Sometimes I shouldn't use words

Talking about Buffy and thinking about fashion are two of my favourite things and at some point this is going to turn into a short post about costume or the relative lack of it in BtVS season 8. However, it’s my journal and if I want to begin with a massive digression about some random Fred ‘n Ginger movie then I can.

Said movie, Roberta, came out in 1935 but the whole thing (god bless the internet) has been posted on YouTube. In common with many films of the era it has its share of, to modern ears thankfully jarring, forthrightness on social topics. Foreigners are funny unless they’re aristocrats, both xenophobia and class prejudice get a good airing. On gender, however, it’s not quite what you might expect given that it’s a musical about the fashion industry, which makes it sound dreadfully serious and it really isn’t. It’s a piece of candy-floss complete with singing (tolerable if you like that kind of thing) dancing (you like that kind of thing) and fabulous bias-cut frocks (to die for and many small animals probably did). There is, naturally, a makeover sub plot but for once the makeoveree is a male ingénue, the Randolph Scott character (technically Randolph Scott and Irene Dunne are the leads in this movie). Unlike those undergone by his female equivalents, Scott’s metamorphosis from dowdy frump to bird of paradise has almost no discernible relevance to either plot or characterization. This can either be read as re-enforcing the idea that men are not to be judged on mere appearances or as evidence that slicking back his hair and squeezing him into beautifully tailored, form-enhancing evening dress was done purely for eye candy purposes.

More central to the movie is the plot twist revolving around Scott’s ability to see, where none of the female designers could, that one particular black satin creation is in fact a ludicrous piece of skanky tat. Ginger wears an almost identical gown for the final dance number (what a difference a halter neck makes) but the point is elaborated explicitly well before that happens. Scott’s character inherits the eponymous couture house and when asked to explain men’s taste in women’s clothes claims that “men prefer clothes to clothe.” Also that men like pockets and dislike change but the interesting point is his first one. Even apparently simple things such as fulfilling the demands of the male gaze, cannot be easily stripped down to “naked good, more naked more good.”

What men want is more complicated, they want power and so do women. Fashion is a complex signaling system as well as a vehicle for self-expression. Reimagining yourself, flaunting or concealing it, dress and undress are all part of an arms race (or maybe a cold war) between observer and observed each desiring control over the other. Somewhere along the line in Western society conventional male apparel became restricted to a narrow palate, suit and tie or jeans and t-shirt and is that men winning the game by refusing to play? Except that they still play, two buttons or three, Levis or Lee, so maybe it’s more like changing to a new set of secret rules that only initiates can read? What do men wear when only they are looking? Tartan trews and hideous hats in the golf clubs. Spandex and muscles on the pages of a traditional superhero comic.

( On not wearing the cheese )

When the preview covers for part three of the Retreat arc came out I thought the Jeanty one looked especially interesting.
(  Kraft durch Freude )

I’ve been on holiday all through Vividcon and its aftermath hence radio silence. I hardly know where to start but these are the two vids that stood out for me most during the first frenzy of downloading.

Land by sweetestdrain
(  Johnny Rotten is full of it )

Bachelorette by obsessive24
( I'm the branch that you break )

BUFFY: I was happy. Wherever I ... was ... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time ... didn't mean anything ... nothing had form ... but I was still me, you know? And I was warm ... and I was loved ... and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or ... any of it, really ... but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out ... by my friends. Everything here is ... hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch ... this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that ... (softly) knowing what I've lost...

(gets up, walks towards the sunlight, pauses, not looking back)

They can never know. Never. (continues into the sunlight)

I watched the show from the beginning, liked it, laughed at it and followed it fairly obsessively but this was the momment when I fell in love.

Title: Just
Artist: Radiohead
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and not a little Angel)
Characters/Pairings: Faith
Format: DivX
Size: 49.5MB
Summary: Back to the start

Download here (Right/control click and save target as/download linked file)

Extreme thanks to bradcpu for betaing (it’s a Faith vid – who you gonna call)?

Feedback really hurts (but in a good way)

( Actual notes )

( Lyrics  )

With Dr Who over and the schedules being cleared to make way for the Olympics the prospect of a TV-less summer looms large. So along with everyone else in the fandom it feels like it’s time for a big Buffy re-watch. Only my re-watch is going to start with S3, I’ve seen too many good intentions founder in the shallows of the early MOTW episodes. S3 is also probably the season I’m least familiar with plus Faith vid - I need to get to know her better from her beginnings.

( Anne  )

( Dead Man’s Party  )

There are phrases that stick in the mind in spite or maybe because of not knowing quite what they refer to when you first stumble across them. “Women in Refrigerators” is one that crops up relatively quickly when browsing around comics fandom in a spirit of idle curiosity. Thanks to the wonders of google it then only takes a few clicks to hit the mother lode, a 1999 web page started by Gail Simone as a list of “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator.” The refrigerator was literal and belonged to one “Green Lantern.” The woman was his girlfriend.

( Read more... )

I’m a very hard sell for Supernatural vids, downloaded this one on the strength of greensilver’s entirely joyful vidlet made for more joy day (Band Candy meets The Who) and was sold.

White Light by greensilver takes a very simple idea and applies it with ruthless economy. There’s nothing spare, not a frame wasted. It’s brutal and I like that in a vid. Shifts from desaturated to full colour during tiny intervals of let up from the relentless beat are used to capture brief moments of light in the Winchester’s lives. People smiling, talking, connecting, nothing more. The bridge provides a longer moment but the colour is that little bit too bright, the normality not real, it falls away. The killer lies in one last glimpse of true colour for a moment of brotherly love, which transcends their blooded faces, before the end.

Dad just e-mailed the X-rays of his knee op. Ain’t technology great.

After shamelessly scanning reviews of the Heroes second season opener I’ve been very, very good about not reading posts on the second ep. Mostly this unaccountable attack of virtue is thanks to a vid bunny biting my brain as letting it gorge on any more story could cause a Peter-like overload. So Distractions

( Read more... )