1. I saw on your LJ that you've been watching Scandal. One of the things I've most enjoyed about watching it is reading the Racialicious posts about it. This link will take you back to the page with their earliest posts about it. It looks like they didn't start doing regular roundtables until later in season 2 (or they're there somewhere and not tagged), but you might be interested in reading them as you watch the show. Fitz is an awful, awful person and the two greatest mysteries of the show are (a) why anyone, much less two incredibly intelligent women with so much going for them (Mellie and Olivia), would fall in love with him and (b) why people keep talking about how he's a good man/person/politician when there's absolutely no evidence to back that up.
2. Little Mosque (originally titled Little Mosque on the Prairie) is a completely delightful show. In many ways, it's your basic gentle, small town faith community comedy, but the faith community is a mosque in Canada. In particular, it does some really interesting things with the women. (I was disappointed to see that only season 1 is available free on Hulu at the moment, but you might be able to keep an eye on it and watch later seasons as they become available, or it might be available on Netflix or other streaming services.)
Thankl you - and sorry about the Scandal rant!rheasilviaNovember 8 2014, 16:57:59 UTC
This is wonderful - what lovely treats! Thank you very much! :-)
1.: That is indeed great to read. I've had a look at several of the Racialicous ep commentaries, and plan to go through them one by one; I think it will help me come to grips with my own reactions to the eps. It's great to see intelligent commentary of this kind!
I'm almost all caught up with Scandal now, but it is actually mostly because I rage-watched many eps in the futile attempt to finally get past the awful Fitz. I still can't believe that the show just will not let him and his affair with Olivia drop. I am so disgusted by any "romantic" scenes with this individual that I fast-forward through them making retching sounds.
Why indeed would anyone fall in love with him? And why would they stay in love with him when he is not intelligent enough to conceal what a bastard he is? I wish the makers of this show would explain how exactly the character is meant to come across, because I can't puzzle it out. It doesn't seem like the show is even makiing a real effort to show him in a positive light - but then things happen that only make sense if the show assumes the viewer likes Fitz and is invested in his romance with Olivia.
I agree entirely that he is an awful, awful person. I am *so squicked* by Olivia's affection and passion for him. I just can't understand it. What on earth is the attraction supposed to be?? I do not for one second believe that he actually cares for her as a person; she's just filling sveral different needs for him. The show even says at much in several ways; when he says he will "give up the White House" for her, it's a straight-up lie. He just wants to get away from the stress of it all, and uses her as a convenient romantic excuse.
Melli, too - Fitz treats her abominably, and then even rages at her about how it's her fault that he's had a bad conscience all this time for cheating on her, which - wow. WOW. And also: Huh? Never seen signs of that when he told her he had no time for her and made sure she knew it was her horribleness that justified all his actions. But no, he has suffered so much because of her bla bla blabla.
I mean - when his wife is depressed because their son died, he mocks her, makes up degrading nicknames for her and complains endlessly that she isn't supporting him anymore the way she should be. Not that he ever appreciated it when she did; then she was always too unscrupulous and generally Not Good Enough.
OMG, sorry for ranting. I just have a lot of negative feelings about the man.
2: Thank you for the tip, I have already watched the first ep! It looks like it has potential, I will definitely watch more. :-)
Re: Thankl you - and sorry about the Scandal rant!rsadelleNovember 11 2014, 00:33:32 UTC
You're welcome! I'm glad they were to your taste.
He's so unrelentingly awful! I was excited when I saw previews for whichever first or second season ep it was where they were going to do a flashback to show us how they met, because, finally, I thought, we would get to see what made Olivia like him. And then, nope, it's just an inexplicable connection, which works well in prose, but not so well on screen. The way characters keep saying he's a good person makes me think we're kind of supposed to believe that, but there's nothing to show us that. Instead, we see him disregarding boundaries, behaving horribly to his wife and children, and killing a dying woman.
It sounds like you're basically caught up. One of the things I've found even more disturbing about last season and especially this one is the way the men on the show (particularly Fitz, Jake, and Rowan) talk about Olivia. They clearly don't understand that she's an autonomous person, not a possession for them to fight about/taunt each other over. The fact that no one seems to have any problem with it is really making me side-eye Shonda and the writers.
1. I saw on your LJ that you've been watching Scandal. One of the things I've most enjoyed about watching it is reading the Racialicious posts about it. This link will take you back to the page with their earliest posts about it. It looks like they didn't start doing regular roundtables until later in season 2 (or they're there somewhere and not tagged), but you might be interested in reading them as you watch the show. Fitz is an awful, awful person and the two greatest mysteries of the show are (a) why anyone, much less two incredibly intelligent women with so much going for them (Mellie and Olivia), would fall in love with him and (b) why people keep talking about how he's a good man/person/politician when there's absolutely no evidence to back that up.
2. Little Mosque (originally titled Little Mosque on the Prairie) is a completely delightful show. In many ways, it's your basic gentle, small town faith community comedy, but the faith community is a mosque in Canada. In particular, it does some really interesting things with the women. (I was disappointed to see that only season 1 is available free on Hulu at the moment, but you might be able to keep an eye on it and watch later seasons as they become available, or it might be available on Netflix or other streaming services.)
3. serenadestrong's nsfw tag on Tumblr. This is mostly porn, and I think she has good taste, so you may enjoy it.
Reply
1.: That is indeed great to read. I've had a look at several of the Racialicous ep commentaries, and plan to go through them one by one; I think it will help me come to grips with my own reactions to the eps. It's great to see intelligent commentary of this kind!
I'm almost all caught up with Scandal now, but it is actually mostly because I rage-watched many eps in the futile attempt to finally get past the awful Fitz. I still can't believe that the show just will not let him and his affair with Olivia drop. I am so disgusted by any "romantic" scenes with this individual that I fast-forward through them making retching sounds.
Why indeed would anyone fall in love with him? And why would they stay in love with him when he is not intelligent enough to conceal what a bastard he is? I wish the makers of this show would explain how exactly the character is meant to come across, because I can't puzzle it out. It doesn't seem like the show is even makiing a real effort to show him in a positive light - but then things happen that only make sense if the show assumes the viewer likes Fitz and is invested in his romance with Olivia.
I agree entirely that he is an awful, awful person. I am *so squicked* by Olivia's affection and passion for him. I just can't understand it. What on earth is the attraction supposed to be?? I do not for one second believe that he actually cares for her as a person; she's just filling sveral different needs for him. The show even says at much in several ways; when he says he will "give up the White House" for her, it's a straight-up lie. He just wants to get away from the stress of it all, and uses her as a convenient romantic excuse.
Melli, too - Fitz treats her abominably, and then even rages at her about how it's her fault that he's had a bad conscience all this time for cheating on her, which - wow. WOW. And also: Huh? Never seen signs of that when he told her he had no time for her and made sure she knew it was her horribleness that justified all his actions. But no, he has suffered so much because of her bla bla blabla.
I mean - when his wife is depressed because their son died, he mocks her, makes up degrading nicknames for her and complains endlessly that she isn't supporting him anymore the way she should be. Not that he ever appreciated it when she did; then she was always too unscrupulous and generally Not Good Enough.
OMG, sorry for ranting. I just have a lot of negative feelings about the man.
2: Thank you for the tip, I have already watched the first ep! It looks like it has potential, I will definitely watch more. :-)
3: Ooooh, very nice! :-)
Reply
He's so unrelentingly awful! I was excited when I saw previews for whichever first or second season ep it was where they were going to do a flashback to show us how they met, because, finally, I thought, we would get to see what made Olivia like him. And then, nope, it's just an inexplicable connection, which works well in prose, but not so well on screen. The way characters keep saying he's a good person makes me think we're kind of supposed to believe that, but there's nothing to show us that. Instead, we see him disregarding boundaries, behaving horribly to his wife and children, and killing a dying woman.
It sounds like you're basically caught up. One of the things I've found even more disturbing about last season and especially this one is the way the men on the show (particularly Fitz, Jake, and Rowan) talk about Olivia. They clearly don't understand that she's an autonomous person, not a possession for them to fight about/taunt each other over. The fact that no one seems to have any problem with it is really making me side-eye Shonda and the writers.
Reply
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