beccatoria (
beccatoria) wrote2012-01-31 09:57 pm
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Interwebs & Parks & Rec & OUAT
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.)
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.)
Re: pt 1
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. ;)