So I watched Glass Onion. And I have some very fun obversations turned info dumping turned (positive) ranting to do about the brilliance of this movie. Warning for SPOILERS
• Benoit Blancs husband (Phillip I belived) had flour/dough on his face when he opened the door, insinuating he's a messy baker. Just an extra detail I noticed that really shows the effort put into the movie both by actors and writers
• The very real incorporation of covid into the movies universe. That was an interesting thing for me. Adds for some funny gags (like the among us scene, not getting over that ever actually) and some real insight to the characters shitty personalities (Birdies mesh mask, and the fact that Miles was probably pretending to have a vaccine just so he could get them to take off their masks since that man never created anything on his own)
• This is probably my own mind spinning things up, but the name Miles for a billionaire who got everything through stealing ideas? And taking the credit? By "walking a mile in their shoes" but not really? Or he could just be an asshole with the most generic white guy name ever idk
• You could clearly tell there was a class thing going on. Birdie only stopped flirting with Blanc when he mentioned being a buyer of her product. Not as if to say, how I've seen other people point out, only gay men wear sweatpants so she suddenly decided she couldn't flirt with him oops my bad. Moreso, it was Blanc lying (or telling the truth, who knows maybe he does buy them) about wearing her brand simply so he can divide the line between them socially. As if to say, "I know you'll stop touching me if I clarify I'm not anywhere near your status. I am your target market. Something you don't give a second thought about." Between that and how Peg clearly didn't fit despute having hung around that group for 10 years as Birdies assitant, a lot of this movies positive and negative energy depended on who was interacting with who and if they were "good enough" for the others gaze
• I think a lot of people caught the symbolizm between all of the famous paintings being incorporated into the movie (Helen's smile at the end reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, Miles scream at the painting being destroyed a life like recreation of the painting Scream, everyone sitting at dinner like The Last Supper in multiple shots) but I thought it was worth mentioning again for the sheer brilliance
• Miles' tantrum he throws while calling Helen a child, despite her having been probably one of the most adult people in the entire movie. Mind you Miles was the same person who minutes ago was shaking in rage at his previous car—the very same car he had rode in to kill Andi in—smashing through his glass ceiling
• Plus, a rich guy with an all glass house barefoot? He truly belived nothing could ever go wrong in his perfect world; his perfect mic-mansion house. That nothing would be broken or shattered for him to potentially step on later. And I mean that both metaphorically and litteraly
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I don’t know how to describe the way banshees of inisherin is affecting me. It tells an extremely specific kind of story, the sudden realisation that you are now strangers with a person you love. Not because of a fight, or because of illness or death, but because you didn’t actually know them as well as you thought you did. Padraic says to Colm - “maybe you were always mean.”
And despite this estrangement, this person you love is still active in your life. Colm helps Padraic home after the cop punches him, and then leaves without a word, indifferent to Padraic crying. Colm apologises for the death of Penny, and the apology feels genuine, but he doesn’t offer anything else. He even thanks Padraic for caring for his dog. There is some hint of intimacy present, but it’s backed by nothing. The person you love cares for you still, but they’re a stranger, they feel alien. And the way that they hurt you throughout this process feels as grotesque and impossible to anticipate as Colm’s brutal self mutilation - which we then seen actively prevents him from playing music at the end of the movie, despite his stated reason for suddenly dropping Padraic is that he wants to focus on his music. There is a very particular kind of interpersonal violence here, one where someone, suddenly, behaves so irrationally, in a way that could never have possibly occurred to you to anticipate, that they become this void, this alien that you don’t know what to do with. Colm tells Padraic to leave him alone, and Padraic doesn’t listen, but Colm breaks that rule on multiple occasions as well. There’s no underlying rational pattern to his behaviour - he just becomes a stranger, still present in your life in some way while remaining alien.
And we see Padraic lose people in multiple ways - his sister leaves, his donkey dies. These are “straightforward” kinds of griefs. And at the end of the movie he is completely alone with Colm, where he comes to the conclusion that the only way to respond to Colm’s insane, self-destructive, horrific behaviour is to behave the same way, making a promise at the end of the film that the both of them will end up dead because of this, that they will kill each other.
And I remember while watching the movie, the entire time I was hoping for a reveal of some kind. That Colm would be losing his mind, or dying, or that there was some other larger conflict hidden beneath the surface, but it never comes. And I like that the movie refuses to ever rationalise or explain his behaviour, instead going to considerable lengths to demonstrate that there is no possible justified explanation you could give for why Colm would decide to start cutting his fingers off to spite Padraic for trying to talk to him, or even why you would suddenly one day tell your closest friend you don’t like them and don’t want them to ever talk to you again in the first place.
Suddenly, violently unknowing a person you love in this precise way is something I haven’t seen explored in a lot of other art before. It’s the exact kind of experience that makes it impossible to grieve or move on from, the kind of thing that drives you to light their house on fire because you don’t know what else to do
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BNHA Ch. 429
So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.
I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga.
But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.
I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.
Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.
As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.
In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.
It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.
Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.
This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.
So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?
Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.
That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.
We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.
The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.
If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.
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