#shes just this. quirky snarky woman who also for some reason really loves her home town. we dont even know shit about her.

[dennisboobs]

watching ap bio past season 1

[templarhalo]

Templarhalo reviews Birds of Prey. (It’s pretty fantabulous)

HERE BE SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Ok without this movie, I would have not been a Cassandra Cain fan.  I would have not four, yes four ongoing fics with her as the main character.  I would not be emotionally and financially invested in the DC cinematic universe or the comics side of things. 

Which baffles me because this movie is perfect in almost every aspect,...   Except how they treated Cassandra Cain.   Which  is a fucking shame because her actress is perfect, her chemistry and relationship with Harley is perfect, and the idea of Cass growing up as this pickpocket foster kid, taken in by Harley is unconventional, but I fucking love it. 

Here’s a brief summary. After breaking up with the Joker  Harley Quinn has to make her own way as the strong, badass, indepent woman we all know she is, while dealing with the fact that without Mistah J’s  fell reputation as his significant other to shield her, a lot of people want her raped, tortured, killed and left for the crows…  Not necessarily in that order.    

To get these people off her back and save her own skin, from one of them, the infamous Black Mask. Harley agrees to recover the Bertinelli Diamond, a diamond encoded with the info for a source of 30 million dollars, Black Mask needs to fiance his take over of Gotham. Which was pickpocketed from one of his associates by our Lady and savior Cass.   

The problem is, Cass kind of ate it( (I shit you not) and Black Mask’s guys would rather cut it out of her than wait for the poor kid to take a dump   Not to mention Detective tReene Montoya (played by her Gotham Actress, which would have been a nice bit of world building if Gotham was actually in the movie continuity) building a case against Black Mask, with the aid of Black Canary   Plus Huntress is indirectly gunning for him and Harley in her own quest for revenge.   All these plot points converge into  a very satisfying climax and fight scene with a somewhat  emotionally satisfying ending. 

From  a technical standpoint this film is a spectacle.   Gotham in the day is colorful but rundown, with markets, suave evil bad guy clubs, dilapidated Chinese restaurants and abandoned amusement parks.   The fight scenes are AMAZING  with a wonderful tension and energy that makes them incredibly visualising satisfying.  Everything flows, the ladies move with an enthralling  grace that makes them breaking bones, crushing legs,and tearing through people visceral and heartstopping.  (And arousing. Like goddamn Jurnee Smollett-Bell could kill me with her legs and I’d thank her)

The problem, is none of this applies to  Cass, and this is the films major flaw besides how short it is. (One hour and forty five minutes).  If you had problems with how Harley was handled in Suicide Squad, the movie fixes it.  Black Canary gets a short but satisfying emotional arc that feels natural. She goes from a cynical, lethargic woman, content to be Black Masks “Little Bird”; A singer at his club, driver and symbol of his power/dominance over other women until her own conscience kicks in at Harley and Cass’ predicament.  Huntress also has a short but satisfying arc in which she gets her vengeance on the people who murdered her family and clearly finds a new one to fill the hole in her life, in the form of the Birds.  Reene and her portrayal is a love letter to the 80s cop/hard boiled detectives, a pure, simultaneously complicated/uncomplicated woman seeking to do good for Gotham.       

But Cass… Doesn’t feel like Cass and is criminally underutilized except as a walking mcguffin by dint of eating the Mcguffin.   She’s introduced to us a snarky tween, stuck in a cycle of shitty foster homes and a pickpocket to get by.  And that’s it.  T

here are moments where you think she'll get a cool fight scene.  Moments where you think she’ll have an emotional heart to heart with Harley,   moments where you think…she’ll do something besides run from the bad guys and get saved by the Birds of Prey/Her four moms. 

 In the end she drives into the sunset with Harley and Bruce the Hyena, but it doesn’t feel earned, satisfying as the scene is.  There is nothing implying or hinting she’s the daughter of two of the deadliest assassins in the DC universe, nothing about her running away from David Cain, nothing on her learning disabilities/selective mutism  and NOTHING, setting her up to be adopted by Batman and become Batgirl 

And this is a fucking shame, because Ella Jay Basco has a real chemistry with Margert and the rest of the cast.  She’s adorable, funny, snarky and wonderful as Cass. She brings energy and spunk and I would cut off my left hand, to see her act as Cassandra Cain, not this  generic punk kid with the name.

And I feel like this is  a HUGE problem because the movie sets up this Mother/daughter relationship, with Cass being Harley’s motivation to be a better person.  She goes from willing to hand her over to Black Mask to taking the kid under her wing.   Cass is the glue that bands the Birds of Prey together.   These lovely, dangerous, women coming together to keep a little girl safe,  doesn’t feel as emotionally satisfying as it should because Cass isn’t Cass.

While I will praise the movie for Harley’s arc of seeking her own emancipation and agency outside her abusive relationships and life of crime,  I feel like Harley’s arc should have been a question of redemption.    Cassandra’s motivation to become Batgirl was her refusal to kill again.  (Hey WB remember how in Batman Begins Bruce refused to kill a man because “I will not be an executioner.”)  

Here Cass is fine with killing. She chucks a bomb at some goons chasing her and  she kills Black Mask with a grenade in the end.

Yeah… Cass “I refuse to kill because my dad made me kill an innocent man at eight years old and killing is wrong” kills people.  

*head meet desk*

Sucide Squad, set up Harley and the squad, for an unconventional redemption arc, spite motivated it may be, yet Harley despite her line to Cass “You make me want to  be a less terrible person”  isn’t seeking to make amends for what she did as the Joker’s henchman.  (Like being an accomplice to Jason Todd’s murder).   

.Cass pickpots and steals to survive, because she’s a kid with no family passed from foster home to foster home, Harley steals because she can, steal a truck to blow up a chemical plant because she can.  Kills because she can.   (granted she does use an M79 grenade launcher with bean bag shells for one scene but besides that.) 

I like the idea of Harley taking Cass under her wing, its an unconventional but fresh idea, but it doesn’t feel entirely satisfying, and Cass not being Cass, not having an arc beyond “Go along with Harley as her apprentice” really undermines the excellent themes and message the movie is trying to convey.

Now maybe in the Suicide Squad reboot with James Gunn or a future DC film , Cass is going to leave Harley because that life of crime and killing doesn’t suit her and she realizes she’s trying to be something she’s not and I’m just being overly critical, but I still feel like “Harley and Cass seeking redemption and moving past their abusers together”  should have been where this movie left off, and it baffles me that it doesn’t from a narrative perspective.

Anway the overall themes and message of Birds of Prey are represented in Evan Mcregor’s Black Mask, a walking talking example of repressive toxic masculinity and misogyny.   A flamboyant, all but stated to  be a repressed Bi, crime lord seeking to take control of Gotham, Black Mask moves with confidence in his loud suits, and charming quirkiness,   He’s cruel, sadistic and repulsive  His mannerisms ooz terror,and insanity. He moves like a love child between Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the Joker, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Joffery Baratheon from Game of Thrones.   He’s a control freak, trying to  be a badass. 

 One minute he’s the Godfather, the next he’s a brat.  He views Harley as nothing without the Joker, telling her that she needs him to protect her.   He enjoys asserting his dominance over Harley during her brief capture by having his men beat her while he eats popcorn.  He objectifies Black Canary for her singing voice and beauty..   

Black Mask asserts his power and authority over the underworld by  his control over women.  In one  frightening scene, he believes one of the women at his club is laughing at him for his failure to capture Cass, so he orders her  to stand on a table, then for her boyfriend to rip open her dress with a knife because he finds it ugly.

In summary he represents the patriarchy.  He represents sexist, abusive men.   He’s a representation of social norms and ideals that are repressive and disgusting, and rob women of their agency, and self-worth. He represents the use of violence, not for noble reasons, but as a means to control women and lash out at those that defy him and supposedly wronged him .

Furthering this line of thought are  the costumes. Black Canary’s costumes represent the amount of control, Black Mask has in her life.  When we first see her, Dinah is wearing a long black netted evening gown that accents her legs as she sings “It’s a Man’s Man’s World”. Later she wears  a blue tank top and gold, tightfitting pants clearly meant to draw our gaze to her ass and thighs. When she’s Black Mask’s driver, she’s wearing a Bra/crop top that bares her midriff under a short blue blaze, but when she decides she’s going to defy him, she wears a yellow tank top and jeans with  a gold belt.

Harley’s costumes are as eclectic as she is, with her DIY caution tape shawl, stamped tops and cut up shorts.  Huntress’s outfits are all black leather and punkish athletic wear, utilitarian and elegant in their simplicity while Reene wears  a  “I shave my balls for this” t-shirt reflecting her uncouth, blunt demeanor, as well as button down  dress shirts and slacks for the climactic asskicking montage .  

Cass is a kid,who clearly doesn’t have the funds for super nice clothes. She;s running around in ratty shorts and a worn out hoody with  a red windbreaker, with an orange bandanna askew on her head.  At the end, when she rides off with Harley, she copying Harley’s style.

Speaking of costumes, one thing I appreciate is that instead of the male gaze and sexualisation, we get what I like to call “passive fan service”  What I mean is that instead of tracking shots on Harley’s ass or boob shoots, like in Suicide Squad  the camera just lets these women’s beauty do the talking. 

 Huntress is wearing a sports bra and tactical pants for the climax, but the camera doesn’t linger on her boobs.  A primary example of this is a lot of Padme’s scenes in Episodes II and III of Star Wars.  Lucas knows Natalie Portman is a gorgeous woman and he doesn’t need to remind us by deliberate camera shots.  He lets Natalie herself and Trisha Biggar’s excellent costumes do it for us. 

Also one thing I really… really liked was how in the big penultimate fight, Harley actually passes Dinah a hair tie so she can get her hair out of the way. So for like a minute, she’s beating the ever loving fuck out of goons with her legs as she ties up her hair.  A very nice case of reality ensures.

In conclusion Birds of Prey is another notch in the belt for the DC cinematic universe, a solid, fun film with  an excellent cast with clear chemistry, hampered by character derailment that undermines its sorely needed themes and message it's trying to convey.   The plot is  fast paced, but doesn't feel rushed even though it’s only a little over an hour long.  It’s uncompromisingly  bold, bloody and hilarious. The lack of a proper post credits scene is somewhat annoying and I'm very disappointed how Cass was handled , but this is by no means a terrible film. 

Overall I give it a 8.9 out of 10.  Highly recommend you go see it. Drag your friends, smuggle in as much candy and drinks as you can.  Buy it when it comes out on DVD.   If you’re a Cass fan, reread the Puckett run or pick up her new graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl to wash out the bittersweet taste this will give you.  Speaking of Kelley Puckett, he was actually listed in the “Special thanks to…”  in the credits, which i’m sure many will appreciate.

These following posts and thoughts on the film I recommend.

https://dcwomenofcolor.tumblr.com/post/190693985900/how-would-you-fix-bop-cass

https://wits-writing.tumblr.com/post/190718974642/birds-of-prey-movie-review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YeFJjoQoec

[lhnicolelegendary]

  2017 was a fun year for great movies and tv shows. But more than that it was a great year for movies and TV with powerful and inspirational female characters and their stories!

There are some true standouts that are getting a LOT of well deserved attention but some of the ones that I personally connected with the most have not gotten a whole lot of recognition. I want to take a few minuets to really talk about the ones I really love!

I am picking my top 4 Female Power fav’s from 2017 to showcase.

Before we dive in don’t forget that all this month I am running a very special giveaway for Legendary’s coming birthday! I’m giving away two big prize baskets, one that even included the elusive and wildly popular Rose Gold Minnie Mouse ears from Disney! Don’t miss your chance to enter below in the rafflecopter! So many ways to win 🙂

#1 WONDER WOMAN

This one should come as no surprise! I was going crazy when this came out in theaters, and even back in 2016 when the media campaign really kicked it up. Wonder Woman has been a source of fascination, amazement and inspiration to me since I was nine! I loved to watch the Justice League cartoon shows (and its many forms over the years) and read the comics when I could get my hands on them.

I truly do not think they could have chosen a better actress than Gal Gadot to play Diana Prince, Princess of the Amazons of Themyscira. Gal captured the innocence, the strength, the iron will wrapped in the finest silk, and the open, honest heart that is rooted in doing what is right, no matte the cost.

The genius women behind this movie broke the mold of female characters with the visuals they used. Showing all the Amazons training and fighting in ways that were not meant to entice or capitalize on sexy female body images like Marvel does so damn often. They showed these women working hard to have the skills they do and the steel bonds that weave them together. They supported each other and empowered each other to be better, and they were there for when the other fell to help them back up. That is what gave Diana such a strong moral compass, even when she had to defy her mother, and leave her home forever to do what she believed to be right.

Diana charged across the WWI battle field when no men were even brave enough to dream of doing such a thing. For me this was the most powerful part of the movie because she had no fear of facing such danger alone and she couldn’t bare the thought of just walking away from people who needed help. She stood up for those who could not stand up for themselves and that is a truly rare and inspiring act of heroism.

I loved reading all the cool tweets and articles that came out in the weeks after. One that really sticks out for me was an article with a bunch of young children’s reactions that I read on Cosmo’s site.

Seven girls playing together during recess on Tuesday, saying that since they all wanted to  be Wonder Woman they had agreed to be Amazons and not fight but work together to defeat evil.

A boy threw his candy wrapping in the floor and a 5-year-old girl screamed ‘DON’T POLLUTE YOU IDIOT, THAT IS WHY THERE ARE NO MEN IN THEMYSCIRA’

#2 SUPERGIRL

There are so many great things this show has done on 3 seasons. I loved the light-hearted quirkiness of season one with the added layers of Cat Grant snarky inspiration and powerful sisterly devotion. Then the slightly more mature, more dynamic second season where Kara learns how to love an enemy of her planet and also how much she’s willing to sacrifice to do what’s right. And now we have season three which has gone darker than both previous seasons, but I can understand why because of what Kara is dealing with, and the underlying layers of danger that are shaping her world.

I am only going to focus on the things that happened in 2017 that really got to me about this show. The biggest moment is two-fold. To save her city, Supergirl took on her revered and god-like cousin in a battle Royale that would put Superman and General Zod’s battle to shame. Clark was at his full-strength, and fighting enraged because of the effect of silver kryptonite which made him see his worst fear (General Zod, pun fully intended above). Despite the odds being so far skewed against her, and everyone in the world thinking that no one could beat Superman, Kara-Supergirl-did. And she did it on her own, with no help or interference; my mind was blown! Part two is the even bigger fold of this scenario because of what Kara had to end up sacrificing to save the innocents of National City and the world.

Mon’el and Kara had a very intense and passionate build and burn to their relationship. I have to admit I was not happy that James got thrown to the side, but I really started to like Mon’el about half way through the 2nd season. After the truth about who he was on his planet came out, that was when I fully committed to team KaraxMon’el. She loved him, truly loved him despite the stupid things he did. Then she had to do the one thing that would rip him from her life permanently. To stop his Psycho Daxamite mother from taking over she set off a bomb created by Lena Luthor that saturated the atmosphere with lead, the one thing Daxamite’s are deathly affected by. Kara knew that doing that would mean that Mon’el would die too, and it would break her heart, but she still did it.

She was able to save Mon’el but only because she put him the pod he came to earth in and sent him into space where he was sucked into a black hole that we found out in season 3 dropped him several hundred years in the future.

At the end of season 2 in ’17 even Clark came to Kara and affirmed to her that she was the superior kryptonion, and not just because she beat him, but because she made a decision that forced her to give up her heart, and Clark admitted that he would not have had the strength to do it.

There are many more reasons to love this show and the fantastic female power that it delivers every week, and that is because of the amazing cast of strong, independent and capable female characters that don’t need men to save them. Lena Luthor, Cat Grant, Alex Danvers and Meghan–in addition of course to Kara Zor-el ;D They even threw in the most popular and well-known actress who donned the Wonder Woman gauntlets and lasso, Lynda Carter, as the president of the good old US of A. It doesn’t get much more powerful than that.

#3 PITCH PERFECT

“Say your prayers because Fat Amy is coming for you.”

I had NEVER expected to see the action sequence that kicks off the whole movie and set up for an aca-spectacular finale to a franchise I love so much! (Yes, that is largely in part because of the amazing songs and musical sequences.)

The two parts of all this that got me the most focused around my fav Bella: Beca. Yes the premise of the movie, all the girls abandoning their lives to tour with the USO to perform on military bases hoping to get picked by some crazy big shot DJ to be signed by his label is very far out there, but this is not the typical Bella competition.

Beca of course immediately catches the attention of the producer, and you can totally tell he’s fascinated by her, and she in turn is strongly drawn to him, thought she seems to not realize it. Said hot producer and DJ Khaled eventually offered a contract for JUST HER but she turned it down because she is a Bella and she was not going to stab her girls in the back like that. The best part was in the end when she told the girls about it they told her she was crazy for not taking the deal! They all go on to tell her that they realize now that they don’t want to keep singing and that real friends, real sisters always support each other and don’t hold any one back from getting their dream!

The second part about this I loved so much, and something that is so NOT a normal thing in dramedies is the fact that despite the attraction, Beca didn’t fall into the arms of the hot producer, Theo, that clearly had a thing for her. Instead she held him off and made a crack about how he now worked for her and she was going to drive him crazy.

I also loved that we got to meet Fat Amy’s estranged father and the aca-crazy he brings to the already guaranteed to be a disaster shenanigans of the Bella’s. Despite Pitch Perfect’s plot having several holes, the expected final of sisterhood and female empowerment felt natural and impactful without being over done.

#4 The Bold Type

                  I am the first to say I’m not much of a contemporary books or shows that don’t have some kind of action element to it, but this gem snagged my attention right from its first seconds! I love the dynamic chemistry between all the stars of this show, but especially between the characters of Sutton, Jane and Kat. I love seeing three girls who are so inseparable. I love that when one of them does something bitchy or stupid or hurts the feelings of one of the others, instead of losing their shit, they come together, apologize and support each other.

This show broke a lot of molds like the other shows and movies I’ve listed here and they took on a hell of a line up of real issues facing women today. They took on everything from sexism and racial issue to online bullying and rape survival in a powerful season finale that had tears in the eyes of every person that has a heart.

When the series starts we find that Sutton is in a relationship with a man in a powerful position in the company. They highlighted the age-old assumption most people would have made accusing Sutton of sleeping her way up. Instead the relationship was NOT at all about that, they truly cared for each other; but they also showed the strain it put on the relationship to have to hide their love from everyone they know. Sutton is my favorite of the three girls because her personality is so close to mine, plus I loved seeing her gain her confidence to go for her dream of working in the fashion department of the magazine and finding her courage to show what a kick ass talent she is and how she refused to give up despite making many mistakes.

Little Jane is my second favorite. I like that her story focused on her admitting that she was not what her image portrayed and her journey to discovering who she is and what she really wants in her life and career. Jane had several major story lines from having to write an article admitting she had never had a Big “O”, getting into a relationship with a notorious player,  finding ways to break past the assumptions others made of her because of her look and where she worked, and having to face the fact she was positive for a gene that can cause breast cancer in women–the same cancer that killer her mother. At the end of the season they had Jane making a huge decision that put her out on her own, but I love that they showed how supportive her tough as nails boss was of it and how she knew that no matter where she was her friends would stand beside her.

Kat is a wonderfully complex character. She had some of the more crazy but impactful story lines. She dealt with falling in love with a truly beautiful and strong feminist Muslim photographer and realizing that her sexuality was NOTHING like what she had believed all her life. Her relationship with Adina was riddled with everything from cheating to getting arrested (and dealing with the ignorant hate that people have for those who look or talk differently, especially an Arab woman.) She also had to learn how to step up into being a boss and managing the people working for her. And most importantly she learned that she needed to step away from all the things that held her back from growing into the woman she wanted to become.

There are so many shows that could be included in this list but for me these are the ones that I loved the most and I hope that if you haven’t checked out any of these movies or shows, you will and see if maybe you can’t find something of yourself in all of them. I know I sure did!

❤ always LH

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'17 Screen Favs, Disney #RoseGoldEars & more on the blog #Legendary @PitchPerfect @WonderWomanFilm #Supergirl @TheBoldTypeTV #femalepower 2017 was a fun year for great movies and tv shows. But more than that it was a great year for movies and TV with powerful and inspirational female characters and their stories!