In Defense of After Earth (2013)

Only straight, White men have the luxury of being lazy about watching a movie. The rest of us always seem to have to be on guard, just in case whatever White guy who wrote the movie, fucks up and traumatizes us with surprise images he didn’t give any thought to showing. Sometimes, when watching films, we have to constantly be wary of either being freshly traumatized by something on the screen,  or desperately clinging to whatever tiny nuggets are in the film, that we can apply to our lived experiences, in order for us to like it.

Not that White male reviewers are all particularly lazy, but there’s a very shallow sort of film critique that a lot of them engage in, that’s only about whether the movie is objectively good or bad, or the technical details. (And ranking movies seems to be really popular with such people, too.) There’s nothing inherently wrong with those kinds of reviews, but often people from marginalized groups require reviews that are a little more in-depth.

White men don’t get a lot of  practice of thinking about movies through different lenses, the way marginalized people often have to do. Many of them only have one lens, because most movies are made with them in mind as the audience, so they don’t NEED to look further into a movie, in order to like or dislike it. I’m not particularly interested in  a shallow review, or in ranking things from best to worst. If the word “suck” is mentioned anywhere in their critique, I  automatically dismiss anything else they might have to say about the movie. I want more from a critique than “It sucked!”

Yes. This is yet another essay on how White male film geeks review movies which star people of color!

After Earth (2013)

I have a real issue with how badly this movie was treated by everyone. The critics made it very clear that this was an awful film. It was not. And when this movie was released, Black people were not in the social position we’re in right now, where we could see how groundbreaking this was, (it was released just before BLM), and we were not in a position to provide pushback to the narrative that this was the worst film ever made.

No!

What it was, was a  film that was attacked with the agenda of demonizing  M. Night Shyamalan and Scientology. Will  and Jaden Smith were simply caught in the crossfire. This movie, while not a masterpiece, was vilified entirely out of proportion to its effect on the landscape. At any other time, especially any time after 2014, it would have been recognized as a middle-of-the-road, Summer blockbuster.

 

After Earth can be seen through both a thematic and racial lens, as  an example of Afrofuturism. Seeing this movie through a racial lens means that I need to put on my Black filmgoers glasses, and view the movie through the historical depictions of Black people in film, and whether or not the film has any messages in it that are about racial stereotyping, or agency, for example. This movie contains these things, not because it contains overt messages about race, but because it stars Black characters, and  our mere presence in the source material is enough to make whatever we say and do a political issue.

 

In After Earth, which stars Will Smith and his son Jaden, a father and son reconcile their feelings about each other, as the son comes of age, while set against the backdrop of planetary survival. A thousand years after Earth has been abandoned, their ship crashes, and  an alien predator the ship was carrying, called the Ursa, is set loose. Will and Jaden Smith are both Black men. The movie has no White characters in it. There are spaceships, alien/human cityscapes, and futuristic weaponry. This is as much Afrofuturism as Black Panther, and there is definitely some sort of dialogue occuring between the two films, though they were released several years apart, because they both involve sons dealing with the emotional legacies of  powerful fathers.

https://drmillerjr.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/after-earth-is-afrofuturism/

Traditionally, Black people have been erased from futuristic narratives, and Afrofuturism is an attempt to center us, and our cultures, and priorities, in those narratives. Will Smith, in particular, has a long history of starring in Science fiction films like Men in Black, Enemy of the State, and I Am Legend, movies that tackle the subjects of alien immigration, dystopian state surveillance, and the apocalypse, all features of what is, traditionally, White futurism.

After Earth has much to say about the relationships between fathers and sons, how sons want to live up (or down) their father’s legacies, and how father’s must reach out and connect with their children. Cypher Raige is a man who is cut off from his emotions because that is what has helped him to survive. In our world, it would be said that he suffers from a toxic form of masculinity, but Cypher’s ability to cut himself off from his feelings has made him one of Earth’s greatest soldiers against an alien race  that uses human fear to hunt and kill human beings. Cypher has gotten rid of fear, but in the process he’s also gotten rid of some of the  more positive emotions. He is a controlling, authoritative, and grim father figure, without much humor or warmth.

This lack of fear has made him a great Ranger, but it has made him an indifferent father to his son, Kitai, (a name which means “Hope” or “Prince of the Air”). Kitai wants not just to be like his father, follow in his footsteps, and become a great soldier, but to emotionally connect with his father. He wants desperately to know his father loves and supports him, especially after he fails his last exam to become a Ranger. He believes his father thinks he’s a failure because its what he himself believes. He is also suffering from the trauma of the death of his sister, who sacrificed her life to protect him from one of the Ursas, his guilt at being unable to save her, and his father for not being there when it happened. These are the motivations behind many of the decisions Kitai makes after he and his father crash on a long abandoned Earth, and Cypher is too injured to walk.

This set up puts the two of them in a position where they are required to rely on each other, not just physically, but emotionally. Kitai’s character arc involves learning that he is as capable a soldier as his father, and does not need to carry all these emotional burdens,  and Cypher’s character arc means having to open up to his son emotionally, and expressing how he really feels, and that that will be the only way his son can save both their lives. And all of this is an allegory about the emotional connections between Black men,  living in a White supremacist society, that is intrinsically dangerous to them, and requires that they be  hypermasculine, and emotionally cut off in order to survive it.

Cypher Raige : Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans. Do you know where we are?

Kitai Raige : No, sir.

Cypher Raige : This is Earth.

Viewing a movie through a racial lens requires that I provide some historical context to my opinions. I could discuss how the American version of the performance of toxic masculinity is based on a White supremacist dominance hierarchy, that requires violent domination and oppression of non-Whites, and that to survive this oppression, Black men have have felt the need to “out man” their oppressors. To essentially be more dominant, and more manly, than the White men who established this hierarchy to keep them in their place, and that their emotional disconnect with each other is not only what is ultimately desired by this dynamic, but leads to worse oppression, because attempting to compete with White men, to be more manly, dehumanizes them, and doesn’t allow them to unite against a system created just for that purpose.

https://oliviaacole.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/black-children-and-after-earth/

This movie had messages, moments, and dialogue,  that greatly resonated with me. The scene in which Cypher believes he has lost his son, in the same manner in which he lost his daughter, (both of them trying to win their emotionally distant, father’s approval),  was deep for me, as I suspect it was for many of  the Black men who watched it, and  who considered  their relationships with their own fathers, or their sons.

I watched After Earth several times, and it’s one of my favorite movies, which is why I was interested in why so many critics hated this movie,

 

(https://news.usc.edu/144379/usc-study-finds-film-critics-like-filmmakers-are-largely-white-and-male/)

and while there are a few legitimate criticisms that can be made about this movie, most of the criticism I saw wasn’t any different than the criticism I could lob at films with White stars. There is nothing wrong with the acting in this movie that is wrong in any of the other movies Will Smith has made, nor is there anything wrong with Will Smith making a movie with his son as the star, as he did in The Pursuit of Happyness, nor is this movie Scientology propaganda, any more than the other movies in which Smith was the star. (Will and Jada Smith have clearly, and emphatically, stated that they are not Scientologists, only sympathizers.)

I believe a lot of non-professional critics didn’t approach criticism of this movie in good faith, and I believe more than a few of them used the flaws in this movie as an excuse to express their racial resentment about the fact that there were no White men centered in this movie. There are also plenty of White people who felt some type of discomfort at not being centered, or even depicted, in the movie at all, and unwilling to attribute their discomfort to their narcissism, attributed their discomfort to the film being bad. The message of the movie, the relationship between young men and their fathers, is a universal one, (and I’m certain that many White men understood and enjoyed it, but then they’re not film critics), and it is well documented that  White audiences have always had trouble identifying with Black characters on screen.

https://www.salon.com/2016/10/05/luke-cage-and-the-racial-empathy-gap-why-do-they-talk-about-being-black-all-the-time/

https://www.indiewire.com/2014/01/why-white-people-dont-like-black-movies-162548/

https://mic.com/articles/74291/why-white-people-won-t-see-black-movies#.J55x1mpgF

 

Will Smith is an especially beloved actor, so many critics would not attack him directly, but they can get away with tossing insults at Shyamalan, and questioning his motivations for making the movie. One of the major criticisms I encountered were White critics who said the movie was a thinly veiled attempt to recruit viewers to Scientology. Why? Because Will Smith and Shyamalan are Scientologists. This is suspicious to me since none of these critics have ever given one thought to Smith being a follower of Scientology in any of his other Scifi movies.

And sometimes people will express racial resentment towards individual people that they don’t feel they can express against an entire group of people. So rather than saying “All ____ are ______.” , what they will do is vehemently call out the mistakes of individuals from those groups, in order to disguise their loathing for the entire group. The individual becomes a stand-in for racial sentiments they are reluctant, for whatever reasons, to express out loud. (And since they only ever attack individuals of that group, they never have to admit whatever phobia or -ism there is, to themselves.)

For example, witness some of the more  interesting criticism that White male film critics have said about Captain Marvel being military propaganda, when the same could be said of nearly every other movie in the MCU, at which none of them lobbed this complaint. And one can witnesses the same dynamic play out in the Jussie Smollett case, where people tried to hide their homophobia by expressing deeply vehement criticism of him, and his circumstances.

This type of criticism is dishonest, and disingenuous, and serves to protect the critic from backlash if they state their actual reasons for not liking some film, which is really ,  “I didn’t like this movie because there were no White men in it for me to identify with.” (This is not a hard and fast rule, all the time,  because plenty of White people liked Get Out, Black Panther, and other Afro-centered movies, but it is far too common, and there are too many, who  think they’re not being racist because they liked two or three highly popular movies that starred Black actors. It’s  basically, the critical equivalent of, “I have Black friends!”

I’m not the only person to notice this type of bullshittery either:

https://heraldiccriticism.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/when-criticism-becomes-agenda-setting-in-defense-of-after-earth/

 …but when you’re trashing a film based on its star’s belief system, you’ve ceased to criticize. You’re now spearheading an agenda.

Fred Harris touched on some of my suspicions, here:

Did a perception that this is somehow a “Black film” have anything to do with its poor opening? I know that this is a question that Hollywood producers (black and white) must be asking as they prepare for a summer of Black films.

https://newsone.com/2530136/after-earth-movie-review-racism/

And if you are wondering why I haven’t brought up “The Pursuit of Happyness” just yet, which was given 4 out of 5 stars by IMDB, it’s because Jaden was cute and fuzzy back then — and it was his debut. But the moment it seems that the Smiths are actually on to something, meaning leaving a life-long legacy for their children, now all bets are off.

Now we will call Jaden’s acting with his blockbuster dad an exercise in “vanity,” now we are disgusted with the apparent nepotism that this type of pairing suggests.

This movie was nominated for a Razzie, and was panned by almost every White male critic with a pen and an ax to grind. All of them questioned whether or not Will Smith had lost his Star power, and what that would mean for his future films. Even Bright, a film I intensely hated, wasn’t panned as badly as this movie.

Outside of my usual critical ranting, I also want to shine a light on why my opinions on a lot of movies can sometimes diverge from that of critics, what criteria I  use, what lenses  through which I can,and will, see a movie,  and how I approach watching and critiquing movies and TV shows, vs how White film critics might view movies I happen to love, and how these two ways of seeing a movie are sometimes not compatible.

This is a mindset I have had no choice but to develop though, because, as a Black woman,  I am generally not the audience  that a lot of these movies of are made for. I have had to look beyond surface issues, like whether or not it was better than some other film in a franchise, to find reasons to like movies that White people love, and sometimes I’m successful, but sometimes, I also get tired of making the effort to care, and skip the movie altogether, as I did with Ready Player One, and Back to the Future.

White men have never had to look deeper than the technical aspects of cinematography, plot, pacing, or whether or not the hero of the movie looked like them, and what that might mean if he did. For them, the movies they love don’t even need to have any meaning. When you hear them complaining about entertainment being political this is what mean. For such men, movies and TV really are not political, because they don’t need to have any deeper meaning to enjoy a movie. They can just be flatly judgmental about whether or not a movie is just “good” or “bad”, because traditionally, the movies, which are aimed at them as the audience, are supposedly universal, and  appealing  to everyone. Too many critics never go beyond the mindset of ,”I liked this movie, so naturally, everyone else must like it, and here’s why it’s so great.” I can  critique a movie from that angle but its shallow, and  “unsatisfying” for me.

It has always been my rule since I was a teenager, really, to only rely on myself to determine whether or not a movie is any good, but after examining this for some time,  I have come to the conclusion that I most definitely cannot rely on  the opinions of White men to determine if a movie is bad or good for me, or indeed, anyone, other than themselves.

I have always tried to be honest about why I did or didn’t like something. Even if I don’t know why  I feel the way I do, I’m willing to say that too, and state that, where I found nothing in the movie to intrigue me, the movie may be of interest to someone else. I will flat out state, I’m not interested in a movie because it lacks racial nuance, or because its not feminist enough, the way I did for Wonder Woman.

This is not a mindset I’ve seen, from some critics, that a movie simply might not be made for them. One of the key warning signs that you are with a bad critic, is their insistence that a movie is objectively bad or good, and that if you disagree with them, then something is wrong with you. I’ve seen far too many critics assert that, because they liked a movie, it was good, and that a movie was bad, because they didn’t like it, and then, on top of that, say that that they gave an objective review. I have hated plenty of movies that are, in fact, very good and cohesive films. But I’ve also loved plenty of movies that just aren’t great movies. Just like After Earth.

No! There’s nothing wrong with you. You are simply looking at the film through a different lens, and using different criteria than them. and you must be confident that YOU know what you like in a film.

Side note: I do not believe in “guilty pleasures”. I am never ashamed of loving or liking  a movie, or television show. I have my reasons for why I like something, I have actually thought it through, and I’m secure enough in my tastes that I know what my reasons are, even if the only reason is that it makes me feel happy, or that it looks pretty! I may occasionally be ashamed that I didn’t catch something seriously wrong with a movie, in my zeal to praise it, but I  am generally not ashamed when I like something, or to admit that I do, nor will I feel guilty about it.

And you shouldn’t either.

As a corollary to that general rule, I refuse to shame people for their own tastes, even if I find those tastes “puzzling”… If you can explain to me in a coherent manner why you love something (even if your only explanation is it makes you happy, or its just pretty), I can get with that. Your feelings about a movie are entirely valid, and you will never hear me describe anything on this blog as a “guilty” pleasure, and I would prefer that you don’t either.

Own your feelings!

 

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/after-earth-2013

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/in-defense-of-after-earth-the-m-night-shyamalan-movie-we-misunderstood

*Coming Soon: Why We Loved Suicide Squad and Venom, and Why They Didnt’

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‘Love, Death & Robots’ suffers from blatant sexism

https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/netflix-love-death-robots-review/

Short films can find it hard to attract a wider audience, so it’s cool to see Netflix promote a big, splashy showcase of animated sci-fi shorts. Sadly, Love, Death & Robots feels much less cool and boundary-pushing when you take a closer look. Curated by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and David Fincher (Fight Club), this anthology is full of gratuitous onscreen sexism—and blatant gender discrimination behind the camera.

I did watch this on Netflix,  and I actually enjoyed a few of the shorts featured as they were written by one of my favorite authors, John Scalzi. John Scalzi is not known as an especially “edgy” type of writer. In fact, he’s very progressive, so those shorts seem incongruous next to some of the other, more violent, shorts in the anthology. But this article is correct in stating that in every short that featured violence, female sexuality and nudity was associated with it, and in every instance of female nudity or sexuality, there was an extreme amount of violence involved in that story. In some of the stories the two occur simultaneously.

In all fairness though, not all of the short films feature either topic, and some of them are actually worth watching. Most notable were:

The Day the Yogurt Took Over was written by Scalzi from his anthology titled Miniatures. It’s hilarious.

Ice Age was very interesting. I enjoyed it a lot.

Fish Night is a story I remember reading, in another anthology, a couple of decades ago, and the story just stuck with me.

Lucky 13 was one of the better Scifi stories, and has a Black woman as the lead character.

Three Robots was really cute and it has cats, so some of you will definitely like it, and Suits was frantic and suspenseful.

But the story that affected me the most was Zima Blue, which I consider one of the best stories in the entire anthology. It was emotional and though provoking.

 

The Wired is a lot more damning of the show than I am though:

Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots is sexist sci-fi at its most tedious

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/love-death-and-robots-review-netflix

It’s not just a male gaze that ruins Love, Death & Robots, it’s an adolescent male gaze. The sex scenes are so bad they’re funny. At times, the dialogue is borderline farcical. All too often the series leans precariously on visual tricks – and while the worlds created here are vast and vivid, the plots are often non-existent.

Star Trek Discovery Season Two – Midseason Update

This season has become a very interesting blend of the personal moments interlocking with the overarching plot, for a lot of the characters. We are re-introduced to Phillipa Gheorghiu , Doctor Culber, and Ash Tyler, as well.

In the first season we dealt with Michael’s personal traumas and how those traumas impacted the decisions she made throughout the season. Her life isn’t perfect, now. There still needs to be resolution on some of the issues of her childhood, and choices she made last season, so the writers are getting started on working on some of her childhood issues with Spock and her parents, and how these relationships intersect with the Red Angels in the series main plot.

We’re also dealing with the traumas and issues related to other characters and the show has experienced its first real death in the form of Airiam, the cyborg-like being who was a member of the ship’s bridge crew. We get a little bit of backstory on her, who she was, what happened to her.

The show has gotten a lot better at integrating all these plots into the greater plot of the show because last season some of the themes felt a little separated, to the point where some people were very confused about what the show was about, saying that it felt disjointed. Well, they’ve gotten better at it, because it’s impossible to talk about the other characters, and other themes, without relating them to events which happen in the main plot involving the Red Angels.

 

The Discovery is still on the trail of the Red Angels who keep sending them to different places in the galaxy, usually to resolve some issue that needs Starfleet’s immediate attention. Spock has had visions of the Angels since he was a small child. When we first met Spock he was a cute little six or seven year old, and his first meeting with Michael was not promising, as he closed his bedroom door in the face of the new sister his parents introduced him to. Later, through flashbacks, we find that he and Michael closely bonded, but after several murder attempts from Vulcan radicals Michael decided to run away from home to protect her family, and she emotionally hurt Spock to get him to leave her alone, an event which altered Spock’s perception of her and his own humanity.

In the first season we dealt with Michael’s  emotional fall out of the Klingons having killed her immediate family, but this season we are dealing with the fallout of Michael having been attacked several times by Vulcan radicals, who were trying to rid Vulcan of humans, and destroy the diplomatic bonds between the two planets. This was mentioned somewhat in the first season in Sarek, and Michael’s flashbacks to her childhood while we dealt with the emotional repercussions of Sarek’s life choices regarding her and Spock, and the reparation of their estranged relationship. it turns out though that Michael’s actions are completely meaningless, as Spock explains to her that she is not the focus of the Vulcan terrorist’s  anger. Its Spock, because he’s half human, and they are opposed to miscegenation.

This season we are watching Michael try to fix the relationship between her and Spock, and hopefully the two will be reconciled. Meanwhile, Spock is of major importance to Starfleet,  (and a clandestine organization in Starfleet called Section 31), as he is the only being who has any knowledge of the Red Angels. Spock is on the run, after escaping from an asylum, after being accused of killing several doctors. When Michael finds him, he is mentally incapacitated by his visions, and it is up to her to decipher them, (and with the help of the Talosians) figure out how they are connected to current events. The Talosians are a race of strong telepaths, who are directly tied to Pike’s past and future, and are referenced in the original Star Trek episode, The Cage. I am really loving how the writers have fleshed out his character, because he has almost none in the original series. I really like him now, so when I went back and watched The Cage, it hit me especially hard.

I have a theory about the Red Angel that may have some impact on Spock’s relationship with Michael, and why they appeared to Spock, and only Spock, in the first place. It turns out that the Red Angels (at least one of them) is a woman, wearing a special suit from the future. A couple of episodes ago, the Discovery encounters a  dying creature that the Red Angels led them to, whose explosive death creates some time repercussions for the crew, and Captain Pike, with many other  characters receiving visions and information of the past and future, including Airiam, a cybernetic being who regularly uploads her memories to the ship’s core computer.

I think the Red Angel that Spock has known for most of his life, and nearly drove him insane, is probably some future version of Michael. The Red Angels always appear at the moment of some future catastrophe that the Discovery is supposed to prevent, which sounds exactly like the kind of thing Michael would do – trying to help the galaxy by heading off catastrophes, before they can happen, or save people during and after them. (At this point in the show, I have been proven both right and wrong about who the Red Angel is.)

As of this review, Michael and Spock have had some severely uneasy conversations regarding Michael’s selfish tendencies to shoulder responsibility for things that are not her fault, like her parents deaths, the terrorist attacks against her as a child, and the danger to Sarek’s family because of that,  or fix problems that are not hers to fix, like Spock’s emotional issues. Needless to say, Michael does not like hearing these things about herself, but I agree with Spock.

From the beginning of the show, we’ve watched Michael try to solve everyone else’s problems, and fix everyone, in favor of ignoring her own needs. This is most telling in an earlier episode where Tilly is going through some extreme emotional event, but so is Michael as she has just had a fight with her mother, and rather than focus on her own problem, Michael tries to fix Tilly’s problem. his is a constant that can get a little frustrating at times, becomes it skirts too closely to the Mammy trope, (where a Black female character focuses her attention on solving the problems of the White characters around her rather than focusing on her own issues.) I understand why they are showing Michael like this. They are presenting Michael’s focus on saving other people as a character flaw that Michael needs to work on, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

Spock confronts Michael, saying she is a martyr, who is always trying to save everyone, like Spock, Sarek, and her parents, even though she is not responsible for the situations they  find themselves in. Michael has to acknowledge this when she is given the decision to kill Airiam, to stop her from uploading information that will bring sentience to an AI that wants to destroy the galaxy. Michael desperately resists killing her friend, and is saved from having to do so, by the security officer who opens an airlock to destroy her. But we can see in that scene of Michael desperately trying to save Airiam’s life, everything that Spock said about her, because not only was she disobeying a direct order from both Pike and Airiam, she was endangering her own life, and the lives of the entire ship’s crew.

There is also the subplot of Dr. Culber being alive again, and Ash Tyler, now a member of Section 31, being back on the ship. If you remember from season one, Ash discovered he was a Klingon (Voq) who had been genetically altered to look human, with Ash Tyler’s human personality as an overlay. The human Ash is dead, and this is who is left behind, the Voq personality having been expunged from the body. When he was Voq he killed Dr. Culber. Through the assistance of his  lover, Stamets, and Tilly, and the spores (which is an entirely different subplot connected to Culber) he is alive and again and reconciling his after life experience with who he is and what happened to him. This is a situation that is not helped by having his killer on board. Culber does try to work out his grievance by kicking Ash’s ass, but that doesn’t work, and he is still very …discombobulated, I guess. As of the last episode, thanks to some counseling from several friends, (and Gheorgiu), he is beginning to grasp some idea of who he is,  and what he meant to Stamets, but the two of them are still not yet reconciled.

As of the writing of this review, Discovery has been issued a renewal and we will be getting a Season three! I expect there to be a bigger ratings bump after the debut of Jordan Peele’s new version of The Twilight Zone, especially after the success of his new movie, Us.

This review is a little bit late because I’ve had some life interfering in my leisure time, but hey! better late than never, huh? I will be back at the end of the season to give an overview of what happened and my thoughts about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Reading/ Feb. 22nd, 2019

The Matrix

This isn’t a new theme, but I liked this little essay about how to enjoy movies with so much gunfire in them, in this age of daily mass shootings. How can we enjoy such scenes, and what makes these scenes different from the kinds of scenes we’ve see on our TV screens, on  a regular basis? And what type of role does such a scene have on the prevalence of mass shootings? Not in causing them, but in inspiring how they’re committed.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/reckoning-with-the-matrixs-gun-problem.html

 

 

Romantic Tropes

There is however a real link between how Hollywood depicts romance, and men’s ideas of how romance is meant to be performed, and what’s considered romantic rather than abusive.

To be fair,women also receive toxic messages about romance, outside of what’s discussed in this essay, like the idea that women  can fix broken men, an idea so normalized in Hollywood, that it even shows up in romantic fiction written by women.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/when-pop-culture-sells-dangerous-myths-about-romance/549749/

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7038172/hey-movies-this-isnt-romantic

 

 

 

Racist Vigilantism

As to the event that happened with Liam Neeson a couple of weeks ago, in which he confessed to an event of racial vigilantism in his youth,  I think Roland Martin, from TVOne News, says it best. But the point also needs to be made that Liam Neeson was only doing what countless numbers of Hollywood films have encouraged White men to do in the protection of White women’s bodies, which is go out and harm men of color, beginning with Birth of a Nation.  Endless Action movies and Westerns are  predicated on the basic plot of : White man goes out and shoots people he thinks  are bad.

Liam himself has starred in countless numbers of films in which he avenges the sacrilege, or deaths, of female characters. I’m disappointed, but not angry, at Liam, for doing exactly what he’s been told to do, since the invention of film media. White woman been hurt? Go out and terrorize some Black people!

https://www.thedailybeast.com/black-america-knows-white-avengers-like-liam-neeson-all-too-well?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

 

 

Film Criticism Diversity

 

Yeah, we’ve been talking about this for a minute.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/6/22/17466246/criticism-film-movie-diversity-annenberg-study-larson-blanchett-bullock-kaling

 

 

The Apocalypse

The basic idea of this article is that common depictions of the apocalypse are just wrong. We already have examples of how people react in the event of massive life-changing events in places that have experienced natural disasters. So why don’t we ever see any of that in Apoclaypse style movies? In fact the people in those movies, especially Western films, all react the same, running trough the streets, burning, killing and pillaging. Along with the lack of bicycles after the apocalypse, showing people acting a fool, during the end of the world, just makes for more dramatic screen images, I guess.

https://www.tor.com/2018/11/14/what-really-happens-after-the-apocalypse/

 

 

 

Misogyny

This one discusses how the disparaging of romance novels, and Chic-Lit, is really just another form of devaluing women’s interests and hobbies, and I agree. I think there’s something to this. Anytime women show an interest in some thing, or engage in an activity, there’s a contingent of gatekeepers, and intelligentsia, who crawl out from under the world’s baseboards, to take a shit on everything from romance novels and coloring books, to scrapbooking and fanfiction, to TV shows and Ugg boots.

In fact, this very much pertains to all Pop culture media, for which women are the audience. Pay close attention to criticism of the kinds of hobbies and interests women engage in, vs, the kinds of interests engaged in by men, and see that you don’t find that much of it is negative.

 

https://thetempest.co/2018/03/09/entertainment/chick-lit-romance-bias/

 

 

 

White Nationalism’s Nightmare

If you haven’t seen the movie The Girl with All the Gifts, then you need to check it out. This is an interesting analysis of what this movie means to those arguing that White Genocide is a thing. I gave a review of it on this blog.

https://racebaitr.com/2017/07/25/girl-gifts-nightmare-white-supremacy/

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-2016/

Titans (DCEU) Season One

 

I actually liked this series, although I was more than a little dubious about it from looking at the trailer. The trailer for this show should just be ignored. The show has a few problems, but those problems can be overcome.

The show starts with Raven, and her superpowers, being pursued by some unknown agents. She ends up in jail where she meets Dick Grayson. She knows who he is and pleads with him to help her. There are several suspenseful escapes from the people pursuing her. Along the way, she meets Garth (Beast Boy) and his family, the Doom Patrol, in episode four, and eventually, she encounters a superteam duo, called Hawk and Dove, who were also in the comic books, but I don’t remember them, which shows you how little of an impression they made on me. I don’t know if they’re going to have a  spin off show of their own.

It turns out the people pursuing her are the members of a cult that worship her demon father, Trigun, and are trying to procure her to work for them, so they can summon him to Earth. They are unsuccessful for the most part but then, of course, her mother (who she thought was dead), reappears, claiming to want to take care of her, or something. Naturally, since she was the one who slept with Trigun she’s on his side, which is a plot point you can see coming a mile away, but Rachel doesn’t even think about asking her mother why she slept with a demon. So yeah, her mother tricks her into summoning her father, even though Rachel knows she’s probably  not supposed to do that.

And let’s just say the comic book version of Trigun made a huge impression on me as a kid. Yeah, this show version was  deeply underwhelming. I was not whelmed at all.

I think one of the main problems, with this show, is the focus on Raven as a character. The actress makes this character  less than compelling because she simply isn’t a very good actress. I mean she is an adequate actress, who is not good enough to pull off this role,  and I found myself more interested in Beast Boy’s story because Ryan Potter is just better. At every opportunity, the other actors outshine her, and are much more interesting as characters. Yes, even Dick.

There’s also the small sideplot point of Beast Boy having  trouble controlling himself  (along with some PTSD) after he kills (and eats) a man in the form of a tiger, which seems to be his go-to animal. I found Garth’s questions about the nature of his abilities to be much more interesting than anything Raven was getting up to. On the other hand, watching  the two of them  bonding as friends, was really sweet, and Beast Boy is very quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. He was mostly just annoying in the comic books but Ryan Potter’s incredibly expressive face perfectly captures both the sunniness, and the menace, of this character. Most of the time Garth is a friendly and open person, but when he goes to his animal form, he can be pretty terrifying, which is not necessarily something that can be conveyed in illustrations.

Seeing certain characters brought to life, seeing their powers manifest for real, rather than on a page,  has a different effect on how you think of them sometimes. I thought the idea of all his animals being green would be kind of silly, but the way its shown isn’t silly, at all. Potter’s body language really sells it, and you get some idea of how much power this  guy has (especially if you just ignored him in the books.)

I am reasonably  familiar with the Teen Titans comic books, (even though I’m not a DC fan, in general), and the Teen Titans Go TV show. In the comic books, my favorite character was Raven.  I found her backstory, as the daughter of the world destroying demon, Trigun, very fascinating. If you’re a fan of the cartoon, that Raven isn’t all that different from the comic book version, except for being funnier and snarkier. Oddly, the Starfire from the cartoon isn’t all that different either, at least in temperament, from the comic book version either, except in the comic book, she’s a lot sexier, which brings us to Ana Diop as Starfire.

My least favorite character from the comic books  is Starfire, although my niece, The Potato, loves her. I mostly found the character uninteresting, and occasionally, annoying.  I  thought of her as “chirpy”, but then I was a lot younger when I read those. In the show, as portrayed by Ana Diop, she’s a much more interesting character, who, at first, isn’t much like her comic book version at all. She’s kind of broody and dark, but there’s a reason for that.  Its only towards the end of the season that she starts to get more snarky, but she still lacks the sunny, happy go lucky, problem free attitude, of the woman from the comic books ,although she has an incredible smile, that when she bothers to use it, just makes you smile too.

She’s one of my favorite characters on the show. I especially love that everytime we see her, just like in the comic books, she’s wearing purple, and unlike the comic books, her scenes  are always accompanied by disco music, which I thought was hilarious. Of all the characters, she’s the most knowing and mature, while paradoxically, knowing the least.

The Starfire from the comic books is an exceptionally powerful character. which is something people tend to forget. She is a very visually distracting character, because  she barely wears any clothes, (she really does love the color purple, though). She does things in the comic books that I didn’t think about seeing on the screen because I got caught up in how she looks too. I didn’t like her hair. I didn’t like her outfits. Her attitude is different. When she uses those massive force blasts in the show, literally incinerating a roomful of men into a pile of charcoal briquets, that shit is… let’s just say, I was a bit taken aback. This was not what I’d thought about when I thought about her. Like I said, it’s different when you see it brought to life, in this manner.

When we first meet Starfire, or Kory , as the show refers to her, she has lost all her memory, which accounts for the change in attitude, at least. She encounters Rachel and adopts her as a little sister, and   vows to protect her. It isn’t until near the end of the season that she gets her memory back, and her relationship with Rachel suffers for it, which is really tragic because you could see that the four of them, Beast Boy,  Robin, Kory and Rachel were beginning to form a family. I was not impressed by the comic book version of the character but the onscreen version is truly impressive and Ana Diop is doing a wonderful job with it. I can see why she was chosen for this role. (We’re not about to address the racist wtf*ery from the fandom, and  which has surrounded the  character, from the moment the actress was announced. Ain’t nobody got time for that!)

This is not a great show, but I’m interested in the family dynamics at play, and the relationships between the characters, as they develop. Kory and Dick develop a relationship which is canon to some of the comic books, and I liked seeing that. Brendan Thwaites, I have no idea who he is, is an adequate Robin, and it was a lot of fun watching him interact with Jason Todd, the Robin who replaced him.

Dick has some anger issues, and a chip on his shoulder with Batman, which is also kind of true to the comic books, despite that silliness  in the trailer. I have to admit I mostly think of Batman’s various kids as a huge, squabbling bunch of emos, and I would love to see some of the other Batkids in the show. I find it amusing to watch them fight amongst themselves, but they will  still kick the asses of anyone who messes with  their siblings. (Batman has, like, a dozen kids! I have never found that NOT funny.)

I wish the show had been a little more focused and not sort of all over the place, though. Its not that the plot points are not resolved, its that characters (Hawk, Dove, The Nuclear Family,  Doom Patrol, Jason Todd, Donna Troy) are introduced, and disappeared, so fast we barely get to know them, and the characters keep moving from place to place. The show appears to be both moving too fast and meandering slowly towards its conclusion. The pacing needs to be better. It just felt like the writers were trying to squeeze in as many cameos from the comic books as possible.

Marvel and DC seem to have carved out their respective territories with Marvel tearing it up on the big screen, while  the Prime Time TV market  is seems well settled by DC, with 7 to 8 shows airing now, and some 8 more on the way, most of which will be on the DCEU app. (Marvel and DC both  have a f**kton of animated works too.)

Titans is available on the DC app. Ignore the awful trailer and give it try if you can.

Some Exciting Trailers!

Doom Patrol

I’m actually enjoying Titans, which is something I’ll talk about later, but one of my favorite episodes was number four, which featured the superhero group, called Doom Patrol. Yes, they are comic book characters. No, I never read any of the books. I sort of knew about Doom Patrol in passing, but never actually picked up any of the books. Occasionally, I’d stumble across that Robot guy, but I’ve never heard of the team beyond Cyborg.

In the Titans episode clip below, Beast Boy takes Raven to meet his family. I have this thing about depictions of family dynamics, so I was on board right from the beginning. The team, as it will in the show, consists of Negative Man (the guy with the bandages), Elastic Woman (who can shift her looks), Robot Man (who used to be a race car driver before he lost his body in an accident), Cyborg,(we met him in Justice League), and Jane (who has 60 different personalities, all of whom have a different superpower).

I’m looking forward to watching this soon.

 

Fast Color

One of the things I like about the new year are all the interesting new trailers for films no one has mentioned, or I’ve never heard of. This is Fast Color, about a Black woman who has superpowers, who goes home to discover her daughter has abilities too. I really like Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I’ll watch anything in which she stars, so if this is playing in my area, maybe I can talk Mom into going to see it with me.

 

 

Avengers Endgame

This is the latest trailer for the new Avengers movie, airing during the Superbowl. I’m very excited to see this movie mostly because I’m deeply curious about the interactions between characters who have never met before.

It seems that we’ve been reduced to the first five, or so, original Avengers, in the direct aftermath of the loss of so much life, so there’s a distinctly melancholy feel to the movie. I don’t mind, as long as I get to see most of my favorites return.

 

 

The Twilight Zone

I’m a huge fan of the original TW, and the various reboots weren’t too bad either. I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele, who has already shown us his horror bonifides with his first movie, Get Out, and his newest release this Spring, titled US. I think he’s just a Producer on this, which is cool. I already have the CBS All Access App for watching Star trek Discovery, so I might as well take advantage.

 

 

Hanna

I can’t say I’m a fan of the movie, which turned out not to be the full on action fest I thought it would, but turned out to be quieter, and more contemplative, than I thought. I did not dislike the movie this came from, but I didn’t love it either, probably because my expectations, and the payoff were so wildly different.

The movie is a bout a young girl raised by her adoptive father to be lethal, her escape from his pursuers, and her attempts to live as a normal teenager, when she meets another young woman looking to be friends. If the show follows the movie, then be prepared for some really good action scenes, alongside a great deal of  coming of age drama. I’m curious about this. one of the  standout things , from the movie, was Hanna’s relationships with the normal teens, and their reactions to who and what she is.

So, I’m going to check it out and let you know what’s going on here. Hanna airs on Amazon Prime. Tbh, I haven’t watched a single one of Amazon Prime’s many original series, so maybe I’ll break that record with this one.

 

 

Toy Story 4

I’m probably not going to the theater to see this, but then I’ve said that about other movies, so don’t take me at my word on it. After all, I have several nieces and nephews who all love Toy Story, I’ve seen all the other ones in theaters, and I could be easily persuaded to take them to see it. My family has discovered that I am notoriously easy to be talked into seeing movies I had no plans to watch, (and I’m pretty sure my Mom is just taking shameless advantage of me.)

So, we’ll see.

 

 

Game of Thrones

Season eight is coming.

 

 

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

I remember scaring myself to death with these books as a kid, so I’m mildly excited about a movie based on them. For me the scariest parts of the books are the illustrations, but some of the stories are pretty effective today, too. Apparently this movie is produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who rarely goes wrong when it comes to Horror, so I’m looking forward to checking this out.

 

 

 

Hobbs and Shaw

I’m not really a Fast and Furious fan. I’ve maybe watched half of the movies, but the inclusion of Idris Elba, as a total badass, has my complete attention, Since my Mom is a huge Idris fan, and will actually go see movies featuring The Rock, and for some  reason that is unbeknownst to the rest of her family, has become enamored of Jason Statham’s Transporter movies, I’m pretty sure I can talk her into going to see this movie with me.

It looks like a helluva lot of fun, too.

 

 

The Secret Life Of Pets 2

I though the original film was just sooo cute! My favorite character is Gidget because  her name reminds me of those Gidget Beach movies I watched as a kid. This new trailer is really funny, so I’m sure I can be talked into going to see it by my sister’s kids.

 

Star Trek: Discovery; Season Two

Star Trek: Discovery

I watched the second season premiere of this, and I’m sensing a theme. If the first two episodes are any indication then the overarching theme for this season will be Faith vs. Science. In the first episode, the Discovery is sent to investigate several light flares throughout the galaxy, as people claim to have seen “Red Angels” figures at those sites. Micheal is hoping to meet with Spock, from whom she has been estranged, but learns from Captain Pike that Spock checked himself into a mental institution just before the Enterprise met up with Discovery. (The series is set about ten years before the original series. Pike is the Capt. of the Enterprise, at this time, and Spock is his Science Officer.)

In the second episode, the Discovery follows one of these flares to a planet humans were brought to just before WW3, by some unknown alien benefactors. There’s not a lot of discussion surrounding who these mysterious benefactors are, which is the part of the show I was most interested in. There are some long discussions about having religious faith versus faith in science, which would be a lot more convincing if the writers made clear exactly what they meant by religion, and faith.

The underlying themes of the season will be watching the crew actually become a crew, after Lorca’s betrayal last season, and Pike is just the Captain they need to regain their equilibrium, as he is much more relaxed in his captaining style, slightly looser in his interpretation of the rules, and also “not evil”. This season’s focus, while not taking the main camera off Michael’s journey, will also be the viewers getting to know the rest of the crew. We’ll be getting to know the bridge crew, following Tilly’s and Saru’s development as officers, and following Stamets’ journey as he mourns his late partner, Dr. Culber. Not every episode is going to centered on Michael, but just as with last season, she’s in nearly every scene, and we’re always well informed about where she is physically and emotionally during any episode, even if that episode isn’t strictly about her.

Tilly gets into some physical trouble after which she begins to see the ghost of a former high school friend. This “ghost” may or may not be related to the return of Dr. Culber, as fans have been very upset at his fridging, and we were promised his return. I’m inclined to believe the creators because they very emphatically promised the return of Phillipa, and she did return, just not in a manner we thought she would.

We also get some more backstory on Michael’s relationship with her adoptive family, and her first meeting with Sarek’s wife Amanda, who took to this little girl as if she were her own, and I loved seeing their relationship. Spock was less welcoming to her, so he, for sure, had some feelings about her living in the house.

On the away team mission of the second episode, we get some interesting backstory on the bridge crewmember, Owesekun (pronounced Owe-WAY-sha-kun). We discover she is from a community of Luddites, so I can’t help but think that her making it to Starfleet had to be an interesting journey, and I hope we get an episode devoted to her past. We get a statement from Detmer that she got her pilot’s licence when she was 12 years old, which I find intriguing. Piloting what? So we have started getting these intriguing little glimpses of the bridge crew’s personal lives. There’s an Asian man on the bridge who we know nothing about, and a Black man, with no backstory, so yeah, we’ve got plenty of stories to be told. I think I noted before that outside of Pike there are no White men in the bridge crew at all. (No, Saru does not count.)

But I think the most intriguing character on the bridge is this person. Is she like Robocop? What is she/he/they? We havent even gotten a hint yet, and she hasn’t said a whole lot, but I hope we find out this season.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2017/12/meet-the-star-trek-discovery-bridge-crew-cast/

 

For some reason, this iteration of Star Trek has been successfully hiring comedians as extras on the show, and I just want to shout out to the woman above, Tig Notaro. if you haven’t heard any of her stand up, go take a listen. She’s hilarious on stage and she’s very refreshing here, and  I hope she stays on the ship. I’d like to see a more of her.

In the first episode, we get this awesome look at he crew working like a well oiled machine. They are simply fantastic, and it was a real joy to watch,  as they worked to save Michael’s life, when she is injured on an away mission. Now this is the Star Trek I remember, (only everyone talks a lot faster). My advice for those complaining that the show didn’t feel very Trek-like in that first season was to give it time, because the show had to get its main character’s  primary backstory out of the way, after which we could actually focus on the mission, and their  characters.

A lot of the feel of the first season was due to the presence of Lorca, who had a heavier, more intense persona, and this episode really shows how a Captain influences the mood of the bridge, and it’s crew. With the addition of Pike, the show feels lighter, and well…happier. Probably because that’s how he is, and while I actually did like Lorca, I definitely prefer Pike, even though he’s not much like the original series Pike. It’s not that the show lacks drama. It just doesn’t feel as dark and heavy. Starfleet isn’t involved in a war, and the Captain isn’t secretly evil. Yay!

Now, I have to talk about something really quick here. I’m having some kind of emotional reaction to Michael, that for some reason, I did not foresee, and part of it is because there has never been a character like Michael in a mainstream scifi show. I knew she was a groundbreaking character, but I didn’t give it deep thought, and really, the closest we fans have ever gotten is Uhura, and it took decades to start fleshing her character out, even a little bit. (We won’t mention Abby from Sleepy Hollow.)

I really cannot think of  a Black female character that has been, not just the emotional focus of a Scifi show,  but one who has been given so much backstory, and depth, and I’m having some trouble articulating how I feel about that level of representation. What’s even more interesting, for me, is that we are getting this type of character development, that isn’t centered around her race. Its not that there have never been Black women in such shows, there are a few I’ve greatly admired, including Uhura, Guinan, Auntie Entity from Thunderdome, Grace Jones, Martha from Doctor Who, but none like Michael. (There are other Black female characters in other shows, and I love them too, but they usually are not the center or focus of the entire show. The show isn’t exactly about them. I think the closest we get to such characters are Thunder from Black Lightning, and Iris West from The Flash.)

I want to say I like Michael, but it goes far beyond liking her. I want to love her, but I am nervous about getting too close to her, (not because she’s a bad character, but because I cannot trust the writers to do right by her. I fully expect them to fuck this up because that has always been the pattern). I cannot imagine what it must be like for Black women, younger than me, to see themselves so represented, so closely, in one of the most iconic television shows in  history. I can’t imagine it for them, because I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for me, although I knew what I wanted. One of the very first posts I ever wrote for this blog was called “Black Women like to have adventures too”. I didn’t for-see, nor could I have possibly known, that I would (or even could) get this kind of representation when I wrote that. I got exactly what I asked for, and I’m really happy, but the moment is somewhat bittersweet, because I wish I had gotten it sooner, and because I’m not entirely sure I knew exactly what I was asking for, and now I don’t know how to handle it. (Probably, I should just act a fool! Whaddaya think?!)

One of the most moving videos I ever watched was a young man looking at a Black Panther poster and he started yelling, and he said something like, “This is what it must feel like for White people all the time!” In the past ten years this is the first time we’ve gotten any kind of representation in popular culture, like this. My mom has actually become interested in comic book characters, (she’s never read a superhero comic in her life. My biggest highlight as an adult was arguing with her, in the car, about whether or not Superman could beat the Hulk!) and started watching different TV shows, and movies. that she mostly would have ignored, because they only starred white people.

I have always had firm reasons for loving Star Trek, despite its issues. Star Trek has done right by me in ways no other show has, even when I didn’t particularly care for some of them, and I’m always gonna stan for this franchise. Even if the creators never do another show correctly, there is at least this one. I will never (nor do I want to) listen to any White man’s idea of what this specific show is about, or what he thinks of the characters. I  just don’t give a flying cooch what anybody who is White and male thinks of this show, or Michael, or Pike even. I won’t look for the reviews, or opinion pieces, and I don’t need their affirmation either. I made up my mind about this a long time ago.

Am I biased? Sure!

But I don’t care.

The Passage – Season Premiere

I have a lot to say about the first episode of The Passage. First of all, I really enjoyed this. I found myself really liking the characters and their relationships, and I was really feeling the whole thing. I’m definitely going to be watching this for the entirety of the season. I even got Mom to watch the Pilot, and I’ll ask what her opinion is later. *(She is really enjoying it, and will be tuning in every week, because she is totally in love with Amy. I suspect Amy reminds her of her Granddaughter, The Potato, because they are both around the same age, and they sort of look alike, and The Potato is her favorite Grandbaby.)

The show is based on a trilogy by Justin Cronin, and is about a vampire plague that destroys most of humanity, killing some, turning others, and forcing the humans who are left to fight for survival. Amy , the little girl in the show, is both a part of, separate from, and above all of this. Technically she’s a vampire too, but a special kind, with all of the vampire’s powers, and none of their weaknesses (like a tiny female Blade, with no Kung Fu skills). The vampires who break out of the lab are called The Twelve, and the leader is the military man we saw get infected in the first episode by a real vampire. At some point, this is all going to come down to a face off between him and Amy, both of them at opposite ends of the vampire spectrum.

 

In the pilot, we meet Amy Bellafonte, who is the daughter of a drug addict, who dies in the first few moments of the show, and she is now on her own, with no family, except Brad, the government agent tasked with procuring Amy for human experiments. He is told by his superiors that they need a child, an orphan who isn’t yet in the system, and so won’t be missed, and Amy just happens to fit that description right away.

Amy is  White in the books, so it is very interesting that they cast Amy as a Black girl for the show. Along with Amy are a number of other people who have been experimented on. One of them is a Black man, and the other is a female ex-con. All of them are death row inmates except for  the initial patient. In other words, these are people who won’t be missed, and who the government discounts as being  important. Amy herself was specifically chosen  because she is someone no one will miss, just like the hundreds of little girls of color, who go missing on reservations, and in Black neighborhoods yearly, that the authorities don’t bother to make an effort to look for.

This is Anthony, He also begins to form a relationship with Amy after she is taken to the institution and injected with Fanning’s more refined DNA. Amy and Anthony are the furthest on the spectrum  from Fanning, who is called Patient Zero.

There are some strong parallels in the storyline to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments of 1932, where the government experimented on a group of Black men, charting the course of the disease by not treating them. There is also another parallel in the gynecological experiments on Black slaves by Dr. J. Marion Sims, who is credited as the father of modern gynecology.

https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study

https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves

But there is also a parallel to the story of Henrietta Lacks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

These parallels also give us some idea of Amy’s level of importance to this story, because  like Henrietta Lacks, it’s Amy’s destiny to save the human race. Its interesting to note that just by race bending a single character, you can bring a great deal of historical depth to a story that would have only been “just okay” with a White actress.

Brad Wolgast is the agent who is chosen  to bring Amy in, but he has an attack of conscience, partly because he is trying to be a good person, and also because he’s still suffering from the loss of his own little girl, which has estranged him from his wife. He decides to take Amy and run, and the first episode is spent watching the two of them bond with each other, and learn to trust each other. For some people, this is all a bit slow, but I didn’t have a problem with it because Amy’s relationship with Brad is important to the kind of person she will become, and I appreciated the writers taking the time to establish their relationship. In fact, their relationship is one of the highlights of the show, and around which much  of the opening episodes will be centered.

One of the most touching moments for me is when Brad pep talks Amy, giving her the kind of affirmation she so desperately needs. He champions her when no one else does. He kills for her, and would (probably will) die for her. There’s another scene where he helps give her closure for the loss of her mother, by  encouraging her to eulogize her, and I appreciated that the show took time out from the car chases to show the two of them bonding like any father and daughter. At first, Brad is treating her the way he would have treated his daughter, had she lived, and there’s an element of guilt and atonement in his actions, but after a while he starts to see her as an individual, and not just a replacement for his lost child. He starts to love her for her. She is the daughter of his heart, and its overwhelmingly touching to watch their devotion to each other. That chemistry is there.

In the second episode, the two of them make a pact (well Amy makes it) where they vow to never leave each other. She enacts promises from Brad, but she also abides by what she asks of him, which is key to how the government finally catches up to the two of them. She sacrifices her freedom to save his life, which is why it was so important to show  scenes of the two of them bonding. You would not have been able to buy her sacrifice if the writer’s had not already established their relationship.

It’s clear that Amy is very much the star of the show, and the creators take great effort in humanizing and empathizing with her, and her emotions.  We are meant to identify closely with this little girl, through closeups of her face in different situations, and her voiceover, which recounts what we’re seeing in flashback (which is an important thing, as this is being told to us from far in the future).

When Amy is happy, we’re meant to be happy. When she is sad, so are we. But more importantly, we are meant to feel her terror when she is frightened, and not just look at, in a form of titillation. In a lot of scenes with her, we see the situations from her point of view. During one scene, Brad is engaged in a shootout with other agents, and we don’t just dwell on the action.In fact, there are moments where we don’t see what Brad is doing, (gunning down fellow agents on her behalf), but are meant to feel Amy’s terror during those scenes, as we focus on her facial expressions, to the sounds of guns in the background. The way the scene is shot, we are not focused on her just for spectacle. We are meant to empathize with her feelings.

The show has other PoC in it besides Amy. The doctor who wants to experiment on her is a Black woman, who is very obviously conflicted about what she is doing, but we are meant to sympathize with her wanting to save the world from an epidemic of Bird Flu, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people. I kind of feel for her ,as she is in a very desperate position, but I still don’t sympathize completely, and she should feel bad about what she’s doing, because it’s just wrong to experiment on children.

When (Fanning) is infected, he is experimented on to find cures for various diseases, and different strains of vampirism are the result, with the last patient, Anthony being the one least like him and more likely to break away from the other vampires. The doctors find that above a certain age, the victims they experimented on just become true vampires. They theorize that by using a child, they can bypass all the strange stuff, and reach a cure faster. In the second episode we get a sympathetic view of Babcock,  her backstory, and how she ended up on death row. (She killed her rapey stepfather, and her knowingly unhelpful mother.) Its interesting how these characters have been fleshed out with          both good and bad traits. Fanning was an honorable man when he was alive, and Babcock was a thief, who had been sexually victimized.

This show is turning out to be what The  Strain should have been, with better acting, better written characters, and a more well thought out plot, but that could be because the source material was better written, and the writers are being more faithful to it, although I don’t want to cast aspersions on Guillermo Del Toro’s written trilogy, which was pretty good. On the other hand, it is taking place on Fox which is notorious for fucking over fans of shows it refuses to renew, or fucking over the actors on the show, so that they leave. So far, the actress playing Amy (Saniyya Sidney) has been allowed to be front and center in the promotional material, and allowed to talk about her character, and what she means, in her own words.

I’ll come back and talk some more about this show later. I think its really good though, and deserves to be given some amount of respect by Fox. I’ve been burned by Fox several times, so I’m always wary when they have a good show on their hands.

As with Star Trek Discovery, I’m just making up my own mind about how I feel about this show, and not reading any reviews, unless they’re written by women or PoC. In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten exceptionally weary of White men’s opinions on (a lot of things) TV shows which prominently star PoC, (and its not like I need their affirmation to like or dislike anything). *(Don’t let me get started on a rant here!)*

‘Til Next Time!

New Trailers! YIPPEEEE!!!!!!

Here are a few of the new trailers I was waiting to get a look at when I did my watchlist last year. I waited so I could collect all of them in one post. I’m very excited about a couple of these (and a couple of surprises) and just wanted share my love:

 

John Wick 3

Why yes, I am a John Wick fan. I consider these to be some of Keanu’s best action films ever. This franchise just fits him so well. I actually got my Mom to watch the first movie, which she seemed to enjoy, even though she said it was a crazy movie, and was upset about the dog. And this next movie in the trilogy looks hella fun. In the last movie John broke some rules which had him being hunted by the assassin’s guild of which he was once a member. I’m here just to watch Keanu Reeves riding horseback though.

 

 

Umbrella Academy

OH!!!, this looks like so much fun! I like the characters already, and I was always a fan of Ellen Page.  I did read the comic books, (although it was a long time ago) but  I’ve been a Gerard Way fan ever since. (He also wrote Spidergeddon, and Doom Patrol for a while.). And yes, that is indeed a monkey in the second part of the trailer. I sort of remember that from the books. This is airing on Netflix on February 15th.

 

 

Little

This movie is so cute. Normally, I’m not a fan of movies where adults exchange places with children, because they are usually done so badly, but I did like the Tom Hanks movie, which is the opposite of this one, called BIG. I just love the little actress here, and I’m a fan of Issa Rae, and I think the trailer is pretty funny.  I have plans to take my 13 year old niece to see this, becasue the young lady in the movie helped produce it, and hired a female director, and writers, to work on the  film.. She has the distinction of being the youngest producer in Hollywood.  I don’t normally go see comedies, but I’ll take this over the next Madea movie my family forces me to go see.

 

 

Spiderman: Far From Home 

I was already excited about this movie because I actually am a Spiderman fan, and the addition of Mysterio just clinched it. Now, to find out that the movie does indeed take place far from home, and that Aunt May is also on board the Spiderman train, (and she and Happy appear to be making some kind of love connection, which is not anything like in the comic books), well I am here for it.

And yeah, I think MJ (Michelle) has always known that Peter is Spiderman. Go back and watch the first movie. Whenever Peter and Ned are discussing Spiderman in public, she always seems to be nearby, (also Peter and Ned lack the ability to whisper), and I’m pretty sure she recognized Peter as Spiderman when the class visited Washington. But that’s a topic for another post, so here we go:

 

 

 

Polar

I don’t know, this looks like a total ripoff of John Wick, but I don’t care because its on Netflix, and it stars Mads Mikkelson as a total badass, which is always fun. I’m always up for watching movies about assassins, for some reason. This is airing today on Netflix.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Making The Chosen Family

I love ensemble movies that are done well, and James Gunn is exceptionally good at writing, not just the characters, but the relationships between the characters. GOTG isn’t just a movie about blowing shit up real good, it’s about the creation of a family, specifically the family that one chooses for oneself, something which is layered, threaded, and  referenced repeatedly, throughout both movies. The character’s adoptive families have proven to  be either unreliable, or openly abusive, and  it is  their chosen family, their found family (each other) that  turn out to be more trustworthy, and caring.

But they cannot truly be a part of their chosen family until they deal with their traumas, learn to take care of themselves, learn how to treat the others, and in a couple of cases, atone for past misdeeds.

In the first movie, we meet all the characters separately. We get to know their flaws and issues. We are to understand  that these characters are assholes, who can’t get along with themselves, let alone each other. They each have personal issues that prevent them from  being close to others. Peter Quill is an arrogant, immature, and reckless man, who is also a carefree womanizer. We later learn that he was kidnapped from Earth, and raised by an emotionally abusive alien, named Yondu. Peter is still suffering the trauma of his mother’s death, some twenty years before, which he has never truly dealt with. All of the characters, except for Groot, are suffering from some parental trauma that prohibits them from forming healthy relationships with the others.

Peter is immediately smitten with Gamora, but she is too beset by her own issues, and he is inadequate as a partner, so the two of them cannot be together. The two of them are too damaged. Their issues need to be brought out into the open and dealt with first.

Gamora is the adopted daughter of an abusive father, Thanos, the villain from Infinity War. She hates Thanos for good reason,  but she is also estranged from her adopted sister, Nebula, because of Thanos’ abusive upbringing, which pitted the two of them against each other. One of the most telling moments about the nature of their relationship, is Thanos, while in conference with the movie’s villain, referring to Gamora as his favorite daughter, as Nebula is standing directly in front of him, while  we get a closeup of her facial expression. Gamora was so caught up in surviving being Thanos’ daughter, that she never had time to protect her little sister from him, and the two of them never formed bonds.

This is a staple dynamic of siblings that have abusive parents, especially if one of them is considered to be  favored over another. I would wager that that was very probably Thanos’ agenda in treating them the way he did, to keep them from finding solace in each other, so as to keep them from turning on him. Both Nebula and Gamora  are icy in their demeanor, stiff, closed off , and unapproachable. Nebula spends most of the movie trying to kill her sister, although after having reluctantly spent some time with the Guardians, we realize her hatred of Gamora may not be as deep as she thinks, or reciprocated.

Drax is suffering from the loss of his wife and child through the machinations of the movie’s villain, Ronan the Accuser. Drax is, paradoxically, the most emotionally open character in the film, as he frankly discusses the love he had for his wife and child, and how much their deaths pained  him. Of all of the team, Drax is the one who is at least willing to acknowledge that he has trauma, but Drax spends most of the movie in revenge mode, as he tries to attract Ronan’s attention, often endangering his team mates in the process. Drax is not malevolent, however, he is deeply insensitive to the feelings of others, and somewhat clueless. After Groot saves his life, and  Rocket  calls him to task for his reckless actions, Drax is contrite and apologetic. It is he and Groot, (with Rocket’s reluctant agreement), who make the decision to save their teammates (who have been taken by Yondu).

Of all the characters though, it is Rocket who has the deepest trauma. Rocket is an experimental animal subject, who was abandoned by his creators, (i.e. his parents), when his usefulness to them was over, and most of his negative personality traits stem from that events. He is impatient, mistrustful, arrogant, callous, hurtful, aloof. He pushes people away because he fears getting close to anyone he thinks may leave him. Many of Rocket’s worst character traits also come from the   crippling insecurity of being what he is, and being the only one of his kind in existence. Outside of his relationship with Groot, who is non- judgmental, he is profoundly alone, with no family, no culture, and no race that he belongs to. He is very sensitive to being spoken down to or treated as less than he is. These are things he is only willing to acknowledge when he’s drunk.

Groot is the most well adjusted of the team. He is a fierce and awesome fighter, but he is also gentle and giving, when the occasion presents itself. We first notice this when we see him offer a small flower to a little girl. He  is the most “even tempered” of the all characters, and is usually unperturbed by the events around him.  His most altruistic moment is when he knowingly gives his life to save his teammates.  It is through his act of love that the other character become aware  that they are indeed a family. Like Drax, he is emotionally open, the one most willing to admit these others into his  life, care about them, and admit they are his family.

James Gunn, the director and writer of GOTG, and its sequel, does us one better. Not only does he introduce each one of these characters with their traumas, but he shows them moving past them to acceptance of each other, working together as an effective team, and then finally trusting each other, across the two films. Slowly, bit by bit, Gunn builds each  moment between the characters, until the  end of the movie, when we see all of them come together to save Peter, and the galaxy,  by managing the Power Stone.

At first, they are together because its convenient. The other characters have something they want. Later, they are together because they want to be.  The action scenes don’t just serve to blow things up real good, but to help tell the story of the development of their relationships.

At the beginning of the first movie, the action scenes show all the characters pitted against themselves, or each other. By the time the characters land in prison, they are in the second stage of, at least, being willing to work together to accomplish the goal of getting out of prison, at which they are successful. But  they do not yet realize they are a real  team.They’re not friends yet, and  are still very selfish individuals, who are only together because of what they can do for each other. At this point in the action, they are at least  in a place where they are willing to acknowledge they need each other, but not where they trust and like each other. By the time they fight with the Nova Corp against Ronan at the end of the movie, they are together because they want to be, they actually trust each other, and realize they can accomplish more with each other, than against each other, which culminates in Groot’s sacrifice for his friends, which he makes clear is an act of love. His statement, “We are Groot.”, is his declaration that he loves them, they are his family, and he is willing to do this to save them.

There is a quiet, but beautiful, moment when Drax comforts Rocket, in the aftermath of Groot’s death, while Rocket is mourning the loss of his friend. At first, Rocket is surprised, but eventually gives in to Drax petting him. No one has ever shown affection to him before. It is a mark of their friendship, not just that Rocket accepts this comfort, but that Drax offers it, because until this moment he has been deeply insensitive to the feelings of others having  referred to Rocket as “vermin”, and Gamora as a “green whore”. Rocket has not endeared himself to anyone, and has been openly exasperated with Drax for much of the film. In this one gesture, James Gunn deepens both their characters. Drax learns to recognize another’s pain, and not disregard it, and Rocket learns to accept comfort, when he’s in pain.

But Gunn doesn’t stop there, because that’s not the end of these character’s personal journeys. In the second movie, he builds on the idea of found family by adding the themes of understanding, forgiveness,  reconciliation, and atonement, to the character’s relationships. It’s not enough for them to trust each other, work together, and understand their choice to be a family, each one of them must admit their own pain,  recognize and understand  each other’s pain, and atone for past mistakes. Gunn does this by pairing specific characters together, like Yondu and Rocket, Nebula and Gamora, and Peter with his biological father, Ego.

At the opening of the second film, they are seen together as a team. They’ve been lauded as heroes of the galaxy, and have been together for some time, long enough for them to have grown to like Peter’s musical tastes, and crack jokes at each other. There is still some tension that is mostly resolved through bickering, but they  have accepted each other, even if they don’t understand each other. They cannot be at peace with each other though, because they are not at peace individually, but the title song, Blue Skies, indicates they’re in a good place from which to start the process.

The first action sequence exists to show them acting as a successful team, and parenting baby Groot.  Notice that each one of them gets a moment with Groot. (I especially liked Gamora’s hurried “Hi!”, after Groot waves at her, and Rocket’s diligence in making sure he doesn’t eat bugs.). Groot is still the warm center of the team. Later, we see Gamora reassuring Groot that she will return from an errand and that everything will be okay. As the group separates to go on different errands, the song, The Chain by Fleetwood Mac plays over that scene. No matter how far apart they are, the chain that binds then will never be broken. They will always be a family.

Over the course of the last movie, we witnessed Gamora being willing to show a softer, more caring, side of herself. Her sister, Nebula, isn’t in that place yet, but Gamora is in a an emotional place where she can finally hear Nebula’s pain. We saw the estranged relationship between Gamora and her sister, and we get some understanding of why.   Nebula attempts to kill her sister again, (although  we can see that she isn’t trying especially hard). At the end of their fight, she declares that she has has beaten Gamora, and this makes her the better daughter to Thanos. All we have seen of Nebula is that she is hard, cold, and jealous of Gamora, because every time she lost a contest to her sister, Thanos would forcibly replace one of her body parts with machinery, as  punishment. Gamora realizes she was so busy surviving  her own trauma, that she failed to see her little sister’s need for protection. It is her relationship with her chosen family that lets her realize she has failed to be a big sister. It is Nebula who turns out to be the sensitive one, who longed for a relationship with her sister, she could not have, because of their  shared trauma.

Later, Gamora expresses the first real affection towards her that Nebula has ever experienced. Gamora has listened to her sister, and is ready to atone for her past mistake of not protecting her, (something we see play out in Infinity War) and Nebula, having had her pain recognized and acknowledged, is now in a place where she can forgive and trust.  Nebula’s acceptance of Gamora’s affection parallels Rocket’s acceptance of comfort from Drax in the first movie. Nebula and Gamora are not friends yet, because there is too much trauma between them, but they have reconciled, and have, at least, agreed to stop trying to kill each other. Gamora extends the idea  to Nebula that if she wants a family,  she and the rest of the Guardians will accept her.

Another moment of character growth occurs between Rocket and Yondu. A lot of people have expressed the idea that Yondu’s change of character comes out of nowhere, but I disagree. We are given subtle hints, throughout the first movie, that Yondu is not actually evil. He is a flawed man who has done bad things for money, and  is not actually malevolent. For example, our first indication that Yondu might not be all he seems, is his adoption of Peter, when he was meant to deliver him to Ego. In the first movie, he is given plenty of opportunities to punish or kill Peter, but keeps making excuses not to do so. Over the course of the movie, you begin to realize he actually likes him. At the end of the movie, Peter betrays him yet again, but Yondu just smiles, as if he  not only expected Peter to do it, but was proud of him for it.

At the opening of the sequel, we see Yondu in a vulnerable moment, pensively looking out a window. He is perhaps haunted by his past, which a few moments later, comes back to bite him in the ass, as he is dressed down by his superior, a father figure that he has always looked up to, and he is  excommunicated from The Ravagers, for trafficking children like Peter, which goes against their rules. Later, his own gang overthrows him, because he treats Peter as his favorite, over them. Yondu eventually acknowledges  that he was wrong to abuse him, that he loved Peter, and atones for his past transgressions by sacrificing  his life, to save his chosen son. (Note: One of the biggest differences between Yondu, Ego, and Thanos is when Yondu lost everything, he apologized and atoned. Thanos and Ego did neither, made excuses, and then sacrificed their children for their goals.)

We finally come to Rocket, who is very probably the most damaged member of the team, who has not dealt with any of his trauma, in any satisfactory manner. His character arc is not fully realized until the end of the second movie, after Yondu’s death,  but it is the relationship he develops with Yondu that forces him to rethink himself. This revelation could not have occurred were it not for the relationship he developed with his chosen family, and Groot in particular.

After Groot’s sacrifice in the first movie, Rocket saves a fragment of his friend, and grows an offshoot baby Groot. All of the team take turns nurturing and caring for Groot, but Rocket is the closest thing Groot has to a mother, having essentially grew and birthed him. It is through his relationship with his chosen son, and Peter calling out his behavior earlier in the movie, that Rocket is set up to be able to hear Yondu’s words about himself, as Yondu accurately reads him, understanding  Rocket’s behavior through his own motivation. Fear.

Rocket is afraid people will abandon him, the way his creators did, so he is constantly  pushing them away, so that when and if they reject, him he will be ready. It will be what is expected because he doesn’t think highly of himself, and  feels he does not deserve love and acceptance. His family gets angry with him, but they don’t leave him, or push him out, so the meaner he behaves. Them rejecting him will prove that he is correct about himself, that he is worthless and should be alone. (Note: Of all the characters in Avengers Infinity War, it is Rocket’s predicament that is the most tragic. Having finally accepted  that the team is his family, and will not abandon him, Thanos snaps his fingers, his family is destroyed, and he is as entirely alone as he terribly feared. With a snap of his fingers Thanos has set back Rocket’s entire character arc.)

Rocket is not healed by Yondu’s words, but he reaches an  understanding, that he is taking his unhappiness with himself, out on his family, and if he does not change, he will end up alienated from  his child,  like Yondu was with Peter. The last time we saw Rocket cry, it was for losing his friend. This time it’s for himself. For all the time he wasted being mean to the the people who accepted him, despite that he kept pushing them away. The movie ends with a shot of Rocket’s tears, after Peter’s acknowledgment of his pain. Peter’s recognition and acceptance of Rocket’s pain is important, not just for Rocket, but for Peter’s character arc, too. It is a sign of Peter’s growing maturity.

The foundation of the movie  is Peter’s relationship with his two fathers, Ego, and Yondu, and his maturation into an adult. Two of Peter’s biggest issues is his arrogance (Ego), and his immaturity. Peter has been living a kind of extended childhood,with responsibilities to no one but himself, as if he stopped growing up after his mother’s death. His immature nostalgia for the past is the reason he cannot have a relationship with Gamora, and it made him easily manipulated by Ego, who appealed to that nostalgia. Ego is a planet sized creature that wishes to make over the galaxy in his own image, has tricked Peter into being a conduit for his power, and is another in a line of abusive father figures, throughout both movies.

Peter grows up when he rejects his father’s false promises of an idyllic past, he rejects “Ego” (his arrogance), and humbles himself to accept the help to destroy him. A key sign of Peter’s maturity is the loss of the Walkman music player that he was ready to kill for in the first movie. The music player represented his mother. When Ego destroys it, its as if he is killing Peter’s mother again, ( since Ego was the one responsible for her actual death). Killing Ego is also an act of closure for his mother’s death.  Notice how Peter’s character trajectory closely  parallels Gamora’s relationship with her abusive father.

The second major emotional turning point in the film is Peter’s reconciliation with Yondu. Yondu’s history is complicated, so I have to spend a moment discussing that. Yondu is the alien that kidnapped Peter when he was twelve, (just after the death of Peter’s mother, which is the reason why Peter has never had closure about that.) Yondu was supposed to give Peter to Ego, who has been collecting the children he seeded throughout the universe. When his children proved useless to him he killed them, and has killed thousands of these children, whose bones fill up a cavern in his planet sized interior.

Yondu, while not an evil man, has been complicit in the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands of children he kidnapped and took to Ego for money. After his kidnapping of Peter, he had an attack of conscience, and  stopped working for Ego. Keeping Peter was an act of rebellion, and an attempt to atone for the other children, because The Ravagers, the union of thieves he belongs to, disapproved of what he did. He justifies keeping Peter by claiming Peter’s usefulness to them and, afraid of looking weak to his men, he emotionally abuses Peter in front of them, while quietly approving of Peter’s behavior.

The Ravagers (lead by a man he greatly admires) kick him out of the group, and then his own personal team turns against him, captures Rocket, and imprisons the two of them together, which is how he gets to know Rocket so well.

In Rocket, Yondu sees a reflection of himself, and he tells Rocket as much. Everything has been taken from him, even though he followed all the rules of how to be a man. He was cool, and tough, and ruthless. He sublimated his love for Peter into saving his life time, and time, again, but otherwise failed to impress upon Peter that he was loved, choosing to threaten, and emotionally traumatize Peter instead, because he was afraid of being seen as weak. The very behavior he thought would save him from being condemned by his team is what makes his team condemn him. And with the return of Peter’s bio-father, he realizes that he lost out on the relationship he could have had with Peter, and he may be in danger of being replaced by Peter’s biological father, because he was too afraid. Not only is Yondu’s character arc one of atonement for past misdeeds, but is a rebuke of the toxic version of masculinity.

When Peter rejects his biological father, he is aided in this act by Yondu and the others. Yondu gives him some crucial words of advice at just the right time, which helps defeat Ego. Afterwards, Yondu and Peter are trapped on the dying planet, and Yondu sacrifices his life to get Peter to safety, but not before he lets Peter know how much he loved him, referring to himself as Peter’s daddy. He gives Peter his survival suit and, like Groot before him,  goes to his death, at peace with his actions. Since he is indirectly responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of children, giving up his life for Peter is not just to show Peter how much he loves him, but to atone for the deaths he helped to cause.

 

After Ego’s death, and Yondu’s sacrifice, Peter realizes that he has been less of a proper father figure for his own adopted child – Groot. For the first time in the movie we see him have a loving moment with Baby Groot, as he shares some music with him, gently cradling him with affection when Groot comes to him for reassurance. We did not get a chance to see this behavior earlier, as he mostly just barked orders at Groot.  In Infinity War we see him taking a more firm parenting role with him. We also see him taking a more mature stance with his family, not just recognizing Rocket’s pain at the end of the movie,  but understanding why.

James Gunn does a masterful job of showing us the dynamics behind the creation of a found family. We start off with individuals so damaged they cannot be a family, and we watch as they learn to forgive, accept, and understand  their own and each other’s flaws, recognize each other’s pain and trauma, and seek reconciliation and atonement for their past hurts. In the end, the members of the team CHOOSE to be a family, and in order to do so they must grow and change within themselves, and towards each other.

What Fandom Racism Looks Like – When White Characters (Somehow) Aren’t White

Let’s keep this short and salty: did y’all know that there are people – thankfully a minority in their respective fandoms – that will claim a white male character or actor isn’t white for some reason or another. Well, if you didn’t know before reading that sentence, I’m willing to be that you’ve figured out […]

via What Fandom Racism Looks Like – When White Characters (Somehow) Aren’t White — Stitch’s Media Mix

Stitch is considered something of an expert on the subject of fandom racism dynamics, since this is something she has intensely studied. I never argue with her findings, but I am constantly surprised by the ways in which fandom seeks to revert to a certain status quo. What I’d  like to do  is build on this by  tying fandom racism back to how its been learned from the source material,  and fan’s understanding of how racism works, through the material they’ve been consuming, because their performance of  these forms of racism  don’t exist in a vacuum. White people (all races really) have been unconsciously inundated with decades of racist messaging in American films, books, and TV,   and  fandom often becomes nothing more than  the act of regurgitating what was consumed, especially if these things have never been critically examined.

I don’t think we can fight against how fandom racism is performed without acknowledgment, or understanding, of how its performance is tied to the decades old, racist narratives in Popular media.

There’s also a new angle to this as well. Since the source material being consumed has become more diverse and inclusive than ever, what I’ve been witnessing, is  fans trying to  bend these narratives to fit their world view – worldviews that have been informed by years of racist narratives. This is just as much an attempt to keep things the way they’ve always been, and they are no less different, from  the harassment campaigns against PoC actors, in an attempt to center Whiteness in Geek media, and reassert the status quo of PoC, and other marginalized groups, on the fringe of narratives that center White characters. This is what such fans are used to, and this is what they twist these stories to reflect. This particular form of fandom racism is often engaged in (but not necessarily exclusive to) White women in fandom, while the more public and aggressive forms of racism are usually engaged in by White men.

I’m going to reiterate that the reason fandom acts this way is that fandom isn’t the slightest bit progressive or woke. In fact, its fairly conservative, and quite a lot of them are thoroughly unimaginative, as well, as the participants do nothing but reproduce the same narratives they’ve seen over, and over, and over, from the  source material (and sometimes other parts of fandom, which accounts for the sheer numbers of coffee shop AUs in fanfiction), – narratives that have been overwhelmingly written, and helmed, by straight white men, who themselves have only the most rudimentary idea of what its like to be a member of a marginalized group.

That’s another reason I’m against racial allegories in fiction, especially the ones referenced above by Stitch. Such narratives do nothing to further dialogue, or deepen understanding of racial issues, because the writers of these narratives do not live, or understand, race in any personal capacity.  All fans get out of these stories is a foundational understanding that “racism is bad”. The Handmaid’s Tale, Zootopia, The Gifted, Teen Wolf, and Bright, are bad racial allegories because they get the depiction of racism wrong, have suspect intentions, borrow the oppression of Poc, while not including them, or  take little to no account of the systemic and institutionalized nature of racism, often showing it as a problem of individuals simply not liking some people.

Contrast those stories to Jordan Peel’s discussion of racism in the movie Get Out, or the music video, This Is America, by Childish Gambino, or the discussions surrounding the movie Black Panther. The understanding of racism is  different when written by those who have  actual knowledge of the subject, something which most fans of the media listed above,  do not have, so all they can do is reproduce the media they’ve been given, and can only  approach these subjects in their meta and fictions with  the performative wokeness  that they are engaging in now.

Forthcoming TV 2018/2019

December

21) Diablero (Netflix)

I have never heard of this show, movie, or whatever this is, and  don’t know anything about it beyond the trailer, but it sounds interesting, and looks like fun. so I’m going to check it out next week. All I know is that its kinda like Buffy but edgier, with demon hunters and priests in the city. I’ll get back to you guys and let you know what I think.

 

23) Watership Down

I had no intention of watching this because I saw the original and it was pretty depressing. I have no need to subject myself to this anew adaptation, but I know there’s someone out there who loves the original animation, and will probably like this version, too.

 

28) Black Mirror (Netflix)

We’re supposed to get a surprise Xmas special at the end of the month. I’ve really enjoyed Black Mirror, and I’m looking forward to this, if the rumor is true. Of course there’s no trailer for something that’s supposed to be a surprise.

 

30) Orville (Fox)

This show was wildly uneven, as it couldn’t seem to balance out the comedy and drama at the same time, but I could see the potential, and I could see what MacFarlane was trying to accomplish, and sometimes it takes a show a season or two to get on its feet, and hit that groove. The show needs to make up its mind if it wants situational humor or character humor. Buffy, for example, didn’t really capture a lot of viewers until well into its third season. Well, we’ve been given a second season so I’m going to try it again because I want to like this show.

 

 

 

January

1)A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 5 (Netflix)

I find it hard to believe this is season five of this. I enjoyed the movie this was based on but I’ve been pretty much ignoring this. Well, maybe one day, I’ll get around to watching it because it does look like fun.

 

 

 

10) Brooklyn 99 (NBC)

I’m really looking forward to this. The show was threatened with cancellation earlier this year but was rescued by NBC.

 

13) True Detective  (HBO)

I don’t normally watch cop shows but sometimes they’re just too good to pass up, like Brooklyn 99, and True Detective. Unlike a lot of people I didn’t dislike the last season, but it was unremarkable. I’m watching this because I’m a huge fan of Mahershala Ali, and eager to see what he can do in this role.

 

 

14) The Passage (FOX)

I talked about this show earlier, mentioning my enthusiasm for it, based on my liking of the trilogy by Justin Cronin. Check them out if you’re interested in the show.

 

 

16) Deadly Class (SYFY)

I like the visuals of this show, and the fact that Benedict Wong, from Doctor Strange, is in this. It sorta looks like fun, but I hope it doesnt turn into a copy of The Magicians. Normally, I don’t watch teenagers on TV doing anything, but Sometimes I make an exception.

 

 

17) Star Trek Discovery Season 2 (CBS Access)

I’m very eagerly looking forward to this, since I really enjoyed the first season.

 

 

 

24) Siren

This show got quite a few things wrong, but for every wrong thing, it got something right, and I still like the idea of predatory mermaids. Now the rumor is that other supernatural beings are running around in the town, and we will be seeing some new cast members.

 

February

15) Umbrella Academy Netflix)

This is another show that I think is based  on a comic book, although its possible that it isn’t, because I read the comic book and this doesn’t seem very much like what I read. So now I’ve got to watch it and see how much alike or different it is.

 

 

March

10) American Gods (Starz)

Yeah, I’m definitely here for this, despite the change in showrunners. I can only hope the new showrunner doesnt fuck it up, and treats the characters of color, and the gay and lesbian characters, with a certain amount of dignity.

 

 

On my agenda for the holidays:

The live -action Bleach on Netflix, and Bird Box.

Things Are Gonna be Fun!!!

 

I’m only really excited about a few of these, but I can at least respect that other people are very excited about some of the other, LESSER, films!

I kid, but actually I am at least mildly excited for a lot of these movies, although I probably won’t get to see most of them due to budget restrictions,  (cuz I got bills bills, bills, y’all!). I’m reasonably sure I can get Mom to see at least three or four of these movies, though. Some of the ones I’m looking forward to, do not yet have trailers, and some of them have just released new trailers.

 

January

What Men Want (11)

This is one of those movies I’m not especially excited about, but I know other people are going to love. Hopefully, my Mom and sisters won’t rope me into seeing it with them because I’m totally disinterested, probably because I didn’t like the original movie this is based on which starred Mel Gibson. It wasn’t an especially funny idea when he did it, and I still don’t think the idea is funny now, although I appreciate the racebending, gender swapping angle.

 

*Glass (18)

I think I already mentioned that I was going to see this movie. Unbreakable is one of my favorite superhero movies, and I finally got around to watching Split. I was initially dismissive of Split because I thought it was the typical, “lets terrorize some teenage girls” type movie, but it turned out to be something very different, and it was very suspenseful and effective. I love the idea of a superhero movie that’s not presented as a superhero movie, and here we get the supervillain team up done as a Thriller.

What’s more intriguing is how did David Dunn end up in the same facility as Mr. Glass? I thought his life was going well, and he was mending his relationships with his wife and son, but here we find him, locked in with the monsters.

 

February

Lego Movie 2 (2)

I didn’t watch the first Lego movie, but my nephew is crazy about both superheroes and Legos, so of course, he loved it. I’m gonna go way out on a limb here, and assume that he’s going to like this sequel.

 

Alita: Battle Angel (14)

I know there are people excited about this movie. I read the series about fifteen years ago, so I know a little sum-sum about it, but I’m having a really, really, hard time getting past those giant eyeballs, which are seriously creeping me the fuck out. I don’t know if I want to sit with two hours of that shit, even though the trailer kicks ass, and I love the idea of Hispanic robots. Unfortunately it also stars Christolph Waltz, who insists on starring in everything. He’s starting to get like whatshername from The Avengers, (except he seems to know how to stay in his lane).

 

 

March

Captain Marvel (8)

I have tried to be excited about this movie. I want to be excited about this movie. But I feel the same way about this that I felt about Wonder Woman. I’m glad other people are happy about it, and that’s it! The movie doesn’t look bad, but I think what’s hindering me is that I never cared about Carol Danvers in any of the comic books I read. I knew about her, and I liked her in  the comics where she showed up, and she certainly looks especially bad ass in these trailers, but the joyfulness just ain’t there.

There’s so much crossover in comic books that you can’t help but learn the backstories of characters you don’t read the books for. Also, I grew up reading the Monica Rambeau books, so I don’t know who the hell Carol Danvers is. But then, this attitude  isn’t really any different than how I behaved with most comic books. I’m excited at seeing her meet The Avengers in Endgame, but her individual movie is kinda “meh” to me. I felt the same way about most of The Avengers, truthfully. I read the team books, and skipped the individual books, for example, I know everything about Captain America from reading superhero encyclopedias (Nerd Alert!!!), and The Avengers books. I’ve never read a single Captain America book.

 

 

Us (15)

I got nothing. No trailer. No synopsis. All I got is Lupita Nyongo  and M’Baku  Winston Duke are both starring in this movie by Jordan Peele, and its a thriller of some kind. I want to see it because of Lupita: The Black Pearl, and  Winston Duke, who is thiccer than a bowl of oatmeal.

 

 

April

Shazam (5)

I grew up reading the Shazam books, but I don’t know that I want to watch a movie. I liked the books, and I think the trailer is hilarious, but I’m going to sort of vicariously enjoy this movie, I think. Unlike some people, I don’t get tired of certain types of movies being released, because I carefully pick and choose what I’m going to go see, and  just pretend anything else simply does not exist. One of my greatest superpowers is ignoring stuff I really don’t want to pay any attention to, and this movie might fall into that crevasse.

 

 

*Hellboy (12)

Now, this I’m very excited about. I’m a long time Hellboy fan, and I heard that this version is a little more like the comic books, in that its very dark, and kind of gritty. There’s more blood and horror than the Del Toro movies, which I also loved, but the previous movies were more Urban Fantasy with horror elements, although there is a little of the mood of the comics, in that some of Hellboy’s stories were cute and funny. This new movie carries an R rating though. And while I loved the first two movies, I’m still eager to see what the showrunners will do with the characters and story in the remix.

In the past several years, the stories have been very dark though, as Hellboy quit the BPRD, went on a pilgrimage to Hell, and is still discovering things about his heritage that are rather unsavory. Remember, according to the prophecy, he’s meant to bring about the end of the world. There’s no trailer for this yet, but David Harbour (the guy from Stranger Things on Netflix) is killing it.

 

May

*Avengers: Endgame (3)

Yeah, I am jittering around in my bunny slippers for this one. How did you know?

 

 

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (10)

Outside of knowing several character names, (Bulbasaur, and JigglyPuff), a general idea of the plot of the show, and that Pikachu is hella cute, I don’t know anything about Pokemon. I learned most of what I know from helping raise my two Pokemon addicted  little sisters. I don’t know what to think about this, really. Its really cute but is it aimed at adults or kids? I can’t tell. Its so different from the show that I’m having some trouble wrapping my head around it.

 

 

Ugly Dolls (10)

I know nothing about this movie beyond the trailer being cute as the dickens, and maybe my little niece would like to see it. The plot involves a town full of ugly toys that meet pretty toys on the other side of an immense island. Wackiness ensues!

 

*John Wick 3 (17)

I’m not excited about this, but I’m also not unexcited, if you catch my meaning. I liked the first two films, which I thought were a lot of fun, and its also a joy seeing Keanu back in his element again, as an action hero. At the end of the last movie, Wick was on the outs with the Assassins Guild he used to be a member of, and was being hunted by his former assassin-mates. Also there was some Fishburne involvement, and its just nice to see the old band, from The Matrix, back together again.

I may or may not see this movie, as I may be too emotionally drained from having seen The Avengers.

 

*Godzilla: King of the Monsters (31)

I’m definitely going to see this. I grew up watching all  the Gojira movies, so I’m really jacked about this one which features Gamera, (my favorite, becuz TURTLE!), Mothra, (who was kind of a good guy back then, but looks villainous here), and Ghidrah, which scared the shit outta me as a child. C’mon people! how can you not be excited at the prospect of a THREE HEADED DRAGON!!!!

I finally had a chance to watch Shin Godzilla ,which I thought was as scary as the original 1954 film. It had that same feeling of tragedy and horror. I have been pretending that the American versions of Godzilla do not exist, even though I think this new one is some sort of sequel, maybe. Lets pretend it’s a completely original film, and I won’t have to talk about the possibility of  other American versions existing.

 

 

June

*Men in Black International  (14)

All I know about this one is that it stars Tessa Thompson teaming up again with Chris Hemsworth, and Liam Neeson. Hopefully, this will be as funny as Thor Ragnarok, even though its hard to top that Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones comedy combo.

 

Shaft (14)

Hmmm? Didn’t we already see this movie come out earlier this year, but without Samuel L Jackson, so it flopped? Well, this one sounds intriguing, as it features three generations of the titular character. I’m gonna make a wild guess and say they’re all named Shaft.

https://www.thewrap.com/jessie-t-usher-samuel-l-jackson-richard-roundtree-shaft-photo/

 

*Toy Story 4 (21)

I’m pretty sure I will end up crying at some point during this movie. I better take some tissues.

 

 

July

*Spiderman: Far From Home (5)

I really enjoyed the first movie, so I’m looking forward to this one. I know, after the last series of Spiderman movies, I said I was giving up on the character, but Tom Holland was so cute and refreshing as Spiderman, that I couldn’t help but like him, so I’m back in. Not only was he a lot of fun, but I really enjoyed his interactions with the other characters, (Ned, MJ), and even Tony Stark didn’t come off looking too much like an asshole.

I’m taking the baby niece and nephew to see the new Spiderman movie this weekend, and although I’m a little late to the Miles Morales fan club, (I was an adult when he was created, and I grew up reading the Parker version), I’m intrigued by the trailer. The past few months, I’ve been catching up on Mile’s adventures with Peter Parker.

 

Lion King (19)

I don’t know whose going to see these Disney live action reboots, but I’m sure someone is happy about this movie. I’m not fond of the animated version, so I’m not going to see a live action version. It looks gorgeous, and that little cub is hella cute, but still,  its basically Hamlet, with lions. But those of you who are excited about this let me know how you liked it.

 

August

Hobbs and Shaw (2)

Those two guys from the Fast and Furious movies, played by Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson, have an adventure where they drive real fast, while  griping at each other for two hours.

I’m in!

 

Artemis Fowl (9)

People were very very excited to see this trailer on Tumblr. I know nothing at all about Artemis Fowl. I was never a fan, and not particularly interested in becoming one, but I’m gonna take another wild guess, and say that my niece, The Potato, probably knows all about this.

Also the trailer is mysterious and lovely.

 

 

Okay, these movies are too far away to have trailers yet, so I considered not including them, but I am excited about some of them. That doesn’t mean I’ll get to see them, however.

September

It: Chapter 2 (6)

I did not care much for the first part of this, and I wasn’t a fan of the TV version, or the book. But somebody out there likes this, and will pay good money to go see this. I can probably be talked into seeing this by a family member, but I wont take any initiative myself. If you’re gonna see it, drop me a line, and let me know how what you thought.

 

Downton Abbey (20)

I’m much more likely to go see this since I did watch the entire series. I don’t know that I will see this movie, but if I do, I will be sure to sneak some tea and biscuits into the theater, so I can put my thing down.

 

October

*Gemini Man (4)

I like the premise of this movie where Will Smith plays an aging assassin who has to fight a younger clone of himself. I loved Will, as Deadshot, in Suicide Squad, but since I’m not going to get a Deadshot movie anytime soon, this will have to do.

 

Joker (4)

Unlike a lot of people, I’m not put off at the idea of yet another Joker movie, even though I’ve heard there are at least a couple in the works. I’m trying not to be one of those people who constantly bitches and moans about superhero movies being so popular, and so far its working, in the sense that I’m not tired of them yet. I stopped reading the superhero comic books because I got bored, but that doesn’t mean I stopped reading comics all together, because there are other types of comic books. When I get tired, I’ll stop watching these movies.

So far, I’m good.

 

Addams Family Animated (11)

This will be an animated version of the Charles Addams comic series, voiced by Oscar Isaac, and Charlize Theron. I’m not excited about it, but I did read the cartoons as a kid, so I’m intrigued.

 

November

November is so far away (although the way the world is going now,  it will probably be here in a few hours), but I can’t say whether or not I’ll get a chance to see these. I know for sure that I want to see the new Terminator movie, which ignores everything that came after movie number two, and although I grew up watching Charlie’s Angels, I’m not actually what I would call a fan. It was just something I watched on TV. I’m mildly interested in this reboot.

Linda Hamilton will reprise her role as Sarah Connor for this new Terminator, and the rumor is that the new Terminator will be played by Gabriel Luna. Since I’m probably never going to see his version of a Ghost Rider movie, I will have to settle for watching him here.

*Charlie’s Angels (1)

*Terminator Movie (1)

 

 

December

I don’t know what to think of the Masters of the Universe movie. I remember watching the show, because that’s what you did on Saturdays as a kid, but I wouldn’t say I was a fan. Even as a little girl, I do remember thinking the show was ridiculous. Of course, I’ll go see the final Star Wars movie, as I believe I am by law, required.

Masters of the Universe (18)

*Star Wars #9 (20)

Mad Max: Women and Civilization

In Part One of my critique of the Mad Max franchise I talked about the use of the Triple Goddess Myth from Pagan folklore in the movie’s narratives. In this post, I’m going  to tie the Triple Goddess mythology to the idea of women as literally the  keepers/ carriers  of human civilization, throughout the entire franchise.

For some reason, people see the social messages of Mad Max Fury Road as either a fluke, or some sort of SJW plot. This is not the case. George Miller has always referenced women in his movies in ways that made statements not just about their humanity, but their role in the creation of a civilized world. Miller’s feminist sensibilities are  not new, and his movies have always been about people losing their humanity at the end of the world, and then  regaining their humanity (and civilization) through cooperation. These ideas are usually represented through women. Except for the first movie, all of Miller’s films end with a new beginning for civilization to reassert itself.

In most of the Mad Max films, it is women who hold the keys to restarting civilization. Even  in the first Mad Max movie, women are depicted as the last bastion of stability, before mankind’s descent into the  barbarism, rape, and pillaging, represented by men. This premise is made more explicit in  The Road Warrior, and Thunderdome, and clearly stated in Fury Road, as if the other movies had been leading up to the message of Fury Road.

In Mad Max, civilization has not yet been destroyed, and Max’s boss tries to talk him into staying on the police force, after his partner is brutally murdered by  members of a biker gang. Max’s excuse for quitting is that he wants to hold on to the last shreds of his sanity, and can only do so by leaving the force to spend time with his wife and child. This implies that it is parenthood and marriage that are the holders of Max’s sanity, (not the  law and order he represents), and after their loss at the hands of the same biker gang that killed his partner, Max does indeed go mad. The message here is that his wife Jessie, and their child Sprog, were Max’s emotional anchors, after which, just like society itself, he  descends into insanity and violence, as he kills the gang in a murderous spree. The loss of his wife and child  represents of the total loss of civilization, so it isn’t just Max who descends into barbarity, but all of society.

By the release of The Road Warrior,  all men have gone mad, and it is their madness that has made the world a funhouse mirror, where the Triple Goddess myth has been twisted and corrupted. because the women of this world have had to adopt to new roles to survive it in it.  In each of Miller’s films, the lack of civilization is represented by men behaving badly, as it  is primarily men who are rampaging through towns, raping random strangers, and killing and stealing at will. The men of this universe are a force of destruction and entropy. This is an idea explicitly stated in Fury Road, when Immortan’s wives ask the question,”Who killed the world?!” The answer, of course, is…

The first movie is setup for the next three films, where we see the world attempting to recover from the madness inflicted on it by men. Society is held and remembered by the women of these films, who are attempting to rebuild it,  in fits and starts, while being harried by the men.

In The Road Warrior, there are three women of note. I discussed this in my post about the use of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone archetypes of the Wiccan belief system, in Miller’s movies. The women are not  the genesis of civilization, at this time, because they are still in the process of survival, but they are tied to that concept by their roles in the film. One of the nameless women is a warrior, a corrupted Mother, who in this world is not wise and nurturing, but traffics in violence, and she dies by violence, just like the Vuvulini from Fury Road. There is the equally nameless Maiden, who is  a symbol of new beginnings, who finds love, and  rides off into the sunset with the new leader of the compound, and there is the nameless Crone, rendered irrelevant, as her counsel is not heeded as it is sure to get them all killed.

The Road Warrior is also a story told in flashback, from a future world of safety and stability by the “Feral Child”, the wild, orphaned, boy that Max encounters in the wastes. It is a future that can only occur because of Max’s actions and the presence of the two women.

Thunderdome is, next to Fury Road, Miller’s most explicit message that women are the holders of civilization. Aunty Entity, (this is the Crone motif again), played by Tina Turner, is the leader and chieftain of Bartertown. In her backstory, she says she was a nobody without power, but after the world ended, she somehow managed to scratch a town out of the desert. She is a maker of civilization, or at the very least, the foundation of it, as this is not unlike how actual civilization began. She  hopes to rebuild society as it once was. But it is not to be, as her attitude isn’t any different from the old one that caused the world’s destruction. Bartertown is ultimately destroyed by her greed, her ego, and her inability to share leadership with her male counterpart, Master Blaster, and also perhaps because that is not the direction in which a future society should go. She cannot begin a new society because she is too beholden to the old one.

It is interesting to note that none of the people in Thuunderdome are  outright villains,  as was depicted in Road Warrior (and even in that movie the bad guys were capable of love and reason, ulike the villains of the first movie, or the ones in Fury Road). The bad guys and women are  deeply flawed individuals, who survive to the end of the movie. Aunty Entity is not a bad woman, but a regular woman who does bad things, due to the flaws in her character.. This is also true of Master Blaster, as it is his urge to put Aunty in her place as subordinate to him is what prompts their feud. Master Blaster seeks to assert his authority against a woman that he thinks disdains him, while Aunty refuses to be cowled by him. It is their inability to find common ground, to treat each other as equals, or  share leadership, that destroys Bartertown. These are the same attitudes that destroyed civilization.

Once again, in Thunderdome, we have the Triple Goddess figures at odds with each other. It is Savannah’s belief that civilization still exists, called Tomorrow-Morrow Land, that motivates the secondary plot of the film, and sets her on a collision course with the other female leader, Aunty Entity. All of the primary roles in this movie, the characters who set the plot in motion, are either marginalized men, like Master Blaster, (a team up between a mentally disabled young man, and an older man with a physical disability), or women and girls. At the end of the movie, we see that Savannah has become the the leader of a new society being built amid the ruins of the old. Civilization no longer exists, so Savannah, like Aunty will have to make it herself. However, unlike Aunty, she is successful, as once again, the movie is told in flashback, from a more prosperous future.

 

The Triple Goddess motif plays out again in Fury Road. Immortan’s wives are the holders of civilization, as they are the only members of Immortan Joe’s society that are educated, so they are the ones who know the real history of the world,  unlike the Warboys  who only know the world by  what has been passed down to them by word of mouth. The wives espouse the philosophies they learned from  the books they’ve read, that is distinctly anti-consumerist: that people are not things to be used. They hold within them the memories of civilization, while  the Vuvulini carry the seeds of it, which are later passed to the wives, as the Vuvulini, murderous crones all,  are too corrupt, (too much a part of the old world), to play a role in any new beginning. The wives have remained pure in their compassion, and have knowledge of the mistakes of the past. Unlike the Vuvulini, they  have grown up in the aftermath of the old world, and were not a part of its fall. Like the maidens in the other two movies, they get to be the ones to rebuild.

After the release of Fury Road, I saw plenty of complaints about what a shame it was that Max was sidelined in his own movie. This isn’t new either. Except for the first film, which is meant to establish  his character, Max has always played a peripheral role in his own movies. By the time of the making of Fury Road, we are to understand that Max himself is  but an archetype. A myth. He is  a legendary figure told in the stories of the civilization that came after, as  all of these movies are flashbacks from that time,  and he may or may not be a real person. Of the three movies that hold this theme Fury road is the only one told in present time.

In Fury Road  the wives ask Nux, “Who killed the world?” the answer of course is men. Men killed civilization, and most of the men in these movies are the embodiment of all that is destroying civilization,  greed, and consumption, and hoarding. But these movies are not just a rebuke of male authoritarianism, although in neither Mad Max nor The Road Warrior, are women part of any of the anarchic pillagers traveling the wastelands, each film contains  the possibility for redemption for any man who rejects the rampantly and consumerist lifestyle being led by the other men in the film.

The overall message of all the Mad Max films is that when men and women work together, society flourishes, and when they don’t, when women are not accepted as equals, or treated as consumables, society devolves. In The Road Warrior, the women of the compound, the counselor, and the warrior woman in particular, are treated as equals. They are allowed to speak, be heard, and make their own decisions regarding how to survive in the wastes.

In Thunderdome, Master Blaster is so intent on getting Aunty to submit to his authority, (because he believes she disdains him because of his disability), that it forces her hand. They are both people from marginalized groups, who should come together to create a new society but they do not. Instead, a disabled man, and a Black woman, fight over who gets to be in charge. Their inability to treat each other as equals,  results in Bartertown’s destruction.

And in Fury Road, Max and Furiosa  learn to accept each other as equals, and trust in each other’s strengths,  to survive Immortan Joe’s army. Once again you have two marginalized individuals, the mentally unstable Max, and the disabled Furiosa, but unlike in Thunderdome, the two of them manage to reach an accord where they work together, and respect one another, resulting in the survival of the group.

Along for the ride, and equally important, is the Warboy, Nux, who has one of the strongest redemption arcs in the movie. In each movie we get to see at least one other male character’s atonement. The overall message is not that men are so flawed they can never find redemption, but that only by giving up toxic forms of masculinity, and working together with women as equals, can they achieve anything close to it.

In The Road Warrior, the gryocopter man gets a redemption arc, too. At the beginning of the film, he tried to rob Max, was captured by him, and ended up in the compound.  This only occurred because Max chose not to kill him in retaliation. Later, because Max chose not to kill him, the gyrocopter man is then in a position to save Max’s life.This is another one of several threads in common between all the films. Max’s compassion prompts him to spare the life of another, which results not just  in the redemption of that character, but sometimes Max’s salvation, at a later moment in the film.

In Thunderdome he spares the life of Master Blaster, having been manipulated into a deathmatch against them by Aunty Entity. When Max discovers that Blaster is just a  mentally disabled manchild, he spares his life, but  is exiled to the desert for his choice. Max saving the life of Master Blaster  eventually saves everyone’s lives, as it provides an opportunity for him, the children from Crack in the Earth, and Master  to escape Aunty’s wrath after  destroying Bartertown.

In Fury Road, this redemption character is Nux. Max had the opportunity to kill him twice, and each time chose to spare him. If  Max not done saved him, Nux wouldn’t have been in a position  to meet the wives, or sacrifice his life to save the them later. Through both Max, the wives, and Furiosa, Nux is given the opportunity to reject Immortan Joe’s philosophy of rampant consumerism,  and adopt a new one, that of respect cooperation, love, and friendship, something he had never known among the Warboys. At the beginning of the movie, his only goal is to die in service to Joe, but he eventually dies in service to something far greater than Joe, because of experiences he never dreamed he would have, like Capable’s love.

Immortan’s wives treat each other, and Furiosa, with care and respect, work together to achieve their goals, and the Vuvulini fight and die, to protect each other, and the group. This is the definition of civilization, disparate groups of human beings working towards the goals of social progress and enlightenment. Across the Mad Max franchise, George Miller has placed the burden of this endeavor squarely in the hands of women.

In the films of Mad Max, women may not rule the wasteland, but they are its ultimate destruction.

 

*In the third part of my critical look at the Mad Max movies, we’ll  talk about The Promised Land myth that is used throughout the franchise. 

These Shows Look Exciting

For some of these TV shows, I already posted trailers, but recently new trailers were introduced at the New York Comic Con, which got me enthused all over again. Now these are surefire shows and returns that I will definitely be watching when they air, usually because I enjoyed the first season, or read the book, or because I just like the premise and actors.

Wolf Creek Season 2 – Dec. 15th/?

Some of these shows, I don’t have concrete dates for, and for some of them I don’t even have a network, nevertheless, I will be scrolling through my TV guide to find them at the appointed times.

I remember doing a mini review of this when it first aired. The series was unexpectedly good. I say unexpected because I hated the movie on which this was based. Wolf Creek is based on the story of a real life serial killer who roamed the Australian Outback, several years ago, and I had trouble watching the film because it was more like torture porn than a legitimate movie, and seemed to be glorifying the killer, and I seriously didn’t like that. I also hate films where the soundtrack consists entirely of women screaming. I was sort of expecting that with this series, but what I got was a tension-filled thriller, where the  usual “Final Girl” plays a long cat and mouse game with the man who destroyed her family.

This time around I didn’t see any of that in the trailer, and there seems no continuation of the fallout from the first story, as far as I can tell. I think this is an entirely new cast, although once again, there’s a little bit too much glorification of the killer for my comfort. I’m not a fan of portraying real life serial killers as funny and entertaining, but I will tolerate that, if the show is really, really compelling.

We’ll see.

Good Omens – 2019/ Amazon/BBC

I’m a big David Tennant fan, so I will probably be here to watch this. No, I didn’t read the original story and have no great urge to do so. Sometimes I like to watch a source based show, solely on its own merits, and I want to do that with this one. I like the premise, and it looks hilarious, which I’m told is also true of the book its based on.

The Passage – 2019/Fox

I mentioned being excited about this earlier this year. Now this series, I did read the book but not because I knew it would become a TV show. I read it because it has some truly scary vampires in it, and I really liked the writing. The trailer heavily reminds me of Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts, and I can’t help but think this may have been influenced by it, (although it wasn’t.)

The one problem I had with the first book in the trilogy by Justin Cronin was about halfway through the first book the story really slowed down, especially after those great first 200 pages. I seriously considered simply dropping the book, but I persevered, and I’m glad I did, because it picked up again for the last 50 pages or so, and the last part has some relevance to the next book in the series, called The Twelve.

The makers of the show have said they plan to stick pretty close to the first book as much as possible, including that 100 year jump that happens just after the events in the first 100 or so pages. Now I’m curious as to how they’re gonna pull that off without losing their audience. I almost didn’t finish the book for that reason.

Titans – DCEU Streaming/Today

I have no plans to subscribe to this network. I’m not buying one more damn app to watch shows on. I spend enough money now on cable. Nevertheless, I’m still excited about this show, not so much because of Anna Diop, but because I’m a big fan of Beastboy, mostly from watching Teen Titans Go, with my niece. (I’m probably one of five people, in the US, who doesn’t give a single  gotdamn that Starfire is being played by a Black woman. I think she looks gorgeous! I still hate her outfit.)

Star Trek Discovery Season 2 – Jan. 17th/ CBS All Access

The more of this I see, the more excited I am for the new season. I hope to get more insight into the Bridge crew, and I actually like Pike with his cocky ass. It’s still kind of bittersweet when you consider his life trajectory, though. It’s fitting there would be some Spock in this season, as Spock eventually comes to serve with Pike on the Enterprise, before Kirk became Captain. I really like Michael, and I love how she was so much of the focus of the first season, as is fitting, but I’d also like to see a little less focus on just her, and a little more of a focus on her interaction with the rest of the crew, and what their lives are like together.

And I have to watch it for the promised reunion between Culber and Stamets.

Siren – Jan. 2019/Freeform

I mostly enjoyed the first season which was kind of uneven as far as pacing and character. It seems like this season the show is going to focus on Indigenous shapeshifters, not just the mermaids, which I think is very exciting, and it appears the show will  continue to  slam it out of the park on the diversity angle, by adding more Indigenous people to the cast.

Daredevil Season 3 – Oct. 19th/Netflix

I’m almost excited for this new season because the trailer looks great. I was okay with the last season. I give it a C, as it could’ve been better, and mostly I just seemed to see all its faults. Well, it had a lot of faults. But I really like Vincent D’Onofrio though, so I’m looking forward to seeing the Kingpin again, only because Vincent is so damned good at playing him. The fight scenes look really good, and I’ve heard the other characters on the show get some major screen-time, separate from Matt’s shenanigans as Daredevil. Frankly, Foggy deserves it.

American Gods Season 2 – 2019/Starz

Do I even need to talk about how excited I am for the second season of this show. I do have a few misgivings though because the prolific Bryan Fuller is no longer in charge of this season. I think Nei Gaiman has taken over the writing or something, which is good, but Neil is not Bryan and I don’t know how or if he will approach the racial issues of the story the ay Bryan did. I’m always wary of White writers when it comes to the subject of race, unless they have proven track record of care and improvement. I like Neil, and have read many of his books, but I don’t know how he planes to approach the show.

Nevertheless, I’ll remain optimistic based on this trailer, which looks pretty good. I’d watch the show even if I hated the trailer, because I’m looking forward to meeting all the other Gods, like Mama-Ji. There’s also an Indigenous character, a young woman, that was added from the book, and another Asian woman called New Media, since Gillian Anderson left the show. New Media represents the god of social media and the internet, and is strongly aligned with Technical Boy. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of the Native gods of America, even though they were briefly mentioned and seen in the first season, although I have to say that such beings don’t show up til the end of the book, not that I think we should wait to see them.