#jd is legitimately one of my favorite musical characters of all time for the way his background supports his actions

[karmanticmoved]

heathers: the essay

okay so jason dean, better known as jd, in the heathers musical is one of the main "villains", the others being the heathers, kurt, and ram, right? but despite his actions, i think that jd was less of a villain and simply a kid in need of help that never got it, and was only pushed until he thought that even murder was okay, so long as he was protecting the love of his life, veronica. in this essay i will be supporting my claims with evidence, and i want to make it clear that i am not saying he is an innocent baby boy. that is not true.

so to start off, jd is introduced and immediately gets attacked, specifically for being "gay" and gets called the f-slur. and he doesn't appear surprised or at all offput by this, almost as though he is used to this treatment from others. this leads me to believe that jd was likely bullied all throughout his high school experience at different schools, thus leading him to gain fighting experience because kids were literally attacking him for doing nothing at all. now, this is already terrible. nobody deserves that shit. but to make it worse, its clear he also doesn't have any friends likely due to the bullying, as well as all the moving due to his dad. and he doesn't trust his dad in the slightest, leaving jd completely alone and unable to confide in anyone else about what the hell was going on. and at this point, this life is normal for him. he doesn't see any problem with it because he doesn't know how bad it is.

next, we can discuss his father. how jd seemed to start as nothing more than a normal sweet child, but his past changed him. specifically, his mother's death. the fact that she consciously chose to kill herself using one of the buildings his dad was destroying and left jd to be raised by a man with too much anger and what appears to be not much care for his son. in the act of killing herself, she destroyed what was, maybe, the single strongest bond that jd ever had. and, when jd and his dad began to move around, he likely soon learned that friendship was impossible for him by now, and instead decided to emotionally distance himself so as to keep himself from getting attached to anyone at all. this is why we see veronica making all the first moves on him. he may have seen her. he probably thought she was attractive. but he was so used to, and good at, keeping people distanced, he didn't care until she forced herself into his life. even in freeze your brain, it is solely a way for jd to express his coping techniques. "freezing his brain". now, that shit HURTs or maybe im just a wimp. but also, jd talks about how the pain of doing this helps to keep him from cutting himself and leaving visible scars. instead, the slushies are a way of self harm without permanent marks. quite like purposefully going without food for long periods of time or not sleeping at all. you're damaging yourself without scars.

so jd definitely has depression. he's traumatised to the point where being attacked in school is normal and he's good at fighting off the attackers, and he doesn't have anyone he cares about. then comes veronica. now, veronica comes into his room during dead girl walking, and you can hear that jd is confused about how the Hell she found him, so it wasn't his idea, but he goes through with it anyway, finally letting someone in after literally years upon years of being emotionally closed off. perhaps its because he saw the pain she was going through and wanted to help her somehow like nobody did for him all these years. but in forcing herself into jd's life like this, veronica unknowingly pulls a switch inside of him. he already thought the world was terrible. he thought nothing good was to come out of it, and then comes veronica. when he sees her, all he wants to do it protect her from the hurt that he's suffered. he just wants to keep her happy and alive, and when he jokes about killing heather, that's what it really is. at first.

we see this demonstrated by how he starts to stop veronica, knowing that she took the wrong cup. he wasn't expecting to actually kill heather. but then he gets an idea. if all the bad people in the world are dead, how the hell are they supposed to harm the love of his life? now, cue the rest of the musical with kurt and ram. their existence only further solidifies this idea of his that he needs to destroy everyone who tries to lay a finger on the girl he loves. the fact that veronica went along with it (unknowingly for the most part) also made it worse. now after their deaths, he says that he would truthfully kill more people if that's what it takes to protect veronica, and she breaks up with him. which, while it makes sense, you don't really want to be dating a murderer, also spirals things even further out of control. because he thought that he was doing what he needed to do to protect her, and in doing so, he lost the one person he ever had. thus, sparking his desire to destroy the whole school. not our of purely anger, but because he still wants to save veronica and get her back, and he thinks that going big is the only way possible.

at the end of meant to be yours, when veronica fakes her death, you can see jd falter. he doesn't know what to do without veronica, but then, thinking back to his mother likely, he decides that, in order to "avenge" her, he must still go through with his plan. and so, he closes himself off as best he can and sets off to destroy the school once and for all.

in dead girl walking reprise, veronica appears again, trying to get jd to stop, and he doesn't seem as surprised to see her alive as he is bitter. he knows she faked her death to escape him, just like his mother actually died to escape his father all those years ago.

and now, he's broken beyond repair. he's opened up and closed himself off far too many times as of this point, he's somewhere in between. somewhere where he still cares and is still "doing this for veronica", but he also won't listen to her. however. when she gets the upper hand and shoots him, it seems to snap him to his senses. to let him know that she means it. she'd rather let them both die than the school full of people. so, jd opens up one last time and apologizes in the only way he knows how. by telling her that it's his fault. he has been damaged from the start. but she can fix it and still be happy. she can fix what's bad in the world and all that he made a mess of. and then, knowing he himself is far too broken to be repaired, jd takes the bomb and kills himself.

now what im saying by all this, is that jd began as a regular kid, and was shaped and hurt so badly by the world around him, that it warped his view into thinking in black and white. good and bad. he was not innocent, but his goal was not to hurt people, it was simply to save veronica in the only way he knew how. and that is how you write one hell of a good character arc. or interpret it as such

[growingpaynes-art]

The Lion King 2019 Review: What I Liked, What I Didn’t, and How It Compares to the Original

Non-spoilery overview and note to anyone debating watching this- 

If you’re looking for this film to give you something that the original didn’t, you will be disappointed. This is a nearly shot-for-shot exact recreation of the original for most of the movie. There are some minor changes, but no major differences in plot. 

However

It’s definitely worth seeing- once on a matinee ticket at the very least- if you enjoyed anything about the original. It’s pretty faithful to the source material and the hyper-realism of the animation really is best viewed on a big screen. The comedy is solid, the changes they made to the story and characters were good decisions, and as a guy that was literally raised on the original movie and grew up loving every part of it, i did legitimately enjoy seeing this remake with my mother (who introduced me to the original when I was very little) and getting to share this story that I loved with my younger sister for the first time.

If all you are here for is the “Let’s Go Lesbians” guy you will be satisfied

Spoilers under the cut

What I Liked:

The visuals of the opening sequence alone are worth the price of admission. They’ve lovingly recreated the iconic intro nearly frame for frame in astounding detail. It really succeeded in taking me back to my three-year old self seeing the original for the first time on my family’s little box tv, captivated by the visuals and score. 

Timon and Pumbaa were legitimately funny and are stronger characters than in the original.

They kept the aspects of Scar that made him sinister, conniving, and creepy without stepping into queer-coding territory. They also didn’t apply racial coding to him in the overt way they did in the original.

At first I was disappointed by Rafiki’s lack of a staff in the opening, but I was later pacified by its appearance for the final battle. I would however, have liked to see the “oh yes, the past can hurt” bit between him and Simba, which was absent in this version.

I felt that the introduction of the hyena characters in the elephant graveyard was stronger in this version, but i do wish that the chase scene had gone on for longer. It’s significantly shorter than the original, and the cubs don’t fight back like they did in the original.

The hyenas played a larger role where they had much more agency, and the relationship between them and Scar was on more equal footing. Shenzi was an especially welcome change, presenting a truly chilling presence easily rivaling Scar’s. Florence Kasumba’s performance really stands out. Additionally Eric Andre and Keegan-Michael Key’s hyena characters served as quality comic relief without any jokes straying into possible able-ism.

The ‘pinned-ya’ scenes were re-choreographed to be more like two kids wrestling and didn’t have the awkward sexual implications some people point out in the original.

This version offers a quick explanation as to why Scar is living with the pride despite the typical customs of real lions

The mouths were really animated very well, and were for the most part very expressive. They were a bit hard to track during the songs, but generally words were formed pretty believably in their mouths and expressions such as smiles or grimaces were rendered very clearly without looking foreign on an animal face. This was by far best achieved on Timon and the hyenas, but was decent on the lion cubs, Scar, and most of the minor characters as well. The other adult lions weren’t as expressive, but they’re weren’t terrible either.

The animation of Timon, Pumbaa, and the hyenas continually impressed impressed me throughout the course of the film. They were simultaneously the most consistently realistic looking and the most expressive. I honestly don’t understand why some people are coming for Pumbaa and saying he’s ‘nightmare fuel’, his design was both very friendly looking and accurate to real warthogs. He and Timon seemed to be the favorites of both the kids and adults in my theater. 

The short scene where adult Simba gleefully pounces after a pair of butterflies and invites a scared Hartebeest hang out, oblivious to his own  status as a carnivore, was pretty adorable.

Timon and Pumbaa were more or less confirmed to be a gay couple, and are shown with their own piglet during the ending sequence. This isn’t lingered on for longer than necessary, just long enough for you to appreciate how adorable the little striped piglet is, and thus it comes off as more genuine than performative allyship (it’s definitely better than Beauty and the Beast’s “exclusively gay moment” or Endgame’s Gay Joe Russo). It also helps that Timon isn’t being portrayed by a straight guy leaning as hard into the camp gay stereotype as possible. It was a moment that I, as a queer person, actually enjoyed.

What I Didn’t: 

I felt that the musical score wasn’t as strong as the original. I wanted that first note over the sunrise to shake the theater, to bang across the screen in brilliant gold, and when it didn’t, I was disappointed. I felt this way regarding the score and soundtrack for much of the film.

While much of the dialogue matched the original nearly word for word, the delivery of most of it was much more subdued. I understand that they were going for a grittier tone that was less cartoon-y, but a lot of Scar and adult Simba’s lines seemed like they were mumbled off at the end of a work day and they’d just given up on trying to get a better take. Donald Glover seemed to teeter between Marshall Lee and complete disinterest a lot of the time. 

I would have liked to have seen more of Rafiki than what we got, and I’d been hoping for an expansion on his role from the original rather than a reduction. 

The “I killed Mufasa” bit was done very well- Chiwetel Ejiofor’s delivery of the line was chilling (although not as much as Jeremy Irons’), the expression in Scar’s eyes was very sinister, the light of the fire hit him just right. The following revelation of this truth to the lionesses however was bumbly, and seemed like it was originally written to be longer but was quickly and awkwardly condensed. It really didn’t flow as well as the original.

The end battle between Scar and Simba was anti-climactic. The choreography and visuals were much more creative and suspenseful in the original. The blows didn’t really have much weight or ferocity to them, and they didn’t coincide as well with the score. There also was no sick kick move, Scar literally just accidentally rolls off the cliff. The showdown between Nala and Shenzi is far better- it’s vicious and animalistic, with a few shots having them silhouetted with fire roaring behind them, Nala’s massive teeth shown off impressively in profile. 

From the very first introduction of Scar, it’s strongly and very overtly implied that Sarabi is the one that gave him the scar after he attempted to advance on her despite her rejecting him. This is revisited again when he commands Sarabi to be his queen upon his assuming of the throne. She again rejects him. With this moment being played twice, I expected this to be a plant for a later third scene of Sarabi temporarily putting Scar back in his place, or at least threatening to take his other eye, to replace the scene from the original where he slaps her across the face. Scar and Sarabi do eventually come to blows as Simba and Nala return to Pride Rock, but it’s very brief and sort of just a clumsy grapple without a clear winner, and with no reference to their apparent backstory. This comes off as a case of planting without payoff. I expect that either a scene such as the one i described was originally planned and cut for time, or it was thought that the implications of such a scene might bring the film up towards a PG-13 rating.

I wish that in the more harrowing sequences, such as the elephant graveyard chase and the stampede scene, that we could see some real fear on the character’s faces. There’s some really good tensing of the body and some bared teeth, but there’s not much in the eyes. I feel the emotion would have been communicated better if the pupils were dilated, if the eyes were darting back and forth with the whites showing at the edges occasionally, the ears flattened down hard against the head.The child actors put forward some really believable fear and sadness through their voices, but the faces just didn’t quite match it. I do however understand that this is a kid’s film, and that showing a hyper-realistic lion cub gripped with sheer terror or coming to the understanding of the gravity of death is probably too much for most young kids. I personally just prefer to have truly heartwrenching, impactful, and emotional scenes in the media I consume, and I often walk away unfulfilled in this respect (although, i admit i am very difficult to please in this area- i’ve been a die-hard mcu fan for the better part of a decade and i left my first watch of infinity war almost completely unaffected.)

Continuing from the last point- The eyes on most of the characters were very static. They rarely blinked, only really looked straight ahead and lacked any range of expression beyond neutral and slightly squinted. The expression of emotion could have been greatly facilitated by the use of the brow muscles, dilating and contracting of the pupils, more squinting and widening, some side-eye or eye-rolling, etc. Even using some more body language would have made a world of difference (for example- an excited cub wriggling with excitement, his paws shifting and his little butt scooting in the sand because he just can’t contain himself, his shoulders shaking with high-pitched giggles) Emotion was delivered quite well through the mouths, but almost not at all through the eyes. This made the scene where Simba discovers his dead father especially awkward looking. JD McCrary delivers some heartbreaking cries and a few tear-choked lines, and the little cub body shakes and cowers, but Simba’s cgi face retains a completely neutral expression. Its a very cute, and perfectly realistic face for a lion cub, but it’s a face that feels inappropriate for this context. Adult Simba and Nala are the worst offenders in this respect. Simba looks almost like a plush doll, almost never changing expression at all. Nala looks superbly hyper-realistic, but... too realistic. She’s as perfect of a cgi lioness model you could possibly ask for, but because of this, there’s no intelligence in her eyes for some of the shots. It’s strange and distracting to hear a human voice come out as her mouth moves realistically while the eyes retain a vacant animal stare. This is really weird to me as there are multiple moments in the film where they absolutely nail the eyes- the sequence where Simba chases Rafiki through the dense jungle, several shots of Nala sneaking away from Pride Rock by moonlight, the close-up of Scar as he reveals to Simba that he killed Mufasa. The commonality between these shots seems to be strong directional lighting, where light from the moon or a fire can catch the irises and make the expression in them really pop. Closeups of Mufasa’s face showed that they had unprecedented control of the facial muscles- they moved with intricate complexity under the skin and fur- and yet the eyes were blank. It’s disappointing that they clearly had the capability to get the eyes right and apparently just didn’t allow the cg artists enough time to apply this consistently.

The slow motion zoom away from Simba’s face as he watches his father fall from the cliff face is admittedly ridiculous looking in cgi. This “long live the king” doesn’t come anywhere close to the original. Mufasa’s climb up the cliff is pretty good, but the fall feels flat and unemotional. 

The sequence tracking the wad of Simba’s hair went on for too long.

The story seemed much faster paced than the original, and each scene seemed to be too short, leaving me wanting more. Some of the scenes feel awkwardly chopped or condensed, and some of the dialogue is a bit bumbly. This movie kinda relies on you being very familiar with the original.