fem_thoughts | Comment Meta

How is this show so amazing? And where can I get some icons?

+1 re icons!

I put off watching the show for a while because I was wibbling on whether or not it would actually be good...but holy crap is it good!

I think a huge part of it is that Tatiana Maslany is so freaking talented. I totally forget that one person is playing each of the clones. Props goes to the wardrobe and hair/makeup team for doing some of it (I mean, the differences in hairdos between all of the clones definitely gives a lot of information about how different they are)...but overall, the subtle differences in her acting all of them just make them completely different people. I don't think Anna Torv ever got enough credit for that with doing Olivia and alt!Liv. But Orphan Black is just another level.

Also, I love that each of the clones is a representation of the different places women can be. They're not cookie cutter. Allison is a little comical as the housewife from the burbs, but she's not a caricature. She's not a character we're supposed to laugh at and feel nothing for. Her family is at stake, and so is the life she's comfortable in. Sarah may be a character that has troubles, but she has such a strong sense of loyalty to her friends and family. Cosima...is my fav. Hands down. But she's not a token lesbian. She's an incredibly smart, capable scientist who happens to be a lesbian, nbd. And Helena...oh man, it's tough for me to talk about Helena because she's been so extremely victimized. She's so badass, but I sympathize with her at the same time.

I think what I'm getting at in all that rambling is that even though this show is about clones, these clones are women we can all identify with in some way. They are just so real compared to other women on tv. And I really appreciate that, especially from a sic-fi show. I love that this show has women enjoying sex, using sex, and being frank about sex; that it has women being smart and resourceful and badass; that it shows us two different kinds of mothers who care for their families in different ways; that it it has LGBT characters that are actual people and not tokens. I love that it's about women who WILL NOT be controlled, will not be property...women who will take control of their own lives and destinies.

It's just so good.

And as an aside, I love that Felix and Allison have this odd couple thing going on. I hope that continues.

I love that OUaT has so many awesome women in it. But the show frustrates me to no end with it's conventional love/good conquer evil/scorned women become baddies/everyone who is anyone is straight tropes.

Yes! I thought OUaT was going to be a deconstruction of fairy tale tropes, or maybe of Disney tropes specifically, and it's turned into the same thing it purports to deconstruct. (Mind you, I have about fifteen eps sitting on my DVR waiting for me to get up the heart to delve into them. So I'm not caught up, even if I'm fairly spoiled.)

I don't want the Game of Fairy Tales, where it's all darkity-dark and grim (pun intended) and Snow and Charming's wedding turns into a bloodbath. I'm actually quite fond of a happily ever after, or at least an ending that's happy and doesn't have rose-colored glasses. I don't want Queer as Fairy Tales either, where everyone is gay. But would it be so wrong for Mulan to wake Aurora up with a kiss? Or for Rumple to have hated Cora because he fell in love with Henry, Sr.? Or something, anyway.

It's just. There's so much potential for weird, different, unusual storylines, and an exploration of magic as something other than "you must PAY A PRICE for it" blah blah blah. Been there, done that, watched Willow's descent into evil from it, you know?

But my high hopes were dashed by a lot of the conventionality of the story. And also, I know you like Rumple, but honestly, even if he's a fascinating character, I'm hoping that they make him a little more interesting to me. I just don't have much interest in the particular route they're going on this Sympathy for the Devil storyline.

Also, Regina: She went evil because she's a Poor Little Rich Girl who got abused by her parents (don't get me started on parents who will not/cannot intervene on abuse, even if it's because they're abused themselves) and grew up to perpetuate the cycle of abuse? And because she's been Rumple's pawn this whole time? Oh, no, really? Couldn't Regina be gloriously evil because she wants to be? And if you want to redeem her, couldn't you make it be for her, not for external forces like Henry, Jr.?

I just want to hand them all four seasons of Farscape, and then tell them to watch the series and take particular note of Crais, Scorpius, and Grayza's characterization, because that's how you redeem a villain. (And you don't necessarily make them any less villainous.)

I want this show to be so much more, and it's capable of it. (Also, I want all the Aurora/Mulan ever. On screen, even.)

Edited 2013-06-05 16:41 (UTC)

Must. Watch. SOON.

ALL OF THIS. And also, can I talk about Beth and how she has so much impact despite spoilers? BECAUSE. So much of what's happening is stuff that she kicked into action and it's now spiraling and shifting, and THIS SHOW. I cannot with how much I love it.

(ALSO, MRS. S. So much love for her, and her pragmatism and loyalty and intelligence)

Someone posted some icons over here and also here oh, and here

(at least the LJ Orphan Black comm is useful for that. =D)

Hi, can we link this at

metanews?

Yes, the more the merrier.

I watched and loved Top of the Lake and see lots of feminist themes in it, but I'm finding it hard to find a place to discuss it. Anyone else watch? What did you think of the way the show dealt with gender issues and its multiple female characters (especially Robin and Tui)? (If anyone wants to tie its rugged sort of setting to the rugged feminism of Winter's Bone, I would not be averse, but that is a super specific topic so feel free to ignore. :D)

(Top of the Lake comes with a trigger warning for basically everything, including sexual assault, including assault involving children).

You know you want to! Pretty please!

All right -- let's do this. *g*

Vulva, cunt, pussy, vagina, slit, entrance, wet, moist, damp, breasts, boobs, tits... okay, you get the picture. Which words do you use? Do you use the same words no matter what, or do you like to vary it depending on the fandom, pairing, characters, or even mood you're writing? Ever swear you wouldn't use a term but then use it because it seemed right for that particular moment? When it comes to penises, it seems like fandom has pretty much embraced cock a a go-to term... do we have or are we trending toward any generally-accepted, widely-used terms? Is that something you'd even want, or do you kind of enjoy the debates and the search for the right word?

Edited (IDK what happened... I wanted my 'ship in my icon.) 2013-06-07 06:53 (UTC)

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.

I think Al told Johnno that his mother also had a "dalliance" but I was a little surprised there wasn't any follow-up to that - it's not like we can believe anything Al says at that point! But at the same time I liked how they'd just let things go, without getting too explain-y about almost anything.

I really loved Robin's persistence throughout this. All the ways she was hurt or humiliated - I'm thinking especially of the part where the audience finds out that she was raped just as she's finding out that everybody in town/in the police department knows, but there were so many other difficult things - and it's obvious that she's affected and sometimes she fucks up, but she won't let it stop her from trying to help Tui. In general I felt like this show got at a lot of the ways that women get hurt in a patriarchal society but then avoided the regular tv/movie cliches of what happens next, and the way it sort of skipped over the birth scene was another example of that.

I still need to see Winter's Bone.

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.

Oh yes, I totally agree about this. I also thought this was part of a whole weird thing where nobody talked about Tui, a 12 year old, not keeping the baby? Like why is no one talking about adoption ever? I guess it's supposed to be set up to be expressly different from what happened to Robin, where she left after she got pregnant and gave the baby up and doesn't seem to regret that, really, but it is part of her trauma? And there were hints that obviously Robin and Johnno will be pretty involved with raising the baby. But I still thought it was weird that everyone acted like Tui was going to mother this baby without any discussion of what that would mean for everyone, especially since Tui is still a CHILD and presumably not done "teaching" her own parental figures that way.

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)

I hadn't thought of that but...now I actually think it's kind of AMAZING?! Hear me out! From that angle, part of what this narrative is doing is exploding the myth of that sort of patriarchal Biblical myth, where the Mary figure piously accepts the will of God or whatever, and gets pregnant by No One and is just this passive vessel for someone else's will? Whereas this story centers the women and then explores and centers the violence and violation of that sort of myth; it is not pure and religious and innocent to be pregnant by No One, it's horrifying sexual abuse, bloody and violent and traumatizing for your whole life and so, so awful? So it's sort of exploring that sort of narrative from the actual female perspective and showing how twisted and disturbing and violent it really is for the woman involved, as a person, as opposed to her being some sort of religious symbol of innocence and purity. (Which doesn't make GJ's statement better though, because it's still weird to think of her son, born of such abuse, as being her Real Teacher...)

And yes, I totally agree with what you say about the subversion of the gender roles! (I think the incest was undone? But it's not clear whether we can trust what Al said about it or not, but I think the implication was that they will choose to believe him). I think what I loved about all this was how since it was set in such a real, fairly gritty setting and not an Action Story, their heroism was sort of their survival mechanisms in this violent world? And Robin's heroism is surviving her own trauma and also her persistence in making it different for other girls and women, at least as much as she can. Like in other stories in a narrative/world like this, they would be the victims motivating the angsty cop, like you say, but focusing on Robin and Tui--Tui and her rifle!--made the story more about their survival rather than their victimization, and Robin's feeling connected with Tui via her own experience drove her a lot. Not that their victimization wasn't always violently present or any less tragic, but the story as a whole was far more about how they deal and FIGHT and keep going and survive this rape culture. And I admit that Robin throwing the dart into the guy's chest was where I fell in love with the whole thing! I loved Robin's RAGE in this, and Tui's, and how the narrative completely validated their anger and never acted like they shouldn't be angry or that they should keep it contained. Tui was more contained, I think, at least until the end (which was amazing!) but Robin was such a fiery ball of anger the whole time and I loooved it.

And someone else pointed this out on Tumblr, but I love how Al, who said mildly creepy things and did vaguely creepy things throughout, ends up being completely awful and a terrible abuser? Like in other stories, he's the generally Nice Guy Trying to Do the Right Thing, at least sometimes, trying to maintain order, and this sort of micro-creepiness would probably be part of his snarky charm, and it would definitely be seen as harmless. Like the meaning would be, Robin why are you so worried, don't be so paranoid, it's just harmless Al, those are the sorts of things he just does, he doesn't mean anything. Whereas here his less obvious creepiness ends up being evidence of how totally awful he actually is under the surface and how right Robin was to be wary of it; it is not harmless. And I really liked that and how it further validated Robin and her reactions.

Okay I'll stop too! :)

Edited 2013-06-07 16:11 (UTC)

Yup. Season Two started _really, really_ strong but then they fell back on the tired characterization of Regina and I kind of lost interest again.
Also Belle/Rumple does very little for me--stockholmy love is only cool if it's INTERESTING, and Belle is too one-note to do it for me. I thought her

SPOILERS FOR LATE S2

transformation to Lacey could have been cool if they clarified the relationship between people's cursed selves and their real selves better.

I thought the same thing about the incest thing! But then I thought it was kind of interesting that they didn't really resolve it, like Robin and Johnno will choose to believe Al because yay, but who knows what the *real* truth is.

I loved so much that the overall narrative was Robin and Tui surviving this terrible stuff, and not on their victimization. Like it was actually a real story about a patriarchal culture, which was painful and uncomfortable, but it also validated Robin's view of this as a diseased culture, and didn't portray her as overreacting or too angry or whatever.

I totally see some of the same survivalist feminism themes in Winter's Bone. Which is a term I have just made up but now sort of love...

I've long been wondering why there's not as many femslash vids and other fanworks. Obviously it's a numbers game, but what would increase the production of femslash? I'm primarily a vidder and I wonder what would compel more the making of more femslash vids. Is it the lack of content from which to vid? The addition of sometimes needing to manipulate footage to create a femslash vid? The perceived lack of audience for a femslash vid? I'm sure it's a question that's been raised many places, many times.

love how Al, who said mildly creepy things and did vaguely creepy things throughout, ends up being completely awful and a terrible abuser?

YES! Because he is totally gaslighting her, in a way that starts out as subtle and becomes increasingly obvious and more harmful the closer Robin gets to solving the mystery. I also love how the villain is someone inside the law, this "respectable" authority figure, as contrasted with Tui's father- who is violent and a criminal in many ways but would never molest his own daughter.

as much as I sometimes get iffy feelings about a crime-solving woman having her own traumatic sexual abuse in her past as a motivator, I did like that they showed that Johnno had also been traumatized sexually by this experience, even if he hadn't been the one that had been raped. It's very unusual to see men suffering sexual trauma, even if it's just the trauma of being a bystander.

There's already been a thread on "Top of the Lake"- I thought we might want to discuss the other mystery series headed by a female lead (and also currently available on Netflix). They make a good comparison- because both center on female investigators and crimes of sexual abuse against women. But as amazing as Gillian Anderson is as sexy, competent, take no prisoners D.S. Gisbon, there is something super creepy going on with the way I think violence against women is eroticized in this story. I really think the (male) creator wants to have it both ways, with the obviously feminist heroine and then these women as victims of a sadistic serial killer. And I'm torn about whether i will watch series 2 because of it. Thoughts?

I really wanted to like this show. I really did. But I gave up on it about six episodes in when i realized there was going probably a) not be any queer content and b) no consistent writing of Regina's character. I love an evil queen. I love that the actresses that play Emma and Regina have unintentional off the charts chemistry. But those things weren't enough to keep me hanging around.

Oh and can we also talk about how the whole Emma/Henry Jr./Regina thing perpetuates the whole bio family is superior to adopted family shtick?

i have seen some really out of proportion hateful things on tumblr bashing the Emma/Regina shippers. I'm not really invested one way or another, but it irks me because I *know* if Regina was a dude or if Emma and Regina BOTH were dudes, it would be the most popular ship ever.

I loved Robin's RAGE in this, and Tui's, and how the narrative completely validated their anger and never acted like they shouldn't be angry or that they should keep it contained. Tui was more contained, I think, at least until the end (which was amazing!) but Robin was such a fiery ball of anger the whole time and I loooved it.

YESSSSSS

Right?! It's so awesome!

I love Mrs. S. too, omg! Just...THIS SHOW!

Hooray!

All of this. Seriously.

I think they really could have gone somewhere with Mulan and Aurora both realizing that they have more of a connection to each other than either did to Phllip. Or I'll even take a canon threesome...alternative relationships ftw.

I think Regina frustrates me most because she started out as such an awesomely bad character that just...seemed awesomely bad (I mean, albeit only for about an ep). And while I was sure we were going to get an explanation, I was hoping it would be unconventional. *sigh*

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