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TV And Its Discontents
Jan. 31st, 2017 02:14 pmAlmost a week without an entry. During said week, that guy (I think you know the one I mean) has managed to do an amazing amount of damage, so possibly that's what's been throwing me off. I keep on wanting to write about things and then deciding there's no point, which really doesn't bode well for the future, does it? Because this shit is just bound to keep right on happening.
One good thing about that guy (I think you know the one I mean)'s tenure--for certain values of "good"--is that it's at least given me an excuse to send my Dad the long-pending email about his awful book and its fallout. With fascism literally sweeping the globe, as I observed, how can I stay angry with him about the way he chooses to remember things that happened a lifetime ago, in context? That said, I was pretty clear about why I'm not interested in discussing my reaction to Vol. 1 of his autobiography, let alone in reading Vol. 2. We can agree to disagree, but only if he understands that I think what he wrote about Mom remains reprehensible and that I will never condone it. I want to retain a relationship with him for Cal's sake, not to mention because he's the only father I'll ever have, but I refuse to hear that sort of shit about the one parent who stuck around during the period of my life where I really did need parenting. So he can take that or leave it, I guess; we'll see, either way.
At the moment, I'm trying to make a list of my favourite characters, something suggested to me by evewithanapple. It's hard, because I find it difficult to separate people from their relationships, which means that all these people come with other people attached; I also wanted to make them all women because she likes that and because it's an interesting challenge, but that then reminds me how seldom I run across the character traits that tweak me straight in the id in female characters generally, which is why my own characters so often start as cisswappings. And blah blah blah, we've all heard this shit before: I like monsters, I like monster-enablers, I like potential monsters, I like conflicted heroes at best but more often antiheroes--hell, even Matt Murdock's a bit of an asshole, just ask his friends. And that's what I like best about him, the fact that the "light inside" doesn't even vaguely begin to chase away his shadows.
(Speaking of which, Gotham got big points from Steve and I during their Winter Finale by A) having Oswald Cobblepot realize he might not have loved Ed Nygma before but definitely does now, in a "I will sacrifice my happiness for yours" sort of way, and B) managed to actually convince me of how Bruce Wayne's commitment to the no-kill rule might have happened, and why. David Mazouz continues to be one of the best Batmans I've seen, and he's never yet put the mask on--too bad he never would have made it into that guy (I think you know the one I mean)'s America, if today's standards had been applied earlier. Oh, the irony.
TV also makes bad decisions, though. See Outsiders Season Two's idea about killing Asa Farrell off in the opening episode, something so out of left field I initially thought it was a fantasy sequence--it's a move that fairly reeks of "contract re-negotiation goes badly for Joe Anderson, news at eleven," and it would have been soooo fucking easy to fix: yes, take Asa off the board for a while; who knows better how to disappear than him, and who's been more betrayed by the Mountain? But let him come back a year from now or more, and see how that goes. Damn, dudes.
One good thing about that guy (I think you know the one I mean)'s tenure--for certain values of "good"--is that it's at least given me an excuse to send my Dad the long-pending email about his awful book and its fallout. With fascism literally sweeping the globe, as I observed, how can I stay angry with him about the way he chooses to remember things that happened a lifetime ago, in context? That said, I was pretty clear about why I'm not interested in discussing my reaction to Vol. 1 of his autobiography, let alone in reading Vol. 2. We can agree to disagree, but only if he understands that I think what he wrote about Mom remains reprehensible and that I will never condone it. I want to retain a relationship with him for Cal's sake, not to mention because he's the only father I'll ever have, but I refuse to hear that sort of shit about the one parent who stuck around during the period of my life where I really did need parenting. So he can take that or leave it, I guess; we'll see, either way.
At the moment, I'm trying to make a list of my favourite characters, something suggested to me by evewithanapple. It's hard, because I find it difficult to separate people from their relationships, which means that all these people come with other people attached; I also wanted to make them all women because she likes that and because it's an interesting challenge, but that then reminds me how seldom I run across the character traits that tweak me straight in the id in female characters generally, which is why my own characters so often start as cisswappings. And blah blah blah, we've all heard this shit before: I like monsters, I like monster-enablers, I like potential monsters, I like conflicted heroes at best but more often antiheroes--hell, even Matt Murdock's a bit of an asshole, just ask his friends. And that's what I like best about him, the fact that the "light inside" doesn't even vaguely begin to chase away his shadows.
(Speaking of which, Gotham got big points from Steve and I during their Winter Finale by A) having Oswald Cobblepot realize he might not have loved Ed Nygma before but definitely does now, in a "I will sacrifice my happiness for yours" sort of way, and B) managed to actually convince me of how Bruce Wayne's commitment to the no-kill rule might have happened, and why. David Mazouz continues to be one of the best Batmans I've seen, and he's never yet put the mask on--too bad he never would have made it into that guy (I think you know the one I mean)'s America, if today's standards had been applied earlier. Oh, the irony.
TV also makes bad decisions, though. See Outsiders Season Two's idea about killing Asa Farrell off in the opening episode, something so out of left field I initially thought it was a fantasy sequence--it's a move that fairly reeks of "contract re-negotiation goes badly for Joe Anderson, news at eleven," and it would have been soooo fucking easy to fix: yes, take Asa off the board for a while; who knows better how to disappear than him, and who's been more betrayed by the Mountain? But let him come back a year from now or more, and see how that goes. Damn, dudes.
