it's yellowjackets / jennifer's body parallels time!
hi hello keep reading if you would like to hear about shauna/jennifer and jackie/needy, here's my totally noncomprehensive, very much off the cuff thoughts on this very complex and interesting dynamic!!
(i'm not getting into the basic parallels, i'm gonna assume you know the karyn kusama of it all, the heart necklace, the homoerotic female friendship, the death)
yellowjackets is so brilliant because it feeds you stereotypes and absolutely does not deliver on them. there could be an entire paper on each girl and how this is true for them specifically, but walk quickly with me because i want to get into the nitty gritty gory fun stuff! a brief oversimplified example: nat is referred to as a burnout, some would assume she's a loner based on that, but she cares about the team as a unit more than arguably anyone else. (this is common in real life too, our stereotypes often don't hold water in reality and yj reflects that beautifully!)
now to the jackie/shauna of it all. it would be oh so incredibly easy to look at jackie and think she's the jennifer of the duo. we are set up to see her as prettier, more popular, more demanding. but that illusion falls apart QUICKLY if you pay attention to the things that jackie actually says and does. she's not a mean girl. she's actually one of the kindest on the team. she doesn't pick on shauna, she clings. there are plenty of takes on this on tumblr so i won't exhaust it, my adhd loves to digress and meander but i'm forcing myself back onto the trodden path to this point: people look at the first few minutes of the pilot and they immediately decide that they know who these girls are. the audience typecasts jackie as a jennifer and shauna as a needy. the popular, bubbly girl and her shy, bookworm best friend.
a lot of people, especially casual viewers who don't study this show like its their job (god, wonder what that would be like lol) understandably stop here. but to me the BRILLIANCE of yj is that they don't actually make it HARD for you to undo your initial impressions. the material is there. it isn't hidden. it isn't some deeper self of each character that is unraveled throughout seasons. they push, push, push to see just how far they can carry our deeply held stereotypes/expectations. how forward and violent can shauna be, with viewers still clinging to a shy and sweet girl, who was really their own creation? how kind and honestly pathetic kicked-puppy can jackie be, with viewers still clinging to a mean girl, who was really their own creation? how far will we go to warp the characters intentions, so that we can keep them in the box we understand them in? they ask this of the viewer and of other characters, but AGAIN i digress.
so, while this might sit strangely with some, yes i think that jackie is very much aligned with needy if you peel back just one layer. but far above and beyond that, shauna is so very fucking jennifer.
the overall veneer is thinned immediately in yj. there isn't one girl in the stands and one on center stage. jackie and shauna are both on the team. they go to the same parties, they play the same sport, i would argue that shauna isn't even coded as "less pretty" (please note the word coded, because i'm not saying needy is literally less pretty than jennifer, i am simply saying that we have hair, makeup, clothing, glasses trends that we use to stereotype characters, are you with me?)
so now what? now these girls are both and neither. shauna thinks that she is the needy to jackie's jennifer. jackie wears the necklace and the introductory shots frame her as important. but we're already diverting from that set-up.
our absolute clearest common denominator here is one that i rarely see people mention funnily enough: JENNIFER IS A SUCCUBUS. she CONSUMES. she KILLS. she WANTS and she TAKES.
now before you get TOO EXCITED!!! i see some of you getting ready to say i'm a shauna shipman hater, put the pitchforks down!! shauna is one of my favorite characters of all time. i love her crazy ass so deeply that it's alarming. (i don't hate jennifer, either, for the record.) i love her largely for WHAT she is. i think sanitizing or sweetening her is a disservice. she's amazing and complex and wounded and capable of deep love. but she also, quite LITERALLY, consumes.
her character is sex and desire and violence and obsession and consumption. and it's AMAZING. she's POWERFUL. she's our main framing character (in this dynamic), rather than needy. the scripts are switched. jennifer dies and needy lives, and that's one story. that's clearer cut, simpler, made for a horror film. but here, jackie dies and shauna lives, and that story is deep and rich and goes on to include a whole lot more death and destruction and chaos.
shauna tells us herself that it excites her. she likes it. she is this girl. this woman. she reminisces and she recreates and she covets.
jennifer tries to consume needy, shauna literally consumes jackie.
there's more to this story, obviously. you could deep dive and mine for the intricacies of the set up and fall of stereotype and expectation, or collect all of the exact parallels. but i'll stick with a few, because this is a quick outburst of thought.
a huge one, who is taking whose boyfriend?
here's another personal favorite of mine, just for kicks
is it too complex to neatly tuck away? absolutely. they're different stories with different themes. shauna isn't simply a teenager possessed by a demon. it runs far deeper. as is the essence of this show.
but if you want to look at parallels, look at the one who has been holding the knife the whole time.
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what can Bella Swan actually cook?
armed with LegalTM pdfs, control f, and my theory that Bella doesn't actually like cooking she was just written by a mormon housewife, I have determined every specifically named meal Bella cooks in the Twilight Saga!
In summary:
15 total named meals (7 in Twilight, 3 each in New Moon/Eclipse, and 2 in Breaking Dawn)
13 unique meals (lasagna & fried chicken repeat across books)
Presumably she's also cooking literally every other day (when they aren't ordering pizza, which is apparently the only takeout Charlie ever gets), but it's not relevant to her narrative.
my main conclusion is that she eats way too much cereal, but for the purposes of this i've decided that cereal doesn't count as cooking.
Bella Swan canonically knows how to cook:
Twilight:
Steak and potatoes, plus salad (pg 15)
White people enchiladas (p.36)
Fish (marinated), with “salad and bread left over from the night before” (p.68)
Cold-cut sandwiches (p.70)
Grilled cheese (with tomato) (p.111)
Lasagna (p.118)
Fish, using Harry Clearwater’s fish fry (p.169)
New Moon:
Fried chicken (p.70)
Lasagna (p.82)
Casserole (p.197)
Eclipse:
Spaghetti, (rescued from Charlie)
Grandma Swan’s stroganoff recipe (p.29)
Hamburger (p.43)
Breaking Dawn:
Sunny-side up eggs (p.75)
Damn rancid chicken Fried chicken (p.80)
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So anyways i was gonna wait for like a HUGE ref to put together
BUT im impatient and i have a short attention span!!
Here's me! Here is Jazz!! Puppetsona!!
Just a head shot for NOW!
ReDesigning her! And honestly if she isnt kinda different everytime i draw her, i probably died, cause i'm the MOST inconsistent person there is!! And she is too!!
She is a bear!!
She is so so Hyper and Happy!!
and she's silly! and she's doting!
and she's yearning! and shes fussy! and overBearing! (ahahaha)
and she struggles sometimes to process new things but she's figuring that out too!
She is WHIMSICAL and she's loving!
and she looks at the world with wide and sparkling eyes!!
and she believes in Magic!!
She is simply! a Collector!! She collects everything that makes her Happy! Toys, Art, Stones, Flowers, Coins, Teapots, Clown dolls, Art supplies,Memories, Dreams, and any little random thing!!
You will probably see me doodle her and change her hair, her colors, her clothing,her height, ect, but here is a taste of the sort of things she wears!!
She Doesn't wear shoes!!
and she IS! a little bit magical
Those pockets are deeper than they should be!
and Things simply seem to happen around her!!
She has a Hugtime Bracelet! Yes, from Trolls!!
Because i said she can!!
Feel free to ask me Any questions about her!!
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