(no subject)
From the department of being late to fandoms:
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Several weeks ago but I never remember to post about things at the time. Everyone on Twitter was lovely and didn't post any spoilers before I went. It was fun and the new young characters were lovely just as everyone said. I was happy because there were plenty of hugs. I'm always happy with a movie that has lots of non-sexual hugs. Leia hugged Chewbacca. Leia hugged Han. Rey hugged Finn. Finn and Poe hugged. Leia and Rey hugged and that gave me ALL THE FEELS, it didn't matter to my hindbrain that they'd never met before, Rey had lost her family and she'd met Han Solo and he was happy with the way she flew his ship and (as Kylo Ren said) she'd been starting to think of him as a father, and if Han is a father to her that means Leia is the mother she's needed for so long and Leia smiled at her and hugged her AAAAUGH and that turned me into a snotfountain in the cinema, even though I hadn't cried at a sad thing that had happened a little earlier in the story.
There is fic about Finn and I'm very pleased because the last two times I've felt fannish about a character and wanted lots of fic there wasn't much because they were black. Yay Finn! I ship him with Poe and I ship him with Rey even though I'm very glad the movie didn't. He and Rey were great as friends and adventuring comrades and I'm so, so happy that the female character wasn't shoved into a romance by default just because no-one can think of what else girls are for. But it feels a little less excellent to have a female character avoid love-interestdom for once when the young man she spent time with is black and you can't help wondering if that's the reason.
Rey is great and I want to see her fix things and fly things and eat a lot of food very fast and spend time with Leia and Chewie and meet Poe, and I really hope she's not related to anybody important because how awesome would THAT be, but I already expect she is the orphan with the secret noble blood so I won't be too disappointed when it turns out she is. Also I want to dress up as her almost as much as I want to dress up as Hoth Leia and I love seeing small girls dress up as her.
Then the other day my partner was all excited to tell me he'd found out about a TV series he thinks we'll enjoy watching together and it's called BBC Sherlock. So we watched the first episode of that. I thought it was very well made but OH MY FLIPPIN' AUNT the entirety of fandom weren't kidding when they mentioned the queerbaiting. The show could have made them be actually gay and still easily have spent less time talking about whether they were gay.
I have the benefit of knowing from the start that the writers have absolutely no intention of giving us a canonically queer interpretation of Holmes and Watson and so the whole thing looks disingenuous and ridiculous, but I empathise strongly with everyone who was experiencing Sherlock in real time and thought all this UNSUBTLE hinting might actually go somewhere.
According to memory of fan discussion the queerbaiting gets even more heavy-handed as it goes along. Which I take it must guarantee at least one episode where Sherlock and John pose as a married couple for an undercover operation, requiring them to take a hotel room with only one bed which they must share; and a Trapped in an Elevator or two; and maybe a Sex Pollen with a fade-to-black leaving the audience to guess what happened, only to reveal the night's events as having been completely innocent in an episode broadcast a year later.
The character of Holmes himself is... well, he's a ghastly person in the books, but in the books Watson is the reader's portal into his world; I-the-reader want to watch Holmes solve a mystery and marvel at his cleverness, and Watson does exactly the same. And when there's retorts and crucibles all over the kitchen, or when Holmes has been screeching one note on his violin for six hours, that's comedy. And when Holmes is irritating more than entertaining, I can put the book down. On the screen, I-the-viewer am watching Holmes and watching Watson and wondering why on earth Watson wants to be anywhere near him when there are alternatives. I don't know how it comes across usually in screen adaptations (I've only read the books), but when Watson is a separate character, not just the reader's window, it gets really uncomfortable.
Maybe Watson just happens to be the sort of person who is really, truly fulfilled by a relationship where he's required to supply unlimited ego-stroking, perform mundane and seemingly pointless tasks on command, and be ready to be summoned to any location without notice, and do it all without expecting to receive any information apart from constant put-downs about his intellect. And as a man, he probably had to look around for a while before he could find someone ready to provide that relationship for him... but it's really not fun to watch, knowing that I, as a woman, have to fight uphill not to be in that relationship.
This entry was originally posted at http://pebblerocker.dreamwidth.org/70809.html. You can comment there using OpenID.
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Several weeks ago but I never remember to post about things at the time. Everyone on Twitter was lovely and didn't post any spoilers before I went. It was fun and the new young characters were lovely just as everyone said. I was happy because there were plenty of hugs. I'm always happy with a movie that has lots of non-sexual hugs. Leia hugged Chewbacca. Leia hugged Han. Rey hugged Finn. Finn and Poe hugged. Leia and Rey hugged and that gave me ALL THE FEELS, it didn't matter to my hindbrain that they'd never met before, Rey had lost her family and she'd met Han Solo and he was happy with the way she flew his ship and (as Kylo Ren said) she'd been starting to think of him as a father, and if Han is a father to her that means Leia is the mother she's needed for so long and Leia smiled at her and hugged her AAAAUGH and that turned me into a snotfountain in the cinema, even though I hadn't cried at a sad thing that had happened a little earlier in the story.
There is fic about Finn and I'm very pleased because the last two times I've felt fannish about a character and wanted lots of fic there wasn't much because they were black. Yay Finn! I ship him with Poe and I ship him with Rey even though I'm very glad the movie didn't. He and Rey were great as friends and adventuring comrades and I'm so, so happy that the female character wasn't shoved into a romance by default just because no-one can think of what else girls are for. But it feels a little less excellent to have a female character avoid love-interestdom for once when the young man she spent time with is black and you can't help wondering if that's the reason.
Rey is great and I want to see her fix things and fly things and eat a lot of food very fast and spend time with Leia and Chewie and meet Poe, and I really hope she's not related to anybody important because how awesome would THAT be, but I already expect she is the orphan with the secret noble blood so I won't be too disappointed when it turns out she is. Also I want to dress up as her almost as much as I want to dress up as Hoth Leia and I love seeing small girls dress up as her.
Then the other day my partner was all excited to tell me he'd found out about a TV series he thinks we'll enjoy watching together and it's called BBC Sherlock. So we watched the first episode of that. I thought it was very well made but OH MY FLIPPIN' AUNT the entirety of fandom weren't kidding when they mentioned the queerbaiting. The show could have made them be actually gay and still easily have spent less time talking about whether they were gay.
I have the benefit of knowing from the start that the writers have absolutely no intention of giving us a canonically queer interpretation of Holmes and Watson and so the whole thing looks disingenuous and ridiculous, but I empathise strongly with everyone who was experiencing Sherlock in real time and thought all this UNSUBTLE hinting might actually go somewhere.
According to memory of fan discussion the queerbaiting gets even more heavy-handed as it goes along. Which I take it must guarantee at least one episode where Sherlock and John pose as a married couple for an undercover operation, requiring them to take a hotel room with only one bed which they must share; and a Trapped in an Elevator or two; and maybe a Sex Pollen with a fade-to-black leaving the audience to guess what happened, only to reveal the night's events as having been completely innocent in an episode broadcast a year later.
The character of Holmes himself is... well, he's a ghastly person in the books, but in the books Watson is the reader's portal into his world; I-the-reader want to watch Holmes solve a mystery and marvel at his cleverness, and Watson does exactly the same. And when there's retorts and crucibles all over the kitchen, or when Holmes has been screeching one note on his violin for six hours, that's comedy. And when Holmes is irritating more than entertaining, I can put the book down. On the screen, I-the-viewer am watching Holmes and watching Watson and wondering why on earth Watson wants to be anywhere near him when there are alternatives. I don't know how it comes across usually in screen adaptations (I've only read the books), but when Watson is a separate character, not just the reader's window, it gets really uncomfortable.
Maybe Watson just happens to be the sort of person who is really, truly fulfilled by a relationship where he's required to supply unlimited ego-stroking, perform mundane and seemingly pointless tasks on command, and be ready to be summoned to any location without notice, and do it all without expecting to receive any information apart from constant put-downs about his intellect. And as a man, he probably had to look around for a while before he could find someone ready to provide that relationship for him... but it's really not fun to watch, knowing that I, as a woman, have to fight uphill not to be in that relationship.
This entry was originally posted at http://pebblerocker.dreamwidth.org/70809.html. You can comment there using OpenID.