Interwebs & Parks & Rec & OUAT

[beccatoria]

Okay so the main reason to post this is to say that my interwebs is dead and I'm sneakily posting this from a public webzone. I will be around sporadically for the next few days but basically until the weekend I am not sure what's going on. It will depend on how crap the ISP's engineers are and when they decide to show up.

BEFORE my internet died, however, I saw both Parks & Rec which was utterly adorable even if I wish there was more stuff with Ann and Leslie being Friends, but that's okay because Ben punched a guy who deserved it and then kept APOLOGISING PROFUSELY until he got shut up with kissing which is basically everything anyone should ever want in a guy ever.

ALSO I watched Once Upon A Time, which was a frustrating experience, because for real I really like this show. I have a feeling I'm in the minority, but I honestly think some of the ways it's reinventing stuff is legit clever, and I like when they mashup the different fairytales in unexpected ways, like the Prince and the Pauper and Prince Charming. Or Hansel and Gretel and the Candy Witch's Cottage providing the poisoned apple. Or, IN THEORY, genies and the magic mirror, I had two epic problems with it, to be honest:

1) dude, racist much? (Usually a complaint levelled in a passive fashion because there Storybrooke is so overwhelmingly white, but this time, ouch. I'm not sure where the line between atmospheric and problematic lies, exactly, but I'm fairly sure it was a ways further back than this. Hopefully in the future Sydney will get a story where he gets to reassert his agency and break up with the Evil Queen and be something other than a stereotype, but we'll see. OY WHAT WAS THAT.)

2) dude, sexist much? (Not usually a complaint levelled at this show, but I felt really sorry for Regina because Snow's dad was a total jerkface! I mean, sure, murder is an overreaction, but acknowledging that he could never love her, forcing her to stay in the palace, and then getting furiously jealous when she sought emotional comfort elsewhere? BACK OFF, KING DUDE. See what I think they'll do is some sort of horrible retcon whereby the King married her because he was so selfless and he was keeping her psychotic self away from others or something. Possibly this will tie into Snow White being responsible for the Queen being unable to love (though clearly not unable to want to be loved). But honestly that just kind of makes it worse and horribly patronising and paternalistic. OY WHAT WAS THAT.)

So anyway, I will still be watching in two weeks and stuff, but I kinda had to get that off my chest. Damn you, show, why can't you write altruistic wishes still screwing you over and genies trapped in magic mirrors without this rampant oppression! *shakes fist*

Okay. I'm done.

And off to, like, go whittle wood or sing acappella music or whatever it was we did in the olden days before we had 24/7 internet connections. (Yes, yes I know, I could get a smartphone, but...no.)

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

OH GOD, THIS EPISODE BOTHERED ME SO MUCH! PAINFUL STUPIDITY! STUPID STUPIDITY! OTHER KINDS OF STUPIDITY!

*sighs*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

BURN THE STUPIDITY WITH FIRE! CLEANSING FIRE!

I'm hoping next week's will be better. :/

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I saw the teaser and FREAKED OUT. I am so, so excited.

I will die sad and bitter and shouting at the television. Possibly before I am old.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like Richard Schiff but what was that? I'm not sure if he was just clueless or a jerk. I mean she was cheating on him but not really? I dunno. It's hard to know since they paint Regina as a villain. But I felt for her at that dinner when he said Snow was the fairest. I mean maybe we don't know the whole story but that seemed really mean. Even if she didn't love the King he didn't have to be that way.

Why couldn't she leave the castle? Even before the 'affair'? There needed to be more explanation!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think - especially having read cyborganize's comment below that they just really failed to make it clear what the hell was going on with him. I'm sort of okay with the lack of explanation about her leaving the castle since I assume it'll be revisited, but there was so little explanation of the central relationship here and therefore the Queen's motivations in using the genie to kill her husband, that it's one more thing on the pile of BUT WHAT IS GOING OOOOOON, you know?

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely had issues with this one.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping the next one improves! *crosses fingers*

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I am blinded by feelings in my lady parts, but even though that was a weak episode I enjoyed it so much! I have respect for you as always for ranting about the isms. I am willing to allow them some generous reading, though, because they're working with the terrain of fairy tales -- a canon that's basically unadulterated racism and sexism. Generally, the show's approach is to take this up but portray fairy tale 'verse in a dark and thus critical light. Or so I like to think, at least. To wit:

1. RACISM. OK, obviously. The show has a problem in that Sydney is like the only character of color (if you don't count Lana Parilla or Mr. Gold being an evil Jew cum sparkly-skinned demon) and he's basically a flunky. That said, the genie backstory was so cracktastic that I kind of loved it! Where else would they go for a man of color in European fairy tales? I would prefer to interpret the genie's over-the-top persona and evident oppression as a critique of this trope, although it's fair to say that every viewer probably wouldn't get that. The issue with RL Sydney is more difficult to justify. I mean, he is the human version of a mirror, i.e. 2-dimensional, but they don't get a pass on that with the rest of the casting. He did at least seem to be in a parallel position to Graham? I like thinking of Regina having a town harem of people she controls through sex...

2. SEXISM. I disagree! Wasn't the show presenting King Toby's actions as horrific? They seemed to make a move with the character that they are deploying with respect to fairy tales in general: revealing the dark underbelly of something that on the surface is unremittingly wholesome and sweet. I thought his jealousy and control was supposed to read as completely unreasonable and unsympathetic -- a "twist" on how the character was initially portrayed.

As for the Queen -- well, there is clearly more to be revealed about why she was in that unhappy marriage and what transpired with Snow White afterwards. But I don't think it was implied that her evilness justified her imprisonment, and I HOPE they don't retcon it so that the King was somehow doing the world a favor.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

See I'm actually good with the reasons you give for generous reading up to a point? Like, I might have been willing to look at his exoticisation and over the top persona as - if not a direct critique - then at least more generously as a stereotype in the tradition of all the other characters, if I felt he'd been treated better in other ways. Sort of the way I'm willing to give them Regina as a highly stereotypical Evil Queen who manages to be both an ice cold bitch and a sexual manipulator, because within that stereotype she has agency, power and enough screentime to build up an actual storyline that suggests moments of sympathy, in addition to her not being the only powerful and narratively important female character. The Genie, on the other hand, is a far minor character which goes back to what you say about the treatment of Sydney in the real world being harder to justify, which is half the problem. That and the fact that ultimately he gets tricked back into slavery, and unlike his counterpart Graham, has embraced, rather than fighting, the fact that he is weak and compromised.

I think the show also undercuts its own logic with regards to justifying the need to give its one character of colour an "exotic" background because a lot of one- and two-line and background characters in the fairytale world are of colour, which ends up looking like the worst sort of tokenism. Even if there could be a coherent argument that the fairytale world is simply like our world in that it clearly includes international travel and so there are a minority of people of colour within realms that are predominantly ethnically european, it doesn't end up playing like that because it rather seems it just hasn't been thought of?

Like, at a certain point, I suppose I get to that place I am with Mad Men, where I question if simply portraying oppression enough to imply critique? And to what degree is it necessary to ensure intention is clear for the audience? Particularly, as you say, given the way Sydney is treated in the realworld, which I agree, was in many ways far more problematic if less outrageously obvious.

With regards to Snow White's father...I hope you're right, I honestly do because if you're not I really don't know what they were thinking. I certainly think we were supposed to feel sympathy for the Queen to an extent. But something about the whole thing just...makes me uncertain. Partly it's because Snow White, at his funeral, is just so obviously devastated and loves her father so much, that I'm not sure I see them pulling a huge twist that she loved a guy who was, at times, monsterous. I suppose that could be an interesting story - where Snow realises that but still can't side with the Queen even though she was wronged; like anything it's salvageable but it still feels like an odd character beat. Especially given the way she's made out to be empathetic and caring. Like I'm not sure what that does to Snow's character if she was complicit, even in partial ignorance, in her stepmother's obvious and fairly horrific treatment (even if said treatment doesn't excuse said stepmother's homicidal tendencies)?

I really, really hope you're right, I just...I don't know. I suppose it seems so out of character for him otherwise and there was so little focus on the narrative twist that I suspect shenanigans. I suspect we're meant to go "OH MY GOD, HE'S A JERK!" for this middle act, before his redemption to the viewer arrives later and we find out what was really going on. That's what my, "expect the fairytale twist!" radar is doing.

I guess we'll see? I'll be super pleased, relieved, and perhaps even impressed, if I'm wrong.

P.S. I have stalled slightly on my OUAT vid, but I am going to try and throw myself back into it tomorrow; I have about 2/3rds of a draft done...

pt 1

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

Yeahhhh this was not their best. The racist and sexist elements were clearly there, but I was more distracted by the reliable writing strengths that were unusually absent, rather than new fail!information. For example, WTF with Emma being so OOC??? I do not need my characters to always be insaneo smart, but it was supremely odd that she trusted Sydney to that degree with such little convincing. I also found it incredulous that Emma would steal the blueprints for the playground and believe it was a 2ND HOME, WHA?? I really relish the power struggle between Emma and Regina, and that Regina often does outsmart Emma, but I really felt like this one was entirely unearned. *IF* they had played up the Emma is preoccupied with Henry card, I might have believed she was less vigilant about making allies, but the playground plot was too far-fetched for any in-character Emma.

But back to the racism and sexism issues...

I feel like we were expected to sympathize with the Evil Queen breaking Genie's heart, but also feel as though Genie being trapped in the mirror was portrayed as a righteous comeuppance. THIS DISTURBED ME GREATLY.

Genie's stalker-wish-reaction to being played by the Evil Queen evokes the Myth of the Black Rapist to an unsettling degree. Genie will have her even though she said NO (and she said No in a nice way for her, "hey you can live!"). Up until this point, it seemed he was making foolish, immoral choices because he was blinded by devotion and desire. Writing in the stalker-reaction unfortunately recontextualizes these behaviors as undifferentiated from those of the King: their affections suddenly revealed to be a veneer for the underlying motivations of control and possession.

But I don't think the show actually wanted us to read their motivations of control as equally threatening or equally requiring intervention. First, Genie is the only character we've seen in Fairytale world not engage in questions of family. He has no people to miss him, side with him, or fight on his behalf. Of course, we already know how devastating the King's death will be to Snow White. When the King dies, three storylines with three separate emotional impacts are simultaneously in action: 1- Snow White's heartbreak, 2- the Evil Queen is being freed (but before she was corrupted? or apparently not?), and 3- Genie's betrayal of the King. And, to some degree, it doesn't matter how you actually feel about any of these storylines as an audience member, so much as the King's death is structured to incite vastly different complex feelings.

As the King dies, his last words are condemning Genie, saying "I shouldn't have made that wish" - You know, the one freeing you from *SLAVERY* WTF. I get that he's been betrayed, that Genie has gone off the rails, and this statement could have even functioned ok if the show had actually positioned it as a really BAD thing to think. But then - the show actually AGREES WITH THIS - goes on to show Genie as a dangerous, rapey, middle-eastern black guy, and then follows up by actually reimprisoning him as a direct result of his dangerous rapeyness.

pt 2

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the queer angle - I mean this is the other thing that is so fascinating. Since the PILOT, Sydney's portrayal has demonstrated many, many characteristics of the closeted sissy sidekick trope. And I think making Sydney a genie is somewhat of a brilliant move in this regard, considering Orientalist stereotypes of middle eastern men as inherently queer, effeminate, pansexual, and Fairytaleland as this ultimate iteration of the kyriarchy and its pathologies. And I think they actually could have gone here with a critically engaged perspective since thus far, the M.O. of the show has been to poke holes in the romanticization of Fairytaleland.

Instead, Genie's subjectivity is ultimately rejected (and contained), and Sydney is Regina's new playboy??? For whatever reason I'm ok with pulling on old heterosexist tropes of subordinate sissies up until the point that they are pushed back into heterosexual paradigms, but, at that point, it feels like Sydney the character isn't allowed to exist except as a mirror of Regina... Which doesn't feel meta (the show isn't in her pov!) it just feels like we saw an episode about a character they refuse to fully construct.

Also - I FEAR YOUR RETCON IDEA D: And, I had a similar reading with Julie on the King Toby / Evil Queen situation.

Oh but one more thing! I think it is telling that one of the least believable Emma storylines intersected the racist sexist storylines since it's all just lazy writing....

Re: pt 1

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Emma's behaviour was annoying - all the more so because I think they could have played up her desire to tank Regina somehow as making her more irrational if they'd spent more time with it. Of course that starts to have the potential to become closer to the irrational woman's child-based desperation tropes, but it could have been done. But it wasn't and she didn't even get to realise that Sydney was in on it by the end meaning that we leave her in that same position which is frustrating.

It's interesting the points you bring up about the Genie. I hadn't actually clocked that because I was too busy feeling that he was subordinated and being used as a tool by the Queen and portrayed as easily manipulated than the stalker overtones. I still think the show's conscious intent was to show him as a victim of the Evil Queen, but one who made his own bed and now has to lie in it, but you raise a good point that intentional or not, the stalker/rapist overtones can be read into the situation and the rest of the show isn't good enough to merit good natured alternate readings.

When the King dies, three storylines with three separate emotional impacts are simultaneously in action: 1- Snow White's heartbreak, 2- the Evil Queen is being freed (but before she was corrupted? or apparently not?), and 3- Genie's betrayal of the King. And, to some degree, it doesn't matter how you actually feel about any of these storylines as an audience member, so much as the King's death is structured to incite vastly different complex feelings.

This is super interesting and a very good point but also a frustrating one. It recalls a lot of the issues I have with the episode - and potentially with the execution of the show in general (it's just not usually THIS egregious). Structurally and narratively there is a lot of fascinating stuff here. The fusion of the genie in the lamp with the magic mirror is fascinating in terms of bound magic, arrogance, powerful characters still limited by their masters, neutral forces most often bent towards cruelty. Similarly you show that the emotional impact of the king's death is structurally complicated in wonderful ways. But the execution wastes this - it doesn't clarify the conflicting emotions that could otherwise be validated by the tale. It leaves me confused rather than engaged because I don't feel safe enough with the intention of the show to engage in a truly formalist reading (echoes of BSG, echoes of BSG).

I guess I feel this way a little about the show deliberately contradicting the happiness of fairytaleland by showing its uglier sides. I think that they are but I'm also unwilling to fully believe it's their primary intention. Too much good is also present there, and the very nature of the show posits the modern world as purgatory. I'd adore if the show began to examine the possibility that if freed from the curse, the characters in Storybrooke might be equally happy, or happier or less happy depending on the individual, in the real world as much as in the Enchanted Forest. But I haven't seen anything yet that makes me feel the narrative has made an implicit promise to do so. A lot of the seedier underbelly of fairytaleland (the stuff that's not explicitly from evil characters, that is), can be read as a surface attempt to modernise the world and make it more "relevant", creating a sense of coolness and surprise whether that's the one-off laugh from a foul-mouthed dwarf or the more serious inclusion of edgy interkingdom realpolitik?

I'm totally indulging in cynicism here but hey, what's the internet for if not cynical whinging. ;)