Fandom wheeeee? ([queer] women [of colour] edition)
1. The breakingest news: As I learned via 
petra yesterday, Lucy Liu has been cast as Watson in the upcoming American remix of the BBC's contemporary remix of the already-been-remixed-umpteen-billion-times Sherlock Holmes franchise, and some fans are saying that's not acceptable. They're right, it's not acceptable--it's AWESOME. The folks with bees up their butts are trying to argue that making Watson female is somehow homophobic? And they have fragments of a point with the complaint that an opposite-gendered Holmes-Watson pair stand a greater chance of consummating any sexual tension on screen (if this version chooses to go that route, and I really really really hope it doesn't) than their preferred same-gendered pairs and that this is not fair (it's not), but people who whine that this is depriving them of gay television characters or, worse, "artificially" interfering with an otherwise perfect formula for "political purposes" are some unpleasant mix of oblivious and deluded and should recite the chorus to "As Cool as I Am" (thanks
kore for posting this lovely recording) as mantra until they recognize that supporting the omission, sidelining, and fridging of female characters in favour of more bromances is active complicity in patriarchal oppression via popular culture.
2. Apparently there exists a movie called After Sex, which is like Young People Fucking in that it features a set of non-overlapping stories about sexual encounters, but different in that it a) has a larger cast (eight sets of participants instead of five), b) has a more diverse cast (including three same-sex participant sets, one set of older participants and one set of teenagers, and many more characters of colour), and c) tells the stories one after the other, like a slate of discrete short films each of which begins shortly following a sexual interaction, rather than weaving the stories together before, during, and after. I don't find it quite as funny, although it does have its moments, but it fits a similar niche of crudely thoughtful sex comedy. The best sequence, and the one that drew my attention to the film, is the one between Kat (Zoë Saldana) and Nikki (Mila Kunis) as college roommates, and (happy day) their full bit including Kat's amaaaazing monologue about her first time with another girl (bizarrely not included in the regular release of the film!) is available for watching right here:
3. I wrote a little Death Proof/The Losers crossover as a treat for the Ante Up Scramble and discovered in the process that it was the germ of a much bigger story that I did not have time to write then but still really want to. I signed up for crossbigbang as an incentive to finish it (although I might drop out of that and take the idea to the rumoured upcoming Losers Big Bang instead), but I'm blocked from getting started because I'm stumped on setting. Basically, I need a place (city/region) that provides a reason-for-being-there for both the gang from Death Proof (Kim, Zoë, Abernathy, and Lee--so, filming something) and the Losers (including Aisha and Roque, in this story neither dead nor treacherous, and their famblies--so, heistifying something), but I can't decide on where and what because I'm waffling on whether to set it more in the "real world", where Zoë Bell is Zoë Bell-muse-of-Quentin Tarantino, Clay smokes [some actual cigarette brand], and it becomes somehow relevant to the plot that Jensen resembles Chris Evans, or, as I'm leaning towards, in a sort of meta-fictional world that draws fake pop culture from various sources, where QT is perhaps manifested as Chester Rush, Clay smokes Red Apples, and it becomes somehow relevant to the plot that Jensen resembles Lucas Lee. The latter is inherently more hilarious and potentially a lot more fun and easter-eggy, but it's also more work for me because I have to decide not only how to weave together different fictional Hollywoods, etc., but also what "real world" pop culture icons to retain or fictionalize/satirize (for example, Pam Grier as Foxy Brown--keep or rename?). Either way I'm stuck deciding how closely I want Lee's career to mirror Mary Elizabeth Winstead's. I dunno. Any suggestions for filmable stories that require stunt women and driving that would help me narrow down shooting locations, as a starting place?
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth, where there are currently
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
petra yesterday, Lucy Liu has been cast as Watson in the upcoming American remix of the BBC's contemporary remix of the already-been-remixed-umpteen-billion-times Sherlock Holmes franchise, and some fans are saying that's not acceptable. They're right, it's not acceptable--it's AWESOME. The folks with bees up their butts are trying to argue that making Watson female is somehow homophobic? And they have fragments of a point with the complaint that an opposite-gendered Holmes-Watson pair stand a greater chance of consummating any sexual tension on screen (if this version chooses to go that route, and I really really really hope it doesn't) than their preferred same-gendered pairs and that this is not fair (it's not), but people who whine that this is depriving them of gay television characters or, worse, "artificially" interfering with an otherwise perfect formula for "political purposes" are some unpleasant mix of oblivious and deluded and should recite the chorus to "As Cool as I Am" (thanks
kore for posting this lovely recording) as mantra until they recognize that supporting the omission, sidelining, and fridging of female characters in favour of more bromances is active complicity in patriarchal oppression via popular culture.
2. Apparently there exists a movie called After Sex, which is like Young People Fucking in that it features a set of non-overlapping stories about sexual encounters, but different in that it a) has a larger cast (eight sets of participants instead of five), b) has a more diverse cast (including three same-sex participant sets, one set of older participants and one set of teenagers, and many more characters of colour), and c) tells the stories one after the other, like a slate of discrete short films each of which begins shortly following a sexual interaction, rather than weaving the stories together before, during, and after. I don't find it quite as funny, although it does have its moments, but it fits a similar niche of crudely thoughtful sex comedy. The best sequence, and the one that drew my attention to the film, is the one between Kat (Zoë Saldana) and Nikki (Mila Kunis) as college roommates, and (happy day) their full bit including Kat's amaaaazing monologue about her first time with another girl (bizarrely not included in the regular release of the film!) is available for watching right here:
Click to view3. I wrote a little Death Proof/The Losers crossover as a treat for the Ante Up Scramble and discovered in the process that it was the germ of a much bigger story that I did not have time to write then but still really want to. I signed up for crossbigbang as an incentive to finish it (although I might drop out of that and take the idea to the rumoured upcoming Losers Big Bang instead), but I'm blocked from getting started because I'm stumped on setting. Basically, I need a place (city/region) that provides a reason-for-being-there for both the gang from Death Proof (Kim, Zoë, Abernathy, and Lee--so, filming something) and the Losers (including Aisha and Roque, in this story neither dead nor treacherous, and their famblies--so, heistifying something), but I can't decide on where and what because I'm waffling on whether to set it more in the "real world", where Zoë Bell is Zoë Bell-muse-of-Quentin Tarantino, Clay smokes [some actual cigarette brand], and it becomes somehow relevant to the plot that Jensen resembles Chris Evans, or, as I'm leaning towards, in a sort of meta-fictional world that draws fake pop culture from various sources, where QT is perhaps manifested as Chester Rush, Clay smokes Red Apples, and it becomes somehow relevant to the plot that Jensen resembles Lucas Lee. The latter is inherently more hilarious and potentially a lot more fun and easter-eggy, but it's also more work for me because I have to decide not only how to weave together different fictional Hollywoods, etc., but also what "real world" pop culture icons to retain or fictionalize/satirize (for example, Pam Grier as Foxy Brown--keep or rename?). Either way I'm stuck deciding how closely I want Lee's career to mirror Mary Elizabeth Winstead's. I dunno. Any suggestions for filmable stories that require stunt women and driving that would help me narrow down shooting locations, as a starting place?
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth, where there are currently
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.