stephenbland

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

me when we start eating billionaires and i have to kill gomez addams

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

I have been quite busy… but never to busy to be on that Fallout:NV grind. This is my Courier 6 and he does not fear the Mojave, the Mojave fears him.

[stephenbland]

I love it when Conclave said oh so the church is able to break with tradition when it comes to iphones, vapes, rolling suitcases, and steel-fortified window coverings, but not when it comes to feminism, pluralism, and the nuances of sex and gender. How interesting. Anyway, here is a remarkably sad old man.

[stephenbland]

Not me scrolling through the Conclave tag only to see no one talk about the deliberate positioning and framing of the women in this movie.

Pulling up this movie I completely expected to only encounter Sister Agnes as the one woman we see in the trailer, the conclave a space that has been kept from the female members of the church. Now, color me surprised when I started the movie and most of the establishing shots we got were focused on all the women working in the Vatican.

And it is such a deliberate choice, it does the film a disservice not to talk about it.

Because while Cardinal Lawrence is having his fifteenth breakdown during sequestering and Bellini finds the ambitious asshole within himself, Ray does all the leg work, and Bel---- we see the women work.

We see the kitchens, we see them cook, we see them stand aside. Most of the time when the Cardinals are conspiring it is the women who interrupt because they are busy working, walking, running errands.

And there is power in that.

I think it is very deliberate how often (and with such lingering gaze) the camera shows us the lives of the other half - partially to connect to the wider themes of the movie, on how Bellini asks for women to get more power but never thanks them, and how Benitez stumps them all by thanking the women preparing their meals when asked to say the prayer (considering his own probably tumultuous relationship to gender within the church).

But it also stands in direct opposition to a long tradition in story telling: servants don't exist. How often the heroes of a regency romance are "alone" because the two hand maidens and three maids don't really count.

Conclave doesn't do that.

It doesn't let us look away.

Between all the petty drama, the politics, and the real life consequences of the conclave, we never stop looking at the people doing all the work.

Yes, we follow the ups and downs of Lawrence and Co, but in doing so the movie reminds us again and again of the women working the kitchen.

And that was just such a powerful artistic choice in a movie about a famously misogynistic church... I loved it. And I had to talk about it.

[stephenbland]

Mean Girls (2004) // Conclave (2024)

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

funniest bit in Conclave by far is Cardinal Vincent Benítez, the only normal person in a 5 mile radius, getting up in a room full of Cardinals and going, "you are all petty, mean and a bit weird, and inshallah I shall not return here ever again" and 118 cardinals were like damn, he's right, we can't let him escape

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

there is still time never kill yourself etc etc

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

>be an 8th grade English teacher

>have an asocial student who draws on all her tests

>hey at least she doesn't do it on scantrons

>start leaving compliments towards her art when i grade her papers

>fast forward a few months

>notice she's drawing on her test as I'm doing my rounds around the class

>ask her what she's drawing

>this thirteen year old emo girl looks up at me with the wettest eyes I have ever seen

>"you if you were in Family Guy."

[stephenbland]

[stephenbland]

Reblog daily for health and prosperity

[stephenbland]

grant us a Pope who doubts 🕊

[stephenbland]

ourgh discworld is still so good