VVC vid recs part the first
I’ve been on holiday all through Vividcon and its aftermath hence radio silence. I hardly know where to start but these are the two vids that stood out for me most during the first frenzy of downloading.
Land by sweetestdrain
It begins with the end. It begins with John Connor, bridge over troubled future. John the boy, John the man, John the holy Ghost. All Johnny narrowing down (literally, check the aspect ratio) to the end (spelled out). It begins with death a pale horse, pale horses. Death dancing, dances have names. Twisting the Twist, smashing up the Mashed Potato, snapping its Alligator jaws. Little sister Arnie, so far so linear, buddy movie, action movie, let’s go be heroes. Two becomes three. Arnie ascended, angel framed in stained glass. Johnny older, cooler, harder and too late. Radio silence fades to black.
Sarah’s story, enters left. This is the place, this is the time. Everything ends, everything changes. Twisterettes! Horses inherit the earth. Hope falls into the alley. Hope is a she-horse with yellow hair. Head swings back and everything changes, mutates, transforms. Mare, la mer, sea, see, seizes. Mare, mer, la mère. The mother of all possibilities. The child surrounded by the amniotic sea. I smiled at Johnny and gave him a gun. So many possible Johnnys, so many possible Sarahs. The tide coming in over and over, changing, mutating, bringing in future flotsam. I died, he died, I beckon, he follows. More deaths, marked graves, betrayal, fallibility, boy becomes man. Two guns facing on a table. A man and a woman sitting on a bench. Johnny goes forward, catches the ebb tide back to his future and this story ends with its beginning. Sex and death and love and life, endlessly recombining, hand in hand.
Bachelorette by obsessive24
I think I’m reading this differently from most people but it works best for me if the central epiphany is not “I can fight back” but “I see what you are.” Because although the “you” of patriarchy and its multiple incarnations is set up very early, the vid actually begins with Buffy swinging down and setting it in motion. I think it’s not simply documenting the forms of her/our oppression but also showing how she/we are complicit in it. Even as they abuse, ignore and abandon her, she wants the bird to drink her, she wants the academy/industrial-military complex to notice her, she wants the father/boyfriend figures to come back. April, the robot, is the epitome of this tendency, this inability to recognize what ails us but just before the final verse kicks in there’s that scene of Buffy supporting Willow, women focusing on each other rather than their oppressors and in the final verse the mask is stripped away to reveal the full misogynistic brutality of the system. The problem with this reading is that the switch from enlightenment to empowerment becomes almost an afterthought, the fight back scenes and Buffy’s smile are cathartic but feel a little unearned. But I think they’re iconic enough to stand alone and the ending in the desert is absolutely perfect.
Land by sweetestdrain
It begins with the end. It begins with John Connor, bridge over troubled future. John the boy, John the man, John the holy Ghost. All Johnny narrowing down (literally, check the aspect ratio) to the end (spelled out). It begins with death a pale horse, pale horses. Death dancing, dances have names. Twisting the Twist, smashing up the Mashed Potato, snapping its Alligator jaws. Little sister Arnie, so far so linear, buddy movie, action movie, let’s go be heroes. Two becomes three. Arnie ascended, angel framed in stained glass. Johnny older, cooler, harder and too late. Radio silence fades to black.
Sarah’s story, enters left. This is the place, this is the time. Everything ends, everything changes. Twisterettes! Horses inherit the earth. Hope falls into the alley. Hope is a she-horse with yellow hair. Head swings back and everything changes, mutates, transforms. Mare, la mer, sea, see, seizes. Mare, mer, la mère. The mother of all possibilities. The child surrounded by the amniotic sea. I smiled at Johnny and gave him a gun. So many possible Johnnys, so many possible Sarahs. The tide coming in over and over, changing, mutating, bringing in future flotsam. I died, he died, I beckon, he follows. More deaths, marked graves, betrayal, fallibility, boy becomes man. Two guns facing on a table. A man and a woman sitting on a bench. Johnny goes forward, catches the ebb tide back to his future and this story ends with its beginning. Sex and death and love and life, endlessly recombining, hand in hand.
Bachelorette by obsessive24
I think I’m reading this differently from most people but it works best for me if the central epiphany is not “I can fight back” but “I see what you are.” Because although the “you” of patriarchy and its multiple incarnations is set up very early, the vid actually begins with Buffy swinging down and setting it in motion. I think it’s not simply documenting the forms of her/our oppression but also showing how she/we are complicit in it. Even as they abuse, ignore and abandon her, she wants the bird to drink her, she wants the academy/industrial-military complex to notice her, she wants the father/boyfriend figures to come back. April, the robot, is the epitome of this tendency, this inability to recognize what ails us but just before the final verse kicks in there’s that scene of Buffy supporting Willow, women focusing on each other rather than their oppressors and in the final verse the mask is stripped away to reveal the full misogynistic brutality of the system. The problem with this reading is that the switch from enlightenment to empowerment becomes almost an afterthought, the fight back scenes and Buffy’s smile are cathartic but feel a little unearned. But I think they’re iconic enough to stand alone and the ending in the desert is absolutely perfect.