Boy, You Guys Am Really Smart!
And long winded!! I didn't even realize LJ had size limits for posts!
There were lots of interesting comments about Bri Bri. Among them:
mlheathen wrote: Brian is *not* a well drawn out character. He is such a caricature and so dogmatic in his ideology that he really never makes any sense at all..."
ragingpixie describes a "fascination" for Brian, which is a great way to phrase it. I'll cop to a bit of Brian-fascination in spite of my own bad self!
skyypyng wrote: "The bashing totally took Brian by surprise, even though he had told Justin that night on Liberty Avenue 'now you've made a real enemy'. Justin's head was physically smashed, but Brian's self-image was shattered. He is a mastermind, he should have seen this coming, what was he thinking (or not), and now he feels guilt." This idea has prompted me to view Brian in a slightly more favorable light. I can picture him absolutely blown away by how his plan failed so very, very pectacularly. I imagine it in the same vein as a homeowner staring at a house that has been absolutely leveled by a tornado. While no one is permanently damaged, the destruction is still stunning.
reboot_wlm wrote: "Cowlip had a great opportunity after Season 1 to take the relationship(because I honestly don't give .02 for the rest of the storylines) and make it into something special or drive it into a soap opera crappy mess. I think they chose the latter... I think the reason that we see this inconsistent/unapologetic character (Brian Kinney) that is so confusing is that they all have a different vision of him and they try to meld them together to produce what we see."
nextrealm wrote: "I love the show, though, b/c I see what B/J could be."
Anonymous said: "They chose Brian not to grow in S2 because they needed the same Brian in S3. When the main character already triumphs over himself (man vs himself conflict) then that means we're already reaching the resolution part."
Also, I crack josselin up.
I realize I'm not supposed to dislike Brian. Those who can't stand Justin aren't supposed to feel that way about the character. Certainly Michael isn't intended to be a focus of fan distaste. I guess all television shows generate their own fair share of unintended reactions and responses, but QAF seems so much more incongruous to me.
When I get my tv show, here's my pledge to you about how I will ensure quality
1. I will have a plan. If the show goes one year, two years, three years, etc. there needs to be a plan for where the characters are going to go and how they're going to get there. This is not to say there can't be flexibility and a willingness to respond to serendipity when it arises, but there needs to be at least some foresight.
2. I will commit to a set number of episodes. I think five years is the perfect run for a show. In five years, I will have put an indoor pool in my mansion and will own so many pairs of boots that I will be able to walk away just as I said I would all those years earlier. Even though the network is begging me to keep the show on the air and hiring dump trucks to continually dump wads and wads of money on my front lawn, I will stand firm and bow out at the five year mark.
3. If I take the trouble to draw interesting, believable, realish characters, I promise not to do something in the third or fourth season that completely negates all of drawing previously done to make that character interesting, believable and realish. I'll have really interesting sets so the actors don't get bored and want to take their characters in a new direction. We'll knit and sing folk songs and do some interpretive dancing. It'll be really great.
4. I promise a world of beautiful, beautiful gray. Most people aren't all good or all bad. A major problem with QAF is that characters are cartoonishly drawn. They are either Satan-spawned incarnates of evil or Gay Jesus. There's very little in between. This is so disrespectful to the viewers, who are capable of digesting a fully dimensional character (of course, if you read enough fanfic where Michael poisons Justin and imprisons him in an attic in the country and tortures him by attaching electric probes to his chest and groin area and then throws acid on his face and runs over him with a car and tosses him over a cliff, you might be forgiven for assuming a little bit of low brow in your audience).
This is fun. What are you going to do when you get your tv show?
There were lots of interesting comments about Bri Bri. Among them:
mlheathen wrote: Brian is *not* a well drawn out character. He is such a caricature and so dogmatic in his ideology that he really never makes any sense at all..."
ragingpixie describes a "fascination" for Brian, which is a great way to phrase it. I'll cop to a bit of Brian-fascination in spite of my own bad self!
skyypyng wrote: "The bashing totally took Brian by surprise, even though he had told Justin that night on Liberty Avenue 'now you've made a real enemy'. Justin's head was physically smashed, but Brian's self-image was shattered. He is a mastermind, he should have seen this coming, what was he thinking (or not), and now he feels guilt." This idea has prompted me to view Brian in a slightly more favorable light. I can picture him absolutely blown away by how his plan failed so very, very pectacularly. I imagine it in the same vein as a homeowner staring at a house that has been absolutely leveled by a tornado. While no one is permanently damaged, the destruction is still stunning.
reboot_wlm wrote: "Cowlip had a great opportunity after Season 1 to take the relationship(because I honestly don't give .02 for the rest of the storylines) and make it into something special or drive it into a soap opera crappy mess. I think they chose the latter... I think the reason that we see this inconsistent/unapologetic character (Brian Kinney) that is so confusing is that they all have a different vision of him and they try to meld them together to produce what we see."
nextrealm wrote: "I love the show, though, b/c I see what B/J could be."
Anonymous said: "They chose Brian not to grow in S2 because they needed the same Brian in S3. When the main character already triumphs over himself (man vs himself conflict) then that means we're already reaching the resolution part."
Also, I crack josselin up.
I realize I'm not supposed to dislike Brian. Those who can't stand Justin aren't supposed to feel that way about the character. Certainly Michael isn't intended to be a focus of fan distaste. I guess all television shows generate their own fair share of unintended reactions and responses, but QAF seems so much more incongruous to me.
When I get my tv show, here's my pledge to you about how I will ensure quality
1. I will have a plan. If the show goes one year, two years, three years, etc. there needs to be a plan for where the characters are going to go and how they're going to get there. This is not to say there can't be flexibility and a willingness to respond to serendipity when it arises, but there needs to be at least some foresight.
2. I will commit to a set number of episodes. I think five years is the perfect run for a show. In five years, I will have put an indoor pool in my mansion and will own so many pairs of boots that I will be able to walk away just as I said I would all those years earlier. Even though the network is begging me to keep the show on the air and hiring dump trucks to continually dump wads and wads of money on my front lawn, I will stand firm and bow out at the five year mark.
3. If I take the trouble to draw interesting, believable, realish characters, I promise not to do something in the third or fourth season that completely negates all of drawing previously done to make that character interesting, believable and realish. I'll have really interesting sets so the actors don't get bored and want to take their characters in a new direction. We'll knit and sing folk songs and do some interpretive dancing. It'll be really great.
4. I promise a world of beautiful, beautiful gray. Most people aren't all good or all bad. A major problem with QAF is that characters are cartoonishly drawn. They are either Satan-spawned incarnates of evil or Gay Jesus. There's very little in between. This is so disrespectful to the viewers, who are capable of digesting a fully dimensional character (of course, if you read enough fanfic where Michael poisons Justin and imprisons him in an attic in the country and tortures him by attaching electric probes to his chest and groin area and then throws acid on his face and runs over him with a car and tosses him over a cliff, you might be forgiven for assuming a little bit of low brow in your audience).
This is fun. What are you going to do when you get your tv show?