#the comparisons to the curtis family write themselves

[broareweabouttoviberightnow]

'you were raised with an angry man in your house. there will always be an angry man in your house. you will find him even when he is not there.'

[surejudith]

( JAMIE LEE CURTIS, CIS WOMAN, SHE/HER ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that JUDITH MILLER is a sixty-three year old “RETIRED” ACTRESS that’s been in Chicago for TWENTY YEARS. According to the file, they’re a mutant on LEVEL THREE with the power of ILLUSION MANIPULATION. That must be why they’re GREGARIOUS and HEDONISTIC. If you ask me, they remind me of watching old vhs tapes on loop, a new ninety-day chip, a name removed from a legacy. They are affiliated with NOBODY.

QUICK FACTS:

full name: judith miller (i forgot the middle-name i gave her so this will be updated...)

date of birth: november 22, 1958

zodiac big three: sagittarius sun, scorpio moon, libra rising

gender & pronouns: cis woman & she/her

sexual orientation: bisexual

ethnicity: white, half- ashkenazi jewish

nationality: american

languages spoken: english

enneagram: 7w8

mbti: esfp

temperament: sanguine-melancholic

alignment: true neutral

ability: illusion manipulation

affiliation: n/a

alias: n/a

BACKSTORY:

triggers: verbal abuse, drug addiction/alcoholism, neglect

judith’s family was cursed from the start. when your depressed mother and father marry out of obligation? hm... 

her father was constantly compared to her mother’s brother -- a man who had been worth his salt. a man who had died fighting in wwii. and these constant comparisons, constant critiques while he tried to write the next great american novel (and failed desperately), caused him to join the vietnam war... just to get dishonorably discharged.

through it all, judith was reminded of why they were like this in the first place: because she existed. she had to be worth it. she would have to do something great, or what was it all for? this cursed life that her parents had subjected themselves to...

this was drilled perfectly into her. throughout her teen years, she tried to get roles over and over, landing a few commercials... until she finally got her big break in a 1970s horror flick.

but, as she was just beginning to take off (still criticized by her mother, however -- it wasn’t high art, now was it?), she found a hookup had led to a positive pregnancy test. she and her agent strategized on what the best move was... thus, judith fell out of the limelight for eight months and gave birth to a premature child. but she couldn’t take care of them... their father, who had adamantly wished for this birth, was given full custody. and judith wrote every now and again.

it must have been late onset, her ability. it wasn’t until after she gave birth to her first child that something caused magazines and papers to begin prints about her non-existent upcoming movie. rumors, right? -- no, it was genuine belief. without saying a word, she had managed to make the public think she was active during her disappearing act.

this made her first interview in nine months a bit awkward, pretending she had met the interviewer before and saying that this non-existent film had simply gotten scrapped... but, whatever this was, it worked to her advantage.

think of it like the mandela effect! only judith knows what actually happened.

soon after, she fell into the hollywood lifestyle. sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, alcohol... trying to ignore these abnormalities that were appearing in her day-to-day life.

however, she learned how to utilize the visual aspect to her advantage. a few horror flicks later, she used this to make it appear as though she had won oscars when her mother next visited. in reality? you couldn’t pick them up. you couldn’t watch the oscars and see her accept the speech. but were they there? oh, it sure seemed that way... not that it impressed her much.

when she fell pregnant again, she considered making use of this abnormality thing again... but what if she could be better to her child than her mother had been to her? a challenge, one she accepted. after some grueling weeks, she completely detoxed and carried the baby to term. a beautiful baby girl.

for the first five years of her daughter’s life, she was perfectly present. she was clean, she was there... but she finally understood that there was an inexplicable disconnect. it could no longer just be postpartum depression. 

she fell back into her old ways, though she would enter spells of sobriety to try to connect with her daughter again. never would she tell the little girl that she had to make something of herself, lest she become like judith, but the curse was placed on her the second she was born. had there ever been a happy miller woman?

in her late thirties, she was cast in a show similar to full house, changing her image to horror icon and family friendly. however, at forty, she appeared drunk on set... which wasn’t the problem. the problem was that it had caused her to lose her inhibitions enough to slip up and reveal that she was a mutant. she turned into something... impossible. two-dimensional and a biological abnormality, something that should not be able to live -- and she didn’t even notice until the screams and pictures!

it was this that caused her to become blacklisted from hollywood. her movies were largely pulled from the shelves, her shows scrubbed her face out. she was just a ghost. 

nonetheless, she still legally had royalties to live off of, not to mention the savings. and it all hit the ‘i can survive’ when her mother died and she received her inheritance. she offered a eulogy -- an awful one, one that was more like a stand-up comedy routine than heartfelt -- then fucking folded. 

she moved around small towns, places with folks who didn’t know her name. but, three years later, she found herself in chicago with an idea from her ex-agent as mutants were beginning to become a bit more normalized: meet a memoirist, clear her name.

she moved to chicago to do just that and wound up staying, living off split royalties from said memoir.

notice that i never mentioned her children again !

TIMELINE:

BORN -- san diego, ca. her parents’ honeymoon phase turned into an unhappy marriage the second judith was born. 

GENERAL CHILDHOOD -- her father would lock himself in his study to ‘work.’ her mother would emphasize that she needs to be worth it all.  her father enlisted in the vietnam war after one too many comparisons to her mother’s brother who fought and died for their country in wwii. alas, he was dishonorably discharged. he further spiraled. things just generally got worse.

GENERAL TEENAGE YEARS -- she began taking her mother’s words to heart. from commercials to bit roles to big roles, she auditioned for everything she could. she landed multiple commercial roles.

AGE 23 -- she lands her breakout role in a horror flick. praised for her performance, she goes on to make two other horror movies within the next two years.

AGE 25 -- she learns she’s pregnant after a brief hookup. the father is, unfortunately, brought in on this. she and her agent strategize the best means, and the father is adamant about her keeping the baby. so she falls off the grid for nine months. as she’s at the beginning of her career, she gives the child to the father to take care of. she writes to them. during this time, newspapers and magazines have been raving about her upcoming movie... which doesn’t exist. she believed they were simply spreading rumors at first, but... no, they really thought she was doing something. interviews proved difficult as she had to pretend she knew the interviewer and claimed the movie had been scrapped.

GENERAL YOUNG ADULTHOOD -- things keep changing in her day-to-day life, however minuscule, and she turns to all the great hollywood vices to cope. she gets more jobs, primarily in horror films, and continues this lifestyle. she learns how to manipulate visuals. she uses this to her advantage when her mother pays her visits and the rooms suddenly look like there are far more awards than there really are. but it’s all just an illusion... and it doesn’t matter, anyhow. it isn’t high art.

AGE 30 -- she finds out that she is, once again, pregnant from a one-night-stand. this time, she’s determined to prove that she can break the cycle of miserable miller mothers. she sobers up. she’s well and present for the first five years of her daughter’s life, but feels a horrible disconnect. will this be how all miller women are?

GENERAL MID-THIRTIES -- cycles through hollywood parties and sobriety, trying to see if she can become closer to her daughter. she loves her... but she just... isn’t connected. which makes her spiral again. so on and so forth.

AGE 40 -- she is, ironically, cast in a family sitcom. she’s gotta show she has the range! however, she completely ruins her own life by showing up drunk one day... not because she’s drunk, but because her inhibitions were down and she became a walking illusion. she is all but blacklisted. her movies are taken off shelves. she’s scrubbed from shows. her mother dies. she gives a stand-up comedy eulogy, then takes her leave from hollywood.

AGES 40 - 42 -- if hollywood doesn’t want her, she doesn’t want them. she wanders around to towns where no one would know her name until she got a call from her ex-agent with a very agent idea: a memoirist in chicago can clear her name as mutants are slowly becoming more accepted.

AGE 43 -- she moves to chicago and works with the memoirist over a period of a few years, waiting for the right moment to release the book. she reconnects with her daughter who, in her blind ire, she had left with the nannies... who had always been more of a mother to the girl than judith.

AGE 63 -- she’s living off royalties from her movies, shows, book, and the inheritance from her mother. she has cut off all other ties to hollywood, ashamed of who she was then. yet, living a normal life is still out of the question.

HEADCANONS:

her daughter’s godfather is danny devito.

she remains in contact with her memoirist, taking them as the first person who saw all sides of her and stayed.

her career is basically a mix of horror flicks and full house -esque shows... versatile! 

um um um

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

her daughter ! the only reason her gender was specified was because of the whole ‘exploring the faults of a mother/daughter relationship built on trauma’ which is... a long way to say whatever i’m thinking of but i’m so tired i can’t think of the phrase! anyway, a lot about her is in the intro. her fc would have to be at least 1/4 ashkenazi jewish, age range 30-35 (judith’s timeline marks her as 33, but that’s loose!)

her eldest child ! the one she largely abandoned and only kept in contact with via letters. probably very cold on their side. age range 37-42 (again with the loose timeline thing), at least 1/4 ashkenazi jewish. 

her memoirist ! honestly? think of a less toxic bojack/diane.

fans ! i mean... ya.

um um um

@forwardintros​

[chaotically-cas]

The Outsiders x West Side Story

I think it’s important to start with saying that, while this is my favorite all time movie, the racism of it needs to be recognized before I continue. The whitewashing & brown face in the movie is absolutely disgusting both then & now. It is not something to support or condone. I’m just making the post because I cannot help but draw so many similarities.

Tw// fighting & sexual harassment (breif mention) & death & one breif mention of suicidal thoughts

Ponyboy as Baby John:

I think this goes way deeper than them both being the youngest & newest in the gang. First of all, in the first scenes of both movies it begins with Ponyboy and Baby John getting jumped my multiple people of the other gang, & his friends coming to back him up. And shortly after that in wss, when the gang is talking about the rumble, someone brings up what they should do if knifes and chains are brought into it. & Baby John says “Why don’t we just forget the whole thing?” Which is similar to Ponyboy’s ideals around fighting. Especially fighting with weapons. Additionally, Baby John is the most hesitant about the Jet’s rules and lifestyle. He often questions the whole point of it. This is very similar to Pony because he states many times his own hesitance around being a greaser and only being viewed as such. They both look at the world through naive and pessimistic thoughts. Additionally, they are both very sensitive. In wss Baby John is found by A-Rab (who I see as Two bit which I will touch on later) crying by himself. He didn’t want anyone to see him cry after his friends death, but yet he is. This is very similar to Ponyboy’s feelings after the fire. Especially when he is walking around town with Two bit. Pony doesn’t want Two to see his broken up and sick he is, but he sees it anyway. And lastly, when Baby John is chewed out by Action (which I see as Steve) A-Rab is there to stick up with him, along with other members of the gang. Even though the both of them are the youngest of the gang they have strong feelings to prove themselves and show up.

Steve as Action:

I definitely see Steve as Action. First the obvious needing pointing out, Action isn’t that much of a fan of Baby John and Steve feels the same about Pony. But on a deeper character analysis point: the both of action & Steve are fueled by their anger and rage. They show this anger in ways of fighting and violence. In WSS one of the first scenes sees Action fighting off 2 sharks, and early on in the book Ponyboy mentions how Steve fought of 4 soc’s such a bottle. This can show how both their anger comes out in extreme ways when fighting. Steve even breaking three (?) ribs. Later on in wss, Action is ranting about how upset he is and how angry he is. And how he just wants “bust” meaning he wants to fight as a release. And he is calmed down(ish) by Ice, who I see as Soda. This is very similar to the scene where Soda and Steve are arm wrestling in the Curtis house and they are discussing why they like fighting, and Pony realizes that Steve’s motivation for fighting is hatred. To add on, Actions character is heavily influenced by Tybalt from Romeo & Juliet, where many connections can be drawn to Steve as well. Steve isn’t in the book a whole lot which makes it a bit harder to pull connections but basically; I see the two of them as having very similar set offs and coping mechanisms as well as intelligence and loyalty. As Action is the first to step up when Tony dies, similar to the way Steve scolded two bit for his joke after Dally’s death.

Darry as Ice:

I think first thing is first. At first I was so into Ice as Soda but after a lot more research and character diving: I decided on Darry. Both Darry & Ice’s protectiveness and care other the other members of the gang. Ice helping to keep the gang cool after the death of Riff, and Darry helping Pony after he gets jumped. While all of the gang in the outsiders is described as a good fighter, Pony mentions that Darry hasn’t lost a fight, which is similar because Ice is canonically the best fighter. In the movie Darry is the one who steps up to be the first to fight and to basically be the ring leader of the fight. And Ice was the one to take on Bernardo in the rumble scene. I feel like Ice and Darry are one of the closest accurate comparisons personality wise because Ice is all hard emotionless, he keeps his cool, and so does Darry. Both of them are the level headed smart ones if the group. They keep the group in line and from making too many rash decisions. Additionally, (tw rape mention) Darry & Ice aren’t as much a part of the gangs other hi-jinx. Like Dal, Two, Johnny, & Pony are at the movies & Steve and Soda are at the DX, Darry is alone doing his thing. Similar to when the gang in wss attempted to rape or assault Anita, Ice was no where to be found. I think both Ice and Darry have a better sense or maturity & cool headedness when it comes to life, especially with the gang.

Dally as Riff:

Hear me out on this one too lol. First of all, there are heavy draws to be made with Mercutio, Riff, & Dal. Especially their deaths. But I’ll be focusing more on their lives. Both Riff and Dally aren’t afraid of violence & in some cases, welcome it. Riff encouraging the use of weapons in the rumble, & Dally showing up to the rumble in the first place. As tough and heartless as they both want to seem, their soft can be shown through Tony (who I see as Johnny). Riff, in fear that Tony will get hurt in the rumble with Bernardo, steps up and takes the fight for him. Which leads to his death. Both Riff and Dally are willing to die “for Johnny” and Tony, their best friends. Additionally, Riff’s protection of Tony can be seen in Dally when he offers to help Johnny after Johnny kills someone, like Tony kills Bernardo. Both these friendships have roots in Dally & Riffs home life. Riff’s home life is discussed heavily in “Dear Officer Kurpkee” and Dally’s from Pony’s perspective. They both grew up without much family and love and without much of a home of their own, which leads to their standoffish characters. Especially since Riff feels a thankfulness to Tony for housing him, can be symbolic of Johnny feeling like Dally’s personal home. Anyway. When Riff is picking on Anybody about being in the gang, it is very similar to the way Dal picks on Cherry in the beginning of the movie. Both these characters have an independence to them, where they want to think they don’t need anyone for anything. They both believe they are alone in the world. And for that they are angry, and not afraid to die.

Two Bit as A-Rab:

I feel like this goes without mention but both A-Rab and Two Bit are described and seen as the clowns and the comedians of the group. They like to make the gang laugh and poke fun at things. Also they are both very aggressive. Not quite as aggressive as Steve & Action but pretty aggressive. This is seen through Two Bit being so willing to jump into a fight anytime (the scene with the broken bottle). And it is seen in A-Rab through him wanting to fight and getting really worked up over the death of Riff. Although the bond between both A-Rab and baby John & Pony and Two Bit; there are a good bit of connections between the friendship. A-Rab is very protective over Baby John whereas Two Bit is protective but more of in a good friend way. They are both really good guys and friends beyond their comedy. Getting back into their humor; in the outsiders movie Two Bit is scene lifting a girls skirt as a prank, showing he finds humor in the inappropriate and dirty. A-Rab makes a similar type verbal joke when Anybody is talking about fighting and joining the gang. Again, Two Bit isn’t mentioned much in the book or movie which makes it a bit hard to draw many more comparisons.

Johnny as Tony:

I know what you are thinking lol, shouldnt Pony be Tony? He is the main character after all. Hear me out: Johnny and Tony are so much alike personality wise. In the beginning, Tony talks to Riff about why he left the gang, it is a similar conversation as the one between Pony & Johnny in the lot were Johnny expresses his suicidal thoughts. I think this also goes without being said but Tony is based on Romeo, and aside from the love plot you can truly see a lot of similarities between these three characters. The main ones being their hearts good intentions. Johnnys good intentions come out in him saving Ponyboy, wanting to turn himself in to the cops, and him trying to save the kids from the fire. Tony’s good intentions are shown very similarly through him trying to fight to save Riff, not wanting harmful weapons in the rumble, and wanting to resolve things with words. Another thing is the way both of there characters died with so much regret and unfinished business. For Tony his regret was Riff’s death and his unfinished business was Maria. For Johnny his unfinished business was not living and his regret was around the same. But in the end they were ok to lie down their lives in a  gallant way for what they believed in. Tony for the feud between the gangs to end, and Johnny for the lives of the kids he saved. 

& im so so sorry but I can’t seem to see Soda’s personality & morals lining up with any of the characters in WSS I’m sorry ahhh. I hope you enough this anyway!!

This was really really fun to write. It took a while but I’m pretty proud of it 🙈🙈

[qqueenofhades]

The Punisher as Medieval Romance: Tropes, Themes, and Characters

So a few days ago, an anon asked about more mythologies/inspirations for Kastle, apart from Hades/Persephone, and I mentioned that Frank’s character and his overall story arc have substantial (and fascinating) parallels with medieval romances. I was just answering quickly, but I then started to think about it in more depth, and realized that in fact, damn near all of The Punisher can be read as a modern-day medieval romance, sometimes subverting long-established tropes and sometimes playing them almost straight. This extends into Daredevil canon as well, as the characters around Frank also fit into recognizable mythic-medieval roles, and… yes. I resisted writing a long and research-heavy meta, clearly what I needed to do on the last week of term, for oh, forty-eight hours. Then, well, we know how that goes.

A note that I work specifically on medieval history, rather than medieval literature, so if I say anything clangingly bad, I hope my brethren and sistren medievalists can forgive me for it. Also, I don’t know if any of this is intentional on the part of the writers, so it’s not like I am identifying anything they’re specifically doing (or if they are, I don’t know about it), but this is just me, as a nerd, wandering into the candy store and being like “OH HEY GUYS LOOK AT THIS.” Of course, not all the examples fit in every aspect between medieval romance and modern Marvel canon, but there are still enough of them in a number of ways to make this interpretation plausible. And indeed, considering how Marvel stories have become ubiquitously embedded in our popular lexicon almost exactly in the way Arthurian legends and stories did for their medieval equivalent, it’s a noteworthy comparison.

(As you may be able to guess, this will be long.)

Let’s start with the source material. The medieval Arthurian romances are part of what is known as the Matter of Britain: the vast corpus of texts, written and rewritten across several centuries and by countless authors (usually French or English) that deals with some aspect of this mythology. Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table, and other characters appear in various guises and playing different roles in each of these texts. They are still ���themselves” on each appearance, but the interpretation and the storyline is largely up to each individual author. One may remark that this bears some similarities with the Marvel comic universe. The characters have been written and re-written in a vast array of formats from their first creation to their present modern iteration (and likewise, Hollywood is still making a King Arthur movie every other year). They have been interpreted by many authors and given different plots and re-imaginings, and are part of our collective pop-culture reference in the way that Arthurian romance and chivalric literature was in the medieval era. If Twitter had existed back then, we would have fans begging for Arthur Pendragon to be saved from Camlann the way we now have fans begging NASA to save Tony Stark. It’s a kind of cultural entertainment that you’re probably at least aware of, even if you’ve never participated in, and thus has reached similar levels of saturation. The Arthurian romances inspired endless knock-offs. We likewise have an omnipresent superhero genre. It reinvents and redefines the hero’s journey for its particular day and age on a massive scale. In some sense, we don’t even need to explain these characters or tropes, because everyone already knows who and what they are.

So… onto Frank. At first glance, he is a considerably unlikely medieval romantic hero, right? He’s rough around the edges, has (to say the least) grey morality, and is generally regarded as an outcast and a loner in his community, rather than some idealized, flawless Sir Galahad type who has never done anything wrong in his life and nobly avoids all temptation. But he’s actually a hero in the middle of his trials and tribulations and the corresponding loss (and eventual reaffirmation) of heroic identity. The broad strokes of Frank’s character arc, as seen in Daredevil season 2 and Punisher season 1, are these:

Separation from home and family;

Exile from society and the implied loss of chivalric (military) virtue;

Test of honor/contests against other knights, good and bad (Matt Murdock, Wilson Fisk, Lewis Wilson, etc);

Search for the Grail (life, restoration to honor, vengeance for his family, completion of the chivalric quest);

Partnership with worthy knights on the search (David Lieberman, Curtis Hoyle);

Resisting temptation from a knight’s wife (Sarah Lieberman);

Saving a fair maiden and having to be worthy of her love, while bound by a code of secrecy (Karen Page);

Confrontation of betrayal by an intimate/revelation of the dark side of chivalric honor (Billy Russo);

Menaced by a quasi-mythical and possibly demonic figure who must be defeated, who fights him in a parallel battle at the beginning/end of the story (Agent Orange/Rawlins);

Attempt to re-enter society and re-establish identity (end of s1, though that will be once more disrupted and complicated by s2);

All of this is, basically, the overall character arc for a medieval hero. Pretty much beat by beat. Also, while we’ve gotten used to think of ‘chivalry’ as implying a certain kind of idealized and virtuous behavior around ladies (holding doors, gentlemanly actions, whatever) that was only a small part of the overall code of chivalry – which, at its core, was an ethos about fighting, military prowess, and the display of valor through acts of war. Frank says that he loves being a soldier, and this would be a sentiment familiar to a medieval knight. Chrétien de Troyes has a line about how, essentially, only morally suspect half-men prefer peace. The soldier’s proper right, duty, and true joy in life is the practice of war, and he earns chivalry – martial renown – by doing it. It is not merely a pretty or romantic veneer on courtly behavior (though that is often how it is presented), but about war, the military, the destruction of opponents, and the very nature of being a constant soldier. To say the least, this fits Frank’s character extremely well. He is the consummate soldier who in fact needs a constant war to fight, and who has built an honorable legacy for himself (decorated Marine, Navy Cross, etc) prior to his forcible separation from society. This darker, grittier underside of chivalry, when the violence, bloodshed, and distortion of self was a constant concern, also fits very well with the tone of The Punisher.

That separation is often the keystone for a medieval hero’s journey, and functions to drive him out from the context in which he has until now been respected and earned his living. Sometimes we have an outright reason for that action, sometimes the hero just leaves Camelot and sets out on a quest, but Frank’s separation from society bears some similarity to Bisclavret, a twelfth-century werewolf romance written by a woman (Marie de France), and interesting for various reasons. (Some literature is available via Google Books.) In this case, the hero (the eponymous Bisclavret) is driven from society by the treachery of his wife, who hides his clothes so he can’t turn back from a wolf into a human and is forced to spend seven years in the forest as a beast. Of course Frank loses his wife, rather than being betrayed by her, but there’s still the connection between loss of wife – loss of home – loss of self, resulting in exile to the margins of society and transformation into a “monster.” Bisclavret never gives up his principles and identity even while forced to remain a wolf, and Frank gains a reputation as the “Punisher,” but likewise adheres to his own code of honor. He remains a knight, even if a knight-errant.

Bisclavret is rescued and brought back from the woods by an unnamed king, who sees his humanity and treats him well even as a monster (and yes, there are some definite homoerotic undertones in the fact that it’s the king’s love that restores him to himself, after his wife rejects him for his monsterhood or arguably, queerness). However, you could credibly parallel this to Frank and David Lieberman, who believes that he can help Frank and they can restore him to his former self/his good name. David of course physically helps Curtis care for Frank after his injuries in TP 1x05, and in general performs the humanizing role for the “monster.” He serves as Frank’s companion in the wilderness and believes that he is not the way the rest of society sees him (just as everyone else in Bisclavret sees him as a werewolf and has to be convinced by his good behavior that he’s really a man). Likewise, Karen recognizes early in Daredevil season 2, and never gives up in believing, that Frank still has honor. He’s (literally) not a monster to her. He has been expelled from the chivalric society in which he operated before, but he has not completely abandoned his morality.

Next, as noted, the motif of contests against other knights is essentially a central theme in all quest narratives. Frank must match his wits and skills against challengers, and be paralleled and anti-paralleled to them. One of his most obvious foils is against Matt, as they are explicitly set up as reflections and reverse images of each other. In some sense, Matt is the perfect chivalric knight, at least in DD s1/s2. His morality tends to the black and white, he always has some sense of how his faith informs or restricts his actions, and he constantly incorporates the church’s teaching into his sense of self. As Richard Kaeuper discusses in Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry, this is basically exactly what the medieval church would want for a knight. Some degree of coexistence (sometimes a great deal) exists between chivalry and Christianity, but the underlying question of violence and sin always underlies it – can a man who makes his living by killing people really claim to be acting in a holy cause? Matt avoids this paradox (or tries to) by not killing anyone, but Frank almost exactly embodies the tension between these two ideologies that was ever-present in the medieval era. Clerical moralists always worried that knights were too comfortable with killing, violence, and general unethical behavior (even as they needed and co-opted that violence for their own purposes, such as the preaching and popularization of the crusades). For their part, the knights often selectively used the parts of Christianity that they liked, and fashioned it into their own ethos, just like Frank does to justify his campaign of vengeance.

In other words, Matt and Frank are perfect symbols of the struggle between church and chivalry, with Matt embodying one side (reconciliation) and Frank embodying the other (estrangement), but neither of them are completely excluded from knighthood despite their differences. They’re in fact the central tension of its existence – how violent can a knight be, and how much consideration, superficial or otherwise, does he have to pay to the church’s restriction of his ethics and behavior? There is some argument that chivalric literature was written as an attempted correction or moral instruction for real-life knights, who were supposed to take it as guidance on their own behavior and be more merciful. This isn’t always the case, since as noted, the literature exalts the very kind of violent behavior that built a chivalric reputation, but there was always that inherent wariness about how much was too much. Matt and Frank push and pull each other on this very question, end up working together at points because they are both within the system, but can’t fully reconcile.

(Also I’d like to point out: Stick, Matt, and Elektra as Merlin, Arthur, and Morgana. Stick is the mysterious, possibly immortal mentor, who teaches and mentors both of them, but also misleads and manipulates them for his own purposes. Matt becomes the ‘hero,’ son of the dead/fallen king (Uther Pendragon/Battlin’ Jack Murdock), while Elektra becomes the villainess/feared sorceress, marginalized by a society frightened of her agency and unwillingness to play nice. Also, one of Arthur’s two half-sisters, usually Morgause but sometimes Morgana, is the mother of his illegitimate son, Mordred, who is prophesied to be his destruction. So there is a dark/forbidden/taboo sexual aspect to their relationship, and just as Mordred causes the ultimate fall of Camelot, Matt and Elektra are literally caught in a falling building at the end of Defenders, which destroys their current identities. Matt enters Once and Future King stage after that and at the beginning of DDS3, where he is ‘gone’ or sleeping or suffering a crisis of faith and must summon up the wherewithal to return, and the character of Benjamin Poindexter becomes one of the many Arthur imposters. There are also some parallels for Elektra with Nimue, the ambitious young student of Merlin’s who overthrows him, ends his reign, and imprisons him in a tree.)

Anyway, back to Frank. So what are knights actually doing with all this questing? Well, various things, but they’re most often searching for the Holy Grail: symbolic of eternal life, forgiveness and atonement of sins, return to self. For this reason, few of them actually find it or are able to encounter it without being changed. It too has a deeply underlying Christian context, and Frank, the ex-Catholic, has been estranged from his belief but not separated entirely. (Likewise, if you were not worthy to look on it, you could be blinded, so… the fact that Matt himself is blind is arguably a commentary on who he actually is vs. how he imagines himself.) The Grail is also, interestingly, in the custody of a figure known as the Fisher King. He is the keeper of the castle where the Grail is hidden, and in the context of the Punisher, he’s basically Curtis.

The Fisher King, for a start, is always wounded in the legs or the thigh, and unable to stand. Some scholars have interpreted this as a metaphor for castration (since “thigh” is often a euphemism for the genitals), and that the Fisher King is passive and impotent because he is physically unable to perform warfare and thus to acquire chivalry. Either way, the Fisher King is the keeper of eternal life, but is physically disabled and needs the help of a knight to activate that power. Curtis is to some degree a subversion of this trope, because he is explicitly not helpless and functions to enable other questing knights (veterans with PTSD) to search for the Grail (health and reconciliation to society)… but in TP 1x09, he still needs Frank to save him. Frank has to encounter the Fisher King and make the correct choice/ask the right question (which wire to cut) to save him and continue his own path toward the Grail. Curtis, by running the veterans’ group, is symbolically the keeper of eternal life, where questers have to literally ask questions/talk to each other to restore themselves, and Frank, by going at the end of s1, is still trying to reach it. But true to form, with the beginning of s2, he’s not going to be able to entirely get there. There is still another obstacle/quest to overcome.

So what about Karen? Visually and to some degree topically, she is set up as the lady whose love Frank needs to obtain and maintain, even in the wilderness of his exile. Karen is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, which was often viewed in the medieval era as the ideal/most beautiful kind of woman (because white supremacy in Europe has always existed to some degree, even if in differently constructed ways. However, the thirteenth-century Dutch romance Morien, and some other ones, feature black and mixed-race protagonists, who are just as able to achieve the predicates of the heroic quest as others). She is also, as discussed above, one of the only people to believe in Frank’s honor and to reach out to help him. However, this relationship has to be kept secret, and has the potential to destroy them both if revealed. This is a fairly close parallel to another of Marie de France’s romances: Lanval (adopted in fourteenth-century English form, by Thomas Chestre, as Sir Launfal).

In brief, Sir Lanval, after being cast out from Camelot, meets a fairy woman and they become lovers, and she promises him that he will have everything he needs, as long as he keeps her secret and never mentions her to anyone. (Marie’s original version of this is much less misogynist than Chestre’s, which adds Guinevere making sexual advances to Launfal and her jealousy being the cause of him being thrown out, so yes, Dudes Ruining Stuff has a long history.) This is not an exact analogue to Frank and Karen, but keeping the code of secrecy (Karen obviously can’t tell anyone about Frank, Frank receives what he needs from her in terms of information, emotional support, etc, but likewise can’t tell anyone about it) is paramount in both relationships. Speaking about the relationship or revealing it to the outside world will result in its destruction, and the fairy lady has to vouch for Lanval’s goodness to the court in Camelot, just as Karen stoutly defends Frank to the court of public opinion/literally everyone. In some sense, while the knight has to rescue the fair maiden, the fair maiden is also the arbitrator of his fate and his overall reputation. (Also, all of TP 1x10 is  basically Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, in which Lancelot must rescue the abducted Guinevere from Meleagant, and having to struggle with the revelation of this relationship and the fact they can’t be together and the dictates of public/proper behavior. Anyway.)

Lastly, Frank’s initial and final conflicts, and the overall shape of his quest, are dictated by his encounters with two archvillains: Billy Russo and William Rawlins, or “Agent Orange.” These are made especially painful for him by the fact that they are or were both close to him. Billy was his best friend, essentially part of his family, and as noted, there is a major theme in chivalric literature revolving around a betrayal (and subsequent murder) by those closest to you. We already discussed King Arthur being overthrown and killed by his incestuous illegitimate son, Mordred; the best-known version of that tale is of course Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, though only the seventh book, as linked above, actually tells the story of Arthur’s death. There is also Arthur’s half-sister and Mordred’s usual mother Queen Morgause; in the Morte, she is killed by her son Gaheris for committing adultery with Sir Lamorak and dishonoring her husband, King Lot. So in one sense, the knight is always doomed to face a betrayal from within his family, or from a close friend.

However, Billy Russo is also straight-up one of the demon knights of Perlesvaus, or, The High History of the Holy Grail. In Perlesvaus, Lancelot is haunted by the specter of these demon knights, who engage in a dark mockery of chivalric behavior, excesses of violence, and satanic imagery, and are otherwise the “dark side of the force” of honorable knighthood, as Richard Kaeuper puts it in Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. Honor and chivalry are not permanent or unchangeable qualities, and in fact are very fragile. The perfect knight can and should have both of these, but he can also lose them very quickly by impious, dishonorable, murderous, or otherwise wrong actions. The demon knights are a metaphor and a commentary on the same tension we discussed in regard to Frank and Matt: when does a knight-errant become a bad knight? When does his behavior permanently transgress him and cast him beyond the reach of repentance? Billy outwardly embodies the same qualities as Frank, has been through the same wars, is part of the same order, but he isn’t a hero on a quest whose chivalric identity can eventually be reconciled to him. He has crossed too far to the wrong side of the line; now he is the embodiment of evil, a shadow parallel and a cautionary tale. He is not a knight-errant, he is merely a monster.

Then, of course, there’s Rawlins/Agent Orange. Noting the fact that his nickname is also color-coded, we can see some parallels to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In short, in this tale, a mysterious “Green Knight” challenges any man to strike him, with the condition that he will get to return the blow in a year and a day. Sir Gawain accepts and beheads him, after which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head, and remains Gawain of his promise. Gawain has to struggle to both honorably keep his bargain and avoid dying, and is eventually struck at in return by the Green Knight, wounded, but not killed. In some interpretations, this has just been a test all along for Gawain to prove his honor, or an attempt by Morgana to deceive him and cause him to betray his chivalric ideals, and the Green Knight is just a pawn to achieve this. In others, the Green Knight is a potential embodiment of the Devil. (He also has a dual identity, as the Green Knight/Sir Bertilak, as Rawlins does.) Frank strikes at/beheads/blinds Rawlins, as seen in the flashbacks of TP 1x03, so Rawlins literally wants to do the same to him (an eye for an eye) in TP 1x12. In the story, Gawain and the Green Knight part on cordial terms, but in this case, Frank has to actually complete the death/destruction of his opponent. Like Gawain, however, he is wounded but not killed, and must find some way to survive his encounter with a possibly demonic entity determined to pay back in exact measure the physical wound/symbolic beheading inflicted earlier.

So. . . yes. Overall, both in the broad parameters of his character arc, in the obstacles he confronts, and the other people he meets and the encounters he plays out with them, Frank is actually an excellent hero for a modern-medieval romance. The essential core of the medieval romance was not about love, though that was often present, but about identity, adventure, and the challenge to self, and while in some places these tropes have been updated or nuanced or subverted, in others they’re played as recognizably or directly descended from their medieval counterparts, and the way in which we have thought about stories and enjoyed them for a very long time.

[darknessfactor]

This is mostly being written because I need to get my own thoughts down about this now, not because I particularly want to get into the Discourse (because I know it exists, and I don’t want to go near it).  Basically, I’m rewatching FMA 2003 and FMAB, and I’m going to talk through my preferences.

I’ll admit that this is my first time watching 03 all the way through.  I got through a little more than half of it in high school, then got bored (ironically right before things started getting good), and tried watching Brotherhood instead.  I did manage to make it all the way through that one.

Having watched both now, I still prefer Brotherhood.  And yes, this is a comparison post.  Untagged, except for my own reference tags.  Like I said: I’m writing this for me.

This list might get long, so if you’ve decided to go ahead and read it anyway, then prepare yourself.  I’ll start with character comparisons, in no particular order.

Roy Mustang: Brotherhood wins by a landslide.  Although 03 does a slightly better job at portraying Roy’s PTSD from the Ishval conflict, I also saw much less of a desire to atone for what he had done.  In Brotherhood, Roy specifically said that he wanted to help rebuild Ishval, and Riza admitted that he planned to allow himself and other state alchemists to be put on trial for their crimes.  In 03, I think that the desire to atone is there, but it is muted, and he seems far more smarmy and power-hungry.  His manipulation of the Elrics is also much more blatant.

Scar: Which leads me to Scar.  Honestly?  This one’s a tie for me.  I liked his ending in Brotherhood more.  I felt he was more threatening in Brotherhood.  I prefer his voice actor in Brotherhood.  However, Brotherhood did one thing that I really, really wish they hadn’t - and that was shift the blame for Winry’s parents from Roy to Scar.  Suddenly it wasn’t alright to root for Scar, because not only had he killed the state alchemists responsible for his people, but he also killed innocent civilians.  Personally, I feel for Scar - he had every reason to believe that his people would never get justice for what had been done to them, so he took matters into his own hands.  Brotherhood was just trying to pull a ‘killing is ALWAYS bad’ thing.

The kids: No, I don’t mean the Elric brothers.  I’m talking about 03′s Wrath and Brotherhood’s Pride.  This time, Brotherhood wins again.  I felt like 03 had the opportunity to go somewhere more meaningful and emotional with Wrath, but instead they just turned him into a psycho (which... considering what he’d been through, it didn’t really surprise me).  Brotherhood’s Pride, however, was almost always a creepy asshole - apart from when Selim acted endearing.  His reveal freaks me out to this day, and to this day he honestly terrifies me.  I do find it somewhat ironic that both Wrath and Pride tried to take Ed’s body for themselves, in the end.

Main villain: Gotta give 03 credit: Dante wins by another landslide.  While both she and Father are fairly one-dimensional, her reveal - as well as her plan - is a lot more insidious, not to mention creepy as hell.  I cringed (in a good way) almost every time she was on screen, and her theme song is AMAZING.  The only time when I really got a ‘what the fuck’ vibe from Father was when he’d half-absorbed Hohenheim just before the country-wide transmutation circle was activated.  For the most part, he was pretty par for the course as far as villains go.  

Bradley: Brotherhood, again.  Much more threatening, much more terrifying.  What happened to Lan Fan, to this day, remains an “oh SHIT” moment for me.  Though personally, I think his death should’ve been more brutal.

Sloth: 03, again.  Really, the only good or interesting thing about Brotherhood’s Sloth was the Armstrong sibling/Curtis teamup to take him down.  03′s Sloth is a hell of a lot more interesting.

Greed: I was kind of surprised by how much I liked 03′s Greed by the time he died.  His arc felt more complete than the arc of the first Greed in Brotherhood.  Still, I’m a sucker for body-sharing tropes, and I love the part that the second Greed played.  So Brotherhood wins this one, though not quite by a landslide.

Characters unique to each series: Brotherhood.  I can’t really think of FMA without thinking of Ling, Lan Fan, Mei, Olivier, or Miles.  Dante is a fantastic villain, and 03′s Sloth and Wrath are interesting characters as well, but Frank Archer almost seems like a Kimblee wanna-be, and I couldn’t give two shits about him.  Ling’s arc might be one of my favorites in Brotherhood, and I can’t not adore Lan Fan and Olivier.  

Riza: Brotherhood, though not by much.  There aren’t too many differences between 03 and Brotherhood Riza, except that Brotherhood went far more in-depth on her character and backstory.  Hell, they devoted an entire episode to it, and though I wasn’t too big of a fan of her learning a lesson from freaking Kimblee, I still appreciate her expanded content.

Worldbuilding: Brotherhood, again.  Brotherhood always felt more... like an actual world, whereas everything in 03 felt sort of... isolated.  In 03 we know nothing about the surrounding areas, and... I don’t know, I just never feel like there are people, anywhere.  I like that Liore got more focus in 03, but overall I prefer Brotherhood - for going more into history, for establishing more of the setting.  (I know it would’ve been tougher for 03′s writers to do such, and I give them credit for writing such a compelling story with what they had.)

Music: Brotherhood.  Oh my god, Brotherhood wins so hard for this.  Dante’s theme is the only one that stuck out to me in 03, but Brotherhood?  I have the names of so many of those tracks memorized.  The Intrepid.  Knives and Shadows.  Trisha’s Lullaby.  I get chills whenever I hear any one of these songs.  

Found family theme: This is something that’s prevalent in both series.  Hell, in 03 Armstrong even says it outright after Ed and Al visit Resembool.  It’s never quite stated outright in Brotherhood, and yet I felt like it carried through more strongly in Brotherhood.

In 03, Ed and Al meet and help plenty of people along their journey, but those people don’t really seem to have an impact on them (except maybe Nina Tucker).  I got the sense that, in spite of that, they were still fairly isolated from everyone else; the Elrics against the world.  They have each other in our world after CoS, but it’s just the two of them.  Against the world.  Again.

In Brotherhood, all those people they meet, and help?  It’s very clear that those bonds are still there.  Just look at the family photo in the credits: look at how many people are in it, even if you count out significant others and the Elrics themselves and their kids.  Paninya and Garfield being there just goes to show that there are so many people that the Elrics could easily consider family, in spite of the lack of blood relations.  Ling, Lan Fan, Mustang, Hawkeye, the Rockbells, all the chimeras that Kimblee brought up to Briggs, Izumi, Sig... in the end, in Brotherhood, it was clear that the Elrics had accepted that they couldn’t get as far as they did without these people’s love and support, and I just love that so much.

Story: Brotherhood’s story just seemed more exciting to me.  That’s all there is to it.  I’m a bit of a sucker for political conspiracies, and this screamed ‘political conspiracy’ a lot more than 03.  Also, though I can appreciate the nuance behind 03′s ending, I’ve always been a sucker for happy endings, and Brotherhood’s was definitely happier.

...well, I think these are about all the thoughts I have on this matter.  If I didn’t mention characters, it’s because I think it was a tie for those characters.  I will say for 03: I’m amazed at how its quality improved over time.  The animation and voice acting get remarkably better over time.  Still, Brotherhood is the one that’ll always be closer to my heart.

[opedguy]

Senators Profit from Coronavirus Crisis

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), March 20, 2020.--Profiting off the coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 crisis, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.) sold millions of dollars of stock before the market crashed.  Feinstein and her billionaire husband Richard Blum sold $6.4 million weeks before the market crashed from the coronavirus epidemic engulfing the country. Major market averages, including the Dow Jones Industrials, S&P 500 and Nadaq are down 35%, since hitting a record high Feb. 12 of 29,551.  At 19,227 today two hours before today’s close, there’s no floor on the Dow, S&P 500 or Nasdaq unless the nation can stop the coronavirus mass hysteria seizing the country. Conservative Fox News commentator 50-year-old Tucker Carlson called for Sen. Burr to explain his stock sales or resign.  But does the Security and Exchange Commission consider knowledge about an epidemic insider trading?

            When 78-year-old billionaire homemaker guru Martha Stewart dumped her ImClone Systems stock, getting a tip for its CEO-founder Sam Waksal Dec. 27, 2001, saving her 46,673, she was convicted July 16, 2004 of insider trading, spending six months in federal prison. Yet getting a tip from a CEO of a biotech company is much different that figuring out the market was about to tank because of a global pandemic.  Waksal, who told Stetwart that his anti-cancer drug Erbitux was rejected by the FDA, was also convicted June 10, 2003 of insider trading, spending six years in federal prison.  Whatever the ethics behind unloading stock, Burr, Feinstein and Inhofe were well within their rights to dump shares like any investor based on their knowledge of the market.  There’s no legal case for insider trading against the savvy Senate investors, all of whom are multimillionaires.

            Since Wall Street recovered from its 2008-2010 meltdown, the longest bull market in history was losing steam before the coronavirus outbreak.  When the Dow bottomed March 6, 2009 at 6,468.95, it was all up from there until it hit its record high Feb. 12, 2020 of 29,551.42, only to watch it fall to 19,808 two hours before today’s close.  Watching the Covid-19 crisis spiral out-of-control, any investor, from elected officials to CEOs of major companies, make judgments on where the market’s going.  It’s difficult to say with certainty that a U.S. Senator has any more insight than anyone else on what’s going to happen to Wall Street based on a global pandemic.  Whatever damage Covid-19 does to humans, it pales in comparison to the damage done by elected officials swept up in the mass hysteria, shutting down the economy to allegedly save lives.  Taking away citizens’ right to work does far more damage.

            Feinstein’s spokesman tried some urgent damage control to save his boss’s squeaky-clean image.  That’s the same senator that tried to sabotage Associate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, introducing a crazy-women’s, Christine Blasey-Ford, unfounded rape allegations.  “All of Senator Feinstein’s assets are in a blind trust, as they have been since she came to the Senate,” Feinstein spokeman Tom Mentzer said in a damage control email.  “She has no involvement in any of her husband’s financial discussions,” completing the most lame, absurd, incredulous excuse.  At 86-year-of-age, the only reason Feinstein can’t recall what’s going on is obvious.  She’s not oblivious to her joint financial holdings with her billionaire husband.  But whether she’s aware of her family’s finances or not, she’s not blind to the cornonvirus pandemic buffeting financial markets around the globe.

            All the denials from U.S.  Senators financial dealings only makes them look worse. “My adviser has been doing so faithfully since that time and I am not aware of or consulted about any transactions,” said Inhofe, not saying whether or not he gave his broker the sell order. Saying he’s hasn’t consulted about “transactions” doesn’t mean he didn’t tell his adviser to sell.  Inhofe admitted that he told his financial adviser to move him out of stocks and mutual funds in December 2019.  If that’s not giving his adviser advice than what is?  But whatever Inhofe, Burr or Feinstein did is perfectly reasonable, not based on their “inside” knowledge of the Covid-19 crisis but on their insights as investors to know when to buy or sell. Calling or Senators to resign because they made smart financial decisions in light of the Covid-19 crisis is preposterous, there’s no parallel to insider trading.

              Chiming in on elected officials tweaking portfolios during the growing coronaviurs crisis, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) showed her disgust.  “It is stomach-churning that the first thoughts of these Senators had to dire & classified $COVID briefing was how to profit off this crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.  Jumping on the bandwagon, liberal-and-conservatives can’t stop themselves from blaming anyone they can find.  If elected officials like Ocasio-Cortez wanted to help constituents, they’d do everything to stop the mass hysteria over Covid-19 now threatening to send the nation into another Great Depression.  However bad the spread of SARS CoV-2, it’s not worth destroying the U.S. economy.  U.S. Senators or anyone else has the right to make informed investments.  There’s simply no correlation to insider trading from anyone looking at a national or global health emergency.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’d editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[writersriot]

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 17

Monday, May 1, 2017

Sorry for the long absence! My usual update is stuck in my drafts lol so I’m writing a fairly quick insert to talk about the Greasers and the Socs as portrayed in the book.

Ponyboy is walking with Johnny, Two-Bit, and Cherry and Marcia after the movies. Pony is realizing that the Socs seem to be just like the Greasers.

It seemed funny to my that Socs -- if these girls were any example -- were just like us. They liked the Beatles and thought Elvis Presley was out, and we thought the Beatles were rank and that Elvis was tuff, but that seemed the only difference to me. Of course greasy girls would have acted a lot tougher, but there was a basic sameness. I thought maybe it was money that separated us. (Pg 37-38)

Now I think this is really interesting coming from Ponyboy. He’s fourteen (14!! Not 13! lol) and he still goes to school with Johnny, so he sees the Socs in that environment, away from the neighborhood rumbles. He seems to think that it’s mostly attitude and money that separates Greasers and Socs.

And I think about Darry sometimes, how he played sports and had Soc friends. I think Darry could have easily been a Soc, despite living in a Greaser neighborhood. The Curtis parents were a point of stability for the whole gang, so we know the Curtis boys have been in the gang for quite a while. I wonder what the parents thought of the fighting and everything, if they tried to keep their boys out of trouble or just let it happen because in a way, it was safer to have friends as backup in that neighborhood.

So what if the Curtis’ had more money and lived in a better part of town? Would all the kids have been more likely to be Socs? If their parents hadn’t died, Darry would have been playing sports, maybe going to college. Soda would still be in school, not feeling like the only thing he can do is work to help Darry support them. And Ponyboy wouldn’t be so stressed at such a young age. Money couldn’t have kept their parents alive, but maybe it could have made living without them a little easier. I don’t know.

So is it just money that separates Greasers from Socs? Cherry doesn’t think so.

“No,” Cherry said slowly when I said this. “It’s not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated -- cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us. You know, sometimes I’ll catch myself talking to a girl-friend, and realize I don’t mean half of what I’m saying. I don’t really think a beer blast on the river bottom is super-cool, but I’ll rave about one to a girl-friend just to be saying something.” She smiled at me. “I never told anyone that. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever really gotten through to.”

She was coming through to me all right, probably because I was a greaser, and younger; she didn’t have to keep her guard up with me. (Pg 38)

I just have to laugh for one second that Ponyboy is not even close to being a threat to Cherry. A fourteen-year-old Dally would have been a very different story. So I just want to say how much I love soft Pony and Johnny, okay? I mean, they’re tough but they’re also Soft and I love them both.

As an important aside, Cherry describes talking to her girl-friends just to talk, pretending she likes something just because that’s what they all do. Now, she means it as an example of how the Socs don’t feel anything and barely care about anything. But I see it as having another level of meaning.

How much of our teenage years do people spend pretending to like something or be a certain way just to impress or be liked by others? I feel like that’s a basic tenant of high school life no matter how much we might try to be ourselves. And if someone like Cherry pretends in her everyday life, how can we say who else is pretending or not?

‘Cause you know who ends up pretending or just trying to be like others more often than not? Queer people. Especially baby queers who may only have an inkling that they’re different and that might scare them. I know I did this, pressured into relationships, as did many queer kids I knew at the time. So many people think they’re straight because it’s the only option they know, especially in this generation growing up in the 60s. Thank you, heteronormativity. I just wanted to point that out, to consider in the whole of the book. Especially when Ponyboy as the narrator is fallible and may not fully understand all the dynamics of the gang.

(I could imagine a shy, quiet Johnny just starting to realize his feelings in how he idolizes Dally, while Dally is like “fuck no” all as he is dying over Johnny’s existence.)

So anyway, according to Cherry, the Socs are cool and emotionless while the Greasers run hot and feel everything. The Socs have money, have privilege, have anything they could want so that means they have a difficult time finding meaning in anything. That’s the basis of why Socs get into trouble, fucking shit up and fighting. The Greasers really have nothing but each other, so that’s what they fight for because no one else will do it. They don’t have money, they barely have family outside their gangs, so all they can do is rail against the world.

That was the truth. Socs were always behind a wall of aloofness, careful not to let their real selves show through. I had seen a social-club rumble once. The Socs even fought coldly and practically and impersonally.

“That’s why we’re separated,” I said. “It’s not money, it’s feeling -- you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.” (Pg 38)

I want to call a little bit of BS here just because money and the following privilege is a huge part of how the Socs and Greasers live every day. It’s in how they are raised by their socialite parents to have everything except maybe what they really need to care about, like love. It’s in how they might have nothing but a group of friends to watch their back, and how they will throw down everything for love of their chosen families.

It’s a stereotype that money and privilege beget this cool, aloof behavior of not caring about stuff, but here it seems to have some truth to it. And we know people who struggle every day for every little thing they have can be some of the most empathetic and giving people. I see a lot of this in these characters. I want to say Socs fight to maybe feel something while Greasers fight to numb themselves. It’s a fascinating dichotomy that still exists in various ways today.

And I can’t leave this comparison without talking about Dally. So knowing this is what Pony thinks about Greasers, how they feel too much too violently. . .what I want to know once again is why does this kid think Dallas Winston is a cold, emotionless bad guy? I mean, yes the seventeen-year-old acts like he’s seen and experienced everything, and hell, maybe he has. He fucks shit up and rolls little kids because it’s all he knows. Out of all the gang, he probably causes the most trouble. So by Pony’s reasoning here, that would likely mean Dally feels more than anyone else. He’s been through so much shit from such an early age, and he acts out because he can’t handle it. I just. I’ve said this all before and I’ll say it again, but I can’t with Dally. I love him. He is not Soft like Johnny, but he is Tough in a way that makes me want to protect him. Dally is Tough because inside he is vulnerable and Soft.

Yet Pony seems to think Dally cares about nothing and no one, when time and again Dally proves the opposite to be true just by how he treats everyone in the gang, especially Johnny. Dally cares, but Pony somehow doesn’t see it?? This is why I can’t necessarily take Pony’s narration seriously because he only sees his part of the story, and the text on the page only hints at the stuff Pony doesn’t experience. So a lot of important reading of The Outsiders depends on the subtext, and catching the hints and extrapolating on what is unsaid as much as what is stated outright. SE Hinton might not be aware of what kind of subtext she was setting up when she wrote this as a teenager. . .but I sure as hell see it and it’s queer af.

That’s all for now. I meant this to be short but it still took me a few hours lol oh well.

Until the next part~