Anyone who has actually listened to actresses and other women in the entertainment industry knows that the sexual harassment that’s currently creating a scandal in Hollywood and (hopefully) ending careers of powerful executives has been going on since the film and music industries began in the early 20th century.
BUT MEN DON’T GET IT.
What are the odds that I’m the only one here who’s old enough to remember the summer of 1980, and the frenzy surrounding the potential murder of the star/villain of Dallas that we loved to hate? Never mind, let’s not go there.
Riverdale has successfully created its own frenzy with season 2’s premiere doubling season 1’s ratings. Either y’all can’t stand to see Luke Perry die, or those Netflix numbers were amazing over the summer.
But, not to worry, Archie turned superhero and got Fred to the one outdated hospital in Riverdale. Everyone in town stopped by to support the Andrews men. Fred continued the Dallas meme with some dreams that may or may not turn out to be reality. Veronica’s dad came home and borrowed the Godfather’s moves. Cheryl established that she’s now the Godmother of the Blossom clan. And this season’s big mystery for Bughead to make out over got off to a promising, if bloody, start.
After watching the 2017 Emmy Awards, Metamaiden and I finally got around to our long-planned rewatch of HULU’s The Handmaid’s Tale. We watched it when it aired weekly in the spring, along with everyone else, and loved it. I didn’t write weekly recaps because I know the book, having read it in the 80s, and I haven’t figured out how to write about ongoing series based on a book that I already know.
So, after binge rewatching the entire season, we present to you the compromise post: our typical season ending discussion.
I’m not going to bother with much of a review. This series has won 8 Primetime Emmy Awards, and every one of the winners for Handmaid’s Tale deserved it. There could have been multiple winners in the various outstanding actress categories. The acting, cinematography, production design, and direction all deserve the many accolades they’ve received.
In this episode, Amy Acker remembers she’s a badass, Vampire Bill remembers that he likes to play morally ambiguous characters, and Cagney Mama Novotny Mama Westen Sharon Gless stops by for some family bonding and interrogation. The Strucker kids continue to be awesome and take after their mother. Vampire Bill Reed must have spent most of his time at work.
The mutants are in constant jeopardy, but that goes without saying.
The episode opens with a flashback to the Struckers on a family bowling outing one year ago. This must be something they do frequently, because they’re all good at it. Reed’s mom, Ellen, has come along. They’re an ideal suburban family, other than Lauren’s pesky little cheat using her mutant powers.
A few lanes over, a young teen mutant girl is vibrating uncontrollably. Some older teenage guys in the next lane are laughing and jeering at her. Her dad becomes angry and yells at the guys, which upsets his daughter even further.
I have a lot of thoughts on Eleven, the Upside Down monster, and the other female characters from Stranger Things, going in several different directions. I want to explore as many of them as possible, so this is going to be another rambley post that goes all over the place. (Like I ever write anything else.) I’ll throw in some character analysis of the boys as well, since not all of them fall into the monster category. 😘
Before we get to El, let’s look at her nemesis, the Upside Down monster for a moment. The Upside Down monster turns out to have a lot in common with the Alien monster and the Thing. All are female and using human bodies to incubate their young. All three are unusual in that they have monstrous appearances, unlike most female monsters. All are relentless in their drive to kill humans, which is really a combination of survival instinct and the drive to reproduce that all species feel. The narrative never points this out with any of these monsters, even though you’d think a breeding mother would elicit some understanding.
El, the powerful counterpart to the Upside Down monster, is a prepubescent girl on the brink of womanhood/menstruation, discovering her power as a woman, feeling the hormones rise in her body. She bleeds every time she uses her powers to symbolize this, and because women are kept shackled in our society, so that they can’t turn on men or become too powerful.
Female superheroes are rarely intelligent, attractive, powerful, and emotionally well-adjusted all at once. There will always be at least one area in which they need men to guide and support them. Superman, Ironman, Captain America, and Batman all function fine without a woman, even though they each have flaws. But Buffy, Black Widow, the Scarlet Witch, Wonder Woman and Cat Woman are emotional messes, children or childlike, who need lovers, brothers and father figures to show them how to function in the world.
So El is weakened by the use of her powers, and kept ignorant of the world, leaving her easier to control and less likely to escape. In our culture, most men can’t handle watching women who are better than them and don’t need them. Since these shows are made by men, this says some interesting things about male psychology. A truly strong, confident man wouldn’t need to hold women, and even little girls like El, back, to make himself feel strong and necessary. Yet in show after show, we find women who are overtly powerful, but held back by excuses their male creators have made up to keep them tied to men long after a man would have become independent.
It’s Friday night again, which means it’s time to watch what should have been season 3 of Agent Carter, and is, instead, Marvel’s Inhuman gag reel. Let’s see what kind of fun the gang has in store for us tonight!
Look, it’s Desmond Marcus Kane Henry Ian Cusack! And he’s using his Scottish accent! He’s some kind of doctor who researches inhumans, and he’s just found out about Black Bolt. I don’t care what he does to Black Bolt, as long as he keeps talking Scottish to me until Red Jamie gets here on Sunday night.
Dr Desmond Evan Declan asks native Hawaiian and prisoner Sammy to do him a favor while Sammy’s hanging out in prison with Black Bolt. As it turns out, Sammy’s an inhuman, too, who helps Black Bolt escape. They both hop on the helicopter that Declan just happens to bring round the prison at the exact right moment.
SYFY’s new show Happy! is about an ex-cop turned hitman (Chris Meloni, from True Blood and some other shows) who partners up with an invisible blue unicorn* played by Patton Oswalt to try to help some people.** Scary bad things happen along the way. It’s Mr Robot meets My Little Pony meets GYNX. I’m…in? At least for the pilot. Who can resist Patton Oswalt as a blue unicorn? Not me.
Watch the trailer after the jump.
I was never much for Disney princesses growing up. None of them ever spoke to me. I was more into characters like Simba from Lion King. I suppose, for whatever reason, I was more concerned with the personality and journey of the character than their gender. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Ariel…none of them did anything for me. I don’t even remember thinking they were particularly pretty. I liked Megara from Hercules a little, but I was more about Pegasus, Hercules, and Hades in that movie. The complex characters with clear goals and inner journeys were always the ones who appealed to me. (And animals. Being an animal makes a big difference to me.)
HULU released a full length trailer today ahead of this weekend’s NY Comic Con for their upcoming Seth Rogen-Evan Goldberg produced comedy series, Future Man. The time traveling, video gaming, slacker-saves-the-world show is a Back to the Future meets 12 Monkeys fusion that looks to be Seth Rogen’s most charming outing yet.
Seth Rogen? Charming? Whaaat? That’s what I said.
Watch the trailer and read more after the jump.
Moving on to the second Marvel TV series premiere of the week, FOX was clearly more committed to its show than ABC was to Inhumans, despite the Inhumans IMAX premiere. While it’s not prestige TV, The Gifted is a solid outing, with a familiar, talented cast and crew. It gets its very own Stan Lee cameo as a stamp of approval, something notably missing from Inhumans.
The Gifted is set in the X-men universe, at a time when the X-men themselves have disappeared. Mutants are being hunted down, captured, imprisoned, and mistreated in a variety of ways. There are government agencies dedicated to finding mutants and putting them away. In other words, it’s a time of mutant holocaust and genocide, though the normals justify their actions as being necessary for public safety and good people go along with it out of fear for themselves and their families. Until someone they love turns out to be a mutant.
