*waves from beneath the piles of papers*

[pellucid]

I have survived the teaching part of my first semester of full-time professoring. There's still the grading part and various odds and ends that people generally file under the category of "service" (or "the stuff that's part of the job that no one really remembers to tell you about, like going to meetings and doing paperwork and writing letters of

Comments

[rose_griffes]

I've been thinking a lot about the accidental messages OUaT has... like the lack of agency. No one in fairytale land ever made a truly bad decision on his/her own*--only when Rumpelstiltskin gets involved. And there's the weird element of how the logical, even moral choices in "our" world run counter to what would match the choices of fairytale land. (I'm thinking in particular of David and Kathleen's marriage.) I hope the writers have some sort of plan?! Hm...

Though I do find it very entertaining, so there's that. *shrugs* And even though I thought the actor playing the Huntsman/Sheriff was a bit of a weak link, I'll miss his pretty crying and occasional shirtlessness. Heh.

*Other than Regina/EQ, that is.

[pellucid]

I don't know whether that's an accidental message or not. Maybe it is one of those things they just didn't think about, but it does seem so thorough that I've been hoping it's intentional. Obviously there's very little agency for anyone (other than Regina and Rumplestiltskin, I guess) within the Storybrooke world: they can't even leave the town, they don't know who they are, they're being subjected to things like marriages that were not of their own design (presumably--my reading of David and Kathleen's marriage is more that it may have been entirely invented/manipulated by Regina, since I'm guessing that Prince Charming doesn't get around to marrying Jamie Bamber's sister in Fairy Tale Land), etc. But the question of how much their fairy tale lives are determined--and by whom--is also intriguing. How much can the characters diverge from type? And if they can't, what does that mean for the way a show like this deals with agency

[pellucid]

Hello to you, too!

And "well" is probably a stretch, but I'm surviving, which is about the best I can hope for at the moment!

Woot, Farscape!!! I saw that but have not had time to comment. :)

[kernezelda]

Graham was fairly weightless, so I can't say I'll miss him. Also, while I haven't really kept up with OUAT fandom, if there is one, in the few reviews I've seen, no one has pointed out that our Evil Queen, along with being a patricidal murderess, blackmailer and corrupt official, is also a rapist.

[rose_griffes]

lizardbeth_j mentioned the non-con aspect. Though yeah, like the list of her crimes wasn't long enough?!

It did make me feel ever so awful for Graham, even though I won't miss him if we never see him again.

[kernezelda]

Thank you for the lj-point. *flitters off to read*

I noted in regala_electra's LJ that if Regina was looking for a heartless man to kill Snow White, she sure picked the wrong guy, 'cause Graham felt too much, was damaged/heart-broken before she picked him out of the magic mirror. He became heartless/empty only after Regina ripped it away from him.

[pellucid]

The thing about the rape is that it falls under the greater category of her taking away pretty much everyone's agency in all ways. She's essentially forced Graham to have sex with her, yes, but hasn't she also forced all of these people into lives not of their choosing, including in terms of sexual partners (think of David and Kathleen--or is it Katherine?--for instance: also some dubious consent stuff going on there, I think). And I'm not sure how to explain it, but at least at this point in the show, making her actions with Graham part of this wider pattern actually makes me less bothered by the specifically sexual part of the removal of agency than I might otherwise have been. Because yes, it's absolutely not okay, but neither is it being treated as such: this is why she's the evil queen, after all. Whereas I fear that the same acts in a different context (ie, a character who doesn't generally exert this particular kind of evil power but is forcing someone to have sex with her against his will) would be much more likely to be

[dm_lunsford]

Glad to hear you're hanging in there. I've been enjoying Once Upon a Time as well, but have yet had opportunity to watch my recording of this latest ep. Thus I skipped your spoiler comments.

I will admit there is at least one thing I like about the Knightley version of P&P. It works well when I need a quick fix and only have a couple hours to invest in a viewing, as opposed to what's needed by other mini-series versions. ;)

So, how much longer until you're on holiday break? And will there be various teacher "duties" to which must attend during that time off? Or will you be free to relax and recoup?

[pellucid]

That version of P&P is very pretty in its cinematography, and I like the shift from the traditional Regency scene (when the novel was published) to the late 18th-century scene when Austen originally wrote it. Something about Elizabeth as a first-wave Romantic heroine works well for me. And I quite enjoyed this version of Jane and Bingley. And I appreciated that this Elizabeth really did play the piano badly. But overall, I had zero connection to Elizabeth and Darcy and thought they had little to no chemistry with each other. Whereas Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle are positively combustible. And that, I believe, is what I most require in a film adaptation of this novel! :)

I leave for the holidays a week from tomorrow. The goal is to have all the work from this term finished before I go (though that's a tall order, and I don't necessarily have to) so that I only have to take prep for next semester with me. But some of both: plenty of time for crashing, but some work to do, too.

[beccatoria]

That is pretty much exactly how I feel about Once Upon A Time! It's like...there are issues with it, sure (and I hadn't really thought so much about the narrative plot issues the way you put it, but it's also true - I was focusing more on the various potential thematic issues), but I'm so...charmed by the way it chooses to ground the narrative in its female characters and their conflicts, which include (and okay due to the fairytale nature of the story are perhaps originate in) romantic stuff, but aren't limited to that, and by now is basically a giant power battle. And it does include lovely, unexpected, well-written moments along the way, even if not with quite enough regularity to have me proclaiming it the New Best Show Evar or anything.

As to the lack of people of colour, indeed. There's the Queen's magic mirror/editor of the local paper, but he's currently minor to the point of distraction. I do hope this improves.