I love Grimm because I can't believe it's real. It resembles a fantasy story written by a 12-year-old who isn't suited to be a fantasy writer, but doesn't know it yet. I've been there. When I was 12 I loved werewolves, but I was too lazy to learn about wolf physiology or come up with any rules for how transformations would work. So all my stories were about "werewolves" who didn't actually turn into wolves. Now I discover that adults can get paid to write a TV show about werewolves who don't turn into wolves.
The "plot" of Grimm is that a police detective founds out he's one of a long line of monster hunters, which included the Brothers Grimm. One tagline of the show is "The Tales Are Real," implying that the monsters are going to be villains from fairy tales. For about two episodes the show actually tried to stick to this, but pretty soon it surrendered and the crimes Nick solves can now correspond to fairy tales, random contemporary literature, or nothing at all. The correspondence is usually really forced, like a feral child who uses her hair as a weapon is supposed to be Rapunzel, and this originally drove me crazy but I decided to just try and forget that the episodes were supposed to be based on stories.
Now I'm free to enjoy the incredibly low-concept monsters. Here is the low concept: some people are part animal. As far as I can tell most of them don't actually transform into the animal, they're just sort of like it. Occasionally this gives them abilities or conditions that are actually supernatural, like when a spider woman has to kill and eat men to avoid aging rapidly, just like the episode of Fringe where the same thing happened. But most of the time we learn that snake people are good lawyers, mouse people are shy, and rat people have a special connection to rats. The only thing that makes the average Grimm episode a fantasy is that at some point Nick's magic powers allow him to see a vision of a person's face turning into a CGI animal. Then he goes home and reads a book that tells him what personality traits that animal/person has.
Now that I think about this it seems really messed up. "I just found out that the suspect is black! I'm going to go to the library and look up what kind of crimes black people commit!" But you know, wolf people and so on are not real, so it's all in good fun and I've managed to remain unaware of this implication until now.
I think what I find appealing about Grimm is that it seems so real. The magic is exactly as boring as magic would be in real life. The monsters seem something other than human when they actually have powers, but they usually don't, and the Amazing Revelation of magic is basically: "Hey, you know that guy who killed someone for a reason that already makes sense? Well, his worldview was influenced by the fact that he was part lion."
Maybe it's more like Aesop's Fables than fairy tales, but the monsters are never able to be metaphors for humans because they explicitly identify as non-human and have their own culture. Grimm ends up being the most childlike show possible as it comes close to implying no human evil is really the fault of humans. Most murderers, rapists, etc. are just animal/people pretending to be people.
And you can't Godwin your way out of this, because in a recent episode, Nick was inexplicably watching footage of Hitler when Hitler's face turned into a CGI wolf! It all becomes clear: Hitler didn't hate Jews, he just wanted to eat them. I don't think this radically silly message was intended, even though when you think about it it's the only way to read the show. Its complete unawareness of how offensive and ridiculous it is makes Grimm the most adorable show on television.
Three-second review: I've been watching Lost Girl, which could be VERY lazily described as a combination of Angel and Buffy, and maybe Neil Gaiman. Not life-changing but it has been completely satisfying from the beginning. The worldbuilding is pretty good, ~strong female characters, gay and straight love interests treated equally, silly jokes, basically a good time.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
short form TV diary
Blogging about TV makes me feel better about how much I watch, but I've neglected to write about 95% of what I've been watching.
shows I've started this fall/winter/spring:
The Vampire Diaries. Aside from being "so bad it's good" or whatever, I think this show is interesting because it avoids the hypocrisy of most vampire-romance fiction. The main characters just are really selfish and awful, and that's okay. The show doesn't try to hide or excuse that Stefan and Damon are former (sometimes current) serial killers. Elena isn't in denial, she just doesn't care.
China, IL. After the last episode we watched, Clayton said, "I wish they would just let Brad Neely make one Professor Brothers and one Baby Cakes video and show them as an episode." It's not unpleasant to watch, but it seems like they had to make all these changes to do a BRAD NEELY ADULT SWIM SHOW because the original videos didn't conform to some stereotype of what Adult Swim shows are supposed to be like. They had to "improve" the animation for no reason and make Baby Cakes unrecognizable/terrifying looking, and every episode has a huge fantastical epic story arc, when one of the best things about the original videos was how mundane they were.
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Highly amazing show.
The Fades.
Bedlam. Hilariously, almost the whole cast is going to be replaced for series 2.
Game of Thrones. I'm enjoying this a lot.
American Horror Story. This was great.
Grimm. This seems like it would just be one of those placeholder shows where you're like "why is this on TV, does anyone actually care about it at all?" and indeed there are some obviously terrible things about it. For example, did you know Hitler was a wolfman? But something about its particular flaws makes me imagine it's being written by a 10-year-old who sincerely cares about the show, and I find it relentlessly enjoyable.
shows I've been watching for years but finally sat down and watched every episode of and/or caught up with:
United States of Tara. I feel like most TV critics just don't like crazy people very much because it seems like the more grimdark the show gets, the better they think it is. Whereas when it was more of a comedy, they were like "this show is offensive and unrealistic because it doesn't portray how hard it is to live with a crazy person." I enjoyed watching it to the end, but I definitely didn't feel that it became a better show. In fact, I kind of think it got less interesting.
Six Feet Under. I know this is a good show, but I'm so glad I finished watching it because it seems like all the writers have the same problems as me. I like depressing TV, I really do, but I just could not handle that every episode addressed something I was depressed about in real life.
Flight of the Conchords. Best show ever made (seriously, it's perfect--never stops being funny for a minute, and somehow doesn't annoy me with how sweet and innocent it is, even though I usually find that annoying, as with Portlandia).
Mr. Show. Other best show ever made.
Portlandia. This never fails to disappoint me but I'll keep watching because of my high school crush on CB.
attempted rewatches that I didn't really get that far with and don't have much to say about because I obviously like the show or I wouldn't have been rewatching it:
Spaced, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Being Human, Skins.
abandoned shows:
Skins. I was actually going to keep watching after the first episode, but Josh told me that the best-looking girl on the show, who also happens to be part of my OTP, died. Obviously shipping and attractive girls are huge motivations for sticking with a show that isn't good, and I no longer felt motivated. I also felt annoyed because since the end of last season, everyone in fandom has predicted that this character would die. It seems like she died because there has to be a mandatory death in every generation (in every generation a mandatory death is born!) and the writers didn't want to deal with either developing the OTP, or breaking them up to get back together at the last minute like Sid/Cassie and Naomily. I guess I can see why this would be difficult, but they just destroyed the only reason I would be interested in the show. Why did they retcon Minky?? That would have kept every lesbian in the world obsessed with Skins during series 6.
The Walking Dead. Maybe I'm just really tired of zombies, they're so horrifying yet so uninteresting. I was never motivated to start season 2.
Being Human. When I heard that not one but three of the four main actors would be leaving the show (with one actor quitting so suddenly that they had to say the character died offscreen), it just didn't sound like Being Human to me and I wasn't interested. Josh has been really positive about the new incarnation though so I'll probably get around to checking it out.
to watch list:
Lost Girl. The Onion AV Club did a weird review of this show where they talked about how the production is really bland in a distracting way (and all the actors are "bored Canadian models") but somehow the show itself is good? They compared it to Buffy and Angel. I also heard that the main character dates a man and a woman and this is a non-issue. So I'm very interested and likely to start this today or tomorrow.
The Secret Circle. This is by the creators of Vampire Diaries and I watched the first episode with Clayton several months ago. Everyone is pretty good-looking and lives in a good-looking town.
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. Clayton and I were trying to watch this in fall 2010 but I got so mad when Russell Tovey was replaced after the pilot that I flipped my lid and refused to watch anymore. I am finally starting to get over it and Clayton's interested in trying again.
how great my life is going to be in a week when Mad Men starts and then a week after that Game of Thrones starts:
pretty great.
shows I've started this fall/winter/spring:
The Vampire Diaries. Aside from being "so bad it's good" or whatever, I think this show is interesting because it avoids the hypocrisy of most vampire-romance fiction. The main characters just are really selfish and awful, and that's okay. The show doesn't try to hide or excuse that Stefan and Damon are former (sometimes current) serial killers. Elena isn't in denial, she just doesn't care.
China, IL. After the last episode we watched, Clayton said, "I wish they would just let Brad Neely make one Professor Brothers and one Baby Cakes video and show them as an episode." It's not unpleasant to watch, but it seems like they had to make all these changes to do a BRAD NEELY ADULT SWIM SHOW because the original videos didn't conform to some stereotype of what Adult Swim shows are supposed to be like. They had to "improve" the animation for no reason and make Baby Cakes unrecognizable/terrifying looking, and every episode has a huge fantastical epic story arc, when one of the best things about the original videos was how mundane they were.
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Highly amazing show.
The Fades.
Bedlam. Hilariously, almost the whole cast is going to be replaced for series 2.
Game of Thrones. I'm enjoying this a lot.
American Horror Story. This was great.
Grimm. This seems like it would just be one of those placeholder shows where you're like "why is this on TV, does anyone actually care about it at all?" and indeed there are some obviously terrible things about it. For example, did you know Hitler was a wolfman? But something about its particular flaws makes me imagine it's being written by a 10-year-old who sincerely cares about the show, and I find it relentlessly enjoyable.
shows I've been watching for years but finally sat down and watched every episode of and/or caught up with:
United States of Tara. I feel like most TV critics just don't like crazy people very much because it seems like the more grimdark the show gets, the better they think it is. Whereas when it was more of a comedy, they were like "this show is offensive and unrealistic because it doesn't portray how hard it is to live with a crazy person." I enjoyed watching it to the end, but I definitely didn't feel that it became a better show. In fact, I kind of think it got less interesting.
Six Feet Under. I know this is a good show, but I'm so glad I finished watching it because it seems like all the writers have the same problems as me. I like depressing TV, I really do, but I just could not handle that every episode addressed something I was depressed about in real life.
Flight of the Conchords. Best show ever made (seriously, it's perfect--never stops being funny for a minute, and somehow doesn't annoy me with how sweet and innocent it is, even though I usually find that annoying, as with Portlandia).
Mr. Show. Other best show ever made.
Portlandia. This never fails to disappoint me but I'll keep watching because of my high school crush on CB.
attempted rewatches that I didn't really get that far with and don't have much to say about because I obviously like the show or I wouldn't have been rewatching it:
Spaced, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Being Human, Skins.
abandoned shows:
Skins. I was actually going to keep watching after the first episode, but Josh told me that the best-looking girl on the show, who also happens to be part of my OTP, died. Obviously shipping and attractive girls are huge motivations for sticking with a show that isn't good, and I no longer felt motivated. I also felt annoyed because since the end of last season, everyone in fandom has predicted that this character would die. It seems like she died because there has to be a mandatory death in every generation (in every generation a mandatory death is born!) and the writers didn't want to deal with either developing the OTP, or breaking them up to get back together at the last minute like Sid/Cassie and Naomily. I guess I can see why this would be difficult, but they just destroyed the only reason I would be interested in the show. Why did they retcon Minky?? That would have kept every lesbian in the world obsessed with Skins during series 6.
The Walking Dead. Maybe I'm just really tired of zombies, they're so horrifying yet so uninteresting. I was never motivated to start season 2.
Being Human. When I heard that not one but three of the four main actors would be leaving the show (with one actor quitting so suddenly that they had to say the character died offscreen), it just didn't sound like Being Human to me and I wasn't interested. Josh has been really positive about the new incarnation though so I'll probably get around to checking it out.
to watch list:
Lost Girl. The Onion AV Club did a weird review of this show where they talked about how the production is really bland in a distracting way (and all the actors are "bored Canadian models") but somehow the show itself is good? They compared it to Buffy and Angel. I also heard that the main character dates a man and a woman and this is a non-issue. So I'm very interested and likely to start this today or tomorrow.
The Secret Circle. This is by the creators of Vampire Diaries and I watched the first episode with Clayton several months ago. Everyone is pretty good-looking and lives in a good-looking town.
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. Clayton and I were trying to watch this in fall 2010 but I got so mad when Russell Tovey was replaced after the pilot that I flipped my lid and refused to watch anymore. I am finally starting to get over it and Clayton's interested in trying again.
how great my life is going to be in a week when Mad Men starts and then a week after that Game of Thrones starts:
pretty great.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
why I love/d Skins
I love Skins. I think there's an argument to be made for it being the the best TV show EVER (by my standards of TV, at least). I've wanted to write a post about exactly why I love it and I know I have to get the post out before I watch the first episode of the new series, because from everything I've heard, the show has totally and completely jumped the shark and I'm not going to be able to feel the same way about it.
It's had low points before but the basic greatness of the concept has more than made up for them. But the new series just sounds like it's going to be awful. It sounds like they changed basic facts about characters, including stuff that I thought was important, to try and turn the show into a no-holds-barred festival of teen sex, drinking, and drug use--which people have always stereotyped it as, but which it really isn't.
Skins is a British show about a diverse group of teenage friends, most of whom party a lot. This sounds like a lot of shows, but the two unique things about Skins are:
1. It follows the characters while they are in college (which in the UK means a two-year program that some people go to between secondary school and university). Every two seasons, the main characters are replaced with a new group.
2. Every episode is told from the perspective of a different character--theoretically, each main character is supposed to get their own episode every season, although this doesn't always happen. The tone of the show changes to better reflect the inner life of the main character of the episode, and the music for the episode is often a particular genre or musician that is suited for the character.
So even though some people may like a particular Skins "generation" better than another, the show ultimately isn't about a specific group of teenagers, but about exploring each group of teenagers thoroughly and trying to portray their experiences with emotional truth. This leads to unexpected shifts in genre, which I love--a supporting character is revealed to have been imaginary; an episode about a road trip starts to resemble a horror movie; a long section of an episode is silent because the main character temporarily loses his hearing.
Skins isn't very realistic, but it deals with what teenagers are feeling, which is not a realistic subject. The credits of the show are weirdly colored, sped up and spliced together footage of the characters kissing, drinking, and walking around--often in giant, grassy fields, despite the fact that most of the show takes place in urban areas. A lot of the trailers for the show have been fantastical, like the one where the main characters are imagined as the different victims and inhabitants of a haunted house.
Besides the genre shifting, the structure of Skins does something important politically. When I say a TV show is political, all I mean is that it portrays people who are outside of the mainstream as having their own points of view and feelings. A lot of TV writers start out with a cast containing some gay people and people of color (and people with other non-mainstream experiences like disabilities), only focus on white straight characters most of the time. It might be different now, but the early episodes of Glee struck me this way. I feel like we've gotten to the point where writers feel compelled to make their show look diverse, but they don't really care about developing those characters or themes.
The Skins writers lean as firmly this way as anyone. Each generation ended up focusing on the tormented relationship between a white boy and a white girl (who was sometimes mentally ill, but in a sexy way). This really brought down gen 2 particularly, and from what I hear, it's going to be the death of gen 3.
But because of the structure of the show, this doesn't happen as severely as in other shows. We have gotten some really cool plots. Like: two episodes about a guy with autism trying to assert his "normalcy" and his right to grow up and have sex. An episode (and an admittedly terrible half-episode) about a guy immigrating to England from the Congo and having trouble adjusting. Several great episodes about characters with mental illnesses. A hugely popular storyline about two girls falling in love. A Muslim boy who's accused of using his religion as an excuse to be homophobic, and has to face how complicated his commitment to Islam is.
This is so, so special to me.
I feel really lucky that I started watching the show out of order--the first clip I saw was from the end of season 4 which, at the time, was widely considered to be the worst season of the show. I then watched 3x07, the best disability-related hour of TV I've ever seen. Then I watched series 3, series 4, series 1, and series 2, which meant that even though I liked individual episodes better than others, I didn't really have a chance to do the "negatively comparing gen 2 to gen 1" thing that a lot of Skins fans do. It's all Skins to me, and when gen 3 started last year, that was Skins too. I have a really bad feeling that series 6 is not going to feel like Skins at all.
Quick generation reviews/descriptions for interested parties (you should probs watch Skins, everyone!):
GENERATION ONE revolves around Tony, a charming and adventurous boy who treats all his friends terribly but manipulates them enough that they don't know how to stand up to him. His two biggest victims are his girlfriend Michelle and his sidekick Sid, who are both incredibly insecure in different ways. Eventually he gets his comeuppance, sort of.
Also: Michelle's friend Cassie, who has mental health problems, becomes infatuated with Sid, but Sid is obsessed with Michelle. Oh no! Chris is irresponsible and Jal is a serious musician, so they obviously fall in love. Tony's younger sister Effy goes long periods of time without talking, is creepy, and is the only person Tony cares about. There's also Maxxie, Anwar, Sketch, and Daniel Kaluuya, but the writers forgot about them.
In GENERATION TWO Effy is the main character and while I don't really have a problem with her as a person, everything starts being about how attractive she is. Two best friends, Freddie who is boring, and Cook who is an over the top delinquent, fall in love with Effy and compete for her attention. Over the course of a few episodes, Emily and Naomi fall in love and become so popular that the writers try to focus on them in season four, only to forget to develop them for almost the whole season and have to rush to wrap up their storyline in the last episode, which is more than they did for any of the other storylines.
Gen 2 was kind of different from gen 1 in that the main characters didn't start out as a group of friends, but as duos and trios. The most unbelievable thing about the show at this point was that all the characters would hang out together even though there were really tenuous reasons for this to happen. JJ is Freddie and Cook's friend with autism and Pandora is Effy's awkward friend, but instead of being friends with each other both characters would just disappear from the show for long periods of time, probably because they weren't sexy enough. Katie is Emily's sister who sort of hangs out with Effy and Freddie for some reason, Thomas is Pandora's boyfriend and in parts of season four is suddenly friends with JJ, but he usually disappears too.
As I write this I can see that there are more obvious problems with gen 2 than gen 1, but I still love them equally. I guess they basically have the same amount of characters, but gen 2 feels like it has more characters because they aren't all friends with each other so the characters we see can shift drastically from episode to episode. Also, Panda, JJ, and Thomas don't get shortchanged/buried to the degree that Maxxie and Anwar did, even though it still happens.
GENERATION THREE goes to an even further extreme and starts with a character named Franky, who has no friends, meeting the various characters for the first time. For some reason it didn't annoy me that all the characters ended up hanging out, because they were just AWESOME and best of all, they all seemed kind of dorky and singularly unlikely to take over the whole show with their broody sexy coolness, like Effy horrifically did in gen 2.
But tragedy struck! Franky falls in love with a broody, sexy, cool guy named Matty. Matty doesn't get that much screen time but through her relationship with him, Franky loses every quality that made her an exciting character in the first place (when she first appeared she was traumatized by severe bullying, liked to wear men's clothes, and made stop motion movies--guess how many of these qualities remained at the end of the season). The writers obviously saw Franky/Matty as a great romance, but because of the way they had set up the generation, discerning viewers could ignore the horribleness and pay attention to the other characters, who were, as I mentioned, awesome. Rich cares a lot about being "metal," but wears a hairnet and freaks out because he ran out of moisturizer. Grace is fantastic, Alo lives on a farm, Nick smashes things with a baseball bat because his dad is a motivational speaker, Liv does all the broody sexy cool things without actually becoming that character, and Mini is just...the finest.
For a second it seemed like Mini was going to be the annoying character we were all supposed to look up to and think was cool, but by about ten minutes into the first episode it became clear she was a huge loser. She wanted to be really fashionable, but because she hated her body she would wear these weird leggings under all her dresses. She wanted to be seen as sexually active, but she didn't want to have sex and kept trying to avoid it. When she finally had sex it was awful, but she kept doing it because she wanted people to think she liked it. Eventually, Mini had the opposite trajectory from Franky--she went from an asshole to a funny, complicated, heartbreaking character that everyone loved.
I realize that, consistent with popular fandom opinion, the first generation must be the most objectively good one--because after all, each of my descriptions is longer and more full of backpedaling as I try to explain why this generation is still good despite its flaws. Okay. Fair enough. But they really are all really good and I would rather watch the worst episode of Skins than watch anything else.
Until now. Because judging by spoilers for series 6, they have changed stuff about the characters to the extent that it seems like they don't even understand what is good about their own show. Both of the showrunners have left but they're still writing episodes, so they must have a hand in this and they should know better. It's super offensive to take a character who, while having sex, had a PTSD flashback and tried to kill herself, and start the season with her happily having sex all the time. It's shitty to portray a girl as having a crush on another girl, and then start the next season with both girls involved with men, and basically make fun of lesbian fans for wanting another f/f relationship on the show. It's just dumb to have Rich dress in a really distinctive way in season five, and then make him look like all the other characters in season six. It doesn't offend me, it's just BORING. Why is it so wrong to portray diverse and unique experiences instead of getting sucked into writing about "what people can relate to," i.e. basically ONE experience?
Josh said the first episode of series six was horrible, but that maybe if I go in with low expectations I'll be pleasantly surprised. So here goes. Skins is dead. Long live Skins.
It's had low points before but the basic greatness of the concept has more than made up for them. But the new series just sounds like it's going to be awful. It sounds like they changed basic facts about characters, including stuff that I thought was important, to try and turn the show into a no-holds-barred festival of teen sex, drinking, and drug use--which people have always stereotyped it as, but which it really isn't.
Skins is a British show about a diverse group of teenage friends, most of whom party a lot. This sounds like a lot of shows, but the two unique things about Skins are:
1. It follows the characters while they are in college (which in the UK means a two-year program that some people go to between secondary school and university). Every two seasons, the main characters are replaced with a new group.
2. Every episode is told from the perspective of a different character--theoretically, each main character is supposed to get their own episode every season, although this doesn't always happen. The tone of the show changes to better reflect the inner life of the main character of the episode, and the music for the episode is often a particular genre or musician that is suited for the character.
So even though some people may like a particular Skins "generation" better than another, the show ultimately isn't about a specific group of teenagers, but about exploring each group of teenagers thoroughly and trying to portray their experiences with emotional truth. This leads to unexpected shifts in genre, which I love--a supporting character is revealed to have been imaginary; an episode about a road trip starts to resemble a horror movie; a long section of an episode is silent because the main character temporarily loses his hearing.
Skins isn't very realistic, but it deals with what teenagers are feeling, which is not a realistic subject. The credits of the show are weirdly colored, sped up and spliced together footage of the characters kissing, drinking, and walking around--often in giant, grassy fields, despite the fact that most of the show takes place in urban areas. A lot of the trailers for the show have been fantastical, like the one where the main characters are imagined as the different victims and inhabitants of a haunted house.
Besides the genre shifting, the structure of Skins does something important politically. When I say a TV show is political, all I mean is that it portrays people who are outside of the mainstream as having their own points of view and feelings. A lot of TV writers start out with a cast containing some gay people and people of color (and people with other non-mainstream experiences like disabilities), only focus on white straight characters most of the time. It might be different now, but the early episodes of Glee struck me this way. I feel like we've gotten to the point where writers feel compelled to make their show look diverse, but they don't really care about developing those characters or themes.
The Skins writers lean as firmly this way as anyone. Each generation ended up focusing on the tormented relationship between a white boy and a white girl (who was sometimes mentally ill, but in a sexy way). This really brought down gen 2 particularly, and from what I hear, it's going to be the death of gen 3.
But because of the structure of the show, this doesn't happen as severely as in other shows. We have gotten some really cool plots. Like: two episodes about a guy with autism trying to assert his "normalcy" and his right to grow up and have sex. An episode (and an admittedly terrible half-episode) about a guy immigrating to England from the Congo and having trouble adjusting. Several great episodes about characters with mental illnesses. A hugely popular storyline about two girls falling in love. A Muslim boy who's accused of using his religion as an excuse to be homophobic, and has to face how complicated his commitment to Islam is.
This is so, so special to me.
I feel really lucky that I started watching the show out of order--the first clip I saw was from the end of season 4 which, at the time, was widely considered to be the worst season of the show. I then watched 3x07, the best disability-related hour of TV I've ever seen. Then I watched series 3, series 4, series 1, and series 2, which meant that even though I liked individual episodes better than others, I didn't really have a chance to do the "negatively comparing gen 2 to gen 1" thing that a lot of Skins fans do. It's all Skins to me, and when gen 3 started last year, that was Skins too. I have a really bad feeling that series 6 is not going to feel like Skins at all.
Quick generation reviews/descriptions for interested parties (you should probs watch Skins, everyone!):
GENERATION ONE revolves around Tony, a charming and adventurous boy who treats all his friends terribly but manipulates them enough that they don't know how to stand up to him. His two biggest victims are his girlfriend Michelle and his sidekick Sid, who are both incredibly insecure in different ways. Eventually he gets his comeuppance, sort of.
Also: Michelle's friend Cassie, who has mental health problems, becomes infatuated with Sid, but Sid is obsessed with Michelle. Oh no! Chris is irresponsible and Jal is a serious musician, so they obviously fall in love. Tony's younger sister Effy goes long periods of time without talking, is creepy, and is the only person Tony cares about. There's also Maxxie, Anwar, Sketch, and Daniel Kaluuya, but the writers forgot about them.
In GENERATION TWO Effy is the main character and while I don't really have a problem with her as a person, everything starts being about how attractive she is. Two best friends, Freddie who is boring, and Cook who is an over the top delinquent, fall in love with Effy and compete for her attention. Over the course of a few episodes, Emily and Naomi fall in love and become so popular that the writers try to focus on them in season four, only to forget to develop them for almost the whole season and have to rush to wrap up their storyline in the last episode, which is more than they did for any of the other storylines.
Gen 2 was kind of different from gen 1 in that the main characters didn't start out as a group of friends, but as duos and trios. The most unbelievable thing about the show at this point was that all the characters would hang out together even though there were really tenuous reasons for this to happen. JJ is Freddie and Cook's friend with autism and Pandora is Effy's awkward friend, but instead of being friends with each other both characters would just disappear from the show for long periods of time, probably because they weren't sexy enough. Katie is Emily's sister who sort of hangs out with Effy and Freddie for some reason, Thomas is Pandora's boyfriend and in parts of season four is suddenly friends with JJ, but he usually disappears too.
As I write this I can see that there are more obvious problems with gen 2 than gen 1, but I still love them equally. I guess they basically have the same amount of characters, but gen 2 feels like it has more characters because they aren't all friends with each other so the characters we see can shift drastically from episode to episode. Also, Panda, JJ, and Thomas don't get shortchanged/buried to the degree that Maxxie and Anwar did, even though it still happens.
GENERATION THREE goes to an even further extreme and starts with a character named Franky, who has no friends, meeting the various characters for the first time. For some reason it didn't annoy me that all the characters ended up hanging out, because they were just AWESOME and best of all, they all seemed kind of dorky and singularly unlikely to take over the whole show with their broody sexy coolness, like Effy horrifically did in gen 2.
But tragedy struck! Franky falls in love with a broody, sexy, cool guy named Matty. Matty doesn't get that much screen time but through her relationship with him, Franky loses every quality that made her an exciting character in the first place (when she first appeared she was traumatized by severe bullying, liked to wear men's clothes, and made stop motion movies--guess how many of these qualities remained at the end of the season). The writers obviously saw Franky/Matty as a great romance, but because of the way they had set up the generation, discerning viewers could ignore the horribleness and pay attention to the other characters, who were, as I mentioned, awesome. Rich cares a lot about being "metal," but wears a hairnet and freaks out because he ran out of moisturizer. Grace is fantastic, Alo lives on a farm, Nick smashes things with a baseball bat because his dad is a motivational speaker, Liv does all the broody sexy cool things without actually becoming that character, and Mini is just...the finest.
For a second it seemed like Mini was going to be the annoying character we were all supposed to look up to and think was cool, but by about ten minutes into the first episode it became clear she was a huge loser. She wanted to be really fashionable, but because she hated her body she would wear these weird leggings under all her dresses. She wanted to be seen as sexually active, but she didn't want to have sex and kept trying to avoid it. When she finally had sex it was awful, but she kept doing it because she wanted people to think she liked it. Eventually, Mini had the opposite trajectory from Franky--she went from an asshole to a funny, complicated, heartbreaking character that everyone loved.
I realize that, consistent with popular fandom opinion, the first generation must be the most objectively good one--because after all, each of my descriptions is longer and more full of backpedaling as I try to explain why this generation is still good despite its flaws. Okay. Fair enough. But they really are all really good and I would rather watch the worst episode of Skins than watch anything else.
Until now. Because judging by spoilers for series 6, they have changed stuff about the characters to the extent that it seems like they don't even understand what is good about their own show. Both of the showrunners have left but they're still writing episodes, so they must have a hand in this and they should know better. It's super offensive to take a character who, while having sex, had a PTSD flashback and tried to kill herself, and start the season with her happily having sex all the time. It's shitty to portray a girl as having a crush on another girl, and then start the next season with both girls involved with men, and basically make fun of lesbian fans for wanting another f/f relationship on the show. It's just dumb to have Rich dress in a really distinctive way in season five, and then make him look like all the other characters in season six. It doesn't offend me, it's just BORING. Why is it so wrong to portray diverse and unique experiences instead of getting sucked into writing about "what people can relate to," i.e. basically ONE experience?
Josh said the first episode of series six was horrible, but that maybe if I go in with low expectations I'll be pleasantly surprised. So here goes. Skins is dead. Long live Skins.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Skins 3x07 (a very retrospective review)
The first episode of Skins I saw was 3x07 and it made me fall in love with the show because I was so impressed by the portrayal of a teenager with diagnosed autism and mental health problems. I've written about the episode a thousand times before, but it occurred to me that what makes it so progressive comes from the very structure of Skins.
First, the episode about JJ has to be from JJ's perspective and show his home life and how he acts when he's by himself, because that's how Skins episodes work by definition. And second, because it takes place pretty late in the season and the audience has seen the episodes about different characters, we understand that everyone has problems.
I hate when people with autism are portrayed as a different species. It's not just insulting to us, but to humanity in general. Talking about how people with autism don't read social cues or understand other people's feelings just makes you sound like you don't know any people without autism. It puts people without autism on a pedestal and ignores what's interesting about all people--our weird, unique failures and perversities and charms.
To me JJ's episode is about stigma. Whether or not that was intended, it can't not come across that way. After all, there's this stereotype that Skins is about kids having parties where they trash houses (there was even a media panic that it was encouraging British kids to have "Skins parties" where they tried to emulate the ones on the show). And there are several instances of Skins characters breaking things when they're angry or high or drunk. Sometimes this is a problem in the character's life, but it's not medicalized--except when it's JJ.
The episode starts with JJ sitting in his room immediately after getting really upset and breaking everything. Unlike most Skins characters who do this, he's actually worried about the fact that he's done this. Unlike every other character who trashes a room in the show, JJ decides that he needs to see his doctor because of what he just did. The doctor, without much thought, prescribes him more medication. JJ, without much thought, obediently takes it.
Later in the episode JJ says something to his friend Cook about not being into drugs. Cook replies that JJ takes a lot of drugs, and JJ gets so mad that he sets out to sabotage Cook for what he said. The truth is that what Cook said is technically true--they both take a lot of drugs--while actually being completely offensive and false.
The difference between JJ and Cook's drug use isn't that one takes drugs and the other doesn't--that isn't the case--but that Cook has a choice about what he puts into his body. His drugs may mess him up more, but he takes them for pleasure and he takes them when he feels like it. JJ has been taught that everything about him needs treatment, and that he should always conform to what other people say is good for him.
We know Cook and the other characters well enough to know that many of them do things that are bad for them, and make choices that hurt other people, while still being really confident in who they are. They have compasses, even though they are shitty ones. JJ is a more thoughtful and sensitive person, but he has no compass. He's afraid to not do what he's told.
When JJ talks to Effy in his episode, she says, "I'm officially off the rails"--she's not joyful about it, but she is a little pleased with herself. It's a cool thing to say. JJ replies that he can't go off the rails because it would upset his mother. Effy is fucked up but she has the freedom to brag about her fucked-up-ness and go as deep into it as she wants. JJ has a disability label so he's held to a higher standard; any signs of fucked-up-ness are a symptom and a potential tragedy that needs to be immediately controlled.
The heart of the episode, when we really learn who JJ is, is when he's talking to Emily about what he would do if he was "normal." He'd have sex! He'd eat whatever he wanted! He'd tell people exactly what he thought! Everyone would respect him!
I can't imagine watching this without wondering what Cook and Effy did to earn all these rights JJ apparently doesn't deserve. Why are they normal? Sure, JJ is different, we can tell he's different, but there's no bad thing he's done that a "normal" character hasn't done too.
Later, Emily and JJ are talking about how Emily's sister won't accept Emily being gay. Emily reassures JJ, who accidentally outed her, that Katie loves her and will get over it. JJ suggests that Katie is "locked on" and Emily agrees with the phrase.
When I first saw the episode I thought that "locked on" was a common British term for...something, I couldn't tell exactly what. After I watched more of the show, I realized that it was a euphemism JJ and his friends use for his particular emotional states. At one point they use it for a meltdown, and in another episode JJ is just getting overexcited and yelling about something when his friend sees the need to correct his behavior--"JJ, you're getting locked on."
I don't think that JJ was written well after series 3, or even in some episodes in series 3 where he serves as a stereotypical "awkward" character who provides comic relief and inappropriate exposition. But his episode is perfect, especially this moment. He realizes that Katie, a very "normal" person, can be described as "locked on." There doesn't need to be a whole separate vocabulary for the things JJ does.
Series 3 does a great job showing how JJ's friends and acquaintances see him as being different (and sometimes lesser) and how he sees himself that way. This is a really serious part of how some disabled kids grow up and yet you hardly ever see it when disabled kids have friends on TV. Their friends either treat them "like everyone else" even when they're clearly different, or take care of them with saintly patience. Mentally disabled people are often portrayed as not knowing we're different, even as we inconvenience and hurt other people with our differentness. Skins shows all the complications for a disabled kid who has friends, but is separate from them--and because of how developed all the characters are, we know just how shoddy the reasons for that separation are, and how unfair it is.
First, the episode about JJ has to be from JJ's perspective and show his home life and how he acts when he's by himself, because that's how Skins episodes work by definition. And second, because it takes place pretty late in the season and the audience has seen the episodes about different characters, we understand that everyone has problems.
I hate when people with autism are portrayed as a different species. It's not just insulting to us, but to humanity in general. Talking about how people with autism don't read social cues or understand other people's feelings just makes you sound like you don't know any people without autism. It puts people without autism on a pedestal and ignores what's interesting about all people--our weird, unique failures and perversities and charms.
To me JJ's episode is about stigma. Whether or not that was intended, it can't not come across that way. After all, there's this stereotype that Skins is about kids having parties where they trash houses (there was even a media panic that it was encouraging British kids to have "Skins parties" where they tried to emulate the ones on the show). And there are several instances of Skins characters breaking things when they're angry or high or drunk. Sometimes this is a problem in the character's life, but it's not medicalized--except when it's JJ.
The episode starts with JJ sitting in his room immediately after getting really upset and breaking everything. Unlike most Skins characters who do this, he's actually worried about the fact that he's done this. Unlike every other character who trashes a room in the show, JJ decides that he needs to see his doctor because of what he just did. The doctor, without much thought, prescribes him more medication. JJ, without much thought, obediently takes it.
Later in the episode JJ says something to his friend Cook about not being into drugs. Cook replies that JJ takes a lot of drugs, and JJ gets so mad that he sets out to sabotage Cook for what he said. The truth is that what Cook said is technically true--they both take a lot of drugs--while actually being completely offensive and false.
The difference between JJ and Cook's drug use isn't that one takes drugs and the other doesn't--that isn't the case--but that Cook has a choice about what he puts into his body. His drugs may mess him up more, but he takes them for pleasure and he takes them when he feels like it. JJ has been taught that everything about him needs treatment, and that he should always conform to what other people say is good for him.
We know Cook and the other characters well enough to know that many of them do things that are bad for them, and make choices that hurt other people, while still being really confident in who they are. They have compasses, even though they are shitty ones. JJ is a more thoughtful and sensitive person, but he has no compass. He's afraid to not do what he's told.
When JJ talks to Effy in his episode, she says, "I'm officially off the rails"--she's not joyful about it, but she is a little pleased with herself. It's a cool thing to say. JJ replies that he can't go off the rails because it would upset his mother. Effy is fucked up but she has the freedom to brag about her fucked-up-ness and go as deep into it as she wants. JJ has a disability label so he's held to a higher standard; any signs of fucked-up-ness are a symptom and a potential tragedy that needs to be immediately controlled.
The heart of the episode, when we really learn who JJ is, is when he's talking to Emily about what he would do if he was "normal." He'd have sex! He'd eat whatever he wanted! He'd tell people exactly what he thought! Everyone would respect him!
I can't imagine watching this without wondering what Cook and Effy did to earn all these rights JJ apparently doesn't deserve. Why are they normal? Sure, JJ is different, we can tell he's different, but there's no bad thing he's done that a "normal" character hasn't done too.
Later, Emily and JJ are talking about how Emily's sister won't accept Emily being gay. Emily reassures JJ, who accidentally outed her, that Katie loves her and will get over it. JJ suggests that Katie is "locked on" and Emily agrees with the phrase.
When I first saw the episode I thought that "locked on" was a common British term for...something, I couldn't tell exactly what. After I watched more of the show, I realized that it was a euphemism JJ and his friends use for his particular emotional states. At one point they use it for a meltdown, and in another episode JJ is just getting overexcited and yelling about something when his friend sees the need to correct his behavior--"JJ, you're getting locked on."
I don't think that JJ was written well after series 3, or even in some episodes in series 3 where he serves as a stereotypical "awkward" character who provides comic relief and inappropriate exposition. But his episode is perfect, especially this moment. He realizes that Katie, a very "normal" person, can be described as "locked on." There doesn't need to be a whole separate vocabulary for the things JJ does.
Series 3 does a great job showing how JJ's friends and acquaintances see him as being different (and sometimes lesser) and how he sees himself that way. This is a really serious part of how some disabled kids grow up and yet you hardly ever see it when disabled kids have friends on TV. Their friends either treat them "like everyone else" even when they're clearly different, or take care of them with saintly patience. Mentally disabled people are often portrayed as not knowing we're different, even as we inconvenience and hurt other people with our differentness. Skins shows all the complications for a disabled kid who has friends, but is separate from them--and because of how developed all the characters are, we know just how shoddy the reasons for that separation are, and how unfair it is.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Some ~feelings about Chase/Gert
(This is a bit more altered from the original.)
Part Two: "I think I got brain damage"
Just in case I ever write an academic paper on Runaways (I wish), I'd like to point out that one of the positive nerd characters is Victor Mancha, who has the same first name as Chase’s dad. Characters don’t usually have the same name, so what’s up with this? Notably, Chase resents Victor Mancha because a)he thinks that his nerdy girlfriend is going to leave him for Victor because Victor is nerdier/smarter than Chase, and b)as he admits to Victor, Victor is exactly the kind of son Chase’s dad would have wanted.
Gert was my favorite character when I started reading Runaways, but somehow Chase's love for her made me love him so much that I started liking him even more. Their relationship is pretty close to being my OTP of all time, regardless of genre--I right now cannot think of anything I love quite that much.
It's not exactly groundbreaking for a more "normal" teenager to fall in love with another kid who's geeky/alternative/fat. I do give props for Gert actually being fat sometimes, depending on the artist. But what I really love is how their personal insecurities/stigmas (dumbness for Chase and "ugliness" for Gert) interact so that they're not just opposed in the obvious way, but on every level.
Gert, who is super intellectual, is sure despite all evidence to the contrary that Chase wants to leave her because she’s fat. Chase, who is super conventionally attractive, is sure despite all evidence to the contrary that Gert wants to leave him because he’s dumb. I think the reason Gert/Chase is my OTP to end all OTPs is that neither of them actually cares about the thing the other person expects them to care about. They are awesome, not just on their own, but through each other–because they’re both awesome for being able to see that someone so different from them is awesome. Their awesomeness increases the more they love each other! It’s an infinite awesomeness loop!
Chase, before kissing Gert for the first time: I think I got brain damage ’cause suddenly you’re the hottest chick I’ve ever seen.
Gert, reassuring Chase that she’s not going to leave him for Victor: The smartest man in the world is the one who knows that I’m the best girl alive. I’ve only got four-eyes for you, okay?
Quoted because I love them so much, and emphasis on the intersections that shape their relationship. Obviously both quotes are jokes, but still they’re worth looking at. Chase is “brain-damaged” but “the smartest man in the world,” while Gert is “four-eyes” but “the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.” The first quote sets up Chase as being dumb for loving Gert, while the second quote says the opposite. Or does it? Is it Chase’s dumbness, his identity as inferior to his parents and Gert, that makes him “smart” enough to see Gert as hot instead of as the way she sees herself (inferior to Karolina and Nico)?
It has to be addressed that enemies of the Runaways often refer to Gert as ugly and fat, and mock Chase for having her as his girlfriend. There aren’t equivalent scenes with enemies telling Gert, “Your boyfriend is stupid.” Chase’s hatred of himself for being dumb is at least as deep as Gert’s discomfort with her body, but it’s Gert who is much more regularly attacked for her identity. I think this is a fair portrayal–because while of course there is violence and hatred of “dumbness” in the world, especially among nerds, it’s nowhere near as intense as hatred of fatness, which exists in both nerd culture and mainstream culture. Chase is more personally affected by his stigma, but he’s the more privileged person in the relationship. Which I think he doesn’t always understand.
Just one more thing: at the end of BKV’s run, Gert/Chase both arguably find some kind of peace away from stigma. Chase, who identifies as “bad” just as much as he identifies as “dumb,” carries out a complex plan and comes to identify as “innocent.” (It doesn’t hurt that in during the course of his plan he defeats Victor Mancha with logic, and that the two people he defeats are the two supposed threats to Gert/Chase.) Gert seems completely sure that Chase loves her, and refers to her conventionally attractive, skinny future self as “boring” and “a threat, not a promise.”
Part Two: "I think I got brain damage"
Just in case I ever write an academic paper on Runaways (I wish), I'd like to point out that one of the positive nerd characters is Victor Mancha, who has the same first name as Chase’s dad. Characters don’t usually have the same name, so what’s up with this? Notably, Chase resents Victor Mancha because a)he thinks that his nerdy girlfriend is going to leave him for Victor because Victor is nerdier/smarter than Chase, and b)as he admits to Victor, Victor is exactly the kind of son Chase’s dad would have wanted.
Gert was my favorite character when I started reading Runaways, but somehow Chase's love for her made me love him so much that I started liking him even more. Their relationship is pretty close to being my OTP of all time, regardless of genre--I right now cannot think of anything I love quite that much.
It's not exactly groundbreaking for a more "normal" teenager to fall in love with another kid who's geeky/alternative/fat. I do give props for Gert actually being fat sometimes, depending on the artist. But what I really love is how their personal insecurities/stigmas (dumbness for Chase and "ugliness" for Gert) interact so that they're not just opposed in the obvious way, but on every level.
Gert, who is super intellectual, is sure despite all evidence to the contrary that Chase wants to leave her because she’s fat. Chase, who is super conventionally attractive, is sure despite all evidence to the contrary that Gert wants to leave him because he’s dumb. I think the reason Gert/Chase is my OTP to end all OTPs is that neither of them actually cares about the thing the other person expects them to care about. They are awesome, not just on their own, but through each other–because they’re both awesome for being able to see that someone so different from them is awesome. Their awesomeness increases the more they love each other! It’s an infinite awesomeness loop!
Chase, before kissing Gert for the first time: I think I got brain damage ’cause suddenly you’re the hottest chick I’ve ever seen.
Gert, reassuring Chase that she’s not going to leave him for Victor: The smartest man in the world is the one who knows that I’m the best girl alive. I’ve only got four-eyes for you, okay?
Quoted because I love them so much, and emphasis on the intersections that shape their relationship. Obviously both quotes are jokes, but still they’re worth looking at. Chase is “brain-damaged” but “the smartest man in the world,” while Gert is “four-eyes” but “the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.” The first quote sets up Chase as being dumb for loving Gert, while the second quote says the opposite. Or does it? Is it Chase’s dumbness, his identity as inferior to his parents and Gert, that makes him “smart” enough to see Gert as hot instead of as the way she sees herself (inferior to Karolina and Nico)?
It has to be addressed that enemies of the Runaways often refer to Gert as ugly and fat, and mock Chase for having her as his girlfriend. There aren’t equivalent scenes with enemies telling Gert, “Your boyfriend is stupid.” Chase’s hatred of himself for being dumb is at least as deep as Gert’s discomfort with her body, but it’s Gert who is much more regularly attacked for her identity. I think this is a fair portrayal–because while of course there is violence and hatred of “dumbness” in the world, especially among nerds, it’s nowhere near as intense as hatred of fatness, which exists in both nerd culture and mainstream culture. Chase is more personally affected by his stigma, but he’s the more privileged person in the relationship. Which I think he doesn’t always understand.
Just one more thing: at the end of BKV’s run, Gert/Chase both arguably find some kind of peace away from stigma. Chase, who identifies as “bad” just as much as he identifies as “dumb,” carries out a complex plan and comes to identify as “innocent.” (It doesn’t hurt that in during the course of his plan he defeats Victor Mancha with logic, and that the two people he defeats are the two supposed threats to Gert/Chase.) Gert seems completely sure that Chase loves her, and refers to her conventionally attractive, skinny future self as “boring” and “a threat, not a promise.”
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Some ~feelings about Chase Stein
(This is something I wrote in March on one of my abandoned blogs.)
Part One: "Isn't that a cliche?"
I guess Runaways is a geek-centric comic in that most of the main characters are geeky/alternative in some way--and I think this is sort of what makes Chase like my favorite comic book character of all time. Let me explain. I feel like a character like Chase (who is introduced as a “dumb jock,” and is a lot more than that; but that description never stops being true) is normally only presented sympathetically in really mainstream narratives, which tend to not have a ton of depth and tend to portray geek characters stereotypically. Brian K. Vaughan decenters Chase from being the character we’re supposed to identify with, but still portrays him with a lot of depth.
Chase reminds me of my best friend in high school, John. John was a jock, and he was dumb. He made gross jokes. He was also a really good friend, and he was an outsider in his own way. I feel like writers, especially genre writers, tend to be geeky/alternative and don’t portray “dumb” or non-alternative characters in a compassionate way.
Although I guess in a lot of ways I am Hipster Scum, I just don’t really identify with the value of rejecting people who aren’t intellectual or aren’t alternative. I try to relate to people based on how I get along with them emotionally and not based on their subculture or what they want out of life. I can certainly be a dick and cut myself off from people for other stupid reasons. But I guess I just get annoyed by people who are anti-anti-intellectual and I got irked with Joss Whedon for the way he wrote Chase during his run.
I also think that Chase’s lack of nerdiness/intellectualism/intelligence/alternative-ness (including the facts that he isn’t part of a subculture, doesn’t do well in school, and is often kind of dense and spacey) is an extremely important part of who he is. Because of that I find Whedon's retcon of him insulting to the character (yes, I'm 12, I can be insulted on behalf of comic book characters).
The conceit of Runaways is that all the main characters have parents who are a different type of supervillain and when the kids find out, they team up to fight their parents. Chase’s parents are “mad scientists,” obviously the most intellectual type of supervillain (which Whedon himself portrayed as a hero in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with the villain being a superhero who is a stereotypical dumb jock). Although, like all the Runaways’ parents, they do evil with the goal of providing for their children, Chase’s parents are physically and emotionally abusive, and they are the only set of parents who are like this.
Although Chase fights with his parents and behaves rebelliously, he is written throughout Brian K. Vaughan’s run as having internalized the lessons he was taught by their abuse--basically, that he deserved to be abused because he wasn’t a good person, misbehaved, or was otherwise unsatisfactory. Chase’s parents frame their abuse of him in terms of “we’re smart, and you’re unsatisfactory and don’t know what is good for you, because you aren’t smart/intellectual.”
This value set has to come from somewhere, and it's not hard to guess. When the Steins first appear, Chase and his parents are fighting about his grades. Victor punches Chase and tells him he is a “dumb jock,” a “cliche.” Chase responds, “You’re a nerd who punches like a girl--isn’t that a cliche?” Which I think is really interesting because if you do read Chase’s dad through that lens, as a nerd who was bullied as a kid and wasn’t physically able to stand up for himself, and the violence that grew in him became his supervillainy...doesn’t that serve as a frame for his parenting? Does he have a childhood hatred of “dumb jocks,” which he takes out on his dumb jock son? It doesn’t matter if you “punch like a girl,” after all, if the person you’re punching is young and dependent on you.
So can I just say how much I love Brian K. Vaughan? He clearly isn’t mainstream or anti-nerd, as many of the positive characters are nerdy, but he also sees the potential violence in the idea that nerds are better than other people. In Y the Last Man he does a great job of portraying very diverse characters and the same is true for Runaways.
Part One: "Isn't that a cliche?"
I guess Runaways is a geek-centric comic in that most of the main characters are geeky/alternative in some way--and I think this is sort of what makes Chase like my favorite comic book character of all time. Let me explain. I feel like a character like Chase (who is introduced as a “dumb jock,” and is a lot more than that; but that description never stops being true) is normally only presented sympathetically in really mainstream narratives, which tend to not have a ton of depth and tend to portray geek characters stereotypically. Brian K. Vaughan decenters Chase from being the character we’re supposed to identify with, but still portrays him with a lot of depth.
Chase reminds me of my best friend in high school, John. John was a jock, and he was dumb. He made gross jokes. He was also a really good friend, and he was an outsider in his own way. I feel like writers, especially genre writers, tend to be geeky/alternative and don’t portray “dumb” or non-alternative characters in a compassionate way.
Although I guess in a lot of ways I am Hipster Scum, I just don’t really identify with the value of rejecting people who aren’t intellectual or aren’t alternative. I try to relate to people based on how I get along with them emotionally and not based on their subculture or what they want out of life. I can certainly be a dick and cut myself off from people for other stupid reasons. But I guess I just get annoyed by people who are anti-anti-intellectual and I got irked with Joss Whedon for the way he wrote Chase during his run.
I also think that Chase’s lack of nerdiness/intellectualism/intelligence/alternative-ness (including the facts that he isn’t part of a subculture, doesn’t do well in school, and is often kind of dense and spacey) is an extremely important part of who he is. Because of that I find Whedon's retcon of him insulting to the character (yes, I'm 12, I can be insulted on behalf of comic book characters).
The conceit of Runaways is that all the main characters have parents who are a different type of supervillain and when the kids find out, they team up to fight their parents. Chase’s parents are “mad scientists,” obviously the most intellectual type of supervillain (which Whedon himself portrayed as a hero in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with the villain being a superhero who is a stereotypical dumb jock). Although, like all the Runaways’ parents, they do evil with the goal of providing for their children, Chase’s parents are physically and emotionally abusive, and they are the only set of parents who are like this.
Although Chase fights with his parents and behaves rebelliously, he is written throughout Brian K. Vaughan’s run as having internalized the lessons he was taught by their abuse--basically, that he deserved to be abused because he wasn’t a good person, misbehaved, or was otherwise unsatisfactory. Chase’s parents frame their abuse of him in terms of “we’re smart, and you’re unsatisfactory and don’t know what is good for you, because you aren’t smart/intellectual.”
This value set has to come from somewhere, and it's not hard to guess. When the Steins first appear, Chase and his parents are fighting about his grades. Victor punches Chase and tells him he is a “dumb jock,” a “cliche.” Chase responds, “You’re a nerd who punches like a girl--isn’t that a cliche?” Which I think is really interesting because if you do read Chase’s dad through that lens, as a nerd who was bullied as a kid and wasn’t physically able to stand up for himself, and the violence that grew in him became his supervillainy...doesn’t that serve as a frame for his parenting? Does he have a childhood hatred of “dumb jocks,” which he takes out on his dumb jock son? It doesn’t matter if you “punch like a girl,” after all, if the person you’re punching is young and dependent on you.
So can I just say how much I love Brian K. Vaughan? He clearly isn’t mainstream or anti-nerd, as many of the positive characters are nerdy, but he also sees the potential violence in the idea that nerds are better than other people. In Y the Last Man he does a great job of portraying very diverse characters and the same is true for Runaways.
Joss Whedon is Diablo Cody
After googling their names I found out I’m not the only person in the world to draw this conclusion, which makes me feel better about the world.
Okay seriously. I was trying to explain to Clayton why even though BtVS is really special to me, I don’t really consider myself a Joss Whedon fan. About the time I stopped was when he wrote some issues of Runaways and portrayed Chase as a big superhero fan. This sounds dumb, but like…that would be Victor. It became really obvious to me while reading that arc that Joss Whedon could only write, or was only willing to write, Joss Whedon Characters with Joss Whedon Dialogue.
That felt self-centered to me—well, maybe I’m putting moral judgments on the lack of certain abilities, but even if that’s true, I don’t think Whedon should be considered such a huge genius if he can’t write characters who think and talk outside of a very narrow style.
While I was saying this to Clayton, it occurred to me that Diablo Cody is super maligned for: a. writing characters who belong to a certain “type” b. writing characters who all talk in a certain quirky way.
What the fuck, guys!
I would argue that in Juno, despite the homeskilletness or whatever people are offended by, Cody comes out on the side of saying that someone uncool and unquirky like Jennifer Garner’s character is a better person than her husband who seems to think he’s better than her because he’s so ~indie. Which in my opinion is much more open-minded than Joss Whedon.
Yet Joss Whedon’s name is basically a synonym for AWESOME, while Cody is criticized and made fun of for having quirky dialogue and characters?
Okay seriously. I was trying to explain to Clayton why even though BtVS is really special to me, I don’t really consider myself a Joss Whedon fan. About the time I stopped was when he wrote some issues of Runaways and portrayed Chase as a big superhero fan. This sounds dumb, but like…that would be Victor. It became really obvious to me while reading that arc that Joss Whedon could only write, or was only willing to write, Joss Whedon Characters with Joss Whedon Dialogue.
That felt self-centered to me—well, maybe I’m putting moral judgments on the lack of certain abilities, but even if that’s true, I don’t think Whedon should be considered such a huge genius if he can’t write characters who think and talk outside of a very narrow style.
While I was saying this to Clayton, it occurred to me that Diablo Cody is super maligned for: a. writing characters who belong to a certain “type” b. writing characters who all talk in a certain quirky way.
What the fuck, guys!
I would argue that in Juno, despite the homeskilletness or whatever people are offended by, Cody comes out on the side of saying that someone uncool and unquirky like Jennifer Garner’s character is a better person than her husband who seems to think he’s better than her because he’s so ~indie. Which in my opinion is much more open-minded than Joss Whedon.
Yet Joss Whedon’s name is basically a synonym for AWESOME, while Cody is criticized and made fun of for having quirky dialogue and characters?
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