Let’s take some time out of our day to enjoy the first major female-led superhero show (Agent Carter, while cool and excellent, is not a superhero herself)- namely- CBS Supergirl trailer. It’s a long one, so buckle in
0:33: It’s cool that they didn’t bother coming up with their own backstory for Supergirl. Nah, just the same as Superman’s, really. So, fingers crossed, for Red Sun starring Supergirl, right?
0:44: Melissa Benoist is here, and she’s blonde and competent with an apparently high-level job. I’m trying really hard to be up for this, but I hated her character in Glee so much that I’m struggling a little. DO IT FOR FEMINISM, LOU!
0:46 HOLY FUCKING DICKSUCKERS, THAT’S JEREMY JORDAN FROM SMASH! GIVE US A TUNE, JEREMY! SING ME A SONG!
1:09: I’m up for more powerful women, but also that “funny” stop-the-music-here’s-a-joke-line was shite.
1:39 Much as I am struggling to get over the Melissa Benoist factor, I’m already wet for how many women are in this thing. This is good for the superhero industry, because, y’know, Black Widow, Pepper Potts, that chick Natalie Portman played in Thor, Cobie Smulders, and whoever else I’ve forgotten just doesn’t constitute representation.
1:59: Alright, I’ll grudgingly admit it: this earnest stuff from Benoist is reminding me of Grant Gustin in The Flash, which cannot be anything but a really good thing. She can lift a bus, don’t you know?
2:01: FROM THE WORLD OF DC COMICS. Oh good fucking Christ no.
2:06: Yes. He said Geneva. Quite clearly. That’s what he said.
2:19: Why does no-one fly with their arms tucked into their sides? Surely that would be more streamlined.
2:46: Yada yada yada she saves a plane from crashing. One has to wonder, though, if she’s known about all her amazing powers for so long, why did it take her sister being in danger before she did something? We have a case of “my powers are only relevant when the plot decides that they are”, potentially. And don’t give me that bullshit about her “wanting a normal life”: she’s a fucking alien, and if her cousin can fold a truck in half when someone’s a dick (look, I fell asleep a lot in Man of Steel, I don’t remember things) then she can use her powers for good too.
3:00: BALLS. BALLS WOULD NO-ONE HAVE GOT A CLEAR PICTURE OF HER. BALLS TO THAT.
3:32: This is so stridently feminist I think I just squirted. I know this is pandering directly to me, and I love it.
3:44: I don’t think this is a very good bit of acting. Ah, Melissa Benoist, you’re halfway there, but every line is delivered in a kind of breathy, earnest mulch and it’s hard not to get a little bit bored.
3:50: Yeah, the only reason she doesn’t like you is ’cause she’s gay. Am I supposed to be rooting for this guy? Because that line is going to make it hella difficult. If I wind up liking his disgraceful character in Smash more than him here, it’s going to be an international catastrophe.
4:29: Look, I know it’s because that’s the way she is in the comics, but couldn’t we have many skipped the fucking micro-mini skirt? It’s just not as practical as trousers. And, if you don’t believe me, answer me this: why isn’t Superman wearing one too?
4:43: RIGHT I DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’LL NEED TO SAY THIS, BUT KNEE-HIGH FUCKING BOOTS ARE NOT PRACTICAL CRIME-FIGHTING GEAR. THEY’RE NOT PRACTICAL *ANYTHING* GEAR. Honestly, I’m trying quite hard not to flip a table right now, which is an over-reaction, but also shut up.
5:15: Yeah, shut up, you fucking super-powerful, flying, bulletproof alien. WHAT GOOD COULD YOU BE TO FIGHTING A PRETERNATURAL TERRORIST.
5:23: “The world needs you to fly!” DOES it, though.
5:58: “IT’S NOT A MAN” Was this show created specifically to stop me bitching about the lack of women in the superhero world? Because that’s beginning to feel like what this trailer is.
636: Here is my final thought; I’m for this on an intellectual level, but this has not assuaged my fear that I find Meliisa Benoist seriously annoying and kind of wish almost anyone had been cast except her because I was always going to come at this show with preconceptions. I am, however, willing to be proven wrong, and pray to Zod I will be.
While I would much rather be sitting in my garden with a cider listening to the Les Miserables soundtrack, apparently it’s time for another chapter of Fifty Shades of The Publishing Industry Eating Itself. With the teaser for Fifty Shades Darker released, and the movie out on DVD, there’s been another wave of “uh, actually, it’s just BDSM and she consents to EVERYTHING, you virgin prostitute prude”, so it’s my duty as a misanthrope to piss all over everyone’s good time. We left off at the end of chapter seventeen with Christian about to force birth control on Ana, because love is never having to say “what do you think about going on the pill?”
Ah, this is a question I ask myself whenever I’m in the shower and I get Glee’s version of Boogie Shoes in my head (and it happens every single bloody time, and now it’s there again and I don’t think it’s ever going away this time). I’ve written so bloody much about this show in the past, and I’m still not sure if overall I like it or don’t: it’s crass, over-bearing, reads like a PSA, has some atrocious actors, no consistent characterization, and would regularly and with gusto throw all it’s continuity to the four winds because the writers had another idea they just had to try. As somebody who’s watched the show for five years, I don’t understand why anyone would put themselves through it- a murderous mess that will strip to bone your faith in TV in the course of just one agonising Ke$ha cover.
But there were good moments. Moments where I laughed with the show, not at it. Moments were the covers were packed with gusto and just enough actual singing to make them bearable. So I’ve decided to try and compile a list of what I consider the show’s crowning triumphs. If you’ve always hated the show and could never understand what attracted people of seemingly sound mind and body to it, I’ll try to explain, and if you’ve been grappling with the show in therapy for years (like me), you can remind yourself how it hooked you in in the first place.
10. Bohemian Rhapsody
I can already hear the sound of a thousand laptops smacking shut as anyone with any self-respect who was half-interested in this article storms off. They covered Queen? Pssshhh. Rubbish. No-one can cover Queen, let alone Bohemian Rhapsody. But in the hands of the inimitable Johnathan Groff, a superbly talented Broadway performer who guest-starred in a few seasons of Glee, the song isn’t a catastrophe; in fact, it’s sort of good. Add to that the sequence of Diana Agron’s birth spliced through the song, and this is an entire second act in just six minutes: winding up on the final notes drifting away as Agron (another actress far too good for this show) is handed the baby she knows she’ll never get to hold again. It’s impressive, emotional, gigantic stuff, and it works.
9. Uptown Girl
On the flipside of the coin, you’ve got this cover of Uptown Girl, which is for my money one of the best the show ever did (and, bizarrely, this is it’s second appearance on this blog after it cropped up in my review of The Flash, but I digress). It’s pure, silly, catchy fun, an unadulterated hunk of pop that shines through the screen. I don’t think I’ll ever not love it. I hate to be that guy, but the teacher in the red skirt is crazy-hot, too.
8. Safety Dance
In the magnificent Neil Patrick Harris-starring, Joss-Whedon directed episode Dream On from season one, this was the tune that sequence that really jumped out. Kevin Mchale, who plays Artie, the kid in the wheelchair, started his career in a bunch of not-so-successful boybands, and his cheeky charisma is all over this number. Then, a smash cut at the end to him sitting in his wheelchair, alone with his thoughts, knowing that everything he’s just imagined is probably never, ever going to happen for him. Kevin McHale always did really well with the bullshit they threw at his character, and this silent moment of reflection is one of Glee’s most subtle and effective moments.
7. The Boy Next Door
Full disclosure: I wanted to put Glee’s original cover of I’m the Greatest Star here, but it’s nothing without the video. So we’re settling for Chris Colfer’s second-best solo performance in the form of The Boy Next Door from the musical of the same name (fun fact: if you think this is wild, go watch Hugh Jackman doing it- gold lame trousers and all). My crush on Chris Colfer knows now bounds, even though he’s gay and we’ve never met and I occasionally vanish down rabbit holes on Youtube watching videos of him being witty and warm and charming and snapping at Lea Michele that she’s comitting a hate crime by being mean to him. And he’s one of the best things about the show, an absoloute newbie with an incredible voice, oodles of charisma, and a sense of humour about himself which is lacking in much of the rest of the show. This song (and yes, that is Whoopi Goldberg there) is essentially the climax of his story, a big fuck-you to his old, small-town life and an embracing of his new one, whatever it may be, conveyed over the course of two minutes and some incredible, impossible hip movements (the crush grows stronger yet).
6. It’s Not Unusual
One of the few songs from the later seasons that actually worked, this Tom Jones cover (performed by Darren Criss, who I love very much even though most critics seem to hate him with a passion, maybe because he was the victim of the atrociously handled bisexual storyline I wrote about earlier), this was the pinnacle of Glee dissociating from reality. A decision was made from here on out that if reality got in the way of really awesome staging for a fun song, then it could go fuck itself, and here are thirty-year-old cheerleaders prancing around on the bleachers as some inestimably ripped internet star grins so much his teeth explode. I think I watch this at least once a week.
5. Adele Mashup
Glee has done a lot of mashups, and none of them have worked like this one has. Pitched at the end of an episode where Naya Rivera’s character (the girl singing the Someone Like You portion) has been outed, it’s got a bit of emotional clout behind it but is more than anything a belter of a tune. Staged simply, the songs (Rumour Has It and Someone Like You) are naturally inclined to pack a punch, and Rivera and co-lead Amber Riley prove once again that they were the most underused bit of the show for two seasons. I think a show is teetering when an Adele mashup is the most subtle thing they can do in an episode, but they just stuck the landing with this one.
4. Cough Syrup
Oddly, this is a song that’s turned up in the blog before, when I was talking about triggering. I re-watched Glee in my first year of uni when I was horrendously depressed, and I remember being utterly shaken up by this number. Even though the show doesn’t take the storyline seriously past this sequence, the combination of Max Adler’s performance (as a guy who’s just been outed after years in the closet, preparing for his suicide) and a gorgeous vocal performance from Darren Criss who, along with Chris Colfer, gave this scene a bunch more clout than it might have deserved to have. I don’t know if it’s just that I remember how strongly this affected me the first time I saw it, but these three minutes- the song and video inextricably linked- mark this as probably the most powerful moment Glee has ever pulled off.
3. I Dreamed a Dream
Another one from the Joss Whedon episode, this song- featuring Indina Menzel and Lea Michele- is a proper slap about the face. The premise of this is essentially that Lea Michele (the young one) is listening to her birth mother sing for the first time, and Whedon really wrings every drop of emotion from the already iconic number; the cinematography is great, the vocals are flawless, and if you don’t feel even a hint of emotion after this then you’re a cold, sad human being.
2. Don’t Rain on my Parade
Glee used the Barbara Streisand musical Funny Girl (from which this song is taken) as a kind of mirror image to lead character Rachel’s story, and this was the first time it made itself clear. This song, landing about half way through the first series, was the genesis of my obsession with musical theatre, and still the song I’ll point to when someone asks me what music I relate to on a personal level. Lea Michele is utterly charming in what is probably her best performance of the whole show, a proper salute to the desperate, never-give-up optimism that Glee floated atop of for five years, and it’s impossible not to get swept up in the please-renew-us/also-show-tunes! balls of this number. Put it this way: my ex commented that Lea Michele really didn’t make the last note work in this and I think that was the moment our relationship was truly over.
1. Jim Steinman Mashup
Yes, that’s right- Glee did a Jim Steinman mashup, news so good it still hasn’t really sunk it. And it’s a perfect capper to the first three years of the show (after which everything took a nosedive as the main characters left high school). The final performances in the show choir championships (is anyone else buying the size and enthusiasm of that audience, by the way?), it’s got everything- a Lea Michele belt, then what’s probably their most diplomatic and entertaining group number in the form of their cover of Paradise by the Dashboard light. The late lamented Cory Monteith is at the peak of his handsome, charming, bumbling self here, the choreography is perfect, and the tune is just big enough to act as a satisfying farewell to all the characters we would barely see again after this episode.
So, I’m back, no matter how hard you’ve been trying to avoid me (and I know some of you have turned that pastime into a sport). Exams and other mundane life bollocks has been in the way of me writing these recaps but, buoyed up by the fact my blog hits have gone up from around thirty a day to around five hundred, I’m plowing forward. I can see the end; it’s so close to being over. Let’s get this shit on the go.
One more thing: if you’re new to the recaps or just want to remind yourself what’s been happening, I’ve added a Blog Directory (up at the top there) where I’ve organised a bunch of different articles into sections so you can find them quicker, and all the Fifty Shades recaps are there, so get on up on that shit. Make a drinking game when you do a shot every time I despair for humanity. You’ll be slammed by lunchtime.
Chapter seventeen opens with Ana having yet another stupidly metaphorical dream about being Icarus flying too close to the sun, then wakes I’m to find Christian wiggling his eyebrows at her and gesturing to his morning wood. Once again, I’m struck by how pointedly unsexy every sentence of this is. In between recaps, I wrote a piece about my own experiences writing erotica, and this passage comes as a reminder that I basically just tack a post-it note with “The opposite of EL James” on my laptop and bash on. Ooh, yeah, tell me you slept well except for the last hour when you were a little warm!
Jane Lynch tho
Christian hoicks her out of bed after promising to meet up on Sunday, and Ana and him exchanges emails about the spanking that left Ana sobbing and upset the night before. Here are some of the words Ana uses to describe the experience: Punished. Beat. Assaulted. Demeaned. Debased. Abused. Uncomfortable. Guilty. Confused. If you could see me now, I’d be waving my hands in front of my head like a fucking windmill and shouting “THESE ARE NOT WORDS YOU SHOULD BE APPLYING TO A BDSM SCENE WITH YOUR PARTNER”. These are words that, once again, show us that Ana doesn’t understand what she’s getting herself into, and isn’t really enjoying it when she does. These are not words generally applied to pleasant, squicky-in-the-pants feelings. Luckily, Christian is on hand to sort things out;
“Do you think you could just try to embrace these feelings, deal with them, for me?”
Oh yeah, sure, sorry you felt like shit after I spanked you and abandoned you, but you know, just kind of deal with it, babe. I wonder if Christian would feel the same way if Ana told him to “just deal” with his feelings about being touched? Everyone can fuck off. I’d forgotten how painful recapping this book was. No-one in the entire world has it worse than I do right now.
Ana emails him back, saying that if she was actually listening to her feelings she’d be in Alaska by now. Then we get this doozy:
“Alaska is very cold and no place to run. I would find you. I can track your cellphone, remember?”
Look, I’m sure lots of couples joke about being freaked out by their partner enough to run to some ridiculously distant part of the globe to escape them. And it’s funny and it’s cute because that partner probably hasn’t stalked them obsessively- acquiring their home address, tracking their cellphone, turning up places uninvited, etc-up till then. What Christian is saying isn’t a harmless joke. Because he’s stalking Ana.
Ana goes to her last day at work before she moves, and while she’s there, a Blackberry arrives, courtesy of Christian, because he wants to be able to reach her at all times. She endures a hideous emotional speech from the people she’s worked for for three years (which we don’t actually hear because that would require a modicum of writing skill), then goes home to pack.
Jose turns up to bring Kate and Ana takeaway, and then Elliot (Christian’s brother, who’s now fucking Kate) arrives. Ana practically implodes with horror as Kate and Elliot smooch in the doorway (“I’m appalled by their lack of modesty”), and I remember that time a friend of mine was dating someone who was really physical with them all the time, and how even then I managed not to stare in outright disgust because I have a modicum of respect for my friends and who they choose to date. Also, Christian and Ana were humping in a fucking elevator, but, you know, kissing your boyfriend in your own house is so much more disgusting than dry-humping a creepy murder freak in a lift. Remember, folks: if you’re expressing your sexuality and you’re not Ana or Christian, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Jose and Ana go out for a drink, and when she gets back, there’s a terse email from Christian in which he threatens to call Elliot unless she contacts him. Oh, and five missed calls and a voicemail. With “a deep, curling” dread, Ana calls him back, because it’s definetly healthy to fear a conversation with your partner! After he gets monotone thanks to her not calling him, they literally do the “no, YOU hang up thing” for seventeen lines because, well, you’re not going to stretch this out into a trilogy without some space filler! Did I mention this was the fastest-selling book of all time OH NO WHERE DID THIS NOOSE COME FROM
We cut to the next morning, with Ana and Kate installed in their new apartment. Over dinner, a package arrives from Christian, and Ana explains that he must have acquired their new address thanks to his “stalker-like” tendencies. Kate says she’s worried, and no fucking shit, because if some creep who made my best friend cry every time she saw him had acquired my address without talking to me or my roomate, I’d be freaking the fuck out and demanding he back off. But Kate is fine with it, because Christian sent good champage. So basically, get Kate good booze and she’ll forgive you for anything. I’d like to criticize her for this, but it’s way to close to the way I live my life, so…
Ana prepares to go see Christian, and when she gets there, she’s informed that the ob-gyn will be there the following day to get her on her new contraception. PSA: Don’t let anyone push you into changing your contraception. Sure, talk about it with your partner, but anyone who thinks it’s way cool to just inform their sex partner that they don’t like using condoms so they WILL go on the pill can suck an (unprotected) dick. Seriously, this creeps me out so much I can’t really articulate it.
She’s hungry, but not for food, and he gets angry at her for not eating, whatever whatever whatever, the ob-gyn arrives and Christian tells he he can’t way to see her naked. Oh, Fifty Shades of Grey, how I’ve missed you.
As you can see, the ads are for a protein shake product that helps with weight loss. Cool. Whatever. The problem arises from the caption; the idea that there is any specific kind of “beach body” is patently ridiculous. I have a beach body right now, in that I have a body and could go to the beach. I understand why there has been such a vociferous reaction (including a march scheduled for today), and I strongly believe that if you see something that you don’t like, you should have every right to stand up against it in whatever way is appropriate. I’m down with that, especially when you consider the fact that a) the advert seemed to be entirely aimed at women and b) was advertising meal replacement supplements in order to lose weight. While I think it’s pretty shit, and that some of the reactions to it have been justified, this is the kind of thing that would make me roll my eyes, make a mental note not to give this company any custom, and move on. But still, if you’re one of the people who tweeted about it, or wrote about it, or got angry about it, more power to you.
But basically, be prepared for a ridiculous backlash. Because not only will the head of the company refer to the critics of this advert as “terrorists”, but the brand ambassador will brush it aside as some “feminists letting off some bra-burning steam” as well as explaining to us clueless fatties that a size 16 is unequivocally unhealthy and that she relied on these protein shakes to get her beach body. Bloggers will start churning out thinkpieces that prove little beyond the fact that they know nothing about feminism. It’s frustrating, as a feminist, to watch hundreds of people screaming from the rooftops about how a number of people not liking an advert and not being afraid to say so means that modern feminism is pointless and hurtful, while throwing out body-shaming nonsense at people they think might not be totally down with this stupid fucking advert. If you want to shout about all feminists being fat cunts who are only jealous of the woman in the advert, you go ahead, but accept that you’re proving the point of the people who are protesting it. It’s Saturday, and I don’t want to spend all afternoon on a feminist rant, because I have movies to see and flats to clean. But what I do want to say is this: you’re more than welcome to go ahead and tweetbody-shamingnonsense at everyone who thinks these adverts are bullshit, but every time you do, you’re adding to the shitstorm that caused these ads to be a problem in the first place. If you really want those stupid feminist bitches to shut up about body shaming…stop body shaming.
Right, before I begin, I’m going to put a big fat Trigger Warning here for discussions or rape and sexual assault. Last chance to bail.
Right, okay, so I was catching up on the new series of Orphan Black last night, and I was enjoying it for being the stridently feminist, utterly ridiculous slice of sci-fi entertainment that I love so much. Then, at the beginning of the second episode, a sexual assault happened. I don’t want to give spoilers as this episode’s pretty recent, but suffice to say that a situation where consensual sex was happening was very quickly turned into one where one party had not agreed to the acts being initiated, and her lack of consent was ignored and caused further violence. The episode cuts to the next day, where the woman has reported her assault to the police and ducks into a cab, never to be seen again.
I’ve had huge, huge problems with the way that television portrays rape and sexual assault for a long time now, because so many shows have no clue as to how to depict them in a respectful way. For example, like the Orphan Black example above, The victim asks if she can have some kind of police protection, voicing her concern that the perpetrators will return and attempt to attack her again, then her violent assault basically is forgotten about so that the characters can focus on how her assault affects their story. The modestly feminist teen show Reign- about Mary, Queen of Scots- did it too, with the writer claiming that having her lead character get violently raped would lead to interesting character development for….Mary’s husband. Vikings has done it, when of their lead cast members was shown violently raping a woman to underline how bad he was. The Walking Dead rounded off last season with a domestic abuse storyline that was there to push forward Rick’s plot. Game of Thrones did it several times in the three seasons that I watched before ragequitting. These are just a few examples, and I’m sure you can think of many more off the top of your head.
And then, of course, you’ve got the other side of portraying rape; when a powerful female character is disempowered through rape or sexually assault. Game of Thrones did this with Cercei (and, more disturbingly, were reluctant to acknowledge that a scene in which a person says “no” to sex was actually rape); Sons of Anarchy did it with Gemma. Elizabeth in The Americans, Robin in Top of the Lake, Clare in House of Cards, even, arguably, Lagertha in Vikings, who is an immensley powerful character, is sexually assaulted. I’ve never quite got my head around why this is such a persistent trope- that when a strong, well-written, powerful female character gets a couple of series in, she’s often the victim of rape or assault. There’s a lot of arguments to be made for the reasons behind it, whether it’s an attempt to soften the hard edges of strong women to make them more palatable and pliable to viewers, that rape presents a shorthand for an interesting, emotional plot that is bizarrely specific to women (and therefore also erasing male assault and rape victims), that it’s a quick way to get across the fact that your show is edgy and adult. Whatever the reason, what I’m trying to say is that television- even television with great female characters- has real trouble depicting sexual assault and rape. Not just because they often seem to be employing it for the wrong reasons, but because they often refuse to acknowledge the effect that kind of event can have on someone’s life- rape, after all, can have a devastating impact on the lives of victims, as well as the nightmare many victims face trying to get justice.
So, television is bad at portraying rape and sexual assault. Television’s not meant to be real, so it’s no big deal, right? The problem is that we, as a society, have no fucking clue how to address rape and sexual assault. Whatever the gender of the victim, tacit victim blaming (what were you wearing? Had you been drinking? Were you leading them on? How much do you masturbate?) is a classic feature of the way we treat survivors of crimes like these. And that’s utter bullshit, and it makes me so angry that I can’t think straight. Every time a show fails to realistically portray rape and the impact it has on it’s victims, it’s missing out on the chance to fix something that the media is catastrophically failing at- whether it’s a Fox News anchor mourning the “poor boys” who had been convicted of the gang rape of an unconscious girl, or a talk show guest explaining the difference between date rape and, y’know, “real” rape. Television is pushing boundaries all over the place, taking on things that the rest of the media wouldn’t go near, and has some of the most grown-up, respectful, and interesting stories and characters you’ll find anywhere in fiction. But writers and directors are still flinching coming out of the gate in the way they portray rape- by othering it, by making it something that wouldn’t happen to someone like you, by refusing to show the impact it has on the lives of survivors. Come on, TV, don’t fail me now- you can do this, and more importantly, you should.
We booked up the tickets, we got a bit drunk beforehand, we piled into the cinema like a family of hamsters, clambering over each other until we were firmly settled for what was one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Not only was it the latest Marvel team-up movie, but it burst forth from the mind of demi-god Joss Whedon. At the very least, I was expecting to be entertained.
And, well, I was. Age of Ultron is certainly pretty far from being a boring movie (apart from the last twenty minutes, but we’ll get to that). It’s straining at the seams as it is with a main cast of five characters, but when you threw in all the set-up for future movies and all the plots and sub-plots (from The Vision to the Maximoff twins to FLASHBACKS) the film honestly felt a bit over-full. It was like Whedon was less writing a script than he was attempting to balance a bunch of plates on a single stick, every movement causing them to wobble precariously and threatening to send the whole thing crashing to the floor. I like that the film’s business meant than it didn’t have a second act lull or a major drop in pace, but the sheer overstuffed nature of the story meant that moments of emotional weight were a little bit lost in the fray. It left me a bit annoyed that we didn’t get to spend more time with some of the new characters because there were so many other things that we had to do first.
The cast themselves were as good as expected; I’ll always make a good case for Chris Hemsworth’s jovial, hilarious Thor as the best, but Captain America was a close second. As hinted at in the trailers, a subplot unfolds involving Black Widow and The Hulk, and it fell pretty flat for me, with a dearth of chemistry that apparently just couldn’t be helped. James Spader as Ultron was as utterly fantastic as I had hoped he would be, engulfing every line with a thick coating of venom and wit. There was far too little Maria Hill for my liking, although it was good to see another female superhero (Scarlet Witch, or Eyeliner Maximoff as I have dubbed her) appear in a Marvel movie because, you know, it’s probably difficult when they all get their periods at the same time. Women, amirite?
There’s not really a place for this comment anywhere else in the article, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quiksilver was on a par with Evan Peters in Days of Future Past, because they were both played in a totally different way. Both were excellent, and standouts in their movies.
I digress. The script was peppy as fuck, full of cheeky jokes and enough quips to overdose on (the finest came with Hawkeye trying to lift Thor’s hammer; “You’ve had a long week, Hawkeye, we understand if you can’t get it up”). In fact, by the third act, it might have been a bit too heavy-handed on the hilarity, pulling focus from the semi-serious shooty-shooty gun-gun bits so the Cap can spit out something else from between those perfect, perfect teeth. It felt at times like Ultron was more of a Joss Whedon film, with the meta-humour and whip-smart jokes, than it was an Avengers movie, which is probably why it felt like it was a little unsure of itself at times. A few sloppy holes in the script left it feeling a little bit like a first draft, which was a shame as it was clear that the script had been worked on and worked on and worked on until all the pieces fit together, but they just wouldn’t go.
And speaking of shooty-shooty gun-gun bits, I always seem to forget that Marvel movies are always building to a climatic frenzy of an action sequence that I always find kind of dull. It’s not that Joss Whedon didn’t direct it well, or that it wasn’t performed convincingly; it was that we’d spent the whole film watching stretched-out action sequence after stretched-out action sequence with some vague bits in between to get the plot moving; the plot was essentially abandoned in the third act in favour of totally forgettable orgies of destruction. Thinking back, most Marvel movies have had at least one really “woah” moment in their big action scenes- whether it’s Nick Fury in his car in The Winter Soldier, or, well, mostly all of any Thor film- but I was struggling to bring to mind any really “fuck me, this is amazing” moments from Ultron.
I knew what I was going in for, and Ultron mostly delivered. But it felt way too much like a step torwards the next sequence of movies as opposed to a movie in it’s own right- a stepping stone instead of a bridge. It was perfectly entertaining and, for that,I can’t fault it. But it was a little bit disappointing, after all the hype, to see a film that topped out at pretty good, not one that sporadically blew my mind like the first Avengers Assemble movie did. A popcorn movie, not a rewatch movie.
Look, I fucking hate Man of Steel. I fucking HATE Man of Steel. I’m not fan of Ben Affleck, and I’m not exactly warm to the idea of gritty reboots of reboots. But since I gave due attention to the Age of Ultron trailer (and quite enjoyed doing it) I’m going to stick with breaking down whichever superhero movie trailers seem the most brilliant or utterly shite. Where will Dawn of Justice fall on the scale? To the review! Read the rest of this entry »
You know something that really pisses me off? The whole “Do you believe in gender equality? Then you’re a feminist” angle. Now, I’m a feminist myself, and I reckon we need to re-evaluate the way we define feminists, and why we feel the need to put that label on them.
I have friends who are feminists and I have friends who are not. And I understand fully why people might not want to associate with feminism, especially now, with a toxic mush of Twitter screenshots and appallingly handled rape reportage feeding into the idea that feminism wants to make women victims and men villains, to strip women of any responsibility for their actions and cast every single man as a potential rapist. Even as a feminist myself, I look at what some of the bigger feminists (such as Jessica Valenti or Laura Bates) are saying, and don’t always agree with it. I can openly admit that sometimes feminists will target small issues, like someone wearing a slightly misjudged shirt, and hold them up as indicative or a larger problem, and that I don’t think that’s the best way to tackle the issue. But I associate myself with feminism because there are a large number of feminists I seriously respect- everyone from my own mother to Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the feminist collective who spearheaded the changing of rape laws in America to include male rape. By calling myself a feminist, I accept that I am both associating myself with the good side of the movement, and of the often more publicised bad side. And I’m happy with that.
But I’m also in no rush to force the label on anyone else. If you’re an egalitarian, fantastic. If you want to focus your efforts on dealing with gender-based problems that affect men, great. As long as you are actively working towards gender equality, and doing so with activism in the areas that mean most to you, you go for it. If you fight for the causes that mean most to you (and are not getting in the way of genuine gender equality by doing so), I’ve got no reason to try and foist the label that I’ve decided to go with on you. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s important that we encourage anyone passionate about gender equality to work alongside feminism, even if they don’t want to directly identify with it themselves, because by excluding people who do not go for the feminist moniker we’re cutting out the opportunity to absorb new experiences, new information, and new issues that help move towards gender equality into the movement.
I know a lot of people who are not feminists, but who are equally as passionate about gender equality as I am. They’ve come to an informed decision about what they choose to term themselves, and that’s fine by me. Proving the legitimacy of feminism doesn’t come down to how many people we can browbeat into actually calling themselves feminists; it comes down to how we as a movement can make steps towards gender equality, and how we can work with other people aiming for the same goal. And that’s the last I have to say on the matter.
Jane Lynch tho
The Cutprice Guignol 