Snowflake Challenge 2018: Day 8
Day 8: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
I could, of course, rhapsodize about the Highway Scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. :)
Instead I will talk about Sense8, the Netflix show created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. It's been my favourite show that I started watching in 2017, and I am not all through with Season 2 (so please NOBODY SPOIL ME in comments ;)). There are some things that one can easily criticize in Sense8, most of all the awful pilot. Seriously, if you just watched "Limbic Resonance" and hated it, push through with the next episodes. It gets better and better.
I love about Sense8 the sense of place the series creates: the setting both specific and personal, and yet global. For me that's one of the achievements of Sense8 - it's a truly global show. With many tv shows I skip the title sequence; not so with Sense8 - I keep re-watching it. I just love the onslaught of images from the eight places where the eight Sensate come from. Of course, it's always a thrill to see the Siegessäule and other images from my hometown, Berlin. But the mix of water and fire, of images representing almost all continents, of very different urban spaces is just thrilling.
Characters, cast, the overall story, the tension and character arcs, the dialogue - I love how original Sense8 is, how well plotted. Not every scene and episode is great (one of the Wachowskis must have a faible for over-the-top imagery, and it sometimes ruins the writing) but some are truly outstanding. A minor character like Bug is such a clever choice. Dani, the faghag who surely is a slasher at heart - what an unexpected, thrilling choice of a minor character for the gay couple Lito/Hernando. Amanita and her lesbian support network? The.Best. ♥
And I love about Sense8 the sense of true representation of queer experience and of my experience. I usually am not very keen to have lesbians represented in a movie - I know, minority opinion here. ;) But I'd rather not see lesbians on screen at all than have them written like, for example, in the movie "Blue is the Warmest Color" (Ugh.) Sense8, for the first time gave me sense of what representation of queer characters really could look like - not as an exception, not to make a point, not as a poster queer character - but simply as interesting, individual and rounded characters. With flaws, with strengths, with a full life and a full story arc that is not about them being queer. I ship Nomi/Anamita unconditionally. They are awesome. And yes, they are the only couple in the show whose relationship never hits rock bottom, despite what they have to go through. It's not exactly realistic. ;) But it's wonderful. It's wonderful to have the lesbian couple for once not be the problematic one.
Philosophically, for me the Sensate are a physical embodiment of what the internet can be for humans in a global world. For aren't we already living a bit like the Sensate? Are we not sometimes at the same place, when we are on Skype or Discord or even on tumblr or LJ, even when we live worlds apart? And no, my flist cannot fight for me like Sun or Wolfie, or act for me like Lito, or drive a van for me like Capheus. But my flist provides me with so many other skills, with knowledge, with shared experience, with creative and emotional support. We are all of us in fandom a bit like the Sensate. ♥
There, now I wrote 600 words about Sense8 and haven't even mentioned Kala, who is my absolute favorite, and I ship her with Wolfie so, so bad, even though, obviously, Wolfie belongs with Felix. ;)
xpost: https://vaysh11.dreamwidth.org/1617067.html. Comments are welcome on both sites.