Media catch up.
May. 21st, 2010 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkThe only thing I’m really watching on TV right now is Glee, which remains the show some one made just for me. The singing and the dancing and the way they tell the story, the big brassy emotions laced with delicious bile and, this week, the occasional thoughtfulness and moments of self awareness. Musicals are always about dreams, about “Maybe Sometimes.” Musical dreams are important even when they break people and “Rose’s Turn” becomes their epitaph, which made this week’s Dream On interesting because although all three subplots had the characters chasing their dreams by the end nothing had changed. Will was still a teacher, Brian Ryan still a jerk, Rachel still motherless and Artie back in the wheel chair of harsh medical reality. All the dreaming achieved was to make them vulnerable, let them hope, letting it in sneaky little piano riffs and pink lighting effects only to have it all come crashing down later. Literally in Artie’s case. Dreams hurt and so does denying them and that, I suppose, was the message in the bitter but wiser ending. Hope always dancing just out of focus. Dream, but just a little dream.
Other than Glee, watching the detective with the new Idris Elba series “Luther” on the BBC. It seemed promising at first, great acting, fabulous credits, interesting cinematic references definitely vidable but the stories kind of stunk. I just don’t believe in genius serial killers or not when they’re supposed to be part of my city. It was one of the attractions at first, London noir, but I think that kind of not real only works in a foreign setting where the setting becomes part of the show. It’s like the way medieval thinkers were supposed to see the world around them as one big message from God, the shape of a fern not a thing in itself but a symbol, a sign, a representation of the chain of being. Fictional worlds are medieval, they talk to us in ways real places don’t, they can compensate for other unrealities in the story. London can’t do that for me so all I’m left with is sketchy writing and stock characters however well acted.
Finally, comics. I thought I’d try something by a female writer, bought the first two issues of the new Black Widow book by Majorie M Liu and quite liked them. It’s pretty straight female protagonist noir, the covers are off-puttingly cheesecakey, all catsuits and cleavage but the interior art avoids that and has a cool red and black chiracuso thing going on. There’s a back story for the character at the end of the first issue, which mostly just complicates things, the essentials are pretty much there in the text. The Black Widow is an ex Russian superspy now working with the Marvel guys (Iron Man and Captain America and Wolverine) but has some agenda and some enemies of her own she’s not telling yet. I like her. She’s has a world weary isolationisism that’s attractive and she’s smart and tough. She gets beaten up a lot. In the first issue this involves having something cut out of her stomach and recovering from it without painkillers. If a man had written the book this might have read as pure misogyny but it felt more like a way of showing how strong the character is than an excuse to relish her violation. We’ll see.
Other than Glee, watching the detective with the new Idris Elba series “Luther” on the BBC. It seemed promising at first, great acting, fabulous credits, interesting cinematic references definitely vidable but the stories kind of stunk. I just don’t believe in genius serial killers or not when they’re supposed to be part of my city. It was one of the attractions at first, London noir, but I think that kind of not real only works in a foreign setting where the setting becomes part of the show. It’s like the way medieval thinkers were supposed to see the world around them as one big message from God, the shape of a fern not a thing in itself but a symbol, a sign, a representation of the chain of being. Fictional worlds are medieval, they talk to us in ways real places don’t, they can compensate for other unrealities in the story. London can’t do that for me so all I’m left with is sketchy writing and stock characters however well acted.
Finally, comics. I thought I’d try something by a female writer, bought the first two issues of the new Black Widow book by Majorie M Liu and quite liked them. It’s pretty straight female protagonist noir, the covers are off-puttingly cheesecakey, all catsuits and cleavage but the interior art avoids that and has a cool red and black chiracuso thing going on. There’s a back story for the character at the end of the first issue, which mostly just complicates things, the essentials are pretty much there in the text. The Black Widow is an ex Russian superspy now working with the Marvel guys (Iron Man and Captain America and Wolverine) but has some agenda and some enemies of her own she’s not telling yet. I like her. She’s has a world weary isolationisism that’s attractive and she’s smart and tough. She gets beaten up a lot. In the first issue this involves having something cut out of her stomach and recovering from it without painkillers. If a man had written the book this might have read as pure misogyny but it felt more like a way of showing how strong the character is than an excuse to relish her violation. We’ll see.