#hes overall just very pleasant this season and I might write an essay on why some time later but its been 20 minutes and I havent wanted to | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jisssooyah · 4 years

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Hi you... if you were going to curate a little season of films for me, which ones would you choose and why? They don't need to be horror, I'm just curious what you would choose 🌸

I don’t know if you’ll like these movies, or if you’ve already watched them, but after i watched these films, i felt like they might need to belong to you now. i hope they make you smile, roll your eyes, and cry just as much as i did.

1. city of god (2002): this is one of the most immersive and gorgeously shot films i’ve ever seen. it’s set in rio de janeiro during the 60s and spans decades exploring the drug culture in the slums and how this can affect kids just as they are trying to figure their own selves out. the way this film is shot, feels like you were at the sea with them as the sand crunched underneath your feet. but the way that the director captures these individuals, makes you so fucking relieved that you don’t live through any of the circumstances that they go through.

2. the dreamers (2004): set in 1968, this film follows three students in Paris who come of age and explore one another and their limits during the revolution. while these students prop themselves up as individuals obsessed with sex, running underneath themselves is a current of jealousy, obsession, and blurred familial relationships that made me increasingly uncomfortable. you find yourself feeling bad for the children, and ultimately upset at their upbringing because of their parents.

3. if beale street could talk (2018): this movie is based off of james baldwin’s titular 1974 novel. in it, the director expertly and vigorously explores love: a love that feels so real that it hurts. the cast is what sold this film to me. the way they talk, laugh, cry, and smile at one another is achingly beautiful and terrifyingly sad. i wanted to transport myself back to their time period and watch the main characters fall in love because the film didn’t seem like enough.

4. the neon demon (2016): this film follows an emerging model who sacrifices herself to the demands of the industry in order to be attractive and beautiful. there are so many stunning colors in this film that it makes you dizzy, like you’re in a trance and that’s what this world is for the main character: a trance. as she oscillates between reality and fantasy, her world and the characters in it, increasingly seek out to alter her personality.

5. death becomes her (1992): a deliberately ultra-campy parody of trashy, pandering "women's pictures," soap operas and paperbacks from the '80s and '90s. The three leads all do some of their best work - it's hilarious watching Meryl Streep play a terrible actress, Goldie Hawn is particularly hilarious during her character's cat lady phase, and all around just a really fun and eccentric film.

6. princess cyd (2017): i can’t think of anything to write for this but i just wanna say that this is literally one of the most pleasant movie experiences i’ve ever had. so much light and genuine interaction in warm sun rays radiating positive energy and an openness that is far too uncommon in movies nowadays. people talk, people connect, people grow bonds and are allowed to be sexual or intimate or personal without an air of shame or judgement. just pure kind and curious human association.

7. spiderman: into the spiderverse (2018): the message of Spider-Verse is not "gentrify yourself! stop expressing your personality and just conform to what society wants you to be!" After all, what makes you different makes you Spider-Man, and Miles' final expression of himself as a superhero still retains much of his personality and individuality...they're just being used in more productive and fulfilling ways. It's the little things that drive the point home, like noticing that the title page for Miles' finished Great Expectations essay has been stylistically doodled and colored like street art. Rather than seeing his artistic gifts as an opposition to his schoolwork, Miles infuses them together to make the best of the hand he's been dealt.

8. my life as a zucchini (2016): initially heartbreaking and sad, but slowly becoming more joyful and heartwarming as the plot moves along. The film really feels like it captures the essence and child like wonder of these kids, all of them going through hardships but managing to find something to help each other out. It’s so refreshing to see the actual orphanage portrayed in a more positive light, not the usual horrid dump that a lot of lesser movies play them out as. The animation is stunning. One of the best uses of stop motion I’ve seen, everything is so colourful and detailed. There’s some moments set in snowy mountains and these look incredible. There’s clearly been so much love and care put into each and every scene here. The music too, sounds spectacular, it really works well with each scene.

9. lovesong (2016): Mindy and Sarah have that type of relationship where they don't need words because they speak in a language made out of glances and touches. This movie is about the fear of ruining a meaningful friendship and losing an important person, about love that is so complicated that one might not even try because the outcome seems to be so obvious.

10. her (2013): Heartbreak is formative: it changes you heart side out, and leaves your muscles a little stronger, your skin a little thicker, your bones easier to repair. Before this film, I’d never seen anything constructive in having your insides pulled apart by the seams by another person, but this film taught me how. Being in love and then being forced out of it is an experience that changes you fundamentally, but Her taught me its purpose – you don’t need them to leave you so that you can find someone who’s a better fit, because perhaps you never will. You need it to participate in humanity. The common denominator is being hurt, and without it, you’re barely alive.

11. shoplifters (2018): bittersweet and richly transportive, Shoplifters is a film that nonchalantly eases you into its tragic beauty in a way that doesn't punch you hard until the end. It simultaneously made me want to be part of the film's world and also very glad that I'm not. The setting the characters live in is messy and cluttered and full of dysfunction and lies, but it's also got family, and laughter, and fist-bumps, and slurping warm noodles while rain pings on the tin rooftop. So nuanced, so many tiny moments of delicate beauty and unassuming heartbreak, so many people making terrible decisions with good intentions.

12. god’s own country (2017): though it is a love story between two men, this aspect is only addressed briefly in a single scene. Rather, the film is about finding someone who makes you want to be a better person, someone who comes into your life just when you needed it most. Gheorghe helps Johnny open up and realize the beauty of the simple life. From this relationship, Johnny begins to feel comfortable with expressing himself, and his love and gratitude towards others. He also begins to appreciate life in the country, surrounded by stunning landscapes and the beauty of simplicity. Addressing the Yorkshire countryside, Gheorghe says "It is beautiful, but lonely." Johnny is presented with the notion that he doesn't have to be cold and miserable, slaving and drinking his days away. He is presented with the possibility of no longer being alone and finally finding happiness and contentment - and it is more than gratifying to see him accept it.

13. disobedience (2017): a tender star-crossed daydream. the three main character dynamics are special enough on their own, but the romance that blooms at the center is cathartically intimate and even magical: a reunion that feels so inevitable. catching glimpses of a past life, details we aren’t privy to. all the stolen kisses and whispers and promises. a bond so strong that they fall back in sync with each other like second nature, even if they try to fight against it. even if it won’t work. and yet they choose each other, even if for a few minutes.

14. raw (2016): this film is so gross and I like that. There is tons of blood and unique body horror and it all works perfectly for the tone the film is attempting to set. The use of color, specifically neons, creates a constant feeling that you are traveling through some sort of weird ghost world, which I really like. Overall, it's a very well put together film with flashes of brilliance.

15. the night is short, walk on girl (2017): what an absolutely magical adventure of a film. Essentially this is a heavily episodic look at a night in the lives of several people, centered on a woman and a man as she gleefully floats from event to event while he neurotically obsesses over how to "coincidentally" talk to her. The storytelling is incredible; while the overarching narrative is simple there are countless threads woven together to connect everyone in the story to each other. That in itself is a big theme: connections between people, how everything is interrelated, and what a large impact seemingly insignificant things people do can have an impact on everyone around them.

16. coraline (2009): Coraline is the best stop motion movie ever made in my opinion. Before the film released in 2009, I read the book and was completely blown away by its creativity and story. It’s a pretty dark tale featuring many scenes of fright that work well in both a horror setting and an animated kids setting. On surface value, this film is quite horrifying, which is something I’ve always loved about it. While it does make a few minor changes to the book, it improves upon a piece of art that was already jaw-droppingly good. Coraline feels like a real little girl with some real problems. She’s selfish but likable which is something most films cannot translate well. Of course, she has a pretty awesome arc as well which brings this movie to a perfect close for her character. The other-mother is also perfectly done. She is almost exactly how I imagined her in the book and the animation on her is spookily gorgeous. There is not one dull moment in this film. It is literally a perfect piece of cinema.

17. the third wife (2019): haven’t seen a film this visually delicate in a while. Ash Mayfair works with the looming mountain surroundings to make her characters —these women, these girls— as small as possible, as isolated as possible. Uneasiest of all is the protagonist May, so young and so weighed by responsibility, her position blurs between being one of the wives and being one of the daughters. It’s an extremely bleak tale of circumstance. An old tale, certainly, but so beautifully crafted it doesn’t matter. Mayfair holds a fearful tension throughout, and it only ever shatters in the cruelest of ways.The abundance of women and display of sisterhood begin as a comfort, but horror takes over as we realize how conditional and fragile that comfort is. Even the daughters are subconsciously aware, one of them praying to the gods to grow up and become a man, shearing her hair off in naive triumph. It’s a doomed cycle of girls performing roles which are unfortunately their best option, right up until the final scene of May with her daughter, still in their mourning clothes. She, like the older wives, finally realizes they’re the same as the cattle laying on their side for too many days.

#asks #shortcake-kaspbrak

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successessay988 · 4 years

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chunsoftie · 7 years

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Bri Watches South Park - Season 1 Overview

So, a couple days ago I made a post about how I was going to watch every single episode of South Park since I’ve never seen every episode. I managed to watch the entirety of the first season in a day a half, so I’m going to go ahead and talk a little about every episode individually - what I liked, what I didn’t like, etc.

Keep in mind that when I review these episodes, I’m going to try to stay on a critical side. This isn’t to say I won’t gush about certain things - It’s South Park. I absolutely adore the show and will find many positive things to say. However, you learn to take the good with the bad in stuff that you like. It’ll be pretty interesting to see how my opinions have changed from episodes that I’ve seen before, to how I feel about them with this rewatch.

Season 1 won’t really be as long as the others, just because I didn’t write notes this time around (next season’s overview will be longer, just because I’ll have written stuff to go back on). If there are people who follow me that are interested, I can also make a similar post for the movie, as well.

(Also, for the sake of having these posts be specific to seasons, I won’t be covering the pilot here. I might do that in another post).

But let’s go ahead and start with Cartman Gets an Anal Probe.

(Overview will be having a ‘keep reading’ after this point.)

Cartman Gets an Anal Probe: Cartman tells his friends Stan, Kyle, and Kenny he had a dream about being abducted by aliens.

I feel like it would be pretty redundant to talk about how this episode contrasts from the others. There are obvious differences, and the stop motion aspect does make me impressed with how well the animation held up in that style. This was the only episode from the first season I had watched up to this point (except for maybe some of Big Gay Al, but we’ll get to that later).

This episode focused on a lot of things from South Park that I enjoy more than others - priority with the cast of kids rather than adults, a narrative that doesn’t feel too slow, and great introduction to the main cast. I feel like earlier episodes of South Park are charming for being able to hold up on their own without resorting to political satire - not saying that part of the show isn’t interesting, but it definitely makes the writing drag. This episode was one of the better-written episodes that felt like it knew exactly what it wanted to do from the start.

This episode was also hilarious. I laughed more for this episode than some of the others this season. The association with the cows and the aliens was especially enjoyable.

This was also one of my favorite Cartman episodes. There are plenty of great contestants for the character throughout this season, which I was really surprised to notice. Stan also was enjoyable this episode - I find that I am liking him more as a character after seeing him be more active in this episodes (which is probably why I didn’t really care for him too much beforehand).

Overall, not my favorite episode of the season, but a great start.

Volcano: Stan's uncle Jimbo and his friend Ned take the four boys on a hunting trip in the mountains.

Considering that I’ve watched more modern South Park compared to earlier seasons, I definitely will say that Jimbo and Ned were hilarious characters and I loved their little mantra about the importance of hunting just for the boys at the end to be like, “Hunting sucks.” I liked the tone where for the boys it wasn’t much about the hunting as it was getting away and spending time to themselves in a different place. Stan’s conflict with Jimbo and how he viewed Kenny was also more than they needed to put in the episode, but something that gave the writing more volume.

I also really liked how Randy was introduced in this episode and how it didn’t really drag with his characterization. Randy overall this season was pretty tame, I kind of felt relieved with that...but not for long, I know. Not for long.

The episode did have good moments but overall didn’t pack as much of a punch as the first episode. I kind of felt it was dragging at points and when I look back at season one, I probably won’t think more of this episode compared to the others. But I will say that Mayor McDaniels is an awesome character, I love her.

The improvement of animation was a change, though.

Weight Gain 4000: The town prepares for an event involving Kathie Lee Gifford presenting an award to Cartman.

I didn’t know who Kathie Lee Gifford was until I watched this episode. I love Cartman, but I didn’t see this episode until yesterday, and this has to me one of my favorite episodes for him. I found myself scrolling through Beefcake shirts on Redbubble afterwards just because, I mean, that’s what you gotta do.

Wendy and Cartman going against each other this episode with regards to the essay was hysterical to me. Wendy is a lot different this season compared to future seasons, but I really like her. I had only seen earlier versions of her with Anal Probe, and I won’t be surprised if she ends up my favorite character by the end of my rewatch.

This episode was a lot funnier than Volcano, and Mr. Garrison’s deal with trying to take Gifford down was great. They really add more meat than they need to with characters, and I’m so glad that they actually take the time to develop them, even with an episodic sense.

Both sideplots are great, but I definitely enjoyed Garrison’s more. Something tells me I’m going to like Garrison a lot the first few seasons before he really starts to annoy me, like Randy.

Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride: Stan's new, gay dog runs away and finds the town's most flamboyant, gayest man, Big Gay Al.

I had seen a lot of this episode years ago when South Park was still on Netflix and I was waddling my way through earlier episodes just based on their plots. I did find the side-plot with Stan and Sparky to be compelling, but the rest of the episode felt very hit-or-miss with me. However, I realized I had been quoting Big Gay Al for a very long time without recognizing where I got it from. The actual boat ride based on It’s a Small World made me chuckle.

The other plot with football and Jimbo and Ned was alright. I didn’t think it was nearly as fun as the central plot, but I was glad to see more from those two characters, as I really liked them from Volcano.

I honestly felt this one bored me more than made me laugh, but the references that I caught with this episode were enough to make me glad I watched it again.

My favorite part from the episode was when the kids brought the female dog to try to convince Sparky he isn’t gay, just for Sparky to take her collar off so he could wear it. Sparky has some good taste, man.

Overall, it was a good episode, just bored me to tears with some scenes.

An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig: The boys try to breed a pig with an elephant and look for Dr. Alphonse Mephesto's help.

It’s pretty repetitive to say a plot is good if I find Stan really enjoyable in them, but this episode is one of my favorites that star him. I really like what he’s going through with Shelly, and in the next episode, his grandpa. One things that makes me laugh with South Park is just how the violence is portrayed with the animations - just how Shelly flings Stan like she’s literally throwing him across the room. I know that was a smaller thing, but I find those scenes funnier than a lot of the other kinds of jokes.

Anyways, I really liked Kyle’s persistence in this episode, and how Chef helps the kids with thinking of a ‘pocket-sized’ elephant pig. When Chefs tries to get the mood right for the elephant and the pig, I could not stop laughing. I loved that scene, so much. It is one of my favorites from the entire season.

I also found Dr. Alphonse to be pretty funny at parts. I found him funnier in the season finale, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The last scene when the clone of Stan and Shelly made this episode solid for me. I would definitely mark this in my top three episodes for the entire season.

I realize I haven’t talked much about Chef this season either, but I feel like if you’ve seen Chef, you know Chef. I love him as a character, and this episode made me love him even more.

Death: Stan's grandfather attempts suicide and tries to enlist the boy's help.

I’m not really going to spend much time talking about the Terrence and Phillip side-plot, but I will say that seeing Sheila in this position earlier on in the season was a pleasant sight. I was wondering if there was going to be any Jewish mother rage before the movie, and I’m glad to see that there was.

This episode had a good plot going with Stan’s grandfather, but I feel like depending on the person you are, you’ll either find this episode brilliant or boring. I personally found it more boring than anything, even though there was a great scene where the boys call Jesus on his talk show and Stan asks about whether he should take someone’s like when that person wants it gone so badly. That point in the episode was what it needed, and definitely was what I would say to be the highlight.

Didn’t really think much of the episode after watching it. I guess for that one scene, I’d come back to it, but for anything else, I’d probably pass.

The way that Kenny dies in this episode was pretty funny, though.

Pinkeye: Kenny is killed by the Mir space station and becomes a zombie. This goes unnoticed as he is thought to have dressed up for Halloween.

When I went back to look at the episodes after watching the first season, I actually forgot this episode was a thing. I would say it’s the more forgettable episode of the entire season.

It wasn’t as if the episode was bad, it was just really bland. Kenny acting as a zombie is a funny premise, especially on a Halloween special, but the execution wasn’t played that well but only for a few things.

The side-plot with Cartman dressing up as Hitler and eventually a KKK member was really funny. That was probably the one thing I remember from this episode.

Not really going to go into too much detail with this one, but even though I love a lot of episodes this season, there are also a lot that could definitely be skipped.

Starvin’ Martin: A starving Ethiopian child is accidentally sent to South Park. Cartman is sent back to Ethiopia instead, while mutant turkeys begin rampaging the town.

This episode was absolutely a joy to watch. I loved the commentary with Marvin as well as the tone of the episode. It could have easily slipped in the discomforting direction and I’m so glad they didn’t take that route. The actual design of Marvin was excellently done, I am not going to forget the way Marvin looked. And the way that the boys behaved around Marvin (except for Cartman, of course) was super sweet.

it also reminded me of the toy-craze regarding watches in the late 90′s, earlier 2000′s.

My favorite scene from the episode was when Cartman walked into all the food being stowed away by Sally Struthers (who I also had to look up...I’m not good with celebrities, okay?). It made me want to eat cake.

The ending to this episode was also fantastic, and I really loved it overall. I definitely will be finding time to watch it again.

The music was already really good in this season. I really love how Matt and Trey are putting in their musical talents for the show, it’s awesome.

Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo: As a Jew, Kyle feels excluded from the rest of the town during Christmas and is comforted by Mr. Hankey, a talking, singing feces.

I love this episode and definitely put it next to a future episode as my favorite of this season. Kyle is my second favorite South Park character, and I enjoyed everything about his characterization. The holiday episodes of this season were a lot better than some of the others in this season, and this one was my personal favorites.

My favorite part was when Cartman sang about Kyle’s mom (like he did in the movie, which I thought was kind of cool that the song was in the series, as well), and they all thought Mr. Hankey was actually Kyle’s poop that he threw on Cartman. The Kyle and Cartman interactions in this episode were great, I love how they actually talk more like kids earlier on than in later seasons.

The entire debate regarding religious incorporation into schools and performances was something really interesting. I am sure they’re going to tackle it again in a future season, but this was a really good way to take time for this topic. I like how the controversial things they talk about in this season aren’t blown up compared to later seasons, and they can take the time for more jokes with the satire rather than establish their points of what they’re making fun of. It’s great.

If anything, I would recommend this episode from any other besides Anal Probe in this season. It was a great holiday episode, and I hope we’ll see Mr. Hankey again.

Damien: A new student arranges a boxing match between Satan and Jesus.

This is going to sound pretty strange, but I felt as though I preferred the Satan and Jesus boxing fight to any characterization from Damien.

Damien isn’t a bad character, but I found him uninteresting in this episode, even though his interactions with Pip were pretty funny. It’s kind of humorous to know that people ship him with Pip even though I can’t really see much of the dynamic, but I know that they’re both in the movie and when I rewatch it, I’ll get more of a liking towards Damien - probably? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the actual movie in many years. Either way, I found him a tad bland, but hopefully it’ll change.

Cartman’s side-plot in this episode with his birthday was alright. I felt like if they spent more time with Damien, it would benefit the episode - how Damien works with the others kids, or maybe if he was more of a threat at Cartman’s party. I will say the scene where Kyle gave him the game instead of the action figure was hilarious. I don’t really see how telling your friends what you want for your birthday is too much of a selfish thing, I mean, it is your birthday and they’re going to be asking what you want anyways, so...

The Jesus and Satan stuff was pretty great, though. Chef and Jesus training together was one of my favorite scenes, and one that I’ll definitely remember.

This episode was alright with one plot, but pretty freaking solid in the other.

Tom’s Rhinoplasty: Mr. Garrison gets a rhinoplasty and quits teaching to become a model

The past few episodes spare a couple were not as great as I felt these next three episodes were. I absolutely adored this episode. Natasha did a great job on her role as Ms. Ellen and oh my god, if I could fall in love harder with a voice...

I guess that’s Ms. Ellen getting to me, too.

I loved Wendy in this role. Kind of reminds me of a certain someone when their man got taken from them...(Basically I’m getting at her similarities to Cartman in Cartman Finds Love, but whatever. I’ll be getting to that one, eventually).

I laughed the most at Mr. Garrison though. I take it that he looks like Hasselhoff, but I didn’t know when I watched it (Looking it up, I was right, thanks Spongebob). This episode was a great laugh after a few boring episodes, and I loved when the boys were trying to be lesbians by licking Cartman’s carpet from what Liane said.

Definitely a great episode. I can’t really think about anything negative except that sometimes Wendy would annoy me with her yelling, but it could just be the voice acting.

Mecha-Streisand: Mr. Garrison takes his class on an archaeological dig where Cartman finds a mysterious triangle.

This episode was just as well-written as the previous one.

I really liked how Cartman and Kyle were at each other’s throats this episode - and how Cartman snuck in just to get the triangle. Looks like old habits are going to die hard, or never die? Who knows.

I don’t listen to much of her, but I did recognize Streisand with this episode, and her turning into an Evangelion-like robot at the second half of the episode was hysterical. I loved with Sheila came up to her to ask for an autograph during the attack on South Park - she would be the type of person to adore her. Overall, the second half of this episode was a lot more enjoyable than the first. I found that actually letting the crazier stuff unfold and the boys trying to figure out what to do about it was pleasant. This isn’t my favorite episode of the season, but I really liked what they did with it.

Can’t really say anything else than it was great, just like the last episode, and one I’ll definitely watch again.

Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut: Cartman attempts to find his real father only to find that his mother slept with just about every man in town.

This episode was a good watch. I really liked the concept of Cartman wanting to know who his father was, just because it was kind of weird going through the season not having that brought up. The pilot was its own thing, but not everyone is going to know about it when watching the season, so it felt off. However, I’m glad they at least got to address it.

Cartman is my favorite character of the show, so of course I found this episode enjoyable just because he was in it for most of the screentime. I kind of found it annoying how Kyle and Stan put the video of Cartman for 10,000 dollars and didn’t really apologize for it when Cartman found out (even though he got to use the money), and I mean, I get it. Kyle isn’t really dug out to be his morally righteous self yet, and as of right now, they have plenty of the same characteristics, but it still felt weird and didn’t sit well.

Considering I am actually in the process of writing a Cartman-centered fic of the moment, knowing more about Liane from this episode was a great thing. I really loved the flashback scenes with her and the men she had slept with. The thought of Mr. Garrison being Cartman’s father was really weird though, I’m glad he’s not actually his dad.

My favorite part of the episode was when Cartman first thought that Runningwind was his dad and he dressed up as a Native-American. It was hilarious and now I’m not going to get the image out of my head.

This episode was a tight way to end the series, even if the ending made me shake my head a couple times.

If you guys think I should do more of these for other shows (I’ve been thinking Hey Arnold or Bojack), please let me know. I’d be interested to see what you guys think.

#south park #bri binges south park #south park season 1

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lisacongo2-blog · 5 years

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‘Shrill’ Shreds Hollywood Stereotypes About How Women of Size Eat

The first time you see Annie, the protagonist of the new Hulu show Shrill, eating, her meal doesn’t look particularly pleasant. Played by SNL cast member Aidy Bryant, Annie grabs a plastic container from the fridge, opening it to reveal three white disks — supposedly pancakes — from a Tupperware labeled “Thin Menu.” While standing in her kitchen, she tries to break off a slab, puts it in her mouth, and wrinkles her nose in disgust. Her roommate, Fran (played by Lolly Adefope), walks by to witness the three doughy pucks, and says, “Good God.”

It’s not the only time Annie eats in her kitchen. Later in the series, Bryant opens a sealed container of leftover spaghetti, standing alone over an island near the sink. She twirls noodles around her fork, grinning in anticipation. She looks confident, blissed out, holding her hand under her chin as a noodle inches toward her lips. She scrunches her eyebrows and crinkles her nose, the perfect opposite of her look of disgust eating the Thin Meal pancakes. She nods and smiles while chewing, enjoying the moment.

The annals of TV are full of stories where women change themselves, from Mad Men’s Peggy Olsen to Eleanor Shellstrop in The Good Place. But Shrill, the six-episode adaptation of writer Lindy West’s memoir of the same name, is a different kind of “transformation” story, starring a woman of size. The show tells the story of Annie, a Portland-based calendar editor for an alt-weekly newspaper, trying to jump start her career, earn the love of Ryan, a painfully oblivious loser, and become a more honest, self-assured person. What Shrill is not is a story of body transformation, of a fat woman getting thin. Although it shows Annie eating diet meals and exercising with her mother, her real goal goes beyond the universal challenge of self-acceptance — she wants to feel powerful, as a woman of size and simply as a woman. She wants to demand respect from the people around her.

Those people often fat-shame Annie, whether it’s her obsessive online troll, her perpetually sneering editor, or an invasive personal trainer who eventually devolves into calling her a “fat bitch.” Still, Annie’s relationship with her body is more nuanced. Her insecurities are more often portrayed in physical details or unspoken interpersonal choices she makes because she feels that, in her words, “there’s a certain way that your body’s supposed to be and I’m not that.”

In media where a woman’s relationship with her body plays its own role, the eating scenes are telling. There are countless movies in which women devour ice cream during break-ups or lonely moments. And for years, when a person of size ate on screen, it was portrayed as comic relief, from Melissa McCarthy consuming a napkin in Spy to a cross-dressing Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live inhaling his friend’s french fries while asking, “Can I have some?”

Even in shows and movies celebrated for their representations of non-normative bodies, eating is reserved for emotional distress. In HBO’s Girls, Hannah Horvath (played by Lena Dunham) is often caught eating during low moments, like when she eats cake with her hands after her purse is stolen on the train. In Real Women Have Curves, it takes a conflict with her mother to get the protagonist, Ana (America Ferrera), to eat a bite of flan in a moment of overall positive defiance. Rarely do women of size get the opportunity to eat happily on screen without some tumult, some churning emotional hang-ups or interpersonal conflict. The exception, of course, is when people of size are shot eating healthy foods, like when the contestants on The Biggest Loser marvel over turkey burgers. But if a not-thin character is caught eating a cupcake, the audience is meant to laugh or cry at their expense.

When Annie eats so-called “indulgent” foods in Shrill, she’s not considered a failure, and it’s not used as a comic device. Instead, it’s often tied to a moment of personal or thematic triumph completely unrelated to her weight. By simply showing Annie eating the foods countless people love in a way that’s empowering, Shrill reinforces the idea that people, regardless of size, have the right to enjoy food in its entirety — not just salads and apples and other pious things, but rather the foods that are seen as permissibly comforting and luxurious for people of a smaller size. Like last year’s hit culinary travel show Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Hulu’s new series rewrites the rules for who gets to enjoy food on television.

Annie isn’t the only big millennial woman eating spaghetti on TV. In a scene on Girls, Hannah grabs handfuls of noodles from a takeout box, dangling them into her open mouth. There is an element of watching this scene that feels relatable, especially for anyone who lives alone, but nothing about that moment is sexy or empowering. At its best, it’s a moment of comic relief born out of universality; at its worst, it’s Dunham’s self-ridiculing humor shaming herself — and other women — for eating without control while not thin.

This is far from the only moment when a woman eating sugary, greasy, and otherwise “bad” foods on television works as a boiler-plate scene representing rock bottom. In her essay “Why is it sad and lonely women who turn to chocolate?” Telegraph culture writer Rebecca Hawkes recalls similar moments in romantic comedies, like when Renee Zellweger devours chocolates under a blanket in Bridget Jones’s Diary, or when Sandra Bullock turns to ice cream in Miss Congeniality. “When you look at the trope in more detail, the implication is that eating chocolate is something ‘naughty,’” she writes. “It’s something that (calorie-counting, figure-obsessed) women shouldn’t be doing, but can’t help resorting to in moments of extreme trauma — or simply due to a comedic lack of discipline.” In her essay, Hawkes also brings up another classic plus-sized person comically shamed and punished for their gluttony: Augustus Gloop, the rotund little boy in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, presumably killed for wanting to eat some of the chocolate in a literal river of chocolate — as if anyone wouldn’t.

Ryan (Luka Jones) and Annie (Aidy Bryant)

Photo: Allyson Riggs/Shrill

But still, beyond little boys, beyond thin ladies, it’s plus-size women whose eating is most often used as a thematic example of a psychological and/or personal failure, whether it’s comical or supposedly tragic. “With any overweight, unruly woman, there’s always a tendency to pathologize their relationship with food,” says Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, author of The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. “[For] women who dive in to the quart of ice cream or the box of chocolate, food is a source of comfort because life is not giving them other types of comfort.”

If women get fat as a plot device, they’re often shown eating something like pizza, ice cream, chocolate, or other sweets — take, for example, Goldie Hawn gorging herself on frosting post-breakup in Death Becomes Her. If a character appears to get them out of a slump, a chicken wing might be yanked out of their hands. And they won’t reach personal fulfillment until they’re skinny again. Meanwhile, women who are thin and confident — whether it’s Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels, or the titular Gilmore Girls — are free to eat as much as they please, to the delight of all who watch them.

Annie didn’t originally eat the spaghetti. It was made by Fran’s brother, Lamar (Akemnji Ndifornyen), who spends the third episode, “Pencil,” visiting his sister and her roommate. For most of the first few episodes, Annie is busy obsessing over a man (Luka Jones) who is so embarrassed by her that he sends her out the back door of his apartment so his roommates can’t see her. On their first date, she eats a salad. When she arrives home after Ryan has stood her up, Lamar and Fran offer her the spaghetti. She turns it down.

Lamar, a chef, spends the episode quietly fawning over Annie. When he arrives, he gives her a box of chocolate turtles, an elaborate reference to a memory from their past. He lights up when she enters the room. And later, when she comes back after choosing not to see Ryan, he admits that he likes her, and that he always did. After they have sex, Annie tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen, where she finds the pasta he made. The scene is romantic and almost sexy, in a totally subtle, maybe even unintentional way. He didn’t make the pasta for her, specifically, but it was made by him.

But beyond the romantic arc of Annie and Lamar, the scene’s impact comes directly from what it means for her, in her path to self-respect: she’s giving herself what she wants and deserves, on her own terms. And the bewildered delight in her face as she eats is so contagiously joyful that the context of her weight becomes irrelevant.

Annie (Aidy Bryant) and Lamar (Akemnji Ndifornyen).

Photo by: Allyson Riggs/Shrill

Beyond the men in her life, one of Annie’s most fraught relationships is with her mother, Vera (played by Julia Sweeney), who’s responsible for the Thin Menu meals. During a pivotal rant, when Annie describes the ways the people around her have made her size seem like a moral failing, she says, “At this point, I could be a licensed fucking nutritionist because I’ve literally been training for it since the fourth grade, which is the first time that my mom said that I should just eat a bowl of Special K and not the dinner that she made for everyone else so I might be a little bit smaller.” One of Annie’s most significant plot developments with her mother, when she pushes back against her health policing, starts with a meal of meatball subs with her father. And when the season ends, we leave Vera lying on the ground with a bag of chips, suggesting that Annie’s number one advice giver also needs respite from controlling everything.

“Whether they’re very curvy like Mae West or they’re slender, I think what we haven’t seen in a long time is the ability of women just to be seen enjoying food,” Karlyn says. “Food is enjoyable (to women), not because they’re neurotic, not because they’re crazy, not because they’re sex-obsessed, just because food is a natural pleasure of life.” That’s how Shrill treats food, but also most of life’s joys: dancing at a party, swimming in a pool, having sex, being honest. Counter to the ways television and movies have previously presented plus-size women, as victims of their own lack of self-control, Shrill shows how restrictive life as a plus-size woman can be, and how often that’s a direct result of their self control. Shrill seems to be advocating for more self-designated freedom for women of size — the freedom to live with abandon. As Annie says, lying in bed and taking charge, “I’ve got big titties and a fat ass — I make the rules.”

Brooke Jackson-Glidden is the editor of Eater Portland. Edited by: Greg Morabito

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2019/3/28/18284128/shrill-hulu-aidy-bryant-food-eating

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recentanimenews · 7 years

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Getting Hyped for RWBY Volume 5!

With the premiere of RWBY Volume 5 dropping on VRV today (it'll be on Crunchyroll next Saturday), I thought it would be a good time to talk about why I’m excited for the return of Rooster Teeth’s delightful action-adventure show. Having followed RWBY since the very first trailer appeared on Crunchyroll back in 2013, it’s pretty amazing that we’re here more than four years later watching the fifth installment of a production that’s become a global juggernaut of popularity.

But before we get into that, here’s the season 5 trailer for those of you who haven’t have the chance to see it yet.

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As you can see, Volume 5 seems to promises to continue down the path Volume 4 began with the story, but there are lot more reasons to be excited for what the newest RWBY may be offering than just that. My overall experience with RWBY has largely been defined by the pleasures of watching a creative team continually hone their craft from season to season, and I see no reason that Volume 5 should be a change in that regard. So, with that said, what can we expect from RWBY Volume 5?

The Writing of RWBY: The Stakes Get Bigger

As I wrote last year in during Volume 4, RWBY is a show that’s gotten more and more interesting as a story as time has gone on. You can read my full thoughts in that article, but with the show really finding its dramatic and emotional feet during Volume 3, Volume 4 was an opportunity to build on the consequences of Volume 3’s cataclysmic ending—both in terms of character arcs and the larger plot. Although I enjoyed the first two seasons of RWBY, Volume 3 felt like a clear step up in the effectiveness of its blending of the personal and the epic.

Volume 4 took some time to cooldown, with larger forces conspiring in the background as our heroines try and make sense of their lives after the destruction at Beacon. Although little of consequence actually happened in Volume 4, there were a whole lot of pieces shifting in the background that portend more drama. Personally, I’m hoping for more in the line of Volume 3’s suffering (a sentiment Ruby’s voice actress apparently agrees with) to accompany what the creative team says will be a season about “picking yourself back up and getting stronger.” Regardless, there are sure to be some wild twists and turns—and I am ready.

The Art of RWBY: The Power of Technology

When I last wrote about RWBY, I talked at length about the evolution of the show’s visuals over the years. With the switch to Maya for Volume 4, Rooster Teeth opened doors to levels of visual sophistication never possible before, making often genuinely impressive use of their new technology to the show’s artistic benefit. As an artist myself, it’s fascinating to contemplate the ways technology can enable and diversify artistic efforts, and, as my essay explores, I think RWBY is a fascinating example of the relationship between art and technology in action. While the early seasons of the show looked perfectly serviceable, it’s been wonderful to see RWBY grow beyond that into what sometimes might be called beautiful.

So, what does this mean for Volume 5? Well, as with any technology, experience breeds increased competence, so I’m really excited to see what lessons the team at Rooster Teeth learned from the production of Volume 4—and, more importantly, how those lesson manifest themselves in new techniques that enhance the show itself.

The Fighting of RWBY: A Hope for 3D Animation

It’s no secret that the sadly deceased creator of RWBY, Monty Oum, was an action genius. Although later seasons of RWBY have clearly been inspired by Oum’s style, it’s hard to replace the talents of someone who had such a clear vision for his fight scenes—and the filmmaking talent to execute them. But as RWBY has gone on, it’s been interesting to watch the way the creative team has both conceptualized the show’s fights and brought them to life.

One of the things that caught my eye in Volume 4 was the increased attention to detail in the actual animation of the show, something that was true for small character moments as well as the all-important fights. It’s the latter of these two areas that is most intriguing to me, as it seems that the new technology Rooster Teeth has deployed holds the potential to imbue their fights with an increased sense of weight, physicality, and impact. The scene with Blake I highlight in that tweet is just one example of the team and technology’s ability to do this, and I would love to see them continue to find ways to marry RWBY’s signature speedy action with a real sense of heaviness. The talent is there, and so is the technology. My hopes are high for Volume 5.

The Shipping of RWBY: Into the Depths of Fandom

In the time since Volume 4 finished airing, I have found my way into a few more RWBY fandom circles. It’s largely been a pleasant if sometimes (as is often the case when first contacting groups of superfans) baffling experience. Among the curiosities I discovered during these forays was something truly incredible: a massive spreadsheet cataloguing the many, many ships RWBY has inspired. Now, I have been in a few ship wars in my time, but I had never seen anything like this before. Not to imply that the RWBY fandom is at war, but this work of fan-created art has to be seen to be believed.

As a result of my exposure to the RWBY fandom’s incredible attention to shipping detail, I personally feel much better equipped to wade back into the stormy waters of my own ships. What are they? I’ll never tell—but let’s just say things are not looking too alive for one of them. (I’m sorry, I’m sorry.) Anyways, have a look at that spreadsheet so you too can be prepared to ship like a crazy person when Volume 5 hits.

The Best Girl of RWBY: Yang is Back in Action

After having some serious highlights in Volume 3, Volume 4 found my personal favorite character of RWBY, Yang Xiao Long, relegated to some much-needed recovery time. And while I understood the need for Yang to be sidelined, it was pretty tough not having her out with the team punching bad guys like she normally does. The simplicity of Yang’s weaponry, I feel, forces some of RWBY’s most dramatically intense fighting—plus punching things really hard is just cool. Yang is cool. So I missed her.

Perhaps more importantly, though, is the fact that Yang being on the move again (whether it’s to meet up with Ruby or track down her mom) puts another narrative piece back on the board for the show. The same goes for Weiss (who while not Best Girl is still pretty good), and the hopeful reuniting of team RWBY is definitely something I’m looking forward to seeing—or at least seeing come closer to happening.

While I could go on about my hopes and expectations for Volume 5, I think it’s best to cut things off here so I can pass the ball on to you guys. What are you looking forward to in RWBY Volume 5? Chime in down in the comments!

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Isaac eases his compulsive need to write about anime on his blog, Mage in a Barrel. He also sometimes hangs out on Tumblr, where he mainly posts his drawing practice as he seeks to become a renowned idol and robot fanartist. You can follow him on Twitter at @iblessall or on Facebook.

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