#Good Means to nuanced cross cultural political dialogue

[rotzaprachim]

no nuance Friday: I think the world would be better if flags were somehow banned from Twitter bios

[aegor-bamfsteel]

Who would you fancast for Daemon Blackfyre and Daeron II? I looked through your tags & only saw your fancasts for Aegor, Shiera, and sort of Bloodraven (but we can all say Max von Sydow was perfectly cast). Very good picks. I would like to know about the others. :)

Hello, anon! The post to which you’re referring also has some fancasts for Rohanne, Daena, and Calla (although I’m not completely pleased with Rohanne’s; and I’ve changed my mind with Calla; please substitute her with Marlo Thomas as the cheerful aspiring actress Ann Marie in That Girl, gif below).

I actually have some issues with Max von Sydow as Brynden Rivers, but I’ll explain why under the cut since this post is just a fun exercise (these actors are either deceased or too old for these roles now). As for the characters you’ve asked about, I’ve long had trouble with fancasting Daemon because of his nuances and very distinctive look. I don’t want to just cast Orlando Bloom/Henry Cavill for all these warrior Targaryens, but rather pick someone I think could convey his personality. So if I had to choose:

Robert Redford at his peak in the 60s/70s I think would be the real life equivalent of Daemon Blackfyre, in that his name was used by people in his generation to mean “a man so handsome even The Guys Want Him” (Eustace Osgrey and Dunk both notice how attractive he is, and Dunk only sees his face on a coin). He was a blond, blue-eyed all-American hero equally prominent in romance as in action/adventure, but without the rough edges of a Marlon Brando. Redford was from the New Hollywood era that sprung up following the repeal of the Hays Code, and consequently characters tended to have more explicit nuance. With Redford, his most prominent roles weren’t cookie cutter good guys in the vein of the Hays Code films, even though he was still the character the audience would root for (this is how I see Daemon, as having character flaws but ultimately a better man than the rest of the story’s main male characters): as a spendthrift con artist swindling a violent mob boss (The Sting), or a perpetual outlaw on the run from US marshals (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), or even a skilled writer whose lack of political and moral convictions causes him to lose the woman he loved (The Way We Were). I chose this .gif of The Way We Were because Redford plays the effortlessly talented, socially-adept WASP writer opposite Barbra Streisand’s determined, headstrong Jewish antiwar activist who pushes him to take writing seriously and puts principles over romance; I think that story could fit Daemon and Rohanne (except Daemon and Rohanne do work things out by the end, whereas Hubbell and Katie drift apart). I still have some doubts about this casting, but at this point I’m just relieved I could name one actor who has some Daemon Blackfyre essence.

Daeron II’s fancast and a few surprise casts under the cut:

Donald Pleasence is one of the greatest characters actors of all time (I chose this .gif because he doesn’t have a beard here, and Daeron II was clean shaven). Being shorter than average and prematurely balding meant he didn’t fit Hollywood’s image of a leading man (just like Daeron didn’t fit Westerosi ideals of a martial king), but he used his icy blue eyes and sonorous voice in his portrayal of some of the most iconic characters in popular culture (original Blofeld in You Only Live Twice and original Dr. Loomis in the Halloween franchise). Since he allegedly never turned down a role he was offered, he was in some of the greatest movies ever made and some of the worst, but each time he gave a solid performance. He could make some of the stupidest dialogue ever recorded (1980’s Pumaman) sound sensible and even menacing, which would be an assert for portraying a character with as many contradictions as Daeron II seemed to have. Despite playing many villains, Pleasence also portrayed some heroes or mentors, but always with an intensity of a character that would cross boundaries (no surprise, he was a huge fan of Sir Laurence Olivier). All told, Pleasence is an actor who I think could’ve brought some interesting gravitas and unique charisma to a character I believe on paper lacks both.

Now for some bonuses:

Late 70s/early 80s Orson Welles as Aegon IV fits so well I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM had him in mind when inventing his appearance (obvious Henry VIII parallels notwithstanding). Most people know Welles as the director and star of 1941 Citizen Kane or the narrator of the 1938 “The War of the Worlds” radio drama that caused a mass panic in the audience, but he had a long career after that (he died 5 days after he completed voice work for Unicron in 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie, incidentally part of one of my favorite franchises). Older Welles was so fond of eating and drinking wine, but so difficult to work with, that director Alexander Jodorowsky essentially bribed him with a Parisian chef to play Baron Harkonnen in a scrapped Dune adaptation. He has Aegon IV’s pointed silvery beard and hair as well as the girth, but is also tall, with a resonant deep voice that scared young children back in the 80s (I imagine that Aegon’s kids and grandkids were afraid of him in his later years). I also like to think Aegon had a charismatic, even learned side that he used to impress women, and I think Welles could pull that off. Aegon IV is a one-dimensional character, more of a device to get the Rebellion plot moving (and attract audience hatred), but if any actor could bring some depth, menace, or even a bit of twisted humor to the role, it could’ve been older Welles.

Bette Davis in All About Eve as Elaena Targaryen is a fancast I’m fond of, maybe because I see Elaena as the jaded older showwoman type who doesn‘t care too much about her romantic life due to her work and has little maternal instinct (and also smokes clove-scented pipes). Davis might not be one of the most physically attractive actresses (although considering I think Kate Hepburn is gorgeous but Wikipedia says she’s “coltishly pretty” what do I know), but she conveys such emotion in her eyes and mouth, or the disdainful way she holds her cigarette; just like Elaena wasn’t the most beautiful Maidenvault princess (although like Davis, she did grow into her looks) and had those same angry eyes. Bette Davis wasn’t afraid to take unsympathetic or even villainous roles at the time of the Hays Code (she even shaved off her eyebrows to play Elizabeth I); she was tough and outspoken, as her epitaph states: She did it the hard way. Margot Channing’s anti heroic character softens a bit toward the end of the film, agreeing to get engaged to a long term boyfriend, and maybe that parallels Elaena’s seeming retirement with Michael Manwoody.

Now for some wank about Brynden Rivers’ casting as Max von Sydow:

I wouldn’t have much problem taken out of context. Max von Sydow is a ruggedly handsome man, with a dignified face and intense stare. It’s understandable why the most beautiful female character in the world was sexually attracted to a character who resembles him. However, there’s nothing in the text that indicates Bloodraven is attractive and a few clues that he isn’t (Dunk calls his birthmark “ugly”, GRRM said he has a “grim and forbidding aspect”). At this point I’d roll my eyes that even the “unattractive Targaryen” is handsome, but then you add Daemon’s (Marvel comic’s Thor) and Aegor‘s (Barry Windsor Smith’s Conan the Barbarian) casting into to the mix and it gets annoying. GRRM stated that Aegor was “handsome in a dark brooding way”, and Daemon is repeatedly said to be so attractive that it’s actually a minor plot point. Neither comic book character model is anywhere near as attractive as Max von Sydow, and this was carried over into Amok’s official artwork for the 3 characters, which GRRM actually approved without comment (except that he considered Daemon “too soft”, rather than anything to do with Brynden or Aegor’s caricature of an angry face). I’m not saying this to be shallow, but it’s another example of how Brynden Rivers isn‘t allowed to be flawed or suffer setbacks, even in the shallow physical sense; just like he’s able to twice duel an exceptional warrior-commander to a standstill despite allegedly preferring the arrow; or being scrawny despite being above average height and capable of drawing 60-80 pounds of draw weight; or continuing to be Hand for decades despite exacerbating major crises; or being allowed to take Dark Sister to the Wall and become Lord Commander despite years of showing he shouldn’t be trusted to lead; he can’t even be physically less handsome than his brothers even when it’s important to the plot. As it is, I’m scratching my head why Daemon is remembered as so attractive and why people are frightened of Brynden’s appearance (Aegor’s appearance isn’t plot relevant, which is a relief because the less I say about angry!emoji!Hagrid the better). GRRM could’ve recommended another comic book character to serve as Brynden‘s face model, or he could’ve kept von Sydow but made Daemon and Aegor’s face models two famous actors—like Robert Redford (famously handsome all American Vice Guy protagonist) and Laurence Olivier (essentially the Byronic Hero/Shakespearean villain king of Hollywood’s Golden Age). As it is, it feels like Brynden is Suetiful All Along—where the text tells us he’s not attractive but he’s shown to be such, and that unattractiveness never stops him from achieving anything—whereas Daemon’s (and Aegor’s to a lesser extent) by contrast is an informed attribute.

Fan wank aside, thank you for being interested enough in my reminiscing about older movie characters to request a sequel post. My ask box is always open, even if I can take some time to respond.

[redantsunderneath]

Marlene Dietrich/Josef von Sternberg marathon: The Blue Angel, Morocco (1930), Dishonored, and Shanghai Express (1931)

I watched all of these films, the Blue Angel in German (which surprisingly didn’t hurt, though I might have missed some puns), so I could be prepped for the great movie podcast “There’s Sometimes a Buggy” that is covering the collaboration that made Marlene Deitrich as we know her. I don’t have a lot of exposure (more on my movie history later) to the early talkie years so these movies were a bit surprising to me on a lot of fronts, not the least reason for which was that I wasn’t brought up in rape culture, I guess (is this what people mean when they say that? cause, jeesh! every movie, the threat is just there). Funny enough, I felt that The Blue Angel was the only one that was really political to me along axes that felt vital, which is peculiar as the other three were about political conflict of factions/nations and make statements about war, nationalism, and the other, but I guess they don’t seem political in a sense that fits with current discourse. I didn’t see the CPC officer in Shanghai Express as pro communist but as a tentative stab at ambivalent nuance of the other’s perspective, a tipping of the hand that there’s a western-centracism in his absurd rape code (this is a common feature through the films of a “first claim” that a certain type of man has on a woman that has nothing to do with what she wants), and as ultimately an example of the brutality of violent conflict (more pointed because he’s been fleshed out).  But I admit, by the films' equalizing the other side (the Russians, the CPC and even the Tunisian rebels if only by making the French Foreign Legion look so terrible) that is in itself a statement.  Kubrick’s Paths of Glory seems to pick up where this leaves off.

The Blue Angel is the film I have the most to say about, and was the most interesting conceptually, but was hard to sync with for technical reasons (me not speaking German maybe being one of them).  Through the films, we watch Dietrich get better at being a talkie actress and the Blue Angel doesn’t push her that hard, but this may be more a function of the camerawork and editing than anything else.  Jannings somehow works better with her as a leading man than anyone but Dishonored’s McLaglen because he can fill the space created by her silent movie style of encapsulated performative moments then stasis/posing, though the let it breathe editing doesn’t help (I almost think her hand on ribcage pose starts as a need for her to have something to do when reacting that seems like a reaction).  Morocco’s Gary Cooper sometimes seems like he’s in a different space than her and Shanghai’s Brook is super clipped (though she’s better adapted by then).

In Blue Angel, the effort to create composite Mise-en-scène with the ominous foreground frames is terrific (those anchors hanging down! the professor’s approach to the club!) and we have some of that German expressionist inner state stuff going on, especially at the end (the shadow of the chandelier!) but the cameraman doesn’t seem to know where to be and maybe that explains the ostensibly crappy blocking.  The cinematography on the others is much better – the superimposed tracking shots in Morocco are phenomenal – and have just as many knockout myth buildingly shot scenes (too many to mention but her in a tux in Morocco,  the final escape in Dishonored, the prayer in Shanghai Express).  All the movies have enough differences in approach that you could think they were done by a different team (were the external shots in Morocco the ones shot by Peckinpah’s eventual AD, Lucien Ballard?).

There are all sorts of motifs running through the films: clocks (and calendars), racially insensitive dolls, men’s hats on women, skein-like drapes sometimes burned by irons vs drawn opaque shades, a man eavesdropping to get mood altering information from behind a louvered door, clowns/harlequins, throwing stuff that will need to be cleaned up on the floor/wall, makeup application in a number of functions (e.g. highlighting her performative nature, emasculation of men), sitting/sprawling on things as an act of feminine claiming of the space, guttural and animal noises as announcement we’re in a libidinal space positive or negative, the stockings, the kept animals, and all sorts of recurring human archetypes.   But it’s The Blue Angel, with its full bore usage of these things plus more (eggs, nautical detritus, clock figurines, etc, that the subliminal story is the most present (though Dishonored is pretty potent).

The reason why I say Blue Angel is the most socio-political is that as a 2019 person on the internet who sees the culture war, is aware of the history of Weimar imagery as handled post Nazi, and knows what’s coming (spoilers for Hitler), the statement being made looks really complicated with a first pass of: the intelligencia’s embrace of the subaltern as primarily an instrument-possession both losses them cultural power and leaves them outside of the outgroup too, which is how, maybe, regressive populism (the students as rabble) wins. Granted this is an Iser-type hermeneutical hot take and it is complicated by the possibility that Jannings codes as pre-Hitler German populace’s growing conflation of left wing and Jewish as “dark other” (problematic, hard to bring the 1930 and 2019 horizons together on this, mileage may vary, but a case can be made) which would almost make this an anti-radical (on both sides) statement that meshes with the other movies’ anti-violence, anti group/idea allegiance, pro-people take. This is just the "bad decision" version. As for Jannings, the lumpen here is fine with him as long as he performs correctly.  Maybe this is an artifact of Dietrich not being the protagonist by a director who wants her to be.  The thing that really overlays this from a now standpoint, though, is the rhyming with a kind of 4chan framing where he has lost his “rightful” power, is “cucked,” and has an entitled-male rage tm (i.e. this can be read as an anti incel-ideology movie). The other movies don’t have this kind of congruence for the most part.

But the way the symbols work is pretty neat.  His descent from prominent social capital to internationally renowned cock-a-doodle-do jester is marked by the change in the relationship with eggs as sexual enticement vs humiliation (and the humiliation was there from the beginning to be sure).  The clown is there as a warning/future self.  The special clocks that eerily suggests his/society’s demons are coming and no one can stop the forward mechanism of time. The caged bird is as you would expect.  The dolls are a sort of self possession that she does test runs giving away.  There’s too much to talk about.

Morocco has Cooper’s charisma going for it (which works best with Dietrich’s when they cut back and forth), the best non-closeup camerawork (the exteriors are great), large scale staging, and that cool woman in a tux mythmaking performance piece.  It contains Cooper’s great non-verbal performance in the scene where he eventually writes “changed my mind” on the mirror (you can see him decide).   The last scene of her trudging across the desert and throwing away her heals is great, and there is so much motion in the frame so often – the superimposition of movement that turns a dissolve into a long transitional double shot, the scene where she looks for him in the marching parade, etc. The relief map was hinky, though.  

Dishonored was my favorite of the four. I liked all these films but, broken down, it had a couple of “bests” in it, but was #2 for everything else.  It had the best-functioning male lead (the always in a mask non-naturalistic thing was perfect as that how she is and it balanced the space well) and a greater share of my very favorite scenes: the final escape scene, the party, the firing squad, and any any fucking piano playing (the first shot of her playing piano is my favorite shot of all the films).  It’s the second best as a subliminal story (after Blue Angel), was the only one other than Shanghai Express that seemed like it had a screenplay - a story story rather than a loose idea, the idea of certain shots, the actors types, and dialogue. It had the most convincing sweep other than Morocco. The cat was a nice setting free of agency, progressing the doll as totem of self/other possession but with a mind of its own, with the power to ruin everything.  This movie really vibed with me perfectly.  

For Shanghai Express, see above, but I have to say I love the Disney villainess (before there were Disney villainesses) dress.  The multi note secondary characters with actual performances and arcs was unique... the pastor who changes his mind on what is morally good is terrific, as are the exchanges between two fully fleshed out prostitutes and an old prude.  My list is close, but If I had to order it would be Dishonored, Blue Angel, Shanghai, then Morocco, but it’s tough because the great things about each vary so much (I kept dithering on the bottom three more than #1, I considered putting Morocco 2nd).

It’s odd I’ve written this much and I haven’t broached the gender archetype pushing and pulling here, mainly because this seems pretty well mined territory.  I’m under-read on this and feel like my take would be super cold -- cross dressing, Gary Cooper with a flower behind his ear, the unflinching depiction of how tough a time women have it while still depicting a kind of unique female cruelty to men, and the constant sexist statements undermined by the POV and what actually happened.  Hopefully my naive viewpoint, coming at this fresh eyes will be valuable. So, like, are all these movies from this time period about class?  It kind of reminds me of Impro, the Keith Johnstone book, which basically boils all theatrical character interaction to being about status.  

Anyway, I’ve ignored my exegesis of Taylor Swift’s Lover to write this, so I must be back to work.  

[elizabethrobertajones]

You know, I desperately want Destiel to be end game as much as anybody, but somedays I think I would just be content if the show just textually acknowledged that Dean's bi. Something as simple as a dude at a bar asking Dean to come home w/ him while they're on a case and Dean saying something like "any other day I'd take you up on that but I can't tonight." IDK the subtext that Dean is bi is strong enough that I can't say the GA would be shocked by it and it would just be a nice textual nugget.

Hey, sorry it took so long to answer this, I’ve not been at my best for ages… Been thinking about this all week though :P 

I think it feels to me like the general audience can discard or mentally discredit an AWFUL lot of implication and direct hints - there have been comments and moments in many bits of media which imply directly or with heavy innuendo that a character may be interested in a non-hetero way to someone - especially things like teasy moments… 

Thinking of things like in HIMYM there’s an ongoing joke about Lily having a crush on Robin, but since she’s with Marshall the entire show, it doesn’t really go anywhere, and when they do kiss the dynamic swaps and Robin is left with kind of a crush on her and Lily’s over it and it’s all a joke, and even though they kissed it was a lol girls kissing is hot joke for the whole show, and it never turned into a discussion of sexuality, even if they would both happily stay married in their heterosexual marriages. (And… Uh. Robin stays married okay, I’m pretty sure that was the alternate ending in the DVD unless I hallucinated it out of sheer frustration >.>) Anyway to me it seems pretty natural to read both of them a little queer to full on bi, and if it had gone even a little bit differently Lily especially could be good representation for a bi woman in a relationship with a man who just happens to have ended up falling in love with him and that’s normal and doesn’t invalidate her sexuality? But yeah. No such nuance, so this whole thing barely registers for people and in general people would think it’s all a joke. 

I mean, even Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which is where that Getting Bi song comes from, has an episode where the main character has a huge rival-crush on the girlfriend of the guy she’s into, and gets so into her she even kisses her, but there’s no exploration of what that means to her and when her boss comes out as bi with that number, no exploration of if she might be as well, even if all these characters eventually might feel more comfortable defining themselves as straight it’s just weird to me there’s all these jokes about it which can go as far as kisses, use overly romantic language or a long-running joke of Lily heavily coming onto Robin or something, and yet unless you’re like a magpie collecting all this stuff it’s all still just noise. 

I bet a ton of people would not even have considered the characters were not-straight, even when directly pointing their eyes at this moment, consider it all as a joke or that it’s just something straight people do sometimes because of the cultural massive repression of bisexuality and the indications in more liberal times and places that when polled people will be majority queer to straight with at least some bi leanings… There’s all these headlines about gen Z being the gayest generation yet, but it’s not something in the water, it’s that previous generations have never dared be as open or consider that they’re non-straight, especially if they are easily attracted to people heterosexually… 

I think the Aaron scene was 90% of the way to what you are describing, minus Dean giving him a raincheck overtly, and Aaron admits it was a ruse before any further tension can follow. I think, having snooped a lot of blog archives in my time, that really was a turning point that got a lot of people convinced of the textual possibilities, especially with the director/writer commentary basically confirming it. And obviously it didn’t work to make EVERYONE see it, although fandom swelled that season and it was a very dramatic moment in the history of bi!Dean and Destiel within fandom. 

To give another example from outside the show, I’ve been watching Black Sails with my friend, who is very straight in mindset, and - major spoilers for that show ahead - the main character is confirmed to be overtly queer in the  middle of the second season. I think I know exactly the point I would have picked up this was a queer narrative in the first season, and what would have made me suspicious about the mysteriously un-revealed backstory. The build up to the reveal was amazing in the second season and I think if you didn’t get it you really need to do a rewatch, because my friend was utterly blindsided by the revelation, only catching on a scene before it happened (she does like guessing and is smart at TV if she knows all the cues to start with). But she’s - sorry - at sea with the character’s motivations and reasons, and understands his earlier actions almost completely backwards to me as she took him on face value for far too long without suspecting there was more than treasure and restoring his name on order, and not understanding his motives to be so political or to want to burn the entire system down or his utter alienation from the system; even after the reveal she didn’t understand the degree to which things were on the line or the forces pressuring him one way or the other. 

(I find it really interesting and I’m not really disagreeing with her, I’m curious how the surface layer all reads tbh :P) 

In any case, I don’t really have much confidence in a wider general audience taking throwaway moments to be full canon, and generally would need declarations and inescapable discussion or plot arcs for it. I think in some ways the trail is being blazed now - when Rosa came out as bi in b99 it had a sort of special episode educating you on it as much as being very sympathetic for bi people to watch and see literally a bulletpoint list of their issues and weird things people say about it acted out on screen. The subplot is basically the masterclass in addressing it. 

(So is the Getting Bi song :P although it covers less of the issues overall, it does make it fun and normalises the idea into a dance routine and deals with someone discovering the label for themselves and being thrilled it makes their life make sense.) 

I don’t think spn should do anything quite so specific or hilarious, but I love @bluestar86‘s concept of an episode which uses flashbacks to reveal Dean’s bisexuality - basically like with Robin in 9x07, but I think even just showing it was a childhood crush and he never figured it all out at the time but meeting the guy later in life makes things make a lot of sense or something… And we already have a template for that without going all the way into it with his reaction to meeting Gunnar Lawless, a childhood celebrity crush. So there’s paths to take which could do it.

But ultimately I think the issue is so messed up and tangled into the main arc that it would be next to impossible to confirm Dean is bi without having an utter drama about why not Destiel, as the two concepts are not, at this point, really separate or that you could have one without the other, though it would be easier to not address Dean’s sexuality in any way of assigning labels or having more than the immediately necessary self-reflection to deal with feelings for Cas without exploring deeper… (Not that I like that idea, it’s just, they could, you know? Not even in a “i don’t like labels” way but just something like Dean going “huh” and then getting together with Cas and literally no one ever makes a fuss or starts up a dialogue about why they’re now holding hands :P) 

But it’s been such a ridiculous, epic, drawn out relationship on screen that making Dean bi independent of Cas would seem bizarre and off-balance without addressing his relationship to Cas. Just because they have such an intense relationship, and within the text of the show are many many references to their relationship on many different levels, from snide comments to enormous declarations. None of this happens in isolation to other storylines or character depth. With the momentum and depth it has in the story, making Dean bi would be seen as a precursor to Destiel, and at this point cruel and strange not to address it and would beg the question of why they ever confirmed him bi in the first place, if not to leave the ship unresolved to the end but to be open for us to imagine it might happen one day when the story is over - or not, if we don’t ship it, and it’s the way to thread a needle to try and keep everyone happy. Which I’m not sure would work except for the people who very specifically would advocate for bi Dean but don’t think a ship is necessary. I mean, I know that’s a chunk of the Dean fandom, and it’s a valid way to read the text, and of course a lot of Destiel shippers are fully aware Dean is bi without any special interference from Cas about that :P 

And, I mean, in the same way, Cas’s story isn’t ALL about Dean and he has a lot of personal growth that doesn’t have to do with him or happens in spite of him in some cases. But it’s still inextricable from Cas’s character how much he loves Dean and how much Dean has meant to him, and they crossed the line of Cas loving Dean, unrequited or not, a long time ago, and Cas has been existing in a subtextual agony of being in love with Dean but seemingly unrequited for a very long time now, as that line was crossed before several season renewals made it  a painful wait for him. This doesn’t exist in a void to Dean’s sexuality either. 

So, I mean, I don’t know. I disagree with you about the general audience thing entirely, and I think this exchange you imagine could easily be absorbed by the GA to not really credit it as a full part of Dean’s character, laugh it off as a joke from him no matter how seriously he delivers it, and generally not remember him as a bisexual character. Because to straight viewers, they aren’t seeking out sexuality hints and confirmations, and such things don’t really affect their view of a character unless it becomes a textual romance. It has all the meaning sucked from it by their lack of interest and inability to sympathetically mould the character’s inner life based on their own experiences that match. If they’re not making a study of the character, these things can be dismissed as white noise, and in a few years time, a Buzzfeed article of “10 Pop Culture Characters You Never Knew Were Gay!” or something.

And it’s like, yes. We knew. We knew all along. We knew before it happened. But that doesn’t affect how people think of it.

So it feels to me like the only way if they wanted to make a real point of Dean being bi is to have the frank discussion, and devote a proper subplot amount of time to Dean’s sexuality, enough that it is clear and inescapably affecting him, or to confirm it via a relationship which would in this case conveniently by answered by the angel he’s been subtextually pining for for years, and who has his own arc of being pretty overtly in love with Dean to answer… should the show decide to go with addressing Dean’s sexuality, they have put a LOT of work into having this relationship ready and waiting, I’m just saying :P And if they only had an Aaron but x10 scene, it would STILL not really affect anything except layers below GA  - there’ll be more queer viewers who see it for the first time, and within these four walls it will obviously never be forgotten and will be a huge part of how Dean is celebrated by fandom, but I just can’t see it making an impact unless it’s more than a passing moment, because those get swallowed by a heteronormative void…

[blogtodaybtd]

How Teens Today Are Different from Past Generations

A psychologist mines big data on teens and finds many ways this generation—the “iGens"—is different from Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials. Every generation of teens is shaped by the social, political, and economic events of the day. Today’s teenagers are no different—and they’re the first generation whose lives are saturated by mobile technology and social media.In her new book, psychologist Jean Twenge uses large-scale surveys to draw a detailed portrait of ten qualities that make today’s teens unique and the cultural forces shaping them. Her findings are by turn alarming, informative, surprising, and insightful, making the book��iGen:Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us—an important read for anyone interested in teens’ lives.Who are the iGens?Twenge names the generation born between 1995 and 2012 “iGens” for their ubiquitous use of the iPhone, their valuing of individualism, their economic context of income inequality, their inclusiveness, and more.She identifies their unique qualities by analyzing four nationally representative surveys of 11 million teens since the 1960s. Those surveys, which have asked the same questions (and some new ones) of teens year after year, allow comparisons among Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and iGens at exactly the same ages. In addition to identifying cross-generational trends in these surveys, Twenge tests her inferences against her own follow-up surveys, interviews with teens, and findings from smaller experimental studies. Here are just a few of her conclusions.iGens have poorer emotional health thanks to new media. Twenge finds that new media is making teens more lonely, anxious, and depressed, and is undermining their social skills and even their sleep.iGens “grew up with cell phones, had an Instagram page before they started high school, and do not remember a time before the Internet,” writes Twenge. They spend five to six hours a day texting, chatting, gaming, web surfing, streaming and sharing videos, and hanging out online. While other observers have equivocated about the impact, Twenge is clear: More than two hours a day raises the risk for serious mental health problems.She draws these conclusions by showing how the national rise in teen mental health problems mirrors the market penetration of iPhones—both take an upswing around 2012. This is correlational data, but competing explanations like rising academic pressure or the Great Recession don’t seem to explain teens’ mental health issues. And experimental studies suggest that when teens give up Facebook for a period or spend time in nature without their phones, for example, they become happier.The mental health consequences are especially acute for younger teens, she writes. This makes sense developmentally, since the onset of puberty triggers a cascade of changes in the brain that make teens more emotional and more sensitive to their social world.Social media use, Twenge explains, means teens are spending less time with their friends in person. At the same time, online content creates unrealistic expectations (about happiness, body image, and more) and more opportunities for feeling left out—which scientists now know has similar effects as physical pain. Girls may be especially vulnerable, since they use social media more, report feeling left out more often than boys, and report twice the rate of cyberbullying as boys do.Social media is creating an “epidemic of anguish,” Twenge says.iGens grow up more slowly. iGens also appear more reluctant to grow up. They are more likely than previous generations to hang out with their parents, postpone sex, and decline driver’s licenses.

“Youths of every racial group, region, and class are growing up more slowly,” says Twenge—a phenomenon she neither champions nor judges. However, employers and college administrators have complained about today’s teens’ lack of preparation for adulthood. In her popular book, How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims writes that students entering college have been over-parented and as a result are timid about exploration, afraid to make mistakes, and unable to advocate for themselves.

Twenge suggests that the reality is more complicated. Today’s teens are legitimately closer to their parents than previous generations, but their life course has also been shaped by income inequality that demoralizes their hopes for the future. Compared to previous generations, iGens believe they have less control over how their lives turn out. Instead, they think that the system is already rigged against them—a dispiriting finding about a segment of the lifespan that is designed for creatively reimagining the future.

iGens exhibit more care for others. iGens, more than other generations, are respectful and inclusive of diversity of many kinds. Yet as a result, they reject offensive speech more than any earlier generation, and they are derided for their “fragility” and need for “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.” (Trigger warnings are notifications that material to be covered may be distressing to some. A safe space is a zone that is absent of triggering rhetoric.)

Today’s colleges are tied in knots trying to reconcile their students’ increasing care for others with the importance of having open dialogue about difficult subjects. Dis-invitations to campus speakers are at an all-time high, more students believe the First Amendment is “outdated,” and some faculty have been fired for discussing race in their classrooms. Comedians are steering clear of college campuses, Twenge reports, afraid to offend.

iGen:Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us (Atria Books, 2017, 352 pages) Social scientists will discuss Twenge’s data and conclusions for some time to come, and there is so much information—much of it correlational—there is bound to be a dropped stitch somewhere. For example, life history theory is a useful macro explanation for teens’ slow growth, but I wonder how income inequality or rising rates of insecure attachments among teens and their parents are contributing to this phenomenon. And Twenge claims that childhood has lengthened, but that runs counter to data showing earlier onset of puberty.

So what can we take away from Twenge’s thoughtful macro-analysis? The implicit lesson for parents is that we need more nuanced parenting. We can be close to our children and still foster self-reliance. We can allow some screen time for our teens and make sure the priority is still on in-person relationships. We can teach empathy and respect but also how to engage in hard discussions with people who disagree with us. We should not shirk from teaching skills for adulthood, or we risk raising unprepared children. And we can—and must—teach teens that marketing of new media is always to the benefit of the seller, not necessarily the buyer.

Yet it’s not all about parenting. The cross-generational analysis that Twenge offers is an important reminder that lives are shaped by historical shifts in culture, economy, and technology. Therefore, if we as a society truly care about human outcomes, we must carefully nurture the conditions in which the next generation can flourish.

We can’t market technologies that capture dopamine, hijack attention, and tether people to a screen, and then wonder why they are lonely and hurting. We can’t promote social movements that improve empathy, respect, and kindness toward others and then become frustrated that our kids are so sensitive. We can’t vote for politicians who stall upward mobility and then wonder why teens are not motivated. Society challenges teens and parents to improve; but can society take on the tough responsibility of making decisions with teens’ well-being in mind?

The good news is that iGens are less entitled, narcissistic, and over-confident than earlier generations, and they are ready to work hard. They are inclusive and concerned about social justice. And they are increasingly more diverse and less partisan, which means they may eventually insist on more cooperative, more just, and more egalitarian systems.

Social media will likely play a role in that revolution—if it doesn’t sink our kids with anxiety and depression first.

[cortegiania]

Hi, love your blog! Do you like the white princess? Both the book and the tv show I mean.

Hi anon, thanks a lot! Brace yourself, because this is going to be a very long answer written both by Mary’s perspective and my own (they’re similar but we have a lot of feelings, so….):

LAURA

Book: Hated it. If I could just get past Gregory’s glaring, ludicrous bias or if I’d lived on the moon until the other day and known nothing about history I could maybe enjoy it as a work of fiction pure as simple, but even so its tiresome reiterations sold as psychological introspection and its singularly uninspired prose are so bad I just can’t get into it. I think PG probably had shot herself in the foot by describing HVII as a creepy villain in The Constant Princess, so she had no choice but stick to that characterisation in her other books or else it would hardly have looked like the same universe. I personally believe this is almost downright offensive to the historical Henry Tudor, not because it has any actual influence on any intelligent person’s idea of him but because it really cheapens him both as a sovreign and a person. Whatever PG might think of him, he was a remarkable figure she either doesn’t quite grasp or actively means to undermine. No middle ground here.

But you know, it’s always the same problem with PG: it’s okay to write fiction with your own theory, although I find most of hers hilarious, just maybe don’t claim to be a historian?? Like, that’s not your phd?? Just because you read about something it doesn’t mean you get any authority on it - I read a lot about the Borgias, it doesn’t mean I’m a Borgia historian. I’m not even close. Tbh, I also blame the UK’s cultural industry here. Just don’t interview the woman in your documentaries. Don’t give her the same space as David frigging Starkey. She’s good for Harlequin books at best, or rather was. Sorry this rant got OT quite quickly, but it’s really hard to separate the book’s quality from its historicity or lack thereof and that’s chiefly PG’s own fault.

TV Show: I do and I don’t like it. Obectively it’s laughably bad. It lacks everything that made TWQ decent, stylish entertainment: great performances, gorgeous locations, beautiful cinematography, evocative directing. But even the best intentions can’t make much out of a weak script and TWP’s is a ridiculous mess that makes me want to send Reign’s writers a sorry note for all those times I’ve laughed at them. The amount of exposition in every single dialogue is embarassing, except when it comes to mentioning that RIII was “Lizzie”’s uncle. At that point they’re no longer exposing anything, in fact they’re crossing her fingers people will forget about it. Then, when they’re not busy explaining us who the characters (minus Richard) are, they keep themselves occupied making them contradict themselves or do things that make no sense whatsoever:

In one episode Margaret offers peace in the name of the child and Elizabeth is like perhaps, lol, mic drop, Elizabeth out; the next one it’s Elizabeth who bids peace (a peace she doesn’t mean because she’s still scheming behind their backs) and Margaret shuts her up. If they didn’t hate each others’ guts I’d say they’re sparring lovers.

Both Elizabeths know Margaret killed the princes so they know they cursed Henry’s future son but they go through with the wedding and the pregnancy anyway, in fact they claim they’ll raise a healthy baby. Curse? What curse? Did they ever make one? But wait, maybe the curse isn’t a thing on TWP!

But then “Lizzie” finally gives birth and wants her mother to discuss the curse. So it is a thing on the show! Why didn’t they bring it up before? Did “Lizzie” just endure 9 months of pregnancy with a child she distined to an untimely death? She’ll probably discuss this with her mom now, right? Better late than never! But no, when she’s finally brought to her she doesn’t even bring it up for a second.

Oh, and let’s not forget that time “Lizzie”’s pregnancy was announced in a room full of people but then they had to fake the loss of her virginity on their wedding night! So smart! This will not make you guys look suspicious at all!

I could go on but I’m exhausted.

And then there are assorted stupidities such as having Margaret of York talk of “her spies” knowing Henry had a son when Henry has just held the equivalent of a press conference to have the world know about it. Some spies, Margaret!

In general, the whole thing looks like it was written and shot in a rush and with a 100$ budget. The women’s costumes are absolutely terrible and look cheap, poorly assembled with pieces that just don’t belong together nor to this era (I’d say born from an incestous relationship between Magnificent Century and Kosem). The best ones apart from the men’s are those recycled from other shows (Burgundy is full of them). Plus, Margaret Beaufort (whose character is deprived of all the humanity, vulnerability and even humour she used to have on TWQ) is wearing a synthetic Minnie Mouse hat half of the time.

But every show has its saving grace and TWP’s is Jacob Collins Levy. The guy even read bios, he can mention data even I couldn’t remember. I swear he’s possessed by Henry VII. He can be sweet, mean, dorky, kingly, authoritative, paranoid, you say it. He’s a miracle and I thank whomever picked him every day. He even looks the part, for heaven’s sake, you can totally picture him as a 20-something Henry Tudor. Poor Jodie Comer can’t do much with her Gregory-based script but the show took most liberties with Henry’s character and as a result he’s way better thanhis book counterpart. Their nice blossoming chemistry (1x01? What’s 1x01?) is single-handedly making this mess of a show worth a shot.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t have the ambition of TWQ? I don’t know. It’s a Reign-like show, except they sold it as accurate!!! and feminist!!!! and… it’s not quite working as either of those things. It’s silly entertainment at best.

MARY

Book: I really don’t like the book, I feel it’s not only terrible in terms of plot and historical accuracy but also badly written and kinda repetitive (the characters are always saying the same things over and over again, Philippa Gregory doesn’t know synonyms are a thing probably). I stated my feelings pretty clearly here and my opinion hasn’t changed one bit; just to give you a vague idea of how much I truly hate this book I’ll say this: I never dnf books, never, but with this I couldn’t bring myself to keep going and I gave up at ~75% (I read the ending though and it sucked). What bothers me the most is the fact that PG thinks that what she wrote is an accurate depiction of the truth (minus the witchy part of curse, or at least I hope so); on her website she wrote this:

Historical research??? Where?! There in nothing in this book you couldn’t find on wikipedia; actually, now that I think about it, wikipedia is probably more accurate and less biased towards Henry and Margaret than she is.

The characters, let’s not talk about them; Elizabeth is annoying and she keeps repeating she loved Richard, she loves Richard, she will always love Richard (no synonyms remember?) and blah blah blah: just shut up already, we got it, you can move on now. She knows nothing (about 50% percent of her lines consist in “I don’t know” or something like that) and she’s stupid, there’s no other word for that, no polite way of saying she’s unintelligent. Henry is an idiot and he RAPES Elizabeth before their wedding???!?!?! WHAT??! And he’s in love with Katherine Huntly?!? WHAT? He’s volatile, weak, completely unable to govern (spoiler alert: the real Henry was NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL) and he’s a pawn in his mother’s hands. Oh, have I mentioned Elizabeth and Henry keep falling in and out of love with each other for no reason? Plus she falls for him after he raped her, what kind of message is PG trying to send here? Because I don’t like it.

I cannot really talk about the plot because there is no plot, it’s always the same thing repeated ad infinitum: Henry fears a York boy will steal his throne, he questions Elizabeth about it, she asks her mother (who says she knows nothing but we know better) and she tells Henry she’s clueless. Then the whole thing starts again, interspersed with some random fighting and pregnancies. It’s dull as dirt.

I’ll be glad to further elaborate my thoughts if you want but I think my rant is already too long so I’ll stop now.

TV Show: I have mixed feelings about this. Let’s be honest for a second here: the show is bad and the fact that the writers and producers are women is not enough to say the approach to things is feminist. If something is bad it’s just bad, whether it was a man or a woman who made it. The writing is lazy (actors spend half of their time explaining the viewers what they’re seeing) and boring and despite there being some great actors (Michelle Fairley for instance) they often have nothing to work with; the original material wasn’t good in the first place but they did nothing to improve it.

One thing I do like are the main actors: Jacob Collins-Levy is a gem, WE’VE BEEN BLESSED. He understands Henry, he studied him and one can truly see it in his nuanced performance: he brings the character to life with subtlety, he is Henry. Give this man all the emmys please because he does all this with a poor script and I feel like he knows more about Henry than the people who wrote this show. I like Jodie Comer as well, she works well with the shitty script she’s been given. Plus Jacob and Jodie have the best chemistry and that helps a lot: just imagine what masterpiece we would have had if the writing had been decent. I guess I’m warming to Lizzie as a character (I absolutely hate her in TWQ) but her constant obsession with Teddy gets on my nerves (it seems she has dropped the issue now though, thankfully). Michelle Fairley is good but she’s no Amanda Hale unfortunately and Margaret herself is not the one we all saw and loved in TWQ. Elizabeth (Woodville) is the usual and I can’t stand her as usual.

The plot is pretty unexciting: the whole Burgundy business is awfully monotonous and Elizabeth scheming is repetitive and tedious.

I just wanted to briefly say something about the “rape” scene in the first episode. Whatever Emma Frost says about it, it was not the great showing of strenght on Elizabeth’s part they’re trying to sell: Lizzie giving her “consent” didn’t make it okay and it did not make her a feminist, it did not make her powerful, it did not put her in control. I’ve elected to ignore that shit and enjoy the romance from a historical point of view but I find kinda disturbing that the writers are set on building a romance that started with that.

As for more frivolous stuff, the costumes are horrendous and the sets look cheap, I expected more.

I hope this answers your question :)

[iluvtv]

Hail Canada Finale: Exceptional Lexicon...

Happy 2019! USA’s number 45 may (or may not) be taking full credit for the country suffering a “partial” shutdown but no worries, Hulu came through for the country this holiday season instead. It’s like Santa (or maybe Daddy Warbucks) works in entertainment! As of December 27th the streaming service proved my previous predictions piss poor and gifted America the full glut of Letterkenny backlog. God Bless America.

             Somebody of influence is clearly reading my blog.  

                                              What does this mean to you, Gentle Reader? Why should it matter that while I started drafting a wee work on just how superb this particular Canadian export really is I got entirely consumed with additional episodes? 

To put it simply, appreciation overload. I am now entirely overwhelmed with Letterkenny’s tasteless charm and thusly totally paralyzed. 

As I consider best communication tactics to portray just how crucial consumption of this rather unlikely Sylv Fan Fav, really is I’m worried I might actually need to “hoover” a huge line of the “devil’s dandruff” to make it through. But if the hicks of Letterkenny have ambiguously taught me anything about casual cocaine use it is that its never a good look to indulge while sober. A lesson taught over a discussion about how much they loath Dan’s six year old cousin (this rivalry circles back in later seasons during a debate over wether or not having a little sister will sort small Samual out, a concept Wayne compares to a celebrity getting a puppy to help them get back on track “Seems like a backwards plan to me,” he says, “the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life is that a baby is smart.”) but I digress... why, Gentle Reader, is this six year old so awful?  Well, the hicks “Saw him snort a line of fun dip the other day.” That, they explain is a “Fun dip Dry rip,” or, when you do a line of schneef before you’ve ingested any booze to alter your judgement. A Dry rip, they warn is a sure sign you have a shneef problem. All the while Dary and Dan concede they did indulge themselves (back in their glory days).

I, however, absolutely refuse to let this blog result in a full blown shneef problem. Instead I’ll do as they do in this fictional little town of Letterkenny from which the show hails its namesake:

and “pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er...”

One caveat: while, I do not want to be completely crippled by comedy, here it wouldn’t be fair to assume that I, a California City Chic who by rule trends away from overtly crass humor can justifiably convey the genius which is Letterkenny, but let’s just try .. 

Most episodes open with landscape views of a very chilly looking Letterkenny and the note that there are 5,000 people in said town (hicks, skids, hockey players, christians and natives) and their problems.

While I’ve casually seasoned a line or two of dialogue throughout this blog I can’t actually adequately quote this show because (and this is important) the creators Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney (and clearly the rest of the writing staff) are absolute MASTERS OF WORDPLAY and the actors’ timing is so pricelessly perfect that to even try to repeat most moments would be a gross injustice to the medium. 

This team of literary savants brilliantly twists puns (like when Wayne pours out the end of a warm beer Dan responds with “you have some kind of drinking problem? That theres alcohol abuse”), creates complex (and hilarious) characters with compelling, often sad (and hilarious) storylines, weaves interesting narratives, spews non-sequiturs, confronts factual yet controversial stereotypes, invokes compassion for both the absurd and the underdog, shamelessly polks fun at everything, including (but hardly limited to); politics, popular culture, sexual orientation, regions, races, origins, creeds other countries (like when Wayne explains the eating habits of our brethren “Malt vinegar is not a staple condiment on table tops in restaurants” Disgusted, the boys respond “Figure it out, somebody should really write a letter” but then concede, “They do have 6 kinds of Cap’n Crunch though”) and Ostrich Fuckers, all of this is done with sincere (and hilarious) honesty, a clever and often very nuanced style and all the while somehow managing to circle back to previous stories and quips sometimes so subtly that the untrained ear (or eye) might miss out. For example it is somehow terribly notable to me that we frequently find Dary eating small breakfasts’ with absurdly large spoons. 

Regardless of the approach, the through line remains constant: assorted misfit groups of friends flagrantly (and unapologetically) discuss every taboo thought that may (or may not) have ever crossed you or your pal’s mind (only you would have quickly squashed these ideas back down to the deep recesses of your Gentle Reader brain). They procure this unabashed and unapologetic honesty in a very, very fast Canadian dialect that is virtually incomprehensible at times (particularly in the earlier episodes as your ear adjusts to the style). And yet, as one American reviewer put it: I still get it, because I speak funny.

And this is why I genuinely believe no matter who you are or what your usual tastes may implicate if you too are fluent in the language of humor Letterkenny is just an absolute sure thing (given, of course a moment to adapt to the shows distinct language and stylings). 

At first it will probably seem just so stupid and gross but upon closer inspection it just might be the absolute most cleverly written show I’ve ever barely understood.

Kevin Tierney, another television journalist (and proud Poppa to one of the show’s writers and producers) put it best:

“...not to say the show is witless. On the contrary. It is an absolute festival of language, from the very, very local to the bizarrely idiosyncratic, especially when strung together by accents that are … well, different..”

He goes on to say this of the dialogue:

“...they might well change your whole sense of the scatological...”

And that really is the crux of it, isn’t it? So what, Gentle Reader, if it took me (a shamelessly proud California City Chic) until the third season to fully grasp the collective MO of each specific clique in this specific little town? Now I’ve gotten it and I did it with nary a fun dip dry rip in sight. What binds Letterkenny in their fast paced conversationally driven relationships with both their friends and foes was spelled out for all to understand when the dumb hockey players just out and said what I’d been attempting to put my finger on for months:

“Just pick a topic and beat the shit out of it.”

And this really can be any fucking topic from drug use to male models to working out one’s legs. With options just so limitless and with a well informed writing staff even the dumbest of topics are discussed with an odd sense of eloquence and, well... science.

Which is why even I don’t hate an entire episode entitled Fartbook in which the only subject explored for a full thirty minutes is the creation of a social network for your farts. And let’s face it, in the end is it really any worse than your face, Gentle Reader? Probably not.

To quote the farmers:

“No one cares about your cat’s farts.”

“Everyone who has a cat or a kid is going to think their farts are special and unique, they’re not.”

There are full minutes of dialogue spent categorizing snacks. Alphabetically. In verse. An important exercise executed in order to limit options (and thusly not overpack snacks for a fishing trip to Quebec) Dary and Dan have regaled themselves to foods only beginning with the letter C. When Katy questions the beer they quickly retort:

“Cold Beer.”

Obviously.

It is this ability to harp one subject until it is rendered all but useless and then find innovative ways to harp on it some more that defines the misfits of Letterkenny.

The town absolutely must create their very own euphemism dictionary. Or maybe they already have.

And while a fictional dictionary might be of some aid for us partially shutdown Northern Americans, subtitles won’t be. No matter! Consider this a genuine plea: please, please do not to give up before you’ve started! This show is a call for authenticity and friendship and it is looking like those are things all of our 2019s will need a lot of!