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gottagobackintime · 11 months

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Music (and movies) and queerness in Ted Lasso. Particularly in relation to Ted (and Trent)

I want to start with a line from the show that contains the word music.

“If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it.” Said by Mae to Ted in a scene where a few moments later Trent walks up to him after leaving his date to go talk to him. It’s a quote from the VERY queer Shakespeare play “Twelfth Night”. The line implies that the speaker wants to be fed more, to the point of it making them sick so that they won’t desire, love in this case, anymore. Because he’s unhappily in love with someone who he can’t have (Michelle?). BUT he falls in love with someone else later. And in the context of Ted Lasso, this line just so happens to be said right before they show us that Trent is there. Ted also answers Mae, not by asking if she’s asking him if he wants more but “If that’s your fancy way of asking if I want another one, you guessed right”.Another love?And according to James Lance, it was when he was on his way to film this scene that he found out that Trent is gay and that he is “with that guy” as he himself puts it. A man who has a moustache very similar to Ted’s and wears similar clothes.

(Also, this happens in season 2 episode 7. In season 3, episode 7 Ted talks about the red string/thread of fate myth while Trent wears a red bracelet and they are connected by red several times and season 3, episodes 7 and 11 are connected via “You’ve got Mail”, the opening scene in episode 7 being a “tribute” to the movie, and there are other smaller references. And the team, and Trent, watching the movie in episode 11. AndTrent also wears the bracelet in episode 11, an episode I’ll bring up later in this post).

Now, let us get to the music.

Bruce Springsteen If you google “Bruce Springsteen queer” you get a lot of results discussing queerness in his songs and so on, so to put him in this post is a must.

Bruce Springsteen is brought up by Dottie in season 3 episode 11. She tells Trent about the time Ted got onstage and danced with Bruce Springsteen (which turns out to be a lie) but the connection to Springsteen is still there, because Ted did get onstage with a Bruce Springsteen cover band and sang with them. So, we’ve established a connection between Ted (and Trent) and Bruce Springsteen.

Let’s connect it to something else that happened in the episode. They watch “You’ve Got Mail” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (I’ll come back to “You’ve Got Mail” later, the important part here is Tom Hanks). Ted states that the superior Nora Ephron/Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie is “Sleepless in Seattle”,a movie about a reporter falling for a single dad simply because of the way he talks about things and what he talks about. He brings the movie up twice, once to say that it’s superior and once telling someone to watch it. Now what does “Sleepless in Seattle” have to do with Bruce Springsteen? “Sleepless in Seattle” came out in 1993, as did “Philadelphia” a movie about a gay man played by Tom Hanks. Springsteen made a song called “Streets of Philadelphia”, specifically for this movie. A bit farfetched? Eh, perhaps, but I’m including it anyway.

So, in this episode Trent, a gay man, is told by Ted’s mum that Ted once went onstage with Bruce Springsteen and that’s the story he needs to confirm straight away. He practically skips towards Ted’s office to ask about it. Why that story? Surely she told him about other things too. And he heard the stories she told the team. But this was the story he was excited to get confirmed. A story about Ted’s connection to an artist that has several queer connections and who can also be connected to something else that is brought up in the episode.

Queen Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Their lead singer was queer.

And I talked about Fat Bottomed Girls and Queen/Freddie/Brian in THIS post. And I talk a little bit about the connection between Ted and Freddie Mercury in THIS post.

Queen has been used a lot throughout “Ted Lasso”, a lot more than I remembered. When I went back to look at the soundtrack for season 1 and 2, I found quite a few Queen songs. I also discovered that two of the trailers for season 2 had Queen songs in the background. “Under Pressure” (which also features David Bowie, another queer artist) and “We Will Rock You”.

Ted talks about having watched Queen at Live Aid on TV when he was younger, in season 2, episode 8 (that episode is called “Man City”, Ted mentions both Queen and Freddie Mercury. Season 3 episode 11 is called “Mom City” and Freddie Mercury is brought up again and a Queen song plays.) “Tear It Up” plays in season 2, episode 2 “We Are the Champions” plays in season 2, episode 9 “Fat Bottomed Girls” are both mentioned and played in season 3, episode 11 And, while not a Queen song, “Fought & Lost” by Sam Ryder featuring Brian May is also played in season 3, episode 11.

But let’s focus on “Fat Bottomed Girls”. Now, I’ve already talked about it in THIS post, that I also linked above. So, I won’t go over all that again. But a little recap, “Fat Bottomed Girls” is linked to “Bicycle Race” which is sometimes seen as a metaphor for being bi. They were both on the same single and they reference each other. The song is brought up by Higgins when he tells Keeley and Rebecca that Freddie, when he briefly owned Richmond in 1980, tried to make that song Richmond’s song but that it didn’t work. Rebecca then brings up that her dad went to art school with Freddie and that according to him if you would have asked Freddie what his greatest talent was, he would have said “flipping straights”.

We’ve already established Ted’s connection to Queen. And we’ve heard Ted refer to himself as straight just a few episodes ago (episode 7, and I’ve already pointed out the connection between episodes 7 and 11, this is another connection) now we get to hear Rebecca say that Freddie Mercury’s biggest talent was “flipping straights”. Ted is, as far as I know, and I’ve checked, the only person who refers to himself as straight, in the whole show. Not a single other character does that. Once in the Christmas special, once in season 3, episode 7, that’s two times. Will the rule of three apply here? Will he say that he’s straight a third time or will he subvert expectations or if you will, flip the script and say that he’s something else?

Dolly Parton Trent has worn a Dolly Parton shirt twice. Dolly Parton is a queer icon. In season 3, episode 11 Beard feels the need to call dibs on Dolly’s part in “Islands in the Stream” at karaoke. Implying that Ted perhaps snags that part for himself a lot of the time. Ted then walks away singing “Islands in the Stream”. Yet another queer connection between Trent and Ted via music.

Harry Nilsson/ (Judy Garland) Back to “You’ve got Mail”. The last scene of “You’ve got mail” ends with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meeting up and they kiss while Harry Nilsson’s cover of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” plays in the background. We’re shown that scene, not just by witnessing the characters watching it, but by it filling our own screen for a while. “Somewhere over the Rainbow” is of course from “The Wizard of Oz” originally, sung by Judy Garland. A queer icon. The connection to “The Wizard of Oz” and Ted Lasso has been brought up before. But in this episode, it’s very front and centre. Ted is standing at “The Wizard of Oz” pinball machine, staring at the spinning house. And of course, Ted’s connection to Kansas is always there. And it’s brought up in a very important way this episode, with his mother more or less telling him he should go home to Kansas.

So, we have a well-established connection between Ted and Kansas and “The Wizard of Oz”. Let’s talk more about Judy Garland, Dorothy, the original singer of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. As I mentioned above, Judy Garland was and is a queer icon. And “The Wizard of Oz” was and is a big part of the queer community. Then we have the “Friend of Dorothy” euphemism, a way to recognise other queer people, and it’s strongly associated with Judy Garland’s Dorothy. In episode 11 we are introduced to Ted’s mother, Dottie, which is a nickname/shortening of Dorothy. Another very clear queer connection to Ted.

And let us also look at James Lance who has said that there is a story arc for Trent’s shirts. And he wore a t-shirt with Dorothy’s ruby slippers to an event that is connected to Ted Lasso. And when asked why he was wearing that shirt, why he chose to honour Dorothy. It feels like he’s deflecting when he says “Well, every good character’s got to have a good pair of shoes, right. And these are surely, surely,the best pair of shoes in showbiz. So, you know, they get their own t-shirt. There aren’t many shoes to do that.” That’s suspicious. And we now know that James has had a lot of input into Trent’s costume, with him suggesting things and getting a thumbs up a lot of the time. He clearly thinks that clothes are important and can send a message. And he chose to wear a Dorothy shirt to a red carpet. When we now know that the eleventh episode of season three had several heavy references to “The Wizard of Oz”.

And to go back to Harry Nilsson. A song sung by him was on the soundtrack for Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, a queer movie. (And let’s remember that Trent himself said that Dustin Hoffman would probably play him in a movie).

Honourable mention

Mumford & Sons/Marcus Mumford

Why would I add Mumford & Sons and Marcus Mumford? Because Marcus Mumford made the theme song to Ted Lasso and the instrumental songs for the soundtrack, they’ve also used both Mumford & Sons and Marcus Mumford songs in the show. And the band have a connection to Jason Sudeikis. He was in the official music video for Mumford & Sons’ song “Hopeless Wanderer”, inthat video he clearly plays a version of Marcus, and he kisses another man in it. I think that deserves an honourable mention.

So, to sum it all up, there is queer subtext in the music and the artists that they mention and play in Ted Lasso, and these are just the ones that I personally can connect to Ted (and Ted/Trent). I don’t know if it is a coincidence, but I feel like there is way too much to just be a coincidence. To borrow part of Trent’s line “Through thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion.” Number four, that doesn’t even matter (but it actually does), LOVE. Queer love.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #tedependent #trent crimm #ted/trent #ted x trent #nicole watches stuff #I really hope this post makes sense #this post can be summed up with the words:#started making it had a breakdown... bon appétit #I'm sorry to say that I've literally gone insane #just look at this post #I didn't even mean to make this post #I was just going to make a little gifset about the times they've had Queen in the episodes #because I'm a fan of Queen #and then I fell down the rabbit hole #and I ended up with this #and then I thought hey let's go out with a bang you know #if it truly is the last ever episode of ted lasso next week then let's have some fun #the more I looked the more everything connected #like the things that happen in season 2 and 3 episode 7 #also discovered that in one of the trailers for season 2 they have a shot of trent smiling at ted in the press room #a shot that isn't in the episode #so yeah... um...#I went deep #I really hope you all get some enjoyment out of this post #I put more effort into this post than I did when I tried (and failed) to write a researched paper at uni (that paper made me drop out again

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vocaloid-tunes · 6 months

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From a Miniature Garden Where the Dragon Howls ~Orchestral Arrange~ | Shin-P feat. Kamui Gakupo // Original | YowaneP feat. Hatsune Miku

#kamui gakupo #shinp #yowanep #vocaloid #arrange #cover #request #2008 #this is the last one.......... FOR NOW........#there is one (1) more version of this song that is album exclusive that is yet to resurface #if i ever find it in the future its OVER for you bitches!!! /lh #anyways sorry for inflicting so much of this song on you at once i just like. fell down a huge rabbit hole while filling this persons #request. and honestly at this point i cant tell if they were trying to request this gakupo ver or the official one #but here they all are.#bone app the teeth

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an-unraveling-unknown · 7 months

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Hey y'know when you start playing a visual novel game for the funny-sillies and then it turns into a character-building exercise that has you in a hyperfixation chokehold. well

#grmfffmsdwfhkc #the arcana #the arcana game #im hyperfixating again #eewfkshjshdhsj #I just spent half of my french class looking up Australian peacock spiders and if they can exist in a climate akin to the country of Wales #I don't even know at this point but its fun #I'm sorry ms A #OH AND I HAVE SUPER INTERESTING INFORMATION REGARDING LOCATIONS because I fell down a rabbit hole help #actually don't help but still #the apprentice #if anyone's interested I'm willing to ramble about my OC I haVE LORE :DDDDDD #it started as a joke #and now I'm going bonkers bananas up the wall /pos #also spoiling the game for myself by consulting the wiki :'D #but its for the sake of character depth so its fine I think #hey question what in the name of creation is actually up with the wiki #cos it looks like everything has gone haltsies #character building #alright anyways I'm procrastinating I should go #toodle pip

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laurelwen · 6 months

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do you know which denomination alex and nigel's school is?

This is a tricky question, and like most of the questions raised by the movie, there is no clear answer. I think it's fairly common in the fandom to assume the school is Catholic, and that's in large part because Catholic boarding schools figure prominently in the imagination. There's a tendency to assume a school with religious practices is Catholic because our media tends to focus on those types of schools and many of us don't have experience with religious schools or religion in schools other than Catholic.

There is very little actual religious practice in the film, and the details are quite ambiguous. I believe it is more likely that the school is Anglican but secular, for a number of reasons which I'll try to explain below. The Anglican church does have a fair amount of overlap with the Catholic church and calls itself "catholic" in the sense that they maintain a continuity with the church as it existed before it splintered into denominations. It is my understanding that there is a great deal of variance amongst practitioners of Anglicanism due to the decentralized nature of authority within the church.

Title/Address

The one clearly religious figure in the film is Reverend Donaldson, the history or religion teacher. While Catholic priests are styled as The Reverend [name], or The Reverend Father [name] in a formal context such as writing, this doesn't seem to be a verbal address used. Their priests are more commonly addressed as Father [name] when speaking to them. I can't vouch for whether this is universal, but from my own experiences and from some basic level research, this seems to be the case. While they have no universal standard, Anglican priests also use Reverend in formal written contexts, and some male priests use Father as a verbal form of address, but some use Reverend instead.

VERDICT: point in favor of Anglican

Vestments

We don't get any help on this front either. As with other aspects of the two churches, there is a lot of overlap between the vestments worn by ordinary Anglican and Catholic priests. The clothing Rev. Donaldson is shown wearing could easily be seen in either denomination. In class, he wears a simple clerical collar and shirt with a suit, which is seen in both Catholic and Anglican priests. At Josh's funeral he is wearing a black cassock, white surplice, and a black stole with gold embroidery (typically the color of the stole is chosen to fit the occasion, in this case black for a funeral).

I'm including this excerpt just for fun since it mentions St. Thomas a Becket:

VERDICT: inconclusive, could be either Anglican or Catholic

School Names: St. Barnabas, Sacred Heart/Sansley College, St. Edwards

The school they attend is never named outright, and it is certainly fictional. The one reference we have is contained in the newspaper article about Nigel's death which Alex has glued into his book. This article is FULL of information wildly at odds with the actual events of the movie, so I don't like to rely on it for canon. In the article, the school is named as St. Barnabas, and the girls school attended by Susan is mentioned as Sacred Heart. In the movie, Dr. Forbes calls her school Sansley College, which shows just how inaccurate that article's text really is. If we take St. Barnabas as the actual name, it gives us no real indication for one denomination vs another. Saints are revered in both the Anglican and Catholic faith. There is an existing St. Barnabas Church of England Primary School, but there are also St. Barnabas Catholic schools in the US.

Sacred Heart is typically a Catholic name, and there are countless Sacred Heart Catholic schools in Britain and worldwide. However, given that Sansley College is the name used in the actual dialogue of the movie, I would take that as the canon name, and it is decided secular in nature.

St. Edward's is the school Nigel attended previously as a day student (someone who only goes to classes during the day and then returns home at night rather than boarding in the dormitories.) This could be a fictional school, but there very much IS a St. Edward's School in Oxford, which is a mixed gender boarding/day school for ages 13-18. The logistics of this would be murky and inconsistent/contradictory with the details of the film, but it should be noted this school is affiliated with the Church of England.

VERDICT: inconclusive, but I assign a slight edge to Anglican.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

The hymn sung by the students at their morning assembly is well-known and widely used across most Christian denominations. It was written by an Anglican, and amusingly it is tied to Yorkshire, where the movie is set:

The lyric was written as a processional hymn for children walking from Horbury Bridge, where Baring-Gould was curate, to Horbury St Peter's Church near Wakefield, Yorkshire, at Whitsuntide in 1865. It was originally entitled, "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners."

VERDICT: inconclusive, but I again assign a slight edge to Anglican due to the history of the hymn and its close ties with British culture.

Thomas Becket

Venerated as a martyred saint by both the Catholic and Anglican church.

VERDICT: Inconclusive

British School System

While there are "faith schools" in Britain--privately funded schools catering to students of specific faiths--most of the schools are state-funded. However, this does not mean religion is not present in their state schools.

From Wikipedia re Faith Schools:

The Education Act 1944 introduced the requirement for daily prayers in all state-funded schools, but later acts changed this requirement to a daily "collective act of worship", the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 being the most recent. This also requires such acts of worship to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". The term "mainly" means that acts related to other faiths can be carried out providing the majority are Christian.

From Wikipedia re Collective Worship:

Section 70 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 stipulates that pupils of community, foundation or voluntary schools in England and Wales must take part in a daily act of Collective Worship, unless they have been explicitly withdrawn by their parents. The same requirement is applied to academy schools via their funding agreements, so it is true to say that all maintained schools in England and Wales are subject to the same rules.

Even though Britain is quite secular, the fact is that Christianity is still very much assumed to be the default faith amongst many European cultures, and it remains an intrinsic part of education even in schools without a specific religious affiliation. A search of internet forums like Reddit will show you first hand accounts of singing a hymn or two in a morning assembly followed by announcements from the headmaster - which is exactly in line with what the movie shows us.

(Religious affiliations in the UK:)

One more consideration is the fact that this is a "public school" which in Britain actually means a private school which is funded by the tuition fees paid by students' families rather than by state funding. These schools do not have to follow the same requirements imposed on state-funded schools regarding curriculum or religious practice. However, in practice these schools are tied into a mainly Anglican Christian default. According to one site I found listing the top-ranked boarding schools in Britain, there is only one Catholic full-boarding school in the UK, and it is mixed gender.

VERDICT: I feel this is strongly in favor of an Anglican-oriented school.

The movie leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and as you can see above, a case could still be made for a Catholic school. Personally, I do think it's more likely that the school is largely secular with nominal Anglican practices as a default. None of the religious bits presented are firmly oriented in the direction of Catholicism, and Anglicanism is the more likely of the two given the circumstances. I hope this helps!

#sorry i fell down the rabbit hole bc i've been thinking about this a lot lately and i wanted to be as thorough as possible in making my case #i really do think you could head canon it either way this is just what i think is most likely from a purely logical perspective #thank you for the ask!!!#like minds #nigel colbie #alex forbes #murderous intent #like minds 2006 #like minds analysis

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toxicoldmanyaoi · 2 months

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he was so beautiful here... (x)

#sorry i was researching the tactics of valeriy lobanovskyi and somehow fell down this rabbit hole #andriy shevchenko #dynamo kyiv #i was going to post something like 'he has a sadness in his eyes you only see in orthodox icons'#but honestly saints in icons have like no facial expression so

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happypanda101 · 2 months

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Oh boy. Let’s see how this goes lmao.

As a Sakura fan, I apologize to anyone who’s been hurt by the toxic fans in the Sakura fandom. As much as I enjoy and love it, I acknowledge that it’s not all that great. No one deserves to be insulted or harassed just because they disagree with something, have a different opinion, like a ship/don’t like a ship, etc.

This goes for the Sasusaku fandom too. I got a soft spot for the ship, that doesn’t mean just because it’s canon doesn’t suddenly give you a free card to bash on everyone else.

I just want people to know that whatever your opinions on the fandom are, you are welcome on this blog. As long as you can respect other people’s opinions, you are welcome on this blog. If you just want to enjoy fandom and fun art, you are welcome on this blog.

#naruto fandom #naruto shippuden #haruno sakura #sakura haruno #sakura fandom #//I would tag the anti sakura fandom but I got the tag filtered lol #//again sorry for more Naruto I just fell down a rabbit hole this week #//I guess this is what happens when I have no writing motivation XD

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dilfsuzanneyk · 7 months

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this is a beastie boys fan blog now. DNI if you don't fight for your right to party

#sorry they r really good #i figured out that they are very different from the beach boys like a few months ago and i fell down a rabbit hole of their music #vex rambles

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anxsity · 1 year

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love scrolling vulture forums bc occasionally youll see somebody (not maliciously) post the legal equivalent to those insanely radioactive cannisters that fuzz the film

#vulture culture #and theyre usually just uninformed or unaware!!! and ppl are like wow nice! put that down immediately and walk away.#remove that from your possession and delete that pic.#scrolling past posts and loudly going IS THAT ALLOWED??? IS THAT ALLOWED???????#sorry i fell in legal rabbit hole again

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masterofrecords · 9 months

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The Ravages of Time episode 1

Oooookay, I did a thing.

Well, not yet – so far I’ve done 3/16 of a Thing, but I think that’s enough to start posting it.

As I have mentioned several times on this blog, I’m watching “The Ravages of Time” donghua. There are official subs, but they don’t cover everything – notably, song lyrics and the cards with background information at the end of each episode remained a mystery. I like mysteries and I like digging into Chinese history. I’m sure you can figure out my problem.

The thing is that some of those cards are abridged versions of excerpts from ancient chronicles. Most of these texts have no English translations available. Those are hard to translate, even for professionals (which I am far from) – as you’d expect from over a thousand year old books.

Luckily, most cards only reference the chronicles and are written in modern Chinese.

Most references in these cards are for “The Records of the Three Kingdoms” and occasionally to “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” – a fictionalized version of the same events – and “The Book of the Later Han” which describes the events and personas of the period predating the Three Kingdoms (Dong Zhuo rose to power in 189 and was dead in 192 (sorry for the almost 2000-year-old spoilers), while the Three Kingdoms period officially started in 220).

Episode 1

T/N: The original title for the manhua/donghua is “Fiery Phoenix Scorches the Plains”

Scorched plains afterword: “The Records of the Three Kingdoms”, one of the Twenty-Four Histories [1], written by the West Jin dynasty historian Chen Shou, records the events of the Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu states of the Three Kingdoms period, presented as a series of biographies and dynastic histories, and is considered the most famous of the Early Four Historiographies [2]. If you persevere and finish reading “The Records of the Three Kingdoms”, you will find that “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” has many fabricated events. In fact, almost none of the literary works about the Three Kingdoms period are based on real historical records. Each author’s perspective leads to their art being created in their own versions of the Three Kingdoms. – Mou [3]

[1] dynastic histories from remote antiquity until Ming dynasty

[2] Those include The Records of the Grand Historian, The Book of Han, The Book of the Later Han, The Records of the Three Kingdoms

[3] I’m assuming referring to Chen Mou, the author of “The Ravages of Time” manhua

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“The Ravages of Time” is also very much fabricated. A lot of the main characters are made-up, for one; but even regarding the general events of the story, a lot of it couldn’t have happened the way it did. (I still love the donghua though! Not to mention that there is a looong history of historical fiction in China that plays very loose with historical events. See “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” again. This is in no way a criticism on my part, I just think this stuff is even cooler when you know the history.) I’ve come across some pretty interesting stuff on these events while researching for these translations, so I might include that in the posts for the relevant episodes. At least, I will for this episode!

Putting this under the read more for spoilers of things that happened 2000 years ago.

The prologue has the narrator describe a man with the surname Cao fearing people with the character “horse” in their name. The surname Cao is that of Cao Cao; surname Sima contains the character for “horse”. Sima Yi, indeed, was the one who had Cao Cao’s descendants lose the throne and be executed.

I’m not sure how accurate the dream is supposed to be – it is, after all, a dream. Either way, I have found no indication that Sima Yi’s death was in any way violent or memorable, or that his last years were marred by any particular madness or cruelty. He did have dreams he found disturbing in those last years when he fell ill – but they were relatively harmless ones of his political rivals being celebrated. So, if it is meant to be prophetic, it is fictional.

Remnant army also doesn’t seem to be based on any real organization.

Dong Zhuo entered Luoyang in 189. At that time, Sima Yi would be about 10 years old. Along with his older brother Sima Lang (around 18) and the rest of his family he lived in Luoyang; they only moved to Henei after Dong Zhuo started making plans to relocate to Chang’an. Due to that fact, the entire Henei storyline is understandably fictional.

Xu Lin is a completely made-up character. Whatever, he dies in the very first episode. Same for Zhao Xian (Liaoyuan Huo’s “adopted father”).

We briefly see Sima Yi’s younger siblings playing ball. Sima Yi was the second of eight brothers, nicknamed “Eight Das” because all of their courtesy names ended with the same character (Zhongda for Sima Yi, Boda for Sima Lang).

#masterofrecords translates #the ravages of time #i knoooow that i promised aquarium stuff #i fell down a rabbit hole i'm sorry #i spent so many hours translating dong zhuo's biography blurb

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