Watching Dexter, Reading About Peter Wimsey
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Stuff I’ve been up to (when not working on Writercon and SuperVegan and, y’know, work):
* Saw Common Rotation at the Living Room on the Lower East Side. Apparently it was a record release party, as it was packed, and Danny Strong and Amber Benson were there. (I said hi to Danny and bought the new CD from Amber.) It was an okay show, but … yeah, I’m really losing interest in these guys. Makes sense, as I’ve been going to see them since 2003 and still feel completely awkward and out-of-place at their shows. Folk music isn’t my thing, and while I enjoy their lyrics and vocal harmonies, I am deeply creeped out by the stalkery celebrity-worshiping type fans they attract and just really don’t feel comfortable being there. There’s not really anything they do in their live show that’s worth the trouble of going.
* Had a birthday. And a party. I made the coconut lime cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (heavenly) and two vegan pizzas, one broccoli-mushroom-green pepper-garlic and one artichoke-sundried tomato-olive-caper. A lot of my friends canceled (or didn’t bother canceling and just didn’t show up) but a good crowd came and we had a lot of fun. Somehow my parties always turn into a bunch of people sitting in a circle sharing a single conversation, which is actually fine because (if I don’t say so myself) my friends are interesting and the conversation is insightful. Plus the food is good. :)
* Read Whose Body?, the first in Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey mysteries. I chose it because I'd heard it was an influence on the Lymond Chronicles, which was immediately apparent: Wimsey is a musically-inclined second son in a noble family who is prone to speaking in literary quotations, with a case of PTSD and a Dowager mother who is a dead-ringer for GoK!Sybilla. He irritated me at first (in the way I suppose some people are initially irritated by Lymond) but I had warmed to him by the end. (I have to admit, though, that there was a point where if he didn't stop saying "what" at the end of every sentence I was going to reach through the pages and strangle him.) I intend to read the next few because the wit was sharp, the setting was interesting, and I'm intrigued by the characters, even though it was undoubtedly the worst mystery I have ever read--I knew who the villain was the instant his name was mentioned. (He reminded me of Gabriel, btw--big and socially powerful and brilliant and amoral and even a Grand Cross of Grace of the Knights of St John.)
* Watched the first two seasons of Dexter (drujan got them for me for my birthday). I didn't like it as much as I expected to; it didn't ping any of my fannish buttons. Dexter is too creepy and, actually, dull, for me to fall for. His compulsion to kill is a mental illness and all he really wants out of life is to keep acting out his grotesque urges without getting caught. He's not passionate about anything (though he's obviously not as emotionless as he believes) and he's not even that brilliant (though clearly above-average). I just don't find him compelling, and none of the supporting characters interest me either. The plots are okay (though they have that typical American TV tendency to spell out a lot of things that should already be obvious if you're paying attention) and kept me watching from episode to episode, but were never extraordinary. The long-lost-secret-brother thing was so cliched.
What annoys me most is that (so far) they're trying to have it both ways: Dexter is a scary serial killer but he's also a vigilante who only kills people who "deserve" it. It's irrelevant whether or not this stems from his own moral code or whether he's just acting out what his stepfather taught him. The show would be infinitely more interesting if they actually let Dexter be as scary as he's supposed to be. He's tempted to kill innocents but never actually does, like they're trying to keep the most timid audience members from changing the channel. He should've killed that kid who was about to sketch him, or Doakes, or should've at least let his brother live.
I'd rank Profit as a far more successful example of a show with a villainous protagonist. Profit is genuinely unpredictable, and he has little compunction about destroying the lives of people who totally don't deserve it. He's also smarter and his psychology is fucked up in a more interesting way.
The other aspect that grated on me was the character Lila in season two. She's a single female artist who wears black and likes to have sex. So, what happens to her?
...
If you guessed "Ends up evil and dead," you've clearly watched television before!
It's the same reason I stopped watching BtVS in season three, when Faith "went evil." This was even worse because Faith always remained a somewhat three-dimensional character even when the heroes hated her, whereas the writers here initially present Lila as a real character but quickly turn her into a Glenn-Close-in-Fatal-Attraction clone whose death we're meant to cheer. Just ick.
In an attempt to not be entirely negative, there are a couple of things that I like. I like that we get a mix of races and genders among the main cast and that the boss is a woman. I think that the opening credits are beautifully filmed. I like that the show presents the idea that we are all outsiders in our own ways, that we all hide aspects of ourselves and that we're all more screwed up and complex than we pretend to be in order to function in society. I like its exploration of the idea that there's more to us than we let others know and that there's more to the people we love than we can see. Dexter is the extreme example, but we see the theme paralleled in all the stories of the supporting characters.
One of the more effective plots was Rita's fear of having sex with Dexter while never realizing that he was terribly worried about having sex with her. His fear of her seeing his true self and rejecting him actually reminded me of that pivotal scene in The Man Who Fell to Earth where Newton reveals his alien self and Mary-Lou tries and fails to accept him. I wish that Dexter was as daring, dark, and subtle as The Man Who Fell to Earth, though.
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