#and johnny WAS to me until they started narratively blaming everyone else for his problems

[robbyykeene]

I think my most controversial opinion is that I don't like Johnny. Like, I don't hate him, but after seeing his fans so excited to defend him from his shit, I just don't. Sometimes I feel like I'm just being contemptuous of white blonde men jsjsjsj sorry johnny you just dont make it for me

Lmao I don’t really agree but honestly anon valid! My feelings about Johnny (and every character tbh) are so complicated because it’s like. I think at the onset of the show he was a really compelling and sympathetic character who was flawed and complicated and in general just a great take on the character. And he is very blorbo to me. But as the show has gone on it’s all just gotten tired. Like I’m not averse in any way to a flawed protagonist who does terrible things…but the problem is that ck presented itself as johnny’s redemption story, and he has yet to make any real meaningful growth at all. the casual misogyny, the reckless endangerment of children, all the things about him that were clearly condemned by the narrative in the early seasons have now like. been turned into beloved character traits of his that the will never change. and it’s honestly just boring. because shows about bad people who do bad things can be good an interesting. just look at Barry. or sccession. or literally any show that's been popular on tumblr ever. but the problem with ck is that it wants to play this safe middle-ground where johnny can do bad things, but he will never have to ever face any meaningful narrative repercussions for it. and that’s just so so boring imo. and maybe if that’s the story they had started telling from the onset it could’ve worked, but because it wasn’t in season 4 johnny just came across as boring and stagnant and unlikeable. and so did like 99% of the characters tbh. at least to me. so tldr it’s not that I don’t like johnny, it’s that I very much love him and also hate what season 4 did to his character.

#like i just have no interest in a story telling me that deadbeat dads should be rewarded for doing absolutely nothing #thebfact that hes a deadbeat dad isnt my problem with rhe character its the way the narrative frames that as everyones fault but his #which is in contrast to the early seasons of the show when they literally emphasized just how much his failures as a father fcked his kids #life up #its like they want to have it both ways. they want us to sympathize with johnny that he feels bad about his failures as a dad #but they dont want us to blame him for his failures as a dad #which is just….stupid. because protagonists can do way worse shit than that and still be likeable #and johnny WAS to me until they started narratively blaming everyone else for his problems #because at that point what’s the point in the story at all #anyway! #anonymous #ck negativity #sort of???

[janiedean]

Man, you have no idea how much I hate you. I hate you so much that I’m going to force you to choose between THREE songs to analyze. “Shut out the Light”, “Gypsy Biker” and “The Promise”. I’d wish you best of luck, but I so highly dislike you, that I wouldn’t DARE to offer you such a kindness. (Also, I'm just not sure if you've analyzed any of those yet so I'm covering my bases.)

HELLO ANON THIS IS AN OLD ASK BUT SPRINGSTEEN DAY IS COMING and therefore I’m going with my favorite out of the two I had left (I’ll do the other one asap tho!

*DRUM ROLL*

So: The Promise is one of those mythical songs from Bruce’s vault, in the sense that it’s from the late seventies and everyone knew it existed to the point that it was supposed to be the title-song instead of Darkness on that record but instead he never properly published it because it was too personal and he could never find the right version, which is why there’s like fifteen different takes of it in between the one on tracks, the one on the promise boxset with all the darkness outtakes, the ten live versions and so on - basically he was reworking it for literal years. So I’m just going with my favorite version - I mean I love them all but this one to me is.. just… IT SPEAKS TO ME MORE THAN THE OTHERS? idk but I love this one above all others ;_; (I think I like that it starts slow and goes into full band while the others tend to go either all band all piano idk)

Now, context: in order to get what’s behind this, you need to know that post-Born to Run he ended up in a trial with his former manager of his first two records out of contractual reasons (tldr: the contract he signed at the beginning was shitty and the manager didn’t want to settle for new conditions he found more favorable/fair) that lasted two years and during which he couldn’t publish anything because in the contractual drama there were also song rights involved. So: it was not the best time of his life and he felt it as a betrayal of sorts since he was actually close to the guy and considered him a friend.

With that said, let’s go at it:

Johnny works in a factory and Billy works downtownTerry works in a rock and roll band looking for that million-dollar soundMe sometimes I don’t do nothing, some spend a lot of time aloneSome nights I go to the drive-in and some nights I stay home

Now: the two people in the first line are probably imaginary and they’re there to establish a situation, in the sense that factory and downtown are two types of job that he could have had and his friends could have had, while the third one is relevant to our discussion because he works in a rnr band looking for that million-dollar sound, which is what *he* was doing up until he actually published Born to Run and hit it.

And then, he doesn’t do nothing, spends time alone etc., which is (according to his autobiography too) what he was doing when he couldn’t write or record music thanks to the trial and when he was starting to hit a fairly bad phase in his life. So: he’s basically staying on his own with his thoughts. Not good.

Now: he goes to the drive-in.

I followed that dream just like those guys do way up on the screenRode down the Challenger down Route 9 trough the dead ends and all the bad sceneWhen the promise was broken, I cashed in a few of my own dreams

Key elements we have here: dreams and cars.

Now: follow that dream is the title of another seminal mythical Springsteen bootleg which also sums up a lot of his philosophy, and it’s in a few other songs of his, but in this case: he followed that dream the way people did in the movies, meaning, making music, but that can also apply to anyone trying to make their way through life following some dream they have.

Now: the Challenger is a car which is one of his most basic metaphors, and in this case he rides it ‘through dead ends and bad scenes’, but it’s kind of obvious that it’s about his music, not a car, which he brought through dead ends and bad scenes meaning all the false starts he had until he could actually publish his records.

And then the promise was broken and he cashed in a few of his dreams, meaning that when the legal drama started, he saw it as a broken promise which eventually ended up having to sell his music ie his dreams, which was not what he was hoping for when he went into the business. Actually:

Well now I built that Challenger by myself, but I needed money and so I sold itAnd I lived a secret I should’ve kept to myself, but I got drunk one night and I told itAll my life I fought the fight, the one that no man can ever winEvery day it just gets harder to live the dream I’m believing inThunder Road, here one ride in the morning till it turns lightThunder Road, there’s something dying out on the highway tonight

‘I built that Challenger by myself’ = I wrote that music by myself obviously, and ‘I needed money and so I sold it’ = ‘I signed a bad contract also to survive and bring it to the people’, but that goes into the main narrative of the *fictional character* he’s singing about who has built that car and then sold it. But what’s the real deal in this is the middle section ie I fought the fight no man can ever win + it gets harder to live the dream I’m believing in, as in, we’re back to the main themes of the album consisting in how following your dream doesn’t necessarily means getting what you want nor the end of your problems/fights (the fight that no man can ever win) and living in it can turn into a nightmare (because it gets harder).

Now: the Thunder road part in the refrain has another double meaning because it’s, again, both the title of one of his most iconic songs and the title of a noir movie (remember: he goes to the drive in and wants to live his dreams like people on a screen from before), and we have a) one ride in the morning until the light comes (hopeful imagery), b) something dying on the highway tonight (negative imagery), so that dream he achieved - or anyone else - can either end up hopeful or wrong and it can even be both at the same time, or maybe you can hope it goes well while in truth it’s wrong. Who knows. IT’S UP TO THE INTERPRETER.

Well now I won big once and I hit the coast, oh but somehow I paid that big costI feel like I was carrying the broken spirits of all the other ones who lostWhen the promise is broken you can go on living, but, man, it steals something from down in your soulLike when the truth is spoken, but it don’t make no difference, something in your heart grows coldWell I followed that dream in the southwestern flats to the dead ends and a two-bit barsWhen the promise was broken I was far away from home sleeping in the backseat of a borrowed car

And now we’re at the big guns.

‘I won big once and I hit the coast’: general enough that you can see yourself in it if it happened to you, but if you know the backstory you know it’s about him finally getting to publish his music and somehow paying that big cost anyway (count that in between that, the previous contractual conditions and having to pay off contracts and so on he was half-broke at least until the River tour);

‘the broken spirits of all the other ones who lost’: he feels like even if he won or partially won, he’s still feeling a kinship with anyone else who went through the same situation;

‘you go on living but it steals something down in your soul’: whenever someone breaks your trust in such a bad way when you were intimate friends or partners or whatever even if you go on it breaks something in you that might never change back and it’s actually… a very… universal thing I mean it’s true that if you get betrayed by someone you’re close to it’s usually a bad blow, which goes hand in hand with the ‘something in your heart goes cold’ the moment someone tells you the truth and for you it changes nothing when it should;

the final line is more his fictional character than him, but it lines up with the rest because we have again following a dream through dead ends and he sleeps in the seat of a borrowed car, because he sold the one he made with his own hands and so the breaking of that promise goes with having to sleep somewhere that’s not his and that he can’t relate to and that he feels like has been stolen from him - and he’s also far away from home ie in the place he should feel safest/more at ease.

And:

Thunder Road, here’s one for the lost lovers and all the fixed gamesThunder Road, here’s one for the tires rushing by in the rainThunder Road, remember me and Terry what we’d sayThunder Road, we’re gonna take it all and throw it all away

We’re back at the Thunder Road refrain, where it stands for: a) lost lovers/fixed games ie all the relationships he lost and all the *games* that he hadn’t thought existed before going into the business, b) tires rushing by in the rain ie an image of someone running away in a car under the rain which is not exactly a good omen but still is about getting out of a situation you don’t like, c) something he and the friend in the band used to say, which is d) we’re taking it all and throwing it all away which is the exact same idea as the it’s a town full of losers and we’re pulling out of here to win of Thunder Road’s ending, except that TR’s is optimistic, this one is more ‘we said we would do it and then look at how we ended up’. It’s probably interesting to note that Terry is also the name of the friend in Backstreets with whom the protagonist has a falling out thanks to a supposed betrayal:

Blame it on the lies that killed us Blame it on the truth that ran us down You can blame it all on me Terry It don’t matter to me now When the breakdown hit at midnight There was nothing left to say But I hated him And I hated you when you went away Laying here in the dark You’re like an angel on my chest Just another tramp of hearts Crying tears of faithlessness Remember all the movies, Terry We’d go see Trying to learn to walk like the heroes We thought we had to be Well after all this time To find we’re just like all the rest Stranded in the park And forced to confess To hiding on the backstreets

I mean, coincidences? We just don’t know, but I DON’T THINK IT’S 100% A COINCIDENCE that the name is similar and that this is the guy who gets mentioned again at least here rather than the other two. Anyway that’s me doing speculation lmao.

Anyway: this song had endless versions and it only ever was published two decades after the fact because it was Too Personal and he couldn’t find the proper, but even if it’s really personal it still manages to be relatable thanks to those key passages in stanzas 2 and 3 (the fight that no man can ever win/when the promise is broken it steals something from down in your soul) and while I don’t know if it’s The Best Springsteen song as a lot of people rightfully think (BECAUSE IT’S A FUCKING GREAT SONG) it’s definitely one of the most intimate, raw and beautiful Springsteen songs exactly for how his experiences are made relatable to everyone else in a way that’s imo heartwrenching and bye I love this and I love all of the other versions and BRUCE IS GREAT OKAY? okay. ;__;

#bruce springsteen #okay this one is good enough to be tagged lmao #the springsteen birthday party 2k18 #Anonymous #ask post #bruce meta

[bybyeblackbird]

Ok so I've seen PotC5 and for me the whole movie is appalling. Why do you think Johnny made the character so disgusting? His jokes just made me sad bc JD as a person has a great sense of humor so...??? What does that mean? Why is that all about fucking all the ladies who happened to be around? Why is he always so stupid when he was proven to be really intelligent in the original trilogy? Just... bullshit. And why did Johnny like the film???

Sorry it took so long to answer this, I wanted to watch the film before I responded. 

WARNING: SPOILERSDOUBLE WARNING: I wasn’t impressed, so if you’re looking for a glowing review please pass by, i’m sorry kids

Basically, I agree with most of this. And to answer your last question: Johnny would have liked this film because this is how Johnny wanted to play Jack.

Guys. I think we’re all trying to ignore that fact and blame his antics in the film on the writer exclusively. But doing that is ignoring that A) Johnny co-wrote the script and B) the MULTIPLE comments we all know Johnny has made, in the past AND on this very press tour, about how he believes Jack has no character arc or depth, and is just there to have fun. The directors ALSO said this.

Here’s the thing: I understand the defence about ‘the character was written that way in this film, he’s supposed to be down and then redeem himself.’ And I’m all for that! I would love to see that! The problem is, I didn’t see that at all. It’s set up perfectly to give Jack a redemption arc. That’s clearly what the script intended. 

But it’s not what Johnny intended. And it’s not what the directors intended.

Lottie put it so much better in her review, here. But what it comes down to is this equation: 

The main actor and the directors believing Jack has no arc nor depth + the script giving Jack an arc and depth = the mess we ended up with.

As Lottie put it: 

I could ultimately see what they were trying to do, and it kind of worked in the first half, but it was so poorly executed because ultimately they created a contradiction for themselves. the directors and Johnny have stated on multiple occasions that Jack is now apparently a character without arc or development, and yet they put him into a narrative where he is supposed to change in some way between the start and end point. I said this before when I remarked last week that it was ironic he had an ‘arc’ in this movie considering those comments: he’s meant to get somewhere, regain his rep, return to a ( mostly ) sober state – but they kept stagnating him in the narrative because he is this weird arc-less character at this point. it just didn’t make any fucking sense. if you’re going to put a static character into a narrative ( as Jack apparently is nowadays ), then you don’t put him in it at a relative low point, changed from the last time we saw him as an audience and apt to change/develop along the course of the narrative as he ‘redeems’ himself. you’re just writing yourself into a brick wall. he should have been FINE the moment the Black Pearl was restored, but they kept returning him to this earlier drunken, idiotic state without reason even after that point and it just made the whole thing really sloppy. you want to paint Jack at his lowest point? well by doing so, you’re giving the audience a stake in seeing Jack redeem himself and return to the character we know and love – and yet there was no obvious sign that had happened, no natural development that saw him slowly but steadily getting his groove back and taking control of his own narrative until the very end, when suddenly he was absolutely fine even though he’d been fighting plot convenient alcoholism for the entire movie. 

And that’s the truth of it. And you can’t blame it entirely on the writer or script (though he DOES have some explaining to do about just ignoring the trilogy completely *cough* compass *cough*). It was Johnny’s choice to play Jack with no obvious redemption arc, as the script set him up to do by showing us at what is obviously meant to be his lowest point.

And it’s not bad acting, it’s just Johnny’s character choice. With many movies you can say ‘don’t blame the actor, blame the script!’ But you and I all know that doesn’t apply to Johnny. Johnny doesn’t blindly follow the script. Johnny wants what he wants and Johnny gets what he wants. He WANTED Jack to be the humorous relief. He WANTED Jack to have no depth or arc - leave that to the other characters. It’s his choice and he chose. I’m not here to tell him he *can’t* choose something for a character he created. I don’t like it, but I’m not here to salivate over everything he does and everything he chooses anyways. 

He’s made lots of choices I don’t like. We all remember Private Resort. 😜

So anyways, clearly I had a problem with the way Jack was portrayed so I think you can guess my feelings about the content of the jokes he cracked. They were lazy and annoying, and I knew already how he described Elizabeth from all the comments I heard, but I still wasn’t prepared for how sick it made me feel, watching him descend to that level. It was disgusting. Johnny said he ‘really upped the stakes with the humour,’ and in my opinion he completely missed the mark and just made him so off-putting. 

AND WHAT THE FUCK WAS WITH ALL THE SEX JOKES???? not even just Jack but like… everyone???? Carina and Henry went on about his hand placement, the horologist thing was funny for about 5 seconds and then became stupid, MARTY JOKED ABOUT FUCKING SCRUM’S MOTHER like honestly i was so put off by seemingly every attempt at humour. The boat undressing scene was somehow even more disgusting in the film than the trailers, and that wedding scene??? fuck off. It added absolutely nothing to the plot, was put in for what I’m assuming was supposed to be comedic effect but wasn’t at all funny (to me), and used the tired old trope of ‘let’s make the leading man have to entertain the presence of this fat chick he refers to as an object so the audience can laugh at how gross she is.’ Johnny’s facial expressions were honestly great in that scene but I couldn’t even appreciate it because I was so repulsed by the whole thing.

THINGS I DID LIKE:

How protective Jack was of Henry, even if he didn’t show it overtly. Which is one of the only three moments where i recognized Old Jack (overtly sassy and pretends not to care about people but through actions shows he deeply does)

Second thing where I glimpsed Old Jack: The smile after the Pearl rose from the water. I saw that grin and I started grinning and Andrea looked over and asked me if I was crying LOL

Third thing where I glimpsed Old Jack: When his crew leaves him. That hurt look on his face tore me up.

CARINA. Seriously, can anyone claim that Carina did not carry this fucking film. I honestly kept thinking ‘Jack can u shut the fuck up so Carina can talk please.’ Carina was great.

Scrum. He fucking kills me, man. When he was trying to save Carina; man I was dying with laughter

Gibbs - there was one moment that for some reason was the funniest and purest moment of the whole movie? And I don’t know if anyone else even caught it and maybe it’s just cause I watched P1,2,3 all this weekend - there was a moment where they were on the Dying Gull while it was still on land and they didn’t know if it would even sail, and Jack bellowed some order like ‘prepare to set sail’ or some shit. and usually whenever Jack gives orders, Gibbs will repeat them and expand on them and give more details of what to do like ‘Prepare to cast off!’ ‘Prepare to fire!’ etc.; he’s the first mate obvs! But this time when Jack gave the order, Gibbs just goes, ‘Prepare to drown!’ AND I WAS DYING i was like the only one laughing but it was just so perfectly timed and delivered and sassed????

Barbossa - Geoffrey did well with what he was given and though i think the reveal of that whole emotional tie was super rushed and not well explained, I think Geoffrey did really well with what he was given to work with, and had my eyes watering in *that* scene

Anyways that was a novel but i started answering your question and then it turned into a full fucking review apparently - feel free to ask about any parts of the movie you want to know how I felt about, but be warned I’m in a very honest and unforgiving mood right now 😈

#Anonymous #lani answers #johnny depp #pirates of the caribbean