#megan watches

[solitaryandwandering]

A Ramble: Love in the Big City Eps 1-2

I just watched episode 2 of Love in the Big City and I am... reeling. Cried when Kim Nam Gyu died, when Yeong and Mi Rae sang together at the wedding, cried at the crushing ending line. I loved the direction in these two episodes; one of the reasons I was super excited to watch this was because they're switching up the directors for each part. Such a cool way to signal transitions in Yeong's life. Now that I've seen the caliber Son Tae Gyum operated at I'm intrigued to see how direction will affect the next parts. Maybe I'll write up a thing about that in the end, but I'm hopeful others will as well! I am chomping at the bit to read the book, seriously!!

I have to mention first what a BALLSY move it was for them to open on Yeong's tryst with a man who was cheating on someone currently in the military. And he walks in the door, STILL IN UNIFORM. What a fucking slap in the face to hegemonic masculinity!!

After this first part what I am really lingering on are two things: queer loneliness and heteronormativity's relationship to misogyny. I'm just gonna put down my half-baked thoughts, I don't have the time or spoons to formulate coherent sentences haha

Though I saw Nam Gyu's death coming just based on vibes in the first episode, its impact wasn't lessened. Its significance didn't really hit me until I saw how empty his funeral was. Loneliness shaped his life - repression, liberation in meeting another gay man, falling in love with him way too fast, forming a dependent attachment, his desperation/obsessiveness in losing it so abruptly. He expressed his queerness in his photography, voyeuristic and seeking closeness with his subjects in the only way he felt was available to him. He had no friends, no relationships outside of his with Yeong. When Yeong breaks up with him and when he visits him drunk in ep 2, he says "falling in love is not a sin." To me, this shows just how removed from a loving community he has been, how nascent his queerness. He's still processing homophobia, it still influences every move he makes, everything he thinks. Clearly he has not had close relationships with other queers, where he may feel free to unburden himself. He falls back on heteronormative performance of romance, searching the best places for dates, not having anyone to ask. Knowing he's older makes this hurt more.

His story brought to mind the futility of AIDS-related deaths in the U.S., to be honest. I lost my gay uncle before I even knew him, and I know no one from his life. I know it's not a perfect parallel, but that funeral... this emptiness carries beyond one queer person's death. And Yeong's journey in these two episodes is about queer loneliness, of course. But his story is not as tragic as Nam Gyu's. He has (amazing) queer friends, and at one point had Mi Rae. He is much more connected to the queer community than Nam Gyu ever was. Despite his immaturity, Yeong is also much more familiar and comfortable with his queerness. I imagine this thread of self-actualization in the face of loneliness will continue in the rest of the show.

@twig-tea and @poetry-protest-pornography also wrote about queer loneliness in this show: here and here

And then we have Mi Rae, a vitally important relationship in Yeong's life, the love this part of the story is about. I met my best friend in college as well, so this part of the story was bringing up a lot of feelings too. To me, their friendship was as much about navigating heteronormativity as anything else, reflected in Yeong's reflection that "she learned that being a gay man sucks, and I learned that being a woman sucks just as much." Mi Rae is impacted by misogyny in every step of her character's journey: male classmates labeling her a slut and claiming her body for theirs, being groped, her challenges obtaining an abortion and mistreatment by a male doctor (where she literally claims her uterus back), her conflict with her parents (I'm assuming her mother had very rigid ideas of what a woman should be, based on her behavior at the wedding), hiding her past from her boyfriend, forced to defend herself when he questions why she lives with a man, shutting herself off from her relationship with Yeong (and thus rejecting her past) after the wedding. I looked up the status of abortion in Korea (a legal gray zone) and was reminded of how badly women there have it, which provided more context for her behavior.

Yeong must also traverse heteronormativity, which is what ultimately drives a wedge between the two and ends their friendship. In the beginning, their mutual rejection of heteronormative scriptures is what brings them together. He stands up for her against those male classmates, in an interaction steeped with assumptions of his heterosexuality. In rejecting her objectification he made himself a pariah for refusing to participate in normative masculinity. And their relationship continues thus, with her promising never to out him. She betrays him in a moment where she feels her participation in normative heterosexuality is threatened (and, indeed, it is a legitimately precarious position to be put in as a woman). Their brief reconciliation mainly consists of Yeong participating in a heterosexual ritual - he has no access to marriage in Korea. Her singing with him and letting go of her inhibitions for one last time was her goodbye to him and her ultimate acceptance of a more heteronormative life. One he can't participate in.

I hope that made any lick of sense. So looking forward to watching the next week. I am holding myself back from watching the next episodes right now. So hard.

[sunf10wer8]

NOT THEM PUNCHING EACH OTHER

[lovetren]

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Gilbert: I can have any girl at this school that I want

Anne: *smashes a slate on his head and vows to never speak to him*

Gilbert: That one, I want that one

[trickarrows-bishop]

GET A NUMBER 🗣️🗣️ GET A NAME💥💥 GET A GOOD 🎸THING🎸 WHILE 🎸YOU 🎸CAN🤭 KISS A BLONDE😏 KISS A FRIEND 😳 CAN A GAY GIRL GET AN AMEN⁉️

[sixxxer]

oh reanimator behind the scenes pictures you're my everything

[lascenizas]

The Last Movie I Watched...

Megan thee Stallion: In Her Words (2024, Dir.: Nneka Onuorah)

[notbecauseofvictories]

Back in the early 2000s, the Wicked OBC soundtrack came out, and I devoured it. Wicked immediately became part of my personality. I remember sitting in pre-algebra, reading and re-reading the McGuire book, listening to the soundtrack so often that even now, several decades later, I can breathe in time with the music. And then, as a birthday gift, my family took me to see the touring production. I was so excited. I was so jazzed. It was the fulfillment of every Broadway-loving Midwestern teen's dreams, to finally---finally---see the musical she has been pining for since she grabbed the soundtrack off the livejournal swap.

............shortly thereafter, I walked out of that production with my love of Wicked stone dead.

At the time, I chalked it up to the difference between imagination (no budget/labor/time constraints; physics is optional) and reality (physics exist; so does accounting). However, it's now been almost 20 years, they can do some real nifty stuff with CGI, so I can say with confidence...the version I came up with in my bedroom as a bored teen remains better.

[miketownsends]

every time he strikes someone out Kirby spits another K on the board

[newgroundstier]

sillyposting

[sunf10wer8]

10 minutes in and I’m in tears 😂 all of them forced to be actors but born to be comedians

[ransiquack]

having real fun with my art

go me!

(i will always love you chemical burns herbert and dan…)

[tobinsonny]

"there's only one emily back there"

[thehorrormoviechick]

My Top 10 Found Footage Horror Movies

[ballerinarina]

Fuck, man. I love them.

[disneysdead]

oh to have a guitar hero party