in which I ramble about White Collar, Farscape, and 3 movies that pass the Bechdel test
I’m having some sort of values dissonance with parts of White Collar fandom. I keep reading these critiques that are like “Neal Caffrey is a thief, he’s selfish, he’s messed up, he has serious ethical and emotional problems!” and I’m like… yeah, and? Why is that bad?
Perfect characters are boring. Flawed characters are interesting. Why do people want flawed characters to be “fixed”? Presumably its those flaws that draw people to the characters in the first place. Real people are flawed and complicated, and they may grow up and deal with their problems in better ways, but people don’t become perfect. They keep most of their core issues throughout their lives, and the people who love them love them anyway. And of course, plenty of “flaws” are just personality traits that can be expressed in both positive and negative ways-take away the personality trait because you dislike its negative expression, and you lose the positive aspects of it, too.
I mean, yes, Neal Caffrey is a con artist. The Tenth Doctor was an arrogant know-it-all, Logan Echolls was a bully, Brian Kinney was an asshole, Sirius Black had the emotional maturity of a sixteen-year-old, Spike used to kill people and drink their blood, Jaime Lannister fucked his sister and threw a seven-year-old out a window, and Methos was a Horseman of the Apocalypse (hahaha, oh, Highlander, I miss you). I probably wouldn’t want to know any of these people in real life, but this is fiction-the more complicated and fucked-up they are, the more interesting they are to play with as characters.
This seems to come up in every fandom I’m in, to the point where I start wondering if there’s something wrong with me, like am I missing some core ethical understanding that comes naturally to other people? But, um, no, it’s just that fiction =/= reality, and I wouldn’t want it to.
Anyway, in other news:
* I went to see The Runaways. The movie was pretty good, and Kristen Stewart was amazing. She was Joan Jett--she captured Jett's voice, mannerisms, expressions, everything. I have no motivation to react positively toward the star of the revolting Twilight franchise, but Stewart genuinely impressed me here.
The movie itself was a bit trite in a VH1 Behind the Music way, but I loved it anyway, because Joan Jett was so fucking awesome. She was tough and badass and vulnerable and complicated and just... it was fantastic to see such an awesome, well-developed, three-dimensional female character in a film. (To my complete lack-of-surprise, the film was made with Jett's approval and was written and directed by a woman, Floria Sigismondi, who also directed my favorite Marilyn Manson video back in the day.)
Oddly, after seeing it with friends, we went out for drinks with a friend-of-friend who turned out to be in Jett's current band. I love living in New York.
* Speaking of awesome female directors, jaydk and I went to a midnight showing of Strange Days last Saturday night. It was playing at IFC as a tribute to its director, Kathryn Bigelow, who just became the first woman to win Best Director at the Oscars (sad that it's taken this long but woohoo, she deserved it!).
Strange Days is one of my all-time favorite films and it was fantastic to see it on a big screen (when it came out, I was too young to see it in a theater!). Admittedly it's a complicated, deeply-flawed film that's almost as messed up as it is awesome, and seeing it big both exaggerated the awesome parts and the disturbing ones. (Among its issues: 1) its view of racism is painfully simplistic--in the end, the problem is "a few bad apples" and the ultimate moral authority is ... an old white guy, 2) the graphic rape/murder is quite possibly the most disturbing thing I've ever seen on film, 3) a lot of moments are OTT in a very silly way--like the riot that turns into a celebration when the leads kiss, or some of the histrionic speeches the characters give.)
But whatever, the flaws are mainly because the film is massively ambitious and tries to do and say more than even a two-hour-plus, massively budgeted action film can do. And when it succeeds, it really is fantastic. It creates a very vivid dystopia and features some of the best lead characters I've ever seen on film. If you have a thing for woobies, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Lewis are both perfect, and if you like your female characters strong and competent yet vulnerable and real, Angela Bassett is one of the best in the history of film. And while I have no love for Tom Sizemore, he actually is fantastic here and I understand why he was so highly regarded as an actor.
But yeah, the main thing is Ralph Fiennes' character being beautiful and vulnerable and creepy and sad and deeply messed up and Angela Bassett's character loving him anyway, in a way that makes sense and is understandable even though she's soooo much better than him. And Juliette Lewis's character being an utter fucking mess and yet talented and beautiful and broken and tragic in her own way too, and way the film parallels Lenny's love for her with Mace's love for him. This is also the film that turned me into a huge fan of Juliette Lewis as a musician--her PJ Harvey covers here are awesome.
So yeah, an epic, imperfect film that was absolutely wonderful to see on the big screen, finally.
* And to round out my "seeing movies that pass the Bechdel test in actual theaters," I went to see Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D with jaydk on her birthday. I wasn't expecting much from it, but the IMAX 3D actually was gorgeous and really stunningly immersive, and the strength of the female characters totally impressed me. The leads were Alice, the Red Queen, and the White Queen, and they were all complex and interesting and had relationships with each other that had nothing to do with men, and the male leads (Johnny Depp and Crispin Glover) were totally there as supporting characters to the women. And... I know they were pushing the subtext between Alice and the Mad Hatter, but I was totally seeing it between Alice and the White Queen, too. Plus the overall plot slapped on a totally historically inaccurate, but nonetheless awesome feminist theme that I very much approved of. (You don't need a man, take control of your own destiny--how come we can have this message in media made for children but it disappears in adult stories?)
* I was in a Doctor Who mood this weekend and so rewatched "Boomtown." I hadn't seen it since I went to Cardiff--it was really fun to recognize places and say "I was there!" (This is a significant part of the fun of White Collar, too--I know, I'm like twelve.) The other revelation here was that I actually really did like Jack Harkness a lot in Doctor Who. What the hell happened, Torchwood? Why did you make me hate this character? He was great!
* And then I rewatched some Farscape, the "We're So Screwed" trilogy, and jumping right in after a while away really cemented the facts that 1) this is the most deeply twisted TV show I've ever seen--I can't believe what they got away with, presumably because they had muppets and so the censors weren't paying attention, 2) the world-building was actually amazing--it's not as obvious when you watch the series in order because it develops over time, but WOW, by season four the politics and alien races and everything are done so well, and 3) this show features the two best lead characters I've ever seen in a TV show.
I'm in awe that Crichton developed into a character I love--he started out so bland and naive and we got to watch every second as he grew into a smart, witty, dark, nearly-broken, ruthless-yet-fundamentally-kind character that I adore. I'm amazed that they pulled off this kind of complicated, multi-dimensional character development on a little sci-fi show with muppets. And TV needs more female characters like Aeryn Sun. Everything ever needs characters like Aeryn Sun. She's so complex and strong and vulnerable and loving and just wonderful. Every time I haven't looked at her in a while and then see her again, I get startled because in any other show, a woman who looked and acted like her would be a villain. (And would undoubtedly get killed off in a gruesome way.) I love that Aeryn is allowed to be a romantic character but never stops being tough and strong and emotionally difficult.
Okay, that's enough random rambling for one blog entry. I need to make some focused posts about White Collar but I'm too busy with RL stuff right now to find time for it. I'm still totally enjoying the fandom though.
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