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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 5 years

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Okay so I'm doing a s1 rewatch and gonna talk to you about it because why not. I kind of didn't get into the show until s2 and sort of just skimmed through s1. So rewatching it, in 1x07 is it just me or is the whole Joe electrocuting himself to turn Cameron on (?!) both absolutely ridculous and like... super gross? Joe is what like 15? years older than Cameron who is what, 20 here? Ew? A woman supposedly wrote this episode but I bet a man wrote that bit. It's so very Male Bullshit™

CON’T: In fact all of Joe in season 1 (and lets face it all seasons?) is kind of Male Bullshit. But especially in season 1. Because like, canon Cameron is clearly a fucking mess who's vulnerable to his bullshit. But also some part of me feels like Real Cameron who didn't really come into existence until season 2... would not rly have been into him :P I can't fully grasp if she's meant to rly like him or if she's just with him for lack of other options/being lonely and bored.

A long time ago a fellow gay shipper joked on here/said something to the effect of, ‘remember when he literally had to shock her with a live current because that was the only way he could turn her on?’ If I’m being honest, I still have not recovered from this!

I suppose that whole scene is a matter of taste, for which there’s no real accounting (okay briefly - my official position on it is that some things just don’t work as well onscreen as they might on paper, even with actors like Mack and Lee), but to belatedly speak to your other points: I feel like the most critically productive way to read early H&CF is to view the acknowledged Male Bullshit™ as The Point. It’s not always clear that it’s the point, and that’s because, well, the creators didn’t know how to do what they were trying to do at the beginning! Fortunately, the network set them up with experienced producers who were able to see their vision, for a series about (‘about’) an antihero that’s about more than justifying and begging sympathy for his destructive behavior, and pity for the characters that become his collateral damage. I think, largely based on that pilot spec script that’s been floating around for a while, that the producers understood that the way to do that was to spend more time on the other characters and make it a true ensemble, and to make them smarter (if not sneakier) than the antihero. J*e and his machinations still kind of have to be the engine for the first seasons’ plot, because, well, that’s how the characters are: they’re all stuck, and they need this random, aggressive, (surprisingly genuinely?) sad bastard to push them to act.

So, yes, there’s a huge age difference between Cameron and J*e, and he definitely scams his way into her college classroom because for his plan to work he needs a 22-year old coder who’s both naïve and a little wild, and who he presumably can manipulate. He absolutely knows what he’s doing, no matter how many people on this website refuse to see his actions clearly, and he largely succeeds at that for most of the season; he’s the main antagonist, and we’re supposed to be wary of him, and put off by all of this. Because, even though a lot of people want to ignore this, too, Cameron is naïve, and also legitimately emotionally compromised (yes, even with that tough front, people contain multitudes, and they can be deceptive), and it works on her. (I’m pretty sure I’ve said this here before, but you can actually see when it starts to work on her, it’s when they’re negotiating her salary, and he says, ‘Now you’re thinking like a professional.’ That gets to her.)

Which isn’t healthy or positive, but it is real. I think ‘like’ is a strong word for how Cameron feels about him, especially in the first half of season 1, but their connection is the real deal, even if it’s largely based on them both being isolated, and having complementary emotional dysfunction based on similar childhood traumas. They’re also drawn to each other’s expertise; Cameron makes her derisive and mostly deserved comments about ‘whatever it is that a product manager does,’ but she recognizes that he can sell and publicly promote an idea in a way that’s useful, and in a way that she can’t and won’t. (She says as much at COMDEX ’90.)

And for as critical as I’ve been of how that relationship has been handled, I think all of that is pretty clear from the text? But the show doesn’t spell this out or spoon feed it to the viewer, so there is much room for willful/sexist/heteronormative misinterpretation. I don’t think all of the misinterpretation is willful though, people misunderstand power dynamics in relationships and excuse men’s intentional harm irl all the time, because that is sadly the cisheteropatriarchy we all live in.

#remember back when you could schedule answers to asks the way you can schedule normal posts?#i know i do and i miss those days bc i was able to answer things more promptly and efficiently back then #ANYWAYS #ty for asking!#asks #replies #usuallywaywardhottub #is it meta?#cameron howe #halt and catch fire s1

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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 5 years

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I'm just going to take a moment to reflect over how totally romantic Donna and Cameron's canon s/l is? Donna meets Cameron and from that point on is hyperfocused on her - moving her family to California, devoting all her waking hours to Mutiny, spiraling for years after Cameron leaves, going to Comdex JUST to see her again etc. And Cameron moving to freaking JAPAN, totally lost trying to find belonging with shitty men for years until they finally find each other again in the end? EPIC ROMANCE

It’s true! We/I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, because it never gets old: if Donna or really EITHER character had a been A MAN...literally everyone would read all of this, and all of these plot points, as an obvious romance, even if it was never stated or shown explicitly.

#...it's literally lesbophobic that it's not read that way just bc it's two women characters but whatever #haters literally gonna hate!#ask #replies #usuallywaywardhottub #ty for asking!#as always

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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 5 years

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I feel like if Cameron Howe existed in 2019 she'd hate most social media? xD She'd be like... a Reddit person, if anything. And like an online privacy activist :P It amuses me so much to think of the HAFC crew like, reacting to the internet of today. I think Cameron would hate where it's gone/going the most xD

2019 Cameron is a social media hater in all my current headcanons because I share this opinion! Donna is a famous tech person so she’s got a tw*tter blue check, and Cameron has a secret acct there so that she can a) like Donna’s threads on everything wrong in the tech sector and b) intervene when Donna starts to antagonize tech billionaires and their lackeys (Cameron has snatched Donna’s phone away from her more than once). But she doesn’t like insta because it makes her feel like a phony, and she’s had a (now confirmed) hunch that fb is evil since its inception. She’s totally on reddit and tikt0k though, so she can anonymously blow the whistle on how bad the coding and management is at the biggest platforms, and she has a much bigger following than she realizes.

#ask #comments #replies #ty for asking!#usuallywaywardhottub #cameron howe: tech paranoiac of every girl's dreams

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