#the awareness of being a film and commenting on itself and playing with the audience to convey its themes

[betagrove]

House (1977) rewired my brain I cant stop thinking about it

[kuntlady]

Malèna

Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malèna is notably less charming than his 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso. Tornatore’s ever-present nostalgic sense of longing is apparent in both films, but whereas Cinema Paradiso spans the lifetime of a young man, Malèna is much smaller in its scope, focusing on just a couple of years during the main character Renato’s adolescence and his brief but intense infatuation with the titular Malèna. It’s this obsessive infatuation that replaces Cinema Paradiso’s quiet and magical nature with an overt and increasingly sinister pubescent sexuality. Yet, Malèna’s shorter breadth and its more portentous subject matter allows for Tornatore (if however indirectly) to provide a thorough commentary on the ways in which the female body is commodified, 

For Tornatore, the cinema world is forever stuck in the 60s. Despite being filmed a decade later, Tornatore’s nostalgia for post-WW2 Sicily carries through from Cinema Paradiso into Malèna. However, Tornatore breaks away and sheds Cinema Paradiso’s 60s-Fellini-inspired nonlinear narrative structure that was ever so potent in classic Italian cinema and lets the audience get the full brunt of the troubling and often violent events in the film and experiencing them as they unfold in front of Malèna’s teenaged main character, Renato.

Italy enters World War II on June 10, 1940. On this same day, Renato receives a new bike and we hear the salesperson saying “the frame is British, the gears are French, and the brakes are from–I forget. But the chain is Sicilian–always keep it greasy” (Malèna 2:03). This scene not only echoes Tornatore’s past commentary on Sicillian industry, specifically the fishing industry in Cinema Paradiso, but deftly establishes to the audience the context in which this Sicilian society is operating: though the bike is constructed from parts collected off bikes made in other countries, there is a through-line of pride embodied in the Sicilian chain. When Renato gets his bike, a symbol of youthful freedom and–more practically–a means of transportation, Malèna \ introduces its first reference to the theme of masculine adulthood. His friends inform him “you’re a man, like us” to which Renato asks “so I can join the gang?” (Malèna 4:05). The bike offers Renato his first steps into adulthood, and his attempts to assert himself into masculinity are the driving force for which the movie proceeds.

Later that day, Renato’s friends catch sight of Malèna (portrayed by Monica Bellucci), a beautiful woman whose husband is fighting in North Africa. Due to her beauty and her perceived sensuality, the group of young boys frantically run to watch her walk down the street, cutting through an alley to see her again as she turns a corner. It’s clear this has become a frequent activity for the group. This ritualisation of the performance of their male gaze as we hear them commenting on her body and bragging to each other about what they would do to her makes the audience immediately aware of Malèna’s physicality. This objectification is further enforced by the film itself. The first time Malèna appears on-screen we first see her physicality rendered through the male gaze as her body is represented through a fragmented collection of close-up shots of her legs, breasts, lips, and hair as she gets ready. 

This “male gaze” is noted in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, where Laura Mulvey argues “Hollywood cinema was structured along a threefold gaze (by the audience, the camera and the characters) that looks at women from a male point of view and regards them as mere (sexual) objects.” (University of Westminster, 2020). While not a Hollywood film, Malèna’s portrayal of Monica Bellucci’s character immediately drives this idea of the male gaze home. The rest of the film plays out solely through the gaze of Renato as he becomes immediately infatuated with Malèna and follows her everywhere, watching her the entire time. Even in moments of intimacy Renato is voyeuristically watching her through a peephole he made in her window shutters, with one of the most touching scenes in the movie being inextricably linked and befouled by his gaze. As Malèna dances with her husband’s portrait to the melancholic romance song “Ma l’amore no”, the camera focuses on fragmented close-ups of her legs, breasts, and slightly transparent dress. The camera and the audience are again solidified in Renato’s gaze as the shots focus on her sexual physicality and not her emotion or love. 

As Renato’s naive sexuality towards Malèna continues to grow, he becomes witness to the male gaze that Malèna lives under. At this same time, we see the pressures that Renato is subject to in regards to his masculinity. Initially, to Renato, Malèna offers the strongest way to graduate into his masculine adulthood. As he fools himself into thinking the love he feels for Malèna is requited, which, to Renato–a teenage boy eager to perform his masculinity–means he must protect her. Tornatore shows us that Renato’s fantasies involving Malèna are not always sexual: we see Renato imagining himself to be Tarzan swinging across vines to save her, a wild west cowboy shooting bandits trying to rob their stagecoach, and a gladiator fighting in an arena to win her favor. These are all artefacts of Renato’s conditioning to believe that love is inextricably linked to his own expressions of physical masculinity.

As the story progresses and Renato increasingly feels it impossible to interact with Malèna directly, he pursues other avenues to both prove his masculinity to his community and to Malèna herself. Sicilian children, at this time, wore shorts and a short sleeve button down shirt. His shorts are referenced multiple times throughout the film as a symbol of his immaturity, and Renato feels ostracised from his friend group, who all have the more grown-up long pants. Renato steals from his father in order to get pants tailored for himself and is inevitably caught and reminded forcefully that he is too young. Renato’s next foray into adulthood is when he steals a booklet of paintings featuring nude women and masturbates for the first time. This is Renato’s first physical entry into his sexuality beyond just fantasy, and he does so while imagining the women in the booklet are all Malèna. We can see that, regardless of how Renato aims to assert his masculinity, it is inexorably linked to his sexualisation of Malèna.

On the other hand, Malèna goes through her daily life never noticing Renato. The only time we see her apart from Renato is when she is walking down the street being watched intently by the townspeople. In fact, Malèna doesn’t exist on-screen in this film without the presence of men seeing her–even in her moments of solitude it is Renato’s voyeurism that places her in the world. In doing so Tornatore implies that Malèna lacks an individual personhood, and is only formed through the very act of her being perceived. 

This constant “seeing” that plays a major theme in this film pushes Malèna more and more outside of the society of Castelcuto. Women are angry at her for seemingly seducing their husbands, frequently belittling and spreading rumors of sexual promiscuity as she walks past. The men only spit crude remarks about what she would be like in bed, catcalling and jeering at her, then turning to their friends for approval. The one thing the two agree upon: Malèna is anything but a Madonna, so she must be a whore.

It is this dichotomous and damaging categorisation that causes a cacophony of overlapping voices and sharp, jolting close-up cuts to the enthralled faces of on-lookers whenever Malèna makes a public appearance in town. And yet Balluci’s portrayal of Malèna would make it seem as if she were none the wiser. Malèna only ever looks at the ground when she is out, and Balluci’s sophisticated and emotional performance gives strong credence to the depth of Malèna as a female character.

When Malèna’s husband is reported dead in the war she is left penniless and nearly starving to take care of her father. Already having subsisted while her husband was deployed, her ill-deserved reputation has now made her “unhirable” in town and the women refuse to sell her food. When trying to buy groceries from the only man who would sell to her, she admits she doesn’t have enough money to pay him. The man then caresses her hair and informs her “that’s no problem. I’m sure we can find a way to make you some money” (Malèna, 55:25). Immediately planes are heard overhead, and Castelcuto is bombed, ultimately killing Malèna’s father in the attack. At his funeral, as townspeople line up to wish her condolences, the same man who brought her groceries reminds her of his offer, showing that even in her deepest mourning and most human of moments, she is still seen as a sexual object to be used rather than a person deserving of sympathy.

A beautiful and poignant scene results from this act of deprecation. Malèna, her hair dyed a light scarlett, walks confidently into the plaza, turns her gaze forward for the first time, puts a cigarette in between her lips, and waits. In a beautifully framed close up of Malèna’s face we see a dozen men’s arms come in off screen instantly offering a lighter for her to use and her eyes are filled with a subtle grief as she allows one man to assist her. This scene represents Malèna’s understanding that she must wield the sexual power she holds over the men in this town to help her survive. She is the object of the women’s scorn and the men’s sexual fascination through no act of her own, and it is through their objectification that she ultimately must become the thing they rumoured her to be.

Having had resorted to sex-work for some time, Malèna finds herself in the clientele of German soldiers. Her short hair is now dyed blond–the exact opposite of the classically Italian long, jet-black hair Malèna had in the beginning of the film–represents truly how far she had to turn from her old self in order to survive. Upon American liberation, her affiliation with the German officers is the excuse the women of the town needed to enact their brutally violent punishment against her perceived transgressions. This woman, who had done nothing but attempt to feed herself and secure her safety, is dragged out of the hotel in her underwear and beaten by the women of the town, cutting off her hair and pulling at what little clothing she has:

When she is dragged into the same square where she adapted (sic) her new persona, when her nakedness is exposed to every eye that once pandered after her, she is grotesquely reduced to a destroyed shell of herself. When the torment is completed and her hair is held triumphantly by the jealous townswomen, she breaks her muted disposition of indifference and lets out a guttural screech of agony.

(Escober, 2015)

Her screech of agony isn’t directed at the women who beat her, though: the shot is filmed from within the crowd of on-looking men, somewhat obscuring the audience’s view of the violence, and as Malèna gets up off the ground, naked and bruised and covered in dirt, she turns to the men and cries out at them; and at us. Bellucci’s acting in this scene is incredible. Having solidified her intricate understanding of the character with the cigarette scene, the deftness in which she places Malèna’s pain into this scream leaves the viewer with a deep, intrinsic understanding of the message: the men had done this to her, however indirectly. Standing in front of them naked and beaten was the physical manifestation of the extent of their sexual violence against her. In refusing Malèna her personhood, in reducing her to her physicality, in holding her constantly in their sexualised gaze, she had been forced into becoming the person they seemed to so desperately want her to be and then left her abandoned to be ravaged by the world they themselves made.

Tornatore’s Malèna shows, astutely, both sides of the coin. Malèna’s sexuality and value is inherently tied to the objectification that Renato and other men place upon her and ultimately lead to her direct downfall at the hands of the towns-women and the indirect way in which Malèna is robbed of her personhood leads her there. We also see Renato’s increasing sexual consumption of women being hoisted upon him by the societal expectations of masculinity. Renato’s forward progression into manhood is referenced multiple times throughout the film and each attribute that attains him a new chapter of his adolescence–the bike, the long pants, the masturbation, and the fantasies–are all portrayed as the necessary metamorphoses that will bring Renato into adulthood. Furthermore, his naive conceptualisation of romance is inseparable from his want to flee from childhood and into the masculine archetype of the protector and his insidious sexualisation of Malèna. 

[devilsskettle]

currently thinking about the trend in a lot of films right now is to deconstruct various genre conventions and what makes some of them work so well and some of them totally miss the mark and i think there are levels to meta and how effective it is. so here’s what i think it is:

level 0: establishing the conventions. whatever tropes common to a particular genre are done in earnest, reifying those tropes’ typical presence in a genre. either doing it for the first time (as in genre establishing films) or continuing the trend. just to be clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this lol it’s literally just what any piece of media does unless it’s meant to be ironic/satirical/meta. it’s honestly kind of weird to see this trend towards irony and commentary, feels a bit like a cultural rejection of sincerity. but i digress 

level 1: acknowledging the conventions. the tropes are present, but it’s with a little wink from the filmmakers. we’re all in on the (often self-effacing) joke that it’s such a stereotypical thing to include in a movie of this genre. it’s ironic! 

level 2: deconstructing the conventions. the filmmakers don’t just acknowledge the conventions, but comment on them, either implicitly or explicitly. often critical of the function of the tropes (for example, the trope of stoic masculinity in a western is shown to be toxic, or the archetype of the “slutty” female character in an exploitation slasher movie is shown to be sexist. conversely, a positive example might be when the final girl trope in slasher movies is framed as feminist). the filmmakers have opinions about what these tropes mean and they invite the audience to also form opinions about them 

level 3: subverting the conventions. the filmmakers 1. acknowledges the tropes, 2. deconstructs the tropes, and then 3. uses those tropes to do something different in their own film. they take the expectation of the audience and twist it around (an example of this is the scream franchise; in the first movie, it’s all about deconstructing the slasher genre, picking apart, analyzing, and poking fun at its “rules” - i.e. the slasher movie genre conventions. then in scream 4, they continue to play around with these “rules,” but the main killer turns out to be someone who would never fit into the archetype of the killer in a traditional slasher movie. in doing so, they comment on the roles of both the slasher and the final girl in this genre while turning them on their head, using them to say something new within the framework that the genre conventions provide) (you know who else did the same thing? ovid! it’s a roman literary convention to take old stories and do something new with them, twisting them around in exciting, interesting ways for the modern readers of that time. metamorphoses is all about adapting myths, not just straight retelling them. if anybody uses ovid as a source for greek mythology, punch them in the dick because he’s saying nothing about ancient greek society and everything about the culture in which he lived - rome) (just like scream is quintessential 90s media and says nothing about the 70s and 80s when the slasher genre was being established) (but yeah - retellings/adaptations of any myth/folklore do the same thing, which is why i think we need to be critical of how these stories get retold and what implications using certain traditions has about our own culture) (anyway. what was i talking about) 

i feel like the reason so many meta movies fall flat is because they don’t reach the point of subversion while trying to get credit for being groundbreaking, when all they did was deconstruct genre conventions. not that all films do need to subvert conventions! (the first scream movie itself only deconstructs, but it does it well and that’s what makes the difference imo) but when they purport to and don’t, it’s very frustrating. fake deep. like okay you’re aware of certain tropes, but did you do anything with them? did you actually say anything new about them? it’s like how they teach people to grade standardized test essays; you can’t just make a statement and get full credit, you have to elaborate and demonstrate your point. and then of course there’s the issue of the subversion being effective in the first place, like, did using this genre convention actually muddy the waters more in terms of what your message is? but that goes back to good old fashioned quality of writing. and understanding how the conventions function in the narrative/what they represent (if you don’t know what their purpose is traditionally, then you’re not able to comment on them, which means you’re not gonna be able to subvert them, because then you’d be going through a whole lot of effort to say absolutely nothing). you gotta learn the rules before you break them. so like some movies i’ve seen recently that imitate effective deconstructive/subversive films but fail include the menu (extremely muddy, disingenuous messaging imo, a hasty composite of popular modern thriller aesthetics from the past couple of years) and scream 5 (tries to deconstruct the slasher genre for the 2020s but fails because it doesn’t say anything true and specific about the genre, grapples for some pattern in modern horror that could count as a genre convention to deconstruct but never lands on anything concrete). anyway.......

idk i could complain about butchered meta and ineffective deconstruction forever. i guess it bothers me because it’s an easy way for lazy writers to sound like they’re saying a lot of smart shit without really having to say anything at all, it just sounds good and people like feeling like they’re in on the joke with them and they can play off of the pop culture imagination we have around a genre and make broad generalizations about patterns that actually aren’t so ubiquitous in the real genre. and it sounds progressive! and sometimes it is. but like. how many people have watched meta horror without ever watching a slasher movie? or a neo-western without ever watching a western? or how many people have read modern adaptations of myths purporting to “reclaim” them for women, without reading any mythology beyond percy jackson and bulfinch in elementary school, or having any familiarity with ancient greek culture? they get to be high and mighty about a genre they know nothing about lol it’s ridiculous, don’t you think? just the rhetoric around it now. idk this little ramble has gotten away from me 

[mejomonster]

Daomubiji is the gayest "not written to be intentionally gay" I've ran into in the cwebnovel world. Like. In English? Yeah plenty of fuckers especially pre 2015 would make a story gay but never intend it to be read that way and yell at people who did (and some who didnt get mad but also didnt want to embrace that potentiality). Occasionally making something intensely gay. Nowadays most English stuff either is aware of how gay it wrote shit and therefore okay with itself as that, or is so unintentional it's just a baffling situation

Meanwhile in cwebnovels it's a pretty established genre to just put out gay content so usually if it's gay it's already fully aware it's writing in such a way (now cdramas are another story since it's the foggy land of some gay stuff being adapted to "bromance" meanwhile some purposely friendship stuff trying it's hardest to slide toward "bromance" to capitalize on that angle without actually being gay, then the ones in the middle happy to capitalize on the gay and playing hard and loose and not really confirming what their intent truly is -dmbj shows are Now Here-, and then original script "bromances" fully intending to be gay the way Xena was like Killer and Healer which I applaud for wanting to do gay in an impossible environment with no book to lean on as the reason it was made gay as it was - mriad also toed this, that tan jianci show recently did etc). So like usually if it's Not overtly gay as a novel I assume no intention was purposeful, at least not much. (Though to be fair maybe there are authors utilizing subtext and a bit scared to go overt gay cause of how that may affect them/sales/their future etc, which may be going on but I am not aware enough of everything in non-gay novel land to comment. Fair enough though that was certainly going on in Hayes code America in the film industry, with some people making gay threesome art films sliding past the radar on purpose, others making metaphor as literal wasn't alloved, others accidentally making subtext rather than on purpose, and I'd say to some degree novel wise that would have been going on as well. I didn't read many us novels from 70s-2000 but iwtv made gay implied and the sequel a decent time later made gay overt and I'd assume some bigger safety in writing gay characters was felt by authors later in the century).

Anyway, my point. Of the small amount ive read, dmbj is sure the gayest "not in the gay genre" cnovel I've found. There's The Kings Avatar, that's big, can anyone tell me if it's gay? There's Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, which has a gay side couple but that's not quite the same. There's LiuLi (Love and Redemptions novel), but a main character who's multiple genders and a bi love interest is just... not common in general anywhere so that's more of a one off thing (I'd love for it to be more common though). Mostly the big stuff that comes out that people interpret as gay out of cnovel land... IS purposefully fully intended as gay.

Meanwhile dmbj show wise, is at the point where scenes adapted from its own novel get cut for being too gay (oh wu xie u bastard cat ur too into xiaoge for censors to bear). Dmbj show wise, for a while, for baffling reasons post The Lost Tomb (because if you squint HARD there's non gay reasons to put in all the gay scenes as a speed run implied instant Platonic fondness/connection that's just using romance action tropes to speed it up to communicate to audience since it only has like 10 episodes... again, if you squint I can see an oblivious straight person somehow thinking it was straight). But then by The Lost Tomb 2 you've got the saving him in a tux in his arms shit, Ultimate Note you've got scenes Being cut for being "too gay" wu xie, in Reboot you've got the whole cast well aware of ships and nanpai Sandshu also WELL aware by that point so if there's any "bromance" now towing the line of gay it's at least likely on purpose and self aware they're on the line.

But then there's. The fucking novels. Wu Xie my dude. Iron triangle my guys. How did all this accidentally happen? Is this the beautiful outcome of npss starting fanfic with no idea where it would end? You genderbend a love interest, make the guy embody ur idea of cool so u have to have ur viewpoint character wu xie notice how Cool said Cool Guy is, and the gender ambiguous premise leads to romantic interest slanting framing of such character, leads to that entire structure continuing long after u decided emo boy is a dude, wu xie is into men now and ur in way too deep now to backtrack so pangzis commenting, now ur cool emo got Emotionally Attached to one person in this whole world and it's ur viewpoint dude, now he's sacrificing for him, now they're at Minimum as gay as Kirk and Spock and quickly hurtling to Xena/Gabrielle levels. And I'm googling pingxie having heard of dmbj, having never seen an episode, ans finding its one of the biggest Ships TM. Thinking it's some fan ship with no Canon basis like idk captain america/iron man, then I watch The Lost Tomb and no these fuxkers as gay as Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan to my assumption. Then I look up the books and it's. Odd. They're definitely soulmates, they don't date others, they retire together, xiaoge sees wu xie as The Person for his ass TM, and it's uh. It is what it is. They're life partners for sure anyway. So it's a kirk/spock situation at minimum. But, if you watch the shows it's treading on "this Bromance is so close to/possibly Is Romance that we are being assumed as actual bl" line. Which I guess in show form is Xena/Gabrielle. Cause most censored bl dramas are xena/gabrielle level (lovers but you gotta be Just vague enough about it to be allowed to air). And thus is established, the gayest pair of "are they gay" I've run into in chinese media. (To be compared with the youtube series Are You Gay of Kirk/Spock, a question for the ages).

I'm just. They're so gay. They're whatever they are in canon, and why. Its fun to think of why (before the shows slid them pretty firmly into "is might as well be bl territory so assume it is" with the way the show teams handle it). Like. Is it all just a happy accident of npss, a fanfic turned original universe that of course includes anything and everything (comets from space, giant snakes, emo immortals, hair monsters) so why wouldn't it also include gay chosen soulmate fuckers in the center. Is dmbj an interesting example of what fiction can grow and turn into of its own accord, as it evolves over years and becomes its own entity of development? It's interesting. It's interesting what else may eventually develop and shift. (Take what I said with heaps of salt though, I still need to read a Lot more of the books, I'm a newbie with them and still happy to fall into many more of them)

[omgkatsudonplease]

I watched Mignonnes so you don't have to, if you were at all discomfited by the way Netflix's marketing decided to sexualise children in a film critiquing the sexualisation of children.

SPOILERS BELOW

The film is about how both hyperliberal and hyperconservative cultures force girls to grow up too fast. Amy is a first-gen immigrant from Senegal. Her family's culture tells girls they are marriageable once they get their first period, and in anticipation of that she is expected to know how to prepare an entire wedding feast and provide for her two younger brothers. 

Amy is disenchanted from this culture when she finds out her dad back in Senegal has married another woman. He will be bringing her to France with him and they will live in the same apartment. Amy's mom tries to put on a brave face and accept it, but it is obvious this move is humiliating for her. Amy's excitement for her dad turns into anger, compounded by her alienation and isolation at school.

The Mignonnes are a dance clique of 4 French girls who are clearly better adjusted to Western culture than Amy. Their ringleader lives in Amy's apartment complex and Amy is clearly enchanted with her because of the way she dances. She wants to be friends with the Mignonnes, but they bully and tease her. So in an attempt to win their approval, Amy learns the dance routine they are practicing for a local competition.

(The infamous "OMG NAKED BOOBIES ON A CHILD" shot is a blink and you'll miss it moment on a music video posted by a rival dance group. The incident is treated like a wardrobe malfunction, the girl quickly covers up, and the camera cuts away. Also, breasts aren't inherently sexual in France so a lot of the morality screaming is really American puritanism at play.)

The girls' antics are rebuffed by the older boys and men they interact with. One such moment is when the girls catfish an older teenager, but when one of them turns on the camera, the boy is visibly uncomfortable and tells them to fuck off. This leads to the girl who turned on the camera to be outcast from the group, which is Amy's avenue into the group. To secure her place, she offers to teach the other girls how to twerk. 

This is where the film's dances become more notably uncomfortable. I can tell why people are upset about the sexualisation of children based on only these scenes from the film, but within the context of the film they are treated as a dangerous addiction that is destroying Amy's dignity. She acts more and more "mature" in an attempt to gain the approval of the Mignonnes. In these subsequent dance scenes the camera mimics the angles from a music video, but the child subjects make the overall scene grotesque and uncomfortable.

There is a scene where Amy is pantsed in a fight. This is when she is desperately trying to look "more mature", so the revelation that she still wears "kids' granny panties" is humiliating for her. Once again, the shot is really quick, in the context of a fight, and the Mignonnes come to her rescue quickly. This moment is the tipping point where Amy's outside activity seeps back into her home. She steals her mom's wallet so she and the Mignonnes can go on a shopping spree for more ~mature~ underwear. 

Since Amy is in a lower-income first-gen immigrant family, she doesn't have her own smartphone. The girls at her school do, though, so she steals her cousin's smartphone. This is also part of her attempts to become accepted by her peers -- that phone is her first foray into hypersexualised Western online culture and part of her first major interaction with the Mignonnes. It is also part of the worst thing she does: post an inappropriate photo of herself online.

The film clearly shows her reasoning for doing so: she is deep in social media at this point and needs more and more provocative actions to score the same high. The Mignonnes were humiliated by the pantsing incident and need something to show they're "not kids" (even though they are). Amy doesn't know it's inappropriate to post that kind of photo online. She does it anyway. And she is punished by both her home culture and Western culture for doing it.

There is a scene here where her mother and auntie sprinkle her with water, presumably to purify her from her sins. Amy becomes overwhelmed with some sort of emotion and starts half-twerking in front of them. The camera circles her entire body when she does so. It really makes her look possessed, which is why her mother calls in an imam (I think?) to check her for demons. The man tells her mother there are none, and reminds her that she is free to divorce her husband if she cannot bear the stress and humiliation of this impending wedding. "God does not burden women with more than they can bear," he says, making a clear distinction between Islam as a religion, and Islam as a tool used by a patriarchal culture to force the submission of women. 

Amy is also rejected from the Mignonnes (and they welcome the other girl back in). They tell her she acted like a slut and ruined their reputation, completely uncaring that they were responsible for her actions up to this point. The line is clearly: you can twerk and lick your finger and bite your lips and do all the other stuff that the women in music videos do, but you cannot post nudes. Amy doesn't know that's the line. She tries to justify her actions and is only pushed away by the other girls. 

(I should also mention, the actual action of her taking the pictures does not show you anything. The camera keeps itself above the belt outside of dance scenes. You know what she's doing based on the glow of the phone screen and the tops of her knees. You never see the photo itself, either. That, to me, tells me more about the film's treatment of these kids more than the dance scenes.) 

So with this further isolation from both of her cultures, Amy grows increasingly desperate. On the day of her dad's arrival and wedding, she tries to push her way back into the Mignonnes for their final dance. This feels like an act of self-harm at this point, but Amy needs that high of having friends and getting approval (since she's not getting any of it at home). The dance is horrifically provocative, and many people in the audience are uncomfortable. The fact that Netflix decided to focus on this scene in their marketing campaign subverts the entire point of the film, since anyone who only watches the trailer would not know Amy was self-harming by dancing like this at this point. 

Amy receives an awakening in the middle of the dance. She realises this is also not what she wants to do -- she doesn't want to be viewed as a prospective wife OR a prospective whore. So she runs off, rejecting the Mignonnes. 

(There is a scene earlier on when Amy gets her first period and the auntie tells her that she herself had been engaged at Amy's age, and after she got her first period she had only a couple more years before she was properly married. Also the second wife is heavily implied to be only a couple years older than Amy. This is not framed in the context of Islam but rather in the context of Amy's family's culture.) 

In the end, however, Amy manages to find a middle ground between her two cultures, and rejects the expectation from both for girls to become women before they're ready to. She rejects both the hyperfeminine dress sent from Senegal for her dad's wedding as well as the risque dance outfit, and dresses like a kid to go jump rope with other kids in the neighborhood. When she finally gets to act like a kid, she is happy. 

I could honestly say more about the film's use of that dress from Senegal as a magical realism plot point, the relationship between Amy and her mother, and how the camera is a stand-in for Amy's mental processes and perceptions. But given the current puritan fervour on the Internet about how the film is "paedobait" I felt obliged to write up the film so people can be aware of how the subject is actually handled in the film itself and make their own judgement as to whether or not to watch it. I personally thought it was more evocative of the immigrant experience; I remember making many of Amy's mistakes when I was growing up (but thankfully mostly not offline, lmao). 

So: are the dance scenes disturbing? Yes. That's the point. I would be more concerned if you were NOT disturbed by the dances. Is the film sexualising the kids? I personally think this is an example of depiction =/= endorsement. Would creeps use the dance scenes for their own ends? Yes, but creeps also used to use innocent YouTube videos of kids doing gymnastics and ballet or playing at the beach, which is why all YouTube videos for kids now have comments disabled. So dogpiling a woman of colour for talking about her own experience through film, accusing her of being a paedophile, and sending her death threats is incredibly excessive. 

Also, the original accusation of this film being paedobait originated from 4ch*n, a known internet cesspool of racist paedophiles, so really. Are we really going to take 4ch*n at their word. Do your research, everyone.

[comicweek]

Why Batgirl (and Scoob) were Axed: TAXES

The death of “Batgirl” on Tuesday sent immediate shockwaves through Hollywood. The film — with a $75 million budget that grew to $90 million due to COVID-related overages — had finished shooting months ago and was in test screenings as directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (“Bad Boys for Life,” “Ms. Marvel”) worked through the post-production process. Star Leslie Grace (“In the Heights”) had given multiple interviews expressing her enthusiasm for landing the title role and working with co-stars Michael Keaton (as Batman), J.K. Simmons (as her character’s father, Commissioner Gordon) and Brendan Fraser (as the villain, Firefly).

In other words, the movie was nearly finished, and already building awareness among fans. Why would Warner Bros. Discovery throw all that away?

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, the most likely reason: taxes.

“Batgirl” found itself on the bad end of that decision, apparently neither big enough to feel worthy of a major theatrical release nor small enough to make economic sense in an increasingly cutthroat streaming landscape. Spending the money to expand the scope of “Batgirl” for theaters — plus the $30 million to $50 million needed to market it domestically and the tens of millions more needed for a global rollout — could have nearly doubled spending on the film, and insiders say that was a non-starter at a company newly focused on belt-tightening and the bottom line. (Spokespeople for Warner Bros. and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment for this story.)

Releasing the movie on HBO Max would seem to be the most obvious solution. Instead, the company has shelved “Batgirl” — along with the “Scoob!” sequel — and several sources say it will almost certainly take a tax write-down on both films, seen internally as the most financially sound way to recoup the costs (at least, on an accountant’s ledger). It could justify that by chalking it up to a post-merger change of strategy.

Doing so, however, would mean that Warner Bros. cannot monetize either movie — no HBO Max debut, no sale to another studio.

emphasis added

The makers of the live-action Batgirl and the animated Scoob! learned today that those films were being stopped in their tracks. The timing was particularly awkward for Batgirl co-directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah. Both are in Morocco for El Arbi’s wedding — some wedding present — and they expected to return to the cutting room and continue work on the film that stars Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton.

There were initial cries that the scrapping of Batgirl carried bad optics because the title role is played by a Latina. But there were reasons for the move. In both cases, the filmmakers were told that it came down to a “purchase accounting” maneuver available to Warner Bros Discovery because the company has changed hands, and also changed strategy from the previous regime. This opportunity expires in mid-August, said sources, and it allows WBD to not have to carry the losses on its books at a time when the studio is trying to pare down $3 billion in debt across its divisions.

There has been much speculation on why Batgirl was canceled, having to do with it being a bad movie. Sources said that the film tested once, and the result wasn’t that bad, considering that the cut had temporary visual effects that tend to temper audience enthusiasm in the scores. Already, the studio is discussing making different deals with the directors and Miss Bala star Grace, because this was not a reflection on their talent as much as the radical strategy shift. It was a hard decision for all and highly unusual to simply scrap a film that cost $60 million-$70 million, made by the hot directors who helmed Black and the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel under Kevin Feige as well as the pre-pandemic $426M-grossing hit Bad Boys for Life.

Much of the decision came down to this: Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav rejecting of Kilar’s strategy to lean heavily into building streaming subscriptions for HBO Max. That was punctuated by his Project Popcorn initiative that put the entire 2021 theatrical slate — including Dune, Godzilla vs Kong, King Richard, The Matrix 4 — day-and-date in theaters and on HBO Max when theater attendance was sparse during the pandemic. Even after he was shown the door, Kilar continued to call the strategy a win. Many did not agree, particularly after Top Gun: Maverick waited and grossed north of $1.3 billion. It’s a decidedly different world from when Kilar made the move. Wall Street no longer is impressed by subscriber numbers as much as profits, as seen by the precipitous decline of Netflix’s stock value.

Back to Batgirl and Scoob! Batgirl is a gritty entry — not near the budgets of DC theatricals The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — and wasn’t designed to compete with tentpole theatrical releases, and neither for that matter was Scoob! In addition, there were introductions of characters in that film that the studio wanted to save for those DC theatrical titles. Rather than spend vast sums pumping up the budgets of each film to compete in theatrical marketplace, and then spend $80 million in global P&A, the studio felt that scrapping both movies was a better choice, when coupled with the purchase accounting maneuver. DC will be preserved as a place that takes big swings, from Aquaman 2 to Flash, Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, a sequel to its billion-dollar Joker and another Wonder Woman pic.

Sources don’t expect other films to get killed like this, because the accounting opportunity expires by the middle of this month. But as all of Warner Bros Discovery braces for Thursday’s quarterly earnings report and the layoffs that are sure to come, no one with a project made specifically for HBO Max or execs there can feel confident at the moment.

Warner Bros Discovery just released this statement: “The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership’s strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max. Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor and this decision is not a reflection of her performance. We are incredibly grateful to the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt and their respective casts and we hope to collaborate with everyone again in the near future.”

[shinjaeha]

ipytm ep 2 (thoughts + spoilers)

i’ve been trying my hardest to forget about iptym during the week so the countdown to each new ep won’t feel as long, but i don’t think i’ve succeeded. with each new ep i feel more and more nervous and excited bc i know the conflict and angst is only going to keep ramping up as the series goes on (and this ep was a good indication of that...not FULL BLOWN angst yet, but the undercurrent of angst is slowly starting to come to the surface). i’m def more prepared for it than i was during itsay, but that doesn’t make it easy ;;;

the standard ‘this is not a proper analysis’ here...i’m completely aware that this post in particular is really messy, but i just had a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts with this ep. one day i will learn how to condense my thoughts better, but today is not that day so i’m doing this under a read more for once bc it’s embarrassingly long 😂

we start off with teh in acting class where his teacher is explaining how you need to be able to understand yourself before you’re able to understand other people (and therefore put yourself in the shoes of the character you’re playing)...which even before i knew where this ep was going to go felt a lot like foreshadowing for the events that were going to unfold in this ep.

the acting exercises are basically a lot like the ones that we see bkpp (and the rest of the cast) having to do as part of their workshops in the documentary eps, so it’s kind of cool to see them incorporate parts of that into the actual show itself. feels more authentic since, if you’ve watched the documentary eps, you know that this is actually what the actors have to go through when they’re learning to let themselves go and get into character.

so through this montage of all of teh’s classes, we get to see how much he’s enjoying learning more and more about his major. it’s truly his passion, and he’s finally in his element. and it’s great that he’s surrounded by so many seniors that are also as driven and passionate about performing as he is...i find it interesting how teh, even from the start, has always been most attracted to people that have the same sense of ambitiousness as he does. in itsay, his best friend (aside from oh-aew obv) was tarn, who had a very similar mindset as him. so here, it’s not really that much of a surprise that all his uni friends are basically the drama club seniors that he sees as role models. oh-aew is kind of that one outlier bc he doesn’t fit that same mould/personality type that teh tends to surround himself with, which is where you can already start to see the discord between them arising. in itsay, bc oh-aew was working towards the same end goal as teh at the time, it wasn’t as much of a conflict. but in ipytm we can see that their paths are starting to diverge more and more. that being said, oh-aew’s someone that teh truly needs in his life bc he offers a different perspective to most of teh’s other friends, and as we can see later on, teh REALLY needs that.

now THIS was one of the interactions i was really interested in. we already knew from the ep 2 teaser that teh isn’t exactly happy with oh-aew’s new friend group, so i’ve been waiting to see how teh acts when he’s around them. everyone’s at q’s house celebrating plug’s birthday, and honestly?? they’re all really sweet and accommodating of teh (they get him sweet drinks bc teh tells them that he doesn’t drink bc it’s too bitter, and they don’t pressure him when he says he can’t drink bc he’s got morning classes). but then the conversation turns to teh and oh-aew becoming actors and earning lots of money (and how convenient that is), and teh starts to get a little riled up. i don’t think they mean anything by what they’re saying (they’re just playing around), but we know that teh's sensitive to this sort of thing, and i think to him, it’s almost like they’re saying it’s ‘easy’ to become an actor and start making bank. teh, who already knows how hard it is (esp since he’s been watching how difficult it’s been for khim in particular), starts getting defensive about it. the focus being on money hits a nerve with him too bc teh is very clearly majoring in comm arts bc it’s his dream, not bc of the money he could make from it. teh and oh-aew’s gang are just on different wavelengths, and you can really start to see how teh’s having trouble bonding with oh-aew’s gang bc of their differing mindsets.

it makes me slightly sad that you can see how worried oh-aew is about teh and his friends not meshing. it’s like we, the audience, are all feeling what oh-aew is feeling...his nervous glances at teh bc he’s afraid that teh might not like them. and the discomfort on teh’s part too. all of oh-aew friends tend to be a lot more like him, relaxed and happy to go with the flow, but we know that teh can be pretty rigid and intense about the things that he’s passionate about. oh-aew recognises this, which is why he’s as anxious as he is in the first place.

oh-aew’s tea tattoo in honour of teh is actually so sweet 😭 it shows how much teh means to him. he really got a permanent mark on his body to symbolise his love for his boyfriend ;;; but from teh’s perspective, it’s literally that first mark of change. it IS a pretty big decision, so i don’t blame teh for being shocked about it, but teh likely sees this as oh-aew’s friends being a ‘bad’ influence on him (which we know gets brought up again later). not bc of the tattoo itself, but bc of what it represents. it’s like he’s watching oh-aew start to change before his very eyes and he doesn’t know how to deal with that so he brushes it away for now.

the framing of that shot where teh and oh-aew are facing each other and then q comes to walk in between them is A LOT like how they used to frame the both of them in itsay and having bas walk in between them. interesting.

HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE FACT THAT OH-AEW SPEAKS CHINESE WHEN HE’S DRUNK...that’s just plain adorable :’) it’s like he’s reverting back to when teh was teaching him chinese and they were first falling in love again. teh’s method of getting close to him was always tutoring oh-aew in chinese, so it’s as though oh-aew is trying to feel closer to teh again by speaking chinese to him. sort of like he’s trying to recreate that feeling all over again. i also love that this is basically the opposite of that oppo short film ad bkpp did haha.

we got the “ke yi ma” “ke yi” again ;;;;;;;; i love their little domestic moments. they’re so soft when they’re like this (i know we’re gonna have to weather the angst, but i hope we still have a lot more fluffy moments like this too pls). side note, i really love the lighting in these scenes!!

when oh-aew reads teh’s note about the kimchi jjigae and smiles but then reads the “do not skip class” and his smile fades away...oh, oh-aew, i feel u.

so now we get to see oh-aew in acting class, and the difference between oh-aew’s feelings towards class and teh’s feelings are like night and day. teh’s classes make him feel so fulfilled...this is genuinely something that he wants to do. but oh-aew is struggling. he doesn’t have that same sense of purpose as teh bc he’s starting to realise that this might not be what he really wants...he’s trying but just not enjoying it at all. when teh tells him about the casting call, i feel so much dread for him bc he’s clearly not looking forward to it whatsoever, but he knows how much this means to teh...so he’s willing to ignore his feelings for now if teh’s happy :(

is it just me or was this when oh-aew stopped carrying his ‘heart attack’ bag too??

idk this struggle in particular just feels so personal to me. i really identify with oh-aew when it comes to this bc when i was at uni i changed my major like 3-4 times (and changed unis a bunch of times on top of that) bc i had NO IDEA what i wanted to do. even now, i still have no clue what i’m doing a lot of the time. i’m glad that oh-aew at least managed to find some sort of clarity when he dropped in on his friends’ advertising class and realised that this was something that he enjoyed and was good at :’)

teh’s so excited and focussed on this audition that he can’t even see how worried and reluctant that oh-aew is about this. he wants them to have the same dream so bad that he can’t see that this might not be oh-aew’s dream anymore. but anyway, oh-aew is the sweetest, best boy as always. he’s so, so encouraging with teh. so patient. he really such a great balance to teh’s more volatile nature...but that contrast is also what makes you feel so bad for him when teh lashes out at him without thinking (as he’s prone to doing).

i LOVE khim. i just have so much respect for her. she’s always trying her hardest, and it’s painful to see her give so much of herself yet constantly be knocked down. the resilience that takes. i know that that’s part of the industry she’s in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. there’s a lot to be said about how harsh the entertainment industry can be (and the inherent ageism/sexism/homophobia within it), which i don’t have the time to go into here, but having to hear criticism like that...purely based on your looks (you don’t look smart enough, young enough, manly enough, etc.) is so incredibly disheartening. teh commenting on how harsh it is, and khim saying that it’s super common and telling the both of them how they’re gonna have to go through all of that the more casting calls they go to...OF COURSE oh-aew is only going to feel even more dispirited about this when he’s already realising that this might not be his thing anymore.

being able to take rejection and criticism is really fucking difficult (i know i could never do it)...and seeing oh-aew being told that he’s not ‘manly’ enough/too ‘girly’ in acting class and again at the casting call is yet another knock at his confidence. the way you physically see oh-aew get more flustered and anxious as the audition goes on, when he sees the crew shaking their heads at him :((( i feel all the nervousness, anxiety and embarrassment that he’s feeling right down to my very bones. then to walk out from that audition to khim talking about how damn hard it is to keep doing this time and time again only to be continually rejected?? my poor boy :( what’s fascinating to me is how differently the both of them interpret khim’s speech. teh latches on to her words and sees them as motivation to keep going...to keep trying and persevering. like a challenge. but to oh-aew, he just sees the difficulty and rejection. the instability of this career path, and how hard this could potentially be on his family as well. they’re both hearing completely different things.

teh being so happy about his audition even though he didn’t get the part and the way he turns around to face oh-aew directly when oh-aew tells him they said he was “too girly” and how he couldn’t change his personality to be what they wanted :((( pls. i just want to hug him so bad. teh’s “i like you the way you are now” and reassurance that so many other people do too  😭i know he kind of makes a mess of himself later on, but i’m still so glad that oh-aew got to hear that from him at least.

this show is the best at making you feel all that nervousness and anxiety when any of the characters are about to drop some big news. i was waiting with bated breath when oh-aew told teh he wanted to transfer majors. it makes me sad though that oh-aew has to constantly feel like he’s walking on eggshells when it comes to teh...he’s always most worried about teh’s reaction, and that’s prob the main reason why he didn’t opt out of comm arts even earlier. but oh-aew has all these mounting doubts about his major, and there’s only so long he can stick it out for teh’s sake, and the casting call (and khim’s words) really solidified that for him.

teh’s "you haven’t given it your all”/”you haven’t done your best” rubs me the wrong way bc it’s easy to think that way when you’re set on something and know that that’s what you want to do...but when you’re doubting/not sure about something, it just isn’t the same thing. we all have different thresholds when it comes to what we can endure and how much we can put into something. teh’s a hard worker, we’ve seen how dedicated he can be when he really wants something, but not everyone works like this. not everyone can be a teh or a khim. and esp not when they’re having to give their all to something that doesn’t feel right for them. and oh-aew’s right...sometimes once is enough to know that something’s not a fit for you.

when oh-aew mentions that he sat in on advertising class and thinks he might be into it, it’s like a parallel of that scene when they’re kids and oh-aew told teh that he wanted to become an actor like him. only now it’s the opposite. teh’s had this plan in his head that he and oh-aew are going to reach their dream of becoming actors and the lead protagonists in a movie/series together for so long now that it’s hard for him to reconcile that oh-aew might no longer want this as much as he does anymore. it’s like he can see this ultimate goal of his crumbling. so just hearing that it’s bc of q and the rest of the gang’s ‘influence’ that oh-aew sat in on their advertising class in the first place (and this triggered his interest in advertising) is like strike two for teh vs. oh-aew’s friends.

i’ve def mentioned this before, but oh-aew has always been the more pragmatic of the two, whilst teh is more idealistic, so i understand why he would gravitate towards something that was more stable of a career for him. more of a guarantee. he knows that advertising/marketing suits him better (not to mention that he’s always had the resort as his safety to fall back on too), and it’s something that he’s discovering he actually enjoys more in general too.

when i first watched this, i was like “oh wow teh’s matured so much!!” bc he didn’t blow up at oh-aew during this scene...that kind of ended up backfiring on me towards the end, but at the same time, i do think there’s a certain level of growth there since he does end up trying to reassure oh-aew (even if the blow up still occurs later on). it’s a process though...and even baby steps are progress.

8 months later and teh’s walking past that same place he and oh-aew walked by during his first night in bangkok...only now the poster is no longer the same red one. it’s blue... as though it’s signifying that this is just teh’s dream alone now, and teh clearly still hasn’t come to terms with that yet.

i’m really happy seeing oh-aew in a much better place now!! it’s so good to see him happy and actually involved in uni with his friends. but watching teh struggle going through casting calls and rejections makes my heart ache. hearing khim’s experience with auditions, and actually having to experience it irl, are two entirely different things. it’s like the reality of the situation is starting to hit in for teh. and that, on top of oh-aew not being there to support him in the same way bc their goals in life aren’t similarly aligned anymore, is starting to take its toll.

god, when teh lined oh-aew and was waiting for his response i was like nooooo don’t do it DON’T DO IT only for him to open ig to check oh-aew’s story 😭(though it IS cute that they have couple pfps). but we’re regressing. and now that they have different social circles it’s even harder to connect than before. teh feels like oh-aew’s being pulled away from him, into another friend group that doesn’t include him...and his insecurities are bubbling to the surface again. teh’s always needed that reassurance that he’s ‘special’ to oh-aew. clearly, we know that he is...but even now that they’re dating, it’s still something that he questions. and esp now that oh-aew is starting to feel like he’s fading further and further away out of reach.

i love seeing all of teh’s friends encourage him. they all understand how tough it is, and to see them all pull together to lift his spirits again is so lovely. but then his mood completely changes again when oh-aew comes to join them for dinner :( teh’s doing that thing again where he says everything’s fine when everything’s not fine (cue that “they ask you how you are and you just have to say you’re fine when you’re not really fine” meme). the flash to teh’s face when top says that he didn’t pass the exam to get into anantasart, and you know he’s just thinking about how he gave up his spot for oh-aew initially, and now that oh-aew’s transferred, it’s kind of like he’s turned it down twice. oof.

when teh tells them all that oh-aew’s transferred to advertising, it’s as though this is his way of trying to separate both his worlds. like oh-aew doesn’t belong here with his drama club friends, and it’s that pettiness that we got from teh in itsay is back in full force all over again. it reminds me so much of that time oh-aew told the itsay gang that he was a virgin, and so teh told his friends at school that he was a virgin too. or when oh-aew sent him that picture of his and bas’ legs touching, so teh retaliated by putting that pic of tarn on his story and leaning in to kiss her. it’s like he always needs to one up oh-aew. he doesn’t want oh-aew to feel the same bond with his drama club friends that teh has (esp when he sees that oh-aew is so close to his uni friends). where oh-aew was anxious about teh and his uni friends not getting on, teh is anxious that oh-aew and his drama club friends will get on too well so he has to create this distinction between them. kind of like his petty attempt to be all “i have my own friends too!!”, but it’s also combined with that feeling of inadequacy that he might not fit into oh-aew’s life anymore. he might not be ‘special’. idk if that makes sense but basically i think that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things during this scene.

when he starts attacking oh-aew at dinner...that was really hard to watch. you ever feel like you want to reach through the screen and just put your hand over someone’s mouth so they stop talking?? it was rough :/ it’s one thing to fight when it’s just the two of you alone, but it’s another thing to tear your partner down right in front of your friends. i understand teh’s feelings (and i know that they’ve been building up over this time), but my frustration was through the ROOF during this. it’s on brand for him, but still. and then poor khim :( i know oh-aew didn’t mean it in that way but the awkwardness of this entire dinner was just overwhelming.

another thing that’s sad about what teh said about oh-aew is that this is a huge sore spot for oh-aew, and it’s always been one of his biggest insecurities. the reason they stopped being friends when they were kids was bc teh said that he was going to quit eventually, so for teh to talk about how “shilly shally and indecisive” he is/how easily he ‘quits’ at things is a low blow when he already knows how much those words hurt oh-aew.

teh has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on oh-aew’s social media posts instead of actually talking things out with oh-aew so naturally it would make an appearance again here as well. and calling oh-aew’s friends “shitty” bc they’re different to him (aren’t as driven as teh and his drama club gang...therefore a bad influence on oh-aew) makes it really evident that teh still has a lot to learn. he really needs to start taking those acting class lessons to heart so he can see that not everyone is the same, and that other peoples’ experiences and perspectives are valid too.

teh’s long pause and “maybe” to oh-aew’s “and if this is what i really am, you’re not gonna like me anymore, are you?” BIG SIGH. it’s so typical of teh. i know he’s honest to a fault, but he REALLY needs to learn to think before he speaks sometimes bc he always ends up regretting it. i love that impulsivity of his, but it’s also one of the most frustrating things about him.

one thing that i find kind of annoying with the time skip is that we miss so much of teh’s festering feelings that it’s a bit harder to empathise with him when he has his eventual blow up?? i think if we were seeing this more consistently, it would be much easier for us to understand things from his pov better. like if we could slowly see this building up more and more as time went on, rather than just time skipping the 8 months until the blow up.

anyway, now khim and top are graduating ;;; i really hope that we’ll still get to see more of them in the next eps. i also love how the people in teh’s life are always so concerned for him (and how oh-aew’s doing). the message behind the book teh gets for khim’s graduation present is really sweet.

when khim first tells them that she’s going to be a flight attendant and teh blows up, i felt really angry at him initially. but upon reflection and rewatching this ep again...i think i understand where he’s coming from a lot better now. obv i still think he was out of line bc of course what khim’s saying makes sense...she can’t keep going to casting calls and scraping by with minor roles when she has to support herself and her family. in the end, we all need money to survive, and sometimes we have to be realistic about it. i really loved what she said about how we can have multiple dreams at once. but yeah, my heart really went out for her so much here :( it might be difficult for teh to see (or accept) rn, but he’s a lot more privileged than he realises. he still has hoon and his mother to support him financially, but not everyone is in the same position. not everyone gets to be as lucky.

regardless, i still understand why teh gets as torn up about it as he does. khim is someone that he’s looked up to and respected SO much...and his own doubts and insecurities have been steadily increasing. first, oh-aew changes majors, then, he keeps getting rejected at auditions, and now, the senior that he respects the most bc of her hard work and determination, is giving up her dream (at least in his eyes) to become a flight attendant. it’s like the world keeps telling him to give up bc it’s not going to work out for him. and he’s invested EVERYTHING into this dream. it’s all or nothing for him. but it’s like everyone else is slipping away, and it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto.

when teh looks at the tie and is reminded of oh-aew always being there to put it on for him :(((((((( ngl i was hoping that teh would be the first one to approach oh-aew (since their fight was bc of him), but i’m glad he apologised at least. and that they had a good talk about their feelings. but then again, this reflection after their fights is what they’ve always been fairly good at. teh just has to learn to stop internalising things so much that he ends up exploding so they don’t get to this point in the first place. so much has flipped from the first ep where oh-aew was the one feeling lonely and out of place. now it’s teh’s turn to feel all alone as he sees everyone’s dreams and goals (but his) start to change. like everyone is moving on and learning to adjust while he’s being left behind.

when they’re promising each other that their love for one another will never change, it just makes me feel so SAD. seeing them in the moonlight like this compared to the first ep when they were on the beach in phuket and teh was so hopeful and oh-aew was so worried :( everything’s already changed so much. making this promise under the moon like this reminds me of how bkpp kept talking about how the ‘ipytm’ title itself means an impossible promise...the two of them hugging in the moonlight as the score plays just feels so painfully bittersweet somehow ;;; my heart is aching, and i want the next ep, but i can’t deny that my anxiety is slowly building.

anyway, i know the end of this sounds so negative but i’m still banking on our teh/oh-aew endgame!!!!!!! it just needs to get worse to get better, and there’s still so much space for them to grow and learn. so many more experiences in store for them.

[memecucker]

sometimes you say things about reading Chuck Jones' writings that makes it sound like I'd really enjoy reading what he has to say. do you recommend any books/collections in particular

Chuck Jones: Conversations (edited by Maureen Furnis) is probably a collection of various interviews and transcripts with Jones and probably the most useful source for his comments on aesthetics and animation. Most of the stuff I say that has to do with him I got from this book which is just really invaluable. It’s hard to summarize the contents fully but it’s just a really great text

Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones is also really good. It’s essentially his memoirs combined with various illustrations in an oversized text since there’s plenty of art and Chuck Jones talks about his life and evolution in his own words. One of the cool anecdotes he says which plays a lot into his stuff about realism vs believability is when he talks about how his first gig as a professional artist was as a sidewalk caricature artist. He says something he realized on his own is that caricatures of people have to strike a balance between silliness because that’s the whole point and not wanting to have the person feel insulted (since it’s a profession that depends heavily on tips). Jones realized the best way to do a caricature of someone was as a sideways profile because if he did a head-on caricature striking the aforementioned balance became quite tricky because people are very familiar with their direct reflection (and may feel self conscious about certain aspects) so exaggerating or distorting some of those features may make a person feel ugly. However if he did a sideways profile caricature that’s an angle people aren’t used to seeing so it’s easier to have the drawing come off as a silly cartoon counterpart of the person rather than a mocking distortion of their reflection

Music and the Animated Cartoon by Chuck Jones. Published in the “Hollywood Quarterly” in 1947 which despite the name sounding like a gossip magazine was a serious academic journal dedicated to analysis of Hollywood art and cinema (and which would later be targeted by the McCarthy’s blacklist). In this essay Jones is at his most directly theoretical and provides a critique of what he sees as errors in the adoption of sound music in animation. Essentially Jones says that when cartoons use sound and music simply as secondary signifiers to what is visually on the screen. Basically imagine a silent era cartoon with a character whistling and this is shown by having music notes come out of their mouth and according to Jones the adoption of sound and music has done little more for most animations than simply substituting the visual music notes with an actual whistled tune. However music and sound is so much more than simply a epiphenomenon of the visual and Jones calls for people to take seriously the freedom of animation and that audio can be used not simply as a representation of the visual but rather as a creative expression itself. While Jones is critical of some aspects of Disney animation (such as an early overreliance on rotoscoping which Jones disliked because why not just film actors in costume if you want things to “look real”) he gives Fantasia as an example of a cartoon that knocks this out of the park and iirc specifically the Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor segment as an example of how visual animation can be used to represent the feelings that are invoked by a musical piece

And of course check out his cartoons! I’m with Deleuze when it comes to how cinema theory shouldnt simply look at how cinematic films shouldn’t simply be reduced to abbreviated essays (and I imagine Jones feels similar) but looked at as works of theory in their own right! Duck Amuck is probably my favorite short of his and it’s actually quite fun to try and analyze but he also directed the operatic shorts such as What’s Opera Doc? and The Rabbit of Seville as well as Duck Rodgers of the 22nd 1/2th Century (I used to be confused and thought Bob Clampett did Duck Rodgers because Clampett did The Great Piggy Bank Robbery which features “Duck Twacy” and i wonder how they’d feel about that bc Jones and Clampett did not get along) You might be surprised to see how many things you recognize were done by Jones such as How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Jones was a longtime friend of Dr Seuss and the Chuck Jones Art Gallery has a large supply of Dr Seuss sketches) and several Tom and Jerry shorts (Chuck was one of the T&J directors who was fully aware more people found Jerry the mouse more sympathetic and liked making shorts which were in his words “tragic” in that it’s not the desired outcome of the audience but he knew that there’s more to art than producing what the audience consciously wants to happen plot wise) and even some abstract stuff like The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics which is a short that I think really benefits from reading his essay about music and cartoons.

Also what I also love about Jones is he was such a.. theoretical person. Like a lot of this stuff sounds like grad school overanalysis but the “maybe the curtains are just blue” crowd would have their minds blown if they saw what Jones had to say about things as seemingly vulgar as Looney Toons. Like with Wile E Coyote (a character Jones created) he talks about making him a coyote because coyotes are the most pathetic looking type of predator which if you’re from the Western US or at least area where coyotes aren’t cross breeding with wolves and getting bigger you definitely understand. Or how the reoccurring gag where Coyote runs off a cliff and keeps running on air for a few seconds before turning to the audience and holding a sign that says “Help!”before plummeting hundreds of feet and in Jones’ own words what’s ‘going on’ is that Coyote is a representation of neutroticism and anxiety and when he holds up the sign and looks at the audience, Wile E Coyote is showing a greater fear of being judged a failure and is asking for some kind of mercy or sympathy and places that fear above that of self-preservation (since part of the gag is that Coyote is not using his suspension in air to try and go back to the cliff). And that’s a freaking animation director for Looney Toons!

[filmmakerdreamst]

Xena: Warrior Princess Review

During Pride Month 2020, I finally got around to watch ‘Xena’. A show that had been in my to-watch list for years, but never got around to start. And when I finally did, I was pleasantly surprised. It was not what I expected and it was everything I think my 11 year old self would have loved.

The one thing that surprised me about the show, was the lack of packaging. Even though it was a fantasy, it also played with different kinds of genres too. I’ve talked about this before in my other review - ‘Xena’ was made at a time when TV had very few rules/rarely had a set audience, since there were parts of the show that were clearly for kids and there were other parts that were clearly for adults (therefore had much more flexibility). I admired how they weren’t afraid to break barriers and touch on deep themes such as religion, morality, redemption, spirituality, motherhood, forgiveness etc - even more than shows of today are able. I also loved how they played into the idea of ‘murder’ and how much it can damage a person - not just the person who commits the act, but the many people affected afterwards. I wasn’t expecting it to be that extreme. It made me think that this must of been the inspiration for ‘Game of Thrones’. 

I see a lot of comments here and there, saying how ‘cheesy and terrible’ it was but to just accept it because its part of the fun. And while like any show it does suffer from the occasional spell of bad writing (the whole of season 5) but it was also shown to be very aware of that fact and never took itself too seriously - unlike some shows I could mention. 

And regarding the ‘cheese’ factor (what 90s show wasn’t) It definitely can be, but I would call it ‘camp’ and ‘experimental’ more than anything else. (Don’t diss the poor use of CGI - I’m personally sympathetic to what was avaliable to them at the time) The style of humour reminded me of Taika Waititi’s filmmaking. If you’ve watched any of his films such as ‘Hunt for The Wilderpeople’ or ‘Jojo Rabbit’, then you know what I’m talking about. I liked how little they cared about being accurate or logical, which added to the ‘bonkers’ element in the show - which you can see in all of Taika Waititi’s films.

In all seriousness, a show centered around two women in their late twenties, who are realistic sizes (not trying to play teenagers). One of whom is a reformed mass murderer, who has lived a life experience, trying to do good in the world for the first time, picking the other one up who has no life experience prior (after they bugged them until they said ‘ok fine’) in their path to redemption. Just two women who become friends travelling the world together, fighting crime, having a laff, learning from one another without any toxicity - when suddenly when the stakes are raised - they realise ‘oh I'm actually falling in love with this person’ I have watched a lot of badly written shows in my childhood enough to know that, that’s not ‘cheesy’. I’ve never seen a story like that in my entire life. I’m not at all surprised that Russel T Davis was inspired by it while writing the Doctor and Rose’s relationship in ‘Doctor Who’ since he’s gay himself.

What’s more amazing about their love story is how they’re both develop as separate people as well. There was this video essay explaining ‘Why you should watch Angel’ the spin off series to Buffy; how ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer ‘was all about growing up and ‘Angel’ was all about being an adult. With Xena: Warrior Princess, you have both of those stories at the same time. 

Xena’s character was such a multifaceted experience to watch. And I can’t imagine anyone else who could play her as well as Lucy Lawless. What planet did they get that actress from? She's flawless! The amount of skill she has to put herself into a very physical role is astonishing. I personally had a love/hate relationship with her character all series long. Not in the way that I hated her, just that I couldn’t trust if she was all good or bad, which I know was intentional on the writers part. I haven’t seen a character quite like her before. She felt very much like a fallen angel; almost like the villain of her own story. Some of my favourite episodes come from fleshing out her character and dark past (‘Locked up and Tied Down’ is one of them) which reminds the audience that's she's not the stereotypical hero everyone expects. I loved her transformation from being this incredibly stoic warrior to being content and happy with who she is in season six, all because of a woman she fell in love with along the way. 

I’ve always thought of Gabrielle as the real hero and narrator of ‘Xena’. She’s the prime example of ‘a normal person becoming extrodinary’. Gabrielle’s coming of age story starting out as an innocent girl from a poor village dreaming of adventure, and ending as this vicious warrior who realises the ‘adventure’ wasn’t how she made it out to be is honestly the best character arc that I’ve ever seen. I loved how travelling with Xena made her realise her passion for writing (which was never going to happen in her home town, given the ‘sexist’ and ‘heteronormative’ ideas) and that she became a amazon princess like Xena. In regards to her sexuality, which is more up for debate than Xena’s (which I think we can all agree is bisexual) I personally interpret her as gay, just in terms of how she was written. Theres this moment in season 4 where she's being held up her hair, and Xena “symbolically” cuts it off ‘freeing her’. And she never really gets with a man afterwards, unless she’s being ‘possessed. It reminded me of a moment in one of Hayao Miyasaki’s films ‘Laputa, Castle in the Sky’ where the bad guy Moska shoots Sheeta’s ‘princess hair off’ which symbolises her transition from child to adult.

The cinematography was breathtaking. There was some great utilisation of New Zealand as the scenery. So was the soundtrack. You could tell it was made by experienced filmmakers. One of my favourite things about the show was the domestic elements - moments in the show where time seemed to stop - which made the world around the characters seem very real and magical. Even though it was a show that featured a lot of action/adventure, there was also this gentleness to it as well. For example, you could feel the wetness of the rain, the warmth of the sun and the clashing of the waves. This technique is used in Hayao Miayasaki’s work a lot .

The technique is referred to as ‘MA’ 空虚 meaning emptiness in Japanese. ‘Miyasaki describes this as the time between a clap’

“If you just have non stop action, with no breathing space at all, its just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension” - Hayao Miyasaki

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The episode ‘A Day in the Life’ in season two is a really good example of this technique being used.

To my understanding, they used a lot of the local actors in New Zealand, which according to Lucy Lawless, consisted of ‘African immigrants and other different ethnicites’. It was so refreshing to see such a diverse show (despite some slip ups) especially in the 90s. I appreciated the idea that if the actors or extras couldn’t do an ‘american accent’ people could just talk in their natural speech which was also very refreshing. 

The LGBT representation was surprisingly amazing. I never expected so many queer characters in one show - especially under the censors. There was this one episode where they had a trans woman - played by an actual trans actress - win a beauty contest. It made me cry. Not to mention the actress was an aids activist. It was actually Lucy Lawless’ idea to kiss her which was incredibly controversial at that time considering how everyone thought you could catch aids just by kissing. I can definitey see how it validated people back in the 90s.

When people told me that Xena: Warrior Princess was one of the greatest love stories, I thought they were exaggerating a little. But no, watching the show in context, I found out that it really is. Despite its obvious restrictions, It made me realise (regarding token gay couples today) how often television writers rely on physicality and drama to convey a ‘love story’ and how much of it is actually pandering the audience. One of the reasons why Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship felt so genuine is because it was built on mutual respect/compassion and they were also best friends. I felt like I was witnessing something very real and private. It didn’t need kissing scenes or drama to make it interesting. 

It really helped that most of the writers were queer also. There’s this opening scene in season 4, panning over to Gabrielle giving Xena a massage (metaphor for sex - because they weren’t able to show that on screen) which I consider to be one of the most iconic scenes in media - considering how I wanted to sick up my supper when I watched the 10 minute ‘empty’ explicit sex scene in ‘Blue in the Warmest Colour’. The difference when something is written by a queer women vs a straight man.

Because the creators weren’t allowed to write their love story in the normal way, due to the studio forbidding them to, they found creative ways to showcase that love on screen - which made for a very magical/sensual experience. And I can safely say, if anyone has doubts about watching ‘Xena’, whenever I expected to be queer baited at a few points in the show, I was proved wrong time and time again. It’s the most romantical show I’ve ever seen in my life!

[my-darling-boy]

What's your review of 1917? I adored the sound/music, thought the cinematography was fantastic, and the wardrobe was phenomenal. I loved it. I thought of you when I went to see it. ♥️

Honestly it is probably one of my favourite films now? I could talk about how the uniforms and kits were really great in their uniqueness and that the writing was amazing and that the score was spot on, but I REALLY want to review some key elements that made this film absolutely incredible.

World War One is a very VAST and particular subject, and completely differs from both wars before it and wars after it. Like I mentioned in that rant I went on about why I study WWI, this was armed combat like never before, and what people thought would be a quick and painless event quickly turned into a mindless slaughter into which countries on all sides had worked themselves far too deep into and could not get themselves out of. There were no actual enemies in WWI. This was a war were an extensive number of people involved wanted the fighting to stop. And the trickiness about writing WWI subject matter for a modern audience that so often sees war and violence as something that is meant to empower, is that you must find a way to portray this anecdote that defies their mindset.

People go to see films of war for many different reasons: politics, depictions of violence, the particularly American concept of seeing your country as the victor or “winner”, or simply being historically curious are just some of the many reasons. And how do you appeal to a wide variety of audience members if, like then, there are so many people who have so many different opinions about war? How can you hope to spread a message about the war being horrific without playing into audience members’ misattributed feeling of empowerment in seeing acts of violence?

Though 1917 presents no glamour in rallying speeches against the war, no men uprising and defying orders, no men in triumphant charges promising glory, the film is antiwar by nature because of its truthful and tragic depictions of war itself, all scenes speak for themselves without focusing on any plain and political events to sway your mind to think anything different. It’s in the way corpses are shown buried in the mud. It’s in the casual comment about medals as bits of tin. It’s in the inclusion of cherry blossom trees. It’s in the way we see blank facial expressions jarringly different from happy faces. It’s in the way the boys spend a second too long looking at a dead man entangled in barbed wire. We see these messages in the background and in subtlety of statements or gestures that throughout the film speak VOLUMES. These are characters in a film where war is the antagonist. It is imbedded in and has shaped the landscape. It has tainted nature and severed relationships. It is every obstacle these boys face. The enemy in this film has no country or nationality. The enemy is WAR. The scenes of the lieutenant trying to install courage into the men before they go over the top, the act of crossing no man’s land, running through the German occupied ruins, the dogfight: these are all instances which would have had all cameras in usual war films idolising them as major pivotal moments because they’re action! They’re getting the audience into the moment! But in 1917, these moments are seen as background ludicrous CHAOS. Background NONSENSE. You as the audience have stepped back and viewed the war in one fluid and continuous shot, and you understand just how RIDICULOUS it was. 1917 instead purposefully showed more emphasis and depth towards scenes about decaying life, wasted life, and devastated landscapes to trivialise the short- lived “thrill” an audience receives from pointless acts of violence, and instead forces you to consider the aftermath and cost of those acts. And I LOVE that.

And the fact we focus on only two characters not only puts the enormity of the situation into perspective but also makes the story easier to grasp and follow and to empathise with. You are this omnipotent being witness to the absurdity of it all. And you have to watch the slow burn of these characters’ progressive awareness of that absurdity.

This is why using one shot is BRILLIANT for this film. Using one shot creates this 360 degree cohesive reality. It doesn’t cheat by using specific stylised shots to sway your emotions, nor does it use cuts to severe or censor those emotions: it relies on the realness and rawness of that truthful continuity to strip the audience of visually hiding behind cinematic breaks. To show things unapologetically and for exactly how they are is something that frighteningly amplifies the authenticity of these moments. You are forced to sit uncomfortably through scenes that you don’t want to see in their entirety! There aren’t any cuts or cinematic close ups to give your eyes a break from focusing on something that upsets you: you have to watch real time a person’s life slip away as though you are standing there with them, you have to watch real time the way a character’s face and body shifts when their world comes crashing down and it is agonising. You go through lengthy shots sometimes of people just walking, or sitting, and they are unexpectedly heartbreaking given the context of the afore scenes. And because these moments are not left out, you gain an extension to empathising with and understanding that character. And to have talented actors who flawlessly depict these changes is PHENOMENAL.

And while my emotions were building like a water balloon over the course of the film as I was trying so hard to keep back from sobbing in a cinema full of people, there was one scene that caught me so off guard I almost lost it.

It’s not exactly a spoiler because it doesn’t really give away any plot essentials and it was already shown in the trailer, but I’ll warn anyway: minor spoiler.

When the soldier is singing “Wayfaring Stranger” to the company of men in the forest. The camera pans around to all these quiet men attentively listening to the song. At first you just see helmets, you just see the backs of uniforms and webbing, you don’t see anyone’s face. But when the camera swung around to reveal their identities.... my heart DROPPED. You see all these soldiers are distinctly young. Here I am expecting to see older moustached men as we’re always shown in WWI movies, and I almost broke down when I saw a film actually acknowledged the painful truth that a lot of these soldiers were children. When we see these soldiers from the back, we have this image of battle hardened men, because it’s what we assume them to be. And it hits you.... really hard..... when the camera swings around, and you find out the men under those countless helmets.... are just kids. And that was REALLY impactful and literally chokes me up to even write about aaahhh

TLDR; 1917 was tragic and heart wrenching and terrifying but so well done, please go see it :’) and @ Sam Mendes please release that cover of Wayfaring Stranger so I can listen to it instead of the poor quality recording someone took of it in the cinema I will pay money for it!! I support that singer he was amazing!!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Another Pointless Top Ten List (But You’ll Keep Reading, Anyway)

My brother Rikk recently mailed me another top ten list of his, in this instance being his top ten favorite TV comedy shows (which he defines as 30 minutes or less, no movies).

The Three Stooges

M*A*S*H

The Andry Griffith Show 

The Beverly Hillbillies

Hogan’s Heroes

I Love Lucy 

The Honeymooners 

All In The Family

Get Smart 

Gilligan’s Island

His honorable mentions include F Troop, The Patty Duke Show, My Three Sons, Gomer Pyle USMC, Batman, Petticoat Junction, Mr. Ed. Bewitched, and I Dream Of Jeanie.

Again, one of those personal favorite lists that you really can’t argue with because it reflects personal tastes and / or fond nostalgia (though I am calling shenanigans on The Three Stooges; they were theatrical shorts shown in movie theaters, not a TV show, and besides, Laurel & Hardy are soooooo much better…).

But of course we’re going to play the game, so I’ll respond, first throwing in a caveat:  No skit comedy shows such as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Marty Feldman Show, Benny Hill, Second City TV, The Kids In The Hall, or Love, American Style.

I’m also omitting programs like The Gong Show and Jackass because while hilarious and under 30 minutes, they weren’t scripted or story driven.

So here’s my list:

The Dick Van Dyke Show -- the sitcom art form at peak perfection.  Carl Reiner’s insight into what writing for a mercurial TV star is like (in his case, Sid Caesar on Your Show Of Shows, for Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie it was Carl Reiner as Alan Brady).  If you’ve never seen the show, start off with their two best episodes, “Coast To Coast Big Mouth” and “October Eve” (though they’re all good).  “October Eve” is the one where Sally (Rose Marie) finds a nude painting of Laura (Mary Tyler Moore playing Dick Van Dyke’s wife) in an art gallery.  SALLY:  “There’s a painting here you should know about.”  LAURA: “If it’s what I think it is, I can explain.”  SALLY:  “If you need to explain, it’s what you think it is.”

The Mary Tyler Moore Show – this is the first American novel for television.  It’s a novel of character, not plot, and it traces the growth of Mary Richards, a 30 year old woman-child who realizes she needs to grow up, as she blossoms into a mature, self-reliant adult.  You can select two episodes at random and by comparing her character growth determine not only which season they were filmed but when in that season.

I Love Lucy -- eking out a bronze medal for its longevity and pioneering of the art form.  The first sitcom shot on film, it led the way in the rerun market.  Not just a historical icon but consistently funny.

WKRP In Cincinnati -- as crazy as a sitcom could get and still be within the realm of plausibility.  Never loved by its network, they bounced it around for four seasons until it faded away (it made a syndicated comeback a decade later, of which we shall not speak).  Great supporting staff, dynamite writing.  While they never steered away from serious subject matters (such as an actual rock concert tragedy in Cincinnati where several fans were crushed when rushing the stage), they will be forever and justly remembered for the beloved “Turkey Drop” episode.

Fawlty Towers – only two seasons and a mere 12 episodes and yet more comedic bang for the buck than anything else on this list.  John Cleese as a frustrated, short-tempered, conniving hotelier practically writes itself.  SYBIL FAWLTY:  “You know what I’ll do if I find you’ve been gambling again, don’t you, Basil?”  BASIL:  “You’ll have to sew them back on first, m’dear.”

That Girl -- looking back it can sometimes be hard to judge just how groundbreaking certain shows were.  Marlo Thomas as a struggling young actress finding romance and success in Manhattan seems positively wholesome today, but in the mid-1960s it was considered quite daring and progressive.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show took their opening credits inspiration from Marlo Thomas’ character exploring Manhattan in the opening credits of That Girl.

He & She -- a one season wonder from 1967.  Another daring and progressive show for its era.  Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss played a young married couple, he being a cartoonist who drew a superhero strip (the actor playing the superhero on TV in the series was Jack Cassidy at his manic best).  Another show with a dynamite supporting cast…and just too hip for the room at the time (honorable mention to Love On A Rooftop, a similar show from the previous season that also proved too advanced for audiences at that time).  

Green Acres -- started out silly but quickly took a turn into the surreal, breaking the fourth wall, commenting on the opening credits as they ran by, all sorts of oddball stuff.  Dismissed as a hayseed comedy, the truth is the supporting cast possessed dynamite comedic chops and their sense of timing is a joy to behold.  Forms a loose trilogy with The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction since all three referenced the same small towns of Hooterville and Pixley  as well as occasional crossovers (honorable mention to the first season of Petticoat Junction which is as pure an example of Americana as one could hope to find and could easily be distilled into a feature film remake).

The Young Ones -- another two season / twelve episode wonder from the UK.  Four stereotypical English college students go through increasing levels of insanity as the series progressed.  Unlike most shows of the era where there was no continuity episode to episode, damage done in an early episode would still be seen for the rest of the series.  (They also would simply end a show when they ran out of time, not resolving that episode’s plot.)  Their random / non sequitur style proved a tremendous influence on shows like Family Guy.

Fernwood 2 Nite / America 2-Nite -- a spin off from the faux soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, this presented itself as a cable access variety show for Mary Hartman’s hometown of Fernwood.  With Martin Mull as the obnoxious host, Fred Willard as his incurably dense second banana, and TV theme song composer Frank De Vol as the band leader.  Because it’s so rooted in 1970s pop culture it doesn’t age as well as some other shows on the list, but many of the gags still land solidly today.  For the second season the show-within-a-show went nationwide and became America 2-Nite. Very funny, very well written, and all the more remarkable because these guys were doing five episodes a week!

Okay, so what can this list tell us?

Buzz is old.  Like really, really, really old.

Buzz stopped watching sitcoms in the mid-1980s.

There’s a reason for that.  By that time I was writing for TV and trying to get my own work done.  I didn’t have time to sit and watch TV on a regular basis (still don’t), and too often I could see the gears turning and guess where the episode was heading by the end of the first scene (still do).

I’ve veered away from “must watch” TV, especially shows that require the audience to keep track of what’s gone on before.

Tell me I have to see the first six seasons of a show to appreciate what happens in the seventh and you’ve just lost me as a potential viewer.  I’m strictly a one & done kinda guy now (though I will binge watch if a mini-series has a manageable number of episodes, say six).

My list represents a time capsule for what caught my interest and attention during a very formative period of my life, i.e., from the early 1960s as I became more and more aware that writing was where my future lay, to the mid-1980s when I hit a good peak stretch.

I don’t doubt there are great and wonderful hilarious comedies out there that I haven’t seen, I’m just listing what I have seen that did make an impression on me.

Your mileage may vary.*

    © Buzz Dixon

  *  It should vary!  Be your own person!

[romansrace]

Season 13 Sassy Reviews: Taking stock as of E07 ‘Bossy Rossy Ruboot’

So we know it’s not a good season.

Now all we’re watching to find out is is it AS BAD as season 7 or season 11?

It’s definitely up there for producer tomfoolery.

Let’s hit it.

So we know that going in to a new season, some queens are cast to go far, some queens are cast as filler (this year hilariously lampshaded by Joey Jay, self-aware queen), and some girls are cast to go midway and be allowed no further.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain proportion of queens are also now cast specifically to have a storyline of failing first time to set them up for an arc on Drag Race AllStars. (Why would producers care that it costs queens upwards of $10k per season to go on and that queens would probably prefer to only have to do that once?!)

As I mentioned in my last review, for some reason it seems that the production’s goal this time was to craft a season around Kandy Muse, a queen who was already fairly-well-known in the drag fandom scene for being a meme (just the one though) with links to existing Ru-lumni Alaska and Aja (and I suppose, Dahlia Sin).

If I had been in charge of production and wanted to craft a season around one queen (which, let’s be honest, has been pulled off successfully before: S3 Raja, S4 Sharon Needles; and semi-successfully before: S12 Gigi Goode and [Redacted], S6 Adore Delano and Bianca Del Rio) I would probably make sure to cast queens that didn’t threaten, or didn’t fill the same lane as my chosen frontrunner.

In season 4, this was probably most successfully previously done. Sharon was posited as the only drag queen in the world with a horror aesthetic, and compared favorably in that regard to her more middle-of-the-road competitors.

Raja, in season 3, was posed as away and above all others the #1 fashion queen. I would hazard that Manila Luzon may have auditioned as more of a comedy queen (given her reliance on Asian stereotype humor through the season) and ended up being more of a threat to Raja’s dominance than prodution initially counted on.

Season 6 was set up to follow the storyline of Adore and see how far she would grow through the competition. This was both helped and hindered by Bianca Del Rio’s dominance, although at least she excelled in precisely the kinds of challenges Adore struggled at, and vice versa. In this season, I suspect that BenDeLaCreme was not cast to be a fan favorite, but that ended up happening when she proved to be unexpectedly strong and versatile at challenges outside of the theatrical remit that she probably played up at her audition.

And in season 12, of course, all the groundwork was laid in Meet the Queens and in all the pre-show interviews for a season-long rivalry between plucky fashionista strategic player Gigi Goode, and old-school campy theatrical comedy queen posed as the relatable heart of the season, Sherry Pie. It would have gone well, had the latter not been revealed to be a sexual predator sociopath, resulting in a hasty re-edit that led to a lot of the (I imagine) originally less visible queens getting more talking heads to fill in the pie-shaped gap in episode content.

So we come to season 13, where it seems one of two things has happened to the show. Either:

1. After the smash success of season 12 last year, the editors got comfortable to try a different and more experimental tack of focusing on queens who were all personality and less good at challenges, in the belief that personality alone was what invested viewers in queens, or

2. Season 12 was ALSO originally edited like this (as was its predecessor, S11), to focus on a small group of queens at the detriment of all others, and the finished product (that was a smash success with fans) only wasn’t like that because of hasty re-editing that they didn’t feel the need to do this time.

Because for this S13E07 episode...

The strongest performing queens (Rosé and Denali) were for the third episode running, absolutely sidelined, even after drasticatically improving on the previous challenge that tested these comedy performance skills, which is surely a ready-made dramatic narrative.

Queens who performed alright, moderately who happened to fall into the group of queens production is favoring were praised to the high heavens, extremely effusively, as if what they had done was absolutely groundbreaking and incomparable to anyone else in the show’s history. (e.g. in what world is a silent character that performs physical comedy the hardest character to play, rather than easiest, in an improvisation challenge???)

Queens who performed poorly were only acknowledged as doing so if they had been cast as filler queens, otherwise, their performance was excused and not mentioned, or even some praise was found for very basic attempts.

This was all even emphasized inside the show itself by the filming technique of setting the queens who weren’t performing up on lawn chairs as an audience in another room to comment on each others’ performance, all suspiciously having the same comments which didn’t really match up with what we were actually seeing on screens.

Speaking as a fairly involved Drag Race fan (I mean, I make hypothetical videos of things that didn’t happen in the show...), I don’t watch this show to watch a scripted reality series focusing on performed characters. I watch the show for a competition in what’s essentially a queer community sport medium, an artform, to be judged by professionals with experience.

For queer people’s hard work to be rewarded, and their struggle recognized.

And this way of favoring the same people week on week, regardless of their craft or skill level, while leaving others to sit underappreciated, essentially televising the results of the creative queer struggle - at that, pretty much inadvertently recreating the feeling for these competitors of what it feels to be marginalized by a normative society that doesn’t respect your art and presentation... Mama, this isn’t it. It’s not the kind of thing I want to be spending my time watching in 2021, and it’s not feeding my soul.

[girlcriedwoolf]

✍🏼 On the act of re-reading and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020)

I’m a chronic re-reader. I reread the same books copious times, rewatch the same TV shows over-and-over and find solace in exhausting my own Spotify playlists until the songs become unbearable. I know I’m not alone in this practice - there are thousands of other people around the world that share my comfort of revisiting sources of previous enjoyment, but there are also thousands of people that don’t. It’s always fascinated me - how people can enjoy a book, film or TV show without any desire to experience it again, ideally as soon as possible. I’ve subsequently internalised this as a sign that these individuals live fuller, more exciting (better) lives as they’re able to consume a greater amount and a wider variety of cultural content than I ever will. My tendency to reread Twilight - for, let’s say the seventh time - instead of reading a new book that I know I’d enjoy has been something I’ve become ashamed of. Is it an immature and somewhat cowardly cop-out to revisit a source of comfort from the past rather than engaging with the present? 

At its core, Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic masterpiece Tenet (2020) is a film about the act rewatching and re-experiencing, both structurally and conceptually. More specifically, a lot of the film rests on the idea of the protagonists travelling to - or existing in - the past, using technology sent from the future, in order to fix the present. It messes with your mind in all the best ways - don’t say I didn’t warn you. The structure of the film lends itself to comment on the nature of time: rejecting a linear, chronological structure of time and instead alluding to at least two other possible shapes that embody the abstract, meta notion of time. 

First, is the illusion to a ‘temporal pincer’ shaped structure (visually resembling an elongated horseshoe shape or alternatively, a hairpin). References to this structure of time are not limited to dialogue alone - instead, a visual reference is seen explicitly in the last part of the film during which a planning meeting for an army drill takes place and a temporal pincer shape is drawn on a whiteboard to convey the operation. In this scene, the protagonist can be heard asking which order the two groups are going to enter the site, to which the commander, Ives, replies that both groups (lines) run simultaneously to each other rather than subsequently, ultimately shattering liner constructs of measuring time. In doing so, Nolan suggests that revisiting the past (or by extension an experience in the past like a book or film) may not be a backwards step but merely a progression in time. In this way, we understand revisiting and experiencing things from the past, not as redundant acts that waste time but instead as signs of time progressing. Tenet embodies the experience of great cinema and the role of film as a medium of storytelling.

True to Nolan’s fascination with ideas of inception, (see: Inception (2010), Tenet itself could be seen to project the experience of watching a film. The audience exists on a different timeline to the film’s narrative and metaphorically ‘catch’ the bullets that are fired the first time around. In watching the film for the first, second, third or fifteenth time, you will start the experience at a different point in time meaning you are going forward but ultimately the nature of rewatching something means you know where you’re going to end up in the future. An aspect of Tenet that draws on a specific interest of Nolan’s is the transformation of scientific concepts depicted through the language of storytelling. The nature of rewatching in itself is paralleled through the scientific concept of inverted entropy, which, in the most basic reduction, is the idea that a system goes from disorder to disorder. In Tenet, the suggestion is that broad systems can go through the process of disorder to order upon the experience of rewatching.

Whilst the scientific aspects of Tenet are largely far beyond my comprehension for obvious reasons, there are other bewildering pieces of the puzzle that raise an infinite number of questions despite seeming simple on the surface. Namely, the character of Kat: devoted mother to a young son and wife of a powerful (corrupt) arms dealer (see: the bad guy). On the first watch, it’s hard to appreciate or understand the role of this character as one of the few female faces in the film. There are some scenes that make you question whether her character’s inclusion is purely veiled misogyny: the idea that men are only capable of making slightly less morally corrupt decisions if they have a beautiful wife by their side, or that a ruthless C.I.A. agent will be immediately thrown off if they so much as a glimpse at a beautiful blonde woman. Yet, after thinking more about Kat’s character I have grown less hostile and more understanding of Nolan’s vision for her as a character burdened with emotional trauma. In relation to Nolan’s toying with time, Kat represents a timeline of autonomy and agency, a dichotomy of an oppressed or empowered woman. The P.T.S.D. that Kat seems to exist with further challenges our understanding of time. Is the trauma something from the past, present or future? Can we ever tell if we have agreed to reject a linear structure for time? Kat appears to be burdened with the emotional trauma of all the characters in the film, whilst they get the privilege of making rational, emotionless decisions; Kat must consider the feelings of not just herself but those around her - like her son - at all times, in turn preparing and recovering from past and future trauma. 

An ambiguous mantra of Tenet comes from Kenneth Branagh’s character, declaring at various points that ‘we live in a twilight world’, a phrase that is initially introduced as the code name for the protagonist’s mission at the film’s opening. This statement garners more meaning at the conclusion of the film as the protagonist and Neil reflect on their wider mission with the protagonist finally becoming aware of the temporal world that Nolan creates. Our protagonist has the revelation that the moment is not the end of their time together as it would be on a linear structure but instead is the beginning of his friendship with Neil on a temporal pincer structure whereby time is not so objectively universal. Though this point does mark the end of Neil’s life, the protagonist is only at the beginning of his experience or rather, re-experience. In exploring the end of Neil’s life, who is played superbly by Robert Pattinson, the idea of twilight reemerges. As Pattinson’s connection with the idea of Twilight runs deep (the start of his career being with the Twilight franchise) it becomes an excellent metaphor for the film’s thesis. Etymologically, beyond the definition relating to the natural process of twilight, the noun holds a second definition of ‘a period or state of ambiguity, absurdity or a gradual decline’. This definition could define the film’s plot as a whole - obscure and ambiguous and seeking to stop the impending event of World War III. Moreover, the natural phenomenon of twilight occurs both at the beginning and end of the day, further rejecting a linear temporal structure. Though devastating, emotionally, for the protagonist to find out about his close friend’s imminent death, it is seemingly not the end but also the beginning of their friendship, impossible to define. In the same way, at the point of twilight, it is impossible - and meaningless - to say whether it is the beginning or end. 

I started my week feeling annoyed at myself for ‘wasting’ time revisiting books I have already read and films I can already recite every line of, but having experienced the cinematic masterpiece of Tenet, I have been forced to consider whether re-experiencing things is a monotonous extension of the past or whether, as Nolan might argue, the act of re-experiencing things is a radical way of bringing the future to the present. 

[firethatgrewsolow]

From the lz site comments - I love reading firsthand accounts:

December 4, 2007 10:07am

Joe Schmidt

I write this to commemorate the 1977 Led Zeppelin U.S. Tour. To honor the Zeppelin legacy, and give an insight into the shows I experienced.

The date is Wednesday, April 6th, 1977. Led Zeppelin are to open tonight at the Chicago Stadium, in the first of a series of four shows. To give reference, I had just turned 17 a week prior and was a devout and rabid Zeppelin freak. My Zeppelin collection was rapidly building, including several bootlegs. The film The Song Remains The Same had just popped in October 1976. So I was very aware of their live capabilities.

Purchasing tickets for the shows was a story in itself. My friends and I decided to sleep overnight at the local Flipside, which was the Ticketron outlet. It was extreme. It was the 1970's. When the tickets went on sale, it became a literal war! Broken doors, shattered glass, fighting and fainting girls! I used my football skills to emerge 10th in line at the ticket dispenser. I was rewarded with Box Seats - Club Circle. The seats I possessed provided a total and unobstructed view of the complete stage. Raised seats just above the main floor. Yes, there is a God!

It was a cold evening the night of the April 6th show. The Chicago Stadium was in a very rough part of town and you had to be on your toes. The t-shirt hawkers were out in full force so I nabbed two real fine Zeppelin shirts. As I entered the facility, I could barely contain myself. There was Jimmy's speaker cabinet with the ZoSo symbol! Bonham had a new and beautiful gold metallic kit, waiting in ready, high atop his riser. The stage appeared sharp and clean with banks of lights and the P.A. hung aerially.

I found my seats and then wandered up the main floor aisle where the lighting man sat. This guy greatly resembled Keith Emerson. His eyes were red, glazed and glassy. I asked him about the set. He informed me Rock + Roll would not be the opener. It's going to be The Song Remains The Same. He added that Page was doing a wild version of Dazed and Confused with special lighting effects. As I walked back to my seat, toilet paper rolls flew off the balconies amid a blue-grey haze from the sweet smoke. Just as I sat in my seat the lights were cut.

Showtime! Pandemonium ensued. It's fucking Zeppelin! I added my own banshee wail to the moment. The spotlight hits Robert Plant. The firecrackers ignite prompting Robert to exclaim " Woa! Woa! Woa! Before we start can you please stop the firecrackers!" Just then Jimmy Page appears, turned toward Bonham . He's in white satin with a dragon design on his shirt's back. No design on his satin pants. Those were added later in the tour. As Page faces the audience I see him with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He's pacing with nervous energy. Up until that point I had never seen a photo of Jimmy smoking. I was surprised.

Page is strapped up with his doubleneck. The opening D- note is struck, the full spotlight hits Jimmy and it's off to the races. On one knee, Jimmy slides over to Jonesy and JPJ bows his bass toward Pagey. Robert's throwing moves and shapes in front of Page's Marshalls as Bonzo unleashes his percussive fury. This rendition is very solid. Robert's voice sounds very clear and strong. Jimmy's a little sticky on some notes and Bonham plays on too long at the end bit. Which did mess up the segue to The Rover. It came off somewhat disjointed. Colored light changes punctuate the four opening chord strikes of Sick Again. As the song kicks in, I notice their doing it in a slower and funkier arrangement. Page's solo crawls out of the stew. Short and fiery. The ending is on the money. The strong ending elicits a wild audience response. Robert then reiterates to the crowd- " Cool the explosives!" Adding that the last time they played Chicago was 1973. I thought to myself. That isn't correct. It was 1975.

The harmonized opening lick of Nobody's Fault But Mine soars across the Stadium. Now on the Les Paul, Page's E7 th chord overhang and arm sweep captivating the masses. As Page and Plant play in unison. Bonham and Jones are backlit with spotlights as they play their counterpoint rhythm. Hot Stuff! But, Robert's harmonica solo is indecipherable and Jimmy's lead bears no relation to the studio version.The solos sound very early tour. Damn.

In My Time Of Dying slithers out of Page's Danelectro as the concert progresses. There are some real problems with this one tonight. The missed breaks are glaringly obvious. During the fast part they kept trying to find a way out of it. Slop. Robert then goes into a homily about Chicago Blues legends Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters.

Blue light solely envelopes Page as he picks out the intro of Since I've Been Loving You. Crystalline notes that were chilling! Robert sounding much better than 1975. Fuck it! I'm going to the front! I start my trudge up to the stage. I was evasive and agile, my adrenaline surging as I approached the stage barrier. There were people shooting photos , so I nestled in with them. Right in front of me is Jimmy Page blasting out the climactic solo of SIBLY . High register notes to discordant low bends. John Bonham kicking it in his tuxedo t- shirt. My chest cavity being pummeled by the force of the band. Plant hollers out- " Jimmy Page! Guitar!"

Directly in front of me, Jimmy acknowledges the crowd as he sits on Bonham's drum riser drinking a Heineken. Robert introduces Jonesy as " The most debonair member of the band. He can speak two languages. Featuring John Paul Jones on keyboard.. No Quarter!" Page stands up and walks over to his theramin. He throws a karate chop in front of it emitting a sonic Woop! Woop! The dry ice filters in, shrouding the first 15 rows. Jonesy in emerald light plays the opening theme. Page and Bonham fall in powerfully. Jimmy's wah wah piercing through it all. Jones hints at Rachmaninov, as green lasers flutter behind him. As JPJ does his solo, Jimmy and Robert are 20 feet from me. They were having a drink and chatting near Page's theramin. They seem to be laughing about something. Then it's on to the main improv guitar solo. Jones plays the transition as Bonzo lays into a mid tempo feel. Seeing Pagey so close, jabbing at chords as his body reflected every note he emitted. Switching pick ups to emphasize tone shifts and dynamics. He was dancing, slashing and hypnotizing. At the solo's finale, I'm shooed out of the front and return to my seat. As I walk back, the last notes of No Quarter expire. What an experience!

Robert admits to some band rustiness when he introduces Ten Years Gone - " This is a thing that we never did until 3 weeks ago. And we're still running through it. As we are through everything." Out comes the now famous Telecaster B- Bender. Page twangs out a few notes. JPJ plays 12- string acoustic. Not yet in ownership of his triple- neck. Bass pedals at his feet. Jimmy and Jonesy are loud and full, crashing out the melodic riff. Even more powerful as Bonham enters. Page's middle solo is a mess. Missed and clanging notes. Robert sounds fantastic on this song! Great choice Guys!

Bonham strolls out from behind his kit. Plant announces - " To the front of the stage for the 1st time. John Bonham. Looking very suave. In his 2- piece tuxedo." Four chairs are set up as the Zeppelin take their seats. But the monitors are feeding back and JPJ's guitar is out of tune. There'a a lull in the action to fix matters, and the crowd does become restless. Jimmy , now on mandolin, strums out the opening notes of Battle of Evermore. It was a riveting performance, especially the swirling jam.

The monitor system from hell continues to plague the acoustic set. Robert is now clearly agitated - " We have an acoustic guitar on this number gents. So turn the bloody thing up! Last time we played here I remember the night very well, cause I'd got the flu and nearly died. And, the monitors were so bad they were doing just what they're doing now. Get it Right!!!"

Going To California is superlative. Conjuring images of tranquil and beautiful hillsides. The Minstrels at play. A magic moment.

Robert teases with a bit of Elvis' Surrender. He then spiels about the Black Country describing it as - "The land where men are men and sheep are nervous!' Page then provides a classic moment as he leans into his microphone and drolly states - " It's better to live one day as a king than a 1,000 as a peasant." JPJ brings out a bizarre looking stand- up bass for the Black Country Woman / Bron- Yr Aur Stomp combination. Bonzo's back on skins and Jimmy displays some fine fingerpicking during his solo turn.

More equipment woes precede White Summer/ Black Mt. Side. And, the song itself is an utter shambles. Audibly out of tune, Jimmy makes a game of it. He chases himself trying to retune as the song progresses! Able to regroup, the seated Page plucks out a few more notes, kicks out of his wooden chair and then....

Kashmir! From one spotlight on Page to every light in the rig, the Stadium exploded in heat and light. Huge spinning globes above the stage showering light shards over us. Robert confidently projecting as the Golden God! Page as the Whirling Dervish propelled by Bonham's cannon shots. I will never forget during the coda, on one of Bonzo's final flurries, Jimmy stutter- stepping his way across the length of the stage. From JPJ's side to his side. Arms outstretched and his mouth agape in some euphoric state. Indelible.

A beach ball bounces above the main floor. Playfully, Robert comments - " A soccer match!"

Plants ominously introduces Over The Top: " We've been here 3 or 4 days and he hasn't been to jail yet." It's the Out On The Tiles riff and into Bonzo's Barrage! I had a straight shot at him as I looked through my binoculars. The cat would not let up! His drum kit motored out to the front of the stage for the Hands solo and Phased Tympani segment. During his big build up before the band returns, I saw Jimmy standing by his amp watching in amazement. Bonzo turned and looked at Pagey. You could literally feel the head of steam that Bonham was generating! I can still see it. You must hear this version! The crowd went nuts as Bonzo soaked it in. He had big smile and gave a hand wave.

Onto Jimmy's Noise Symphony. What can I say? What I did say was ' Where the fuck is Dazed and Confused?" It was a big disappointment for me. I thought, Dazed and Confused represented so much of their power, fluidity and mystery. I was shocked they didn't play it! Between the harmonizer solo and the violin bow it was like a white noise experiment. The laser pyramid was visually spectacular. Bonham rumbles around his phased tympani and a wash of sound leads into the first tentative notes of Achilles Last Stand. This song did not come off well at all this evening. Sloppy playing that gets worse as the song progresses. An atrocious solo by Mr. Page. It's as though he forgot how to play the song!

Now the set closer, Stairway To Heaven begins and is performed faithfully. Just as Bonzo joins in, Jimmy's guitar strap breaks. Ray Thomas dashes out and attends to Jimmy. The solo kicks into gear as golden light shimmers off Page's white suit and Robert grooves with his tambourine. The compact lead gives way to Robert's pleading vocal lines and the final title lyric. Brilliant white light hits a huge spinning globe as the band head off stage. A several minute wait at least before they return.

Encore time. The band reappear and Bonzo begins Rock + Roll. Major explosions ignited onstage give off tangible heat. Jimmy's lead is loud and errant. A big bang ending. Rah! Offstage once again for several minutes before one more.

Push! Push! It's Trampled Under Foot! The fucking loudest song of the evening. Page had his amp on 11. Jones and Bonham were slamming . Jimmy's solo was absolutely blistering. Peeling off licks with conviction. Robert and Jimmy as one doing their Push Push bit had everyone rocking. A great finale!

So concludes the first show in Chicago. It was beautiful, inconsistent, mind blowing , sloppy and sublime all in one show. I'd love to see them again. That's right! There's tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...........................

[hollenka99]

The One Where Jackie Meets The Others

Summary: Chapter 4. Jackie enjoys a couple trips out with Marvin.

Warnings: death and blood mentions

@bupine @badlypostedeverything

Things don't smoothly transition back to the way they were following that morning. However, they both agreed it was clear Anti's intentions were to divide them. Therefore, it would be dumb to give him that satisfaction. When Marvin asks, out of pure curiosity, about the mullet, Jackie doesn't really have an answer. He'd simply liked the style. But maybe it was time to move on. The chances of him returning to the '80s were particularly slim. With the green having faded weeks ago, he has it cut so it now only reaches his ears. The style is nice but he does miss his old look. He supposes Marvin was pleased with this development. He definitely got a lot of joy from teasing Jackie about how much curlier his shorter hair became following showers. The only quip he has in response is that the hero's hair wasn't much better when wet either. The next thing on the agenda was the excursion to Pizza Hut. The four of them agree to meet on Thursday. In preparation, Marvin offers Jackie a copy of the restaurant's document on allergy information. Marvin faces falls when he learns just how many items he loved posed a certain risk to Jackie's health. Nope, no pepperoni for him. No garlic breadsticks or cheesy fries either. Fried items were a contamination risk too, apparently. He lies when his friend asks about stuffed crust. Jackie trying the crust option was one of the main reasons they'd agreed to visit the establishment. Besides, it wasn't guaranteed it would trigger a reaction. He could possibly get away with sampling a little of Marvin's crust if he didn't push his luck. It is comforting to learn Henrik, the friend who made educational videos for others, had coeliac's disease and therefore had to be wary when eating as well. Jameson was Marvin's cousin of sorts. Their grandmothers had been sisters. Then their mothers were friends, leading to their sons to develop a good relationship while growing up. Jameson was a performer who used his control over time and sound for entertainment purposes. He and Marvin frustratingly run late due to the hero misplacing his wallet. They are apologetic to Henrik and Jameson who have already found a table and ordered drinks for themselves. Jameson has neat brown hair that extends down his face to his jawline and closely surrounds his mouth. Henrik, on the other hand, has black hair which has been swept back as well as glasses. The two of them promise they don't mind the delay. They haven't been here for ages anyway. In time, four pizzas are delivered to the table. There is the pan BBQ americano, gluten free Hawaiian, cheesy bites pepperoni and stuffed crust BBQ beef and onion. Marvin suggests he and Jackie trade a slice. His friend makes a supposedly humourous comment about how he identifies as Jackie's pizza base but it's lost on the former drummer. How someone can deeply relate to dough that's been baked in a pan, Jackie has no clue. He allows Marvin to take a slice regardless. However, when it comes to him returning the gesture, Jackie insists he only wants a little bit of his friend's crust. Half a slice's worth of stuffed crust is placed on top of his own pizza. Jackie regrets it as soon as it enters his mouth. God damn it, it was actually really tasty. He could see why Marvin was so enthusiastic about it. His expression remains neutral as he chews, well aware he has an audience. He hates how disappointed Marvin looks when Jackie gives a bullshit review about the cheese within being too chewy. Allergies and cross-contamination risks fucking sucked. Screw his body for being an asshole who overreacted to a commonly used spice. "Oh well, more for me." Marvin winks as he recovers from the blow before stealing a piece of chicken from Jackie plate. Alright, maybe letting one small inconvenience ruin tonight in his mind was stupid. Marvin had said he'd act as translator. Which was a lovely gesture. Jackie was grateful he was prepared to sacrifice part of his evening to play the middleman so he and Jameson could communicate. Except Marvin got sidetracked at one point and had delved into a whole conversation with his cousin, spoke entirely in BSL. It looked like a funny one too. Jackie was glad the pair were enjoying their evening. He stuck to conversing with Henrik instead. It's a struggle as they don't seem to have much in common. That is until Jackie absentmindedly asked what sort of food Henrik enjoyed. This in turn triggered the German man sitting opposite him to enthuse about fried potato slices with pieces of bacon and onion. Jackie himself launches into a story about how his mother used to work with a woman who had family in West Germany. Then this German colleague would sometimes write down a recipe or two to give to them. In no uncertain terms, those foreign dishes beat jacket potatoes or beans on toast any day. The four men give their stomachs a chance to settle a little while they chat as a group. Then it was time to finish off the night with ice cream shakes. Two strawberries, an oreo and a chocoholic are brought to the table. Although there had been several mentions of what Jameson did for a living, it is only at this point that a proper conversation about is initiated. "Jameson's doing a show on the 4th. I think we should go. What do you say?" Jackie's response is delayed due to Marvin making the suggestion just as he takes a long sip of his strawberry shake. "Oh uh, yeah, sure. What exactly will be in the show? Time stuff, right?" Jameson taps the side of his nose with a wry smile. The younger of the cousins translates this as "I believe he's saying that's for him to know and for you to find out." The performer signs something. "Expect the unexpected." Marvin rolls his eyes with a smile remaining on his face. "Oh yeah, like when you get a younger member of the audience to volunteer for your sound tricks. I once heard Hacker T Dog from CBBC sing Thinking Out Loud, you know. That was an experience." Jameson makes a comment. "I haven't seen the weirdest combinations? Well yeah, I sure hope I haven't. Kids' minds can come up with bizarre things. Henrik, especially, should know that." Henrik nods to this with a sense that this was a profound understatement. The banter carries on and Jackie soon feels like less of an outsider. The ice creams shakes eventually get drained as the evening draws to a close. Once all the goodbyes and "It was nice to meet you"s are over, the tow of them hop into Marvin's car to head home. Bohemian Rhapsody happens to begin playing on the radio as they set off. Jackie doesn't even have to ask before he's turning the volume up for both their benefits. They haphazardly fall into a duet. Jackie's heard Marvin singing absentmindedly to himself before this. He therefore already knows he has a good voice. But it isn't until tonight that he's able to hear it out loud. "I need you to do me a favour. Do you mind headbanging like in Wayne's World?" "What?" "Wayne's World. Never seen the film myself but there's a pretty well known scene where a bunch of them are in the car while this song is playing. Then during the instrumental that's coming up, they really rock out. I've always wanted to do it while in a car but I always seem to be the driver when I get the chance. So do you mind rocking out in a minute on my behalf?" Jackie chuckles. "Sure. My pleasure." As Freddie finishes claiming Beelzebub has a devil put aside for him, Jackie springs into action. He moves his head back and forth in rapid succession to the music. The pair follow along with the next verse as loudly as possible. At least, they attempt to. It isn't long before they have both descended into raucous laughter. "Thanks!" Marvin manages in between breaths when it calms. "We should do that again. With us stationary next time so you can do it too." "Deal." Marvin bursts into laughter once more and Jackie thinks he's growing particularly fond of it. --- Another crime scene, another person fighting to remain alive while bleeding from the neck. Cat is only able to stand by while the paramedics do their job. He'd like to beg them to not take this guy to hospital, to not risk history repeating itself. But it's not like he can ask anyone to skip properly treating the victim. He's sure everyone here knows this situation is a catch 22. However, they can't do anything other than perform their jobs. It takes great deal of convincing but Cat is allowed to stay outside the patient's room for the night. He's been standing guard for a good while when midnight passes. A doctor comes along on her rounds. She speaks to Cat and the other member of security he's been spending the night with. While she's talking, Anti's latest victim begins coding. Any and all resuscitation efforts prove futile. The guy is gone. So is the doctor. If she even existed in the first place. And Cat suspects Anti himself is long gone too. The day afterwards, he catches some reporting of the murder while flicking through channels. The victim has an identity now. There's a name, age and grieving loved ones. The television is bitterly switched off as Marvin searches for his notebook instead. Joining the countless other entries is 27/4/19 - Nick Shaw, 34, wife + 2 little kids The next time he sees Anti, he's not fucking around. Enough was enough. Marvin was putting a stop to this once and for all, by whatever method was necessary. --- The first Saturday of May is a cloudy one. That doesn't stop a crowd from flocking to the Jolly Gentleman's show. Chase is still getting out of the car when Niamh races out, the name Oscar having barely left her mouth before doing so. It is with great relief that Chase witnesses his daughter collide with a familiar man. The pair of single fathers briefly kiss as a part of a greeting while the five year old girl is returned. Her twin sister and older brother hover around as the greetings continue. Eventually, Fletcher drifts into his own group with both of Oscar's boys. The seven of them make their way inside. "So where is this friend of yours?" Oscar asks as they take their seats. "Do you see him?" "Not yet. He should be bringing his new roommate with him." His scanning of the tent is halted. "Speak of the devil." Chase spots Marvin entering the area, along with another man whom his best assumptions identified as Jackie. They seat themselves in the same row as the fathers. The children sit directly in front of the adults. Marvin introduces him to Jackie as Dr Chase Brody, emphasising the title. "I'm just spending the day out with my kids, there's no need to be throwing my doctorate around. Chase." He offers his hand for Jackie to shake. "And this is Fletcher, Ciera and Niamh." Oscar carries on the round of greetings by introducing himself, Milo and Max. They spend a full minute going through the mundane pleasantries before Marvin and Jackie finally stay seated. As the performance begins, Chase relaxes. They'd filled the wait time with small talk and chatter amongst themselves, however, he had intended for today to be a chance to spend time with his partner. He gives Marvin the benefit of the doubt. The thing is, Jackie came across as a decent enough guy. He also understandably seemed a little overwhelmed by the amount of people in the group. If the chit chat served as a distraction, then fine by him. Besides, he only looked like he was in his late teens anyway. They did share a history of drumming when they were younger though which was a nice surprise. That certainly allowed for a whole avenue of conversation. As soon as Jameson emerged to start his performance, the auditory atmosphere changed. There were speakers around the place and at certain points of the show it almost felt as if the sound was travelling around the space as a physical thing. He also seemingly teleported to a different spot than moments before. A woman was completely flabbergasted when she discovered a small thank you card in her handbag that certainly hadn't been there when she arrived with no easy explanation for how it got there. Throughout the performance, one of his colleagues acted as his commentator. Among his other tricks, the Jolly Gentleman sets a row of plants on fire with an elongated lighter. One of his colleagues dramatically shows up with a bucket of water to extinguish it. The performer stops him with a raised hand. He then holds the lighter, still producing a flame, up for the audience. It trails across the plants, erasing any evidence that there had been any combustion taking places. Not a single scorch mark or hint of smoke in sight. A little girl is summoned from the audience. She's about the twins' age, maybe slightly younger. After being asked what her favourite character was (Daddy Pig, of all things) she was encouraged to sing a song she really liked (I'm a Little Teapot). Already familiar with work stories his friend had, he knew what to expect. The crowd was treated to Daddy Pig's rendition of I'm a Little Teapot, complete with actions. Or at least, they were partially treated to it as the volunteer kept giggling into the microphone throughout her performance. It is evident that Jackie is too enthralled by the show to notice the barely subtle yet fond glances in his direction from the one sitting next to him. Ah, so it was like that, huh? Good for them. Chase catches Marvin's arm as they head out, taking advantage of Jackie going to speak with Jameson. It would be more discreet if Marvin's friend wasn't in earshot. With a wink, he teases his friend. "And they were roommates." "Hey, shut up. It's not like that." "Sure. And Oscar is nothing more than my buddy." "Chase-" "Seriously, what have you got to lose? If he's straight then it might get a little awkward for a moment. But I feel like he would be reasonable and appreciate the honesty. Well, you know him better than I do. You tell me." "You sure?" "Listen, I was already married to a woman when I started being cool with liking dudes. But since the split I've been around the block a few times. It is going to be fine." Marvin moves towards his car as Jackie re-emerges from backstage. It's clear he's still very much skeptical about it all. "If you say so, Chase." ---- Joel makes the judgement that Jackie would probably be fine to travel through his portals a week later. His apartment is pleasant. The ledge of one of his windows has a cushion to improve comfort. Jackie notices remnants of blu tack on the wall where something had clear been removed, which was odd. He almost makes a joke about it but decides against it. "Well... fáilte!" Joel spreads his arms to gesture to the whole room. "Wait, you know some Irish?" "Yep. Had an Irish grandmother who got me conversational." "Really? Nice. In that case, go raibh maith agat." Jackie chuckles. "So... anyway, you going to tell me how you know I'm from '86 or not?" "Okay, so you already know about my portals." "Are you trying to tell me you portalled me through time?" "What?! No, of course not. Bold of you to assume I have any control over the 4th dimension. I meant, I have powers and therefore I inherited the ability to have them." "So how then?" "One of my dads has a time based power and I guess, that trickled down to me a little. Stuff like that happens sometimes. I think Jameson might have an unusually strong immune system because his mother has enhanced immunity. Either way, I just have a sixth sense for time stuff." "...Right." Joel huffs in annoyance. "Alright, believe me or don't. The point is I want to help you go back to your own time if that's what you want." Ah. That's where that elephant was hiding. He was slowly getting used to the future but there was an inexplicable longing to return to where he came from. He was never meant to be 20 in 2019. There was no denying that fact. And as much as he enjoyed hanging out with Marvin and the rest of his new friends, it felt wrong somehow. That said, he was particularly good at going with the flow where necessary. If he was stuck in this century for good, then he'd deal with that. But if there was a chance he could be returned to 1986, there was no way he wouldn't take it. "How?" A sly smile appears on Joel's face. "Ah, for that, we will need Jameson and Henrik's help. All we have to do is wait for the right moment to ask for it. And seeing as it's now May, I don't think we'll have to wait that long."

[famous-aces]

Marilyn Monroe

Who: Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) 

What: Actress, Model, and Singer

Where: American-Jewish (active largely in US)

When: June 1, 1926 - August 4, 1962

(Image Description: a photo of Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon from 1957. It is a black and white image showing Monroe on a sparkly dress from the waist up. It almost feels weird to describe her, her face is so famous. She is a white pale woman with an oval face and heavily lidded eyes with long lashes. She has full lips with a beauty mark beside them. She is wearing makeup and has her trademark short, curly, blonde hair. She has her arms hanging limply at her side. Instead of posing sexily she looks to be lost in thought, looking somewhere off camera. End ID) 

Marilyn Monroe is The Hollywood Beauty. The quintessential sexy starlet. Even if you have never seen a movie with her in it, you know who she was, a bit like possible aces I have covered before Andy Warhol or Sir Isaac Newton, you can picture her in your mind just by existing in Western popular culture. She has become a part of our communal consciousness. Her life was brief and marked by tragedy below the glitz and glamor. Her biggest role was playing Marilyn Monroe.

She was intelligent, warm, and a gifted actress, but she is rarely remembered for that. She is far better remembered for singing Happy Birthday to her sometime beau President Kennedy and for the scene in The Seven Year Itch when wind from a subway grate blows up her skirt. You've seen it. Really her whole persona was often created rather than who she really was. She was an actress in her real life, unfortunately.

Monroe actually came into the spotlight in the Second World War when she posed for photos for the boys on the front. From there her modeling, singing, and acting career skyrocketed. Until her tragic death at the age of 36 she was among the go-to actresses for those sexpot roles especially in comedies. Her death by potentially intentional drug overdose (discovered by her psychologist) is just one piece of the evidence of how much of her life was hidden, like her struggles with substance abuse and mental health.

She was famous for playing Blond Bombshells and Dumb Blonds.  She was all beauty, glamor, and sex appeal and it earned her millions of dollars. She always wanted to be more though, unfortunately she never really got it. "Please don't make me a joke," she told a journalist, "End the interview with what I believe...I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity...I want to grow and develop and play serious dramatic parts. My dramatic coach tells everyone that I have a great soul, but so far nobody's interested in it." 

She is best known for as an icon and emblem of the popular culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, but her most definitive/important roles include All About Eve (1950) (a small role that would lead to her "discovery" and contract with 20th Century Fox), Monkey Business (1952), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Niagara (1953), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like it Hot (1959), The Misfits (1961), and her final film, released posthumously as a short, Something's Gotta Give (1962). She also sang "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and the very sexually charged "Happy Birthday Mr. President" (just the song here). 

(Image Description: the poster for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It shows drawings of Jane Russel and Marilyn Monroe in red costumes the size and shape of one piece bathing suits that are sheer or pink on top. They have on red top hats and long black and white necklaces. They have black canes and are dancing with one leg upraised. Behind them is a busy Paris scene done in a more cartoony/simplified style. There are musical notes around them. Their names are above their heads in blue.  Below them on a black rectangle it says (in white and orange) "in Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [in] Technicolor" below that rectangle but above the studio info in blue it says "co-starring Charles Coburn". End ID) 

Probable Orientation: Mspec Ace

Oh, I am going to get a lot of hate for this one.

And a lot of people are going to show a lot of misogyny and aphobia, be it overt, unintentional, or internalized.  Indeed the first thing the first (allo) person I told these findings to said "but she had a ton of sex!" Yes, that is true, she did, and so do some other aces.

Not to mention that Monroe's relationship with sex was a complicated one. A very complicated one. Monroe had a deeply traumatic childhood (mentally ill mother, tossed between foster homes and orphanages) and married extremely young -- she had turned 16 just two and a half weeks earlier -- to prevent her from becoming homeless and returned to the orphanage after her most recent foster family planned on moving out of state and leaving her behind. Then while working a munitions plant in L.A. she became a model for the troops in World War II, aged 18. From her teen years she was made aware that sex was expected from her, thrust into adulthood and positions she might not have been comfortable with. She was a beautiful woman and people wanted her and she accepted that because it did get her what she wanted.

(Image Description: the 1944 factory photos that launched Monroe's modeling career, taken by David Conover for Yank Magazine at the Radioplane Munitions Factory in which she worked. Interestingly the commanding officer that sent him to take the photos was Ronald Reagan. The photo shows an 18-year-old Monroe. She is holding a small propeller and is beside some kind of red machine. She is wearing a simple green top and gray bottoms with a photo ID badge at her waist. She wears a wedding ring. She has much frizzier brown hair. She is smiling broadly. End ID)  

Over the course of her life she was in love with and had sexual relationships with many different men and women. That doesn't mean she was sexually attracted to them. Indeed throughout her life she had a lot of difficulty with sex. She didn't like it. She thought she must have been doing it "wrong" and stated that a lot of her sex appeal was applied to her rather than something she felt. She was playing to the crowd. Which makes sense, Monroe was a people pleaser. She desired closeness, she romantically loved many people, I have no doubt, and from the time she was a teenager the best appreciated way to show it was by being sexual. The fact that later in life she had a sexual encounter with a literal 16-year-old when she was 30 shows she had a pretty fucked up understanding of what was appropriate sexually. The 16-year-old was the leader of her fan club, she also had an affair with her acting coach, her first husband was her neighbor who was kind to her. She was loving the people who loved her and was showing it the way society told her to. (On her being mspec, there were several women she had affairs with, including the fan and acting coach mentioned above, indeed it has been speculated she was more attracted to women than men).

No matter how she appeared on screen, she voiced fear that she was broken and frigid to her psychologist (who agreed with her) because she didn't really enjoy/want sex.  The desire of wanting to fix herself and wanting to please the people who loved her and who she may have romantically loved in return. She probably romantically loved some of these people but didn't know how to separate that from the sexual aspect or didn't want to lose them if she did. She was giving them what they wanted and expected and what culture told her was essential to normal loving relationships.

Her sexual "failure" was a subject she returned to often in therapy throughout her life. She had only one sexual encounter she actually said she enjoyed and it seemed to be more of a relief because it made her normal than what she got from the sex itself.

She said again and again that she wasn't the sexpot people thought she was, nobody listened.

(Image Description: a series of photos from a photoshoot from Life Magazine. It shows Monroe at home in 1953, a huge year in her career. The photographer is Alfred Eisenstaedt [a photographer of whose work I am extremely fond]. They show Monroe wearing a dark turtleneck and checkered trousers. She is in a bunch of different positions and wearing different expressions. Some of these appear candid and others posed. I am especially fond of one in the middle in which she appears to be trying to stop herself from laughing or sneezing. I like to imagine it is the former. It is very human. End ID)

“People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.”

-Marilyn Monroe

"I never quite understood it, this sex symbol. I always thought symbols were those things you clash together! That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some other things they've got symbols of."

—Monroe in an interview for Life in 1962 (both of these quotes illustrate that her "sex appeal" was manufactured and applied rather than her own natural state. Her audience made it clear what they wanted and she played to it.)

"A man who had kissed me once had said it was very possible that I was a lesbian because apparently I had no response to males - meaning him...I didn't contradict him because I didn't know what I was... Now, having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn't a lesbian."

-Marilyn Monroe in her autobiography My Story (written 1954, published 1974). (Note that she has "no response". She loves a man, this one or another, but she has "no response" to men physically. That is the only response he could comment on, her physical one. Clearly she feels some kind of attraction to someone eventually, but not sexually/physically. It is the difference between romantic and sexual love. It also shows that homosexuality and asexuality have always overlapped.)

"Primary frigidity" 

-the diagnosis from Monroe's therapist Dr. Ralph Greenson, he worked to "cure" her of this "frigidity"

“Maybe I’m a sexless sex goddess.” 

– Marilyn Monroe to Life magazine journalist Richard Meryman, 1961

(Image Description: a photo of Marilyn Monroe behind the scenes on the set of The Misfits in 1960, photographed by Inge Morath.  She is leaning across a table and smiling at someone to the right of the frame. She has tired eyes. End ID)