#not least because pat morita is in those episodes too

[variousqueerthings]

today will ramble about why I hc Sidney Freedman as queer (leaning on gay and aro) (as of a third of the way through s6)

1. first of all there was this fic (sidenote: I do not know if all these mentions of Leavensworth are actually spoilers or not, but I am become 99% sure that Hawkeye will actually lose it at some point and briefly get hospitalised, don’t tell me though), which I read about 4ish seasons into the show and made me go... “huh, yeah, I could buy that” and has since continued to marinate in my brain, both because Hawkeye and Sid have a very particular relationship that Hawkeye doesn’t have with anyone else (which comes from Sid’s professional and narrative role), and because Sid has... a vibe

2. so then I thought about Sid’s role in the Narrative (covered here), and how that makes him an inherent outsider. He comes in to this established Place and disrupts the status quo. The interesting thing is of course that “disrupting the status quo as queercoding” is usually framed as villainous, whereas he does so for the betterment of his peers, whom he respects a great deal

3. and of course the status quo is already not particularly Straight by virtue of other characters and the general non-normative construction of gendered roles in these sorts of environments (in real life, as well as narratively) -- not just Klinger and Margaret, although they’re the two most obvious ones, but voiced generally through the idea of what women’s roles are in the home/the workforce + nurses speaking openly about sex in what feels like deliberate reversals of how the men talk about sex, Radar’s and Potter’s working relationship, and of course Hawkeye with everyone, but especially with BJ (and Charles may be new to me, but I hazard there’s a lot there too, not least the foppishness...) -- so the question is how does he disrupt the space?

4. Sid is most of an enigma of a person (and not in the caricatured way that Flagg Who Represents The Military In All Its Ridiculousness is), who comes in and allows all these characters’ vulnerabilities to come to the front, without having to share his own (because he’s a psychiatrist, that’s his Narrative Role as well as his military role) -- we don’t know much about him (yet, this may change), which means there’s a lot of easy projecting that can be done, but he is someone one can feel for. And what we do know is that there is... something... about the 4077 that draws him back. For whatever reason, what he needs is to be around a bunch of misfits like these on occasion, for his own health... misfits whom we’ve already covered exist in an incredibly non-normative set of relationship structures + of course the anti-military and anti-conformist sentiment (sidenote: something that Margaret’s tension centers around -- we did just have the episode with the dog....)

5. which, speaking of -- some characters beyond Hawkeye with whom I really like his interactions: Klinger and Margaret. Their frustrations and vulnerabilities in various ways center on being misfits amongst misfits in interesting gendered ways, and he talks with them about it better than anyone else, although Margaret is slowly opening up to others (especially Hawkeye, but it was always Sid who understood her first). He seems to feel deep compassion for people who live as contradictions, and he allows those contradictions to shine, if just for a moment

6. simply put: he queers the space around him, simply by letting them be even more them. The other characters’ feel no inhibitions or shame around him. His status as an outsider, his demeanour around them (sincerity, soft-spokeness, interest, lack of judgement) brings out whatever element of Them that they usually try to tamper down on. That’s, again, because it’s his Role, but it means his Character contains something hard to pin down (and that hard-to-pin-downness I choose to read as queer too)

7. he’s also got some interesting Gender -- his role is to listen, and especially to bring those ugly, terrified, “unmanly” emotions to the forefront and to work through them -- again without any shame attached to those emotions... unfortunately that’s still kind of a wild place for a guy to inhabit in a story (never mind in real life...) He exists to listen, to have compassion, to let others be vulnerable, and he’s very very good at it

8. also, purely technical and less “feelings” analysis, because of how he’s used in the story, his interactions have a habit of feeling very chemistry-laden, especially the ones he has with Hawkeye (whom I will not go into “why is queercoded” because there’s about a million gifsets and analyses on him and one little text-post could never do all that justice -- but also just “Hawk’s Nightmare”) + he hasn’t had a straight love story written for him. Apart from his desire to be present at the 4077 and to help others, he’s not really someone who’s written with wants so traditionally (it may or may not happen, shows like these tend to give everyone at least one romance arc, but so far he hasn’t, so he’s also got that distinction amongst the rest of the cast)

9. (the TL;DR of the first bit of that last point is that his interactions with Hawkeye are kinda sexy by the way, in case that wasn’t clear)

10. I could read him as ace, but I do take a lot from how he is around Hawkeye, not in a necessarily sexual way (lest you be fooled by point the ninth), but as an unspoken kinship that floats in the air between them. Their ease around each other is very particular in comparison to how they are around everyone else -- the aromanticism read comes from his desire to be at the 4077th, simply because it makes him feel better. An untraditional preference when searching for companionship/rest/support/family, even in narratives ostensibly about found families. To project, it’s not so far off from how I engage with my own particular aroness. I like to enter in and out of others’ lives, not disparate from them, so much as checking in on my families and spending quality time with them in R&R -- his place in the story feels familiar to me

11. what can I say, me and everyone in the story every time Sid’s around: 😍

[moretreasurewithinarchive]



Ella's mother calls her clever at least twice that I heard.

LITTLE ELLA HAS A LEGIT FULL SIZED CAROUSEL HORSE IN HER BEDROOM??? And with that, it looks like there was at least 1 puppet stage, what I can only assume to be a carousel music box but it's built like a Christmas Pyramid, a mobile, and a canopy bed.

The way she and her dad both say thank you this must have been very difficult for you when they get news the one they love is dying???

The Just So and Shall We lines repeat too.

The dress she's wearing when her father returns and when her mother's dying are the same, it just had fake flowers on it when he returns.

We see 3 different Ella's walking with her father toward the meadow. There's little Ella in Black after her mother dies, then what I assume is teenage Ella in a white or blue floral dress sand her hair work to the side and flowing over her shoulder, and then Lily.

Ella lets her shoes hand off her feet a lot

Her physical reaction to her father mentioning Lady Tremaine even before he says anything about marriage.

That butterfly comb will never NOT remind me of Rose's in Titanic.

I can't see anyone in that time period actually making their day Lucifer???

I hate Lady Tremaine's black hat when we first meet her.

The way Ella smiles and laughs for her father and then visibly deflates the instant he turns around KILLS me.

When the Tremaines arrive, Ella's mother's portrait is on the bookshelf in the study/parlor/whatever that room is where she died.

Drisella tells Anastasia their mother's lying about the house being charming and says it's just manners. Anastasia tells her to shut up.

The look Ella's father gives Anastasia when she says they never thought to decorate, and how he looks back at Ella.

Before he leaves on that last trip, Ella KNOWS he isn't well and she can tell something going to happen.

Why the fuck does Tremaine get so jealous of hearing about Ella's mother when she CLEARLY doesn't love her father?

The way Anastasia and Tremaine both look at Drisella after the complexion line kills me.

Like... Tremaine legit kept up a smile until the carriage pulled away and it was gone in less time than it took to blink.

The harp just sitting in the corner. Totally Ella's mother's. Js.

When Tremaine banishes her to the attic, it sounds like Ella was going to say something about staying in a smaller room?

By the time Ella and Tremaines talk in the study/parlor, all of her things, her father's things, and her mother's things are packed up and set aside, including the portrait of her mother. Suspicious much?

Anastasia and Drisella have toys. At first, we are Anastasia holding a doll and Drisella a rabbit, but they switch later.

Casual reminder that Ella's the youngest, since Anastasia calls her their little sister.

I want a full version of Lily singing Sing Sweet Nightingale and Lavender's Blue.

There are flower decorating and motifs all over this house. The walls. The clothes. Even in the stone wall in the kitchen.

Ella's look at Drisella while she's singing. And like... Tremaine herself tells her to shut up, but she gets mad at Ella for being like cringe.

Ella immediately knows as soon as she opens the door and see Farmer John.

Tremaine is a damn good actress though. Her eyes treating when they get the news.

THE BEEHIVES ARE SO CUTE.

That red bedroom of Tremaine's is so garish though.

Another casual reminder: ELLA NEVER GOT TO PROPERLY MOURN HER FATHER BECAUSE SHE WAS WORKING 24/7.

I imagine the scraps they gave her to eat lessened as time went on and they had less food and money. But she always shared them, no matter how meager.

Jacqueline is iconic.

A GIANT POT OF LAVENDER IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS TO THE ATTIC FROM THE KITCHEN.

Gods that robe of Tremaine's is AWFUL.

"Is there someone we've forgotten" They're dehumanizing her already. What a cunt.

Ella riding barebacked and workout reigns will never NOT impress me tbh.

Convince me the stag wasn't a test for both Ella and Kit from Fairy godmother.

Gods Richard was PERFECT in this role. And every time I hear his real accent I'm shook.

Kit's fucking whipped from the start.

Ella only calls him Kit. You can't tell me otherwise.

His sympathy when she says "They treat me as well as they're able". Tell me that this like doesn't ring in his head later and that's why he knows she's been stopped from coming to him.

RICHARD'S DIMPLES

IT'S KIT. KIT. I'M KIT. You absolute fucking disaster of a man 🤣🤣

And you know the Captain never lets him live that down.

Kit goes away a little and comes back when he says he hopes to see her again.

Ella's little lip bite.

Gods those blue and yellow split outfits on the palace staff are ATROCIOUS.

The banter with Kit and the King. And Kit and Ella in the secret garden.

MASTER PHINEAS.

Why are Kit's outfits so attractive?? 🥺

Kit and the king are so short compared to the Captain and the Grand Duke.

The Captain's laugh.

"That's very kind of you. To think of me." My poor baby.

THE LOOKS AFTER SHE CLAPS BACK IN FRENCH. SLAY.

Also, "I speak French not Italian".

Kit, honey you can say it's for the people all you want. You're not fooling anyone.

What the actual fuck does moonface even mean??

Ella making her dress in a day??? Damn girl.

I love Fairy godmother's beggar woman cloak???

Gods I HATE Lady Tremaine.

Ella's pink dress swear her mother's wedding dress like in the deleted song from the cartoon. And this is the hill I'll die on.

"Hairy dogfather" JFC.

I'd have liked the whole fairy godmother getup better without those dinky little wings tbh.

Ella not knowing what cantaloupe is.

MR. FUCKING GOOSE.

I'm sorry, but the lizard footmen creep me out. THEY DIDN'T NEED TO GIVE THEM THOSE TEETH LIKE WTF.

Ok but like... Would the greenhouse have been repaired at midnight though???

Honestly, Disney deprived us all of Lily being trapped in the pumpkin a la the Cinderella episode of Britannica's Tales Around the World with Pat Morita.

WHY TRANSFORM THE MICE. IT'S A FARM. THEY HAVE HORSES.

"I can't drive, I'm a goose" is my favorite line.

Unpopular opinion??? But I liked the ballgown better either without the butterflies or during the transformation when there was only those few blue ones.

I do like the gold butterflies in the slippers though.

I want to know how they got the crystals to stay in Lily and Helena's hair.

Sitting in a crinoline must be awful.

The palace is stunning.

I love every single one of the chandeliers in this movie.

The king waves at Chelina and Kit KNOWS.

The girl on the staircase next to the Tremaines when they get introduced laughs at them. And honestly, same.

"Someone I meet once TONIGHT".

For real, how did the guards at the stairs not hear Ella's name or that her footman was a lizard? They were like not even 5 feet away.

Ella playing with her skirt when she happy and scared.

KIT'S SMILE.

I wish we saw more of the purple in the ballgown.

I love that Ella's descent had Lavender's Blue and the dance has Once Upon A Dream in the score.

The Captain HAD to have told Kit that the Grand Duke already promised him to Chelina. And who gave him the right to do that anyway?

Kit's stammering.

Ella's gasp when he takes her waist and the way she looks at him is like the signature Lily shot. They did the same thing in War & Peace.

"They're all looking at you. Believe me they're all looking at YOU".

The one part in the dance where they kinda flap their arms up and down reminds me of a butterfly and idk why.

Dancing wearing a sword had to be tough. Especially when your partner's in a crinoline and a heavy ass dress. Props to Richard.

Lily tripping at one point during the dance.

Even Chelina loves Ella let's be real here.

Why is there so much telling people to shut up in this movie???

WE GOTTA FACE FACTS HERE, KIT AND ELLA ARE EVEN BETTER AND MORE LOVING PARENTS THAN THEIR OWN WERE.

I love the secret garden scene so much.

When Kit puts the shoe on her foot... Why is that like 😏😏. I hate feet. Why is that breathtakingly romantic??

Why do they always hesitate? GO AFTER HER IMMEDIATELY DAMN IT.

The crier's aids when he hits his head on the stairs.

Ella's interaction with the king.

Kit you're so slow. She's in glass heels and a crinoline and she still outran you.

DISNEY I WANT A DIRECTOR'S CUT OF THE FILM WITH ALL THE DELETED SCENES PUT BACK IN. I NEED KIT SAYING THE LADY ISN'T HERE TO DEFEND HERSELF.

They honestly don't see the footman using his coat tails to lower the portcullis??

Anastasia actually seemed pretty nice to Ella after the ball? Saying she looked cheerful and patting her arm? But then again, we really only see Tremaine and Drisella ripping the dress soooo?

ELLA YOU CAN'T KEEP A SECRET TO SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Girl you need a better hiding place than under the floorboards.

But like the music in the attic after the ball is so sweet???

KIT AND HIS FATHER. THANK YOU FOR LETTING HIM CRY AND SAY I LOVE YOU.

Also like... Notice that Tremaine's Just so to Ella's father was really patronizing and condescending. Ella's to Kit was insecure and uncertain. But the king's to Kit was proud.

At least Kit's not dumb. He's meet this girl multiple times. He don't need a shoe to tell him it's her.

WHY RIP THE ORIGAMI BUTTERFLY THOUGH.

Ella was full on ready to die in that attic to save Kit.

Why do all they guys' pants fit really well except Stellan's? His are loose and baggy.

Y'all know this girl is young and blonde wtf.

Also, fun fact. The girl that asks the Captain if she can try the other foot is Mimi Ndiweni. She played Fringilla in The Witcher on Netflix.

The Grand Duke turning away from the old lady, but the Captain letting her yet the slipper on anyway. 🥺

I want to know where in the line Kit was hiding.

Also how many takes they had to do of Sophie and Holliday trying the slipper on. Cause I wouldn't have been able to do it without laughing. Especially at Holliday's face.

Like... Even if the plan had gone down the way the Grand Duke and Tremaine wanted, I don't see him keeping his word to make her a counted and get good marriages for Anastasia and Drisella.

"YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN AND YOU NEVER WILL BE MY MOTHER".🗣️🗣️

Ella and Kit is my favorite score in the whole movie.

You know, the girls actually seen happy for Ella. Especially Anastasia. Her and Ella getting along better like in Dreams Come True is canon ok.

NEVER GONNA GET OVER KIT AND ELLA WEARING THEIR PARENTS' RINGS.

I love Ella's wedding gown.

Where did they get all those flowers in the winter though 😂

[mst3kproject]

Babes in Toyland

This review represents a fairly important milestone for me – back in January I decided to start doing Episodes that Never Were on a schedule, and I've kept it up for a whole year!  I'm hoping I can continue in 2018, since there are a lot of bad movies in the world and it would make me giddy if a few Episodes that Never Were became Episodes that Actually Are.  The closest I've come so far is Reptilicus and its curious accident of timing.

Anyway, it just wouldn't be the holidays on the Satellite of Love without a messed-up acid trip of a Christmas movie.  This is one a lot of people my age remember being traumatized by as children, and is probably the only time you're ever going to see Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, or Pat Morita on this blog.  Reeves frantically driving a pink bumper car with flowers on it is a sight not soon forgotten, I assure you.

Our heroine Lisa is eleven years old and wants a blender for Christmas, although a sled will do as a consolation prize. She and her sister get in a car accident in the middle of a musical number on their way home, and Lisa hits her head and wakes up not in the ER, but in a magical land of balloon trees and furries.  This is populated, Wizard-of-Oz, style by fairy-tale characters played by the same actors as people in her real life.  Lisa arrives just as the beautiful Mary Q. Contrary is about to be forced to marry evil Mr. Barnaby instead of her true love, Jack B. Nimble.  Obviously only Lisa, with help from Georgie Porgie and the Toymaster, can defeat Barnaby and save the day – but first she has to learn to believe in toys!

This is the kind of movie that actually makes you cringe watching it.  I spent most of it wanting to cover my face so I wouldn't have to see the actors embarrassing themselves.  Everybody came across kind of stagey and uncomfortable in their roles as ordinary people in the real world, and it gets ten times worse when they're dressed up as nursery rhymes.  Every single person looks like they're wondering how they got here and trying to remember how much they're getting paid for this.  The dialogue is bland and obvious, and the characters over-emote at the same time as they have no conviction whatsoever.

I'm even embarrassed for the prop and costume people.  Toyland probably isn't supposed to look real – that would defeat the point – but it shouldn't look like plywood.  And then there's the people in the animal costumes with the immobile faces and empty eyes and visible joins between the head and shoulders.  I've seen better costumes at ComiCon and some of those were in diapers.  Are the silent teddy bear cops supposed to be intimidating?  Because they're less scary than the donut cops from Wreck-It Ralph. Barnaby's army of trolls look like a cross between the Blood Beast and the Killer Shrews.

A large portion of the budget seems to have gone into creating or buying the wonderful wooden toys that fill the ToyMaster's workshop. A few of these are actual works of art, designed to turn the heat rising from a candle into whirling motion.  Too bad they're only onscreen for a few seconds before we move on to half-assed stuffed animals and creepy-eyed tin soldiers.  These impressive toys are way too good for Babes in Toyland, as is Pat Morita as the ToyMaster – I suspect he agreed to be in this movie only on condition of being allowed to hide behind that fake beard.  His helpers are supposed to be elves, I think, played by children who are also wearing fake beards.  This is distressing in ways I cannot quite describe.

The jokes are so terrible that I'm not sure some of them are meant to be jokes.  Lisa tells the Toylanders about Cincinnati and pretends its a magical kingdom ruled by King Pete Rose... is that supposed to be funny?  Georgie Porgie complains that he wasn't cut out to be a hero and Jack says, “they could cut three heroes out of you, old buddy!”  Is that a compliment or a fat joke?  I think Barnaby's bowling ball-shaped house, which he rolls down the street to knock people over whenever he has a tantrum, is a joke, but it's kind of a setup without a punchline.  There's a sequence in which Mother Hubbard is introducing her children and she can't remember the last one's name.  That's not funny, that's horrifying!

I can't even bring myself to write about the musical numbers. Anybody who has a hard time with secondhand embarrassment really shouldn't watch this movie.

The plot of Babes in Toyland is a list of tropes, but this is entirely appropriate for the type of story we're being told.  Barnaby is evil for the sake of being evil, Justice Grimm allows himself to be tricked and locked up in his own jail cell, and various characters show up to reference their fairy tales and then wander off again.  It should work because it's exactly what we expect, but instead of feeling natural, there's a sense of obligation about it. “Yes, we're Jack and Jill.  We have to fall down this stupid hill, so we might as well get on with it.”  The characters never appear comfortable with these situations, so the cliches become awkward instead of seeming like the natural order of the story's universe.

(One of the rules is that, as Mary explains to Lisa, it is always daylight in Toyland.  We're never told when anybody sleeps, although we do see a couple of beds.  We also see a sun, meaning that to have eternal daytime Toyland's planet must be tidally locked.  There ought to be howling winds as the warm air on the day side rises and sucks in cold air from the night side, which would be a frozen wilderness of perpetual night.  But only a nerd would worry about something like that.)

Toyland's tropes are based around characters and situations from Lisa's life in Cincinnati – Mary, for example, is her older sister, who is subject to sexual harrassment by her greedy boss, the tyrant of the toy store where she works.  One would therefore expect that the situations Lisa encounters in Toyland would teach her to deal with what's going on in reality, like how Chihiro learns courage and confidence through her experiences at Yubaba's bathhouse.  In Babes in Toyland, however, it's the other way around.  Lisa has already convinced her sister to tell off her boss and leave the toy store, and it's this she applies to Toyland in stopping the wedding of Mary and Barnaby.  Lisa already enjoys fun things, as evidenced by her happiness at the gift of the sled, and already believes in true love, as her first major act in Toyland is intervening in the wedding.  The lessons the plot is set up to teach her are ones she does not need to learn.

The other characters likewise seem to have their arcs done for them.  Mary insists that she will rescue Jack herself, saying “it's time I did something besides cry!”  We have literally never seen Mary crying – in fact, the only time she's come across as a weeping damsel was at the wedding, and there she thought she was doing what was best for her family.  Georgie is supposed to be a coward who wants to be a hero, and yet he keeps doing brave things from the start.  And what's with the subplot in which Lisa matchmakes between Barnaby and Mrs. Hubbard?  Does she want her mom to marry the creepy toy store owner?  Eww.

Besides the wooden toys, there are a couple of other things in the movie that do work.  Barnaby has three main minions – two of them, called Zak and Mak, are basically the porcupine guys from Highlander 2 (not that I've seen Highlander 2 or anything), and the third is a bird named Trolla.  This beast is played by a little person in some kind of unconvincing shaggy pterodactyl costume, but it does have a single large eye that Barnaby uses as a crystal ball to watch what other characters are doing and stay one step ahead of them.  For some reason, the eye is really quite disturbing and its image tends to stay with you – YouTube comments suggest that it's the thing a lot of people remember best about the movie.  The worst part, however, is that when the ToyMaster wants to subdue Trolla he does so by painting over its eye.  Oh god that must sting!

Then there's the Bottle of Evil.  When Barnaby uncorks it, a green mist comes out to envelop the characters.  It's not a great effect and you don't believe in it any more than you believe in anything else in the movie, but it's a scary idea and realized just well enough to make you worry.  Then they defeat it by singing a song about Cincinnati.  No, really, that happens.  It doesn't come across like a great moral victory, it's just a giant what the fuck. How do the other characters even know the song?

The idea of being knocked out and awakening in a magical land or another time is a very common trope in itself, going back at least as far as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, written in 1889.  I know we're not supposed to worry about it, but when watching or reading such stories I always wonder what's going on in the 'real world'.  One of the things I really liked about Life on Mars was how the storytellers actually devoted time and thought to the fact that Sam is in an ICU hallucinating all this, and things in that outside world can affect the world he's imagining.  We don't get anything like that for Lisa.  At the end she just wakes up on the sofa and everybody's glad she's okay.  Why is nobody calling an ambulance?!  A loss of consciousness of more than a few seconds is a medical emergency!  Call a doctor, for heaven's sake, concussions do not make for a very merry Christmas!

The thing I'm maddest about, though?  Is that Barnaby wasn't defeated by getting crushed by his own bowling ball.  I waited the whole damn movie for that.  How dare it disappoint me!