November 2011
1 post
October 2011
26 posts
Vid Recs from VividCon
Here are a few vids that I wanted to share with you all from this year’s VividCon. Vividcon is an annual convention devoted to the practice and appreciation of vidding. If you aren’t familiar with vidding check out these videos.
Fandom: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Vidder: Cherry
This is a fun vid, even if you’ve never seen
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Fandom: Friday Night Lights
Vidder: Barkley
If you are a FNL fan this is the vid for you, it will make you smile,
it will make you cry. It’s a beautiful summary of the show.
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, specifically Riley
Vidder: Obsessive24
I’m not much of a Riley fan but I thought this was a
sweet look at Riley’s time in Sunnydale.
Fandom: Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures, specifically Sarah Jane Smith
Vidder: Flummery
I first met Sarah Jane in the new Who but this is a really sweet
portrait of her character throughout the years.
Fandom: Doctor Who, specifically River Song
Vidder: kiki_miserychic
This is an emotionally rich look at
the character of River Song
Fandom: Doctor Who, specifically Amy Pond
Vidder: Andraste
A lovely and fun vid about the eleventh’s Doctor’s
companion, Amy Pond
Fandom: Fringe
Vidder: jagwriter78
I don’t exactly know how to describe this vid but I was captivated by it, the vidder intercut clips from Fringe with clips from the music video from Take That and the imagery worked seamlessly.
Fandom: Smallville (Lex/Clark)
Vidders: Dualbunny, Greensilver, Sweetestdrain
Even if you’ve never watched an episode of Smallville or never want to you must watch this vid. Trust me.
“To me, a story can be feminist in a variety of ways. The most important being how it treats its female characters: are they as nuanced, and dynamic as the male characters? Do they get good lines? Are they flawed? Are they, in short, like a real person and not a collection of easy feminine stereotypes? That’s a good place to start. It’s equally important to me that a feminist story tackle real concerns about gender and equality in a way that legitimately attempts to explore it for the complex issue it is. Which may seem like a tall order for, say, a show about vampires, but the best genre fiction has that element, exploring serious “real” issues through a fantastical lens. It helps us remove ourselves a little and see them in a different context”
—Mariah Huehner, “Imperfectly Perfect: Why I really Love Buffy for Being a Pill Sometimes” in Whedonistas! A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them
Play
“
I sometimes visualize the ongoing cycle of racism as a moving walkway at the airport. Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt. The person engaged in active racist behaviour has identified with the ideology of White supremacy and is moving with it. Passive racist behaviour is equivalent to standing still on the walk way. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyor belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are actively walking.
Some of the bystanders may feel the motion of the conveyor belt, see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around, unwilling to go to the same destination as the White supremacists. But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt - unless they are actively antiracist - they will find themselves carried along with the others.
” — Beverly Daniel Tatum from “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”
Play
Introducing The Avengers with Scarlett Johansson staring as… The Smurfette. *facepalm*
…And let’s not be quick to forget that Joss Whedon is the director.
Play
‘Doctor Who’ blogging: “The Wedding of River Song” →
flickfilosopher.com
Another article about the series finale of Doctor Who (contains spoilers)
I don’t want a Doctor Who that, every time it paints itself into a corner, gets out of it by having River say, “The Doctor lies.” (Are we not meant to believe anything the Doctor says anymore?) I don’t want a Doctor Who that, every time it gets too timey-wimey, just brings in another time-traveling entity to jump right over the tangled webs.
Disney Princess Sucker Punch
What do you get when you mix Zack Snyder’s horribly, horribly, sexist movie Sucker Punch with the horribly sexist Disney princesses from a half dozen animated movies? Well, intentional or not, you get a riveting story of female liberation!
This amazing trailer mash-up by Breanne Brennan works on several levels. First it serves as a stunning indictment of Sucker Punch by demonstrating just how perfectly the action flick plot matched up with cliché Disney cartoons. On a more subversive level the remix appropriates audio from Snyder’s misogynist film and re-frames the narrative to give us a new story in which Disney princesses liberate themselves from their own sexist movie representations. Breanne’s creative re-editing and juxtapositions manage to actually create the empowering message Sucker Punch so utterly failed to deliver on any level.
For another remixed subversion of the Disney princess theme check out pinkwhig’s Disney/Mean Girls mashup on YouTube.Versión en castellano del estupendo montaje realizado por Breanne Brennan mezclando el audio del tráiler de Sucker Punch con películas de Disney.
Play
Some brief thoughts about Amy Pond & River Song
This article “Why This Year’s Doctor Who Finale Was (Mostly) Better than Last Year’s” by Charlie Jane Anders (io9) has some interesting thoughts about River and Amy’s characters.
SPOILERS
“River Song was such a shiny character, full of endless possibility, and she hit her high point in some of the early Matt Smith stories. Jumping out of spaceships in flight, carving messages in ancient cliffs, and generally being badass and mysterious. Now, it seems like her mystery is gone, and it’s been replaced by… I can hardly bear to type the words.”
“So in order to get River to restart the universe and set things right, the Doctor has to marry her — you’ll notice the Doctor never says he loves her, and he makes fun of her for saying she loves him. Soon afterwards, the Doctor tells River, “I don’t want to marry you.” And then, right before he does marry her, he tells her, “You embarrass me,” and he genuinely seems to be full of loathing for her in that moment. During the actual quickie wedding ceremony, River asks, “What am I doing?” and the Doctor replies, “as you’re told.” Awwww… so romantic. Finally, the Doctor tells her, “Now you’re the woman who marries me,” as if she’s won the jackpot.”
“Meanwhile, there’s Amy. It’s now safe to say that the Silence didn’t brainwash Amy to stop caring about the fact that she’ll never see her baby (as a baby) again — she just got over it really, really quickly.”
“In today’s episode, Amy finally does deal with the fact that her baby was stolen and abused by monsters, by inflicting a painful death on the bubble-universe version of Madame Kovarian. It’s a nice enough moment, but no substitute for seeing Amy actually deal with the enormity of what’s happened to her child. After two seasons, Amy remains a bit of a cartoon character-“
I really have to agree with both of these sentiments, first I was really troubled with how Amy vengefully assisted the murder of Madame Kovarian. While there was some relief at the end of the episode when Amy speaks about her shame for her actions there is really, hardly any discussion about the emotional ramifications of having your BABY STOLEN! If there was any doubt that Amy’s pregnancy was a Mystical one, then this is further proof.
While I enjoy Amy, and in fact really adored her in the fifth season, I completely agree about the cartoonish aspects. The writers haven’t really developed her character much at all and we have very little reason to really care about Amy or even like her that much other than the snarky jokes. Plus this latest season met with way too many “Save Amy” moments to describe her as empowered.
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: Whitney (D-)
Critics predicted this show to be pretty bad, but nothing could have prepared me for the mess of horrible it really was. The jokes were terrible, the acting was terrible, and the laugh-track was painful. In essence this was yet another show with a neurotic, “crazy” woman and her sweet, sensible, tolerant boyfriend. There was a joke in there somewhere about how Whitney’s boyfriend had sex with her while she was unconscious, but how that was okay because it was their anniversary. Note to screenwriters: people in the real world call that rape. At one point Whitney dresses up as a “sexy nurse” to reinvigorate their sex life, and while the whole sexy nurse concept is frustrating in and of itself, they depict Whitney as not doing sexy “right” further playing into the neurotic, ‘crazy’ woman stereotype. The creators also threw in The Asshole Guy (similar to New Girl) with Whitney’s friend at the wedding, again showing the other characters shame him for being sexist, yet they’re still hanging out with him and his behavior doesn’t change.
As Mary Elizabeth Williams said over at Salon, “Whitney Cummings’ aggressively promoted new sitcom may just be the most unself-awarely retro-sexist show on television.” That pretty much sums it up.
Will NOT watch again
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: Unforgettable (B-)
I’m really not a fan of police procedurals. I usually can’t get over the glorification of the American Justice System. The cops and the prosecutors are usually depicted as “good guys” who protect us from all the horrible, vile people in the world. This is such a conservative, skewed worldview that is perpetuated in the abundance of cop shows. These weekly crime shows also tend to have an extraordinary amount of violence against women, dead women, and evil murdering women as a way to maintain sensationalism. Clearly I didn’t go into this show with much optimism. And while this episode didn’t begin with violence, we were quickly following a story about solving the murder of a dead woman.
What I found however was a pretty interesting female lead. I didn’t care for the sexy-badass-with-a-gun number in the beginning, but once we focused on protagonist Carrie Wells, there was a bit more complexity. I was also impressed with how the actor, Poppy Montgomery, avoided the usual pit falls for “strong women characters” by not playing the tough, badass, tortured, pessimistic, misanthropic woman. She conveyed a message more akin to “yeah, things are a little rough for me, but I’m still functional and I’m actively working on taking care of myself.”
Clearly, she’s going to rejoin the police force and be guided by her ex-husband to figure out her big haunting past, which I suppose would be expected. But how much more interesting would this show be if Carrie found a female sidekick and solved problems for folks around her (kind of what Lost Girls is trying to do without the creepy soul sucking).
I’ll probably watch a few more episodes
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: Ringer (D)
My first thought when watching Ringer: “Look it’s Buffy!” My second thought: “Oh god, it’s so not Buffy.” Remaining thoughts: “Wow, this is really awful.” While I’m a HUGE Buffy fan, I’m not necessarily on the Sarah Michelle Gellar bandwagon so she’s not enough to hold my interest. I found the show to be quite dull, predictable and just not appealing. As Rebellious Pixels said while watching the episode, “This is an impressive level of bad”. The episode starts with a scene portraying violence against women. Then we find out that the season’s villain is a Native American man. It is so entirely rare to see indigenous folks on TV shows, and the few times we do, they are often portrayed as evil, manipulative, casino owners, or magical and this case is no different. I don’t see where this show’s overall story can go after a season if it gets renewed, and at this point, I really don’t care.
Side note: Remember when Siobhan–er…Bridget–was on the roof and she sees a man lingering in a trench coat? Did anyone else think, “Hey, it’s Angel being a stalker again”?
Really not interested in watching again
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: Revenge (D+)
Before even watching an episode I knew I would hate everything about this show. I really hate revenge story lines. I really hate the manipulative, conniving woman trope. And I loathe stories about how hard it is to be rich, especially when the woes of wealth are fed through catty, white female characters. So basically, this is not the show for me. I was however surprised by how it kept my attention. Emily/Amanda had a good amount of subtlety in her tone and her facial expressions in playing this highly manipulative role and she sort of grew on me, or maybe I just watched it after Ringer so the bar wasn’t set very high.
Additionally, the voiceovers were painfully scripted/cliche: Emily/Amanda said things like “When deception cuts this deep, someone has to pay.” Revenge is not justice, and I’m sick of seeing the glorification of revenge in so many of our TV shows and movies.
Seriously doubt I’ll watch again unless I’m really bored
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: The Playboy Club (F)
I don’t really know what to say about this show; it’s everything I expected it to be. Horrible, offensive, oppressive; sexualizing, eroticizing and objectifying women and a white-washed revisionist history. One of the first scenes, of course, utilizes violence: “Bunny” Maureen is shown physically fighting off an attempted rape. What did strike me as interesting (in an entirely patriarchal way) was that the main character, Nick Dalton, a regular patron and key holder of the Playboy Club, is portrayed as a rich, successful, womanizer who values “smart” women and actively supports civil rights. You know, he’s a sensitive womanizer *eye roll*. This makes it easier for the audience to sympathize and identify with him, thereby excusing the imbalance of power in his oppressive relationships with women and his ignorance to his own privilege.
I would most definitely NOT watch this again.
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
Fall Premiere Pilot Review: Charlie's Angels (F)
I don’t think I even have the heart to get into the ineffable levels of oppressive gender problems that is the Charlie’s Angels remake, this show pretty much exemplifies everything that is wrong with Hollywood. Just don’t watch it.
Although, it does provide me the opportunity to express my frustration about the way technology is used on television. There are so many forms of innovative tech in the world today, and even more that is under development, so why can’t TV shows use realistic portrayals of tech!? It would be cool, I promise. There was much screaming in my house when Bosley tapped into a satellite to view into a hotel room… with his iPad (is there an app for that? I don’t think so). And don’t get me started on the much overused “enhance” photo. There is only a limited amount of data in video footage, you can’t just zoom in and get a crystal clear shot of someone’s face.
As for the rest of the show, I think my series of tweets while watching it generally sums up my take:
Will absolutely NOT watch again
For more Fall TV premiere reviews check out Feminist Frequency
