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ragingbookdragon · 3 years ago

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What If The Love You Deserve Is Love You Never Find?

Jason Todd x Reader

Word Count: 3.6K Warnings: Explicit Language, Slight Angst

Author's Note: I spent like an hour going through my music to find the perfect song lyric for this. Love me people. Enjoy! -Thorne

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It’d been complete fate that she’d even met him. A chance of looking up when she was fixing a shirt on a display, gaping as he browsed the racks along the wall, very so often picking something up to examine it before folding it and returning it to its original position.

But even from halfway across the store she could tell he was drop-dead gorgeous, and she slapped the back of her hand across her coworker’s chest. “Dibs.” It was all she said before hurrying towards him, grinning when she heard her friend groan something along the lines of, ‘No fair!’

She cleared her throat as she neared him and he glanced over, giving her a smile. “Good morning,” she greeted. “How are you today?”

“I’m good,” he replied. “How are you?”

“Well, every day is a new day.” She grinned when he laughed. “Is there anything I can help you find, or are you just looking around?”

“Oh, I’m just looking around.”

Nodding, she said, “Alright, well since summer break just started our sales are everything along this wall,” she gestured to the side next to her. “It’s buy one get one free, and so is that wall over there.” She pointed to the other side of the room. “Everything in between is buy two get one free.”

“Sounds good.” He murmured.

“And I’m (Y/N). So if you need any help with anything or want an opinion on anything, just come find me!” she smiled at him and wandered off back towards the registers where her coworker was, and was promptly slapped in the side, causing her to gasp slightly.

“What’s his name and how much money does he make?”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh. “I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t—you didn’t ask? Why not?” she griped. “That guy’s wearing a Rolex! He’s probably loaded.”

“It could also be a knockoff,” she shot back. “Besides, you gotta wait it out.” (Y/N)’s eyes followed him as he looked up and down the wall of shirts and jackets. “If he comes and asks for help, then he’s interested.”

Her coworker rolled her eyes. “You say that about everyone and they’re only always coming to ask for purchase.”

(Y/N) shrugged. “It’s gotta work one day.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Probably. But at least—”

“Excuse me,” someone interrupted and they both spun around to see him standing there, a smile on his face as he looked at (Y/N).

“Yes?” she chirped, flashing him a pearly white grin.

“I was wondering if you could help me pick out an outfit?” he asked, and she nodded.

“I’d be glad to help,” shooting her friend a wink as she followed him back towards the wall. “So, is there a particular event you’re going to that calls for a new outfit?” she inquired, taking in the sight of him.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m hanging out with a couple friends later tonight.” He glanced at her. “Wanna show off, you know?”

(Y/N) giggled. “I totally know what you mean.” She crossed her arms. “Alright, well, let’s start with the easiest thing. Favorite colors?”

“Red, white, black, gray, and teal.” He replied.

“Hmm…boots or sneakers?”

“Boots.”

“Jeans or khak—”

“Jeans.” He interrupted with a scandalized expression.

She giggled again. “Just being thorough.” (Y/N) looked him over. He was tall, extremely built and God, his face was beautiful. Strong jaw and cheekbones, tanned skin and dark hair with a small white patch in the front. And his eyes, oh, his eyes were the prettiest teal.

“See something you like?” he flirted with a smirk and she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, don’t be cocky, I was just beginning to enjoy this.” He chuckled and she hummed. “I can see you like wearing jackets in eighty degrees so I’m gonna assume you’re more of a ‘suffer the pain for the aesthetic of the look’ type of man?” he nodded. “Okay, you a hoodie or sweatshirt guy?”

He paused, eyeing the displays and remarked, “I’m more a leather jacket type of man.”

(Y/N) nodded. “I can work with that.” She started up the wall. “Based on your body type I’m going to assume you run between a large and an extra-large.” Pausing, she eyed his hips. “Your pants size is probably a large.” She handed him a pair of dark blue jeans and he looked them over.

“Did you just give me jeans with bedazzled-shit on the back pockets?”

She cracked a grin. “Embrace your inner punk rock star, babe.” Shoving a crimson V-neck in his arms, she followed it with a pair of matte-black military style combat boots. “Black or tan leather?”

“Mmm…I have a tan at home,” he murmured, and she nodded.

“Black it is then,” (Y/N) decided, handing him a black leather jacket that closely resembled a bomber style jacket with a gray hood attached. She spun and stepped up to him. “Do you wear jewelry?”

“Mhm,” he said and turned his head. “Got my ears pierced a while back.”

“Have anything against religious imagery?”

He gasped. “And be blasphemous? I would never!”

She chuckled and wandered around a display, picking up a set of small silver earrings with crosses dangling on them, then she handed him a silver block necklace with the engraving, ‘Stay the course, for horizons are chased, but never caught’, and a silver wallet chain. “Your belt is black but I’ve half a mind to find a silver belt buckle to go with it.”

“But I digress,” she said, waving her hand before coming behind him, gently shoving him to the dressing room. “Off you go!”

He laughed, disappearing into the dressing room and she looked over at her coworker, giving her a mouthed, “Oh. My. God. He’s. Hot.”

“Tell me about it!” her friend mouthed back.

“And he smells like heaven!” (Y/N) returned, smiling when the curtain shifted, and he stepped out. Immediately her jaw dropped, and she breathed, “Holy shit.”

He chuckled, sending shivers down her spine and ran a hand through his hair, an action that made her stomach flip when he looked at her with those gorgeous teal eyes. “I take it I’m looking good, huh?”

All she could do was nod and mumble, “I’ll say.” She walked over and gently drug him to the giant mirror on the wall and turned him round so he could see himself. “You’re gonna knock your friends and half the people in this city dead the second they lay eyes on you.”

He reached up and adjusted the silver necklace before tugging at the jacket. “I like it.”

“I’m glad you do,” (Y/N) said, internally sighing in relief. “You’ve got everything for the deals, so let’s head to the register and make this happen, if you’re ready.”

“After you.” He replied, and she waltzed around, tapping at the register when he held up a hand. “Gimme just a minute.” She nodded, watching as he wandered to the displays and plucked a black backpack off the rack and shoved his old clothes and shoes in it, then he picked up a silver ring and slipped it on his finger. He walked back over. “Had to finish off the look.”

(Y/N) smiled. “Well, you’ve picked up two items, so you’ll have to find one more for the deal.”

He leaned his hip against the counter and shot her a flirty grin. “How ‘bout I buy the backpack and the ring and I get your number for free?” she blinked in shock and he added smoothly, “Never know when I’ll need help with another style.”

Her coworker was nudging her in the ribs but all she could do was try and horribly fail at hiding the grin as she rang up his total and flipped over the receipt, quickly scribbling her number down. She handed it to him, and he took it. “Thank you—”

She tugged a little and murmured, “You are going to let me style you for beach days, right?” her eyes followed down his body. “I’d love to help you pick out a nice pair of swim trunks.”

He smirked. “Well I was hoping to ask about underwear too, but I could probably throw in swim trunks as well.” Pulling the receipt from her fingers, he said, “Name’s Jason, by the way.”

“Well, have a good day, Jason.” She flirted, waving as he walked off.

Her coworker shoved her elbow into her ribs, and she gasped. “Holy fuck, it actually worked, and you just scored a really hot fuck.”

(Y/N) sighed dreamily. “Yes, I did.”

***

One “styling” turned into multiple “stylings” and many, many phone calls which turned into brunch and dinner dates with Jason. Which she strictly went to under the belief of styling said man, because falling in love with him spelled heartbreak and she knew it because there was no way someone like him was interested in her at all.

And yet, no matter how much she tried not too, (Y/N) found herself slipping deeper and deeper for him. It scared her, but she figured the easiest thing to do was to get him out on a date of her own and set the line before it was crossed. Which was how she found herself dressed in a 1950’s style floral dress with matching flats with her hair and makeup done, waiting underneath the cherry blossom tree in the Gotham City park.

She brushed her fingers over the fabric at her knee for what seemed like the millionth time, heart fluttering in her chest as she watched the people walk by. A few people had come up to her, either to compliment her outfit or ask her who the picnic was set up for. Jason had texted that he’d be there soon and (Y/N) hoped it would be right then because if she had to tell another guy to scram, she was going to pick everything up and haul ass.

Shaking her head, she focused on the poetry book in front of her, reading over another prose when she heard, “(Y/N)!” She looked up, seeing Jason hurrying towards her, three books in his arms.

She laughed and stood up, meeting him halfway. “Jay, I said bring one book not three.”

“I couldn’t pick. I love Emily Dickinson just as much as I love Walt Whitman and John Keats.” He retorted, setting the books down on the blanket before taking her hands in his, pushing her out to take in the sight of her. “Wow,” he breathed. “You look beautiful, doll.”

(Y/N) flushed, smiling shyly. “Yeah, well…you said something about the fifties, and I had this in the closet.” She nodded to the blanket. “I hope you’re hungry.”

His stomach rumbled in response and his cheeks tinted pink as he sat down. “You didn’t hear that.”

“Hear what?” she repeated with a grin, opening up the basket. “Okay, so I went a little overboard with the food, but who cares.” He chuckled, watching as she pulled out a couple bowls and a tray, then set out two plates for them and some silverware.

“What’s in these?” he asked, opening the lid to one of the bowls. It looked like some kind of pasta salad.

“That one is a BLT pasta salad and the other is fruit salad.” She started unraveling the foil from the platter. “And these are chicken Caesar pitas.” (Y/N) put one on his plate. “I made four just in case you wanted more to eat.”

Jason’s face lit up at all the food and he met her gaze. “You did all this for me?”

(Y/N) smiled and nodded. “Yeah…I hope it’s not too much though.”

“Not at all.” He looked around. “But I do hope you got something to drink in there.”

She giggled and handed him an insulated, stemless wine cup before pulling out a bottle of rosé. “Of course.”

“Thank you, doll,” he said as she poured them their drinks, then he raised his cup. “To us.”

(Y/N) clinked her cup to his. “To us.”

And that slowly turned into the food being eaten and the wine being drunk which ended up with Jason’s head in her lap as he read them his favorite poems, her fingers gently carding through his silky hair. At one point, he’d rested the book on his chest and simply closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of her massaging his scalp. And (Y/N)? She was trying to keep her heard from beating out of her chest.

“Jason?” she murmured softly, and he hummed in return. “Is this real?”

He huffed a laugh and opened his eyes. “Yeah, (Y/N), I think the sky is real.”

She didn’t laugh, merely offering a halfhearted smile towards the open park. “No, Jason, this…us…how you are towards me. The flirting and the touching.” Her eyes were trained on the grass because she could feel his teal gaze boring into her, and if she looked down at him, she knew she’d lose her edge. “I…feel like you care about me…more than a good friend would.”

Swallowing, she assured, “It’s okay if it’s a no…but I wanna know now just to be sure.” (Y/N)’s voice quieted considerably. “It’ll get messy if we don’t figure this out here.” She went silent, refusing to look at Jason as he rose out of her lap and shifted until he was sitting beside her, their thighs brushing against one another.

His hand gently cupped her cheek and he murmured, “Yeah, it’s real. How we feel for each other.”

“Really?” she blinked. “Because you and me? I didn’t wanna assume but I—”

Jason pressed his lips to hers, effectively silencing her and she all but melted into him as she looped her arms around his neck. He smiled against her lips and with his free hand, gently pushed her down onto the blanket, the right side of his body resting on hers as he kissed her.

When they pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers, quipping, “I think you assumed rightly, doll.”

“Jason?” (Y/N) asked.

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me again.”

“Yes ma’am.”

***

That single date morphed into something deeper between them, and she could tell Jason was holding back a bit. He was open to love, to having a relationship, but something told (Y/N) that all of the ones he’d ever had either ended in disaster or mutual termination.

That being said, Jason was nothing but a loving boyfriend to her. He was everything that romance books and movies were based on. The guy every girl wanted to be with and (Y/N) had no idea how she got so lucky, but she wasn’t going to question it for fear of waking up from whatever dream this was.

And the first time Jason invited her over to his apartment a few months after they got together, she wasn’t sure who was more nervous about it, but she could tell they were both walking on eggshells around one another, all throughout dinner and when they finally decided to turn in for the night.

She opened the door to the bathroom, letting the steam escape as she stepped out. “Bathroom’s yours.” Jason gave her a quiet ‘thank you’ and moved inside, shutting the door rather quickly.

(Y/N) sighed and sat down on the bed, staring at the door. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why he was uncomfortable with her there. Not wanting to keep the atmosphere going, she rose from the bed and wandered to his closet door, shooting a quick glance towards the bathroom. The shower was still going, and she smirked, opening up the closet.

Jason’s wardrobe was a mixture of T-shirts and leather jackets and suits, and his shoes were either boots or sneakers. All dark, all silk or cotton. She stepped inside the walk-in closet and drew her fingers along the fabric, stopping when she felt a thicker jacket. Bingo. (Y/N) tugged it off the hanger. It was Jason’s red sweatshirt he wore all the time. She practically had to beg him to get out of it when she wanted to put him in something new—he wore it like it was his second skin.

Slipping it on, she slipped back into the bedroom and quietly shut the door just as the shower shut off. Momentarily panicking, she hurried over to the window and leaned against it, staring out at the traffic below. The bathroom door opened and (Y/N)’s heart slammed into her rib-cage when she heard Jason’s breathing stutter when he saw her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she murmured. “Got a little cold.”

His footsteps padded behind her and his hands rested on her hips. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that snooping in people’s personal belongings isn’t very nice?”

(Y/N) leaned back against his chest, head propping on his shoulder giving her enough space to see his face. “No, but she did teach me to put my big girl panties on when my boyfriend won’t grow a pair.”

Jason cocked a brow, fingers digging into her hips as he challenged, “Is that so?” he tugged her back, pressing his front into her back. “And what exactly am I not growing a pair about?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “But something’s bugging you and it’s really screwing with our mood.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then he sighed and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder. “I…gotta tell you something, doll.”

(Y/N) blinked and spun around in his arms. “Please don’t tell me you cheated on me.”

“What? God no!” he blurted. “No, I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked, reaching up to cup his cheeks. “You can tell me anything, Jason. I’m not going to get upset.” They stared one another down and he sighed, pulling away before heading to the bed. “Gonna show me you’re a eunuch or something?”

Jason barked a laugh. “You’re hilarious, doll.” He reached under the bed and pulled out a locked box. Setting it on the bed, he pressed his thumb to the little printer, and she watched as it flashed green and the locks flicked. He opened the case and (Y/N)’s eyes widened when she saw the gear inside, the guns on either side of the box, the suit in the middle, and the red helmet sitting on top of it.

“I wanted to tell you sooner, but I wasn’t sure how.” He whispered. “I guess I was scared what you’d think.” (Y/N) said nothing but she reached for the hood and picked it up, taking a seat on the bed as she flipped it over in her hands, examining it.

“Scared of my opinion…or scared of you?” she hinted, and he looked at her from where he knelt, a mix of emotions crossing his mind.

He shook his head and shrugged. “Both.”

She held the hood and with her free hand, gently caressed the lines of it, explaining, “Four years ago, my life was saved by Red Hood.” Jason’s head shot up and he gaped at her. “I was still in high school, coming home from prom when I got in a car accident with my best friend. We were hit by a drunk driver.”

(Y/N) looked at him. “The other driver was DOI, and my friend was unconscious and bleeding severely…I was awake but had broken my femur and clavicle…I couldn’t move, and I was scared.” Her fingers twitched along the cheek of the hood. “And then this mysterious masked man broke the lock on the door and cut my seat-belt. At first I thought he was going to hurt me because he looked menacing.”

She smiled. “But he grabbed my phone in the floorboard and called nine-one-one and then held my hand until an ambulance showed up.” (Y/N) gazed at him. “He kept saying I was going to be okay and that he wasn’t going to leave until I was in a bus and on my way to the hospital.”

Picking the hood up, she leaned over and put it on his head, watching as it beeped and lit up. “Later I heard on the news that he’d been responsible for the gang war between Black Mask and the drug dealers…but he’d successfully managed to get some of the school areas out of poverty and drug usage. And he’d killed a lot of bad people who didn’t deserve to be around.”

(Y/N) pressed her lips to the forehead of his helmet. “I was never scared of you, Jason. Then or now.” He put his head down and she merely smiled softly when he reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing tightly.

They stayed that way for a while until he shifted and pulled the hood off, setting it back in the box. “Thank you, (Y/N),” he whispered, and she nodded, gently brushing her fingers through his hair.

“Of course.” She tugged at a strand and he looked over at her, seeing her eyes solemn. “Just promise me you’ll be careful from now on, and that you’ll come back in one piece.”

Jason snorted. “Will do, doll.”

“Good,” she nodded, then happened to look back in the box. “So…this might not be the best time but…how do you feel about I don’t know…putting the suit on when we go to bed?”

He huffed a laugh and rose, shoving her back onto the bed. “Well, well, Miss (Y/N), aren’t you a kinky vixen.”

“I can’t help it, Jason. Red Hood’s a pretty sexy guy.” She winked. “Say…wanna play cops and robbers sometime?”

“You’re something else,” he purred, and she wiggled underneath him.

“Don’t I know it, babe.”

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paigiepixels · 4 years ago

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I Bet on Losing Dogs - Lip Gallagher x Reader

You + Me - The Prince of the South Side, Lip Gallagher, falls in love with his best friend. This is their happy ever after. Chapter title is based on Mitski’s I Bet on Losing Dogs.

previous chapter ● also on wattpad

++++++++++

“I feel really shitty about earlier,” Lip mumbled into my hair as we walked to his dorm.

“Don’t worry,” I shook my head, “I’ve all but forgotten about it, honestly. Watching someone get interrogated on drug charges will do that to you, I guess.”

“Please, stay tonight?” he asked as we reached his building.

A tiny chuckle left my lips, “Why the hell did you think I left the car? Your campus isn’t in the safest neighborhood but I know you can defend yourself, you don’t need me and my pepper spray walking you to your door like it’s the 1950’s and we just shared a milkshake at the diner.”

He opened the door for me as he shook his head. “Okay, okay.”

“What’s next, are you gonna wear my letterman jacket? Want me to take you to the point overlooking a small suburban town to make out in my dad’s car? Can I grope your A-cups over your cheerleading uniform while we kiss with no tongue? What’s that sound outside? Could it be an escapee from the local prison that lost his hand in that accident where they replaced it with a hook?”

“Alright, you got that out of your system yet or are you still workshopping your tight five?” Lip threw an arm around me in as the elevator doors closed.

“I could go a little longer.” I shrugged. “Baby boomers paid twelve dollars for their houses then ruined the economy for the rest of us, they deserve to be made fun of.” Lip just shook his head as he unlocked his dorm door.

I shrugged out of the large shirt I slipped on earlier that evening and shimmied out of my leggings.

“You know,” Lip eyed me up and down like I was a bottle of water in the middle of the desert, “it’s been well over twenty-four hours since we last had sex.” He quickly undressed.

Placing my hands on my hips, I played along, “Hm, I guess it has been.”

He wiggled his eyebrows and made his way over, placing his hands over mine. “Maybe we should, I don’t know, have some sex?”

“The beast with two backs?” I countered.

“Take a trip to pound town?”

“Butter my biscuit.”

“Mmmm, exactly,” he mumbled with a lick to his lips as he leaned into towards me.

I gripped my fingers into his curls and let his tongue explore the confines of my mouth while I leaned back onto the bed. One of Lip’s arms groped my ass while the other steadied him on the mattress. I pretzeled my legs around his waist, his mouth wandered from my own, to my neck, down to my décolletage and breasts, placing kisses along every inch he could. I mumbled some profanities as he slipped a hand under me to unhook my bra, I toed at his boxers, giving him the hint to even the playfield. Rapidly, he took off whatever remainders of clothes we both had on and reached into the nightstand for a condom. Before I knew it I was practically impaled by him, a gasp getting stuck in the very back of my throat. My eyes squeezed shut and my hands grasped at the skin on his back, surely leaving marks and scratches from my nails. The pace was steady tonight, not too fast nor too slow. He rocked back and forth into me in long, firm thrusts, satisfying his need to just be close to me.

I could tell by his mood tonight that this wasn’t just to get off, this was emotional, it was coming from somewhere deep down within him. Not like I could blame him, it’s been a rough few weeks. The way he buried his head into the crook of my neck, nuzzling into my hair and taking a long whiff. Sex was always personal for us, even a quickie with little to no eye contact was filled with emotion, but times like this were different, like everyone else on the planet had disappeared and the only reason we were still breathing was to have another second to be together.

Lip was hastily becoming undone, his breaths becoming sharper. He rubbed my clit with gentle force as I squeezed my eyes shut, he was trying to get us off at the same time. I bit my lower lip with a sharp canine and curled my toes as the dopamine exploded in my brain. He groaned and shuddered before collapsing onto me, placing kisses on my exposed neck.

“Fuck,” he mumbled while rolling over and removing the condom with a snap.

“When was the last time we went that long without fucking?” I wondered out loud.

“Can’t remember, my brain is goo,” he chuckled.

++++++++++

I saw a half-naked Lip, town slung around his hips, walking down the hallway from the opposite end as I reached his door. A tall man in a hoodie was behind him, it took me a few seconds to realize it was Kevin.

“Hey, you two,” I shifted onto the balls of my feet as Lip unlocked his room.

“Uh, hi,” Lip said, tugging the towel around his waist a little tighter. Kev followed him inside, I blinked twice, wondering why he was here. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m here to take you to Carl’s court thing, what is he doing here? Kev?”

“Uh, just crashing in an empty dorm while V stays at the house with the girls.”

“Huh,” I nodded. “No comment, I guess.”

“What about V?” Lip asked as he walked around the room getting ready.

“What about V?” Kev repeated. “I can’t think about that right now. She’s doing her thing, I’m doing my thing, it was her decision.”

I dropped my bag onto Lip’s unmade bed and sat next to it. “Don’t you think it’s worth it to give it another shot? You have kids, you’ve gotta at least try to work it out.”

Kev sighed and leaned his head against the wall, “I don’t know anymore, V was the one who started this whole mess and now she’s stopped talking to me about anything that isn’t baby.” His sentence stopped when he answered his ringing phone. “Well, duty calls. Rape Walker, at your service.”

I pursed my lips and widened my eyes at Lip, who mouthed Long story.

“I was gonna just take the L, you know,” Lip said as we walked hand-in-hand to the parking lot.

My shoulders shrugged, “I don’t mind taking you, I want to be there for Carl and Fiona. Mostly Fiona,” I chucked. “She’s gonna need it.”

“Can you actually imagine Carl getting in front of a judge and not incriminating himself for like, fourteen things he did this morning alone?”

“Your Honor,” I imitated the young teenager by putting on a lazy voice, “I swear the bailiff stuck that joint in my mouth before I got in here. That’s not mine-” I was stopped in my tracks by getting walked into by what felt like a brick wall wrapped in wool.

“I’m sorry-” Her face changed from an indifferent position when she looked up from the Blackberry in her hands. “Phillip, I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite looking where I was going,” she tucked her cellphone into the pocket of her expensive-looking jacket. “Have you spoken with Mr. Lorenzo from Financial Aid yet?”

“Uh, no, not yet,” Lip replied before gesturing at me with his free hand. “Professor Runyon, this is my girlfriend y/n. Professor Runyon teaches Critical Theory.”

“Nice to meet you,” I reached out and was met by a cashmere-covered hand to shake while staring at her striking face.

“Likewise,” her hand lingered after the shake, I pulled away. “Well, I have a class to get to, very nice to meet you, y/n. Phillip,” she nodded and continued to walk in the direction we were coming from.

“She seems nice, if not overly-perfumed,” I shrugged.

“Yeah, she hit on me yesterday,” Lip sighed as he grasped a hand firmly around my waist and ushered me to my car as quickly as possible.

“What?!”

“So, you’re dropping that class, right?” I all-but stated as we got in the car.

Lip shook his head, “I can’t. It’s the only one left and I need a full load.”

I squinted at him, “I don’t know, I’d say you were already full of something if you asked me.”

He blinked before replying, “I can’t compete with that, it’s a good one.”

Resting my forehead on the steering wheel, “I don’t want to be this demanding, controlling girlfriend. You know I hate that. I trust you, but,” I picked my head up and took a breath, Lip pushed a strewn hair off of my face, “I don’t trust other people. It’s a lot for me.”

“Hey, look at me…” he grasped my face between his hands as much as he could with the console between us. “Trust me, only me. That’s all there is to it. Believe me, I won’t do anything for you to worry about, ever. Alright?” I nodded. “Nope, not good enough for me. Gotta hear you say it.”

“Alright.”

“Okay, good.” He pulled my face closer with his hands still holding on and kissed the top of my head for at least a three-count. “Now, let’s get going to this damn hearing already.”

++++++++++

We shuffled into the small courtroom and into stiff chairs with itchy upholstery. I settled in with Lip on my left, he leaned in towards V and muttered, “V, this thing with you and Kev, is it temporary?”

“What did he say when you asked him?”

“Uh, nothing,” Lip broke eye contact and looked towards the ground, feigning innocence and ending the conversation.

“All rise,” the bailiff announced. “The Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session. The honorable Judge Rita Gaither is presiding.”

Chuckie was up first, Sammi was sitting in the front row with bruises littering her face. His lawyer’s defense was that Chuckie is of barely functioning intellect, it was a miracle he could wipe his ass, et cetera. Of course, Sammi stood up and testified towards her son, calling Lip’s family “a den of wolves.”

I hardly recognized Carl when he came in after Chuckie’s sentencing. Fiona had dressed him to play the part - an old button-up of Lip’s, hand-me-down khakis, all topped off with a neatly combed head of hair and glasses from Patsy’s lost and found.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s an upstanding young man,” Lip whispered.

V leaned in, resting her chin on a well-manicured hand, “Just like Ted Bundy.”

“Do you regret what you’ve done, Carl?”

“I did something really dumb that I shouldn’t have.” Fiona nodded along with his answer. “I trusted a fucking retard with a man’s job.” Uh oh. “Next time I move a bunch of drugs, I’ll be smarter.”

“If you want to go into my chambers and speak to me off the record, now is the time. Otherwise, you will end up in juvenile prison. Is that what you want?”

“Yes, please.” I could practically see the explosion going on inside Fiona’s head.

The judge sighed, “That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”

“I know what you were hoping to hear. If Your Honor would lose 20 pounds, I would consider tapping that.” Lip laughed into his shoulder, trying to hide his amusement.

“I think I've heard enough. I sentence you to the maximum of one year at the Illinois Department of Corrections Juvenile Justice Division. You're remanded to the custody of the Sheriff. This court is in recess.”

Fiona grabbed Carl by the arm and asked him what he was thinking, he was excited to go. It didn’t surprise me.

Once we left the building Ian and Lip separated from the group to go smoke, I caught up with them after a quick chat with V about her twins.

“How’s it hanging, boys?” I asked while stuffing my hands into my coat pockets to warm them up.

“Nothing, just bullshitting,” Lip grunted as he stood up from his crouching position next to Ian. He handed me the cigarette he was smoking to share. As I was mumbling a thanks Ian got off the bench and walked away without as much as a goodbye.

“The fuck’s his problem?” I asked, handing the cigarette back.

“He went to the clinic, he’s upset about the medication.”

“Of course he is,” I spat and Lip replied with a confused look. “You think I like taking birth control every day? No! But like clockwork, every morning, I open that little plastic round thingy and pop one, just so you can jizz inside of me.” I patted him on the shoulder for comfort. “Plus I got my anti-depressants and anti-anxieties, but those aren’t as annoying as taking a pill every day purely for sex purposes.”

“Wow, thank you for your sacrifice,” his voice was dripping in sarcasm.

I stole the cigarette back from him and replied after a puff, “You’re damn welcome.”

++++++++++

I was reading on the small bed in Lip’s dorm when he came back from class, resting in just a large t-shirt and my underpants.

“Hey,” he flung his backpack onto the floor. I didn’t bother looking up from my book while I mumbled a greeting back. “You want a beer?”

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied.

Lip made his way over to the mini-fridge and opened it. “Uh, you stock my fridge?”

“Yeah, I got a couple of things while you were in class. Folded your clean laundry, too.”

After grabbing a beer Lip closed the fridge and sat down on the side of the bed. “Hey,” he placed a hand on my bare leg, I almost recoiled, his hand was freezing from being outside. “You don’t have to keep taking me places and getting me stuff.”

I placed my open book down on my chest, “What?”

“I know you’re going through stuff, you don’t have to be spending so much time doin’ shit for me.”

“Well, I like doing stuff for you, okay? It makes me feel like I’m doing something good.”

“Like we’re charity?”

I groaned and sat up onto my knees, “No, like, I love you, and I love your family, and helping you guys, like, makes me feel like I have a purpose. Like I’m part of the big family I always wanted.”

“…You’ve always been part of our family.”

“Do you not like it anymore when I do things for you?” I asked with a raised brow.

“No, no,” he shook his head, “I love that you love my family, but I’m just saying, even if you didn’t do these things, everyone would still love you. You don’t have to buy your way in.”

“Oh, I never bought my way in,” I chuckled, “I sucked my way in, s’more like it.”

Lip rolled his eyes at my corny joke, “You’re so dumb sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, pulling on the hem of his shirt. “Now get into bed and show me just how much you appreciate me buying you groceries and changing your sheets.”

++++++++++

Wattpad (where the entire story is posted)

Y+M Playlist

#lip gallagher x reader #lip gallagher #shameless imagines #lip gallagher imagines #lip gallagher imagine #shameless imagine #you and me #you and me chapters

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detroitbydark · 5 years ago

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can we pretty please get a fluff blurb based on harrison giving you his varsity jacket that he wore in his insta post? please?

No warnings here. This is probably the tamest, most G rated things I’ll ever write and I absolutely love it. This is the first time in probably a month where I’ve really enjoyed writing something and felt like some of me was actually in it. Thank You!!

So Here is the 1950′s AU no one asked for but I gave them regardless. I know it probably wasn't what you had in mind but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

You glanced at your math book as the Wurlitzer across the dining room swapped out one 45 for the next. The Five Satins has just finished crooning on about what happened ‘In The Still of the Night’. As the next record falls into place you glance nervously past your milkshake to the teens a few booths down. You have to bite your lip to keep from sighing.

Harrison Osterfield, star athlete in just about every sport he went out for, sat with a few buddies and their girls. You tried to be inconspicuous as you watched him smiling and joking. You’d been borderline obsessed with him since the 4th grade when your family had moved to town and bought the dinner, back when he’d been the only kid that had made the shy little girl feel welcome on her first day in a new school. Of course, you’d faded to the background of everything soon enough. You’d been so timid at the time. Even as you’d both grown older and Harrison’s star had begun to shine he still offered you a smile in the hallway when you passed.

It was such a cliche. The bookworm in the love with the football captain.

The first few bars of the next song had you laughing and shaking your head as you glanced back down at your textbook.

“Why do fools fall in love, Frankie?” You muttered as Frankie Lymon continued to ask his questions. Somehow when Harrison was in the dinner the jukebox always seemed to play something that struck you just so. Coincidence, you were sure.

You closed your book as you glanced at the clock on the wall. Your shift was going to start in just a few minutes and you needed to put your school work away and get your apron on. As if to emphasize the point your Dad poked his head out of the kitchen.

“Anytime now, Peaches…”

You felt your cheeks flush bright pink as you heard the laughs erupt from the other table.

“Peaches? I would just shit twice and die!” One of the girls, Betty Markle, explained from her spot pressed against Harrison’s side. When you dared to glance over, cheeks burning with embarrassment, Harrison catches your eye and for a split second it was just you, those fabulous baby blues, and your skipping heart.

And then Betty ruined it.

“Run along…Peaches.” She cackled, shooing you along with pristine hands and perfect fingernails. The kind that had never worked a day in their life. The kind that got to hold the hand of the star quarterback.

Making sure to keep your eyes averted you made your way back into the kitchen, hands fulls of homework and your empty cup.

“Everything ok, Peaches?” Your Dad asks with a cock of his head.

“I’m good, Daddy, just trying to figure out this math” you lied smoothly.

“You’ll get it Sweetheart. Lord knows your smarter than your old man.”

You give your dad a soft smile and a roll of your eyes before you slip your apron on and tie a loose bow in the back. Before you head out you slide your arms into your old worn cardigan. It was fall and a chill was in the air.

“Peaches, baby, Wanda is going on break can you help her with her tables?”

You give a nod as you scan the room. There’s four occupied tables with Harrison’s group being the closest to you. You start with the farthest hoping Wanda would be done with her break before you’d get to them.

The regulars smile at you as you refill waters and take orders. You bring a sundae out for the Horowitz’s with two spoons. They were well into their 80’s and honestly the cutest couple you’d ever seen. You hoped someday you had something even half as amazing as what they seemed to have. Mrs Horowitz chatted with you in her thick Austrian accent while her husband made short work of the whipped cream on top of the sundae, pushing the lone red cherry in her direction.

“When are you gonna find a boy to share a sundae with?” She asks conspiratorially. You shake your head. You hoped she wasn’t trying to set you up with her nephew again.

“Not on my to-do list right now.” You say, smiling shyly. You watch her eyes dart behind you.

“I think that young man over there would do.”

Without a second thought you glance over to find Harrison smiling your way. Your head snaps back quickly and the elderly woman chuckles.

“He probably just wants some more fries.” You explain quickly. “He always gets more than he orders to start with” you’re babbling now, praying that Wanda comes back. Mrs Horowitz hums as you continue “in fact, last week he came in and had two malts and three orders of fries. I mean, I don’t know where he puts it all…” you trail off feeling foolish and the woman gives you a soft smile.

“Maybe you should go see what he needs, no?”

You take a fortifying breath before you nod and turn. Your shoes squeak on the linoleum and you try to hide the cringe that hits you. Your shoes weren’t as pretty or as shiny as the other girl’s saddle shoes and weren’t nearly as trendy as the neat ballet flats you’d seen Audrey Hepburn wearing, the same kind Betty and her friend were wearing now as you approach their table.

For the most part the looks that great you are vaguely friendly but there’s a glint in Betty’s eye as you turn your attention to Harrison that puts you ill at ease.

“Hey, Y/N. How are you doing on that algebra assignment?” He asks throwing you off. Of course you knew he was in your class but you’d never realized he noticed you in it. You fiddle with a button on your cardigan.

“I mean, I think I’ve got it but-“

“I could use some more water.” Betty’s face is sour as she asks. She points to her glass as if you couldn’t see that it was half full.

“I’m sorry” you stutter out, turning quickly to grab a pitcher of water. You hear Harrison’s voice, gruff and irritated but you can’t make out what he’s saying. Betty’s face looks even more pinched when you get back, like she’s sucked on a lemon. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest but you don’t care because Harrison is all smiles when he looks your way.

“So are you going to the game Friday?” He asks and you think it’s a real nice thing he’s doing trying to make conversation, be friendly. He must not realize that girls like you don’t go to football games. You shake your head, chew your lip (a horrible nervous habit your Mom had hated).

“I really need to work on the essay for English. Footballs not really my thing.” You try to explain. His smile falters. His buddies and the girls have begun chatting, seeming to have forgotten you, except Betty staring daggers. If looks could kill…

“Aww, come on Y/N. You should give it a try. You might have fun.” You watch him snap his fingers as if he’s just been hit with a brilliant idea. “If you come to the game I’ll let you borrow my practice jersey to wear.”

The table goes quiet with the exception of the strangled sound Betty makes in the back of her throat. You feel your face flushing as you try to stammer out an answer. How was he asking you to wear his jersey? As far as you knew Harrison Osterfield didn’t even know you existed. Those blues are probing you, like he’s willing you to say 'yes’. He runs a hand through his hair and, God above, you nearly swoon at his attention.

Suddenly there’s a wet splash and water and chocolate malt is splashing across the table. The pitcher is laying on its side as you suck in a sharp breath at the cold shock you’ve received. Your skirt is soaked and your white blouse is clinging to you in a way that makes you feel embarrassed and ashamed.

“What the hell, Betty!” Harrison is growling at the girl who holds her hands up.

“It was an accident Haz. Butterfingers, ya know.” You can’t even look her in the face. “I’m sure Y/N knows it was an accident, right?” her voice is saccharine sweet and as fake as the color of her hair.

“Y/N…” you don’t give Harrison a chance to say anything as hot tears prick at your eyes. You glimpse Wanda pulling her apron on from the corner of your eye. Her knowing gaze is already focused in on the table. She doesn’t try to stop you as you rush back into the kitchen and the small break room.

“I think it’s time ya’ll got your check.” She says firmly as Harrison watches the kitchen door swing on its hinges.

———

You sit in the back stoop for far longer than you should. Your dad stops out to check on you and ruffle your hair. You didn’t have a change of clothes and the chill of the air makes you shiver but it’s also cooling the hot rush of embarrassment you feel each time you think about what happened earlier. Wanda gave you the all clear after the group had cashed out but here you sat, not ready to go back to the scene of the crime.

If the ground could swallow you up whole you would happily allow it. You dread thinking about school the next day, about the smirk that Betty’s going to be wearing and the whispers and laughs you’ll hear in the halls. You let your head fall into your hands as you try to forget about everything.

“Um….hey, Y/N?” The sound of Harrison Osterfield’s voice has you sitting straight up. You move to stand and go back inside.

“Please don’t go" His voice is pleading.

“Why, so you can laugh at me too?” You feel anger rising, flaming to life in your chest. Harrison takes in your narrowed eyes, holding his hands up in surrender.

“I come in peace, yeah? That was a messed up thing Betty did. I’m really sorry. Nobody else thought it was funny.”

Just as soon as the anger roared to life it’s flickering out. Your shoulders slump and you smooth your skirt. Your cardigan had taken the brunt of the milkshake while your blouse had gotten a couple splashes of chocolate but mostly the icy water. You’d be lucky if you could get the stains out of the cardigan. Wanda had mixed up a “fool proof" stain cleaner in the kitchen and it was currently soaking in a pot on the counter next to a pot of your dad’s famous chili. You shiver slightly as a soft breeze ruffles the hem of your skirt.

“I suppose I can’t blame her for being mad” you say towing at one of the steps “her boyfriend offered another girl his jersey. Of course she was mad.”

You jump when Harrison barks out a laugh. He quickly sobers when he sees you huff.

“Y/N, Betty isn’t my girlfriend. We’re not together. Not saying that’s not what she wants but I…” He takes a couple steps toward you, stopping at the bottom of the stoop. “Come on, you’ve got to realize I’ve been trying to ask you on a date for months.”

You try to stop your mouth from dropping open because, for all your smarts, that possibility had never even crossed your mind. Harrison gives you a lop-sided smile as he comes to stand one step below you. His eyes are nearly level with yours and you allow yourself a moment to appreciate how they crease at the corners when he smiles.

“I was so sick last week-“

“I just thought you liked fries…?” You can hear the hesitancy in your voice. Harrison’s fingers bump against yours and you look down as he takes one of you hands in his, rising to the same step you’re on. His fingers are rough and calloused. His class ring is cool against your skin.

“After last week, I could die happy without ever eating another fry in my life. I just wanted to see you and… God, I was trying to get the courage up to ask you to come to the game but I just couldn’t.”

It’s your turn to laugh. Why would Harrison need courage to ask you anything? You ask him as much.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Harrison’s free hand brushes against you cheek and goosebumps run amok on your arms. He misinterprets it and before you can correct him he’s pulling his Letterman jacket off and draping it around your shoulders. It swallows you whole but its broken in and warm. And it smells like how you always thought he’d smell, leather and after shave, smoke from a bonfire. “You are so beautiful and smart and…. I can’t keep my eyes off of you. The guys have been ribbing me forever about it. You really didn’t know?”

You shake your head dumbly. You’d missed that one for sure.

“So you want me to go to the game friday…”

“And wear my jersey.”

“And wear your jersey.”

“Because you like me.”

“Loads” He gives you that 10,000 watt smile and you return it with a shy one of your own. “And afterwards you’ll let me take you for a bite to eat or to a bonfire or…. I don’t care. I just want to spend time with you.”

You’re Mom had read you fairy tales as a little girl. You’d loved them but you’d never once thought you’d be in one. That’s what this was. “OK.” You say finally. He looks at you like he’s won the lottery. You’d only ever dreamed he’d be looking at you like he was now.

“Can I walk you home?” He’s nearly vibrating with excitement and you feel the same way.

“Let me run inside and see if I can find a sweater to wear.”

Harrison shakes his head, “Just wear my jacket. It looks good on you.”

#harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield blurb #haz osterfield #haz osterfield fic #dear Anon

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

How All in the Family Changed the TV Landscape

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All in the Family is roundly considered a touchstone for television achievement now, but when it debuted 50 years ago, even the network carrying it hoped it would fizzle quickly and unnoticed. CBS put an army of operators at phone lines expecting a barrage of complaints from offended middle Americans demanding its cancellation. Those calls didn’t come. What came was a deluge of support from people hoping this mid-season replacement was a permanent addition to the network’s lineup. The premiere episode contained a considerable list of “television firsts.” One of these rarities continues to remain scarce on network TV: creator Norman Lear trusted the intelligence of the viewing audience. To celebrate All in the Family’s 50th anniversary, we look back at its journey from conception to broadcast, and how it continues to influence and inform entertainment and society today.

Actor Carroll O’Connor, who was a large part of the creative process of the series, consistently maintains he took the now-iconic role of Archie Bunker because All in the Family was a satire, not a sitcom. It was funny, but it wasn’t a lampoon. It was grounded in the most serious of realities, more than the generation gap which it openly showcased, but in the schism between progressive and conservative thinking. The divide goes beyond party, and is not delineated by age, wealth, or even class. The Bunkers were working class. The middle-aged bigot chomping on the cigar was played by an outspoken liberal who took the art of acting very seriously. The audience cared deeply, and laughed loudly, because they were never pandered to. They were as respected as the authenticity of the series characters’ parodies.

Even the laughs were genuine. All in the Family was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live audience. There was never a canned laugh added, even in the last season when reactions were captured by an audience viewing pre-taped episodes. Up to this time, sitcoms were taped without audiences in single-camera format and the laugh track was added later. Mary Tyler Moore shot live on film, but videotape helped give All in the Family the look of early live television, like the original live broadcasts of The Honeymooners. Lear wanted to shoot the series in black and white, the same as the British series, Till Death Us Do Part, it was based on. He settled for keeping the soundstage neutral, implying the sepia tones of an old family photograph album. The Astoria, Queens, row house living room was supposed to look comfortable but worn, old-fashioned and retrograde, mirroring Archie’s attitudes: A displaced white hourly wage earner left behind by the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think they invented good weather around 1940.”

American sitcoms began shortly after World War II, and primarily focused on the upper-middle class white families of Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. I Love Lucy’s Ricky Ricardo, played by Cuban-American Desi Arnaz, ran a successful nightclub. The Honeymooners was a standout because Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden was a bus driver from Bensonhurst (the actual address on that show, 328 Chauncey Street, is in the Bedford–Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn). American TV had little use for the working class until the 1970s. They’d only paid frightened lip service to the fights for civil rights and the women’s liberation movements, and when the postwar economy had to be divided to meet with more equalized opportunities there was no one to break it down in easy terms. The charitable and likable Flying Nun didn’t have the answer hidden under her cornette. It wasn’t even on the docket in Nancy, a 1970 sitcom about a first daughter. The first working family on TV competing in the new job market was the Bunkers, and they had something to say about the new competition.

Social commentary wasn’t new on television. Shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek routinely explored contemporary issues, including racism, corporate greed, and the military action in Vietnam, through the lens of fantasy and science fiction. The war and other unrest were coming into the people’s living rooms every night on the evening news. The times they were a-changing, but television answered to sponsors who feared offending consumers.

Ah, but British TV, that’s where the action was. Lear read about a show called Till Death Us Do Part, a BBC1 television sitcom that aired from 1965 to 1975. Created by Johnny Speight, the show set its sights on a working-class East End family, spoofing the relationship between reactionary white head of the house Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), his wife Else (Dandy Nichols), daughter Rita (Una Stubbs), and her husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth), a socialist from Liverpool. Lear recognized the relationship he had with his own father between the lines.

CBS wanted to buy the rights to the British show as a star vehicle for Gleason, Lear beat out CBS for the rights and personalized it. One of the reasons All in the Family works so well is because Lear wasn’t just putting a representative American family on the screen, he was putting his own family up there.

“If It’s Too Hot in The Kitchen, Stay Away from The Cook.”

Archie Bunker dubbed his son-in-law, Michael Stivic, played by Rob Reiner, a “Meathead, dead from the neck up.” This was the same dubious endearment Lear’s father Herman called him. The same man who routinely commanded Lear’s mother to “stifle herself.” Lear’s mother accused her husband, a “rascal” who was sent to jail for selling fake bonds of being “the laziest white man I ever saw,” according to his memoir Even This I Get to Experience All three lines made it into all three of the pilots taped for All In the Family. When Lear’s father got out of prison after a three-year stretch, the young budding writer sat through constant, heated, family discussions. “I used to sit at the kitchen table and I would score their arguments,” Lear remembers in his memoir. “I would give her points for this, him points for that, as a way of coping with it.”

All in the Family, season 1, episode 1, provides an almost greatest hits package of these terse and tense exchanges, which also taught Lear not to back away from the fray. He served as a radio operator and gunner in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, earning an Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters after flying 52 combat missions, and being among the crew members featured in the books Crew Umbriag and 772nd Bomb Squadron: The Men, The Memories. Lear partnered with Ed Simmons to write sketches for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin’s first five appearances on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1950. They remained as the head writers for three years. They also wrote for The Ford Star Revue, The George Gobel Show, and the comedy team Rowan and Martin, who would later headline Laugh-In.

Lear went solo to write opening monologues for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, and produce NBC’s sitcom The Martha Raye Show, before creating his first series in 1959, the western The Deputy, which starred Henry Fonda. To get Frank Sinatra to read Lear’s screenplay for the 1963 film Come Blow Your Horn, Lear went on a protracted aerial assault. Over the course of weeks, he had the script delivered while planes with banners flew over Sinatra’s home, or accompanied by a toy brass band or a gaggle of hens. Lear even assembled a “reading den” in Ol’ Blue Eyes’ driveway, complete with smoking jacket, an ashtray and a pipe, an easy chair, ottoman, lamp, and the Jackie Gleason Music to Read By album playing on a portable phonograph. After weeks of missed opportunities, Lear remembers Sinatra finally read the script and “bawled the shit out of me for not getting it to him sooner.”

The creative perseverance Lear showed just to get the right person for the right part is indicative of the lengths Lear would go for creative excellence. He would continue to fight for artistic integrity, transforming prime time comedy with shows like Good Times, One Day at a Time, and the first late-night soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. He brought legendary blue comedian Redd Foxx into homes with Sanford and Son, also based on a British sitcom, Steptoe and Son, which starred Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, best known for playing Paul McCartney’s grand-dad in A Hard Day’s Night. But before he could do these, and the successful and progressive All in the Family spinoffs The Jeffersons and Maude, he had to face battles, big and small, over the reluctantly changing face of television.

“Patience is a Virgin”

After Lear beat CBS to the rights to adapt Till Death Us Do Part he offered the show to ABC. When it was being developed for the television studio, the family in the original pilot were named the Justices, and the series was titled “Justice for All,” according to a 1991 “All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special.” They considered future Happy Days dad Tom Bosley, and acclaimed character actor Jack Warden for the lead part, before offering the role to Mickey Rooney. According to Even This I Get to Experience, Lear’s pitch to the veteran actor got to the words “You play a bigot” before Rooney stopped him. “Norm, they’re going to kill you, shoot you dead in the streets,” the Hollywood icon warned, asking if Lear might have a series about a blind detective with a big dog somewhere in the works.

Taped in New York on Sept. 3, 1968, the first pilot starred O’Connor and Jean Stapleton as Archie and Edith Justice. Stapleton, a stage-trained character actor who first worked as a stock player in 1941, was a consistent supporting player for playwright Horton Foote. Stapleton originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in the 1964 Broadway production of Funny Girl, which starred Barbra Streisand. Lear considered her after seeing her performance in Damn Yankees. She’d made guest appearances on TV series like Dr. Kildare and The Defenders.

O’Connor was born in Manhattan but grew up in Queens, the same borough as the Bunker household with the external living room window which wasn’t visible from the interior. O’Connor acted steadily in theaters in Dublin, Ireland, and New York until director Burgess Meredith, assisted by The Addams Family’s John Astin, cast him in the Broadway adaptation of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. O’Connor had roles in major motion pictures, including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Cleopatra (1963), Point Blank (1967), The Devil’s Brigade (1968), Death of a Gunfighter (1969), Marlowe (1969), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970). O’Connor appeared on television series like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, That Girl, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He’d guest starred as a villain in a season 1 episode of Mission Impossible, and was up for the parts the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island and Dr. Smith on Lost in Space.

The first pilot also starred Kelly Jean Peters as Gloria and Tim McIntire as her husband Richard. ABC liked it enough to fund a second pilot, “Those Were the Days,” which shot in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 1969. Richard was played by Chip Oliver, and Gloria Justice was played by Candice Azzara, who would go on to play Rodney Dangerfield’s wife in Easy Money, and make numerous, memorable guest appearances on Barney Miller. D’Urville Martin played Lionel Jefferson in both pilots. ABC cancelled it after one episode, worried about a show with a foul-mouthed, bigoted character as the lead.

CBS, which was trying to veer away from rural shows like Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres, bought the rights to the urban comedy and renamed it All in the Family. When Gleason’s contract to CBS ran out, Lear was allowed to keep O’Connor on as the main character.

Sally Struthers was one of the young actors featured in Five Easy Pieces, the 1970 counterculture classic starring Jack Nicholson. She’d also recently finished shooting a memorable part in the 1972 Steve McQueen hit The Getaway. Struthers had just been fired from The Tim Conway Comedy Hour because executives thought she made the show look cheap, which was her job. The premise of the show was it was so low-budget it could only afford one musician, who had to hum the theme song because they couldn’t afford an instrument, and one dancer, as opposed to a line of dancers like they had on The Jackie Gleason Show. Lear noticed her as a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a counterculture variety show which Rob Reiner wrote for with Steve Martin as a writing partner. Reiner’s then-fiancée, the director Penny Marshall, was also up for the role of Gloria, but in an interview for The Television Academy, Reiner recalls that, while Marshall could pass as Stapleton’s daughter, Struthers was obviously the one who looked like Archie’s “little girl.”

Reiner, the son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, was discovered in a guest acting role on the Andy Griffith vehicle series Headmaster, a show he wrote for, but had also played bit roles in Batman, The Andy Griffith Show, Room 222, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Beverly Hillbillies and The Odd Couple. Reportedly, Richard Dreyfuss campaigned for the role of Michael, and Harrison Ford turned it down. Mike Evans was cast as Lionel Jefferson, the Bunkers’ young Black next-door neighbor who sugar-coated nonviolent protests with subtle and subversive twists on “giving people what they want.”

“We’re just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug.”

The very first episode tackled multiple issues right away. It discussed atheism, with Michael and Gloria explaining they have found no evidence of god. The family dissects affirmative action, with Archie asserting everyone has an equal chance to advance if they “hustle for it like I done.” He says he didn’t have millions of people marching for him to get his job, like Black Americans. “His uncle got it for him,” Edith explains, with an off-the-cuff delivery exemplifying why Stapleton is one of the all-time great comic character actors. The family argues socialism, anti-Semitism, sausage links and sausage patties. The generation gap widens as Archie wonders why men’s hair is now down to there, while Gloria’s skirt got so high “all the mystery disappears” when she sits down.

All in the Family would continue to deal with taboo topics like the gay rights movement, divorce, breast cancer, and rape. Future episodes would question why presidential campaign funds are unequal, how tax breaks for corporations kill the middle class, and weigh the personal price of serving in an unpopular war as opposed to dodging the draft. When Archie goes to a female doctor for emergency surgery a few seasons in, All in the Family points out she is most certainly paid less than a male doctor. When skyjackings were a persistent domestic threat in the 1970s, Archie suggested airlines should “arm the passengers.” It is very prescient of the NRA’s suggestion of arming teachers to combat school shootings.

But the first showdown between Lear and the network was fought for the sexual revolution. The first episode’s action begins when Edith and Archie come home early from church and interrupt Michael and Gloria as they’re about to take advantage of having the house to themselves. Gloria’s got her legs wrapped around Michael as he is walking them toward the stairs, and the bed. “At 11:10 on a Sunday,” Archie wants to know as he makes himself known. According to Lear’s memoir, CBS President William Paley objected, saying the line suggested sex. “And the network wants that out even though they’re married–I mean, it was plain silly,” he writes. “My script could have lived without the line, but somehow I understood that if I give on that moment, I’m going to give on silly things forever. So, I had to have that showdown.”

The standoff continued until 25 minutes before air time. CBS broadcast the episode, but put a disclaimer before the opening credits rolled, which Reiner later described as saying “Nothing you’re about to see has anything that we want to have anything to do with. As far as we’re concerned, if you don’t watch the next half hour, it’s okay with us.” Lear knew, with what he was doing, this was going to be the first of many battles, because this was the first show of its kind. Television families didn’t even flush toilets, much less bring unmentionables to the table. “The biggest problem a family might face would have been that the roast was ruined when the boss was coming over to dinner,” Lear writes. “There were no women or their problems in American life on television. There were no health issues. There were no abortions. There were no economic problems. The worst thing that could happen was the roast would be ruined. I realized that was a giant statement — that we weren’t making any statements.”

“What I say ain’t got nothing to do with what I think.”

Politicians and pundits worried about how the series might affect racial relations. The country had experienced inner city riots, battle lines were drawn over school desegregation, busing children to schools was met with violent resistance. Did All In the Family undermine bigotry or reinforce racism? Were people laughing at Archie or with him? Was it okay to like Archie more than Mike?

Lear believed humor would be cathartic, eroding bigotry. Bigots found a relief valve. Lear always insisted Archie was a satirically exaggerated parody to make racism and sexism look foolish. Liberals protested the character came across as a “loveable bigot,” because satire only works if the audience is in on the joke. Bigoted viewers didn’t see the show as satire. They identified with Archie and saw nothing wrong with ethnic slurs. Mike and Gloria come off like preachy, bleeding-heart liberal, hippie leeches. Lionel handled Archie better than Michael did.

O’Connor humanized Archie as an old-fashioned guy trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Bunker gave bigotry a human face and, because he hated everyone, he was written off as an “equal-opportunity bigot.” Not quite a defensible title. Archie was the most liked character on the show, and the most disliked. Most people saw him as a likable loser, so identifiable he was able to change attitudes. In a 1972 interview, O’Connor explained white fans would “tell me, ‘Archie was my father; Archie was my uncle.’ It is always was, was, was. It’s not now. I have an impression that most white people are, in some halting way, trying to reach out, or they’re thinking about it.” It sometimes worked against O’Connor the activist, however. When he backed New York Mayor John Lindsay’s 1972 anti-war nomination for the Democratic presidential nomination, Archie Bunker’s shadow distanced progressives.

Archie was relatable beyond his bigotry. He spoke to the anxieties of working- and middle-class families. Archie was a dock worker in the Corona section of Queens, who had to drive a cab as a second job, with little hope of upward mobility. He didn’t get political correctness. The character’s ideological quips were transformed into the bestselling paperback mock manifesto The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker. White conservative viewers bought “Archie for President” buttons.

“If you call me Cute one more time, I swear I’ll open a vein.”

As cannot be overstated, All in the Family set many precedents, both socially and artistically. The Bunker family is an icon on many levels, Archie and Edith’s chairs are at the Smithsonian. But Archie Bunker is also the Mother Courage of TV. The antithesis of the bland sitcom characters of the time, he also wasn’t the character we hated to love, or loved to hate. Archie was the first character we weren’t supposed to like, but couldn’t help it. This phenomenon continues. The next TV character to take on the iconic mantle was probably Louis De Palma on Taxi. Audiences should have wanted to take a lug wrench to his head, but Danny De Vito brought such a diverse range of rage and vulnerability to that part it was named TV Guide’s most beloved character for years.

We shouldn’t like Walter White, especially when he doffs that pretentious Heisenberg hat, on Breaking Bad. And let’s face it, Slipping Jimmy on Better Call Saul isn’t really the kind of guy you want to leave alone in your living room while you grab a drink. Families across the United States and abroad sat down to an Italian-style family dinner with Tony Soprano and The Sopranos every Sunday night. But on Monday mornings, most of us would have ducked him, especially if we owed him money. Even the advanced model of the Terminator guy was scared of Tony.

The best example of this is South Park’s Eric Cartman. While we don’t know who his father is on the series, he’s got Bunker DNA all over him. He’s even gotten into squabbles with Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner. This wasn’t lost on Lear, who contacted creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to say he loved the show in 2003. Lear wound up writing for South Park’s seventh season. “They invited me to a party and we’re partying,” Lear told USA Today at the time. “There’s no way to overstate the kick of being welcomed by this group.”

“I hate entertainment. Entertainment is a thing of the past, now we got television.”

Television can educate as much as it wants to entertain, and All in the Family taught the viewing audience a whole new vocabulary. The casual epithets thrown on the show were unheard of in broadcast programming, no matter how commonplace they might have been in the homes of the people watching. When Sammy Davis Jr. comes to Bunker house in the first season, every ethnic and racial slur ever thrown is exchanged. In another first season episode, and both the unaired pilots, Archie breaks down the curse word “Goddamn.” But a large segment of the more socially conservative, and religious, audience thought All in the Family said whatever they wanted just because they could get away with it.

All in the Family debuted to low viewership, but rose to be ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings for five years. The show undermined the perception of the homogeneous middle-class demographic allowing shows like M*A*S*H to comment on contemporary events.

All in the Family represented the changing American neighborhood. The show opened the door for the working poor to join situation comedies as much as when the Bunkers welcomed Lionel, Louise (Isabel Sanford), and George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) when they moved into Archie’s neighborhood. Lear reportedly was challenged by the Black Panther Party to expand the range of black characters on his shows. He took the challenge seriously and added subversive humor. Sanford and Son was set in a junkyard in Watts. Foxx’s Fred Sanford rebelled against the middle-class aspirations of his son, Lamont (Demond Wilson). Good Times was set in the projects of Chicago, and took on issues like street gangs, evictions and poor public schools.

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Married With Children, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill continued to explore the comic possibilities of working class drama. Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a successful, upwardly mobile television producer. Working-class women were represented on sitcoms like Alice, but didn’t have a central voice until 1988 when Roseanne debuted on ABC, and Roseanne Barr ushered in her brand of proletarian feminism. All in the Family’s legacy includes Black-ish, as creator Kenya Barris continues to mine serious and controversial subject matter for cathartic and educational laughter. Tim Allen covets the conservative crown, and is currently the Last Man Standing in for Archie. But as reality gets more exaggerated than any satire can capture, All in the Family remains and retains its most authentic achievement.

The post How All in the Family Changed the TV Landscape appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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enxgmatics · 4 years ago

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Basic Plot- Based on ‘Made of Honor’ so basically they met in college by mistake when he was meant to hook up with her roommate and hopped into the wrong bed (up to you if something happened or nah) and they became instant friends. Years later he realises the only person he’d wanna give up his playboy ways for is her, problem is she’s engaged and asked him to be her man of honor.

She hadn’t set out to find anyone, she had her best friend. He had been the constant man in her life for a decade now, she didn’t need anyone else but a chance encounter on a business trip upended that. Fate had it they were sitting beside each other on the flight and a mutual boredom spurred on an eight hour conversation and a promise to meet up for dinner the following night- it just blossomed from there. After a world-wind few weeks she arrived home in an uncharacteristic love daze and eagerly flashing the heirloom emerald that weighed down her ring finger. Relaying the tale in excruciating detail to him, she ended by dropping her next bombshell- she wanted him by her side as her maid of honor. She had plenty of female friends of course but no one she trusted quite as much as him. There’s where it began, they were on a tight schedule so almost every day she’d invite herself into his apartment and dive on him, bribing him with coffee to venture out on another wedding errand with her while her fiance took care of matters back home. She valued his opinion, not trusting herself to live up to her in laws prim and proper standards otherwise.

Hearing the latch on the door, Mina frantically grabbed the nearest throw to haphazardly drape over herself in a pathetic attempt to mask her dress. Her anxious eyes settling on him for a moment before she slumped in relief, “Fucking hell! don’t scare me like that!” she snapped, tossing the blanket aside although despite her tone, the playful grin that lit up her features indicated she wasn’t actually annoyed by his presence. “Okay c’mon- let’s hear it. I know I resemble one of those 1950′s toilet roll covers” Slowly rotating to reveal the full affect of the dress, it was unmistakably beautiful but not very her. The excessive layers and delicate lace a far cry from her usual skinny jeans and leather jacket.

#mina starter #indie starter #indie rp #open rp #open starter

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daily-rayless · 5 years ago

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And then I thought, why not sketch even more Red?

This lil project was partially inspired by a lovely steampunk Red design. Given that Transistor’s aesthetic borrows from a number of different decades, I thought it would be fun to filter Red’s performance gown and jacket through the past twelve decades. Because... that’s the sort of thing that strikes me as fun.

Thoughts and justifications below the cut. Click for larger images. And curious to know people’s favorites.

No decade has just one defining look, but here are some thoughts on why I went with whatever.

1900s: Red’s performance gown has a lot of Edwardian references, from the loose shape of the bodice to the small waist to the fluted skirt. During this time, evening gowns were all about S-bend corsets, flowing hourglass lines, sweeping skirts, and of course flowy art nouveau everything. I sort of designed Red as I’d imagine a touring singer would look at the time, plume, boa and all.

1910s: People tend to think of classy flowing evening gowns like you see in Titanic or Downtown Abbey, but the teens had a theatrical side with copious embellishments, competing layers, and fashionable asymmetry. So under Red’s big minimalist coat her gown gathers on the ribs, floops down in big folds, has a marabou trim, and yet a second sheer hem falling around her ankles, much more loose and eccentric than the previous decade.

1920s: The flapper ideal, with its loose straight lines and relatively high hem, is the opposite of Red’s original design, but I think it shifted nicely. Big feather collar, bobbed hair, artificially shaped mouth, bold graphic gown, and of course heels.

1930s: In this decade, embellished collars, sleeves, and bodices were emphasized, meaning I could’ve preserved a lot of her original design, including that feather collar. But I decided to take things in a different direction by giving her a feather-print bolero, a favorite evening accessory of the time. Her hair is sleek, her skirt is long and relaxed and minimalist. The ideal of the 30s was to create an impression of tall, sinuous elegance instead of an obvious hourglass.

1940s: WW2-era gowns were edgier and took cues from men’s fashion, like shoulder pads. So I put Red in one of those short, square, shouldery fur coats you see from this time, but of course for her it has to be feathers. Her gown, however, has a proper torch singer vibe with its gathered hip wrap and showy slit. There’s a strange color-themed foursome following her around, and after tonight’s show, she’s going to take her peep-toe platform heels down to the nearest detective’s office and hire him to be her bodyguard.

1950s: I veered away from Marilyn hair and a big New Look skirt and instead went with an “Italian” cut and a hostess skirt. Granted, I don’t think her shorts would’ve been that short yet, but Red’s an artist; she can be daring and eccentric. As in the 1900s, clothing was used to create curves that were exaggerated for many women. Some of the hallmarks of an elegantly dressed woman included her heels, her coral lipstick, and of course her pearls.

1960s: When it comes to clothes, the two halves of the 60s are wildly different, so I went with the latter half. In the mod era, figured stockings ruled, peacoats abounded, flats reveled in their flatness, and minidresses were acceptable evening wear. Like the 20s before them, the 60s loved their eye-catching graphic designs and experimental shapes. Red’s original boots show up, but with mod cutouts, and her layered skirt now runs down the sides of her dress. The feathers are shorter and downier so as not to mess with the blocky silhouette of her outfit. And of course nude lips and super heavy eyeliner.

1970s: I decided on a glam late-70s disco look (though in retrospect, maybe Red would’ve been an earnest folksinger?) So we have a long feather-lined trench coat, a simple low-cut disco gown, big pendant, hoop earrings, and strappy high-heeled sandals. And of course some swoopy hair. 70s Red frequents a disco where the floor is covered in flashing triangles and the mirror ball is shaped like Sybil’s hat.

1980s: Of all the decades, Red’s canonical ripped-gown outfit is probably closest to the 80s. I made her a little punk here (maybe she tours with Pat Benatar) with her leather motorcycle jacket (bedazzled with big silver feather charms) and a tight minidress. I also did a version of this with opaque black stockings, but in the end I like the bare legs better.

1990s: So I could’ve just drawn her as Surfacing-era Sarah McLachlan, but I decided not to be lazy. This sort of flat-lined, side-slitted slipdress was everywhere. Her duster has a fluffy collar and cuffs, her lipstick is named Aubergine, and she is unironically wearing platform high-heeled Mary Janes. In the 90s, Red didn’t actually tour with Lilith Fair, but everyone always remembers her as having done so.

2000s: Sparkles, pointy boots, and asymmetry ruled the early to mid-2000s. That specific triangular neckline was everywhere and fits so thematically with Red that I had to go with it. Loose decorated belts went with every outfit. Her bell-sleeved shrug is embellished with shiny feather appliques. And her hem is torn and uneven, except that unlike in the game, it’s supposed to be like that. And she hasn’t forgotten her ultra-shiny nude lipgloss.

2010s: I was a little stumped, because it’s hard to know what the definitive looks of your current decade are, even when it’s almost over. So I went with one of those high-necked, long-sleeved, highly ornamented gowns that were big in the mid 2010s. We also have this decade’s love of sheer skirts and long bobs. Her gold beaded heels are based on a Valentino design, and her collar has rings of painted feathers for a somewhat Egyptian vibe. This time, she’s ditched the jacket, letting the black design elements come through in her ombre skirt.

#2019 #red #red (transistor)#redesign #transistor #supergiant games #sketch #photoset #fashion #fashion history #though this isn't particularly scholarly #there are probably so many typos under the cut

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klhportfolio2022 · 3 years ago

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REVISION 3: NEW PAPER

CHARACTERS

HER, a very beautiful, young Black female writer. HER is Howard educated and it comes with a little snooty-ness but she’s cool people still. HER has been writing for HER’s whole life and HER’s work is finally starting to pick up momentum

HIM, a young Black man. Sweet and kind and loves HER with all HIM’s heart. He’ll do anything for HER. With a goofy, lanky build his limbs often seem like an obstacle to movement rather than an aid.

THEM, a gaggle of no good losers who have no idea what they’re talking about. Various sizes, but all white (see above for actual photo of THEM)

SETTING

1950’s New York City

Act One

Scene 1

Inside a large conference room. In it is a large table and oversized chairs. Those chairs are filled with THEM. Standing before THEM is HER, dressed in HER’s sunday’s best. HER is speaking.

HER

Each character is a real person. They’re based on interviews of people from all across New York. Black folks who all got a story to tell

HER is interrupted at “Black”. THEM begin to shriek and snicker. HER stands there, face turning red. The fattest of THEM, sitting in the center, speaks. Spit leaving his mouth everytime he talks and his eyes doing something very weird and very nasty.

THEM

Look here….hun.. It's cute. I mean I don’t believe it but it's cute. Bottom line babe, You won’t get it published here. Our audience you see they’re looking for……polish… They want a story to care about and they won’t care about this. Maybe you’ll have better luck with a more uuurbAn publisher, sweetheart. You have a good day.

THEM laugh collectively. THEM collects THEM’s things and scurry out of the room leaving HER all alone. HER stands for a moment in disappointed shock and then grabs HER’s things and races off stage.

The stage goes black.

Scene 2

Outside in front of a large building on a busy city street. It is loud

HIM is standing on the corner, he looks at the door to the large building anxiously. After a few moments HER comes out of the building. HER is walking quickly towards him as if she were to pass HIM. HIM catches up but not before tripping over himself.

HIM

Well…what did they say? How did it go? Did they love it? Did you love it? Tell me, tell me! I been waiting out here, ya boy is quite the catch everyones been hollerin at m-

HER

Lets just go

HIM

That bad, huh?

HER shakes her head in response and continues to walk quickly across the stage. HIM struggles to keep up. HIM chases behind HER off the stage. Stage goes black.

Curtain rises, to reveal a small home, barely furnished. HIM and HER enter stage left. HER is taking off her jacket still visibly upset.

HIM

You’ve gotta tell me! The silence is killing me. What did they say about your story?

HIM is met with silence

Oh so you’re gunna make this hard…ok..

HIM slinks towards HER. HIM starts to do a silly dance around her and sing “I’ve Got A Woman” by Ray Charles.

Welllllllll I got a woman! Way over town

Dancing intensifies, HIM kisses HER

That's good to me, oh yeah

SAIIIIDDDD, I got a woman, way over town

Good to me, oh yeah

The dance reaches its peak and HER is now laughing.

I know how to get you, so tell me….what happened?

HER takes a breath.

HER

It wasn’t good, it was real bad and I should have known! I should have known. I should have known those white publishers wouldn’t print me. ME!? I went to Howard! THEE Illustrious! Still isn’t good enough. I knew better, how could I be so stupid.

HIM

Okay but tell me what happened

HER plops down on the small couch at center stage. She begins her lament

HER

Oh I’ll tell you what happened. I walked in there with the best story they’ll ever see. “Extra Ordinary: The life of Black folk”. You’ve read it a thousand times. It's real and it's raw and it tells the stories of so many. You know how hard I worked to write it. You know how much I put into this project. All the long nights of interviewing, editing. It's better than anything I’ve ever created. They just don’t want to see it. They don’t want to know about us. They don’t got no interest in our lives.

HIM moves from where he is standing to sit on the same couch. HER stands

You see they think we’re easy, nothing complex about us. They think “oh its just another story about negros being negros, they couldn’t possibly have nothing to say. You should have seen the way that publisher man looked at me with those nasty beady eyes! He spoke for all white folks when he told me, looked me in my face and told me “we just don’t care” I mean can you believe that! I knew, I knew then he didn’t even see me as human. He told me no one will read it. No one could possibly enjoy a story that makes us even slightly SLIGHTLY equal to the white man. Our stories should be about work and struggle. He didn’t even let me finish the pitch. Him and his team of suits shut me up right in the middle. In the middle! And he was calling me all these weird names hun, sweetheart like boy! Just creepy and nasty and mean. Then they had the nerve to tell me to “Have a good day”. Have a good day? How can I?

HIM

Oh man, I'm sorry. Awful sorry. They don’t deserve a story half as good as yours. I sure am proud of you and I would read it, I'm sure a lot of people would.

HER

You don’t understand. He’s right. No one will read it. Ain’t no white man interested in the lives of us. And I can’t blame em. Their whole life they've been told that our stories don’t matter. Hell, we don't matter! To them we’re just some unassuming background noise. We’re just static on a TV.

HER grabs her draft of her book off a nearby table and sighs. HIM listens and watches intently. HIM pauses for a bit then starts.

HIM

Oh we can’t let that stop you! We can’t just give up. There's a publisher out there that’ll print it. We just gotta find them. We just have to keep trying.

HER

Keep trying? Oh what's the point! Did you not just hear anything I said! They won’t publish it, no one will. It's dead.

HIM walks over to HER and grabs HER’s hand. HIM leads HER to the table and they both sit.

HIM

Listen. These are the stories they need. These are the stories they’re going to get. It's brilliant. Each story represents so much more than just one person. All we have to do is get people to look, to read it. What these people need is a wake up call. We ain’t all that different! We are just like them. We hurt, we laugh, we go through stuff and we can do stuff just like them. Your stories will show the world to see us. See us as whole and human and maybe just maybe changes the minds of all those bigots who think we aint nothing. All we have to do is get them to read it. Your stories will help our people everywhere all over the country.

HER

How? Without a publisher the stories won’t leave the neighborhood much less make it around the country.

HIM

We’ll publish it ourselves! We can do it. We’ll get some friends to come o…

HER

…are you out your mind? You must be out your mind. I don’t even want to talk about this anymore.

HIM

No, I'm serious! Let's make copies of your book and leave it in all the places white folks like to go.

HER

They’ll see the title and throw it down.

HIM

So we change the title! The goal here is to get them to read it so what if we’ve gotta bait them a little.

HIM jumps up from the table and runs to grab a box from under the bed. The box is filled with papers and pencils

So in your story, each chapter is a different person right?

HER doesnt respond. HER is completely uninterested in HIM’s shenanigans

Hey, work with me here! I'm telling you we can do this! We can get your story read.

HER sighs reluctantly and nods her head

Alright so here’s what we’ll do. We will take the whole book apart and we’ll write each one like a magazine article, like an interview

HER

You want to take apart the whole book! You know how hard I worked on that thing! We aren’t doing that no way. I write books, not magazine articles.

HIM

Yeah and no ones reading those books

HER playfully punches HIM on the arm. They share a brief laugh.

HER

Really I appreciate you trying to help but this won’t work. The publishers were right. As soon as white folks see that these stories aren’t about white folks they’ll put it down.

HIM

Well then let's not tell them

HER looks at HIM as if HIM just called HER’s mom fat. HIM knows he is on thin ice.

Of course we’ll tell them. But not until the end? We’ll do our best to detail their life without color. Staying true to the original story and then at the end we’ll break it to them. We’ll tell them their new favorite character is actually a Black lady. They'll be forced to face it.

HER sits silently for a moment. HER fiddles with the draft in front of her. Silence swallows up the stage. HIM watches HER with a hopeful eye. After a while, HER responds

HER

I want people to read it.

HIM

Yeaaah…

HER

I want people to be interested in our stories.

HIM

Uh huhhhhhh

HER

And I know white publishers won’t print it

HIM

Exactly

HER

So I’m willing to try it

HIM

Yes!

HIM jumps on top of the table and starts to do a victory dance. HIM is singing a song, clapping and dancing. HIM tries to get HER to dance. HER denies the request. HIM continues HIM’s silly dance and HER eventually jumps in. They sing and dance and share an embrace.

POSTSCRIPT

HIM and HER get straight to work. For weeks they throw writing parties. They invite friends over and copy HER’s stories onto single sheets all night. There were a few hiccups, but nothing the two couldn’t overcome together.

When the stories were finally written they did the real work. They spent a whole week tucking HER’s writing in coffee shops and bookstores and newspaper stands all around town, white and Black areas.

The excitement and bussle of preparation slows down in the following weeks. 2 months later while HIM and HER are walking to the laundromat they grab a newspaper. HIM is casually reading, his eyes grow wider and wider as he hones in on one specific article, It's about HER’s stories! The local paper caught wind of them and fell in love with them. The responses from the public were mixed, of course, but the paper called it “brilliant” “The next Hurston '' they said. They sang praises to the distribution method, something HIM was sure to tell everyone he came up with.

HIM and HER go to the newspaper headquarters together so HER can get the recognition HER deserves. The paper is ready to discuss HER next work but this time with Blackness on full display. They’re invited to a luncheon to celebrate young writers. Can you guess who was there? yup. THEM. THEM tried to talk to HER, get HER to publish HER next project with THEM. HER, in all her beauty and grace turns to THEM and simply says:

“Have a good day, sweetheart.”

END

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Superman & Lois Easter Eggs are a Love Letter to Every Era of DC History

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers.

Superman & Lois Episode 11

If you just tuned in to Superman & Lois episode 11, “A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events” a few minutes in, and perhaps without having seen the previous episodes, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is in fact the pilot episode for a brand new show about the Man of Steel. While every other Arrowverse superhero began life with a fairly detailed origin story episode (or season!), by the time we first met Tyler Hoechlin as Superman and Bitsie Tulloch as Lois Lane, both characters were meant to be well established in their world and careers. The actual first episode of Superman & Lois reminded us that these two were so “seasoned” that they’re already the parents of twin teenagers!

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So there are still plenty of questions to be asked about the backstories of our title characters, and “A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events” is a big step towards that. But it’s so much more than a “how did Lois and Clark meet/Clark’s first time in costume/Superman getting established in Metropolis” episode. It’s a genuine love letter to both of these characters, and one that successfully encompasses the entirety of their 83 year history.

Oh, and it manages to do all of that while ALSO still moving the main story of the season forward nicely. It’s an incredibly versatile episode, and a fine piece of storytelling in its own right, making the well-worn beats of the Superman origin story feel fresh and vital, without losing sight of everything else the season needs to do.

Young Clark Kent and the Fortress of Solitude

The opening of this episode, with young Clark trudging through the arctic, carrying the sunstone and trying to figure out both his and its purpose, is the first of many nods to Richard Donner’s 1978 superhero movie masterpiece, Superman. Clark is even wearing a similar red check flannel jacket to the one Jeff East wore in a similar scene.

Jor-El

The concept of Jor-El as an AI that runs the Fortress of Solitude (as well as the Fortress itself stemming from a Kryptonian artifact) also traces its roots back to Donner’s Superman film. That was the first time we got the notion that Clark had to learn about his powers and alien heritage from the collected memories of his biological father and his people, and it’s updated nicely here.

Man of Steel

Clark’s first flight in the arctic, with Jor-El’s words ringing in his ears, well…again, Donner’s Superman. But specifically the way it’s presented here with Clark’s powerful takeoff and unsteady first moments it feels a lot like a similar moment in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.

The Fleischer Superman Costume

While we did hear Superman say “my mom made it for me” in the first episode, here we get to see more of why that actually happened. Clark’s current suit definitely feels like something slightly alien, perhaps the Kryptonian ceremonial wear it was hinted as being in Donner’s Superman (the first place to use the “S” as a Kryptonian house crest), Man of Steel, and recent DC Comics. But for the majority of Superman’s comic book history, it has always been the case that Martha made Clark’s suit for him.

Superman & Lois splits the difference, though, with Martha having made Clark’s first costume…one that happens to look exactly like the first screen interpretation of Superman ever: the classic Max Fleischer animated Superman shorts which first arrived in 1941. If you haven’t seen these, please do so. They’re gorgeous. Spending more time with that suit in this episode is a real treat, and it’s a perfect illustration of why “less is more” with superhero costuming.

It even kind of explains why the “S” on the original suit wouldn’t be the perfect Kryptonian symbol that Clark and Supergirl wear in the present day: Clark probably helped her design it from memory, since the first time he would have seen his family crest was when the Jor-El hologram appeared to him in the Fortress!

Also, this may or may not have been intentional, but Martha telling Clark “go save the world” before his first adventure also happens in J.J. Abrams never-filmed Superman screenplay, which despite it’s reputation, when it gets stuff right, it really gets it right. I wrote about that in much more detail here.

First Day on the Job

The episode cheats ever so slightly by reusing footage from the pilot with Superman catching the green PT cruiser and chatting with the citizens of Metropolis. But it’s worth repeating that this is a gloriously realized homage to the cover of Superman’s first appearance in 1938’s Action Comics #1. But everyone knows that, right?

But here we go one further, with the revelation that this wasn’t a random flashback, it was truly Clark’s first act in costume as Superman! Again, a nice little tribute to Action #1.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…

Superman changes back into Clark in a phone booth. I’m not sure at what point in Superman history that the “changing in a phone booth” became such an accepted bit of pop culture lore. It did happen in at least one of the aforementioned Fleischer Superman cartoons, and infrequently in the comics themselves, and almost NEVER in live action. In fact, Donner’s Superman even had a quick sight gag about this, when Christopher Reeve’s Clark is looking for a place to change for his first public act in costume, and gives one of those “modern” (for 1978) non-enclosed phone booths a bemused look.

A passerby notes to Clark that Metropolis’ new hero flew “like a bird or a plane.” This of course nods to the famed narration first popularized by The Adventures of Superman radio show (more on that in a minute) and the Fleischer cartoons: “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…Superman!”

The Daily Planet

We don’t spend a heckuva lot of time at The Daily Planet on this show, but when we do it tries to capture the manic, bustling energy that we saw in Donner’s Superman (wow, that keeps coming up a lot…and with good reason).

Also, how good is Paul Jarrett as Perry White?

Lois Lane

Lois showing Clark the ropes at The Daily Planet is something that goes all the way back to their earliest appearances. I will die on this hill: Lois is slightly older than Clark, and is also the more experienced and better reporter. Even with “all those powers” (the real ones know) she’s at least one step ahead of Clark in the reporter game.

This one might not be intentional, but the montage of Lois and Clark on the job together reminds me very slightly of a montage page from John Byrne and Dick Giordano’s Man of Steel #2, where Lois, trying to track down Superman during his early days in Metropolis, keeps showing up just after he has left.

Lois and Clark staying late on the job has echoes of both the pilot episode of 1993’s Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and the “rooftop scene” from Donner’s Superman. It is the former in that it’s the first indication of a romantic attraction brewing between them (and significant because up until that point in history it was ALWAYS the case that Lois was attracted to Superman and not Clark). But there’s also a hint of the latter in their playful but wary flirtation.

But that’s subverted further with Lois’ exclusive interview with Superman. Just as in Donner’s film, Lois lands the first exclusive interview with the Man of Steel (there it was in private for later print publication, here it’s on TV). But again, Lois isn’t interested in Superman, because she’s already in love with Clark. It completely eliminates the old “love triangle” where “Clark loves Lois, but Lois loves Superman, but Superman wants to be loved as Clark” which has been a staple of the legend for years. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you.

One more thing from that lovely evening scene with Lois and Clark working late: when Clark is getting ready to leave, Lois asks him “what’s your hurry?” In Superman II, when Lois was suspecting the truth about Clark, she asked him “What’s your hurry, Superman?”

Atom Man

OK, the inclusion of Atom Man is some next level stuff. The character first appeared in 1945 on The Adventures of Superman radio show. There, he was “Heinrich Milch” (hence the “Henry Miller” of this episode), a Nazi empowered by Kryptonite in his bloodstream.

We met a different Atom Man in the second Superman movie serial in 1950, the appropriately titled Atom Man vs. Superman. There, Atom Man was the alter ego of Lex Luthor. One of these days I’m going to get around to writing about Columbia’s Superman serials, but today is not one of those days.

The Atom Man we meet here is based on the visual design from Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru’s EXCELLENT (seriously, I can’t stress enough how absolutely great this book is) Superman Smashes the Klan. That Atom Man was based on the “Henry Miller” version of the character, and thus the racist nonsense spouted by tonight’s villain is appropriate.

One other cool thing about the use of Yang/Gurihiru’s Atom Man? In Superman Smashes the Klan, Supes is rocking a version of his costume that looks very much like the Fleischer suit. The folks on Superman & Lois know exactly what they’re doing. One callback to the movie serial version? It seems that Henry Miller is bald and stocky, much like the very first screen Lex Luthor Lyle Talbot was in Atom Man vs. Superman. It’s like an Easter egg singularity!

Now FLY (do not walk) to your local comic shop to buy a copy of Superman Smashes the Klan which, in what will probably be my final mention of The Adventures of Superman radio show for tonight, is loosely based on a DIFFERENT adventure from the radio show. Anyway, it’s great and the best Superman story to hit comics in approximately a decade or so. Thank me later.

Morgan Edge, Tal-Rho, and Zeta-Rho

This episode continues and reinforces the “nature vs. nurture” debate around Morgan Edge that began last week. Here, the mirroring of his journey with Clark’s is made even more pronounced. Clark was given good guidance by Jonathan and Martha, and those lessons were only reinforced by Jor-El, while Tal-Rho just had those impulses amplified by Zeta-Rho in his desert fortress. Jor-El sent his only son to escape a dying planet in the hopes that he could help another one. Zeta-Rho sent his only son to revive a dying planet at the expense of a vibrant one.

The “headband” that Tal-Rho is using to insert himself into Superman’s memories (and Supes has a matching one) feels like a subtle nod to the fact that headbands were the height of Kryptonian fashion in the comics from the late 1940s until John Byrne’s reboot in 1986.

The apparently successful “turning” of Superman at the end of the episode had better be a red herring. This show has faked us out so many times in its final moments, I really can’t imagine they’re gonna do something as obvious as giving us an “evil Superman” for even one episode.

Other Cool Kryptonian Artifacts

When Clark returns to Smallville and tries to meet up with Lana, there are two films playing at the theater: one is an instalment in the Harry Potter franchise. The other is Friday Night Lights, the movie that inspired the TV show that has been a surprisingly strong influence on a lot of elements of Superman & Lois.

For the Smallville fans, there’s a “Teague’s” sporting goods store visible on the street, as well, possibly a nod to Jensen Ackles’ Jason Teague character from season four of that series.

Yes, Lois does indeed call John Henry Irons at the end of the episode. Steel is coming back!

Clark Kent is a Seinfeld fan! It’s canon! Why is this so significant? Jerry Seinfeld is a noted Superman fan, and on the famed TV show (the greatest TV comedy of the ’90s), there was a very visible Superman magnet on his refrigerator in many episodes. Wait…that causes reality problems that are going to make my brain hurt.

Was anyone able to catch the names of the books on Clark’s nightstand? They look like old sci-fi paperbacks, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

I didn’t spot any significant names in Clark’s yearbook, but I’m old and my eyes are going, so if you spotted anything, please let me know in the comments!

The post Superman & Lois Easter Eggs are a Love Letter to Every Era of DC History appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hcrosr

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mysteriousxmisfits · 4 years ago

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#mina starter #indie starter #indie rp #open starter #open rp

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ramenfallsbutnotudon · 7 years ago

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Riverdale Raw Thoughts

Binge watched Riverdale last night as my Netflix membership for the month was expiring. (Not renewing again until early November to watch S2 The Crown and other stuff I’m waiting on) - Like I literally stayed up from 9 pm to 6 pm this morning watching the show straight and then went to bed and woke up at noon.

Cheesy dialogue aside, it was pretty great for what it was.

But it suffered from the same thing Scream Queens did - interesting core plot, but cheesy cringy writing and too many pop culture references to pander to their target audience demographic (I’m assuming 18-34)

Wishy-washy social commentary:

FP Jones ain’t shit but Jughead has a cute beenie and is sensitive so he’s a-okay.

Alice Cooper grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” but married well so now she’s determined to keep south side trash out by joining the “neighborhood watch” and using her white woman hood, white feminism and ‘come-uppance’ privilage to publish edgy think pieces.

Betty Cooper has some pent up rage that is sorta overlooked because it was “for good” (doing it for the girls and trying to get revenge for Polly - and because the guy was Black, thinly veiled anti-blackness) until it isn’t overlooked but simply mentioned . Then she initally starts using Jughead and Jughead calls it out and she kind of agrees and says she has “darkness” in her - until something happens again and she decides to “let the darkness out” and be selfish and blame it on something else again.

Jughead getting dealt a piss poor hand, being okay at the South Side school (he’s a gang member - arguably gang leader or liutenant’s son...of course he’s fine jesus fucking christ Riverdale) until the trio of good show up to...talk to him and comfort him? and they realize he’s fine.

Betty making a white feminist speech about the town needing to do better because yes although her boyfriend’s dad is a Serpent he’s a good person and although her parents told her to shut her mouth she feels it’s the right thing to do. [She actually did not care about the Serpents before and her buds Veronica and Kevin heckled them during the last drive in movie screening.but whatevs] After the speech she has no solution or propsed ways the town can “do better” and there’s this awkward silence and everyone’s favorite punching bag has to clap it up so people blindy accept that lackluster speech. (I don’t expect a teenage girl to fix the towns problems but if you wanted to tackle the issue and get people talking shouldnt’t you also have some thoughts other than people not being mean to your boyfriend?)

Jughead not having shit and the gang seeing him enter the trailer with a girl and (maybe wanting to keep a pg 13 rating) stop him before their steamy make out session leads to something more give him a jacket to become a serpent and Betty is angry that he’s trying to survive and embracing the gang life that he’s essentially grown up around and will be surrounded by until he comes of age.

Archie’s dad’s forhead. my god. not social commentary but damn it bugged me.

Archie and his hottie teacher banging without impuity and her being allowed to quietly leave after obviously being a predator and dangerous person. (did they ever give her back her gun??? IS that what Alice uses when Hal breaks back in? Did Hal ever mention he stole the evidence to the sheriff even after it came to light FP was innocent?)

Archie wanting the pussy cat’s to use his song so he manipulates one of the band members (Valerie), dates her, uses their connections, ignores her, and when she dumps him and tells him why he isn’t shit he somehow doesn’t get it.

Valerie being acceptable to date because she has blue eyes and light skin but she’s rarely heard from when she’s no longer helping archie’s ‘music career’ but simply dating him.

Archie playing along with Cheryl’s crazy ass family “for his music” as an excuse to be selfish.

Archie trying to be a tortured soul when his dad point blank asked him why he’s lying if he wants music that’s cool it’s just unstable; someone else (Veronica I think?) kind of saying why are you being like this no one is making you choose between Football and music; someone bringing up he was only music when he was banging his hottie teacher; the football team heckles him once but they seen he’s Troy Bolton & they accepted him - everyone fucking accepted him but himself like christ and he spent the whole season searching for validation of his self worth in women and girls.

Just Archie I mean christ lmfao. You don’t like Betty, You make out with Veronica, you decide your really into your hottie music teacher and manipulate her into music lessons (although she manipulated the hell out of him as well), when your dad starts getting a boner for her you try to cut contact with her short, people find out, you decide the pussy cats are your answer, they explain they are black and because of the culture they have had to fight hard and they can’t have a white man just step in and run shit, archie the white man steps in and runs shit, archie breaks them up, Archie says he can’t perform alone and manipulates Valerie playing on her insecurities to leave the band, archie decides “he was wrong” and Veronica decides to help him, he ditches Veronica because he looked within himself and realized he wasn’t shit, he patronizes jughead and only resumes their rocky friendship because he wanted him to keep the secret about him banging their hottie teacher, he’s semi jealous that jughead is dating Betty, archie then really wants Veronica and wants to make sure Betty isn’t jealous. He keeps playing the hero...something which probably got his dad killed at the end - If there’s a s2 I haven’t seen it yet)

Veronica Lodge is hella famous by name and it’s a small town everyone knows who she is and she even points out that she expected more people to talk to her and acknowledge her divine presence but Kevin is like “lol you got overshadowed by another rich person’s death” /s but... Ethel Muggs truly has no fucking idea who she is? No incling? No rumors? Is she really that much of a rock-dweller?

The whole incest baby thing....the josef mengele joke...the fact that Jason and Cheryl were twins.....the eugenics joke when Cheryl’s face says them damn well know they practice eugenics and ethic breeding and need to keep up the “blossom apperance” (Her dad’s red wigs, using Archie as a stand-in for Jason...but I digress - just touch on the topic to sound edgy and draw controversy but leave it shallow eh?)

The whole “lol let’s ship our pregnant daughter away to a literal convent in 2017 because I was shipped to a convent in the late 80′s early 90′s- but why is she mad at me I love her I’d never do anything to hurt her like ambushing her and having her dragged away against her will as an underage expecting teenager lol”

Hyping big bad black football player up to fuck shit up at Archie’s party and in reality he kinda did...nothing? lmao (a la Jughead’s aminous V.O. about “no one expected what happened at that party” or some shit )

The whole “the sins of the father don’t or shouldn’t reflect on the daughter” but Veronica gets away scott free essentially and Cheryl literally loses everything because I mean fuck those Blossoms amirite lololol /S

Archie looked like Jason, got his number initially before retiring it (lol kind of insensitive to have his doppleganger become team captain for plot purposes later on ) and the Blossoms essentially used him because he mirrored Jason at the tapping ceremony.

The name Hermione Lodge lmfao she’s not old enough for the HP book reading mom boom.

Hermione Lodge and Hiram Lodge’s intials on that stupid fucking bag.

Veronica being rich and intelligent but her morals making her real fucking dumb. (I wanna go home but I also wanna coddle everyone my daddy hurt but I still wanna be rich lol but I’m implicating my mom and she’s literally begging and pleading me to stop and having crying fits but lol justice and my chanel bags hahaha and I’m gonna go clubbing and shopping even though my mom is working as a waitress and flirting with her old hs boyfriend to secure a job so we can continue to float and not drown and not be taken down by the families my dad hurt lololol omg archie is a hot prince harry hipster ginger amirite lololol the met gala lalala rich girl things new york lol)

The whole plot demand that Veronica win the impromptu HBIC dance off when big red Cheryl actually killed that shit and Veronica danced like a fucking robot.

ARCHIE HURT HIS HAND PLAYING FOOTBALL AND CRACKING THICK ICE WITH HIS BARE BLOODY KNUCKLES HOW DOES THE GINGER WONDER STILL HAVE USE OF THAT HAND ? The body heals but it’s never the same after repeated exposed trama’s to the same area in a short period of time.

.....I’ve ranted enough about this and I didn’t even mean to.

The last two episodes seemed to have been steamrolled for the sake up tying up loose ends to create a cliffhanger for another season.

Again, good for what it was....but... I truly enjoyed that the real villian was capitalism. Good job millenials.

(not sarcasm. Capitlaism destroyed Jughead’s future a la his father FP and Fred Andrews - The Coopers and the Blossoms - Josie McCoy’s mom - “Criminal” capitalism Hiram Lodge ruining his associates lives, the small town not working for everyone - Archie’s mom moving (after seperation), Jughead’s mom moving, Veronica’s mom moving back because she can survive in their economy on the nest money Hiram left....) etc etc

These small cosy “uppercrust white” town just isn’t safe anymore.

I mean have you seen that new negro mayor? That wealthy latina woman and her daughter?That negro coach and his star player son?

Remember - without Capitalism there is no social inequality, systematic racism, white supremacy, classism, etc etc

(also my personal issues with one of the actors colored this a bit biased....but on how things went it was cool.)

Also our culture has a real hardon for the 1950s eh? I know it’s based on the Archie Comics but Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why...other media where we’re going for the small town america aesthetic and “traditional values” and sprinkling in some social issues and people of color for kicks.

On to season 2 I guess lol.

Don’t put too much stock into my raw thoughts, I just think shows (especially in our current political climate and reality) should commit to what they really want.

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thereallygoodblogshow · 5 years ago

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MA Fashion and Textile Practices Major Project Path - 6th September

The T-Shirt

The the 1970′s, according to Brunel (2002), Elle magazine announced that:

“The T-shirt will become a basic item of clothing that will never go out of fashion because it’s already beyond fashion.”

It is a statement that has never been more correct, the T-Shirt IS beyond fashion, and yet remains steadfastly within the collections of high profile designers but then is equally at home on the rails in a low budget store. The T-Shirt is an oxymoron, it’s that blank piece of paper waiting to be filled.

The origins of a ‘T’ shaped garment goes as far back as the middle ages, where an undergarment with a round neck and sleeves would be worn as an extra layer between the skin and the upper layer of clothing.This garment could be washed separately and replaced without the need to wash the other clothes. This was a long rectangular piece of woven linen or cotton with longer ‘tails’ which could be tucked between the legs. Over the centuries this garment changed little apart from losing its ‘tails’ and slimming down to fit the body more closely.

Ironically, this is how my boyfriend likes to operate, wearing the same clothes all week - he works from home - and then changing his T-Shirt and underwear daily. Thankfully the string vest has yet to emerge. I’m sure he wouldn’t be impressed with me writing this!

By the time it reached the 19th century this garment was certainly more advanced than its predecessors. With the invention of knitting processes, the structure was made more form fitting and used alternative materials such as wool and jersey. The sleeveless knitted vest was worn as early as the 1910′s but had yet to adopt the classic ‘T’ shape. The Union Suit on the other hand was an American invention, first patented in 1868 as part of the countries clothing reform effort - where clothing was created to be less restrictive than the Victorian clothing of the time - it comprised of an all-in-one body suit which quickly caught on with men because it buttoned down the front and had a flap at the back for, lets say, ease of toilet use. The style remained popular until the early 20th century, primarily used for work wear, but then was separated into two garments to ease movement further - full length trousers known as ‘long johns’ and T-Shirt style top. This is when the T-Shirt is thought to have become an actual piece in its own right.

Real Men Real Style, n.d. (n.d). The union suit dominated as a men's undergarment throughout the late 19th and early 20th century.. [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/history-origins-mens-underwear/.

Joysmith, E. (1943). Utility Underwear- Clothing Restrictions on the British Home Front, 1943. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Utility_Underwear-_Clothing_Restrictions_on_the_British_Home_Front,_1943_D13079.jpg.

Although another theory is that the U.S Navy first adopted a very basic form of the T-Shirt as underwear in the First World War but by Second World War the U.S Army had made it part of their official underwear. It was apparently used as a good way of safeguarding the uniform, the uniform was hung safely away whilst manual labour ensued and then could be easily cast aside when inspection was due. In the below photograph, actor Carlo Aldini can be clearly seen wearing a T-Shirt on the set of his 1930 film Kampf gegen die Unterwelt ( Fighting the Underworld)

Aldini, C. (1930). Scene with Carlo Aldini and Siegfried Arno.. [Film Still]. Retrieved from https://www.akg-images.de/archive/-2UMDHUH9GG88.html.

Theories aside, it was the underwear boom that ensued that was to cement the T-Shirt as a necessary item of clothing. That and the association the T-Shirt had with the U.S forces, it was hero attire, of course war time advertising all fueled this link. Sears Roebuck, the large chain of American stores had many ad’s promoting the use of the T-Shirt as an everyday item, not just for underwear but for casual use outerwear too. The term “Gob” referred to a slang word for a sailor.

Sears, n.d. (1938). 1938 Sears Summer Catalogue. [Advertisement]. Retrieved from https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/t-shirts-101-part-2.

It wasn’t long before this previous underwear garment became acceptable as casual outwear, and not soon after the graphic printed T-Shirt arrived. The first graphics to be seen on a T-Shirt were in the film The Wizard of Oz. In the scene Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow arrive at the the Emerald City looking a little worse for wear, so they are guided to the cities beauty parlour where they are pampered from head to toe. Some of the beauty parlour’s assistants can be clearly seen wearing green T-Shirts with the word ‘OZ’ in white emblazoned across the front. The T-Shirts were also distributed amongst the cast and crew, as well as sold to the general public in anticipation of the film. They were the first promotional T-Shirts.

Fleming, V. (1939). Workers in The Wizard of Oz wear Graphic T-shirts in 1939. [Film Still]. Retrieved from https://www.shopcommonthreads.com/blog/tag/T+shirts.

As the U.S entered the Second World War it was important to reassure the public that their forces were committed and ready for what lay ahead, so Life Magazine’s documentary photographer and photojournalist Eliot Elisofon was given the task of taking a photograph to be shared with the nation that reiterated this sentiment. Corporal Alexander Legerda from the 94th Bomb Group in the U.S air corps was chosen for the task and made the cover of Life Magazine in July 1942 holding a 30 cal. machine gun and wearing a graphic T-Shirt advertising the Las Vegas Gunnery School, Nevada. The T-Shirt was made by the American Athletic Co. in Los Angeles, CA. Legerda was the first person to wear a custom printed T-Shirt on the front cover of a publication. After the war the T-Shirt symbolised a victorious nation, although still not totally accepted as the everyday attire it came to be, it remained for work wear and home wear only - that is until Hollywood told us differently.

Elisofon, E. (1942). Corporal Alexander Legerda in his 1942 LIFE Appearance. [Editorial]. Retrieved from https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LIfe-Magazine-Cover-1942-first-words-on-a-tee1_d84c37654899a36737bb1d059257ec6b.jpg.

By the 1950′s Hollywood had cottoned on (excuse the pun!) to the appeal of the T-Shirt, well at least to how sexy it could be. Marlon Brando was the first Hollywood actor to be seen flaunting the T-Shirt in the film ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ - a film based on the famous play by Tennessee Williams. In the film Brando is often seen in various states of undress, in form fitting sweat stained T-Shirts, tight grease covered vests, or bare chested - which could only have added to the films appeal. His character is a somewhat violent factory worker whose relationship with his wife’s sister is twisted and tumultuous, a scandalous subject for the 1950′s. So the T-Shirts association with sex and scandal confirmed the piece as attire for the working class reprobate. Curator of the exhibition Cult - Culture - Subversion Dennis Nothdruft (2018) said of the T-Shirts impact at the time:

“It’s just a white T-shirt, but it already has that kind of disruptive potential, It was rebellious, because [T-shirts] were actually undergarments … It was a tough political statement.”

Kazan, E. (1951). A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film). [Film Still]. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2017/vintage/features/streetcar-named-desire-anniversary-1202626588/.

What really launched the T-Shirt to cult status proportions however was James Dean’s portrayal as Jim Stark, an unruly teen in the 1956 film ‘A Rebel Without A Cause’. The film was probably the first of its kind to look at the differences between parents and their children and the conflicts which arose. It was to examine the inner working of dysfunctional family life in America - until then the American family had been portrayed as pinnacles of society, no matter what was bubbling underneath. In 1990 the film was added the the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry as being a culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant slice of 1950′s America. Aesthetically significant because Dean was displaying an authentic vision of what the average teenager wanted to wear in 1956, or what the more rebellious were wearing.

Ray, N. (1956). A Rebel Without A Cause. [Film Still]. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rebel-Without-a-Cause.

Now that the T-Shirt was firmly planted in the people’s psyche, it took Marlon Brando again to show it worked well in a rebellious ‘three piece’ teamed with the biker jacket and jeans in the film ‘The Wild Ones’, and the male cast of ‘West Side Story’ to wear the T-Shirt as the favoured accessory of gang culture. The T-Shirt was now so well known for clothing movie’s misfits, when was it to become the clothing of the many?

It wasn’t until the 1960′s that the T-Shirt was to become a uni-sex item of clothing. Many may remember the French film ‘Babette Goes To War' with the beautiful and sensual Brigitte Bardot, in which she is seen laying in the grass in her slim fitting white T-Shirt with its sleeves casually rolled up. The first graphic printed T-Shirt worn by a woman on film was in the 1960 French New Wave (experimental film making using unusual editing and exploratory narrative) film ‘À bout de souffle' (Breathless) in which another petty criminal embroils his aspiring journalist girlfriend - played Jean Seberg - into a life of crime. The film shows Seberg on the Champs-Élysées in a T-Shirt advertising the Herald Tribune, her place of work. Teamed with her short gamine hairstyle and slim, androgynous figure she would be easily mistaken for a stylish teen of today.

Godard, J.L. (1960). À bout de souffle (Breathless). [Film Still]. Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/raymond-cauchetier-set-photographs-breathless-new-wave.

The T-Shirt was now officially outerwear, and by the late 60′s and 70′s experimentation in the use of the T-Shirt became more evident. In the UK the T-Shirt was a little later to catch on, but the foresight of Barbara Hulanicki’s Biba saw that it became a staple item for the new generation. This time around the T-Shirt also became a medium for political sentiment, used for presidential campaigns to advertising ‘free love’, the T-Shirt became a blank canvas for the sentiments of the many. As Brunel (2002) states:

“Its fundamental simplicity makes it the perfect personal sandwich board capable of getting across its ‘message of the day’. the world over - whether involved in protecting the environment, human rights, saving the whales, you name it - T-Shirts are an excellent means of identifying kindred spirits.”

The T-Shirt now was a revolutionary item, it was a political soundboard, it was a means of expressing our musical affiliations and a way of identifying those who felt the way we did. A great example of this is the Rolling Stones logo t-shirt. The logo was originally designed by Royal College of Art student John Pasche and was commissioned by Mick Jagger to come up with a logo for the bands new company Rolling Stones Records. Jagger had liked the young artists work after seeing it at the degree show in 1970. Mick had seen an image of the Hindu goddess Khali and was inspired by her open mouth with tongue hanging down. Often thought to be a symbol of Jagger’s pronounced mouth, Pasche (2018) said it was possibly an unconscious thing:

“A lot of people ask me if it was based on Mick Jagger’s lips - and I have to say it wasn’t, initially. But it might have been something that was unconscious and also really dovetailed into the basic idea of the design. It was a number of things. It’s universal statement, I mean sticking out your tongue at something is very anti-authority, a protest really… various generations have picked that up.”

Pasche, J. (1970). Rolling Stones Logo. [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.creativereview.co.uk/rolling-stones-logo-john-pasche/.

Putland, M. (1978). Keith Richards lies on a prop bed as Mick Jagger laughs during the production of the music video for Rolling Stones' 'Respectable' in New York, 1978. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.creativereview.co.uk/rolling-stones-logo-john-pasche/.

The T-Shirt had become a place to display political agendas and to project our messages of protest. We all recognise the Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Guevara’s face - aka Che Guevara, not necessarily because of his political standing, but because of the simplified image of his face displayed on a T-Shirt - taken from the iconic photograph by Alberto Korda in 1960. Media and television have also become major players in the way the protest T-Shirt has become a way of pushing our agendas. With photographed and televised protests become the norm, a well worded placard along with the T-Shirt is a way of free advertising for whatever cause you are backing.

Amazon, n.d. (n.d). Che Guevara Revolution T Shirt. [Fashion]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Che-Guevara-Revolution-T-Shirt/dp/B079MRM3FF?customId=B075382QRP&th=1.

It could be said that the T-Shirt as a fashion item only became so around this time, but it had been championed as far back as the late 1930′s by none other than Coco Chanel herself. A photograph taken as she posed at her villa on the French Riviera clearly shows her love of the T-Shirt back then. The classic striped sailor’s top - the Breton shirt - was a essential piece of naval work wear but Coco was to propel this humble item to the mainstream when she included a similar style in her nautical themed sportswear collection in 1917. Teaming it with wide leg trousers and flat brogues it oozed simple elegance, and has since become synonymous with classic French fashion. In the 50′s and 60′s it was adopted by the creatives such as Pablo Picasso and Jean Paul Sartre, and later by French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier who has made the shirt edgy when teamed with his more adventurous creations, or tartan kilts!

Look for the Woman, n.d. (2015). Coco Chanel. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://lookforthewoman.com/picasso-french-style-icon/.

Marcy, M. (n.d). Jean Paul Gaultier. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/570057265318472259/.

It wasn’t long before the T-Shirt became the staple piece included in every designers collections. In later years other fibres were added to the cotton mix, such as Lycra in the 80′s which revolutionised the sportswear industry and created clothing for casual wear as well as exercise. The 90′s saw a change in direction where the T-Shirt was disheveled and deconstructed as part of a grunge aesthetic, or emblazoned with bands graphics. One I particularly remember was the band James’s ‘Sit Down’ T-Shirts to promote their song of the same name. I saw guys walking around Leeds with these long baggy T-Shirts with ‘Sit Down’ printed in large text across the back of them, and wondered what they were all about. It was a good tactic as I eventually found out what they were referring to but without a certain amount of digging. James were part of the ‘Madchester’ scene in the early 90′s which saw a glut of Northern Bands, particularly from Manchester storm the music charts.

Worth Point, n.d. (n.d). JAMES T-SHIRT! SIT DOWN TIM BOOTH. [Fashion]. Retrieved from https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/james-shirt-sit-down-tim-booth-245105457.

I was part of the rave scene at the end of the late 80′s and into the mid 90′s. Quirky T-Shirts were the standard dress code for the ‘raver’ and became more and more of an aesthetic pastiche to the advertising campaigns and big brands of the day. My love of Read or Dead came from - apart from my ‘Space Baby’ T-Shirt - the wearing of their T-Shirts which played heavily on brands such as Lego, Hoover and Shell, it was a two finger salute to the large corporations. Wayne Hemingway - Read or Dead’s founder did get into a little bit of bother for bastardising their branding but he was never one to take much notice. Another one I remember was the take on the Fairy Liquid logo and catch phrase ‘Mild, green Fairy liquid’ only to say ‘Wild, mean fairly hip kid’. T-Shirts were very much graphics based at that time, and more and more designers saw the power of this affordable clothing item as a way to garner more customers.

Hemingway, W. (n.d). Hell and Groover. [Fashion]. Retrieved from https://www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk/about/red-or-dead/.

Lewis, J. (2018). Vintage 90s T from rave era. [Fashion]. Retrieved from https://www.depop.com/products/jonnylewis-vintage-90s-t-from-rave/.

Designers such as Sonia Rykiel as early as the 1970′s had been using text on her T-Shirts, then there was Moschino with huge brand fonts adorning his oversized shirts. Dolce & Gabbana and Versace all saw the importance of the designer ‘T’. It was another way of advertising your brand to every level, rich or poor you could wear the logo and feel part of the ‘in’ crowd. The T-Shirt doesn’t care about your socio-economic standing. Christian Lacroix (2002) once said of the T-Shirt:

“Today’s T-Shirt is a banner and a manifesto, a subtitle and a visiting card - almost an ID card. It proclaims loud and clear what people are thinking deep down. It’s like an extremely private skin; it is cut and scratched, tattooed and painted, all to become cutomised. Whatever else they may do, people never put on a T-Shirt just like that - thoughtlessly.”

Although, however true that statement may be, some people simply wear a T-Shirt as a basic commodity. That is the beauty of the T-Shirt, you can make a statement if you so wish, but you can also remain none committal and ambiguous. So how is the T-Shirt defining our tribes today? I thought I would go out and have a look at what was happening in our high street.

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caveartfair · 6 years ago

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6 Critically Acclaimed Films about Artists, from Caravaggio to Grandma Moses

Still from Grandma Moses, directed by Jerome Hill, 1950. Courtesy of Jerome Foundation.

Even if you’ve never met a great artist, you know all about them from movies. Great artists are moody. They don’t bathe for long stretches. They have “demons.” They spend their nights fighting said demons, usually while hunched over a canvas with a bottle of gin, illuminated by a sinking fire. They’re starving, obviously.

A typical film about an artist (Pollock, say, and a sizeable chunk of Woody Allen’s output) probably contains as much truth as a typical film about a zombie invasion. But there are exceptions—and, to be fair, some clichés have a basis in fact. The following six films—some good, some great, all engrossing—add a welcome dose of nuance to the way we think about great artists.

Grandma Moses (1950)

The challenge of watching Jerome Hill’s Oscar-nominated documentary short is separating propaganda from reality. Early in the film, we’re informed that this will be “a portrait of the artist as an American”—but it’s an advertisement, really, for the U.S.’s newfound cultural supremacy following World War II, with the folk artist Anna Mary “Grandma” Moses cast as its poster child. The narrator drones on about how Moses’s work upholds America’s rich traditions and triumphant legacy; Moses, meanwhile, opens her mouth only once.

Squeezed between all the midcentury jingoism and sexism, however, is some undeniably great art. The greatest virtue of Hill’s documentary is that it lavishes attention on its subject’s paintings, even as it tries to smother them in corny slogans. Grandma Moses’s work, as anyone who watches Grandma Moses can see, is too strange and melancholy to be reduced to a facile point about spacious skies and amber waves of grain. Sometimes, it’s enough for a filmmaker to point the camera at an artist’s work and let the viewer do the rest.

Edvard Munch (1974)

At a glance, Peter Watkins’s docudrama, filmed three decades after the artist’s death, is brimming with clichés—but then again, so was the life of Edvard Munch, the neurotic, dipsomaniacal, breakdown-prone godfather of Scandinavian Expressionism. What makes the film extraordinary is Watkins’s attentiveness to the narrow gap between cliché and life, between the artist as he wanted to be remembered and the artist as he existed from day to day.

Recent biographers tend to portray Munch as a genuinely troubled man who was also a brilliant self-mythologizer—it’s been suggested that his reputation as a tormented genius was a canny exaggeration of reality not unlike his paintings. There are moments when Watkins seems to take this reputation at face value, milking his protagonist’s affairs and hospital-bed epiphanies for all they’re worth.

Elsewhere, Watkins subtly undercuts Munch’s solemn, late-Romantic persona. Around the two-hour mark, the camera pans across Munch’s Melancholy (1891), and the narrator notes that the artist savvily allowed “the preliminary drawings to remain in the final work, to show its spontaneity.” There is probably no bigger myth about artists than the notion that they create straight from the heart—that all you need to do to paint a masterpiece is sit down and bleed. In Edvard Munch, Watkins suggests that the legendary rawness of Munch’s art was a kind of illusion, as cunningly crafted as the Mona Lisa.

Frida (2002)

One of the reasons directors love making movies about famous painters is that, almost by definition, these movies feature beautiful, iconic images. Julie Taymor’s Oscar-winning Frida Kahlo biopic, starring Salma Hayek, contains its fair share of eye-popping shots, but only a few of these show Kahlo’s paintings—at almost no point in the film, in fact, do we see Kahlo making art. Instead, Taymor uses intimate, first-person camerawork and her usual lush set design to uncover the artistic genius in Kahlo’s life itself.

This gambit doesn’t always pay off, but when it does, it yields some stunning results, such as the early, phantasmagorical scene in which a gravely injured Kahlo hallucinates a hospital full of skeleton-surgeons. A more literal-minded director might have ended this scene with footage of Kahlo’s paintings inspired by her brush with death, but Taymor opts for something more challenging: She conveys Kahlo’s feverish creativity by showing us the hospital directly through her eyes.

My Left Foot (1989)

The titular body part in Jim Sheridan’s undeniably effective Oscar-winning crowd-pleaser, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, belonged to Christy Brown, who used it to create some of the finest art and literature of the last century, despite being born with cerebral palsy. Few people who’ve seen the film know about the enraging conclusion to Brown’s story: After his death, multiple sources alleged that Mary Carr, his wife and nurse, had been abusive and unfaithful to him.

It would be difficult to think of a better example of what’s unsatisfying about artist biopics: Most of the time, the subject’s actual life is messier, but ultimately more compelling than the onscreen version. As artist biopics go, however, My Left Foot distinguishes itself by paying a remarkable amount of attention to Brown’s creative process; it’s hard to think of another movie that gets half as much drama out of the act of touching brush to canvas. Every stroke feels like a victory—and, after all, it was.

Caravaggio (1986)

This Derek Jarman film, which stars Nigel Terry and debuts both Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton, is to the typical artist biopic what the Sex Pistols’s “My Way” is to the Frank Sinatra version: a top-to-bottom revamp of a classic, with the original bits snapped apart and reassembled into a jagged new whole. That analogy isn’t quite as arbitrary as it sounds—Jarman’s Dionysian direction has been called the closest thing to punk in British cinema, and as such, it’s the perfect fit for a film about Caravaggio, the Sid Vicious of 17th-century Italy.

This is a life of Caravaggio that features, in no particular order, motorbikes, leather jackets, neon signs, one-night stands with both sexes, throat-slitting, and typewriters. Inappropriate, some might say—but inappropriateness seems wholly appropriate for a film about a man who loved boozing and brawling, killed a man, and scandalized his contemporaries by dressing his biblical subjects in modern garb. The less-historically accurate Caravaggio is, in other words, the truer it is to its subject.

Yumeji (1991)

The title of Seijun Suzuki’s film may be the cheekiest joke in his long, cheeky career. The film features a character named Takehisa Yumeji, who appears to be based on the famous early 20th-century painter and poet of the same name. But Yumeji isn’t about Yumeji in the same sense that Edvard Munch is about Munch or Frida is about Kahlo. This is the artist film to end all artist films: a big middle finger pointed at all the biopics that claim to know what made their subjects tick.

In Yumeji, characters die and come back to life without batting an eye. Wild dream sequences become suddenly, hilariously mundane. Characters scream, or run away, or have sex for no reason—after a while, you realize that Suzuki couldn’t explain his own artistic choices, let alone Yumeji’s.

Perhaps the most important reason for the enduring popularity of movies about artists is that they purport to let theatergoers into one of the most mysterious places in the world: the mind of a genius. In his final masterpiece, Suzuki offers a cannier point of view: As much as we like to pretend otherwise, none of us knows exactly what makes great artists great. If we did, would we still idolize them?

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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marcellusbitsandpieces · 4 years ago

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Bits and Pieces - Blue Jeans History 8/23/20

A couple of weeks ago I received in my inbox a quiz asking for which European city that jeans are named. I don’t know if the choices I was offered helped or what, but I actually guessed the correct answer: Genoa, Italy.

Genoa was originally known as “Geane” or “Jeane.” It was a French name that came from a cotton fabric called “jean fustian” that was made there. Because it was an industrial strength fabric, it was popular with sailors and fishermen of the Mediterranean area.

Fabric weavers in Nimes, France tried to imitate this sturdy fabric. The Nimes weavers called their cloth, “Serge de Nimes.” Their initial attempts didn’t work out, but eventually they hit on a cotton twill textile which they called “denim.”

The weft and warp weave of denim allowed the organic indigo dye used on it to give one side a blue cast and the other side a white cast.

It is difficult for many today to even imagine a life without denim jeans or other styles of clothing in denim. Though I have many pieces of denim in my wardrobe now, I was not allowed to wear jeans as a child. I’m not sure why, but from information I have discovered and will give below – Mom might have had a reason based on the times. Consequently, I bought my first pair of jeans in my mid-20’s to wear as a protest statement to a teacher’s meeting. Times are very different now.

Blue jeans as we know them today in the United States did not appear on shelves until after the California Gold Rush of 1848.

The story goes that a frustrated miner’s wife complained to her tailor husband, Jacob Davis, that she grew tired of repeated mendings of pants around the weaker areas of pockets and front buttons. Couldn’t he make a pair of pants that wouldn’t rip so often? He decided on copper rivets and a sturdy canvas fabric called duck cloth.

Realizing that he had a special product, he wanted to patent it. But he didn’t have the experience nor the money to do that. He found a business partner in a new German immigrant with dry goods stores in San Francisco – named Levi Strauss. It was from Strauss’ store that Davis bought his supplies.

Strauss agreed to the proposition; Davis moved to San Francisco; they received their patent on May 20, 1873. They became partners under the name Levi Strauss & Co. Strauss ran the business side, and Davis was in charge of production.

The patent expired in 1890, but by then Strauss and Davis had such a booming business that jeans were already strongly associated with the Levi Company. They didn’t mind the competition. It was in that year that the 501 style Levi jean was first sold. The rest is history, as they say.

However, as Paul Harvey would say: “And now for the rest of the story.”

Jeans became popular after the turn of the last century with cowboys and workers who needed rugged clothing to withstand their tough daily wear. Levi Strauss & Co. became the first jeans to have their label on the outside of the garment by placing his signature red flag on a back pocket of the pants. That was in 1936.

Also, in the 1930’s Vogue magazine was the first to have a fashion model on the cover in denim pants. This was quite a fashion statement. It was giving permission to women to wear them as fashion – not just practical work clothing.

During the 1950’s, blue jeans became associated with the “bad boys” of Hollywood. Because of this connection, many American schools banned wearing jeans as “too provocative.” Herein may lie my mother’s reasoning. I went to parochial school, and if some public schools banned them – you can be sure I couldn’t wear them.

Not only fashion, but also cultures change by and within the decades. By the 1960’s, jeans were popular again. The hippie age arrived, and the casual less-structured clothing gave way to creative expression bringing on the personalized jeans.

At this time, jeans appeared with embroidery, rhinestones, patches, stone-washed and even bright colors. Gone were just straight legs. Remember the bell-bottom flare and low-rise hip huggers? This is the decade that also brought the jean jackets.

This fresh jean culture continued into the 70’s with the addition of denim skirts and vests. It also brought to fashion the concept of jeans as a fresh and wholesome look (Farrah Fawcett and Lauren Hutton).

Designer labels came on the scene during the 1980’s with Calvin Klein, Jordache and Gloria Vanderbilt. As we know, nothing in fashion can remain for long, but can (and often does) reappear. During this decade, the pant leg tapered to the ankle with the skinny leg look.

Out with the fancy designer and into the “grunge” era of the 1990’s. The carpenter pants, baggy jeans and multiple pockets and tabs.

Oops, the skinny jeans left too soon – they reappear in the early 2000’s. With the innovative denim stretch technology, the skinny jean got a bit of a new look. The ultra-low-rise, flare and boot cut leg and boyfriend jeans become hot fashion. This leads to the popularity of wearing jeans for date night, not just casual time.

For the past 20 years, almost anything goes. You can wear straight leg, boot leg, short/cropped/capri leg. High-waisted, low-rise, with a belt, no belt; overalls, jumpsuit, rompers; dark wash, stone wash, distressed and even vintage.

Ah, vintage…that describes most of my wardrobe. I have some clothes that are old enough to legally drink in most every state of the Union.

For someone who can remember my closet and drawers having absolutely no denim to one that now has denim everywhere, I am grateful to that frustrated wife in the mid-1880’s who started this all. Then Strauss and Davis teamed up to set in motion a fashion culture that lives beyond their wildest imagination. How lucky we are!

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cinephiled-com · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-costume-designer-paul-tazewell-brings-history-life-powerful-harriet/

Interview: Costume Designer Paul Tazewell Brings History to Life in the Powerful ‘Harriet’

Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, Kasi Lemmons’ riveting Harriet tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman’s escape from slavery and transformation into one of America’s greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history. Harriet stars Cynthia Erivo in the title role and features Leslie Odom Jr. and Janelle Monáe.

Paul Tazewell, the great Broadway costume designer, designed the wardrobe for this powerful film. Tazewell, a six-time Tony nominee, won the Tony for Hamilton along with an Emmy for his work on The Wiz! Live. His stunning costumes for Harriet trace Tubman’s path from fugitive slave to tenacious freedom fighter.

Just as with Hamilton, Tazewell’s costumes are anchored in extensive research. It helped that the Civil War era marked the advent of photography with the famed Daguerreotypes giving Tazewell a trove of inspiration. That informed, for instance, the velvet dress worn by Marie Buchanan (Janelle Monáe), who owns the Philadelphia boarding house that figures prominently in the plot—ornate but tasteful, representative of the life that, to a former slave, is only imaginable in the free North. When Harriet, bedraggled and exhausted after her incredible solo run to freedom, arrives at Marie’s tasteful, well-appointed home in Philadelphia, her crisp silk dresses and delicate shawls practically shimmer.

There are Daguerreotypes of Tubman but obviously none of her very dangerous work leading slaves out of bondage. Reflective of her important, terrifying work, Tazewell and his team created different “stages” of the same costume, such as a red petticoat from her slave dress or a green dress she wears after she returns to the South from her freedom in the north escorting “passengers” along the railroad. Her first incredible escape shows in her wardrobe, progressively more ruined, through mud, blood, and bog water, across each leg of Tubman’s journey. Her clothes literally break down as she tears away the figments of her old life.

As Tubman becomes more comfortable with her new role, she embraces her Joan of Arc like persona, not to mention her male alter ego, Moses. Her wardrobe echoes her new confidence—Union blue pants and jacket with brass buttons and cap or even a top hat on occasion become her uniform and indeed she leads a troop of Buffalo Soldiers into battle in a pale blue coat brandishing a trusty rifle. Even one incredibly detailed navy blue gown, stiff with crinoline petticoats and intricate tight ruffles at the bodice, is as much a statement as the rousing speech she gives to her fellow “conductors” on the Underground Railroad. It is a long way from the plain, blue workaday dress she wears on her initial escape, underscoring how far she has come.

I talked to Paul Tazewell about his remarkable work on this film.

Danny Miller: So nice to talk with you, Paul, I’ve admired your work in the theater for years and was thrilled to see your work in this film. Was doing the research for this film different than for some of your other projects?

Paul Tazewell: Well, I definitely felt that it was important to be really grounded in history since Harriet Tubman was a real person and quite an icon. I spent a lot of time at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York and, of course, studies the Daguerreotypes from the period. Lucky for us, this was the first era in American history where people started documenting everyday life so I was able to examine portraits of slaves on the plantations as well as free African Americans and the white people of the era.

I’m thinking of that one famous photo of Harriet Tubman we’ve all seen. Are there many others?

Actually, no, there really aren’t, so that was a challenge. I had to pull together as much research as possible and then make plausible decisions about what Harriet might have worn. But one of the things that I found very inspiring was a newly found photograph of a younger Harriet than we’re used to seeing that’s now at the Smithsonian. It’s a beautiful photograph, there’s a softness to it and an acknowledgment of the fashion of the period that I tried to make sure was a part of her visual story in the film.

She goes through so many personal and physical transitions in the story.

Absolutely. To begin with, if her clothes were not handed down from family members, they were certainly very old. I had to always keep that in mind. And the dress she escapes in had to show an enormous amount of wear and tear to the point where it’s deteriorating off of her body. It’s just not able to hold together after jumping off a bridge, being swept through the rapids, everything she went through. By the time she reaches freedom, it’s pretty much falling off of her.

Janelle Monáe as Marie Buchanan

And then she makes it to Philadelphia and meets Marie Buchanan who looks unlike any Black woman Harriet has ever seen. You can see the wonder in her eyes when she first sees Marie.

Yes, and Marie becomes a great influence on Harriet including what she wears. As a designer, it was very fun to create the different looks for Harriet when she became a master of disguise in the Underground Railroad. She was trying to stay under the radar of the slave catchers who initially thought she was a man but Harriet adopted many different looks that allowed aspects of her personality to come through, some female, some male like when she dresses like some of the Black sailors of the time.

I love it because you see her clothes reflect her emotional journey and empowerment throughout the film. Was it hard to research the proper color palette to use since the Daguerreotypes are obviously not in color?

We have a lot of knowledge from clothes that have survived and from paintings about what colors and fabrics were available at that time. We knew the fiber content that we needed to work with and we actually used a significant number of genuine period costumes in the film, mostly for secondary characters, including a couple of pieces that we copied for Harriet’s look. Janelle Monáe, who played Marie, wore one dress that was a beautiful silk stripe from the period.

Wow, it’s a miracle that any of those survived.

Yes, it’s pretty remarkable. Of course ,these were dresses that were completely hand-sewn. And when you see the intensity and richness of the colors, that gave us license to use those colors in the costumes we created. Some of the authentic period clothes helped support where I wanted to go emotionally with the different characters.

Paul Tazewell adjusting Leslie Odom Jr.’s costume

With all the hardships these characters were going through, I imagine that the layering of dirt and grime was especially important. I assume that you were the one art directing the filth and the deterioration of the clothing?

Oh yes, that’s my job. We’d start by carefully going through the script and determining how many times we’d see Harriet in a dress on her journey from Point A to Point B and then I would take everything that’s happened to her into consideration and start imagining what the different levels of distress would be.

You must have had to make so many versions of some of those outfits.

Yes, I remember with some we had about eight versions at varying levels of decay, plus at least four more for Cynthia’s stunt double. The reality is that the dress she was wearing during her escape would already be quite distressed the first time we see it, so that was the baseline for all the copies, and then we had to go from there to make the condition of the dress worse and worse.

Fascinating. Before I go, as a classic movie lover, I have to ask you about the project you just completed, Steven Spielberg’s new take on West Side Story.

Oh, it was a really exciting summer. We filmed mostly in New York with a little bit in Patterson, New Jersey. We stuck to the time period of when the original was created, the 1950s, and it was such a delight working with Spielberg. I think it’s going to be a stunning film.

But was it a little nerve-wracking that you all knew that many of us have every frame of the original film memorized?

I hope that we’ve been able to create a parallel version of West Side Story that people will grow to love. The cast is out of this world — they’re all young and so full of life. And we have Rita Moreno in our cast, too, so that’s also a big plus and a connection to the original film. It was a great group all around. There’s no question that the original film is beloved and I hope our film just adds to that experience in the same way seeing a new stage production of West Side Story does, which we’re actually going to be treated to very soon.

Frankly, knowing that Rita Moreno was the only actual Puerto Rican actor in the original cast makes me excited about seeing a more diverse group in the new movie.

Absolutely, you’re going to see a lot of diversity in our cast.

Well, thanks so much for the chat, I really hope that people are flocking to Harriet because I think it’s a very important film. And good luck with West Side Story.

We can talk more about that next year!

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#Cynthia Erivo #Harriet #Harriet Tubman #Kasi Lemmons #Paul Tazewell #Interviews #What's Hot

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