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thesandbeneathmytoes · 3 years

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Mayans Season 3

Soooooooooooooooo I have a lot of thoughts. Like, a lot. No one asked for this but some of you did express enthusiasm when I told you I was gonna go AWF, so here we go.

DISCLAIMER: I should perhaps also mention that this is simply a critique of the finished product — I understand, of course, there were other issues that affected the production of the season that perhaps didn’t affect seasons one and two, such as Covid and some of the confusion after the departure of Sutter. Some might say, however, that this season without Sutter was easier because there was less tension on set (I’m just re-counting what some of the cast have intimated). Ultimately, though, I really just want this to be a critique of the finished product, in the way that I assume all creators and artists want their work to be judged… Standing alone versus as a potential outcome of problems or challenges.

It’s probably clear by now that I wasn’t a huge fan of this season, so first I’ll start off with what I did like:

*SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY*

• The cinematography was really nice. We got a lot of great wide shots that made us feel how expansive these worlds are, how lonely the desert, how wide the ocean, etc. They showed us the freedom that comes with this life but also how small it can make you feel when you get swallowed up in it. Scenes were also a lot less dark-lit, which was great cuz I didn’t have to mess with my screen’s contrast as much, so that was appreciated.

• There was also some beautiful color work this year. A lot of oranges and purples that I appreciated. EZ was almost always beautifully framed. We got some nice close ups of Angel as well. The scene with the tear running down his cheek was beautiful, which leads me to:

• THE ACTING: Danny Pino was far and away the best for me. His microexpressions, his ability to change emotions on a dime, his capacity for showing us the exact thoughts going through Miguel’s head, as well as his continued excellence at portraying Miguel’s duality and his divided loyalties (his family of origin vs. his current family, his American vs. Mexican heritage, his classy Cornell acapella-singing [!] self vs. his ruthless cartel persona) never ceases to impress me. Carla is amazing as well, she gave me chills in pretty much every scene. Sometimes I remember that she’s my age (30) and I’m just like holy shit, where did all this poise and presence and focus come from?? Couldnt be me! Honorable mentions include Clayton Cardenas (aforementioned crying scene, “WHERE THE FUCK IS RAMOS?!”), Michael Irby/Alexandra Barreto (diner scene), Felipe (telling Gaby to go scene...most scenes with Gaby), Emily Tosta, and Holland Roden. Richard Cabral did great too, although his storyline bored me so much that I couldn’t really pay attention to his excellent performance. Hope also was a distraction for me, but (much) more on this later. JD was pretty strong throughout, although some of his scenes (especially the ones with Gaby) were so poorly written that I imagine it was hard to make them anything but wooden (more on this later too, unfortunately). Sulem was hit or miss for me, but I felt like she hit her stride later in the season, and by the end, I fully bought it. MOMO RODRIGUEZ made me feel everything. There was a nuance and a depth to his performance that I was not expecting. It was a beautiful surprise to have a comic character (and a comedian) bring such an important role to the show. I loved that they made him symbolic of the heavy toll this life can take (I regret his death, but I think it was a wake up call) and how you can’t always escape your pain. And the fact that EZ was the one to try and tell him otherwise, emphasizing his own internal struggle, was especially poignant and heartbreaking, which now leads me to:

• THEMES: I liked a lot that we got to explore some of these character’s inner worlds more this season, and that we finally got to see the emotional consequences for what these characters have done and who they are. I never watched SOA, but from what y’all have said on here, it seems like more of those characters acted with impunity and were largely unphased by their own demons. It’s really nice to see the Mayans own up to what they’ve done and the lives they’ve chosen, from EZ, who wonders about the darkness inside of him and if he always was this way (see: theme of fate, later in this paragraph) to Alvarez, regretting what he’s done and who he has been (killing his own son) and wanting to live a new life, but not sure he deserves it. Angel’s monologue about “no happy endings in this town” was especially revelatory as well. It was also nice to see POCs, notably POC men, allowed to explore their emotions, cry, and lift back the curtain on what this kind of life does to your fucking soul. It humanizes the characters and liberates them from the Latinos = gangsters trope that we’re all so used to seeing, the very racist trope that ludicrously & infuriatingly suggests that POC men, especially Latinos, are almost meant to be gangsters and have no qualms about it whatsoever, that they are good at it because they are unburdened by the strict moral code that governs white people (LOL @1/6/2021). The theme of FATE was also drawn upon heavily, and I really liked that. It harkened back to S1 [Church of] Coco and the conversation he had with EZ on Celia’s floor, talking about how “everything that happens is what was meant to happen.” He insists that even though EZ thought he was supposed to be the “Golden Boy,” he ended up in the MC for a reason, maybe that other life was never an option for him at all. We now know that part of the reason his parents encouraged his Golden Boy persona so much was as a way to KEEP him from indulging his darker side. I liked the development of this theme a lot, but it did, unfortunately, also cause some problems, which leads me to:

PROBLEMS WITH MAYANS MC SEASON 3:

Characterization: I think this season suffered from what TV can often suffer from when a new person takes the helm, which is a lack of continuity from previous seasons… I understand, of course, that the characters were going through a lot this season, but I don’t think that warrants a total change in their personalities. The biggest offenders here, for me, were Angel and Coco. While we certainly had an idea that Angel, before he was with Adelita, was something of a hoe, I didn’t get the vibe that he was quite as insouciant or uncaring with his partners as he definitely seemed to be in Season 3. I understand why the show wanted to portray him that way—he was hurting—but it just seemed out of character to me that he would jump from partner to partner, so easily make intense commitments, and somehow be obsessed with creating a family life when that never really seemed to be his focus before… His focus on the baby in Season 2 seemed to be confined to Adelita. Coco, on the other hand, seemed to be very interested in his romantic relationship with Hope this season which really baffled me. Coco in previous seasons was almost the spiritual or kind of mystic element of the show – – his “Church of Coco” musings were, as I previously said, sort of a vehicle to highlight the element of fate as a theme in the show. For me, this made perfect sense as a place for him to be, partially because Richy himself is sort of woo woo (I mean this as the highest of compliments). To see him thrust into a somewhat arbitrary (for me) romantic relationship felt so forced, not only because their sex scene was incredibly dry and uncomfortable to watch (LOL), but also because it just didn’t make sense that Coco would risk everything for this woman he knew nothing about… And even at the expense of his relationship with Letty. As @drabbles-mc mentioned, why spend all this time developing Coco’s relationship with Letty when you’re just gonna destroy it? It feels disrespectful to the writing that has gone before… Speaking of, I want to address the EZ equals psychopath road that we now seem to be going down. As I mentioned earlier, I’m glad that they addressed that his scholarliness and the encouragement of that by his parents was a tactic to distract him from the “darkness” inside of him, however, it feels strange that all of a sudden they are intimating that he has a very very deep darkness inside of him that we didn’t really see in previous seasons. I suppose you could make the argument that it was there before, however I would’ve liked it to be revealed a little bit slower and perhaps have more references to it in previous seasons if you’re going to make this case now. It just feels a little incongruous to what we know about EZ that he is a psycho on the inside… Because that’s what they seem to be suggesting — that he’s dark and can’t be anything but dark. I guess I just would’ve liked to see a more gradual reveal of that versus him saying that he’s always been dark and he knows because of a Goya painting? Seems weird. Like, how is he Dexter all of a sudden? Finally, the Nestor/Álvarez situation at the end: are you telling me that Alvarez really would give a fuck about the Mayans after Bishop betrayed him, especially at the expense of his own life if Miguel figured out that he didn’t do what was asked of him? And how is Nestor, who has always been undyingly faithful to Miguel, all of a sudden going to flake out on his duties, especially when he knows how important this is to Miguel???

Writing/storylines: So, to the extent that this is a separate issue than just simple characterization, I would say that this was the biggest problem for me this season. Lazy writing was a real issue for me and that it took me out of the plot and the moment many times. As I mentioned before, there were some scenes with Gaby and EZ that just felt so stilted that I really couldn’t take them seriously – – the scene in the church comes to mind. In addition to this, there were some plotlines that just felt tired or unnecessary, or didn’t link up. The Angel/Hank/Nails storyline, for example, just seems so boring… We just did a unexpected pregnancy storyline last season with Angel – – why did we need one again? Have they just run out of ideas for him? And to put Nails into the position of baby mama just feels kind of disrespectful to her character. Does every woman in this show need to have her uterus or sex life be a plot line? Bishop is another character that I feel like was done a little bit dirty the season. While I previously mentioned that I adored the scene with him in the diner, I was confused by the purpose of his dead son storyline. As emotional as it was and as great as the performances that it produced were, it didn’t really tie into anything else in the season. I understand that they were trying to give some background to Bishop’s character, but it just seemed like kind of a one-off considering it lasted for a few episodes and then was never brought up again. Perhaps they were trying to show us that everyone lost family or had to compromise something to be part of the MC, but if that was the case, then I would’ve liked to see it be tied to his decisions or his story later on. Maybe they could’ve done something like show that his dedication to the club was because they are the only family he has now that he lost his son? Or that he is wildin’ out now and tryna be the one king because he has nothing left to lose? Idk, maybe that was implied but I certainly didnt catch it — it would’ve been nice to have a more explicit connection there, because to me it just kinda felt like they showed us his pain and then forgot about it and just made him this crazed bloodthirsty madman. I also want to talk a little bit about undelivered upon promises – – Elgin said in a review before the season came out that we would get to see a little bit more into the backstory of each character and why they joined the MC – as I mentioned before, we got a little more about different characters lives but we didn’t necessarily see the why, which is something I really would’ve liked to know. I also was hoping for more social commentary than in fact happened this season – – the new intro seemed to suggest that we would get more of an emphasis on Latinx history or culture or social clashes, but in fact, such references were few and far between, as far as I could tell (although totally possible I missed some stuff). One scene, or rather, one line, that I really really enjoyed was when Gaby said “I risked my life to come here and I try to survive every day and you choose to flirt with death. That’s the privilege of being an American.” I found this line SO powerful, but it was almost a throw-away, and I really wish it had been touched upon more. I was looking forward to learning more about this and having it portrayed in such a Latinx-centered way would’ve been cool to see.

Ok, this is likely to be the most unpopular section of this post (for those of you who are even still around LOL), but I’m including a list of all the plotholes, inconsistencies, or unexplained events from this season, of which there were many. If anyone has an answer to these, please let me know:

Taza and Riz: I’m supposed to believe that he killed Riz just because he wanted to start a war with Palo? Because palo killed his lover over 20 years ago?? Like, could he not have started a war with Palo without involving Riz? And when he said “I didn’t know how many people would get hurt?” What??? How could you possibly have thought that a. Murdering your brother and b. Starting a war with the VM over a personal issue wouldn’t result in carnage?

Dead SOA ppl: why did Chibs never come calling to find out who killed Thomas (?) last season? Or Montez? I know that Montez wasn’t actually killed by the Mayans but he was placed in the Mayans parking lot or whatever so wouldn’t that raise some suspicions??? All that they said about Thomas was that he disappeared and the Sons didn’t know what happened? @starrynite7114

What was the point of the whole Lobos Sonora thing? Why did Palo need to talk to them to get involved with the Tucson mayans? Could he not have just gone to Canche himself? Was this something that they were doing to set up next season? If so, it seems like a long walk to get there…

Speaking of Canche, how the fuck did that cockroach survive a bomb?

Who tipped off border patrol on the night that they tried to move the drugs from the tunnel? Was it the girl in jail? And how come we never heard from her again? Just one of many plotlines that was started and then never revisited.

The Miguel/Felipe thing: We got so close but never actually got there. Are we gonna have to wait a whole other season for this?

Speaking of paternity, who is actually the father of Adelitas baby? I’m kind of OK with not knowing if the baby is alive or dead but I’m ready to know who the father was… Again, I don’t wanna wait another season to wrap this up.

Additionally, did Adelita actually hurt Potter’s family? Did she kill them? It was very unclear.

They essentially said that Potter shut down the border out of spite after the Adelita thing happened… What the fuck does that mean? Are you trying to tell me that a government official can just randomly shut down the border whenever he wants? And what was it about the Adelita thing that pissed him off? That he captured her? That EZ and Angel got one over on him? I really don’t understand… Angel said in the first episode that “the shutdown affected me more than anyone,” ostensibly because he lost his partner and child, but I just don’t see how Adelita and the shut down were related??

CHUCKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!! GTFOH with that weak-ass excuse.

Coco storyline:

Was he never gonna find out that Hope was the one who took the picture of him and set him up?

What about the fact that Letty essentially conned him into killing his mom?

Also, did Isaac really die? And what about the reaper tattoo on his side? Was he part of SOA? Was that ever going to be addressed? The story just wasn’t wrapped up at all and I cannot HANDLE any more Meth Mountain next season.

I guess my point in all of this is that I don’t have a problem with the cliffhangers per say – – but there’s a difference between “oh this is an exciting unknown that we can speculate about until next season” and “this is just messy writing where many story threads were begun this year and then never finished” or “we were supposed to wrap up storylines from two seasons ago and we just didn’t.” The latter two just feel sloppy to me, and I feel like that’s a lot of what went on this season. The whole show this year felt both slow and overstuffed, both uneventful and packed at the end. Perhaps it was a pacing issue, a problem of Elgin wanting to distinguish himself and pack so much in and make it so different from previous seasons that he bit off more than he could chew and it all became unfocused. As I read somewhere else, the problem when you have this many unfinished storylines is that they weigh you down for the next season – the writers now have to either spend the majority of next season addressing these questions or just forget about them and pretend they never happened, which feels disrespectful to the audience. I guess my hope is just that Elgin will find his footing and be able to deliver us a more cohesive, well-paced season next year. I fully believe he is capable of this, and if he continues to deliver on the things that did work about this season, we should be in good shape.

Tagging some ppl who have expressed interest in my thoughts: @yourwonkywriter @angelreyesgirl @megapeacelovemusic-blog @starrynite7114 @joannasteez @brattyfics @mareethequeen

#mayans mc season 3 #Mayans mc #mayans mc spoilers #Mayans mc season 3 spoilers #jd pardo #Clayton Cardenas #Danny pino #carla baratta #angel reyes #ez reyes #miguel galindo #Felipe reyes #edward james olmos #coco cruz #richard cabral #bishop losa #michael irby #chucky marstein #I love you chucky

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 2 years

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"In a way you are right, at this moment in time they do not have anything worthy to show from an artistic pov" Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but are you saying you think bts have no artistry to show for? Its cool to not like dyna, butter, ptd but to disregard the astronomical amount of artistry in damn near every other album/music video/etc. because they have released 3 english songs that you think are lower quality is not great in my opinion. I get not liking those songs or critiquing them but the hyper focus around them, especially because BE as an album is so often completely dismissed in these conversations, is weird to me.

"There was always the option to make music for themselves and not to win some big award or cater to a western audience that thinks Dynamite or Butter are good songs, let alone PTD." I am going to be honest, and this isn't just about you because I see this type of opinion a lot, this really disturbs me. Unless you are in their shoes, we will never know what it is like to carry the burden they carry of being not just representation for koreans but for all asians globally, the burden of wanting their art to be recognized by an industry that doesn't want them and actively fights against them, by an industry them may or may not have grown up looking up to themselves. I am tired of seeing people who will never know what is like to be a non english speaking, poc artist trying to make it in the industry, be condescending about their goals and dreams or how they went about achieving them. I don't care if its the "after they did everything they could to get those #1" comments or the people who get mad at them for wanting a grammy, it will never be your place to tell them how much that stuff should mean to them, to their country or the many asian people all over the world who look up to them. You might not like those songs, which is valid, but to a lot of people, they represent a hell of a lot more than just a pop song. "there was always the option" shows a gross lack of understanding and empathy for the things bts go through and the pressure they are under as artists, as asians, as koreans, and as people

I agree with the other anon that bts have nothing to prove artistically to the west, because bts are overflowing with artistry if you actually bother to look past just their english songs, and the people who choose not to, will never care about bts's artistry in the first place

It was a misinterpretation, I was referring to what they released in 2021. I couldn't refer to their entire career, otherwise what am I doing here, still having an interest?

As for the second part of your message, I'm not going to elaborate more because I already feel like a broken record. I have talked extensively about how I see this in July when I opened this blog and in September when the Billboard article was released. You can find everything in Archives. I also hear the same things, about an industry who rejects them, how after all these years and given all their achievements, the fandom still sees them as some underdogs when that's certainly not the case anymore. It's not my place to comment, I don't have empathy, I've heard these accusations before. What I have tried with this blog is to get away from my experience and views as a fan, in order to see the developments from a different angle.

As to the post you took the quotes from, there are also some very good additions in terms of arguments from other people in the comments to which I fully agree with.

#asks

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silkylious · 3 years

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Brief overview of what it means to be Me/Na

I feel bad for clogging up people’s dashboards with this type of discourse every couple of days (even if I know it’s not my doing) instead of posting content, which is what people followed me for (honestly kinda discouraging when this is most of what I see when I log on here). Plus I’m honestly getting tired of addressing this over and over again. So here you go, one last post to put this all to rest, hopefully you’ll learn something new from this. I won’t be responding to any anons like this after this post.

Here’s a couple of things anons have said about me where I just chose to block them and then move on with my day:

(got this masterpiece a while ago over a ship of all things, Arabic is a language not an ethnicity sweetheart)

(not really much to say here, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't know my nationality. Still disgusting)

I even got one that I refuse to share on here out of respect for myself and other POC (involved a racial slur pertaining to another race, honestly hats off to you for being creatively the worst human being imaginable). One moment I’m called racial slurs, the next I’m not even acknowledged for my ethnicity. So which is it? Tell me anons, am I a goat fucker or a white cracker, hm?

Actually I’ll answer that one for you, since you seem to be lacking some cogs up in your noggin.

I doubt many people have heard of the term Mena. Hell, I myself was introduced to it not too long ago, and I’m Mena. That tells you a lot already about the erasure of my culture in western societies.

Mena simply stands for Middle eastern and North African, which most people generalize as “Arabs” which isn’t entirely accurate considering the fact that Iran is a middle eastern country but not an Arab state.

As you can see, there are a lot of countries that fall under the umbrella term Mena. The amazing geographical advantage this area held led to colonization. Colonization dates centuries back in time, speaking for my homeland Egypt, we’ve been subject to colonization dating back to Ancient Egypt. First came the Greeks, then the Romans, then with the introduction of Islamic rule came an era of medieval dynasties originally from Saudi Arabia ending with the rise of the Mamluk sultanate which was composed of several tribes and groups of nomadic Turks. Then came the ottoman empire which reigned for over 5 centuries, with some interference from the French around the 1790′s which lasted about two decades, until modern-era Egypt which was under British imperialism. It’s important to note that pre-modern era, the main ethnic group in north Africa were called the Berbers (there are other names used to refer to them), who had pale skin despite their black ancestors, yet still had distinctly different features compared to western and north European Caucasians.

This is all speaking about one fucking country, and I didn’t even go into detail to save time. Do you people not realize the ethnic diversity in the middle east and north Africa?

Generally speaking we’ve had European influences (British and French colonization), Euro-Hispanic influences (Portugal and Spain colonization), a large number of countries have typically Persian features (mostly in the Persian gulf and Iran). I haven’t even scratched the surface here.

With all this ethnic diversity you can now clearly see the need for an umbrella term to house the variety of ethnic groups and sub-groups here. Mena is no way, shape or form a good indicative of the ethnic background of each specific area but it’s a fucking start.

When people from North Africa, the middle east or southwest Asia migrate, they have to legally write down that they’re white or some other race because there’s no option for us. I mean shit, I got called white twice on here, even though the third thing on my about me page is literally my nationality. It's erasure.

I can’t even begin to describe how empty I feel regarding all of this; getting degraded because of my race when it’s convenient and getting my whole ethnic identity disregarded when it’s convenient.

I know as someone with a pale skin tone, I have it way easier than other Mena who have darker skin colors, I wont sit here and try to pretend that colorism doesn’t exist. Because it does, and it’s disgusting. But at least have the common decency to address me correctly, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve mentioned my ethnicity/nationality and waited with baited breath for some sort of insult.

Before you make baseless assumptions about me, please at the very least take two seconds out of your day to check the link in my description. It’s there for a reason.

#silky rants #tw racial slurs #tw racism #tw discourse

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bloody-vino · 3 years

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Ichiban x Depressed S/O

“sorry if this is a weird ask, but could we get some ichiban headcanons for an s/o that has depression?” I had this ask and tumblr managed to fuck up my asks and my post didnt show on my feed so here is a repost.

First of all, No its not weird to ask at all, there are so many people who stan the Yakuza characters and i want to write personalised headcanons and fanfics for everyone so that they can imagine themselves to be a part of that universe. I am a POC (brown girl) and i too would like to read hcs/fanfics where I am represented next to my stans even though they are worlds apart.

So i guess to everyone who wants to send in asks please go ahead send me your wildest reqeusts because i am probably going to enjoy writing them a tad bit more. Even tho i will write everything that is sent in regardless :)

Please forgive me if i dont represent this mental illness well, do private message me to correct any inaccuracies or to take it down as a whole. I am here to learn and i will accept any feedback given to me.

So for this I am going to assume that the reader has had a traumatising childhood which has led to them being diagnosed with depression in current years.

1) S/O always managed to put up a smile and laugh when Ichiban and they initially started dating, thats why Ichi never really knew about S/O's illness.

2) But a year later the depression worsened. This started reflecting in many ways, S/O had no interest in many things that once got them excited, there was a constant cloud of self doubt, comparison to other people, sleeping in late and extreme lack of self care because they didnt think they deserved it.

3) Ichiban started noticing these worsening traits, he wasnt well versed with the attributes of this illness and was far from knowing how to manage someone suffering from it.

4) He would always ask his S/O to go out and do fun stuff with him, like watch a movie or go to the arcade. There used to be a time they were super excited to go but now they would just say "Not in the mood today" or "im very tired maybe some other time". Ichiban would really be heartbroken not understanding why. Maybe his S/O lost interest in him?

5) Ichiban would notice his S/O lose interest in talking about things they could ramble on for hours, initially he would feel it is because they dont want to talk to HIM, not because of any other reason. Soon he will begin realising that its an over all change and that he needs to do something about it.

6) There would also be moments when his S/O would randomly say they should not be together because Ichiban deserved someone better or randomly compare to someone walking by the street which would always get Ichi riled up and send him into an energetic frenzy trying explain his S/O amazingness back to them.

7) To tackle this problem first he will discuss it with Nanba or Adachi, trying to figure out things. Nanba being an ex nurse will probably have an idea of what is happening. He will let Ichiban know that S/O is dealing with some sort of internal battle and its not just ordinary relationship problems.

8) Ichiban will take it upon himself. He will read every article, website or material he can get his hands on to figure out how depression works. He will understand it properly and then calmly talk to S/O about it. To find out what exactly is going on. He will lift S/O spirits simply by putting in so much effort.

9) Ichi will get all his friends to spend alot more time with S/O at home especially when they say they are feeling tired to go out, and plan alot more things inside their comfort zone instead of forcing S/O to go out. Ichiban will try re introducing their interests through creative ways he thinks would work. Like giving them a card which says "Dear S/O, please take my dragon on a quest again. Yours, Ichi"

10) After speaking to some people he will realise that therapy is an option and that it is not just for people suffering with mental illness but it is just as important for people who arent. So if S/O is reluctant to get any therapy, he will get the help of Nanba and everyone to convince S/O to go for it and even offer to join for sessions himself.

Overall, Ichiban would emotionally be upset that his lover suffers from depression, because internally he doesnt want anyone to feel like they are at an all time low since he has personally been there several times. This is why he will always make sure he is positive about it and always there to support

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canardroublard · 5 years

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TMFU, Gaby’s fashion, and some feminist film analysis

Back when I slapped together a reblog post about the men’s fashion in The Man From UNCLE in between physio appointments, which somehow got like way more notes than I ever really expected or even wanted, I didn’t address the fashion of the lead female character, Gaby. It was outside the scope of the OP, and I didn’t feel like I had anything new or interesting to say about Gaby’s fashion, or lack thereof.

(My beta says those earrings are the ugliest thing ever. I disagree. It’s a wonder we’re still friends)

Anyways, we see only one brief scene of Gaby in her own street clothes, and a slightly longer sequence of her in her work clothes. The rest of the film, she is wearing clothes chosen for her by Illya. Saying “we just don’t have enough info” is a perfectly reasonable approach to this. So this was the other reason I had no intention of making this post.

But then people started getting interested. Someone reblogged commenting about Gaby’s fashion, and I discovered that I have very strong opinions about something I’d previously claimed was unknowable, and it made me wonder what was going on in my brain.

Then I talked to some other TMFU friends who all seemed interested in what I assumed was common knowledge/nothing unique. So, they may have been feigning interest out of politeness, but it activated the art history side of my brain, and here we are now!

The boring stuff but please read this

I am not attempting to tell anyone how to interpret this film. I am not even trying to change people’s minds or persuade them to my thinking. All I am doing is sharing my thought process. I wasn’t even going to do this for Gaby until people asked. To this end, please don’t attempt to argue with me about this. I don’t want to argue. I won’t respond to it. If you disagree, then please, just move along.

And I’m going to remind people that I love TMFU. I love this movie so much it hurts. Why am I putting this reminder here? Because I am about to apply some critical analysis to it, and in places this will be cynical, and it will not always look kindly on the film. If you just want to exist in a happy “I love TMFU!” bubble and not hear anything less than 100% positive about the film (which is a totally valid choice, I don’t fault anyone for that), then don’t read. But don’t yell at me for being mean or criticizing the film, because I warned you.

Tldr; or, if I were still being graded for this stuff here’s my thesis statement

When analysing Gaby’s fashion, there exist considerations which don’t apply to the male characters. Namely, she is a woman and the male gaze is a thing. So I am very, very wary about taking at face value any expressions of traditional femininity in the choices made for her outfits, hair, makeup, etc. Therefore, when considering her character, I find it much more useful and informative to give more weight to the aspects of her appearance which do not connote traditional femininity, rather than those that do.

For readers who have studied enough media analysis to follow my thought based on that alone, there’s the thesis statement, y’all can go home (or at least skip to the end where I come to a conclusion). If you’re lost, then read on.

(mobile readers, the cut here might not work, and if so I apologize for what is going to be a very long post. Tumblr’s “keep reading” functionality is inconsistent at best, but I tried)

Context is for kings essential for analysing media in a meaningful way

(Or, some brief background. Stick with me here, we’ll get to the good stuff soon)

So, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempting to analyze any artwork (in this case a film) while disregarding the culture it was created in and the intentions of the creator is...not going to get you very far. Asking “what is art” is a question that quite frankly exhausts me at this point (looking at you, Duchamp) but the closest I’ve ever come to an answer is that the only thing that separates art from everything else is intent. And intention only exists within cultural context. So yes, intent and context don’t just matter peripherally, they are one of the biggest considerations one needs to make when analyzing works of art. The creator in this case being Guy Ritchie et al, the culture being British/American Popular Cinema in The Year of Somebody’s Lord Two-Thousand-And-Fifteen.

Everyone views and creates (if applicable) art through their own distorted, murky, imperfect lens of personal experience. And one of the most persistent Things in western art is that cishet men create art based on their experience of Being A Dude. This is crucial, because this lens of cishet male perspective literally underpins almost all of western culture including popular culture. And thanks to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, we have a name for this.

The male gaze and you

I’m going to quote Wikipedia here, because honestly this intro sentence sums things up rather neatly (with one exception which I will address momentarily).

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

What does that all mean? That the Viewer and the Artist are both cishet men by default, and any women are Subjects of art. Women are viewed, never viewers. Men take action, women are subjected to actions. Furthermore, women are supposed to be pleasurable to view. By men. Since the Viewer is male by default.

But I would disagree that the pleasure is inherently based on women being sexual objects. That’s honestly a really damn limited read on the whole theory, and it’s one that Wikipedia itself contradicts later in the article. More broadly, cis men also derive other forms of pleasure from the presentation and viewing of female bodies, including aesthetic pleasure (the enjoyment of looking at beautiful things).

The theory of the male gaze is not without limits. As originally theorized, afaik it’s not particularly intersectional. It doesn’t really address queer perspectives or perspectives of POC. However, these issues are something I just can’t address here, unfortunately. And when looking at popular media, I still find the concept of the male gaze, imperfect as it may be, is a helpful means of analysis, so it’s worth having in your toolbox.

Circling back, the easiest way to sum up the male gaze, if you’re still not super clear on what it is, is with a demonstration.

Ever seen a shot like this in a movie?

And did you immediately roll your eyes? Feel gross? Congrats, you have just perceived and reacted to the male gaze.

Now we actually get back to TMFU

But the male gaze also shows up in many more subtle, insidious ways than fanservice-y boob shots. For this post, let’s focus on the following considerations, which might help everyone follow my thought process more clearly.

Gaby is a woman

She functions as the love interest of Illya in the script (I am not talking from a shipping perspective. What you ship does not matter for this discussion. I am talking about the narrative function of Gaby in the script as written. Put on your “cishet man” goggles for a moment)

Illya is a man who is attracted to women, specifically Gaby (again, I don’t care if your shipping conflicts with this. I am analyzing the film based on a literal reading of it as if I were a cishet man. Why? Because that’s who made the film. That’s who it’s “for”. I am all for queer readings of film--hell, I ship OT3, I myself have chosen a queer reading for how I interact with it, but I’m not critiquing people’s readings, I’m critiquing the film itself and to do that I have to critique its intentions and cultural context.)

Cishet men are traditionally only allowed to be attracted to women who are conventionally attractive. If they were to be attracted to anyone else it would destroy their fragile senses of self and their heads would explode or something. At least I assume that’s what must happen, based on how terrified they are of it.

Therefore, Gaby must be conventionally attractive, because it is literally required of her or otherwise the whole underpinning of western straight malehood crumbles and then where would we get such a pure, vast source of unadulterated toxic masculinity?

(Yes, this is a very cynical read on things. I’ve studied, like, three centuries worth of this bullshit. I’m tired. Let me be cynical.)

Or, to force myself to be less cynical, Gaby has to be pretty because...nope, this is still going to turn out just as cynical.

But what I will say in favour of this movie is that it gives Gaby and Victoria both a lot of agency and general awesomeness, which is quite unusual in this sort of big-budget action film, and it’s one of the big reasons I love it. I’m not saying that the entire film is sexist. On the contrary, there’s a ton of stuff to celebrate about how it portrays its female characters. But these aspects don’t change the cultural context, and we still have to consider the impacts of the male gaze.

Anyways, point being is that as filtered through the male gaze, Gaby is never given the option to, say, wear no makeup (or the appearance of such, as the guys are afforded, this being cinema where “no makeup” still means makeup) because that would look “ugly”. Instead she needs to have a “baseline of pretty” which is way higher than reality because she is not a real human being with her own agency, she is a character created by a cis male writer/director team in a film directed by a cis man in a genre that caters to cishet men.

Gaby doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She exists battling centuries and centuries worth of sexist convention.

Now then, remembering all of that, let’s actually look at her. There are woefully few good pictures so I’m going to have to piece things together a little. Starting with the coveralls.

This is a great look, I love it. And I’m going to give Ritchie a lot of credit here because it would’ve been easy to go for a “Michelle Rodriguez in F&F sexy mechanic lady” look. In case I need to provide a visual:

(Repeat above gif about rolling my eyes)

Now, to be clear, I am not making any judgement about the way any real-life women dress. I’m sure there’s plenty of female mechanics who have their hair down and wear tank tops while working. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t care if real life mechanics choose to do their jobs in a string bikini. Or in cosplay of the bee from Bee Movie. I don’t care (and quite frankly it’s none of my business) because they are real people who can make their own decisions. But what I am talking about here is a fictional character who does not have her own agency. I am critiquing how male creators choose to dress their female characters.

So I personally choose to read much more into the unpretty aspects of Gaby’s outfit, because these are not the “obvious” or “easy” things. Obvious and easy are “of course she wears makeup” and “of course her hair looks good” and “of course she doesn’t look like a swamp witch who bathes in mud and spends her days cursing passing men”. Those things don’t challenge or disrupt the assumption that women must look attractive for male consumption.

Gaby’s introduction to us is with her in a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls, not wearing any obvious makeup (again, this is cinema, so she is wearing makeup. For cinema the goal posts around “wearing makeup” always need to be moved from where they’d be irl). There’s very little here that screams ‘pretty’. And that is fascinating to me.

I don’t know how deeply Ritchie thought this through when giving final approval to the costume, hair and makeup. But unpretty is not the default here. It’s a choice

And look at this. This is the stance and dress sense (and socks!) of a woman who does not give a damn about looking good for the male gaze, whether the in-movie gaze of Napoleon, or the implied gaze of the viewer and creator. It’s not ‘pretty’. And this is the only time in the film we see Gaby in her own everyday clothes, as she only escapes East Berlin with the literal clothes on her back.

So how do I think Gaby dresses? I think that for the most part she dresses....like this. Practical. Comfortable. With a few simple touches of things she likes/finds pretty, perhaps, but not with a specific interest in being pretty. She dresses for herself, not for others. And if that isn’t something to aspire to, I don’t know what is.

#gaby teller #tmfu #the man from uncle #meta #costume design #male gaze #fashion #thank you to michael bay for providing me with such a good example of the male gaze

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