#Racial Bechdel Test FAILED

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

96% (forty-eight of fifty).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

49%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Forty-four.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

Positive Content Status:

Good - you might even say, strong - in the sense that it’s all there, pretty much all of the big representation bells are ringing, particularly the ones for women and racial diversity. That said, the show is generally content to sit pretty and not push the envelope on inclusivity, so if you’re looking for inspiration in-text instead of just in casting, you might be disappointed. At any rate, it’s a solid feel-good time, and not likely to make you mad (average rating of 3.01).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

The numbers stay pretty consistent across the whole series, but if I had to call a winner, it’s season four, which has the highest percentage of female characters and the only above-average positive content rating (though that was awarded somewhat cumulatively, and so doesn’t feel particularly well-earned by that season above the others). 

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

It’s such a close call, but season three must be the loser here by virtue of the lowest ratio of female to male characters; it also had one of the series’ two Bechdel fails. Like I said, it’s...a really close call.

Overall Series Quality:

There’s so much about it that is fresh and original and interesting, I wish I could love it more. After a magnificent debut season, the show suffers immensely for a lack of pacing and the absence of coherently-planned plot, and at times the stagnating characterisation and pointless filler caked into the cracks in the storytelling can be frustrating and/or tedious. I’m only as disappointed as I am because the potential for greatness was so strong. That said, even at it’s worst The Good Place is still entertaining, and most of it is better than that. It’s irreverent, it’s fun, it’s surprising, and sometimes it’s even as poignant as it is remarkable. I have my gripes, in droves, but that doesn’t mean this show is not worthy.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Imagine. Imagine a version of this show where the first season is basically the same, and the second season is...somewhat similar to how it is, but with more focus and direction, less time-wasting; a second season where figuring out that some fundamental change to their circumstances is necessary comes early, and instead of faffing about with ethical lessons in the fake neighbourhood again while Michael pretends he can get everyone to the Good Place, we get down to business with going on the run and into the Bad Place to find the judge and petition for help. Imagine this show, but the third season has none of that return to Earth crap, and instead, is the neighbourhood experiment from season four, properly fleshed out. And then season four is all about going to the Good Place and solving the problems there, addressing issues with the concept of utopia and the ineffectual bureaucracy of obsessive niceness (used for comedic effect in the actual show, but c’mon, there’s a whole untapped reservoir about morality there). Each season could have (gasp!) a properly-planned and plotted arc, dealing with a different school of ethical considerations, and I dunno, maybe the characterisation could have trajectory too, and the characters could vitally shape the storytelling, and maybe not get their personalities and experiences erased and rebooted over and over again, nullifying large swathes of the narrative which came before? Ideally, they could be reset zero (0) times, or at least have all their reboot experiences dumped back into them in the first few episodes of season two, so that they could proceed from there as whole people. Rebooting everyone’s personalities is not actually necessary to the plot in any way, and is, actually, incredibly detrimental to storytelling and especially, character development. Imagine this show, but just chilling out and actually telling a coherent story? 

I am all the more annoyed by how things turned out on this show because I know that the four seasons were planned for, rather than being the result of cancellation; the idea that the creators sat down and ‘plotted’ (using that term loosely) to make this mess drives me a little wild. The (attempted) avoidance of the dreaded ‘stagnation’ seems obvious, and it leads to major narrative shortcuts and jumps and instances where the show spends an episode or two on what should have been a half-season’s development, minimum, and yet at other times all momentum grinds to a halt for a bizarre bottle-type episode where the characters just talk about a concept for a while or work on some unimportant romantic subplot. The various ethical concepts that the show heavily incorporated as its bread and butter in the first season start to stick out like sore thumbs in season two, seemingly wedged into one episode or another for no real reason other than just to be there, and the fact that the show lets go of the idea of moral choices in the life mattering at all in the end leaves the backbone of the show in a very strange shape. I said in the season four review that I didn’t expect the show to come up with some One True Answer about how people should live their lives, but that I was baffled by the fact that the show side-stepped that altogether; what I expected them to conclude was something in the line of ‘we recognise that life is complicated, not all situations are created equal, and it can be hard to know how to proceed ethically or even to access ethical options within one’s circumstances. Still, it is important to do your best, not only for yourself but for your community, because the more good you put into the world, the more there will be to go around and come back to you. What matters most is that you are doing your best with what you’ve got’. The fact that the show distracted itself with fixing how the afterlife rewards people within the afterlife means that it suggests no incentive to perform moral actions in life, and frankly...who gives a fuck? The real world is the place we’re all living in, and there’s no point starting a conversation about morality in real life if the conclusion is just ‘guess we’ll straighten out all the fascists and bigots and the other pieces of shit after they die, so don’t worry, everyone gets to Heaven eventually!’

Anyway, if that seems like just a reiteration of what I said in the season four review, well. I’m still baffled by it. The other thing I was going to talk about in the season four review but held for the full series instead was that one big thing that I have railed about all the time since season one, and that’s PACING. For all ye wannabe-writers out there, please understand how important pacing is. Even vital plot or character beats can seem like meaningless filler in a poorly-paced story, because your audience’s mind is hardwired to try and follow narrative cues that are being incomprehensibly muddled. Standard structure can be played with, but if you toss it out in favour of ‘stuff just happens, ok? Except when it doesn’t’, you just end up with a soup of disconnected story ideas, and nothing threading it together. Character interactions and especially developments can help to create the through-line you need to keep the story functioning despite itself, but as variously noted with The Good Place...initial characterisation? Strong, excellent. Development? Not so much, not least because they kept getting deleted and rebooted. Also, time skips kept happening, and that’s a great way to fuck over your narrative coherence even more: remove the recognisable constant we call time! It’ll be fine! As with all things, it is perfectly possible to play around with this stuff, but you have to know what you’re doing and be doing it for a good reason, and that’s not what they had going on here. This was narrative soup, and when you have a soup, the pieces all kinda meld together and lose any individual purpose, meaning, or power they may have had. The result in this case was not bad, but it really could have been so much better, and literally all it needed for that was some attention being paid to the story structure via pacing.

So. The good news is, I think I have pretty well exhausted all of my complaints by now, and that leaves us with the good stuff, of which there was no paltry amount. The show was not a hit by accident (even if I do feel that it’s success had a lot to do with people sticking around after the spectacular first season, and not because it stayed strong throughout), and even if there was a lot of soup going on, what comprised that soup was all really fun and unique, and this made for a wonderful piece of light-hearted television that could be as hilarious as it was insightful. It still had a lot of great takes on things, the commentary was strong (even if it pulled all its punches towards the end), and whether the storytelling was ebbing or flowing, it was always delightful. The show also managed to pull a miraculous finale out of its hat, and that’s a rare thing in television; however the story wobbled over the course, the ending provided enough satisfaction to forgive just about any sins, especially if you don’t happen to have been watching with a deliberately critical eye. Do I wish that Eleanor got to hook up with a chick on-screen some time instead of just making a lot of bi remarks? Yes. Do I consider the show to have queerbaited instead of providing genuine rep? No. Is the underselling of the queer content my most significant representation complaint? Yes, it is, and that's good news considering the world we live in and the dearth of quality representation that the industry has brought us to expect. 

There's an important distinction to be made there, regarding the tokenistic representation that is very common these days in tv trying for brownie points and good publicity, exactly that kind of 'political' inclusivity that conservatives are always bitching about. It should not be surprising that I support that tokenism over the alternative of having no representation at all, but it can still be quite disheartening to feel like your identity or the identities that you value are being referenced as nothing more than an opportunity for some shitty producer to perform wokeness for attention, praise, and the almighty dollar. I bring this up because - even though The Good Place never really worked up much of a boost to its content rating - one thing I felt that it did really, really right was providing representation without it feeling tokenistic at all. Eleanor's bisexuality wasn't as prominent as I might have preferred, and as noted through the course of the show, there were times I feared it was more bait than real rep, but reflecting on it at the end, the way it was included feels organic, it never gets in the way in order to ensure the audience notices and is dutifully impressed. The number of women around and the multicoloured casting plays out even better; I never once felt cynical about the gender balance I was seeing, and I've said it before but I'll say it again: the fact that the show was packed with names from across the world gives me so much life. I'm still a little salty about Chidi's Senegalese origins getting the shaft (and we won't talk about 'Australia'), but the nonchalant diversity of naming goes such a long way to embracing the idea that this is a world for everyone (and an afterlife for everyone, too). And where anything else might fall apart or lose its way, that is an affirming thing. If you want feel-good tv, it’s here. This is the Good Place.

[jupitermelichios]

It’s 2am and insomnia is a bitch, so have an interesting fact; every single resident evil movie, including the animated ones, passes the bechdel test with flying colours, most of them within the first 10 minutes. (edit: actually it turns out there’s one animated movie I haven’t seen, Vendetta, so that one might not - people who have let me know)

There are so few action movie franchises that do this - the DCEU fails miserably, as does Marvel, Fast & Furious, Transformers, franchises like Bourne & MI mostly only have one token female character per movie, the only Bond film I can think of that passes is ‘the world is not enough’... But resident evil, widely mocked for being stupid and trashy even by the standards of hollywood action movies (and it’s not like they’re wrong, although I don’t know if it counts as fanservice when the fan in question in Mila Jojovitch’s husband who also writes and directs the films) passes just about every ‘how feminist is this movie’ test - sexy lamp, mako mori, bechdel, all of them. And not even in a token haha technically these women talk once kind of way - all of them have developed female characters who have relationships with other female characters, good and bad, are crucial to the plot, and have story arcs of their own. 

If we could just get the Fast & Furious creators to team up with Paul Anderson, maybe we could have a franchise of stupid action movies that is both racially diverse and has more than two interesting female characters. 

Also anyone else thinking how awesome a wachowskis/paul anderson colab would be? they’d bring the class and the queerness, he’d bring the schlocky b-movie vibes and probably also mila jojovich, they’d both bring awesome female characters... man that would be so good.

[baddieromanova]

The bore four ships will be Riverdale’s biggest downfall.....

I can promise you all that. The amount of potential the Riverdale writers are currently flushing down the toilet in order to put the two incredibly boring and emotionless relationships known as B*ghead and V*rchie is truly tragic and I bash my head into a wall every time I think about it. 

So I present to you a list of characters/ships/potential the Riverdale writers are unknowingly destroying or have already destroyed by shoving these couples down our throats:

1) Valarchie - A beautiful relationship crushed as soon as it started. Do you know how groundbreaking it would have been to have the leading white boy have black love interest? All that potential flushed, and for what? The most forced ship to ever disgrace the CW? Other than B*ghead of course.

2) Jughead’s asexuality - I’m certainly not the only person in the fandom that has spoke about this already and how problematic the erasure is so I’ll keep this brief. Asexual representation is scarce in the media and Riverdale had a huge opportunity here. Unfortunately, they decided erasing a half century old character’s asexuality, in order to sexualise him and sell him as a product to 13 year old straight girls who are obsessed with Cole Sprouse so they can live vicariously through this ship, was sadly more important to them.

3) Betty and Veronica’s friendship - Can we even call them friends any more? They’re rarely together doing regular BFF activities and spend more time with their boyfriends. To make matters worse they had multiple petty arguments this season, over the drama between their boyfriends, and of course they ended up taking Jughead and Archie’s sides. What happened to not failing the Bechdel test? What happened to not letting boys get in the way their friendship because it’s sexist? What happened to their friendship representing ultimate girl power?

4) Archie’s character - Everything about Archie’s character was ugly in season two. He became absolutely intolerable and general pain in the ass, and all just to impress Hiram so he’d accept him as Veronica’s boyfriend. And look at where it got them, the clown really came back to bite huh?

5) Betty’s character - She honestly went from the sweet girl next door who just wanted to help her sister and get her family back together to this annoying brat with her head constantly up her boyfriends ass willing to strip in a room full of middle aged men & get a tattoo just to be a part of the gang he’s in, along with black mail her suicidal cousin with the video of her other cousin being murdered just to get her boyfriends father released from jail.

6) Veronica being bisexual - I know a lot of the fandom already head canon’s her as bisexual but let’s be realistic for a second, the writers will scrap any possibility of her being bisexual and just establish her as straight because pushing V*rchie is clearly a priority to them

7) Episodes centred on the everyday experiences of the marginalised characters - 

I’m pretty much referring to Josie, Cheryl, Kevin, Reggie and Toni here. In other words, 2 seasons in, we should have had episodes that solely focused on each of these characters and their sexual/racial identities and the struggles they face in society and in Riverdale because of them. I would have loved to see an episode focused on Cheryl’s coming out story and confronting her demonic mother about her homophobia. I would have loved even more for there to be an episode solely focusing on the death threats and hate Josie’s Mother received as mayor seeing as this is common issue a lot of black women experience as we all know, seeing as it’s happened with a certain actress from a certain group of people. Also, I think we can all agree that the Uktena storyline should have had Toni at the centre rather than Jughead and his white saviour complex, that episode would have been more impactful if it did.

9) Episodes that focus on tackling or highlighting prevalent issues that affect people daily and using them to raise awareness - I’m mainly referring to the deleted scene between FP and Fred. I was so disappointed when I came across this scene. Do I even have to explain how progressive and ground breaking it would have been to have two men admit they need help, open up to each other and be honest with each other about their substance abuse on prime time television?! Along with that there’s Betty’s mental illness, Archie’s PTSD, Cheryl’s attempted sexual assault and gun control. All of these prevalent issues that could/could have been addressed and instead they were either half assed or completely dismissed, never to be acknowledged again. To be fair, there’s still room in season three for the writers to address any PTSD Fangs may experience after being shot or at least having Mrs Klump charged with attempted murder so he can at least gain some closure, but I highly doubt it will ever happen.

10) Every single characters/ships story progression and development and screen time - I’m sure by now we’ve all seen the deleted scenes from season two, most of them at least, and do you know what I find really interesting? Almost everybody has said the entire disc of deleted scenes was better than season two. You what else was interesting about the deleted scenes? There were next to none V*rchie and B*ghead scenes, you know why? Because every single one of their scenes that were filmed were kept in the final cut while scenes such as Cheryl and Toni’s ENTIRE developmental arc, Alice’s emotional scenes that explained her back story and addressed the death of her long lost son and FP and Fred discussing their substance addictions together were scrapped. I can’t stress enough how important all of the aforementioned scenes were. Along with that, there was so much content that featured other characters and ships that could have progressed their stories that were on that deleted scenes disc as well and honestly, the more I think about it, it just makes me sick.

[theoreticalliving]

Posing Questions in Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You

Necessary spoilers below

Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You will likely be compared to Jordan Peele’s Get Out as the must-see satire/horror story of contemporary (Black) American life this year. Certainly both films have in common, beyond their genre bonafides, rumination on the commodification and labor of Black life and the compromises upwardly-mobile Black men make under White supremacist racial capitalism. Yet whereas Get Out was more invested in the psychic labor Blackness does for Whites and only obliquely alluded to the politics of labor, Sorry to Bother You directly attacks the question of (Black) inequality and labor struggles under racial capitalism. Yet while a politics of labor is what is most immediately attractive about the film, I think ultimately the film shows that the resistance that comes from a labor politics is wholly insufficient for actually challenging racial capitalism, and in this may be directly addressing pertinent questions on the Left.

Drawing on the film criticism ofFrank Wilderson, he argues that power to pose the question is the greatest power of all” (viiii), and that in the 60’s and 70’s a series of Black filmmakers did precisely that, motivated by the Black Power movement, Watts Rebellion, and Black Liberation Army to directly address the possibilities and costs of Black people on the move towards freedom. Certainly Riley could be seen to be motivated by contemporary concerns in the questions the film poses. Only a couple fantastical twists truly separate his Oakland from the nightmarish caste society of the Bay Area. He also depicts a vibrant political movement of union organizers, black-clad anarchists and DIY-artists, and the requisite police violence and repression they confront. Yet Wilderson also argues that there is a difference between the question of the Worker—alienated by labor yet positioned within civil society—and the question of the Slave whose exclusion forms the very possibility of the world—while the Slave labors they are fundamentally defined by their openness to gratuitous violence, fungibility, and natal alienation. Where the Worker wants to overthrow capital, the Slave wants to destroy the world itself, and it is only the “ruse of analogy” that depicts the question of the Slave as the same as the question of the Worker.

So despite Cassius’s presence as a Black man, alongside other Black co-workers, much of the film poses the question of the Worker. Cassius is forced to sell his labor to survive, he feels alienated from any potential life possibilities—see his constant concerns about who will remember him—and survival under capitalism forces him to become estranged from his loves ones and culture, to adopt the eponymous White Voice that sells access and power to the world. Then there is the mega-company and capitalist villain of the movie WorryFree, who force workers into lifetime contracts in return for food and shelter. Within the movie itself this is critiqued as a return to slavery, yet curiously most of the workers depicted are White. We should also remember from Wilderson that  while the Slave performs labor they are not defined by it. Slavery itself was not a contract but pure violence and extraction. It is also striking that we see repeated signs that complete families can join WorryFree, as it at least points to the maintenance of a family structure under extreme labor exploitation that was not true of slavery. So while WorryFree is the satirical endgame of the Worker’s alienation and exploitation under capitalism, it is not the same as being a Slave.

Why does this matter politically? Because within the film a politics of labor organized around the Worker ultimately appears wholly inadequate to the problem of racial capitalism. The organizer Squeeze attempts to form a union at Cassius’s telemarketing company Regal Wave, and the conflict of the film initially comes from Cassius being a scab and betraying his fellow workers. Yet there is never a culmination to this union plot line: we do not see the moment of victory, one of the activists who strikes Cassius with a soda can sells out to get her own TV endorsements, and at the (pseudo) end of the film Cassius plans to go back to work at the company. The character who would be the viewer’s locus of Leftist identification, the Asian-American Squeeze, appears competent but equally as interested in his sexual pursuit of Detroit than meaningfully challenging capital. There are repeated scenes of workers striking outside the premise, but they appear cyclical, another example of labor spinning its wheels without purpose or catalyst to a qualitatively different stage of struggle.

This is where the twist of the film occurs (one I was not prepared for at all) and swerves towards the position of the Slave and the radicality borne from the question of the Slave. WorryFree is literally turning humans into horse-humans, or equi-sapians, to replace its own workforce with the promise of being stronger, more productive, and more obedient. While again equi-sapians are made for the purpose of labor, that is not how they are defined for the viewer. Their being is open to gratuitous violence, as we first see one screaming in pain and begging for help, they are fungible in that they cross the threshold of both the Human and Blackness, and there is an implied degree of natal alienation or at least exaggerated and aberrant sexuality (through the jock of the benefits of having a horse penis). Yet where the equi-sapians appear as victims initially, in the climax of the film they appear as themselves the subjects of politics through the only action that could be meaningfully possible, the rejection and destruction of racial capitalism. As the strikers attempt to keep out the scabs, only to be violently beaten down by the police, it is the equi-sapians—freed by a changed-of-heart Cassius—who appear to fight off the police with their enhanced strength. Not a workers strike but the specter of a Slave revolt is what appears as a decisive blow against capital. While the scene ends with a declaration of solidarity between the workings and the equi-sapians, there is a striking difference of capacity between them.

This is reinforced through the bait-and-switch ending. Cassius, who initially appeared to have harmlessly snorted coke, did actually take the equi-sapian drug and begins to transform. The film cuts off here and goes to credits, yet cuts again to WorryFree CEO Steve Lift’s house, where the newly equi-sapian Cassius appears leading an army(?) of his fellow equi-sapians to invade the house, where the film then cuts to credits without showing the implied violence against the CEO after his door is broken down. Perhaps they do find a cure, or perhaps they merely kill the CEO. Yet whereas the Regal Wave strike stayed at the workplace and was ineffectual until the appearance of the equi-sapians, it is the equi-sapians who charge directly into the lair of capital, as embodied by the CEO.

I find another similarity here to the climax of Get Out, where the main character must also violently confront his White captors and literally kill them. Both films tarry with depicting Fanonian violence of overcoming White supremacist racial capitalism. This is not a gratuitous violence, as critics of Fanon often allege he endorsed, but simply the reversal of the violence imposed on the main characters. As oppression is maintained by the pure force of violence, its inversion is necessarily a violent upheaval. I don’t think its a coincidence that the revolt of the equi-sapians raises both the specter of the Slave revolt—as the creation of “complete disorder” as Fanon and Wilderson puts it—and of a revolt against the Human itself, as the originary differentiation that separates (White) Man from his others and opens the zone of fungibility that the Slave occupies. In some ways the equi-sapians are more Black than the actual Black characters we see on the screen, as both open to the gratuitous violence of the Slave but also enacting a gratuitous freedom that is more often associated with the eruption of Blackness on screen, as in 70’s films such as Bush Mama or The Spook Who Came in from the Cold, depictions of Black revolutionaries in movement.

This is all to say that while it is easy to see an insightful critique of contemporary capitalism in the film and a rumination on struggle against it—as prominent these days from post-Occupy activists to the DSA and Sandernistas—the question of the Worker is not what actually motivates radical change. It is the question of the Slave and the ensemble of gratuitous violence, gratuitous freedom, and complete disorder that portray the briefest glimmer of revolutionary change. It is the question not of anti-capitalism but of anti-Blackness and the end of the world.

A last note, certainly compared to Get Out’s well-oiled machine of cringe comedy and suspenseful horror, Riley has made a much more uneven film. The satire ranges from directly on the nose to overly broad, the romantic story between Cassius and Detroit mostly does not actually develop or change, and is used to reflect more on Cassius’s developments than Detroit. Detroit’s plot line is a satire of the art world that feels done before (though also a sign that Detroit has less room to critique Cassius than she admits). While certainly the Bechdel test is not the end all/be all of ethical film criticism, it is noticeable that the film fails it. A stinging, genre-infused satire for Black women remains to be made.

[aros001]

Read through light novel vol. 4. Random thoughts.

I don't think I've ever seen an adaptation/source material relationship quite like that between Goblin Slayer's anime and light novels.

Episodes 1-4: most of vol. 1. Episode 5: mix of vol. 1 and beginning of vol. 4. Episodes 6-9: Entirety of vol. 2. Episodes 10-12: Rest of vol. 1. It certainly wasn't a bad season but it's funny to see the books adapted in such an almost random order. Closest I've ever had to this was Rising of the Shield Hero, which adapted vols. 1-5, the beginning of 6, and then at the end a little bit from vol. 10.

“There are people who use a torch instead of a lantern, because it doubles as a weapon.”

Guild Girl mentioned with a smile that rats and insects both despised fire.

“What kind of adventurer would do something like that?”

Goblin Slayer: "You've got something on your face."

Goblin: "GORB?"

[Stabs goblin in face with burning torch]

Goblin Slayer: "It was pain!"

That second chapter really suckered me in at first into thinking it was a flashback, but I suppose that was the idea. It's like when Batman saves a family from an alley mugging. It's a classic way of showing the hero keeping what happened to them from happening to anyone else. Goblin Slayer is making a difference, even if he doesn't always feel like he is because of how endless the world's number of goblins seems to be.

As much as Spearman could stand to take the hint that Guild Girl is not into him, I do really like that Spearman isn't at all a bad dude. Again, he has a spear but he's not a Motoyasu. He's not hitting on every attractive woman he meets or treating his party as an excuse to build a harem for himself. Witch feels like his trusted ally and equal before anything else, not just someone he's trying to impress because she's got big bizongas. Admittedly I'm not entirely sure what his relationship with her is. The implication is that she maybe likes him romantically (seeing Guild Girl as a romantic rival and all) and they talk about going on "dates" but it's hard to tell how serious either is being about that.

The chapter with the goblin sentry guard was kind of interesting for me, because part of the way into reading it I realized I had read it before...the manga version. I'm stumbled upon the chapter by accident through a Pintrest link of one of the pages where Goblin Slayer is carrying poor spear girl (Spearwoman?) out of the cave. At the time I'd thought it was a fan-comic, not because it was badly drawn but because the goblins had a different design. Between that and this chapter, I think the manga's was harder to get through, but for a different reason than the anime could be. The anime had audio, so the screams from Fighter and Priestess when the champion bit her arm were what left me really shaken up (Fighter especially because, while I wasn't seeing it, I knew what was happening). With the manga, how much of Spearwoman's body was shown off, the positions she was in, and the angles of the camera made it feel uncomfortably like a porn comic. I don't have a problem with fanservice in and of itself. This volume and previous ones have plenty of fanservicey artwork. But there's a time and a place for it. Cow Girl and Priestess trying on battle bikinis and High Elf Archer waking up in the nude? It's pervy but still harmless. A woman being violently raped should not be used to titillate the audience and I'm so glad the light novels have had the good taste (so far) to not do anything like that with its illustrations. Even High Elf Archer, when her clothes were torn away by the goblins in Water Town, she escapes non-violated and we get the art of her helping Goblin Slayer walk, but she's not drawn at all in a sexual way despite being half-naked.

But back to the actual volume, I really liked showing things from the goblin guard's perspective. The goblin happy with the spear he stole...at first. But then wondering if the belt would have been better and then hating the goblin who got the belt instead of his "stupid" spear, with said goblin likely thinking the same about him, just the other way around. Again, they're not mindless monsters. They're incredibly selfish and self-centered, each one believing he is the best and thus that he is the one entitled to everything. It also serves as another reminder that goblins are no victim of racial circumstances. Yes, there are no females of their race and thus they have to force themselves on others in order to procreate...but they seem like they would probably be doing that regardless. When their victim fights back, they hurt her more as punishment and to break her. And when their victim doesn't fight back, allowing themselves to be violated so that hopefully it won't hurt anymore (yeah, there's a lot in this chapter that's hard to get through but that especially with how unfortunately real that mentality feels), the goblins hurt them even more, taking it as an excuse to go as far as they can with them.

These aren't mindless monsters that have to rape to survive. They like the pain and suffering they cause others.

Which is where he comes in; to stab them, impale them, light them on fire, and kick them in the d*ck before stabbing them again.

Hm? Cow Girl thought suspiciously, but an explanation was soon forthcoming.

“Today is...a bit of a rough day for it...”

“Sure.” Cow Girl gave a strained smile and nodded. It was something every woman had to deal with.

You know...I've read through three other fantasy LN series in full thus far. Overlord, Konosuba, and Rising of the Shield. And I'm pretty sure out of all of them (and even out of the majority of other series I've read/watched), Goblin Slayer is the only one I've seen that even acknowledges girls having their periods. I get that it's like watching a character go to the bathroom; it's not usually relevant to the story and you can just assume it's happening off-screen. But it still just sat with me for a moment and I went "...Huh. Yeah, that would be a problem for them, wouldn't it?"

Also, these two are just adorable together. I like that they're friends. They don't pass the Bechdel test (though High Elf Archer and Guild Girl surprisingly do) but their bonding was still great to read.

“I have no interest in magical swords, but I do have a ring.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It allows underwater breathing,” Goblin Slayer said briefly. “Even if the goblins stole it, it would do no harm.”

“What would they even want it for? Wait a second—you just assume it’ll get stolen?”

Spearman was pressing on his temples, but the steel helmet nodded and said, “Of course. It wouldn’t fit on a goblin finger.”

After Cow Girl and Priestess trying on the battle bikinis I was already laughing at the idea of a Goblin Slayer beach episode. Now I really want to see that. Everyone's on the beach showing off their summer bodies and swimwear while he's still in his full armor. They're all playing volleyball and building sandcastles and he's slowly turning the ocean red as he's just murdering goblin sharks all day.

All seriousness through, I do love this consistency with Goblin Slayer's character and methods. We've seen tons of goblins throughout this story and the only ones that maybe would have benefited from underwater breathing would have been the ones on the boats in the sewers of Water Town. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be useless to a basic nest and they'd have almost no way of finding out what it can even do, so they wouldn't even move elsewhere to take advantage of such magic. Plus he has apparently destroyed nests by flooding them before, so it makes sense he'd want to prepare himself for just in case he ever got caught up in the water.

Also, Goblin Slayer, Heavy Warrior, and Spearman were a really fun team to see work together. I love the sense of respect the three share and that Goblin Slayer never has any problem acknowledging how much better they are than him when it comes to things like leadership, charisma, enthusiasm, or just certain general abilities. If there is a little bit of competitiveness it's still very friendly and never becomes a pissing contest between the three. Heavy Warrior and Spearman don't exist just to make Goblin Slayer look good by comparison. In fact, they're very good at what they do. It's just what they do isn't murdering the ever-loving sh*t out of goblins, thus why they're not the ones we're following the story through.

“I picked up the spear,” he said. “The shaft is broken, but the point remains.”

"You are hurt and broken right now. But you can recover. You can be okay again."

This is probably just me looking way too deep into things but I like to believe Goblin Slayer said those words because of his party's, and especially Priestess', influence on him. I'm sure he's saved many women from goblins in the past but before Priestess I think he just saved their lives, sent them off to the temple, and then just kept moving on without looking back, thinking about nothing other than killing more goblins. After all his and Priestess' time together, and her making it clear he played no small part in helping her keep moving after the tragedy of her first party, maybe he's now wondering if there's more he can do to help these women recover, even if it's just a few kind words to help them hold onto their sanity after what they've been through. Spearwoman was so attached to that spear that hearing that it's still intact enough to be fixed maybe helped her believe she could be too.

“Isn’t it?” She stuck out her delightfully average chest, as proud as if she had grown it herself. “And you know what? The person who brought it was someone you saved recently.”

“...Was it, now?”

“Uh-huh!” Guild Girl let her eyes drift to the corn with an expression that bespoke relief. It was rare that adventurers or mercenaries found themselves with a second chance when they had failed once. “It’s great, huh?”

Does that imply it was Spearwoman? I'm hoping so. It'd be nice if someone who was used by the goblins (hopefully NEVER one of the girls in the main cast) did still manage to go back to being an adventurer again and wasn't just left permanently defeated. Honestly, it'd be cool if either her or Fighter or someone like I'm describing came back and adventured with GS's crew for a bit. Goblin Slayer witnessed what they do and it almost happened to Priestess and High Elf Archer but we don't have anyone yet who was raped by the goblins and yet is still fighting. Sword Maiden is about the closest but her very understandable trauma and duties as the Sword Maiden keep her away.

God count: Earth Mother, Supreme God, Deity of the Basin, Krome

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinSlayer/comments/fu0b1w/read_through_light_novel_vol_4_random_thoughts/

[scientia-rex]

Two thousand words in today, wrote a thousand last night. Slowly making progress; I’m at a total of 23K right now. Right now I’m working harder on setting up Rhodey as a complete person in his own right who has a complex history, of which Tony is a critical part but not the entirety.

Rhodey also has friends other than Tony, most of whom are black. It took digging to find canonical people, and you have to ignore that pretty much all the women were fridged in the comics, but whatever! In this universe they’re all alive and thriving and they are not there for manpain! Thank God for the racial Bechdel test, because if I didn’t have in mind I suspect this story would fail it. White authors, let’s not be assholes! Okay? Okay. We’ll all try real hard. (On that note, if any black fandom folks would be interested in an exchange of some kind for a sensitivity read--I can’t offer money right now but I’m a damn fine copyeditor and/or I can also write fic for you--I’d be really stoked.)

Anyway, I figure making Rhodey the most fully-drawn character I can will REALLY lend some weight to when he gets blindsided and has to confront Tony’s mortality a la Iron Man 2!!!!!! ENJOY THE PAIN SUCKERS

[raceforequality-blog]

Inequalities Black actors face in Hollywood

Background

In the past in Hollywood, black actors used to be merely situated as shadow figures in relation to white actors, with the women were confined to the kitchens and the men out tending to the gardens of rich, white families. This was because these films were primarily made for the “white gaze”. In most films in the past, the white man was said to occupy the role of the self, the main protagonist, the subject of the film, whereas the black man was the object, or as it was put, the Other, who existed in his form to explore racial themes and undertones. In defining black people exclusively as Other, white people effectively denied them their humanity in cinema for decades.

Real change for black actors truly only occurred in the 1990s, when actors like Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Will Smith became box office hits by starring in popular blockbusters and critical hits. Since then, Hollywood has made great strides to make up for the years of marginalization, typecasting and silencing of black actors. For example, Jordan Peele's part horror, part social commentary Get Out (2017) perhaps best represents this trend, with the director’s ability to subvert many movie tropes clearly displayed. Most notably removing the "white savior" and "black guy dies first"  tropes by effectively satirizing white guilt over racial inequality not just in Hollywood, but in America as a whole.

However, despite massive steps made toward progress, it took another decade for Hollywood to develop a social consciousness when it came to black women, who were still reduced to playing the stereotypical roles of angry women. Over the past 20 years, Academy Award-winning actresses Octavia Spencer and Halle Berry and, more recently, the Grammy-nominated singer Janelle Monae have taken on some challenging multidimensional roles in Hollywood. Black actresses Janelle Monae, Octavia Spencer, and Taraji P. Henson, for example, starred in 2016′s Hidden Figures, a movie detailing the stories of NASA scientists who weren’t given due credit for their crucial roles in one of NASA’s greatest operations in history. 

Hidden Figures tells the story of Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), who served as the brains behind one of the greatest NASA operations in history.         Picture via 20th Century Fox 

Issues Black Actors continue to face

Despite this progress made, we quite clearly see there are still major disparities in screen time, wages, and the number of roles and awards given to Black actors in Hollywood. Even in major film franchises, we tend to see very little of these Black actors, and possibly even less speaking lines for them. For example, in the entire Harry Potter film series, which totals screentime of nearly 20 hours in total, only six minutes are spoken by characters of color. Other major movies like Birdman? Fifty seconds. American Hustle? Forty seconds. Fault In Our Stars? Twenty-eight seconds. Black Swan? Twenty seconds. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy? Forty-seven seconds, but only so if you counted the orcs as black. The issue is not only the glaring lack of airtime, but also more prominently a lack of recognition of deserving Black actors and actresses during awards shows. In past years, there has been an overwhelming lack of nominations of Black actors and actresses, even the likes of Idris Elba, Samuel L Jackson, Tessa Thompson, Michael B Jordan, and Will Smith. The problem, it is argued, is not just a lack of recognition come awards season but rather the problem arises mainly with Hollywood’s staggering lack of representation across all of its films. 

The issue not only arises due to a lack of representation but also due to the Whitewashing of character roles in Hollywood. This is far more common than one would expect, as roles meant for Black, Asian or Hispanic characters, for example, are taken over by White actors and actresses. This issue is merely worsened by White actors and actresses genuinely agreeing to play these roles despite knowing the very specific ethnic roles of the characters they have been cast to play. Prominent examples include Emma Stone’s casting as an Asian-American in Aloha, and the all-white casts of Gods of Egypt, and Scarlett Johannson’s casting as a Japanese character in Ghost in a Shell. Despite these blatant acts of Whitewashing, the internet implodes when a black actor is cast in a role of non-specified ethnicity, examples including 14-year-old Amandla Stenberg, who played Rue in The Hunger Games, who was not specified to be Black, yet was cast as one, many fans of the books blew up online at the casting. 

What many others have also commented on about such movies is the very concept and the idea that only people of the same ethnic group can be friends, let alone love interests. For example, in the major film franchise Harry Potter, the character of Lavender Brown was recast from a black actor in the first films to a white actor just in time for her to become a romantic prospect for Ron Weasley. Many have been calling for interracial marriages, along with the proper diverse representation of minority races in Hollywood to be an issue more deeply focused on in discussions about inequalities typically faced by actors in Hollywood. 

Possible solutions

Though we must, of course, acknowledge that there is no way of ensuring equality for all in Hollywood overnight, there have been proposals for the racial equivalents of the Bechdel Test to be introduced into Hollywood so as to encourage both directors and consumers to consider carefully the diversity of the films. The proposals for such a test tend to pivot around the same questions: Are there two named characters of colour? Do they have dialogue? Are they not romantically involved with one another? Do they have any dialogue that isn’t comforting or supporting a white character?

Such tests are evidently not without limitation, however, as even the Bechdel test is limited in its ability to fully judge the gender equity of each film. For example, Run Lola Run is a very feminist film that fails the Bechdel Test, and Showgirls is one that passes it. Passing the proposed tests does not automatically mean that a film becomes diverse in its nature, or is groundbreaking in its level of representation. Rather, this test aims to force directors, actors, agencies, and consumers to analyze what they notice in a film, in the hopes that once they see these inequities, they cannot unsee them.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_in_film

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/18/hollywoods-race-problem-film-industry-actors-of-colour

https://www.eonline.com/news/743110/7-oscar-winning-black-actors-get-honest-about-inequality-and-race-in-hollywood

[bakurapika]

ok, real talk, with the prefacing disclaimer that i love hamilton down to my very soul

when i first listened to it, i came away thinking ‘wow, that was awesome, life changing, etc... too bad about the women’

i was surprised to learn that lin is a feminist and deliberately tried to include women as much as possible, and i think i finally figured out why it rubbed me wrong

debatably......... (mostly determined by how you interpret ‘the schuyler sisters’)....... hamilton fails the bechdel test.

hear me out! a series of essays--

the only songs that a female character sings in a non-supporting role (i’m not counting non-named ensemble women! sorry, they add a lot to the musical but they’re not “characters”) are explicitly about their relation to a man. the only ones i can conceive an argument against are the schuyler sisters and maybe the ending song. let’s go song by song:

alexander hamilton:

female lines are only ‘i loved him’ 

aaron burr sir - my shot - the story of tonight 

no female lines

the schuyler sisters

first of all, let’s start off by saying that story-wise, the song only exists in order to establish hamilton’s future love interests and peggy

first lines are all about daddy schuyler. that part of the convo fails the bechdel test

maybe you could argue that the lines ‘But—look around, look around, the Revolution’s happening in New York’ are character-defining enough to separate from the daddy convo but i think that’s a stretch for a sentence fragment

the chorus about ‘looking for a mind at work’ is prefaced by the men in the ensemble shouting ‘she’s looking for me!’, necessarily creating a sexual/romantic undercurrent to the chorus whether that’s technically what angelica meant or not. the rest of the interactions in the song reinforce this concept

the rest of the song, feminist revolutionary anthem though it may be, is angelica rebuffing burr’s romantic advances (while talking about men, including a man she’d later to have an affair with....................... but that line about getting busy with jefferson in france was deleted from the musical so i suppose for this conversation it’s non-canon)

the only potentially defensible non-man-related lines would be how angelica goes on to sing about manhattan being awesome and revolutionary, but I’d still argue that it’s in the context of her burr conversation and therefore not eligible to make the musical pass the bechdel test.

farmer refuted - you’ll be back - right hand man - a winter’s ball

no female lines

a winter’s ball mentions a woman by name (martha washington) in the context of hamilton’s reputation with the lay-deez

helpless - satisfied

these are romance songs. like that’s not bad but for the purposes of arguing that the women are characters outside of love interests......... nah

though angelica talks to herself enough to almost make it count lmao except it’s still about her male love interest

the story of tonight - wait for it 

no female lines

wait for it mentions a woman by name (theodosia bartow prevost) in the context of being burr’s love interest

stay alive

eliza and angelica get some chorus lines about wanting their love interest to survive

ten duel commandments - meet me inside

no female lines

eliza is mentioned but not by name, just as “wife”

that would be enough

eliza’s “i’m pregnant by hamilton” song. again, not unimportant, but not relevant for the bechdel test and further cementing her role as hamilton’s wife and not much else

guns and ships - history has its eyes on you - yorktown - what comes next - dear theodosia

no female lines

dear theodosia mentions a woman by name (theodosia burr) but she gets no lines. this is probably excusable due to her being a newborn at the time

theodosia bartow prevost isn’t exactly mentioned by name but is mentioned as having died offstage at this point

nonstop

no female lines until significantly through the song

angelica’s lines are about hamilton being her love interest despite her marriage

eliza’s lines are about hamilton and being his wife 

angelica and eliza sing toward the end about hamilton. again not bechdel-defying

though eliza and angelica’s lines often intertwine and chorus together, and though they supposedly have a very close sibling bond, so far we haven’t seen angelica and eliza interact (via letter or in person) since the wedding

what’d i miss - cabinet battle 1 

no female lines

what’d i miss mentions a woman by name (sally hemings) but only in the context of her being a slave

this is more of a wink-nod to jefferson’s hypocrisy which is underscored by other parts of the song (singing about how ‘we are free’ as the stairs he’s on are being carried across the stage by a parade of slaves, for example. if yall don’t know about the historical sally hemings, check her out. 

she was mostly white, for one thing. but historically white americans have viewed blacks in the context of the ‘one-drop’ rule--that is, if any ancestor of yours is black, no matter how far back, you’re black too. absurd from any standpoint except an absurd racial purity one. this wasn’t just a bunch of racists acting racist, btw, it was a legal argument that became law in the south at some points in american history. 

i’m not pointing out her being white as like ‘aw but she was a white, so sad :((((’. it means that her family tree was mostly made up of masters having relations with their slaves that would be, at the very least, an extreme power imbalance and, most probably, rape. 

like i’m sorry to use that word but that’s what it was, pure and simple. 

oh and the white masters would get to keep their own kids as slaves

this was pretty frowned upon in polite society from my understanding, but it still happened all the time, and jefferson was one of the guys who did it

she was sent to france to take care of jefferson’s daughter during a (years-long) visit. sally was 14, jefferson was 44. she became pregnant on that visit at age 16.

technically she was considered free while in france, but she followed jefferson back to america. he promised he’d let their kids go free at age 21. (he almost definitely wound up fathering 6 of her children.) jefferson did free her male kids... in his will. and he freed two of sally’s male relatives after they bought their freedom. whadda guy

sally herself was finally “informally” freed by jefferson’s daughter

sadly sally was potentially illiterate and didn’t leave us anything in her own words

ok i’m sorry that was a tangent but i think it’s an important one so i’m not deleting it. i’m not an expert, that was a wiki summary, so please correct me if anything’s misinformation (tho i know i glossed over some details.) anyway back to hamilton

take a break

hoo boy. ok. so the female lines in this song can be basically classified this way:

i’m mommy to hamilton’s son (and i can beatbox about it like a mofo)

i’m in love with hamilton

i want to spend time with hamilton and my father

we do finally get angelica and eliza interacting with each other again! they say each other’s names. then we’re back to talking about hamilton

again, not a bad song! but disappointing from the standpoint of waiting for female characters to interact without it being about hamilton

to be fair! this entire musical is a love song to hamilton. i think i could find a few male-male conversations that aren’t about my dearest alexander. but not many. everyone wants a piece of alexander

probably most of the non-alex-worshiping lines would be king george

say no to this

a new female gets lines! she talks about her husband and then seduces alexander. that’s it tho

the room where it happens

no female lines

schuyler defeated

eliza gets a few lines! it’s all about her father and husband to her son

to be fair, eliza seems really bored with all this. philip’s the one who’s bringing all the men up.

still, her only role in this scene is to give context for a burr-hamilton confrontation, and she does it by talking about a bunch of men. no bechdel-passing here.

cabinet battle 2 - washington on your side - i know him - the adams administration - we know - hurricane

no female lines

“cabinet battle 2″ at one point contained a reference to jefferson and angelica’s affair, but this was cut to “tee up the next song”

again, angelica being mentioned solely as a love interest. still such good lines argh

“we know” mentions maria, but not by name, just as “wife”

and weirdly, she’s barely mentioned at all! the focus of the song is more on her husband james reynolds and his extortion

“hurricane” mentions eliza as well as hamilton’s mother, briefly

the reynolds pamphlet

angelica gets some bamf lines! and the idea of picking her love for her sister over her love for hamilton is more of the feminist anthem we like to hear. 

but in terms of her role in the song, she’s there to romantically reject hamilton

she doesn’t talk with eliza directly, so still not enough to pass the bechdel test

eliza is mentioned as “mrs. hamilton” but has no lines

burn

another song that seems to be written from a feminist perspective! a woman reclaiming her voice in the annals of history

buuuuut............... it’s also primarily a song about eliza’s relationship with hamilton

we do finally get to hear more eliza/angelica direct correspondence! “Be careful with that one, love, he will do what it takes to survive” and “You have married an Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun.” beautiful lines, and pretty historically accurate too! but not enough to pass the bechdel test, since they’re about hamilton

blow us all away

a few new women gets lines! it’s about how wet their panties are for philip

the women have names btw, which you wouldn’t know just by listening to the soundtrack: martha and dolly, in reference to thomas jefferson and james madison’s respective wives. insert cuck jokes here

stay alive reprise

i don’t even wanna dissect this, it’s too heartwrenching. but all of eliza’s lines are with and about other men, including her son. her part in this song’s mostly about her role as the mother of hamilton’s child, not about her, specifically

it’s quiet uptown

surprisingly, angelica gets some lines at the beginning that aren’t specifically about a man! she’s referencing hamilton’s grief over his son, but also eliza’s grief. she doesn’t specify at any point that she’s focusing on alexander, and she goes for relatable generalizations instead. (until she becomes part of the chorus commenting on alex’s grieving process)

since angelica’s not talking with another woman, this still isn’t enough to pass the bechdel test. but it’s a start!

eliza gets very few lines here. i’m not necessarily saying that to be critical, though. i think her understatement is almost more powerful than hamilton’s tearful singing, and i think that’s what lin was trying to do with her character.

that said, again, her role in the song is hamilton-centered. no matter how many or how few lines she’s singing, they’d be about her husband and son

the election of 1800

no female character lines

we do get a few unnamed female lines, about a man yeah, but surprisingly as “voters” despite suffrage not yet happening! 

this might be a case of historically inaccurate actor casting the same way that white guys aren’t playing all the pasty presidents

or, it could be a nod to women’s active role in historical elections! also acknowledged in the line “ladies, tell your husbands, vote for burr”

either way, not enough to pass the bechdel test, but still a nice touch that lin went out of his way for

your obedient servant

no female lines

best of wives and best of women

eliza’s so sleep-deprived here i s2g. there’s not much to analyze in lines that are basically ‘alex oh my god it’s four am, please just come back to bed for three goddamn hours, why are you like this, i’m going to sleep”

again tho, it’s eliza-hamilton interaction, no other women, so no bechdel passing

the world was wide enough

technically angelica sings three words in the chorus here (“angelica and eliza”) so i can’t say no female lines. but it’s close

women are mentioned but only in terms of their relationship to hamilton (his mom, angelica, eliza)

who lives who dies who tells your story

of course, eliza’s lines are mostly about hamilton again.... be weird if they weren’t at this point. she talks about her life but always brings it back to the context of hamilton and his passing

eliza and angelica sing a couple lines about hamilton together, but angelica dies offstage during the song

so............ last song and we still haven’t passed the test

i’m not writing this huge tirade for any, uh, real reason. i don’t want anyone to boycott the musical or even go so far as to call it anti- or un-feminist. but ✊😭 if there’s one thing alexander hamilton’s taught me, it’s “write thousands of inflammatory and highly politicized words for no reason, every day, just because you feel like it, even if it demonizes your allies, and if no one reads it, yell a lot and write some more”

i’m honoring your legacy, alex

(and bc i really do think it’s important to critically examine the things you love from time to time, and that doesn’t mean you love them any less) 

[lizzywatchesamovieaday]

The Prestige

For my first film in this challenge, I watched The Prestige, made by filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2006.  To start off, Nolan’s Batman Begins and Dark Knight series are some of my favorite movies, so my bias will definitely show.  I can always count on Nolan to throw a twist in there that I wasn’t expecting, something he definitely did not shy away from in this film as well.  Plus, he brought back Christian Bale and Michael Cain (Bruce Wayne and Alfred), a wonderful pairing of actors if there ever was one. Overall, I had high expectations for this movie, most of which did not disappoint.  

              Yet, there were some key elements missing from Nolan’s film.  In this series, in addition to writing/themes, cinematography, and acting, I intend to focus on gender and racial representations within cinema.  In both categories, the film failed…. miserably. In absolutely no way does The Prestige pass the Bechdel test.  If my count is correct, there were only four named female characters (one of which is a child), and the only case where one talked to the other was when Scarlett Johansson’s character is kicked out of a dinner by Rebecca Hall’s character.  Is the former kicked out over a dispute concerning another male character? You betcha.  Here, the only female to female interaction present within Nolan’s film is entirely dependent on both women’s love for one man.  Yes, it seems even Christopher Nolan is not above such eye-roll inducing tropes.  Furthermore, there was not a single actor of color given a named character, let alone a leading part.  But black people didn’t exist in nineteenth century London, right? Wrong.  If Lin-Manuel Miranda can make George Washington black, Christopher Nolan can remember to cast an actor of color.  

              Yet, if I only let gender and racial representation dictate my opinions on cinema, I would only like about five films total. So now on to the parts of the film I did enjoy, which, you’ll be pleased to know, were numerous.  My main positive take-away from this film was Nolan’s obsession with duality: whether it be Alfred Borden’s twin (#spoiler alert) or the back and forth tit-for-tat relationship between Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman’s respective characters.  I thoroughly appreciated the fact that Nolan repeatedly refused to “take sides” between his two leading parts.  That is, Nolan never indicated which character was “the good” or “the bad.” Instead, he left this difficult choice up to the viewer.  Personally, I sided with Bale’s character because I’ve always preferred Batman to Wolverine.  This existential viewer choice should not be unfamiliar to fans of Nolan’s cinematic portfolio.  Inception, anyone??  If you ask me, Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t dreaming in that last scene, but ask anyone else and who knows which answer you’ll get.  Deliberately depicting one character as “better” or “worse” than another implies an unequal relationship between director and audience. By refusing to take sides, Nolan levels the playing field between him and us, the audience.  The choice is up to us because the director recognized the audience as equals, not as inferiors in need of moral direction.  

              I don’t have time to get into cinematography or acting in this post because I’ve already exceeded my 500 word (ish) limit, but I will say you won’t be disappointed in either category.  Nolan holds this film up to his usual standards in both regards.  Overall, I’ll give The Prestige an 8/10 rating and endorse it as a definite “must see.” Plus, it’s based on a 1995 novel by Christopher Priest that, if it’s anything like the film, I’m sure would be a thrilling read.  

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

91.66% (eleven of twelve).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

46.26%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Ten of the twelve, with seven of those hitting 50%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Seven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-one. Twelve who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Same-same. The female characters are still great, bi rep exists, the racial diversity remains strong (though I have my doubts about the writers’ capacity to portray cultural diversity). It’s not gonna blow anyone’s mind, but it’s all there, and that’s a good thing (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

A hot mess. Not hard to watch in any way, not infuriating, but frustrating, yes, and at times wasteful. It doesn’t have a strong sense of the creative team having known what they wanted to make, and this is not the format for just winging it and seeing what comes out.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

So. I referenced LOST at one point during this season, and the advice Mike Schur was given about avoiding narrative stagnation, and I mentioned that I don’t actually think that was ever a problem for LOST. The reason for that is that LOST made its charactersation so thoroughly integral to the plot that even when it seemed that nothing particularly important was happening, plot-wise, something was always happening character-wise, and that was by association, vital plot. It’s also part of the reason I am die-hard for that show, because character is my be-all and end-all, without which, a story hardly has a point in my eyes.This is the lesson I wish Mike Schur had taken from LOST, because the characters in this show? They’re all wonderful in their own distinct ways, but they also haven’t really developed since the first season (or the humans haven’t, anyway). The reason for that - touched on already, variously - is that those bastards keep on being reset, their memories wiped, everything new again so that they can repeat the same character development, but offscreen where it doesn’t take up any of that important plot space. And because their characterisation isn’t moving anywhere (it’s...stagnating), they essentially function as placeholders in the plot, not necessary or meaningful pieces.

This reminds me of another show that I ended up having big problems with, Orphan Black, which suffered from (among many issues) a lack of character agency. The characters in The Good Place do have at least some agency, they are allowed some decision-making power, but not a lot of it, especially in this season where they’re mostly just buffeted around by plot machinations they can’t control and often, don’t even understand, and it doesn’t make for very interesting viewing (this is why Michael and Janet get all the best fodder: they have more agency than the human characters, they comprehend their situation in order to make informed choices on behalf of the others, and they’ve been shouldering all of the character development responsibilities since the beginning of season two). When plot drives characters too much instead of the other way around, the characters start to feel inconsequential, because their personalities aren’t going to impact their (after)lives, so they might as well not have any.

The thing about the characters not developing is that the centrepiece of the plot - the question of whether or not they can improve - is itself based on the idea of the characters developing, but since they already answered that question in the first season, the show now just keeps on repeating it in different scenarios with everyone ‘learning ethics’ from Chidi, which is nebulous and largely glossed over anyway. The changes of scenario don’t matter, firstly because the result is always the same (but not in a profound way, just in a lazy ‘we didn’t want it to get confusing by having people or events contradict something that happened before in some version they don’t remember’ kind of way), and secondly because we never see any real substance of the scenario changes, we just get clips and time skips. This leaves us with a narrative which rarely seems to have intent, just the occasional glimmer of insight or direction (i.e. when Jason highlights the impact of poverty (though the show has failed to translate that into a large-scale critique of systemic inequality), or the whole ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ thing), and the characters act as pawns but not, often, as conduits. The lack of real plot substance, as explored by the characters within it, kinda ironically leads to the very same stagnation that Schur was supposedly trying to avoid: the plot sometimes makes wild leaps from one thing to another, avoiding developing in any way for fear of spending too long on an idea and consequently not stopping on anything long enough to let it matter, and then at other times it stalls completely and wallows for the sake of just talking about some philosophical concept, even though just talking about something without both connecting it to the characters and watching it unfold meaningfully is exactly how you get a stagnant story (and a badly paced one, too). If it doesn’t matter, it’s not plot, it’s just window dressing. Anyway. I’m having deja vu and I think I’m in danger of just reiterating everything I complained about before (if I haven’t already), so I’m gonna let this one go and see how they pull it together (if they pull it together) in season four, which I have not seen yet so I am hoping for a pleasant, cohesive surprise. It could still happen.

[hopscotchfriday]

Guardians of the Galaxy - Vol 2

James Gunn is a hero of mine. A graduate of the Troma set, his early effort Tromeo and Juliet gave no hint of his future in Hollywood with its mix of bad taste and dark jokes. Watching his career develop has been a thrill, even if the bad taste began to appear a bit forced and the jokes leaned too heavily on dudebro humour.  Gunn made Super, one of the most unpleasant to watch superhero films that I also consider a very worthy examination of the ignored and disturbing aspects of the comic book vigilante idea. He’s a director and storyteller with things he wants to say about this popular genre. 

Guardians of the Galaxy was an entertaining romp that challenged the dark and gloomy turn of superhero films. For that I am grateful to it. But I also felt it was a remarkably safe James Gunn movie. The sequel to the comedic space opera is released in the States on May 5 (cheeky) and for fans of the first film there is a lot to enjoy. More tunes from Star-Lord’s mix tape, more easter eggs to the comics than you can take, and characters like Gamora and Drax receive some much-needed character development.  On that note, it appears the criticism of Gamora failing the Bechdel test in the first film stung slightly, so a large b-plot involves the destructive sibling rivalry between Zoe Saldana’s character and Karen Gillan’s Nebula. Unfortunately the emotional insights in Guardians have the quality of a therapy session, with the actors projecting breakthroughs at one another via stiff dialogue. Still credit to Saldana and Gillan - of all the performers forced to jump through that particularly hoop in the script, they almost make it work (poor, poor Michael Rooker).

Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper

No, fun combinations of CGI spectacle and soft rock and folk ballads aside, what Guardians mostly has is daddy issues. The plot concerns the reunion of Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and absentee dad Ego (Kurt Russell). Without a seeming antagonist aside from a barely featured gold-skinned racial supremacist Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) whose species appear to be a cosmic metaphor for online trolls and elite gamers, the main thrust of the film is Star-Lord getting back in touch with his dad. 

In the first film Star-Lord aka Peter Quill’s obsession with all things 1980s seemed rooted in his trauma over his kidnapping by space aliens who maybe possibly could be cannibals (turns out that was just a joke that was taken too far). His mixtape of songs was his final connection to his childhood home and the mother who died moments before he was taken.  In this follow-up adventure, Quill moons over a preserved magazine cutting of David Hasselhoff and lectures Gamora on how she should love him because she is like Diane and he is like Sam from Cheers - 

“something unspoken” Obsession with 80s nostalgia...insisting that romantic interests conform to fictional depictions of romance...self-aggrandized sense of importance - OMG is Star-Lord a neck-bearded Sad Puppy!? Even the cameo appearances of 80s action stars in Guardians hint at the weaponising of nostalgia by Gunn for the apparent thirtysomething target audience.  Star-Lord’s fecklessness in the first film had a degree of Pratt charm that got it over the line, whereas here his self-absorption is actively irritating to watch. I choose to believe this was Gunn’s intent, as the film eventually arrives at a climax by challenging Quill to man-up to events in the here and now. 

Pictured - Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and Yondu (Michael Rooker)

Still the film’s ambiguous embrace and critique of hoarding 80s childhood icons walks a confusing line. Is Quill an avatar for Generation X retreating into commercialized insulation - or a celebration of same because a space man with a taste for David Hasselhoff songs is hilarious? I laughed at the funny bits. I was bored by the boring bits. And it passed the time. But I have honestly no idea what Gunn is trying to say with this film.   - Emmet O’Cuana 

[rhiannonkthomas]

Rogue One and the Token Protagonist

First, let’s get this out of the way: I thought Rogue One was a great movie. Well-paced, thrilling, with a story that I think we need right now. I definitely recommend it, if for some reason you haven’t seen it already.

But this blog isn’t just about whether movies are enjoyable, and Rogue One failed on one major issue. Women, apparently, are shockingly rare in a galaxy far, far away.

It feels like it should be impossible. The protagonist, Jyn Erso, is female. People have been complaining about this avalanche of female Star Wars protagonists and the sexism against men included therein for months. Another female protagonist? What, is every person in space a woman now?

But Rogue One suffers from token girl-ism, with the twist that that token girl happens to be the protagonist. I think the film passes the Bechdel test, as I think Jyn talks to both her mother and Mon Mothma, which is an improvement. There are a few women around, at least. But beyond Jyn, they’re all required women. Her mother has to be a woman, and she quickly dies anyway. Mon Mothma is one of the few women in existing canon, so she has to stay, and have a small, if powerful, role. But there’s pretty much no-one else with an even vaguely significant speaking role. Could we have had a female leader of the Death Star project as the main villain, maybe? A female rebel who raised Jyn? A female blind monk, a female pilot, a female other pilot, a female-voiced droid? I left Jyn’s father off this list initially, because I thought perhaps Galen Erso was part of existing canon, but it looks like that’s not the case, so even he could have just as easily been a female character instead. The crew of Rogue One was wonderfully diverse in terms of race, but Jyn was one woman in a crew of six, with very, very few other women scattered across the landscape.

I’m sure people will argue that gender had no effect on the story, whether the characters were male or female, so we shouldn’t force diversity on them. After all, it didn’t really matter whether the defecting Imperial pilot or the Krennic the Death Star planner were men or women. But that’s kind of the point. It didn’t matter. There was no plot or world building reason why they should be men, but they fell to that as the default, even though the result is a world that really needs to worry about its minuscule female population.

It’s pretty frustrating, especially since the movie seemed seriously committed to improving the franchise’s racial diversity. Although I doubt the film’s creators meant it to be political, since they’ve been working on it for years, it feels incredibly political and relevant in the current climate, and that powerful message is slightly undercut by this idea that very few women can be in the revolution. Maybe, instead of simply moving the team’s token woman into the lead role, we could get rid of the concept altogether and have some gender balance instead? It’s not that hard to have women in space, is it? Unless, of course, they were all strangled by their non-expanding bras.

Rogue One and the Token Protagonist was originally published on Feminist Fiction

[thelocalrebel]

PERSON OF INTEREST (2011-2016)

Part 2: Spoilers ahead. Trigger warning for homophobia, BYG, character deaths.

In part 1, I talked about the better parts of Person of Interest (POI). But like any form of media (or anything, really), there’s always something that needs to be highlighted, because I doubt anything can be purely perfect and free of problems - but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped waiting for the day, though. I’m still hoping for media to surprise me.

Without further ado, here are some reasons why POI might be best struck off your to-watch-list. (Ideally, read this AFTER you’re more or less done with the series)  

2 Reasons To NOT Watch Person Of Interest

Remember when I said about character deaths being spoilers? This is it. And this is where POI falls short - or at least, in the current mediascape. If POI aired anytime other than 2016, I don’t think minority characters dying wouldn’t be as problematic as it currently is - not in the sense that it’s okay to indiscriminately kill them off, but that it doesn’t reinforce/reflect systemic trends of violence (not just physical) directed at certain communities in society. 

1. Bury Your Gays

It's the death knell of 2016's TV. While it's been around for a long while, it's only in 2016 when people began talking about it. Thanks to the media firestorm headed by bitter queer fans of The 100 (affectionately known as 'the flopdred' by some), Bury Your Gays (BYG) became hot enough a topic to enter the public consciousness.

Essentially, BYG is about queer characters dying. Specifically, lesbian and bisexual women, regardless of whether they're in relationships. That they die isn't problematic. That they're barely represented in popular media AND are then killed off is problematic. That's why queer characters dying isn't the same as non-queer characters dying. (Remember, representation in itself isn’t always good - just see local television and their horrid stereotypes).

I thought Root and Shaw would've had a happy ending - for that to mean 'surviving' is just ... representative of the times - because throughout the show, the team's been cheating death and escaping sticky situations countless times because they're all terrific at their jobs, but then 5x10 happened and the day literally went away for me. Yes, Root died; (literally) taking a bullet meant for someone else, and there goes wlw representation and failing the “must be alive” section of the Bechdel Test.

Unpopular opinion alert: Personally, Root dying wasn't as problematic as the case of Commander Lexa of the 100 or Poussey from Orange Is The New Black. Root wasn’t killed by a stray bullet minutes after consummating her relationship with her bisexual lover, nor was her death used to humanise (white) perpetrators of police brutality. Throughout the series - unlike a certain show - the writers didn’t sugarcoat her chances of surviving (heck, they said only the dog was safe), and Root’s writing and characterisation was consistent. How Root died was also apropo, given her character growth across the series; from believing how some people are just "bad code" to how everyone is equally deserving of a second chance. And once you consider her relationship with the person she took a bullet for, get ready for your heart to be shredded, sliced, seared and stomped on. Plus, what the Machine and Finch did after Root's death was apt.

In other words, her death made narrative sense.

What I'm torn about is this: regardless of how sensible Root’s death was, it's still an instance of another queer individual dying, and that only adds to the towering body count that sends the message that queer lives are unimportant. That queer people never get happy endings. Seeing the shitfest queer people have gotten in 2016 alone, it's not difficult to empathise with bitter queer fans.

And as mentioned, killing off a character which I believe had the most character growth over the series is the greatest disservice one can do to any character. It’s like invalidating their efforts; that in the end, it doesn’t matter because you’re dead.

(But since I love being delusional and skeptical, I think Root's still alive. Watching the episodes after 5x10, there's enough evidence to suspect that Root faked her death. Or you can consider the show having ended at 5x09, and not 5x13. I mean, they even ended the episode with a ‘ride fade-into-the-sunset’ effect!)

Not only that, Carter dies. Yet another minority character - who is an African-American single mum raising a kid on her own - is killed off. While some say Carter's death is fitting given her profession and her story arc in Season 3, I ask this: did she really have to die? Because like Root, however well-written their deaths were, their deaths are still deaths. Maybe it's the cumulative effect of seeing your representation constantly tortured, killed off, demonised/villainised et cetera, because whatever it is, those deaths left me more than sad. They left me exhausted.

Still, I'm heartened by how POI treats its dead characters - especially Carter. Somewhere, somehow, they're always referenced in the story thereafter, and 4x20 is a perfect example of that. It's not so much about narrative continuity, but more about adhering to POI's theme of finding family. Of relationships: be it romantic, familial, or otherwise. And that is what I loved about the show. Because often, it's the little moments of humour or care between Team Machine that catches me off-guard, enough to make me smile. And if you don't find the concept of outcasts unexpectedly finding a family endearing, you're probably lying.

2. It’s A White, White World

There’s POC, women, and other minorities in the show, yes, but you can’t deny that POI has always been about Finch’s story. He created the Machine, the crux of the whole series, and despite the complement of minorities with their own independent storylines and arcs, they’re always seconded to the story of the relationship between Finch and his creation. Looking at POI another way, it’s basically about dealing with the consequences of Finch’s actions; and not just about creating the Machine. Incidentally, Finch is white, male, cis, and het.

Plus, the pivotal movers and shakers of the show are white. Despite the bajillion firefights, explosions and other acts of flashy destruction on a large scale, the underlying tension of the series is between the warring AIs, so naturally, it’s the people with the strongest ‘connections’ to them (Finch, Root, Greer) who matter the most in the narrative. Don’t get me wrong, race isn’t made into a plot point in POI (a good thing, since it’s how you normalise diversity), but that these people are incidentally white subtly reinforces existing racial hierarchies today.

Final Thoughts

In short, despite killing off its minorities, this show somehow manages to treat them with respect and nuance (intentionally or otherwise? You decide). That's why POI is still worth watching. But of course, this is what I think. It's completely understandable if POI reinforcing (fatal) media tropes is a deal-breaker for you. The day I heard about Root's death, I almost swore off watching the show because, well, BYG. And the whole issue of dead minority characters. Because no matter how hard I try, that’s what will come to mind anytime I think of POI, way before its multitude of merits. POI? The show with a dead lesbian.  

But for the sake of Root & Shaw (yes, I'm such a sap), Carter, and a whole host of other reasons, I took a leap of faith.

Fast forward 6 months, and here I am, writing this review.

[differentdrummerbellydancers]

Black Panther & Farewell Chadwick Boseman

INTRODUCTION: 

This is quite possibly the hardest movie review to I have ever written. The Black Panther review has been in my drafts folder for so long. Now it has to be written. It is also so hard to write because I am also saying farewell to Chadwick Boseman.

And I cry a lot.

Thursday, February 15, 2018: I am in my car driving home from the sneak preview premiere of Black Panther. (Please, I’m a hard core MCU fan and geek – I see all the sneak previews.)

I knew it would be big. I had seen on my geek feeds many black nerds – aka blerds – share their excitement for the Black Panther movie. There was joy, anticipation, and discussion of costumes and beautiful clothes. I could see the non-Geek community not understand how important this movie was. But I could see the blerds and other hardcore Geeks who love social justice get excited. It was going to be big.

I did not know it would be THAT big. Hooray!

So I am in my car behind another car at a stop light. My husband was with me and our hearts were filled with Black Panther. I thought back over the movie and I began to cry. I replayed in my mind the last scene of the movie. T’Challa, the Black Panther, has decided to open up Wakanda’s truth to the world. When asked what does Wakanda have to offer, he smiles. He, along with the audience know.

I still cry when I think of this moment.

I cried in my car because I wanted that moment to be real. I wanted to wake up the next morning and hear that the King of Wakanda was going to share his country’s wealth with the world. The world would finally see a beautiful culture of equality, living in harmony with nature and one another. A culture that honored both men and women.

I cried so hard.

Look I have dreamed hard in my heart to walk Tolkien’s Middle-earth. I know my profession in Harry Potter’s world. I would love being any crew member in Star Fleet. I have ached for those worlds to manifest before me for years.  And I would give all of that up to have Wakanda made real. To have the truth of Wakanda be here and now for us all.

Wakanda Forever!

Saturday, August 29, 2020: I have just heard the news. Chadwick Boseman has passed away. He had been battling colon cancer for four years. So when Black Panther was released he had been in the battle for a while. What a man. What a powerful human being. What grace. He was suffering and he allowed others to express only joy. Thank you, sir, thank you.

I asked myself how I could honor Mr. Boseman today. So I pulled out my tissues and decided to finish this review. Oh and I turned on Black Panther.

REVIEW:

OVERALL: Please understand that no matter what I write, it will not be enough. This movie lifted my spirit. This movie was a gift to the world. I hoped this movie would be great. It was. It was beyond. Bless you Ryan Coogler for everything. I will praise this movie forever.

I waited for this movie and I am so glad it is here. See my previous posts about Black Panther: More Hallelujah to Sing! Black Panther is Officially Here! and a look at twisting racist tropes in the teaser trailer Trailers Teasers Previews: “Black Panther”.

POINTS: All of it, both in front of and behind the scenes. Director Ryan Coogler had a multi-racial crew and women in leadership positions. This is reflected in front of the screen. Men and women working together as powerful equals. I could not have asked for more.

PITFALLS: None.

FEMALE CHARACTER(S): YES!!!!!!!!!!! Just watch the movie and be enthralled by the wonderful women! I have had coworkers talk about how much they loved the women in the movie too. There are many: Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye – The General (Danai Gurira), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), which only names the top characters. They were all awesome!

CULTURAL PITFALL(S): None. Stone cold none. This movie kissed all of them good-bye. So excellent.

And before any of you go crying reverse racism (grow-up and just don’t), they even had a hero white man.

HIGH POINT(S):

1.) The Battle Rhinos. I want one so bad.

2.) Shuri the genius teasing her brother.

3.) Okoye. I want to be her when I grow up. Read: Danai Gurira about being moved after meeting Martin Freeman’s son at the Black Panther’s European Premiere.

4.) Chadwick Boseman’s smile at the end. Wakanda Forever.

BECHDEL TEST (Website): YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RACIAL BECHDEL TEST (Website): YES!!! I mean obviously and YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IMDB: Black Panther (2018)

OFFICIAL MOVIE WEBSITE:  Black Panther | Disney Movies

DVD/BLU-RAY WORTHY: Own it. Watch it.

LION PAW PRINTS:  5 of 5. So wow.

AFTERWARD: A REQUEST

So there you have it. Words did fail me. Words fail this movie, this cultural experience, this enlightenment for our souls. So now I make a request.

I request that we all give each other the Wakanda Forever salute. Each and every one of us. So that Wakanda may start to become real. So that we may look into each other’s eyes and see and honor the human in each other. So that one day Wakanda will not be a fictional place, but a home. A home that covers the entire world.

Wakanda. Forever!

And ever.

And ever.

And ever.

-CFR

BLERD LINKS: 

Wakanda Con

Blerd Con

Black Girl Nerds

The Blerd

Aisha Tyler

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther – Official Trailer

  Gallery of Character Posters

Movie Review: “Black Panther”

Black Panther & Farewell Chadwick Boseman INTRODUCTION:  This is quite possibly the hardest movie review to I have ever written.

Movie Review: “Black Panther” Black Panther & Farewell Chadwick Boseman INTRODUCTION:  This is quite possibly the hardest movie review to I have ever written.

[chickflickingreviews]

Black Panther & Farewell Chadwick Boseman

INTRODUCTION: 

This is quite possibly the hardest movie review to I have ever written. The Black Panther review has been in my drafts folder for so long. Now it has to be written. It is also so hard to write because I am also saying farewell to Chadwick Boseman.

And I cry a lot.

Thursday, February 15, 2018: I am in my car driving home from the sneak preview premiere of Black Panther. (Please, I’m a hard core MCU fan and geek – I see all the sneak previews.)

I knew it would be big. I had seen on my geek feeds many black nerds – aka blerds – share their excitement for the Black Panther movie. There was joy, anticipation, and discussion of costumes and beautiful clothes. I could see the non-Geek community not understand how important this movie was. But I could see the blerds and other hardcore Geeks who love social justice get excited. It was going to be big.

I did not know it would be THAT big. Hooray!

So I am in my car behind another car at a stop light. My husband was with me and our hearts were filled with Black Panther. I thought back over the movie and I began to cry. I replayed in my mind the last scene of the movie. T’Challa, the Black Panther, has decided to open up Wakanda’s truth to the world. When asked what does Wakanda have to offer, he smiles. He, along with the audience know.

I still cry when I think of this moment.

I cried in my car because I wanted that moment to be real. I wanted to wake up the next morning and hear that the King of Wakanda was going to share his country’s wealth with the world. The world would finally see a beautiful culture of equality, living in harmony with nature and one another. A culture that honored both men and women.

I cried so hard.

Look I have dreamed hard in my heart to walk Tolkien’s Middle-earth. I know my profession in Harry Potter’s world. I would love being any crew member in Star Fleet. I have ached for those worlds to manifest before me for years.  And I would give all of that up to have Wakanda made real. To have the truth of Wakanda be here and now for us all.

Wakanda Forever!

Saturday, August 29, 2020: I have just heard the news. Chadwick Boseman has passed away. He had been battling colon cancer for four years. So when Black Panther was released he had been in the battle for a while. What a man. What a powerful human being. What grace. He was suffering and he allowed others to express only joy. Thank you, sir, thank you.

I asked myself how I could honor Mr. Boseman today. So I pulled out my tissues and decided to finish this review. Oh and I turned on Black Panther.

REVIEW:

OVERALL: Please understand that no matter what I write, it will not be enough. This movie lifted my spirit. This movie was a gift to the world. I hoped this movie would be great. It was. It was beyond. Bless you Ryan Coogler for everything. I will praise this movie forever.

I waited for this movie and I am so glad it is here. See my previous posts about Black Panther: More Hallelujah to Sing! Black Panther is Officially Here! and a look at twisting racist tropes in the teaser trailer Trailers Teasers Previews: “Black Panther”.

POINTS: All of it, both in front of and behind the scenes. Director Ryan Coogler had a multi-racial crew and women in leadership positions. This is reflected in front of the screen. Men and women working together as powerful equals. I could not have asked for more.

PITFALLS: None.

FEMALE CHARACTER(S): YES!!!!!!!!!!! Just watch the movie and be enthralled by the wonderful women! I have had coworkers talk about how much they loved the women in the movie too. There are many: Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye – The General (Danai Gurira), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), which only names the top characters. They were all awesome!

CULTURAL PITFALL(S): None. Stone cold none. This movie kissed all of them good-bye. So excellent.

And before any of you go crying reverse racism (grow-up and just don’t), they even had a hero white man.

HIGH POINT(S):

1.) The Battle Rhinos. I want one so bad.

2.) Shuri the genius teasing her brother.

3.) Okoye. I want to be her when I grow up. Read: Danai Gurira about being moved after meeting Martin Freeman’s son at the Black Panther’s European Premiere.

4.) Chadwick Boseman’s smile at the end. Wakanda Forever.

BECHDEL TEST (Website): YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RACIAL BECHDEL TEST (Website): YES!!! I mean obviously and YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IMDB: Black Panther (2018)

OFFICIAL MOVIE WEBSITE:  Black Panther | Disney Movies

DVD/BLU-RAY WORTHY: Own it. Watch it.

LION PAW PRINTS:  5 of 5. So wow.

AFTERWARD: A REQUEST

So there you have it. Words did fail me. Words fail this movie, this cultural experience, this enlightenment for our souls. So now I make a request.

I request that we all give each other the Wakanda Forever salute. Each and every one of us. So that Wakanda may start to become real. So that we may look into each other’s eyes and see and honor the human in each other. So that one day Wakanda will not be a fictional place, but a home. A home that covers the entire world.

Wakanda. Forever!

And ever.

And ever.

And ever.

-CFR

BLERD LINKS: 

Wakanda Con

Blerd Con

Black Girl Nerds

The Blerd

Aisha Tyler

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther – Official Trailer

  Gallery of Character Posters

Movie Review: “Black Panther” Black Panther & Farewell Chadwick Boseman INTRODUCTION:  This is quite possibly the hardest movie review to I have ever written.

[theampreviews]

The Untouchables

#30 - Creed (2015) / Dir. Ryan Coogler / Warner Bros. 

Creed must have posed quite a promotional quandary for its marketeers; do you sell it as the 7th Rocky film in the series, without using that most iconic of titular names, or, more accurately, the first film in a new series bearing the name of a character the franchise killed off 30 years ago (without having it overshadowed by the Italian Stallion)? 

Creed is both; it’s Rocky’s (likely/hopefully) last film and Adonis’s first. It’s the cementing of Rocky’s legacy and the birth of his protege’s, but more than either, it’s the film that rightfully acknowledges the legacy of cinema’s greatest heel-turned-face; Apollo Creed.  

Sylvester Stallone is clearly a man consumed by the idea of Legacy, for himself and for the characters that shaped his career. He’s already revisited his two most iconic roles with Rocky Balboa in 2006 and Rambo in 2008. 

His decision to lace-up with Balboa again was fueled by what he (and many others) felt was a need to respectfully close his most beloved series of films after the disappointing (but wildly under-appreciated) Rocky V. Picking up again after 16 years, Stallone delivered a film that never felt like an apology but sure as hell allowed both he and his alter ego to hold their heads high. It spoke to the limits of age and how one’s value can appear diminished by it, often hard to tell whether Stallone was delivering the lines about himself or Balboa; either would be accurate. Two years later Stallone resurrected his other icon: John Rambo. Less a heartfelt promise to deliver where people believed he had failed them previously, this time he just wanted to blow the (younger) competition out of the water, and he succeeded. I don’t think Action cinema has seen a more gleefully violent rush of carnage outside of Asia in the intervening years. The old dog still had bite, and teeth bigger than anyone else's. He’s also extended the olive branch of “legacy maintenance” to former friends & enemies through his Expendables movies. They may not be going in the time capsule for future generations to marvel at once we've blown ourselves to hell & back, but Sly bringing back Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mel Gibson, whilst pushing new stars like Glen Powell, Liam Hemsworth and a brace of combat sport veterans and foreign action stars, is definitely in-keeping with his cinematic victory lap with an eye on keeping the dream alive, a la Creed.  It didn't end there. Four years ago he and De Niro set about slugging each other in the fantasy “Rocky vs. Raging Bull” of Grudge Match. De Niro’s seeming reluctance to take himself or anything he does seriously anymore meant that one went down the comedy route, but it still had its moments and certainly fit into Stallone’s one-man crusade to slow the sands of time. It seemed like he'd done enough to remind audiences of former glories, fixed what he felt needing fixing and could probably put it all behind him, but something lingered, and with Creed he addresses the most important and over-due chapter in the Rocky series since his Oscar winning début. From villain to friend to mentor to brother, Apollo Creed was always the Ying to Balboa’s Yang. The polished champ in the Ali mold with his own unsung rags-to-riches story. It’s heartening to see Stallone acknowledge this and honor him by building a film that speaks to his legacy, albeit posthumously, whilst forging a potential second series of films that would bare the Creed name, via his estranged son Adonis Johnson. Ryan Coogler proves a fantastic pair of hands to see in this new era. Creed is bristling with love for the world Stallone created back in 1976, but never feels like it’s being paraded in front of the audience for brownie points (a lazy trap so many other “back to the well” films, like this year’s Rogue One, fall into). The way he teases the familiar themes in the score is spine-tingling and emblematic of Coogler’s approach; remnants of the past are always in frame, he just doesn’t call attention to them. This is the same Philadelphia that Rocky ran the steps of 40 years ago, but it’s no museum, it very much feels like a film set in the now. Stallone choosing to retire Balboa from the movies but allow the story to carry on through Apollo’s son is a brilliant move. Creed never trades on racial politics, but the decision goes some way to addressing the Great White Hope Syndrome that Rocky and most other Boxing movies suffer from; black athletes have dominated certain boxing divisions for decades but we rarely see them on screen in a heroic light, more often than not being positioned as the brutal obstacle our plucky protagonist has to overcome. It not only feels right to see a Black boxer reflected on screen in a manner that celebrates their struggles, dedication and abilities, it feels daft that it’s taken this long. It’s perhaps also the most direct address to Stallone's unease with Rocky V, which saw him train the next Great White Hope only to see him corrupted by a shady Don King rip-off - not that series’ finest hour.  Aside from the burden of Legacy, Creed also devotes a large amount of its emotional heft to absent father/son issues. Coogler is remarkably subtle for such a young director handling the weight of cinematic history, and has it play out with the expected string pulling without ever feeling contrived. The story takes some turns I didn't see coming that had the potential to bog the film down with Hallmark melodrama, but it’s fair to say I spent most of the last third feeling like I was trying to swallow a bowling ball with sawdust in my eyes; again Coogler finds the right touch, jabbing with emotional punctuation rather that swinging with hay-makers which can often miss. Absolutely everything works in Creed; it’s a fitting coda to Rocky’s story and a tremendous kick-off for Michael B. Jordan’s own series of films (finger’s crossed he gets to run with this character, he’s superb). Coogler even manages to write a real and tactile part for Tessa Thompson as Adonis’s girlfriend Bianca. It may not past the Bechdel Test, it’s still very much a Man’s World, but her character isn't relegated to telling him not to fight or crying in his corner, she’s got her own shit going on, she feels real and her scenes with Johnson/Creed only serve to further elevate the film. With Creed, Stallone has done right by the man he used to climb the mountain; this is as fitting a tribute to the late, great Apollo Creed as you could hope for.  It’s rare that trying to resurrect or put to rest such Icons of Cinema proves successful, look Sly’s mate Arnie, but Stallone has managed to pull it off twice with Rocky, and that cements his legacy as the man behind one of the most enduring characters Cinema has ever seen. It’s also exciting to think that, with Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, we may get another.