomoko is so amazing, thought the girl had popped the guy’s cherry.

Friendly reminder that eventful summers are not necessarily pleasant summers. Though they could be with the right perspective...

So...Yuri vs. Kii-chan Death Battle when?

The most beautiful part about this ending is that there’s no second-guessing. No “maybe I won’t be lonely” or “I wonder if I’ll be lonely”. Just a very affirmative “I won’t be lonely”. Tomoko fully expects that she’ll be spending time with her friends this summer, and that confidence is more than I ever would’ve expected from Tomoko in previous years.

With summer vacation just over the horizon (don’t want to jump the gun), a medley of both happy, unhappy and delightfully awkward moments are sure to transpire. Just about the only thing Tomoko can plan is the unplanned, and I’ll be sure to get a front-row seat to watch it all.

#watamote #watamote review #chapter 163 #no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular!#tomoko kuroki #asuka katou #yuri tamura #hina nemoto #mako tanaka #kotomi komiyama #hatsushiba #masaki yoshida #koharu minami #emiri uchi #tomoki kuroki #kosaka #I finally get to use that tag #review

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s0bers0ngs-blog · 5 years

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Hazed & Confused

My first summer in Savannah continued to be one giant haze. The cycle of sleeping all day, waking up hungover, going to work, and heading to the bar or the party with cash in my pocket became my new normal. I even started throwing my own parties when Lola was out of town on business, and they became increasingly popular each time. I made sure to pay attention when it came to what my friends drank, which drinking games they loved to play, and who they hung around with to avoid drama and become the prime entertainer amongst all of my co-workers. I lived on the third floor of a brand new luxury apartment complex within walking distance from Logan's, and often used that as leverage. "There's absolutely no excuse for you to miss out. I'm right down the street!" I took great care to make sure nobody went into Lola's bedroom or touched her baby grand piano, though, because she had no idea that our home was turning into party central every time she was away. There wasn't much peace left between us after our breakup, but I needed to preserve what was left of it as much as possible if we were to continue living together. Even so, I lied to and manipulated her as much as I could to make sure she never found out, because cancelling one of my parties would have been a calamity. In active addiction, I always wanted to have my cake and eat it too.

One night at work, I served a man and a woman at a small two-top table. For most of the night, I thought they were dating, because they were bickering like they were married; but I noticed the female wasn't wearing any rings, and had my eyes optimistically set on her. I made sure she knew it as professionally as possible by engaging in deep eye contact and making her laugh. She was lofty, tan, brunette, and covered in tattoos - Right up my alley. She sported tight clothing and spoke with a thick Boston accent, and eventually told me that she was bisexual, single, and active duty military. She and her friend were stationed in a town about fifty miles away called Hinesville, at an Army base named Fort Stewart. She came to Savannah almost every weekend to party with her other battle buddies, and asked if I'd like to join sometime. Naturally, I obliged, and gave her my phone number. "Hit me up, gorgeous. Let's fucking party."

My relationship with Karissa never developed past friendship, some cuddling, and a few kisses. She was over a decade older than me and wasn't in the business for anything serious, but I'm not sure that I was, either. As our friendship grew, so did my friendships with the rest of her crew, and I eventually became close with a man named Rowan. He never had the intention of being romantic with me and immediately saw me as one of the guys, and we quickly began referring to each other as brother and sister. Every weekend, he was coming to drink with me in Savannah, even if Karissa decided to stay behind. I would usually offer him the couch in my apartment to crash on, but he always chose to drive back to Hinesville when I went to bed, even after drinking more than anyone else around us and being seemingly unperturbed. Because of this, he became the designated driver of his unit, so his car would be consistently packed full of soldiers who knew they could get a free ticket to inebriation in Savannah. None of us could ever tell that Rowan was intoxicated, and we never understood how he could function so well after consuming so much alcohol, but we constantly sang his praises for being the "best drinker" in comparison to the rest of us. Karissa was known to destroy everything in her path when she got too wasted, and eventually received the nickname "Hurricane" after a deadly storm that swept through the South years prior. Lou was an angry blackout drunk who would hurt your feelings in a skinny minute, and often had to be physically held back from giving a stranger a black eye if he looked at him wrong. Curt was "the tall one" and the renowned beer pong champion who never lost a game, but I remember teaming up against him with another female at his house one night and dominating. There were others, too, but none of us were as close as Rowan and I. We were two peas in a pod.

One night, he suggested picking me up so I could come out to Hinesville and party for a change. Even though I insisted that it was too much time and gas to make four lengthy trips just to have me there, he insisted that it would be worth the amount of fun we'd have, and he was right. The first night I got drunk on Fort Stewart was the same night I participated in a foam sword fight as a sort of initiation, and passed with flying colors. I followed it up by illegally staying the night in Karissa's barracks room. From that day forward, I became the epitome of a "weekend warrior" and my presence was demanded by my new friends every Friday and Saturday. "It isn't a party without you!" There were times when Karissa was working or chose to drink alone in her room, so I'd go out with the boys to the local Mexican restaurant and consume twenty-four ounce beers the size of my head. I still didn't have my own vehicle, and it was impossible to save up for another one with my expensive new habit. I was content being the hot, young lesbian up the street from Logan's who didn't have a car, liked to drink, and lived with her ex-girlfriend. I could barely pay my phone bill each month and never gave her a single dime towards rent, and I would often wonder why I was so broke all the time and she was being - For lack of a better word - A total bitch. Even after business slowed down at Logan's, my drinking didn't. But when I didn't have the money to party, someone else always did. I eventually saw less of my co-workers and more of my Army friends because I thought they were more fun, and I knew I'd never have to pay for any of my alcohol around them. Most of them were single and didn't have any bills to pay. They also began teaching me how to drink more successfully and be less of a lightweight, and I soaked up their techniques like a sponge. After all, I wanted to be a champion drinker just like the rest of them.

Once I learned to pop a few Ibuprofen and chug a full bottle of Gatorade before going to sleep at night, I stopped getting hangovers. It was just like any other skill; the more you practice, the better you are. Drinking and partying became my new hobbies, along with some pretty mean games of beer pong and flip cup. But what I failed to realize was that the game of alcoholism was shifting dramatically and dangerously in my life, and I was unknowingly playing for keeps. Soon, I would add more toxicity into the mix in the form of a female, and spend my next few years spiraling down like water into a drain. It was the beginning of an end that I never saw coming.

#recovery #mystory #onedayatatime #recoveryblog

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gayestshakespearecouples · 6 years

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Hamlet by Truro School & cube theatre

Last night I saw a Hamlet production at my old school which was made in collaboration with the excellent cube theatre company (lowercase is intentional) and directed by one of my former classmates. It was incredible - VERY modern, very derivative from the original play in all the BEST ways. Now I'm going to ramble about the whole thing, mostly for myself to keep as a record of it. TL;DR this production's Hamlet was a very mentally ill lesbian who actually had a loving relationship with Ophelia until Polonius interfered. And I loved her.

Here's the main Interesting Things:

The generational divide was made VERY clear in the production because, while most of the cast was 15-18 year old students, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius and the ghost of King Hamlet were played by drama teachers and cube theatre members. I'm really big on Hamlet being a play about the misunderstandings etc between generations, so I loved that element.

It was a modern setting version, not just the half-assed modern costumes I've seen before in Shakespeare, but making use of technology.

For example, when Polonius was questioning Ophelia about Hamlet near the beginning, he casually took her phone and apparently scrolled through her text conversations with Hamlet (he later read out Hamlet's poems to Ophelia to Claudius from this phone.)

They also used projected footage onto the set, including LIVE footage of the play from a different angle at the very start, very end, and Ophelia's funeral - making these into publicity events with Claudius speaking to the camera. Definitely suited the play in a modern take on it; Claudius fits the role of hypocritical politician very well.

At other points the projected footage was pre-filmed in other locations, including using it to show Ophelia drowning herself, having Gertrude watch childhood videos of Hamlet before the scene where Hamlet meets her in her bedroom, and Polonius watched Hamlet and Ophelia on security camera screens a few times.

The entire ghost sighting was replaced with Hamlet, alone, seeing her father speaking to her in projected footage (presumably representing a TV screen). Honestly, I've always WANTED to be able to interpret the ghost as Hamlet's hallucination, but Horatio and the guardsmen seeing the ghost contradicted me - but not in this adaptation! The part where Hamlet explains he’s going to act mad to deceive his uncle (???) was also completely cut, so I’m certain the director intended Hamlet to be clearly mentally ill.

(I say ‘the director’ as if she’s someone I’ve never met, instead of my friend, who I could just message right now to ask her what she intended! But I don’t even need to ask for clarification on that point)

Hamlet was a young woman (and so were Horatio and Guildernstern.) I’d heard of this being done before, but never seen it myself, and I found it utterly fascinating in the way it changed the story and how I reacted to it.

At the beginning, Claudius and Gertrude’s insistence that Hamlet “get over it” and stop grieving for her father came off not as “man up!” like it usually does, but instead, as them dismissing Hamlet for being a ‘dramatic teenage girl’ - perhaps the usual fate of Ophelia as well?

When from the mouth of an actress, Hamlet’s extremely misogynistic lines seem much more like general misanthropy and despair at the state of the world.

The play actually felt very much like a lesbian love story that goes horribly, horribly wrong due to the interference of ‘adults’ (the older generation). Because not only was Hamlet and Ophelia’s love story a lesbian one in this production, but it was also portrayed as much more of - well, a love story, than I’m used to seeing in Hamlet. Right near the beginning it was briefly shown that Hamlet went to Ophelia for comfort after the whole ‘cast thy nighted colour off’ scene.

Fascinatingly, the "to be or not to be" speech was actually flipped so that Hamlet saw Ophelia first, and then delivered the speech while sitting right next to her. Totally changed the speech AND the dynamic between them, by having it be an act of confession, a moment of extreme emotional intimacy between the couple.

It also made the "get thee to a nunnery" scene that immediately follows even more heartbreaking; strangely, it never really struck me before that it’s a breakup scene, possibly because Hamlet and Ophelia never seemed to have much of a relationship to break up from. (One of the uses of projected footage was also to show the two girls together and clearly in love, on a beach, during that scene. There was sad music playing. It made me cry a little bit.)

And of course, Polonius’ instruction to Ophelia that she must reject Hamlet’s advances just comes off as very thinly veiled homophobia when Hamlet is a woman. I really hated Polonius in this one; he was a malicious and manipulative character, rather than a busybody old fool as he often comes off.

As a mentally ill, uh... sort-of wlw (I might be agender but the fact I’m AFAB means that my attraction to girls ‘feels gay’, and thus I identify myself quite closely with the idea of being lesbian/sapphic) who is OBSESSED with Hamlet, seeing Hamlet as a mentally ill wlw, and also the same age as me (in fact the actress was one year younger), was just... So special. A really amazing experience. But even my mother really loved this production, too!

As an aside, it also showed Claudius as explicitly abusive towards Gertrude, which I haven’t seen before either. I somewhat guessed it was the case during the first half of the play - the way that Gertrude was portrayed made it seem like she was trapped in the marriage with Claudius, and she was very sympathetic to Hamlet; then, later on, Claudius actually slapped her.

Oh and I think it was pretty cool that the stupid thing about Hamlet being kidnapped by pirates on the way to England (seriously, Shakespeare?) was replaced with Claudius sending hitmen after Hamlet, who then somehow accidentally ended up grabbing Guildenstern instead. (Didn’t quite follow what happened there, but it was a neat way of modernising it and making it less ridiculous nonetheless...)

#actually i could say quite a lot more about how r &g were portrayed and how that hitman thing played out but eh #not enough motivation to #hamlet #lars speaks #reviews

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negativeblue · 7 years

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I’m just gonna go on a semi long rant about the recent spoilers. So for those who didn’t read them or don’t believe them (more power to you, but there’s too many signs hinting at them being true for me to ignore them) i’ll put this under a cut.

I also intend to repost this after episode 3x05 has aired.

I’ll just start off with how they brought Maggie onto the show. The introduction episode was semi okay, it was established there was a special cop division that dealt with aliens/etc. But then the show never really delved into that.

In fact, it never delved into anything that had to do with Maggie. She didn’t have a single flashback, and we only ever saw her work a few cases in 2A that seemed relevant to the plot. 2B was even worse. She got completely shoved into the background all of her scenes now revolved around Sanvers as a relationship and Alex’s growth in it.

Maggie was basically a glorified LI in 2B in particular and she had the screentime to show for it (minus ‘Alex’) I mean if I remember right all she did in the final episode was stand in the background and say a handful of lines, if that. And there were multiple episodes in 2B in which she only had a few (often rushed) scenes. And again most of these were shared with Alex.

The show failed to flesh out the character, failed to actually think beyond her just being Alex’s LI. But then I’ve heard (?) the rumors of how Floriana Lima was only given a 1 season contract and hell, if it’s true it explains a lot. It explains how she was just an afterthought and how the showrunners really didn’t think about anything else beyond Alex’s coming out and making Sanvers hook up.

What it doesn’t explain is how in the hell they think it’s okay to shove a proposal in the finale, bait people along for 5 episodes afterwards and then break them up over a kids storyline that comes completely out of the blue. Not to mention how the breaking up over wanting kids is a storyline that’s been done at LEAST twice on two shows that also featured wlw couples.

And that in itself again isn’t a bad thing, breakups happen, especially over wanting/not wanting kids. But the thing that IS bad is how there is so few representation on tv already, especially for canon wlw pairings. So to have this trope pop up (and being labelled as ‘modern’ and ‘doing justice to the pairing’ or whatever the hell the exact wording was again) and once again be used to break up a couple is just aggravating.

But I’ll go back to the baiting, which is what really grinds my gears. Because by the time the proposal aired, there had been rumors doing the rounds about contract negotiations. I don’t know the exact timing anymore, but I do know it’s extremely likely they knew Floriana Lima wasn’t gonna come back to the show back when they shot the finale, and they only managed to sign her for a few episodes to wrap things up. So why then still have the proposal scene into the finale episode? Because it was not even a minute long scene or something and it wasn’t tied much to everything else going on around it.

But okay fine, they leave the scene in. Then come the PR-tours after that and leading up to season 3 filming there was lots of conflicting things being said by the showrunners. There were already quite a few signs that they were going to write Floriana out, but at the same time there were almost as many PR-lines being spouted that made it seem as Sanvers was still going to be a thing this season (but possibly more in the background)

The thing that’s really bothering me (and likely others) is that there’s a 6 month time jump, we see Sanvers decently happy (in the trailer at least) we know they’re engaged and about to get married. The audience that isn’t aware of any spoilers likely don’t suspect a thing. But then we get a leadup of multiple episodes that leads to them breaking up in episode 5. With it very likely being a permanent thing. Not only are they using Sanvers quite a bit in their trailers (take a look at all the promotion in season 2 and they weren’t used much in trailers or promos for episodes at all) they are all baiting viewers along with the wedding storyline.

I mean how many lesbian couples marry on screen? But that’s exactly what they insinuate will happen initially. I mean we know there will be a bridal shower, which means the wedding would take place pretty soon. But instead they break up few episodes later. Not only are they just dangling a very big and juicy carrot in front of the Sanvers fandom, there’s also the spoiler of them having a bittersweet goodbye scene complete with them sleeping together (likely alluded to only) one last time before we’d never see Maggie again.

Why go along with this wedding storyline if you’re not going to deliver? Because you are baiting people into watching. How is this any better than having two lesbians kiss or have sex and then kill one of them off. Yes they will be both alive in the end, but one of them will never be seen again on the show. Let’s be honest here, they knew after the backlash the last few years they couldn’t well kill Maggie off, so they thought of some contrived drama to break them up instead. But why double down on the wedding storyline? It’s incredibly cruel and it feels like the showrunners are disconnected from their fanbase if they truly believe that just because they aren’t killing anyone off it’ll make it easier to swallow for the fans.

How is it possible that asides for (finally) not resorting to the BYG trope, they apparently haven’t learned a damned thing when it comes to writing wlw relationships on screen. How they still can’t seem to introduce a LI for an existing character and make them more than a vehicle for the coming out arc. How it’s apparently hard to write wlw relationships on screen without resorting to OOT dramatics to ‘keep things interesting’ instead of allowing them a healthy normal relationship.

The only thing they did right was writing Alex’s coming out arc.

But the show failed in every other regard.

#Sanvers #supergirl spoilers #supergirl #sanvers spoilers #excuse my extremely long rant #but I really need to vent #and I'm still beyond pissed this shit keeps happening

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queernuck · 7 years

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Taking a Knee: Megan Rapinoe and the American Self

US Soccer, by deciding to adopt a policy where players are required to “stand respectfully” during the National Anthem, has unmistakably taken a reactionary turn as part of ingratiating themselves to a specific nationalism that exceeds the representative implications of their status as a national team. To understand the violence implied by this decision, one requires a great deal of context and an understanding of the political in sports, the way in which a measure of removal allows sport to become political even as it represents the state, and to articulate the significance specifically of the United States’ national teams in a sort of dream of the American empire.

America is frequently a dominant nation in international competition: while the Olympics are the largest stage for this dominance, there are numerous others upon which it may occur. The Women’s World Cup, along with Women’s Soccer at the Olympics, is unique much in the way that Women’s Ice Hockey is at the Winter Olympics. Soccer, as a sport, is conceptually different from Football so to speak: Žižek has offered that every nation has soccer except America, for which baseball in effect is soccer. While his characterization is perhaps a bit generous to baseball (especially given the global character of baseball compared to the overwhelmingly American character of Gridiron Football) it does establish part of what is unique about soccer as opposed to Football internationally. Americans may grow up playing soccer, but relative few continue with the sport past that age. Baseball, but especially football and basketball, are more attractive options for most players, especially given that the structuring of the NCAA as well as various prep schools mimic that of Soccer Academies in much of Europe and the rest of the American continent. These structures favor basketball and football rather heavily, given the American taste for the sports, leaving soccer by the wayside. America has indeed become an international team of importance over the last few World Cups, making it out of the group stage even under tough circumstances, but the Men’s team is just that: a team of importance.

Meanwhile, the USWNT has up until the 2016 Olympics been the gold standard of international Women’s competition. Because of how the Men and Women’s national development programs were structured together, often directly in tandem, there was a readiness to America’s women’s teams that was only matched by the best-structured national programs when these competitions were established. The USWNT entered postmodern pseudomemory as a dominant team, as women who a larger audience could invest in, moreover invest a libidinal desire in, and who could in turn express those intensities on the field of encounter with a great degree of collaborative, assembled intensity. The USWNT has been at once a sort of joke and the crown jewel of American soccer, a singularly dominant team that captured American investment so uniquely because it at once captured an ungendered expression of investment and because that investment could then be gendered in order to reinvest it in certain flows of desire, be it becoming-woman or an externality to womanhood that could be shaped in its exact flows by a sort of largely male libidinal redirection. Nevermind that women’s sports is, on both sides of the ball, full of lesbians, these are girls of sport for the man’s gaze, winning the trophy and upholding it in all its phallogocentric glory for him. This is not to deny that the USWNT is phenomenal at best, or to disparage the women on the team. As a collection of the best soccer players in the world, there are few teams of any sort that can parallel them. However, one cannot help but notice that they have a uniqueness within American sporting culture when compared to other women’s teams.

This is, in turn, why Megan Rapinoe’s protest was so unconscionable. Rapinoe’s protest came in late 2016, in direct support of Colin Kaepernick’s decision to protest during the National Anthem, and was part of the transition to kneeling as a symbolic gesture rather than sitting on the bench. The violence that was visited upon similar protests on smaller scales was predictable: individual protestors were sanctioned, and when entire high schools participated in protests their players were met with death threats. After an abysmal showing at the 2016 Olympics and the retirement of multiple of the USWNT’s perennial stars, the team was adrift, still astoundingly dominant but very clearly wounded. Continuing from protests she had done while playing professionally, Rapinoe knelt during the anthem before a friendly while playing for the USWNT. That she was in fact representing America, supposedly, while engaging in this protest lead to a reconception of the question behind the protest, asking if she should be allowed to protest while representing America.

Soon after, John Tortorella was asked as coach of Team USA at the first revival of the World Cup of Hockey what he would do if a player protested the National Anthem, responding that he would sit any player who did so. Tortorella was widely praised, which is unsurprising given the reactionary character of hockey fans as a whole but moreover important in that it was supposedly an example of how one should treat representing a National Team. Team USA left the tournament without a single victory, Tortorella’s unique and provocative coaching style having lost the room in an absurdly short time period. Meanwhile, Team North America, a team comprised of players from the US and Canada under the age of 23 and far more connected to the spirit of the 1980 Miracle on Ice squad than Tortorella’s, displayed an impressive degree of skill before being knocked out of contention by a tiebreaker with Russia.

Mentioning the 1980 Miracle on Ice is important because it is part of an enduring concept of American international sports, much in the way the 1992 Dream Team or the later successes of the USWNT play a part in creating the concept of American internationalism. The 1980 Miracle team, comprised of college kids who beat what had been and would go on to still be the best single team in the world, is mythologized and is tied directly to the concept of the unreal through the naming of the miraculous, of an American secularity that is itself still Christian in its creation of the self. That its victory came against the Soviet Union is vital as well; the actual gold medal game is frequently forgotten and in fact is not the miracle named in the Miracle on Ice. That specifically American self is in many ways realized through the 1992 Dream Team, the single greatest basketball team ever assembled, a vertical singularity in the horizontal evaluation of the sport that even exceeds the 90s Chicago Bulls. By its very nature the Dream Team cannot be exceeded, as the way in which the players on the team are greats across the board has not been seen in even the greatest Olympic squads since, in any sport. There is no other Dream Team, and there cannot be one. Moreover, the way in which the Dream Team influenced the course of Yugoslavian basketball, as well as the culture of basketball that would stretch over the striation of Yugoslavia after its breakup, is vital to its postmodern character. Perhaps Žižek would be a good consult on this development. This postmodern deconstruction evident in the intensities of the 1992 Dream Team were eventually restructured in the USWNT, and this team has been one of the most prominent examples of such national investment since.

That this specific act of national selfhood, obviously targeted at Rapinoe but in fact precluded from such targeting through reference to the lack of protest rather than any act involved in protest, is part of restricting international competition as well as the athletes involved in it. Football is viewed internationally as American, there is no competition for dominance within it. Conversely, Rapinoe was willing to make her protest at a time of upheaval and dramatic change within the US Soccer community, and the unmistakably reactionary character of the response is indicative of a larger desire to return to the expression of national intensity that US Soccer has previously been. This is specifically ignoring that, for women in America, the American National Team is by far the peak of soccer achievement. For the players on Tortorella’s squad, the WCoH was a preseason warmup against friends and teammates with a coach that they had no reason to push themselves for. The Dream Team was assembled for itself, it was a singularity so unmatchable that comparison to it is trivial. The 2016 Olympics saw the Men’s Basketball team win gold with a team that was thrown together, showed little chemistry until the end of the tournament, and was largely missing the character that defined 1992: even an approach toward a Dream Team would not have been possible given that LeBron James passed on joining. For women’s soccer, even in rejection of the nationalism of the team, the USWNT is the most accomplished squad in the world, and not joining out of deference to the political ramifications is a ridiculous expectation. That so many former USSR players have joined parties and espoused politics bordering on reactionary, as with the association between soccer and fascist nationalism in parts of Serbia. The converse, that a lesbian player would reject the totalizing effect of the team she plays for, is itself even on principle not precluded by the function of the American team, it is simply precluded when it recognizes the larger function of antiblackness both within American sports and with American structuring of the self. American self-examination cannot admit its antisemitism, its antiblackness, its heteronormativity and gendered nature, as this constitutes the coloniality by which the self is named. These processes of naming are themselves what make an American self possible, they are what make an American.

By refusing to address Rapinoe directly, by ignoring the character of her protest while also refusing to name it as such, US Soccer has assumed a sort of nationalism that uses the unspoken to imply its own character. The violence it does is not merely in its structure, but in that which it leaves unsaid. This ruling, by not naming a punishment, is an open injunction toward the questioning of self that Rapinoe’s protest allows, and is intended not merely as a rule in itself but as a prohibitory limit upon the terms that the national team is constituted.

#megan rapinoe #uswnt #us soccer #soccer #Colin Kaepernick #football #nfl #John Tortorella #Miracle on Ice #hockey #nhl

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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It's A Gay Old Life

by Viorica

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Viorica has some issues with the first season of "Queer as Folk"~

America has this horrible habit of remaking British television and movies, presumably in order to a) cash in on franchises that have proven themselves popular, and b) make sure that their citizens are watching American-produced TV instead of putting their money into another country's market. It was done to

Life on Mars

, it's being done to

Death at a Funeral

, and it was done to

The Office

. These remakes tend to provoke varying reactions - some, like

The Office

succeed, and some, like ABC's ill-fated

Life on Mars

, fall flat. One of the cross-Atlantic success stories was

Queer as Folk

, adapted from Russell T. Davies's drama of the same name. It ran for five years on Showtime, garnered quite a bit of praise, and has a fairly substantial fanbase. I took the DVD of the first season out of the local library, figuring that since more than one person had recommended it to me, it had to be at least entertaining. The verdict? Well, it is and it isn't.

The show is set in Pittsburgh (which I have no comment on, seeing as I've never been there) and follows a group of gay men (with a couple of token lesbians) who live . . . well, like most evangelical right-wing preachers imagine gay men to live. They go out clubbing every night, engage in frequent anonymous sex in the club's bathroom, and take drugs like there's no tomorrow. The whole thing is rather disconcerting- if you're going to make a TV show that purports to be about the lives of gay men, why would you utilise all of the negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with the gay community? I can understand why a party-hard lifestyle would be the most dramatically convenient - after all, it's more interesting to watch a bunch of hot men dance around shirtless than it is to watch them argue about whether they should get pizza or Chinese for dinner - but all the same, having your characters behave in willfully destructive ways doesn't exactly assay the commonplace prejudices that people hold. Obviously it's not the show's responsibility to explain Why Being Gay Is Not Destructive - it's a soap opera, not an educational program - but the way it portrays the "gay lifestyle" leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

Of course, if the characters were intelligent, likeable people, their self-destructive behaviour wouldn't look quite as bad as it does. But they really, really aren't. Take, for example, our lead: Brian Kinney, a douchebag of the first order who fucks his way through five people a night, then picks up a seventeen-year-old jailbait virgin and sleeps with him. Now, part of the program's central conceit is that Brian

a douchebag and proud of it, but his friends and lovers don't fare much better. There's the aforementioned jailbait (Justin) who, after sleeping with Brian a few times, steals his credit card and runs away to New York; Emmett, the campiest of campy gays, who never really gets any kind of serious plot; Ted, a certified accountant and certifiable moron, who falls into a drug-induced coma after taking GHB offered to him by the complete stranger he brought home for sex; and Michael, the only remotely levelheaded one of the group. There's also secondary characters, like Melanie and Lindsey, the lesbian couple who are raising a baby together (a baby created using Brian's sperm - for some unfathomable reason, they wanted their child to share his genetic material) only to break up midway through season one. There's no real reason for their breakup - they suddenly started fighting, then Melanie went out and slept with someone else, and then she moved out. Of course, they get back together by the time the season ends, but thanks to spoilers, I already know that they repeat the make-up/break-up cycle several more times before the series is through. What exactly does it say about these characters (and the community they're supposed to be representing) when the one supposedly stable couple are in a state of perpetual warfare? Then there's Michael's mother and uncle, probably the only sane characters on the show, who exist mostly to dispense advice; Justin's mother, who is initially shocked by her son's coming-out but grows to accept him; and various love interests who drift in and out as the plot requires. Again, the main characters all behave in ways that makes the viewer want to yell "What the fuck are you DOING, you morons?" at the screen, whilst the secondary ones have their heads screwed on right. The fact that the sane characters all seem to be the straight ones (with the exception of Michael's uncle) probably owes more to the fact that their actions don't drive the plot; but all the same, having your gay characters behave stupidly while their straight friends advise them seems more than a little hinky.

The storyline that fans of the series seem to be the most invested in is Brian and Justin's tumultous relationship, which I find slightly squicky. When it begins, Justin is all of seventeen, and while a lot of seventeen-year-olds are sexually active, they hopefully aren't out losing their virginity to a twenty-nine-year-old stranger who picked them up off a street corner. While Justin's certainly willing to sleep with Brian, and repeatedly instigates meetings between them, I can't be the only one who finds the age gap slightly icky. I mean, Brian

drives him to school

for fuck's sake. That's what parents do, not boyfriends. Of course, Justin's father objects, and while his objection is rooted in homophobia rather than parental concern, I have to agree with him a bit. Note to any teenagers reading this: the older guy (or girl) who picked you up for sex does not love you.You are not going to embark on a life-changing relationship with you. They are going to fuck you, and dump you, and you're just lucky if you don't get any souveniers in the form of STDs. And that goes for both straight and gay encounters.

If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned any

bisexual characters

, that's because there aren't any. Or rather, there aren't any who identify as such- there are several who

could

be considered bi, but they all ID as gay. In fact, the word "bisexual" is never uttered at all. I'm not accusing the writers of deliberate biphobia so much as thoughtlessness. "Of

course

there are no bisexual men; why whould there be?" Never mind the episode where Justin sleeps with his female friend in a plotline of epic stupidity (she decides that she wants to lose her virginity, so she asks him to do it) or the storyline in a later season where Lindsey (the femmier woman, because naturally she's more likely to sleep with men *sigh*) has sex with a man - they're all gay, gay, gay, with no exceptions. The only possible *canon* bisexual character - and he only gets that honour because his sexuality is never defined - is Justin's homophobic classmate, who sleeps with multiple girls, but also allows Justin to give him a handjob. But since the season ends with him cracking Justin over the head with a baseball bat and sending him to the ER, I'd really rather not think about the implications there. Never mind that, as previously discussed, they have the opportunity to show the full spectrum of sexuality here; there are NO BISEXUALS on this show. Case closed. Now let's get back to our not-at-all-stereotypical gay men!

And now I'm going to take off my Cranky Bisexual hat and put on my Cranky Feminist one. The premise is the series lends itself to being a bit of a sausage-fest, so it's to the creator's credit that female characters are included. Unfortunately, they aren't handled very well at all. There's the aforementioned Lindsey and Melanie, who are meant to be something of a stabilising influence on the men (Lindsey is an old friend of Brian's.) They don't share in the hard partying or drug using; they've settled down in a nice house with their baby. As a result, they don't really get many storylines outside of their domestic troubles. The stuff that happens to them tends to be more serious and related to the struggles faced by gay couples - Melanie not being allowed to see her son when he's in the hospital with a fever, for example. They're extremely bound up in their motherhood, to the point where they're practically defined by it. Not only that, but they fall into the traditional butch/femme dichotomy - Melanie, the "less feminine" (she has short hair and wears pants) is the breadwinner, while Lindsey (long hair, skirts, makeup) gives birth and stays home to raise the kid. While the show isn't all that great at portraying anyone, you'd think they would make some effort with the only lesbians on the show. Of course, the non-lesbian women don't fare much better. There's Michael's aforementioned mother, Debbie, who is probably the most awesome character on the show. She exists primarily to hand out advice, and take care of everyone- Justin moves in with her after his parents (and Brian) kick him out, and her HIV-positive brother lives with her as well. Because of this, she never really gets to have her own identity. She's so bound up in her son's life, and the lives of his friends, that she isn't a real person- just a prop for the men to lean on. Then there's Justin's friend Daphne, who stays relatively sane for most of the season only to fall apart when she loses her virginity to Justin (which is just weird in and of itself - how many women think "Hmm, I want to have sex - I'll go ask my gay friend if he'll help!") and promptly starts crushing on him, complete with a patronizing speech from Lindsey and Melanie explaining that women are incapable of separating emotion from sex. No, really. No,

really

. Lastly, there's Justin's mother, who spends most of the season being tugged between her husband and her son. That's four female characters, and not one gets to have an identity that isn't defined (or at least heavily influenced) by the men in her life. I know this show is about gay men, not women, but they could've at least made an effort.

I rag on this show a lot, but it's entertaining despite (or perhaps because of) its flaws. By the time the season had ended, I was genuinely invested in what happened to the characters, even though they do seem to bring a lot of their problems on themselves. I was even somewhat charmed by Brian and Justin, though I remain squicked at the age gap (he went to his

prom

. Eurgh, eurgh, eurgh.) I am now anxiously awaiting the second season from the library, which will no doubt be similarily filled with recklessness, stupdity, and stereotypes. It's a bumpy ride to be sure, but damn if it isn't a fun one.Themes:

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Andy G

at 14:44 on 2009-12-17

They go out clubbing every night, engage in frequent anonymous sex in the club's bathroom, and take drugs like there's no tomorrow. The whole thing is rather disconcerting- if you're going to make a TV show that purports to be about the lives of gay men, why would you utilise all of the negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with the gay community?

The negative stereotyping has two components: the first is to assert that all gay men behave in a certain way, the second is to characterise that behaviour as negative. It's important to challenge the first by showing that most gay men live very different lives. But if you only do that, you haven't challenged the assumption that gay men who DO behave in that way are doing something bad - you're only defending people who conform more closely to what right-wing preachers consider acceptable.

There ARE lots of gay men who engage in frequent anonymous sex, take drugs, go clubbing and have relationships with large age gaps, and while I don't live like that myself, it is a way people really do live that deserves dramatic representation. It's not clear to me in advance that the values and assumptions it entails can just be dismissed out of hand.

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Sister Magpie

at 14:46 on 2009-12-17

Because of this, she never really gets to have her own identity. She's so bound up in her son's life, and the lives of his friends, that she isn't a real person- just a prop for the men to lean on.

It's been a while since I've seen this show and don't seem to remember it much (which probably doesn't say much about either it or me), but I do remember this about Debbie, and that it was one reason I definitely never saw her as the awesome character on the show. I seem to remember finding her insufferably annoying by the end of the series. And I remember thinking Emmett was the best person on it. Did he take drugs? I seem to remember him specifically not doing that.

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Melissa G.

at 15:57 on 2009-12-17

Did he take drugs?

Well...once. But that was during Ted's addict stage, and he was very against it but kind of gave in to try and make Addict!Ted happy and afterward clearly regretted doing it.

I've seen all but the last season of Queer as Folk, and if you think about it too much, it does make you want to pull your hair out at their behavior. Mostly I feel like you have to take it as a rather crack soap opera that gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on.

I can't be the only one who finds the age gap slightly icky.

You definitely aren't! I always found their relationship somewhat icky. I much preferred Michael and Ben's relationship to Brian and Justin's. Even though Ben/Michael have their own crazy. I even liked Justin and the violin player he dated for a while during the time he and Brian were broken up. They seemed like a much better couple...until said violin player basically screwed up.

I agree with pretty much all the problems you had with the show. I had the same thoughts. I also found the lesbian relationship poor represented. And, it is odd that there are no bisexuals on the show. Part of me wonders if the show is so over the top because of how it came about. From what I understand, someone basically said, "Well, that show [Queer as Folk] would never be able to be made in America!" and the creator of American QaF said, "Oh, yeah?!"

Actually, I found on youtube some time ago clips of the British show followed by the same scene in the American show, and it's rather telling. The American version is much more sexualized and visually provocative while the British version seemed rather more down-to-earth (please correct me if I'm wrong on this - I haven't seen the British version fully).

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Sister Magpie

at 18:03 on 2009-12-17I remember when The L Word started I thought, "Why am I watching this, since the lesbian characters on QaF were the most boring?" But then I got sucked into it--even though that show had its own brand of craziness.

I thought the weirdest thing about QaF was the end of the Brian/Justin storyline--or Brian's storyline in general.

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Viorica

at 20:28 on 2009-12-17

But if you only do that, you haven't challenged the assumption that gay men who DO behave in that way are doing something bad

At the risk of starting a completely off-topic discussion, isn't taking drugs (drugs like ecstacy and crystal meth, that is) kind of always a bad thing?

Did he take drugs?

There's a mention of him taking some sort of drug with him when they all went to New York- some kind of stimulant? I think he snorted it.

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Andy G

at 22:42 on 2009-12-17

At the risk of starting a completely off-topic discussion, isn't taking drugs (drugs like ecstacy and crystal meth, that is) kind of always a bad thing?

Well, ecstasy is considerably less harmful than crystal meth for a start. But I think the question of whether drugs ARE bad is slightly irrelevant. A sympathetic portrayal of people in good literature or film involves doing due justice to what is positive and legitimate about their choices and values, without necessarily heavy-handedly endorsing them but certainly without making didactic judgements. Drug use is a part of many hedonistic lifestyles and there are stories to be told about those people that don't involve their lives being irrevocably ruined by drugs.

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Arthur B

at 23:19 on 2009-12-17

A sympathetic portrayal of people in good literature or film involves doing due justice to what is positive and legitimate about their choices and values, without necessarily heavy-handedly endorsing them but certainly without making didactic judgements.

But doesn't this also entail being honest about the downsides to their choices? I have not seen either the US or the British version of

Queer As Folk

, but if either of them actually

present crystal meth use as a big lark which doesn't have damaging consequences for anyone involved I find that more than a little alarming. (I'm pretty confident that Russell T Davies wouldn't write such a thing, actually, but I don't completely trust American TV writers to do the same.) Crystal meth is a fucking menace, and presenting it on a par with ecstasy is downright irresponsible, whether it entails overhyping the risks of ecstasy or downplaying the risks of crystal meth.

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Melissa G.

at 23:49 on 2009-12-17

if either of them actually do present crystal meth use as a big lark which doesn't have damaging consequences for anyone involved I find that more than a little alarming.

There was a long arc about Ted getting addicted to crystal, and it showed how incredibly destructive that addiction was. He lost everything due to his addiction and had to work very hard to get over it and regain the trust of his friends - in particular Emmett, who was the most hurt by his addiction. And in the first season, he does OD and almost die, and everyone made a big deal of that.

I did get the feeling from the series however, that drugs are okay if you use them responsibly - including things like ecstasy. Which I'm not sure I can totally feel okay about. There is a lot of danger in using ecstasy too. It may not be quite as destructive as crystal, but it sure as hell isn't a safe practice. And it's irresponsible to show it as such, in my opinion.

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Arthur B

at 00:10 on 2009-12-18Yeah, the problem with saying "drugs are OK if you use them responsibly" is that it's a statement which is completely true, but also completely unhelpful. The "responsible" way to use some drugs might to be

not to use them at all

. And I'm sure most people, when they start using drugs

think

they're being responsible. They may or may not be correct, but if they're not correct, by the time they realise it might be too late to avoid addiction.

I am pleased that Queer As Folk US is disapproving of meth though.

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Andy G

at 00:20 on 2009-12-18

But doesn't this also entail being honest about the downsides to their choices?

In the words of Peep Show, I think you need to be honest but not necessarily brutally honest. As neither of us have seen the show, it's pretty hard to tell if it gets it right, but I do think in principle a show can feature (dangerous) drug use without having to punish the characters with consequences.

The kind of thing I have in mind for instance: it's OK to show characters in a 1940s period piece smoking and looking a bit glamorous, and not necessarily getting lung cancer. Or a film about hedonistic 70s rock stars which made reference to their drug use as part of the portrayal of their lives, but didn't show any of them getting addicted or hurt.

As it happens, I think someone actually dies of a drug overdose in the British version. I believe in the American show he doesn't die but it's still a traumatic event. So the consequences are in fact shown. I guess even sympathetic portrayals need to show downsides to the lives/choices/values in any case, otherwise there'd be a distinct lack of drama and plot.

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Melissa G.

at 01:02 on 2009-12-18

I am pleased that Queer As Folk US is disapproving of meth though.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure the recreational drug use really subsided after Season 1. (Maybe as a reaction to Ted's OD?) If I remember correctly, Brian (and maybe Justin sometimes) were the only recreational drug users in the later seasons. And even those instances seemed few and far between. But it's been a while since I saw the series so maybe I just deluded myself into thinking this...

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Andy G

at 02:06 on 2009-12-18I always had the impression that ecstasy was pretty harmless for the vast majority of people taking it. Though that's slightly beside the point - I think there has to be a certain degree of leeway for people things in fiction getting away with things that might not be possible or advisable in real life.

It's all slightly beside the point which I was originally trying to make - I don't think that just because gay men are shown using drugs, this automaticaly qualifies it as a portrayal of a negative image of them. Even if on balance they'd probably be better off not doing drugs.

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Melissa G.

at 02:21 on 2009-12-18

I always had the impression that ecstasy was pretty harmless for the vast majority of people taking it.

For the vast majority maybe, but there are people who have died from their first ever hit of ecstasy because they bought it from people who didn't make properly/added something to it that they shouldn't have. (This is speaking from internet research rather than personal experience).

While I agree that it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative portrayal, I feel like you'd be hard pressed to find drug-users (and I mean those who use harder drugs like ecstasy/heroin/coke/meth) who will tell you how much drug use enhanced and enriched their lives. Most of the time drug use leads to badness, and that's why people quit. So it seems like if you're going to have drug users in literature/media, they should at some point either suffer from the usage or mature out of it somehow. But perhaps this is just my straight-edge-ness talking.

Erg, sorry for the off-topicness.

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Sister Magpie

at 03:52 on 2009-12-18

Yeah, the problem with saying "drugs are OK if you use them responsibly" is that it's a statement which is completely true, but also completely unhelpful. The "responsible" way to use some drugs might to be not to use them at all. And I'm sure most people, when they start using drugs think they're being responsible. They may or may not be correct, but if they're not correct, by the time they realise it might be too late to avoid addiction

I often think about something like this, the best way to present it. Because I often feel like the way TV usually shows drugs is just as unhelpful. Like where someone tries pot, and by sweeps they're out of control, but in a still-attractive way, and their friends are all concerned (but not angry or fed up the way you can quickly get with an addict). Mackenzie Phillips guest stars as a therapist and then he goes into rehab for a special ep and he's okay.

Because the problem with the idea that doing a single hit of anything makes you an addict is if a kid tries something and that doesn't happen they're navigating the reality on their own. The reality is more complicated--there are people who have done drugs at times but don't become addicted--but addiction is real and everyone should seriously fear it. Unfortunately it's also bad in a way that a lot of TV doesn't want to do too realistically because it makes characters unlikable. (Note: Certain drugs can't really be recreational. If you're doing crystal meth, for instance, you're in trouble, period.)

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Andy G

at 11:48 on 2009-12-18Let's put this another way: I take it as a given that violence is, in general, both morally bad and unhelpful as a solution. But I wouldn't want to say that a "glamorous" depiction of violence in film or TV is necessarily bad - I think that would be overly simplistic and would lead to some very dull films.

I would like to distinguish between two things though:

a) A positive portrayal of people who use drugs. It is possible to honestly show that these people use drugs without that necessarily equating to a negative portrayal of those people.

b) A positive or negative portrayal of their drug use.

The objection I had to the article was that it assumed (a) was impossible and that presenting the mere true fact that a certain subculture of gay men have anonymous sex, use drugs etc. amounted to a negative portrayal of them.

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Andy G

at 11:59 on 2009-12-18Incidentally:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-big-question-how-dangerous-is-ecstasy-and-is-there-a-case-to-review-its-legal-status-767817.html

Not that I would or do use ecstasy. I don't even drink alcohol. But I really don't think it can be categorised alongside crystal meth.

I've just remembered the Oxford LGBT Soc was accused in one of the student papers of being a sordid den of crystal meth addicts.

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Wardog

at 13:21 on 2009-12-18

I've just remembered the Oxford LGBT Soc was accused in one of the student papers of being a sordid den of crystal meth addicts.

Oh I remember this - I was most annoyed, not least because not only was I NEVER offered crystal meth while at LGBT (or rather LGB as it was in my day) events but I didn't even get laid =P

I was quite intrigued by this article actually as I've only seen the British version - which I remember rather enjoying, as soapy fun anyway.

This snags at me slightly - in an interested way, I mean, not a critical one. I suppose, perhaps, it depends on who we establish as the target audience of QaF. I mean, yes, possibly a straight person would watch it and read out of it a confirmation of their worst 'fears' about the so-called homosexual lifestyle. But presumably it's *also* perfectly possible to read it as nothing more than sexy hyperbole - I mean there's nothing *inherently* wrong with taking drugs and having anonymous sex, is there? And I think it's an aspect of the culture that we've all brushed up against, maybe even partially participated in at certain times of our life ... again I'm talking about the British version here but actually it's both fun and meaningful to see its excesses explored 'safely' on TV.

To be more specific, like Sister Magpie I *really* enjoy The L Word. I think I even I wrote an article to the effect that it's a *terrible* portrayal of lesbian relationships and I think it's also fairly easy to argue the target audience of it is straight men BUT actually I do find it rather titillating. It's about hot women behaving badly, having lots of sex, and living a super fantasy lesbian lifestyle that does actually appeal - even if we know it's not necessarily 'realistic' - to a lot of gay women.

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Andy G

at 13:48 on 2009-12-18

But presumably it's *also* perfectly possible to read it as nothing more than sexy hyperbole - I mean there's nothing *inherently* wrong with taking drugs and having anonymous sex, is there? And I think it's an aspect of the culture that we've all brushed up against, maybe even partially participated in at certain times of our life ... again I'm talking about the British version here but actually it's both fun and meaningful to see its excesses explored 'safely' on TV.

Yes! That's exactly it.

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Arthur B

at 15:53 on 2009-12-18It should also be remembered that drugs and anonymous sex are not exactly foreign to certain quarters of the heterosexual experience either, and I'm sure we can all think of shows which depict a fantasy heterosexual lifestyle involving plenty of both.

On the one hand, obviously the portrayal of gay people (or any minority) on TV has to be dealt with sensitively, because it is very easy to mistake a statement about a gay character or a set of gay characters for a statement about homosexuality in general, whereas there are a vast plethora of different portrayals of straight people on TV so one particular take on the straight clubbing scene carries less baggage with it. On the other hand, people like watching shows about young sexy party people doing young sexy party things. Anyone who objects to depictions of gay people doing that sort of thing either a) is the sort of person who just plain objects to that sort of thing in the first place, in which case they're just prudish or b) simply doesn't like gay people, in which case they're bigoted. I don't think any TV show ever stopped people being prudish or bigoted, and I don't think the Queer as Folk or L Word writers have a special responsibility to worry about how genuinely hostile people would view their shows, because people who want to find things to object to will find things to object to.

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Andy G

at 16:36 on 2009-12-18

On the one hand, obviously the portrayal of gay people (or any minority) on TV has to be dealt with sensitively

As long as that doesn't mean timidly.

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Arthur B

at 17:18 on 2009-12-18Oh, absolutely. There's a difference between due care and needless cowardice.

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Melissa G.

at 17:20 on 2009-12-18

But I really don't think it can be categorised alongside crystal meth.

Here's the problem with ecstasy, and this is the last I'll say about it. What most people buy as "ecstasy" is not pure ecstasy, that is the say the chemical compound of MDMA, which in itself is not very dangerous. MDMA is very difficult to find/make, so many ecstasy sellers are actually giving you either a) a little MDMA mixed with things like amphetamine, methamphetamine, ephedrine, caffeine or b) something with no MDMA in it at all. Caffeine might not be dangerous to you but amphetamines and methamphetamines certainly are.

As for whether a drug user can be portrayed positive or negatively, Andy G., I actually agree with what you said here:

I do think it's possible to have a character who does drugs and isn't portrayed negatively, but I would be a little nervous if his "drug use" wasn't portrayed negatively. Though this would also relate to how hard of a user he is, what kinds of drugs he uses, etc. Like, I have no problem with a bunch of high school slackers being shown to use pot. It's realistic and not very dangerous. But if someone starts taking pills or snorting something up his/her nose, I think you have to be more careful.

As far as QaF goes, the drug use bothered me in the beginning, and then it seemed to become less of an overwhelming factor in their behavior so I kind of ignored the few references to it.

Sorry if this all sounds rambling; I may have a fever....

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Rami

at 18:50 on 2009-12-18

MDMA is very difficult to find/make, so many ecstasy sellers are actually giving you either a) a little MDMA mixed with things like amphetamine, methamphetamine, ephedrine, caffeine or b) something with no MDMA in it at all

Is it? I'd thought it was relatively simple -- I've read that crystal meth is relatively easy to 'cook' up, for instance.

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Melissa G.

at 19:44 on 2009-12-18MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine)is a type of methamphetamine, but I think it's different to what makes up crystal meth.

Unfortunately, I'm definitely not a scientist so I can't totally understand the difference in the chemical compounds that make up the two. If someone else has a better grip on it, I'd love to hear it explained in layman's terms. I think it has something to do with the fact that ecstasy requires "safrole" (sassafras extract) and that the safrole has to be manipulated to make MDMA by using piperonyl acetone. I don't really know what all that means, personally, but it's apparently difficult to do or at least it's difficult to obtain the materials needed to create MDMA. A quick skim of the internet tells me that there are a lot of stories about failures to make it. Maybe it's not so much that it's difficult to make, but that it's difficult to make for someone who's not a good chemist. All I do know for sure is that what most people are buying on the street is not going to be pure ecstasy.

Here's

a link to the wiki article about MDMA

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Rami

at 20:05 on 2009-12-18The internets say it's 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, and from what little chemistry I know, that 3,4 is actually significant ;-) So I'd guess it's quite easy to make substances that are very very close but don't quite work? In any case, we're digressing...

I'm impressed to see that we've all been well-educated by the "It's cool to say NO to drugs" campaigns, though :-)

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Melissa G.

at 20:09 on 2009-12-18

that 3,4 is actually significant

Ah, I wondered whether to include that or not. Shows how little I remember of my chemistry, lol.

And yes, we're digressing...sorry about that, everyone.

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Arthur B

at 22:19 on 2009-12-18The difference between methamphetamine and MDMA is thus: methamphetamine is methamphetamine, plain and simple, nothing fancy added to the structure, as seen

here

. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine is methamphetaine with extra stuff added to the chemical structure (the "methylenedioxy" bit). The "3,4" indicates that the methylenedioxy unit is bonded to the methamphetamine ring at a specific position on amphetamine's ring structure.

So, making methamphetamine is fairly simple, as far as chemical synthesis goes; you have several options for starting materials and the ways you can go about it. But MDMA is more complex, so your options are more limited.

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 05:43 on 2009-12-19It seems to me that whenever a bigot says in an accusatory way "group X are Y" there are at least two responses sensible people will want to make namely, "are not!" and "so what?"

This is what makes bigots so frustrating to debate against, because in a sound-bite confrontation it's almost impossible to reject one without appearing to accept the other.

In fiction though, it seems perfectly sufficient to rebut one or the other in a given story. So I think there's probably a place in the world for a story that gave a poignat and sympathetic portrayal of crowd of stereotypical swingin' hard-partyin' musical-theatre-lovin' fashion-conscious gay guys. Besides being entertaining and ideally a reasonable portrayal of a subculture of the gay community, it might convince one or two people that gay men aren't really that bad.

It sounds like this isn't that show, especially as destructive and unlikable as the characters sound, and with the writing apparently uneven, but I don't think making a story about stereotypical gay men is necessarily negative. (Though it should still have female characters).

The easiest way to pull it off would be for your hard-partiers to be lovable rogues of the dashing, rascally sort that gets a pass in fiction for plenty of ill-advised heterosexual adventures. There is, admittedly, a risk of lapsing into a kind of gaysploitation--if one glamorized the association of drugs and queerness, for instance, I imagine that would be as offensive as similar tactics in blaxploitation.

That said, blaxploitation is (and here I risk major racefail by opining on something I know little about) especially problematic because one audiences "celebrate" aspects of black life that aren't necessarily chosen by black people as good in themselves, but rather a consequence of the poverty and systematic discrimination that many black people suffer. I'm not aware of similar issues with gay stereotypes (though I'm sure they exist). To the extent that, say, gay men really do become designers and hardressers, for instance, (I assume much less than the stereotypical, but more than the general population), it's not because they were historically forced out of other industries.

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Andy G

at 12:13 on 2009-12-19

It sounds like this isn't that show, especially as destructive and unlikable as the characters sound

One thing to remember about QaF is that it is written from within a gay perspective for a gay audience to celebrate (a certain aspect of) gay life. I think that's an important distinction from the way that other shows appropriated images of black or gay people.

If anything, one of the problems I had with the British QaF was that it just didn't engage with homophobia - all of the homophobes were cardboard cut-outs with transparently bigoted views. But possibly it's because the aim was to create a fantasy world into which those kind of views couldn't get admittance.

I'm not sure I found the characters destructive and unlikable, though it's hard to tell how much that applies to the American version. I think the fact that it wasn't concerned to pander to homophobes made it defiant and unapologetic, which perhaps means there isn't much of a "way in" if you disapprove of certain aspects of what's going on (e.g. drug-taking).

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Viorica

at 15:30 on 2009-12-19

it's a *terrible* portrayal of lesbian relationships and I think it's also fairly easy to argue the target audience of it is straight men BUT actually I do find it rather titillating. It's about hot women behaving badly, having lots of sex, and living a super fantasy lesbian lifestyle that does actually appeal

Switch the pronouns, and that's a pretty accurate description of QAF. Which is my main issue with it- even leaving out the stereotypes, it's a dreadful portrayal of gay men and their lives. That, and there's nothing to balance the characters who act in extremely destructive ways (BRIAN); there isn't anyone who manages to have any kind of stable life, except

maybe

Michael. And without any stable characters, it kind of fails on the representation front.

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Wardog

at 16:36 on 2009-12-19

Switch the pronouns, and that's a pretty accurate description of QAF. Which is my main issue with it- even leaving out the stereotypes, it's a dreadful portrayal of gay men and their lives.

Not to put words in anybody's mouth or anything but I think that's Andy's point - it's probably a terrible portrayal of gay men and their lives to a bisexual woman but that judgement comes from being *way outside* the target audience.

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Andy G

at 17:27 on 2009-12-19

Feel free to put words in my mouth! You generally manage to say what I want to say far more eloquently and less pompously.

I guess QaF is just not trying to *justify* the type of lifestyle it portrays to people for whom that justification might not be obvious - it takes the fact of the existence of a certain kind of gay lifestyle as a starting point, as a world in which certain behaviours and assumptions are naturalised. It isn't making an argument for those assumptions but presenting a confident picture of that world to assert an identity.

Of course, I haven't seen the American version of QaF, so all I have to go on is what you said in your article. I'm not really sure how much more I can say that isn't vacuously hypothetical!

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Melissa G.

at 17:57 on 2009-12-19For what it's worth, my gay male friends all seem to love American QaF. But I never really talked with them at length about how they felt concerning the stereotypes and portrayals. When I watched the show together with them, it didn't really come up, but that doesn't mean they didn't notice or think about it.

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Viorica

at 20:33 on 2009-12-19

comes from being *way outside* the target audience.

Very true, and I do freely admit to coming to the show with some- privilege, I guess I'd call it?- since I'm not actually a gay man. It just feels kind of uncomfortable for a show what purports to be a representation of gay men and their lives to have those lives be frequently messed up. It's sort of like what I feel (to a far greater extent, seeing as how QAF is fictional and dosn't try to claim otherwise) about Tila Tequila. But I am sorry if I've offended anyone.

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Andy G

at 21:31 on 2009-12-19I'm not offended in the slightest, I just wanted to highlight a few points where I think we differ. But I don't think I have anything more to add, so I'll shut up now.

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Wardog

at 22:27 on 2009-12-19I wasn't offended either (not that I had any right to be anyway =P), I was just interested - I didn't mean to suggest your criticisms were inappropriate or invalid, or anything like that.

I guess there are similar issues with The L Word - in that a show that's supposed to be about the lives of gay women, you think they'd be less PSYCHO about everything.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:16 on 2009-12-19Like Kyra, I found it interesting to read this article and reach back to my rather vague memories of the British series. Pretty much every plot development you mention rings a bell, so I guess that's stayed similar.

Interestingly, I really don't remember drugs featuring to any significant extent in the British version. Now let's bear in mind it's been, what, at least ten years since I watched it, so there may have been drugs, but the fact that I've completely forgotten any such element suggests to me that I didn't register drug-use as an important part of their portrayal of the gay 'scene' in Manchester in the late '90s.

I also don't remember the lesbian couple breaking up; but on the other hand they were, as in the US series, utterly peripheral and so it's quite possible that they did and I just don't remember because it didn't matter to the plot. Nor, though perhaps for just the same reason, do I really remember one being noticeably more masculine than the other. But I do have a sort of recollection that one of the two was portrayed as a very stable and down-to-earth character who disapproved of Brian's (if that was his name in the British version also - at any rate the one played by the dark-haired chap who later played the Irish politician in

The wire

) behaviour.

I definitely don't remember Justin and Daphne (again I can't remember whether the names were the same in the British version) sleeping together, and I'll go so far as to say that I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. That just sounds bizarre.

My recollection of the end of the series (er,

spoilers

, if we haven't already passed that stage long ago) is that Brian is eventually persuaded that his relationship with Justin isn't healthy and redeems himself a bit by deliberately showing himself to Justin as a bit pathetic and past-it, which empowers Justin to get over him and make his own way as a more self-confident 'out' young gay man. I don't really know whether that's a good message or not. In a way it's a bit of a cop-out: it does acknowledge their relationship as problematic, but it also shows it as a positive thing in as much as it ends in Brian becoming a better person and Justin being empowered. Hmm.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:17 on 2009-12-19PS: What on earth do people in North America make of the title? It must seem completely nonsensical, surely?

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Andy G

at 23:31 on 2009-12-19The British version was much shorter, so there are lots more plot developments in the American show.

Stuart (Brian in the American version) isn't in a relationship with Nathan (Justin) at the end, but Nathan has a crush on Stuart that's holding him back, so in a weirdly altruistic act he finally agrees to sleep with Nathan and pretends to be pathetic and past-it.

Weird fact: Stuart (Justin) is played by Aidan Gillen, a.k.a. Tommy Carcetti in The Wire!

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Melissa G.

at 23:34 on 2009-12-19I don't remember thinking much of the title at all, but someone told me it came off of "Queer as Fuck", but I'm not sure where that came from either....

I'm pretty sure the British and American shows veer off from each other quite a bit. There might be some plot lines in the first season/series that match up, but like the American version of The Office, it becomes its own show after that. Brian and Justin's relationship is not really treated the same, it sounds like.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:35 on 2009-12-19

The title is a pun off of the phrase "Queer as Fuck" is it not? That's the explanation I was given, I think.

Gosh, no. There's an old phrase from Northern England, originating before the 'gay' connotation of 'queer', that runs 'There's nowt as queer as folk' ('There's nothing as strange as people', i.e. 'People are strange'). It's the sort of thing you'd say at the end of a gossipy conversation about your odd friends or neighbours.

My school-friends and I used to call the TV series 'Half a Yorkshire phrase'. I dare say we thought that was rather witty, but I guess really we were embarrassed to say 'queer' frequently in conversation when we chatted about each weeks' episode.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:36 on 2009-12-19Corrigendum:

weeks'

week's

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Melissa G.

at 23:37 on 2009-12-19

Gosh, no. There's an old phrase from Northern England, originating before the 'gay' connotation of 'queer', that runs 'There's nowt as queer as folk'

Haha, yeah, so whoever told me that was majorly confused. Though apparently "Queer as Fuck" (according to the internets) was the original idea for a title to the show so maybe that's where the confusion came from.

Sorry, I reposted that comment to edit it...

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Melissa G.

at 23:41 on 2009-12-19Sorry, not "the original title", just something they referred to it as in pre-production. Damn it, Melissa, read more carefully!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 00:35 on 2009-12-20Speaking as a North American, I know I've heard "queer as folk" before, but I admit I generally assumed that "queer as fuck" was the effect they were going for.

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Sister Magpie

at 00:40 on 2009-12-20Speaking as yet another North American, I think I knew it was a slang phrase. I distinctly remember knowing that it was short for "there's nowt queer as folk" but I don't know where I ever heard that phrase.

The Stuart/Nathan line definitely ended differently. The ending of Brian is one of the oddest things I could imagine. He basically seemed to have gotten to the point where he was ready to bow out gracefully and then his friends convinced him that no, he could be Brian forever! Except that of course he couldn't. So it was like it ended with him becoming pathetic because of peer pressure. Very bizarre.

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Andy G

at 00:55 on 2009-12-20I have been inspired to rewatch the British version. Stuart does indeed take "ecstasy" in the first episode, and it turns out to be dodgy. It is played for laughs though.

The entire series is on 4oD for anyone else who wishes to procrastinate!

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Melissa G.

at 01:49 on 2009-12-20

Here's

a YouTube video that shows scenes of the British and American versions back to back. It's pretty interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't find the one that contrasted the Brian/Justin seduction scene with the Stuart/Nathan one...

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Melissa G.

at 01:53 on 2009-12-20Oh! I lie.

Here

it is.

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Viorica

at 04:45 on 2009-12-20Wow, the comments exposded while I was away. :D

I didn't mean to suggest your criticisms were inappropriate or invalid, or anything like that.

Oh, I didn't think you were- I just figured that talking about Why This Is Bad when the show isn't aimed at me/my demographic could potentially annoy someone.

Re: Brian and Justin. They do eventually end up together, no? As I recall (from spoilers, as I haven't gotten to season five yet) they decide not to get married, but to stay together as a couple.

What on earth do people in North America make of the title?

Honestly, I'm not sure. Most people probably figure that the point of the title is to have "queer" in there and just leave it at that.

one of the two was portrayed as a very stable and down-to-earth character who disapproved of Brian's behaviour.

Yep, that's Melanie. The butch/femme dynamic between them is relatively subtle- they haven't got one of them as a drag king or anything- but Melanie's got short hair and dresses sensibly while Lindsey had long hair, and is a bit dressier.

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Andy G

at 02:12 on 2009-12-22Don't want to re-open this discussion, but just finished re-watching the rather fab British series and just wanted to flag up the way drug issues are handled in the series:

******Spoilers********

Epsiode 1: Stuart takes "ecstasy" and it is spiked. He wrecks his flat (to comic effect admittedly).

Episode 3: Stuart and Vince take coke. Phil takes coke and dies.

Episode 4: Phil's mother delivers stinging comments about drug use in the gay community at his funeral.

I think that gives a rather fair portrayal of the consequences of drug use without being too preachy or didactic, and without condemning the people who use it (while still being critical). I don't know how this compares to the US series.

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Viorica

at 00:36 on 2010-01-03I got the second season out of the library (what can I say? It's addictive) and 2x03 actually has an episode where they invent a gay-themed show called "Gay as Blazes" which Brian mocks for being an overly sedate and non-sexualised portrayal of gay people. I really have to admire their sheer ballsiness. Either that, or they're just being wanky.

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Viorica

at 00:43 on 2010-01-03Oh! And the episode also features a gay author who editorializes about the creepy age gap in Brian and Justin's relationship. Somehow, I get this feeling that they recieved some criticism. :P

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Wardog

at 15:39 on 2010-01-19Hehe, sorry to drag this up *again* but it's interesting - I've just started re-watching the British version which, as Andy says, is indeed rather fab. I have to say I, err, I err, find Stuart / Nathan ... non-squicky

Maybe I'm just completely tasteless and missing the point but I actually think the portrayal of the sex and the relationship (such as it is) is pretty balanced between the positive and the negative. I see it neither has overly fantastic, nor overly condemnatory if that makes sense - I mean, yes, there's an element of fantasy there but it's largely the fantasy of the two involved parties - Stuart gets off on it because it helps him re-affirm both his youth and transgressiveness, especially after the birth of his son (notice he only gets 'properly' into Justin after he learns his age) - and for Nathan you *bet* it's a fantasy - he loses his virginity to a hot, 'sophistcated' older man. Even the dropping him off at school sequence feeds into this - it's still part of the joint fantasy.

I know they are, to an extent, exploiting each other but that mutuality, to me, it what de-squicks it.

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Arthur B

at 15:52 on 2010-01-19Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but didn't the original series come out before the age of consent for homosexual men was lowered to 16 (in line with the heterosexual age of consent in the UK), or at least very, very shortly after it? If that's the case (and if Nathan is 16ish in the show) then RTD may have been very specifically trying to address that issue through the show.

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Wardog

at 16:02 on 2010-01-19He's pretty definitely 15... and I'm not arguing it's, y'know, a positive portrayal of underage homosexual sex but I think what it does depict very nicely is that it's *complex*.

#Ferretbrain #Viorica #Queer as Folk #Minority Warrior

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