#I've liked the meta i've seen so far abt this movie

[grandmagbignaturals]

challengers whipped

also

Movie About Perfect Bodies imo not trying to write an essay but putting a cut in just in case. spoilers follow.

So the movie opens on Sweat. before the fucking warner brothers logo even, is shots of Art ant Patrick sweating, high def and up close. water basically hitting the camera.

When the boys see Tashi for the first time she is Perfect. Not a hair out of place. Her dress fits perfectly, all white, not a stain or spot. You think, yeah that's tennis. But there's contrast all around her. Nobody else in the whole movie is as put together as her.

And the movie puts forward, slowly, that that's deliberate. The first time the audience sees Tashi she is putting herself together so that she looks good before Art wakes up, at 5:30 (we don't know until the end of the film she didn't sleep).

And yes, part of this is the fact that she's Zendaya and nobody else on the cast is Zendaya but the whole movie is so Not Hollywood in the way it depicts bodies. We expect to see Zendaya exercising without sweat, arching one perfect eyebrow, because we expect that from movies in general.

When we see the boys dripping with sweat in the opening shot, then the logo plays, and then we see Tashi rubbing ointment into her scarred knee, we're told "bodies aren't hollywood perfect"

Then Art does physio. And at this stage it's easy to think "okay we're doing a recovery from injury thing, sure. the scars make sense."

But the whole thing, Art and Patrick have these really awkward, human bodies (and I think they leaned into the casting on this. Both actors are beautiful, but they're not conventional exactly. Sorry boys.)

Tashi has a body that exists to be photographed. Even in that trailer shot, where she sits on the bed and they leap to make out with her neck, she is arching her back and sitting primly in exactly the way she wants to. She knows what she looks like and she's using it as a tool.

and it'd be easy to leave the reading there. Tashi is image obsessed. Sure. That's sure the spin that Patrick puts on it when he's taunting her about her relationship.

But when she says to him in the back seat of his car "what else am I supposed to want" I think that's real vulnerability. When she says to him in her dorm room (which is nowhere near as put together as she normally is. That room is a private part of her that she doesn't show off, the side that's human and messy), "what do you want me to be for you" that's a real question, that's vulnerability. It's both "I only know how to play roles, I don't know how to be myself" and "Here and now I'm showing you myself and you're rejecting me and I knew I was right to never show that to anyone".

The one thing that let her be both herself and perfect was tennis. When she screamed COME ON at the end of her match at the beginning of the movie, she was devastated because her moment of perfect communication with her opponent was broken.

When she screams it at the end it's like vindication. The guys communicated a whole thing using tennis. And it was imperfect. They were making mistakes left and right figuring out that communication.

But the key thing is, during that communication, that tie breaker, Tashi has let go of her careful posturing. She's actively looking between them, like the rest of the crowd. She's uncomfortably bouncing her knees, she's visibly tense. In public. Except for her injury, that doesn't happen.

I think Tashi's a character who has this ideal self that she's constantly trying to fill, and she can never really be that person because she doesn't live in a perfect world and she's a human being with needs and a human body. And her whole schtick is that those things are possible to overcome. Patrick's whole thing is that you don't need to overcome them. if you lean into the demands of your body you'll enjoy yourself and also win.

And they're both wrong. And tearing Art apart to prove their points. Art, for the record, wants to indulge his body but feels shame about doing so, and about not knowing how to, so he follows instructions from whoever is giving them.

And all of this is taught to us in the conversation about the time Patrick taught him to jerk off.

Anyway. I thought the smudges on Patrick's windshield when he's driving Tashi around were a cinematic genius stroke if you're wondering how normal i was about watching that movie.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i meant white/western audiences are slow to understanding the subtext rather than asian fandoms, when i was a kid i remember most asian countries didnt even have "kiss scenes" in movies or dramas, for us the "subtext" was normal for straight couples too (I've seen a few white folks think cql is a story abt 2 straight friends). the issues with the poor production and it has shit production coz of the budget but the drama wasnt supposed to be a big hit. also like how u just made it the "idol drama"  as if most kdramas and cdramas arent full of idols. I mostly agree with ur cql fandom hate too but to me it seems like u sometimes just want to prove that cql is worse than it is just coz the fans it brought in. I dont blame u either, I've seen some shit metas and the cql fans who hate the novel and call the writer homophobic are also funny. What makes me irritated is that the amount of hate cql gets on here is equal to the amount of hate novel gets, when the drama made alot of things possible for asian LGBTQ audiences. This is the first drama that my gay asian friend (who isnt out) watched with his parents and got them to fall for all the ppl and support the couple. Novels have our imagination in them but dramas need to make a lot of ppl happy and also keep censorship at bay. for me personally cql seems like it made it possible for alot of closeted kids be comfortable talking abt a gay couple with their parents, as novels are limited to a fandom. (Like I've not read a single harry potter book but I've watched 4 of the movies 😚)

I'm not trying to attack u but I'm trying to tell u that just coz the drama brought in a shit ton of weirdos in the fandom it still helped alot more ppl than u can imagine...

Hi anon, 

One thing where we seem to be of a different opinion is that criticising cql as a work of fiction, or highlighting the political economic context surrounding it, in no way negates what it can mean for people. I personally consider that these are completely different matters. These things often have nothing to do with the inherent quality of a thing, or even how good “queer rep” it is--they are relative to people’s specific and personal experiences, or a particular moment in the media landscape. All the things she said holds special meaning to me because it was the first time I got to see two women kiss on tv and it felt revelatory. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged right in front of the tv and refusing to come eat until the end of the music videos--at a time when I could not articulate why I was so fascinated by it. I know that this song is still meaningful for a lot of queer people my age, even if many people hate it for being a straight gaze fantasy. Regardless of what it personally means to me, I’m not going to argue that the music video is a masterpiece, or be blind to the reason why the kiss was included in that music video. CQL is very meaningful to your gay closeted friend, and allowed him to discuss wangxian as a gay couple with his parents, and that’s absolutely great. But I personally think it’s a little bit far-fetched to suppose that the same couldn’t have been said of any other live adaptations of a danmei novel who didn’t shoehorn in a het romance: if the timing had been different, perhaps the first drama with romantic subtext between two male characters he would have seen with his parents would have been Guardians, or the incoming adaptation of TGCF. Hell, H2O was so popular that they might have just watched that one together as well, even if the subtext “romance” is between two side characters. 

Let me be clear as well that I am not trying to argue that MDZS is this groundbreaking piece of fiction wrt “gay rights” or queer representation in China that changes minds and sways public opinion. It’s one of many danmei novels--it just is one that has a lot of literary merit. I simply think it’s disingenuous when people in the western fandom claim that a subtext romance is better “representation” than a canon gay couple who get their happily ever after. CQL is more impactful because it is mainstream, but it does not mean the representation it offers is inherently better. It is also ridiculous sometimes because the hurdles faced by a danmei authors vs the government-backed media giants who benefit financially from putting out censored version of their stories is just..... not something that should be ignored in my opinion.

Asian audiences being more used to romance depicted through subtext does not, at least in my opinion, negate the power of heteronormativity or compulsory heteronormativity to influence readings of that subtext by a portion of the audience. Chinese people are absolutely creative and innovative in the ways in which they manage to circumvent censorship, but a webseries financed by a media giant is not going to be a transgressive attempt to pull the wool over the censors’ eyes--at the end of the day it needs to be a safe investment. 

You seem to suggest that I am hard on CQL for being an idol drama but do not bring the same criticisms to other idol dramas. I find this weird because it’s not like I’ve ever praised an idol drama, and I know I haven’t because I simply don’t think they are competent works of fiction (although sometimes the camera work and editing is at least competent, compared to cql where the production quality is kind of poor). The closest I’ve come to doing that is praising My Mister, which is not in any way an idol drama, but which I suppose features an idol (IU) in the cast. When I said the first jdrama I watched was Hana Yori Dango, that was not an endorsement of how good it was--because honestly it’s one hot mess barely held together by the chemistry between the two leads--it was just a statement of fact. 

I am very critical and judgemental, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that equates to “hate”. Yes, most of my discussions of CQL sprout from existing discussions within the fandom. But most of my posts indirectly reference or respond to something I saw. What’s the difference between me addressing a common novel fanon and me addressing a common opinion on cql’s virtues? 

TLDR; a work of fiction being significant to people is something to recognise but it should not preclude being able to discuss that work critically, especially wrt how it executes its story since the inherent quality of the work as art has no direct correlation with its impact, be it on individuals or on a specific media landscape. Moreover, the impact of a work on queer people or on the social perception of queer people is not inherently proportional to how “good queer rep” it is: it has usually more to do with the context (ie people don’t remember Brokeback Mountain because it was the best movie with a gay love story ever made until then--there was more at play). 

[booasaur]

Help me boo, I was already left for dead by all the juliantina loving and I just saw elkdtal, now I've ascended. I know ppl criticize the film for having less focus on the f/f pair but I know now why. They did not want all the lesbians to simultaneously combust watching Regina making eyes with Sonam. My god Regina is so stunning in this. Sonam is good too, but Regina owns me. There's just something abt seeing this desi woman in a wlw relationship. This movie made me smile throughout their scenes

And other anons:

Girl you have to watch ek ladki if you can. It’s sooo good! Like to watch an entire movie revolving around a desi girl being gay and on top of that being so well done - all the feelings

OMG, have you seen Ek ladki ko dekha?! I’m so happy, this is such a big step forward and I’m freaking out. There wasn’t much wlw content and the story was told a little differently but its purpose was prolly to open people’s minds more and it rocked. I’m so happy rn. The scenes that the two had together were like super cute and both ladies are so stunning 🥰

I did watch it! And I loved it! 

I thought I’d be disappointed, the comments when it first came out seemed to indicate that they’d sidelined the romance, sidelined it in a way that…minimized it? And that seemed far too easy to do and I went in expecting that, but that’s not really at all what it was?

It sucks that pretty muc hevery comment about loving it has to come with a caveat, “I know there wasn’t much of the f/f”. I say it too, but we’re having to almost apologize for liking it and like, warning people. When really, I think it did exactly what it set out to do, and really well. It was a warm family movie with a major f/f plot!

Like I said, I’d come in expecting to be disappointed but gosh, seeing them talking about something actually canon LGBT, the main plot, and it not being us reading into the subtext, that just floored me. If you know what I like, it’s good intentions and execution, and I really felt that here. So many little things jumped out to me. 

The layers of meta, lol, us watching an audience watching a father and daughter played by a father and daughter. Anil and Sonam have been approached for a team-up so often but this is the one they chose to use their big first one for. The two secondary plots of the father liking to cook but it being frowned on as a woman’s job and the “forbidden” aspect of an inter-religious marriage, where the audience could draw the connections between these two things they’d already processed as being minor and not a big deal and same-sex marriages, how Rajkummar’s character immediately backed away from anything romantic once he knew what was going on, how they let the father be the loving character and the horrible brother wield most of the homophobia, how it wasn’t her apologizing to them but in the end came down to how trapped and sad a life she’d lived because of this, how acceptance came down to being a matter of familial love. 

Lol, the Regina anon. I LOVED those scenes? I immediately clipped them from a terrible bootleg and translated and shared them with a friend so we could scream over them. Kuhu looking at Sweety and so quickly picking up on the gay? 

Also, I liked how specifically desi this was, how for so many of us, being closeted means retreating to this quiet, well-behaved role, acknowledging what our choices mean and simply living with it. Coming out and losing family does not tend to be our way of handling things. I’ve seen criticism for how withdrawn or difficult to read Sweety was, but really, that is how it often is, isn’t it? I’d think you’d have to be a kind of subpar movie critic for not picking up what she’s feeling, if anything.

While I and everyone else would have loved a female version of the title song, I still loved that whole little romantic montage for them. And I SWOONED at the hand kiss. Hand kissES. 

Yeah, yeah, in comparison to other media this might not be much, but for the context, for this. It was...a lot. It’s so undeniable.There was no way to interpret this as something not between lovers.

Ultimately, I came away from it feeling really good and really moved. I thought it was effectively paced, balanced a whoooole of things really well, and it just had heart and warmth.