#open your mind to it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gemini-care-barr · 9 months ago

Text

The original post PLUS these tags courtesy of @hxghball are too good not to highlight. Especially since YES I’ve been saying this for years and I agree with every word.

Some of my rambling thoughts: Hal really isn’t dumb and blindly reckless, not only is he not dumb and blindly reckless, but he’s outright smart and very clever. He doesn’t show all his cards out the gate. He’s a gambler by nature, enabled by an equal parts innate and honed skill to weigh his odds and develop a plan. He’s also very willing to play a part, any part, be it loyal soldier, dark renegade, or loud-mouthed idiot, he’ll do it in order to accomplish what he sets out to do. We see that in Morrison’s run that (spoilers) has him going deep undercover with the Blackstars. We also see that in Johns’ run when he willingly throws his career away by acting the reckless idiot in order to try and see his mother one last time. Hal doesn’t care about appearances, he’s willing to play a part, and he’s extremely smart about how he goes about doing it. He’s deliberate and thinks things through while on the fly. He makes it look effortless really which makes him all the more impressive yet seem all the more dumb to everybody else which of course doesn’t bother him because while he’s proud of his accomplishments and isn’t shy about wanting to be, and fully believing he is, the best, he’s also smart enough to let his enemies and rivals underestimate him in order to actually be the best. Despite all the facades he’s willing to wear, what’s true about him is that he is charming, he is funny, and he is smart. He’s all these things and so much more.

Misconception: Hal Jordan is an idiot

Okay this might be part of a series of Green Lantern posts I’ve been writing when bored, because hey you read some youtube comments and suddenly you’re an essay writer. It’s just gonna be me rambling about Hal’s character lol

So we’ve all made dumbass jokes, me included, but honestly? Hal’s not stupid, he can’t be. It takes a lot to be a test pilot, including a degree in the engineering/physics field, and most likely military service. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did if he wasn’t smart enough.

It might not always seem that way though, but that’s because he excels in thinking on the fly, which is so important when you’re dealing with intergalactic crises springing up every Tuesday. He’s the guy who will jump right into danger and trust that he can get himself out afterwards. We’ve seen him think his way out of tricky situations before, even if in his own crazy style like jumping out of a plane to recharge his ring from the head of a Manhunter. In some circles he’s kind of gotten the reputation of being the lame one in the Justice League, which can’t possibly be true when he has a ton of amazing feats to him like defeating Sinestro multiple times, killing Krona despite the fact that a GL ring shouldn’t be able to kill a Guardian, controlling the death entity Nekron to defeat the reality-bending First Lantern, making a ring out of his own willpower… etc.

So if he isn’t actually an idiot, where did this reputation come from? The ring chooses according to willpower and technically, not being bright shouldn’t make anyone less worthy, but this trait has kind of been blown up over the years to the point where some people are getting “dumbass energy” mixed with “actual dumbass”. Going back to the silver age, Hal definitely had a clumsy streak – we’ve all laughed at the panels like him slipping over in the shower and knocking himself out. It was pretty endearing though, watching this walking disaster still manage to save the day.

I feel like some of that was lost in later comics as he grew up, and when Johns brought him back even later, he was more like the cool, cocky pilot type (although still a disaster in other areas lol). The thing is, because of his nature of jumping into danger it sometimes seems like he really can’t think for himself, but that’s not the case. It’s just his style to go in guns blazing, shining bright and attracting all the attention away from whoever’s he’s saving and onto him. It’s true that it doesn’t always work out as well as he hopes, and that makes for some fun stories, but other times his quick instincts are lifesaving.

It wasn’t until the New 52 where this really got blown up though – while the GL comics continued mostly the same as before, other characters got rebooted so we got a whole new Justice League dynamic. A lot of people unfamiliar with GL know his New 52 version through the animated movies, and booooy…. this guy is basically Guy Gardner but less lovable, more insufferable and way less competent.

Of course this isn’t just limited to him, a lot of the Justice League members seem to be caricatures of themselves in this movie but I feel like he’s gotten it the worst. The Batman Syndrome doesn’t help either, where everyone’s dumbed down and nerfed to make him look like the biggest BAMF on the League. You have a guy who literally works with aliens everyday but of course only Batman’s tech can identify an alien device as a bomb! There’s also the ring-stealing gimmick, which is stupid because a Green Lantern is always bound to their ring through concentration – to remove it they literally have to disengage their minds from it first. I don’t know, maybe there’s a retcon or something but it’s still dumb. He even does this to John Stewart in JL Dark – that’s crossing the line :’P

Of course you could say JL War was early days and he hadn’t been a GL that long, but it doesn’t get much better in the other films and it’s no excuse for crossing into annoying asshole territory. It’s a difficult balance to strike and boy can you tell when a writer only has surface-level knowledge of his character…

Yikes. Sure he can be a cocky flirt – so was Han Solo – but he was actually likable!!

Sadly this trend of making Hal more and more of a comic relief man-child outside of comics continues, you’ve got kids watching him in DC Superhero Girls thinking that’s the definitive take on him, and we’re not getting a new GL movie any time soon to really delve into the character, whether animated or live action. Thankfully the animated series portrays him in a more positive light (although maybe they went a bit too far in flattening out his flaws, but that’s a post for another time) but that got cancelled so :/ Again I’m not well-versed in New 52 and Rebirth comics outside of GL yet but I have seen snippets of Justice League comics where it seems like he’s grown more into his old self, my favourite being his Darkseid War tie-in, which I really hope to see animated someday. Speaking of movies, the 2011 one certainly didn’t do him any favours – I actually think Reynolds did okay as Hal but when people look back on it, all they see is the Deadpool guy.

Anyway this is kind of going off on a tangent but still, it’s sad seeing so many comments joking about him being dumb and incompetent and that they should have used another lantern instead (I agree we need more of the other lanterns but not because Hal sucks), just because bad writing made him a caricature of his worst traits. When this happens to characters like Batman, tons of fans complain and come to his defence by calling out the writing, yet for Hal many just assume this is how he always is. In a world where Aquaman is actually getting some love, I really hope we can get a good adaptation for Hal soon.

TLDR;

Me: Oh Hal you dumbass

Someone: Ikr he’s such an idiot and a jerk I hate him

Me:

Me: What the fuck did you just say

#hal jordan #green lantern #dc #justice league #meta #I just love Hal so much #he’s a great and frustrating example of a comic book character being super well-written but getting all that amazing writing ignored #people just can’t believe a character can be equal parts jock and mastermind #equal parts charmer and sincere #talking Hogwarts houses: he’s the epitome of a gryffindor/slytherin imo #he’s brave daring and determined with nerves of steel #all gryffindor #but he’s ALSO cunning ambitious resourceful proud and competitive to a fault #so slytherin #slytherdor #just think about it #open your mind to it

256 notes · View notes

charmac · 26 days ago

Text

I wrote about Charlie and Dennis' paralleled childhood sexual abuse, and how their opposing trauma responses keep them from seeing themselves while they stay stuck in their own cycles of abuse.

// The content under the read more is an in-depth script analysis highlighting and discussing childhood sexual abuse and trauma response. Please read with caution or scroll past this post if these topics are known to affect and/or trigger you. //

Because Sunny walks an extremely fine line between sensitive, if not traumatic, character work and dark comedy, I've found that, in reading the scripts, the trauma being written is always much more blatant. You have to work a little harder to pick up on the underlying intent when watching the episodes (though the more and more we learn about the characters, the more the intent becomes clear), but the scripted versions of these scenes are solid evidence that the clear intent of these storylines is to reveal that these characters have extremely repressed childhood trauma, in-turn explaining to the audience why they have such fucked-up ideas of (and relationships with) love and sex. To put it more blatantly: the purpose of giving and revealing the childhood trauma these characters have is purposeful (if not needed), explaining why they are the predators that they are, and allows us to at least understand where their often psychopathic actions and rationales come from.

The fact that Charlie and Dennis were both sexually abused as children is all but obvious to the audience (and every other member of the Gang), but the extent to which these plots are intended to act as character work as opposed cheap-shot rape jokes is often lost on the casual viewer. In my opinion, the disconnect is not for lack of clear intention in the writing, but by the nature of the show being what it is.

It’s very clearly still there, easy enough to catch if you’re standing more than ankle-deep in the waters, but because Sunny is a dark comedy, it’s unfortunately easy to uncomfortably laugh past a rape joke if you don’t care to look deeper than the surface. Taking a look at the scripts helps paint a clearer picture, making it easier to point out, walk through and explore the CSA lore developed for both Charlie and Dennis, how they parallel and oppose each other, and how this trauma relates to their own predatory behaviours.

An obvious starting point is Charlie Got Molested, which is, on the surface, an episode in which we learn that Charlie wasn't molested. What is changed from the script to the episode is this first line from Charlie, right at the very end of the episode, on his family’s response to his alleged molestation:

(Charlie's aired line is instead "Now everybody thinks that I've been molested. So, in a way, my life is ruined.")

Whether written with a specific intent at the time or not, this episode sets the stage (literally, lol) for a later building 'reveal' that (1) Charlie was molested as a child, and (2) his Uncle Jack is very much a pedophile, not just a perv (which is hinted at in the actual episode, both in dialogue and visuals), because the next time the show features a plot with Charlie and molestation (Sweet Dee's Dating notwithstanding, though important to mention, as it’s further evidence of the idea that there was clearly a thread being woven early on), it’s via the form of a play.

Charlie wrote The Nightman Cometh as a play about love, which was turned into a 'legible' play by Artemis, in which the Gang all "misinterpreted" his original intent and believed it to be about a child being raped. Charlie gets mad, because he doesn't see it, doesn't believe it, and instead believes everyone is destroying his artistic vision by refusing to let this idea go.

The script for The Nightman Cometh (which, I’d like to point out, RCG chose to make publicly available to everyone) has an alternate ending to the rehearsal of the bed scene between The Boy and The Nightman:

(The aired version shows Charlie more-comedically angry at Mac and Dennis by raising his level of frustration, physically with his hands. The mention of the Nightman taking The Boy face-to-face is never addressed in the aired episode, yet it does take place that way in the actual play scene following the rehearsal featuring doggy-style humping.)

What's heavily implied in the episode (and basically explicitly stated in the script), is that the Gang are not misinterpreting Charlie's art; the play is quite literally built around the idea that a child is attempting to communicate his rape, and Dennis is telling him that’s what it is. Charlie can't accept that, because this is a play about his life, he believes he’s created a play about love, and he is the boy and he was not raped so it can't be rape.

(And, following this, the audience can put the two and two together: Charlie’s clearly repressed CSA and the fact that his Uncle is a pedophile. In every.single.physical.interaction Charlie and Uncle Jack have, in every appearance he makes following Season 4, the fact that Uncle Jack is the Nightman is clear.)

Rolling back a little, it’s interesting that Dennis is the one to be audibly confused by (and frustrated with) the fact that Charlie can't understand his play is a rape play, because it's so very obvious to Dennis. Yet, 7 years later, he's in Charlie's exact shoes.

Because in Dee Makes a Smut Film, Dennis' plot almost directly parallels Charlie’s from The Nightman Cometh:

Dennis wrote his Erotic Memoirs as a tale of his sexual conquests, the first of his encounters turned into a 'film' by Dee, in which Dee "misinterpreted" what happened between Dennis and the Librarian as him being raped as a teen. Dennis gets mad, because he doesn't see how it could possibly be rape, doesn't believe a guy can be raped, and instead believes Dee and Grieco are destroying his artistic vision by refusing to let the idea go.

(In the aired episode, Dennis does not avoid using the word rape, and instead insists you cannot rape a guy, and that he was willing.)

Just like Charlie, Dennis refuses to accept that the people who are acting out his writing at face-value are telling him straight up that it looks like, and most-likey is, rape. Dennis can't accept that, because this is a film about his life, it's about his first sexual conquest, and he is the boy and he was not raped so it can't be rape.

This goes one-step further when Dee airs the 'film' for the rest of the Gang:

(The aired version of the video does not show anything from filming, and only shows a slideshow of photos from when Dennis was a teen, overlay text claiming he was raped, and a photo of Klinsky repeating 'hoser' over and over.)

Dennis goes on a spiel and reiterates that he was not raped. The rest of the Gang are not convinced.

And at this point, Charlie and Dennis probably should relate to each other, or at the very least intentionally give each other a pass/miss whenever the topic of childhood sexual abuse emerges, but instead they continue to have no issue believing and pointing out that the other was raped while continuing to deny their own trauma.

In PTSDee, this paralleled-refusal is made clear. Very clear. In the script, it's even clearer:

(In the aired scene, Dennis' line is clearly cut after he mentions Charlie's mom, and it picks up with Charlie's line at "the father thing")

They see it so clearly in each other, but don't see themselves mirrored—and there's no doubt that's intentional. Because while they were both sexually abused as children, their current relationships with love and sex (as portrayed from basically episode one) are opposing, and the circumstances of their individual rape and immediate repression are extremely illustrative as to why they behave the way they do:

Charlie's trauma response is typical of pre-pubescent, forced rape. Not mature enough to even recognise what happened to him (as Uncle Jack's abuse was likely his first exposure to sexual acts), he regresses and represses, subsequently developing a repulsion toward sex into his adult life (in Season 5, Mac and Charlie Write a Movie, there's a deleted scene that makes it evident that he's disgusted by and avoidant of sex decades later), and, clearly by the depictions in The Nightman Cometh play and the lyrics of Nightman in Sweet Dee’s Dating, believing that the harassment he faced was love.

For the run of the show, Charlie’s interest in love and sex is almost exclusively highlighted by his relentless pursuit of the Waitress. In so far as the idea that every member of the Gang is a sexual predator, Charlie is depicted as a sexual harasser, unable to recognize that disinterest, avoidance, the word "no," and stalking that leads to legal action to restrain him from the person he's pursuing is inappropriate and predatory.

While his CSA results in a repulsion toward sex (in most instances), Charlie clearly associates the concept of love with the early harassment he faced, brought on him in his own home by a "loved one," he truly believes that his own relentless pursuit will end up buying him love. Charlie is stuck in an abstinent cycle (at least, until Dennis’ Double Life) of his own abuse.

Dennis' trauma response is typical of coercive rape and grooming. He was old enough to believe that sex is something that should be seen as cool, and therefore obsesses and brags about his experience(s), resulting in his hypersexuality. In Season 5, The D.E.N.N.I.S. System, it's firmly established that Dennis' pursuit of women is something outside of genuine attraction; in fact, it's almost devoid of it. Clearly by the plot of PTSDee, he sees a woman’s sexuality as a weapon he needs to fight against.

For the run of the show, Dennis' interest in sex is deeply entwined with the fact that he gets off on having power over his "sexual conquests". In so far as the idea that every member of the Gang is a sexual predator, Dennis is depicted as a date rapist, having an aversion to recognising (if not an inability to understand) consent, he pursues sex exclusively for his own physical pleasure, with little care for the other party, getting off on the knowledge that he’s orchestrated the situation he’s in.

While his CSA results in an obsession with sex, Dennis clearly does not associate the concept of love with the act, truly believing that sex is used to overpower someone, most enjoyable when obtained via coercion, exactly as his virginity was taken from him. Dennis is stuck in a loveless cycle of his own abuse.

Charlie and Dennis meet after their own traumas; their clearly disordered relationships with love and sex is how they've always known the other to be. When there are hints of the other's abuse, they're able to easy recognise what it is, for they sense the paralleled familiarity of their own CSA—yet their polar opposite trauma responses result in an inability to reflect:

To Dennis, Charlie was clearly raped, and Charlie fears sex and Dennis loves sex, so he can't have been raped; To Charlie, Dennis was clearly raped, and Dennis doesn't pursue love and Charlie loves the Waitress, so he can't have been raped.

Their reflections being mirrored causes them to harp on the other's trauma and keeps them from being able to truly recognise their own abuse. Call the other out and deny what’s shot back, stuff it down and continue spiralling in their own cycle of abuse.

#tw csa #tw rape #cycle of abuse #iasip #charlie kelly #dennis reynolds #script analysis #dennis meta #charlie meta #this is on the paddys pub blog under episode guides -> themes -> CSA #anyway penny for your thoughts as always #here or on the blog #comments on the blog are open to anonymous too just fyi #this is one of if not the heavier hitting sunny topics for me #so it's always swirling around in my mind #i could expand way further on this if i keep going #there's a lot. really. as im sure many people here know #this is just like. the down and dirty of it

198 notes · View notes