The Cutprice Guignol

July 28, 2015

Doctor Who Recaps, Series 1, Episode 1: Rose

Doctor Who has been part of my life for ten years now. It started with the rebooted series, watched over dinner on a Sunday night, before Scrapheap Challenge and Time Team. It was my introduction to pop culture, in a lot of ways- the first show that I followed which had long-running, over-arching plots and real character development, it sparked a love affair with television that I still can’t see an end to. I started reviewing Doctor Who from season seven onward on this blog, I met my current boyfriend when he was dressed as Doctor Who (it as Halloween, to be clear, but it is basically his daily attire), and I still have handfuls of Doctor Who annuals tucked away at the back of my bookcase. So when it came time to pick something else to recap, there was only really one choice.

So I’m recapping New Who, from Ecclestone to Capaldi, right here, starting right now. My boyfriend/also a freelance writer will be blogging his recaps of the same episodes over at his blog, Red Whine (because he’s ginger and also a nightmarish whinge- I had a hand in the name), so you can compare and contrast our two very different attitudes to our favourite show-here’s a link to his review of this episode. It might cause us to break up, because we usually have to avoid talking about Doctor Who lest in cause another genuine row, but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make. For you. Faithful blog-readers. Oh, and if any of you have your own blogs and would like to join in with our recaps, please do-just drop me an email/tweet so I can link your reviews and let you know what the rough schedule is.

Whether you’ve watched the series before, or want to start watching it now, I’ll be trying to keep these posts spoiler-free (ish) and welcoming to those who don’t know the mythology of the show as well as I do. Which is maybe the nerdiest thing I’ve ever felt smug about. Seriously though, if you haven’t watched it, please come join me on watching at least the first series, because it’s awesome and you can spare forty minutes a week to awesome, can’t you?

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at season one, episode one- Rose.

Let’s get one thing straight: this is the best iteration of the theme song.

Right? Awesome. I’m glad we agree. Murray Gold wrote some incredible music for Who, but he didn’t beat this, and never will. Especially not with the bastardisation of the opening credits we’re subject to now (I’ll have you yet, Moffat). But let’s now think of how badly this show was going to let me down- let’s focus on how utterly bloody brilliant everything about the first series was.

I make no secret of the fact that Christopher Eccleston is my Doctor. Sometimes I get quite irrationally angry about the fact that he only had one season, and stomp around and curse things and bargain with the Gods to sacrifice the first half of season seven for another few episodes of Chris. And I think a huge part of it is his introduction in this episode- how could you NOT find him fascinating? The plot is a throwaway piece of nonsense, as the Doctor attempts to stop Autons (living plastic dummies) destroying the human race, used as a framing device to introduce the Doctor and fill in his backstory for viewers who don’t know who he is. I’m really fond of the way the show introduces him- leaning through a door, grabbing Billie Piper’s hand, and declaring “Run!”- but I’d forgotten just how good the detail was in this episode. Take, for example, the Doctor’s speech to Rose when she asks who he is:

” Do you know like we were saying, about the earth revolving? It’s like when you’re a kid, the first time they tell you that the world is turning and you just can’t quite believe it ’cause everything looks like it’s standing still. I can feel it…the turn of the earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. And I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world. And, if we let go… That’s who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.”

I WISH I COULD FORGET YOU

That’s some pretty heavy shit for kid’s TV. It’s a genuinely brilliant speech, and is filled out by an entertaining turn by Mark Benton as Clive, the conspiracy theorist obsessed with the Doctor who Rose contacts for more information. Though she writes him off as insane, he manages to explain his constant appearences through history, his apparent immortality, and his changing face, not to mention squeezing in the immortal line about the Doctor’s only constant companion being death, and I’m a little surprised my parents let me watch this considering what a terrifyingly hyperactive imagination I had (vis: When I was nine and first watching this episode, I had to get my Dad to turn it off before the Doctor even arrived because I found the Autons so scary. Now I just sit around watching The Human Centipede over dinner. Funny how things change). He’s equal parts witty (that “it’ll never work- he’s gay and she’s an alien” line is generally how I describe my relationship), cutting, compassionate and hard-edged (and bloody handsome to boot- just me?), and I love how sharp his scripting makes him. We’re given just enough of the Doctor to tantalise us, but when it comes down to it, this episode isn’t about him. It’s about Rose.

Never without twenty layers of mascara. Seriously, even in the scenes where she’s waking up.

Ah, Rose Tyler: England’s Rose, played by Billie Piper, a tween pop starlet who stars as the nineteen-year-old chav and best assistant ever (she’s since proved herself over again in stuff like Penny Dreadful, which you should have seen by now). The episode’s named after her, for Christ’s sake- this outing, and to an extent the whole series, is about her emotional journey. And the show really takes it’s time setting up her life, and the characters therein. I always really liked that Rose’s life wasn’t awful, just that average kind of dreary, because it would have been so easy to give her an awful boyfriend or an annoying family to escape from. But here, Noel Clarke (who’s BAFTA speech is one of the things that inspired me to take up writing, so thanks for that, mate) as Mickey and Camille Coduri as my MILF-Goddess Jackie are just people, people that you know, people that you work with. They’re played with amazing warmth by both the actors (Camille Coduri’s delivery of “There’s a strange man in my bedroom…anything could happen” is up there in my top ten moments of the series, and Noel Clarke and Billie Piper have a really believable chemistry). Their normality isn’t bad, necessarily, but, when offered the chance to escape, Rose takes it. Because we all would.

Camille Coduri: making nine-year-old girls feel funny feelings since 2005.

And there’s the best part about this episode. The assistant has always been an audience surrogate, but she’s never been more relatable than Rose. Because Rose is living a completely unremarkable life, a moderately satisfying existence that doesn’t really lead to anything of note, as many of us are (or secretly believe we are). So when she’s offered the chance to change everything and travel through time and space in a blue box, of course she says yes. By inviting her along on this adventure, the Doctor (and by extension the show) is inviting the audience, too. And by God, I defy anyone to turn down a trip in the Tardis after this belter of an opening. Join us next week (maybe) for episode two, The End of the World, and maybe a bit less pretension, if I’m feeling generous.

Oh shit, Rose is younger than I am now in this episode. I want to kill myself. I’ll have you yet, Davies.

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July 25, 2015

Final Fifty Shades of Grey Recap: Chapter Twenty-Six

So here we are: the end. Yes, it’s the final chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey, and my last recap on the topic of EL James’ soul-destroying series. I started these recaps over a year ago, and I wondered, in the few weeks leading up to this moment, if I would miss my weekly adventures into serial abuse, coercion, and bad sex. And, much as I’ll miss all the awesome readers who came along on this journey with me, the answer is no. I’ll be officially evicting Fifty Shades from my bedside table, and putting it in it’s rightful place: the back of the bookshelf, where no-one can ever find it. It’s where every copy of this book belongs.

When I started this book, I was living in a shared flat, distantly out of town, and just halfway through my university career. Now, I’ve got my own place, a job where I get to write porn all day, and a cat of my own- as well as an ordinary degree. My life has improved drastically over the course of these recaps, but that had nothing to do with EL James’ talent.

Let me make one thing clear here: my opinion of the book has not changed in the course of doing this recap. This is a piece of thinly-veiled plagiarism, written with an embarrassing lack of flair, that glorifies and romanticises abuse because the author is too stubborn or too stupid to acknowledge that it’s there. The writing is dire, but the message is worse and, while there seems to be a stronger backlash against the books than way I started, a new instalment to the series was released and we’ve got another two movies to come yet. This cultural behemoth doesn’t stop going, and that’s powerfully depressing. The best we can do is to keep talking about it, keep pointing out the dangerous messages it sends to both women and men, and force EL James and her defenders to admit to the fact that they’re part of a culture that victimises and blames women for their abuse, while telling men that this kind of treatment is expected and desired.

Okay. Come on. One more time.

Chapter twenty-six opens with Ana waking up to Christian playing the piano, and it’s exactly the same as when this scene was in this book before. Remember?

Christian is moody and bitchy, etc, and Ana wants to know why he’s not asleep. Well, that’s because some dick is playing piano in the middle of the night and keeping everyone awake. Tosser. Christian decides he wants to fuck, and Ana suggests that they talk instead, to which he’s like “LOL no I like my idea better.” I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it again: sexual agency, who needs it?

Ana says she needs some things straightening out, and he asks what needs straightening. She replies that the two of them do. Sorry if I’m wrong, but the two of you seem like the most stereotypically fucking straight people in the world. Hey, we even get that latent homophobia that comes through later in the series, and in Christian’s POV! So no, you guys don’t need “straightening out.” Unless it’s on a rack. That I get to adjust.

Muppet Treasure Island is one of my all-time favourite movies.

She asks about the contract, and he’s says that it’s moot. Well, he says that, and then this happens:

“”So let me be clear. You want me to follow the Rules electment of the contract all the time but not the rest of the contract?”

“Except in the playroom. I want you to follow the spirit of the contract in the playroom, and yes, I want you to follow the Rules- all the time. Then I know you’ll be safe, and I can have you any time I wish.””

This gif is the only clue regarding my next set of recaps.

So- wait, what? I went back to look at the Rules section (I’m pretty sure they’re all rules, but okay), and that involved control over her food, her clothes, her exercise routine, her personal hygiene habits and her “obedience”- ie, her consent to do anything, whenever he wants it, without questions. So…just all the stuff that she objected to? What the fuck even is this? Some kind of joke? The contract is still in play, she just hasn’t actually signed it so EL James can give her SOME semblance of personal autonomy? Does EL James even know what she wrote in her OWN DAMN BOOK?!

Oh, except they score food off the list now, so I guess that means everything’s different? Even though Christian will try to control what she eats within four chapters of the next book. Ana rolls her eyes, and Christian’s erection just about explodes out of his pants as he tells her that he has to spank her now. He doesn’t ask for her consent, even are she tells him that he’ll “have to catch” her first, and runs away. Because someone trying to escape you is exactly what enthusiastic consent is, right, EL?

She tells him that she has no intention of letting him catch her, and he just tells her that it’ll be “worse” when he does catch her. Seriously, I think this is supposed to read as playful, because Ana refers to herself as a child (boke) during this sequence, but it’s gross, because he doesn’t give a shit if she’s playing or not. He wants to spank her, so he will. He says it seems like she doesn’t want him to do it, and she replies:

“I don’t. That’s the point. I feel about punishment the same way you feel about touching.”

And, well, that just puts Christian in his place, doesn’t it? He gets all sad and ashen, and Ana immediately backtracks in her head, scolding herself with “it can’t be that bad, can it?”. He asks if she really hates it that much, and she’s like “I feel ambivalent about it. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it.” Which…is not how you’ve felt for the rest of the book. Once again, has EL even aware of events that happened earlier in the story? Where Ana cried her eyes out because Christian “assaulted” her? Where Ana thought about their BDSM encounters as a matter of survival? Thank fuck there’s only a few pages left. Thank FUCK. Because this shit is so painfully inconsistent, so stupidly badly put-together, that sometimes I just want to give up writing forever and kill myself. If this is what people want, I will never be able to do this to them, because I was raised on the old-school, out-of-date methods like “character consistency” and “a coherent plot.”

Ana tells him that she’s worried that he’ll hurt her, and that she does the BDSM for him. Now, if Christian were a good dom, this would be a huge red flag- the only reason anyone should be doing BDSM is for themselves, and someone- especially someone as romantically and sexually inexperienced as Ana- admitting that she does it for him is a no-no. But, of course, Christian ignores that, and tells her that he needs it, but he can’t tell her why he needs it, because he’s a needy fourteen-year-old emo kid whose trying to write Fall Out Boy lyrics, I presume. He kisses her, and begs her to stay, telling her that she said she would in her sleep so she can’t go back on her word. See above re: needy emo kid. Speaking of:

I don’t give a shit about trying to make these gifs relevant anymore, I’m in too deep and I just want to look at Gerard Way. Also, Ellie: this is for you, for reading these recaps from the start. You’re the REAL hero.

Ana wants to make him happy, so she tells him to show her how bad it can get. If her comments about doing it for Christian weren’t worrying enough, this is ANOTHER big red flag that Ana is not in an emotionally healthy place to be doing BDSM with Christian. She believes that it’s the only way to save their relationship, which she believes is the only way to keep him happy, which is the only thing she cares about, which is a super, super unhealthy way to live. She’s just told him outright that she wants to push her limits, but not in a fun, sexy way, only because she wants to satisfy his need. She LITERALLY JUST SAID that BDSM didn’t fulfill anything in her, and yet he STILL thinks this is a good idea. There are a lot of people who will use the fact that Ana didn’t use the safeword as “proof” Christian didn’t know what emotional damage he was inflicting, but there were hundreds of signifiers leading up to that moment that any dom- hell, any decent person- would see as a red flag coming from their sexual partner. Heads up, folks: if the person you’re sleeping with tells you over and over again that they’re only doing certain acts because you like them, and that they actively dislike them and feel bad doing them, DON’T DO THOSE THINGS. DON’T. DO. THEM.

Moriarty: still a more considerate lover than Christian. Probably.

Christian takes her to the playroom, and bends her over a bench thingy. And then he gets a belt. Hold up, a fucking belt? Of all the things to hit her with, that seems particularly painful, especially after she’s said over and over how much she only does this for him. Then he starts to hit her. Let’s pick some choice segments from this upcoming bit, shall we?

“I desperately scrabble around my psyche looking for internal strength.”

“Tears spring unwelcome to my eyes…he’s not holding anything back.”

“The belt bites me again, and tears are streaming down my face.”

“My voice is more a choked, strangled sob, and I think I hate him.”

Legit reaction to this page.

Do these sound like the thoughts of someone having a fulfilling sexual experience? No. As anyone who’d been paying any fucking attention to her previous reactions, she doesn’t like being hit, and beating her with a belt isn’t going to change that. And Christian, once again, should be reading her reactions- she’s crying, she can barely talk, and when she does, she describes it as a “scream”. These should be tip-offs that get him to check in and see if she’s doing okay, even if she hasn’t used the safeword. I don’t think I should have to explain that, if your partner is weeping openly because you’re involving them in your fetish, maybe fucking don’t.

NOW THERE’S A FIFTY SHADES FANFICTION THAT WOULD ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE

Ana storms off, and thinks about how Christian tried to warn her about this- about how he wasn’t normal, because BDSM is a sympton of being mentally unwell, right? She thinks about how she never wants him to hit her like that again, and refers to him as “Fifty Shades” twice in a page, which would make me laugh if my mouth were not set into a hard line. Christian comes through, and apologises for hurting her, and she replies, I swear, “I asked for it.” Because, as we all know, if a man has coerced a woman into doing what he likes with NDAs and abuse and contracts and the withholding of emotional intimacy, and she finally agrees to do it so she can please him, it’s her fault and not his.

So they talk, and Christian says they should break up, and Ana loses her ever-loving shit, referring to it as an “unfolding tragedy”. Remember how they’ve been dating, like three weeks? Yeah. Her world is now “sterile ashes”, all her hopes and dreams “cruelly dashed”, because Ana never wanted anything more than to be trapped in an abusive relationship with a slightly kinky billionaire, right?

Ana collects her things, thinks how hot Christian is again, and then…IT’S OVER! SHE’S GONE! THE BOOK IS DONE! SHE LEAVES THE APARTMENT AND, IN MY HEAD, REMAINS BROKEN UP FROM HIM FOREVER HURRAH!

Fuck everything.

Thank you to everyone who’s joined me for these recaps- you can read them all from the start in the blog directory, above. Despite the awfulness, it’s been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to starting my next recapping adventure with you all.

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July 23, 2015

Sense8 is Bloody Excellent

Look, let’s get one thing straight: I think Sense8 is a great show. But I’d be doing you a disservice, as a noted cultural critic, by not mentioning Freema Aygeman in it.

Ugh. You might remember Aygeman as Martha Jones from series three of Doctor Who, where she displayed a similairly staggering lack of acting talent. I know some things are down to taste, and some people prefer different acting styles and what have you, but I defy anyone to look me in the eye and tell me this woman can act. She’s an infuriating black hole of talent, a gaping maw of awfulness that threatens to engulf the entire show in it’s wake. She’s stilted, her accent is hilarious, her character impossible to buy into, her chemistry with the cast almost non-existent. It’s genuinely difficult to look at the screen when she’s on it, because she’s that astoundingly, unwatchably terrible. And I can’t pretend that she’s not part of the show. So, fair warning: don’t think I’m giving her a free pass just because she lucked on to Netflix’s most interesting show to date.

Read the rest of this entry »

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July 20, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps: Chapter Twenty-Five

Oh God, dear readers. The second-last chapter. Prepare your champagne and party hats: the end is almost here. And I’m going to need you when this is over. There is light at the end of the tunnel, even if that light is a copy of Fifty Shades Darker holding a torch.

FREEZEFRAME!

Chapter twenty-five opens with Ana saying goodbye to her mum and her stepdad at the airport, where Ana’s mother spews a series of sentences that would sound okay by themselves, but read kind of creepy one after the other.

“Relax and enjoy yourself. You are so young, sweetheart. You have so much of life to experience yet, just let it happen. You deserve the best of everything.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the dying ramblings of a malfunctioning mum-bot who’s about to murder her human charge to me. Ana gets on the plane, and thinks about how Christian’s mother didn’t love him (because drug addicts sign away their capacity for love when they first spark up, apparently), then thinks how she “needs Christian Grey to love [her]”. And yeah, falling in love is often intense, that statement is grim when put next to Christian’s horrible push-pull of abuse. She thinks about how wrong the sex Christian had with his mother’s friend was, but because of the BDSM and not because of the, y’know, statutory rape. Oh, EL, how I will desperately not miss these recaps when they’re over. Anyone who wants my copy of the book (full disclosure: I once used it to put out a dropped cigarette end so there’s a burn on the front cover) when this is done is welcome to it. No, seriously.

You know, despite my love for Brad Pitt, Greek mythology, and handsome men in scanty armour, I’ve never seen this movie.

Christian and Ana email some more, and she thinks that he sounds tetchy, not like his normal “witty, pithy” self. Name one time in these books when he has been those things. One. Time.

Ana arrives back in Whereversville, and Christian’s bodyguard Taylor is there to pick her up. Ana internally scandalizes herself by remembering that he once bought her underwear. That time Christian took her back to his while she was unconscious, remember? According to Taylor, “the situation” is what’s keeping Christian busy. Ana rides up to Christian’s apartment in the lift, and “a thousand butterflies stretch their wings and flutter erratically in my stomach”, because EL James wants you to know she understands how metaphors work. I wish there were actually bugs inside Ana, and she was being ripped apart from the outside as she tried to complete a task against the clock.

+10 Saw reference!

Ana arrives in his apartment, and Christian kisses her, and words like “painfully”, “alarming,” and “What the hell?” appear in her inner monologue. Hot. They fuck in the shower, and it’s utterly unsexy and the writing contains gems like “the invading, punishing, heavenly sensation”, which is kind of how I imagine eating a giant hotdog would feel.

Ana tells him that she’s got a job, and he asks her where. When she’s reluctant to answer, he replies “I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your career.” Spoiler alert: he buys the company she works for. Against her will. Christian wants to shower Ana, and this occurs:

“The water is practically scalding. Christian grins down at me as the water cascades over him.

“It’s only a little hot water.”

And actually he’s right. It feels heavenly […]”

I LIKE SERIES THREE OF MISFITS GOSHDARNIT

Now THAT’s a logical disconnect. The water is too hot, until Christian decides that it’s fine. Man, this is some creepy codependent shit right here. And now I have the image of them shitting codependently. Eugh. They fuck again, but there’s a section break before we actually get to the nasty bits. Cut to them at the breakfast bar, confusingly having just finished dinner. Christian tells her that he wants to take her to the playroom, and that he’s purchased clothes for her and he doesn’t want to hear any complaints about it. Remember when they were discussing the contract, and Ana was like” The thought of your buying me clothes makes me feel like a prostitute, and I don’t like it?” Guess who gives no fucks about that?

She goes to look at the clothes, then the chapter jumps to her, naked except for her underwear, in the playroom. So…all this talk of clothes had nothing to do with what he wanted her to wear in the playroom, and everything to do with wanting to control what she wore in her day-to-day life? Remember how there are still people arguing that Christian is a great dominant? Yeah. Because a lot of the stuff Ana objected to- the clothes, controlling what she eats, and not getting enough space- has been steamrollered over, explicitly or implicitly.

Christian stalks around a bit, and Ana thinks about how hot he is yada yada. Christians reminds her of her safewords, and she thinks “what has he got planned that I need safewords?” To which the answer is: BDSM. Most BDSM has safewords, in case the sub wants to stop the scene for any reason, including emotional or physical strain. He puts headphones on her, and she hopes he isn’t going to put on rap music. I’m taking suggestions for the best rap music to fuck to, because that’s a music-themed fanfic I WILL write.

You’ve seen everything in this scene before; there’s nuzzling, pigtails, murmuring, breathing on skin, etc. My favourite bit comes as Christian is doing some mild sensation play by moving a whip across Ana’s skin, and then says, “Most of the fear is in your mind.”

Christian touches Ana with various fabrics while he plays her a choral hymn (why tho), and Ana thinks about what a “dark carnal” place she’s entered. This is about as fucking dark as Teletubbies. He starts licking her, and his tongue arrives at “the junction of [her] thighs.” Which means he’s performing cunninlingus, for anyone who’s not mortally afraid of sex. They fuck, and every other sentences is followed by an ellipses so it just reads as Ana having a heart attack as Christian pounds her. They finish, and Ana asks what music she was listening to. It was a Thomas Tallis piece, and you can listen to it here:

Lovely, isn’t it? Thought not really the beat for fucking to, I’d think. They laugh about how Ana said she’d never leave in her sleep, and how they’re both bad joke-tellers, which I can fucking attest to. Christian decides than Ana is hiding something, and resolves to beat it out of her. And that’s it- the last Fifty Shades review will be up later this week, a post that will also contain details of my next recapping adventure! Stay tuned, folks- we can do this.

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July 18, 2015

On Offensive Humour

You can’t work in the media these days without being tripped up by people making, protesting against, or apologising for offensive jokes. Whether it’s Frankie Boyle joking about how lucky the late Jade Goody’s husband was now that she had passed, to Jimmy Carr saying that he blamed Reeva Steenkamp for her own shooting, to Rickey Gervais suggesting that an overweight woman walking down the street eating chips should be sterilised. It’s comedy’s business to make the unthinkable thinkable and to tackle subjects that we might feel uncomfortable about tackling in our day-to-day lives. And I get that. I don’t think comedians and other entertainers should be forced to stop making jokes that offend people, because then all we’re left with is the kind of half-hearted comedic mush that doesn’t offend anyone, but doesn’t entertain anyone either.

But what really irks me about offensive humour is how protective people are about it. Let’s take, for example, the big shitstorm that surrounded comedian Daniel Tosh a couple of years back. After a woman in the audience protested his take on rape jokes always being hilarious, he replied with ” “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like, right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”. He apologised, but the incident turned out to be the comedy’s Helen of Troy, the comment that launched a thousand thinkpieces. There were people defending his right to make rape jokes, there were people arguing that the gang-rape of a random woman was not fair game to joke about, but there were also a lot of people screaming into the void on social media and other platforms: “Get over yourself. Get a sense of humour. Loosen up. Stop being so uptight/feminist/sensitive.” These comments were coming from comedy fans and comedians alike, and those are the people I want to address.

Look, I love comedy. Who doesn’t? I watch a lot of it on television, and I watch a lot of stand-up .I think a big part of the problem that comes with making offensive jokes is that people forget the point of near-the-knuckle humour. And therein lies the rub: often, when I don’t find an offensive joke funny, it’s because I just don’t think it’s funny. It’s not because I’m too busy rushing for the smelling salts to eke out a grin, it’s because simply having someone yell an inane statement about a touchy topic in my face doesn’t make me laugh. People who defend these kind of comments seem to forget that it’s the comedian’s job to make me laugh, not my job to find them funny.

Take the best rape joke in the world, told by Louis CK: “I’m not condoning rape, obviously. You should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” This is a joke that actually has some thought behind it; by presenting the unbelievably stupid and simplistic reasoning behind the act of rape, he’s making the rapist look like an idiot. He’s doing more than pointing at someone and shouting “HAHA YOU SHOULD BE RAPED!” (interestingly, CK tweeted his support to Daniel Tosh during the furore, so make of that what you will). That’s what makes it funny. I’m not saying that everyone in the world should fall in line with my sense of humour, just that writing off our ability to laugh because we don’t think the very concept of gang-rape (or whatever “edgy” topic the comedian has taken on in this week’s controversy) is hilarious.

Because a lot of people seem to think that the offensive topic itself is what makes the humour intelligent. I’ve written before about Family Guy and it’s complete failure to say anything new about controversial topics, even as it visibly pats itself on the back for addressing them. Identifying a touchy topic and immediately adopting the stance that is least socially acceptable for it’s target audience is pretty shallow humour, as it rarely says anything about the topic at hand.

Really, what I’m saying is this: if you’re keen to go down the offensive humour route, try and actually say something. Because when comedians blurt out something akin to the comment Daniel Tosh made, they’re often not being half as edgy as they think they are. You can find them all over your screens: Family Guy having a character throw up for thirty seconds straight after he realizes that he’s been in contact with a transgender woman, or Trevor Noah tweeting about how fat women are grateful for the weekend because then people will get drunk enough to find them attractive, or Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner laughing about how Black Widow is a slut. These kinds of jokes, and hundreds like them, the kind that skewer people who society has done a really good job of skewering already, aren’t so much pushing boundaries as they are falling in with the party line. Now, I’m not saying that means they shouldn’t be allowed to exist, or that no-one should find them funny, but rather the people who crack these kind of jokes shouldn’t be held up as pantheons of forward-thinking, ground-breaking comedy, when they’re doing nothing that dares undermine the status quo.

And that’s where the problem with offensive comedy lies, at least for me. It provides a safety blanket for comedians and entertainers who are too belleigerent or arrogant or whatever else to accept that maybe, just maybe, their audience does get the joke, but it’s just not that funny.

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July 12, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps: Chapter Twenty-Four

You know that I only have two chapters of this abusive shitfest to go? And then it’s over? Do you have any idea how happy that makes me? You couldn’t possibly. I have never been as happy as I was when I realized that. So without further ado, let’s get this shitshow on the road.

The chapter opens with Ana having a dream about Christian feeding her, because she has a super fucked-up relationship to food. She wakes to find Christian wanting to go gliding with her, just like in that one dumb shot the Fifty Shades trailer showed over and over again. Ana asks if they have to leave so early, and Christian tells her that they do, and she asks if she can shower first, and Christian tells her that she can’t because he’ll be forced to have sex with her. So, that’s Ana’s backbone out of the way for this chapter.

Christian ponces about a bit, then him and Ana get in the car where he’s playing music from La Traviata. When Ana asks where she’s heard that name before, she realizes that she read the book it’s based on because she’s an agonisingly pretentious cunt. Seriously, these books have the idea that if you know lots about cultured crap, then you instantly get a pass on knowing how to act like a fucking decent human being. Because intellectuals like us can’t be expected to mix well with the lower classes. Right? Right?

Ana changes the song to Toxic by Britney Spears, and Christian is like “Oh b-t-dubz my ex put that on my iPod lol”. They get talking about his exes, and Ana once again manages to be a little bit xenophobic (talking about how “foreign” her name sounds, and conjuring up an image of a stereotypically hot European vamp) and incorrectly identify his molestor as his lover.

They arrive at an airfield and go gliding together, after Christian tells her that he wants “more” with her. It’s anal sex he’s talking about, I guarantee it. This is an erotic novel after all, and not just one where the characters scoot around in gliders, ri-

Ugh. They fly around a bit, Ana thinks about how she’s Icarus soaring close to the sun because if EL can do one thing, it’s beat a thematic element over the head till it’s got brain damage, then they land and Christian’s like “Was it more?” and Ana replies “Much more.” Which it isn’t, really, because they just flew around a bit. Nothing has been resolved. No-one has committed to anyone else. It’s just…gliding. EL James, once again, politely explains to us that her characters are in love, and she shouldn’t have to spend any time actually showing it because that would be gauche. Ugh, even for this book, that was stupidly pointless. I’m already regretting ruining my Sunday by reading this crap.

They go to IHOP-

Fooooood poooooooorn.

Christian casually suggests they fuck in the restaurant, but then a waitress comes over and gets flustered by “Mr Handsome”, which is about the lazily pet name ever. Honestly, I have seen some handsome men in my time, and I don’t think I’ve ever been genuinely flustered by any of them. How good-looking does someone have to be for your brain to go “HOLD THE FUCK UP, WE NEED TO PROCESS THIS AT THE EXPENSE OF YOUR ABILITY TO SPEAK AND ACT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON”?

They flirt some more in front of the poor waitress, then get breakfast. Ana asks Christian what he wants, and he tells her that he wants her to be a submissive in the playroom, but everything else is up for negotiation. Ana says that she was scared he would leave if he didn’t agree to everything, and he says that he’s not going anywhere, much to my dissapointment. Ana offers to pay for breakfast, and this happens:

“”I don’t think so,” he scoffs.

“Please. I want to.”

He frowns at me.

“Are you trying to completely emasculate me?””

I LOVE it when my man is too much of a little bitch to let me pay for dinner. That’s how you know he AIN’T NO LADY.Christian takes her back to her mother’s, and Ana wonders why she wants to spend so much time to him. She surmises that it’s because she’s in love with him, and he can fly, both of which are incorrect. If the only way you can fly is if you’re in a glider, and the only way you can trick a woman into loving you is through emotional manipulation, you ain’t much of a catch in my eyes.

They email back and forth about how much of a gentleman he is,then we get to spend some time developing the relationship between Ana and her mother to give us a better look into the familial bonds that influenced Ana’s vulnerable personality. Oh, shit, no we breeze straight by that and on to Christian. Ana gets a job at a publishing company, and calls Christian to tell him. He says he has to fly back to Seattle because of a situation, which means that his wife has finally figured out what he’s been doing all these weekends away from home (I kid, but wouldn’t that make a maaaajorly more interesting story than this one?). They email back and forth some more about how much they like each other, and Christian evades her questions once more before sending her off to bed. And-hey, the chapter’s done? Only a few more pages to go, my sweets! Stick with me till the end of July, when this whole beautiful mess will be over and we can be together at last.

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July 11, 2015

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice Comic-Con Trailer

So, with Comic-Con taking place over this weekend, I’ll be putting up a few trailer reviews for the teasers that tantalise me the most. Let’s kick things off with a look at Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, whose latest trailer was released today. You can read my impressively underwhelmed reaction to the last trailer here.

0:01: This is three minutes forty seconds long? What will there be left to show in the cinema?

0:15: “Oh, so I’m heading out to a protest about how I’m an abomination? BETTER WEAR THE FULL SUPERMAN OUTFIT, DON’T WANT ME SLIPPING BY UNNOTICED”.

0:21: That cape is not suitable court attire. I should know. Don’t ask how.

0:26: BRUCEFLECFK!

0:31: He looks pretty cool, but I will defend Christian Bale’s louche charm as Bruce Wayne to the death. He might not have been the best Batman, but he was the best iteration of his alter-ego.

0:40: Running dramatically into dust! Hugging children! This really is a Ben Alfeck Batman, isn’t it?

1:00: He just doesn’t look right. I’m willing to be disproven about this when I’m strongarmed into watching this movie, but he looks like an aloof dad that I would have had a crush on in high school.

1:10: I love it when a trailer tries to stylistically interesting and just renders every shot too dark to watch. I LOVE IT.

1:16: YUS LARRY FISHBURNE! If you haven’t been watching him in Hannibal, you should have been watching him in Hannibal. Unf, his voice is what salted caramel desserts would sound like if they could talk.

1:17: I don’t like the fact that I’d consider paying to see this movie just to look at Henry Cavill for a couple of hours either, but here we are.

1:29: Every time Superman appears onscreen in full garb, my mind wanders away to wondering when someone’s going to adapt Red Sun as an awesome TV miniseries. I would never stop watching that.

1:36: I think whenever Henry Cavill leaves the house, he’s surrounding by people trying to touch him, just like in this shot.

1:50: Fuck tho, Jesse Eisenberg looks amazing. He’s absolutely one of my favourite actors around at the moment, and I can’t wait to see him play a bad guy. Note: Go watch The Double, starring Jesse Eisenberg(s), because you like to use words like “dynamic” and “stylised” to describe movies the same way I do.

2:02: That’s a Joker reference, and I will be purchasing out an entire cinema just to fully appreciate that moment on the big screen.

2:13: It would be hilarious if someone recut this with the Adam West Batman in place of Batfleck. I’m not saying you should spend all of tomorrow doing it when you should be working; I’m just saying.

2:33: GUNS! SCREAMING CHILDREN! COFFINS! FIRE! DID ZACK SNYDER MENTION HE’S AVAILABLE FOR WORK?

2:37: If you squint, you can make out the moment everyone remembered that Wonder Woman was in this movie. Wonder Woman in a Xena cosplay, that is.

2:44: No-one will admit that the outfits look hilariously silly against the serious backdrop, but we all know somewhere in our hearts that it’s true.

2:51: Jesse Eisenberg has young Heath Ledger hair, and you do not want to remind me of The Dark Knight, Snyder. You’re on a knife edge.

3:02: All of that was good because Jesse Eisenberg, and my distraction over wondering if metal-plated underwear would rust.

3:08: Jesse Eisenberg looks SO GOOD, but then I did see Man of Steel. Fool me once, DC. Fool me once.

3:25: OMG THE LOGO IS SUPERMAN’S S INSIDE THE BAT SYMBOL IT’S A METAPHOR YOU GUYS BATMAN EATS HIM INB4

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July 7, 2015

On Body Image

Spot the cat in this picture.

This is a picture of me, ready to brace the heat and cold summer showers that have been inflicted on my city for the last week. It’s also one of the first full-body pictures of myself I’ve associated with in the last year and a half, because I don’t want people to see my body.

There’s a lot of reasons that that statement makes me angry. After all, it doesn’t matter what I look like: my friends will still drink with me and laugh at my godawful puns; my family will not disown me (probably), and the people who employ me will not want to hire me any less based on what I look like. I’m a feminist, and know that the idea that people should be ashamed of the way they look is a cruel, pointless, horrible thing. As a pop culture addict, I understand that the general size and shape of women in the media differs from my own, and that’s where many of my preconceptions about what I should look like come from. I can rationalise these thoughts, but they don’t mean a thing when I catch myself at a bad angle in the mirror and run off to do a bunch of sit-ups because my stomach looks disgusting. Things came to a head last week when I replaced my Evan-Rachel-Wood-in-lingerie screensaver to something that wouldn’t make me loathe myself, because I felt so shitty looking at her slender legs and perfect body. And when my weight problems interfere with my ability to letch over beautiful women who I may or may not be in love with, we’ve got a problem.

It’s doubly ironic, too, because right now I am healthier than I have been in ages- I quit smoking, I exercise every day, and I attempt to eat what my insane appetite will deem a reasonable diet. Two years ago, I was a lot slimmer, because I was eating small amounts of crap in between partying so hard I woke up on the floor or the ladies’ bathroom more than once. I might have been a train-wreck healthwise, but I could fit into a UK size 8 and that was all that I cared about. Then, at the start of last year, I started putting on weight, and went up to a size 12and ever since then I’ve been grappling with the stupidly time-consuming act of hating the way I look.

I think the most irritating part is holding the feminist side of my brain and the body-concious side of my brain in tandem with one another. Because the feminist side of my brain tells me that it doesn’t matter what people look like, that it’s not my buisness to judge them or treat them any differently because of their weight- things I know to be true. And then there’s the other side, which tells me stuff like “well, at least you’re not as big as her” or “she’s just too skinny” so I momentarily don’t feel quite as shit about my own size. But that makes me feel even worse, because I don’t want to be the kind of person who can only be happy with their body if they’re comparing it favourably to someone else’s. That’s gross, and it’s a side of myself I try to shut off whenever I can. I want to celebrate other women, not throw myself back into competition with them, but that’s how body-shaming makes us relate to one another; as targets to be beaten, not actual human beings.

But then, I’m often unsurprised that I’m as self-concious as I am about my weight gain, considering the way we treat people who don’t fit the perscribed beauty mould. Take Colleen McCullogh, neurophysicist, best-selling author, and Yale medical researcher, who’s obituary opened with a jibe about her weight: “Plain of feature and certainly overweight…”. Christ, if a woman as accomplished as her can be reduced down to her size despite all her achievements, what the hell can I be remembered for? “Freakishly small of mouth and thundery of thigh…”. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you the pervasiveness of the ideal body type across all media, because we’re all bombarded from it at all angles: in magazines, on television, in movies, online…all I’m saying is that if a bunch of us were asked to describe the perfect body, it’s striking how similar our answers would sound.

And that’s the worst thing about having body image problems: it’s so fucking dull. Everyone has issues with their body, no matter what they might be, because we’re constantly told that you need to look a certain way to be successful and loved and admired. And as long as I continue telling myself that it’s bullshit- that I can look however I want, and I will not stop being the person I am right now-maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to re-instate that Even Rachel Wood screensaver.

I’m genuinely curious to hear: how do you feel about your body? It’s a question we don’t hear an honest answer too all that much, for fear of coming across as arrogant or insecure, but here’s your chance. Tweet me, comment on this article, and let me know about your relationship to the way you look.

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July 5, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps: Chapter 23

I’m writing this on the day of a catastrophic hangover, born from my fucking terrible decision to drink vodka last night. And as I was hunched over the toilet for several hours this afternoon, hurling up the half-digested contents of my guts, I realized that I hadn’t been near some other half-digested content in quite a while.

Let’s be real: Matthew Morrison is a super-talented actor in a god-awful role. Back to Broadway for you, my sweet.

Yes, after Grey came out (I recapped most of the book here), I was honestly so disheartened on the subject of Fifty Shades that I couldn’t be fucked going near it for a while. I’ve also been working on huge, staggering piles of my own erotica (and if you want me to write erotica for you, fucking do it, because I’m great) and was terrified that some of EL James’ anti-talent might rub off on me. Then the amazing #askELJames tag happened on Twitter- they were all great, but one that simply asked, with no question mark, “have u ever had sex” still makes me chuckle. And I realized it’s my sworn duty to keep taking the piss out of this woman and her work for as long as I live/can be bothered with it. So we’re back, and we’re picking straight back off as Ana realizes that Christian stalked her across the country after she specifically asked for space. Because that’s a really, really good way to not make me want to carve things out of my skin.

So, Ana just got a text from Christian asking her how much she’s planning on drinking, and Ana has figured out that he’s not just in the area, but in the same fucking bar as her and her mum. I find this quite funny, because my mum was up from Italy this week (just a stopover till she moves to Myammar because- say it with me- my parents are on a gap year), and if my boyfriend had tried to lurk enigmatically around bars that we were in she’d have told him to go fuck himself and set me up with that nice boy from her work she’s always talking about (there’s always a nice boy at her work).

Ana thinks that she’s “neglected to mention Christian’s stalker tendencies” to her mother, and it’s hard not to remember all those times fans of the book have been like “OMG he never stalks her!!!111one!!” when it LITERALLY SAYS SO IN THE TEXT YOU IMBECILES. So this is how far we’ve made it into the chapter without EL James proving herself or her fans wrong:

Covering up most of my hungover visage.

Christian comes over, and Ana notes how angry she is, before she gives up on that because that might make from some interesting characterisation. Christian knows Ana’s mum’s name, because he’s a fucking creep who stalks her (as we discovered in the illuminating second chapter of Grey which is, lest we forget, just pages of the PI report he got on Ana and every aspect of her life). Ana’s mum gawks at him, and Ana scolds her to “get a grip”, which is kind of pot-kettle-black when you consider the fact that Ana literally squirts every time she considers his existence.

Ana asks what he’s doing there, and apparently he’s thrown off-guard. She thinks about how thrilled she is to see him, but how angry she is that he hung out with Mrs Robinson- oh, so just so we’re clear, it’s nothing to do with his invalidating your personal agency or refusing to give you the space you needed, just the fact that he hung out with a woman who you will always see as your romantic rival first, and his molestor second. Glad we got that cleared up.

Ana thinks she sounds like “a Sophomore on amphetamines”, which is basically just EL going “LOOK! LOOK! THEY’RE AMERICAN, SEEE?”. Also, I may or may not have come into contact with uni students on uppers at some point in my life, and I can confirm that they are not nearly as calm as Ana is in the scene. Maybe. Not that I would know.

Hold on to your hats: I might get angrier as this chapter goes on. We’re 714 words in and halfway down the second page, and my blood is already bubbling at this:

“Crap-is he mad? Maybe the Mrs Robinson comments? Maybe the fact that I am on my third, soon to be fourth, Cosmo?”

Fuck that shit. I’m out.

Have YOU been watching Attack on Titan? I need more people to talk about it with. You’ll love it. Go on.

ANA. YOU are the one who should be mad. Christian has, once again, ignored your desire for personal space, stalked you (as well as your mother!), and now you’re worried that you might have upset him after he spent all that time and effort making sure you felt suffocated? Here’s a handy way Christian could not have been angry about you drinking: if he hadn’t flown hundreds of miles to watch you drink them from afar like a pre-credits sequence on Law & Order. Or, he could just not think that he has any right to question how much alcohol you put in your body! Christian comments on the coincidence of them both ending up in the same place (!), and Ana sees a “flicker of a smile”, and thinks that they “may be able to save the evening after all”.

For real, I’m almost choked up with rage.

Ana’s mother goes out for a slash (not what it says in the text, but I have to make my own fun), and Christian asks Ana if she’s angry about Mrs Robinson. Ana explains that she sees her as a child molestor, at which point Christian says it “wasn’t like that.” Even though he was technically a child at the time, and she took advantage of him to mould him into a subservient sex slave after he’d spent years traumatised by his mother’s death.

Christian offers to leave, and Ana begs him to stay, saying how delighted she is that he was there. Which is odd because three pages ago she was angry that he was here. Ah, consistency, who needs it? I’m surprised these character names don’t start swapping out for “Bella” and “Edward” at random points through the book, the line-editing is so dire on this bitch. Ana worries about getting Christian angry at her, because he’s such a good manipulator that he’s convinced her that, despite his choice to follow her across the country against her will, she’s the one who should be working to make him feel at home.

Ana’s mum practically jizzes over Christian, and refers to the “UST” in the room- Unresolved Sexual Tension, apparently, which is not a phrase I think I’ve heard before outside my brief dalliances with the fanfiction community (accidentally writing Sam and Dean from Supernatural into gay threesome erotica notwithstanding). She tells her that they’re obviously nutso about each other, and that Ana should go off and work things out with him. I mean, props on finding a subtle way to get rid of Ana, mate, but surely a discreet valium in her cocktail would have done the trick? Her mother tells her that Christian is the key to her happiness, which I think is some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard any parent give any child ever- “yeah, don’t bother trying to be happy by yourself when there’s a rich stalker waiting upstairs to pull out your tampon and emotionally manipulate you!”

I didn’t really get the whole obsession with Sam and Dean till I started watching Supernatural, but now I totally get it and want to just look at them for years.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention? For the squeamish amongst you, look away now, because we’re about to get hardcore period-bloody up in this joint. I think this is an interesting scene, because as a feminist and a woman, I know that there’s nothing really wrong with period sex and, in fact, it makes a lot of sense to fuck when you’re menstruating- the lubrication is already there, it eases cramps, and if you’re not weeping with period hormones you’re so horny it feels like your clitoris is trying to slap you round the face. But I also don’t really have sex on my period, because I’ve been socialised to think periods are gross and nasty and bad, and that I should just head out to the woods for a few days till the whole thing just plays itself out (I tend to mope around the house feeling sorry for myself and bitching to anyone who’ll listen for the first day, then sucking it up and getting on with it while my ovaries try to bungee-jump out of my vagina. That’s what it feels like, anyway). So having a mainstream, best-selling erotica with a period sex scene in it is actually a big deal, as I’ve heard many people point out. But it’s also worth remembering that this sex scene takes place in the context of a emotionally fraught, pretty drunk Ana who’s been stalked two thousand miles after asking her smothering not-quite-boyfriend for space. So it’s not feminist, at all, because it backs up the idea that a man has dominion over a woman, no matter what, and she should be doing anything to please him. Including fucking him whenever he wants it, even if he has put a great deal of emotional and mental strain on her in the last few pages and even if she goes up to the room with the intention of talking to him about their issues, a subject that he will swiftly steamroller over. Because his needs take precedence over hers. Boom. Feminist’d.

Ana goes to his room, and he’s on the phone doing more Generic Buisness Chat (TM). He comes off the phone and starts trying to fuck her, and she thinks about how they’re meant to be talking. Then he approaches her with a “sexy, predatory” look, because those are two words that are used in conjunction all. The. Time.

Misfits is the bomb. We’re all agreed that we’d fuck Robert Sheehan, marry Iwan Rheon, and kill that twatty one from the fourth series, right?

“I haven’t set eyes on you for three days, and I’ve flown a long way to see you,” explains Christian, because that does not make it sound like he thinks Ana owes him sex after he put so much effort into stalking her. Ana says they need to talk, and he’s like yeah, sure, let’s fuck tho. He undresses her in front of the mirror, and here it’s revealed that Ana isn’t wearing a bra, and I’m sick with jealousy because there’s been a major heatwave in Scotland this week and I do not have the option of letting my 36-E cups fly free. Fucking underwire in this heat should be a federal offence. Ana thinks about how she’s the marionette, and he’s the puppeteer, because those are thoughts you want to have during sex, right? Who doesn’t want to picture this when your boyfriend’s got his hand on your hoo-ha?

I was once watching this episode (Doctor Who’s The God Complex, duh) with a friend when her boyfriend walked in during this scene, took one look at the screen, and turned around and left without a word. Note: one of the best DW episodes ever.

Shall we indulge ourselves with a little look at how this goes down, and you can compare this against your inner monologue the last time you got laid (or just thought about that bisexual orgy scene from Sense8. Unf.)?

“He reaches gently between my legs and pulls on the blue string-what?!-and gently takes out my tampon and tosses it in the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all…Jeez. And then he’s inside me…ah!”

It’s written in law for me to want to fuck Justin Timberlake, Straight up ten years in jail. if I don’t

Sweet. Mother. Of. All. Jeez. Everyone else sit the fuck down, for EL truly is a master of her craft. Also, I love how Christian’s always been so “I’m so careful about birth control, so I’m going to force it on my potentially unwilling partner instead of wearing a condom”, but he’s sticking it in her unsheathed a matter of days after she started her pill. Which is…probably pretty risky, all things considered. When I went back on the pill, I was told not to have unprotected sex for a week (and I was like “A WEEK?! How am I going to enjoy my no-condoms-allowed, no-holds-barred fuckfest this weekend?!” because my life is rocking). I’d say I’d hope he gets her pregnant so they both learn a lesson, but he does knock her up in two books time, so…

Here’s how long the actual penetration lasts:

Honestly, I saw this, and was full-on “BITCH PLEASE, I WROTE EIGHT THOUSAND WORDS OF SEX SCENE TODAY”

Because what I want in my erotica is two paragraphs of poorly-defined sex, followed by Ana nagging on Christian about Mrs Robinson again. She notices he’s got scars on his chest, and asks if she gave them to him- he says no. Then she speculates about what his life would have been like if Mrs R had never introduced him to BDSM, and it’s clear that her bigger crime is not molesting an underage child, but ruining Christian for Ana. Oh, and Ana, sweetie, if he’d never have been into BDSM, this would be just a regular old abusive relationship, as opposed to one the author can get defensive about.

Ana and Christian talk about Mrs Robinson some more, and Christian says how great their relationship was for him, because damn it all if EL isn’t going to make apologies for more than one kind of abuse, right, folks? Christian asks her what she thinks of their arrangement, and Ana replies that she couldn’t do it for a long period of time, because it would be like becoming someone she wasn’t. Christian comments on what a bad submissive she is, and it’s like EL just put this stuff in there to taunt me. He KNOWS she’s a bad submissive and that she doesn’t enjoy his brand of domination- which goes far outside the bedroom- but hey, let’s plow on with this abusive clusterfuck of a relationship anyway! Christian asks her if she liked being spanked, and she said she did, which is a hilariously brazen fucking lie. Then Christian explains that if she can obey his rules, then they can find a way forward, seemingly forgetting that he just mentioned how much she didn’t like obeying his rules. What is this book? Is it a joke? Is it some kind of fucking horrible joke? Honestly, I’ve felt the red mist rising a few times in this chapter, because it’s so blatantly obvious that EL James doesn’t give a shit about character consistency or an interesting plot when she can write shitty, backward sex scenes with nasty undertones for the wool-brained defenders of this book to jill off to.

This gif is specifically for my boyfriend. You’re welcome, sweetie.

Ana asks how she’s supposed to balance these rules when he claims to like her defying him, and he ignores her and fucks her again. He lasts a page this time, which is frankly impressive. My favourite line (as they’re still in the bathroom when this sex scene happens) is the water “sloshing everywhere, mirroring what’s happening inside me.” Just her bladder making audible splish-splash sounds as he pounds her.

They talk about Christian’s number of partners, and he discusses how he’s paid for sex, and Ana goes to sleep, thinking that she’s never been so happy before. AND WE’RE OUT.

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July 2, 2015

Troll 2: A Thematic Analysis

Every generation, a film comes along that defines the way we think about movies. Scorcese’s brutal and brilliant Goodfellas, packed with rich, dense tracking shocks and the tarnished glamour of the mobster life; Lord of the Rings, the sweeping fantasy epics that redefined the way we look at genre films. And then there’s Troll 2, a layered, witty, understated masterpiece that bubbles over with imagery and thematic elements to rival any Linklater, Anderson, or Iniratu outing.

Troll 2 follows the harrowing story of the young Joshua, who holidays with his family to the mysterious town of Nilbog (which is, as the film slowly reveals through barely perceptible nods and hints, goblin spelt backwards). Things start going very wrong for the family, the very depiction of all-American wholesomeness, led by a staggering, screen-dominating performance by George Hardy as the powerful patriarch of the Wilts tribe. Watching his nuanced take on the character, it’s hard to believe that he’s a dentist by trade, and not an actor who could stand up to the likes of Pacino and Norton with ease and style. The direction, too, is flawless: through repeated use of a single, striking shot of lightning balanced with the use of a repeated musical theme, the film implants immovable images in the viewer’s mind that refuse to be shaken.

The film, for all it may seem nothing but a practice in finger-chewing suspense, is actually a perceptive diatribe on puberty and burgeoning sexuality, which, as the film depicts, are inevitabilities of growing up that will eventually murder and eat your entire family. The chilling Creedence Leonore Gielgud plays as a juxtaposition between the mother and the whore; at once nurturing her goblin offspring (created through the use of ground-breaking prosthetics that Spielberg would later quote as influence for his mildly entertaining creature feature, Triceratops Park) and acting as an object of sexual desire for the film’s boisterous and hilarious group of teenage boys. The most erotically charged scene in the movie comes when she arrives at their caravan with a corn-on-the-cob, only to fill the tiny space with mountains of popcorn as she seduces one of it’s unlucky occupants, juxtaposes the thing that once bought such childhood joy-popcorn- with the horror, fear, and death that lead from pursuing sexual desire. The scene drips with unconsummated sexual tension, pulsing with latency and potency. This isn’t the kind of sexy you’ll see in most mainstream movies; it’s real and raw, and allegedly unsimulated.

Joshua, the young boy at the film’s epicentre, plays out similar themes of the apposition of puberty and childhood. Regular visits from his grandfather (played by a disappointing Richard Attenborough) are held up against scenes where he is forced to rebel against the incoming goblin force through any means possible, including one disturbing sequence where he urinates on the family’s dinner to stop them eating poisoned food (you wouldn’t know it from watching the scene, but instead of freeze-framing the actors, the director chose to shoot the scene with them in absolute stillness). Joshua, and to a lesser extent his sister Holly (who mercifully escapes any of the flash-of-flesh sexualising that many young actresses at the time were bestowed with) are innocents against a corrupted town, forced to battle their loved ones to keep the goblin threat at bay. Alas, it’s all for nought, but their fight makes compelling viewing.

Overall, Troll 2 is a deeply considered piece of work, with universal themes that appeal to everyone: age is represented in the stunningly choreographed shot of a fly crawling across a young man’s face as he screams in terror, while Joshua follows his bouncy red ball around to keep him safe. Profound, moving, and not afraid to go to the darkest places in the human psyche, Troll 2 remains one of the most important movies of the last half-century.

Rating: Ten Goblins out of a possible Ten

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