#my stand in Joe

[syrena-del-mar]

Navigating the Conflict in My Stand In: Surrender and Softening in Love

(Disclaimer: Ming/Joe is an incredibly toxic relationship; I fully realize and acknowledge that, but Poom makes a critical distinction in Joe's reasoning, and I think it's interesting to dissect. Also, this is fiction.)

It's been some time since I've written any meta, but I can't stop thinking about the video @poomphuripan shared of Poom making the distinction that Joe isn't giving in to Ming, but rather, his heart is melting for him.

It makes so much sense that Joe would melt at the littlest semblance of 'love.' He was so alone for so long. His parents have been dead for longer than he had them, he has no siblings, and his extended relatives don't care about him. I forget if it's mentioned in the show, but in the novel, Joe had a pretty big crush on Sol, and Sol rejected him quite brutally. Even without meaning to be, Joe is always alone at the end of the day.

Yes, Joe has friends, and yes, Joe made his own found family. But at the end of the day, Joe would return to an unlit, empty home. Everyone else would return to their wives or families, while Joe could only return to the pictures of his parents. Meanwhile, for all of Ming's bs and frightening behavior, he was the only one that made his dream come true.

For the first time, with Ming around, Joe would come home and be greeted by the warmth of another living, breathing person. Joe craved to have a human bond, and Ming was the one who was willing (albeit for his own interest) to give it to him. And he cooked for him. He took up space in his home! He remembered the very things Joe had told him he longed for. They had a lot of good times, a lot of good memories, and a pretty set routine that really integrated Ming into Joe's life. But then they fight, his blissful reality breaks, and Joe dies.

But Joe wakes up from what feels like a day's nap when, in actuality, two years have passed. And what does he find? Ming has cared for his apartment since his death and is unwilling to change anything just in case Joe returns. Ming continues to fulfill Joe's dream of returning to a warm home. So he turns on the lights, and he cooks the same dinner that they used to share for two years. And even in his rightful anger of wanting Ming to leave him alone, he's still seeing that. In the two years since his disappearance, someone still thought about him and hadn't fully grieved him. Ming's brother only confirms that.

Giving in would mean that Joe wanted to end the fight with Ming, when no feelings had changed. It'd be him emotionally surrendering himself, compromising his feelings of being just a double for Tong, and fully conceding himself when he still thought that Ming only saw him as a replacement. While Joe might have given Ming access to his body to pay his new mom's debts, he was still blocking Ming out as much as he could. But that's not why Joe forgives Ming; it's not for a superficial reason to stop the feud. There's a visible shift in how he perceives Ming, the guy who waited two years for him, who protected and filled his home with warmth, just in case he wasn't really gone. His motivation was rooted in the slivers of positive feelings he had for Ming, which allowed him to move past the anger that he held for him.

A quote that I've seen floating around the internet for years comes to mind. "And when nobody wakes you up in the morning and when nobody waits for you at night and when you do whatever you want. What do you call it? Freedom or loneliness?" Joe has had that freedom for the majority of his whole life. It's no longer freedom for him. But even his found family isn't fully aware of the loneliness that would wash over him when he would return to an empty home.

After all is said and done, he sees that only one person knows him intimately enough to understand and learn even the most mundane of his desires. Ming, even with all the toxic shit he has pulled, stood by his word of not letting Joe return to an empty home. For Joe, that was enough. It changes how he sees and understands Ming.

It's also why Sol and Joe would have never worked out.

As Poom said, ultimately, it's not that he gives in to Ming but rather he lets his heart melt when he sees exactly what Ming has done for him in his absence.

Even after everything, Joe still loves him.

[apparently-i-am-an-adult]

So I can watched episode 7 of My Stand in yesterday and I’m having some feelings.

I know we’re all loving Ming’s realization and what that means for him and Joe, but I’ve been thinking about what it says about Tong.

Think about what the audience knows about him initially: he’s a huge action star with a big fan base. From behind, his stand-in is identical to him. His girlfriend is the daughter of a rich family and her brother is desperate for his attention.

The first time we see him, he’s late for the shooting. He walks in with food without a care and says he would have come in later if he’d known they were going to have to move locations. The next bit I remember is the pool rescue scene, and he ditches that and has Joe do it. He’s so uninterested in his job he doesn’t even want to go to a press conference for a movie he’s starring in.

This is the biggest action star in the film industry and we don’t see him act once.

For me, I’m getting the implication that after Tong became famous, he got bored with the actual process of acting, but still uses his notoriety to do basically whatever he wants. So what if he shows up late? What are they going to do, fire him?

Even when the director threatens to kick him out of the movie if he doesn’t go to the press conference, he doesn’t even flinch. To him, it’s an empty threat. It’d be like kicking Tom Cruise out of the Top Gun franchise or Mission: Impossible.

Another crewmember even says the movie will be a disaster if they replace Tong with someone else, let alone a stand-in.

We the audience know that Joe has been Tong’s stand in for a while. He’s clearly been picking up a lot of the slack that Tong has been dropping, and he’s good at what he does, and Tong knows it. He knows it better than anyone.

Episode 7 shows us the scene that made Tong famous, and then reveals that he didn’t even do it. Joe did. And nobody knows because Joe was new and didn’t get credited. All the fame, all the notoriety, it should be Joe’s. And I think Tong is aware of it. Not that he thinks Joe deserves it, not at all. But he is 100% aware of what Joe does for him. Joe does all the work, and he gets to slap his name on there and take the credit.

The episode 7 reveal is fantastic because it adds so much more depth to what we have in episode 4: Tong isn’t just enraged at the audacity his stand-in has to try and replace him, he’s terrified because he knows he could.

TL;DR: Tong is a hack and he sits on a throne of lies. I can’t wait for this bitch to get his comeuppance.

[150en]

Gallery of hermits with weird setups. (As shortlisted by Mumbo)

[kittyofinsanity]

[enters IMGflip] [emerges 3 hours later with Goncharov (1973) and The Goncharov Trilogy book series memes] Please appreciate what I do for you with nothing more than a vague recollection from reading the books as a teenager and only recently finding out there was an entire movie made from them, apparently.

[jimmysea]

MY STAND-IN (2024) - Episode 9

[thisautistic]

[uppoompat]

Back then, I felt like I was in a dream. I just didn't realize it was a nightmare, or that the man before my eyes was going to destroy my life.

MY STAND-IN (2024)

[25shadesoffebruary]

I am. But, I'm afraid that I'm the only one being happy here.

[respectthepetty]

My favorite part of My Stand-In so far with only one episode is the way the show obscures Joe's face and focuses on Ming's.

The makeup artist states that Joe's body looks exactly likes Tong's, but Joe's face is what makes him not-Tong, so we don't see Joe's face. He is also a body-double so his entire job is about his body, not his face.

We get to see Ming's face because Joe is so focused on Ming's beauty even though we know Ming can and will be ugly, and as a model, Ming's job is his face. "Does that face ring a bell?"

But we rarely see Joe's face, even when Ming is looking at Joe.

Ming is a face. Joe is a body.

Because it's Joe's body that matters, not his face.

So it's interesting that Ming saw Tong's back as he walked away from Ming at dinner

And immediately thought of Joe.

Because it already shows a slight shift that it's not so much Joe that reminds Ming of Tong (like it was originally), but that Tong reminded Ming of Joe.

Once Ming envisioned Joe's face, he shook the thought from his head as if he was bothered by the image, but it wasn't because Joe wasn't Tong, but, once again, that he even thought of Joe, which is why the conversation where Joe stated that he thought Ming didn't remember him was ironic since Ming is slightly annoyed that he remembers Joe's face.

Because it could have been Joe at the dinner with Ming the entire time the way the dinner scene was filmed.

Or it could have been Tong who Ming was kissing based on how it was filmed.

But the shot made sure we were aware that Ming knew it was Joe even if he had been drinking.

When Joe was asked about his preferences, the shot immediately cut to Ming's face.

But when Ming called Joe, we saw Joe's face as he emerged from a room first

Then, the focus was on his back.

So when Ming walked into that elevator and not only looked directly at new Jo

But also stood next to new Jo, nothing registered to him.

Ming didn't react until he saw new Jo's back.

Which should show how the vicious cycle continues: Joe's body was a replacement for Tong, and new Jo's body will be a replacement for old Joe. BUT we didn't see Ming's face when he was waiting for the elevator.

New Jo knew he was coming up, and so did we, so there was no need to block out Ming's face, especially when the story keeps telling us Ming is his face.

But the story is already telling us that Joe wasn't just a body to Ming.

And Ming wasn't just a face to Joe.

They actually saw the entire person, and Ming was the first to see Joe as Joe even if he wanted Tong.

Which is why the poster is even more pleasing now since we see Joe's full face not his back while we see Ming's full back, but only half of his face.

Ming is more than his face. Joe is more than his body.

At least for each other.

[poomphuripan]

Ming, Ming, wait.

MY STAND-IN (2024) | 1.04

[itsallaboutbl]

I wouldn't mind giving you my virginity.

+ 1st kiss bonus

[red-hibiscus]

Idk what's funnier. Joe not lying and telling the truth about how he's gonna break into a house..... or this dude literally going "lmao have fun good luck bro"

[apparently-i-am-an-adult]

I had to go back and rewatch ep 1 of my stand in just so I can figure which body Joe is actually supposed to be in. I thought Winner/the guy we see less frequently was supposed to be Joe 1.0 but it appears he’s 2.0? And the Joe we see most of the time is 1.0?

[pamouche]

« You’re like one person that I used to know. So I want you to be his stand-in. »

MY STAND-IN. EP 6: THE MOST FAMILIAR STRANGER

[clairedaring]

Joe being 'king of not knowing his work schedule'

MY STAND-IN (2024) | 1.02 // 1.07 // 1.09

[jimmysea]

This time, I can't tell if the feelings that I have belongs to this body or the old body… But no matter what, I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

MY STAND-IN (2024) - Episode 8