ext_17566 ([identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] beccatoria 2012-02-04 12:59 am (UTC)

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...

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