Well, That Didn't Work

Sep 19, 2011 23:23

I came home from a moderately crappy day at work happy because there was going to be new H50 ( Read more... )

h50 s2, h50, h50 s2 ep1

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hederahelix September 27 2011, 17:01:13 UTC
I don't mind Kono getting caught once in a while. After all, she's supposed to be the other hot head on the team, and Steve gets caught too, right?

I'm not as upset as a lot of people are about the sleeping with Danny and Stan that close together. We don't know what her feelings on monogamy are, or what the nature of her relationship with Stan is. I may not be one of them, but there are people who get married but who aren't monogamous.

You're definitely right that the writers have shown that they went to the Sudden Unexpected and Unhinted At Twists Are Awesome Writing school of thought, and they're wrong like a very wrong thing.

It's entirely possible that they're going to turn her into a double or triple agent. But after last night's ep (won't say more here because it includes spoilers), I'm just pissed about how she got treated over all.

See, the Wo Fat getting into the prison thing didn't bother me. They've clearly written him as a Magical James Bond-style villain who has contacts in every aspect of life in Hawaii. And if he's really that powerful, he could get into a prison in Hawaii. Hawaii doesn't have any top tier security level facilities. So . . .I'd buy that.

As for race, Kelly Hu was a native Hawaiian woman, and they killed her off last season.

It's a pretty persistent problem in Hollywood that there are a lot of talented actors of color who don't get cast because Hollywood sees whiteness as the default.

Part of the issue is that it's a catch 22: Hollywood doesn't cast actors of color, so the general public doesn't much get to see their work.

The greenlighters in the industry (who are disproportionately white, esp. when compared to say, the general population in California) think that white people won't identify with characters of color or that unknown actors don't have the pull to launch a show, don't cast the actors of color, so the actors of color aren't well-known by the general public, so they don't have the pull to launch a show or film.

I get that in a first season, it's hard for anyone to stand up to those voice in Hollywood, but the show did well the first season, and they could have tamped down some of the criticism of the new female character by bringing in a new character of color.

Personally, I think the real issue is that the execs think that they have enough characters of color in the cast. They'd point to Kono, Chin, the coroner whose name is escaping me, Kamekona, and other bit players as being enough.

But I like my shows to be more representative of the geography and demographics of the place they're set in. If Buffy had been set on the Gulf Coast at that time, then sure, you could have a Sunnydale without Latino/a folks.

But a city in California without a substantial Latino/a character? Not buying it. Not even for a second.

That failure to locate a show in the place it's supposed to be set in a way that strains the credulity of anyone who visited the place kicks me, and a lot of other people, right out of the narrative just on the basis of believability--and that's before you get to the hinky racial politics of it.

Last night's new ep didn't meat the more joy than irritation bar either. It's gonna be a looooon season, I'm afraid.

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