My Dr Horrible vs Severus Snape
We two young men, A and B. Both are intelligent, uncharismatic, unpopular and deeply in love with a Charitable Redhead. They both share an inexplicable spiritual bond her, but they botch up their romantic prospects when they let their Career in Evildom get in the way. Her attraction to Phallic Opponent shoves them further along the path of bitter ( Read more... )
Her attraction to Phallic Opponent shoves them further along the path of bitter evildom I laughed aloud at this. For real.
And yet, Dr Horrible gets all my sympathy and adoration. Mine, too. I never much cared for Snape. And I admit that a lot of my Billy love is because it's Neil Patrick Harris and it's impossible not to love him, but I just care about him more.
but in truth, all his humanity seems to come from Lily. She is his redemption, and he cares about little else. Very, very true. It's why I was really disappointed by the big revelation about Snape in Deathly Hallows. I wanted it to be more than that, and it wasn't.
... In short: I value the potential to start anew above everlasting loyalty? That, or Billy is the most adorable creature since the pie monster. Both, I think.
And I can't wait to hear your thoughts about Penny. She's become a point of contention around the internet lately. I'll be interested to hear what you think.
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This was my first experience with Neil Patrick Harris, and I can safely assess I want to shag everything from his voice to his name to that blinking thing and have several of his horrible babies. He managed a balance between "somewhat icky and evil" and "cuddly, decent boy-next-door" while keeping it all organic and actually singing. Singing!
It was also my first experiance with Joss, yesss, although I knew he likes to kill people. I wasn't the least bit disappointed, which is saying lots. I was surprised by the way he included feminism - 'cause he's glamorously famous for "strong women characters". Not having seen Buffy or Firefly, just picking up some of the media huff - well, I'd expected strong woman character to equate to a macabre, cheeky, rather cruel but kick-ass kind of girl. Penny was... different. Naive, humble ish, caring, easy to hurt or mislead - a lot like a stereotypical hero-girlfriend, yes?
And yet, that didn't make her character any less valuable. The whole love, trust, help others selflessly thing is very hard to do nowadays. One of the messages of the film, in my opinion, was that society doesn't deserve being trusted any more than it deserves being dominated. Again and again, society rejected Penny - she dinnae get a job, she had to watch 49 people out of a 50 pass by without gracing her with a signature. Then she became armcandy for Phallic Idol and all of a sudden she was a plucky humanitarian instead of an unemployed treehugging skank. You know? Society likes its wenches boxed and easily-definable.
Indeed, the most shocking part might have been after she died, when Billy carried her body, all Jesus-like, singing about how she'd been his world ("The world is lying at my feet" - most poignant line of the whole thing), and then we see a newspaper headline claiming Everyone Mourns Whatsherface. And honestly, this totally is realistic, the way her whole life is wrapped up in the fact that she shagged Phallic Idol.
So that's a certain theme of feminism there - the way perfectly normal women are treated by cattle by the media, by boyfriends - and the way they go along with it, up to a point. Cause its their only way to get their point across, to be aknowledged or accepted at all. You know?
The thing is, Penny is peaceful, delicate, kind-hearted, and as such she doesn't fit the 21th century "confident woman" picture that people often associate with feminism. You know? We're talking pure superficiality here. But that's possibly the very point, isn't it. It's Okay To Be Yourself Even If You're Not The Kind of Girl One Generally Imagines Being Herself. Until you die by bits of death ray. So. Um.
What did you think? Do you wish she'd been more - different? Could it have worked if she hadn't died?
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I was surprised by the way he included feminism - 'cause he's glamorously famous for "strong women characters". Not having seen Buffy or Firefly, just picking up some of the media huff - well, I'd expected strong woman character to equate to a macabre, cheeky, rather cruel but kick-ass kind of girl. Penny was... different. Naive, humble ish, caring, easy to hurt or mislead - a lot like a stereotypical hero-girlfriend, yes? You're so right. He does have that reputation because Buffy can kick ass and so can Faith and River and Zoe (those names probably mean nothing to you, though) in a very literal way. But he definitely doesn't insinuate that you have to be strong physically in order to be a strong woman. He doesn't fall into that trap.
And yet, that didn't make her character any less valuable. The whole love, trust, help others selflessly thing is very hard to do nowadays. One of the messages of the film, in my opinion, was that society doesn't deserve being trusted any more than it deserves being dominated. Exactly. I've heard a lot of people say that it's anti-feminist, but I disagree because of these very reasons.
And I agree with everything you said. Everything.
I don't know how it could have worked if she hadn't died. Because, honestly, this is Billy's story, and you can't have this wonderful, nice girl get together with the villain if she knew who he was, because that would have been a betrayal of all the things she believed in. And yet it would have been out of character if Billy had suddenly repented of his ambitions to be a super villain.
Honestly, I remember watching part 3 and thinking, "How on earth can Joss wrap this up in fifteen more minutes? It's impossible!" Except that it wasn't, and the only way it could have ended was with Penny dying. I really don't see another way.
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