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tpwkwriter · 1 year

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🧡

Hii how was ur day?

Can you do one where Harry and y/n (y/n is a famous actress btw, she is a very famous avenger and is super friends with the marvel castand harry is really jeoulous of tom holland bc he has a crush on her and all and he even makes remarks about that through the interview :) ) are doing a interview and the intervier is keep on asking questions that is inappropriate to YN (like very touchy, looking at er in a sexual way almost harrasing her and asking her very sexual question and sexualising her) and she does not know what to say. And Harry comes to the rescue and like defends her and puts the dude in his place and gets really pissed at him. And that after the interview like how sweet and caring he is with her and all.? ❣️

Let’s not.

First off thank you! I’m good thanks How are you? And secondly thank you for your request! 🤎

Hope this is what you sorted wanted! Not massive in the marvel/endgame scene so I sort every changed that slightly I hope that’s okay? 😋

Warnings: cussing, pervy Interviewer, sexual harassment!!, uncomfortable setting.

— — — — —

Y/n fiddled with the hem of her dress that sat above her knees as she sat on the directors chair that had her initial printed on.

The scene in-front of her was slightly terrifying, the professional cameras, the white backdrop to allow better lighting, the microphones held by several men, it was an overwhelming setting.

The empty chair directly in-front of her was playing on her mind of how was this was gonna go, what questions will he ask?, what If I sound stupid? What I ruin the movie?, what if I make myself look stupid in front of all these people including my boyfriend???.

Her Train of thought was brewing around in her mind, the what ifs and the buts.

“Hey pretty” a familiar voice asked, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Hey H” she said snapping out of her thoughts and back into reality.

“Look Like y’seen a ghost m’darling what’s up?” He said handing her a warm coffee he purchased.

“Oh thank you, and nothing m’fine” she smiled and waved her hand, taking a sip of her drink.

“Baby” he sighs.

“Y’nervous?” He asks placing his palm on her exposed knee.

“Mhmm” she hummed

Without another word he wrapped his arm over her shoulders and kneeled to her level making sure to press a kiss to her temple.

“No need to be nervous m’darling, you’ll do amazingly” he said gently into her ear and leaving his chin gently on her free shoulder.

“And once y’done we can Go Grab Dinner alright?”

“3 Minutes till shoot!” A producer yells allowing all to hear.

“I love you, and I’ll be watching you as always” he said pressing a lingering kiss to the girls cheek.

“I love you too H” she smiled, feeling slightly more confident then before.

“Enter mark jones!” The producer states opening the door.

Y/n’s Heart Drops, it’s nearly time, mark jones was the interviewer who was going to be speaking to y/n.

“Hey y/n! I’m mark and I’m very much looking forward to Interviewing such a beautiful lady as yourself” he says stepping forward between the couple and throwing his arms out for a hug.

A hug? Y/n thought a Hand Shake would be more appropriate, but she went along just thinking he was really friendly.

However just to contrast, Harry’s smile had already been wiped off his face, it’s just a hug he told himself.

“Please let’s begin!”He said pulling his chair closer to hers, that didn’t go unnoticed by H.

— — — — —

“3,2,1, lets go”

“So we Are joined by the lovely y/n y/l/n, who recently has made and joined in various amazing upcoming films!” He exclaims.

The camera flips to y/n.

“Thank you for the introduction mark” she smiles

“No but, thank you for having me!” She adds

The interview starts off strong and positive and many questions about y/n’s carer and acting life to which y/n responded appropriately and better than she ever thought.

Meanwhile Harry’s eyes were glued to his girl, the way she spoke, smiled, spoke to camera and spoke in detail about what she loved made him feel absolutely complete.

However mark wanted more and more Information from this girl.

“So y/n we all know your a gorgeous girl” he says

“Oh thank you” she smiles, shyly putting her head down.

“I mean it” he says scanning the girl up and down not noticing one bit that y/n’s mood had simmered down and noticed his creepy actions

“When you were working on set you must’ve been absolutely eye candy to your coworkers” he suggests reaching his fingers out and tapping her knee.

Harry on the sideline immediately perked up and noticed his actions.

“Mate chill, ya gonna lose circulation in your hands if y’keep up” one of the set workers mentioned.

Looking down to his hands, just to see his tightened fist.

One more chance he thought.

“Well, my coworkers were actually really respectful and understood boundaries very clearly, unlike some people” she smiled feeling satisfied with her confidence.

‘That’s my Girl’ he thought to himself

“Well y/n, i don’t know if I could control myself near you” he says with a loud laugh.

What is that suppose to mean.

“What’s the chance of one night toge-“

“Have you got anymore questions about the movies?” A voice off of set asked

Thank fuck for Harry’s presence, she thought.

“Hey?” He said turning to Harry who was

“Yeah i mean, let’s keep on track” she phrases blowing a tiny kiss to Harry who kept all eyes on his girl.

“This will Not make the Final Cut” he smirks.

Luckily for the both, mark managed to ask more appropriate questions and movie related stuff.

“Now onto your relationships!”mark exclaims.

“Oh right” she smiles.

“So How Long have you been with this young man?” He asks peering over to the man now currently beaming at his girl.

“Oh so This is Harry, he’s been in my life 4 years now, and yeah..uh best years of my life really, never been so happy” y/n smiles making eye contact with the man during the last sentence.

“Wow thats lovely n all but, aren’t you scared your just another slut?” He asks just so causally.

“What?” The girl asks eyes wide and completely taken by surprise.

“Let’s Not mate, let’s not” Harry interjected.

“I’m being honest mate, how many ladies have you had while with this one?” He laughs

“What the actual fuck” y/n said under her breath.

“You know what, I’m not continuing” she said removing her mic pack.

“Love I’m being super honest here” he said reaching out his arms and moving over to her.

“No,no,no y/n is not y’love And no way in hell are you getting your hands on her” he states edging his way in-front of y/n

“Y’here to talk about her talent and her carer” he added.

“Shes None of that, shes just a walking Sex machine And thanks too you shes famous” mark jerked

“Thats a fucking enough from You mate” Harry stated fists getting tighter and eyes getting darker.

“I think You Need to fuck right off before I bust your arse” he says blank faced and serious.

“My girls so passionate and all you want to know is if she’s a slut? Fuck off mate” he continues.

“Well y/n we will not be interviewing you nor ever releasing this interview enjoy your flailing career” the old man spat.

“Whatever, I don’t need this shit” y/n says picking up her stuff and taking her Harry’s hand and slowly heading out.

— — — — —

The car drive was quiet, not a bad quiet, but it wasn’t energetic.

“Y’alright darling?” He asks taking one hand from the wheel And Locating it on her thigh.

“Yeah, m’cool” she smiles, playing with his rings.

“You?” She asks

“Apart fron fucking pissed..Yeah” he states.

“He didn’t touch you did he?” Harry said glancing over at the girl by his side, eyes as serious as ever.

“No, no, thankfully” she sighed.

“Just so uncomfortable, it was all so awkward” she said cringing at the thought

“Fucking hell” he Said taking her Hand bringing it up to his lips and leaving a kiss there.

“M’fucking sorry you had to even speak with that twat” he says gripping the steering while tighter then before.

“Hey S’okay, no one got hurt or injured, and it’s not y’fault angel” she smiles.

“And besides v’got better events coming up, missing his interview means nothing” she sighs.

“He will never speak to you again darling trust me with that” he says

I’m sure H, but on a lighter note” she smiles

“Where we going for dinner?”

— — — — —

Bit sucky towards the end my apologies! 😭🤎 let me know your opinions I really hope you enjoy this! ❤️

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #my fic writing #harry styles au #harry styles blurb #harry styles x y/n #fluff #anon answered #anon request #harry styles imagines #harry styles x fem!reader #y/n #harry styles writing #HS #Harry Styles one shot #harry styles fluff #angst if you squint

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zahroreadsthings · 5 years

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Mortal Engines 2018 Yeet

Here’s my Mortal Engines movie thoughts in dot point because that’s all I can write in (spoilers under the cut):

General

-First and foremost it was a FUN movie!! Is it a tad cheesy? Yes, but who doesn't like a lil extra cheese? Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely NOT. Is it rightfully being dragged by critics? Kind of! Is it two hours of solid fun? YES. -This movie loves what it’s doing and it shows. It’s hard to not enjoy yourself when it throws you into a vivid, fully developed world with a story it’s committed to. The actors were all clearly committed to making the best of the script and everyone was just c’: - especially Jihae (Anna Fang) and Stephen Lang (Shrike). It might be because these two characters fall pretty clearly outside of the usual YA dystopia character tropes but hey. They’re rightfully being noted as standouts by pretty much everyone. -The visuals were amazing. If you watch the movie for beautiful visuals and a fun time, and acknowledge you won't be watching a great film, you won't be disappointed. -Putting out here that imo any review that says it relies on too many dystopian cliches needs to check themselves. The book was released in 2001, before YA was an established thing and waaay before YA dystopia was a trend. It was just unlucky enough to have a movie come out post-YA dystopia’s time in the spotlight so it just looks like it's riding everyone's coattails. But listen. It's the OG! Let it have its cliches dammit! -Each and every flashback transition felt awkward to watch. To be fair I don't know how I would've done it, but still. -The tracks left by cities on the hunting ground, and how small Hester and Tom were in comparison, were almost exactly how I imagined them how lit is that! -The movie stands well on its own - there’s some things someone who hasn’t read the book would miss but it’s easy to follow. I caught the movie with my little sister (hasn’t read the book) and two cousins (read it a decade ago) and the biggest complaint was that ‘Shrike’ sounded too much like ‘Shrek’. -Though it could’ve benefited more from a few quieter scenes to establish characters without having everyone constantly ready throw down. -Anna Fang Big Time Heart Eyes Emoji.

Little notes

-The marketing team did us SO dirty what the hell! The trailers and featurettes framing this movie as a ‘Chosen One leads the rebellion’ were ridiculously misleading and did a lot to lower everyone's expectations. -Anna Fang Big Time Heart Eyes Emoji. -They gave her a big sword!! -She's not sexualised (no ladies in this film are which is SO refreshing); I'm just gay. -Actually, everyone was dressed practically for their roles and it’s such a low bar but so many movies don’t make the jump! They really did #that! -AIRHAVEN. Goddamn. That’s the dream home. They really brought every location in this movie to life. I wish we spent more time there. -I stan Yasmina Rashid. In fact every ATL aviator was a strong 10 and super cool and I respect whoever was responsible for this. -Love how aggressive Hester was. That girl truly was on a suicidal revenge mission and truly didn’t give a shit about needing to get dirty. -I LOVE Tom! We stan a history buff! A dude who’ll jump into a rubbish bin to save a toaster! That’s my boy! Having him as the sole traction cityboy out on the ground and trying to get around in a completely different world was really cute? They nailed it. -Hester gradually and very begrudgingly caring and looking out for Tom. Good shit. She wasn’t happy about it but I sure was!

Changes I liked

-In general I liked most of the changes, especially those in the first half. -Ageing up the characters a little. I heard they were supposed to be older in the books but YA/NA didn’t really exist back then so Reeve aged them down a little to slot them into children’s/middle grade, and I’m glad the movie took the cue (or maybe not) and aged Tom, Hester, Katherine and Bevis up a little. -Starting off with the chase after Salthook, not a quiet start in the museum. Set up the world and the pacing of the movie from the get-go. -Adding that little tidbit about Tom wanting to be an aviator before his parents died and him having a little experience with the controls made my soul rest easy. Reading the book, I always thought, ‘This guy’s a history buff don’t leave him at the controls oh my god’ -Cutting the Tunbridge Wheels and Panzerstadt-Bayreuth chase. Definitely kept things going at a faster pace and I’m honestly glad they got cut. -The strange relationship between Hester and Shrike. Not so much changed but more expanded upon. It was strangely sweet and I might’ve shed a tear watching the little flashbacks. Just… they really nailed this one. Shrike felt like a foster dad with no parenting experience really trying his best for Hester and their relationship was in turns sweet and heartbreaking. He did a real good job on the parenting front considering he was a reanimated corpse/robot ex-soldier. I love one (1) automated corpse dad. -Those cannibal cities chasing Tom and Hester and the little centipede-esque… traction home? that took them in. Love them. -To be fair I can't remember if it was in the books but giving Anna Fang arm tats and a sleeveless chainmail top YEET.

Changes I didn’t like

-Most of these are down in the spoiler because the last third or so of the movie takes a weird turn. -We all know about Hester’s scar (movie’s big face cuts vs. book’s missing eye and nose and a permanently twisted mouth) and the bullshit excuses (no-one’s gonna fall in love with her if she has a major disfigurement). I can mostly make peace in terms of required special effects but a goddamn eyepatch would’ve gone a long way. On the other hand, giving your female protagonist an obvious and large scar at all is pretty good (however sad it is that it's our standard). -Giving Anna Fang more serious dialogue. She’s the jovial aunt friend and she NEEDS her cheesy lines! -This is honestly such a small thing but I’m a little upset Tom called Anna ‘Anna’ and not ‘Miss Fang’ - it was so cute. -Um the ending was. Well I guess I can kinda see why they did it.

If you haven't read the books

-I need you to know the cities shit.

Spoiler zone!

Changes I liked

-I have a very unformed opinion re Hester’s ‘I’m gonna live’ line. Her throwing her suicide mission to the wind and hopping off the 13th Floor Elevator. That’s my girl making good decisions! -I’m torn on the ending between Hester and Tom. On the one hand I loved that they eventually found comfort with each other and took the Jenny Haniver to go flying around the world but on the other hand the decision to not wipe out London made it feel a little cheaper and they didn’t give me the Forehead Kiss. -Though if they did go with wiping out London I’m glad they wouldn’t have gone with the ‘Katherine gets stabbed and hits the self-destruct button on the way down’ (or whatever it was) route. It would’ve been a good gut punch to have Hester finally figure out a way to shut off MEDUSA and be a second too late but we can’t have everything.

Changes I didn’t like

-The circumstances of Anna’s death - Tom didn’t see her die and didn’t do her the good turn of trying to save her life so a) taking the Jenny at the end of the movie was a dick move and b) if they go forward with the sequels they’ll have to rejig the part where Stalker Fang spares Tom’s life because she remembers he did something nice for her. -I’ll start by saying that I liked the changes with Katherine and Bevis’ storylines for the most part and I will end with saying that completely dropping Bevis’ storyline just before the climax was absolute bullshit. -Cutting out the ending between Katherine and Thaddeus. He went from well-meaning villain pushed into a corner to just… jackass, and it went from heartbreaking to straight up nonexistent. -Not wiping out London was… an interesting decision.

Little notes

-Listen that entire sequence after Tom and Hester first fell off London with Hester trying to just do her thing and Tom constantly talking. Great. When she took his money and knife when he was unconscious. Good shit. When he tried to bribe her saying ‘I have money!’ and she tosses his purse up and catches it like ‘No you don’t.’ Good shit!! Tom complaining about the walk and his shocked disgust at Hester drinking dirty water and eating a thousand year old twinkie. He really is a shiny cityboy and I love him. -Tom’s ‘you’re history’ line before he shoots down Thaddeus ‘head honcho historian’ Valentine’s airship is SO funny don’t @ me. -The incredibly sweet ending, when Hester just lay down and had a genuine laugh and smile was! So sweet! I’m glad she was happy. -Anna Fang Big Time Heart Eyes Emoji.

#this is hardly a review #but im not getting paid so i can do whatever i want #mortal engines #PLEASE see this movie!!#see look i care about things other than anna fang

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doncvns-blog · 5 years

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( taron egerton, cismale, he/him ) — that’s DONOVAN HAWKIN, the TWENTY-FOUR year old, who was known as the AUTEUR of the class and was voted most likely to FORGET EVERYONE’S NAME (INCLUDING HIS OWN). since graduating he’s been DIRECTING/FEATURING IN MUSIC VIDEOS, SHATTERING EUROPEAN CERAMICS and CONFOUNDING INDUSTRY CRITICS WITH HIS ZANY WORK. you know what always makes me think of him? crisp and symmetrical cinematography, murmuring amorous words in a girl’s ear, and classic formal attire. ( natalie | 18 | gmt | she/her )

[rolls in here at the last minute with this young man] hello, hi, i’m natalie! i’m just an impulsive hyperactive asian living in britain mkngjn. i’m currently obsessed with strawberry coca-cola (yeah it is a THING and i adore it) and whewwwww here’s this boy please plot with us!

you’ve heard of sports fuckboys. you’ve even heard of nerd fuckboys. but a lesser-appreciated form of the fuckboy that needs more attention is the art fuckboy.

he tells you weird, fake deep shit but somehow, some girls fall for it. must have something to do with his good looks. oh, yes, he’s good-looking, but when he’s dumping you with some pretentious incoherent nonsense like “you see... your body is a piece of art but my paintbrush yearns to do fresco painting on another womanly canvas,” and you realise it wasn’t worth it, and you just wanna fight this obnoxious pretentious dude’s ass in the parking lot of the mcdonald’s he’s dumping you at. well, that’s donovan. or donny. or don. or donatellouglasnaldson. donny phantom! a lot of the time he honestly doesn’t even remember the longer version of his nickname. you could call him “dongelio” and there’s legit a chance he’ll answer.

he’s an art fuckboy. but he doesn’t actually paint, although he does know a considerable amount about that kinda stuff. his art has more to do with film and cinematography.

before becoming a rising (music video) director, he was, of course... in greenville, iowa. his parents did not have the problem of Regretting Their Marriage or whatever, they remained in love. too in love, maybe. it was practically anarchy for don and his siblings, because his parents were just a little too trapped in their own little world to properly supervise their children.

perhaps that’s why the hawkin children are all pretty weird. don, however, was not bestowed much academic intelligence, unlike most of his siblings. “but i am the best-looking sibling,” he’ll say, so really, who won their family’s genetics lottery? he did. he fucking did.

don acts like a crackhead a lot i don’t really know what else to say about that

(but he’s rarely actually on drugs lmfao. he’s just. Like That)

his eccentricity def shows in his work. professional critics from like The New York Times or The Atlantic magazine look at his portfolio and go...... what the fuck. how do we review this

he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has as a director, though, if he wasn’t genuinely good. and he is! his shots are clean, crisp, and often beautifully proportioned (unless they’re intentionally askew). his music videos are always Aesthetic, if nothing else. (note: i don’t think he’s ever done l/oona or anything k/pop rly and they’re not exactly like this but i imagine a lot of shots from music videos by the k/pop girl group l/oona are like shots from music videos he directs. they’re just... eerie sometimes, for no good reason. but they are pretty.)

unless, like, a woman starring in one of his videos requests for him to make the whole thing sexy (it does happen every now and then; as much of a dickwad as he is he’s not just downright plain misogynistic and wouldn’t rly sexualise a lady in his work even when he’s highly attracted to the girl, unless asked), in which instance a chunk of his typical professionalism flies out of the window and it’s painfully evident that a man directed the m/v and he sure was horny behind the camera and u get stuff like this lmaooo

speaking of, he really likes doing music videos much more than films. he thinks movies can be a slog. music videos, on the other hand, are always fun.

as you can tell... he’s not the standard mega-bony, gawky indie type in terms of looks. he has a very athletic body (the broad-shouldered kind) and he’s very much aware that he is the classically handsome, chiselled type. lots of people he works with in hollywood mistake him for a Movie Star. that’s why sometimes he’s just like... “fuck it. let’s spare some budget. i’ll play the love interest in this music video.” so your muse may have seen him from one of those, even if they were never quite aware of each other’s existence during school days in greenville.

when his career as a music video director was just beginning, it was just him, his girlfriend at the time (who would later become a pretty damn successful pop star, not without his help), and their shared youtube channel. yes, he started out as an internet celebrity making increasingly polished and popular music videos with his gf.

they weren’t wildly famous enough as youtubers for their time as a youtube couple (and a very much real one, mind) to be the one thing people associate with them the most, fortunately. he really did love that woman tho, which is the problem. he hates feeling vulnerable so eventually he drives people away, whether it’s girlfriends or friends or even family at times.

so anyway tl;dr:

hot weirdo art fuckboy (not totally bad, tho, but it’s nice to play less pleasant characters sometimes)

can’t believe i almost forgot to explain that the “shattering ceramics” part of his app is literally just that on occasion, he purchases antiques from europe and then smashes them For The Aesthetic (for no good reason. this is a recurring theme. he’s just chaotic.)

a cishet

not an a-list music video director yet, but his career is moving pretty well and fast, especially at his age. (the youtuber thing... plus honestly cishet white male privilege but i mean... helped)

wears nice classic suits often

doesn’t want people knowing that he Feels Emotions . one emotion per moment is embarrassing enough

was never that intelligent or intellectual, but isn’t stupid either. good at what he does.

you know the drill. wanted connections, there’s an ocean of them. best friend? (or a squad of besties?) unlikely friends? flirtationship? ex-girlfriends? enemies? frenemies? there are so many things we can do here.

please plot with us <3</small>

#reunite.intro #IDK WHY THIS GOT SO LONG AND WHY IT'S SUCH A MESS BUT jngnjn #love us pls <3 thank

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brainbuffering · 5 years

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Not epilepsy related, I know, but please bare with me. I made a joke on Twitter about how I could probably write a 2 page essay on the title page for Grayson #8.

The tweet was liked by Grayson Creatives: Jackson Lanzing, Tim Seeley and Mikel Janín. I intended to leave it just there, however, I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and apparently I have no self control because 3 days later I had written a five page essay on it, and well once you’ve written 2894 words on a subject you may as well publish it somewhere. And because I might as well say it here, if you ever want to read more essays like this, let me know, and you can support me on Ko-Fi if you’re feeling extra generous <3

So after a quick shout out to my sister Ruth for reading it over and providing invaluable feedback, and the wonderful Wednesday Club discord for helping me brainstorm titles and providing general encouragements, I present:

Climbing the Eiffel Tower: Dick Grayson as a feminist sex icon

Tim Seeley and Tom King’s 2014-2016 DC Comics series Grayson follows the story of Dick Grayson as he infiltrates the spy network known as Spyral and travels across the world chasing one adventure after another. Making his first appearance in 1940 as Batman’s sidekick and protégé, Robin, he became just as famous in popular media as the Batman himself. Unlike most comic book characters, Dick Grayson was allowed to age, going from the eager child circus acrobat to a teenage superhero leading his own team. He later went on to find a day job as a cop, whilst still moonlighting as a superhero under the new name Nightwing. For a short time he even picked up the cowl and became Batman following Bruce Wayne’s apparent (nobody stays dead in comics for very long) death and adopted Bruce’s son Damian as his own Robin. In 2014, following his own apparent death, he was granted the new moniker Agent 37.

Although Seeley and King’s Grayson series was very much grounded in the DC Universe, (where Super-powered humans saves the day by running backwards through time and green shape shifting aliens attend high school) the series had just as much in common with 60s Spy films. Nazis were punched, skimpy swimsuits were worn, and the day was saved again and again thanks to a handsome man with a dashing smile. Yet one of the distinguishing features of the much applauded series was the presentation of Dick Grayson as a sex icon. In an industry berated for its sexualisation of female characters, where a teenage girl is put into a purple metal bikini and it is called liberation, Grayson brought a rare respite for female fans. Suddenly the object of affection was male.

It is a running joke amongst DC fans that Dick Grayson is the sexiest man in all comics (at least from an American perspective). In 2013 Dick Grayson even gained the number one spot in Comics Alliance’s list of 50 Sexiest Guys in Comics, beating fellow former Robin Jason Todd (Ranked No. 23) and the Batman himself (ranked No. 46). It was in the 1980- 1984 New Teen Titans series that Dick Grayson was able to step out from the shadow of the Bat, and start to become the sex symbol he is known as today. Along with starting to appear shirtless, he was also shown to be in a sexually active relationship with his girlfriend, Starfire: a teenage alien princess clad in, yes, a purple metal bikini. Perhaps when created in 1940 he was meant to stay the eager young boy, that is not the character we see today, as one internet commentator described him, he’s “that kid at thirteen who’s hot at twenty-one” (Jaffe, 2017). Dick Grayson is now one of the few male comic book heroes who is deliberately designed to be a sex icon aimed at women. He’s the heir to a fortune, he’s charming, he respects women and he’s got an amazing arse. He’s the sort of non-threatening pin-up model you’d be happy to take home to meet your mother. That is, if you weren’t concerned your mother might not try and take him for herself.

This side to his character is demonstrated in Mikel Janín’s illustration for title page of Grayson #8: “Cross my heart and hope to die” published in 2014. The image depicts Dick Grayson demonstrating a gymnastic maneuver to seven teenage school girls during their gym class. He wears form fitting leggings and a sleeveless shirt, displaying his muscular physique. Meanwhile, the students wear a standard uniform for British Private School Girls: a red rugby shirt and white gym shorts. This helps depict both their social class and their social position. There is a text box at the top of the page which reads “...That doesn’t stop me from wanting to climb up on its Eiffel Tower.” Lower down on the page, a speech bubble depicts Dick saying “Ladies? Are you even paying attention? I swear.”

Janín’s layout is deliberately designed to draw attention to Dick’s butt. The support beams of the wall follow from the text box at the start of the top left of the panel, along to the right of the page and then straight down to the buttocks. The viewer then follows Dick’s legs down to take in the school girls whose attention is firmly set upon said buttocks. It is then their gaze that visually leads you down the rest of his body. The entire set up of the image is for the viewer to see Dick Grayson in the same sexual light as the teenagers do. It enforces Dick’s role within the DC Universe as a teenage heartthrob by showing just that, a line of teenaged girl whose hearts (and other parts) throb at the sight of him.

The fact that Dick’s legs lead you down along the line of students demonstrates that they have just as much importance within the image as Dick. Some would argue that this is an example of fan-service, that is to say, images simply put in place to titulate the consumer. However Janín has not drawn Dick with just the viewer in mind. He wants you to take in the school girls too, and see Dick from their point of view. Whilst this is still asking you to see him as a sexual figure, by having the overall view point be from above, the viewer is able to take step back from the scene, and allow us to also side with Dick. The viewer is meant to see the whole situation from a third-party perspective, yet still asks us to sympathise with the teenage girls crushing on their attractive gym teacher. If the purpose of the piece was for the viewer to sexualise Dick for themselves, his body would have a far more prominent feature, blocking out the girls entirely from view and posing in a more deliberately sexualised fashion, as opposed to the actual image where Dick is just going about his job in a conventional fashion, meaning there are no purple bikinis or broken spines in sight. Dick’s ignorance to the girls attraction towards him adds humour to the image, where his frustrations at their lack of attention are juxtaposed with their very real fascination with his body.

This use of humour helps to set a tone for the comic, wherein the reader is made to feel relaxed and amused by the content before it swiftly changes to something more serious. In the case of Grayson #8 it is one of the girls’ other mentors, a middle aged woman, screaming for help. While some might argue that the clear focus on Dick’s buttocks is purely for fan service, and so is an act of objectification on par with that shown towards female characters, the fact that the image genuinely helps progress the story suggests otherwise. The panel of Dick Grayson teaching gymnastics provides the reader with further insight into the characters’ personalities and roles within their society, whilst the general page layout sets up the pace and rhythm for the plot of the book. If it were just for fan service, it would have been easily removed from the story with no consequence.

However, it is true that one of the selling points of Dick Grayson is his sex appeal. Writers Gail Simone and Devin Grayson have both spoken about how they deliberately write Dick Grayson to have sex appeal. Simmone, who is probably most academically sited for her her women in refrigerators campaign (in which she points out the distressing prevalence for female characters to be brutally murdered in order to progress a male character’s story) as a comic book writer has often included sexualised male characters in her work, Dick Grayson being one of them. She argues that since there are enough female characters who are sexualised in the media, she therefore has said she needs “to have sexy characters who might appeal to more people” she wants “there to be characters for everyone” (Simone, 2014). It is important to note, that Simone does not specify that only women are sexually attracted towards these men, nor indeed that all women would be, simply that there in order to diversify audience, one needs to diversify character appeal. Whereas Simone’s approach may stem from a socio-political form of feminism, Grayson has a more capitalist approach. In an interview discussing Dick Grayson as a sex symbol, she suggested that not using the character as such is a serious marketing failure: “It’s astonishing to me that sexy male superheroes aren’t marketed as aggressively as sexy male vampires or sexy male boy bands. There’s obviously tons of money to be made there. There is no one on the planet that will devote more energy, social media advocacy, and money to a favoured cause than a smitten teenage girl.” (Grayson, 2015). Indeed, in editor Kate Kubert’s original pitch for Grayson, she described it as “a cool, slick, sexy spy book starring Dick Grayson” (Seeley, 2015). Dick Grayson’s sex appeal was always meant to be integral to the story.

Therefore, it is not really a surprise that it is the the title page for Grayson #8 that draws such attention to Dick Grayson’s sexy arse. This could be interpreted as male objectification, since it is Dick’s highly attractive body that is being used to draw in readers to the series. Indeed, the bottom panel in particular is designed to make the reader turn the page and find out what is happening. The viewer is only shown a hint of what the woman is possibly holding, and that she is in complete distress. She is asking for help, and the reader assumes that Dick Grayson is going to be the one to provide it, though one would have to buy the book to find out more. It would naturally appeal to a female heterosexual audience to have an attractive male hero go and rescue a woman in need of aid. It is important to note, that whilst other comic series (and indeed spy films) also have attractive men saving women, what makes Dick Grayson stand out here is his more nurturing role. He is in the middle of teaching a class, not sipping a martini in a cassino. Furthermore it is the female gaze depicted here (almost literally in this case since the audience is partially sees Dick through the eyes of teenage girls) and not the male gaze. This is not a power fantasy where a strong dashing man jumps in and saves the simpering young blonde woman, this is a fantasy in which you witness the nice, handsome teacher come to the aid of a grey haired middle-aged woman. The first fantasy is decidedly that of a heterosexual man, the second of a heterosexual woman. Therefore, if the fantasy that is being presented revolves around Dick’s personality and abilities, it cannot be objectification, since you cannot objectify someone who has personhood.

Yet, even if this image is an example of objectification, the question arises of whether it is harmful objectification, or whether it is acceptable given the context. The sexual objectification of a character takes away their agency, their personality and treats them as nothing better than a particularly life like sex toy. The prevalence of this in female characters reflects upon a society that does not value women, or even consider them as people. Therefore, if Dick Grayson is being objectified, is it as dangerous as when female characters, such as Starfire, are objectified? Dick Grayson already has an established character that goes back over 75 years, and as a rich white-passing (Grayson confirms him to be Romani in decent) cis-man has been granted narrative privileges that other characters have not been. Dick Grayson has always been empowered and valued by readers and creators, so objectifying him every now and then is not going to do too much harm to his overall characterisation, nor help maintain an existing real life precedent for a social inequality.

Dick Grayson’s sexualisation in Grayson #8 is a satirical commentary based upon just that. The book came out in an environment where criticism of female objectification and sexualisation in comic books was starting to become a more publicly discussed issue. 2012 saw the beginning of The Hawkeye Initiative which looked at how female characters were drawn in comics and parodied them by drawing Marvel’s Clint Barton (A.K.A Hawkeye) in the same pose. The campaign was widely celebrated across the internet, though many creators (predominantly male) were insulted by the disrespect shown to the original creators. Of course, part of the project was to disrespect the original creators by displaying how sexist their original drawings were, so to that extent, their reaction was incredibly valid. However, the spirit of the initiative was always to encourage conversation in a light hearted, humourous fashion that did not single out any one creator. Grayson #8 demonstrates the exact same humorous approach. The image does not speak to how Dick Grayson is purely a sex object, or oppressed in any way, it speaks of an understanding that it’s about time the playing field was evened out; that heterosexual women and gay men should have someone they too can fantasise about. It welcomes you to join the teenagers in admiring Dick, and let’s you understand that doing so is harmless and fun. This also helps to subvert a classic spy movie trope, where the male protagonist treats the female heroine as nothing but an object of desire, and she is shot from angles that only accentuate those elements. It is clear that when Kubert asked Seeley to create her a “sexy spy book” (Seeley, 2015) it was Dick Grayson who would be providing the sexy, and not his female co-stars.

As discussed in Camille Bacon-Smith’s seminal 1992 work on Fan Studies Enterprising Women, fandom has often been used as a tool for female sexual exploration, and though Bacon-Smith views this from a slightly more critical outsider’s perspective, more recent studies that have come from within fandom itself, and have shown the way it can help people develop an understanding of their sexuality in a safe manner. This has become particularly true for teenage fans, who often use fan-works to explore these parts of themselves. It is especially important to have these spaces celebrated, since teenage girls’ sexuality is often ridiculed elsewhere in popular media. From Stephanie Meyer to Ringo Starr, actors, musicians and writers have all been pushed to the side as irrelevant just because they’re popular amongst teenage girls, and the quality of their work is assumed straight away to be nonsense just based upon their fanbase. Yet, as Grayson said, it is these same fans who will show the utmost dedication and passion (Grayson, 2015) for works that speak to them, and treat them with respect. That is exactly what is being shown in Grayson #8, teenage girls who have sexualised fantasies about non-threatening men, where it is not presented as a set up to a Lolita-esc story of peodophillia. Dick Grayson is not interested in these girls sexually, the girls understand that they will not be entering into sexual relations with him, but that does not stop them from enjoying looking at him and fantasising about him in a safe manner. Even if their attention is unwanted, the girls cannot harm Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson will not harm them. It could be argued, that the humourous feel to the piece is mocking the girls for their sexuality, and asking the reader to laugh at them, not with them. However, the fact that the layout of the work has such a focus on Dick Grayson’s bottom, and that the page begins with one of the girl’s own comment of sexual innuendo about him as a sexy Eiffel Tower she wishes to climb (King, 2014), it is clear that the viewer is being asked to side with these teenagers and agree, that yes, if Dick Grayson was the Eiffel Tower, you too would gladly climb up it and enjoy that glorious view.

To conclude, Grayson #8’s Title Page is an example of how female sexuality (in particularly, that of teenage girls) can be celebrated in comic books in a fun and safe manner. The title page treats the character with respect and dignity, whilst still nodding to an fan base that have dedicated entire blogs to pictures of his butt. The image is tongue-in-cheek about it’s approach to the celebration of Dick Grayson’s bottom, however it is done with respect to both character and reader. Whilst some might argue that this is objectification, the existing social and historical structures within the industry and western society as whole negate this. It has now become an important act of feminist action to have such characters within comic books. Equal opportunity between the sexes, requires equal opportunity to celebrate sexuality. Dick Grayson’s butt in tight lycra is not going to change the world over night, but it is certainly a very good place to start. Grayson is not the first series to celebrate Dick Grayson’s bottom and share it in all it’s peach like glory, and it is unlikely to be the last, yet, much like Dick Grayson, it is still a beautiful piece of work that shall no doubt be cherished for the ages.

References:

Holy Robin Batman! The Wednesday Club, 9th August 2017 (Available on Geek and Sundry’s Twitch and Projectalpha.com)

http://comicsalliance.com/tim-seeley-grayson-nightwings-dc-comics-interview/

http://comicsalliance.com/why-is-nightwing-hot/

http://comicsalliance.com/comics-sexiest-male-characters/

https://www.themarysue.com/gail-simone-nightwing-butt/

https://www.cbr.com/seeley-king-enter-the-dcus-espionage-world-in-grayson/

https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/460/384

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/77.html

#Dick Grayson #Agent 37 #Nightwing #Comics #DC Comics #Comic Books #Tim Seeley #Mikel Janín #Tom King #Not Art #Not Comics #(even though it is really but not my comics at least)#My Dad asked me why I wrote this #apparently the answer #For Fun?#Did not clear things up

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passionandpurposeblog-blog · 5 years

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Sexuality: No More to say and so over it

A few months after my long term girlfriend and I split up, I ended up in bed with Phillip, A nice guy that I’d known for some time. During the post-sex talk, he turns and asks “So does that mean you’re straight now?”

“LMFAO”

‘You’ve got a nice cock and I had a great orgasm, …..but you haven’t awoken anything in me that wasn’t already there. You cannot ‘make’ me straight and no one forced me to fuck you’

Infact, No one else would sexually awaken anything in me. Not the next guy after Phil, or the guy after that guy, or the girl after the guy after Phil. The list goes on and the list started waaaay back into my early teens. I've always been open, I was experimenting with drugs and people at a young age, I had a threesome with a guy and a girl when I was just 18. When I look back, I must admit that was very young for such an experience, but I just went with the flow. I don’t regret it, but I wish I had done it at a later age to really make the most of it and have the emotional maturity that you need to go with it.

I’ve been listening to an interview with Kate Pierson (B52’s) and she has recently married her long term partner, a woman that she has dated for 15 years. She said that she had always dated men, and was even married before and that this lady came along and bang she was in love, just like that. Kate Pierson is now 71, So this is her 55-year-old self experiencing a major transition and shift in her life. Whilst trawling through the B52s back catalog online I read so many comments from random fans. ‘She's a lesbian’ ‘I never knew’ ‘But she was married to so and so’ and this is exactly the snooze fest that I am writing about today. Yawn...... If she spent 40 years with different men and now met a woman, perhaps shes just er just bisexual? And more importantly, shouldn’t we be interested in the music and her voice? As much as I love her, when all is said and done I don’t really want to think about the bedroom antics of a 71-year-old yknow.

What is it with the labels?

It’s like no one is comfortable until they know exactly which box you belong in, and if you stray from that box then their tiny minds scramble and system overload occurs. ‘ANNOUNCE YOURSELF AT ONCE’ ‘What are you?’ and ‘Don’t you dare have options or change, it doesn’t fit with the label I’ve prescribed you’.

Before we label Kate a lesbian, how about we mention that she’s a brilliant talented vocalist with over 40 years in the band? Or is that how we are defining her now ‘The lesbian’?. *Insert laughing emoji here*

“Bisexuals always get dumped on,” says Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City...The Media has too labeled her a lesbian when much like Kate Pierson, she was in fact with men and entered into this new world later on in her life. It’s like now we must erase her whole previous life and deny that any man has ever come close to her! How dare she now turnaround and say she's’ attracted to men! How fucking dare she, she’s lesbian property now and she has no voice! She never said she was anything, You did!

I thought, ‘I get it! I get You, I just get it’. She’s attracted to people, they may be male or they may be female yet shes being kettled to a place she never asked to be. It really is that simple. Should her current relationship end, nothing stops her going back to men, dating another woman or even staying single. Your past partners do not mean that your future self is set in stone. It’s not difficult to understand really is it?

But! And there is a But!

Say Cinthia and her gf/wife did break up and she dated a man. She won’t find it that easy, because of what I call, the whole ‘lesbian fragility’ - Gay women who pride themselves on being with women and only women and god fucking forbid should you show any interest in a guy. Well, You are now damaged goods my girl. A sell-out, banished!....exiled from the pride....like the Lioness in last weeks BBC Planet Earth. How can you and the gay community ever really watch the L Word again together or listen to Ani Difranco in the same way? ‘It’s just not the same’ they’ll whine.

I’m being serious. There is a reverse discrimination within the gay community! I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen a few women in same sex relationships end, then go for a guy and their ‘friends’ no longer feel the same way about them, there’s no time to hang out anymore and she is “too busy with her straight friends”.

Awwwww did someone emasculate you?

I’ve never really enjoyed the company of gay women if I'm honest. I always found their friendships forged on sharing of sexual preference rather than common interest, views or hobbies. I usually think their haircuts are shit and they present me with this feeling where they are unsure if they want to fuck me or fight me. Very awkward, not to mention its a very childish and incestuous scene.

I have seen this so many times with women, either in a same sex or opposite and then switch later on down the line which is what I mean about experience and just understanding those around you. I think a lot of women are on the bi spectrum. Not all, no, but a lot are, and sexuality is fluid. About three months ago my cock hungry straight friend told me she’d met some woman online and is now having the best sex of her life! Great, wonderful, Whoppie. So how do I label her? …....‘Err Mary’......... I label her Mary. I can’t really call her cock hungry right now, so I’ll just label her ‘Hungry Mary’.

One of my oldest friends is gay – full blown lesbian, never been with a guy but totally cool with every bi girl that has. She and I sit on a different part of the spectrum, but she gets it and like myself she gives those around her that mutual respect and safe space to be who they are. If she turned around tomorrow and said she’s dating a guy, I wouldn’t be shocked, not because she has ever indicated that she likes guys, but simply because people change.

I know three guys that have also experimented with other guys, would identify as straight and two of the three have long term girlfriends and kids. I just think at the time they took the ‘any holes a goal’ attitude and like my younger self, just went with the flow.

As we age and grow the fuck up, this should be more accepted and we should just allow people to do who and what they want without the questions, especially the silly questions. It’s really mind numbingly boring, not to mention so nosey!? Jeez, get your own life in order. Despite my ramblings, I'm actually a pretty private person. I just don’t discuss my private life or anyone I’m dating, I have so many transient non-committal interactions with people that I just don’t feel I need to.

I’ve been chatting to some people for ages, and I still wouldn’t discuss parts of my life with them. I keep my circle so small, and If we don’t click like that, we don’t click like that. It’s cool, because there is far more to me and far more to you than who we have in our beds right? I cant imagine meeting someone and asking them, “so what are ya?” CRINGE. I’d die. I’ve got some friends that I’ve spoken to for years, we’ve had really great conversations and it’s never occurred to me to stop and ask ‘do you have a partner? Are you gay?’

The small circle of friends that I have know me, they get me and that’s my safe space.

I do find some of the questions and statements really annoying, and if I’m honest just plain weird. I have an irritating male friend in that likes to continually remind me that I’m attracted to women, and of course, there is no way that I can be attracted to men, because I’m not attracted to him..... *eye roll* Dick! It’s like me saying to someone, ‘but you said you like mixed raced girls, so why don’t you like me’ it’s really really weird and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Its uncomfortable because he cannot address or acknowledge his own fascination with bisexuality and cannot stop mentioning it every time he sees me? He makes out he is cool and open-minded, yet I seem to be the topic of convo or butt of his jokes. Address your homophobia or your weird unrequited sexualisation of me whatever the issue is. Seek help mate, Your issue not mine.

I cannot recall being asked what two women do in bed, but I have heard of it being asked to other people. It’s hilarious. I honestly believe that if you are over 25 and cannot work that out then you have a really dull imagination and I’d bet you are not very experienced. Not necessarily in bedding two women at once, but just in experiencing people; hearing their stories, watching porn, understanding their anatomy and physiology. OR You are being a menace and condescending..... I’ve never seen two men at it live, but I’m pretty sure I know how it goes down ;-)

Sometime ago I spent a fair amount of time at a bdsm sex dungeon helping out an old friend. Id mostly film her sessions, and now and then Id help out by giving some guys the odd little kick in the nuts etc. Boy, I could write a whole new blog on that experience LOL! I saw some things!

Meeting all the different types of people that came in the dungeon really opened my eyes to the world of sex and sexuality and just what turns people on. You really cannot judge what people are into, and you’d never know. It’s funny, the ‘geezers’ that make the gay jokes about bumming are often the same ones that ask the women to wear strap ons ;-). People have their quirks and their kinks, they just hide it well BELIEVE me.

I’ve seen a lot and I’m very open and not much phases me, but because I’m not phased, or excited by the gossip or the fascination of it all I'm over it. …....over the labels, the questions, the presumptions, opinions and the basic inability to let people do what they want in peace. So because of this I decided a long time ago that I’m actually over my sexuality and stopped speaking about it back in my twenties.

Yawn.

No one owns me and no one dictates.

I’m not anything, I’m just me in that particular point of time. No path is set and I answer to no one except who’s in my bed.

Keep your own truth

#sexulaity #bisexuality fragility homophobia lgbt straight labels b52s #sexuality #cockhungry

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tothewaterhq · 5 years

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ACCEPTED // HOLIDAY TRUEHART

capitol → stylist (in training) → Dianna Agron fc

positive traits: creative, considerate, charismatic negative traits: sheltered, distrustful, spoilt

tw: exploitation, sexulisation

what made your character decide to become a stylist? As a child, she was always fascinated by makeup. Now that she’s older, experimenting with it is when she feels most like herself.

describe their style. what are their designs like? any particular colours/fabrics/ideas they’re drawn to? Old Hollywood. Red lipstick. Bold black eyeliner. Sequins. Long trains on dresses. Soft wavy hair.

bio:

Born to leading Capitol actress Lorelai Lovelace and her award-winning director of a husband Claudius Truehart, one could say that Holiday had no choice but to be in the spotlight. She was given her first role when she was less than a year old, playing the newborn daughter of a rival politician in the President’s official biopic Vote Snow.

Her childhood was a busy one. Mommy or Daddy or both were always working, and when Holiday wasn’t on a job she was still on set; sitting on her father’s lap as he yelled orders over her head, or trying on wigs in her mother’s dressing room. When Holiday experimented with make-up, it was professional product that was quickly snatched out of her fingers by disapproving stylists and make-up artists.

She continued to borrow it and experiment anyway.

After years of roles in movies such as Safe and Sound for Candlenights and Babysitting an Angel, in which Holiday always played the adorable little sister or the charming daughter of the leading character, the Capitol’s favourite child actress hit puberty.

Her parents panicked. An army of stylists were hired to keep her looking youthful for as long as possible. Her wardrobe was switched out with a new one comprising entirely of polka dots and tutus and other garments deemed too funky or cute to be sexualised, all modestly cut and youthful in style.

It only worked for a year or two. After a speculative article in a tabloid about her role as Revel Revlon’s kid sister in her father’s latest family movie (Can Claudius Truehart’s little princess really pass for ten years old these days?), Holiday was plucked out of the spotlight at the age of fourteen. She was forbidden from leaving the family mansion, forbidden to talk to anyone besides her parents and their household staff.

She was unused to the quiet.

Her parents bought her an easel and she took up painting. And when her pictures grew good enough to hang on the wall in the entrance to their mansion, they agreed to buy her some makeup to play with.

They also made her learn to play the violin. Because a lady never knew when that might come in useful.

Holiday’s style gravitated towards the looks she’d grown up watching stylists create on her mother; red lips, bold black eyeliner, hair in soft gentle waves.

Sitting in the dining room one night for dinner, Lorelai and Claudius realised they’d been coddling their daughter for too long. Across the table from them, with bold red lips and curled blonde hair; she had her mother’s looks, that much was plain.

She could be the next movie bombshell.

Holiday Truehart was given a whole new image and brought out of exile. Her first role as a new woman was the love interest in a sweet little rom-com called Plenty of Fish in Four. Holiday spoke to her make-up artists more than she ever had as a child, eager to learn any tips and tricks they could teach her.

Her first role in an R-rated film came two years later. My Night With a Victor featured Holiday’s very first nude scene, and it quickly became a selling point for the movie. Aged twenty, Holiday found her scantily-clad image on billboards and in magazines. It was a far cry from the adorable little photoshoots she’d been asked to do as a child.

Her head was spinning with the shock of it all, and to add to the confusion she caught wind of a rumour; My Night With a Victor was based on a true story. Of course, it had been romanticised, and any traces of unhappiness on the part of her handsome co-star’s character had been removed. But people were spending nights with victors.

She wondered if, maybe, they were being exploited too.

Her name was down for a second role with nude scenes, at her parents’ request, when her father unexpectedly dropped down dead. The coroner came to the conclusion that a lavish lifestyle full of rich food had finally caught up with him. The film industry mourned.

Holiday mourned, too- she’d loved her father dearly. But she mourned whilst hiring a lawyer to get her out of her latest project, and using her inheritance to buy an apartment as far away from the family mansion as possible.

She spent months trying to fade back into obscurity, but the public didn’t want to lose her a second time. Someone leaked her new address, and Holiday found herself the recipient of unwanted fan-mail. She realised quickly that her father had been sifting through it all her life, only passing on the less explicit messages to her in recent years.

Her life and her body no longer felt like her own. Holiday wondered if they ever truly had been. But how could she reclaim something that might never have been her own to begin with?

Remembering how happy she’d always been whilst playing with makeup, she signed up for a role training to be a stylist for the hunger games. It was public enough to keep her fans satisfied, but maybe it would help sway her reputation back into a more tasteful area. Maybe she’d be surrounded by people who got it.

PLAYED BY // DAISY

#accepted #holiday

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aretherelesbians · 6 years

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Are There Lesbians? No

What Happens? A mute woman falls in love with a fishman and plots his escape from the science facility where he is being held

The Verdict:

The Shape of Water is a truly beautiful and moving film. I was a little surprised at how much I loved it. I was expecting it to be a little more kitschy, a little more ridiculous and old-timey over-the-top than it was. Instead, I spent most of the movie with my mouth hanging open in awe at the visual and emotional spectacle I was being put through.

This is a film where the non-human creature is not monstrous. He is terrifying yes but he is beautiful and dignified despite the pain he is put through. In The Shape of Water it is the humans who are the monsters. The most terrifying part is that it is a monstrosity which is all too recognisable. The film shows a monstrosity that looks down on people who work in service or who are disabled, as well as the casual othering of those who are a different race or queer. Empathy is created for the creature by placing him as “one of us,” one of the downtrodden, cast-aside and ignored. And yet like the proverbial “us” he is powerful and capable of anything because of being overlooked. One of my favourite parts of the movie came after the creature is rescued and the security officer is telling Colonel Strickland that it must have been the work of at least ten highly trained operatives. The audience knows, of course, that this was not the case. It was two cleaning ladies, a scientist and an out-of-work artist.

Colonel Strickland is terrifying in that he is recognisable. My skin crawled as he said he prefers women who cant speak. His whole manner echoed the notion that women should just be quiet and stay in the kitchen. He is just like many men who came before him, and just like many now who somehow are managing to become even more vocal. This violence isn’t just relegated to women however, as Strickland despises anyone who is beneath him, and he views everyone as beneath him. Unsurprisingly, it is Strickland and his superior officer who are the most in favour of killing the creature to gain all the information they can from it. It is not, as is so often the case in films, the scientist, Dr. Hoffstetler, who wishes to destroy it. Rather, Dr. Hoffstetler is in favour of keeping it alive to study it, and actively argues against killing the creature. It is almost surprising how rare this is, and speaks to the importance of good science.

The Shape of Water is, at its core, a romantic movie. It is the answer to the question we often ask in monster movies – what if the creature and the woman he loves had a happy ending? Yes, there is plenty of sexual content but at no point does it feel excessive. There are many shots of Elisa's naked body but they do not feel sexualised. The camera doesn’t linger licentiously on her curves, instead we are given full body shots of... a woman’s body. In the same vein there are shots of her masturbating in the bath as part of her morning routine and, while shocking in its unexpectedness it was extremely welcome. This is actually the first time I've seen female masturbation portrayed in a mainstream film and, much like the nudity, it did not feel voyeuristic or even particularly sexual. It was portrayed as part of her morning routine, just another thing to do. Also, yes, Elisa does fuck the fish but that being said, the first time, it is dealt with a tasteful pan away and is portrayed as a very tender and romantic moment. The second was another of my favourite scenes (I have so many, it was so wonderful) where Elisa floods the bathroom for the creature and the water leaks onto moviegoers in the cinema below.

I could give a scene-by-scene run-through of The Shape of Water and explain what I love about both the story and the cinematography in each instance but I think instead I will just tell you to go see it for yourself. You will not be disappointed.

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hillvalleyfilmsociety · 6 years

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I saw three movies in the last week. They were pretty different to each other, but I quite enjoyed all of them, so I'm resurrecting my film blog to write reviews of them. To 2018, and resolutions to write more!

Call Me By Your Name (2017) Dir: Luca Guadagnino

I was very interested in this pre-release, even though I had never read the book. Luca Guadagnino caught my eye with 2015's A Bigger Splash, which is stylistically very familiar to CMBYN, and which I really enjoyed. Guadagnino shines in the aesthetic of his films, in the beautiful scenery and silences between sparse dialogue. Both create a languid, sumptuous mood - wealth and privilege on show, yet somehow not ostentatious to the viewer.

But where this mood creates distance and miscommunication between the characters of ABS, it brings the characters of CMBYN closer, creates warmth between them, bringing the viewer into Elio's extended family as easily as they welcome Oliver. The film is set over a summer in Northern Italy in 1983, and Guadagino skillfully captures the feeling of a slow, lazy summer pre-internet, where all there is for the teenaged main character, Elio (Timothée Chalamet), to do is lie around the pool swimming or reading, long family meals, piano practice or biking into town.

Before I go any further, I have to discuss the opening credits, which go on for at least ten minutes and effortlessly set the tone for the casual opulence of the world of the film. Gentle, upbeat classical music plays over photos of classical sculptures - something that Elio's academic father and the grad student who he invites to work with him over the summer seem to be working in the field of - while the credits are written in a messy but elegant script, in a warm yellow shade. All of this somehow worked to already create the mood that pervades the rest of the film - casual wealth and intelligence, warmth and inclusion - before you even meet the Perlmans, and the beautiful villa they spend holidays in.

Some viewers might dislike watching films with wealthy people languishing in villas on holidays, but in the way that Guadagnino presents it, it's enchanting. I loved the feeling of seeing the easy, comfortable way the Perlmans (Elio's family) live on holiday, with their freshly made apricot juice and their family meals in a shaded grove. As I mentioned earlier, it creates a very welcoming vibe that helps you understand the mindset of the newcomer to this idyll, grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer).

The movie is really Chalamet's, and more on him below, but Hammer does quite well in a less showy role as Oliver - who has been invited to spend six weeks at an Italian villa working with an academic he seems to not have personally met before arriving. A great honour, clearly, but it's also awkward, and Hammer plays this slight dissonance well - he's a non-European American (like the rest of the Perlmans) which is both exciting and awkward to the gathered family and friends of the Perlman. Hammer's Oliver is a lot of contrasts, both interested and scared/offended by Elio, both very confident towards him and very hesitant, both cool and dorky. Armie Hammer's being doing a few lower budget indie, and more off the wall projects since the Lone Ranger debacle didn't launch him into the leading man blockbuster stratosphere, and personally, I think he's much better in these than attempting to be another leading man type. (And for that matter, I am genuinely annoyed both he and Michael Stuhlbarg were passed over for Oscar noms, so they could give two to Three Billboards. It's not like Hammer would have got it, but I think he certainly deserved the nomination.)

As I said though, Chalamet is the standout - it's his story and he does a lot with it. His Elio is very reminiscent of the frustrating uncomfortableness of being a teenager - he's awkward, moody, bitter, cheeky, afraid, delicate and above all, real. What was beautiful about this film is how much everyone loves Elio - he's not always kind and good, but he is also a teenage boy - but his sexuality doesn't shut him off from other people. It's not an isolationist story, like a lot of queer film narratives are. While I can understand the urge to show that side of things, it's incredibly gratifying to see a film about a queer boy in the eighties, where if everyone doesn't know for certain they probably are aware of it in some respect, and they don't seem to care. They just love him, and Chalamet plays Elio's connections with everyone (not just Oliver) beautifully. He certainly deserves his Oscar nomination, even though he's not the favourite to win. He's also in the Oscar nominated Lady Bird, and my feeling is that (hot take alert) he's gonna be big.

Further from this, I love how tactile the characters in this film are. Elio is very cuddly and childlike sometimes with his parents, who are very affectionate to him - and no one tells him "a seventeen year old boy shouldn't do that" which is a blessing. He's very affectionate with the girls he's friends with. His later dynamic with Oliver - once they've admitted to feeling something for each other - is very affectionate too, kind of awkward but in a sweet way. Not all their encounters are just these highly eroticised moments (which is not to say that none of them are). This makes their burgeoning relationship very real, like a seventeen year old boy fumbling his way toward a relationship that will always be meaningful, a first love more than just lust. Not that his dynamic with his sort-of girlfriend Marzia is unloving, just different, but no less sweet in its newness to the both of them.

On that note, I'm sure some people will say that there was a “lack of explicit sex scenes” in this movie. To that, I say PAH. It’s not like this movie is sanitised and sexless (hello, peach scene. yep.) It’s quite erotic in parts, quite good at conveying Elio's attraction to Oliver, and vice versa. But it feels like (unlike hetero love stories) that queer media is often all or nothing: either completely sexless, even affectionless even in a good relationship (Mitch and Cam on Modern Family didn’t even kiss on screen till like mid season two or three) or incredibly sexualised, and featuring intense sex scenes. This movie walks the rare line between the two - very affectionate (in private, natch) but allowing them the dignity of not being watched - as they always are, even by relatively benign eyes around them - in the moment of consummation. (For more on this - Jason Adams' delicate and moving review, Call Me With Kindness) It’s not even as though there are no on-screen sex acts in the film, either, so I'll say that I think it was a good, well-done balance.

If I had any slight problem with the narrative, it was that I found it hard to understand the progression of Elio and Oliver's relationship pre the mutual reveal of feelings - but that seemed to be a stylistic choice, and ABS was much the same, where the characters barely verbally communicated for a lot of the beginning arc of the film. It could be deliberately unclear- neither of them really know what the other thinks of them until they admit things together, while they're alone for once. Either way, it didn't much mar my enjoyment of their story which is emotional and complex but also very sweet.

The last thing I have to talk about is Michael Stuhlbarg, who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite actors (and who again, I am furious has not picked up any Oscar nominations for any of the great work he did in 2017). He was in two thirds of the films I saw recently, and he managed to be very moving in two small-ish roles. The scene where he tells Elio not to mock his friend and his male partner, that if he can be as knowledgeable as him and as good he'll be "a credit to him". Elio's father is a good man, and you can tell from this moment he doesn't care who Elio loves as long as he doesn't grow up boorish and ignorant. In fact, as much as the love story is engaging, my favourite scene of the file is when Elio and his father discuss Oliver after he has left. It was incredibly affecting to me - Elio's father doesn't come out and say he knew for certain about them, but refers to their "friendship" in the kindest, most respectful way, possibly even hinting about his own sexuality - not necessarily that he's closeted, but that he may have had an Oliver in his past he was too afraid to have anything happen with. Stuhlbarg is just so good, so affecting and plays really well off Chalamét, who allows Elio just the right amount of vulnerability and emotion.

Not to mention, Sufjan Stevens' two gorgeous original songs for the film, but I'll close this out by saying that there's a certain kind of idea about the kind of queer romance film that gets the Academy's attention - that it has to be sad, that the characters have to suffer and end up unhappy, and everyone can discuss how tragic it was. That sort of story is fine, because yes historically many LGBT people couldn't be open or take chances, and many did suffer. But that's not the only LGBT narrative to be told, even when set decades ago - and I'm thrilled to see films like 2016's Carol, 2017's Best Picture Winner Moonlight, and CMBYN tell a new kind of queer narrative where the characters are allowed to be happy even in an oppressive time, where the characters can break up and be miserable because of that (and not because of illness or bigoted violence), where the focus is just the love story. It gives me hope for the generation of younger LGBT viewers to see themselves outside of misery narratives.

4/5 stars

#call me by your name #cmbyn #luca guadagnino #timotheé chalamet #armie hammer #michael stuhlbarg #film review #oscars 2018

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tinkdw · 7 years

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Dean is bi, a succinct look over the seasons

I’ve seen a few posts about how if/when we get Bi!Dean (and Destiel) some people are worried others may cry ‘fan service’ purely because they haven't noticed it as a continuous theme through the 12 years of the show so far. So I just wanted to compile a few snippets showing that it has been there all along, it’s not a complete list as I would have to literally spend weeks doing this as there is so much material, but here’s just a few to get started!

1x07: So, it’s season 1, everything is just ramping up so the subtext is very sub...

Dean rejects painting the college kid yet immediately picks up a skin mag (making it sexual), ignoring the actual mag whilst ogling the kid and noticing the point just above his ass that Sam missed? While Sam in an extremely NON sexual manner does the actual painting? Nice...

2x11: There is no way that scene in Playthings is not meant for the audience to notice and pick up on.

We are supposed to pick up on Sam’s totally accurate and straight faced response to this and how Dean reacts, precisely due to it’s accuracy:

Sam: “Well, you are kinda butch, they probably think you’re overcompensating”. Sam is totally straight faced as this is exactly what he thinks is the case as is taking the opportunity to let Dean know that he knows.

source: @shixpe. Meanwhile Dean’s face is like ‘shit... I’m that obvious?’

*TINK LOOKS INTO THE CAMERA*

Season 4: Intro Cas. Now for the ramping up... Dean not so subtly going from small moments of showing himself looking at a guy occasionally or projecting onto Sam “how gay are you?” but now literally licking his own lips, staring at Cas’ lips, comparing them to Thelma and Louise, using his “last day on earth” line on him, I mean, ALL the Cas related chemistry that I won't even go into here, but here’s a helpful post that has just a few examples of Cas-Dean chemistry over the years which is totally different to any other variation of Cas-Dean, because, that’s love not just lust.

6x09: The one when Dean specifically, not Dean and Sam, is associated with fairies.

source: @spn-liveblog

Where they sexualised the fairies as naked ladies with nipples on show. Where it’s textually and clearly brought to the audiences attention in this same episode that most people associate fairies with queer men.

Where Dean probably “serviced” Oberon king of the fairies (an easy link to queer King Oberyn in GoT, who’s name Dean uses in 12x18 while Sam uses the very heterosexual Stark name).

Meanwhile Sam nicely and true to form, even soulless, stays resolutely heterosexual and bangs the hippie chick while throughout the whole episode in contrast to Dean is hitting on any woman that moves.

It’s not just that Dean is consistently associated with queer subtext but also how Sam is NOT that shows how purposefully this is done for Dean.

7x12: This episode follows multiple episodes with so much “Dean was is in love with Cas subtext” (Cas dying, the trenchcoat, Sam and Bobby’s reactions, Dean’s alcoholism and coping mechanisms coming out, 7x05: Dean projecting Cas’ betrayal and their subsequent lack of communication which led to Cas’ death onto the witch couple by getting them to communicate leading to their making out furiously... immediately followed by Sam trying to get Dean to talk to him about Cas, 7x09 “Cas, black goo...” etc etc etc...

We have not only blatant Dean-is-queer moments:

But also the whole episode centers around an immortal who dies because they were in love with a Human who couldn’t forgive them for lying...

Then from 8 onwards we have more Dean / Cas parallels with canon romantic couples: Jess/Sam, Mary/John, Cain/Colette, Don/Maggie, David/Violet, Dean/Cassie, Chronos/Lila, Cacao/Betsy, Jesse/Cesar, Jeffery/his demon, Sam/Amelia, Benny/Andrea, Prometheus/Hayley, Dean/Amara, Ishim/Lily, Gavin/Fiona, Corbin/Michelle...

Ok so this isn't a Destiel post, it’s a Dean is bi post, but you know, at this point they’re kind of interlinked, because Cas has a male body from season 9 onwards, that isn't his vessel, it’s him, so there you go, have that too.

10x01:

You mean THESE triplets? The only twins/triplets in the bar? Where the guy behind looks like he's the additional triplet by his placement and his outfit being the exact in between of the who playing? The ones who Crowley was seen talking to again in the same episode?

Either way, even if for some reason it wasn’t these particular triplets, cos you know, triplets are super common, it’s still heavily implied (and referred to again throughout seasons 10,11 and 12) that Dean had some kind of sex with triplets and Crowley, who “rubbed off all over him”...

On top of that, sorry to be crude, but we also have these moments:

“...well, you could...” *insert Drowley meta here*.

and:

Then, back to the less crude side, 10x16:

So.... Dean is sick of hiding behind his facade? Do you think maybe it’s time someone came along and helped him see that he no longer needs to hide behind this wall? For a whole two seasons subtext be based around showing that Dean is in love with Cas and also kinda doesn't mind pop music for example, is actually not quite the dude bro he makes himself our to be and has a facade up that stops him from showing it?

Insert Amara. Whose name literally means Love. The expositional character of Dean’s innermost feelings, the extension of which is Mary, who ultimately leads to these feelings coming out after having been addressed for these two seasons...

Where an all knowing love - monster taking on her appearance tells him:

“I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel. Except...it’s cloaked in shame”.

Where in the SAME EPISODE Dean tells Sam that he doesn't feel love for Amara. So who can this possibly be referring to? For whom might he feel love cloaked in SHAME based on the last 10 years of what he have learned about Dean? Where only two episodes before Dean is told by a “wise woman” (who in film always sees truth) that he is pining for someone. PINING, a term interchangeable with LONGING. With whom do we associate LONGING?

I mean honestly... like we need an exposition for what this is all about...

Meanwhile, if there were any issues with Dean feeling that Hunting and being queer are frowned upon they nicely insert an amazingly, fantastically, blatantly mirrored Dean/Jesse Cas/Cesar episode, even down to the brother focused story, the way Cesar and Dean click and interact so similarly to Dean/Cas and the shoulder patting being the most we actually see of them being romantic, I mean JEEZ:

And now if he needed to hammer it home even further:

I mean, I think he gets the picture... it’s nothing to be ashamed of now.

So now thanks to his own personal growth, all this and the extension of Amara, Mary, Dean has finally faced his past, his feelings and given his wall the metaphorical and literal heave - ho:

In conclusion:

1. Dean is bisexual. Dean has always been bisexual, he was closeted for so long, but after all this time and thanks to his being in love with one guy in particular and Mary’s role in his self awareness and self acceptance arc, now is more or less the perfect moment to come out...

2. Dean met and over time went from lusting after to being deeply in love with Cas, who is now male, it is HIS body and he identifies with it as such, who has inconveniently right after this moment of final clarity for Dean, died what seemed to Dean to be a true and permanent Death while he screamed ‘noooo’, fell to his knees in shock and nicely paralleled two of the most doomed - romance canon couples in the show within 5 minutes (Jess and Sam and Cain and Colette).

Both sides of this have come to a climax at the end of season 12, I believe leading to things really happening now moving forwards... So this, when it all comes to the forefront is NOT fan service.

It has been there all along, at first subtly, then growing, finally becoming core to the main plot of the character and plot based storylines until this point.

#dean is bi #bi!dean #performing!dean #tinks meta #andrew dabb #andrew dabb appreciation post

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ssaalexblake · 7 years

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major MAJOR SPOILERS for wonde rwoman ahead like proceed at ur own risk i basically just liveblogged the movie from memory SPOILERS

okay like i did not expect my first thought of this movie to be ‘wow i love bruce wayne’ and yet...

the thoughtful bat bastard

also i had no idea robin wright was in this movie and after 2 days of seeing house of cards gifsets of claire underwood being shady af it was jarring.

tho also like... THANK YOU for having a good age range on the amazonians??? like, normally a movie involving an paradise like island only populated by women will have nobody over the age of what, 23?? they didn’t even photoshop out any signs of age!!!! Age diversity isn’t something we talk about a lot, but it’s important too.

oh and i don’t know /much/ about armour but it came across to me as functional, true to the comics but not sexualised either so A+

smug diana’s face when she was told she wouldn’t wield the god killer lol

also, i liked the way they filmed the fight sequences? It was clear what was going on, but where it included the slowmo and almost snapshots of the scene it had a real comic book feel to it.

kinda confused as to where the big boats went tbh but?? okay. I like Steve.

also his entire reaction to the whole laso thing was priceless poor dude

also i know this wasn’t a direct inversion or anything, but /thank you/ for none of this ‘born sexy yesterday’ nonesense!!!! Steve! is the one undressed in front of her (and she doesn’t give a fuck,and that, unlike the women, was sexualised) b/c she’s... Not naive! She’s naive about humanity in general and those with bad intentions, but they didn’t fall into the sexually naive trope trap. Sure, she’d never seen a dude before, much less a naked one, but like... she’s read all 12 volumes on pleasure and while men are required for reproduction... they’re not necessary for the pleasure part.

side bar: i’m feeling very gay today and thanks for the implication there.

i also appreciated the nods to the traditional hero story in this, because this movie follows the formula of all the others, but it is inherently feminine instead. But Diana is just as equal as the men, and she has the journey, too.

small note, when they ride to the boats to go to London i sniggered so loud at Steve getting the white horse. She got the black horse, he got the white horse. No damsel in distress on a beautiful white stallion here.

‘it’s just rude to /assume/ i can sleep with you!’ ‘you want me to sleep with you??? ok i will’ gfhrthtrgteger that was such a nice sequence again, actively /because/ she was not naive!!! she was just not knowledgeable of western societal expectations!!! 2 different things.

diana’s reaction to seeing the baby!!!! such a cute tiny moment

also looollll at the fashion scene like, i feel u, u can’t fight in those skirts

also, when she met Etta i was struck that we’d had a whole first part of the movie with only ladies!!! b/c like, normally that’d be all you’d get, just diana and etta barely talking but no!!! they related to each other and got on and were not the only women!

also, the perspective of the movie from a female standpoint, i was far less bothered by the portrayals of the sexism. Sometimes, when you’re watching a dude centric thing, and it’s set in the 40′s or 50′s and it’s super sexist, it can feel like the focus is more on getting to portray a woman’s hurt at being subjected to sexism is the point, rather than showing how fucked up it is, like, you can practically feel them enjoying the power trip, but being in Diana’s shoes, this movie being female directed, made it about her fury and shock at being excluded. Perspective matters, apparently.

her yelling at the generals in respect of claire underwood i love her (idr her character name sorry)

and fhgfiigjfjgfj her immediate reaction to her comrades l o l ‘at least he can punch’ ‘no not him’

'his people’ possibly the best line in the movie, i will reblog the posts about it when they get here

diana’s utter heartbreak the whole way through at it not being simple, that she can’t stop and save and help everyone, her in the trenches was rough.

and then she decides that actually, nah, i am gonna save people. at least these ones.

the SHOT THE SHOT /the/ superhero shot. Her taking her hair down, her turning and being full gear, her climbing up into no man’s land, just... this was a major cry part

aaaand the sniper! Look, Steve looking at the situation, nobody judging mr scotsman for not being able to take the shot, and Steve thinking back to how he saw diana and her people fight, and engineering a situation that he knows she will do well in!! he A) paid close attention to the first fight and B) is without ego catering the situation to aid her to finish the job

i too would stand and applaud and shake her hand lol

tho i /did/ find it weird they were shaking her hand, i thought the double cheek kiss thing would have been more like, accurate.

side note: i kicked myself, literally, in the cinema for shipping steve and diana so much because i knew how it had to end and yet, there i was, shipping the fuck outta them. That was /before/ he went back into the room with her, when i thought ‘hey maaaaybe they’ll be nice’ but NOPE then that happened and i was ‘they’re doomed.’.

definitely not /necessary/ but like... occasionally they can be useful.

also her slowly learning more about her companions as people and finding their value and heart was??? they were traumatised and messes and she found the heart and i love her so much

anyways the scenes in the gala hurt me, tho like, her DRESS, even aside from it being beautiful, it was not sexualised but still made her the person who stood out the most in the whole room, somebody tell male movie makers that colour can achieve what excess cleavage does 5x easier and more effectively than the latter.

she’s just... she’s really naive about humanity in general, and the narrative doesn’t demonise her for it and she learns and it obviously hurts steve b/c he wants it to be true. he so clearly longs for her way of thinking, but he knows it’s not true, and he knows she’s going to find out and that was a warning to the audience but it still hurt.

the village :(

i think i’m gonna be perpetually hurt by her reaction when she realised her killing the dude did nothing. Always gonna sting.

and THE WATCH, the watch ‘he lets order him around’ just a watch. He gives her the watch, of everything, the watch. And she goes on to do what he does, what he believes, she goes on to love like he does, she does what the watch tells her, kinda. that one kicked me in the feelings. the fucking pocket watch gdi.

me, the whole way through the movie: don’t kill Chief don’t kill Chief and thank youfor not being awful for once

‘i can save these people but you can save the world, it has to be me’ i’m sobbing friends she can save the fucking world

(side note: steve was treated well and respected for his role in this move but when u swap it, where the man is the hero and the woman is the backup, women rarely get that courtesy, and every man complaining about steve being a sidekick love interest can be /told/ we rarely ever get the amount of respect story wise he was shown.)

she a fucking demi-god babes and she is totally okay with Fratricide so watch the fuck out ~my girl

btw the photo killed me the whole way through just fyi

and i /had/ forgotten till she touched his face on the billboard.

and then my love for bruce way back when at the beginning of the movie hit even higher b/c i now understood exactly HOW much that photo meant to her, and that idiot melodramatic bat dude spent the time tracking down the original photo just to send it to her.

no other motivation, it was, as she said, a choice to be loving. This movie has made me emotional about Bruce and Clark in BVS lol.

i’m just really choked up about this one i gotta cry a little more nvm

#rrhrhrth #ryhrth #fgerrgteh #wdfgegrerg #rffgtrhetg #gethetg #danni retroactively liveblogs wonder woman #this is A MESS but i needed to rant #spoilers #wonder woman spoilers #wonderwoman spoilers

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grogblogging-follows · 7 years

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so i went to see wonder woman – here are my thoughts, spoiler-free

first off: i know gal gadot is Super Not Great and i don’t want to touch that whole thing with a bargepole because it’s really not my place. i went to see this movie because it’s the first female superhero movie & that’s really important to me, but i totally understand not wanting to support it because of her.

but on to the actual movie.

i have super super mixed feelings, honestly. im so happy there’s finally a female superhero movie, about fuckin time honestly, & i got !! at several points in the movie bc its a lady!! doing what only men have done so far!! yes!! nothing that bothers me abt the movie remotely takes away from this fact; the bottom line is, thank fuck this movie has finally been made, and thank fuck it’s decent.

diana is amazing. she kicks ass & the movie shows us how powerful, badass, skilled, and just straight up determined she is. i can think of the number of female protagonists who are allowed to be just as kickass as she is on one hand. it’s also important to note that she’s not just the “sexy badass” trope; she’s allowed moments of real vulnerability and uncertainty too. her acting isn’t the greatest, unfortunately, and she’s kinda shown up by the rest of the cast who are all great characters brilliantly acted. in comparison, her character (and acting) can feel a little one-dimensional, which is unfortunate, but not bad enough to really affect the movie all that much.

the plot is a superhero plot. it’s tropey and predictable, the twists can be seen from literally miles away, there are conveninent plotholes & movie logic all over the place, and the final, climactic battle is the least interesting fight of the movie. some scenes go on a little too long, some jokes are set up for a while but fail to properly deliver; in general the script could do with a little tightening up. it holds the movie back from being truly great, which is a shame, but again it’s not something that ruins it at all.

this is a feminist movie, there’s no doubt about that. diana is independent and has no problem telling men to fuck off when they’re trying to decide what she should or shouldn’t do. but. and there is a but here. there are several things that detract from that.

first is the costume design. all the amazons are gorgeous and badass and their armour leaves little to the imagination. it doesn’t offer good protection remotely (there are even a couple of examples of the infamous boob cups), and it’s iffy whether they’re even practical to fight in (short skirts offer a good range of movement, sure, but heels, diana?). as a feminist im kinda disappointed; as a wlw i had an absolute blast. the only thing that did really bother me about these outfits is the camera work: the first shot we see of diana pans up from her heels, in a classic misogynistic reducing-a-woman-to-her-appearance shot (we see her body before we see her face); later, when we see the amazonians fighting, and its like theres there women doing amazing athletic leaps and oh look! the camera was perfectly positioned to see her butt. great.

neither of these are Massive Issues remotely; i wasn’t aware of either of them really beyond the first couple of scenes. the rest of diana’s fights we get to see a whole lot of upper thigh but again, im gay, and also it felt like the camera was more interested in her skill as a warrior than her sex appeal. i might be wrong, but that’s my take away. she is sexualised in dialogue, though, with several references to how attractive she is (i counted three, i think? so not terrible, but enough that i noticed it).

another potential issue is the romance. steve (chris pine) is no white knight; he can hold his own in a fight but he’s nothing like diana, and she comes to his rescue on multiple occasions. but i did feel he got a teensy tiny bit too much attention in the movie. he’s not the main character by any means, but he is in almost every scene after his first appearance (pretty darn early on), and he does get several important story/emotional beats, as well as shared credit for a lot of diana’s achievements. i’d also be interested whether he has more lines than diana; honestly it might be touch and go.

the final thing that i noticed, and the only thing that actually properly bothered me, was the way diana was characterised as the source of most of the movie’s comedy. remember that video that went around recently about the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope? y e p. diana has no understanding of our world, needing basic things explaining to her, and, worst of all, is into the very first man she meets ever in her entire life. her faux pas in this world are amusing, theyre sweet, theyre honestly even really pure and lovely at points, but there’s too much of it. i’ve been trying to work out in my head how exactly it differs from thor’s inexperience of the world in his first movie, which was also played for laughs. i haven’t hit on exactly how it’s different – although i know it is – but i think the sex thing definitely plays a part. diana implies she’s not a virgin (also the only line that implies she and the other amazons aren’t straight), but she’s consistently shown to be unexperienced, using weird terms for sex and relationships, being confused by courtship tropes, and arguably being unaware of men’s attraction to her. it’s not awful, and it does provide some of the only comedy in the movie (which gets pretty fuckin dark in places, it’s ww1 and it’s not pretty). i do think it’s handled poorly, and at the very least overdone, which is a real shame.

honestly, in a plot twist that surprised everyone, diana and the whole feminism aspect of the movie weren’t what i liked best about it. i’d only seen a bit of one trailer and no other promotional material, so i don’t know whether i would’ve realised this if i had seen more, but i was so pleasantly surprised to see not only how diverse the supporting cast was, but unfraid the script was to get real about racial issues. a first nations man talks about the atrocities committed against aboriginal americans and gets taken seriously; a french-moroccan speaks candidly about racism. i don’t want to big this up too much – these are both single lines, not the focus of a scene or anything – but i did appreciate that these moments were included. this isn’t colourblind casting; it’s great that half the supporting cast are characters of colour, but even better that this isn’t just passed over without comment or made into a trope or charicature. the movie did really well in this regard, i think, and i am really pleased to see it.

all in all, a historic film, a decent movie, disappointing in a few places but very pleasantly surprising in others. it’s not my favourite movie ever, and i won’t be rushing out to see it again, but none of its faults could ever remotely detract from my excitement at there finally being a female superhero movie. about time, y’all.

#this is long holy fuck im so sorry #wonder woman #dc #bailey blathers #for a long time g o d #reviews #i guess??

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iblamethenubbins · 7 years

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Supergirl and Parks and Rec! :D

it’s taken me a while to get to this, but here we go.

it’s for this meme. (feel free to send me more asks, so far I’ve done Major Crimes/The Closer, Stranger Things and I’m about to do these two)

I’ll start with Supergirl. Thank you Lexi for asking me, but I hope you know this is gonna be 90% of me just vomiting rainbows about Cat Grant.

Top 5 favourite characters:CAT FUCKING FRANTKara DanversAlex DanversAstraCarter Grant

Other characters you like: Maggie Sawyer, J’onn Lucy Lane, Eliza Danvers, Winn.Least favourite character: KATHERINE GRANT. I despise her so much my blood boils. And Sleazy Lord. But mostly Evil Grant.Otps: SuperCat, SanversNotps: Kara x Manchild, Alex x Sleazy LordFavourite friendship: Super SistersFavourite family: Cat x Carter, The DanversFavourite episode: Livewire, and the end of Hostile TakeoverFavourite season/book/movie: ONEFavourite quote: “Boys be gone, girl stay”Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: when Cat worked out Kara is Supergirl on the balcony and told she was her guardian angel and she asked her to take off her glasses and she said Thank you for all the help you’ve given me, Supergirl and she looked at her in pure adoration, and the wind rustled their hair and the light had this soft glow around them and everything was beautifulWhen it really disappointed you:

When they undid all this with Kara tricking Cat. I know that she kinda brought it on herself by forcing Kara to resign but I wish they could have handled it differently. Still, I want to believe Cat knows anyway.

When they killed off Astra

When it turns out that Manchild was in the pod

Saddest moment: Cat leavingMost well done character death: can’t think of any. Astra’s was horrible.Favourite guest star: Lynda Carter OMGFavourite cast member: ♥♥♥ CALISTA ♥♥♥Character you wish was still alive: AstraOne thing you hope really happens: CAT COMING BACK PRETTY PLEASE PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY CALISTA JFCMost shocking twist: Astra drying. I really did not expect that and kept hoping they’d bring her back somehow.When did you start watching/reading: some time last summer I think.Trope you wish they would stop using: Main character being a supporting character for everyone else and not having her own storyline in season 2. One thing this show/book/film does better than others: Non sexualised female superheroes, female friendship, female characters, female representation, women supporting other women, women loving other women. WOMEN WOMEN WOMENFunniest moments: Anything that comes out of Cat Grant’s mouth. I still giggle at “Get me a salad for lunch. I don’t care what kind as long as it has a cheeseburger on top.”Also, Barry Allen saying “What do you say we step away from the nice lady, settle this like women.”Couple you would like to see: I want to say Cat x Kara, although I’d be afraid to hand over my OTP to the writers, no matter how well they handled Alex x Maggie. I’d just be happy to have Cat being a regular character and being the fab mentor she’s been to Kara from here to eternity. Also, I’d support Kara x James a million times over Kara x Manchild.Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: I don’t care, I just want Calista backMost boring plotline: Kara x ManchildBest flashback/flashfoward if any: all the baby Kara’sMost layered character: CAT GRANTScariest moment: I was never scared but it still makes me uncomfortable to watch Kara throwing Cat off that balcony Grossest moment: Manchild kissing KaraBest looking male: ??? James??? Maybe???Best looking female: ♥♥♥CAT GRANT ♥♥♥Who you’re crushing on (if any): LOL this is getting repetitiveMost beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): I love the last balcony scene with Cat and Kara. The golden sunset glow makes it so melancholic and romantic and ugh *clutches pillow*Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: It bugs me a little that when Myriad strikes, Cat isn’t worried about Carter. Is he out of town? Is he with his dad? I need a reason for her to be so chilled about it, I wish they’d have had her mention something.At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: I was looking for some femslash fics to read, even for shows I didn’t watch, and I started reading Asking Too Much by Fictorium because hell yes age difference + fake dating? Sign me up.. And I remember thinking wow this boss lady is so mean, is she really this mean? And so I started watching and I fell in love with Cat Grant at first sight and everything else later, and I think that explains a lot.

OK this is way too long already, I’ll so Parks and Rec separately

#meme #organasoloskywalker

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kelseyraiyne · 5 years

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Body and Media

Representation of The Gendered Body in Video Games

The representation of the gendered body, specifically women, has changed significantly in video games. It’s been developed in a way where the gaming industry is no longer a patriarchal institution meaning the male gaze isn’t as dominant. This has been done by making female characters more realistic and less sexualised. Most likely, this is due to the increase of women working in the gaming industry as well as becoming the consumers wanting a genuine depiction of females. While Mulvey’s theory focuses on film and explores Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ practice, it does have relevance to video games. On the other hand, Mulvey’s outdated theory now has a modern take; women are now “both the product and representation […] real world to uphold male standards”.

The third wave of feminism began in mid-1990s, albeit appearing differently to those of the previous generations with “lipstick, high heels and cleavage proudly exposed […] movement identified with male oppression” (Rampton, 2008). Today’s generation of feminists look different and are empowered, defining their feminine beauty as their own - not as “objects of a sexist patriarchy”. Female characters are becoming stronger, athletic, in-proportion in appearance and mentality; they aren’t as sexualised anymore. However, are these new female characters a positive, realistic representation or are they still a constructed fantasy made for appeal to heterosexual males? A female character like Lara Croft.

The ‘Crossroads’ trailer for 2013 video game ‘Tomb Raider’ subverts the typical stereotype of women. Lara is shown to be strong and resourceful in mentality and physicality – she isn’t as sexualised although there are moments in the trailer showing off her body and her vulnerability, such as where the audience witnesses what was initially assumed to be a rape scene (2:25). The producer stated it was made to aid Lara’s character growth by “[turning her] into a cornered animal” so “she’s forced to either fight back or die” – this caused an out-roar from the audience, especially women, as it suggested women had to be victims to become strong. In this game, Lara is shown as feminine and naïve (for example where she cries for help on the walkie-talkie - 1:31), unlike previous games where she is an example of masculine violence trapped in a male fantasy figure (Appendix 1).

Lara’s clothing choice was sparse and has only gotten better in recent years. Dill and Thill’s 2005 study conceived the idea of three stereotypes of women in gaming (sexualised, scantily clad, a vision of beauty). While this isn’t necessarily relevant in this remake, the older games portray this very prominently along with 2015 ‘Witcher 3’ where the women wear tight, low-cut revealing clothing, lusting after the protagonist (Appendix 5). Yet ‘Tomb Raider’ is still said to be “an important milestone” as it shows how much better a game can be when designed by women. The creators in ‘Tomb Raider’ have begun to distance themselves from overtly sexualised depictions from the original games, as shown in Appendix 1, and instead drew inspiration from Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of Katniss Everdeen in 2012 ‘The Hunger Games’. This implicit disregard to typical patriarchal objectification is a growing trend, not just in video games and film either. There are cases like this in the music industry, for example Ariana Grande, and the social media industry, such as Kylie Jenner.

Regardless of her feminine nature in ‘Tomb Raider’, Lara is a powerful independent character touching on McRobbie’s opinions on post feminism. McRobbie believes most media texts portray women as weak, subservient to men, and play three roles (mother, wife, whore); she also accepts other media texts display women in powerful sexual roles - a positive thing as it empowers them. Lara is empowered in this trailer. Various shots show her in-action, with resourcefulness and athleticism but the audience is still able to see her sleek figure and curves – an example of this (1:19) shows Lara climbing along a wrecked plane. The lower angle gives the audience a view of her rear but still see her ability to navigate and climb. Lara is made to appeal to both men and women, so it isn’t as niche.

The representation of female bodies in video games has changed significantly recently to become more diverse, to meet the needs of mainstream audiences. The idea of the male gaze and dominating patriarchal society no longer seem relevant in today’s world. Women are gaining powerful roles. ‘Tomb Raider’ is just one example of how different representations are conveyed when wider understandings of audiences and concepts are explored.

Representation of The Ageing Body in Advertising:

The representation of the ageing body has changed in the media today, although I can’t say that this is necessarily a significant change. While it used to focus dramatically on the stereotypes of young people being lazy and violence and older people being grumpy, the representation brands show now tend to be a bit more positive in order to adapt to the needs of its audience. The process of ageing and growing older is not always represented in a positive manner, with many adverts for anti-ageing products and brands signifying ageing as a process that should be slowed down and challenged, and even reversed if possible. Images of older people on Print and TV advertisements tend to have been airbrushed and digitally manipulated to remove any signs of ageing that they might have, purely to persuade the audience their product of anti-ageing works and is the ideal in life that they should want.

In the same manner as most brands, Dove unmistakably perceives television as an essential way for their voices to be heard by such a wide, mainstream crowd. Produced by Ogilvy Advertising, their ‘Pro Age’ advert includes the typical style that Dove has coined by using naked body parts and features all women over 50. Furthermore, it uses slogans such as “Too old to be in an anti-ageing ad”, “Too wrinkly to be in an anti-ageing ad” and “Too saggy to be in an anti-ageing ad”. The brand is quick to call attention to the fact that every one of the ladies has not been manipulated digitally at all. The advert then ends with the line "Beauty has no age limit". This Dove advert was made purely in response to ‘Beauty Comes of Age’, a white paper gone global – in this they surveyed 1450 women aged between 50 to 64, with researching showing that 94% of these women believing it is time for society to change its attitude and behaviour to the idea of ageing. 89% of these women also revealed the media needs to provide a much more accurate representation of their age group. As Bordo would say, it significantly breaks society’s expectations of the body norms by focusing on the parts of a women’s body that represent unsuccessful ageing, for example the face and hands (O’Brien, 2012).

Older females are not deemed desirable in relation to the patriarchal society with the male gaze, which is why positive representations of them do not appear much in the media of today. Instead an audience is more likely to find representations based hugely on personalities like Katie Price, where women will depend on body modifications like plastic surgery and Botox to remain looking youthful, with varying degrees of success. Foucault (1979) believes that representations of the body are “passive recipients of social and cultural influences” as it shows what is socially unattractive in todays standards. However, the Dove Pro-Age advertisement prefers to show that an ageing body is normal and not necessarily unattractive. It disturbs the discourse commonly associated with that of the body ageing ‘unsuccessfully’ as well as that of the elder being classified as ‘the other’ (Markson, 2003).

The women in the Dove Pro-Age advertisement present themselves with such an air of confidence and strength and empowerment not just in themselves but allow the audience members to feel it in their own bodies too. They convey self-confidence, a natural way of life and, most importantly, beauty. The Dove Pro-Age advertisement shows a transformation in the way that ageing bodies, particularly those of women, are being represented in the media today. While there still might be many negative stereotypes that hinder the way ageing bodies are conveyed, the positive ones are gradually beginning to become more and more in number and this Dove Pro-Age is just one example of many still yet to come.

Representation of The Disabled Body in Film:

There is still an ongoing debate on whether the representation of the disabled body in the media today, especially in films, is positive or negative. There are many praised performances in Hollywood such as Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko and, more recently, Dwayne Johnson in Skyscraper for bringing about a lot of positive attention to amputees. On the other hand, even with these portrayals, the representation of disability is not always this positive. It is typically used as a form of humour and can even hinder any progress of the representations, such as having the majority of villains with a physical or visible and obvious disability, for example split personalities, hooks for hands, blind/deaf and even albino.

Baby Driver is a 2017 action film by Edgar Wright, about an orphan with tinnitus that also acts as a heist getaway driver. Although very much an action film with its car chases, gun fights and internal group disputes, it also features an eclectic soundtrack that perfectly illustrates Baby’s desire and want to escape from this violent and criminal life he has become stuck in since his parent’s death. While the stereotypes that are usually found in films and tv about disability include “the super cripple, laughable, a burden and non-sexual” (Hunt, 1991), Baby Driver adapts the idea of disability in its own original way and uses it as only as a basis of understanding for the characters almost constant need for music, rather that having that as the main focus of the movie. One specific clip from the film briefly talks about Baby’s tinnitus disability, although very brief with it lasting 46 seconds. The only notice taken of his disability is shown at 26 seconds into this clip where one character, Bats, taps Baby’s ear and a static humming is heard to represent his tinnitus. This only corroborates this point.

In addition to the protagonist’s disability, Baby’s foster father Joe also has complete hearing loss. Furthermore, the actor chosen for this part, CJ Jones, is actually death in real life and the film gained a lot of praise for this choice. As stated in an article by Audicus (2017), Baby Driver is a “film [that shows] tinnitus, hearing loss, and deafness do not need to be an insurmountable obstacle” and that “people with hearing loss issues can live extraordinary, exciting lives”. I feel this is an important message as it completely disregards Shildricks 2002 theory that there is a divide between ‘normal’ and disabled people, and that they are not “monsters” who are isolated from society.

In TV, particulary dramas, it tends to be quite rare to see characters, especially protagonists, where their disability doesn’t define them or control all their actions in life. Most shows where a representation of the disabled body is shown tends to very much agree with Randielovic’s 2012 theory where they tend to be disvalued at people and instead are defined by their disabilities. ‘Speechless’ is an American sitcom comedy show that follows the lives of a family, one teenager having non-verbal cerebral palsy. Whilst the disabled character is the main protagonist of the show, he also conveys the typical traits of a “really annoying teenager” (inews, 2019). It doesn’t put disability on a pedestal.

While Baby Driver can be seen as an empowering turning point in film for the representation of disabled bodies as it doesn’t use disability as the focal point of the story, it does also highlight the fact that some disabled people cannot live independently (i.e. Baby’s foster father). There is still very much a long way to go to get away from the use of comedy that only works to reinforce the idea of the ‘freak show’ (Darke, 1997). As it stands now, many representations of disability in the media tend to be a social construct of how it is in society today. But this is slowly being improved as disabilities are getting more and more accepted in life.

References

Representation of The Gendered Body in Video Games:

· Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. Journal of Aesthetic Education.

· Kennedy, H. (2004). Game Studies - Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis. [online] Gamestudies.org. Available at: http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/ [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· Lane, S. (2010). The Male Gaze Now & Then: False Empowerment in Tarantino’s Films. [online] Feminism, Poetry, Pop-Culture, Sex -. Available at: https://firesunderground.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/the-male-gaze-now-then-false-empowerment-in-tarantinos-films/ [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· McRobbie, A. (2009). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change.

· Rampton, M. (2008). Four Waves of Feminism. [online] Pacific University. Available at: http://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/news-events/three-waves-feminism [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· Schreier, J. (2012). [online] Kotaku.com. Available at: https://kotaku.com/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft-5917400 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· Tamburro, P. (2013). Why Tomb Raider is an Important Milestone for Women in Gaming - CraveOnline. [online] Mandatory, Formerly Crave Online. Available at: https://www.mandatory.com/culture/460517-why-tomb-raider-is-an-important-milestone-for-women-in-gaming [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· Tomb Raider (2012). E3 2012 Crossroads Trailer. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHSEU6d9kc [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019].

· Wolf, N. (1991). The Beauty Myth.

Representation of The Ageing Body in Advertising:

· Bordo, S. (2003). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley, Calif: Univ. of California Press.

· Campaignlive.co.uk. (2007). Beauty has no age-limit in Dove skincare TV ad. [online] Available at: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/beauty-no-age-limit-dove-skincare-tv-ad/630600 [Accessed 26 Feb. 2019].

· Foucault, M (1979) in Cranny-Francis, A., Waring, W., Stavropoulos, P. and Kirkby, J. (2003). Gender Studies: Terms and Debates. London: Macmillan Education, Limited.

· Dove (2007). Dove Pro-Age No Age Limit. [video] Available at: https://vimeo.com/57011667 [Accessed 23 Feb. 2019].

· Markson, E. (2003). ‘The Female Aging Body Through Film’. In Faircloth, C.A. (ed.) Aging Bodies: Images & Everyday Experiences. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

· O'Brien, L. (2012) ‘Madonna: Like a Crone’ in Jennings, R and Gardener, A. Rock On: Women, Ageing & Popular Music. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing.

· Saunders, E. and Kindon, F. (2018). Katie Price's changing look and all the plastic surgery she's had over the years. [online] Mirror. Available at: https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/katie-price-young-plastic-surgery-11291386 [Accessed 20 Feb. 2019].

Representation of The Disabled Body in Film:

· Audicus. (2017). "Baby Driver" Addresses Tinnitus and Hearing Loss | Audicus. [online] Available at: https://www.audicus.com/baby-driver-hearing-loss/ [Accessed 8 Mar. 2019].

· Darke, P. (1997) ‘Everywhere: disability on film’, in Pointon, A. and Davies, C. (eds) Framed: Interrogating Disability in the Media. London: British Film Institute

· Hunt, P. (1991). Discrimination: Disabled People and the Media. p.70.

· Randjelovic, N. (2012). Issues on Disability Advertising Imaging in Media.

· Shildrick, M. (2002). Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self. London: SAGE.

· Speechless, M. and Hamilton, C. (2019). Minnie Driver on portraying disabilities in E4 sitcom Speechless. [online] inews.co.uk. Available at: https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/minnie-driver-disability-screen-speechless-e4-interview/ [Accessed 8 Mar. 2019].

· Wright, E. (2017). Baby Driver has Tinnitus. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_l3r_EHWb4 [Accessed 9 Mar. 2019].

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gyrlversion · 5 years

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Former Love Island contestants reveal dreadful toll to boost ratings

Love Island’s millions of fans might lap up the glamorous, highly sexualised and seemingly carefree antics of its young contestants but Mike Thalassitis’s death is being seen as a tragic wake-up call and a reminder that so-called ‘reality’ TV is often anything but

As a contestant on ITV2’s Love Island, Mike Thalassitis sealed his reputation among millions of viewers from the moment he swaggered into the match-making reality TV show’s luxury Mallorcan villa.

There, the former professional footballer and part-time barber set about seducing one of his female co-contestants despite the fact she had, as the show’s rules demanded, already found herself a partner.

Amid all this manufactured-for-TV drama, he was given the nickname ‘Muggy Mike’ for his womanising behaviour, apparently relishing his role as a bronzed, heartless Jack-the-lad who had no feelings for anyone but himself.

And yet those who knew 26-year-old Thalassitis, who was found dead in a park near Edmonton, North London, on Saturday, say he was nothing like this on-screen persona.

Reports are emerging of a young man who was struggling to make sense of his life away from the unrelenting gaze of cameras and whose debts had reportedly spiralled as he financially over-extended himself while trying to maintain his celebrity image.

He was preparing to open a restaurant in Essex and had moved in with his 94-year-old grandmother to help care for her before she passed away a few months ago.

Friends say that in recent weeks he was in a ‘dark place’ — a world away from the bright sunshine of Spain where he went looking for fame in 2017.

One TV critic described him as ‘arrogant and hyper-sexualised, with all the personality of a speed bump’. But friends and fellow contestants have insisted he was nothing like his on-screen persona

Love Island’s millions of fans might lap up the glamorous, highly sexualised and seemingly carefree antics of its young contestants but Thalassitis’s death is being seen as a tragic wake-up call and a reminder that so-called ‘reality’ TV is often anything but.

Most damaging of all, it seems, is the morally muddled message sent out by a show which appears to be predicated on the idea that outrageous behaviour goes hand in hand with popularity and fame.

TV chiefs chasing ratings appear to be giving little thought to the long-term impact this has for the ‘stars’ of the show after the cameras stop rolling.

News of Thalassitis’s apparent suicide, which comes just a year after the unexplained death of fellow Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon, has in effect turned the tables by casting a critical spotlight back on this ruthless genre and revealing the disturbing impact reality shows can have on the lives of those who take part.

Mike (pictured above) rose to fame after his stint on the hit ITV show Love Island, which shows a group of singles try to ‘couple up’ in order to win a cash prize

Gradon, who had sex in a wardrobe with another contestant while staying in the Love Island villa in 2016, later bitterly regretted having ‘sold her soul’ for the promise of fame. The 32-year-old, who told how the show had impacted on her mental health, is believed to have taken her own life.

Now, in the aftermath of Thalassitis’s death, several other reality TV contestants have come forward to say that ‘enough is enough’ amid claims that after leaving such shows they are left to deal with instant fame and its aftermath on their own.

Yesterday, TV presenter and former reality star Ben Fogle added his voice to concerns about the ‘lack of aftercare’, admitting he had a breakdown after appearing on the BBC1’s Castaway 2000. ‘Instant reality show fame is like a drug,’ he said. ‘A short-term high with a terrible comedown.’

Sophie Gradon, who also appeared in the 2016 series, was found dead at her parents’ £900,000 home in Ponteland, Northumberland, in June last year

Love Island, which won a BAFTA award last year in the Best Reality And Constructed Factual category, makes particular onerous, intrusive and emotionally crushing demands on its participants.

The show, about to start filming its fifth series, throws together a group of young, beautiful, scantily-clad male and female contestants in a villa furnished only with double beds along with 69 hidden cameras and a sea of microphones.

To survive, ‘Islanders’ must immediately find partners or face elimination from the show.

Casual sex between contestants is commonplace and over a ten-week period couples are formed and broken up amid dog-eat-dog mind games, back-stabbing and bitching, as the contestants vie for the £50,000 prize for the winning couple.

The millions of viewers who watch this morally vacuous spectacle unfold from the comfort of their sofas and vote for their favourites via a Love Island phone app may see it all as harmless escapism, but former contestants are telling a very different story about the lack of emotional and psychological support once their five minutes of fame is over.

Thalassitis appeared in the third series in June 2017, entering the villa in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar in Mallorca ten days later than the other contestants so that right from the start he was cast as a cat among the pigeons, forced to steal one of the females away from the other men if he wanted to stay in the show.

He was invited by TV chiefs to choose three women to take out for the night and ruffled feathers after hitting on various females who had already found partners. He was evicted from the villa after a week before being voted back in by the public vote — then evicted again.

Even after his eviction, his lothario image continued to grow as he immediately found himself at the centre of a somewhat concocted ‘love triangle’ after being spotted leaving the hotel room of fellow evictee Jessica Shears after a night of drinking and commiserating.

Shears had hooked up with Dom Lever in the show and the couple have since gone on to marry.

Thalassitis denied anything happened with her and said they were ‘just friends’ but the ‘did they, didn’t they’ gossip certainly helped to keep his celebrity profile high.

Yesterday, in a series of posts on Twitter, Shears wrote: ‘In complete shock, was lucky enough to get to know Mike, he was the loveliest guy. My heart breaks for his family.’

Sophie Gradon and Tom Powell are pictured together in the series. After the series she spoke of how appearing on the show had left her ‘the most stressed and anxious’ she had ever felt

She went on to add: ‘Shows offer you “support” but realistically it’s only while you are in their care. Minute you get home & are no longer making them money it’s out of sight out of mind. There should be ongoing support and also financial advice. Life after these shows isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

At the time he entered the villa, a vast property with an enormous pool, Jacuzzi and gym area, Thalassitis had already enjoyed success as a footballer. He began his professional football career at Stevenage in 2011 but was loaned out to Cambridge United and Bishop’s Stortford. At one stage he was called up to play for Cyprus, from where his family came, yet missed the game through injury.

But he ditched his sporting career in the hope of finding television fame, skipping pre-season training to enter the Love Island villa, much to the annoyance of his manager at Isthmian League Margate.

Thalassitis later shrugged off the criticisms saying: ‘I can easily get on another team. It’s just a shame that this hasn’t paid off. I was only in there for a f***ing week.’

He finally retired from football months later in December 2017, returning to TV in early 2018 in another ratings-grabbing reality TV show, E4’s Celebs Go Dating, where his reputation as a lothario continued to grow.

Mike Thalassitis pictured with Jessica Shears, after they were both eliminated from the Love Island are villa at the same time during the series in 2017

‘Everyone had this impression of you and you were the opposite,’ said former Love Island contestant Montana Brown, who appeared with him on the show.

She added: ‘Mike was so misunderstood — on television he was known as playing the ladies and everyone had this perception that he was this classic lad that didn’t have feelings. I can honestly say he was thoughtful, caring and so fiercely loyal to his friends and family and really would do anything for them.’

At the time of his death he had been due to open a restaurant in Loughton, Essex, called The Skillet with ex-professional footballer Scott Neilson, but sources say that he had been dealing with huge debts in recent months.

According to one friend: ‘His party lifestyle came at a price and he wasn’t earning a lot of cash after Love Island, especially as he became his nan’s carer.’

His parents Andreas and Shirley Thalassitis were too upset to comment on the loss of their son but his former co-stars have heavily criticised ITV for the lack of support for contestants after they leave.

Writing on Twitter, Dom Lever, who appeared alongside Thalassitis, said: ‘You get a psychological evaluation before and after you go on the show but once you are done you don’t get any support unless you’re No 1.’

Another Love Island contestant Malin Andersson, whose premature baby daughter died earlier this year, also hit out at the show saying she ‘wouldn’t have been able to cope’ afterwards if she didn’t have a ‘strong head on her’.

She made headlines during the second series in 2016 after having sex with a fellow contestant while their rivals gave a running commentary and applauded. She has since split from her baby’s father who was not involved in Love Island.

Andersson criticised the shows bosses for their lack of care: ‘I got flowers from the producers when my daughter died. No phone call. No support or help.’

Kady McDermott, who appeared alongside Thalassitis in Celebs Go Dating, said: ‘Hopefully reality shows will help more with the aftermath of being on one, because I can say it definitely didn’t happen after my series when lots of us needed it.

‘Lives change overnight and no one can be mentally be prepared for it. The good and the bad.’

Sophie Gradon, who also appeared in the 2016 series, was found dead at her parents’ £900,000 home in Ponteland, Northumberland, in June last year.

An inquest into her death, which had been scheduled to start next Thursday, has been postponed after her parents asked for more time to consider a report they have recently received.

Gradon had been educated privately at Dame Allan’s School in Newcastle upon Tyne and had a university degree but began modelling at 16 and went on to become Miss Great Britain.

And yet despite these achievements, it was for her sexual antics on Love Island that she made her name. She had sex in a wardrobe with contestant Tom Powell before having the show’s first same-sex relationship with Katie Salmon.

After the series she spoke of how appearing on the show had left her ‘the most stressed and anxious’ she had ever felt.

She later wrote online that she had ‘sold her soul’ and that her mental health had suffered.

In 2017, she tweeted that was ‘just battling a little bit of depression’ but with hindsight there were clear signs that it was much worse than that. ‘Feel so guilty when my anxiety takes over, for not wanting to see or speak to anyone,’ she wrote. ‘Some days I get so overwhelmed I just want to nap.’

In April 2017, she appeared to be improving: ‘Thinking back to when I became a total recluse, afraid to go out anywhere bc of crippling anxiety and how different my life is now!!! Facing up to your fears is sometimes the hardest but most rewarding thing!!!’

The former footballer enjoyed a seven-month relationship with Megan McKenna (pictured on a break away together in Tenerife) following his stint on Celebs Go Dating

She suffered what she described as ‘horrific’ treatment at the hands of online trolls.

‘There would be so many negative comments,’ she said during a radio interview in March 2018.

‘They are commenting on the way you look, the way you talk. They would come up with an opinion of you on a TV show where they’ve watched you for 45 minutes. It was very hard to deal with because you take it like you’re being judged. The harsh reality is, it can end up with that person taking their own life.’

For Love Island’s fans, kept glued to their screens by the allure of sex, sunshine and romantic shenanigans, it must be hard to relate to the darker side of the show or the emptiness left behind when the veneer of fame rubs off.

But then perhaps the greatest irony of all is that a genre that was supposed to about ‘reality’ often pedals the biggest myth of all, that celebrity and happiness — even love — can be instantaneous.

A spokesman for ITV said: ‘Everyone at ITV2 and Love Island is shocked and saddened by this terrible news. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with Mike’s family and friends at this very sad time.’

For now it seems, the show will go on. Producers are advertising for ‘lively singles’ for the 2019 series and will no doubt be swamped by a new wave of hopefuls looking for a springboard to fame and fortune.

Last year, the show received 150,000 applications, four times as many as Oxford and Cambridge universities combined.

‘How do you fancy enjoying your very own long hot summer of romance?’ says the blurb on the ITV website which promises: ‘If you’re over 18 you could be spending next summer in paradise.’

It’s certainly a world away from the cold and dreary North London park where Mike Thalassitis died alone this week.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article then you can call the Samaritans on 116 123, alternatively you can visit the website at by clicking here.

The post Former Love Island contestants reveal dreadful toll to boost ratings appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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samiraahmeduk · 6 years

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The scroll screen could have been written for Ep VII. As if nothing has happened. First rule of sequels: Take the story on. What’s the new line? Please hire me to write proper copy in future.

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Leia is unconscious for half the film. Seriously. She does almost nothing when she’s awake either. For a film playing a strong Madame President image in the poster this is the biggest shocker.

Gwendoline Christie is BARELY in it. Again.

Mas Kanata is in ONE scene by webcam. I actually wanted to see the film she’s in. It looks quite exciting. But seriously. WTF.

That’s all three women over thirty from The Force Awakens barely in it. This film was 2 and a half hours long.

Luke milking a giant breasted creature and staring at Rey aggressively while he drinks it was just not healthy. There’s some weird unintentionally misogynistic stuff in here.

Your two most swashbuckling leading men Finn and Poe Dameron are sidelined from the main action. This is madness. There is a giant Han Solo shaped gap and their projection of aspects of him was essential to the charm of the first.

We never learn about why Mas had Luke’s lightsabre.

C3PO is hardly in it except for a couple of excellent but tiny cowardly moments.

Chewbacca gets almost nothing to do except one good macabre joke with some Porg.

The Porg are actually a really welcome addition. And the ice foxes. They seem to have character development, a purpose and help scene setting. Think about that.

R2D2 does almost nothing.

Well over an hour (an hour and a half I think) till we get a proper lightsabre fight. I checked my watch. Single best scene in the film – Kylo and Rey.

Makes you realise how good the red set dressing is. And how reminiscent of Flash Gordon was. And the fight sequences in Kill Bill.

There is no proper onscreen reunion of the older stars.R2D2, C3PO hardly get a hello master Luke moment. Where is the melancholy camaraderie of the first generation? Even Hamill has commented on this publically. Unforgivable.

Hardly any reflection on loss of Han Solo.

There is no proper interaction of all the new comrades either. Poe, Finn and Rey are kept apart till the end. Unacceptable.

We learn NOTHING about Snoke before he’s killed. Like Darth Maul. Unforgivable.

We learn nothing about Rey. Even in that initually visually intriguing scene in the cave.

It would be really nice if she does turn out to be nobody; a rejected urchin. It’s not going to happen, is it?

Careless racism from Rey at the fish nuns – like a race of Mrs Doyles on Craggy Island. “What are those things?” she says. They’re the “native” population according to Luke, who have apparently been (forcibly?) converted like and do all his laundry.

We learn nothing about how Kylo Ren came to join the First Order.

Why is Emo Kylo Ren’s best frenemy General Hux in charge? He seems to have far older and superior officers by his side. An eye roll from the best of them does not make this ok. Maybe I should pretend there’s a Donald Trump Jr reference in his overpromotion?

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For most of the film we are encouraged to think like Poe Dameron, that Laura Dern is an overpromoted feminazi because of political correctness gone made. “What, the admiral is a a woman?!” is the gist of his reaction. Poe is all Eric Trump snide. Even the big reveal about her is pretty late and pretty poor. Why doesn’t she make her big heroic gesture a bit earlier and save all the other transports? She looks amazing but there’s something strangely impractical about how she’s dressed like a cross between the violinist in Yellow Submarine and the Columbia Film lady.

Look at Oscar Isaacs and John Boyega. Why would you not use them as much as possible in the main story? Much of the action involves Oscar Isaac sitting on a slow moving bus being chased at 20mph by a giant milkfloat. But apparently not blown up because of some special new rule. Imagine Errol Flynn sitting in a cart looking over his shoulder for the whole of The Adventures of Robin Hood. And not even driving.

Boyega at least gets a real Flash Gordon sense of 1930s adventuring but…

Unpleasant sense of Finn being separated off as a romantic possibility (what happened to the good old love triangle?) for racially dodgy reasons and the kiss from Rose felt like they were telling us they’re pairing him off with someone from Engineering so stop complaining.

Rose is a great character (Joss Whedon’s Firefly, anybody?). But this doesn’t excuse doing nothing with all the established leads.

Lots of great diverse casting but in new tiny roles. It doesn’t excuse removing all the non white actors from the main emotional arc of the story.

The Casino planet – a James Bond mix of Monte Carlo and the UAE – a den of arms dealers & child exploitative camel racers – is raced through at high speed. Felt underused and superfluous at the same time. Shame.

There is a lazy, nasty “bath her and bring her to my chamber” vibe, even if now Disney de-sexualised, in how Rey is treated by Snoke. Was a lot of this torture-y thing in Ep VII. No excuses for so much of it.

Why do the New Order always park so far away from the entrance to the Rebel Base?

The giant laser spinning battering penis to ram the dark hole of the hidden rebel base. Sigh.

It all goes a bit too astral plane Doctor Strange for my liking at the end.

The child scenes with Disney references are too heavy handed. (Sorcerer’s Apprentice broom, shooting star as if over the castle)

Small Disney observation: While East Asian cinema has been doing the ambiguous whole duality of light/dark so well for decades -which Star Wars copies in Rey and Kylo Ren, this film has reworked some types and imagery from classic Disney Princess films. Some of it very successfully, others more prosaically.

With the red and white colours Rey and Kylo Ren seemed like Snow White and the Prince crossed with the humanised Raven from Maleficient – as equals and each with lightsabres. Most intriguing. Obviously there’s a whole Beauty reforming the Beast plotline. But being equally armed for battle is promising for little girls who have traditionally been rather short changed in Star Wars.

Rose – first discovered sitting and crying in Cinderella pose by the Aladdin-like Finn. But being a qualified engineer and all she’s a recognisably modern Disney princess (think Moana, even Frozen). Modern Disney princess types are very talented and resourceful and their confidence quickly emerges.

Princess Leia has been transformed into a fairy godmother character right down to flying. I think this is the jumping the Disney shark moment.

If you’re going to put Kylo Ren in without a top on, just do it. Strange weak humour (throughout the film) here, to undercut a rare moment of actual sexuality.

Ep VII Rey’s Flashback

The only thing we really learn is the Rashomon-style 3 versions of the night of the massacre at the Temple. But even that was focussed only on Luke and Kylo Ren – just the two of them. What about everyone else? How about matching it to the Jedi temple massacre-in-the-rain flashback in The Force Awakens? Great to see Luke Skywalker and the ever dependable Adam Driver get such great moments out of this film. Shame we didn’t have more of this.

Too much reliance on gaps between films to fill in what happened. How can we be 2 films into a trilogy and I still only know one thing more than I knew in the first?

All this has reminded me how much I love Kung Fu Panda. A lot of the same themes (Rey is the Panda). But The Last Jedi lacks a villain as dark as Ian McShane.

My interview with John Boyega, about his career including Shakespeare, Star Wars and Detroit BBC Radio 4 Front Row (Dec 14th) on iplayer via this link.

I sense a disturbance. Everything that’s missing from The Last Jedi (some SPOILERS so see it first!!) The scroll screen could have been written for Ep VII. As if nothing has happened. First rule of sequels: Take the story on.

#adam driver #carrie fisher #culture #daisy ridley #Disney #errol flynn #film #Hillary Clinton #Hollywood #john boyega #kylo ren #luke skywalker]#princess leia #star wars #the last jedi

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