#love the movie for exploring the heroes’ vigilante roots— like the police are NOT on their side here

[gg-ladybug]

I bet Parisian Police are FREAKING the FUCK OUT in universe

Roger, holding his notepad: …so he was murdered?

Bugnoire: …he sacrificed himself. You know. For Paris. Against Monarch. It was a valiant battle.

Roger: So he was murdered. Where’s his body?

Bugnoire: …gone?

Roger, waving towards Emilie: And his wife just…?

Bugnoire: …returned home. So Adrien wouldn’t be put in the system.

Roger: Ladybug, what the fuck, there were public enquiries—

Now the movie-verse is melting down too because

Roger: Ladybug, why did Gabriel Agreste give up? We need to know in case we pursue prosecution. It’ll decide how many years he gets.

Ladybug: The power of love <3

Roger: LADYBUG, HE STOPPED AFTER HUGGING CHAT NOIR

Ladybug: Yeah, bye now <3

[cryptovalid]

Watchmen: My favorite show of 2019

Now that I’ve watched HBO’s Watchmen in its entirety, I can safely say that it is by far my favorite show I’ve seen this year. The more I think about it though, the less it seems to offer a coherent statement about vigilantism, power and violence the way the original graphic novel did. I don’t think this makes it any less clever, bold or satisfying to watch, but Watchmen is more interested in playing with the weight and drama of themes than actually expressing a clear, useful thesis about them.

The show is a sequel to the graphic novel, taking place in 2019, when the fallout from the 1987 story finally comes home to roost. 

To give you some more context, I’ll be talking about Alan Moore’s 1986-1987 maxiseries of comics first, and then comparing it to the new television series narratively. In terms of acting and production values, I’d say that the show is great across the board, although your mileage may vary. This is doubly true of its narrative: I’m curious if the show is too confusing for people who’ve never read the comic, and the show doesn’t show a lot of reverence for the characters of the original. In my opinion, this is for the best and actually completely in the spirit of Alan Moore’s work. From here on out, There be Spoilers for the comic, movie and the tv series.

Watchmen (1987) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is by far my absolute favorite superhero comic. It is the only graphic novel to be named as one of Time’s 100 best novels of the twentieth century. It’s certainly not true that it is the only graphic novel that deserves that kind of honor, but it is not on that list for bad reasons. This post would be too long if I listed all of Watchmen’s many achievements, so I will just say this: Watchmen investigates how the existence of masked vigilantes and superheroes would change the real world, and its answer is not positive. No matter how you slice it, in order to inflict violence on strangers or save the world based purely on your own moral compass, you have to be either hopelessly naive or narcissistic, sadistic, fascistic, fetishist, manic, or untethered from human experience in one way or the other. However you imagine them, superheroes escalate danger. They are not cooperative or peace-loving by their nature, the comic says. ‘Superheroes’ will do terrible things in the name of ‘saving the world’ or ‘doing the right thing’. In this sense, the book is thoroughly anti-utopian but also anti-superhero, and it commits to this by depicting all of its ‘protagonists’ as deeply flawed, ultimately dangerous or inept people. 

In terms of plot, the big twist that effects the show is that the smartest man in the world, the vigilante Ozymandias, predicts that nuclear armageddon is inevitable unless he convinces the global superpowers that there is a massive alien threat, making their feuds appear petty and risky by comparison. He literally kills millions of people with a genetically engineered giant monster that he teleports to New York, not including the dozens of murders to prepare the ground and cover up this fact. The fear that more monsters like this could appear prevents nuclear war at the last second, but another vigilante named Rorshach figured out Ozymandias’ plan and wanted to expose it, which would undo its intended peacemaking effect. He was killed, but his notes survived.  

In the end, the only vigilante with actual superpowers, Dr. Manhattan, is so far removed from human experience because of his godlike powers and his nonlinear perception of time, that he seems to retreat from Earth itself, expressing a desire to create life elsewhere.      

This is the backdrop against which Watchmen (2019) frames itself: what would that alternate history look like about 20 years later? But instead of focusing on the evils that vigilantism and superpowers would create, this sequel puts race and policing at the core of its narrative. The main protagonists: Angela Abar, Will Reeves, Laurie Blake and Wade Tillman are all cops and all of them are at one point in their lives masked vigilantes. They are also pitted against white supremacist terrorists, and the show depicts them as regularly violating the constitutional rights of suspects and killing lots of people in justifiable situations. The show depicts both cops and civilians in both real and historical race riots.  

But the more I think about it, the less I can identify a coherent thesis about the origins or nature of racism or the morality of extra-judicial violence. It seems to say ‘violating a person’s human rights is alright as long as they’re racist’, and I mean, I can’t be too mad about that, but it also implies that the cops are basically good, that it is possible to root out specific racist conspiracies and that’s all that’s needed to set things right. There’s a definite assumption that most of the time, we can just trust cops to have integrity. The show rarely frames unmitigated violence as a systemic issue; even when the government is implicated. The protagonists are also relatable and sympathetic, and their victory against the white supremacist conspiracy is without any real moral complications or ironic personal costs. This show, unlike its source material, is pro-vigilante. Or at most neutral on the subject.   

Its message about racism is more straightforward, but also a little hollow. Racist violence is shown viscerally, but also roundly condemed, ridiculed, and avenged by the protagonists. But that’s really as deep as it goes. All racists in this show are openly and stereotypically Southern whites. There is very little exploration or covert or insidious racism: there is a clear divide between literal neo-KKK types and antiracist avengers, with little ambiguity in between. We are not really shown what drives racists to be racist. The most motivation racists are given is a resentment over two attempts at improving the world: Reparations for the Tulsa Massacre, and the aforementioned plot to stop the Cold War by faking extradimensional invasion. Not that I’m begging for a humane portrayal of racist terrorists, but it does make it extremely easy for actual, less obvious white supremacists to ignore any criticism because ‘at least they’re not like the Seventh Kavalery’. It in short, doesn’t give viewers any special insight into racism and how to deal with it in the real world.

What Watchmen does do beautifully is representation. The first masked vigilante, Hooded Justice, who in the comic was a clear reference to a Klansman, is reimagined as the victim of a threatened lynching, who fights his attackers still wearing the noose and hood they put on him. He then pretends to be white to gain the support and cover he needs to be a vigilante. This man, Will Reeves, named himself after his childhood hero, the historical inspiration for the Lone Ranger, Bass Reeves. As a child, he was smuggled out from the Bombing of Tulsa in the trunk of a carriage, much like Moses or Superman. We later discover that HJ is bisexual and is essentially strung along for years by the media-savvy Captain Metropolis for publicity purposes and sex, and ends up desillusioned by his white allies. We also learn that Angela Abar, the de facto main character, is in fact his granddaughter, and she becomes involved in his decades-spanning plans to root out the racist conspiracy that the plot revolves around.

Perhaps even more interesting is the decision to integrate Doctor Manhattan into this sequel as a jewish and a black man. Rather than simply recasting the part, the show frames the revelation in a way that Dr. Manhattan might experience it: out of order, but also clearly telegraphed. The show uses this to characterize Dr. Manhattan as someone whose decisions do not adhere to standard causality. Why does he start to woo Angela Abar in the first place? Because from his perspective, he’s always been in love with her. Just like nothing ever ends, it doesn’t really begin from his perspective either. One day, he walks into A Bar and starts explaining to Angela Abar that they will be in a relationship for ten years, which wil then end in tragedy. While she is understandably skeptical, Regina King and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II really manage to sell both the frustrating absurdity and the transcendant romance of this idea. In the end, Osterman chooses to take the shape of a dead man based purely on the fact that Angela is most attracted to, and goes to great lengths to lose is powers and become human again, as a black man named Calvin Abar, who we first meet as Angela’s charming stay-at-home husband and father to their adopted children. The fact that he is Dr. Manhattan all along is revealed to us in my favorite sequence in the whole show. We, the audience, fall in love with both the husband as well as the God, Jon Osterman, as both are vulnerable and honest about who they are. Even though everyone knows it can’t last. These scenes are both heartbreaking and beautiful, and are foreshadowed masterfully from the beginning. This is what I mean when I say the show is clever. 

The dialogue is witty and the cinematography, editing and plotting do a subtle job of worldbuilding. There are very few exposition dumps and characters rarely do or say things just to help the plot along; they are always driven by their own motivations rather than those the viewer might prefer in their hurry to learn more.

As a result, characters feel smart and their personalities and relationships develop more naturally. From Jeremy Irons’ Ozymandias to Hong Chau’s Lady Trieu to Jean Smart’s Laurie Blake, they all come across as clearly defined assholes with a charismatic competence.   

The world and its history also unfold at their own pace. This can be confusing in the first couple of episodes. It isn’t explained why cops wear masks, what ‘Redfordations’ are, or why squids rain from the sky often enough that a siren goes off whenever it happens. Instead, viewers piece a lot of it together from context. The details make it feel very believable. It makes me feel like I’m discovering an alternate history the way a lost time traveler might.

In the end, it is not the themes that make this version of Watchmen so enjoyable. Its the intricate details of its world and the interactions between its characters that make Watchmen 2019 so fun to watch. And as far as on the nose messages go, ‘vaporize as many racists as possible‘ isn’t that bad.  

[bellabooks]

10 Lesbian, Bi and Queer Women in Sci Fi and Fantasy TV Right Now

Lesbian, bisexual, and queer erasure has pretty much always existed in media, but it has seemed pronounced lately, especially in Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) movies. We’ve seen Valkyrie straight-washed, as well as Wonder Woman, Constantine, Harley Quinn, Iceman, and Mystique. (I’ve barely scratched the surface. The list goes on and on.) In SFF TV, though, queer women are showing up in force. They’re super-powered and super-smart. We still need more and better representation, particularly for queer women of color, trans and nonbinary folks, queer women with disabilities, and every other member of the queer community who do not see themselves represented on TV.   Jeri Hogarth, Jessica Jones Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) is a powerful, intimidating lesbian, lawyer, and counsel to the super-powered in Hell’s Kitchen. (Moss also played Trinity in The Matrix so you already know she’s one attractive lady.) In the comics, Jeryn Hogarth is a sort of dumpy lawyer and confidant to heroes. He’s more of a side character than an antagonist, while the Hogarth from the Jessica Jones TV show (and the other Netflix adaptations) is anything but a sidekick. She’s manipulative, conniving, and ruthless. In one of the eerier choices she makes, she salvages the potentially powered aborted fetus of the child of Kilgrave, a super villain who can make anyone do anything he wants just by saying so. She takes the cell tissue to see if she can find a way to harness his powers. She even helps Kilgrave escape from Jessica so he can help her with her own divorce negotiation. In the end, Kilgrave supercharges himself with tissue samples from the aborted fetus, which make him that much harder for Jessica to defeat. In Iron Fist, Hogarth helps Danny Rand prove his identity and get reinstated with his family’s company after he returns, and she hires Daredevil’s best friend, Foggy Nelson. She has him represent Jessica when she gets caught up in another huge case in The Defenders. You may not like Jeri, but her tenacity is admirable. Check her out in season two of Jessica Jones, which is set to release on Netflix on March 8th.   Anissa Pierce/Thunder, Black Lightning Anissa Pierce (Nafessa Williams) recently started feeling strange. In times of great stress, she has exhibited supernatural strength and the ability to create shockwaves when she stomps. Unbeknownst to Anissa, her father, Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams), the principal of the school where she works, is the superhero vigilante Black Lightning. As Jefferson comes out of vigilante retirement, Anissa begins exploring her powers and finds that she is frighteningly strong. The first time she uses her powers on humans, she worries that she might have killed the drug dealers she was trying to scare. In a community plagued by police brutality, gang activity, and racism, Anissa starts to believe her powers are not just a gift, but a responsibility. Time and again, throughout the show, we see Anissa assuming the role of protector. One of the best things about Anissa is the fact that she’s just out. There’s no coming out story in the TV show, though her parents do reference her coming out at one point. She lives her life as a lesbian without remorse or regret. She has a girlfriend she breaks up with and meets the very cute Grace Choi. To see her manifest her powers on top of all her confidence and power is a sight to behold.   Grace Choi, Black Lightning Grace Choi (Chantal Thuy) is a cute comic book nerd who Anissa meets in a library. They immediately connect and start flirting while talking about genetic mutation, which Anissa is researching. When Grace is knocked unconscious by a gang member, we see Anissa express her powers more drastically than ever before. Later, while she’s holding Grace, she wonders aloud if someone who could do something to right the wrongs of the world should. Grace affirms that they should. Grace has Anissa’s back and believes in her, even though she doesn’t yet know about her powers. Grace is out and open with her bisexual identity, even joking about it with Anissa. We don’t know if Grace will exhibit the powers she has in the comic books yet, but the first season has just begun. Power Coupling: #Thundergrace So far in the TV show, Anissa and Grace are just getting started as a couple and as heroes, but their attraction and support of one another has me really rooting for them. They are an extremely rare example of a relationship between queer women of color and we need more positive examples out there. Bring on #Thundergrace! You can see Anissa, Grace, and the whole Black Lightning team on Tuesdays on the CW.   Sara Lance/The White Canary, Legends of Tomorrow After surviving a horrific boat accident, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) is recruited to the League of Assassins, naturally, and becomes a lethal force. While living with the League, she falls in love with Nyssa Al Ghul, daughter of the leader of the League. Sara, who made her first appearance in Arrow, fights alongside and dates the Green Arrow (or Arrow or Hood, or whatever Oliver Queen is calling himself at the time), survives her own death by use of a magical hot tub, and is recruited to join a team of time traveling vigilantes. A typical tale. She assumes the identity of the White Canary for her new role and as she travels through time, Sara flirts with and kisses nurses, a female Merlin, and her teammate, Leonard Snart. In the second season of Legends of Tomorrow, Sara becomes the ship’s captain and leads with humor, grace, and many, many stunning fight scenes. She tempers the ragtag team of heroes and damn, it’s nice to see a woman in charge. Season three of Legends of Tomorrow is still in progress, and things are heating up with Ava Sharpe. You can catch my favorite bisexual time traveling captain on Mondays on the CW.   Alex Danvers, Supergirl Agent of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations (D.E.O.) and member of her sister Supergirl’s team, Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) comes out of the closet in season two of Supergirl. Some of us might be sick of coming out stories, but for a show created for a younger audience, this coming out story is powerful. Alex describes herself as always feeling like something was wrong with her, as if she didn’t want to date, until she met Maggie (Floriana Lima). An out and proud cop, Maggie assumes Alex is gay, which helps Alex out of the closet. The two begin dating, while fighting super villains and teaming up with heroes from other universes. Ultimately, Alex and Maggie split because Alex wants to have kids and that doesn’t work for Maggie. In the end, the actor, Lima, decided not to return to the show, so the split was inevitable. Decisive, powerful, loyal, and quite the fighter, Alex is a credit to queer women. You can see her on season three of Supergirl which is currently airing on Mondays on the CW.   Waverly Earp, Wynonna Earp The younger sister of the heir to the Earp Curse, Waverly Earp (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) is whip smart, adorkable, and an irreplaceable member of her sister Wynonna’s team. When we first meet Waverly, she’s wielding a shotgun, which is aimed at her sister Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano), who she believes is currently hooking up with Waverly’s boyfriend. Over the first season of the show, we see Waverly begin to question her relationship and her sexuality, as she comes into contact with the very sexy police officer, Officer Haught. When Officer Haught kisses Waverly for the first time, it is powerful, sensual, and blows Waverly’s world right open. As Waverly explores her sexuality, we see her transition from a shy woman testing the waters to a powerful woman who goes after what she wants. The second season also finds Waverly questioning her relationship to her family and her future.   Officer Haught, Wynonna Earp Officer Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell) is an unshakeable force for good on Wynonna’s team. At first, the group keeps Officer Haught in the dark, but she’s a great detective and figures out that something is amiss in the Ghost River Triangle. When the supernatural happenings are confirmed for her, she doesn’t freak out. She’s just relieved she’s not the only one who knows something is wrong. She fights heterosexism, small town politics, and demons throughout the show. In the second season, Officer Haught is wounded by a demon-widow and falls into a coma. The audience feared the worst for Haught, but she comes out of the coma and lives to fight another day. Power Coupling: #WayHaught Officer Haught and Waverly are both awesome on their own, but together they make cute-sexy-funny-loving relationships seem natural. Things aren’t always easy—they make it through their own fair share of supernatural mishaps—but they’re an example of what love between two women can look like. You’ll be able to watch #WayHaught’s evolution in season three of Wynonna Earp, which is slated to air on SyFy sometime in 2018.   Karolina Dean/Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Runaways What do you do when you find out your parents are super villains? Karolina Dean (Virginia Gardner) and her friends try to answer this question in season one of Runaways. While sleuthing and being a hormonal teenager, Karolina also finds out that she has superpowers. She can manipulate solar light and fly. When the bracelet she was given as a child isn’t inhibiting her abilities, she shines like an iridescent rainbow. Can she get any queerer? In fact, she can! As they prepare to act like normal kids for a night at the high school dance, Karolina finally makes her feelings known and kisses Nico, her friend and eventual leader of the Runaways. They go on to kiss again later in the season and share a very sweet moment complete with eye batting and sly smiles.   Nico Minoru/Sister Grimm, Runaways Nico Minoru (Lyrica Okano) is a bad witch you do not want to mess with. She can do anything, but she can only do it once. (It’s a limitation of her magical powers.) She’s a member of the all-female Avengers called A-Force, and a general badass. Long before her reign as bad witch, though, Nico was just a kid in California–a kid with super villain parents–but a kid nonetheless. This is where we meet her in the TV show Runaways. She’s emo, she’s angry, and she’s mourning the death of her sister. When she and her friends find out that their parents are evil, she starts investigating her connection to a family heirloom, the Staff of One, which gives her the ability to manifest anything she can think of. During this confusing time in Nico’s life, she kisses Alex, another teammate, but after she finds out that Alex has been keeping secrets about her sister’s death, she rejects his advances. She and Karolina share a passionate kiss and this sets Nico down an entirely new path of self-discovery. Power Coupling: #Nicolina One of the best things about Karolina and Nico’s relationship is how far it deviates from the comic books, which are filled with off-hand heterosexist remarks and Nico distancing herself from Karolina when Karolina expresses an interest in her. In the TV show, we see two young women acknowledging their attraction. We’ve barely seen either use their powers and I’m really looking forward to what happens to #Nicolina in season two. You can join me in watching their relationship to each other and their parents evolve in season two of Runaways, which has been renewed for a second season on Hulu. Given when the first season aired, we might see the second season as soon as fall 2018.   Cassandra Cillian/The Librarian, The Librarians  Cassandra Cillian (Lindy Booth) is a genius with a brain tumor, which essentially gives her super powers. Recruited by the mystical Library to preserve magical artifacts, Cassandra is one of the three librarians who is new to the game. For much of the show’s run thus far, the show seems to flirt with the idea of Cassandra’s queerness. She gets enchanted and becomes a female Prince Charming. All the ladies in the town start fawning over her and she likes it. She flirts with a diplomat and gets her phone number, while also stealing her earrings, which are magical artifacts, so it’s totally fine. And, on more than one occasion, she makes eyes at her Guardian (not that kind of guardian, gross. It’s a magical thing.), played by Rebecca Romijn. I also make eyes at Romijn in this TV show. At one point, Cassandra makes advances toward an older male character and seems to have some sexual tension with another librarian who is male. After three seasons, the show finally lets Cassandra be out. When Cassandra’s life-threatening tumor is removed, she realizes how close to the end she was and rushes to see her friend, who is a vampire that she has been relentlessly flirting with the entire episode. They share a passionate kiss and boom, Cassandra’s out of the closet! The season finale of season four of The Librarians just recently aired. We’re waiting with baited breath to see if TNT will renew the show for a fifth season. http://dlvr.it/QJKcGZ