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#at the hands of an abuser who is treated like a righteous protagonist through the movie
worstloki · 3 years
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infinity war and endgame: *presents near 6 hours of superhero content filled with various characters and storylines and a timeskip*
loki fans, as they should: *focus on the collective less-than-5-minutes of time Loki was on-screen or mentioned*
#there is a right to be mad after what happened#it is rather funny though that so many of the questions asked about the movie are literally about loki though#you can't just trash a beautiful character arc and then pretend the guy is going to die that easily too#@ marvel so is loki done being low-key suicidal or not#bc either he wasn't done recovering and therefore hadn't reached the end of his arc#or he wasn't done recovering and therefore hadn't reached the end of his arc#because he didn't even try to fight thanos with more than a knife#and I know there's trauma and ignoring that he can literally resurrect he still goes ahead and confronts an abuser#but then zooming in on his face too? making every other bad father also get a 'but he loved his kid and that's what matters' moment? BAD#so disrespectful to never even go on to acknowledge that Loki changed#Thor calls him the worst and then never mentions him again#not properly#in the end loki died and it's like that was just cut out from the rest of the narrative#thor already had the motive to want Thanos dead#it served no narrative purpose but to remove a character and that's the worst part about his death#he just#died#at the hands of an abuser who is treated like a righteous protagonist through the movie#and that's treated as if insignificant#so anyway yeah I still don't think Loki is dead and there's a bunch of legit in-universe reasons for it#but there's also the out-of-universe reason which has me raising a very judgemental eyebrow at the russos
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millennialdemon · 4 years
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VK was badly written. The purebloods, esp. Kaname were way too overpowered, and it felt like besides Zero (who is extra special) every other hunter was useless. So many plot holes too, why are there so many level Es running around when there are only like a few purebloods? Are they each turning 100 humans per day? The manga is even worse b/c the author tries to whitewash Kaname's crimes by turning him into a martyr. IMO, some of his actions are even worse than the actual antagonists'. (part 1)
Kaname's actions are worse than Shizuka's, considering she had actual reason to take revenge on Zero's parents since they killed her lover (not saying what she did was right, but at least she didn't do it on a whim). Kaname on the other hand was the one who intentionally released her to go after the Kiryuus, just for the sake of turning Zero into the "ultimate hunter". And to make it worse, he knowingly lets Zero take the blame after he kills Shizuka and takes her power LOL  And among his other actions, Kaname goes around killing random purebloods who didn't even do anything to him. If he truly cared about humans and vampire society, he should have done more to protect the humans, but the whole anime and manga, his entire character just revolved around Yuki, a teenage girl. Its scary to think how someone with so much power is able to abuse it so freely w/o consequences. No wonder even Asato, an aristocrat, wanted to get rid of the purebloods, SMH. (End)
You're Right, and you Should say it!!
To be honest, there is so much badness -- BAD writing, bad framing, bad tone, bad intentions -- in Vampire Knight that I can hardly parse it all and have to watch 2 minutes and stop just to process the new, awful information. Hence it taking 400 years for me to watch just seven episodes, and with barely any commentary...
It's genuinely frustrating to watch a story that presents such atrocities and characters, that then goes on to sympathize with and romanticize the characters that commit those atrocities. It's un-be-lievable! that Zero exists as he does in this narrative, and the framing ISN'T entirely sided with him. Even aside from constant questioning of the logic of the universe and characters, emotionally, I find Vampire Knight to be completely bankrupt. It renders characters I was neutral about into characters that are unforgivable -- Yuki in particular, allowing and forgiving the horrific things vampires did and still do to Zero, as if that is her prerogative?! -- and what criticisms I have of the logistics of such a contrived narrative are drowned out by the constant question of what the point of the suffering even is, when Cross just goes chibi x3 and insists Zero just get over his ~vampire reverse-racism~ a few minutes after he tries to kill himself because of trauma caused by vampires. 
The mundane cruelty of it all. I'm not against tragedies, but Vampire Knight doesn't treat itself as the tragedy that it is. If it did, Kaname would be a bonafide antagonist, and so would Cross. Because they are complicit in tremendous human suffering, if it serves their needs, even if they think they are noble (they are not, ha!). And so would Yuki, if she followed the current trajectory of loving Kaname regardless of the things he does and says to the people she supposedly also cares about. But that's not the case in Vampire Knight -- instead Kaname is an ~enigmatic bishie~ and Cross is righteous in his decision to take in a boy whose family was killed by vampires as a sick experiment in seeing if even someone who went through what Zero did can "see the light" and Live Peacefully With Vampires, and Yuki pointlessly angsts about Kaname maybe being kind of not great, but then deciding no, I'm wrong, Kaname is amazing and I love him anyway!
LIKE... SAY SIKE RIGHT NOW..
Additional commentary from my dear friend Nessa who knows a lot more about Vampire Knight than I do, because she’s big and strong and somehow watched the whole thing: 
they're right and what upsets me most about kaname is the don draper affect - how he can go around doing these objectively terrible things and still be defended by the author and fanbase when, if he were less attractive, they'd all turn on him. if he looked like asato ichijou when he confessed to orchestrating the kiryuu parent's murder or when he went on a pureblood killing spree than people would hate him. and everything kaname canonically is responsible for is ignored/downplayed by the author and fandom because of literally informed character traits.
yuki's got the worst case of protagonist centered morality I've ever seen and the audience follows her cues, so it doesn't matter that kaname is as bad as sara, shizuka, rido because he's got a 'tragic backstory'. which isn't even that tragic when you consider that the real kaname kuran died as an infant because of rido and that the fake kaname is an ancestor of the kuran family who lived a full life and loved another woman before he met yuki
the story tries to compare his story with zero's because they both lost their 'parents' but it's not even applicable because those weren't his parents. kaname is at least ten thousand at the end of the last arc before he throws his heart in the furnace and people still act like he's a minor. he was always an adult living in a child's body and he developed the same fixation that rido had for juuri for yuki. he's no better than him tbh, I don't know about the new reawakened kaname yet but holding the regular kaname accountable? he went on a killing spree to 'cleanse the world' for yuki and he planned the murder of her best friend's parents. he kept her in his house and didn't let her see yori or the chairman and only let her out when it was time to make a political appearance. the best thing he ever did for her was throw his heart into the furnace.
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hobbitkiller · 4 years
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She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 3
*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*
Previously on “A Tale of Three Female Relationships” AKA HobbitKiller clearly misses grad school but not enough to find secondary sources for a multi-part tublr. post (or thoroughly proofread):
In Part 2, I discussed the impact narcissistic mother figures, resentment for chosen ones, and repressing emotions has had on three female relationships in three different series: Adora and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Lena and Kara from Supergirl, and Rapunzel and Cassandra from Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.
These posts are a deep dive into where these relationships went wrong and will eventually culminate in a discussion of what these relationships say about the portrayal of female characters and female relationships in media.
For today’s installment, I will be covering two subjects: Blond Bulldozers and I Don’t Care (I Ship It). WARNING: This one gets reallllllly long. Like, possibly multiple sittings.
PART VI: BLOND BULLDOZERS
In my first post in this series, I jokingly mentioned that one half in all three of these relationships is a superpowered blonde who saves the world.
There are of course many implications in the fact that, though all three of these shows strive for increased diversity compared to their source material (It is also interesting that these are all shows based on pre-existing franchises), the main character continues to be a fair-skinned blond woman. 
That’s mostly a matter to be discussed another day, but I do find it interesting that all of these relationships feature one blond and one not-blond. Lena and Cassandra have black hair, and Catra is...well...a cat-person. Beyond that, the blond is not only the hero, but is typically depicted as morally superior and more righteous. Kara, AKA Supergirl, was literally declared the “Paragon of Hope” in the latest CW crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths. That title could just as easily have gone to Rapunzel whose chief characteristics are her optimism, desire to see others achieve their dreams, and belief that everyone gets a second chance no matter their criminal past and exploits (seriously, everyone in Corona--the name of the kingdom unfortunately for right now--gets one total pardon as long as they’re sorry even if the tried to kill multiple people). Adora is a little less cotton-candy that Kara or Rapunzel. She has the same moral righteousness, but actually has more of an edge to her than many of her friends due to her upbringing as a child soldier. Still, all three blondes are meant, for the most part, to be the moral center of their shows.
But, the thing is, when I look at these relationships, I can’t help but think of another popular blonde/not blonde friendship that went wrong:
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Ahhh, Wicked, the prototypical female friendship story for so many of us. Wicked aims to take this classic dynamic of the morally pure blond protagonist and their dark-haired frienemy and turn it a bit on its head. Throughout the musical, Glinda is treated as pure, superior, and good because she is flattering and pretty. In reality, Glinda is often selfish and lacks the courage to stand up to people and systems she believes are wrong. Elphaba, on the other hand, is treated like an outcast because of her green skin and social awkwardness. Yet, for most of the musical, she is the one with the moral righteousness. She is labeled “wicked” by those in power for challenging them and standing up to them.
We’ll discuss Wicked more in the finale of this multi-part post.
For now, I’d like to contrast that relationship to the three being analyzed right now. None of these three shows goes as far as Wicked did to undermine this trope of the perfect blond versus the darker brunette. This makes sense as none of the three properties is seeking to deconstruct their source material or turn it on its head in the way Wicked aims to do so for the Wizard of Oz (the movie more than anything else). They seek to update and diversify certain aspects to be sure (someone heard loud and clear the criticism that there are no people of color in Tangled), but not to challenge them.
That being said, each show does try to layer in flaws in their blond protagonists approach to relationships. These flaws tend to be more subtle than those of the people around them, perhaps to protect said blondes from becoming too unlikeable, but they are clearly there.
In the last post, I talked a lot about the resentment of the non-blondes in these relationships and how that helped lead to the relationships falling apart. Those characters are also much more the aggressors in said relationships and are much more set on taking down the other party.
However, the blondes in each relationship are not without blame for it falling apart.
In the previous post, I discussed how being friends of a so-called “chosen one” or “golden child” can breed resentment. I also mentioned that raising someone as a “golden child” is its own form of abuse. It creates a level of unrealistic expectations to always be perfect and responsible. It can be the same for a “chosen one.”
Adora, Kara, and Rapunzel all feel a tremendous amount of responsibility as the “saviors” of their respective worlds. This manifests itself in a need to constantly “fix” everyone else’s problems. Adora frequently describes her need to fix whatever goes wrong in the Rebellion. Kara feels it’s her job to fix things so much that she contacted her former boss’s estranged son behind her back to try to reconnect them. Rapunzel frequently becomes involved in the personal lives of her friends for the sake of fixing their problems.
To an extent, this is a good quality. All three of our blond saviors have good hearts and don’t want to see anyone else suffer, partially because all of them have suffered their own childhood traumas from being raised as a child soldier to witnessing one’s entire planet and species destroyed to being held prisoner for 18 years.
However, as the title of this section suggests, all three of these characters tend to take a bulldozer approach to their involvement with their loved ones’ lives. This creates tension in many of their relationships, not just those discussed in these posts. Adora’s attempts to help her friend Glimmer after Glimmer becomes queen come off as controlling and as though Adora doesn’t respect Glimmer’s position of authority. Kara, in addition to the incident with her boss’s son, had also tried to control the life of another alien (and eventual boyfriend), Mon El as well as did things like break into her sister’s apartment when she was sad. Rapunzel promises to fix everyone’s problems, which leads to friends feeling betrayed when she can’t follow through. She also frequently intrudes in Cassandra’s life and plans.
One of the most threatening things for people like Catra, Lena, or Cassandra is to feel as though they do not have control over their lives. When you already have trust issues, feeling like someone else is trying to control you can feel like you’re being trapped. Control is particularly important to Lena. In many ways, she has the same feelings of responsibility as Kara. Like Kara, Lena, having been raised by one of the most powerful and influential families on the planet, feels a sense of responsibility to be a world leader. She feels that even more keenly in light of the villainous actions of her mother and brother--that she has to restore honor to the family name. As discussed in the previous post, this feeling in Lena manifests itself in her actions towards her friends through buying them things or trying to solve problems for them such as buying Kara’s and James’s place of work, Catco, to save it from being purchased by a scumbag.
This need to take back control of her life and legacy, to me, is why Lena reacts so drastically to discovering that Kara is Supergirl. Being mad at Kara for keeping secrets is, frankly, hypocritical on several counts. Not only does Lena keep many, many secrets from Kara throughout the show, but she is also fine with the fact that Alex, Kara’s sister, never told Lena explicitly that she was an agent of the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO). Of course, the reason why Lena wasn’t mad at Alex is because Lena had already known who Alex was, thus giving her power and control in that relationship. Finding out that her friend had successfully hidden her identity for years and had been influencing events without Lena’s knowledge took away the control Lena felt she had over that relationship.
Cassandra also feels a keen lack of control over her life and her relationship with Rapunzel due to the fact that Rapunzel is both her monarch and direct employer. Cassandra serves Rapunzel and that is the first avenue through which they formed a relationship. Early in their relationship, Cassandra resented Rapunzel’s attempts to become friends and said the chance of a Lady in Waiting and a princess becoming friends was a million to one. Rapunzel, by nature of being “irrepressible” (as her friends call her), manages to worm her way into Cassandra’s heart to the point that Cassandra almost forgets that she and Rapunzel are not equals.
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What I find interesting about both Cassandra and Lena is that they both, in some ways, considered themselves the protectors of their naive blond friends. While it’s true that Cassandra always knew her station was below Rapunzel, part of her job early on was teaching Rapunzel how to be a member of the court--what to do, when to curtsy, who was who, etc. In fact, Rapunzel had so little exposure to the outside world, Cass was partly responsibly for teaching her how to interact socially in general. There’s also the added factor that Cassandra is 4 years older than Rapunzel, which can seem like a lot at their ages. Lena, as previously discussed, saw herself as a major figure in shaping the future of the world. She went out of her way to help Kara by buying Catco and tried to protect Kara if they were ever in physical danger together.
Both of these characters suffered from an abrupt challenge to the relationship roles they previously thought they had. Cassandra in this scene and Lena when Lex tells her that Kara is Supergirl.
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It’s interesting that, in that scene, Lex emphasizes the idea that Lena has been a fool. (And, fair enough, I’m pretty sure everyone who’s ever watched the show found it hard to believe that Lena never once realized her best friend was Supergirl. I mean...really, glasses?) But this idea, that she had been a fool plays right into Lena’s fear of losing control. It’s the idea that someone else was pulling strings while she was oblivious that taps right into her deepest insecurities.
Catra’s issues with feeling controlled by Adora are mostly revealed in the episode discussed last post called “Promise.” They come up again in the third season finale when Adora tries to convince Catra to come with her and leave a world that is crumbling out of existence and Catra declares that she will never  go with Adora, and that she won’t “let you win” and “would rather see the whole world end (which it’s doing BTW) than let that happen.” Catra believes the way to get control back from Adora is to “win” at any cost. 
In the end, this idea of “winning” becomes part of all three relationships. It’s no longer about working together or “us against the world” for the not-blondes who have felt crushed under the weight of their friends. Now it’s about achieving their goals in spite of the collateral damage.
And the most frustrating part is that the blondes are largely oblivious to the fact that they make their friends feel this way or that they are overstepping boundaries. They just think they’re doing the right thing because they’re “taking care of” or “fixing” the problem. They’re so concerned with taking care of or protecting their friends, that they don’t realize how patronizing and condescending that can feel.
So, even as these relationship turn so sour, why are so many people not only rooting for the friendship to return, but for our ladies to go the next level beyond?
PART VII: I DON’T CARE (I SHIP IT)
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I sometimes wonder how the greatest point of contention, the biggest source of toxicity, and the most exhausting part of fandom became shipping. I have seen more nastiness among fans and toward creators and actors about shipping than just about anything else.
Shipping has a long history in fandom, though that term is relatively recent. People have been writing fan fiction about Kirk and Spock getting together since the show was on and fan fiction was written and shared at either in-person gatherings or through semi-underground fanzines. 
And, trust me, I’ve been in the trenches of a ship war. Back when Avatar: The Last Airbender was airing, I was a hardcore Zutara shipper. And, to be more honest, it made me a jerk. Part of that is just because I was a teenager at the time, and teenagers don’t always realize the potential impacts of their actions due to brain chemistry etc, etc. But still, the intensity with which I argued that my ship either would or should become canon when the creators of the show clearly preferred the other relationship embarrasses me when I look back at it.
These days, fandom shipping has gotten even more complicated and contentious.
Back when those women (and it was mostly women) were typing their Kirk/Spock fan fiction and mailing it to other fans, they knew Kirk and Spock would never actually get together on the show. That was the case for the majority of fandoms until very recently--that there was no expectations of actual canon lgbtq representation. People could claim there was deliberate subtext or coding, but very few, if any people, expected shows to actually have openly lgbtq characters.
Then, it started to actually happen. Not just in a, “the actor said they saw their character as gay” or “the creators said they coded that character as gay” way. Characters actually started being lgbt on screen in ways that weren’t demeaning or stereotypes. Major characters, too.
For me, a big moment that gave rise to the hopes of many that their lgbt ships might actually have a shot at being confirmed as canon was, funnily enough, the sequel show to Avatar: TLA, The Legend of Korra.
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The above was the closest the couple got to an on-screen intimate moment, and some fans didn’t believe it was romantic until it was later confirmed by the show creators. Nickelodeon was only willing to go so far, after all. The followup comics, however, are much more explicit with the relationship and the two share multiple kisses and intimate moments.
Many fans argue that Korrasami (as the ship between Korra and Asami is called) was too subtle to be considered real representation. But a wave could certainly be felt throughout the world of animation afterword. Shows became even more bold about confirming lgbt characters or at least became less subtle in their coding. 
And suddenly, the idea that a main character’s finale pairing might be anything other than straight became a real possibility and, in some cases, an expectation.
In addition to the growing visibility of lgbt relationships in media, another change was slowly taking place within fandom. 
For much of modern fandom, the most popular ships have been male/male (mlm). Back when I was getting into fan fiction (because I love reminding people that I’m old), this was called “slash.” Slash was exclusively a term for mlm relationships. Same-sex relationships between women (wlw) were labeled “fem-slash,” and were much more rare.
Multiple people have discussed theories for why mlm was, and continues to be in many cases, the most popular type of ship. Some believe it has to do with the prevalence of straight women in fandom who might fetishize mlm relationships. While I have no doubt that’s partly true, I believe the other common argument has a great deal of merit: there were more mlm ships because male characters were more interesting and more prevalent. 
Star Trek: The Original Series had only two main female characters and neither of them was given close to the emotional depth as Spock or Kirk. Lord of the Rings, which was one of the most popular pieces of media on which to write fanfic when I was younger, has so few women the movies had to add in a boat load of new scenes for Arwen.
Recently, though, not only have more shows invested in writing dynamic, interesting female characters, but they have included multiple diverse female characters with relationships with each other and not just the men in the shows. 
So, not only do more people ship wlw ships, but more people expect to actually see those ships represented in their media. Never before has a wlw ship becoming “endgame” seemed more possible.
In many ways this is fantastic. More representation being not only more possible but more expected is absolutely necessary for our media to progress and grow. This has, however, lead to some growing tensions in communities where shipping has, in some ways, become its own form of activism, which means that there is not only people’s personal feelings and preferences for ships on the line, but people who feel that fighting for their ship to become canon is a proxy battle for their own acceptance. 
All three of these wlw ships mean a lot to the people who ship them, and all three have been met with the desire, and occasionally demand, of canon validation as well as a heady mess of coding, accusations of queer baiting, and the lingering question of which, if any, relationships might get the same, and hopefully more explicit, validation that Korrasami had.
Let’s start this deep dive into these relationships as ships with the one that has, in canon, already been resolved.
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Yep, that’s definitely a Disney twirl going on there.
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One of the first points often made when the validity of a mlm or wlw ship is questioned is that, if you say an m/f couple do the same thing, no one would question that it was romantic. This makes it interesting, and sets off the shipping alarm for anyone who’s a fan of wlw ships when Tangled: The Series goes out of its way to not only give Cass and Rapunzel (ship name: Cassunzel) romantic moments like the above “Disney twirl,” but also directly parallels relationship moments that occurred between Rapunzel and her canon boyfriend/future husband Eugene (AKA Flynn Rider).
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Look familiar? It’s almost a shot-for-shot remake of Rapunzel and Eugene meeting for the first time. In this episode, Cassandra accidentally wipes Rapunzel’s memory to the point where Rapunzel thinks she’s still in the tower. It plays out, in part, as “What if Cassandra had found her instead of Eugene?”--something every shipper had doubtless already asked themselves at least once.
Another major moment of paralleling between the two relationships is the endings of both the movie and the series. 
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Eugene dies in the end of Tangled only to be resurrected by Rapunzel’s love. Cassandra dies in the series finale of Tangled: The Series, only to be resurrected by Rapunzel’s love. And it is love, that much is very clear.
The only debate really, is whether it’s romantic or platonic love. 
Cassandra and Rapunzel never get official validation in the show or by the executive producers. The most confirmation fans get outside of the text of the show are comments made by some people who work on the show saying that they deliberately coded Cassandra as gay as they could whenever they could.
Yet, for the most part, the creators of this show are largely given a pass by Cassunzel shippers for not making their ship canon. Most understand that, as a Disney property, many hands are tied, particularly given that, due the previous establishment both form the end of Tangled and from the short Tangled Ever After that Rapunzel and Eugene do get married. The reaction seems to largely be that Disney and the show got about as close to confirming it as they could without doing so.
So let’s transition from the show that met, and in some ways, passed expectations to one that has set expectations super high: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. 
She-Ra is perhaps one of the most lgbtqia coded shows out there right now. The first season even ends with them saving the day with a rainbow.
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Here is show-runner and executive producer Noelle Stevenson on queerness in her life and She-Ra:
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Yet, despite these deliberate attempts to show representation and to challenge heteronormative ideas, the show has yet to show any of its primary characters or even second tier characters in queer romantic relationships. We have seen a few parents, one pair on in a photo, and their is one married couple of women, but none of these characters are prominently featured on the show.
She-Ra has set expectations incredibly high and has yet to deliver.
Even so, part of what sets She-Ra apart from the other two shows discussed here is that there are multiple queer shipping opportunities. Catra and Adora (ship name Catradora) are one of, if not the, most popular ships, but both Catra and Adora have other female characters with which they could be just as easily shipped.
On the one hand, the pressure is pretty high to establish at least one major queer ship before the end of the show. On the other hand, the pressure is much less that the ship specifically be Catradora.
The near-certainty that there will be one or more wlw ships confirmed before the end of She-Ra means, to me, that Catradora has the greatest chance to become canon.
So, there’s Cassunzel that never really had much of a chance for canon confirmation and Catradora, which has a better chance of becoming canon, but also has less pressure to become THE ship. Where does that leave Lena and Kara?
Anyone who has been in the Supergirl fandom knows that it can feel like a battleground. While all fandoms tend to have their issues, Supergirl’s can be so contentions that it, frankly, makes watching the show less fun. This doesn’t all fall on one groups shoulders, I’ve seen nastiness from many sides over different issues. However, the biggest point of contention tends to center around the potential ship of Lena and Kara (Supercorp). 
Supercorp, as a ship, is completely valid. Kara has way more chemistry with Lena than she has had with any of her male love interests, and two of those guys were played by people whom actress Melissa Benoist was actually in relationships with (though the first was an abusive dirtbag, so lack of chemistry probably makes sense there). Lena once thanked Kara by filling her entire office with flowers. There are cuddles, and Kara’s unwavering (until recently) faith in Lena’s goodness. It’s hard not to ship them.
The issue in the fandom, is not so much that people ship Supercorp (though there are increasingly more people who have issues with the ship itself, which is something I’ll address about all three of these ships in the next post) but the vehemence with which some who ship Supercorp approach whether it will be endgame.
In a way, the frustration is understandable. Supergirl is, in many ways, a show that has made a point of including LGBTQ representation. The second season featured a multiple episode story arc of Supergirl’s adoptive sister Alex Danvers (I will stan her until the end of time) realizing she was a lesbian, coming out, and eventually starting a relationship with another woman. Supergirl also made headlines for featuring the first live-action trans superhero on tv with the introduction of Dreamer in Season 4. The trans actress who plays Dreamer, Nicole Maines, has even had input on how the character is represented including a recent episode that discussed the often ignored violence targeting trans people, particularly trans women of color.
She-Ra and Supergirl have different approaches to representation. She-Ra takes place in a fantasy world and appears to take the approach that nothing about identity or sexuality should be assumed about anyone. There is no heteronormativity in Etheria, yet no major characters are in non-m/f relationships. Supergirl on the other hand, is set in a world more similar to ours which has heteronormativity, homophobia, and transphobia, which leads to the show making episodes and story-arcs specifically about those topics while also somewhat constraining the show. There are arguments to be made about the worth of both approaches and both can serve a purpose for viewers, particularly young viewers, who are searching for characters like them in media.
So, why are the people behind Supergirl so often accused of homophobia?
I mentioned in the Blond Bulldozers section that it is a bit telling that all three shows being discussed here attempt to create diversity while having the whitest, most mainstream character as the lead. There are many who would argue that the true values of the shows are represented by their main characters, and that the rest are window dressing to try to make the show look good as a form of tokenism. The point being that shows won’t really show a commitment to diversity until the main characters are just as diverse as the rest of the cast.
These are all valid arguments. 
A less valid argument is the claim that Supercorp is being deliberately baited by the creators of the show. Queer baiting is a term that seems to have a lot of subjectivity tied up with it. The general idea is that it is when creators purposefully use queer coding or other means to inspire queer shipping of characters as a means to draw in the queer community to their show but then never delivering on that potential.
In some ways, all three of these shows could be accused of queer baiting. The direct parallels in between Cassandra/Rapunzel and Eugene/Rapunzel were no accident. The coding and “anything can happen” while very little does on She-Ra is much the same. And Supergirl is trying to center a large part of the show around the relationship between Kara and Lena, a relationship they know many of the fans see as romantic.
Yet, to me, Supergirl, is actually a less guilty party, at least when it comes to Supercorp. One can, again, argue that the canon LGBT ships and characters exist to pander and draw in those audiences, but Supercorp, I believe, genuinely came out of a place of wanting Kara to have a strong female relationship with someone other than her sister, mother, or boss, and I’m sure this falling-out was in the plans fairly early on.
Has the show completely shut down the idea? No, I don’t think they would be foolish enough to do that. But I don’t believe that it rises to the level of baiting. Shows like Sherlock or movies like Pitch Perfect 3 are, to me, much more egregious examples.
Still, as I said, I can understand the frustration of Supercorp shippers, I just feel like the level of anger directed by some not just at the creatives who make the show but at other fans as well is not fully justified. (And yes, I know “not all Supercorps” and I also know other fans have been jerks. Sanvers shippers who are being asses about Kelly are just as bad.) And who knows? I’d never say never to the ship maybe becoming canon eventually after Kara and Lena work out their issues.
That being said, all three of these ships, regardless of canon status, are incredibly popular, and I want to examine more of what that is and the reason some people are wary of these ships and the potential messages they send. This leads me to our topics for our next installment:
MY WIFE IS A BITCH AND I LIKE HER SO MUCH
and
POISON PARADISE
I will try to make the next one shorter. Also, sorry for typos, I did not give this a thorough read-through. I used all my brain power just writing it.
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theskyexists · 4 years
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watching bladerunner 2049
great environmentally destroyed earth there
i believe that the blatant humanity of AI in this film - as well as their blatant ability to love and feel empathy (a huge divergence from the book) while still being treated as inferior and disposable objects is a comment on how we do that to Other humans without blinking.
though also, they can project a hologram, then solidify the hologram - but they can’t clean up the damn atmosphere? like really. I guess that can only be explained by an elite trying to stay on top by keeping capital firmly in their own hands. i was looking at those solar farms and just going....how is that bringing in any energy in this dust?
also the problem i have with Ryan Gosling as this lead dude who’s in love with his adjustable AI hologram is that i never buy him as capable of love in that way. ever. at all. (so possibly it’s the right choice? anyway this whole thing is creepy)
yeah it’s supposed to be like: lol this was just a fantasy
‘a sentimental skin job’ - evidence of funerary practice, of altruistic behaviour (of grief, of empathy?) he says sorry even though by society’s standards the robot’s owed no courtesy? then he thinks the dude ate the baby - like thats not more insulting
so what separates robots from humans is not - eating food, drinking liquor, getting hurt, feeling empathy - but the ability to reproduce??? (but doesnt he need to sleep?)
the argument really is that being born = having a soul? lol thats a crazy wall to build a society on but there’s been stupider and more arbitrary ones. again, maybe that’s the point
a LOT of product placement in this.
it keeps to the same formula though. an investigator who is forced to forego his own empathy to ‘do the job’. Meeting with the local robot company, meeting the secretary in charge made to appeal. etc. etc. i think that’s pretty cool.
this building is very pharaoic. great set
eyyy a reference to the book. a lil origami sheep (got what he wanted)
im getting the impression from this film that ‘androids’ haven’t got a metal thing in their body and they’re just clones. which honestly i also got that sense from the book so that makes sense
ah so the android was based on himself (he looks ryan gosling like? or can i not distinguish white guys?). and this one is based on the K’s configuration of Joi.
Naturally the android to be ‘inspected’ is a woman who gets to be naked and weak and shit.
‘Every leap of civilisation was built off the back of a disposable workforce’ - great. (the film does a good job being like: hm yeah but the world is shit now so how is that leap so super ?)
Yikes i mean uh i know it’s like a commentary on disposable bodies and people as chattel and women as ‘reproducers’ but they’re portraying him and all his  fuckin self-important self-righteous power-hungry megalomaniac rich bitch speeches as a fuckin sermon worth listening to
and if they don’t take him down in this film i will be mad.
and also i wanted to stab his eyes out the moment he put his hand on her belly but unfortunately i get the sense he’s going to stab HER
but well they’re still sticking with the book formula which is still clever, the Investigator being in love with some AI and then having to kill the android that looks just like her because the company doesn’t keep to the law and shit
- i hope they push just a lil bit different since they’ve clearly established the main premise of the book is the opposite in this film - androids DO have empathy, they DO dream of electric sheep (in this case, electric Joi)
I sure hope ‘Luv’ gets to murder Wallace for what he does to this baby android.
I know he’s a rapist capitalist sadist god complex creepbitch but goddamn i sure hope that the movie MEANT for that reading or i will be mad.
he literally did nothing but creep on a CHILD android and then murder her FOR NOTHING. wow. i’ve never wanted androids to take over and kill a human so badly before. This sure is the opposite of Terminator.
i liked mackenzie davis’ performance here.
‘am i the only one who can see the fuckin sunrise, here?’ uhhhh why are you shouting at the android? like, where the fuck are your human officers and bosses? i love how apparently a police boss can just drink on the job? bc sci fi noir. not that ryan gosling manages that. i JUST noticed that she has bare legs, and now they cut to putting them on display. this is going to end badly (im feeling like there’s going to be some sort of sexual power abuse. edit: she was testing his humanity and he deliberately failed teh test to stop her interest in him)
why the fuck would they implant that memory. (but he thinks that it might be real) (but then how would he have ended up there at the police station)
theres a lot of rain in this world
we now move onto the marginal humans that live in the waste, discarded. and how they destroyed without blinking by a marginal android operating on the orders of the richest man alive.
i have to say that watching this movie makes me so happy about trees and blue skies
the marginal children - processing the waste - sick, abused, enslaved.... here all white...supervisor...black. interesting choice. (all this suffering for ‘civilisation’ - the nickel for the colony ships - this is a lot more spicy than the book - a lot more realistic about who suffers and dies for that kind of thing)
starts to seem like he really is the kid - these ‘orphanage’ stairs look a lot like that memory
Gosling is great for this role bc he doesn’t really have to move his face. but god the pace of this film is so SLOW! had to skip a bit of his slow shuffle to the horse man. ‘ohhh i was a real child, from loving parents, oh no i killed my dad! after killing my mum through childbirth! fuck! im the child that im hunting! oh shit! hey i have a soul!’
you’re special because actually you had agency all along and you’ve been using it to murder people wink
i dont understand the AI bit in this. don’t understand why they would hide him with so much care that he’d know nothing about who he was and kill his dad. like. surely that wasn’t the idea. also if the AI is Wallace’s why can’t Luv hack it. also i really kind of dislike her male fantasy self.
I like this Doctor. she is very very sweet and lovely. i dont really know why nobody would come visit her.
so we can read memories, implant memories, project memories not photo realistically ACTUALLY realistically, we can construct memories from the imagination but we can’t -  i repeat - we can’t clean the damn atmosphere?? i mean yes yes yes this is... a perfect example of how capitalism will not necessarily put money into tech that is you know - a good idea for us all collectively but rather into something that can be sold but god DAMN
manipulation eyyyy. already exercising his freedom of mind
really. an android selling sex to an android??? what the fuck lol. it’s a clone implanted with fake memories selling sex to a clone. yeah yeah yeah society has deemed them inhuman purely because they were built but THE POINT IS THEY are human in literally every other sense and controls them through law and brain make-up and then eliminating everybody who grows their brains from baseline? (why are they even paid?? is that supposed to be pavlovian?)
i really don’t understand what this AI is about. i just can’t get over that this really doesn’t seem like a love story
he almost died and then this AI springs sex on him lol. i really. i just really don’t care for this story and that’s possibly because Ryan Gosling is just so fuckin bad at selling any kind of love story like his eyes are always SO DEAD
oh my god im only halfway. oh my god. THIS FILM IS ALMOST THREE HOURS LONG. jfc
this is such an extremely male fantasy it bores me to death. im  a dude who’s badass, powerful, controlled, SPECIAL, also told im special by my very humany AI gf who i installed exactly to my tastes, she desperately wants to have sex with me FOR ME because im just so cool and wonderful despite being so tortured and possessing eyes like a dead fish. 
let’s spend 20 mins on undressing another two women in this film as we, the viewers, and i, the male protagonist just stand and watch. let’s re-emphasise how she’s just a self-learning ai
there’s light? warm light?
and then they have the women fight each other ? cool cool cool. im not saying it’s not realistic, im just saying it’s boring. i thought Mackenzi was going to proposition K for the resistance
still not sure why Luv hasn’t hacked her already. first time the romance feels slightly real
I guess Luv is indoctrinated. i still like police boss don’t hurt her. i mean obv she’s terrible but so is everybody else. she cried...again. so she kills from anger - not because she had to. she kills her the same way Wallace killed the android. i’d love to read a lil analysis about this. later. women-on-women violence
oh she really DID know where he was but kept it from Luv. why? was she willing to die for him? no. her dignity? maybe. The women in this are mysteries. also why is he still allowed to use the car and drone when he’s suspended. that’s pretty fuckin stupid.
hmm giant statues of naked women WITH heels on posed sexily and unthreateningly. im just saying. this is all super psychoanalysis galaxy brain.
gasp there is a real live bee. thats a book call back
and a classic perfectly intact building
HALF OF THIS FILM IS JUST RYAN GOSLING SHUFFLING THROUGH STRIKING LANDSCAPES AND SETS FROWNING JUST SLIGHTLY
it’s got the opposite problem of the book: it is SLOW AS FUCK
how does he know what a piano is
wow K’s really good at de-escalating. why not just be honest. so he got shot, blown up and then? still fine walking. lol they just gotta show off that he’s still a bladerunner! (where the fuck did that name come from...)
here you’re bleeding in your face. ok? he’s also bleeding from the shotwound maybe? that was definitely implied that he got shot.
and K’s also really bad at asking questions lol. thats because all he ever did was shoot people. anyway this is boring again, these two fighting about nothing - some kind of testerony bullshit about zero stakes - but apparently just screaming at the man will help
also im not sure why he assumed Deckard was the father.
harrison ford delivered that well.
‘to strangers’ i fuckin hate ryan gosling i don’t know if its because hes a bad actor or because his interpretation is so shit
so Deckard left, Rachel died in childbirth (really? lol. god do i want to fuckin consume a woman’s story about goddamn dying in childbirth) and Sapper left him at the orphanage? but how the fuck did he then get slotted into police service all official like??? doesnt make sense except Mackenzie’s network’s got something to do with it
ok so it was implied but now confirmed taht androids come with enhancements
oh nooooo she kills his love :( awww. i can’t feel for him at all lol
but she almost kills the kid she so badly wanted to find
i wonder why she’s so sadistic. probably because she learned from wallace. but all the womb - woman - beautifying - controlled by man - in fear of him - in thrall of him - killing other women again and again sadistically while killing men coldly is uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
i just dont care for it you know
also this AI woman turned out to have NO role in the movie except to lavish attention on this dude (make him seem capable of love except ryan gosling can’t move his face) and then be fridged lol
so why does she let him live? fuckin bullshit
look, i like the aesthetic and the world but god the director is wayy too in love with it - SPEED THIS SHIT UP
so actually - if Rachel died in childbirth how is she holding the baby in the pic
“That baby meant that we are more than just slaves”
This could be really cool - like - taking back the means of reproduction!!! This is how we will become a PEOPLE. Freedom through female fertility as a symbol. But because uhhhhh this is all a Male Fantasy it feels decidedly icky and not like that at all. Like, why did they make the kid male? That...makes no sense? if Rachel was the only one who could bear children bc of her ...genes? Why the fuck would you centre the story on somebody who cannot take up that legacy, cannot be that symbol? It’s totally weird
OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH!!!!! ok lol.
he thought he was the kid but the girl is....but uh then why was there an exact copy. as a red herring? THEN HOW DID HE GET from the orphanage to the fuckin police???
Is Luv supposed to be the girl though? because they keep killing all the female characters so it’s like, uhuh. it’s not mackenzie bc like thatd be silly huh. i mean it would be stupid but they could pull that
if they think he can get at deckard, why not get him to shoot wallace
how did he get a fuckin police car lololololol
ah these super high tech hoovercars have zero defenses against ???  what is he even shooting at them?
Luv’s actress does something very interesting to her voice when she gets emotional or shouts orders - kind of monstrous and inhuman
well he certainly hit them perfectly
WHERE DID HE GET THE POLICE CAR?
“I’m the best one” yeah - i.e. so I cannot be killed by my master as he’s made me do to so many
why do they always INSIST on men killing women by choke. don’t be so fucking stupid. if she can push his head under water she can punch his lights out. SHE LITERALLY JUST HAD A KNIFE - SHE COULD HAVE STABBED HIM IN THE EYE
why would she waste air grunting. she doesn’t even fake him out. i know they’re human so thats counter-instinctual but like, she’s supposed to be an incredible fighter. it’s the same thing with how they have her do all these kicks and he stays standing because women = agility, men = endurance, and then he punches her once and she goes flying. THEY”RE ANDROIDS HARRY. WHY WOULD YOU BUILD GENDER BULLSHIT IN???
so how many women did we see die extremely explicitly and/or aesthetically and/or plot/significantly so far? raechal (childbirth), the android baby (one cut to the womb), the police boss (one cut to the womb), AI girl (one crunch), Luv (one shot and one strangle-drown).
Ryan Gosling can get shot, blown up, killer punched 7 times, get blown up again, have his lung get perforated by schrapnel, be kicked to shit 5 times. he gets a bandage on his nose and takes it off again so thats a total reset apparently. He’s then shot again, kicked to shit again, sliced in the hand, stabbed in a place thats clearly deadly, half drowned - and he STILL KILLS THIS ANDROID WOMAN. HE STILL KILLS THE BEST WALLACE HAS EVER MADE.
WHAT?!!??!?!!
the men get shot from a distance, bombed from a distance, shot from a distance.
im sorry but this sucks.
and then ryan gosling swims all the way to land.
lol why does this script try to convince me that in this advanced fuckin tech society they wouldn’t be able to check for Deckard’s body??? and then he brings him to a place that’s monitored??
oh right the Doctor was the daughter. so.....they lied about her auto-immune disease? she knew that she had given him her memory? why did they do that? im still not clear on that???
how tf and whytf would they send the girl to the orphanage and let her get beat up by some boys, and only then send her to some perfect chamber
ryan gosling always plays such emotionally constipated characters - they never wanna have anything good
THAT’S IT!?!! they’re not going to explain shit?? they’re implying K just died?? leaving Deckard to get picked up by police and Wallace to find the Doctor and and THEY DIDN’T EVEN KILL CREEP EXTROARDINAIRE FUCKING WALLACE???
All they did was kill the abused slave by fucking choke?????
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ainomica · 4 years
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The movie "The good son" is a good example of how the mother chooses her adoptive son over her biological son bc her bio son was pure evil. Even in the last moments on the cliff after all her son has done, it is still an incredibly hard decision for her to let go of him. It makes narrative sense and the audience sympathizes with her choice. Leia's choices, however, never make sense. From the beginning she is fighting in the opp. side of a war that could kill her son(part one)
(part two) She sends Ben off to Luke bc he was too much to deal with. She later trains Rey to kill Ben. Unlike the son from the good son, Ben isn't completely evil, so why is she sentencing him to his death?All of the additional reading materials just prove Leia was always an absent or neglectful mother. Leia's actions just don't make sense as a whole. The easy thing is to just deem Leia a bad mother, but I suppose I am somewhat like the OT fans that doesn't want to see Leia in a bad light.
Hello Nonny
I saw the premise of the story and while i think the story dramatized personality disorder in children to the extreme for the premise of the story and i highly condemn child murder , i still get it from a writing perspective what the writers are trying to say here. Writing is all about emotional manipulation afterall and audience would never sympathize with a woman who would kill her child for someone else if the said child is not batshit crazy first and the mother is not dying inside while doing it.
I have seen plenty of of Indian movies with same premise too. We may like family themes above all but stuff like these are good drama fodder. The foremost i can think is Mother India , a cult classic in which the mother has to kill her son because of plot spoilers . But her murder is not painted as self righteous crusade but final nail in the tragic coffin that is her tragic life filled with pain and sacrifice ( its a tragic movie about life of the woman protagonist. Modern Hollywood could never!) . Even there , you can see the writers using the same technique even though the son is not a psycho, just a plain bad person who even feels sorry before he dies in his mother’s arms( its a real tear jerker ) . The lowkey themes i remember watching in Baghban movie where the parents let go and disinherit two of their biological kids after they gain success as novelists because they treated the poorly emotionally by seperating the old couple for economic convinience to take care of them and then ..well didn’t care for them as much. While the child the adopted as a kid did and didn’t expect anything from them . Its very Knives Out ish but nobody dies, nobody is playing games and its not same murder mystery whodunit.It was pure melodrama and you can see the themes here. Even in that movie, just like Mother India, the plot doesn’t have the elderly parents middle finger those kids, its framed as a genuinely sad decision they are making. 
The sequel trilogy on the other hand asks me to expect to love Leia while she treated her 10 year old child, who did nothing wrong, who loves her and needed her help so badly VERY POORLY and justify her decisions, with what?/ retroactive crimes he would commit years down the line under the pressure of his abuser, grooming and situation??? Okay.
Honestly i am a generic fan of OT so i know i cannot even begin to understand but i can just imagine how hard it must have felt to see the trilogy’s 2/3 movie treat Leia as nothing more than an afterthought in everything despite her looming presence. I remember Fisher in interviews and saying to Billie before she died how excited she was that the last movie would be about her( and hence her and Ben) and this is what she has to show for her posthumous legacy. The character she played relegated a cruel mother NPC, the son who is frightening close to her own personal life metaphor be cheered while he basically commit suicide for his lover and the movie be about Mark fooking Hamill again and ...Rey. 
That woman believed and lived by the power of motherhood. Anyone who knew her life , understood this. 
See this is where the trilogy failed Leia Organa--they turned her into a video game NPC for their self inserts benefit , forgetting that she has a life and story of her own and ignoring it means implications , ugly and bad implications. She became a cold, horrible and terrible mother because JJ couldn’t arse himself to remember or bother thinking through what he is writing for any minute. 
As i said before, Lucas might have only objectified Fisher’s body but he never objectified Leia . JJ Abrams did and that is FAR MORE unfeminist than he could possibly imagine which could only come behind with what he did to Loan Marie Tran and her character Rose. 
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