and it's not even Wednesday
Media consumed on my summer vacation (and several days following).
I'm having trouble making words, so these aren't full write-ups or analyses by any means. But. Words on paper.
Media consumed on my summer vacation (and the next couple of days)
1. I reread What Was She Thinking? aka Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. 100% of my feels about this book are summed up with "DO ME BARBARA." My response to the movie, lo these many years ago, was much the same. When I watched it with my ex (no, other ex), she tried to explain to me that Judi Dench's character is a sociopath, but I was like, no, if the younger woman (sic) were REALLY INTO IT then it would be lovely and Barbara would be sane. So there and ♥__♥
So. Barbara Covett. I want her to devour me.
2. I reread Matilda by Roald Dahl. Is it bad that I have way many more thoughts about this than the above? Cos I do. And while I have difficulty seeing anything bad in Barbara Covett, I have way more complicated feelings about Miss Honey.
[cut for being vaguely spoilery and for talking about abuse.]
A few days before I read this I got a comment from an anon on an ancient Miss Honey/Matilda post informing me that their relationship is exactly what a mother-daughter relationship is SUPPOSED to be, into which I read a) I'm a great big perv and b) I have no idea what a normal mother-daughter relationship looks like, probably because I was so broken as a child that no one could have properly mothered me. /therapystuff.
But anon is absolutely wrong. Miss Honey is sweet but broken, because she was veryvery badly abused, and she uses Matilda to fulfill emotional needs that no child, regardless of how precocious, is actually able to meet. Miss Honey needs... true thoughts I just had: Miss Honey needs a grown-up who understands her, someone like... Barbara Covett.
Am worst person, I own it.
I've thought the Trunchbull codes as a bulldyke for years, and it's made me increasingly uncomfortable. I think there's some fatphobia in her depiction too. She's big and she's athletic and her dress is bizarre, and she's a vile abusive human being. Because yup.
I still ship the hell out of Matilda/Miss Honey, but it's a lot darker than it used to be. Cycles of abuse.
"You are so much wiser than your years, my dear, that it quite staggers me. Although you look like a child, you are not really a child at all because your mind and your powers of reasoning seem to be fully grown-up. So I suppose we might call you a grown-up child." - Miss Honey's totally adequate understanding of a SIX YEAR OLD who's been neglected and abused her entire life.
"Nasty dirty things, little girls are. Glad I never was one."
"Oh, but you must have been a little girl once, Headmistress. Surely you were."
"Not for long anyway," Miss Trunchbull barked, grinning. "I became a woman very quickly."
3. Elizabeth and I saw Joss Whedon's What I Did on My Summer Vacation Much Ado About Nothing. Unsurprisingly, I have more feelings about Joss&family than about the show itself, although it was quite entertaining. Like how Joss has apparently moved on from his obsession with Summer Glau's feet, and opened with a shot of Alexis Denisof's feet.
4. I borrowed War for the Oaks by Emma Bull from Elizabeth. It was entertaining; sanctioned OTP is lovely, but alas there are no malicious/broken/lovely/brilliant female teachers so it would have had to be pretty amazing to compensate for that deficiency.
5. I borrowed a few comic collections from the library. First Ultimate Fantastic Four, hardback collection #4, which collects the strips from God War and Devils and an X-Men crossover. I was hoping to add Fantastic Four to the collection of Marvel characters I know enough to occasionally read fic or comics about, but I accidentally cared more about the secondary characters than the Four in pretty much every arc, so. That's not gonna work out.
6. Then I read Invincible Iron Man trade 2, World's Most Wanted part 1. I had SO MANY FEELS. And then I discovered that my library catalogues these really poorly, so there are 35 items indexed as "V. 2. World's most wanted, bk. 1 -- v. 6. Stark resilient -" including the one I have, so I don't know if they're all actually World's Most Wanted volume 1 or what. Hands. I really want to read more of this. (Tony and Pepper were really added to my collection after seeing Avengers, but this added Maria Hill, so, success.)
Also at DW: http://wisdomeagle.dreamwidth.org/1178257.html. Comment here, or join the conversation there, where there is/are
comment(s).
I'm having trouble making words, so these aren't full write-ups or analyses by any means. But. Words on paper.
Media consumed on my summer vacation (and the next couple of days)
1. I reread What Was She Thinking? aka Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. 100% of my feels about this book are summed up with "DO ME BARBARA." My response to the movie, lo these many years ago, was much the same. When I watched it with my ex (no, other ex), she tried to explain to me that Judi Dench's character is a sociopath, but I was like, no, if the younger woman (sic) were REALLY INTO IT then it would be lovely and Barbara would be sane. So there and ♥__♥
So. Barbara Covett. I want her to devour me.
2. I reread Matilda by Roald Dahl. Is it bad that I have way many more thoughts about this than the above? Cos I do. And while I have difficulty seeing anything bad in Barbara Covett, I have way more complicated feelings about Miss Honey.
[cut for being vaguely spoilery and for talking about abuse.]
A few days before I read this I got a comment from an anon on an ancient Miss Honey/Matilda post informing me that their relationship is exactly what a mother-daughter relationship is SUPPOSED to be, into which I read a) I'm a great big perv and b) I have no idea what a normal mother-daughter relationship looks like, probably because I was so broken as a child that no one could have properly mothered me. /therapystuff.
But anon is absolutely wrong. Miss Honey is sweet but broken, because she was veryvery badly abused, and she uses Matilda to fulfill emotional needs that no child, regardless of how precocious, is actually able to meet. Miss Honey needs... true thoughts I just had: Miss Honey needs a grown-up who understands her, someone like... Barbara Covett.
Am worst person, I own it.
I've thought the Trunchbull codes as a bulldyke for years, and it's made me increasingly uncomfortable. I think there's some fatphobia in her depiction too. She's big and she's athletic and her dress is bizarre, and she's a vile abusive human being. Because yup.
I still ship the hell out of Matilda/Miss Honey, but it's a lot darker than it used to be. Cycles of abuse.
"You are so much wiser than your years, my dear, that it quite staggers me. Although you look like a child, you are not really a child at all because your mind and your powers of reasoning seem to be fully grown-up. So I suppose we might call you a grown-up child." - Miss Honey's totally adequate understanding of a SIX YEAR OLD who's been neglected and abused her entire life.
"Nasty dirty things, little girls are. Glad I never was one."
"Oh, but you must have been a little girl once, Headmistress. Surely you were."
"Not for long anyway," Miss Trunchbull barked, grinning. "I became a woman very quickly."
3. Elizabeth and I saw Joss Whedon's What I Did on My Summer Vacation Much Ado About Nothing. Unsurprisingly, I have more feelings about Joss&family than about the show itself, although it was quite entertaining. Like how Joss has apparently moved on from his obsession with Summer Glau's feet, and opened with a shot of Alexis Denisof's feet.
4. I borrowed War for the Oaks by Emma Bull from Elizabeth. It was entertaining; sanctioned OTP is lovely, but alas there are no malicious/broken/lovely/brilliant female teachers so it would have had to be pretty amazing to compensate for that deficiency.
5. I borrowed a few comic collections from the library. First Ultimate Fantastic Four, hardback collection #4, which collects the strips from God War and Devils and an X-Men crossover. I was hoping to add Fantastic Four to the collection of Marvel characters I know enough to occasionally read fic or comics about, but I accidentally cared more about the secondary characters than the Four in pretty much every arc, so. That's not gonna work out.
6. Then I read Invincible Iron Man trade 2, World's Most Wanted part 1. I had SO MANY FEELS. And then I discovered that my library catalogues these really poorly, so there are 35 items indexed as "V. 2. World's most wanted, bk. 1 -- v. 6. Stark resilient -" including the one I have, so I don't know if they're all actually World's Most Wanted volume 1 or what. Hands. I really want to read more of this. (Tony and Pepper were really added to my collection after seeing Avengers, but this added Maria Hill, so, success.)
Also at DW: http://wisdomeagle.dreamwidth.org/1178257.html. Comment here, or join the conversation there, where there is/are
comment(s).