#and it was specifically about another woman director who was coming in for an ep

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/pynkhues/763760056446681088/i-know-sam-at-least-has-been-lower-on-the-call?source=share

ngl I was worried it was going to be someone I like, like Essie Davis, so I'm relieved it's someone I've never heard of! So weird when people are awful like that. Why? It seems like it makes the awful person's life harder as well as making things awful for other people

Haha, yeah, she’s very local, which I suspect is part of the motivation on her end. From everything I’ve heard, it sounds like she gets off on being a big fish in a little pond.

A lot of Aus actors will reach a certain degree of success here and try to transition it to bigger markets i.e LA or the UK, and the process of that has been described to me as both exciting and very (very) humbling as there are very few Australian movies or shows that have industry weight or recognition, and many (many) fail.

As a result though, you often do see this sort of dynamic play out with actors who stay and feel they’ve built up local industry versus actors who have left and come back and now may have some name recognition and thus sell-ability internationally, even if they’ve just done like, a CW show or something (it all helps in theory with selling a series to distributors too). It goes both ways too, of course - some actors who work internationally come back feeling better than local production, but this is really just to say that there can be weird power dynamics like that on Australian sets sometimes.

From what I’ve heard, she seems to be someone who feels she’s paid her dues and has earned a spot at the top of the local industry (which honestly, she has), and the result is she deserves whatever she wants from crews and directors, and anything less than the exact thing she wants is a personal insult. At the same time, she’s apparently extremely competitive with actors, both men and women, who she feels may usurp her as one of the most bookable actors in Australian TV.

It’s messy! But yeah, I’ve heard a lot about her mean girling and bullying people across departments on set.

[ansbobcar]

EP 16. A letter of concern

WORD COUNT. 1220

Link to overview

_ _ _ _ _

Dear Mother,

I will be staying at the Northern Estate for the week of the Winter Ball instead of Wirth. I’m sure there is much that needs to be discussed alongside Father. Additionally, please make room for my companion.

Your son,

Orter

“That’s surprising,” she uttered, overlooking the trees yellowing in their garden before rereading the letter in her hand. “What’s so surprising?”

With some scepticism, she iterated, “Orter wants to come over during the winter.”

_ _ _

It’s been a week since she was replaced by Orter to accompany the Flame Cane in overseeing the possible candidates for the Final Divine Visionary Exam. Within that week, she was completely booked with meetings.

A meeting with the Bless Minister, the director, team B, the Magical Items department, and the list went on and on. Orter’s sudden disappearance changed the schedule drastically. But he had already done the schedule changes himself… somehow.

That man wasn’t the type to take any days off work even if he had a given amount of paid-leave days. 3 weeks worth to be exact. So it was rather perplexing. 

It wasn’t like he picked up her calls either, she paced around the room waiting for her candidate's arrival. ‘No explanation, only a schedule change and notice of absence. Family matters perhaps?’ As she saw the clear skies and the greenery still. 

Did his parents lose it when they were seen together?

“Inky Droopy Looney Rinka,” Renatus sang with a mix of boredom, annoyance and curiosity. “You’re walking too much. I can’t sleep.”

“I’ll dampen the footsteps if you need me—”

“What a pain,” he muttered before a yawn crawled out of him with a stretch. “Wasn't Orter supposed to do the interview instead of you?”

“That was for last year only, you know we make the newest Divine Visionary follow Kaldo for an interview now,” she briefly reminded him. Yeah no need to explain that. “Plus I usually handle the non department specific duties more than him.”

“Is it time yet?” Ignoring her extended response.

“Soon,” as she checked the clock on the wall. 2 minutes left before they had to leave the room.

“How soon?”

“That lullaby Agito sings to Hippo-tan long.”

He stumbled out of his seat without further instruction. “Let’s get this over with.”

_ _ _

With little green smoke, the ginger brunette had stepped foot into the interview’s hall. ‘Is this to prevent any external interference?’ she thought to herself. ‘But Auntie said that blind guy calls the shots regardless of what another interviewer chooses,’ taking a look around the empty hall.

Darren Randel is no stranger to Divine Visionaries. They’ve interfered with her life as much as those pests who leeched and pulled the rug under her. Who the hell was inter… her eyes landed onto the blonde woman clad in a dark 3 piece suit metres away from her feet. “Ah. It’s you.”

“You said you had no interest in the position a year ago,” she echoed. Displeased by her appearance. Which made sense. It was a usual reaction to her existence.

The brunette shrugged her shoulders, after all, “I’m a teenager, we can change our minds.”

Out of all these celebrities, Rinka Ontarin is a person who can be reasoned with. That’s what she knows. “You were incredibly adamant about it even before the interrogation. Do you need me to find the recording, Ms. Randel?” Of course, there’s only so much trust she has in this troublemaker.

“That won’t be necessary.” But it’s true, many teenagers are still rather directionless regarding what they want to do in the future. “I just said that because I genuinely would never commit foul play for a mere position. Please understand me.” She just need to pass this interview.

“Then what brings you here?” It’s already strange for a girl whose strengths hold merit to not want to have such a position. It’s even weirder if that same girl with the same opinion decided to participate and passed the initial exam to get ahold of such a position. “Your honesty would be preferred.”

‘I guess it’s useless to hide it,’ letting out a sigh before she averted her eyes. “I’m here to guarantee victory to my friend, Rayne Ames.” This is more embarrassing to say out loud than she practised. “And to piss off the Walkis losers. They wanted me to participate before I transferred anyways.” She definitely made it worse, squeamish to see the older woman’s reaction.

Silence snared the two for a brief yet eternal moment.

“It’s a st--”

“But what happens if you win instead of Mr. Ames?” She questioned her.

The girl immediately responded with: “I’ll surrender the title to him of course.”

‘Sounds like some book Sophie gushed about 2 years ago,’ the brunette’s eyes still looked away from her own. ‘Where a girl does everything in her power for the guy she likes… but the guy betrayed her after achieving his goal.’

“Sounds pretty flimsy,” Rinka critiqued her reasoning. “But I’m serious! Believe me, Aunt-Ms. Ontarin!”

“You’re not skilled with words,” tilting her head. Barely dodging a bladed projectile aimed at her. 

“Are you challenging me?” Voice raised higher than usual, her hand reached into her robe. Ready to break into a duel. 

This is more like Darren, holding up her hands free of a wand. “Just convince me, and I won’t fail you.”

_ _ _

“You pass,” Kaldo waved off Rayne Ames. “Feel free to stay in the lounge up ahead. Mr. Wahlberg will return you to campus in 15 more minutes.” With a simple bow, the two left each other’s presence and with little effort. He returned to his quaint office in time and dialed a number on his rabbiphone.

“How was it?” He asked after getting the call through. “Why? It’s simple. Your message was sent through. Wanna hear it?”

“We both can’t have the same person can we? You’ve barely known her for a year compared to me. You will return her to me,” he repeated the words in the letter. “By the way, did you enjoy my gift?”

His face of intrigue was lost with a frown as the response. “Her assistant was the gift? And Renatus said someone did the job already.” It’s more than just delusional entitlement, it’s obsessive and insane as he continued listening. Further furrowing his brows at his theory. “That doesn’t add up. Her only encounter with the organisation was after he went missing as bait.”

_ _ _

Thrashing on the floor, helplessly was Rinka, unable to muster any strength to tear away the hands strangling her. She underestimated the extent of this brat’s magic. “I thought it… wasonlydispellin… g’dammit…” At this rate she might actually have to use it, tears welled up uncontrollably.

“fine… FINE!” her voice croaked out. “You pass!” 

“Really!?” Darren exclaimed, smacking back her strengths in like a sledgehammer. “Yay! Where do I go now? Or can I just go back on my own?”

Slowly, the older woman pointed forward, “there’s a lounge there. You should be whisked back in a few more minutes…”

“Thanks, Miss!”

‘What the hell!’ She cursed to herself as she watched the teen skip towards the other door. ‘She’s even more dangerous than Alexa.’

‘I can’t make the same mistake again.’

_ _ _ _ _

Can't wait for the next chapter to be released, it's nice. As of the writing of this, I'm still working on Ep 20 (probably repeated this a few times already lol).

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Hello! I'm new to Bad Bunny and now having fun catching up. It has been quite the delight to dive into to your magical posts, so thank you for sharing them with the world! I must ask, has there been any talk about the dick cheney muscle shirt Pat wears in Ep 1 part 3? For the life of my I canNOT understand where this one is coming from, except for a possible foreshadow of Pat getting shot? It's starting to feel like the biggest mystery of the show, so curious if you or others have/had thoughts

Anon! Welcome to the fandom and thank you for your compliments 😊

First, I'm going to mention the typo because if it was on purpose then yeah, why not, carry on but if it was accidental then who hasn't been there done that, right?

Anyway, thank you for giving me yet another opportunity to wax lyrical about Pat's shirts because they 👏🏼 are 👏🏼 magnificent 👏🏼.

So, the Dick Cheney shirt...

At first, like many others, I had no idea why they had used this shirt in the show - it seemed very random and out of place - but then I learnt the nuance of it (see below) and went a bit feral in my original post about it. As you said, the shirt can be interpreted as a foreshadowing of Pat getting shot...but also as a nod to the conversation Pat and Pran later have on the beach in ep 6 where Pat asks Pran if he were drowning would Pran help him...so when looked at it like this...it's a genius inclusion.

(For those who don't know, the shirt says: “I’d rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy” - Dick Cheney accidentally shot a lawyer during a quail hunt in 2006 whereas Ted Kennedy crashed a car into a river in 1969 and the woman in the car with him died.)

Is it the weirdest choice on the whole show? Perhaps...if we're looking at 'weird' being things seemingly unrelated to the show but has roots in some other time or culture. Three others immediately spring to mind are the 'Baseball Mom' shirt, the 'California' shirt and the 'Proud to be a Noles Hater' because they have very specific connotations to something else in a whole-ass different country and at first glance don't have anything to do with the story or characters...until you go looking. (click the links)

If forced to choose, I'd say the 'weirdest' choice is probably either the Dick Cheney or the Noles Hater shirt...but also they're so genius in their inclusion it's hard to say that they are actually 'weird' choices, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I'd love to know from the production team what came first - the shirts or the plot points - because I know the director, Aof, found a lot of clothes in charity shops...which makes me think that a lot of these shirts must have been serendipitously found. Which makes them even more mind-blowingly amazing. Like...imagine knowing the plot will include Pat getting shot and Pa nearly drowning therefore Pat asking Pran whether he would help him if he were drowning...and then Aof goes into a charity shop and sees that Dick Cheney shirt and either understands or discovers the references and knows it fits perfectly to the plot and to Pat's character trait of wearing such loud 'weird' shirts. (Or, I guess, the other way around, finding the shirt and then knowing they could manipulate the plot to make it make sense.) I mean... 🤯

For more shirts I went feral over see My top ten of Pat's shirts from Bad Buddy (revised edition to include some I hadn't analysed before I made the original list).

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 43, July 2016 - Inadequate election coverage by media, Increase in motiveless crime.

Kaoru starts this episode by saying how its still really hot. Joe mentions that its only going to get hotter over the next few weeks, and asks Kaoru if he hates Summer. Kaoru says he hates Summer and Winter. He prefers Spring and Autumn, and will absolutely not be attending any summer fireworks displays or other such summer events. Everyone has summer vacation time, so not matter where you go, its hot, and there are people everywhere. He hates this.

Kaoru then moves on to talk about the new single Utafumi, in particular the special site that has been set up for it. Upon entering the site, the phrase 3分10秒間の痛み (3mins10secs of pain) appears on screen. This short phrase gives off a kind of instant power, but Kaoru wonders what Joe actually thinks of the song. Firstly, says Joe, the song contains an effortless feel, and does have an instantaneous power to it. For some inexplicable reason, he also feels like the song is enjoyable to listen to. Joe also picks up on something that he said during his Rolling Stone interview with Kaoru the previous week, which is that Dir en grey is very multifaceted when it comes to expression. Just as there a many different angles from which to view a Picaso painting, Joe views Dir's music in the same way. He fell in love with its multi-dimensional sound after seeing the last tour and listening to Utafumi, and wants to delve deeper into it. Kaoru expresses his thanks at such words, and explains that Utafumi is a kind of step in the direction towards the new album. He asks everyone to look forward to that.

Next they welcome Tasai for the Tokyo Sports corner. The first thing Tasai does is apologise for Hiranabe bringing a young woman with him on the last show. To Tasai, its unthinkable to bring a girlfriend to work. Kaoru says he was honestly pretty shocked.

Tasai's first topic relates to the House of Councillors elections, and how all TV stations run election specials on the night after the election has finished. The tv personality Dave Spector has questioned why Japan never shows such election specials on TV before an election. Surely it would be better to get all the info out there to the voters before the election takes place? Joe elaborates on this problem by bringing up the movie 'Pacchigi!/Break through!', by director Izutsu Kazuyuki. Joe had talked with the producer of the movie, who is a Korean resident of Japan. The movie deals with the conflict between a Korean school in Japan and the local Japanese teens. The producer told Joe that advertising the movie was very tough. He had paid a lot of money to a certain tv station for a CM spot, and wanted to use a clip from the one of thr climaxes of the movie where the Korean female lead character (played by Sawajiri Erika) says to the Japanese boy who likes her, 'If you and I were to be together always, can you become Korean?'. Despite being approved by the ethics committee, the tv channel wouldn't accept it. When the movie was promoted on the radio, the director and producer pushed really hard to be able to play the Korean song 'Imjin River', which appears in the movie, but at the last minute, the radio station refused to play it. This illustrates that the media are the most conservative ones out there. Japan needs its media to change first before other change can happen. Tasai adds that there is no law forbidding detailed coverage before an election in Japan, this is entirely self imposed control. Although the likes of Ikegami Akira play an important role in bringing political issues to the forefront, there is still a large build up of frustration surrounding elections in Japan. Kaoru states that if the media did cover elections thoroughly before voting took place, they would be much easier to understand. Joe agrees, saying that if people developed an interest in the small details of the situation, it might be a catalyst for them to check out the actions of political parties in more depth. Kaoru replies that a lot more fishy businesses would come up to the surface if that was the case.

Tasai admits that there are other ways to get information, for example on the internet, but TV is still currently the big one. The only rule is that they are not allowed to tell viewers directly to vote for or not vote for a specific candidate. But there is nothing stopping them from presenting all the information there is, and telling viewers to make thier own decision before an election. Joe wonders which media outlet will ever be the first one to take this step. It will be a very important move if it happens. Tasai thinks it is currently still quite difficult for a tv station to be able to do this. He  also thinks that another important point in relation to the recent election is that young people didn't vote. Kaoru agrees, and says changes in the media would make everything easier to understand for them. Tasai says that in one previous House of Councillors election, the number of voters over age 60 was 12 million, wheras the number of voters in thier 20s in the same election was only 4million. The politicians are therefore always talking about the interests of the elderly..pensions etc, which people in thier 20s don't connect with. Tasai makes a plea for any listerners of this show who are in thier 20s to please go out and vote at election time. Kaoru echoes this sentiment. Joe say politics needs to be more future facing, and brings up the case of a country who did an experiment giving voting rights to 0 year old babies. Thier parents would vote for them in a way which they thought best represented thier future interests.

Kaoru coments that an online voting system is also needed to meet the reality of this younger generation. Tasai thinks that online voting will become a possibility in the near future. Joe comments that given the advanced state of technology in this day and age, an online voting system should not be that hard to organize. At the same time, Kaoru says he does enjoy going to vote in person at the local elementary school (*voting stations are often set up at elementary schools in Japan*), because he would never have any other opportunity to go into such a building, and he finds it quite nostalgic.

Tasai's next story is about a strange incident where a ballet teacher had her thumb cut off by a man. The man knew she would be alone at the ballet studio in the morning. He entered, strangled her till she passed out, and then cut off her thumb with a chisel. He must have had some kind of reason to do this, but no-one knows why. He apparently admitted he had wanted to cut off the little finger, but the ring finger got in the way, so he cut the thumb instead. Tasai doesn't understand why anyone would do this. No-one in the man's neighborhood knows anything about him, which makes him all the more odd. Kaoru comments that even though Japan is known for being a safe country, this kind of thing still happens. Joe asks Tasai if he has seen an increase in this kind of random crime in recent years as a reporter. Tasai says he definitely has. Crimes like murders etc used to be more clear cut in thier motives, such as wanting insurance money etc, but these days there seems to be a lot more thoughtless, maningless crime going on. Joe adds that a lot of these crimes have no apparent motive or end goal. Cases are also on the rise where crimes are commited against unrelated people. Tasai says this must have something to do with the environment people grow up in these days, but what exactly it is, he can't tell. This is unlike Hiranabe, who definitely had a motive for bringing that girl to the studio last week. *wink wink*.

To finish, Kaoru plugs the new jingle campaign, and says he might play some more entries on next week's show. Lastly, he wonders how Dobashi is doing in Rio and makes the realisation that if Dobashi never returns, Hiranabe will have to appear more often instead.

Songs - Dir en grey/Red Soil, Bauhaus/Hollow Hills, Dir en grey/Utafumi.

[wanderchyld]

Final PBIO/IOTNBO analysis and theory

This post is my final analysis and includes some questions I have as we go into the final weekend of one of the best dramas in history. It is VERY long as I consolidate and expand on my previous analysis and theories.

I also lost a big chunk of this post while I was working on the draft just a few hours before posting, resulting to this post as a little inconsistent. Excuse me if my points are messy and some points missing with some issues untouched (because I forgot 😭). I think most points can be linked back to my past theories so you can read up on them if you haven’t.

List of my theories before ep 14:

Do Heejae and the other woman

Moonyoung’s background and Go Daehwan

Head Nurse is NOT Do Heejae, she’s the previous housekeeper

Maybe Head Nurse really is Do Heejae

As usual, please note that anything I quote may be a mix of Netflix’s subs and my translation because I know Korean and Netflix tends to miss nuances sometimes.

Firstly, Park Ok Ran’s dead.

Let’s get this out of the way first. (You can read my first theory on her role in this whole saga.)

“She can’t come anymore.”

Can’t have her exposing Park Haengja. Or plot twist: she is alive and returns to save the trio from the villain 😆

No one’s memory is reliable

Not Kangtae’s as established in ep 6 that he didn’t remember his mother brought them to eat jjamppong because he’s the one who liked it, not Sangtae.

Not Sangtae’s. In spite of his good memory, it was established in ep 10 that he didn’t remember Kangtae saving him, so his memories can be flawed as well.

Therefore, not Moonyoung’s, and definitely not Go Daehwan’s.

There are few things that we can be sure because they are concurrent:

There was a female body in the basement that was disposed or disappeared.

The murderer of Taetae Bros’ mother wore Moonyoung’s mother’s a one-of-a-kind brooch.

There was a body in the reservoir.

Taetae Bros’ mother was the new housekeeper (I saw that some people disagree but here are the supporting screenshots).

There were definitely two women

My theory that there were 2 women in Moonyoung’s family still stands and I’m expanding on it.

Let’s look at the family photos first. There are multiple versions of the family photo, and I suspect they were taken at different times. Here they are in what I think is the chronological order.

1) Photo in the basement: Go Daehwan had full-rimmed glasses, Moonyoung wore a scarf and stood closer to him with his hand on her shoulder, and the lady wore a fully black high neck top with the brooch on the right.

Before the family moved in, on the day Go Daehwan showed the lady around the house, he was wearing the full-rimmed glasses, and the house looked lived in (fully furnished, fully decorated, shelves full). 

2) Go Daehwan’s photo: Go Daehwan had half-rimmed glasses, Moonyoung stood right in the middle and without the scarf, and the lady wore a blazer over a straight neckline blouse with the brooch on the right.

3) Park Haengja’s photo seems to be the same as Moonyoung’s: Go Daehwan with half-rimmed glasses, can’t tell whether Moonyoung was wearing a scarf or not but she sat nearer to the lady who wore the same blazer over a straight neckline blouse without the brooch.

Go Daehwan had half-rimmed glasses when he realised his wife killed Taetae Bros’ mother.

Photos are evidences of relationships. In a group photo, the people who are closer would pose closer to each other. These family photos tell us that Go Daehwan and Moonyoung were actually close, and showed us the progression of Moonyoung’s relationship with the woman.

But why were multiple photos taken? If they were the same woman, why are they still hiding the woman’s face in the photos?

When Go Daehwan killed his wife, he said, “If I die, my daughter will become a monster like you.”

Why was it “my daughter” and not “our daughter?” It’s even odder for Koreans because being a very collectivist society, they don’t claim people or objects as mine. They say “our country,” “our father,” “our daughter” to show unity even when they actually mean “my country,” “my father,” “my daughter.”

Moonyoung insisted she’s an orphan. Technically, when one biological parent dies, the child is an orphan (single orphan). So perhaps Moonyoung’s not wrong. And as explored in my second theory post, she might have been referring to her biological mother. The abusive woman was probably her stepmother.

Go Daehwan told Director Oh that his wife loved Moonyoung “terribly. Very terribly,” and we have Moonyoung who doesn’t want a child to not get jealous over Kangtae’s affection. Judging by the family photos (Moonyoung posing closer to the woman each time), perhaps the stepmother was jealous of the father-daughter relationship and became obsessed with Moonyoung.

Would a child be afraid of their parent because they didn’t want to be hated? I was just afraid my mother would scold me (which was a lot). Right, we can argue that her mother was abusive, but this is something to think about.

Park Haengja: stepmother and crazy aunt

Bluebeard the French folklore, which ep 6 was based on, is about a man who married several times as he killed his disobedient wives. According to Wikipedia, his final wife had invited her sister and others over for a party before she snuck away to explore the forbidden room. Bluebeard found out and was about to kill her on the spot when her sister and brothers arrived to kill Bluebeard.

It was also in ep 6 when Taetae Bros moved in that they specifically had a shot of the dolls in Moonyoung’s old room (the brothers’ new room). I mentioned this previously: one male doll as Go Daehwan, two female dolls in similar dresses as Moonyoung’s mother and stepmother, and one small female doll.

You can see the two dolls behind little Moonyoung in her memory of her father reading her a book.

The dolls are a representation of the Go family in the house because in ep 7, only the small female doll (Moonyoung) was left, and I think there are 2 more new figurines as Taetae Bros on that cabinet but I can’t be bothered to search for a clearer shot 😁

When Go Daehwan strangled little Moonyoung, afraid she would become like her mother, they featured one of the dolls in the shot.

The point of mentioning the dolls is: Moonyoung’s mother wore a similar dress as the dolls in most of the flashbacks.

Ep 13 was based on the Korean folklore The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon and its popular movie adaptation The Tale of Two Sisters (2003). IOTNBO has more links to this story than “the bystander is worse than the abuser.”

In the movie, Moon Geunyoung’s character frequently dressed in floral patterns (like the dolls’ and Moonyoung’s mother’s dresses).

In both the folklore and the movie, the sisters were named after rose and lotus flowers. In the folklore, it’s the sister that died who was named after the rose flower. In the movie, it’s the surviving sister that was named after the rose flower. The rose is also a motif of Moonyoung’s mother.

The flower language of rose is love and passion. Personally, considering how Moonyoung always thought of her mother when she brushed her hair, and her love for a head pat, I think the rose also symbolises her mother’s "affection."

The movie is a story of two sisters who were abused by their stepmother so badly that one of them died. As it turns out, the remaining sister developed dissociative identity disorder (DID; the same disorder as the patient Yoo Sunhae) with two other personalities: her dead sister (Moon Geunyoung’s character) and her stepmother.

I take this as a lead that Moonyoung has a stepmother, who also happens to be her aunt obsessed with her sister. Wicked Witch of the West (WWOTW) coveted Wicked Witch of the East’s (WWOTE) ruby shoes; perhaps the aunt wanted to be in her sister’s shoes, figuratively AND literally.

Now here’s another “coincidence” from the same:

Left: Moon Geunyoung. Right: Im Soojung (sister with DID).

The story Go Daehwan read to little Moonyoung mentioned a bad wizard that wasn’t invited to the birthday party so he went to the castle.

The story Go Daehwan read to little Moonyoung mentioned a bad wizard that wasn’t invited to the birthday party so he/she went to the castle to cause trouble. 

Glinda the Good Witch of the North described WWOTW as worse than WWOTE.

Go Daehwan, who had recognition and memory impairment, said his wife has an angelic face but a devil lives within. Perhaps he remembers two persons as one.

We learnt from Sangin that 1) Do Heejae came from a prestigious family of medical professionals, 2) she dropped out of 3rd year of med school, and 3) she cut ties with everyone in her family. Could she have a sister in nursing? Could she have cut ties with her family because they cray cray (or the good old "you’ll starve with a creative career")?

Park Haengja has not claimed herself as Do Heejae, and the woman in the family photos are still covered.

Following these, we can assume that Park Haengja’s the bad witch who is neither Do Heejae nor Moonyoung’s birth mother. She’s the stepmother and crazy aunt (I cover more about the sisters in the next section).

There’s always a crazy aunt or uncle.

It’s just too easy if Park Haengja really is Do Heejae. I’d also be disappointed in the writer if she takes this route because it’s cliché villain and this is not a makjang drama with illogical plot twists. It would also be a step back from all the efforts this show has been making to dispel stigma against mental illness.

So they were sisters and...

...one of them died. In water. 

As per my first theory, the WWOTW and WWOTE are sisters in some adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. WWOTE died under a house then disappeared into thin air, and WWOTW pretended to die in contact of water but she returned disguised as a good person. Sound familiar?

The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon is a Korean folklore of a stepmother who abused two sisters to their death. She had her biological son push Janghwa the older sister into a pond and she drowned. The remaining sister couldn’t take the abuse any longer and drowned herself in the same pond.

The song “Oh My Darling Clementine” has a few variations but here’s the traditional lyrics (I removed repeated stanzas):

Oh my darling, oh my darling Oh my darling, Clementine You are lost and gone forever Dreadful sorry, Clementine In a cavern, in a canyon Excavating for a mine Dwelt a miner, forty-niner And his daughter, Clementine Light she was and like a fairy And her shoes were number nine Herring boxes, without topses Sandals were for Clementine Drove she ducklings to the water Ev'ry morning just at nine Hit her foot against a splinter Fell into the foaming brine Oh my darling, oh my darling Oh my darling, Clementine You are lost and gone forever Dreadful sorry, Clementine Ruby lips above the water Blowing bubbles, soft and fine But, alas, I was no swimmer So I lost my Clementine How I missed her! How I missed her How I missed my Clementine But I kissed her little sister I forgot my Clementine

These stories are all about 2 sisters and dying in water. Whether they’re sisters or not, a woman died and she’s related to Go Daehwan somehow.

The Murder of the Witch of the West

Do Heejae’s novel hold huge clues. Here’s my translation of an excerpt from volume 9 shown in ep 10.

… __’s scalp skinned with a hunting knife without hesitation. The corpse’s lips sewed in a fence stitch. The body dismembered with a hand axe and thrown into the trunk. Yooyoung persistently as she watched the back of the West Witch leave unhurriedly after finishing the killing and leaving notes.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Why do you choose to kill happy people only?"

But as usual, there was no answer. Was it because of Yooyoung’s tenacity to catch the West Witch? Yooyoung always sees the West Witch at the crime scenes. A faceless woman who always observed Yooyoung work hard on finding the criminal before leaving abruptly. Yooyoung began to look at the crime scene from the criminal's perspective. Why here? Why kill by stabbing this way? As she simulates the crime, Yooyoung finds herself assimilating with the criminal. She felt a thrill from imagining that she stabbed and cut the victim. She’s getting confused. Is she a detective or a murderer?

Around the same time, a murder occurred. The West Witch mimicked a passage from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, everything was in line with the Wicked Witch of the West, right down to the signature butterfly design. However, Yooyoung somehow felt guilty.

...

The suspect was a middle-aged woman in her 40s.

Yeah.

The misunderstanding

Othello killed his wife because he mistook his wife for committing adultery.

Romeo and Juliet mistook each other’s plan. Romeo died from drinking real poison, and Juliet faked her death before realising the mistake and killed herself with Romeo’s dagger.

Janghwa was framed and wrongfully accused by her stepmother for being unchaste. Her father believed it. When Janghwa ran away, her stepmother and stepbrother chased after her, and her stepbrother (under her stepmother’s instruction) pushed her into a pond to drown to her death.

What did Go Daehwan misunderstand? What misunderstanding did his recognition and memory impairment cause? Why was his wife being crazy but looked so shocked when he turned her around?

I do not believe that his memory of killing his wife is a complete memory because it has been mentioned multiple times that his memories are corrupted. I think it’s fragments of different memories pieced together.

What’s going on with Park Haengja?

There are a few possibilities.

Park Haengja is Do Heejae’s sister who coveted her sister’s position and grew obsessed with her sister’s novel.

Do Heejae’s Moonyoung’s biological mother and Park Haengja’s her stepmother.

OR Moonyoung’s biological mother died when she was born, Do Heejae’s the stepmother (abusive but still her mother because she raised Moonyoung), and Park Haengja’s the obsessive aunt.

She got so obsessed she came to believe she’s Do Heejae.

So obsessed she was always keeping an eye on Moonyoung to fulfil the prophecy that is the novel. ("You’re my greatest creation," and volume 3, shown in episode 10 with Park Ok Ran’s copy, has passages that describes episode 3.)

Park Haengja’s the one who killed Taetae Bros’ mother (screenshots of Do Heejae vs murderer below).

She took advantage of Go Daehwan’s cognitive impairment and instigated him to kill the real Do Heejae. She’s the one who saw Go Daehwan kill the woman and hide her in the basement.

Do Heejae wore her butterfly brooch on right, the murderer wore it on the left. Do Heejae always wore red nail polish and a gold rose ring, the murderer did not (although she could have had them removed if it’s premeditated).

Moonyoung’s mother:

Murderer:

Moonyoung’s mother:

Murderer:

Clearly Do Heejae didn’t wear her brooch all the time, so it would have been easy to steal the brooch. However, Do Heejae wore her ring all the time, so Park Haengja can only get the ring after she dies and "truly” become Do Heejae.

End.

I think I recovered most of my points but they’re still feel incomplete 😭

Let me know your thoughts 😊

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Moriarty 8 - 11 (FINAL) | HypMic 12 - 13 (FINAL) | Taiso Samurai 7 - 9 | Akudama 9 - 12 (FINAL)

Hopefully I’ll be able to get on to all that backlog soon, because...I don’t want it to keep accumulating and Skate-Leading Stars (first winter 2021 anime) already has an advance 1st ep. up...

Moriarty 8

(Moriarty 8 notes deleted accidentally…)

Moriarty 9

If you want a modern equivalent to the Baker Street Irregulars, then I’d suggest you look this way *jabs finger at Odd Jobs Yamada (from HypMic)*.

These CGI background horse and carriages are…kind of distracting…

I’m guessing back in those days, the Irregulars were better than Google at finding info…because Google didn’t exist until the internet did.

Moriarty 10

Just this ep and one more until the end…at least, until spring 2021.

Wow, the use of colour here is really striking!

White lilies mean…purity/chastity…?

I’ve never heard of “bending someone’s ear” until now. It means to talk to someone, especially to ask a favour or to talk at length.

Probatio diabolica: the devil’s proof. I didn’t even know that was a concept until now…(I never once studied law, as you can tell.)

“William” isn’t normally shortened to “Liam”…It’s normally “Will”…also, notice all the footprints on the floor…

Moriarty 11 (FINAL)

Last ep. before spring 2021.

LOL, kabedon.

The fishy thing about Brits is that they’ve named things across the world names from Britain. I know there’s a Doncaster which isn’t anywhere near Britain, for one thing…

Observe the weird finger-like marking made by one of the bloodstains and the scratches on the suitcase. The latter was probably forced open.

Considering the number of signs the killer left, he was clearly in a hurry…

Well, based on that shoeprint we can find the killer if we can find traces of blood on his shoe.

“Duram” (sic).

Ah! If it was raining in Durham, then there would be traces of mud on the killer’s shoes. I remember early on in Detective Conan Shinichi, then newly shrunk, deduced Agasa was running in the rain based on the mud on his pants…this is similar.

Chloral (hydrate…?).

The “washroom” (apparently a Canadian term, the British term is “water closet”) has privacy and a place to get rid of the evidence, to some extent.

What about the rest of Eddie’s clothes?

Considering there are still 5 minutes of the ep. left…there’s going to be some kind of stinger for the next season. I can feel it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait…Director Holmes??? Y’mean, Mycroft?! That is a good stinger! See you next time.

HypMic 12

“Ever since I was born, there was never a time I’d felt I’d accomplished something.” – Aw, Doppo, sweetpea (<- this blogger calls people “sweetpea” when they’re feeling lots of moe feels for them). Please don’t say that. You’ve accomplished more than enough in your life!

…Oh, almost didn’t notice it until Hifumi hid behind Doppo and the angle changed to confirm the jacket was on the bed, but Hifumi doesn’t have his jacket on.

I think I saw a tweet that said something about a wall being wrecked (specifically “Wall: Ow…”) but I wasn’t sure of the context, so I saved it in my bookmarks…LOL, so that’s what it means?

Samatoki, I know you don’t like Ichiro…but please stop trying to preach what his 2nd character song says in the title…(i.e. Break the Wall, LOL)

Jyuto’s very much a “I’ll leave this problem to the other guy” guy.

When the Funi subs say “dame”, I think Samatoki is just referring to an “onna” (woman). It’s a bit of an odd choice, really…although I can’t go and interrogate whoever was responsible for it. I don’t have the authority or the contacts that will allow me to.

This is not the time for fighting one another!!!

Notably, in the manga, Jakurai was going to chaffeur Hifumi and Doppo to their place, but then he had to go to work and so they rode the train with their prize money. This “run from Special Forces” ending is better, I think, since people got grumpy at Jakurai for having to abandon them with the money.

“…permission to cover a story.” - Permission from…who?

*screams* I was thinking Tom, Rex and Iris worked for a foreign government! They work for Ichijiku – why didn’t I think of that?!

LOL, I couldn’t even tell what Tom was saying until I played it back…it’s English, just…said in a spot where you don’t expect it.

“…that scares me.” – This may be nitpicky of me, but osoreru is actually a derivative of osore (fear), so “it strikes fear in me”…? “It strikes fear in my heart”? What would sound right…?

Go, host mode Hifumi! (...but does that imply host mode Hifumi is the only “version” of Hifumi able to rap? Certainly, he was able to do Wrap and Rap without his jacket, right…?)

You can tell Tom still respects Jakurai after all this time because he (the former) calls him (the latter) “Sensei”. Also, this’ll be interesting, we haven’t seen many mics and speakers beyond the standard bad guy ones (depicted in both the anime and the manga).

My gosh! All I knew of this song was that m-flo, also responsible for Human Lost’s theme song (and notably they’re a hip hop group with techno influences), was responsible for this song. Man, this s*** slaps! It’s great! (Sorry, I’ve just never really had the chance to capitalise on all the info I gathered on EDM DJs when talking in terms of things from Japan…m-flo is basically the only act I know which does that, so I’m really excited…can’t you tell from how verbose I’m getting in this note?)

That’s interesting that Matenrou won and Tom still took the gold chair symbolism to represent him and the Secret Aliens as the victor instead.

Iris’s parts are awesome. M-flo has a female vocalist and so I’d assume Iris takes on Lisa’s (m-flo’s vocalist’s) parts.

…Hmm, Gentaro’s made a reference to the track “Me Against the World”, has he?...Maybe.

I’m not quite sure, but I think Ramuda said “majo” (witch) when he was referring to Beauty and the Beast in the English subs.

…gosh, what is up with that airhorn…? Still, next time is the last time. See you on Christmas…no, Boxing Day.

HypMic 13 (FINAL)

This is the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning…y’know, considering how stuff trended on Twitter, I’d say this anime’s gonna get a 2nd season, but you can’t really say that until it actually happens. I mean, Boueibu is much less popular than HypMic and that got a 2nd season…

This is the 1st episode where I woke up early enough to watch without spoilers and had no obligations to place over it, so…this is exciting, in its own sense, but in a sense, it could also be called “profoundly disappointing” because this experience is only available to me as of the final episode.

One of the tweets I saw a few weeks back came to mind – someone became interested in sakuga houkai (terrible animation, literally “animation collapse”) because of HypMic…I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing…

…Dude, you probably shouldn’t answer a call from someone who just revealed themselves to be a traitor last episode…*sweatdrops*

(Spoiler for rest of franchise) Hmm…Dice’s face is pretty straight. Assuming at this point we knew Dice was Otome’s son, this is a good poker face from him…!

This thing about gangs was mentioned in their profiles (although the words used implies they “went delinquent”), so it actually doesn’t surprise me.

I wonder if this subway exists in the mainline story…?

According to the next ep. preview I saw on Twitter, TDD will reform to take down the Secret Aliens. I’m not sure if that was a guess or whether that’s true, so I’m waiting for the shoe to drop on it.

Samatoki-san, not -sama. Hmm…

There was definitely the word “team” in Dice��s line, so it’s “what the legendary team was made of”.

…oh gosh…they’re still using that airhorn…?

Again with the play on “lonely thunder”. It’s a really fun pun, but one I’d like to see in the rest of the series more.

Notably, Iris’s rap in English missed the word “charisma” where it could have fit (unless I missed reading it the first time).

Note Samatoki does actually use the word “shinsensa” (freshness), so there’s no lie there.

I still love how much they went in on Rex’s theme, even in his raps.

Huh, that’s new. Never seen a tag team like this before.

It seems Tom’s signature is using a lot of English, which makes it easy for us English/Japanese pair translators.

Saburo didn’t actually say “Ichi-nii”, did he…?

…based on the rock intro, this is Rhyme Anima, the OP, or something that sounds similar. What I’d need to confirm this is the “nautilus” line and the “ends corruption” line, which are the OP’s two biggest tells for AMQ.

“rainmaking” – Hmm, another link from Gentaro to Rei. This might be a different part of Rhyme Anima (OP) that wasn’t used as the OP proper.

“this white light invites and heals” (<- paraphrased) – Sounds like Sensei, alright!

…now that (rainbow bit). That’s sakuga!

*a silhouette appears* - Oh nooooooooooooooo! Now they‘ve done it! They’ve included Rei! That’s more than enough spoilers to last a lifetime for y’all anime-onlys!

I wish someone would work on this collaboration between Saburo and Riou…

Hmm…what is the series endgame? Putting in Dice as the new ruler??? I mean, Dice is the worst possible politician ever. He’s far too lax about things.

*Nemu enters* - No! Nemu!

Not only is Iris a “ramen shop owner”, it’s Tom’s favourite food…No wonder ramen has significance to her.

…ooh! A new song! Update: I don’t know what this song’s name is, although it probably will become clear what its name is on the 13th. I’ll keep my eye on Twitter in case the answer is there.

…I knew it was far too early to say if there was an s2 – the DVD’s live events go until September 5th and the 2nd DRB finishes in March. That almost felt like a stinger right there. Oh well, I’m more than happy to call this anime a success, even if I would call it the worst of the arms of the franchise. All HypMic’s anime had to do was deliver fun, before anything else, and it delivered on that front. See you around!

Taiso Samurai 7

Anime burnout means I’m coming back to the anime after the day it finishes.

This dancing scene is kind of like the one at the start of ep. 2 of IWGP, except it has the owl to represent the setting as well as the dance stage.

Leo doesn’t seem to know kanji or katakana, only hiragana.

Even though this part of the anime is set in London, the characters are still speaking Japanese (lel…?).

LOL, Edward Scissorhands much?

LOL, these background gossips are like the Plastics from Mean Girls…haha.

…LOL, that’s not one of those dismounting moves, is it? It’s just kind of…jumping off the bar.

Lookit how Leo’s sticker is 90 deg. sideways from what it should be, haha.

I don’t think it’s true that Olympic gymnasts have never failed. Like other people at the top of their game, they’re probably failed millions of times, but only outside the view of most of the world. Persistence and passion are what’s key to becoming the best at what you are, no matter what field you’re in.

Now Aragaki’s what I call a “determinator” (see TV Tropes on what that is).

Taiso Samurai 8

Notably, the word used for “clothes” is specifically for Western clothing, like dresses.

Well, now we know why Leo can do those stretches…

They’ve clearly sped up the dance here, but…it’s basically the same sort of movements Yuri on Ice used to suck me in. I’m here for it!

Leo seems to be the type who tries to push away his worries by distracting people (including himself) with other things…I see. I didn’t have much of a grasp of his character beforehand.

Britney! F*** you, Britney!

Ah, that must be the (a?) fabled owl of Ikebukuro. I’ve never actually been to Ikebukuro…the closest I got was Akihabara (to memory) and even then, that was for electronics, not anime…so I’ve never seen the owl statue I’ve been talking about close up.

Rei does kind of look like her mother like this.

Ah! Rei and Kitty have a pair look now! “Twinsies”, they call it.

Amakusa’s head is located right next to Leo’s butt, so I end up staring at it…LOL.

The Hoover mission.

“I <3 Ninja”, LOL.

LOL, “Nyapoo!”

*sighs* The problem with being multi-talented is that you’re going to be told to one day put one passion above the others, even if you don’t want that.

LOL, you can be a ninja with this WikiHow article. (I was looking for Kitty’s quote, but found that instead. It seems to be a quote from one of Tomoyo’s movies.) Update: I was right.

There’s a movie in the back where the title is “Black Rainmaker”. (Tomoyo, I presume) Mifune is the 1st person credited.

Considering this is 2003…you won’t be on Mars in 2013, Kitty.

Wow, a tape! That brings me back to 2003, indeed.

Charlie’s Angels…so that’s what the tape was.

LOL, a shoebill.

“blade in your heart” – That would refer to the character for “ninja”, which has a blade over a heart. Y’know Kiss Shot Acerola Heart-Under-Blade (from Monogatari), yeah? Like that.

…you might think emails were out of place in 2003, but a virus from an email caused me to be an avid reader and that virus was unleashed around the late 90s – early 2000s.

LOL, Kitty’s cat belt buckle.

You said it, Rei. You said it.

Taiso Samurai 9

Lausanne, Switzerland.

I noticed one of the boxes at the start of the OP says “Horizontal Bars”, rather than some random name to make the boxes look like they were discarded.

Someone encoded the video funny…

LOL, BB’s getting possessive of his territory.

Fuku-chan the fukurou (owl) in Ikebukuro…LOL.

LOL, randomly there’s a skeleton with a hat in the background of Britney’s clinic.

Notably, one of the wall hangings says “heart” on it – alternatively, “soul”.

Notably, Atlanta was the 1996 Summer Olympics…there is no 1997 Lausanne Olympics, as far as I know.

Akudama 9

I watched the part where it glitches twice and I can’t quite figure out what that circular symbol is…maybe it’s Hacker’s symbol…?

Ah! Only now they properly confirm Swindler used to work in the Seal centre.

“Life that never dies is defective.” – Doctor

Does that mean Doctor is actually older than she looks, due to plastic surgery…?

Marker? What marker?

Apparently that flower is a cherry blossom…according to Detective Conan.

…I know this anime wasn’t made in America (it wouldn’t be “anime” otherwise), but Anime Feminist is going to have a field day with this one…if they haven’t abandoned it already due to their idea of morals.

…now I can even see parallels between HypMic’s authorities and Akudama’s. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Why did this have to happen when I’m chief?” – Sounds like…basically every authority during COVID and BLM, to be honest.

See? Akudama likes the S word. I told you.

I haven’t watched The Shining, but reading the synopsis, you can figure out why Cutthroat is the way he is…sort of.

How does the iconic quote go? “Heeeeeeeeeeeere’s Danny!” (or something…?)

They even copied the iconic eye shot! There you go!

Way to take a guy out (with the door, LOL).

…with all this killing, I can see why Akudama Drive was only in one magazine now. (Then again, HypMic was in basically all of them and that also has a tonne of problems…)

Akudama 10

万死 literally means “10000 deaths”.

Babel.

That police chief is such a mood, LOL.

I can see why people didn’t recognise Swindler, but Courier never changes his look, so…uh…

You can’t become a police chief without a sense of justice, no?

“Since when did you know that I’m not-“ - *facepalms*

Is this what they call an “ass-kickin’ Christmas”? (LOL)

Y’know, Sister, you could just do the whole “wherever you are, I’m also seeing the same sky as you” thing some other anime do.

Notably, there are shide (the paper strips) and a rope over the vault…they really do treat the shinkansen and its immortal children as a single god, huh?

Hmm? They don’t care about Sister anymore? Just Brother? (Somewhere along the way, the priorities must have shifted.)

In the end, the best ship is Brawler and Hoodlum (lel).

Akudama 11

One more ep after this. I’m gonna miss this anime, even if it was crazy over-the-top and I didn’t finish it until after the day it ended.

I think the scariest scene in all of Akudama Drive is the one where the “cleaner” tosses the girl aside.

“This nowhere place!” – Around this time, the bunny and shark’s shirts say “morning”/”afternoon” (shark) and “evening” (bunny).

The blue bird of happiness…literally. That character on the birds is the one for “happy”.

…LOL, that one glitched Courier looks more like Cutthroat.

Hacker’s drone matches Courier’s head angles, LOL.

I guess if you think you’re falling in Kanto, you’re falling in Kanto and if you think you’re floating (like Courier did), you float. I always liked that concept.

War Games. Now the title makes sense!

…but they can be together if they stay here in Kanto as vessels for the citizens? (That sounds mighty antagonistic of me, but…that logic does compute.)

Maybe swindlers play games with the truth…? (What an interesting concept.)

“Just fine.” – I think Hacker needs a “This is fine” meme.

“We can hear your heart talking.” – It means something like “We can hear you spouting your true intentions.”

“…worth every last penny…” – That’s a weird thing to say for someone whose life got changed by 500 yen…Just goes to tell you how American the subbers can be sometimes.

Swindler’s smug face is so good, LOL.

Akudama 12 (FINAL)

This episode isn’t named after a movie. It’s named after the anime itself.

The TV says “Please watch away from the TV”, i.e. stand back from the TV while you watch.

“They came and stole the offerings…” – At this point, bunny’s shirt says “freedom” and shark’s says honpou, meaning “wild, uninhibited, rampant, extravagant”.

…where did Shikoku come from? Is that where Swindler and Sister landed after they tried going to the moon?

Ohh! That Christian imagery! That’s scary!

Is Akudama Drive a tragedy? No, I think…on the contrary, it’s a story of hope.

LOL, “s*** guy”.

I thought the girl had a bomb. Turns out she has a gun, which is…far worse, come to think of it.

Instead of red characters which say things about the situation, now Shark and Bunny have Hacker’s symbol on them.

There’s no way anyone who wasn’t immortal would survive the attack Courier took…

…why is it that falling over represents vulnerability in children in all of these stores where a war has happened and/or there’s a chase? Hmm?

Wow, Sister did everything with heels on…?!

Anyways, that was a fun time. See you next time!

[calamity-bean]

Barkskins (2020)

Lately I’ve been posting some gifs and such from a new show based (loosely, my impression is) on the Annie Proulx novel of the same name. I haven’t read the novel and knew very little about the show before I started, but I thought I’d post a bit about my impressions thus far, as of episode 1.04.

So! Barkskins is a period drama set in the late 17th century in what is now Quebec, centered around a remote little French settlement called Wobik. There are multiple plot threads at work, but the initial hook driving the narrative is the suspicious massacre of another nearby settlement. This mystery wraps around the lives of the varied people competing to survive and thrive in this corner of New France.

Short and spoiler-free opinion: I'm enjoying it so far! The tone is fairly dark and gritty, always with an edge of danger and even some hints of a sort of religious/folk horror element at work (we’ll see if that comes to anything meaningful, I suppose). The cast has a lot of talent, and based on what I’ve read, there does appear to have been a serious effort to value and involve indigenous voices throughout the creative process. Moreover, it’s a historical setting that interests me, and I like some of the characters a lot. I suspect that one of the biggest dangers this show runs, giving its fairly wide scope and limited number of episodes, is that it may fail to deliver on / fully develop everything it’s hinting at or touching upon... but we’ll see.

Longer description and opinions, potentially with vague/general spoilers, under the cut.

(there is a lot of focus on trees in this show. you may not have expected that from the name.)

Anyone who follows me would be forgiven for thinking that there are only two characters in this show, because I’ve only been posting the same two over and over. Shockingly, there are, in fact, more. Prominent ones so far include:

A traumatized young girl (Lola Reid) who is apparently one of the only survivors of the aforementioned massacre, yet no one recognizes her as being one of the people at that settlement.

Rene Sel and Charles Duquet (Christian Cooke and James Bloor), indentured servants newly arrived from France.

Claude Trepagnay (David Thewlis), an eccentric but ambitious French settler, and Mari (Kaniehtiio Horn), the underappreciated Wendat woman who lives with him.

Hamish Goames and Yvon Kirkpatrick (Aneurin Barnard and Zahn McClarnon) of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who are investigating the disappearance of a colleague. Goames is British, Yvon Anishinaabe.

Melissande and Delphine (Tallulah Haddon and Lily Sullivan), filles du roi brought from France to become wives of settlers.

Mathilde Geffard (Marcia Gay Harden), a no-nonsense and very observant French innkeeper, along with other townspeople of Wobik.

As you can see, most of the lead characters are white Europeans. Given the history of this era and the premise of the show, colonialism (and the conflicts/violence thereof) is naturally a major and inescapable part of the narrative. I was unsure, going in, how the show was going to handle the portrayal of Native characters and cultures. It’s not a topic I can offer personal insight into, as I’m white and not very educated in the irl history/cultures of this setting anyway, but it is a topic I care about. So I looked online to see what better informed people had to say.

This article by The 1491s’ Migizi Pensoneau discusses his involvement with the show (including his initial skepticism) and highlights the indigenous voices who contributed to Barkskins — including writers, actors, historians, and community leaders and advisors, both in the writing room and on location. In Pensoneau’s words:

“Barkskins” is still historical fiction told for television, involving multiple stakeholders and stories, and made within the studio world. In other words, it’s not perfect. But the Native spaces and Native people depicted were handled with just as much care, time, and investment as every other aspect of the show. Instead of a Hollywood producer shorting Native representation based on profitability, we placed as much control as possible into the hands of the communities depicted. The integrity with which we approached this task tells a better story, and I’m excited for everyone to see indigenous characters and communities portrayed on television in a new way.

Steeve Gros-Louis, director of the Huron-Wendat Sandokwa dance troupe, has also spoken positively about his experience of the show’s approach to his culture. Overall, I would definitely say that the story thus far has been told primarily through the lens of colonists. But there are characters from multiple indigenous cultures of the region, two of whom are leads, and general reactions to the portrayal of these characters/cultures seem positive.

(this shot was SO sepia before i adjusted it, like i did a lot and yet it is still very sepia, fair warning that this show’s indoor scenes often suffer from a chronic case of Everything In History Was Sepia.)

Most of the lead characters are also male, though there are about five prominent women so far. (...Honestly, I’ve watched period dramas with fewer.) Among these, I think an interesting phenomenon the show’s chosen to explore is the filles du roi — young women who’ve traveled from France at the king’s expense specifically to provide wives for the overwhelmingly male population of early settlers. These young women differ in personalities and motives but all seem to be very much alone in the world, and it seems clear that they have chosen this path in hope of better opportunities but are also anxious about how their lives in this “new world” will turn out. The show is closely following the journeys of two of them in particular (ambitious Melissande and shy Delphine, both of whom have secrets), and while it is a bit tiring that women in historical fiction are so often defined by their relation to a man, I appreciate that this storyline is about the wives themselves.

Personally, my two favorite characters so far are the Company men: Goames and Yvon. Goames is very much the sort of character I’m often drawn to, in terms of his manner and apparent worldview: “the implacable sort, rigid in his thoughts and actions,” serious and decent and imo with hints of a storyline challenging his loyalty to his institution, which has in the past been the sort of storyline I very much enjoy. (I uh, would be lying if I said I wasn’t also simply... drawn to Mr. Barnard in general.) Yvon stands out for his dry snark and eloquence and for the bigotry he runs into as a Native man operating within white spheres, which casts a pall over his generally unflappable demeanor, and I have a lot of curiosity about his background. Their partnership is a highlight of the show, imo, and I’m quite interested in where their storyline will go re: their individual character arcs as well as the overall narrative. I’m also particularly fond of Mari and Delphine.

(my BOYS! this is not an actual still from the show but look at Aneurin. look at his silly pose.)

As far as the content goes, I don’t think it’s been too egregious so far, but be advised:

Primary warning is for violence. It’s not overly gory, but there is fighting, blood, bodies, etc. One act of violence I will warn for specifically: in the first episode, a group of Iroquois men are killed (offscreen), and their bodies are displayed hanged and impaled. This is clearly presented as an atrocity, and the bodies are mostly shown from a distance so that they’re small and indistinct, but there are a couple close-up shots.

Also, as I’ve mentioned, characters such as Yvon and Mari do face racist treatment/remarks from white characters.

There has been a nongraphic instance of attempted sexual assault, which was successfully rebuffed.

So... yeah! At time of writing, half the season has aired — it airs Monday evenings on Nat Geo and goes up on Hulu Tuesday afternoon, and they seem to be airing two episodes a week, which is frankly annoying, I’d rather get either a proper savor or a proper binge. The reviews I’m seeing online are mostly positive (I’ve seen at least one trot out the dreaded “It’s the next GoT!” line, which I think is inaccurate re: its tone/focus and also, like, why are people still trying to say that as though it’s a good thing), and there seems to be a small little fandom getting started here on Tumblr. (Not that I’ve really met many of y’all yet. If you’re reading this, hi!) And while Proulx’s novel covers some 300 years — it’s one of those generational sagas, I gather, following characters and their distant descendants — thus far I’ve seen no indication that the show is going to be set up that way. I recall reading something that said they’d basically taken a small part of the novel and massively expanded the characters, etc., so for now, at least, I’m going to assume the show is staying within this one slice of history.

Anyway, though. I’ll admit I’ve not been devoting 100% of my attention to any given ep, as I gotta work on other things while I watch, but so far, it’s intriguing, it’s got a number of actors and characters I like in it, and I appreciate learning that it had input from a variety of indigenous contributors. Overall, I intend to continue seeing where it goes!

[zijunyang]

Pop Music and Feminism: How Pop Celebrities except Taylor Swift and Beyoncé use their platforms to fight against social justice

Over the past years, there has been a growing norm of sexual assault and harassment towards women within the music industry or from other mainstream media. Such cases of women harassment have led to the development of various organizations, both locally and internationally, to root for women empowerment within societies. Consequently, female artists within the music industry have stood up against multiple cases of abuse and harassment directed towards them and their counterparts. They have been standing up against the vices through the music songs that they are writing and singing or through making use of the societal positions they are holding to influence others towards standing against the vices. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are two of the most well-known musicians when it comes to Pop culture and Feminism areas. However, there are a large number of other female artists who are using their voices to do the same thing — inspire and empower young girls all around the world.

Musicians like Janelle Monáe, Halsey, Grimes, FKA Twigs and Kacey Musgraves have been in the frontline in this battle in multiple ways; they have promoted feminism and girl power within the music industry through their songs and various initiatives they have championed. They have also been using lyrics and their person to encourage equality and discourse within society. They have been writing songs that are aimed at allowing women to express their anger and dissatisfaction confidently, show their pride as women and well as advocate for their freedom within the society.

Grimes

As one of my personal favorite artists of all time, Grimes's uniqueness and boldness really help her to get a place in the music industry nowadays. Her album sales or singles sales are not really pleasant, but she is considered one of the critics' favorites, especially when she released her album "Visions". The story behind the album "Visions" was described as completely dark. Two of her best friends died and she experienced an unforgettably horrible sexual harassment that made her scared of men for a while, which also created one of the greatest song of all-time "Oblivion". The message of this song is extremely important for the women nowadays because it talks about something that most women have been through. Pitchfork named this song as the second best song of the decade, which is also the best song of the decade as a female leading song. NME ranked this song number 229 of 500 Greatest Songs of all time. What makes this song so special is the message and her expressions. It is absolutely amazing to see Grimes's whole process of getting through her terrible nightmare in this song. She started this song by expressing her fear of men. "Cause someone could break your neck, coming up behind you always coming and you'd never have a clue." ("Oblivion" Grimes 2012).

That was not the only time Grimes decided to do something for women. Back in 2013, when she officially finished her Grimes World Tour, she spoke up against Sexism publicly. “I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if I did this by accident and I’m gonna flounder without them, or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers” (Grimes, 2013). While she was defending herself, Grimes actually pointed out an very horribly interesting situation for women in the music industry. She is a singer, as well as a producer, director and song writer, which is considered exceptional talented. Nonetheless, she claimed that men who are not even good at producing music would “offer help” without even asking Grimes’s opinions. This is not the first time that a celebrity talked about women in the music industry are underrated and are seen as “toys” being controlled over by men. Not all of them are brave enough to speak about it because may ruin their careers. Take Kesha as an example, she and Dr.Luke, a considered professional producer, had gone through a lot in the court. Kesha claimed that Dr.Luck had sexually offended during her early years of her career (which is the era of her albums “Animal” and the EP “Cannibal”). It took her years to confront to this and unfortunately Kesha did not get a glorious victory. Taylor Swift is dealing some similar problems recently with the 2 owners of her previous record company Big Machine Records. Female artists in the music industry have to work harder than male artists to get a place, and will still be underrated by them. Grimes may not influence or change the situation, but is definitely a great try and provided references for women who are planning to step into this music business industry.

Grimes is always bravely outspoken, and this is why I always believe she should have a higher place in the music industry for her to be able to make a real difference with her powerful thoughts and her fearless heart.

Janelle Monáe

During an interview, Janelle Monáe stated that she wrote the song in response to the threats that were directed towards her rights as “a woman, as a black woman, and as a sexually liberated woman.” During the interview, she mentions various lines within the particular song such as “Black girl magic, y’all can’t stand it, y’all can’t ban it…” she proceeds to quote the next line which states that “we gave you life, we gave you birth, we gave you God, we gave you earth.” Such lines are seen to be motivating women by reminding them of their worth in the society as well as how prominent their existence is to the community (Dworsky, 34). As a result, she is seen to be advocating for women’s empowerment and respect for women within society. Through her song ‘Django Jane,’ Janelle Monáe is seen in the video to be tackling interdisciplinary concepts of feminism that are embodying feminism, racism, and sexuality. In this track, Janelle Monáe talks about the power of a woman in conjunction with her accomplishments. The truck is promoting feminism and girl power by giving the women in the society strength, courage, power, and ability to stand against the vices that are channeled towards them.

Janelle Monáe, in another song, features another female ‘Grimes’ in the producing another song titled ‘Pynk’ in this song Janelle Monáe is sonically, aesthetically and lyrically articulating a vision of women liberation as well promotion of equality among all races within the society. Within the song, Janelle Monáe creates an environment where cis men are seen to be developing jealousy for not being established women. This she does by empowering women through the song by singing that, “cause boy, it’s cool if you got glue, we got the pynk.” All through the music video, Janelle Monáe is also seen to be paying homage to feminism being distancing women from boys as she gives various incidences where the two populations have different abilities (Dworsky, 34).

She as well motivates and encourages women by telling them that their abilities are way more superior to those possessed by men. She encourages women to live the best life they have always desired and also to ensure that no one comes between them and their happiness. Janelle Monáe as well takes to various social media platforms where she engages her followers on various issues that touch on equality and discrimination of the minority groups within the society. This is also an indication of various ways in which Janelle Monáe is promoting feminism and girl power within the music industry.

Moreover, Janelle Monáe featuring Erykah Badu recorded a song named QUEEN, in the song she is seen to be promoting women empowerment in various activities and ways. An interview, Janelle Monáe stated that the song was meant to encourage and motivate anybody who is suffering or had suffered marginalization, inclusive of the oppressed women of the society. She uses the song to provide hope to the marginalized group within societies that they are not limited to specific achievements. Still, instead, they as well bear the ability and capability to realize their goals for life. According to Janelle Monáe, through the video for the song, the major marginalized group highlighted in the video are women. Therefore the song QUEEN is seen as a tool for advocating for and promotion of feminism within the music industry and the society at large. This is evident from the lyric of the song that states, “they call us dirty cause we break all their rules down, and we just come to act a fool, is that all right? (girl that’s all right).” Thus the lyrics for this song are, in particular, advocating and supporting feminism and girl power within the society and by far the music industry.

Halsey

Halsey’s accomplishments in the music industry is unquestionable. Although she may not be a huge superstar like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, her contributions in women’s rights are remarkably incredible. She has been actively engaged in a large number of activities that are about fighting for equal rights, as well as actively expressing her opinions on multiple social media like Twitter and Instagram. She is gradually taking over the name of “New Feminist Icon” in the past few years.

Last year, one of the most fascinating moments in the 2018 Women’s March was when Halsey delivered an incredibly stunning and empowering speech called “A Story Like Mine”. In the poem, Halsey tells about her best friend Sam’s raped experience and how horrible it was dating back at adolescence, she also tells about her personal stories with guys that she used to be in relationships with. Unfortunately, these stories were not really pleasantly developed. In the last part of the speech, Halsey started to raise up awareness and started to express what was on her mind. With honesty, bravery, anger and power, she marked herself as a phenomenal real girl warrior. She had provided so many inspirations in the speech. The day after she gave that speech in New York City, she went trending on Twitter, as well as the hashtag #WomensMarch2018. She also put her attitude and her thoughts into her music. When she wants to fight for LGBT rights, she released "Strangers" featuring Lauren Jauregui, a girl she asked to collaborate with because she was part of the LGBT community, and she rejected Katy Perry because she is not one of the community. She also released a single this year, which is called "Nightmare". It is an very aggressive and somehow powerful anthem. Some people may criticize this song because of the genre makes it sound like a violently abreact and the lyrics are too angry. This was actually her intention. She made several pop songs and those so-called “radio-friendly” singles which she proved that she has the ability to please the general public audience. However, she chose to release a punk rock single, which is unlikely to be played by a large number of radio stations. The track "Nightmare" is a great to show her attitude, and a great way to fight against those who are being toxic to women. Therefore she made this track sound aggressively dangerous, including straightforward lines like ""Come on, little lady, give us a smile", No, I ain't got nothin' to smile about", as well as "I've been polite, but won't be caught dead, Lettin' a man tell me what I should do in my bed". ("Nightmare" by Halsey)

Halsey is still rising up, and I believe more and more women and girls will be empowered by all of her movements that she dedicated to.

FKA Twigs

FKA Twigs, as well through her song Papi Pacify is also seen to be advocating for and promoting feminism within the music industry and by extension, the society at large. She expresses the power of female beauty and how important, beautiful women re to society; she mentions that all women are beautifully beautiful in their distinct ways. FKA Twigs also stresses sexuality in her song, where she advocates for the respect that the women sexuality deserves from their male counterparts. The video of the song contains various scenes where she is physically abused by a man when performing her song; she is seen not to be dwindled by the harassment and abuse directed to her by the man. Instead, she pushes forward into finishing her performance (Derbas, 188). The scene ends by showing how FKA Twigs got physically overpowered by the man, and this particular scene is seen to be promoting feminism by portraying the picture that men physically abuse women. They get overwhelmed despite their efforts of resistance, and this is because men are physically advantaged compared to women. Therefore, FKA Twigs wrote the song intending to encourage and motivate women not quickly to give in to the demands of their oppressors, but instead, they should stand against such persons for they as well have rights that should be respected. This move is seen to be promoting girl power and feminism within the music industry and the general society.

FKA Twigs also champions for girl power and feminism in her track named Figure 8, where she is seen to be advocating for equality in the society through respect of rights of women and other oppressed populations of the society. Having been subjected to various acts of racial abuse and oppression of her sexuality, she states in the lyrics that “let me live, through you vice, mass appeal, I feel in ten breaths it’s a miracle if we are still alive.” She goes ahead and says that “you can control me, but only when I tell you to.” FKA Twigs uses this song to encourage women and the oppressed in the society that they are in charge of various happenings that go on in their lives, and they can control whatever injustice that is done to them (Derbas, 190). Another incident where FKA Twigs is seen to be promoting feminism and girl power is through her song called ‘I’m Your Doll’. The video of the song has an incident where FKA Twigs is using a doll to represent the beautification of women; this is meant to pass to the women that they bear the responsibility of shaping their beauty to whatever standard perfectly suits them. The involvement of the female doll in her video was meant to bringing the picture that taking away the autonomy of women against their consent is a way of violating the rights of women.

Lastly, FKA Twigs uses her song named ‘In Time’ to address various people who, at one point in time, tried to have a troll on her and other women. In the song, she tells these people that they got a damn god heart for having a troll on her as well as the women population at large. Other than Janelle Monáe and FKA Twigs, there also exist several female artists who are promoting feminism and girl power within the music industry and society at large. An example of such artists as Beyoncé, who though her songs are seen to be passing feminism messages to her listeners across communities.

Kacey Musgraves

Another women in the industry who has a fearlessly outspoken mind is Kacey Musgraves, a beloved country singer who won several Grammy awards and created a number of hits. She is also one of the critics’ favorites because of her lyrics contain both simplicity and bravery in every song. However, the only difference between Kacey and other women I had mentioned in this research paper is that Kacey is the only one who claimed was not a feminist. “I just write about life. It's not a girl power thing. I guess I am an opinionated woman, so maybe I could be perceived that way, and that's also not a bad thing to be. But [my music's] not intended to be that. It's just about people, really. And me." (Independent Woman, Published Jul 03, 2015 by Stuart Henderson). She declares her statement, but this does not make her lyrics less empowering.

Kacey is always highly praised by music critics because her rebellious honesty, including Pitchfork, Billboard and Rolling Stone. Honesty seems to be the key to open her heart, and also a key to help open other women’ minds. One of her most controversial songs is “Follow Your Arrow”. “If you save yourself for marriage, you're a bore,If you don't save yourself for marriage, you're a whore-able person” (“Follow Your Arrow”), the lyrics are straightforward and genuine, and also easily be resonated. She came from a small village in Texas where women are mostly living their lives within different kinds of stereotypes. Instead of growing up in a big city and having strong and powerful slogans to fight for Girl power, Kacey escaped from her hometown and wrote about her truths. To her, maybe it is just like a dairy, but to the world, to those who had been in the same situation or are right now living in that reality, it really helps them to open their hearts since it resonates so much. “If you can't lose the weight, then you're just fat, But if you lose too much, then you're on crack, You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, So you might as well just do whatever you want” (“Follow Your Arrow”). The song “Follow Your Arrow” covers more than just one thing. It contains almost all the controversial things people in the country music industry are not dare to talk about. She covers religions (“If you don't go to church you'll go to hell”), LGBT rights (“kiss lots of boys, Or kiss lots of girls, If that's something you're into”), Women’s rights, which are mostly equal rights. Somehow she managed to put all these information in one song and releases it to inspire people. It had won several big awards including Song of the Year for Country Music Awards at 2014. Rolling Stone ranked this song number 39 on its list of '100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time’. Billboard also listed this song as the second best song of 2013. Those well-known music critics recognized her lyrics and I believe whoever listens to this song will gasp in admiration. What I personally love about this song is that it sounds like an attack, an attack with attitude mixed with aggressive and soft emotions. She is probably the bravest woman in the country music industry of this decade who were not scared of telling the truth.

Conclusion

There are so many more musicians like these brilliant women. Some of them may not be famous, but without a huge fan base does not mean that they are not doing good enough. What makes their power so important is the message they are trying to give, and the community they are trying to influence. I hope the world will have more Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to help women stand out, and the fighting of equal rights will finally comes to an end.

[obsessivedilettante]

Dramaland Forecast: October 2018

Previously: Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - June - July - Aug - Sept

Completed:

Your House Helper -- I was really worried about the ending since the few eps before the final weeks were starting to focus on the main romance which was the least interesting part of the show. But it wrapped up pretty well (although I think we can all agree So-mi’s resolution with her step brother was a total cop out), and I loved this little show for tackling difficult issues in a thoughtful way and bringing me another group of female friends to love and adore.

Meteor Garden 2018 -- I did it! Finally! I’ll admit I didn’t play close attention to the last dozen episodes or so, but dammit I watched all 49 eps and now I can move on with my life.

Currently Watching:

The Ghost Detective -- I’m two weeks behind but I still plan to get caught up, eventually.

Devilish Joy -- I’m two weeks behind and plan to get caught up, eventually (oooh, deja vu!). I’ve only been paying attention to Hoya’s parts, though, because yes I am that fangirl (and lbr he’s the cutest thing in this).

The Guest -- I was watching this despite my squeamishness when it comes to horror because I’m an OCN fangirl and a Handsome Oppa fangirl, but episode 6 made me realize that things are getting good and I’m eager to see how our characters work together to defeat literal evil.

Player -- I just started it and make no promises but omg it’s totally my jam! I’m a sucker for stylish heist stories with a bizarre collection of characters that have very specific skills. I’m still hesitant since there will undoubtedly be a loveline between Song Seung Hoon’s and Krystal’s characters (because lbr this is still Dramaland, even if it’s OCN). But gdi I need all the Robin Hood heist stories I can get my greedy hands on.

Dropping/Skipping:

Everything else! There were just so many premieres, I couldn’t keep up even if I wanted to. I’m still tempted by a few, but I can’t even watch what I already am trying to watch.

Upcoming dramas of interest:

Where Stars Land -- the last thing this writer and director created together was Gu Family Book, which I feel like should be a warning, but I actually was one of the few people who genuinely enjoyed that show. I do like this writer, though (Dalja’s Spring, King of Baking Kim Tak Goo, Romantic Teacher Doctor Kim) plus the cast is great, so I’m willing to give it a chance.

The Greatest Divorce -- what an excellent cast! (You know how much I love me some Lee El, so Cha Tae Hyun and Bae Doona are almost like a bonus.) I haven’t watched the original Japanese drama, but I’m already trying to figure out how to squeeze this into my schedule.

Dae Jang Geum is Watching -- I’m such a sucker for food shows, and this one looks cute and sweet. I’m rooting for sitcoms to make a comeback, anyway (especially shorter ones!), so this might find a way into my already overly-packed viewing schedule.

Room No. 9 -- my kneejerk instinct is to stay far away from this (a lawyer and a doctor? But legal and medical dramas are my least favorite!). But then they’re gonna throw in bodyswap hijinks that involve Kim Hae Sook and Kim Hee Sun -- and oh yeah, there’s a woman’s prison. So I’m conflicted.

Bad Detective -- it’s a remake of BBC’s Luther, which makes me both excited and wary. I really like the cast, though (Shin Ha Kyung is a total ahjussi crush!), but I don’t know enough about the production team. This could be a disaster of Criminal Minds proportions or a Life on Mars success. I want to check it out, anyway.

Miss Ma, Goddess of Revenge -- this is supposedly based on Agatha Christie’s “Miss Marple” series but the synopsis makes me go, “...are you sure? Because it just sounds like a random mystery series based on nothing I remember about Miss Marple. But okay, you got my mystery-loving attention...”

As always, any drama not listed means I have nothing new to add since the last mention and/or it’s not something I care about enough to add to the list.

[im-just-here-for-the-drama]

Gay Characters in Kdramas: The Good, The Bad, and The Mediocre

Gay characters rarely show up in Korean dramas. Though there have been a few characters over the years,  In terms of representation, the characterization and stories of these characters are usually nothing to write home about, but I figured, why not write about it anyway? Here’s my watch and don’t watch list, if you’re looking for gay characters in kdramas.

Warning for spoilers galore!

The Mediocre (these aren’t bad, but they’re not the best either)

Lily Fever (2015)

The Story: Kyung Ju heads to her friends house one day to find her missing passport. She finds Se Rang instead.

Should You Watch?: Sure. This show is quirky and just downright odd. The ending leaves a lot to be desired and the story itself is kind of all over the place, but it’s cute, it’s funny, it’s short, most of it’s nonsense, and the girls have lots of chemistry. It’s only a bonus that Se Rang is a standout character of this show. You’ll probably fall for her yourself by the end of the webseries.

The Lover: Joon Jae and Takuya (2015)

The Story: Different couples live together in an apartment building. The show shows us snippets of their lives. Joon Jae’s life gets turned upside down when he meets his new roommate Takuya.

Should You Watch?: Hmmm...yeah. I started watching this show expecting it would showcase the typical Korean bromance between the guys. The kind where the show makes it seem like the guys might have feelings for each other, but the show just skirts around the topic entirely. In the first few episodes, that’s exactly what happened between Joon Jae and Takuya (with a lot of sex jokes and penis jokes thrown in for good measure. That’s actually what most of the show is). But the show eventually, actually, went there. Joon Jae and Takuya don’t get a whole lot of screen time, but when they do, we get to see some serious feelings thrown in with all the crass humor, and Joon Jae and Takuya do admit to having feelings for one another. The ending could have been a little better, but it was a happy one, so baby steps.

Perseverance Goo Hae Ra: Jang Goon (2015)

The Story: A group of rag tags come together to form a band. Jang Goon joins the band and meets their manager Tae Poong who he’s had a crush on for years.

Should You Watch?: Only if you’re interested in the rest of the show. Jang Goon has a fairly interesting storyline. He has a friend who accepts him after finding out about his crush and he has to rebuild bridges with his father who doesn’t accept him doing music (and Jang Goon’s scared he wont accept his being gay either). But Jang Goon’s storyline is such a small part of the story it wouldn’t be worth it to skip through to only his parts.

Daughters of Club Bilitis (2011)

The Story: A one episode drama detailing the lives of four lesbian couples.

Should You Watch?: I watched this so long ago, I honestly don’t remember a single shred of what happened in it, but I’ll say yes, watch it. Because there are so few lesbians in asian dramas you have to watch the one’s that exist. The entire show is about lesbians, so I  mean, why not?

Reply 1997: Jun Hee (2012)

The Story: The lives of a group of high school students in the year1997. Jun Hee has a crush on his friend Yoon Jae.

Should You Watch?: Yes and no. The Reply Series (Reply 97/94/88) are pretty good dramas after all. They’re great for nostalgia, family, friendship, and the like, but if you’re here solely for the gay? Probably not worth the time. Jun Hee’s a side character. We see him crushing on Yoon Jae and he confesses his feelings to Yoon Jae and another friend, but there’s not too much more than that.

Seonam girls high school investigators: Eps 11-12 (2014)

The Story: High School girls investigate and solve problems in their school. The show is episodic and in these two episodes the girls attempt to help Su Yeon and Eun Bin who have to hide their relationship from their classmates.

Should You Watch?: Yes. I honestly don’t remember much about this one either, but I do remember it being decently done. This show caused a lot of controversy years ago when it aired Korea’s first lesbian kiss ( probably korea’s first same sex kiss period that was a legitimate kiss and not used for laughs). It’s worth checking out to see what caused all the ridiculous uproar.

Wise Prison Life/Prison Playbook: Han Yang (2017)

The Story: Big time baseball player Kim Je Hyuk turns into a crimanal overnight. After he’s convicted, he has to face his new life in prison. He meets some interesting people in prison. Among them is the drug addict Han Yang.

Should You Watch?:  Yes, because the story itself is a really interesting take about a man who goes to prison, meets a lot of different, people, and ultimately makes new friends/family. If you’re just watching for the gay? I’d still have to say yes, despite the fact that Han Yang doesn’t get the happy ending he deserved. Han Yang was one of my favorite characters in this show. I don’t know how he managed it, but I swear Han Yang got funnier as the episodes passed. I was really endeared towards him attempting to kick his drug habit while also trying to salvage his relationship with his ex-boyfriend Ji Won. He had such an interesting story arc, was such an entertaining character, and I didn’t feel like the show ever made fun of him for being gay. This character was just such a joy to watch, I definitely don’t regret watching, even though I wanted more.

Moment at Eighteen: Jung Oh Je  (2019)

The Story: Transfer student Jun Woo has no interest in school life, as he is traumatized from being expelled from bullying. Meanwhile, Soo Bin has been watching Jun Woo all this time. She sees a different side to Jun Woo than the one that other people see. Oh Je, is Jun Woo’s best friend who starts to discover his sexuality.

Should you watch?: Hmmm… sure. Oh Je has a decent side plot. It was interesting to see him figuring out he liked Hwi Young and coming out to his ex girlfriend and his friends. I do wish his story was expanded a little more though. There were several things I would have liked to have seen, like coming out to his family, and I thought they wrapped his story up a little too quickly at the end.

Love with Flaws: Won Suk and Ho Dol (2019)

The Story:  Joo Seo Yeon, is a hot-tempered physical education high school teacher who always wears sneakers, jeans and training uniforms.  The death of her parents helped instill a deep sense of compassion, a generous heart and an outspoken objection for anyone who drinks and drives. Living in a house with three wild and very attractive brothers, she loathes flower boys. Her ideal type is someone who is “not handsome.” Won Suk is one of her handsome older brothers.

Won Suk has closed his heart to relationships and love, but he lives his life as an openly gay man. Ho Dol is closeted and lacks confidence. They meet one night at Won Suk’s bar.

Should you watch?: People have been kind enough to condense Won Suk’s and Ho Dol’s  story into parts on YouTube so yeah, go ahead and check it out.

These two don’t get a whole lot of screen time, but the little they do get is nice. We get to see Won Seok help Ho Dol open up and be more confident with who he is and in turn, Won Seok opens up his heart.

The Bad (you probably shouldn’t waste your time on these ones)

Personal Taste: Director Choi (2010)

The Story: This dramas about a straight guy who pretends to be gay in order to gain access to the blueprints of a woman’s house…or something like that. Director Choi’s specific story revolves around his attempts at courting that guy.

Should You Watch?: Absolutely not. Half of the time the drama equates being a gay man to automatically being feminine, a woman, or not a “real man”. Director Choi is also a good deal older than the male lead and makes several attempts at courting him even though he’s not interested. It kind of came off as the “creepy old gay perv” and that didn’t sit well with me.  I suppose you could skim through the drama to watch Director Choi’s scenes. If sad gay men Is your thing. I just felt bad for the guy most of the time.

Ho Gu’s Love: Kang Chul (2015)

The Story: Ho Gu’s a pushover, a fool, and kind of an idiot. He meets his old classmates and things get a complicated. One day in High School Kang Chul meets Ho Gu’s twin sister and mistakes her for Ho Gu. They spend the day together and she kisses him.  The kiss sparks feelings in Kang Chul. Of course Kang Chul thinks it was Ho Gu who kissed him and years later, when he meets Ho Gu his feelings grow stronger.

Should You Watch?: Yes? Maybe? If you really want to, but mostly…no. With this, I expected that the typical drama set up would happen. Similar to all gender benders, Kang Chul would find out that it wasn’t Ho Gu he kissed. So any feelings he was having for him would immediately get swept under the rug where we could all pretend we never knew his heart fluttered for another man. Imagine my surprise when episode after episode passed and that didn’t happen. We got down to the last few episodes and Kang Chul had admitted to himself that he liked Ho Gu, he came out to his parents, and his coworkers assumed he was gay. The show was actually depicting the struggles of being gay in Korea and it was arguably one of the better storylines for a gay character on Korean t.v., but then the show couldn’t stay strong and they flipped the script. Predictably, Kang Chul finds out it was Ho Gu’s sister he kissed, the show copped out, and lo and behold Kang Chul was straight with no further mentions of any other possible sexuality. Watch it if you’re curious, but be prepared to be extremely disappointed by the end.

Graceful Family: Mo Wan Joon  (2019)

The Story: Blah blah blah, revenge or something- at a point it’s revealed that Mo Wan Joon is a trans woman.

Should you watch?: If you really like revenge melos maybe, but if you’re looking for this show to do something good and offer up some good trans rep? Nope.

Literally nothing about Mo Wan Joon’s story is watchable. I wasn’t even entirely sure the show even knows what being transgender even means. It comes off as more of a plot twist to put the family all in a tizzy more than anything else. They don’t really show much of Wan Joon’s struggle or anything poignant or engaging.

Sweet Munchies: Tae Wan (2020)

The Story: Jin Sung pretends to be a gay chef to film a tv show for money. Tae Hwan, a closeted fashion designer falls for him.

Should you watch?: No. "Everyone loved Personal Taste right? What if we just did that again but with a chef this time?"  This could have been potentially groundbreaking, but by the end of the show the two leads are unlikable and  we just wind up with more sad gay tears. But Lee Hak Joo as Tae Wan? *Chef's kiss*. This man put me through the wringer and he does it so subtly. If you must watch, literally skim through Tae Wan’s parts.

The Good (these are worth the hours of your life you wont get back)

Painter of the Wind (2008)

The Story: Shin Yoon Bok is a talented painter who disguises herself as a boy to search for her father's murderer and meets a master painter who guides her into being a great painter. Kim Hong Do is the man who teaches Yoon Bok how to paint, and they develop a strong friendship of mentor and disciple.

Should You Watch?: Yes. On the surface this sounds pretty straight, but ignore the summary, because yes there’s a loveline between Yoon Bok and her mentor, but the most interesting story here is the loveline between Yoon Bok and a Gisaeng she meets named Jeong Hyang I’ve seen plenty of gender benders, but I’ve never seen one where a woman falls in love with the girl who’s pretending to be a boy. This drama isn’t technically supposed to be gay, but it’s extremely gay when when bisexual Yoon Bok hits on the gisaeng the first time they meet. Yoon Bok finds herself falling in love with the Jeong Hyang too and the love between them comes off as extremely genuine and sincere. I don’t care what that show was trying to tell me, Yoon Bok/Jeong Hyang was the true otp.

Life is Beautiful: Tae Sub and Kyung Soo (2010)

The Story:  A family drama about a blended family. The show focuses heavily on Tae Sub and his boyfriend Kyung Soo

Should You Watch?:  Absolutely. In this drama we actually get to see a same sex couple. There’s not just one gay character or a situation where you have to read between the lines. Tae Sub and Kyung Soo are a gay couple who get to be together and happy and they get screentime! The show focuses on Tae Sub coming out to his family, his family's acceptance/non-acceptance, and Kyungsoo’s family’s non-acceptance as well. We get to see the guys work through their problems together and we get to see how they’re relationship changes and grows. My only complaint about this show is that it aired seven years ago and korea has shown little to no progress in terms of lgbt characters and couples in kdramas since.

Rural Outcasts (2019)

The Story: Sun Hui moves to a small village where she lives her life as Soon Ho until she can make enough money to become her true self. Dong Ja, a feisty 12 year old, breaks into her house one day.

Should you watch? Yes, although, heads up, there’s a cis man playing a trans woman. Found family always makes for a heartwarming story and this one is no different. I loved the bond between Dong Ja and Sun Hui and I loved their mother daughter relationship. Very sweet and heartwarming, but be prepared for some heartbreak too.

[amorningshadeofyellow-blog]

Suggestion O’Clock

As February ends and March begins, here’s a reflection of some things I’ve been listening to and watching. Everybody needs suggestions, take them as you need.

Music: I am a firm believer in Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists which automatically update themselves based on your listening patterns and what not. The BEST place to go for some handpicked tunes. However, here are a few I’ve come to love the past month.

• The Neighbourhood’s Hard To Imagine EP: Unlike the last three works they’ve put out, Hard To Imagine is something all it’s own. Very far from I Love You and Wiped Out!, HTI is full of songs that definitely reach outside of the usual boundaries they’d set for themselves. Though I am not a fan of the EP in its entirety, there are a few songs that make it worthwhile. ‘Void’ being in the top spot with that one lyric, “Wonder how I got by this week, only touched you once.” Just feels so smooth. Following in no definite order are Scary Love, Nervous (which dropped 5 days ago), You Get Me So High, and Roll Call. Honorable mention to 24/7 and Sadderdaze- both catchy, but in a way that will get old really fast. If there’s such a thing as dishonorable mention, Dust takes that. I could have gone the whole album without that.

• Sufjan Stevens- Visions of Gideon: Top Spot for WEEKS in the category of “Songs That Will Ruin My Day”. This is one of the most gutwrenching songs for me. So pretty, so smooth, so full of feeling. Sufjan is an artist that has definitely made more waves since the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack’s Oscar nomination he got for “Mystery of Love.” I hate to say that the Academy was wrong, but picking that over Visions of Gideon was nothing but wrong. Seriously, listen to this and tell me you didn’t cry.

• Viola Beach- Call You Up: The song I want to montage videos of myself dancing on a beach at sunset with a bottle of wine to. Definitely that annoying indie sounding voice, but it works for this. Lyrics you’d find in the diary of young people in some summer love. “I’ll call you up in the middle of the night in hopes that you want to hear from me. I just wanna know if you’re feeling alright.” It’s just so CATCHY you just gotta sway your head and hips and close your eyes when you sing it. Has a beachy feel. One of those in the middle sort of songs. Not a breakup song, not a love song. Takes a seat on the harshly drawn middle line. Just give it a listen, I can’t stop playing it in my car because it’s impossible to not sing along to.

• Manchester Orchestra- Colly Strings. I don’t know what they are, but I know this song makes me perform power house vocals in the shower. Definitely something the singer wrote to be specific to himself, but still vague enough to feel like it relates. Simple, heavily lyric focused, not technically impressive at all. Just really plain, but I love it. Listen to this on drives home. “CONFESSEDLY, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IVE LOVED YOU AND GOD, I MEAN IT. GOD, I MEAN IT. I HOPE THAT I MEAN IT. CAUSE LIKE DIANE YOUNG, IDOLS GET THE BEST OF ME. WELL, DONT STOP CALLING- YOURE THE REASON I LOVE LOSING SLEEP.” a... slammer. A true indie king. Strange that I’ve never liked Manchester Orchestra’s other songs.

• The Last Shadow Puppets- Miracle Aligner: IN CASE YOU ARENT AWARE, Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys is the front man of this band. Basically, its Arctic Monkeys music under a different band name. TLSP had Sweet Dreams, Tennessee which I learned about a summer or so ago and loved. How I never found Miracle Aligner baffles me. It’s got that same AM vibe that most of Alex Turner’s work does. Feels a bit like a background song for a 60’s feel good family show. This one’s upbeat for his fashion, but I dig it. Alex Turner is the man I’ve always wanted to meet. I cannot believe he is real. I’ve been convinced he’s sincerely an enigma.

• From the Dining Table- Harry Styles: OKAY, I know it‘s overdue. I didn’t give much listen to Harry’s album because it mimics so many British rock classics so closely that I just.. I didn’t want to. And I’m the biggest one direction stan alive. Sometimes, I cringe at the lyrics. Aside from that, it’s a song I’d fall asleep to and that’s why I like it. It’s something I would sing to put someone to sleep. After a minute and a half we can stop the song because the third verse/bridge/ whatever is so close to resembling Over the Rainbow in my head. Just throw it on your playlist if you’ve not already. I’m sure almost everyone has.

• Jamie T- Magnolia Melancholia: I AM SO MANY THINGS AFTER THIS SONG. First off, Jamie T has been around for a few years, and I’ve always liked some of his stuff. Don’t You Find, and Zombie were two that I definitely was like, huh, this is new. He’s one of those British singers that really actually sounds British. Most of it’s a little more spoken than sung. Anyway, outside of this- magnolia melancholia is very different compared to his other music. Almost similar to Dont You Find, but it’s the only thing close. The song is sincerely just so impactful to me because of the lyrics, but I think it’s a good song overall to have. Like I said, different. “Nice to meet ya, boy, I know your mama knows. I fell in love with her seven thousand summer ago. I was a runner, boy,” just something I think he stripped from my diary and made his own. Definitely really excited to have seen his name come back on my screen and feel something so personal and nostalgic. Really think he’s an underrated artist.

Films: Of course, it’s March when I’m writing this, so the Oscars have come and gone. However, Oscar nominees or not- these are the films I’ve seen, loved, and suggest.

• The Shape of Water- Winner of Best Picture, The Shape of Water is obviously something you look at and say, “Hm, I should probably see that.” TSOW is insanely creative, but there should be nothing less expected from its director. Following a black woman, gay man, and a mute woman’s romance with an amphibian man- it’s definitely up there in terms of diversity. In short, the feel of the film and its tenderness paired with intrinsic visual detail is stimulating in a multitude of ways. You leave the theater feeling something.

• Black Panther- I would literally pay the first person who reads this and hasn’t seen Black Panther $20. I’m pretty sure it’s like... the top grossing movie ever at this point. If you don’t care for superhero movies, just go for the complete bad-assery. And Michael B Jordan. Who I don’t think is a great actor, but I do find him almost as gorgeous as Lupita.

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Another Oscar nominee. Frances McDormand who plays the lead took home best actress while supporting actor went to her co star Sam Rockwell. Really, in all honesty, the thing that I think about when I explain the film is the character arc they gave San Rockwell’s character. Watching this man grow and change throughout the film was impressive both in the acting and the writing.

• Hostiles- ROSAMUND PIKE BEING A BADASS COLONIAL WOMAN!! CHRISTIAN BALE HAVING A GOOD HEART!!! SWEET ENDINGS!!!

• Atonement- Look, I’m just asking you to go on Netflix and add this to your Watch List for an afternoon when you’re laying in bed and want to cry. James McAvoy and Natalie Portman, a heart wrenching love story during war time, but still far more than that.

• The Warriors- We Love A Good 70/80’s film, and this is what that was. Based around gangs and a journey back home, this is full of companionship, unity, wit, and lots and lots of leather vests. (prime)

• Wonderstruck- Ultimately a feel good film that is unlike any other. Complex story line, wonderful depiction, just creative and free. Feels so sweet to see something so pure.

• Captain Fantastic- okay, everything I’ve deemed “creative” is subpar when it comes to Captain Fantastic. Surrounding the theme of family, mental illness, and exclusion- the film depicts a family living off grid with their dad after losing their mother to depression, the following days are full of humorous and heartfelt feats as they attempt to attend their mothers funeral despite the grandfathers wishes. The complete disconnect between the modern world and the world this family lives in puts them at no sort of disadvantage, and the theme of unity and pride of where you come from shines through.

• Blade Runner 2049- Rewatched it. Felt so happy to have my eyes glued to a screen. Genuinely equivalent to being induced into a coma because you’re not leaving your seat. And if you haven’t seen the original Blade Runner- do yourself and Harrison Ford a favor.

• Honorable Mention to Lady Bird, CMBYN, Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, and The Florida Project all of which will be included in an “Oscars in Review” post I have queued for next week

As far as music and movies go, that is a slight look into some of the things February and March have brought thus far. For every time Lauren needs a suggestion, I feel as though it’s necessary to compile a list for whoever else may need it.

[pretoriuspictures]

Interview w/ Ben Hozie and Jesse Locke for Aquarium Drunkard:

Aquarium Drunkard: I know you primarily as a musician, so can you tell me a bit about your background as a filmmaker?

Ben Hozie: I’ve been making DIY films for almost as long as I’ve been writing songs in rock groups. So far the music has connected with more people but I intend to do both for as long as I can. I shot my first feature Annunciation when I was 22 on 16mm w/ experimental filmmaker Simon Liu. At that time I thought we made this really significant work that would skyrocket us into international film notoriety so it was quite humbling when we got rejected from almost every film festival in the world.

I love personal cinema too much to be discouraged so I put my head down and made a few shorts and another feature called The Lion’s Den a few years later on DV cam for about ten thousand dollars. That one was also rejected from all the film festivals so here I am again with another new film. PVT Chat was shot and edited around the last seven or eight BODEGA tours. I’m hoping that one day I will make a film that people really respond to which will dignify and force people to revisit the rest of my movies.

AD: What are your first two films Annunciation and The Lion’s Den about?

Ben Hozie: Annunciation is a modern ‘adaptation’ of the Mérode Altarpiece Triptych (the early northern Renaissance painting) that is composed of three narratives (one for each panel of the painting) : a director of advertisements who falls for his intern, a young tourist struggling to overcome impotence, and an actress portraying the Virgin Mary who decides to become a surrogate mother. The filming coincided with Occupy Wall Street so we filmed scenes at Zuccotti Park and allowed Occupy to shape the timbre of the film.

The Lion’s Den is a comedy of errors farce about a group of radicals in a commune in Staten Island who attempt to kidnap the CEO of a giant corporation but instead get the wrong guy. While the group is figuring out what to do with their captive businessman, members of the commune attempt to ‘revolution the bedroom’ by exchanging sexual partners. The Den was an attempt at theatrical cinema : my two models were the essayistic political films of Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin and The Rules of the Game.

Both of those films were aggressively anti-naturalistic (in different ways) and at the time I thought of them as conscious rebukes to the mumblecore film movement. In 2017 something happened and I fell in love with a number of mumble and mumble-adjacent films. I was particularly impressed with how said films were able to achieve abstraction via documentary (that combination is perhaps the essence of cinema) so I decided to make a film of my own leaning slightly towards that world (PVT Chat).

AD: What inspired you to write the story of PVT Chat? Do you know people who have turned online gambling and online sex work into main sources of income?

Ben Hozie: I’ve known a few sex workers (as well as online gamblers) but I was initially drawn to that world because it seemed to really crystallize something essential about this historical moment where most emotion is processed through computer screens. I don’t see the cam or online gambling worlds as that different from social media: they are just different forms of stimulation addiction. This is the same theme that the BODEGA LP Endless Scroll was about.

AD: How do you feels about these kinds of relationships formed through screens now that we’re forced to do them in a pandemic?

Ben Hozie: I don’t think all relationships formed through screens are superficial or harmful. In the movie Jack (Peter Vack) and Scarlet (Julia Fox) become quite close through their cam chats — they become closer than any of the other characters in the film are to each other. Internet culture has its pluses and minuses.

AD: How were you able to cast Peter Vack, Buddy Durress, and Julia Fox? I understand this was her acting first role before making Uncut Gems.

Ben Hozie: I met Peter on a short that I was AD-ing a few years ago (directed by PVT Chat’s producer Oliver David). We’ve since become very close friends. I loved Peter’s performance in his movie Assholes — it was full of this naive boyish enthusiasm that made me realize he could be Jack. Peter is very handsome and charming too. It was important to me that Jack not become an incel-type character. He is obsessed with cam girls for other reasons than social inadequacy.

I was a big fan of Buddy’s from his Safdies movies and later met him through his old agent and was able to track him down in Queens at his mom’s place. I met Julia because I heard she was getting into acting and had also spent some time as a dominatrix when she was younger. She got cast in Uncut Gems shortly after we started shooting PVT. We started before their production but finished way after (I was shooting scenes almost a year after our initial shoot).

AD: Do you have any funny on set stories about Buddy?

Ben Hozie: Me, Peter, Buddy, and Kevin Moccia (who plays Will) got quite into blackjack during the production. We would always play hands online at my apartment in between set-ups. We had some good runs not unlike those in the movie (which were all improvised and real). A few weeks later Buddy called me and asked me if he could stake me some cash to double for him playing cards (which is literally the plot of the movie). I told him I didn’t feel confident enough to pull that off! Buddy is a great talker (one of the many reasons he is a great actor). He’s very fun to talk on the phone to. Unfortunately he went back to jail during the filming of PVT. I’m not sure if he’s out yet or not…I hope so.

Me and Peter shot some incognito b-roll at a real casino (which was later cut from the film) but he won us 3.6k off one hand (red 21) at roulette (which we were hoping would be a scene in which he lost….)!!!  You can see the footage here.  

AD: One thing I really like about this story is that Scarlet is portrayed as enjoying her work and having full agency instead of the movie shaming her. In fact, everyone else comes across worse. Was that an important part of it for you?

Ben Hozie: Yes. It was important for me that the movie did not depict cam girls as victims (certainly many are but not all of them). I also wanted to bring film eroticism into the 21st century which is why it was important to include scenes of a woman achieving pleasure just for the sake of her own pleasure. People seem reluctant to admit that some sex workers chose their line of work because they enjoy and excel at it.

I also wanted to film masturbation and fantasy in a way I’ve never seen at the cinema: raw, honest, and un-glamorous. Sex in cinema is often just cheap titillation or a quick stopgap in between plot. I wanted to film sexuality in a way that reveals something about its everyday-ness. That couldn’t have been achieved without Julia or Peter’s cinematic courage. It was also extremely important for me to film erect full frontal male nudity as that’s something rarely ever depicted in cinema.

AD: Can you tell me about Austin Brown from Parquet Courts’ score? Did he have a specific vision for how the film should sound?

Ben Hozie: I like to think of music in my films as samples. I like films that are relatively score-less (except diegetic music) but which include quick bursts of musical punctuation. I already was using quite a bit of Beethoven in the movie but wanted something contemporary to play against this. Austin has played a not insignificant role in my recent musical life (he produced my band’s Endless Scroll LP) so he was a natural choice to do the score.

After some initial experimentation before the tone of the film was discovered I remember telling Austin I mostly wanted two things : 1) some pieces in the world of the Parquet Courts EP Monastic Living: guitar feedback and contemplative harmonics and 2) something yearning and romantic similar to his song “Steady on my Mind” from their Human Performance LP. He’s a great guitar player and arranger and was able to come up with some excellent material (he also makes a cameo in the movie playing guitar as a street busker). He also composed some of the diegetic pieces in the movie and surprised me with a great little John Carpenter-esque synth piece which is now also in the trailer.

AD: What are your upcoming plans to get the movie out there?

Ben Hozie: It’s hard to say since it seems most film festivals are cancelled for the remainder of the year. I’m eager for audiences to see it. We will have to wait and see.

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2020/03/31/stimulation-addiction-an-interview-with-bodegas-ben-hozie-about-his-new-film-pvt-chat/

[hetmusic]

A conversation with The Big Moon | HumanHuman

The Big Moon are a four-piece band hailing from London, made up of Juliette Jackson, Soph Nathan, Celia Archer and Fern Ford, who all love to make vibrant, energizing noise with their garage guitars, rock drums and a searing vocal lead. Since The Indie Curator discovered this promising quartet over a year ago, The Big Moon have released a breakthrough EP titled The Road and have more recently followed up with tracks “Something Beautiful” and hit single “Cupid”.

Breaking away from the group backstage at The Great Escape, the band’s frontwoman Juliette and I borrow Jagwar Ma’s dressing room for a chat about why she wanted to put a band together, the chemistry between the four Mooners and what their plans for the rest of the year are.

Can you introduce yourself, your role in the band and what you would be doing if you hadn’t followed the music path?

My name is Juliette. I sing and play guitar and honestly if I wasn’t in a band, I would probably be working in a pub because I don’t really have any proper qualifications. I might try to go to university or be waitress or something and probably be really miserable about it.

How did you get started in music?

I was just really desperate to do it. I kind of ran around looking for people to join a band with me and I started writing songs. If it was the old-fashioned way I would have put up a poster in a guitar shop, but I just put a post up on Facebook and asked my friends. I was like, “anyone know anyone who might want to be in a band? With me? If I write some songs?” None of my friends did [laughs], but they had friends who did! We’re all friends of friends.

That’s cool! When you all did meet, was there a eureka moment as the song suggests or was it more of a gradual realisation that you were going to make music together?

Well, there were lots of different people that I met to play music with, but then the four of us were finally together. At first it was just me and Fern, and then Soph joined, and when Celia came along it felt immediately like she was the last piece of the puzzle. I cried a little bit.

I was reading about your first session together and that it was really emotional.

Yeah, it was just really exciting! I’d written four songs or something in my bedroom and it was really exciting to hear them played really loud with other people, so yeah, I got a bit emotional.

“I’d written four songs or something in my bedroom and it was really exciting to hear them played really loud with other people, so yeah, I got a bit emotional.”— Juliette Jackson

Obviously, you started the band, but do you still take control over what it sounds like or is it more of a collaborative process now?

It’s a lot more collaborative now, although I still write the bones of the songs. Well, it varies, because sometimes I’m really specific and will write all the parts and be like, “you have to play the bassline like this!” More and more now I’m just like, “here’s a song, I’ve done words and I’ve got chords and we can make this into something,” which is really nice. It’s sort of as we’ve got to know each other better. Everything happened really quickly after we all met. We got together, rehearsed for like two weeks, we had about five songs, we did our first gig and then we recorded a demo. Once we uploaded that demo online everything went… [makes what I only can describe as a rocket noise.] We’ve only been together for like a year and a half.

It really did blow up very quickly.

Yeah, it was really surprising!

I really love your song “Cupid” with the awesome music video, that must have been pretty fun to make?

It was so much fun! It was terrifying, but really fun. We could only make a mess once and the beginning of the video is really clean and tidy, so the first chorus where the first paint bomb hits me and then loads of shit starts going crazy, we only had one chance to do that. None of knew what it feels like to get covered in paint and flour while playing instruments, so I was just thinking, “got to do it right, got to do it right!” My heart was beating and I was physically shaking, because I really didn’t want to get it wrong, so no matter what it felt like, I just had to keep playing! Louis [Bhose], the director, who was going to throw the first missile at me, he did it twice and he threw it and it was this big, tense moment and it just didn’t explode! [laughs] So it was like, “[gasp] False alarm. [gasp] False alarm again!” Then it finally worked. Yeah, it was so much fun.

That’s one thing that really comes across with your music, is that it’s fun, break free, let loose kind of music. Was that something you set out to do when you first wrote the songs?

I wanted to start a band because I knew it would be fun, but also partly because playing guitar is the only thing that I can really do, so I could either try really hard at that or carry on being a waitress forever. I wanted to have a gang of friends and go around causing havoc, like The Spice Girls. I just wanted to be like The Spice Girls basically. We had a proper Spice Girls moment yesterday actually. I was driving the van to Brighton and all the girls were sat in the back, then I saw someone we knew out of the window and I started beeping and we all rolled down the windows and started going “hey! hi! hi!” I so nearly crashed into someone! [laughs] It was like laughter and then shock as I swerved out of the way of another car. Yeah… it was funny, but also really bad.

You guys clearly have that really fun side, or what I’m going to start calling your Spice Girls side, but I would say one of your more serious songs is “The Road”, which to me sounds like a contemplation of life and possibly a break-up thrown in there. What is that track about?

“The Road” is like that feeling you have at the end of a party. I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself at a party at like seven in the morning and everyone wants to carry on going and you feel like shit and you know that you’re not doing very good things to yourself. I just felt like I was in a really bad place and I was with someone and I realised that I had to stop seeing this person and I had to stop hanging out with these people because it was really, really bad for me. It was just that feeling at the end of a party where everything is really crap and you don’t why you’re still hanging around and why you’re with those people. I was just like “I’m not having fun anymore, I’m just not having fun.”

That sounds like a huge revelation. Is there anything else that inspires your music?

Everything really. I’ve been writing a lot of love songs lately because I’m very in love. I also like trying to shoehorn really mundane things into songs. I like the disconnection between what you show on the outside of yourself and what you’re thinking in your mind. You could be feeling extremely emotional, really sad or really happy about something, but at the same time you’re in a supermarket doing your weekly shop. There’s all this stuff bubbling underneath but everything around you is just boring and normal.

You’re all currently based in London, but in an era of increased online living, do you think it really matters where you’re based anymore?

I think if you live somewhere like London you have the benefit of there being loads of places to play music. If you’re from a really small town where there’s nowhere to play gigs, then you can’t really be in a band, unless you did it in your house or something. London is so… I hate it, I mean I love it and I hate it. It fucks you over everyday, it’s so expensive. Yeah, I think you’re right, anyone can record anything anywhere and if you’ve got a computer you can put your music online and everyone can hear it. When we put our first song online, everything exploded, and we’d only done three shows or something. I’m really not convinced that it was the shows that we played that led to people paying attention to the song online. I don’t know what caused that.

I guess it was all the online coverage, that seemed to happened almost instantly.

Yeah, like DIY. Bloggers and people sharing the music.

I was actually reading the interview that you did with DIY and you said that it felt like everyone jumped on the “female brand”. Do you find it annoying when people point out the fact that you’re a band made up of four women?

I don’t really find it annoying, because it’s true! It doesn’t really bother me. For me, being a woman in a band, I’ve never felt persecuted. I know we’re a minority, but personally it’s never felt weird. No one has ever being weird about it, maybe that’s because times have changed a lot and I know loads of girls in bands and it’s not unusual at all. I just don’t think it’s a thing anymore. A lot of people ask us the question “do you people treat you differently?”, but it’s always like “no!” I’m a middle-class, white girl in a band and I’m privileged enough to be able to play music for a living. Everything’s great, you know?

“For me, being a woman in a band, I’ve never felt persecuted. I know we’re a minority, but personally it’s never felt weird.”— Juliette Jackson

I was literally going to go on say, do you think anything needs to change in regards to how the music industry treats women? I guess you’re already saying that it’s come such a long way.

We’re still a minority, but I just think it’s not really a point anymore. If you don’t make a point of it, then it isn’t an issue and I think more and more women now play music.

I think it’s because of bands like yourself that get up there and do it and show that it can be done.

Yeah! We’re on the stage and we’re just playing. We are girls, but so what?! No big deal. It’s just not an issue.

You guys wrapped up your tour last month, how was that? Was there a particular standout show?

Yes, we had an amazing show in Hull. We’ve never played there before and it was pretty great! There were loads of boys ripping off their t-shirts and throwing them at us. They had a circle pit and crowd surfers, it was amazing. We also played the 100 Club in London, which is a legendary venue and there’s loads of pictures on the walls of bands like The Sex Pistols. We sold out 100 Club, which is ridiculous! That was a bit of a dream come true.

If you could share a stage with anyone who would it be?

Oh my god… I really want to say Jarvis Cocker, because if I could do a duet with someone, I would love to sing a song with him. Literally sharing a stage with him! Standing next to him, with a microphone each, starting into each other’s eyes and singing a song - I’d enjoy that. We’ve done loads of shows with bands that I love already, like The Maccabees and Ezra Fermin who is a total genius. A lot of the bands that I really love don’t really play anymore, like The Pixies and The White Stripes.

Do you have a favourite song to play live?

Erm… that changes all the time. At the moment, maybe “Cupid”, it’s really satisfying to play. “The Road” is also really good. I love playing “Sucker”, because we always do it last, so it’s like the home-straight and it’s really easy to sing, so I just enjoy it.

Last question and then I’ll let you go, what does the rest of the year have in store for The Big Moon?

This year we’re going to do more touring in the autumn. We’re going to do loads of festivals, bazillions of festivals, which is great because I love those! We’re going to record an album in summer, although we don’t know where or how, but we’re going to do it. That’s the thing that I’m most excited about is recording that, because we’ve only been together a year and a half, but that whole time we’ve been touring. It feels like other bands that started at the same time as us have already put out albums. It’s not a competition, obviously. We’ve been playing these songs for a while and I’m really eager to record them while they’re still fresh. If we keep touring, then what if we get bored of playing them? or we go to record them and we can’t inject any excitement into them? Yeah, we’re going to do it soon.

https://humanhuman.com/articles/interview-the-big-moon-juliette-jackson

[onestowatch]

Open Lila Drew’s ‘locket’ of Empathetic Emotions & Serene Pop Melodies [Q&A]

Photo Credit: Miriam Marlene

Born in London but raised in Los Angeles, Lila Drew is an 18-year-old who isn’t afraid of vulnerability and self-reflection. Drew grew up listening to old school records of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, which allowed her to organically develop her passion for music. Rooted from honest journal entries, Drew’s stunning new EP, locket (side one), is a grand reflection of her life as she moves toward adulthood.

locket (side one) captures the purest of emotions as Drew revisits the feelings she’s experienced in some of her most challenging times. “take it back” sees Drew embodying the self-reliant woman she is and overcoming obstacles on her own. Layered with enticing instrumentals, “november” features Drew’s soothing vocals alongside comforting backing vocals as she once again stresses the importance of independence. The serene “hide” follows Drew on a journey through self-discovery as she realizes the difference between right and wrong when it comes to relationships.

Opening with hollow guitars, “nothing” has Drew recognizing the invincibility we all have within ourselves when we accept that some people aren’t as worthy as we once thought they were. “seconds (demo)” is a sorrowful song composed of downtempo beats about sacrifices and longing for someone we just can’t have. locket (side one) closes with “faded/2am,” which features rapper GoldLink. Examining a failed relationship, “faded/2am” is drenched with Drew’s angelic vocals and stirring electronics that pair well with GoldLink’s flawless verse.

Treat yourself to Lila Drew’s locket (side one) below:

To celebrate her new music, we recently chatted with Lila Drew about her debut collaboration with GoldLink, her slumber party themed EP listening party, and of course, locket (side one).

OTW: Who are your musical inspirations?

Drew: I grew up listening to a huge array of music. I’m super grateful to my parents for that. They exposed me to everyone from Led Zeppelin to Aretha Franklin to A Tribe Called Quest, really opening my mind to the spectrum of artists and genres! My biggest inspirations for songwriting are Frank Ocean, Phoebe Bridgers, and Paul Simon. They write the most poignant lyrics and I love that they all write nonlinearly. Some other inspirations of mine at the moment are Blood Orange, Ariana Grande, Crumb, and Beabadoobee (who is only 18 too!).

OTW: How did you manage to collaborate with GoldLink on your debut single, “faded/2am?”

Drew: Honestly, I’ve always been a huge fan of GoldLink! I love his combination of traditional R&B and new-age rap with a hint of funkiness. He’s insanely talented. My manager sent "faded/2am" to GoldLink’s team on a whim, and he really liked the song and wanted to collaborate! I was absolutely blown away when we got his verse, I think I cried in the kitchen with my brother!

OTW: Can you describe your songwriting process?

Drew: My songwriting process is super free form. I try to write every day, but my favorite songs are the ones that come super naturally. My best ideas usually come at night! I usually write melody and lyrics at the same time, which I think is a little bit strange - lyrics and melody often come at the same time for me. After I write melody and lyrics, I’ll go to the piano and mess around with some chords and see what fits. I try not to force the songwriting process, and I think my songs would sound and feel different if I didn’t take as organic of an approach. I also don’t really write about particular events, I’d rather write about specific feelings. I kind of collage different moments into each song in order to articulate a feeling - it’s super stream of consciousness.

OTW: How does it feel to know that locket (side one) is now out in the world?

Drew: I’m honestly a bit nervous! It’s always weird to know that people will actually hear something you’ve worked on. Despite that, I am super excited to just get more music out there and let people interpret the project in their own ways. This project is super special to me and I’ve been working on it for about two years now, so I’m definitely ready to get it out into the world.

OTW: Do you have a favorite song off locket (side one)?

Drew: Yes! I feel like I shouldn’t pick favorites, but “seconds” has to be my personal favorite off the project. I wrote it in my birthplace of London last summer, and it’s always felt the most “me” out of all the songs. I find something different lyrically and sonically every listen.

OTW: What’s a funny memory you have from shooting the “take it back” music video?

Drew: Honestly, the whole “take it back” shoot is a funny memory. I shot the "take it back" video with these amazing directors called Weird Life Films who are based out of Chicago. I absolutely love them and had such a great time filming and collaborating with the whole Weird Life team! One funny memory is that Jackson, DP and lighting extraordinaire, somehow is never addressed by his actual name. Some nicknames that were thrown around were Richard, Chardo, Lee, Lionel, Lionel Richie, Char Doggie, the list goes on. As Jackson said, “It ain’t all fun and games in nickname town.”

OTW: Tell us about your slumber party themed EP listening party!

Drew: I’ve had this idea for a while to throw slumber party themed events, and the EP drop seemed like the right time to do the first one. A lot of the music on this EP is centered around nostalgia and the importance of childhood memories, so I wanted to create a safe and artistic space that people could come to and travel back to their early childhood for one night. We covered the whole backyard of my friend’s house in Venice with blankets, pillows, bean bags, and rugs. We also had giant games, lots of food, and scrapbooking! Another part of the event was an art gallery that I curated with my friend’s art that was all around the space -- everything from sculptures to sketches. My friend Jack H-W played a few songs, and then I played most of my EP, and snuck in a Frank Ocean cover (“Higgs” from Endless). We also screened my documentary that I made with my friend John Hein. It was such a great night and went exactly how I’d dreamed it. I said this to a few people, but I think it still stands - 12 year old Lila would’ve been proud.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Drew: There are honestly so many amazing new artists out there right now! I love Beabadoobee (who I mentioned before). I also love Choker; I could listen to his albums forever. I’ve been listening to Col3trane since his first single and think he’ll be huge. I really like Sasami too. And Grace Ives!

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‘Battlestar Galactica’ EP David Eick Revisits 5 Episodes That Remain Relevant

The cast of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (Credit: Justin Stephens/Syfy/NBC/Getty Images)

Leading up to the 20th anniversary of the March 10, 1997 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Yahoo TV is celebrating “Why Genre Shows Matter” and the history of how these shows have tackled universal themes (i.e. how much high school sucks) and broader social issues.

On the surface, Battlestar Galactica is the story of a ragtag fleet of interstellar travelers, searching the cosmos for a new home after their old world was destroyed by a robot army. At least, that’s the basic premise shared by the 1978 version of the series that aired on ABC for a single season, and its reboot, which aired on the Sci-Fi Channel (later rechristened Syfy) from 2003 to 2009, first as a miniseries and then an ongoing four-season show.

But the latter incarnation also doubles as a history of early 21st century America, as showrunners Ronald D. Moore and David Eick filtered real world events through the lens of genre television. “Both Ron and I were political news junkies, and really connected about that even before we started Battlestar,” Eick tells Yahoo TV. “What was going on in the world — like elections and troop movements in the Middle East — sucked a lot of oxygen out of any room that we were in together, so it naturally began to infect what the stories were about.”

‘Battlestar Galactica’ showrunners David Eick and Ronald D. Moore at a Syfy upfront in 2010 (Photo: Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic)

Certainly, watching Battlestar Galactica from the vantage point of 2017 — which you can do on Hulu, where the entire four-season run is available to stream — is akin to skimming news headlines from a turbulent decade that saw America confronting divisive events like 9/11, the Iraq War, and the administration of George W. Bush. And those real world parallels didn’t go unnoticed while the show was airing; in fact, mere days before the 2009 series finale, the cast and crew of Galactica — including stars Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, who played Commander William Adama and President Laura Roslin respectively — were guests at the United Nations for a celebration of the show’s provocative political commentary.

Reflecting on the show eight years later, Eick insists that Galactica‘s social relevance was more of a “natural evolution” than a hard-and-fast plan. “To a certain degree, it became an outlet for us, because the goings on in the real world were getting heated and heightened, and suddenly we had this kind of weaponized narrative to express reactions to it,” he says. “Once we got a handle on it, with a little more self-awareness and deliberation, we started to purposely attempt to subvert expectations about who the characters represented in the real world.” There are times when Eick, who’s now an executive producer on Freeform’s Beyond, misses having that particular sci-fi universe through which to express his thoughts on our real one. “I sat in on a small salon with Henry Kissinger and listened to him talk about China,” he says. “It made me wish I had a Battlestar TV show to write an episode about everything he was saying!”

To illustrate how Galactica tackled social issues in a genre context, we spoke with Eick about five specific episodes that used the real world as a jumping off point to tell alternately thrilling and thoughtful sci-fi stories.

(Credit: NBC)

The Issue: Suicide Bombing The Episode: “Litmus” (Season 1, Episode 6)

The first inkling that the new Battlestar Galactica is going to venture to thematic places its predecessor hadn’t comes in the opening moments of “Litmus,” when a Number Five Cylon model strolls through Galactica in a suicide vest, setting it off when Adama confronts him. Viewers who watched that episode live when it premiered on Feb. 11, 2005, could have been forgiven for thinking the show had been interrupted by a “Breaking News” bulletin. At that point, the U.S. military was two years into the Iraq War, and reports of suicide bombings were a regular staple of news coverage. Within the world of the show, that incident instigated a security crackdown, as well as the organization of an independent tribunal that felt empowered to make examples of those it deemed responsible for the attack. In that way, the episode is actually less about the bombing, and more about the reaction — or, as some might say, overreaction — it inspired.

Interestingly, Galactica would revisit the subject of suicide bombing during the “New Caprica” arc of Season 3. Only this time, the bombers were our supposed heroes. In order to thwart the Cylon invasion of their new home, the human fleet resorted to the same guerilla tactics that had previously been used against them. The dramatic power of that reversal is made all the more potent because of an episode like “Litmus.”

Eick: I would call that [“Litmus” episode] “kicking the tire.” It was more of a situational echo chamber; a specific kind of violent act that was definitely going to ring the bells of anyone watching the 11 o’clock news, but didn’t really go beyond that. It was just that event, and then we moved on and told the story. There’s no question that it was allegorical in terms of what was happening in the world, but it was somewhat limited to the events of that 45-minute story.

Generally, I would be on the front lines to deal with the network’s first reaction [to an episode], and I do remember that incident being somewhat controversial. Not as controversial as other debates we had with the network, [but] their concern was that we not be viewed as cloying or attempting in any way to disrespect the reality of the incident. That was the only concern, and it was our concern, too.

The first season was such a fight to get greenlit that by the time we were finished with those 13 episodes, we felt like we had done 1,000. So when they came to us in the second season and said, “Do 20,” it was terribly daunting. After we did those 20, the last thing we wanted to do was think about Season 3, but we had to. The “eureka” moment about Season 3 was choosing to make the season of the Cylon’s point of view. Thematically, we would be seeing the world from a vantage point where we may find ourselves actually agreeing with the Cylons. That woke us back up and, in a way far more purposeful than in previous seasons, made us sink our teeth into the allegory. [Now] the humans are the insurgents, and we are definitely telling the story in this world that parallel events in our world. It’s not an accident and we’re not being cute either. We’re making a statement about something, which is forcing you to sympathize with the side that’s [using] improvised explosive devices.

Edward James Olmos and Michelle Forbes in ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (Credit: Carole Segal/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

The Issue: Military Dictatorship The Episode: “Pegasus” (Season 2, Episode 10)

After assuming that they’re the only survivors of the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies, the fleet is thrilled to discover the existence of another military vessel: the Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes). But that joy quickly turns sour when it becomes clear that her wartime experiences have left Cain far less open to the idea of sharing power in a tenuous democracy. Instead, she implements top-down rule, ignoring both Adama as well as President Roslin as she pursues her own agenda. Cain’s moral authority is called further into question when it’s discovered that she’s ordered the systematic torture of a Number Six model, Gina (Tricia Helfer). The treatment that this designated enemy combatant is subjected to immediately recalls the horrific abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a story that broke in the spring of 2004, a year before “Pegasus” premiered.      

Eick: I recall the heart of that episode emerging from a place where we felt that we needed to challenge Adama in a way that he hadn’t been challenged yet. He couldn’t be challenged by Laura or by his son [Apollo] or by anybody else [on the Galactica]. He could really only have someone literally pull rank on him. A similar thing happened in an episode of the original series, so we were excited there was an opportunity to give that show a nod, number one. Number two, to put a woman in the role [of Cain] was exciting. And thirdly, [we wanted] to show by contrast the greatness of Adama. How else could you really appreciate the valor, courage, and decency of this man unless you can see how he might have been? I think those principals were more at work with “Pegasus” than a political or sociological statement.

Tricia Helfer as abused Cylon prisoner Gina in ‘Pegasus’ (Credit: NBC)

Once we got started looking at the details of the story and asking ourselves how to make it an effective piece of drama, then yes, we were inspired by events moving us emotionally in the real world. I’ll tell you, the reason [the Gina storyline] works is because Tricia Helfer rose to the occasion. She had never done anything like that, but we frequently did that on Battlestar; we threw a lot of characters into the deep end of the swimming pool just to see what would happen. What’s remarkable about Tricia is that she would do those scenes, and on a dime snap out of it, tell you a dirty joke, and go have lunch. [Director] Michael Rhymer chose angles and positioned her in such a way that you couldn’t help but feel like you were watching Abu Ghraib. That could have been shot and performed any number of ways, and it may not have had quite the same effect. In this particular case, I would attribute a great deal of that metaphorical power to the execution, to the choices that were made on the set and on the day.

Baltar (James Callis) takes the oath of office in ‘Lay Down Your Burdens’ (Credit: NBC)

The Issue: Electoral Fraud The Episode: “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2” (Season 2, Episode 20)

Stop us if this sounds familiar: Thanks to the timely intervention of a bombshell piece of information — in this case, the discovery of a habitable planet — the fleet’s contentious presidential election swings in favor of a political outsider rather than the more experienced female candidate. Since the second half of Galactica‘s Season 2 finale originally aired in March 2006, a full decade before the 2016 Presidential election and its last-minute FBI letters, we’ll have to chalk those similarities up to an uncannily accurate bit of foreshadowing.

But what happens next is inspired by the ghosts of elections past, rather than those yet to come. When it becomes clear that Gaius Baltar (James Callis) will defeat Roslin, the incumbent President attempts to preserve the status quo by okaying an operation to “lose” her rival’s winning 5,000 votes. It’s the ever-honorable Lt. Gaeta (Alessandro Juliani) who discovers the fraud while closely studying ballot totals, much like the nation did in the wake of the 2000 election when George W. Bush and Al Gore were separated by a mere 537 votes.

Eick: [The 2000 election] was not the outcome that most of us wanted and, furthermore, kind of a terrifying exhibition of authoritarianism from the judicial branch. It was such a scary and depressing thing that it was as though we needed to exorcise it through these episodes. At a certain point, we had the election take up much more of the narrative than it wound up being. It became a bit too navel gaze-y and talky. It felt more about us expressing our rage at the situation than telling a story with some momentum. We had to go back and really think through a story to layer and thread into that situation so that it wouldn’t feel like an echo chamber of the actual election.

I can’t remember at what point that specific idea [of discovering New Caprica] emerged, and that that circumstance would dovetail into Baltar’s inevitable election. It was great, because it’s real. We know that those things happen to the least deserving amongst us frequently; anybody who has every checked the newspaper to see what a competitor’s accomplished that they haven’t yet knows what I’m talking about. When you see somebody get something that seems ill-deserved, it grabs you. I think that story point rings true in a way that recent events prove.

The only thing I posted on my Facebook page after the [2016] election was, “Movies and music are about to get crazy good again.” I know that was the sentiment of a lot of people; it’s certainly true that when you go through long periods of relative peace and quiet you can kind of forget the importance of talking about what’s going on. Then when something unexpected or loud or disruptive happens, suddenly science fiction has a whole other agenda and purpose. A science fiction piece made today is going to have the potential to be much more profound than a piece of science fiction from six months ago. That’s just the reality.

Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) confronts the harsh conditions faced by the rest of the fleet in ‘Dirty Hands’ (Credit: NBC)

The Issue: Class Conflict The Episode: “Dirty Hands” (Season 3, Episode 16)

Although Galactica is just one ship in a larger fleet, the demands of serialized storytelling mean that the majority of the show’s action takes place in its corridors. What’s happening aboard the other vessels is largely left up to the imagination. But Eick and Moore did make a point of venturing off Galactica whenever possible to give a sense of what daily life was like elsewhere in the fleet. The plot of “Dirty Hands,” for example, involves the unpleasant circumstances aboard the refinery ship the Hitei Kan, where laborers of all ages (including children) endure long hours and perilous surroundings to produce a constant supply of fuel for the other spacecrafts.

It’s a harsh, thankless existence compared to the relative comforts enjoyed by those in the military and civilian government. So it’s no wonder that the citizens aboard the Hitei Kan harbor the kinds of resentments that are often cited in discussions of the cultural divides between Red States and Blue States or the working classes and the upper classes. That also makes them susceptible to the persuasive arguments of ex-President Baltar, who has refashioned himself as the voice of the oppressed.

Eick: Part of the original sale of the show was that we would be investigating and experiencing life on the other ships for no other reason than to give the audience and the network some visual variety. The biggest barrier standing between us and a pick-up [at the time] was, “How do you force network executives who don’t want to look at a spaceship to be inside of a spaceship all the time?” And our answer was, “We’ll go to different ships!” The truth is, we could never afford to do it. Beyond that, we never had a reason to do it other than episodic circumstances. Maybe you could do an episode about the ship that carries all the food, but otherwise, there wasn’t a compelling reason to go to the other ships.

What happened in Season 3, though, was that we were able to marshal enough resources to say, “Okay, now we actually have a reason to experience what life is like on these other ships.” Class had become important in the season’s discussion of who is the decision maker — and who died and put them in the decision making chair. In that regard, the audience needed to see other people, other ships, and other points of view in order to sort of reconcile that drama. The only significance of it being a mining ship had to do with how do you make the situation make sense with the larger mission of the fleet. To the extent that it’s a class theme, it’s a mining ship because miners aren’t admirals, captains, and lieutenants, and they have different challenges and different things to worry about.

Roslin (Mary McDonnell) talks spirituality with another dying woman in ‘Faith’ (Credit: NBC)

The Issue: Religion The Episode: “Faith” (Season 4, Episode 8)

By the fourth and final season, some of Galactica‘s more pointed political commentary started to fall away as the writers had to focus on the story’s endgame. Central to the planned resolution was the issue of religious belief, something that had been part of the show since the beginning and took on an increased prominence in the last year to the annoyance and outright hostility of a sizeable segment of fans. An episode like “Faith,” where a dying Roslin has an extended conversation about God with another patient at death’s door, is an example of the earnest, if sometimes awkward, way that Galactica sought to wrestle with religion as the show approached the end of its lifespan.

Eick: It started with a comment made by the head of the studio when he read the script for the Galactica miniseries. There was a line from Six to Baltar in which she said, “God is love.” It was kind of a throwaway line, just sort of to be provocative. This executive gave us a note that we took and ran as fast as we could with in the next re-write. His basic thought was, “What if the Cylons were believers in a single god, unlike their creators who were polytheists? And what if the Cylons believed, as we understand from an evolutionary perspective, that the only way they can truly move on to their next evolutionary stage is to rid themselves of their parents? In that sense, they’re following God’s plan, and they’re enshrouded in a holy mission.” That suddenly allowed us a great deal of narrative and character flexibility, because once you introduce a theological agenda, all kinds of crazy behavior can be justified and rationalized. So it was a perfect kind of note from an executive who was willing to push us in an unorthodox direction.

This was baked into the cake from a very early point, so when you get to Season 4, and start trying to play out the various theological storylines that you’ve introduced, you suddenly go from the metaphorical to the literal and specific. Once you do that, you run into problems that have to do with certain peoples’ preconceptions about religion and how it’s used and what it means, and other people who are viewing this as a very secular tale. You have two different perspectives on it, so by the time you resolve it, there’s no version that leaves everyone happy because you touched a third rail called religion.

I think if Ron and I were known as outspoken conservatives, the appropriate ending to the show may have been the opposite [of what we did]. It may have been a realization that they had been misled by the folly of their arcane religious beliefs. When you have two godless liberal Hollywood TV guys telling a story that involves religion, the last thing you expect is that the resolution is going to involve any kind of embrace of that idea. I was hopeful that we would surprise them. It wasn’t the network’s favorite choice, because when you’re dealing with religion, you’re dealing with controversy whether you call it Christianity or you call it perhaps something else.

Battlestar Galactica is currently streaming on Hulu.

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Showdown: "Historical Context"

SHOWDOWN

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EP:61:12 : “Historical Context”

ERIA QUINT: Welcome to Showdown, an examination of the Empire’s most important issues broken down from multiple angles. I’m Eria Quint. Today’s topic takes us to Jata, the beating heart of the Davien system. From the first Human city visited by the Banu to the infamous terrorist attacks of 2545 that paved the way for Ivar Messer’s ascension, Jata’s tumultuous past has left an indelible impression on the Empire. But now, a vigorous debate has erupted regarding the question of how best to remember that history.

The Jata Historical Society (JHS) came under fire following a February 11th meeting where they debated what to name of the city’s newest park. The JHS Board of Directors eventually voted to dedicate the park to influential Aegis Dynamics CEO Hana Chan, a move that has local activists outraged and demanding that the JHS reconsider their decision.

Even among Aegis enthusiasts, Chan’s legacy could best be described as problematic. Her 65-year reign from 2643 to 2708, the longest ever among Aegis’ CEOs, featured an impressive list of accomplishments, including the development of the Javelin-class destroyer still in use by the Navy. Yet Chan’s cozy relationship with the Messer regime became a stain on both her legacy and the company’s.

Joining us today to discuss the controversial decision is Jata-based activist and author of The People’s History of Davien, Theo Raja.

THEO RAJA: Hi, Eria. Great to have Showdown taking on such an important subject. On the surface, this might appear to be a local issue, but addressing how we present our history affects generations to come.

ERIA QUINT: Also with us today is Simone Maruyama. She’s a history professor at the University of Jata and a member of the Jata Historical Society’s Board of Directors. Let’s start with you, Ms. Maruyama. How has the JHS responded to the criticism over naming the park after Hana Chan?

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Ever since her name was proposed, there has been a vocal contingent against naming the park after Chan. We’ve been listening to those concerns during every step of the process, but ultimately, a majority of the board felt Chan’s impact on the Empire’s history was worthy of the recognition.

ERIA QUINT: And you disagree, Mr. Raja?

THEO RAJA: To put it mildly? Because it celebrates a woman whose allegiance to the Messers helped them systematically persecute people. I could go into more detail, but what else needs to be said? That alone should be enough to disqualify anyone from having a park named after them, especially when there are so many other worthy candidates to choose from.

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Let me make a few things clear. First, I am not here to defend Hana Chan. Believe me when I say that I find many of her actions questionable.

Second, the view of Ms. Chan expressed by Mr. Raja is overly simplistic and fails to take into account the many positive contributions she made to the UEE. There’s widespread consensus that her stewardship of Aegis lead to many advancements within the aerospace industry.

THEO RAJA: Good and evil aren’t checkmarks on opposite sides of a ledger. Maybe that’s why I can’t so easily disregard whole swaths of Ms. Chan’s life. I mean, one, she considered Illyana Messer VI to be a close personal friend, and two, she leveraged that relationship into massive government contracts, knowing full well that the ships she produced would be used against civilian populations.

She literally helped the government terrorize the people. What good could possibly offset that?

ERIA QUINT: Ms. Maruyama, your response?

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Who would deserve recognition if we only examined the bad parts of their life?

What Mr. Raja fails to acknowledge is Ms. Chan’s important role in developing the Javelin as a battle platform that could go toe-to-toe with the Vanduul. Even more importantly, she was essential to making diamond laminate standard in ship cockpits. Today, people don’t realize just how vital diamond laminate was to improving ship safety. Before its widespread use, many, many more people died every year from their ships getting vented due to cracks in the cockpit.

THEO RAJA: I’m not saying that Ms. Chan doesn’t deserve recognition for her accomplishments. I just don’t believe Jata should openly celebrate someone with such a troubled history.

ERIA QUINT: Mr. Raja, you believe another historical figure from Jata deserves to have the park named after him. Can you tell us about who you’d like it named after?

THEO RAJA: Of course. On December 15, 2545, Terrell Milner was a medic and one of the first responders to arrive on scene after the terrorist bombing. He fearlessly rushed into a building to aid those in need, only to die when a secondary device exploded and the building crumbled around him. Milner threw himself across Alex Tinifel before the building collapsed, saving the young boy’s life from the falling debris. This park would be an ideal spot to celebrate his sacrifice, and make this little known hero of Jata a household name.

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Terrell Milner was on the shortlist of potential names for the park and given serious consideration. When making the final decision though, the JHS had to keep a few things in mind.

One, Mr. Milner’s bravery and sacrifice are already addressed on the historical marker covering the “Atrocity at Jata.” Second, Ms. Chan’s impact on Empire-wide history simply exceeds that of Mr. Milner. For good or bad, the JHS has never acknowledged Ms. Chan’s accomplishments, and we hoped this would be a good chance to do it, warts and all.

ERIA QUINT: Warts and all?

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Yes, the language adopted by the JHS for the park’s historical marker will specifically mention both good and bad aspects of her legacy.

THEO RAJA: Barely …

ERIA QUINT: What was that, Mr. Raja?

THEO RAJA: Yeah, I’ve seen the text, and the negative parts of her legacy appear almost as an afterthought. It says, and I’m directly quoting here, “Ties to the Messer regime cloud her legacy.” That’s it.

Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of Jata’s history knows that’s a grossly inadequate description. Even worse, someone who’s hearing about Chan for the first time walks away with a distorted view of her true impact on the Empire. By recording only a partial history, the JHS are making moral judgements regarding what they deem important.

SIMONE MARUYAMA: Are you suggesting that because we don’t inscribe a full biography onto a marker, the whole thing is meritless?

THEO RAJA: I’m suggesting that you are sanitizing the facts in order to make history more consumable for tourists. Chan’s legacy is deeply entwined with both the Messers and a major corporation that’s been around for hundreds of years. That connection must be made crystal clear before her impact on it can be fully understood. That would probably be best achieved with a permanent exhibit at the Jata History Museum.

Of course, there’s absolutely no chance that Aegis Dynamics would allow such an exhibit to exist in Jata. Trust me, I’ve tried and come up against the full force of their political and economic power. Aegis acknowledges their relationship to the Messers, but they sure as hell don’t want it under a microscope. Particularly in their own backyard.

ERIA QUINT: Ms. Maruyama, a similar question to you. Do you believe a historical marker in this park is the ideal way to present Hana Chan’s complicated legacy?

SIMONE MARUYAMA: I believe our job isn’t to define her legacy. As historians, our job is to present the facts, provide the proper context, and encourage people to think freely and come to their own conclusion.

ERIA QUINT: Thanks to both you for joining us today. We need to take a quick break. When Showdown returns, we’re off to the Coral System to debate whether increased scrutiny at customs checkpoints are deterring businesses from delivering there. Stick around to find out more.