Sleepy linkspam

[next_to_normal]

You guys. I have been super-tired lately, partly because I've been super-busy at work. So last night I was falling asleep on the sofa at, like, 8:30 and I was like, "Maybe instead of sleeping on the sofa, I should just go to bed? EVEN THOUGH IT'S ONLY 8:30." So I did. And I figured I'd be up at 4am or something and be wide awake. NOPE. I slept until my alarm went off at 7:30 the next morning. I SLEPT ELEVEN HOURS. And I am still tired.

Anyway.

* I've never read Flowers in the Attic, but I am excited to see Kiernan Shipka getting work outside of Mad Men.

* Laura Prepon will be a much smaller part of Orange is the New Black in season 2. I don't dislike Prepon or anything, but I don't think this is a bad thing. AT ALL.

* I love this article on its own merits - an attempt to determine the greatest musical ever - but I especially love it for the way that professional writers and legit theater people are agonizing over these choices and basically approaching the entire thing like fangirls on the internet choosing their favorite episode of Buffy. "Green: So let’s each pick six. Ephron: That’s impossible! Oh. I feel such pain when I get to 4, 5, and 6." And then: "Wolfe: I cannot live with that. I can’t live with West Side Story not being among the finalists." Also, now I want to sit and think about what my favorite musicals have in common (er, high body counts?) and what that says about me... (uh...)

* Rob Reiner did a sort of live commentary on The Princess Bride. I had no idea there were people inside the ROUSes!

* A very excellent and thought-provoking argument against the Strong Female Character. It pretty much NAILS what bothered me about Peggy Carter in Captain America, which I could never quite put my finger on (and why I'm eager to see the Agent Carter short in which she's the star, not Cap).

* Here's a look at why Agents of SHIELD needs to succeed and why that might be a challenge.

* An interesting examination of the clone science in Orphan Black and its real-world relevance.

* LMAO! South Korea basically made shippy Sherlock/Watson vids as actual ads for the actual show Sherlock. IT IS HILARIOUS.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

I clicked on that 'Strong Female Characters' article reluctantly because in a lot of ways I'm sick of what's often a largely semantic debate. But that author made some really good points about the Peggy portrayal particularly -- which is not a thing against the character but about the rather nonsensical way she's used in the movie and the shortcuts they took to say something about her that didn't really need saying. She could definitely be an awesome protagonist in a story written around her.

One thing this article helped me articulate is that I often like female characters who are instinctively defensive and react with violence (Starbuck, Faith, various anime characters) but the characters I'm thinking of are all in narratives that (1) recognize their violence and defensiveness cause problems and (2) are in stories where if they're not the actual protagonist, they get their own story arc. Peggy has those two moments of surprising violence but at no other point is this acknowledged as part of her character/ treated as a problem/ factored into the way people react to her. And we have no idea where it comes from (other than one comment about getting doors slammed in your face which in context, as that article points out, ends up implying there were a lot less opportunities for women to be part of the war effort than there actually were) or what she personally wants except to see Steve succeed and to dance with him.

[next_to_normal]

Yeah, I was kind of expecting this article to be more of the same, but I like that it really explores the simplification and generalization that leads to the anti-SFC sentiment, and how it's become a shortcut for (usually male) writers/directors/etc. to create "feminist-friendly" female characters without having to actually give them, y'know, characterization.

I sometimes chafe at the "I hate Strong Female Characters" thing, because there's nothing wrong with female characters who are strong in the ass-kicking kind of way, and I do love quite a few of them - Buffy, Starbuck, Sarah Walker, Aeryn Sun, etc. What's important to me, though, is that those characters have a lot more going for them than just their roundhouse kick. It's just one piece of a complex character.

[likeadeuce]

Yeah, it helps tremendously to think of it as, "I hate these shortcuts and the fact that people think they are necessary."