Okay, yes, wow. So many things going on that I don't even really know where to start, but I thought the series was excellent. I don't know if it would have held my attention on a weekly basis, but watching all of it at once really worked. And I agree, it has all of the feminist themes. Though... I'm uncertain how I feel about the very end, when GJ walks off and tells Tui that her son is her real teacher. On one hand, I think that's absolutely in line with the reality of the series, with the kind frank truth telling that GJ does throughout the series, with what Tui needs to hear, and because (though I'm not a parent) I'm pretty sure that almost all parents learn a lot from their children. On the other hand, I don't love that the series ends with message that Motherhood is the ultimate teacher. That Tui's child is a boy adds another layer to my ambivalence, because I feel like in one sense, it's a very hopeful thing: Tui, Robin, and particularly Johnno are all going to be determined to prevent this child from perpetuating the cycle of patriarchal violence. But again, it leads me back to this discomfort with the message that being the Mother of a Son (fathered by No One, with Tui not even knowing how she got pregnant, if we want to go down a Biblical/Religious path) will be Tui's Real Teacher.
Despite my ambivalence about the last scene, I thought the series as a whole was just so thoughtfully conceived and I love that the other 6 hours and 55 minutes of the series would stand up to his sort of analysis too. So much non-campy trope subversion. Robin gets saved by Johnno a couple of times, but in the end, she's the one who saves everyone else! She's the one driving the plot! Which you'd think would be a given in any other cop show, but which seems to happen so rarely on those few occasions when there are cop shows with female leads. Robin being the one motivated by her rape to go out and Do Heroic Things. Robin being the one who doesn't care about the incest thing (which, was that undone at the end there or not? I didn't catch Al's line about it). Johnno constantly being injured and needing to be cared for. GJ, the somehow most and least guru-ish guru ever (I'll admit, it took most of the series for GJ to grow on me). Tui and her rifle. Tui giving birth by herself. Tui and her rifle again. But rooted in this world with such pervasive violence against the people who are always the most vulnerable to it: the commune women, the women who work for Matt, the "troubled" coffee shop kids (with the two we see the most being a PoC, Tui, and a gay kid, Jamie), really, all of the kids and all of the adult characters when they were kids.
I feel like normally when we talk about subverting gender roles it's in big, action-y things, and it's never very serious. The female action hero can save the day because she's an action hero and everyone knows that the situations aren't real. Or it's all about the comedy. Or she's an anti-hero, and then we're generally not subverting anything at all. So I loved how quiet and realistic (for tv versions of realistic) this series was.
And Robin throwing that dart into the guy's chest was mildly awesome.
I feel like I could go on for pages and pages about every character and every scene, but then I'd never, ever get to bed.
*spoilers* Re: femnism in Top of the Lake
Despite my ambivalence about the last scene, I thought the series as a whole was just so thoughtfully conceived and I love that the other 6 hours and 55 minutes of the series would stand up to his sort of analysis too. So much non-campy trope subversion. Robin gets saved by Johnno a couple of times, but in the end, she's the one who saves everyone else! She's the one driving the plot! Which you'd think would be a given in any other cop show, but which seems to happen so rarely on those few occasions when there are cop shows with female leads. Robin being the one motivated by her rape to go out and Do Heroic Things. Robin being the one who doesn't care about the incest thing (which, was that undone at the end there or not? I didn't catch Al's line about it). Johnno constantly being injured and needing to be cared for. GJ, the somehow most and least guru-ish guru ever (I'll admit, it took most of the series for GJ to grow on me). Tui and her rifle. Tui giving birth by herself. Tui and her rifle again. But rooted in this world with such pervasive violence against the people who are always the most vulnerable to it: the commune women, the women who work for Matt, the "troubled" coffee shop kids (with the two we see the most being a PoC, Tui, and a gay kid, Jamie), really, all of the kids and all of the adult characters when they were kids.
I feel like normally when we talk about subverting gender roles it's in big, action-y things, and it's never very serious. The female action hero can save the day because she's an action hero and everyone knows that the situations aren't real. Or it's all about the comedy. Or she's an anti-hero, and then we're generally not subverting anything at all. So I loved how quiet and realistic (for tv versions of realistic) this series was.
And Robin throwing that dart into the guy's chest was mildly awesome.
I feel like I could go on for pages and pages about every character and every scene, but then I'd never, ever get to bed.