#like something something another ongoing commentary on masculinity something something

[moophinz]

I’ve made a post on this already, but after acquiring heaps and reams of knowledge, I’ve decided to go at it again.

(From Mine’s TV Tropes page.)

I cannot stop anyone from wanting to view Mine as bi, and my intentions don’t lie there. But instead, I wanted to bring up that it hardly seems like the intentions of the devs and especially Yokoyama. Mine is a pretty big deal in being a heavily implied gay character regardless of having been a villain, partly due to how he’s just as masculine as his peers and his love for another man is a core part of his characterization where sympathy comes into play. On top of that, they do not shy away from heavy handed hints in his total lack of interest in women romantically and sexually.

Yokoyama is not only a non stranger to commentary on how much he loves Mine, but he’s also made remarks that imply he finds it funny that women are attracted to him though they can’t have him.

RGGO is particularly revealing about this thanks to how much room it gives to focus on character elements they couldn’t do in the actual games.

—A beach event in Okinawa has Kanda wanting to throw a party and see who between them can invite the most women. Mine is less than uninterested, but still winds up getting a few women interested in him. He can’t seem to outright reject them, but gives them very bland answers.

—This is a big trend in other Mine centric stories. Upon being asked by a woman if he’s by himself, he gives a slightly roundabout answer instead of outright saying anything more direct. He agrees to do something with her despite his ongoing lack of enthusiasm.

—As told, he’s gone on dates with women thanks to being unable to turn them down (he’s interestingly kind enough to women even though there’s some popular jokes about him being a misogynistic gay man). But if he sees a woman once, doesn’t really see them again. All in all, this is incredibly different from many other yakuza men who adore women as they slot into the three important status symbols: power, money, and women. All things that Mine brings up at the end of 3 as stuff that wasn’t really giving him any meaning or purpose in life. His line about having any woman he could want goes largely misunderstood. Especially after he ends that line with saying living life that way was a lie.

Comparing an outright love confession to Mine being thankful to have had Katase around feels almost laughable. On one hand, I’m at least glad the person who wrote this acknowledges the romantic feelings with Daigo, but on the other hand… “heavily implied?” With Katase? No… Not every meaningful statement or even so much as breathing the same air as one another between a man and woman is grounds for love.

Genuinely, it feels like they’ve done nearly everything but outright use any direct wording for his sexuality. He’s the only character they’ve gone this far with. Others get more vagueness or subtlety.

(From Majima’s)

(From Zhao’s)

I’ve talked to @04tenno quite a bit about this. And as usual, they’re the reason I know quite a bit, too.

Majima’s section is bizarre to me for immediately throwing out there that he’s a huge ladies’ man. (This was listed elsewhere in his section). Which is just… hilarious. Sure, plenty of irl female fans adore him, but in universe, he’s nothing of the sort and often interacts with women by using a more friendly tone of voice (probably to seem less intimidating) along with other behavioral changes. I also take up issue regarding the way the person who wrote this seems to completely downplay Majima and Kiryu’s relationship to the first game. But that’s a whole other conversation…

Zhao’s section feels incredibly different compared to the other two due to how the person writing it seems to completely lean into the potential signifiers and stereotypes surrounding him and includes other instances beyond that. There’s nothing about him being in a hostess club automatically meaning he’s attracted to women. As such, even a lot of dudebros seem to openly view Zhao as not being bisexual, but instead, straight up gay. This seems to be due to the fact that Zhao is never shown playing into the typical mainstream macho type stuff as opposed to Mine.

I didn’t take a screenshot, but Daigo even gets the assumed-to-be-into-women-because-he-was-next-to-one-treatment. While he went to hostess clubs, he looks so extremely despondent and out of the moment when we see him there. I can’t find it in me to assume he’s attracted to women just because he went to those types of clubs. His sexuality is totally up for debate as several others are as well. And we can all see him however we want. But, overall, immediately assuming things for such and such reasons starts to feel a little off to me. All in all, Mine gets this treatment the worse thanks to his sexuality actually being a big factor in his character.

[byneddiedingo]

Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955) Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds, Conrad Nagel, Charles Drake, Virginia Grey, Jacqueline deWit, Donald Curtis, Merry Anders. Screenplay: Peg Fenwick, based on a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee. Cinematography: Russell Metty. Art direction: Alexander Golitzen, Eric Orbom. Music: Frank Skinner.  Pauline Kael called All That Heaven Allows "trashy," and others have called it "campy," but the ongoing reevaluation of the work of its director, Douglas Sirk, has delivered a new respect for the film, leading to, among other things, its selection in 1995 for inclusion in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Some would still call it a triumph of form over content, because no one today seriously questions Sirk's brilliant exploitation of the technical resources available to him, specifically his unusually expressive work, in collaboration with cinematographer Russell Metty, in Technicolor, a proprietary medium whose proprietors had rigidly fixed ideas about what could be done with it. Sirk called on Metty for, among other things, more shadows and more use of reflections than were conventional in Technicolor. See, for example, the near-silhouetted figures of Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in the still above, with its subtle backlighting. And notice how the television set that's an unwelcome gift to Wyman's Cary Scott from her children is used in the scenes in which it appears: It's never turned on, but instead its blank screen reflects Cary's face, almost as if the set is a cage in which she's trapped. In another scene, it reflects the flames in the fireplace, becoming a little bit of hell. But that symbolic use of the TV set also suggests why we ought to take All That Heaven Allows more seriously for its content, as filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd Haynes have done by echoing it in their films. Because ATHA is the epitome of the "woman's picture" as ironic commentary on what women experienced in the 1950s. For all her masculine name, Cary undergoes a constant reminder of her vulnerability as a woman: She is nearly raped by the drunken Howard Hoffer (Donald Curtis). At or near 40 (Wyman was 38), she is thought by her children to be beyond remarrying for love or even sex: Hence their tolerance of a proposal from the asexual or possibly closeted Harvey (Conrad Nagel), who admits he can't offer her much beyond "companionship." The television set is pushed on her by everyone who thinks it will provide relief from loneliness. The children only come round to something like acceptance of their mother's independence after she has broken off the engagement to the handsome, virile (and younger) Ron Kirby (Hudson), and they have started new lives of their own: The daughter is getting married and the son is going off to work in Iran --  a reflection of different times. No wonder Cary suffers psychosomatic headaches. I admit to having problems with the film's ending, in which she seemingly finds fulfillment only by devoting herself to nursing the now-vulnerable Ron back to health, as if a woman can only be useful by serving a man. But Sirk himself had problems with that ending, which was imposed on him by the producer, Ross Hunter. Sirk wanted more ambiguity about whether Ron would live or die. All That Heaven Allows was ignored by the Academy, though Metty's cinematography certainly deserved notice -- it was probably judged a little too unconventional by his peers -- as did Frank Skinner's score, with its effective use of quotations from Liszt and Brahms and its resistance to melodramatic overstatement.

[cosmicpopcorn]

Deadpool 2 (2018)

So, your favorite crazy ass pansexual assassin/mercenary...antihero...whatever the fuck he is (let’s just go with fucking awesome)...has returned in Deadpool 2 ready to kick ass, take names, and make us laugh with the crudest of jokes. Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead return with him, while the X-Force, Cable, and Firefist are introduced.

Before he made it to the big screen, Deadpool had a humble beginning when he first appeared in the comic book series, The New Mutants #98, cover-dated February 1991. Your girl Domino also makes her first appearance in this issue as well. The New Mutants series is a spin-off series from the X-Men franchise - it centers around a group of teenaged mutant superheroes-in-training. In issue #98, Deadpool has been hired to kill The New Mutants and Cable...such a wonderful way to meet your favorite neighborhood assassin/mercenary, right? He then began appearing as a regular character in the X-Force series and went on to make guest appearances in several Marvel comics such as The Avengers, Daredevil, and Heroes for Hire. After getting a couple of his own miniseries (The Circle Chase and Deadpool), he eventually got his own ongoing title/full series in 1997. Now this fool got two movies...he’s finally got a piece of the pie!

In the 2004 comic book series Cable & Deadpool, Deadpool describes his appearance as “Ryan Reynolds crossed with a Shar-Pei.” And since 2016 (if you don’t count Ryan Reynold’s appearance as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Ryan Reynolds has taken on the task of being our beloved Deadpool and he’s pretty damn good at it. It was clearly meant to be. In Deadpool 2, starring alongside Ryan Reynolds, we have Josh Brolin as Cable (yes, that’s the same dude who did a fucking fantastic job as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War), Morena Baccarin as Vanessa, Julian Dennison as Firefist, Zazie Beetz as Domino (guess who I’mma be for Halloween?), T.J. Miller as Weasel, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Stefan Kapicic as the voice of Colossus, Deadpool’s wonderful friend who puts up with all his bullshit and possible love interest/sex buddy? (I’m just saying - even Vanessa told him not to fuck Colossus when she spoke to him in the afterlife, so clearly something may be happening there).

Before we get into the pros and cons for Deadpool 2, let me just say this: I’ve seen a lot of Marvel movies lately and I gotta be honest, they have set the bar high for not only superhero movies but movies in general. At this point, even the most “average” Marvel movie is gonna have great acting, writing, and special effects. This makes it hard for a nigga like me who is trying to find something to critique when writing these reviews because who the fuck just wants to read about me fangirling over a movie (e.g. my Avengers: Infinity War post). I don’t even enjoy writing fangirl posts, which is why the one for Avengers was as short as it was. So unless Marvel starts randomly fucking up their movies for no damn reason - which I doubt is ever gonna happen - I’m not gonna have half as much to critique as usually do. 

Anyway, let’s get into the pros and cons:

Pros:

From what I know about comic book Deadpool (antihero characteristics, humorous - especially crude humor, breaks the 4th wall, pansexual), the movie Deadpool appears to be a pretty accurate representation of him. They didn’t try to make him kid/family-friendly, I definitely see them playing on and/or hinting towards his pansexuality (if anything I swear he flirts with men more than women - the only woman I really see him flirt with is Vanessa), and movie Deadpool is crude as fuck. They even have movie Deadpool continue to break the 4th wall (in case you didn’t know, breaking the 4th wall is when a character is aware that they are a fictional character and may actually interact with the audience) and you can check out this Deadpool 2 trailer for an example of him breaking the 4th wall - he actually interrupts the trailer to discuss the special effects. You’re never too sure if a sequel is going to actually be just as good as the original...or good at all. Another concern is whether or not the sequel continues to build on the character while remaining true to the character’s essence/core personality and this is especially concerning when a movie is an adaptation of a comic/book. Deadpool 2, if anything, continues to emphasize Deadpool’s core personality while building upon it at the same time. 

Going off of the first pro, Deadpool 2 emphasizes his core personality traits (humorous, individualistic, sexual) while attempting to give him more emotional depth. The first half of the movie has us watch Deadpool experience grief after the death of Vanessa. Even before her death, watching him interact with her and plan a family allows us to see the side of him that desires stability, commitment, and family. This first half is important because it shows us that while Deadpool is securely individualistic and doesn’t necessarily need a team like the X-Men or The Avengers, he does still desire family and companionship. It lets us know that even the Merc with a Mouth isn’t beyond the basic human desire to connect with others. In the second half, while more fast-paced and action-packed, we still get to see more of Deadpool’s sense of morality and belief in the goodness, or potential goodness of others when he fights to save young Firefist from Cable. In fact, I would say that Deadpool has an even stronger sense of morality than Colossus - Colossus was willing to leave Firefist in the hands of the headmaster even though it was pretty obvious he was being abused because he refused to play “judge, jury and executioner,” while Deadpool was so sure of how wrong it was that he started killing the orderlies immediately. We also get to see him try to form his own family with the creation of the short-lived first version of the X-Force. 

Ryan Reynolds was made to play Deadpool. Makes me forgive him for Green Lantern and almost makes me forget it even happened! By the way, that post-credits scene of Deadpool shooting Ryan Reynolds in the head while he holds a copy of the Green Lantern script is PURE GOLD.

Zazie Beetz does an awesome job as Domino - she makes a big impact on the audience even though she may not have as many lines or scenes as some of the other characters. The directors and writers also did a really good job of showing the audience Domino’s power of luck - a power that seems so abstract and would be believed to be difficult to display well in movie format.

Cable is a character that I feel you can empathize with and who I actually kind of liked by the end. I really enjoyed how at first he was portrayed as the villain, only for things to be switched up and for us to find out the real villain was the chubby kid from New Zealand (aka Firefist). 

While being hilarious and action-packed, Deadpool 2 does take the opportunity to give you something to think about if you pay attention. First, they have Firefist point out how there are no chubby superheroes. It’s no secret that our society often discriminates, shames, and is prejudice against those who are larger. In media, they are often portrayed as the butt of jokes, being romantically and sexually undesirable, lazy, unhealthy, not athletic, etc. So, is it really a surprise that there are no chubby or plus-size superheroes? I love that Firefist is not skinny or unrealistically built and that he points out how there aren’t any superheroes who look like him (Fun Fact: In the comics, Firefist is a white, skinny, blonde kid from Tulsa, OK, so I’m digging the changes they made - both to Firefist and Domino, whose comic book version was a woman with chalk-white skin).

Second, Deadpool himself points out how the name X-Men forgets that there are female mutants in the group...this is why he chooses X-Force, a gender-neutral name for his group of superhero misfits. The language we use in a patriarchal society is often masculine - for example, we tend to say mankind instead of humankind or things like, “come on guys” to refer to an entire group of people who may not all identify as male and it’s because men are seen as the default. Deadpool’s jokes and commentary in this movie sometimes calls out societal biases that have also made their way into our comics and superhero movies and I’m here for it. Not only that, but Deadpool does not look like your typical hero - his skin is scarred and disfigured, despite him being fit and we still see him being a sexual and romantic being and I think that’s powerful when you have nothing but a bunch of super fit and conventionally attractive superheroes running around.

The soundtrack for the movie is perfect and they perfectly match the songs and scenes. 

All the references are so fun to pick up on - if you’re really into comic books, superhero movies, and honestly just a TV and movie junkie in general, you will love picking up on all the references they throw at you. 

Cons:

So, while those references are great for TV, movie, comic book, and superhero junkies, they’re not-so-great for those who just watch movies here and there and aren’t necessarily fanatics. I’ll go as far as to say if a person isn’t really into comics, superheroes, and doesn’t really know a lot of television and movie shit...a lot of stuff is going to be lost on them. Some movies are made for everyone and some movies are made for fans or at least those with a strong interest - Deadpool 2 is one of those movies and unfortunately that may alienate other viewers/audiences.  

Deadpool’s humor can be hit or miss - at times, the jokes didn’t really hit and weren’t really funny. The first half of the movie’s humor wasn’t as good as the second half of the movie. At times, I found myself laughing just because I knew I was supposed to and the humor and crudeness felt forced. 

Overall, Deadpool 2 is a fun, fun movie that poses some important questions about morality and makes commentary on aspects of society. Ryan Reynolds not only starred in but was also one of the writers and producers of this movie, and his talent shines throughout the entire 1hr and 59min of it. I’m proud of him, and I’m sure Deadpool is too.

Rating: 4.5 Caramel Popcorn Pieces 

[oumakokichi]

I was wondering what you thought of the character Oowada Mondo? I was reading your meta of Celestia and i was wondering what you thought of him as a culprit?

Mondo isn’t exactly one of my favorite characters from dr1,but I do think he worked well as a culprit.

Sdr2 and ndrv3 both had stronger Chapter 2s in my opinion,but dr1 Chapter 2 still is pretty decent in its own way. Mostly, it suffersfrom the rather rushed relationship between Mondo and Ishimaru, as well as fromthe messy implications of Chihiro “hiding as a girl” to avoid being calledweak. But the former is something that several characters in the series havesuffered from, not just Mondo and Ishimaru, and the latter is unrelated to thequestion of Mondo’s character, so I won’t dwell on it too much.

In hindsight, I would say Mondo reads as a sort of prototypefor Juzo and Momota both. Like Juzo, he’s quick to anger, wants to solveproblems with his fists, and rarely thinks things through before rushing toaction—which can be useful, sometimes, but often leads him to more trouble thanit’s worth, and eventually does wind up being the reason that he commitsmurder.

There’s also the matter of Juzo being canonically confirmedgay, which adds another lens through which to view the sauna scene with Mondoand Ishimaru. While I do think the sauna scene was originally meant as a mix ofbaiting and comic relief, it’s true that Juzo and Mondo both deal heavily inrepressed emotions, and both feel like they would absolutely be better off deadif anyone knew their darkest secrets. Considering the heavy stigma associatedwith being openly gay in an environment very filled with toxic masculinity(like, for instance, a biker gang), there’s a lot of room to read into Mondo asa very closeted individual.

Meanwhile, Momota shares far more similarities in terms ofappearance and attitude with Leon at a first glance, but I think it’s true thathe and Mondo are both the characters that deal the most with “what it means tobe a man,” “real men keeping their promises, etc. He too shares many of thesame issues of toxic masculinity that Juzo and Mondo both do, though in Momota’scase, a lot of this is because his character is meant to imitate the “perfectshounen protag.” So the violence and harmful aspects of this character trait golargely unexplored with him.

Still, Mondo’s character was interesting to look at from theaspect of being a sort of prototype figure for future characters. I couldeasily see the similarities there on my recent dr1 reread, and it’s hard not tosympathize with him to some degree for falling so pitifully into the trap Junkoset with the “embarrassing secrets” motive in Chapter 2.

One of the things I like best about both the motive andMondo’s character though is perhaps the fact that his desperate need to be “strong”in the eyes of others ties in perfectly with DR’s more general commentary onsocietal pressure. The need to succeed in Japanese culture, both academicallyand socially, is incredibly strong, and not a laughing matter at all. Suiciderates among high schoolers and college students are extremely high in Japan. One of the things DR has always done verywell with as a franchise is commenting on this extreme societal pressure byputting it through the lens of “SHSL Talents” and kids who feel they have to bethe absolute best at what they do,otherwise they’ll be discarded by society as a whole.

Mondo’s obsession with strength reflected that societalpressure quite well, especially with its added layer of toxic masculinity.There’s nothing admirable or enviable about Mondo, by the time the trial ends:neither his strength nor his talent account for anything. He’s just… rather pathetic,really, a scared kid who snapped under pressure and killed someone weaker andsmaller than him, in order to try and prove himself strong. All his talk about “men’spromises” and “protecting the weak” ultimately amount to nothing, because itwas those things which drove him to want to take his secret of “killing hisbrother” with him to his grave in the first place.

And that hollow realization also embodies Junko’s idea of “despair”so well, especially in the first game. In sdr2, the motives were far morepointed and deliberate, usually guaranteed to target at least a few people, oreven one specific person. As Kodaka himself has said, Junko cared very littleabout the sdr2 kids overall. To her, they were small fry; her objective wassimply to get them back to the way they were, and especially to get Kamukuraback. The killing game was simply a means to pass the time until that happened.

But in dr1, the killing game itself is the end goal. Junko’stwisted “love” for her classmates is shown by the fact that she wanted them todespair on their own, through much more general, less targeted motives. Thefirst three chapters illustrate this particularly well: Leon, Mondo, and Celesall kill for very mundane, completely-avoidable reasons, like wanting toescape, the terror of a secret being exposed, or plain and simple greed.

If dr1 had been a tad more polished, I feel like Mondo could’vereally been shaped into a more interesting character. Sadly though, I don’tthink Chapter 2 ever really reached his full potential. The main redeemingpoint of his character was supposed to be his newfound bond with Ishimaru, andhis loyalty to both him and his gang members. But this aspect of his characterwasn’t explored almost at all; if anything, him killing Chihiro went directlyagainst what was expected of him as both a biker gang leader and a “real man.”

We’re not even really given an explanation as to why he and Ishimaru became so close inthe span of about a day or so. Sure, there’s room to read between the lines asto what might have happened in the sauna scene—but it’s ultimately all justspeculation. Had their interaction been more gradual, leading up to a moreunderstandable friendship (or more than that), that would’ve been understandable.

But it ultimately felt very flat in the end, as did Ishimaru’sbreakdown over his death. Rather than exploring Ishimaru’s character on hisown, he was mostly just there to mourn over Mondo’s instead, all without anyreal reason provided for it by the plot other than “they had one really sweatynight in the sauna that we mostly played for comic relief.”

We’re meant to feel sympathetic for Mondo in the end—arguablymore sympathetic than Leon, who tries to claim self-defense in Chapter 1 but isrightfully called out on having gone willingly back to his room to get thetools to hunt down Maizono in the bathroom and kill her, even though he had aperfect opportunity to run away without doing anything to her at all.

Mondo’s crime was unplanned, and took place in the heat ofthe moment, that much is certain. But his admission to it later on is somewhatmarred by the fact that he does, in fact, deny it fervently early on, eventrying to rush the trial by saying that Togami did it when the group discoversthat Togami posed the body. Despite his apparent guilt over what happened,there’s still undeniably an aspect of self-interest to his crime which is neveractually addressed within the trial much, and that makes it somewhat hard toconsider him as sympathetic of a character as the narrative tries to act.

Also, this is perhaps somewhat nitpicky, but his executionis… honestly really bad. It’s quite hard to take it seriously or read into itmuch when it’s based on a pretty racist folktale, and when it’s mostly meantfor funny meme material. This sort of bouncing between everything being a hugejoke and everything being actually, seriously traumatic is pretty ongoingwithin the whole Mondo-Ishimaru dynamic, though (Ishida is another example of “characterdevelopment” being done only as a joke).

In any case, these are pretty much my thoughts on Mondo! He’snot my least favorite character in DR by any means, or even in dr1, but I dofeel there was a lot that could’ve been improved about him, and about dr1Chapter 2 in general.  Still, there areaspects and motifs about his character that I feel were reflected in characterswhich came after him, and I can respect that his character arc tied in quitewell with DR’s larger themes about the pressure to succeed, and how it oftencauses kids to snap and do things which they’re unable to take back.

I hope I was able to answer your question, anon! Thank youfor asking; it’s always really fun to be able to write meta about some of theother games sometimes!

[purgatoryandme]

Intentionally ‘Awkward’ Men and Sexual Harassment

I can’t tell if the intentionally awkward predator is a new phenomena or simply something I had no context for before I went to university. The cultural ideas of  ‘awkward nerds’, ‘accidentally creepy guys’, and ‘effeminate man who doesn’t know how to talk to women’ have been media mainstays for ages. These men are treated either as objects of mockery to masculine ideals, children, or as golden-hearted heroes who just can’t get anything right. 

We are taught not to take them seriously - they’re either jokes or considered somehow separate from other men. They are unilaterally presented as non-threatening. Unfortunately, this had made being “intentionally awkward” the most overlooked form of sexual harassment and social manipulation that I’ve ever seen. It usually follows the pattern of: 1) Obvious romantic interest in any girl who is friendly OR shares a common interest (commonly anime, gaming, or other aspects of ‘nerd culture’). Is interested immediately and becomes overly attached to that interest extremely quickly. 2) Displays of interest are childish and persistent (following the girl around without speaking to them, constant staring, inserting themselves into any conversation she is having, basically anything you would expect from a 14 year old with a crush). 3) Obvious disinterest in their advances or common interest does not deter their interest. At this point you/whoever they are pursuing has probably formed something of an acquaintanceship with them that they constantly treat like a relationship much closer than it is. At this point, everything can still be written off as an awkward guy trying his best to get some attention. However, it is an issue when it leads to: 4) Unsolicited sexual advances presented as jokes or delivered with immediate self-rejection (”Give me a blowjob, lol I know you wouldn’t do that!” or “You’re too classy to hook up with me”). Joking back will make things worse and you can’t actually reject them when they’ve already done it for you. 5) Responding to their target’s discomfort by deflecting or outright ignoring it. At this point the target’s discomfort is likely obvious to EVERYONE but the ‘awkward’ guy and the girl’s friends are beginning to step in to keep them separated. Someone who is genuinely awkward does not WANT you to feel uncomfortable and would probably back off out of embarrassment. And now we have the massive red flags and predatory behaviour that is played off as someone ‘misunderstanding social cues’ despite their being an obvious pattern of intentional ignorance. 6) Belligerent refusal to acknowledge efforts to draw them away, topic changes away from sexual commentary, or the target’s interest in other people. Beginning to interrupt conversations the target is having with any potential competitors or friends who are trying to force separation. Becoming angry or attempting to elicit pity in the face of more insistent attempts while still failing to acknowledge that they are not wanted. 7) Increased interest in the target consuming alcohol or drugs. Increased persistence when the target is compromised in any way - especially emotionally. Increased attempts to get the target alone even when they’ve been directly told ‘no’. 8) Stalking and an unhealthy interest in the target’s life if the target remains distant with the ‘awkward man’. Constant ‘dates’ masked as ‘hang-outs’ if things have progressed to friendship.  9) If the target directly addresses the situation and their discomfort with it, the ‘awkward man’ promises to stop and then continues to pursue the target at any sign of ‘weakness’ (being polite, kindness, any gesture of friendship). They are relentless.

During my time in university, I’ve seen 3 ongoing cases of relentless sexual harassment against myself and friends of mine being performed by “awkward” guys who simply “didn’t know any better”. People thought our severe discomfort was funny. One of these men was ultimately removed from his position as a teaching assistant due to this behaviour being exposed, while two of them still interact with mutual friends of mine despite MULTIPLE women coming forward and discussing how extreme things got with these guys (stalking is a big factor).  Stories under the cut.

The first ‘awkward man’ I ever met who became outright threatening was an upperclassman. As a friend to many popular people in my program, he was often at parties and social events frequented by freshmen. Furthermore, he became a Teaching Assistant within the program. Basically, he was in the perfect position to constantly associate with first year girls who didn’t know anything about him.  His particular blend of ‘awkward guy’ was ‘King Nerd’. The Alpha Gamer who talks big shit all the time about how amazing they are at whatever game and is excessively blunt. Basically the kind of guy who would be passed off as Alpha trash if it weren’t for him being gangly-limbed, skinny, non-confrontational, educated, and most importantly: ‘inexperienced with women’. He also wore sweater vests. This guy would CONSTANTLY pick up first years who were into gaming by fixating on that interest as an excuse to talk to them. He would then shower them with obvious ENDLESSLY PERSISTENT interest (even in situations when it was inappropriate...like while he was TAing) while his friends would comment on how he was such an awkward guy. Then he moved on to making just...the most blatant PUBLIC sexual advances. If anyone took offence, it was a joke. Or it was ‘just the way he is’ since he’s such a blunt desperate guy. He would make these advances constantly and they would often be genuinely offensive (he once spent a full thirty minutes of a party walking around behind me with a friend of his to, in his own words, see if I was wearing anything underneath my shorts. That house had a lot of stairs). He would also make much more physical and pointed advances in parties...after his target (who he had been FOLLOWING all night) was drunk. He would never be drunk.  Though he was ‘inexperienced’, he slept with multiple first years by either leveraging his position as an ‘older’ guy and their TA while trying to seem non-threatening through his ‘awkwardness’.  Eventually he started (secretly) dating one of his students...who he then cheated on. With another first year. After writing off all of his flirting with other girls as him being ‘socially awkward’ (”Oh I think she’s attractive, but I’m not trying to get with her, I promise! Oh this sucks, I didn’t think people would see it that way! D:”). When she tried to leave him he reverted to being desperate and needy - he told her that there was no way he could get together with anyone else because of how incapable he is and then threatened to kill himself if she left. Myself and several others took notice at this. We took notice of him showing up again and again and again in stories from drunk girls who had been crying or compromised when he had swept in, comforted them, and then bluntly advancing on them, joking about his advances being unsuccessful and awkward, and then advancing again until they gave in.  We tried to kick him out of any and all events in which we knew younger girls from the program would be attending. And guess what? All of his friends passed off his predatory creepy behaviour as him being desperate, horny, and fucking awkward. No one considered him a threat. No one considered that MULTIPLE people stopped coming around to these events BECAUSE of his presence and the fact that they felt threatened by his presence. Girls wouldn’t drink around him because they felt they couldn’t do so safely.  So we reported his suicide threat against a student and his (previously unreported) relationship with a student who he had been grading at the time. As well as his highly inappropriate sexual innuendo and harassment of other students. Once he was declined for the TA position in the next semester, suddenly his friends were willing to cut him out of their lives, but none of them ever took a firm stance against him.  Over 10 girls spoke out against him. 2 girls said he groped them. 3 said they had sex with him while drunk and felt unsafe drinking around him again. The rest all had multiple stories of him “””””flirting”””” (i.e. making inappropriate comments despite constant rejection) with them to the point that they had to leave rooms or would avoid entering any game or conversation he was involved in.

The second awkward guy I met in university will always be the object of absolute seething hatred for me. I hated the first guy with a passion (one time he tried to make me wrestle someone naked on a drunken bet, on another occasion he asked me to lick whipped cream off of his nipples, on another he asked me to make out with his sister...god I fucking hate that guy), but it was NOTHING compared to this guy. This guy stalked my friend for the better part of 2 years, dragged her name through the mud, and made multiple moves towards attempted rape.  His name was Justin. He was a friends with some people in our social circle because this is always how this seems to start. Somebody who comes as a package deal with alright people who is incredibly hard to get rid of (for anyone wondering why we didn’t just avoid him, there’s your answer: we couldn’t). Anyway, he was classic awkward dude: into anime and gaming, skinny, skittish around other men, the butt of every joke, and desperate as hell. Couldn’t flirt to save his life, fell head over heels for my friend the second she drunkenly flirted with him, and was absolutely incapable of taking no for an answer.  People thought it was funny when he followed her around at parties. Hell, I thought it was funny at first. He would always be hovering just behind her as if proximity would somehow get him an in. It was pathetic and overbearingly obvious to everyone in the room - just lame enough that nobody saw it as the warning sign that it was. It stopped being funny to me right around the point I noticed that he always started touching her after she was drunk. This ‘awkward guy’ would wait silently, hovering and generally making her uncomfortable as all Hell with his CONSTANT presence, until she was just tipsy enough to flirt with anyone and everyone. She flirted with other people in front of him, made obvious moves on other people, and clearly wasn’t interested in just him...but that didn’t matter to him. Nothing mattered as long as he could GET something from her. He’d push and push and push until she’d reject him and then he’d just wait for her to have another few drinks and he’d try again.  She eventually started asking me and a few other friends to keep him away from her. It worked for awhile, but soon we realized that if we got even slightly distracted, there he fucking was. He would literally ignore anyone trying to talk to him or engage him just for the chance to get all up in her space the second there was space for him to take up. It was unnerving, especially for her, but everyone else thought it was hilarious. His friends began to take bets on how quickly he’d be rejected. Everyone knew my friend wasn’t interested in him. There was no way HE didn’t know. So finally she rejected him stone-cold sober. Told him she was dating someone and that she wasn’t interested in him at all. That she didn’t want him to approach her anymore.  He agreed not to.  And then he just. did. not. stop.  I am cutting out SO SO SO many details because I don’t want to write a novel of all the red flags this guy raised, but eventually things came to a head when, at a party she was hosting, he tried to touch her and make advances on her all night and, without fail, she turned him down savagely. Better yet, she was surrounded by other guys who knew someone had been bothering her constantly. Justin lost it - he started talking to anyone who would listen about how she was a slut and was probably getting gangbanged by those guys etc etc etc. AND THEN WHEN SHE WAS DRUNK AND UPSET THAT PEOPLE LET THAT HAPPEN AT HER OWN PARTY, HE TRIED TO TAKE HER UPSTAIRS TO HER ROOM TO “TALK IT OUT PRIVATELY” WITH HIM. THIS WAS AFTER I HAD DIRECTLY TOLD HIM THAT SHE HAD ASKED ME TO KEEP HIM AWAY, THAT I HAD HEARD WHAT HE SAID ABOUT HER, AND THAT I THOUGHT HE WAS DISGUSTING. HE TRIED TO DO THIS /IN FRONT OF ME/ BECAUSE HE WAS SO USED TO PEOPLE IGNORING THE CRAZY SHIT HE WAS DOING. The sheer gall of it was astounding - the sheer THREAT of it was astounding. This wasn’t the first time his sober ass had tried to take her somewhere more private and he had flat out told his friends he intended to have sex with her - an unwilling drunk woman. This is rape. THIS IS RAPE. He was extremely aggressive when confronted about it BUT STILL WOULDN’T GIVE UP despite being publicly humiliated because people STILL DID NOT TAKE HIS BEHAVIOUR SERIOUSLY and continued inviting him to be places they knew she would be. People INVITED him to HER party after she’d asked them not to because he was “harmless and awkward” and just had a “hopeless crush” on her.  They thought she was leading him on. Can you fucking believe that? If you want an ‘awkward man’ to leave you alone, the onus is entirely on you to be a constant brick wall of hatred to his every move towards you. You can never let even a sliver of kindness get through or it’ll be your fault he stalks you. She cried MULTIPLE times about how this guy wouldn’t leave her alone and how she NEVER knew when he was going to show up. She stopped drinking at parties because she couldn’t be sure it was safe. A year after the incident with him slut-shaming her publicly and then trying to rape her - something her friends knew about - he was invited to be at YET ANOTHER party she was going to attend. And she wasn’t warned ahead of time.  I can’t believe that people will still hang out with ‘awkward guys’ even after they do something as blatantly threatening as this. They’re willing to write it off as aggression over constant rejection or their social inabilities taking the wheel.  Worst. This whole story is the absolute worst. I know I’m losing my formatting here a little bit and the emphasis on what makes these guys awkward, but trust that they stuck to that list of behaviours and please understand that these stories are personal and difficult to discuss without giving away crucial identifying details. 

The final (for now) ‘awkward guy’ I met in university was my own stalker. Dealing with him forced me to understand how things had gotten so far between my friend and hers. This guy was involved with mutual friends and, disturbingly, he was a friend of Justin’s. He seemed like an ok guy though, if the typical dorkass weeaboo who couldn’t get a girl to date him if he paid. He has a bodypillow waifu, ok?  Now, this dude owns his awkward. He makes jokes about it. He knows that he’s awkward - I’ve seen him retreat HARD from talking to other men who he has made feel uncomfortable. I KNEW that he could tell when he was freaking someone out - I KNEW that he was aware when he should stop.  I still fell for it though, completely due to peer pressure.  He started hanging around me ages ago. We had mutual friends so we’d run into each other at parties. He knew I watched some anime, played some games, etc. We didn’t like the same genres at all and our conversations were stilted, so it was obvious we weren’t ever going to be friends and that wasn’t his aim, but his crush didn’t seem like a big deal. He hung around, though he’d leave when someone else who clearly knew me better was in the way.  Until he got the chance to ///know/// something more personal about me. Here’s the thing about a lot of these guys: they mistake being present for a personal moment for the deepening of a relationship. They assume that because they know things about you, they have some kind of bond with you. They’re wrong.  He was there when I ripped his friend Justin a new one. He was also there when I expressed my disgust for everyone in the room, himself included, and when I got fed up enough to just leave. He then watched my relationship with a lot of the people in the Justin incident dissolve. He thought that this meant that he knew about my ugly sides and my isolation, and that this somehow gave his crush some kind of value - that he cared more about me than anyone else, knew more about me than anyone else, and was somehow more deserving of me than anyone else. As if nobody else was aware of the fact that I could be downright vicious while still managing to be relatively soft-hearted towards strangers and people who made attempts to redeem themselves (which he took advantage of).  He began to follow me around whenever he saw me - he’d always sit next to me (even if someone else was there first - he’d just claim he didn’t know they’d been sitting there and he’d flutter around awkwardly), he’d show up anytime I hung out with anyone he knew (even if he wasn’t invited), he would always be touching me because he was hovering so close at parties...it was annoying enough that I began to avoid him. He refused to take the hint though. He also refused to back off like he used to when other people tried to talk to me. He began to simply steamroll those people. God, he never stopped staring at me. People joked about his fixation CONSTANTLY. Then he suddenly joined the same fencing class as me. He tried to get into the same weapon as me, too. He joined the team despite not being invited. He started asking me specifically when I was coming to practice and got angry when I wasn’t there - he always messaged me before practice to see if I was coming and would act like I had tricked him somehow if I wasn’t there when he expected me to be. He would always run with me during warm-ups even when I ignored him or tried to speak to anyone else. He constantly tried to help me suit up even when the coaches would snap at him to stop hovering over me.  It got to be overwhelming. Fencing was an anti-anxiety thing for me and here this guy was, constantly hovering. He’d follow me onto the bus (he lived in the opposite direction). He offered to walk me home (I lived an hour away). He wouldn’t acknowledge me telling him directly that I didn’t consider us friends and that I didn’t want to talk to him - he acted like it was a joke. When someone else started driving me home, he just...walked with us and then got into that person’s car. He didn’t even ask for permission. He just waltzed on in and expected to be driven home.  Keep in mind that he’s shown previously that he KNOWS people don’t like this behaviour. He was making enemies out of the other fencers by being rude to them like this. But he kept getting passed on it because he was “just awkward”, though the team was MUCH less forgiving than people who had heard in advance about his awkwardness.  Finally, I kinda snapped. He had figured out where one of my classes was before fencing and he had begun hanging around outside of it. I couldn’t stand having my space so consistently invaded, so I spoke to the coaches and some of my friends. Those friends, of course, told him so that he’d have a chance to “apologize” for his “awkward behaviour”.  He used it as a chance to ask me out.  After hearing about how creepy I thought he was and how unnerved I had become by his constant presence.  I turned him down more harshly than I’d ever rejected anyone in my entire life. I told him we’d never be friends - he was friends with someone I considered no better than a rapist - and that of course I’d never date him. I tore apart his principles, refused to let him “awkward” his way out of the conversation, and then demanded that he left me alone. However, since he was still on the team with me, he still hung around on the fringes of the groups I spoke to.  He left me alone for a very brief period. Soon he started getting smashed as hell at parties so he’d be “unable to stop himself” from talking to me. Then he tried to edge his way back into talking to me online. He took every rude thing I had to say with grace, but I wasn’t having any of it.  Then I started dating someone else. And suddenly he “”drunkenly”” wound up finding out about my relationship at a fencing party because somehow he’d approached my SO (who he never spoke to otherwise) and had wound up “congratulating” them on being the one who “won” me. He told my SO that he was glad someone so nice was with me now and that he was over me.  Then he drunkenly messaged me about how he was attracted to my SO which is why he was torn up about my relationship. And he called me a bitch in an incredibly awkward and round about way. He asked me for details of my sex life. He asked my SO for details of our sex life. He did it “awkwardly”, so my SO took no offence and talked about how they pitied him but believed that he was over me.  I told my SO that he wasn’t. My SO laughed in my face and acted like I was thinking to highly of myself.  Of course, post breaking up with them months later, this guy is back ALL OVER ME constantly. Just trying to be “friendly” while awkwardly asking for personal information and commenting on my appearance and my sex life. Using his status as a “loser” who is into hentai as a way to constantly probe me about what I’m into and tell me what HE is into. He let himself be beneath me socially in every way that counted... And then I trusted him again, somewhat? I thought he couldn’t possibly be a risk. He was nothing to me - just someone who wouldn’t go away but I didn’t need to acknowledge. The discomfort of his stalking phase seemed so distant.  And then he waited for a party with mutual friends in which he gave me weed brownies without my knowledge. He got smashed as hell and started touching me, constantly talking to me, refusing to let anyone get near me (no one wanted to be near him), and just being gross. All his housemates started joking about it, even as I steadily grew more uncomfortable with the fact that I was clearly compromised and that I wanted to escape him while I could think clearly. As people played sexual never have I ever and started up strip games, he constantly harassed me to join in with “””jokes””” and then eventually told me it was “so hard to get over” me and that he “couldn’t move on”.  He then invited me up to his room.  When I said no, his response was “but I thought you were high”.  Fortunately, he had so much to drink and was so angry about rejection that he made himself incredibly sick and had to leave. But then he tried messaging me as if everything was a joke and then when that didn’t work he pretended he didn’t remember anything when he had already admitted he did.  I have him blocked on everything now, but he’s still not done with me and STILL tries to “awkwardly” make his way back into my life.  Don’t fuck with “awkward” predatory behaviour. If it seems predatory, it probably is. Don’t let yourself believe it’s not or it will become a joke amongst everyone’s friends and people will literally watch you get groped in front of them and they’ll think it’s funny. There is so much more to say about this story but man this is already too long.  Awkward nice dudes are often the worst creeps. Watch out for yourself and your friends.

[elizabethrobertajones]

3x05 & 3x06 - Dean & Sam’s moons

I am assuming they're both on full moon a month a part as part of season 3's year-long schedule, although tbh it was probably an aesthetic choice and no one stopped to consider it. 3x05 is near Halloween, 3x06 must therefore be in November, and the Christmas episode is 3x08.

Anyway some musings on the moons because I love that they both have one with this same transition.

The one in 3x05 is placed directly over Dean's bed and the camera continues to pan down over him sleeping (which I didn't gif because it would have been huge and I made aesthetic choices >.>) which to me represents it as a thought bubble, almost, showing him dreaming. Dean's pastoral fairytale dream I am pretty sure is photoshopped because it reappears in 3x10, the dream episode, in Bobby's hotel room, sans moon but representing the same sort of thing since it was already here representing a dream:

http://www.homeofthenutty.com/supernatural/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=54&pid=12108#top_display_media

in that case I think it's pretty ironic that it's the sunny daytime version of the pastoral dream. Almost like the scene Sam steps into when he leaves the house, but of course it's so much worse inside, not like it seems on the surface.

Giving Dean this transition I think is exceptionally beautiful because it shows the prosaic normal of their motel-living lives as the sort of landscape they truly inhabit, and then transitioning to Dean's dream, the fairytales they metaphorically inhabit. I wrote this 2 years ago in my last rewatch because of this moment:

I have a lot of feelings about Supernatural as actual folklore, like, with the stories that are told, and how they’re told, and the main characters as folkloric heroes and blah blah, stuff I’d need to dust off some old books of mine to really talk about properly. :P Suffice to say, going from the hum drum exterior shot of the realities of life on the road to this mystical fairytale woodland with the puddle as a great lake and the dull motel as a mill, bigger hills, bigger trees, no sodium lights or bright vending machine… Sort of putting the magic into what they do and making the leap of imagination into the stories that happen around them.

There's something that really soothes me about this episode because of this shot. Dean's so prickly to fairytales and yes there's been meta written about his deflecting behind porn, his calling Sam gay for knowing the details, and his instinctive reaction that he's not gonna kiss the frog and how he still kinda thought it was going to be his role to be the "princess" there on first take. All been done before, but still. (I'm sure my 3x05 tag doesn't have a whole lot in it but I'm pretty sure I reblogged commentary about all of this in more detail one time or another)

Dean has defensive walls a mile high about liking this sort of stuff because it might make him seem weak, and there's a real thread through this season and season 4 about their strength, where Dean is stuck behind the facade but even before he goes to hell it's obvious he's putting a lot of it on in many moments. Sam becomes more and more manipulated by a lot of the baddies they pass that he has to be stronger than Dean, and by 3x09 Dean calls him out on it and Sam says he's trying to be more like Dean - that is, a harsher, more vicious hunter. In 3x11 mystery spot!Sam betrays that's more like John once he's gone all the way to the far end of that mindset, but anyway, Sam puts a name to it as trying to be more like Dean, and in season 4 he feels he's supassed Dean and become stronger than him through Ruby's manipulations, taking this to the logical end of their fight.

(As I was saying last night this season establishes Cain & Abel as the template early on in 3x04 and 3x06 - I watched the little behind the scenes bit about 3x06 on the DVD and it was the VFX guy congratulating themselves on a job well done, but he did agree that the ghosts taking each other out was where the show might go "this season" (oh season 3) so I'm feeling more certain than ever that the show decided this was the new template for the brothers all the way back here and started to apply it...)

Anyway. This episode, then, Dean gets to have the macho fight with the Big Bad Wolf (which he might think is silly but is a pretty brutal fight and he was this close to killing him before the doctor broke through to the little girl, so he at least physically defeated the Big Bad Wolf in a sort of metaphorical way) - I kind of feel like that moment might have set him more at ease, defeating a strong masculine element, as the Big Bad Wolf was the same guy in a couple of stories - the 3 Pigs as well as Little Red Riding Hood, which just goes to show the whole basic pool of characters being drawn from nature of fairy tales.

In some ways Dean is always trying to defeat the masculine elements that provide him the toughest opposition... Compare the Big Bad Wolf fight to (everyone rolls their eyes) 12x22 and the fight with Ketch - brutal, man-on-man, smashing up all the furniture and wrestling brute strength against each other. In season 3 the masculine influence on Dean is the ongoing ghost of John, who metaphorically got sucked up into Gordon, who Sam (the one who identified this idea out loud) defeats in 3x07 after he also goes fully monstrous as a result of his black and white view on monsters.

Dean defeats yet another metaphorical representation of this in the Big Bad Wolf and goes to bed to sleep, and we get this transition to what he dreams of - a peaceful, pastoral fairytale scene. No pretentions or anything, just a reconciliation. Dean can occupy the motels and gritty Americana as much as he likes, and still dream of fairytales if he damn well wants to, and there is a calm and innocence to his sleep in this scene, contrasted to Sam sneaking out to confront the crossroads demon.

In 3x06, Sam's moon, it's after he has the brilliant idea of how to defeat the ghost and save Bela from a seeming fatal, inescapable and twice self-inflicted curse. The ghost hunts those who killed their own family, and Bela's theivery has sold the one thing that she could have used to save herself simply.

Sam has the bright idea to take this all back to the start - the river ends at the source - and to use a spell to summon the original combatants of this ancient sibling rivalry to take each other off the board. We're shown the moon huge and ominous and clear, but as Sam does the incantation (hi Castiel) the clouds gather over it. Sam's moon is an omen, fading to him doing spellwork that involves blood (the clip again continues to pan downwards, this time showing Sam tipping a bottle of blood into the bowl), and the moon is a spell circle. One of invokation, rather than protection or warding, as we most often see in this show.

Of course it mirrors Chuck & Amara, Cain & Abel and in the words of the VFX dude, Sam & Dean. I don't know exactly what was going to happen in season 3, but the staging of one ghost lunging into the other and taking them both out also has echoes of Michael charging at Lucifer in 5x22 and both falling into the cage together, and of course their fight was another step in the siblings pitted against each other.

Also, of course, Sam using magic to achieve this, to me is a part of the old "season 10 is the new season 3" stuff... Mel sent me a bunch of stuff after I talked about this last night (and, sorry, I talked about this one last night so I have slightly less to say here :P) so I'll link that

https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/114299870202/63-the-final-scene-of-the-episode-drives-the https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/post/126306223069/season-10-is-the-new-season-3-some-parallels-from https://justanotheridijiton.tumblr.com/tagged/season-10-is-the-new-season-3

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: Take It From an Anime Fan and Watch It with Subtitles

By now, you’ve probably heard enough buzz about the historic Oscar wins for 2019’s Parasite. At the 92nd Academy Awards, the South Korean tragicomedy about a scheming low-class family living off a household of unsuspecting and overprivileged socialites made a splash when it became the first foreign language film to win Best Picture. It even hauled in awards like Best Director for Bong Joon-Ho as well as Best Original Screenplay (more firsts for for Korean filmmakers).

After having such a substantial impact on Hollywood, who wouldn’t want to check out Parasite for themselves?

Unfortunately, some people can’t seem to overcome the “one-inch barrier" of subtitles that Bong himself called out during his Golden Globes acceptance speech. Despite the movie’s accolades, prospective viewers are unwilling to experience Parasite while having to read English captions that translate the film from its native South Korean. They’ve even left poor (sometimes offensive) reviews on sites like Amazon for not having an English dub or for having to read subtitles. Many journalists and bloggers have even published their own content taking avid stances on the fact that they’d rather not watch something at all than have to use subtitles in the first place.

As someone who’s been watching anime in its original Japanese language with English subs for several years and counting, I absolutely have to make the argument for subtitles. While dubs can be more palatable for wider audiences, I personally can’t imagine something as simple as words on a screen separating viewers from truly great films and shows. So I write this not to add fuel to the fire that is the ongoing “Subs vs. Dubs” debate. This is an encouragement for those who are on the fence on watching movies like Parasite or just can’t get into an anime that doesn’t have an English dub.

Watch it with subtitles.

There’s a stark difference between a dub’s interpretation of foreign language screenwriting and the original emotional impact of those same lines being delivered in their native tongues. The poeticism of certain dialogue shifts. Jokes land differently. In the case of anime, even an accurate and faithful English dub of Japanese content can still differ wildly from its source material.

Consider Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 smash hit, Your Name. Early in the movie when Mitsuha finds herself in Taki’s body, there’s a great gag in which she fumbles her way through masculine Japanese pronouns to address herself correctly. She eventually gets around to the right pronoun, but not before essentially outing herself to Taki’s friends.

Under any circumstances, it would be difficult to translate this joke in real time without a crash course in both Japanese language and colloquialisms. One might attempt this by using subs to parse each pronoun in order to accommodate non-Japanese speakers while keeping the joke intact. The official English dub opts to change the joke altogether, instead making it about how she accidentally calls herself a girl while occupying the body of a boy.  

This isn’t to say one joke is more valid than the other. Both are tailored to the audience’s native language. But the nature of that bit of dialogue is completely retextualized. Whereas the English version states “Mitsuha doesn’t know she’s currently a guy,” the Japanese version states “Taki is addressing himself unusually.”

The writing staff working on the English dub had to work around a joke that already existed. The original Japanese writing team simply put a joke to a script. The same story is being told in different ways, but the Japanese gag was written for the express purpose of having a gag in the first place. Even if it doesn’t translate cleanly across languages, it retains that initial layer of writing something meant to amuse its initial Japanese audience. 

When it comes to watching anything in a foreign language—anime, movies or dramas—the difference between subs and dubs boils down to two different versions of one single narrative. Dubs are meticulously refined to convey a pre-existing narrative for a wider audience. But the subs, and therein the native language attached to them, offer a deeper understanding of the original work.

Any form of media in its native language is a window into how the story functions within the culture it was intended for. The idea is not to immediately comprehend what is being offered by way of knowing the culture as a prerequisite, but to learn a little more about the artist’s original vision. In that sense, subtitles help foreign audiences in two ways: at the base level, they help overcome a language barrier. But they also present a compelling story in as pure and honest a form as possible.

This, of course, can be brought back to Parasite and its harrowing commentary on class division. As of writing, there is no English dub, so you can only watch it subbed. But the story is so unique that it can only be told in depth through the lens of its Korean roots and its language. So yes, you should absolutely watch this movie with subtitles.

**MINOR SPOILERS FOR PARASITE BELOW**

A dub for Parasite simply wouldn’t do justice for the nuances of the film, even from a technical standpoint. A major plot point involves one of the main characters tutoring someone in the English language, a fact that would easily be lost in translation. Another character’s comedic yet visceral impression of a propagandizing North Korean news anchor is a cultural phenomenon that would only make sense in Korean. And above all, the film depicts a nation whose socioeconomic turmoil is so thoroughly attached to Korean culture that the native millenials have a nickname for it. 

  **SPOILERS END HERE**

Anything less than a subbed version for other audiences would fail the movie’s message entirely. That said, subtitles aren’t just an accommodation for non-Korean speakers, but a bridge between you and a culture you may not be aware of. Parasite is a movie by Korea and for Korea. The least we non-Koreans can do is read words on a screen for two hours. 

The same can be said about any media that uses subtitles. From a weekly anime to, you know… Parasite, entertainment with subtitles help to introduce audiences to a wider world. It isn’t about having to read very fast or utilize some higher comprehension while trying to watch something. When we watch foreign media, we are guests to other cultures. If there’s a dub to be had, then you can certainly use it to your advantage. But when you can only rely on subtitles to enjoy something, then don’t be afraid to use those either. 

Because Bong was right about that one-inch barrier. Anyone can overcome it, and there’s often something brilliant on the other side.

What anime do you like watching subbed? Thinking of checking out Parasite for yourself? Comment below with your response!

----

Carlos is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their satirical work on The Hard Times.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-gang-confronts-me-too-in-one-of-the-most-explosively-funny-sunnys-in-years/

The Gang confronts Me Too in one of the most explosively funny Sunnys in years

Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Danny DeVitoPhoto: Patrick McElhenney/FXX

“I feel like we should clap.”

Okay, let’s talk about one of the funniest moments in It’s Always Sunny history.

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First a word about spoilers. Hey—don’t read a review unless you’ve seen the thing that’s being reviewed. And, if you do, don’t complain about the review needing to discuss things that would have been great to see without being “spoiled” by you making the inexplicable choice to read a review before seeing the thing being reviewed.

Okay.

It’s Always Sunny In PhiladelphiaSeason 13

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So “Time’s Up For The Gang” sees Mac, Dee, Charlie, Dennis (returning after being MIA last week), and Frank attending a sexual harassment seminar because Paddy’s has been put on an internet “shitty bar list” of Philly establishments hostile to women. The intrepid and unsuspecting moderators (Marypat Farrell and Humphrey Ker), after enduring a barrage of inappropriate, profane, and otherwise point-missing interruptions, separate the Gang for some breakout sessions, perhaps thinking to dilute their charges’ obvious awfulness with a little distance.

That . . . does not work.

The male moderator, Alan, tries out a little roleplaying to address Mac and Dee’s clear lack of comprehension about appropriate workplace behavior. Asking Mac what his function is at Paddy’s elicits Mac’s traditional inflated sense of himself as the bar’s badass peacekeeping resident Swayze, although Dee and Charlie (also in the session) note that he’s just supposed to check IDs, which he doesn’t do. (Continuing the ongoing meta-jokes about Mac’s evolving—or devolving—role, Charlie muses, “He’s just, like, our gay guy now.”) Dee, being Dee, peppers the patiently befuddled Alan with questions about her motivation for playing someone going into a bar (“To get a drink?,” he suggests), settling finally and inexplicably on “revenge.” Alan, to get things rolling, says fine, and then the seemingly simple scene begins.

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Rob McElhenneyPhoto: Patrick McElhenney/FXX

Now—and just to prolong the lead-up to the gag for one more delicious moment—one might imagine that one knows where this is going. Dee and Mac are deeply into their roles here, and those roles are informed by the characters’ deep-rooted delusions about how they’re seen and who they are. Dee is a great actress. Mac is the “Sheriff of Paddy’s.” They’re both awful people. The episode, written by Megan Ganz, is about how awful people either deliberately or through societal conditioning turn any discussion of sexual harassment, consent, and rape culture into a boorish, facile intellectual shitshow. So Dee—seen entering the seminar singing a gloating “Time’s Up!” chant at the guys’ being called out in public—will (ineptly) play at being superior, while Mac will say something inappropriate under the guise of trying to score the “points” he thinks Paddy’s needs in order to get off the internet’s shit list.

Instead, Mac greets Dee’s opening line by hoisting Dee fully into the air by her vagina.

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Now, there’s a lot going on here, and all of it works to produce the biggest out-loud laugh I’ve gotten from a TV show in a long time. There’s the way in which Mac’s action echoes a phrase Donald Trump cemented into the American lexicon and elevates it (along with Dee) to shocking, absurdist heights. There’s the execution of the gag, which would have fallen flat if it didn’t look so seamlessly, impossibly actual. There’s the joke of Mac’s ridiculously buff new body, yet another physical transformation whose obvious offscreen effort on the part of Rob McElhenney is tossed off along with the Gang’s perpetual dismissal of Mac. There’s Dee’s awestruck reaction to Alan’s horrified assessment about Mac’s grab being designed to make Dee feel small, where she marvels, “It made me feel tiny, like Thumbelina!” There’s the abruptness, seizing the joke (and Dee) before we have a chance to imagine what’s coming.

Kaitlin Olson, Charlie Day, Danny DeVito, Rob McElhenney, Glenn HowertonPhoto: Patrick McElhenney/FXX

And the thing is, that’s only the first great, lunatic surprise of “Time’s Up For The Gang,” as, in yet another classic example of Dennis Reynolds’ meticulous hyper-masculine madness, it’s finally revealed that the entire exercise—involving two professional moderators, a viral awareness campaign, a Bond villain-worthy PowerPoint presentation, and dozens of Philadelphia business owners dragged to the Hyatt—is all Dennis’ doing. Throughout the episode, we see each member of the Gang but Dennis having their own particular sexual creepiness brought out into the open, leaving them each, in turn, suddenly drenched in panic-sweat. Frank (who returns from a hasty call to his lawyer in a dry, inadequately belted bathrobe) has a long history of hiring attractive women, sleeping with them, and then promoting them to shut them up. (“It’s a win-win,” he protests, “Except for the wives.”) Mac’s embrace of his long-repressed homosexuality has left him finally expressing his lust for Dennis and other men in very unwanted handsiness. Charlie’s fifteen years of stalking the Waitress is thoroughly deconstructed by Dennis, not as the actions of a “hopeless romantic” that Charlie would have it be, but as those of “a sad, pathetic wretch of a man so desperate to be loved that [he’ll] actually go rifling through somebody’s garbage.” And Dee, it’s revealed, isn’t as off the hook as her head-nodding female smugness would have her be, since Charlie explains that their one sexual encounter had enough distressing consent issues to lead him to think of it as “molestation.” (Charlie’s still in deep denial about Uncle Jack, though, The Nightman Cometh notwithstanding.)

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Charlie DayPhoto: Patrick McElhenney/FXX

Delivered with the maniacal precision of a supervillain, Dennis’ unveiling of his complex scheme is the culmination of the episode’s smartly subversive dissection of the issue at hand. I’ve said it before, but looking to Sunny for social commentary is a tricky proposition. For every feint toward flat-out pronouncements on cultural issues (gun control, abortion, racism, ableism, homophobia), It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is, at its tarry black heart, a character study of human weakness. The Gang forms five points of the same Vonnegut-esque cartoon anus in their various embodiments of the bottom-scraping worst in all of us. So here, while there are passing shots at mens’ rights talking points and male panic about the Me Too movement (“I don’t know if you noticed but women are on a little bit of a rampage right now and anyone could be taken down at any moment,” lectures Dennis), the episode functions most eloquently in its takedown of the base self-interest that drags man-woman interactions down to the Philly mud. We don’t need Sunny to come out and say rape culture is insidious, that men have serious issues when it comes to women, and that Mac’s idea of the cosy coolness of “locker room talk” is self-justifying misogyny, because Sunny—for all its gleeful and skillful comic scandalousness—operates on the principle that basic human decency is a good thing.

But the Gang is us at our venal, cruel, human decency-eschewing worst. So when Frank’s old school, underling-banging behavior is aired out, or when Mac perks up when female moderator Kate gives way to Alan (“Oh, here comes the boss man.”), or when Charlie’s squirmy obsessions are shown to stem from incel-style male entitlement, or when Dee gloats while ignoring her own abuse of sexual power dynamics, their sweat-soaked comeuppance indicts the “just saying what everybody’s thinking” crowd without itself breaking a sweat. (Dennis’s presentation also trots out the whole “women only report ugly harassers” argument as part of his mission to include every rape-apologist cliché.) That’s what Sunny does at its best.

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Glenn HowertonPhoto: Patrick McElhenney/FXX

As for Dennis—the Gang member most in need of this particular moral correction—the fact that he engineered the whole enterprise as part of his ongoing campaign to skirt the law while continuing to indulge his truly unsettling fetish for questionable consent play is a masterstroke worthy of the evil genius he is at such moments. When the rest of the Gang, outed by Dennis’ plan, object that Dennis has “Dennis-ed” more women than any of them, Dennis’ smug response comes wrapped in his layers of self-insulating preparation. As his culminating presentation goes on, Dennis reveals that he—unlike the rest of the Gang—keeps his life “tight,” complete with congratulatory and legally binding exonerating texts from his conquests. “Their phones did,” responds Dennis to objections that no woman would write a sexual partner that “I am saying YES to everything that happened last night,” Glenn Howerton expertly switching off whatever light exists behind Dennis Reynolds’ eyes. When Kate, informed that her well-intentioned expertise was merely a part of Dennis’ ploy to preemptively solidify alibis for his life of deception and abuse, shouts “You’re a monster,” Dennis Reynolds, tossing the PowerPoint remote aside in triumph, fixes her with a snakelike gaze and says, “Prove it.” It’s chilling, it’s masterful, and, as Charlie—anticipating the response of those all too willing to latch onto any powerful man’s excuses for accusations of sexual misconduct—puts it, “I gotta be honest, I didn’t follow most of it, but so cool, man.”

Stray observations

Frank to his lawyer, after his robe pops open in front of Kate: “How soon can you get to the Hyatt? My dong fell out.”

Mac defends his obsession with scoring points, rebutting, “Everything is graded by points, otherwise, how did the Eagles win the Super Bowl?”

Dennis’ intimate knowledge of pending statute of limitations laws and legal definitions of consent and harassment (he even knows who Carmita Wood is) recall nothing so much as how the manager of Alec Baldwin’s jailbait-chasing movie star in State And Main keeps a copy of statutory rape precedent in his car.

Another huge director-crafted laugh: After Alan rightly defines what Mac just did as actual sexual assault, Mac looks to Charlie for backup, only to see Charlie’s empty seat and the closing conference room door. Well done, Kat Coiro.

Dee uses Me Too paranoia to clear all of the men out of the buffet line.

Illustrating his “ugly men don’t get accused of harassment” point, Dennis flashes a picture of Cricket, punctuating the truly horrifying evidence of the Gang’s decades of abuse on the poor guy’s face by assuring his audience, “He was born this way.”

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Source: https://tv.avclub.com/the-gang-confronts-me-too-in-one-of-the-most-explosivel-1829270618

[danthemanthemyththelegend]

Assessment 2 + 700 Word Statement + Bibliography

“🅱o🅱o Sexual m🅱m🅱s”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsQaGO3TEb0

Diaz (2013) defines an internet meme as a phrase, image or video. Diaz says memes can be created or based on real-life events and causes internet culture to comment and replicate it numerous of times. Memes provide valuable social commentary to our current societal status, for example, the ‘Fellas, Is it gay?’ meme offers a satirical and ironic viewpoint of homophobia. It critiques toxic masculinity; it puts down the belittling of activities toxic males perceive as feminine. It even provides social commentary of the repressed homosexual, men who are seemingly stuck in a glitch, uncomfortable in their sexuality.

“Memes harness the participatory potential of the Internet and typify modern popular culture” (Marwick 2013). Memes have transcended its previous label of low-brow humour into a mass form of social commentary. World and pop culture events are memed because they are relatable to the informed person.

Memes point out the ‘glitches’ in our society, for example, the ‘No homo’ meme/phrase is used to negate any potentially homosexual acts. In western culture this phrase is commonly used by male youths to negate their perception of homosexual acts like complimenting their friends, using the changing room together or playing ‘slap arse’ after a sports match. By saying ‘no homo’, they essentially are saying that the action was indeed not intended to be of homosexual nature, and it is often accepted. In most cases before saying the phrase, hostility is often observed and aggressive questions like ‘are you gay or something?!’ is often heard (Brown 2011, pg.300-301). In the present time, the phrase has become a joke, and the male youth often uses it as a joke when doing overtly homosexual acts in jest towards their friends, like the scooping of the man boob. In pop culture, this meme has been accepted as the satire of the gay hyper-masculine men uncomfortable with their gayness is embodied in the aptly titled song ‘No Homo’ (Samberg, Schaffer, Taccone, Long, Byrd 2011), which takes the phrase to great lengths.

Some would argue that memes utilize too much irony and satire to critique our culture today and negates the critical underlying problems it pokes fun at. Thus, this never-ending cycle of mockery and making light of issues prevent actual social change (Wallace 1996). It is as if we are stuck in a cultural glitch, like a video game, we tend to prefer to do the easy tasks. In real life, it's making fun of problems and pointing them out, instead of doing the hard missions that progress the story. Like doing that research essay due next week instead of complaining about it.

Previously, one of the ways valuable social commentary came from books such as Animal Farm (Orwell 1945), which exposes the glitches in our world, overthrowing the tyrant and replacing it with another. In the book, Orwell makes the parallel of the USSR’s transition almost hyper-real feeling by using animals and making it believable. The book points out the exploitation so easily achieved by the pigs in the story as if they have discovered a ‘cheat code’ to control the masses.

My work is a remix of the popular memes that were trending this year; the added deep fried meme aesthetic provides the ‘feel’ that the meme has been screenshotted and distributed many times around. The choice of printing the memes on paper acts as a metaphor, like paper, memes are widespread and almost unavoidable. Paper and memes both have similarities, a sheet of paper can be turned into something completely different and so can a meme, many memes have had many iterations. For example, the Crash Bandicoot meme turned from a picture based form (Know Your Meme 2017) to a music remix parodies (Jacob 2017).  So the video in my artwork does what the Crash meme does not, which is commentating on what is currently relevant in Australia. I was inspired by other political versions of the meme, like Nick Penner's (2015) version on Brexit.  

The choice of using text to voice for the presentation was to act as a metaphor for my artwork, memes are almost always anonymously made and using a text to speech robot helps convey that fact. And just like memes, my work commentates on the currently ongoing marriage equality situation.

https://ttsreader.com/

Bibliography:

Brown, J.R 2011, 'No Homo'. Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 58(3), accessed 17 September 2017, <http://www.tandfonline.com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2011.546721?scroll=top&needAccess=true#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20ud3d3cHJveHkxLmxpYnJhcnkudW5zdy5lZHUuYXUvZG9pL3BkZi8xMC4xMDgwLzAwOTE4MzY5LjIwMTEuNTQ2NzIxP25lZWRBY2Nlc3M9dHJ1ZUBAQDA=>.

Byrd, B, Long, B, Samberg, A, Schaffer, A, Taccone, J (au.) 2011 ‘No Homo', song, YouTube, accessed 17 September 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cwg9NceFco>.

Díaz, CMC 2013, 'Defining and characterizing the concept of Internet Meme'. Artículo de Investigación, Vol. 2, Issue 6, accessed 15 September 2017, <https://search-proquest-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/docview/1713930915/fullext/41FF1AF4C5764671PQ/1?accountid=12763>.

Don (au.) Cyber6x (ed.) 2017, Crash Bandicoot "Woah", Know Your Meme, accessed 18 September 2017, <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/crash-bandicoot-woah>.

Jacob 2017 ‘Crash Woah Remixes', YouTube Playlist, accessed 18 September 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-avsUELucD-bQtNgcB2w8Ns0XkY_7gsG>.

Marwick, A (au.) 2013, Memes, Understanding People in Their Social Worlds, Fall 2013, 12-13, accessed 18 September 2017, <https://search-proquest-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/docview/1459191506?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&accountid=12763>.

Orwell, G (au.) 1945, Animal Farm, book, accessed 17 September 2017, <http://primoa.library.unsw.edu.au/UNSWS:SearchFirst:UNSW_ALMA21150420330001731>.

Penner, N 2015, It's Always Sunny in Europe, video, YouTube, accessed 20 September 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eSsLQ5cBTM>.

Wallace, DF (au.) 1996, Infinite Jest, book, accessed 15 September 2017, <http://primoa.library.unsw.edu.au/UNSWS:SearchFirst:UNSW_ALMA21117488350001731>.

[thecomictape-blog]

Issue 2: Broader Contexts

There have been many books, comic books, films and TV shows and music that I have looking into to further how well I do my project. As concept albums and comic books are not new ideas to the world there was a lot of information for me to obtain so I can make sure this project makes sense when compared to the current formula that these forms of media already have.

Music

When I first started doing the listening for this project I started to take a look at concept albums as well as albums that artist had taken on alter egos in their albums. A key artist I listen to was Janelle Monáe and her Metropolis saga of albums. In these albums Monáe creates a new world called Metropolis with Monáe’s alter ego Cindy Maywhether who is an android who becomes aware of the unfairness she and her fellow robots suffer at the hands of the ruling humans. This series has taken a political stance with Monáe stating that the android is the new other in her world. Monáe states that ‘you can parallel that to the gay community, to the black community, to women - we have so many things in common’ (Sieczkowski, 2013) Monáe’s why of an establishing a new world in her music both through lyrics and with her interludes were a good starting point for me when creating the world in which the narrative of my project will take place.

Another artist that has placed their alter ego in their recording is Beyoncé. In 2008 she released her 3rd solo album, I Am…Sasha Fierce, which was released as a double album. Disc 1, I Am…, represented Beyoncé. It was filled with ballads, mid-tempo songs, vulnerable and more emotional lyrics whereas disc 2, Sasha Fierce, represented Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé’s stage persona. This disc had uptempo, attitude, bolder and uptempo tracks. Although one could argue that this disc was the Beyoncé we were use to as she had released these type of songs before and this wouldn’t be totally wrong to say as Beyoncé states that Sasha Fierce was born in 2003 on the set of her video for her debut solo single, Crazy in Love. Rather than introducing us to her alter ego it could be argued that this album introduced us to Beyoncé as her ballads were noticeably more prominent and personal to her and according to the other writers on the album Beyoncé would often rewrite the songs with something more personal to her such as Ave Maria, Satellites and That’s Why You’re Beautiful. Beyoncé also sung slightly different on each disc. For the first disc, Beyoncé sung gentler and with a lighter tone than she did on the second disc. Her voice was stronger and with more grit employing more growls, even had a slight rapper’s flair on some songs such as Diva and Video Phone. This way of making a distinction between herself and her alter ego helped me in figuring out a way to make there be a more obvious difference between that will represent the character closer to me and my stage persona.

Beyoncé also released her 6th solo album, Lemonade, in 2016. Although this album wasn’t so much about her alter ego Lemonade had a running narrative running through the album, which was also accompanied by its own film. Lemonade’s ongoing narrative is of a black woman who has realised that her husband has cheated on her and all the emotions she goes through after finding this out. Although this narrative isn’t close to mine, however looking at how Beyoncé managed to string these songs together with a running theme makes this a good listening point for my project.

Another concept album with an alter ego I listened to was Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby album. In this album Martinez tells narratives from the view of Martinez’s alter ego of the same name. Cry Baby is a fantasy version of Martinez when she was a child. Martinez describe Cry Baby as a child who experiences adult things. She also claims that things that happened to Cry Baby are similar to things Melanie have gone through herself besides the part when Cry Baby is kidnapped and then goes on to kill her kidnapper. All the song titles on the album are metaphors on childhood related things but the song lyrics contain deeper messages such as Dollhouse and Mrs. Potato Head.

Other albums I listened to weren’t explicitly about an artist’s alter ego or even concept albums but albums like Michael Jackson’s Bad and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic show a lot of characterisation in the songs. In songs such as Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel, Jackson takes on a persona which is filled with more bravado and could be considered stereotypically masculine. This can also be seen in a lot of the songs on Mars’ album in songs such as 24K Magic, That’s What I Like and Calling All My Lovelies. Songs like these helped me figure out the bravado I wanted to make my alter ego have in his lyrical content.

TV Shows/Films

Superheroes are now often in live action films or tv series. What these films and shows do is put the heroes that were created in the early, mid and late 20th century and puts them in modern day society. For example Spider-Man was created in the 1960s and has had years of adventures since then growing from a teenager to a now married man. What the movies have done is reimagined what Spider-Man would be like growing up in the 21st century. The films have touched on many issues. Captain America: Civil War was a very good movie to study in regards to my project as the topic of morality is brought up. The superheroes are deemed as dangerous as the damage they cause while saving people is high. It’s also argued that if the heroes never showed up there would be no villains in the first place. This begins the Superhero Registration Act which wants the superheroes to sign on so they can be seen as legitimate heroes and then the government can use them. Any hero who didn’t sign would be seen as a threat. This now brings the story of justice vs. law. The law states that the heroes must do this so they and their damage can be controlled however signing this act will mean the heroes would not be able to jump into action when they see injustice they would always have to wait for the government to send them out. This could also do more harm than good. Another reason why I saw Captain America: Civil War as a good point of study is because it was the on-screen debut of Black Panther, arguably the most popular black superhero. Although the Marvel Cinematic Universe has heroes of colour such as Falcon and War Machine these characters are both seen as allies and/or sidekicks to Captain America and Iron Man. Black Panther however is his own stand alone hero with his own backstory that isn’t connected to any of the previous heroes introduced. Series 2 of the Netflix series, Daredevil, also follow a justice vs. law narrative. The introduction of The Punisher in the Marvel live action lore brought about this story. Instead of handing criminals over to the hands of the law, The Punisher decides to take matters into his own hands and kill criminals himself. Daredevil argues that this is wrong but The Punisher argues that to really rid the world of evil you have to take it out. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice also shows a story the fear of superheroes becoming to powerful and the element of fear people can have of the unknown. The Luke Cage Netflix series was also a good point for me. A lot of things that are included in the series such as the music, themes and language are things that are coded as black. Many people have stated that Luke Cage could be seen as a modern day blaxploitation film (in a tv series format). One of the most powerful scenes of the show is in episode 9 where Luke Cage, wearing a hoodie, is stopped by two police officers. Luke Cage resists arrests and the officers shoot at him however Cage is bulletproof so the bullets bounce off at him. This is a direct commentary of the police brutality and targeting that black people face.

These superhero narratives were very helpful when trying to figure out the running plot of my project. One thing what the tv shows and films of superheroes do is focus on strong stories for the comics. The comics have hundreds (if not thousands) of different story arcs for each character yet the strongest ones are usually brought to life as these are the most engaging and thought provoking. When looking at these different narratives I tried to bring out notions that were not alien to comics however putting my own twist on it so I’d not only have an engaging story but also a thought provoking one.

Another type of film I decided to investigate is concert films. The one’s I truly studied were Beyoncé’s I Am…World Tour, Michael Jackson’s Live at Wembley July 16, 1988 and Live in Bucharest - The Dangerous Tour. One of the reason’s I choose these two artist in particular is because they are very known for their theatrical stage shows and high energy performing. In Beyoncé’s case this was the tour where she performed as herself and Sasha Fierce as she carried on her concept of the the I Am…Sasha Fierce album and drove it further with the show even having the two meet each other in the video interludes of the show. Beyoncé showed the difference in performing styles, vocal styling and costumes. When performing as herself Beyoncé’s costumes were usually a lighter colour such as when performing Smash into You she wears a white leotard with a long white cape, in Ave Maria she wears a wedding dress and in Listen she wears a long sparking white/silver dress. These costumes seem to show a sense of purity and vulnerability. They are more understated when compared to her normal stage wear. During the Beyoncé sections (which usually contained the ballads of her setlist) Beyoncé moved very little, occasionally walking from one side of the stage to the other and the emphasis was put on the vocal performance. Beyoncé being a singer known for her live high belting capabilities, growling and slightly chestier style of singing swapped this in these sections for mainly lower belts, head voice usage, more subtle vocal runs and more of a head placement when singing. However when the uptempo were Sasha Fierce. The costumes were usually a variation on a leotard with bright, flashy colours, her costume during Diva had her dressed as a superhero. The Sasha Fierce sections of the show contained a high level of movement with Beyoncé performing intense choreography, running from one side of the stage to the other, head banging and even flying to a smaller stage at one point. The vocals were the Beyoncé we had become use to, strong belts, growling, full of attitude and more flashy vocals. It seemed like her the distinction between the two characters were more defined in the live show compared to the element where some of the lines seemed like they blurred. Maybe this is because Beyoncé seems to use Sasha Fierce as more of a stage than as a whole other person. To see how Beyoncé was able to switch characters mid-show through just doing things subtly different in the different segments of the show. Michael Jackson’s shows are mostly on the theatrical side until he performs songs like She’s Out Of My Life, Will You Be There and Man In The Mirror. When not performing these songs, Jackson’s larger than life stage persona was out on full force with high choreography, demanding stage presence, dynamic vocal performances and elaborate staging.

Watching both DVDs gave me an idea of how to bring a stage persona to a recorded format. There different approaches towards different songs and different sections of their shows show that there doesn’t need to be a dramatic change to represent yourself as another persona. Sometimes subtly can make the biggest changes.

Books

There were two main books that I read when going into this topic are Super Black: American Pop Culture And Black Superheroes (Nama, 2011) and Black Comics: Politics Of Race And Representation (edited by Howard and Jackson II, 2013). Super Black talks about the appearance of black superheroes and how they are links with the trends in America in political sense as well as in a pop culture sense in it’s first chapter, Color Them Black. In chapter two, Birth of the Cool, examines Black Panther and Luke Cage and how they connected to the Black Power movement. This chapter also looks at blaxploitation films and their characters. The third chapter, Friends and Lovers, is about black superheroes relationships with white characters whether be the friendship and partnership between Captain America/Falcon and Iron Man/War Machine or the relationship between characters Cloak and Dagger. Chapter four, Attack of the Clones, is about how white superheroes have been changed to black however I found that this chapter wasn’t as useful to me as the others were. The final chapter of the book, For Reel?: Black Superheroes Come To Life, explores the black characters from comics that have been on television and film such as when Eartha Kitt played Catwoman in the Batman tv series from the 60s and films like Blade.

Black Comics is a book that explores the ways which black comic artists have grappled with themes like the black experience, gender identity, politics and social media. The first entry in the book is, Brief History of the black comic strip: Past and present (Howard, 2013), which talks about the origins of the black comic starting with comic strips in the 1920s. The next chapter I found useful is, Black comics and social media economics: New media, new production models (Lacklaff and Sales, 2013) which touched on how the comic book industry changed from releasing comic strips, then comic books, to graphic novels and how web comics and digital distribution of comics could be the future. The final section that was really helpful at this point in time was Gender, Race and the Boondocks (Howard, 2013). The last few paragraphs of this section are titled, The search for pride and manhood, which talk about how pride and ‘being cool’ plays apart in a black male’s life. Howard states that ‘playing it cool’ serves as a behavioural performance used when under pressure like when a black male is confronted by a white authority figure such as a police officer. Howard also states the this pressure to keep cool at all times could have negative effects on the black male’s life as he may lose touch with his feelings in interpersonal relationships, such as romantic and familial relationships.

Both these books deal with the identity of black people and how that then intern effects black superheroes. I found this useful as writing a black superhero without doing much investigation can lead to unintentionally writing the character into some harmful and outdated stereotypes. Although my character falls into some of the stereotypes about black men this is a part of the story and apart of the character’s development.

Personal discussions

This part was very important for me as I am writing a female character who has gone through sexism and also decided to turn against the law because of how gender inequality treated men accused of sexual assault and abuse. For me to truly write this character correctly I decided to ask several women I know about there feelings on gender inequality, experiences they’ve gone through, how it’s made them feel and how they have dealt with. I will leave a few quotes on what these women have said and I will keep them anonymous.

(Trigger Warning: Swearing, sexual assault, violence, rape, mental assault)

Wearing certain things men see you as a thing

You’re stupid cos your girly

When you’re on the street surrounded by men you end up laughing it off because you don’t feel safe

I was once told, when I was a virgin, by a guy who was attracted to me, who lied about his age, don’t give it all away at once

I’ve been called hard to please, why am I yours to please? Why am I something to conquer?

All the women I know feel insecure about their bodies

Pitting women against one another is another way of controlling them

What men make in music is considered more valuable

If they don’t get feminism, I don’t wanna be around you

There’s a stereotype of pretty girls to have big boobs

If I went out without make up everyone would think I was a monster

I’m happy to be sexual with some men but I choose that. I don’t have to be sexual with anyone I don’t please to

A lot of people think rape is men in dark alleys who are strangers, it does happen but most rape is not spoken about and it between people who know each other

People don’t talk about harassment that happen in relationships

I consent to being sexual with someone just cos you see me doing it does it mean I want to do it with you

Patriarchy is such an insured thing in society that I sometimes don’t see it

I don’t think I’m conventionally pretty

As a producer I’m not seen the same as a male producer

When my hair was long I got twice the amount of attention, I guess cos it’s short it’s deemed edgier?

I was playing the guitar and my friends said ‘you’re actually good, I didn’t think you’d be that good cos you’re so girly’

I was trying to talk in the rehearsal and I was belittles and I just couldn’t take it anymore

I have a strong opinion on this watered down version of feminism

When you lose your virginity, if you’re young, no says anything to the guy but they treated me like I did this awful thing, like I ruined my life and was going off the rails

Stop staring at me!

Men are encouraged to do things that women aren’t

What’s wrong with girly? Why is girly an insult?

We have a right to be angry!? Why can’t I be?

They kept talking to me about protection like he was the one in control of me

Male privilege is obviously shit, they just piss me off really

When I cut my hair I did it so I wouldn’t be deemed as girly and I shouldn’t have to feel like that

You don’t have big boobs but you’re still pretty

All I’m supposedly good for is sex

Its annoying when a women represents her sexuality she has to be shamed for it

Being sexual isn’t a free for all

There shouldn’t be a tax on period pads

Women not feeling okay in their natural bodies, feeling that they have to change their bodies, faces and appearance

When we were out it was commented that I drink beer, can we not drink what we want?

I’m always blamed when your in a situation with a guy. It’s always the girl who’s to blame rather than the guy even if both parties are wrong

If I drink wine and champagne I’m too girly, when I drink beer I’m trying to be one of the guys, WHY CAN’T I JUST LIKE BEER!?

Why are you only talking about how I look?

‘You’re prettier when you look like this rather than that’

Women have to fight harder to be taken seriously

You grow up thinking like sex is wrong and if you do it you’re a less version of yourself

No one says to women if you smile more you’d be attractive, instead its ‘wear more make up’ it’s never about being happy, funny, or engaged with life

Women that put nudes up… Men think ‘it’s on display for me to have

The moment guys realise I’m not interested sexually… they cut me off

I thought if I cut my hair my boyfriend would break up with me

It’s always our fault when we get abused

They don’t want women to compete with men so they pit women against one another

My sister didn’t know you couldn’t flush pads down the toilet!

I didn’t understand sexual assault, even when I was assaulted

The hypocrisy of it all!

One of the guys made a comment and I literally broke down, all the male teachers didn’t say anything except the one woman teacher. She explained this is what sexism is

I’m pretty fiesty, I’ll start a fight if you try to grope me

Every time they talk about a wave of feminism they only talk about white women

Theres so many things I didn’t realise were sexual harassment until recently

It’s easier to block out of your memory then deal with it

They don’t tell UTIs! It’s very difficult for boys to get it but for women it’s easy

If they guys had sex they were popular and worth having

There’s a difference between appreciation and objectification

Every woman I know has been some type of sexual harassment or assault

These guys felt like they could shout things at me and put me down and tell me I was shit. I know they wouldn’t do it if I was a man and I fought back. They hated it, they wanted me to stay down.

If I listen to rock and heavy metal I’ll be like one of the guys and suddenly I was cool cos I wasn’t girly

Women don’t come out the womb thinking that they aren’t good

I want to get ready but they want to have sex… it’s easy for them to pick me up and put me on the bed even though I don’t want to…

I have a family history of depression and the fact until 2016 there wasn’t a study connecting the link between mental illness, health and contraception!

Her mum and dad wouldn’t care if her brother had a girlfriend over but she wasn’t allowed a boy in her room

Meghan Trainor’s songs… I get what they try to do but it made me feel shit about myself

You don’t learn about the clitoris in sex or the spot because for men it doesn’t matter

When guys say I don’t like condoms… If you wanna deal with STIs and pregnancy you deal with it! I don’t want it!

As queer woman I’ve noticed a different in how I look at women and how straight men do

I’ve had sexism in school, our skirt lengths were checked in front of the class

The burden of carrying of child is on women and so is the burden of not having one!

A woman TV presenter can never be heavy, you’ve never seen it! Look at Holly Willoughby

Men are always commenting on women profiles and feel like they can say anything they want… they feel like you’re asking for it

A man is always praised for having multiple partners

The attitude towards at girls… they think feminism is burning bras and hating men!

You didn’t even look at her face, just her body

I don’t have time for assholes who say ‘I don’t want to use a condom’

She had a group of guys following her but because she didn’t want them they got angry and made it out that she led them own!

I was scared of being label

They randomly switched me to another pill

Women are always asked what are you wearing, what did you do?

Guys are allowed to lose their virginity when they want!

I love not shaving cos it’s like, fuck you!

If she doesn’t want you, deal with it!

Teachers always go ‘I need a strong boy to carry something’ why not I need a strong student

Having friends who are not willing to acknowledge that the physical relationship they’ve had with someone is rape

I do have another choice! The choice is my boyfriend wearing a condom!

They spiked her drink and they had sex with her and now she has a life long STD! That’s fucked up!

I know how it feels to be looked at so when I look at a woman I know how it feels to be objectified

Why is consent not discussed in secondary schools

Don’t grope me!

Girls were labeled ‘slags’ for the rest of school’s duration because they wanted to have sex!

Male pleasure is discussed but female pleasure isn’t

In catholic school we didn’t really have sexual education

It made me feel so gross… they felt like they could do it to anyone

They just throw you on the pill! They literally don’t communicate with you properly, you’d think with doctors they would. I know they give a leaflet but when you’re 15 to 16 you just trust the doctor they’re meant to be health

God forbid I’d have to get an abortion because it’s shamed so much!

There’s complexity in intersectionality

You never realise how much guys don’t ask for consent until you meet someone who does

I often have to keep reminding myself ‘I don’t have to look nice’

We deserve to be angry, I’m not making myself seem nice and acceptable for someone else

My best friend’s boyfriend came home drunk and raped her and she didn’t report it, she just took it, she never accepted it was rape because they were in a relationship

There’s no space for sexism!

In the past feminist wave movements didn’t include black women

Because I’m skinny it’s a little different because society makes you feel like you have to be skinny but it wasn’t a choice for me, it’s just my body, it makes you feel like other girls think you try to look skinny

Slut shaming is not progressive!

This guy pulled up my skirt, tried to pull my pants down and grabbed my area

They only just started making the male contraceptive pill but stopped it because it gives the same effects as it gives women

Our bodies are treated different by medics, it’s strange

A sense of entitlement to bash down your opinions and tell you to calm down

Be progressive in your statements

No that’s not sexist, you could ruin this guy’s career saying that

I don’t like the fact I have to be sexual for everyone or not at all

How dare you feel entitled to say I’m disgusting for not shaving

In school we were told girls couldn’t wear coloured bras because it distracted the male staff

We had a teacher that use to drop a pencil and look up girls’ skirt, baring in mind he was 60!

From a guys perspective they feel like they can’t cry, my boyfriend kept apologising for crying… why? It’s ingrained that girls are emotional and guys aren’t. It’s okay for me to be emotional cos I’m weak

It’s not just a bunch of abortion rights, It’s a global thing

We can’t take about periods! Its a thing all women have! It’s important!

I’m either hyper sexualised or asexualised

You’re kinky it’s a bad thing

I didn’t understand sexual assault, even when I was assaulted

If i make a point on why I think something is sexist then male privilege kicks in and they think they can say I’m wrong cos they haven’t experienced this

Men they get up and go outside feeling like… they deserve to be walking down that street, going anywhere, whereas women walk out with a hand bag of sheet so we have all bases covered, its kinda like anxiety, we have this notion that we don’t deserve to be there, people our gonna judge us… theres just this uncertainty about our position

Unrealistic body images are plastered everywhere!

You don’t get in GQ magazine, ‘how to give her great head’

This isn’t male privilege but in my job… It makes me laugh because the managers say the girls should do table cloths but the guys should lift the chairs. The girls get told to wipe and iron

Its pleasure shaming rather than having sex

A lot of women are hurt all the time for saying no

Boys feel like they’re entitled to sex

Why are we taxed for tampons?

I can be oblivious when I’m having a good time… My friend had to keep fighting random people from trying to touch me on a night out

For some strange reason the male gaze wants us to look like little girls… so that we’re so tiny and petite with big eyes… very skinny… no boobs… It’s kinda gross

Small minded people telling me I’m having too much sex

People think I’m vulnerable because I’m small

Society dictates I should do things that society thinks is the perfect aesthetic for a woman

If you still have women who want to bleach their skin… There’s a problem!

If you’re gonna make a statement it needs to be progressive

I’m small so guys have just taken advantage for that

They would just pin me to walls and keep me there as long as they wanted

Even today a guy beeped at me to get my attention

These pants for women that have button that you can lock them... They say it’s good but why the fuck would society create these? We should be teaching people not rape

A woman who is white feels better about herself than a woman of colour

I thought that I brought it on myself

If I’m happy with what I naturally look like why would I damage myself to look like what people think I should

Do you think women are being self destructive by being a ‘slut’ or not shaving?

When I use to be in college all the teachers were male except one, all the guys in my band would look down on us

Women in pop music… everything they do has to have a purposed they’re over analysed

I was told by the guy who ran a gig ‘you can take your top off’

We don’t say enough about our sisters of colour!

Society makes male think sex is so important, it’s dangerous

When women take control it’s seen as threatening cos sex is power

However even with all that the charts are still dominated by men

You can’t say you want equality for all women and forget women of colour

I’m angry, I’m pissed off but I don’t care if people are threatened by my feminism!

Characters in TV don’t really help. The male who sleeps with everyone is considered so cool

As I woman I feel like my hair is apart of my womanhood, if I cut it I will lose my femininity

Even though we know these things… we still do it because of society

Thank you to all the women are contributed thoughts and feelings!