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

[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...