#an outcast to his superiors for championing ''radical'' ideologies (having Eliza help him on cases and lauding her abilities as a female

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

i think my biggest beef with "Miss Scarlet and the Duke" is just the general awareness of the characters. I get that the entire point of the show is about a lady detective attempting to make her way in a man's world and having to fight her way through sexism prejudice and injustice for every single victory she claims, but there's a level of... modernity? to a lot of the issues addressed that just... doesn't quite flow with the setting and the rest of the writing, imho.

like--the female characters talk about how they can't do anything of importance because they're women, the gay characters talk about how they're 'outcasts of society' and 'marked for life' because of their sexuality, the misogynist male characters flaunt their male privilege over everyone, loudly, with extreme awareness. idk, it all just seems very much like inflicting modern views and opinions onto historical characters who couldn't possibly have the context to actually hold those views?

and don't get me wrong, I am not saying that these issues didn't exist in that time period. they did, and they were very real, and the people who faced them really did have to struggle in ways we'll not fully understand because we enjoy so much freedom today that had to be hard-won by previous generations. but there... was a bit of balance, I think, in a lot of ways? for instance, women weren't allowed to hold political power, but they had enormous social power. and I think a lot of that is overlooked and glossed-over in order to make a big loud statement about historical sexism and give a lot of snappy dialogue about how 'it's a man's world' and 'how DARE a woman do ANYTHING'.

and I say all this with caveats, too, because I just blazed through all of season 1 in two days, and I actually am enjoying the show! Eliza and William are both really fun characters, and I love their dynamic with one another! there's a lot of good stuff too in respect to how neither of them are fully clear-cut people with simplistic moral and ethical codes, they're not cardboard cut-outs but actual characters, and I appreciate that. and I appreciate that there are women of diverse backgrounds who want various different things from life and they're all represented equally and with dignity--same of the male characters. and I do think there's a historical precedent for a lot of the things that are brought up in the episodes! there's real history here. but I think the writers are missing some of the real depth of it for the sake of boiling everything down to focusing on One Specific Topic (ie, anti-woman sexism, social injustice, and general misogyny in the past and the struggle to be seen as An Actual Valid Professional as a woman in a career and profession completely dominated by men). and in a lot of ways, when the story really gets lost in itself and stops trying so hard to be About Sexism, it's a lot more immersive and enjoyable.

again, all just imho.